Nancy's story was far too beguiling to copy and paste into teeny blog sized chunks, so here it is in full. Thank you Nancy for telling us such a personal tale so eloquently and I'm sorry I was your 'enabler' in the Armani purchase. It sounds like it was worth the investment though!
If you haven't read the introductory post about the adventure or Tresor's story, you can click here and here. That way you will understand what we were up to. Part 4 will appear soon with (finally) my edit of the other participants.
Nancy, pictured with essential hurricane survival equipment, canine best mate and perfume are obviously the crucial elements!
How
many different scents would you apply in an average week?
Between 12 and 20
What
factors influence your choice of scent, e.g. season, mood, time of day etc? And
do specific genres appeal to you more than others within these factors?
Influences include:
Season and the temperature. I am a huge fan of oriental fragrances, which for the most part do
better in cooler weather. In summer it is extremely hot and humid in New
Orleans, where I live. I choose citrus, herbal, and light floral fragrances
when it’s hot. Now that it is getting cool outside, I lean heavily to
fragrances with amber, spices, patchouli, vanilla, incense, wood, licorice, labdanum,
and lush florals. Rose goes any time of day and any temperature, by the way!
Time of day.
A lot of times I need motivation to get myself up in the morning. I use a
lively fragrance to give me a boost. Maybe something with orange blossom or ginger
or citrus or pepper. I do rely heavily on bath products with a nice scent so
that my shower is also a fragranced experience. It wakes up my senses.
In the afternoons and evenings I usually
reach for more challenging, unusual scents. Depending on the next section,
which is:
Mood and occasion. When I want to
project a certain image or feel a certain degree of confidence, such as a
professional situation, I like to wear iris fragrances or even very fine, more
abstract fragrances that don’t project too far. They make me feel strong. If
I’m going to the symphony I prefer lush, exquisite fragrances, usually
orientals. For funerals I tend to go with something soft, woody, and powdery.
Date night—well that just depends! Sometimes I want to be snuggly, sometimes
sexy, and usually all of these other factors play into it as well. When I’m sad
I want a comfort scent with sweetness, when I’m happy I want something zingy or
more adventurous.
New purchase. When I buy a new bottle of perfume it
is really hard to resist wearing it immediately! So sometimes I throw all of
these previously mentioned factors to the wind and put on that incredible new
scent. This goes for receiving samples of fragrances as well—I want to test
them as soon as I can.
Health. My
health plays an extremely important role in my choice of fragrance. I have some
chronic health problems, and when they flare up I choose comfort scents above
all else. I seem to be drawn over and over to powdery ambers, woods, and
incense, and vanilla notes.
Roughly
how large is your collection of full bottles, decants and samples?
I am not as good at organizing my
collection as some folks are. I need to make a spreadsheet or something. I’m
too lazy to do an exact count, but I own close to 200 bottles of perfume,
another 40 to 60 decants, and at least 800 to 1,000 sample vials. I keep a
notebook now of anything perfume related, especially listing fragrances I would
like to sample.
How
do you feel about sticking to just one scent for 3 days and nights?
I felt surprisingly anxious! Would I choose
the right one? Would it satisfy my moods and cravings? Would I accidentally,
out of habit, reach for another perfume and spray it on during the day?
What
scent did you choose for this adventure and why?
I chose Ambre Soie by Armani/Prive. It
wasn’t an easy decision but here is my reasoning: it has a number of notes that
satisfy me a lot of the time, having an oriental, spicy, and sweet, balsamic
composition. So it’s well-rounded enough to give me the oomph I crave in the
morning with the ginger and pepper, but smooth and mellow and comforting
through the cooler weather, with amber, patchouli, cloves, and all sorts of
soft spices. And it has a wonderful licorice zing in it that I love so much. I
can focus on different components of the fragrance and get different sensory
responses. And finally, Ambre Soie is a new purchase for me. It was pretty
expensive, and I was feeling sort of guilty for dropping that kind of money
right now in my life. I figured if I could use it for this experiment I would
have an excellent excuse for splurging on this!!! Thanks Sarah!
How
would you describe your involvement with the perfume world?
I live in New Orleans, Louisiana, where I
was born and have lived most of my adult life. I have always had an excellent
sense of smell—my parents would ask me to sniff things out for them in the
house. I have known since childhood that I respond to smells emotionally. I
remember my mother bringing me to the grocery store with her when I was about
two years old. The man stocking the aisles told my mother how “precious” I was.
He had a very strong body odor, and to this day when I hear the word precious I think “stinky.”
Like so many fragrance fanatics nowadays, I
had my collection of fragrances growing up. And I loved to smell my
grandmother’s perfume. A world-class pianist who spent her childhood in Hungary
and Paris as a prodigy studying with masters in Europe, my grandmother had
exquisite taste. She wore two fragrances: Je Reviens by Worth and Bal a
Versailles by Jean Desprez. It is the Bal a Versailles I remember on her the
most, and it is and will always be the epitome of sophistication.
But it wasn’t until I turned 30 years old
that I had a fragrance epiphany. I’ve read a lot of research and personal
accounts to try to explain the phenomenon, but I won’t go into all that now.
Suffice it to say, I got very sick with a pneumonia infection that would not
clear from my body. The acute lung problems subsided, but I lived with fever
and the ravages of this pathogen in my system for more than 15 years before
getting effective treatment. In the meantime, my sense of smell, or perhaps my
perception of smell, blossomed. If I were outside speaking to someone, for
example, and the wind blew, I would be so distracted from my conversation
because of the light smell of sweet olive drifting through the breeze. Or
gardenia. Or whatever was growing out there. I would completely miss what the
other person was saying to me and have to go seek out the flower immediately. My
friends joked that I had become an “idiot savant” of sorts, distracted easily
from movies and social activities because of a smell.
I started reading about fragrances, found
myself joining my first chat room-bulletin board website and immersing myself
into the world of perfume. I ordered niche fragrances from a few recommended
sources, and, well, it all began.
I would like to tell one story that
pertains to your dream, Sarah. You dreamed of the anxiety you had trying to
choose scents and relocate in a hurry. What a great way to get this whole
exercise started—to choose just one scent for days.
This was a reality for me
in 2005 when, after Hurricane Katrina, the levees failed and the city flooded. I
find that I am still having trouble writing about this experience almost 10
years later. Suffice it to say that the stress was unbelievable. My mother was
recovering from brain surgery (she was okay but her sense of balance was not
good), my father, a physician who never left his hospitalized patients during a
hurricane, was himself in intensive care for heart trouble. I have my own
illness problems. I saw the storm was coming and had to get my parents’
organized, including packing necessities like canned goods, water, and 3 dogs.
We rode out the storm at the hospital and all went well. But when we heard
rumors about the levees and flooding, it was another ordeal to try to get out
of the city before we were stuck. There was no electricity, no television or
phones working, and we didn’t know if we could find enough fuel for the car to
get us to a safe destination. My birthday was mixed in there somewhere too.
From Friday until Tuesday it was survival
mode nonstop. I didn’t know what day it was when we got to Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and had to be told it was Tuesday. I broke down at that point—the
first moment I had had to breathe, and to shower!!!! In the following week we were
able to get to Mobile, Alabama, where my brother and his family live and where
I would live for the next two months. After a week or so in Mobile, I started
trying to buy some things—a few pieces of clothing, some shoes, face cream,
etc. Our world was spinning, as we found out that more than 13 feet of water
was sitting, stagnant in our family home in New Orleans. All gone. My
grandmother’s beloved Steinway grand piano had been flipped over in the rush of
water and had drifted into another room. I can imaging the creeping noise as
the water raised up and hit the strings. Heartbreak.
The horrific eye of Hurricane Katrina
Worried about cars, insurance, trying to
find friends and coworkers, all this craziness. And in the midst of it all, a
large box was delivered to my brother’s house addressed to me. Inside
it…perfume!!!! My friends online, at MakeUp Alley, had all pitched in and found
me. Full, new bottles, large decants, sample vials, even flip-flops, which I
really needed! I was floored. Loving notes. My family looked in the box,
completely bewildered. What is that? Perfume? It was so odd to see, and so
utterly beautiful. I cried. I came to the conclusion that food, water, and
shrimp boots are necessary for hurricane survival, but perfume and the love of
a perfume community—well that is true humanity and civilization.
Diary:
Monday:
Day one of the challenge. I sprayed Ambre
Soie on and inhaled a beautiful, smooth sweet scent with a little cinnamon and
ginger. Amber is not too prominent, and there is some ginger and thin patchouli
lurking around. Very pretty. But is it too smooth and a little watered-down?
I’m worried I’m going to get bored with this one sooner than I thought, now
that I know I have to wear it for three straight days! I head out to a coffee
shop with my computer. And then, wow, here comes the licorice! I had almost
forgotten that wonderful licorice punch that convinced me to purchase this
fragrance in the first place. I spend an hour or so with my wrist glued to my
nose, inhaling sweet resins and licorice. Aaaaah! By nighttime it’s just a
warm, extremely close-to-the-skin scent. I give myself some more sprays.
A much-anticipated sample came in the mail
today, and I’m frustrated that I can’t try it out on my skin. I didn’t even try
to smell it from the sample vial for fear of the temptation.
Tuesday:
Again with the Ambre Soie. Today I pulled
out a lot more warm, stewed fruits in the opening. Was surprised I didn’t
notice them as much yesterday. Perhaps this idea of using the same fragrance
often allows me to smell more nuances or focus on whatever my need du jour is. It’s much colder today too.
I’m pulling as much warmth from this scent as I can. Labdanum, patchouli, clean
amber, ginger, clove. It’s truly gorgeous. And the licorice blast. I’m still
happy with this one!
Wednesday:
Last day of the challenge and I’m glad for
it. I completely love and appreciate Ambre Soie and feel enveloped in deep
brown and purple satin. I’m getting a hint of a more masculine aspect of the
fragrance today and can see how a man would love this too. It’s warm but not
cloying, sweet but with spices peaking out all the time. My temptation for
spraying a floral scent on is intense today, and I am eyeing my bottle of
Penhaligon’s Amaranthine. Don’t worry; I was faithful to the challenge.
My other temptation comes when
participating in my online fragrance groups and reading my favorite perfume
blogs. Descriptions of scents are like menu items when I’m hungry; I’m gaining
an appetite for them and the cravings are growing strong. I settle in to my
last night of smooth, Ambre Soie softness and drift off to sleep.
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