{"id":1520,"date":"2020-01-22T09:18:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T09:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.divinonyc.com\/?p=1520"},"modified":"2021-04-18T21:48:33","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T01:48:33","slug":"le-labo-perfume-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/divino.wine\/le-labo-perfume-review\/","title":{"rendered":"A Wail and a Whisper, or How I learned to Love Le Labo: Perfume Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before I ever smelled it, I fell head over heels for the idea<\/em><\/strong> of Le Labo\u2014a perfect victim of cupid\u2019s marketing marksmanship.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

*As an Amazon affiliate publisher we may receive a commission on qualifying purchases. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a YouTube marathon I  happened on their grainy black and white biography<\/strong><\/a>.  Immediately I yearned to associate myself with the rock star apothecary packaging and find my olfactory destiny in one of their little numbered blends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hadn\u2019t felt such a strong impulse since the time I first saw my friend Vicky order a Campari and Soda at a Chicago Caf\u00e9.  The red liquid seemed to ignite the glass and came with a requisite slice of orange an accompanying mini bottle of club soda, \u00e0 la Pastis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I vowed to make it mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The thing is, the first several times I ordered it,  the smell\u2014not to mention the taste\u2014shocked my senses into oblivion. It wasn\u2019t unpleasant so much as it was intense and unapproachable, like an un-cracked code.  And thus, armed with cans of Seltzer I willed myself to love Campari, sip after tiny tentative sip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Campari soda<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Eventually I triumphed and what had once struck me as unbearably bitter, became my cherished cocktail de rigueur.  The nuances of a proper Bitter Campari e Soda <\/em>still strike me on occasion.  The shock and sting of bitter orange, the constant play of light and dark, like a shadows on a sunny day.  Campari, like most bitters, began as a medicinal tonic to aid in digestion, and so it contains a proprietary blend of balsamic herbs. Within the layers you\u2019ll find pepper and anise, rosemary and even lavender. Campari ignites with bright citrus yet oozes a cooling dark purple quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trick, like any blend, is in the quantities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially Le Labo hit me in the same way.   I adored every inch of the concept but the fragrances felt overbearing, impossible to breach.  I couldn\u2019t tell if I was smelling one thing or a million things. I couldn\u2019t wrap my nose around any of them until the end of the day, or worse, the morning after.  At night I would smell something on my pillow and along the edge of my top sheet\u2014a sensual twist in the game that sent me to bed still thinking about it. Clutching the sheets to my nose I\u2019d throw my head back and gulp in breath after breath until I fell asleep in the hopes that the answer might come to me in a dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

For the good part of two years I played with samples, spraying them on at various times during the day and smelling them later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I spent a sweaty 36 hours without showering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an un-air-conditioned Brooklyn apartment in August, a shower is more like a tease. Clad in nothing but the last few spritzes from my latest sample I drained gallons of water and drifted in and out of sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When I awoke, Patchouli 24 had became one with my essence. It hovered sweet, then smoky in such a way that I kept turning my head to see who smelled so great in the room.  Hours of birch tar top notes had first evoked, in turn, a smoldering hearth and a BBQ.  Sure, it\u2019s nice to feel scrumptious, but I\u2019d rather provoke an appetite for something other than sauce-slathered pork ribs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Patchouli 24 finally calmed down, the birch tar and styrax resin leveled off to the point that the titillating burn of smoke to the nostrils served to temper the sweetness of vanilla and the damp quality of the patchouli itself, in the same the way acidity slices through the honeyed glaze of a Sp\u00e4tlese Riesling.  A balance of two extremes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n