Perfume Posse Visits (part of) Perfume Smellin' Things

By Tom March and Patty of Perfume Posse came to Los Angeles to visit and host an event at ScentBar this weekend and of course I could no more pass up the chance to meet them than I could give up, well, perfume! They actually came in slightly earlier than the day of the event, and since I love to show people the city who haven't been here before (as March hadn't) I volunteered to drive them around on Friday for shopping and hanging out. I will admit that there was a small amount of trepidation as there always is meeting someone that you have this Internets relationship with, electronically intimate enough that you feel like you have shared lives, but have never spent any time with in person. Would me mesh? Would they find me hopelessly boring? Would there be long periods of uncomfortable silences followed by furtive calls to friends to ask them to call back and pretend they're locked out of their place and being attacked by man-eating clams and need you to come get them? In short, would it be like Match.com? Of course, that didn't happen. After an initial comic mishap involving hotels on one street having changed names we piled into my microscopic Honda and it was old home week. We drove around the hills of Beverly looking at (and joyously dissing) real estate I can't afford, cruised Malibu, shopped Montana Avenue and ate Pinkberry before meeting the always delightful Robin (VioletNoir) for dinner and drinks in Century City. March and Patty are just as delightful in the flesh as the are on the internets; if only Colombina could have been there. Now that would have been perfection! The next day was ScentBar. The charming owners Adam Eastwood and Franco Wright were kind enough to open early to host a bunch of us; there were all the new things to sniff all the usual suspects including Robin and Iris. There were muffins and sugar cookies and Prosecco Bellinis. If I am very good Heaven will look like this, except it will just be me, a spa tub the size of a Fleetwood Brougham and perhaps, Hugh Jackman. If he doesn't take more than one muffin. I tried Mure et Musc Extrait, which is great in that "berries gone bad" way, and since you're getting a refill in the package justifies the price. The Party in Manhattan was wonderful; I don't find it the skank-fest that March and Patty do. They think I'm nuts. I think I'm part house-cat. Those were the yums; I have to say that the new Serge, Nuit de Cellophane, is a meh for me. Uncle Serge has done the definitive Fruity-Floral. Fruity-Floral has now been done in that way that "Gone With the Wind" has been done. The Genre has been officially been closed. No more should be produced and the pallid, anodyne scents that came before should retreat to some dark corner and as Colombina put it "smoke nervously". Would I wear it? Right after I appear at work in a red taffeta ball gown. Should you? Up to you. Parfums DelRae Emotionnelle is the perfect simulacrum of fresh cantaloupe that I have smelled outside of my breakfast table. I however ran from it and was glad that March, who is old and censorious friends with Patty asked her to please wash it off forthwith. The real surprise of the morning was a sample of Andy Tauer's new Une Rose Chyprée, a perfectly balanced rose/chypre where the rose is lifted by clementine and bay and grounded by labdanum, oakmoss and vanilla. I know there were a few rumbles of disappointment over Andy's last couple of releases, but this is going to be a runaway hit for him: the rose opening is immediately, captivatingly gorgeous and the drydown is sniff-your-arm-and-moan good. I'd have a giveaway for my sample but I am simply not that generous.. Andy, I think this should be your first perfume strength one. If you're reading. Tomorrow (Sunday) is March and Patty's last day in the City of the Fallen Angels and we are going to get together once more. I hope to drive them across Mulholland to have lunch at the Village Cafe on Beachwood Canyon under the Hollywood sign. It's been marvelous meeting them; could someone work on that Transporter thingy in "Star Trek" so that we could all get together easily in various places on a whim? Wouldn't that be lovely?