Chasing the Tuberose: A Story of the Barney's Perfume Counter Part II

Apothia "If" ***

L’Artisan “La Chasse Aux Papillons” **

L’Artisan “La Chasse Aux Papillons Extreme” *

Nasomatto “Narcotic Venus” *

Serge Lutens “Fleurs D’Oranger” **

L’Artisan “Tubereuse” ***

Éditions de Parfums “Carnal Flower” ???

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So last Thursday, I posted about my deeply-held insecurities feeding into my awkwardness at perfume counters. I wrote that I planned to meet my sweet friend, Christina, at Barney’s, and not only would she provide me cover with her lovely ebullience, she would also be my willing tuberose guinea pig. How did it go?

To pick up the story where I left it, we were at the perfume counter, trying out all things tuberose. The scary scents, along with the evil sales lady, were making me cry. Christina-as Sigourney-as-Ripley picked up her favorite flame thrower, cocked her head at the evil sales staff, and grunted "Get away from her, you b*tch!!!" Then she did this:

No. Just being silly. It didn't happen anything like that.
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What really happened was I was a few minutes late, and when I came in, Christina was already chatting up the (lone) cute 20-something boy on the floor (Natch.) (Everyone else working there in the entire store is well-groomed, poised, female, and 40+.)

I was so hoping Josh would be working that day because I had had a nice time with him once before-- One time before Christmas when I had screwed up my courage to go in, he was there behind the counter. It was his first day at Barney’s—he had worked in scent before-- but now he was manning the Mother Ship of scent. There’s a lot going on at Barney’s, and he knew it. He was a little nervous too, so we were in good company. He was most gracious to me, patient and enthusiastic. My limited (book) knowledge was enough to impress him, so we were both learning from one another, which is always nice. All in all, it had turned out to be a semi-not-so-traumatic experience. So I was most happy to see him there again.

I apologized for not calling first, but explained that we were there to try a raft of tuberose scents, roughly from the most ethereal to the most eye-watering, all the while keeping in the back of my mind that the Queen Mother of tuberose, “Carnal Flower” was at the end of the line-up, lurking…

Now, I walked in on their conversation, and wasn't paying close attention, but I might have heard Christina say the word "blog" and maybe even "Left Coast Nose." I didn't think much about it at the time, and I certainly didn't want to dwell on it. (I would never bring attention to something like that in that situation. One, it would posit me as far more of an expert than I really am. *Embarrassing!!* Then I would be terrified that he might actually log on, find me, and read me. *Excruciating!!* If you're reading this Josh, look away!!) So I blocked that little nugget out of my mind as we got started. But if you read Nina Z.'s comment from last Thursday, it makes it kind of funny, because that might explain what happened next....

Josh was the soul of graciousness and like a maitre d' guiding us to his finest table, he led us over to the scent bar and sat us down at the stools. And the bar metaphor is apt because for the next 90 minutes, we three sniffed and hooted and whooped it up like drunken sailors!! We were laughing, and spritzing, and sniffing each other, and flirting, sharing our stories and our impressions. As Christina said later, we were high—it was just so much fun!!

In the entire time we were there, the rest of the place was completely dead—at some point two other women come in—they sidled over to our snort-fest and cautiously dabbed at some Byredo number. “Here—try this,” I said, swinging a test strip in her direction. “Uh, that’s ok, thanks. I can smell it from here,” she said, backing off like I was inviting her to take a few jello shots and play spin-the-bottle with us.

Who cares!! More fun for us!!! Whoopie!!

Here’s what we sniffed:

Apothia “If” ***
I’d already shared “If” with Christina months back and have already reviewed “If” in depth. It was my plan, however, to remind her how *genius* this tuberose + grapefruit rind + white musk in an oil base construction was. Three of her favorite things all put together, and as it turns out, I love it too!

L’Artisan “La Chasse Aux Papillons” **
Ready to hate this from reading about it, I just couldn’t believe how much I liked it. I wrote “cool and elegant, early morning rose + tuberose + fresh inner lemon tree bark” in my notes, although I don’t read about rose anywhere in the scent notes. Shimmery. Summery. I could feel the little butterfly wings tickling my nasal passages. I tried it on my skin, and as it turns out, it reminds me that if I wanted to wear a straight-floral scent with no musks, spices or powders, what I really want to wear is Amouage “Reflection.” But it did give me hope that the demon tuberose could be kept in check.

L’Artisan “La Chasse Aux Papillons Extreme” *
This did not get any better for me pumped up to the max and with a bizarre anise element that I thought distracted more than added to the original. Did not get.

Nasomatto “Narcotic Venus” **--> *
This one was not on my initial list of things to sniff- Josh recommended it. We actually took a Nasomatto detour through NV, “Duro” and “Black Afgano.” (It turns out Josh is half Afghani.)

It’s probably a REALLY GOOD THING that we didn’t know the PerfumedCourt’s scent notes for NV read: “Narcotic Venus is the result of a quest for the overwhelming addictive intensity of female sexual power. I dunno about that, but you skank nuts should like it. Goes on sweet and slightly innocent... for a second, then it gets naughty.” Even without that prompting, the ensuing conversation was decidedly R-rated. Looking back on it, perhaps this was the point where the afternoon tilted towards the Dionysian, so maybe there’s something actually to it…)

I certainly didn’t smell any skank in it— I wrote down “tea rose + tuberose + green apple= Juicy Couture 'Juicy Couture.'” Christina actually liked this one enough to eventually try it out on her skin, and it went twenty years “young,” we all agreed. Fruity. Cloying. Kiwi. (I love Christina, and she is game to try anything. But her chemistry is such that all scents go straight to sugar on her.)

Serge Lutens “Fleurs D’Oranger” ***-->**
This one was the shocker of the afternoon, I have to say. So solid. But so balanced. So light. This reminded me of those ninja knives that weigh nothing and have a perfect balance point, yet are super strong and have a razor’s edge. FdO is just a well-oiled machine, there is no two ways about it. The jasmine, the subtle woods and spices, the tuberose kept perfectly in check. I’m not actually sure I would even call this a tuberose scent—maybe an indolic masterpiece instead. I would not ever reach for this while Michael Kors “For Women” is in the world, but, boy howdy, it sure smells nice.

L’Artisan “Tubereuse” ***
This is the one that started it all. I smelled this months back in Chicago, and it made me realize that I could actually fall madly in love with a tuberose scent. Milky, creamy, coconuty, mangoey—this is just a tropical flan of a scent. I tried this one on thinking maybe this could be the one, my one “true” tuberose. But as lovely as this one is on paper, it turned green on Christina, and on me it just blew up. As in, I had been sniffing perfumes for an hour, surrounded by bottles and strips and spritzes, and the only thing I could smell was my right elbow, and it caused my right eye to nearly close involuntarily. Wonderful, but way, way too strong.

I’m still giving it three stars for its on-paper performance—it is the soliflore tuberose scent that I love the best. “Tubereuse” will have to be my one true unrequited love, I suppose, the one I dream about-- from a safe distance.

Éditions de Parfums “Carnal Flower” ???
Is this a cop-out? I did sort of build this up in the story, and the reason I did that was because I had built it up in my mind. After all, this is the scent that Chandler Burr called a “loud, filthy, utterly gorgeous neo-brutalist tuberose hand grenade.” A “tuberose that comes at you holding a baseball bat in one hand and a raw steak in the other.” (Easily my favorite one-line review of just about anything in and of all time.)

Countless keystrokes have been struck analyzing this scent, and I thought that surely my reaction to it would be more… more I can’t say. But it surprised me. From my notes: “Neon green—yes, yes, yes. Vomit. (!!!) Green stems. Unopened buds. Not ready. Red licorice.” (Christina and Josh thought they smelled earth and dirt—I didn’t—just stems and leaves.) Not “flowery” like I thought it’d be. And, maybe I was just blasted out by this point, but not loud like I thought it would be. It smelled dense. Like a wall of smell—no place for your nose to hook onto. But not loud.

Christina gamely tried it on—now, mind you, this was the last tuberose scent of the day, so we were flying on fumes at that point. But I just didn’t “understand” it on her skin. I kept grabbing her wrist, sniffing, making a face, and shaking my head. Nope. Don’t get that. We went to a coffee shop after and talked for more than an hour. I have to say, for a scent that starts $200 U.S. a bottle, it died down disappointingly fast on her skin.

I will go back. I will sniff again. But for me right now, I have not yet wrapped my nose around CF: It remains a puzzle wrapped in an enigma baked in a Twinkie and stays unreviewed.
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So how about the very end of the story. Can I make something up about a demon tuberose punching a hole through somebody’s chest? No?

Here’s what really happened: We didn’t buy anything. After all that!! Christina and I looked at one another, raised our eyebrows, shrugged, and made our apologies. Fo me, there was just nothing in all that that warranted putting a three-figure dent in my perfume budget. Josh, for his part, couldn’t have been nicer about it, packing up samples, giving us his business cards, kisses and smiles all around. We joked that we owed him a drink—when did he get off? (Now I’m hoping our respective spouses aren’t reading this…)

I felt fine about it, until I felt bad about it a day later. Then I felt terrible. I knew that Josh didn’t work on commission—I had asked him that first off the first day I met him. And I knew that had we not been there, that would have been 90 minutes of a Wednesday afternoon where Josh would have had nothing else to do but make small talk with his coworkers.

But still. It had been such an enjoyable afternoon, and now I was feeling like we could never go back, free-riding sniffers that we were.

Then I put on the sweater I had been wearing that day. There was a whiff of something so lovely, so haunting—every fiber of my being sat straight up. What was that heavenly scent?

Late in the binge, we had messed around with a bunch of random stuff—mostly at Josh’s suggestion. He brought out Serge Lutens “Arabie,” making the rather audacious claim that it’s what Carla Bruni wears. I tried it on a strip and found it interesting enough, and then put a little on my wrist. It made absolutely no impression on me after all that swoony tuberose until I smelled it again two days later. THEN I COULD NOT GET ENOUGH. As in: I wore that stinking sweater for days on end, obsessively sniffing that tiny corner of left sleeve. I couldn’t get back to Barney’s—too busy, too rainy, too sick, and when I was free and healthy and it wasn’t pouring, Josh wasn’t working.

But the happiest part was, was when I finally did make it back to buy a bottle, I was given a superstar welcome: All the ladies of the perfumed court swarmed around me to say hi, Prince Josh gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek, made a big show of packing it up, getting me a sample, the whole deal.

So now I am the Queen of Barney’s!! Ha!! Thank you Christina!! Thank you Josh!! What once felt alien and intimidating as outer space is now a whole new playground to rompus in. Next time we three meet, drinks are definitely on me.
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And on that note, I wanted to say “Thank you” to all my regular readers here at LCN. When I started out, wanting to blog about perfume and pop culture and politics and all the other things on my mind, I was afraid it might be lonely. After all, besides Christina and a few other notable exceptions, perfume is just about the last thing that most of my friends are interested in.

But I just loved the perfume blogosphere—there’s so much going on—opinions, connotations, stories, creativity, interesting writing, and good suggestions. I just wanted to be a part of it. And one day I looked up, five months into it, I suddenly realized—I am a part of it. Thank you to everyone who stops by and reads and leaves comments, and thank you all for your lovely blogs that bring so much pleasure and inspiration.

While I'm spreading the love-- two posts I want to shout out. One is by Mals over at Muses In Wooden Shoes (Note-- she's made the leap to WordPress, people!)-- and not just because she says nice things about me. (Cheers!!) Her latest posting, "Critic Vs. Reviewer" was in direct dialogue with the JAR piece I did that evoked the comments that inspired this piece. So it's all part of one big conversation.

The other is Beth Gehring's posting over at Perfumerotica! on leopard skin bras and breast exams. Doing some self-care and looking smokin' while you're doing it-- I like it!!

Writing about roses for V-Day on Thursday. Love is in the air!!