Because She Can, Can, Can: Histoires de Parfums's "Moulin Rouge 1889"

*Currently Listening: "La Vie Est Belle" by MC Solaar
*Current Perfume: "Liaisons Dangereuses" by Kilian (I am getting my $4 worth out of this sample, and will be buying a bottle - ok, the travel spray - Friday)

Kitty!!!! Lay off the hallucinogenic hooch!

This past Thursday "D.F." gifted me with the remainder of my Christmas gift, a 14 ml bottle of Moulin Rouge 1889 by Histoires de Parfums. I'm not sure WHY it took so long for her to receive her order or where from; although I like to pretend that the bottle was being hand mixed and crafted JUST for me. :o)

I'm especially intrigued by the idea behind the Histoires de Parums line. The line's website explains, "[t]he first volumes of this collection were inspired by famous people who influenced their generation." (Mata Hari, Colette, Eugénie de Montijo, George Sand, Jules Verne, Marquis de Sade & Casanova.) However, Moulin Rouge 1889 isn't one of the original volumes, and wasn't inspired by a person, but "[t]he legend of the famous Parisian cabaret nights depicted in a bottle."

D.F. was right on the money when she said, "This one just seamed like you!" I'm a little obsessed with Paris & the idea of the Moulin Rogue (even though I've never been there): fell in love with the idea of Can-Can dancers since watching the 1960 movie "Can-Can" with Shirley McClain and *swoon* Frank Sinatra; got all wrapped up in the sweeping romance and stunning visuals that tempered some really bad acting in Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" (I'm very much looking forward to the Christmas Day release of his adaptation of "The Great Gatsby this year); and early in my North Carolina days taking the husband (then boyfriend) to a Toulouse Lautrec art exhibit complete with a viewing of a Lautrec biopic. (That sentence may have even made Hemingway blush! Length, baby!) I'm into the whole Moulin Rouge / Montmartre thing, clearly.

 

 

Now back to perfume. :-) The HDP website lists the following breakdown for the notes:
Top - Tangerine, Prune, Cinnamone
Heart - Absinthe, Rose of Damas
Base - Irus, Patchouli, Musk, Fur

Notes from my perfume journal (and I'll try to type them out as close to how I write them as possible):
10:58 --> "It smells like my Grandma, Prune & powder...? But like, not in a bad way." Very quickly after - sweet but not cloying --> prune & cinnamon.

11:14 --> Rose & "spice", green yet earthy --> nutmeg, coriander, liquorice...which is prob. really fennel. Fennel's in absinthe right?

12:20 --> Sweet wood.

I love the stages of this perfume...a lot! The powdery old-world-ness when you first spritz it on, then the herbal (hallucinogenic) green-ness of the absinthe mixing with the rose makes me think of the smell of one an artist's studio in Montmartre as he drinks and paints a lady wearing rose scented perfume, ending with the sweet yet woody dry down that only hints to the memory of before.

Where would I wear this though? It's very specific in a good way. If I wanted to match a place to the perfume, I'd say here. To my Boston ladies that read this: anyone up for a girls night at Cuchi Cuchi? Although, honestly - I'd wear it any time I want to be transported. In this case transported to a very specific time and place.

For the record: absinthe has both fennel and liquorice in it. (Thanks to The Absinthe Buyers Guide for clearing that up!)

"I'm the Green Fairy."

 **Disclaimer, I've never had REAL absinthe. If I did...I feel that I would be haunted by Kylie Minogue.

I find the following video of Can-Can dancers at the Moulin Rouge in 1902 to be very enlightening...oh how we have stylized them through the years....

*Currently Listening: "La Vie Est Ailleurs" by Coeur De Pirate"