5/16/12

My Spring Picks

May is the loveliest month. It's not too hot, sometimes even cool outside, with occasional showers coloring everything forty shades of green. And man oh man, do I like me some green - the greener the better.

This month I've used a steady rotation of all the greenest stuff in my arsenal. Mind you, I consider anything with heady florals and herbs to be green, as well as pure greens featuring citrus and grasses. The season for green is surprisingly short - by August I've switched to muskier fare. But it's beautiful while it lasts. The past two weeks have seen repeated applications of the following:
Tsar (Van Cleef & Arpels) - Simply an amazing fougère. Such gorgeous bergamot, lavender, artemisia, oakmoss, and many other dark, spicy green notes. It's more refreshing than a walk through a forest in the rain.

Sport Field (Adidas) - This is Creed Green Valley Lite. A pop of lemon and ginger, then hours of air conditioned coumarin playing the grassiest one-note I've ever smelled. Divine, and criminally affordable.

Silences (Jacomo) - Perfect for rainy days. Starts off with a punch of galbanum, and slips through the reeds into flowers and bouquets of cut stems. When I smell this on my shirt the day after, I totally understand the meaning of "true green" in perfumery. This is nature in a bottle.

Sung Homme (Alfred Sung) - A good spicy, soapy, and unerringly green chypre with the soul of a fresh fougère. Nice on Thursdays and Fridays when Irish Spring 2.0 is the desired effect.

Horizon (Guy Laroche) - Bright grapefruit, mint, lavender, crushed herbs, dihydromyrcenol, ambergris, and cedar, all bundled in a seaweedy aquamarine-colored bottle. I don't reach for it as often as the others, but I never regret it when I do. Another good one for the rain.

Brut (Helen of Troy) - White floral powder. Not good for high heat, but when there's still a cool breeze to cut the sun, Brut works wonders, especially with light application.

Pour un Homme de Caron (Caron) - I'm never really sure when to wear this scent. Its frigid lavender top is too cold for winter; the warm and powdery vanilla-musk base is too heavy for summer. Spring is a good season I suppose. Autumn too, but we have Yatagan for autumn. Anyway, you can't go wrong with hyper-realistic bouquets of French lavender. The fragrance for gentlemen, this stuff is.
Just as an aside: Am I the only one who finds Kristen Stewart attractive? My guy friends think she's mediocre, even unattractive. As a movie buff I'm familiar with all the current beautiful female stars, and there's certainly a slew of more traditionally-beautiful women coming out of Hollywood, but I dunno . . . Ms. Stewart has always captured my imagination in ways the other gals couldn't. Although I hate most of her films (except The Runaways), I often find myself watching them just to see how she moves through the frames. The girl's got something going on. Anyhoo . . . thanks for reading.