Annick Goutal Neroli, eau de toilette

All week long I’ve been reaching for Neroli. It’s a lovely, fresh scent for spring. When I first smelled it, I wrote it off as a one-sided one-note juice that faded too fast. I’ve struggled with Annick Goutal fragrances. To my nose, they all carry a similar thread of something that smells watery and ozonic. I love Eau d’Hadrian when it’s sprayed in the air, or on other people, but not on me. My dad gave me his half-used bottle, and on him it’s all lemon zest; on me it’s all chemical lemon cleaner. I like Violette … but not enough to buy it. Too powdery. Le Chevrefeuille is nice and light, but a little too airy for me, and combined with that weird ozonic note that I keep smelling (am I the only one?), it’s just too much.

As much as the ozonic smell kept turning me away from Annick Goutal, there was something that kept drawing me back, too. I think I fell under the spell of AG’s pretty little bottles and the brand's niche status. My local Nordstrom's AG section is alluring: all those cream boxes and bottles with gauze bows. I nearly smelled all of them, and the only one I liked was Neroli. I debated buying it. I’m glad I did!Wearing it all this week, I’ve discovered that it’s not only green and stemmy-- really perfect for spring, but it’s also a quiet, subtle floral, and not too sweet. It smells like when you hold a ripe, unpeeled orange up to your nose. A little juicy but not orange juice. No Minute Maid here. It’s slightly powdery but very, very soft.

I tend to apply it liberally, almost more like a splash. It has almost no sillage, yet I can still detect it hours later if I bury my nose into my forearm. There are random moments when I get that ozonic odor, and something like bad breath, but those moments fade into the softest orange blossom loveliness. While it’s certainly too expensive to treat like a true splash, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s ok if I actually finish up a bottle of perfume. I’d rather apply liberally and enjoy it than have it go bad. I’d love to try to matching shower gel … but my Cattier orange blossom suits me just fine (and is waaaay less expensive than the AG shower gel!)

Product Body Road Wash

I won this a few weeks ago in a contest! It’s Product Body Road Wash, a hand (or body) soap that’s halfway between solid and liquid. Product Body is based in Florida and run by a sweet woman named Joanna, who regularly blogs about the day-to-day doings at her company. I entered a giveaway contest, and actually won! Holy moly! I never win anything! So anyway, back to Road Wash. It’s actually not the first time I’ve used it. Last year I ordered some Whipped Shea Butter from Product Body (review to follow) and Joanna graciously included a small sample of grapefruit Road Wash. It was heavenly and smelled wonderful and fresh, but wasn’t overly scented. Just enough scent—perfect, really. I hate when soaps and lotions go overboard with scents; they either conflict with my perfume or give me a headache. The prize (pictured above) is scented with yuzu, aka ugli fruit, a citrus fruit that smells like a combination of lemon, grapefruit, orange and a little verbena.

It’s terrific! I use it all day at work, and it’s certainly much nicer than the pump soap in the bathrooms at the office. Just a tiny scoop creates loads of suds. It cleans my hands well and rinses clean, too. Pushing paper all day wreaks havoc on my poor hands; Road Wash is very softening. And it smells divine! So citrusy and yum. Not only was it awesome to win a contest (and get a little package in the mail at the end of a crappy week at work), but it’s also awesome winning something that I already loved! Hooray!

You can find the link to the Product Body website here, and Joanna’s blog here.

Here’s what’s nuts: I won another giveaway earlier this week from the perfume blog Sweet Diva! I have no idea what is going on with the universe, but the stars have aligned to my favor. The scent gods are smiling my way. Lucky me! Sweet Diva was cleaning out her numerous samples and will send me a little packet of them soon. Her blog is pretty terrific. She gives excellent reviews seems to like white florals a lot, which is helpful because I do, too. Sweet Diva can be read here.

To rebalance the karma, I finally bought a bunch of tiny, empty perfume vials to make samples for my friends and family. I love reading perfume and beauty blogs, but know how much work they take to maintain. I’m thinking these two random wins are big signs to me to get back into posting regularly on this blog. Stay tuned!

Serge Lutens Fleurs d'Oranger eau de parfum

I first smelled Fleurs d'Oranger at The Perfume House this past summer. Serge Lutens is probably my favorite perfume line. Every time I'm at The Perfume House (one of the only places in the United States that carries the line, and, lucky for me, in Portland!), I always linger in the Serge Lutens section.

Even though I don't care for every Serge Lutens creation, I always find them interesting. They're some of the most innovative, different scents I've ever smelled. It's very black or white with me and Serge-- either I fall madly, deeply in love or the juice is totally, completely not for me. This is trouble. How do you not buy a perfume you fall madly in love with, at first sniff? I thought I'd had my fill with A La Nuit, a gorgeous blend of three types of jasmine. I couldn't wait to get to Paris to buy Bois de Violette (one that's not imported to the United States). I didn't care for Douce Amere, Datura Noire, Chergui or Fumerie Turque. Or even Sa Majeste La Rose. I thought I'd smelled what I'd smelled and had my fill (as had my wallet).

Then Fleurs d'Oranger wacked me upside the head.

I was at The Perfume House to meet Angela for the first time. She's a writer for my favorite perfume blog, Now Smell This, and when I found out she lived in Portland, too, I suggested we meet at the shop for some sniffing.

I'd already sprayed it before she got there. I met her, shook her hand and then said, "Ok, smell this!" And shoved my wrist under her nose. Without missing a beat she said, "Wow, that's gorgeous on you!" and I said, "Yeah, I know, OH NO!"

$110 later, I was the proud owner of a 50 mL bottle, all wrapped up in a polkadotted black bag (I also bought Louis Ferraud's Love Story, for a whopping $33! Couldn't pass it up).

Where do I even start with such a great scent? In the beginning, I get the most perfect, equal blend of tuberose, jasmine and candied orange peel. It sparkles. It shines. It illuminates. It brings me such joy. Underneathe all that is the most gorgeous, freshest rose I've ever smelled in a perfume. It's subtle; the jasmine and tuberose definitely fight for the front row, but there it is: rose rose rose.

What follows is a touch of cumin (Angela picked this out right away and it was confirmed from the little list of notes the store had). I don't think I would have picked it out myself, but now that I know of it (and smelled a jar of powdered cumin back at home to verify what it smells like), I can smell it in the background. It's slowly simmering on the back burner. It grounds the sweetness, diminishes the potential cloyingness and most of all, gives the perfume warmth. This scent is far from cool; it radiates sparkly rays of sunshine and always cheers me up.

Coincidentally, one of my male friends fell in love with it, too, about a month ago. He's a fellow perfume fan, and is the person who introduced me to The Perfume Shop a couple years ago. All Serge Lutens fragrances are unisex. On him, the orange really shines through, along with a bitter tea note and lots of woods. I love that-- how the same scent can smell so different on someone else.

Kelly Caleche Eau de Toilette - Hermes

The bottle to this perfume is gorgeous-- all tall and elegant, with pink-hued perfume. I'd been eager to try this; it was created by Jean-Claude Ellena, Hermes' in-house perfumer. I became a big Ellena fan after reading an article in The New Yorker about how he created Un Jardin Sur Le Nil in 2004. Chandler Burr wrote that article (and is now the perfume critic for The New York Times) and chronicled Ellena's process from start to finish. Reading that article kickstarted my interest in perfume.

Back to Kelly Caleche. It's very, very pretty. According to Ozmos, its notes are: Top: green notes, lily-of-the-valley, rose and narcissus; Middle: climbing rose, mimosa, tuberose; Base: iris, woodsy notes, leather accord. What I smell most is lemon, followed by tea rose and soft leather. The leather isn't as overwhelming as walking into a leather store but more like burrowing your nose into a supple leather handbag. It's subtle. Upon first spray last night I said, Oh! Now that's a scent for me! It's softly layered and opens very quietly and gradually. I get hints of green lemons and menthol and the softest rose. It's less in my face that Coco Mademoiselle.

Ultimately, I don't think I'll invest in a full bottle. It's too similar to Un Jardin Sur Le Nil for me to fork over $75. In France, many perfumes are available in 30 mL, the perfect amount, in my opinion. Just enough, especially if, like Kelly Caleche, it's pretty but not mind-blowing.

Roger & Gallet Cedrat-Citron soap

I bought this soap for 4 euros in Reims, France, while visiting friends earlier this month. Cedrat is French for Citron, a type of citrus tree that yields a lemon-like fruit. (Confusingly, "citron" in French means "lemon" in English.)

The soap smells very woodsy and lemony, bordering on Pine Sol, but fresh nonetheless. It starts out with hits of cedar and pine which quickly parlay into lemons; less lemon zest and more lemon juice, or how lemon curd smells. It's more of a masculine scent than I'm used to, and while its scent lingered in my bathroom for a few hours, it only left a light fragrance on my body. The soap itself is light yellow, as big as my palm and about an inch thick. It has a great lather without being too drying or giving my skin an overly squeaky-clean feeling.

Roger & Gallet soaps are long lasting and have a 100% vegetal base. The company created the first round soap; according to their website, up until 1879 all soaps were square or rectangle shaped.

I'm a little obsessed with orange blossom right now, so after using this soap yesterday I wore Neroli by Annick Goutal (review to follow).

*photo courtesy of beautyexclusive.com