The Power of Ten Noses Compels Thee
Jan. 6th, 2025 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootOof!
Well, if that couldn't shake me out of my maudlin moment, nothing could. I'm awake, alive, and clear on one matter if no other; it's time to give up with Frederick Malle. Portrait of a Lady is not as terrible as The Moon, which is the one nigh-on unused tester remaining from last year. I have never smelled any perfume equal to the horribleness of The Moon. My earlier depressing and now deleted post spoke of painful ghosts. Well, forget that stuff. Ghosts, if you're out there, you're in the clear as best I can manage. I learned during PTSD counselling that there's nothing like scent for creating this single space, here and now. It can ground you, lift you, distance you, envelope you, but this is the place and the space where every abstract fancy in your head must give way to its reality. For me smell is often more powerful than music. My mother told me that in my early childhood she had to train me out of lifting my nose to the wind and sniffing it, 'like a little puppy.'
I had Portrait of a Lady in 2022 and didn't hate it. Was I coming out of a Covid phase then? Am I now? What is this thing?
"Frederic Malle is a true perfume connoisseur and creator of the Editions de Parfums niche "fragrances without compromise" collection. His line consists of 19 amazing perfumes so far, all developed by, according to the Malle, the top ten noses of the world."
Top ten noses eh? Now there's an image.
"The collection expands in November with a new edition named Portrait of a Lady, [...] named after the novel by Henry James from the 1881. The perfume deals with rose note and spices in a new, modern way that varies between the oriental and chypre theme with patchouli, natural and intense, dominating the heart of the composition. Portrait of a Lady is a modern, elegant and unusual expression of the Victorian novel, its heroine, Isabel Archer, her fate and the quest for freedom. She smells of dark roses, mystical and intense."
Poor Isabel Archer! It's intense all right, smells like the stereotype of every Victorian boudoir, all closed windows and dark thick wallpaper into which blend these heavy roses along with talc and iris and violet and powder and probably the oiled heads of gentlemen leaning their bonces against antimacassars. If Isabel's 'quest for freedom' includes getting rid of Osmond, she just needs to smother the curtains and tablecloths in this stuff and he'd run. We'd all run.
The ghosts have run too. They stood no chance. This thing belts out its horror for seeming eternity.
So yes, Portrait of a Lady, great for exorcisms. Mary Magdalene had her seven devils, Frederik Malle his 10 noses. I am free of haunts and sorrow, but in growing need of Ibuprofen.
Well, if that couldn't shake me out of my maudlin moment, nothing could. I'm awake, alive, and clear on one matter if no other; it's time to give up with Frederick Malle. Portrait of a Lady is not as terrible as The Moon, which is the one nigh-on unused tester remaining from last year. I have never smelled any perfume equal to the horribleness of The Moon. My earlier depressing and now deleted post spoke of painful ghosts. Well, forget that stuff. Ghosts, if you're out there, you're in the clear as best I can manage. I learned during PTSD counselling that there's nothing like scent for creating this single space, here and now. It can ground you, lift you, distance you, envelope you, but this is the place and the space where every abstract fancy in your head must give way to its reality. For me smell is often more powerful than music. My mother told me that in my early childhood she had to train me out of lifting my nose to the wind and sniffing it, 'like a little puppy.'
I had Portrait of a Lady in 2022 and didn't hate it. Was I coming out of a Covid phase then? Am I now? What is this thing?
"Frederic Malle is a true perfume connoisseur and creator of the Editions de Parfums niche "fragrances without compromise" collection. His line consists of 19 amazing perfumes so far, all developed by, according to the Malle, the top ten noses of the world."
Top ten noses eh? Now there's an image.
"The collection expands in November with a new edition named Portrait of a Lady, [...] named after the novel by Henry James from the 1881. The perfume deals with rose note and spices in a new, modern way that varies between the oriental and chypre theme with patchouli, natural and intense, dominating the heart of the composition. Portrait of a Lady is a modern, elegant and unusual expression of the Victorian novel, its heroine, Isabel Archer, her fate and the quest for freedom. She smells of dark roses, mystical and intense."
Poor Isabel Archer! It's intense all right, smells like the stereotype of every Victorian boudoir, all closed windows and dark thick wallpaper into which blend these heavy roses along with talc and iris and violet and powder and probably the oiled heads of gentlemen leaning their bonces against antimacassars. If Isabel's 'quest for freedom' includes getting rid of Osmond, she just needs to smother the curtains and tablecloths in this stuff and he'd run. We'd all run.
The ghosts have run too. They stood no chance. This thing belts out its horror for seeming eternity.
So yes, Portrait of a Lady, great for exorcisms. Mary Magdalene had her seven devils, Frederik Malle his 10 noses. I am free of haunts and sorrow, but in growing need of Ibuprofen.
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no subject
Date: 2025-01-06 05:50 pm (UTC)As one who cannot look at a perfume bottle without reaching for the painkillers and sinus meds, I salute your intrepid spirit of inquiry.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-07 09:04 am (UTC)