Beautiful sillage is a sign of sainthood in the Orthodox tradition. The fragrance, or mirro (holy myrrh), can be emitted by real life saints, saint’s relics or even icons, painted images of saints. It’s common even today to hear stories of icons shedding myrrh and filling the whole church with the heavenly scent. Such events are called thaumata, a Greek word for wonders. They’re not miracles in the supernatural sense like walking on water or feeding 4,000 with seven loaves of bread. Thaumata are everyday marvels, brief glimpses of the divine through the veil covering us. The same kind of wonder is held responsible for icons, because to paint a saint it’s not enough simply to have artistic skills. One has to be inspired.

“I didn’t mean to become an icon painter. It was never my goal as an art student. I can’t explain it, but in the end, that’s just what happened,” says Natalya Gladovska, an icon painter at the Lavra Art Studios. My mental image of an icon painter owes much to Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev–a somber bearded monk in black robes. Gladovska laughs when I tell her so. She’s warm and bubbly, and everything about her, down to her tendrils of abundant red hair escaping from a loose bun, is filled with energy and verve.

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If a brand promises a separate product to extend the lasting power of its perfumes, it’s either a sign of a gimmick or technical problems with its fragrances. That being said, if your skin is dry, then you might notice scents vanishing quickly, but this trouble is solved by any good drugstore moisturizer. Where does it leave Crème Pour Le Corps Les Exclusifs de Chanel, Chanel’s rich body cream designed to be layered with the fragrances from its Les Exclusifs collection? It’s not quite a dull gimmick, but it’s not an essential product either.

Crème Pour Le Corps is an excellent moisturizer, and if your budget has space for a $130 body cream, then by all means, try it for that reason alone. The cream absorbs instantly, but it leaves my skin soft for hours, always a plus. On the other hand, there are wonderful products available from Avène, La Roche Posay, Eucerin, and Ren, and I’m not a big fan of jar packaging; for hygienic reasons I prefer tubes or pump dispensers.

The only reason I’d possibly consider Crème Pour Le Corps would be its purported ability to make the ethereal 28 La Pausa wear like iron. I think of 28 La Pausa as an iris cologne, and I use it lavishly as such, but at times I really wish this tender blend of iris, mellow woods and musk wouldn’t vanish so fast. Which is why I decided to experiment by layering it with Crème Pour Le Corps. I’ve undertaken said experiment with my usual geeky pedantry scientific precision. I’ve applied a layer of cream on one arm and added two sprays of 28 La Pausa. My other arm received just two spritzes of La Pausa, without any cream. I waited and sniffed my arms intermittently.

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Taking Alaïa note by note is complicated, but since Azzedine Alaïa became famous for his unusually structured knitted dresses, perhaps, this is only to be expected. While most fashion designers don’t convey much of their aesthetic in fragrance lines they launch (see Miu Miu), Alaïa is an exception. Fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa wanted to incorporate recollections from his Tunisian childhood but avoid any trite “oriental” references; the idea instead is to convey couture with a personal touch. For me it works.

Alaïa is a transparent modern floral, with a velvety woody-musky drydown. Alaïa doesn’t shock, but it is different from the legions of fruity bonanzas and cotton candy laced new releases: its combination of abstract flowers and mineral, wet chalk nuances is surprising; its manner of rendering animalic notes is novel, and its gauzy but enveloping sillage is alluring. It’s a promising debut.

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We have our “Recommend Me a Perfume” thread today. You can use this space to ask any questions about perfume, including fragrance recommendations. Meanwhile, I’m working on some new perfume reviews and stories.

How does it work: 1. Please post your requests or questions as comments here. You can also use this space to ask any fragrance related questions. To receive recommendations that are better tailored to your tastes, you can include details on what you like and don’t like, your signature perfumes, and your budget. And please let us know what you end up sampling. 2. Then please check the thread to see if there are other requests you can answer. Your responses are really valuable for navigating the big and sometimes confusing world of perfume, so let’s help each other!

To make this thread easier to read, when you reply to someone, please click on the blue “reply” link under their comment.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

The tea in my cup was bright blue. The friend who gave me a herbal mixture for what she called “Estonian Blue Lagoon Tea” promised lots of color, but I still didn’t expect a shade of aquamarine. The taste was refreshing and minty, perfect as both a cooling summer drink and a morning pick me up. I wondered what the famous devotee of herbal teas, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, would make of it. What was this mysterious blue herb?

Poirot’s detective skills weren’t needed to discover that Estonian tea, or more properly tisane, since it contains no true tea leaves, is made of blue mallow or hollyhock. It’s the same plant that the Roman scholar Pliny recommended for so many ailments that it became known as an omnimorbia, or cure-all, while the feisty Japanese lady-in-waiting Sei Shonagon found its beautiful flowers most unsuitable if worn in frizzled hair. All of this only added to the appeal of my Estonian discovery, which I loved as much for its gorgeous color as its soft floral taste.

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