A Few of My Favorite Things #16
12.17.11
Even though I really don’t wear it all the time, I’m a scent freak and I go through periods when I’m just deeply into perfume, oils, etc. When I found the site LuckyScent, I went a little crazy… because for just $3-$7 you can sample most of the very high-end, obscure, cult, artisan fragrances that they carry… and they carry loads of them. One of my all time favorite scents is pictured above, Rhubarb, by Comme des Garcons (Series 5: Sherbet). The descriptions on LuckyScent are like little fictions, I love reading them and in the world of art perfume, these are likely a big part of the seduction. Here’s the LuckyScent scoop on Rhubarb:
Rhubarb is the tart one in the Sherbet series, perfectly capturing the sourness of a rhubarb stalk with a tiny dash of sweet. A beautifully fresh, green stem scent runs throughout the evolution, and it dries down to a creamier version–like an icy rhubarb sorbet mixed with a non-sweet (or overtly feminine) vanilla. We pick up a bit of wood (wenge) in there, too. Completely unique and unisex (go on, show us someone you know who wears a rhubarb scent), the tart green of Rhubarb is a study in converting taste into an exhilarating and crisp bottled scent. Extremely addictive, you just may drool a little when you smell this.
I find this scent to be perfect all year ’round, super fresh for warm weather, but has a weird iciness that works in the winter-time too. Although a lot of the scents carried at Lucky are truly unisex, I think this one is pretty girly. Nothing needs mentioning about the house of Comme des Garcons, right?
This is my other current scent, which I actually bought in a store in Georgetown… having determined I really really needed a new fragrance in my life. I spent a couple of hours there, until my nose went dead, and ended up with L’Ombre Dans L’Eau, by Dyptique. Dyptique is a small boutique-y perfume house founded in 1961 by three friends who had trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Here’s the Lucky description of this scent, which I find hard to wear in winter unless I feel like really having a super green summery visitation:
An amazingly evocative scent, this transports you to an English riverside garden with overgrown roses and a tangle of blackcurrant bushes. This is startlingly green, almost astringent, in the opening and then the roses appear – fresh and vivid and beautiful. You can smell the wet earth of the riverbank and the berries weighing down the branches and the older petals that have fallen to the ground. The name translates as “Shadow in the Water”, and appropriately, there is a hint of melancholy here, a touch of the bittersweet. However, there is also a rejuvenating freshness – perhaps the riverside garden is where we go to recover from heartbreak. This is a truly original fragrance – and an utterly beautiful one.
If you are a freak for scent, and want to get away from department-store fragrance, you will love love love LuckyScent, those little samples are such fun to get in the mail and experiment with! Oh, and when you do make a purchase, you can also request a handful of free samples. Awesome!
Lastly, if you are buying fragrance as a gift, I do recommend purchasing something the recipient already wears and loves. Scent is so personal, and there is nothing worse than wearing a perfume you don’t like (VERY torturous!). I couldn’t find gift cards on the Lucky site, but check your recipient’s fragrance bottles and see what’s running low, then head on over to Lucky to stock up.
