In Which I Just Wanna Have Fu-un: Crazylibellule and the Poppies and Parfums 137

Perfume is serious. Serious fun that is. The fun part is easy to forget once one gets too passionate about the subject. The intricacies of various structures, the rare ingredients, the concepts, the discontinuations, yes, no fun and games there, but sometimes I want to be just fairly thoughtlessly entertained. Hours of such entertainment can be had with Parfums 137 "jeux de parfums". Donna wrote a wonderful review, to which I will refer you for background info and will focus on impressions and "blending" results instead. The two scents that I liked on their own were Olibanum and Spearmint. The former is a rich, sweet, coniferous, resinous goodness: a wooden church freshly built in a pine forest. The latter is very realistic mint, an über green, surprisingly earthy composition which has an undertone not unlike the smell of tomato vines. The other four are useful in supporting roles but not striking enough on their own. The most fun is to play with two coffrets at once, thus getting not 7 but 63 possible combinations of accords. It's useful to remember that olibanum and spearmint, the strongest of the lot, will overwhelm every other ingredient and be the star notes in any possible blend. Thus Olibanum + Bigarade gave me soft, fluffy, cuddly incense. Olibanum + Myrtle = gourmand-floral, sugared incense. Olibanum + Spearmint = a powerful, green, cold, diabolic incense (a fave, natch!). Spearmint + Myrtle = an airy, dry, green floral scent with a boozy drydown. "Blending" aside, I liked Olibanum and Spearmint so much that I'd consider getting the two collections just for these scents. Crazylibellule and the Poppies perfume sticks are the kinds of things that my inner 10 year old just must have, just because! I might never get to wearing them once I have them, but I want to own them just to handle those little cutesy tubes once in a while. I wrote about many of the scents in previous collections before, right now I am obsessing over the chic, vintagey griliness of black packaging of Les Garçonnes collection. And yes, they smell lovely too and are so easy and safe to throw in a bag for a touch up later in the day. The solid perfumes that I liked the most among Les Garçonnes were: - Hommage a Gabrielle, a tribute to Coco Chanel, a blend that I would swear has a lot of very raw smelling orris in the top, a touch of incense and vanilla and the softest and the most subtle of leathers in the drydown; - Pompon Gardenia- a juicy, green gardenia with a touch of watermelon and tobacco, which sounds like the oddest of combination but somehow works; - Jeanne Voyage a delicious and comforting blend of nutmeg, heliotrope and iris (hint of Kenzo Amour and Barbara Bui there); ...and June 26th, Ile d'Yeu crazystick cologne from CrazyCologne collection, easy, breezy, beautiful ode to a morning, a fresh blend with a touch of peach and quite noticeable plum note. Parfums 137 may be found at parfums137.com, €60.00 per coffret, €5.00 per a set of samples. Crazylibellule and the Poppies are available at BeautyHabit, $16.00 a stick.