What I'm Lovin' Now

A bunch of perfumes showing up at my doorstep. After not ordering much of anything for several months, I recently went a little crazy. I’ve got a bottle of Amouage Jubilation 25 winging its way to me from Lucky Scent and a bottle of Molinard Habanita coming from Imagination Perfumery. Not to mention decants. Have you hopped over to Fishbone Fragrances yet to load up on the goodies that Nancy is liquidating? If not, what are you waiting for? I recently bought decants of Serge Lutens Arabie and Tubereuse Criminelle, Olivier Durbano Black Tourmaline, S-Perfumes 100% Love {More}, and Parfumerie Generale Harmatan Noir. Nancy’s customer service is impeccable, and she is a decanter who will be sorely missed. Run, don’t walk, to her sale. You’ll be happy you did!

Perfume parties. Yes, that’s more or less the reason I do decanting. I live in a university town that is wonderful in so many ways, but we don’t have much in terms of fragrance shopping, so I do perfume parties that are along the lines of the Tupperware parties of my mother’s day. Only perfume parties are much more fun—the women who have hosted and attended mine really seem to enjoy learning about and trying on fragrances, and I usually learn quite a bit from them. If you are a perfumista who already does decanting, who has more bottles of perfume than you can use up in one lifetime, and who lives in an area where the fragrance shopping is slim, I highly recommend throwing one. Basically, the way mine works is like this: the party host provides the venue and the refreshments and invites the guests; I bring spray samples of all my perfumes, as well as scent strips, decant bottles (so the guests can see what size the decants come in), and order forms. Usually I choose 10 to 14 fragrances that I talk about—describing what I know of the perfume’s history, the fragrance house it came from, the perfumer who created it, and the inspiration behind it—as well as a list of notes and my own feelings about the scent. I spray a scent strip with the fragrance and we pass it around, and later, anyone who wants to try on fragrances can do so. If they are interested in decants, I take their orders, and I always give the host an upfront credit towards any decants for hosting the party. If you’d like more details, send me an email—I’ll be happy to elaborate.

Warm weather. What you call hot and muggy, I call “yum!” Almost all of my perfumes smell better in the heat of summer than in the dead chill of winter, probably because my skin stays warm and dewy—which is another reason I love this weather. My skin plumps up from the humidity, making wrinkles disappear; the sun puts natural highlights in my hair (on top of the not-so-natural ones!); and though I don’t go in for deep tanning, I do like feeling the sun on my skin and the tawny glow of tan that I get on my walks each day. Summer makes me feel pretty…no doubt because I’m happier all around. Bliss is being able to drink my early-morning coffee outside on my lawn chair, when the dew is still on the grass, the birds are twittering overhead, and I’m barelegged and comfortable.

Edy’s Fruit Bars—the strawberry ones. These aren’t your ordinary popsicles. The Edy’s strawberry bars have generous pieces of whole fruit in them (not the horridly icy strawberries one typically encounters in ice cream, but fruit that is almost chewy, like the strawberries in jam); they're saturated with juicy flavor and, best of all, only 80 calories a bar. I prefer them over sorbet—they are much more satisfying—and who doesn’t love eating dessert on a stick?

Foreign films. My husband and I routinely get together with a friend on Fridays for movie night, watching DVDs from the comfort of her patio room with its view of her incredibly beautiful garden. Last week we watched Khyentse Norbu’s Travellers and Magicians—the 2003 award-winning film which was the first (and, so far, the only) feature-length film to be shot in its entirety in the kingdom of Bhutan. Travellers and Magicians is about a young government official who dreams of leaving his idyllic yet isolated village to seek out wealth and adventure in America. As he hitchhikes his way to the town where he hopes to secure a visa out of the country, he meets a number of fellow travelers—including a storytelling Buddhist monk—who exert a push-and-pull tug on his conscience about his decision to leave. The film can be seen as a metaphor for Bhutan itself—the conflicting desires of a country that is aiming to keep its incredibly beautiful landscape and unique culture pristine and unspoiled, while at the same time wanting to participate in aspects of the global community that would bring it out of it’s self-imposed state of isolation.

But among the best foreign films I’ve ever seen was the one I went to last night. A friend invited me to go see The Counterfeiters, an Austrian/German film about a small band of Jewish concentration-camp prisoners whose skills in their former lives as printers, typographers, artists—or, in the case of the leading character, a “professional counterfeiter”—led the Nazi’s to install them in a print shop at the concentration camp, where they were forced to produce massive amounts of fake foreign currency that the Germans planned to use to win World War II. This select group of prisoners get much better accommodations and treatment than any other prisoners; and since most of them have been culled from other camps, such as Auschwitz, where they have come close to death, they are deeply aware that their survival hinges on producing the fake money. Yet their only way to fight back against the Nazis is to try and sabotage the counterfeiting effort, which will surely cost them their lives. The Counterfeiters won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It has a faster pace than most foreign films and is stunning in every regard; if you haven’t already seen it, please check it out.

Images: (top) "Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String," originally uploaded by Jonathan W on Flickr.com; The Counterfeiters movie poster from Google images.

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 6/13/2008.

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