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!)

Roger & Gallet Shiso soap

Ugh-- I've been home sick with a stomach bug for the past few days. I've been catching up on tv watching and that's about it. A hot shower when sick, though, is an excellent remedy to feel better. My dear friend Nicole in France mailed me a beauty product care package about a month ago, and in it was this lovely Roger & Gallet Shiso soap. Their packaging is so pretty, I can't bear to recycle it. The empty box is now in my linen closet, scenting the shelves.

I'm not sure what shiso is, or what the notes in the soap actually are. I detect a lot of green, and that makes me happy. The best way I can describe it is that it smells like a bouquet of fresh wildflowers, with a couple of pink roses, too. It's not sweet, or anything like tuberose or jasmine, but more like fresh cut grass and hay and fresh air. Surprisingly, it's reminiscent of Chanel No. 19 lotion- a lotion I bought on a whim last year because I liked how fresh it smelled. (Unfortunately, I didn't wait long enough for the lotioin to settle into my skin the day I bought it. It smells so fresh at first, but later falls flat.) The soap, on the other hand, retains its freshness. It's a good thing to smell in the shower.

Roger & Gallet soaps are luscious and long lasting. They retain their shape throughout. It took me three months to get through the Citron bar and the one I used after that, the heavenly and simple Oatmeal Milk. Roger & Gallet soaps are my favorite. They're a little spendy at $6, but $6 for 3 months is completely worth it.