Breathing in Brooklyn

Brownie and I "ceberated" Spring Break yesterday by going to NYC to spend money stimulate the economy play.  Along the way, we saw Hugh Jackman heading out of a Gap near Union Square.  The man, he is tall.  And wet.  Near soaking, actually, as were we all, because the Northeast got hit with a Nor'easter this weekend and it was sheeting rain all damn day.  Re: Mr. Jackman, no I gawk openly, chase him down the street, attempt to get a picture or anything else.  I did do a double-take.

Anyway, the highlight of the trip was easily a trip to the CB I Hate Perfume gallery in Brooklyn, the website of which I've linked to in the blog title.  The gallery is fucking awesome.  It's a medium-sized room with white, cubbyhole type shelves on two sides of the wall (this is where the testers are displayed), a table, some random stools, and then a few steps up to the back area where they mix all the scents.  There are several lines of perfumes which tend toward the natural/outdoorsy side of scents, as well as several series of single-note accords.

Basically, it's a perfume heaven.  The other perfume heaven, of course, is Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (BPAL).  The difference, for those who know neither or for those only familiar with one, is fairly simple.  BPAL works to create scents that are olfactory interpretations of literature, artwork, myths, experiences - whatever has captured Beth's attention.  The clearest example of this is the Salon series, where a work of art has been "translated" into a scent interpretation - certain notes in the perfume may have been chosen because they're represented in the painting (i.e., a painting with sunflowers will have sunflower in the scent oil, etc), other notes may have been chosen because they match the color of the painting (i.e., a form of synesthesia: the way we often think of the color orange when we smell the fruit of the same name).  The blends then create a sort of mood or feeling.  Example: Falling Leaf Moon gives off a mood that is reminiscent of wandering through a forest in New England in late October - melancholy, damp, woodsy, and the idea of a pumpkin pie floating in the background.

CB I Hate Perfume, conversely, can best be described by the accords.  The accords aren't interpretations.  They flat-out smell exactly like what the label claims.  If the label says Mango, it smells like a mango.  If the label says Clean Baby Butt, it smells like baby powder.  Smokehouse smells exactly like a barbeque joint.  The perfumes are interpretations of ideas or experiences, much like BPAL, but whereas BPAL will create a scent that gets across the mood, CBIHP will create a scent that smells like the actual moment.  To contrast with BPAL Falling Leaf Moon above, CBIHP has a scent called M3: November which smells exactly like you've been dropped into a forest in the late fall.  It isn't a mood, it's an experience.

That said, the differences are obviously minor, but distinct.  Another small difference:  CBIHP smells 'cleaner' to me, BPAL 'richer,' if that makes any sense.

Brownie and I wandered in at about 1:15 and were met almost at the door by one of the employees, a British-sounding chap named Russell.  We were allowed to dump dripping umbrellas in an umbrella stand, told to drop our coats on one of the stools, and then given a brief tour of what was where: perfume series to the left (with water perfumes available to spray at will; CBIHP doesn't use alcohol in their perfume) and accords to the right.  We were then told that any accords we wanted would be made to order, told if we wanted Cradle of Light to order about 25 minutes before we wanted to leave so that they'd have time to make the water perfume up (quite expensive, that one!), and were then left alone to sniff, sniff, sniff and sniff some more.

They have damn near everything.  There were only two scents I could think of that I would have loved that they didn't have: sunflower accord and neroli accord.  Everything else, however, was there.  And I mean everything, from wet concrete accord (smells like rainy sidewalks) to roast beef accord (beefy and lightly herbed - made me hungry!) to an accord jokingly called "You know what this is..." which was, I am not kidding, Play-Doh.  Honest to FSM, Play-Doh.

The thing that really blows my mind, however, is the water line of accords.  I've seen and tried lots of aquatic perfumes, but I have never once smelled one that smells like real rain.  With BPAL, I always feel like the aquatics are something that lend more to the mood of a scent rather than a description of "this here smells like an actual ocean."  So when I picked up CBIHP's Rain Storm accord, the last thing I was expecting it to smell like was a thunderstorm.  BUT IT DOES.  It smells like actual, real, true, falling from the sky RAIN (which I had ample opportunity to verify, given, as I mentioned earlier, the city was being drenched in the stuff).

I ended up with two perfumes and three accords:
- Fig Leaf / Revelation perfume
- I am a Dandelion perfume
- Rain Storm accord
- Wet Lawn accord
- Pimms Cup accord (a quick google later tells me that Pimms Cup is a gin-based citrus liquor, which I'm now mad to try)

A lovely time was had by all (except my wallet, of course).  I'm thrilled with my scents and will review them in later posts.