The photo: me and the D, Tokyo 3am.
The song : Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody.
The perfume ( in the hair, an entire bottle):
POISON, esprit de parfum
Monthly Archives: November 2016
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
Filed under Flowers
COME HEALING: ANCIENT RESINS (for Leonard Cohen), by AFTELIER PERFUMES (2012)
I am so sorry that the brilliant Leonard Cohen had to die at the worst possible time.
Perhaps that is why he did. Maybe he just couldn’t take the horror that has beset us.
I must also apologise if this post seems weird, as he was very much alive when Mandy made this perfume for him, and I have just re-posted it on reflex without re-reading it. I am feeling quite deranged, in truth, as I am sure many of us are. The debacle (I can’t even repeat Its name, right now) has left me feeling panicked, claustrophobic, and asphyxiated: oppressed, and panicked, that a new dawn of fascism is upon us. I am blindly reposting things, like the Comme Des Garcons, because it seemed right, but suddenly seems wrong, and this, ditto, because my whole world, and yours I am sure, has been scrambled. I honestly can’t quite think straight.
This man, though, the artist above, who has just passed away, was so much the opposite of that vile hollow creature that it hurts to even include them in the same sentence.
Forgive me.
‘Ah, the man she wanted all her life was hanging by a thread. ”
“I never even knew how much I wanted you” she said.
His muscles they were numbered
and his style was obsolete. …
COME HEALING: ANCIENT RESINS (for Leonard Cohen), by AFTELIER PERFUMES (2012)
Filed under Flowers
rescinding the reality membrane
nothing like a nice bergamot oil bath for a spot of morning emotional clarity
Filed under Flowers
PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T VOTE A PIG IN FOR THE PRESIDENCY
I am scared and full of foreboding.
Yes, he would be a ‘change’.
But this man is also a greedy, crude, amoral, megalomaniac narcissist.
He is dangerous. And disgusting.
And he could lead us to World War III.
Please don’t let this nightmare come to fruition.
Filed under Flowers, pigs, Republican
A LUSTY, MUSTY SELECTION OF PATCHOULI :: : : PATCHOULI by SANTA MARIA NOVELLA + PATCHOULI LEAVES by MONTALE + PATCHOULI NOIR by IL PROFUMO + PATCHOULI 24 by LE LABO + PATCHOULI by MOLINARD + PATCHOULI by LORENZO VILLORESI + PATCHOULY by ETRO + PATCHOULISSIME by KEIKO MECHERI + PATCHOULI by L’ARTISAN PARFUMEUR
Winter. The antisocial, deep pull of it.The malingering invasiveness. How it clings to you; piercing your bloodstream. Patchouli, reminding you of where you came from, and where you w…
Filed under Flowers
KASHMIRI TEAK: BLACK SAFFRON by BYREDO (2012)
Sometimes I feel guilty on this blog that I don’t include more oudhs, more woods, more dense, urban, dry and acrid perfumes: that I stick more relentlessly to the flowers, the ethereal, the delicious or poetic rather than reviewing the endless stream of acerbically sleek concoctions that dot the perfume landscape.
Ideally, I would like to be writing about a whole smorgasbord of perfume types on The Black Narcissus (and if you peruse the entirety of the writing here you will definitely find quite a wide selection of different scents, I believe) but still……..why is it that I can’t engage with sleek and trending creations like Byredo’s Black Saffron? Why have I seemingly given up on including nose searing oudhs and sharp, lab-driven incense, on the barrier that I feel that many a wood-driven perfume erects between the wearer and (in my case) the unwilling smeller?
I think the answer is probably simple.
Because I hate them.
My original review: KASHMIRI TEAK: BLACK SAFFRON by BYREDO (2012)
Filed under Flowers
FIRST by VAN CLEEF AND ARPELS (1976)
My mother’s perfume, and in my opinion a late modern masterpiece.
Released in 1976, Jean Claude Ellena’s uncharacteristically neo-classical ‘First’ took on the classic aldehydic floral, but maximised, reordered, and fresh-orchestered it with a gorgeously lush, green jasminesque bouquet centered principally on roses and jasmine – not just one, but three varietals – taking all the best cues from les grandes aldehydés but just adding more of everything (orchid, muguet, carnation, hyacinth, and tuberose in dazzling profusion). A quite brilliant creation was the result, irrepressible and magnetic, with extra lift and vitality in the top notes given in the the top notes of blackcurrant bud cassis, (the first perfume to use this note, hence the name); peach, mandarin, and a sharp, green-leafed kick of raspberry.
In pristine form, this is a very beautiful scent – vivacious and extrovert, yet with gentler strokes of introversion that lie within the soul of the perfume like the silk lining of a beautifully tailored coat: a feminine duality that makes the perfume so fully rounded. Quietly lingering, the perfume dies down later to an understated, yet sensuous, accord of vetiver, honey and musk.
For me, always an essential part of the pantheon.
Ps. Happy Birthday x
Filed under Floral Aldehydes, Flowers
