Field Report: Downtown Sunday Sniffage

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On Sunday afternoon the Husband and I headed to the West Village. We wanted to buy him a hat and eat some fancy toasts. Both missions were successful (I also got a cute hat for myself). Goorin Bros., (337 Bleecker st.) supplied the headgear, and WhyNot Coffee  (175 Orchard st.) was perfect for food, champagne and celebrity spotting. Well-hatted and nourished it was time to sniff.

There  are several new releases that I wanted to stick my nose into. We started at the Annick Goutal boutique (397 Bleecker St) where the service was pleasant enough if overprotective of the testers. It was my first time trying the two latest Goutals L'Ile au Thé, a pleasant and pale green tea scent and even last year's Vent de Folie, which I think I subconsciously avoided. It's a well-mannered fruity floral that does absolutely nothing for me, but I can see its appeal (which  goes for both, I guess). I quickly sniffed some of the classics as the Blond explored the masculines, and got the impression that most of the Goutals have been toned down and somewhat neutered, but they're still pretty and extremely wearable. I didn't smell any change in the re-issued Mon Parfum Cheri, Par Camille, La Violette is still the best linen spray on earth, but everything with citrus has been de-fanged along with the repackaging and rebottling.

The Diptyque store was a true delight. The guys were burning their sandalwood candle but also sprayed the space with their fig scent. Can it get any better? Well, it would have been better had I liked Eau Plurielle a bit more. It's a sheer woody floral that's perfect for summer, smells better on the husband and shriveled up and died on my skin. I will do my best to wear my sample and review it, but my initial feeling is that if you're a Tam Dao or Eau d'Elide person, this won't cut it. Speaking of Tam Dao, the husband had a nice conversation with the lovely SA about ways to rescue a stuck sprayer in his old bottle. No success there, so I see some power tools in his future.

From there we went to Aedes. I admit that it's been a long time since I've been there, mostly because of customer service issues, but the two ladies who manned the store on Sunday afternoon were helpful, knowledgeable, and very welcoming. We started with the new Frederic Malle, Cologne Indélébile (a Dominique Ropion creation), of which the Husband and I could not agree. Obviously, it smelled much better on him than on me, as orange blossom often does, but I just couldn't see (or smell) the point. The world already has the magnificent Guerlain Eaux, Chanel Les Exclusif Eau de Cologne, and eleventy hundred other interpretations of the same idea. Why bother? The Blond still staunchly likes it, so I will need to investigate more. Maybe.

There are other more interesting things to explore at Aedes. The tuberose and orange blossom dream of fleur09 by Maria Christofilis that has a beautiful mouth-filling peach phantom note, the punch to the nose of the Orto Parisi line (I like it a lot), and all the usual suspects: Uncle Serge, L'Artisan, Diptyque, Byredo and many many others. I got a sniff of the upcoming perfume from Aedes' eponymous line, Palissandre d'Or, which is a smooth and golden woody musk. The husband seemed completely anosmic to it and I'm sure that my own nose was skipping over some of the notes, but it's definitely worth a sniff. The newest line in the store is Memo, the French travel-inspired brand that I first stumbled upon in Paris back in 2008. They've gone through several  changes and iterations (the home line has been expanded, but no one seems to stock them here in the US), and have grown significantly from the first three perfumes, though not everything seems to have made its way here (neither Aedes nor Luckyscent offer Sundance, Manoa, or Parfum Ilha do Mel (which I was most curios about). In better news, despite being previously unimpressed with the leather trio, the Husband tried and really liked Irish Leather. It smelled fabulous on him, while I enjoyed Moon Fever and got happily reacquainted with Siwa. The whole line is friendly and has enough character and backbone as to not bore me out of my skull. It's a lot these days.