Dolce & Gabbana "Light Blue"

And lo, I went into the outlet store, and there it
was: a sample of the "most popular perfume on the market", according to whoever tabulates such things. I'll admit, considering the amount of buzz this stuff got, at one point I was thinking of shilling out for an entire bottle (I then remembered the Coco Mademoiselle episode and regained control
of myself). But a sample bottle for a buck? Done.

Aaaaand... done. Sooo not a fan. Citrus, for one. Not just citrus, but a
smell like an entire lime thrown into a blender: lime, leaf and possibly
bough. There's also a sherbety buzz, which strays across the line and
becomes dusty ever so often. I really had to wait for the more subtle notes
to come out -- a definite marine, plus a sweet grassy smell, like dune
grass. Those two scents I liked, but not enough to wait around for, and
certainly not if that wait takes the form of lime incarceration. Hopefully
everyone else who purchased this perfume has the opposite experience; a day
at the seashore with lime wedges in their cocktails, maybe?

Verdict: They're singing songs of love, but Light Blue is
not for me.

"Nnnnnngh!"

I would love to know what's up with me and official photos. Looking at me, you'd think I'm perhaps capable of a good photo. I haven't any evident deformities, I've shiny hair, straight teeth that betray nothing of my British heritage... But for some damn reason, if there's a photo that's going to be used in some sort of official capacity? Oh, man. Doom.

My childhood photos are just going to have to be called an even draw, mostly because I was actually kind of cute, if androgynously so. They're called "page boy" haircuts for a reason, Mom. Then... uh, well, there was an overbite. A pronounced overbite. A serious, serious overbite. And you may all be thinking "braces" at this point, but I will one-up you with this: Headgear.

I don't want to talk about it.

Aaanyhow. The braces coincided rather frightfully with the early 90s, which means that there is a photo out there of me "accessorising" in 5th grade: I chose the pink-and-blue laser backdrop for my school photo, then wore a matching sweater, AND alternating blue-and-pink elastics on my braces. There may also have been a puffy black satin headband, but I really couldn't say, because to look at the photo in that sort of detail would surely bring on blindness. Thank god the grade school photographer was a head-and-shoulders kind of guy, because I don't think anyone could really handle the pegged-jeans, scrunch-socked monstrosity that clearly lurked out of frame.

I think I might have actually looked pretty cute in my mid-teens, but by that time the awfulness of prior photos had finally sunk in, and I avoided camera lenses as though they'd steal my soul. So as much as I claim I looked good, there's no real proof. Also, this hiding technique may have angered the photographic gods, because I've not been able to get a sensible official photo out of them since.

Age 16, driver's license: I believe the glasses I'm wearing occupy about 50% of my face. I do not know why no one told me this at the time.
Age 18, US passport: Drunk foreign exchange student
Age 18, UK passport: Stoooooned foreign exchange student
Age 20, ACIS card: Oh, okay, I forgot this one - Olive had just given me a haircut that made me look like Cleopatra, and I looked damn hot. I knew it at the time, too, as evidenced by the fact that I peeled this photo OFF of the expired ACIS card and proceeded to submit it the next year as a Tube pass photo. No joke.
Age 22, replacement passport photo: My friend Anna came with me for this photo during a break from work, and oh my god. It's winter, and I'm wearing a scarf and my off-day glasses, and there's something disastrously wrong with my hair and I'm wearing a black turtleneck to boot, and the guy only has black-and-white film to take the photo with. The result is that I look like I have arrived directly from Cold War Russia, KGB division. Anna and I are in the middle of discussing exactly how impossible it will be for me to travel ANYWHERE on that passport photo without being immediately detained and questioned when I get a call that someone's found the original passport, making the entire thing moot. I keep the photo, though. It's just that weird.
Age 24, rail card: We are late for a train down south. Olive and I have run to Paddington, run to the departures board, run to the ticket office, realised I qualify for a discount card, run to the photo booth to take the photo. I look like I've had a lobotomy -- like, I have this blank, blowsy, dazed look. It's a photo that should say "Oh, lord, we're going to miss the train and it's all my fault!". Instead, it says "Mmmm... eh? Hallooo!" In all, this saves me £3 with the rail card, which is about the same cost as the photo itself. Daft.

And then there's getting my license today. I tried today, people. I found the oddly-located RMV behind a train station with moderate difficulty. I filled all the paperwork out in advance, so as to avoid that thing where you fill out a form while resting your forehead in your palm and end up with greasy fringe and a red pressure splotch in the photo. In fact, it was all so smoothly done that I was waved right in and found myself before a deeply bored (and undoubtedly depressed) public servant within a matter of moments. Yeah, I was a bit shocked, too.

"Look in the thing heeyah," said the public servant, motioning towards a spot on the front of his booth. I took a moment to think. I didn't wear the black KGB turtleneck. I put on nice makeup. I wore the shapely black frames. I even wore the earrings that Olive's boyfriend gave me for Christmas. All should be well, right? Well, maybe one quick prayer to the soul-stealing photo gods would be goo... "Arright, yah done." What?! There wasn't even a flash!!!

Obviously, I end up looking like some sort of assassin-librarian. It's the sort of photo that makes me realise why old cockney geezers would sidle up to me in London and jolly "Cheer up, luv! It might not happen!" Looking at my new license, I wouldn't blame you for thinking that I spend my days quietly stacking books in the local library and shushing people, only to be occasionally interrupted by ninjas, at which point I flip open the P volume of the enyclopedia to reveal a razor blade embedded in the spine and go to town. It's just that sort of photo.

And so, despite my hopes, 2006 is apparently not the year that I finally take a good photo. If I could remember where I took the Cleopatra photo, I might be superstitious enough to go back, see if there's some sort of magic to it. Alas, that's a mystery as well. Or it could be that I need another haircut from Olive, except that could be unwise at this point, due to an unfortunate incident involving me, her, her freshman year, and the anguished words "too short!". But let's not dwell.

Let's cross our fingers for the passport renewal of 2008, shall we? Bah.

Givenchy "Organza First Light"

I really like this one. Some 'white floral' scents try too hard and finish up covering you with a wash of soapy odours, but "First Light Organza" has a very light touch.

It starts off with a gentle talc, like a grown-up baby powder. There's a hint of powdered sugar again as well, but this is a more mature, refined sweetness. And then the florals, which begin as an indistinguishable bouquet and then drift apart at the end. It's like finding a flower girl's posey on a chair at the end of a wedding reception, then separating out each bloom and holding it up to your face: slightly sweet from dusted sugar cookies smuggled to keep the toddler quiet, the talc scent where the bride hugged her, and then the white rose, narcissus, gardenia she's been carrying around carefully all day until her mother finally made her set them down and took her home to sleep.

And then there's another scent in there, which is green and peppery, and I think that's what tips the scent over from being cloying into being a great dressy, summery scent. Because in the end, you're not the flower girl in this scenario -- you're the guest who tucks one of the flowers into her hair and then spends the rest of the night with one of the groomsmen.

Verdict: A great white floral with just the right amount of adult edge.

Anna Sui "Sui Love"

I've actually worn this a few times and been totally unable to write a review. Usually I multitask: go shopping, go to work, read a book, whatever -- I just jot notes down on a scrap of paper and keep sniffing my arm like a lunatic, and by the end of the day I've got something to say. But "Sui Love" is an ever-changing jumble of so many different things, it's hard to pull out any specifics unless I sit down and actually focus on what's happening on my skin. So, with the help of "Beauty and the Geek 2", I finally sat still long enough to get through it.

At the start, there's a sweet, fruity incense over some sort of herbal mix. Cleanly smoky, it has an edge on it for the first five minutes before calming down to a nice thrum. This would have been a great scent to bridge the work/date divide (such as those weird times when a guy asks you to lunch and you can't tell if it's an actual date date or just convenience because you work in the same area, and you don't want to wear a very sexy scent because if it's casual he'll get all twitchy, but if it's a date date you want to be wearing something different than what you wear everyda... Uh, not that I think about this a lot. Ahem.)

But it turns out none of that matters, because only about fifteen minutes in, the entire thing goes all watery celery-and-pepper on me. There's a sweetness in there, but it's more like the natural sugar of the celery rather than a candy-sweetness. Reminded me a bit of the Malle "Therese" because of that very unexpected peppery tone, but the Ormonde layer was there too. Lurking.

And then there's the final stage of "Sui Love", which is totally weird, because this is when the Ormonde note suddenly becomes the dominant (and only) pitch. This note's not even an identifiable scent, really -- it's a warmth, like something mulling against your skin. I know you usually mull cider or wine with spices, but this isn't a spicy or smoky smell. All I can think of is a stemmy flower, like an iris. Take that iris and leave it in a vase for days on end: at some point, the iris will hit a turning point where it's stopped smelling fragrant and has just begun to die ever so slightly, almost creating a hint of heat as the flower begins to turn on itself. Okay, now somehow imagine mulling that scent of dying flower against your skin. It's definitely a weird thought, but it also an element I detect in almost every Ormonde I try. I'm sure there's something very lyrical I could say here about the beauty of burying a hint of overripeness or death in perfume, but I think I've been wordy enough for what is, in the end, a lackluster effort.

Verdict: Only worth it from the 5-15 minute mark; both before and after that, it's been done better.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends...

So here's the thing with international moves -- no matter how impeccably you plan, you're always going to run out of time. You'll leave something out of the shipping boxes, or forget to finish a bit of paperwork, or bury your passport and flight confirmation in your suitcase, or pack every single perfume sample you own in the safest place possible, which in this case was swaddled in a set of curtains in the centre of Box 2 (of three) destined for the slow boat out of London. A box which only reentered my life YESTERDAY.

So hurrah! All of my belongings from London have rejoined me at the family manse, where my parents view them with a growing sense of trepidation ("...and where do you intend to leave all this stuff?"). Tomorrow I'll be able to unearth my collection of scents and we'll be back on track -- at least until the next move, which is only about a month away.

And here's where I need your help, dear readers: Do you know anything about Wellington, NZ? I'm all set up to move there at the beginning of March, and I'm going in relatively blind. Any stories or tips would be greatly appreciated, or if you know anyone who wants to hire a writer-ish person? Feel free to give a heads-up.

And tomorrow? Perfume review! Seriously! For real! It's been so long since the last one, my iBook doesn't even smell like J-Lo anymore.