Hyacinths & a Mechanic

The smell of New England soil thawing as winter crusts break was something I loved as much as crunching the sheets of uniquely patterned ice. I would lay belly on the earth and smell. I smelled Spring coming through the soil and I knew the sequence, and where to look, for the bulb blooms. The muskiness of tulip stamens, the gods’ eyes peering as crocii, grape hyacinth, daffodils and narcissus, subtly different, sitting in yellow tunnels of forsythia, hunting for lily of the valley, and dining on hyacinth smells. I still swear each color smells differently, the light purple, the deep purple, the magenta pink, the paler pink, the white.

I would smell the colored hyacinths like some play a piano, memorizing their colors and nuances their subtle differences and chord changes.Hyacinths seem fragile in that their fragrance peaks in a short period of time. They don’t hang around for you to smell over a long time like the Concord grapes with their autumn musty overwhelming sweetness. Throughout my life I’ve smelled hyacinth oils looking for a find that could capture the hardy, fragile, elusive fragrance in a jar. I still think it is a difficult note to bottle.
Anticipation

I receive The Bottle! (see previous post below)

The first smelling of Hyacinths and a Mechanic places modern me in an old photograph to retrieve some classic goodness. Watercolor greys, the purple grey cloud that surrounds lilac, violet, hyacinths emerge. I see autumn pumpkin orange glow in darkening night and smell cinnamon. There is the haze of ocean walk, the vanilla of powder, but what I love is the sting that reveals. It’s a mature scent, tenacious with its subtlety, Spring Cloud soft, with a feel of the aftertaste of violet pastilles.

This one has presence, baby, the bouquet blossoms, especially once you get to know it. You want, not more, because a bit is powerful, just it. It talks and haunts and hangs around until you acknowledge it and put some more on, another day.

I don’t always like it, there is that older world scent that disturbs and then I’m fascinated and want another sniff.

Loving the sting that I get nasally with Tabarome/Creed and Mahogany/Etro, though not scents I wear often, so, I wouldn't mind turning the volume up on the sting and lowering the volume on the powder.

More technically, I got the powder and voluptuousness of Femme/Rochas, the vanilla powder of Omnix, the sting of Tabarome and Mahogany and the grey moor peat of Cumming.

Original black and white photos from Old Pictures a fantastic site you may end up spending hours perusing.

Now to Share This Over Some Tea!

If you are cold tea will warm you
If you are too heated it will cool you
If you are depressed
it will cheer you
if you are excited
it will calm you

- William E. Gladstone, 1809-1898
British Statesman, Prime Minister

... I feel the same way about perfume.

To meet and test drive Hyacinths and a Mechanic, a new fragrance by Andy Tauer of Tauer Perfumes  I choose Chassom Tea Salon, in the historic Green Street area of Pasadena, California.

Owner Diane Yamamoto Skowron created a beautiful environment to sip and restore. After 19 years working with HIV patients, pharmacy and healthcare, she expresses creative facets of herself, bringing a gentleness, beauty and energy, offering a true respite from the homogeneity of today's retail culture. This new Salon is a vortex of creativity!

photos:
Tea bouquet,  Evelyn Kuo, founder of Essence of Motion, located half a block away from Chassom Tea Salon.
Evelyn is one of the first Pilates teachers in the region. Her beautiful studio offers Pilates, mat classes, craniosacral, massage, meditation circles, workshops, Tai Chi and more.

above right: smelling the delicious choice of Chocolate Sencha tea, is Stephanie Bowen of International Medical Corps., a humanitarian organization providing sustainable long-term training for local healthcare practitioners.

Diane can blend teas for your health and pleasure, which is what Evelyn chose.

far right: Autumn, with the red hair! drinks Ultra-Violet. Autumn Doerr is Supervising Producer of Greensburg on Discovery Channel's Planet Green.

back right: I'm smiling because I found a new tea, Canadian Ice Wine. The liquor brings in the taste of Concord grapes and brings me home to a magical place of sunsweet memory.

We begin!

I love the look people get when they are sniffing and analyzing a fragrance. In the middle, above, Chassom Tea Salon owner, Diane Yamamoto Skowron.

Qualities the scent evokes for this group:

spicy beginning
musky
flowery
complex, amber spice
exotic
old in a classic sense
feminine

bites like sexy biting (like when you eat wasabi)
powerful
weathered picket fence
brisk winter day
golden, amber, yellows

brainy, intellectual

an older woman or

a younger woman into things retro

a more experienced woman - no virgins here! (it's too multi-dimensional for that!)
modern yet takes comfort in old things
complex

needs attention

eccentric

keeps changing, experiencing

reminds of Abano bath oil mom used!

reminds of Joy parfum

reminds of a mother's parfum

a little smoky

Karen Coogan works at Chassom Tea Salon and we discover that Hyacinths and the Mechanic is Her Scent!

A true match that we will talk about more. Perfume Lovers, you know the signs, the next days obsessed by the fragrance, wondering if you will ever smell it again, will it still be available. And, I find out, Karen has been a Jicky girl!

Hey, the smell changes!

After sharing our impressions, we smell the results on each other and laugh at the differences.

Diane smells my wrist, and on my skin also gets
the watercolor purple greys I spoke of.

Thank you Andy Tauer

of Tauer Perfumes for sharing your art with us.

"Who will wear Hyacinths and a Mechanic?"

We discover she is fun, adventurous, has traveled, respects quality made to compete, she wants to be different and is on the cutting edge.

Contact me for workshops on
Accessing Creativity and Imagination.

lurana22@gmail.com

P.S. I also love the photograph accompanying artist Kelley's review of the Bottle Journey here where it had made its way to Mexico. His heartful blog peacefully serene is here.