In Bloom

I planned to do a series on mainstream fragrances for a while but I somehow couldn't bring myself to start.
And, there's been this advert on TV for a while.


I do watch movies. Admittedly, movies supplied by my friend, known under the nom de guerre Sadako, whose taste is pretty odd (1) and who sends me a pack of something from time to time. I also read Journals for Ladies that Have no Intellect (2), that's how I became aware that Ms. Witherspoon is an actress. I'd have to ask Sadako to ensure me in my strong suspicions that Ms. Witherspoon never appeared in any of the movies, although I might have seen something by accident, my parents have a TV and they even use it for something else than a flowerpot post (3). When I have the chance, though, I quite enjoy watching the adverts. They tell more about the state of humankind than fifteen award-winning documentaries. That's how I noticed the new Avon fragrance, In Bloom by Reese Witherspoon (4). I thought, what a crime on that satin, to dye it this colour that oscillates between very old cream (5) and, erm, diluted final products of digestion.
Today I had some travelling to do, and for three hours on the train, Journal for Ladies that Has no Intellect is a perfect thing. It contained a sample of the abovementioned fragrance so I thought it a divine sign to start a series on something mainstream.

I confess, I was ready to write a long rant about a boring crappy fragrance. I am prejudiced. To my surprise, it was not crappy. I dissected the blister that hid the sample vial, laid it aside and continued typing this post and then stopped and tried to find out what is this rather nice smell here. Not that easy task, since I am where I am, I organized an impromptu perfumista reunion and I have five ziploc bags full of samples on this very table. Ten seconds later, I got the point and tried the fragrance on my hand.
And then I went Damn, this thing has what I miss in Chanel's Gardenia, and there's none of that damn stickysweet coconut. It starts with magnolia, in fact, and as Ms. Witherspoon described, it was inspired by her childhood memory:

"In developing In Bloom, I found myself drawn to the scents of my childhood in Tennesse. We had a great big magnolia tree in the backyard and it’s that beautiful white blossom that inspired the perfume. In Bloom is indicative of where I am in my life today. I’m feeling very strong and independent, and so happy, so full of life. The fragrance truly captures that feeling – it’s very sensual, very romantic and alluring."

I cannot say anything about Tennessee, I have a friend there but I wouldn't say she'd want to share a house with anything romantic, alluring or, heavens forbid, sensual. She's a crazy cat lady with a thing for Murasaki, as far as I know, and if something is far from romantic and sensual, as well as from In Bloom by Reese Witherspoon.
That magnolia, along with whatever flowers may be there - various sources, from Avon themselves to gossip mags say 'fresh flowers' or 'magnolia and jasmine' (6) is fresh, crispy and adstringent, as if ground along with its leaves. Synthetic jasmine it may be, it is sort of less smooth than jasmine absolute. The freshness wanes and doesn't change into ambery sweetness as the Avon site would want us to think. It stays pleasantly tart - there's peaches and tea, the sample card says peach leaves tea (7), and that's what it is. Infusion of fresh and somewhat bitter leaves.
Alas, after a while, the freshness wanes and I'm left with rather sweet drydown. Not sticky sweet, just sort of indefinably fruity-sweet with a handful of cut grass thrown in, and, oddly enough, cucumber.

Interlude
I would want a scent that reminds me of freshly crunched camellia leaves. I have a sort of synesthesia problem, Guet Apens is flesh-coloured chalk to me in colour, texture and taste, for example, so freshly crunched camellia leaves may be actually nearly anything. Une Fleur de Chanel gets pretty close, so does Aqua Allegoria Herba Fresca (8), but from the other side.


Summed up and underlined: If I got this as a gift, I wouldn't be offended. It doesn't have any evocative power for me, though, which renders it rather bland... bland with cucumber.

I sense some affinity to Une Fleur de Chanel, dearly loved and cried upon her decease so someone may find very reasonable substitute - since this is a limited edition, Une Fleur lovers, check and get a lifetime supply soon, it may work for you. Without the excellent staying power, though.

One way or another, this is a celebrity fragrance, the hell! and it's not crap. The world isn't coming to an end anytime soon.

Notes for In Bloom by Reese Winterspoon:
Top notes: Peach, tea, aldehydes
Middle notes: gardenia, magnolia, jasmines
Base notes: cashmere wood, flowers, amber


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(1) in movies she prefers, the venerable curse of I'll have your guts for garters won't stay in the realm of curses.
(2) the journals, not necessarily the ladies who read them
(3) for the slower of mind: I'm not a TV person
(4) there's a fragrance called simply In Bloom, also by Avon, and this Reese Witherspoon edition may be a flaner. Or not. But this is my blog and one of the unwritten rules says no celebrity names in the titles of the posts. Live with it
(5) think too long at the bottom of the fridge, no associations with old rose or old gold
(6) low prices, wide choice, apparently
(7) see note 6
(8) both reviews coming someday soon

What do people have for brains?

I moved back to my apartment. My friend I. rented it to students and it happened that nobody checked it after the last batch, and apparently, in general, nobody checked thoroughly. I discovered a hole in the door - eye-high, not after a kick - masked by a postcard (by linguistic analysis of the unfinished message, it was the French guys who were here around a year ago and I'll go after their heads) and two soup bowls missing. 19 euros apiece, from an artisan in Regensburg. The contract people were to sign was that things will be replaced piece per piece. They apparently got it wrong and replaced my wonderful soup bowls by that cheap crap from Tesco that will go in the trash tomorrow.
In trash ended a larger amount of trash (I wonder, do normal people keep soda bottles and potato chip bags under their beds?), bed linen that dirty that I didn't want it in the house, various objects that were left behind. The pack of filters did not go to the trash, I intend to investigate what the hell the people smoked in MY place, which is by all definitons a non-smoking place.
I also found some interesting (1) gunk in the drawers - apparently the kitchen drawers got so gunky that people gradually moved everything out in the space, thus the crammed countertop. I ventured into some of the cupboards, threw away umpteen kilos of various flours (they tend to go bad and/or get inhabitants).
I found a shoebox with holes in the lid. The pleasant surprise was that it didn't conceal a dead hamster but a brand new checkered kitchen towel - fair enough.
There's a student of medical school. She readily moved from my room to the other one, helped me with the cleaning and when I told her that I wasn't here for a year, she went Eh? and said that she thought I was gone for a month or so and that I was that pig. Apparently, my cleaning cum cursing enthusiasm rather surprised her, too. No wonder, given the initial premise.

To add insult to injury, just today, there's the meeting of the housing co-op. I'll get in the gossips again and I'll be asked studip questions.

Due to shortage of chlorine-based disinfectant (2) I ventured to Tesco and got two bottles of wine. Today's evening will be devoted to solitary alcoholism. More gunk fights tomorrow.

In the fog

Sure, I promised a heap of perfume reviews but the weather refuses to cooperate.

Not that messing with perfumes would need sunny weather per se, but as some of you may have noticed, I prefer to plague this place with homemade photography instead of linking nice pictures from the internet. I like to think that I'm a decent photographer although I have doubts. And although this is way from a dark house, it's so dark outside that I can't take halfway decent pictures (1).

Yesterday, I finally managed to call the dental clinic and was told that they deal with joint problems Thursday afternoons so I could continue in the dental odyssey that started sometime in summer when I chipped another tooth. My dentist says that I'm eating my own teeth, she always whines about too much abrasion...
[Here a break comes. I checked wikipedia to find the right words and descriptions for halfway understood explanations and I found out that jaw clenching is a sleep disorder. The smartass name is bruxism and yes, it does sound rather like some nasty contagious disease]
... caused by bruxism. And that my lower jaw is not properly aligned, leading to more wear on one side, plus eating my teeth, resulting in extensive dental sculpting and reasonable yet not exactly welcome bills. And achy temporomandibular joint.
In fact, twice in winter the left TMJ decided to be annoying so much that I could barely open my mouth to speak so I lived on thin gruel, ibuprofen and Chianti. Especially the last bit was rather pleasurable but there were certain issues. Like being tipsy every evening. So, the expert decision was to make a splint that would keep my lower jaw in place. I hope they make them with Chianti flavour. Chocolate would do, too, obviously.
Interestingly enough, the hospital dentist said that the TMJs hurt more in this depressive weather. Maybe they have SAD, too?
[Now I read that symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder aka winter depression are oversleeping and craving for carbohydrates. That sucks, I wanted to lose some weight before spring.]

I'm going to check the wine cellar (2), my TMJ is winter-depressive and hurts.


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(1) no, captain Obvious, I don't have a studio
(2) this is a BIG house, although admittedly, it's not a proper wine cellar where I'm aimed. In the wine cellar proper, I store my wine collection. The stuff that gets drunk doesn't get that much care.

Travel themes

I'm not sure whether my associations are what Elena calls intertextuality. I call them synaesthesia. Both may be wrong. Anyhow, Elena is my semi-evil enabler and probably without intending or knowing so, she inspires me. To embedding, for example.

Umpteen years ago, I saw Working Girl on tv. It's an excellent comedy but what stuck in my head was the theme song.

The song opens the whole movie, with a scene of commuters going to work on boat. There's something in it that sucks me in and leads me, say, to Terminal C. The lyrics are no big deal, it's the theme that seems to grab me and drag to Platform Three, giving me a feeling of, say, embarking on Normandie in 1926 for a neat trip to New York.

Obviously, that doesn't work with the city transport. Social phobia, remember? For the complicated choreography of the icky crowds in the metro... Twyla Tharp, anyone? For metro et al., there's Where Do I Go from Hair. No decent video on YouTube that could be embedded. But, I'm a stupid blonde so maybe someone will figure it out for me, thanks in advance.

Sometimes the things get out of hand. I was leaving Italy, tired, stressed and generally pissed about all things academic. In the song La bomba in testa, which is about something totally different than working industriously to make the world better (1), there're several verses that end in 'adesso torno in lavoro', now I'll go back to work.

The lyrics are actually about freeing oneself from the boring life of a good citizen who goes to work regularly.... but whatever sort of citizen I may be, I longed for shuffling the papers and getting some routine. I dragged a heap of my crap from Platform 18 which was longer from the actual station building than I'd consider polite, cursed my heavy crap, heat, my failures and the world in general, not remembering the lyrics but for the adesso, torno al lavoro.

My travel themes wouldn't be complete without Till havs.

Mind that if something really gives me creeps, it's sea and everything related. It's big, full of weird things and fish pee in it.... Anyhow, I got some recordings of Anna Sophie von Otter and this one just caught me.

It has no logic. Just sayin'.

-----------------------------
(1)
...e io contavo i denti ai francobolli
dicevo Grazie a Dio e Buon Natale
mi sentivo normale
eppure i miei trent'anni
erano pochi più dei loro
ma non importa adesso torno al lavoro.

Cantavano il disordine dei sogni
gli ingrati del benessere francese
e non davan l'idea
di denunciare uomini al balcone
di un solo maggio, di un unico paese.

E io ho la faccia usata dal buonsenso
ripeto Non vogliamoci del male
e non mi sento normale
e mi sorprendo ancora
a misurarmi su di loro
e adesso è tardi, adesso torno al lavoro.

Rischiavano la strada e per un uomo
ci vuole pure un senso a sopportare
di poter sanguinare
e il senso non dev'essere rischiare
ma forse non voler più sopportare.

Chissà cosa si trova a liberare
la fiducia nelle proprie tentazioni,
allontanare gli intrusi
dalle nostre emozioni,
allontanarli in tempo
e prima di trovarsi solo
con la paura di non tornare al lavoro.

Rischiare libertà strada per strada,
scordarsi le rotaie verso casa,
io ne valgo la pena,
per arrivare ad incontrar la gente
senza dovermi fingere innocente.

Mi sforzo di ripetermi con loro
e più l'idea va di là del vetro
più mi lasciano indietro,
per il coraggio insieme
non so le regole del gioco
senza la mia paura mi fido poco.

Ormai sono in ritardo per gli amici
per l'olio potrei farcela da solo
illuminando al tritolo
chi ha la faccia e mostra solo il viso
sempre gradevole, sempre più impreciso.

E l'esplosivo spacca, taglia, fruga
tra gli ospiti di un ballo mascherato,
io mi sono invitato
a rilevar l'impronta
dietro ogni maschera che salta
e a non aver pietà per la mia prima volta.

Gardénia

I happened to discuss the whole Les Exclusifs line with a few fellow Chanel freaks and it occured to me that while many people enthuse about larger part of the line, Gardénia seems to be the least popular. I asked and it seemed to me that good part of the people haven't even tried it because, well, there's so much of other stuff. I guess it's the name, it may evoke a plain boring soliflore. Or something. I have a bottle of Gardénia on the shelf and I wasn't able to remember the smell or any other impression so when I came back, this was one of the first tasks.

I know, I know, I promised a rant on Guerlinade but Guerlinade is still stuck somewhere in the P-space; I have something to pick up at the post office so I hope it'll be that one. Blame the mailmen, dear readers, and meantime you'll have to do with whatever comes (but I promise, I have quite interesting stuff up my sleeve).

Gardenia jasminoides is a plant (alright, I'm being Captain Obvious today), I happen to own one specimen which nowadays rests somewhere downstairs. I think it's related to camellias - definitely nothing to do with jasmine as one may judge from the name - and it has large white blossoms that smell sort of buttery sweet. A quick glance to the internetz corrected me, Rubiaceae family, into which gardenias belong, is also called coffee family. Now that's cool(3).

My gardenia happily blossomed all summer long but obviously, when I needed the flowers for photography, it didn't offer any. Still, the lush green foliage fits in, to me, Gardénia is a blend of crushed blossoms and leaves, there is something adstringent and green in the fragrance. And, to my surprise, a perceptible honey undertone. There should be some coconut and with a bit of trying, I do smell it, but it's rather the coconut juice than the greasy nutty bits; the coconut juice, if I remember well, has rather a sour fruity smell. One way or another, Gardénia does not smell of suntan lotion, the main product I associate with coconut smell (there's always Mahora but that's another matter that will be dealt with someday). Still, I find the drydown too sweet - the aldehydic and floral tones disappear and some rather sweet stuff emerges. I think I need to refresh often, then.

There was an earlier version that was made also in extrait version. I have it but at the time being, it's in the House of Eight Cats and it'll need a few weeks to get to me - I'll compare these two someday.

Gardénia is a part of the Les Exclusifs line and as such can be bought only in Chanel boutiques. It is made in a rather opulent size of 200 ml of eau de toilette and goes for 200 euros.

Top notes: aldehydes
Middle notes: red berries, gardenia, coconut
Base notes: vanilla

notes taken from Chanel's website here


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(3) I'm a coffee addict.

Back

I managed to pack somehow

After the years of dragging the same suitcase across the world, I have rather a decent guess of its weight. Since the limit for luggage was 22 kilos and I guessed rather right that it would be 27-28ish, I was ready to cough up for the overweight; the luggage lady at the counter only attached a screaming orange tag that said Heavy, said That's it and wished me a pleasant journey.
I need to add that the remaining eight kilos of crap was in my messenger bag and in a plastic bag full of books.
On the other hand, when I was leaving Stockholm last time, apart from rather a heavy suitcase (them books), I had one piece of cabin luggage (full of books), one piece of ladies' purse (full of laptop and books) and a reasonable amount of reading matter for the time of flight (large canvas shopping bag full of books)... all in accordance with the airline regulations. The anti-terrorist measures require that I show my laptop and admittedly, the security folks were a little bit baffled when they saw that it was somewhere under a Finnish etymologic dictionary and Linné's collected writings. The look of sheer crazy was topped by my dad's wish to get a plush reindeer, which I bought on the airport.
So, nothing like that this time. I hung around the airport shops, sniffed a few fragrances, mostly said Oh, boring, then knitted for a while, attempted for some real airport blogging like Yarn Harlot, but the wireless LAN worked weird and when I managed to connect, it appeared that it was paid access... and nope, folks. My virtues are not many but supporting this capitalist blackmail is out of the question. Moreover, I had drained my weekly card limit long before.


Seen everything, been everywhere twice, has keys to all the doors

This is a way I and my friends use to describe the unpleasant sort of know-alls. It came to my mind after the security bullying check at the airport. The terminal was rebuilt, I thought to myself, and continued And there was that security thing two years ago, here, in place of the perfumery-cum-liquors duty free place, there was nothing... etc., when the abovementioned saying came to my mind. Indeed, I've been to real many places, to some many times, seen quite a few things...
Life however has its little ways how to deal with one's pride. In Vienna, they chased us out of the plane. I sat rather in the back, I like being behind the wind so that I can see something. I did notice a bunch of people even behind me but, well, no need to hurry, nor did I try to fight my way out of the plane, so I minded my own stuff. Then, the contents of the plane waited in the airport bus, nothing happening, when police got out of the plane with a handcuffed guy. I thought that such stuff happened only in the movies, that criminals were sent by mail.

Easy life of a spoiled capitalist brat
My father came to pick me. I was lazy to go by train and it's only two hours driving, eh. I only called him to pick me at the arrivals terminal when my ancient cellphone went dead so I was standing there, watching for a baby blue BMW. Good colour, easy to spot among those black and dark grey cars.
In the car, dad stuck a folder full of papers in my hands and said Read it. I browsed it, it seemed to be all written in legalese so I said Erm, legal papers, so what? and dad grinned and said I bought you a gym.
The background stories are two. First, dad had a 'readymade' Ltd. in the drawer, the company doing nothing, just being there for a case of urgent need when there would be no time to get all the paperwork for starting one done in time. Second, he rented some space to a gym owner, who, surprisingly enough, ran a gym, with all those machines and courses of various weirdo things like aerobics. The owner repeatedly failed to pay the bills so after a few friendly talks, the final unfriendly talk came and my dad just bought the whole gym, owner not included, since it would be illegal (but practical).
It is my father so I need to deal with this type of crazy pretty often.

How do I build a vault cheaply?
Another current problem that haunts my father. For some reasons I was asked the question. I know a few things about vaults, one being that 'vault' and 'cheap' are mutually exclusive terms. I won't go in the lengths and depths of the story, just mind that buying old and neglected buildings brings unexpected problems.

Upcoming things

Somehow, I happened to stumble upon rather interesting stuff lately.
Just to give you the idea, and excuse the lousy photoshop job, it's random pictures taken from elsewhere or by my dear friend who takes care for my mail.

From upper left:
(1) Vacarme by Rauch, I'm not sure.
(2) Via Lanvin in extrait
(3) mystery Weil
(4) Detchema by Revillon - I hear it's an aldehydic
(5) Fete by Molyneux - should be something green
(6) mystery something inscribed Champs Elysees - the eBay seller says it's some Guerlain thing but I discussed it with two other perfumistas and they are in disagreement. It was cheaper than a bathroom air freshener so bite it
(7) Samsara by Guerlain (the one with the red blob)
(8) Chanel trio of Bois des Iles, Gardenia and Cuir de Russie
(9) Le De by Givenchy - I have a sample somewhere and it rocks, it's a lovely honeyed scent
(10) No. 22 by Chanel - rather vintage, guessing from the bottle
(11) Miss De Rauch
(12) Numero Cinq by Molyneux - rarity of rarities
(13) Woodhue by Faberge
(14) Stolen Moments by Fragonard

You can expect a storm of reviews and hopefully interesting ranting in the upcoming weeks.