On the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth day of Christmas...

I'm comin' in just under the line, y'all!

Sure, CHRISTMAS Christmas is over, it's already 2008. But as all good Catholics (and some of the rest of us) know, the twelfth and final day of Christmas is traditionally today, January 6th. It's the day the three wise men came to Jesus' manger NOT to smoke a rubber cigar, as my sister and I used to sing, but to shower the little babe with gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh.

Anyway, in honor of those wise men I decided to gift my remaining four days of Christmas to the wise men amongst our readership (too numerous to be counted, I'm sure). This scent's for you, you guys. These were fun presents to pick out, mainly because I was happily surprised how many nice-smelling colognes there are out there. Maybe you lady-killers should throw away the Old Spice and wear the following:

1. Dior Homme.


Smells like:
Lavender, Sage, Cardamom, Iris, Cocoa Bean, Amber, Vetiver, Patchouli, Leather.

Now unfortunately I didn't get to smell this on a real live man but that's probably a good thing. The mere scent of it on a paper tester was enough to make me float in the air, like in those cartoons when some character is hungry and is carried along by the scent of pig roasting on a spit or something.

It smelled so good: sexy, yet intimately reassuring. Noticable, but definitely soft enough to let some wonderful natural sweat smell come through.

And it wasn't the only Dior cologne that I found shockingly good. Unlike many of Dior's women's perfumes, the men's offerings were virtually all subtle, not-overly-complex-or-heavy blends based around one solid and identifiable fragrance note, just the way I like things.

Please tell me gross Tom Ford is not the one who deserves the credit for creating such a lovely line of colognes. If he is, I owe him an apology for thinking he's so gross. And maybe dinner and a movie.




2. Crave by Calvin Klein.

Alright, dumb bottle design. Everything about it looks very outdated. That phallic arrow/traffic sign thingy is obnoxious. But the smell is just fantastic.

This cologne is even lighter than Dior Homme - very clean smelling, like simple bar of soap combined with the smell of newly split wood and some lemon. My imaginary Ken doll would wear Crave in the summer and Dior Homme in the winter.

Calvin Klein's Escape for Men is not bad, either. In fact, I give four stars to the whole line, just as I do to Dior's colognes. I'd say Calvin Klein scents will please guys who want to wear something slightly younger and fresher and, you know, take their clothes off a lot, while Dior colognes are for the more worldly and allusive playboy. Who want to take their clothes off a lot.



3. Van Clef and Arpels for Men.
Apologies for the bad pic. Despite the blurriness, you can still see what a very chic bottle it is.

The scent is the heaviest of all those I mention here, but it is prickly and spicy enough not to overwhelm.

Did you have a crush on that silent, sulky, dark-haired, Rimbaud-quoting kid who smoked cloves in high school? I bet he wears this when he puts on his velvet-lined tux jacket to go play bass in his rock band.

This was Serge Gainsbourg's scent. Enough said.







4. Marc Jacob's Men.
I liked this fragrance despite myself. It is tad too sweet, I think, bu t the design is so classy that I can forgive a lot.

There is some sort of ingredient in here that I became completely smell-ddicted to. Take your pick: it was either the Italian bergamot, the Tuscan cypress, the cumin, cardamom, ginger, fig leaves, rose, cyclamen, Cedarwood, musk, or Indonesian Patchouli.

Kind of sounds like a gingerbread cookie recipe, right? Maybe that's what it was that made my mouth water.

This is perfect for your sensitive soul woodsman, or your Arcade Fire-listening dandy. Disarming, unique, and vibrant.


Phew! Made it!

And to all a good night.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Oh Jennie! I wish I could get you bathtub and global World Peace for Christmas. Hell, that's such a good gift duo that I would even be willing get some for all our darlings of the Bush administration.

Broke as I am, I'm not going to place an order. But I hereby give you, for my third day of imaginary gift-giving, a super ersatz bath duo that I hope you will enjoy. Both are from Origins:

1. Some Shedonism! This is a very syrupy, only lightly bubbly bath gel. It has the very pleasant, sexy scent of Tahitian Tiare flower. Luxurious and yet subtle! It seems they have votives and powders and a ton of other offerings in the Shedonism line...I might have to imaginarily gift some of that to myself while y'all are not looking...

2. Some Ginger Bath Candy! Okay, so it's not as fun as a big blue and green ball, but these little fizzers were obviously made by following Lush's genius marketing concept - i.e., wash yourself with stuff to eat. Origins' Bath Candy looks like sweet little sugar cubes. Since you've mentioned your love of ginger-y smells, I thought you'd like it.

Merry Christmas, chérie! Save me some eggnog.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Oh, Mom!

I love my mom.

She's had a hard time of it, what with giving birth to two sarcastic, Marxist, feminist, mover-shaker-heart-breaker-talk-backer daughters who don't really know how to put on makeup or do their hair but somehow adore beauty products.

She herself hates anything - candles, perfume, hand creams, soap, deodorant, "atmospheric home scent" - that's not strictly fragrance free. She never craves anything fancier for her face than some good ol' Noxema.

Many a Christmastime have my sister and I come up with the perfect gift for Mom only to realize that we've willfully ignored her preferences. Fizzy lavender bath stuff, of course! Never mind that she never takes baths! Coriander-scented savon for the kitchen! Okay, so she washes her hands with the dish soap - what are you trying to say?

She is a wonderful mother, and as wonderful mothers are apt to do, she coos over the gift, hugs me, and stores the unopened package under the bathroom sink when I give her such stuff. I've weaned myself of the habit by now. After a few exhilarating successes (one was a manicure set, the other a bottle of Hermes' Caleche that she wears maybe three times a year) I decided to quit while I was ahead.

In my imaginary twelve days of gift-giving, however, I would love to give my mom a long day at a spa with a full spread of Harnn products at her disposal.

To the best of my knowledge, Harnn is a Thai company that produces a complete line of spa products, founded in 1999. I find their design is absolutely gorgeous and their prices quite steep. They have such an interesting and unusual range of scents, from subtle to forceful, that I think she would find a couple she really liked. I myself am seriously enamored of their Jasmine Pomegranate hand cream. So pretty! Such a ying and yang of smell!


Maybe some Red Rice soap for my mother?

Or some Night Nourishment cream, with essence of Water Lily?

Check out all of Harnn's smart and sophisticated stuff on their pretentious and somewhat new-agey website.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Well, it's not the first day of Christmas, but it is the first of December. The sidewalks of Paris were teeming with shoppers today. Mini trees for tiny Parisian appartments appeared overnight in front of all the florists and hardware stores. Yet the weather here is warm, around ten degrees Celsius (fifty degrees Fahrenheit) and sunny, which means a lovely temperature to wander away long hours outside while humming carols under your breath.

I did a little Christmas shopping and a lot of Christmas looking, and I got to thinking about all the gifts I would love to give and get if I could go crazy with the euros. I thought it might be fun to do twelve days of giving and getting beauty stuff, here on the blog!

I'll start out, and hopefully the other girls will do a day, too, if they feel like it. And feel free to give and get some twelve-days-of-Christmas gifts in the comments, dear readers!

The best gift from a true love is always one that takes you by surprise, one he/she thought up themselves. That's why I wouldn't actually want my baby to get me anything I might post on here. But if a secret Santa would present me with my desire of the moment, it would be a big flacon of Rumeur by Lanvin.

I tried on this scent for the first time today and it's a definite perfume crush. Like most of the other eventually-blazing-like-wildfire crushes I've fallen victim to, I started out completely nonchalant. Then something shifted and I was completely captivated. The scent in its current incarnation was launched in 2006; it's nothing new or exciting. It wasn't a perfume on prominent display, meant to move for the holidays. It was simply sitting quietly on a normal, overstocked shelf. Still, it caught my eye due to its sort of elegant, sort of feral gold lettering and the brass pull-ring decorating the nozzle cover - designed, I'm sure, for people that can't resist pulling something off when tempted. Like this young lady. Love her Elvis forelock.


I pulled and sprayed and there was an immediate blast of strong, sharp floral note. In the store, I thought, "Lily-of-the-valley?" but info on the internet tells me it was magnolia.

I thought, "Oh dear. Not so great. What have I gotten my wrists into?" but on second whiff I caught a citrusy odor that seemed to cut through the heaviness of the flowery smell and blend it with the straightforwardly musky base.

A half an hour later, walking around, I kept on smelling myself compulsively. I thought, "There has to be some sort of special, highly addictive ingredient in here that makes it irresistible! I'm not wowed, yet at the same time I have the urge to smell this perfume every three seconds..." Two hours later I was a hardcore Rumeur junkie and convinced that this was the next new scent for me. It's velvety and womanly, but spicily fresh. It's luxurious, but a bit punk. I'm not going to do a Venn diagram for this one, but let's just say if you like silver hoop earrings, leather pants on men and antique postcards from the 1910s, you should give Rumeur a try.

Ten hours later, it's still quite noticeable on my skin. This is the kind of power perfume that you'd have to spray in the air and step into to avoid pissing off the scent-sensitive on the bus.

Watch out, unassuming Rumeur testeuses. Don't say I didn't warn you.

And happy December!