Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

If Nuit de Cellophane arrived under a big perfume house label, I would probably not have smelled it more than a couple of times and forgotten it, but it is a testament to the pull of Serge Lutens’ name that despite my initial disappointment, I kept revisiting it. I suppose that I have held hope that one day I would smell this bland fruity-floral and will figure out what Serge Lutens was trying to achieve with it. It has been a year since I have first smelled Nuit de Cellophane and no such revelation has occurred—it still smells like shampoo to me and I still do not care for it.

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What fragrances do you notice on other people?

I love noticing fragrances on people around me: strangers in the subway, friends, colleagues, dancers in my studio. It is exciting to recognize a familiar perfume, which always feels as if I’m encountering an old friend. If I cannot place a scent, but it feels familiar, the gnawing feeling will be there in the back of my mind until I finally figure it out. After all, I am scent obsessed, as you might gather from reading this blog! In NYC these days, I often smell Juicy Couture, J’Adore and Jennifer Aniston on other women.

Photo of Caroll Baker, Cannes, May 1965 by Claude Azoulay, from vintage_glamor.ru.

Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

If only Tom Ford White Patchouli upheld the promise of its opening accord, I would have been ready to give it 5 stars. It opens up on such a sultry accord of spices and amber with patchouli’s chocolate bitterness perceptible underneath; it is difficult not to fall under its spell. Yet, after an opulent prelude, the composition veers into the barren territory of sharp woods and pale musks. Perhaps this suggests that I prefer my patchouli in the darker registers, full of its earthy, pungent facets.

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In the city, with its molten asphalt streets and suffocating subway cars, it is easy to forget the allure of summer. But the moment you leave the city, the summer appears in all of its indolent glory. Everything that seems to have been forgotten returns within a heartbeat—the long days of sunshine, lunches that somehow segue into dinners,  lazy afternoon naps. It seems as if summer is here to stay with its sounds of laughter, waves breaking against the shore, and rain dancing on the roof. And its sensations of rough sand against bare feet, of someone’s lips against your sunburnt skin, of velvety peaches. And its tastes of foraged wild raspberries, of grilled prawns, of milky corn.

And of course, the summer scents. My favorite summer perfumes not only capture the idea of summer, but they also evoke it well into the winter. Since in the summer I tend to have more time to change my perfume wardrobe, I have organized my selections around the scents I like to wear at different times of day.

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I love reading old cookbooks. One is immediately immersed into another world, where the daily concerns, dietary beliefs and time constraints are very different from ours. The recipes reflect all of this, ranging from simple preparations to complex affairs requiring extra helping hands. Whether I open a 19th century book published in Russia or in France, I know that there is always something intriguing to anticipate, a new taste, a new technique, a new inspiration.

The main reason for my fascination with older cookbooks, however, lies in the explicit link between olfaction and cooking. Previous generations of cooks were quite savvy when it came to aromas, and they understood the basic principles of blending spices and herbs to create distinctive flavors. Recipes for perfumes were commonplace in cookbooks published before the 20th century, and those could be found alongside recipes for liqueurs and cordials. With the growth of the commercial perfume industry, the tradition of homemade fragrances waned and it is likely that many interesting preparations have simply been forgotten.

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