Frazzled

By Tom Sorry, it's a talk amongst yourselves sort of post this week. I'm involved in a local election and job hunting and it's left me little time to write, much less think about scent. I've been wearing it of course, mostly comfort ones like Like This by Etat Libre or the new Serge. What do you reach for when the going really gets, well.. going? Image: internets

Foodie Sunday: Broken Hearts and Chocolate Kisses

By Beth What a week! It’s been a long one, with many joys (Great press for my new business!) and a deeply felt sorrow, most notably the ending of a long and important friendship in my life, an ending that was not at all unexpected, but the way it went down just so very sad.  I spent some delightful time this week with one of my darling Orchestra board ladies and she gave me one of the more practical pieces of advice that I’ve ever heard. She said…”It may be heart breaking right now dear, but there comes a time, when in certain cases you just  finally have to realize that you’ve known someone for way to long”.  This particular society doyenne has been alive for 81 years, looks fabulous, hangs out with interesting and attractive younger men and still goes out to dance the tango so I’m quite certain that she is right. That being said, even though I’ve realized that I am truly ready for the relationship to be over, when it finally ended there was a huge gaping hole that needed to be filled with something.   In my case, that would be cheap chocolate.   This week I’ve eaten  but not necessarily in this order a Milky Way bar, countless squares of Ghirardelli  , a Kit Kat bar, a huge endless bowl of chocolate gelato, a few Hersheys bars,  some sort of nougat and dark chocolate dessert at a restaurant on Wednesday and Chicken and waffle flavored potato chips (not  cheap chocolate but equally as sinful). I would have sold my first and only born for a piece of my mothers chocolate mousse cake. I knew things were finally beginning to look up when I started eyeing the Green and Blacks bars at Whole Foods yesterday. At last some closure! Chocolate is not only one of the best things in the world, but it turns out one of the healthiest. To my delight it’s being called a super food along with my other favorite guilty pleasure which is great red wine. Chocolate is packed with anti- oxidants, loaded with vitamins and minerals and according to an article that I read the other day, the lovely dark variety can reduce your risk of stroke and heart disease, reduce your risk of diabetes,protect your skin from sunstroke, improve your blood flow and of course it can dramatically lift your spirits and transform even the foulest mood! For me though it’s not just the taste, but the scent I crave hence my obsession with Tom Ford's utterly luscious Tobacco Vanille, which would be my signature scent if I ever felt the need to have just one.  I’m not sure why, but the aroma of chocolate is sometimes even more pleasurable than eating it. I’m a sucker for chocolate massage oils and body scrubs but my favorite is just good old fashioned cocoa butter which I love to slather all over my body right before bed after I’ve taken a really hot bath. When Roxana Villa of Roxana Illuminated Perfumes made her first batch of chocolate mini perfumes I was truly in heaven and I’m hoping that she’ll  be able to make another edition of them soon .  These were absolutely wonderful and they made me feel like I’m wrapped in my mothers arms or even my sister who’s definitely a woman who spends a good deal of her life contemplating extraordinary chocolate and all of the things that she could bake with it.  Ellen is much more discerning then I am, but she does love Reeses Peanut Butter cups and Peanut M and M’s, choices that I have no love for which makes our life together as sisters extremely easy.  I also just remembered that she alone can bake my mother’s chocolate mousse cake, so my next act of today will be to call her and beg her to make and somehow ship me one! So my question to you is this.  When healing from a bruised and battered heart, what foods do you crave?

Foodie Thursday: Hot Chocolate

By Tom Well the weather weirdness continues apace in the LA basin- Sunday it was in the mid 80's. Tuesday it was raining and windy and didn't crack 50. Which is my excuse for not finishing the review I was writing- the scent I started with was good at 80 degrees, but at 50 I wanted more cozy ones. I also wanted Hot Chocolate. I love it in most of it's forms- I am not a food snob about it either (I admit I am about other things). I am just as happy with a steaming cup of Swiss Miss as I am with some artisinal hand-rubbed cocoa made from milk from free-ranging French cows who are only fed clover and sunshine. I also like it made with that yummy Mexican chocolate, Ibarra, which adds in a dash of cinnamon to make a delicious drink (and great Mole too). As a matter of fact, I'm going to log off and go make some now. Let me know your favorite recipes in the comments. Image: Wikipedia

smell bent comic book

By Tom Yes, smell bent is coming out with a comic book. From the looks of it, it should be just as cheeky and fun as their products are. Speaking of their products, they're having a special sale on some of their most popular sprays: $31 until Feb 28th. I may have to stock up on Walk of Shame., Video is from smell bent's Vimeo page (I hope it shows up- HTML and Blogger are sometimes not friends.)

Rerun: S-Perfume S-ex and Lust

By Tom Still getting over the cold that's running all over the place, so it's another blast from the past.. Of course (Marina) has already reviewed these two, but at March's behest, I had to try. (And really, you ladies are way too quick on the draw for me, I'll always be about three steps behind you all; all I can hope for is to be fractionally as entertaining.) S-ex. Unlike in (Marina)'s experience, S-ex's marine notes are immediately apparent on me: a salty, slightly iodine scent (I hesitate to call it a marine note) that does, when added in with the light leather notes and musk become a very nice skin scent. If there's anything S-exy about it, it's the salty-skin accord's slight resemblence to, how do I put this in a family blog? I think the nice people at S-Perfume refer to it as "Spirit of Life". Moviemakers in Van Nuys call it "the Money Shot". I'll just call it "Where can I order this?" Lust. In her review (Marina) wrote of this as reminding her of Borneo 1834: it does seem to be a close cousin. I get leather and cedar in the opening, as well as Borneo's bitter cocao. A cool camphor joins in the middle, as the cocao becomes more assertive: this is the most Borneo phase, but I only smell a ghost of patchouli. The patchouli becomes more pronounced at the musky drydown: and that musk! It's very light, which is a good thing: this is not an MKK or a CB Musk, this is Human Existence. Luckily it's just a touch: this is Lust, not Kink. Lust is available for $27.00 for .5 ounces at their site, while S-ex is $67.00 for 2 ounces. I've read that they are also available at Fred Segal, which is dangerously close to me. I'm not quite lemming for these, but that's more out of a respect for my New Years resolution to get my Visa bill to look less like my phone number. Like most resolutions, it may fall before this is posted Note At some point in the past few weeks, I sort of dared (Marina) to send me the rest of her Human Existence. To my, er, Joy? Horror? She did. She dared me to layer it with stuff. Once I have a pot of water on the boil, some Comet, a wire brush and perhaps have renewed my passport, I will, and will post about it. The image is from s-perfume.com Note: S-ex is available at LuckyScent, $110 for 60ML. It looks like Lust is discontinued, which is a shame..