Earthy, Sexy, Floral And So Soft...Santa Maria Novella Gardenia

This could be any of the SMN perfumes. Let's say it's Gardenia.

It is flowers, green vegetation and so warm, earthy, and well, sexy. Like you're relaxing in the shade on your porch in the deep southern heat, after having a luke warm cooling bath using only the simplest and cleanest soap (Dove?). You've put on your gauzy linen slip and the humidity makes your skin glow while you sip iced tea with frosty condensation dripping down the sides of your glass. You have to lift your hair off your neck because you are so warm. There is a huge lush gardenia bush next to the porch and the heat makes the lush scent of flowers, the greenery and even the damp earth just radiate all around you.

A real gardenia I plucked....stunning

That pretty much describes my Santa Maria Novella Gardenia experience. At first sniff I thought- oh my, perfect. A soapy clean gardenia scent, with lovely fresh green notes. I was in one of the divine Santa Maria Novella boutiques and basically wanted ONE OF EVERYTHING. Sigh. But Gardenia really spoke to me so it was mine. SMN scents often have a signature musk note in their base. It can be overwhelming to my nose, like in their musk scents but in Gardenia it hides under the flowers. I never even really thought about it but did wonder how a soliflfore floral scent could be so, well, sexy. There was something slightly "warm almost sweaty skin" about it without being dirty or, musk can often be, oily. Yuck. An oily animalic musk sends me running to the hills and makes my family ask to please not wear that perfume again *stares at Helmut Lang edp*. Not Gardenia. It smells like I just took a bath with Gardenia soap, with none of the weird indolic or cheese-y notes often found in Gardenia scents that use tuberose to approximate the scent of gardenia. I was once asked what cheese I had eaten when I was wearing Fracas. Sigh.  I was at Noor in Toronto recently (my favourite perfume boutique in the world) chatting with the knowlededgable & friendly owners, Nahla and Fred. Its always so fun there because they encourage you to sniff and chat as long you as like. When I mentioned I loved SMN Gardenia, the impossibly handsome & charming Fred commented "Oh, that's an earthy one". Earthy....it hadn't really occurred to me until he said that how true that is. Now I'm obsessed with the earthy-ness of Gardenia and love it.

Santa Maria Novella Gardenia is my perfect Gardenia and will fill the empty void left by Kiehl's Gardenia. I was able to do a side by side sniff with SMN Gardenia and an actual gardenia. There is none of the borderline rot smell that exists in the actual flower, and much more of the green. More like standing back and inhaling the whole gardenia bush environment. SMN Gardenia is like a hologram of the gardenia plant. And, I would still call this a soft scent. It does not have tons of sillage, and it is not BIG, nor does it last and last and last on the skin until you wish you could scrub it off. It just smells lovely, feminine and clean, with a touch of something sexy.

A hot sunny day melting into evening, a cooling swim & then Gardenia

Santa Maria Novella products are sold at retailers throughout Canada and the US. They can be hard to find so Google is your best friend depending on where you are. Lafco in NYC seems to be a very reliable retailer of the line and they ship. Noor in Toronto has the line for Canadian buyers and will also ship- watch their site for their online shop, coming soon. Btw, SMN perfumes are notorious for the fact that every bottle looks the same, which is why you need a professional to help you find the right one! Kidding- sort of....

Learning To Be Glam at Essie's School of Hard Rocks

Essie School of Hard Rocks is another colour from the Cocktail Bling collection, my other one being the delicious indigo blue Baubing For Baubles. This one is a nifty teal colour, with a grey-ish somewhat dusty tone to it. It is non-traditional for sure, yet somehow the muted tone keeps it from looking too funky. I really like this and find it goes with just about everything. As with all Essie polishes, it is smooth & creamy and applies like a dream. These shots are 2 coats on top of my soon-to-be-reviewed miraculous ridge filler base coat (stay tuned) and Lippmann Top Speed top coat.

I have a few greens now- Lippmann Billionaire, which is quite dark, and Chanel Khaki Vert. They are all quite different and I love them all. Now I think I need a light sage or pistachio green to go with the Spring weather that will be coming...eventually....

Out of direct light...

In direct light. Actual colour somewhere in between....

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The Gorgeousness of Ivoire de Balmain

Most people describe Ivoire de Balmain as "soapy" or "clean". I suppose it is those things, but to simply describe it as that would be like calling Ottawa in January as "cold". Ivoire is, to me, a gorgeous meditation on warm, sexy skin. It was released in 1980, and is described as a Green Floral, but it is not an 80s bomb. It definitely has more the of 70s modern, clean & still very sexy vibe yet you can feel the 80s mega ingredient list making it's way in there. 

But it never goes where perfumes like Giorgio and Poison go, which is TOP VOLUME. Ivoire never put on her shoulder pads, and never teased her hair. She kept her slinky wide leg pants and silky blouses, and her centre parted soft and sexy hair. It does have the Kitchen Sink list of notes that can works beautifully. Here are some notes that I've assembled from various points the web:

Top notes: green accord, galbanum, bergamot, lemon, aldehydes

Heart notes: Lily of the valley, rose, hyacinth, jasmine, carnation, orris, orchid, geranium

Base notes: Cedar, musk, oakmoss, amber, raspberry, sandalwood

Eau de Toilette, gorgeous, & what I wear...

Vintage parfum, stunning if you can find it...

The galbanum top note is particularly interesting. The class Balmain scent, Vent Vert, in it's vintage formulation, is known for its uber doses of galbanum. Perhaps Ivoire was an ode to Balmain history? It is a somewhat "old fashioned" note in that you just don't see it in modern perfumery very much. Galbanum is a peculiar note, and smells, off the top, a bit bitter and acrid, then can go quite green, spicy, woody and balsam like. It can be reminiscent of pine, evergreen, parsely, sour green apples,  musk or simply just "intensely green". Hello, mama, sign me up. I often get a "skanky" accord from galbanum and to me that just reads as sexy. If Ivoire is soapy, it is only soap covering up warm, sexy skin, like skin right out of a post-rendevous bath, perhaps. 

Once the galbanum naughty notes dissipate, the warm florals start to come out. The extreme sweetness that could come from the florals are tempered by the citrus top notes and galbanum, so the florals come out sweet but somehow are perfectly balanced. Then...this is the best part. The woody mossy base is simply to die for. I'm not sure what the oak moss deal is with Ivoire - real? Old stock would mean real oak moss for sure. I've yet to smell an Ivoire I don't like so from where I stand the oak moss question is a mystery. Add some warm sweet amber and then, this is the kicker- sandalwood and raspberry. Fruits in the base add up to simply gorgeous in Ivoire. The woody dry down of Ivoire goes on for hours on my skin and is so rich, sexy and mysterious I can't get enough of it. I get compliments on it constantly but only from people who I greet with a hug or stand close to. It is not a loud projecting scent at all, but nor is it a quiet mouse of a scent. To my nose it is drop dead femininity in a bottle. If squeaky clean is white, then something not-quite-clean is ivory....

Ivoire is one of my Top 10 favourite perfumes of all time and always will be. Inexplicably it is still available for a song online, and I mean a big bottle for under $40. If anything I have written here appeals to you, get yourself some now.

Weirdly Beautiful: Les Khakis de Chanel Khaki Vert Nailpolish

If you are into nail polish and beauty, you know the massive cult appeal of Chanel’s limited edition releases. Some make it into their permanent collection and others just sell out as soon as they hit the counters. Les Khakis de Chanel was a much anticipated collection- photos and swatches of the lovely muted colours have been circulating on the internet beauty blogs for months. I got the edgy Particuliere in the spring, and even managed to scoop a bottle of the oh-so-pretty Rose Confidentiel last month. Both are beautiful muted soft colours- the perfect “griege” and the perfect “dusty rose” as only Chanel can do. The Chanel nail polish formulas are rich and perfect. Sometimes on coat is all you need and the application is flawless.

I have been looking for a green polish that I could wear without feeling like a kid- sounds like an oxymoron, right? Don’t ask me why green, as with any make up obsession there is no rhyme or reason- I just knew Chanel Khaki Vert was the green I needed . Maybe it is the oddly grey hue of green, the dusty feel to the color, that seems just right somehow. There is no question it is seasonal, and utterly perfect for fall. So….WANT. But therein lies the rub- this collection is nowhere to be found. Unless you are my intrepid friend who tracked down the last bottle of Khaki Vert on the west coast while she was on business in Seattle. Did I say saintly friend? So, it made it to my collection, and even my daughter Biddy swooned when we took it out of the box. We immediately did manis and have been admiring our hands ever since.

We were shopping yesterday and one of my favourite amazingly chic and stylish salesgirls grabbed my hand as I was paying, “Is that the Chanel Khaki Vert nail polish?”, she asked, breathlessly. I told her yes...she asked me how did I find it? That she searched high and low….then, she showed me her hand and of course, she was wearing it too.