Hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks...

A Review of Caron Tubéreuse Parfum

Apparently I was on a tuberose kick when I raided my scent stash last week for things to try, because the next thing I grabbed was Caron Tubéreuse parfum. I actually have quite a few of the Caron scents since I grabbed the house sampler last year from Luckyscent, but I haven't really reviewed many of them, have I? Today seems like a good day to rectify that.

Or....not.

Caron describes Tubéreuse as follows:

Caron's latest "fountain" creation, TUBEREUSE was conceived of in 2003 by in-house perfumer Richard FRAYSSE.

A hint of Fressia [sic] and jasmine accentuated by a touch of acidity lend Tubéreuse a rich and opulent fragrance, aimed in particular at CARON's glamour-seeking clientele.

Accords: Tuberose….

A little moldy open grave smell....

Caron Tubéreuse has it fans. Noses in the know have used words such as “bombshell,” “audaciously beautiful rich,” and “a hidden gem” to refer to the scent. Sadly reader, I am not going to be one of them. Nope. For when I put it on my skin, all I could think was: Oh Caron... Why did you do this to a tuberose?

The opening was a mix of vinegar and black tar, that feel straight down into an open grave filled with grape Kool-Aid and the bloated corpses of a hundred earth worms that overdosed from the flavored drink sugar high. Then even the interesting “Death comes a'knocking” aspects drifted off, leaving me with a powdery, dry scratch and sniff version of a white flower.

When it was weird, I was sort of distracted, disoriented, and even intrigued. Could I possibly wear this? Who would wear this? Did the perfumer take their inspiration from a terrible nineteenth century pickle factory fire where women and children were trapped in a terrific blaze that ultimately lead to some sort of Safer Work Conditions for Picklers Labor Reform Act?

But the dry powdery scent it settled into is somehow worse for the comparison. And for something I might describe as quiet and unassuming, good golly Miss Molly, the sillage! I had it on the back of my hands and felt like I had giant boxing gloves of scent around them, like sci-fi created orbs. I would be able to use this combat enhancement to knock people down without actually touching them for days!

While I am loathed to ever give such a bad review, I just have to. You know why, dear reader?

This was a scrubber.

...a little faux grape
 flavoring...

Yeah, I'm not kidding. I couldn't take it! After an hour, which I had to force myself through, I had to get it off my skin, even if steel wool was required. And I felt kind of terrible about it, because lots of people with noses I really respect like Caron Tubéreuse.

I was somewhat comforted to find I am not alone in having Caron Tubéreuse go sideways on me. Abigail at I Smell Therefore I Am described her experience as smelling “like dill pickles.” Chantal-Hélène Wagner of The Scented Salamander more charitably describes it as taking "the dark side of Lady Caron's tuberose and plays Lady Macbeth to the first, minus the signs of madness as it seems on the contrary to have an exceptional measure of self-control.” Of course, she goes on to describe it as being “slightly putrid, like stale water and vase.”

Lady MacBeth, indeed. I really enjoy Lady Caron, so I'll try to get a review on that one in for comparison soon. For me, though, I have to say that if you're out to shop tuberoses, be careful with this one. Maybe you're get an overly devoted wife; maybe you'll get a crazy lady who can't stop seeing blood on her hands.

Luckyscent has Caron Tubéreuse for 7.5ml for $100. Yep, you read that right. One hundred smackers for a mere 7.5 milliliters. Given the above, I can only endorse you trying a sample, which is $5. Perhaps you will love it. If not, better to find that out with the very small dab of a wand.

“Muscle to muscle and toe to toe
The fear has gripped me but here I go
My heart sinks as I jump up
Your hand grips hand as my eyes shut...
Please don't go, I'll eat you whole
I love you so, I love you so, I love you so.”
~ “Breezeblocks,” Alt-J

Want a more positive spin on Caron Tubéreuse than I am able to muster? Try...
~ A review from Pink Manhattan
~ A review from Bois de Jasmin
~ A review from aperfumeblog
~ A review from The Black Narcissus
~ A review from Robin at Now Smell This!
~ A review from Eiderdown Press


Photo of open grave: Some rights reserved by A QUIVERFUL OF FOTOS
Photo of grape soda: Some rights reserved by D Sharon Pruitt of Pink Sherbet Photography

Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?

Review of Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower

Wow, have I had a full weekend, my lovely readers! My best friend, Kate, was here for work this week, and we hung out this weekend when she wasn't trying to squeeze in visits to all the other people who love her like I, and it was great. Drinks and more drinks and fabulous company and food, oh my!

I also managed to make it out to the coast very briefly, which was so sunny and beautiful, and something I have been wanting to do for three weeks. It was a little crowded so I didn't stay long, but sometimes just long drives along winding tree-lined highways with lots of good music and room to think out loud can be deeply restorative.

The weather here has gone warm and the flowers are a'blooming. Oh, May flowers, your heady blooms are worthy of the stories told in your name. Speaking of flowers, you know what I recently discovered? Contrary to popular belief, it is not illegal to pick bluebonnets in Texas, though apparently lots of people, including some state troopers, will tell you otherwise. Take that, you unknown state trooper who once made me cry when you yelled at my parents because I had picked some at a rest stop. Take your made up laws and...stuff them in a decorative vase.

Which brings me to a question: anyone know where I can get a bluebonnet perfume? After reading this piece on the smell of bluebonnets, and seeing it described as “[f]resh air, rain, dirt, and the country[, …] like when you pull towels out of the dryer and stick your face in them,” I now really want to try one. I couldn't find anything but oils online. Anyone have any ideas?

While I wait for your bluebonnet suggestions, let's talk about a floral perfume I did give some wear this week, Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower. One of the most widely reviewed and much lauded of your tuberose options, Carnal Flower is described as follows by the Frédéric Malle's site:

With tuberose, nature offers her own take on dramatic olfactive clashes. These pretty flowers exude a mixture of flower shop freshness and carnal opulence. This natural contradiction has fascinated generations of perfumers including Dominique Ropion. He started to compose his interpretation of the mysterious flower from the latest high-tech analysis of its evaporation. To remain as close to nature as possible, he decided to use a mix of the best natural extractions and high-tech ingredients. Finally, to generate a link between this flower’s scent and the wearer's skin he exaggerated some aspects already existing in the scent of natural tuberose, such as coconut and salycilates, and added a trace of musk. 18 months were necessary to find the perfect balance.

The base encompasses: tuberose absolute, orange blossom absolute, coconut and musk.

There are a lot of reviews of Carnal Flower in part, I think, because it was released at the moment perfume blogging hit its first big wave back around 2005. Another piece of its frequent online inclusion on “must try" lists is attributable to it's unique approach to tuberose. Carnal Flower is a terrific scent, so the quality of the juice combined with the timing makes it a big hit with modern fumies. I suppose I'll add my opinion to the general pro-CF din. Is it good? Yes. But the more interesting question, I think is how does it stand up among the other tuberose scents available, particularly give Carnal Flower's hefty price tag.

The opening of Carnal Flower is greener and more evocative of stem sap than the bright heady florals of Robert Piguet Fracas. There is little of the medicinal note often associated with Serge Lutens Tubéreuse Criminelle, and the vaguely hairspray aspects of musk and dryness you find with By Kilian Beyond Love are entirely absent. Instead, Carnal Flower has a barely there coconut undertone that moves the overall effect slightly, and simultaneously, toward both warm tropical beach and tropical foodie for me. I get next to no musk or orange blossom out of the experience, to the point that I would not have thought to include them in the note list.

I agree with Robin at Now Smell This!, who described Carnal Flower as quiet as tuberose scents go. In a wrist by wrist comparison, it is quieter than both Fracas and Beyond Love. That shouldn't take anything away from Carnal Flower. In fact, making a quiet tuberose is something of a feat in itself. It's nice to wear a tuberose that isn't going to knock someone down fifty feet away from me. Carnal Flower may be the tuberose that many people who don't usually go for big white flowers will truly love.

I think for me one of the stumbling blocks is the name. Flower? Yes. Carnal? Well...not in my mind, but hey—who am I to say what might turn you on? To me it's too quiet and pretty to be sexy. I find Fracas and Beyond Love more overtly sexual. This carnal reads more to me like the shock of a Victorian woman confronted by an uncovered piano leg! The horror!

Then there's the price. A 50ml spray of Carnal Flower is a whooping $240, so make sure to try before you buy. If this is your tuberose holy grail, more power to you. I'll sit here with my pure parfum Fracas, which I bought for considerably less, and watch the world go by.

Want more? Try...
~ a review from The Non-Blonde
~ a review from Perfume Shrine
~ a review from Bois de Jasmin
~ a review from Robin at Now Smell This!
~ a review from Olfactoria's Travels
~ a review from Eiderdown Press
~ a review from Katie Puckrik Smells
~ a review from For the Love of Perfume
~ a review from Muse in Wooden Shoes
~ a review from Sweet Diva
~ a review from The Scented Salamander
~ a review from Scentsate
~ a review from SmellyThoughts
~ a review from PereDePierre
~ a review from Muse in Wooden Shoes

Will you still love me when I got nothing
but my aching soul?
I know you will, I know you will...
I know that you will.
~ “Young and Beautiful,” Lana Del Rey


Photo of bluebonnet - some rights reserved by longhorndave

'Cause she knows that it's demanding to defeat those evil machines...

Thoughts on Rape Culture, Advertising, Feminist Aesthetics, and Warrior Fatigue

The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. ~ Virginia Woolf

I haven't blogged about advertising and feminist aesthetics in a long while. It happened for a handful of reasons: lack of time, lack of energy, distracted by shiny objects. But also? Sometimes, I get warrior fatigue. Sometimes I feel lost and alone, orphaned by my own movement, and generally defeated. It is hard to always be fighting.

Oh yes, this completely
nude woman totally makes
me want to buy Shalimar...
no wait: I meant puke.

I also sometimes wonder, dear reader, if you aren't a little tired of hearing it. I feel like I am writing to the choir. If you already know this stuff, what is one more post going to do?

“There is nothing revolutionary whatsoever about the control of women's bodies by men. The woman's body is the terrain on which patriarchy is erected.” ~ Adrienne Rich

I was always a feminist. I don't know why. I think probably because being an abuse little kid raised by crazy people who kept insisting they were normal forced me to make a choice. Either they were right, and I was awful and deserved awfulness, or they were wrong, and the world was a weirdly biased and inherently unjust place.

I did what any child desperate to survive would do under those conditions.

I chose myself.

I chose not to accept that I was awful, not to let their poison change my mind. I made that decision one terrible day in a hospital, though I didn't know it at the time. But I do remember thinking, very clearly, that it wouldn't always be this way, and it wasn't worth my life. I stopped taking out the awfulness on myself that day, on my own body, and I started living, just out of spite. If I was going to die, it wouldn't be by my own hand. I would no longer be complicit in my own defeat.

Nearly twenty years later, I've seen enough of the ugliness in the world to wonder: how many women have had to make such a choice...

Dear Tom Ford, thanks for making it easy
to despise your entire product line.

All oppression creates a state of war. ~ Simone de Beauvoir

That my father had a position of public power that made normal channels of relief unavailable to us underscored the power of status and privilege. That I am naturally highly empathetic meant that when I got older, my sense of personal injustice seemed easy to extend to others when I came to see the world in all its horrible inequity.

These things made me, like fire tempers a blade.

Call it coincidence or the juxtaposition of fate and genetics, a little nature/nurture combo, but whatever it is, I am who I am: a feminist from first breath to last. But when I am tired and weary of a world where people genuinely seem to hate women, and especially hate those who attempt to fight against that hatred, even I have to take a break.

Sometimes I just can't do it anymore. When I see students protesting rape culture at a top tier college being told they deserve to be raped and at another university, a Take Back the Night week is protested by a crazy man who says the students marching for safety are sluts who should be raped, sometimes I just feel like nothing I do matters.

“Patriarchy has no gender.” ~ bell hooks

If we could see patriarchy,
I feel like it would look
a lot like this...

Patriarchy is so big; it is so everywhere and every time and every culture. It is like The Silence in Doctor Who. It's influence is always there, just outside your field of vision, pervasive and persistently changing the world for the better. And as soon as you look away, even for a moment—you forget. You can't remember where that sick feeling in your stomach came from because you're too busy just trying to live your life. You forget that the silence, and here I mean the silencing influence of patriarchy, is standing behind you, influencing your thoughts, your decisions, even your actions.

The most stunning, terrible, mind-melting eleven words I have ever read was a short line in Catharine A. MacKinnon's “Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory.” They were these:

Feminism does not begin with the premise that it is unpremised.

The piece—a thick diatribe against our broken understanding of rape and our failed ability to properly prosecute it, as well as a whole lot more—drops this nugget of wisdom in two paragraphs out of maybe a hundred containing just as many ideas. And yet, it scrambled my brain all around. She goes on.

That is, the equality of women to men will not be scientifically provable until it is no longer necessary to do so. Women's situation offers no outside to stand on or gaze at, no inside to escape to, too much urgency to wait, no place else to go, and nothing to use but the twisted tools that have been shoved down our throats. If feminism is revolutionary, this is why.

Who needs a woman
then they can have an
object and woman in one!

Even if we are revolutionary, even if what I do is a fight worth fighting, it is only because I continue to exist in the face of this vast awful thing that premises me. This is both a literal and philosophical truth in my case. The abuse of a developing child premises the adult they become; the oppression of women underlies my understanding of the world, the entire world's understanding of itself.

It affects men and women. It premises our understandings of ourselves and each other. Patriarchy is terrible for everyone, and we all cannot escape it. We literally cannot imagine a world without patriarchy. The driving animus of my life, feminism, exists because of patriarchy. Patriarchy and an inborn sense of wrongness, of injustice.

That realization, that moment when I see the horrible thing I always feel standing behind me, raising the hair along the back of my neck and I know it's real and true and awful, the moment just before I forget again, it is terrible and sad and it takes all the fight out of me.

“How else to make a dent in an object as immovable as patriarchy itself...?” ~ Dalma Heyn

Yes, my dear, sweet, lovely, and perhaps saddened reader, I get tired. I believe we all do, from time to time.

But then I see something like the video below, and I remember. I remember what it is like to feel the rage of first knowing, or of realizing the truly awful depth of the problem, and to think, “I can change it. Maybe only a little. Maybe only for one person. Maybe that person will just be me.” And with humor and angry and sadness and creativity, they begin to struggle against the wrongness without and the rage within.


And I think, that is why I write these. Because if one of you is new, or has just found this piece, or is reading any of these words and considering these ideas for the first time, let me say:

Yes, it is a terrible thing. Yes, it is okay to feel sad and frustrated and angry. But know this: you are not alone. And every single one of us, to the best we can, are fighting with you.

Until that unpremised day, viva la revolution.

Or, to put it another, particularly Whovian way:

Sooner or later, Silence will fall.


"...'Cause she knows that it'd be tragic
if those evil robots win.
I know she can beat them.

Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me,
but you won't let those robots defeat me."
~ Flaming Lips, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"

It’s not hard, not far to reach; we can hitch a ride to rockaway beach.

A Review of Creed Virgin Island Water

Most of the time, my perfume collection is a blessing to me. I'm having a bad day, I feel lost or sad or angry or let down, and I spend a little time with my perfume and I feel a little better. But lately, I've been frustrated. Disappointed. I get up, I get dressed, I got to my perfume cabinet, and then I just....

….stand there.

And I stare.

 And then I stare some more.

Everything seems wrong, somehow. Too floral. Too foodie. Too sweet, far too sweet, even my spicier scents. The one thing I keep wanting, Demeter Salt Air, which is basically nothing but a light aquatic, salt explosion, I can't find. This has never happened to me, dear reader, not in my almost six years of collecting. I want to write to you, and tell of you the wonderful scents out there, but in truth?

I have olfactory ennui.

I didn't even know such an unholy malediction was possible! I mean, of course I've seen other people blog about boredom or frustration or how everything seems to smell the same, but this seems...different, somehow. This is more of a spiritual scent emptiness, a vast chasm of faith momentarily lost that has shaken me.

My hope is that it will change soon. The weather is changing; that usually helps. It's getting hot here, almost oppressively hot. Too soon to be so hot. But I digress...

In honor of this hot weather, and my general state of perfume unhappy, I am taking the olfactory fast forward and jumping into the summer wardrobe with Creed Virgin Island Water.

According to the Creed website:

Virgin Island Water was awarded four out of five stars in a review by The New York Times.

Classification: Citrus / Fresh

Characteristics: Virgin Island Water captures the tropical splendor of scents carried in the trade winds of Sir Francis Drake Channel near Ginger Island in the Caribbean.

Top Note: Essence of copra (the white inner portion of the coconut); lime of the Antilles; white bergamot and mandarin orange from Sicily.
Middle Note: Hibiscus, ginger, ylang-ylang and Indian jasmine.
Bottom Note: Sugar cane and white rum of the Antilles, musk from Tonkin.

Virgin Island Water shows up on a lot of “best of” lists for summer scents and beachy scents. I can see why. On me the overall scent tilts toward the powdery flowers, Tonkin musk, and coconut milk. A little liquor sweetness and lime are in there for the few few minutes, but afterwards the fade into the background, as a hint of something that has past but might yet come round again. For something relatively floral and sweet, Virgin Island Water is very light on me. I can imagine keeping this one in a fridge to spray on before bed or after a cooling shower and feeling like I was scented without the scent wearing me. The sillage is moderate to low, and the staying power peters out around the four hour mark, which is on the short side. Normally I'd complain, but in the summer putting something on early in the day that disappears before the relentless heat descends can be a blessing.

Virgin Island Water is different from a lot of beach scents I've tried. It's less aggressively floral than Annick Goutal Songes. It's decidedly and delightfully more complex than Salt Air. It is less traditionally American beach fun than say, CB I Hate Perfume At the Beach 1966, or even Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess. The group of scents it mentally reminds me of most is the Un Jardin collection from Hermès. I can see it fitting right alongside Un Jardin Sur Le Nil and Un Jardin En Mediterranee. Delicate, sophisticate, and downright pretty, I highly recommend trying this one as you consider summer scent purchases.

The prices for Creed Virgin Island Water vary wildly; I saw 2.5oz for only $100. Retail is a bit higher, so shopping around on the internet for this one is worth the time if you want it. I got my sample from The Perfumed Court, but you should also check your local Nordstrom, as some stores are now carrying Creed.

Til next week, my lovelies!

Chewing out a rhythm on my bubble gum.
The sun is out and I want some.
It’s not hard, not far to reach.
We can hitch a ride
to rockaway beach.
~ "Rockaway Beach," The Ramones

A heaven, a gateway, a hope: A Review of Jo Malone's Sugar and Spice Collection

Yes, dear reader, I know what you're thinking: where you been, fool?

The answer is everywhere and nowhere, dear reader.  In my heart...in my head....I've been to world that only exist in my own dreams.  In reality? Mostly in Oregon, but also in Washington for a few weekends.

Either way, I obviously have not been here enough.  I hear you, reader.  You love me, but you'd also love a little consistency in posting.  This is a more than fair critique.

So, here's a promise from me to you.  Starting now, my goal is to be here at least once a week, every week, for the rest of 2013.  It's not as much as I'd like, but I wanted to keep my goals and commitments realistic.  And that's my commitment to you and this space.  Once a week. Be here or be square.

 Jo Malone's English Limited Edition Sugar and Spice Collection

Here's something I've enjoying lately -- the sugary sweet fruity food concoctions that make up this season's limited edition Jo Malone offerings, also known as the Sugar and Spice collection.  Christine Nagel of Mane is responsible for these five British dessert inspired delights.  She did the tea line from last season that I felt sort of meh about, but she also made Wild Bluebell and English Pear & Freesia, which I like, so I had hopes for the line.  I love a well made gourmand, and have absolutely no objection to smelling like food. So when they called and invited me to the formal presentation of the collection at Nordstrom's here in Portland, I decided I would find a way to make it work with my ridiculously busy schedule.

I went to their fancy food and presentation 'do, complete with the presence of a delightful British man also known as a national trainer for Jo Malone.  As he laid the thick and delicious patter of a man with a product to sell on us, all I wanted was to get to the juice.  That said, there was something a little delightful about drinking carefully concocted theme drinks and getting to eat the dessert the scent is based on while smelling the scents simultaneously.  And yes, they gave us delightful hand massages and a set of collection-inspired recipe cards, so it as an excellent afternoon of pampering. But let's not make the mistake here that they did there, shall we?  Let's get to the perfume.

The Sugar and Spice Collection contains the following five scents:

Lemon Tart - The mouth-watering tang of lemon tart. Sparkling with citrus fruits and verbena, contrasted with swirls of meringue and lemon thyme. Refreshing. 

Redcurrant & Cream - A summer pudding. Sharp-scarlet juices of redcurrants, lush strawberries and raspberries, rippling through creamy musk. Vivacious and enticing. 

Elderflower & Gooseberry - A voluptuous gooseberry fool. Crushed, summer-green gooseberries, juicy with lychee, enfolded into the soft delicacy of elderflower. Tender and feminine. 

Ginger Biscuit - Just-baked biscuit. Spiced with ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon, melting into caramel. Butter-crumbly with roasted hazelnuts. Warmed by tonka bean and vanilla. Irresistible. 

Bitter Orange & Chocolate - The bite of bitter orange, layered with dark chocolate.  Orange peel counterpoised with warm, powdery cocoa, milky coconut and coumarin.  Sumptuous and addictive.

Based solely on the descriptions, I went into the event thinking I was most likely to walk out with the Lemon Tart or the Elderflower & Gooseberry.  I enjoy a good lemon tart, and I was hoping the sugary aspect of the line would keep it away from the astringent/cleaner end of the citrus scent market.  As for the Elderflower & Gooseberry, I like drinking St. Germain as much as the next girl, so I thought there was promise to be held there.

Lemon Tart was foodie, but it was far too light for my taste.  It felt like it was a barely there scent.  I think part of the issue was that the focus of the scent seemed to be on the crust, and much like a tart with too much crust and not enough filling, it left something to be desired.  Nice, but not for a lemon lover like me.

Elderflower & Gooseberry on the other hand was a strange synthetic mess on me!  I was really sad about it, too.  It opened with the olfactory equivalent of white noise, fruits mash of indeterminate origin,  and something sharp, like alcohol. If you'd asked me before the event, I'd have told you this certain to be my favorite of the group.  Worse still, lots of the attendants seemed to really like it so I have to believe this one was mostly bouncing off my body chemistry. Others found bliss, so you might, too.  For me, though? Nope.  A complete nonstarter.

Next up? Ginger Biscuit. Now we were getting somewhere.  Ginger-in all its various forms-is the favored flavor and scent of El Hubs, so much so that I wore a relatively inexpensive and now defunct ginger scent, Origins Ginger with a Twist, on my wedding day because he liked it and back then I didn't know jack about perfume.  So here is this sweet, foodie delight with a legitimately realistic ginger happening in the opening. David eats candied ginger by the pound, and this is like that first burst when one bites past the sugary outside and into the stinging tartness in the middle.   After about twenty minutes, it slides into a delicious buttery cookie with crystallized ginger topping.  The vanilla and tonka make up the cookie dough, anchoring all that ginger decidedly in the dessert world. This one was a win for me, and I knew it would be a win for David.  Into the basket to purchase it went.

Redcurrant & Cream is a delightful berry in the opening, but that disappears quite quickly. Then it's all about musk and cream, smooth across the palette with a bitter edge, like the berries underneath are sharp and green and not quite ripe.  Foodie? On me, it is decidedly less dessert-y than the rest of the collection. But it did feel like the buzz of stumble drunk bees buzzing in the open u-pick berry fields ones finds around Oregon and Washington in the warm, bright days of summer.  I knew I would want to wear the Ginger Biscuit on those bright warm days, and this was a light, full, colorful berry blend that I could see myself reaching for when late June and July rolled around.  After some lengthy internal debate, it went into the To Be Bought pile as well.

Last up, Bitter Orange & Chocolate.  If I had been laying bets before I smelled the collection, I'd have told you this one was destined to be the great loser of the bunch.  Good orange scents are surprisingly hard to find.  Good chocolate scents? Even harder.  To try to make a realistic blend of both that even remotely resembled one of my favorite holiday treats-the perennial chocolate orange-seemed a feat, frankly, beyond Jo Malone, and I say that as a fan of the line, generally speaking.

Boy, was I wrong.  This smells just like the shiny foil wrapped chocolate orange of my holiday dreams! Orange dominates in the opening, and while not all that reminiscent of the smell or taste of a real orange, it is pitch perfect for the orange that I know from the classic dessert. The chocolate is dry and a little powdery, but terrific. In my opinion, this is the it of this collection.  The trainer announced they had only four bottles of it left in Washington or Oregon, which tells me that my tastes must align with the 'fumies in my area, because I snatched a bottle up immediately.

There it is, my friends.  In the end I bought three bottles, and not one of them was one of the two I expected when I walked in the door.  Proof that try before you buy holds true for all noses. Am I sucker? For dessert scents, apparently I am.  But I've been living with these bottles for about a month now and I don't regret it at all.  I also got a ton of samples from the Cologne Intense collection I hadn't tried and a gift with purchase of 10ml of both Grapefruit, which I find useful for layering but not as a stand alone, and Orange Blossom, which is one of my favorites. Frankly? I feel like I made out like a bandit.

I checked online today, and the entire collection is still available online. All of the scents are available in the 50ml bottle for $60, but I advise you pop by your local Jo Malone counter and give them all a sniff before you commit.