What a difference a day makes

By Tom Saturday here was overcast and cool for the first time in a week, which is great news for the firefighters here. Today (Sunday) was hotter, but we might actually get rain on Monday. I stopped into ScentBar on Saturday to visit the Lutens, since they are now carrying most of the line in the store, not online. I also sniffed the two new Commes des Garcons, Luxe Champaca and Luxe Patchouli, which are lovely, but I think a bit overpriced at $265, gorgeous bottles or not. The new Parfums d'Empire are spectacular and I will be cadging samples soon for a review. PG's Cadjmere is beautiful: citrus, cypress and milky woods- I don't think that company has made a wrong move yet. Being primarily a visual person, I am horrible with names so I apologize in advance to the two nice ladies who were in the store with me whom I had met at the LA sniffa, we (and my friend) spritzed and chatted and had a wonderful time. One of them had a sample of the new Guerlain Spiriteuse Double Vanilla, which is a stunner- incensey vanilla goodness and that Querlain drydown. She told me she has a bottle coming. I want to stalk her. Sunday, I needed to buy a belt. I am on a diet in the fond hope of getting back to the weight of the photo of myself I gave to Kelley to post. The 33" jeans are falling off, but I am not going to buy new ones when I have perfectly good 30" ones waiting for me to get back into them. So it was off to the Beverly Center. I also had a secondary mission: someone mentioned the scent "Cumming" and I was determined to track it down. It's at Sephora, but sadly, only online. Downstairs to Macy', no luck there on the belt front. I did espy a bottle if Givenchy PI, which I spritzed on my wrist, it seemed a pleasant rosemary and citrus thing, but almost immediately the MKK I was wearing kicked it in the privates, stole it's lunch money and made it cry. I asked the handsome SA if they had samples of it. He looked blankly at me and spritzed a card. I explained that I was wearing something else and I wanted to smell it on my body, not on paper. He looked, if possible more blankly at me when from the other side of the perfume counter a peevish voice shrilled "we don't give out samples". I know, I could have taken the escalators up to the 7th floor back to Sephora and they would have made me a sample, but at that point why bother? (The Beverly Center is the oddest mall, the ground floor has Macy's mens store, some restaurants like the now-defunct Hard Rock cafe, and a Bed Bath and Beyond, then there are 6 levels of parking and then on top of that is the rest of the mall.) Therein lies the difference a day makes, and why going to the locals, the ones who aren't just doing it for the commission, the passionate ones is always best. I have bought maybe four bottles of perfume from ScentBar since it has opened and my friend has bought bubkus. She and I have never been treated in less than the most welcoming manner, and it's certainly not because of any power that I imagine myself to have from this blog. They take real joy in this, as do the boys at Aedes in NY (who were so sweet to me when I was there last week I wanted them to adopt me), or Allesandro at All Purpose in LA. I am sure that each of you can fill in your favorite SA, who might even be from a Macys who is the same way. At the Beverly Center I could have been riding a power mower wearing nothing but my black Amex with my hair on fire and not gotten any attention at all, except perhaps to be told that I had to valet the mower. I found a belt and two cashmere/cotton sweaters for 29 bucks apiece at Old Navy and a lovely lunch at Beverly Falafel (which is worth a trip on it's own). Image source, seeing-stars.com.