Perfume Pen Pals: Robert Piguet Fracas and Ann-Margret


Dan,

Further to our indoles and “porny perfume” discussion, I smell indolic decay in Fracas. It's clammy and close and I think that's why it reads as sexy, rather than as "Yum! Fresh flowers!".

Katie


Katie,

See, I find Fracas is incredibly heavy and rich. And heady even, because it's so unapologetically strong. I feel dizzy wearing it. Or sometimes nauseous. But it doesn't read "sexy." (I know, I'm in the minority here.)

I understand how earthy scents smell sexy, and I agree, but even Fracas still smells of flowers to me. Clammy and close, yes, but clammy and close flowers. I guess I get my sexy from vegetal decay and not human decay.

Dan


Dan,

Well, even if you go to vegetal, oakmoss is that vegetal decay smell, but with its salty, leathery, "personal" qualities, it also reads as human decay. It adds a dirty friction to otherwise sunny or fruity/floral scents.

All roads lead to "personal", which is usually perceived as "sexy". But you sound like you have a different barometer -- maybe you appreciate oakmoss' salty leather, but don't connect it to unwashed skin. And maybe the thing that makes you go "mmm" are just happy, sweet, zingy, fresh jasmine and peach, no complicating factors required or desired.

Katie


Katie,

I think vegetal does connect to unwashed skin, but it's not as sweet as that indolic rotting flesh smell. Sweet isn't sexy to me. Although I like sweet very much, especially feminine sweet (as opposed to those gross Odori colognes). But it doesn't read as sexy. It's more comforting. Kind of like best friends versus sexy friends. Diane Keaton versus Ann-Margret. (Could my references be any more dated?)



"So...I'm not a 'sexy friend'?"



Now that you mention it, A-M does really pack some heat.


Alright, I have to shower and put on my new shirt -- I've got a party to attend.

Dan


Dan,

Ann-Margret was my beauty idol when I first dyed my hair red as a teenager. I was trying to channel her for years!



She's too much. She makes my pants itch!

Katie


Katie,

If I knew your phone number, I surely would've called you from the party. You are not going to believe this. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS! Guess who I hung out with at the party?

Okay, I'm not gonna make you guess, that would be dumb. I hung out with Ann-Margret's granddaughter. ANN-MARGRET'S GRANDDAUGHTER! Out of frickin' nowhere. You and I make the reference and there she is. And we talked about perfumes.

She was wearing Angel and something else I didn't recognize and then she talked about Ann, how Ann LOVES perfumes and has all kinds of theories about them. The biggest being she insists on going Coldstone Creamery on her own ass (your term not hers) all the time.

Ann says a woman should never wear just one scent or she risks smelling like another woman. And so she always blends two or more perfumes. And she always has her granddaughter smell her first thing! And then proudly announces what combination of things she's wearing. How amazing is that?

Dan


Viva Ann-Margret!

12 comments:

  1. I have a newfound love of Ann Margret! That's awesome that she makes people smell her. The is one of our tribe.

    Also, I find Fracas repulsively UN-SEXY. It's a sweet cloud of girlish flowers, and reminds me more of an 11-year-old girls birthday party (Barbies! Barbies for everyone!) than a more amorous... activity.

    I'm going to go with earthy/leathery for my sex appeal. ;)

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  2. Dee,

    Finding out that Ann-Margret is a perfume connoisseur is just the icing on the cake for me. I've always loved her so much. Not just for her "kitten with a whip" innocent/sexy persona, but for the way she relinquishes herself to total, eyes-rolling-back-in-her-head abandonment in her frenetic dance numbers.

    Now I want to know more about her perfume mixology. And I know that the whole celebrity perfume hullaballoo only really kicked off in the last decade, but given her image and card-carrying fumeheadedness, A-M really deserved her own perfume brand.

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  3. I'm with Dan here. Sweet - as much as I love it - does not spell s-e-x-y for me. Salty does. I'm not sure what notes exactly are responsible for the salt in my, or rather most often someone elses sexiness, but salty does it for me anytime.

    An old flame of mine wears the very common Acqua di Gio which has a saltiness to it - and I love it on him - could be a classic case of Pavlov's rats: I have come to associate saltiness with sexiness that way. That the igniter has to be something as common as AdG is unfortunate. For years it would confuse me immensely when I walked by another man who used the same scent: "Oh, there it is.....wait, something's off, no, no, ...ahhhh, the disappointment!"

    I have both Stella and Stella Rose Absolute. Stella is the salty one - and the sexier one in my mind because of the I had to run to catch the train to get to you-notes, but I do prefer Rose Absolute for its depth and for the added sweetness. I guess the salty sexiness is too distracting for me for everyday wear - the sensitive kind, you know. In my defense, Rose Absolute transfers better to e.g. scarves, and I love picking up a scarf that smells of one of my favorite scents.

    I wonder which one the infamous opposite sex would deem the sexier of the stellas?

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  4. Junelady,

    I've never done a side-by-side with those Stellas. I just assumed the Rose Absolute was "rosier". I didn't realize the sodium content was minimized. I do love Stella's saltiness.

    I love perfume traces on my scarves, too. Right now, all of mine seem to smell of Portrait of a Lady.

    I just got an email asking for info on what the infamous opposite sex truly finds irresistible. I'm hoping to turn that into a Viewer Mail, so I can solicit input from the lads and find out myself. I suspect the answer will be a variation on your Acqua di Gio experience: whichever random fragrance an early beloved wore, wins!

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  5. Ummm, Dan, I don't know who you hung out with at the party, but I know it WASN'T Ann-Margaret's granddaughter, since Ann-Margaret never had any children.

    I always loved her too, Katie, especially in Bye Bye Birdie :)

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  6. Ann-Margret's blending business - is that a variant on layering, as in pre-mixing before applying rather than a sequential coats approach? Now I can understand the wish to smell distinctive, but Angel mixed with something sounds like a worrying case of gilding the harp. : - )

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  7. Kathy,

    You're correct, A-M never had kids of her own, but the lady Dan met is A-M's granddaughter by marriage to Roger Smith.

    I loved when "Mad Men" had that plotline where they pitched an ad campaign based on A-M in the "Bye Bye Birdie" title sequence.

    Vanessa,

    I don't think A-M pre-mixes - she's just doing a squirt of something here and a squirt of something else there. I'm with you on Angel being solidly stand-alone, but maybe A-M and family knows something we don't...

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  8. Kathy, Yes, I knew that would be mentioned but it was too cumbersome to explain within the PPP. Ann-Margaret married Roger Smith when his own children were still quite young and by the next generation, she was simply considered "grandma." At least that's how I remember the story.

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  9. She is just too fabulous for words. If ever a lady looked gourmand, it was Ann-Margaret. Who my father named two children after. My older sister Annie, and me, Margaret (Maggie).

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  10. Maggie,

    What! I love that you were named after half of Ann-Margret. The question is: which half?

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  11. Clearly the playful half. When I was a teenager, I was about as overt and exuberant as the opening scene of Bye Bye Birdie!

    I wish it was the sexy half. I don't do sexy, despite the claims of my husband otherwise. Maybe it's the playfully sexy half? Is that where sex kitten came from?

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  12. Maggie,

    Just as long as it's not the kitten half. Because then there'd be all that fur to deal with!

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