Scented Thoughts: Not Knowing How To Perfume The Season

Bliss! I am starting to smell the crisp cool autumnal air of New England. This sensation is a forerunner of little celebrations of warmth, hot steaming mugs of mulled apple cider, coffee that sharpens the senses, candle lighting, breaths of warmth on one's frozen fingers, cosy fluffy ample enveloping scarves, smell of leaves and walks in the forest, and best of all a cool ambient air that needs to be infused with spices and amber. Now is the season for the deepest and richest Oriental scents to reveal their mystery. I want my perfumes to feel like glowing amber, rich cognac, and dark molasses...

This I wrote three weeks ago. I am still dreaming of rich somber perfumes. But the weather is so changing and unstable in Cambridge and Boston that it does not yet feel like a convergence of all natural energies towards the coming of winter. We are going through a period that seems to be made of a patchwork of summer and autumn materials as if an unknown force remained undecided as to fully throw itself into the cold crisp arms of fall.

Pumpkins are already being sold but they seem slightly out of place against the bright sky. What one misses are the fogs of condensed breaths and the quiet that surrounds nature as it slows down. Yet, the other day it became very quiet, so quiet that you could not hear a bird chirp and this felt too soon and out of place too. Snow was lacking to transform the dead wintery day into something more characteristic.

In this changing weather I am not able to atune my perfumes to any clear ring of the season. As a result I have acquired this Friday light fragrances as well as deep ones thus doubling my purchases. Rose Essentielle by Bvlgari was accompanied by Jill Sander no 4 and Omnia Crystalline came accompanied by Habanita. I shall not mention the others who came with them, they were a solid cohort is all I am going to say.

Photo is Autumn Mosaic by Jing

Comments

Ah, Helene-
A woman after my own heart...

Yes, we crave comfort and richness-
Give me Cognac, and Armagnac, and Calvados...

I openly salivated on Charles St. yesterday, at the lovely bottle of Poire Williams with the whole pear in it !

[I chalk it up to culinary education for my teenage fledgling hedonists]

We're probably dreaming of enveloping ourselves in the same scents as we speak...

Off to the Topsfield Fair today, for nature's Autumnal Sniffest-
I'm SO excited !

Enjoy the w/e, my friend !

Posted by: chayaruchama | September 30, 2006

Same here, my dear. Weather quite changeable here in southeast Virginia this time of year. Fluctuate bewtween 50's lingering into the early morning when departing for work to the upper 70's - low 80's by height of the afternoon. So I don't want my summer fragrances at 0700 but know that a cozy ambery thing will be not a good thing by 1400 . My reach fors? Dry incensy things, cedar, fig, woods of all sorts really. And the seasonal anticipatory ambery craving? a dab of Bal A Versailles or Parfum Sacre around 2300 just before bed.

Posted by: Lisa S | September 30, 2006

Hello Chaya,

I hope you had some fun time at the fair.

Posted by: Mimi | October 2, 2006

Hello Lisa S,

Sounds like you have it all figured out:)

I miss Boston, now! When I lived in the area I found myself markedly happier during fall and spring, those times when the trees become such a fireworks display of change and life. I get sentimental thinking about walks in the arboretum, a cup at Tealuxe and trundling off to one of my wonderful dance classes in Central Square. Enjoy the season, there.

Posted by: Cait | October 2, 2006

Cait,

I think that one day too I will miss Boston and Cambridge. It's taken me time though to accustom myself to this northern clime and find charm in it:)

Well, I guess it's called Indian Summer. Out here in California, we don't have that, but I am detecting a change in the light and in the air...Fall will be here soon. :):)

Hugs!

Posted by: violetnoir | October 2, 2006

Hi V,

Not quite an Indian Summer, if we are to follow definitions found here:

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/basics/indian-summer.htm

To me, there is the element of stillness and other things that are lacking.

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