I arrived in Paris late on a gray morning and on the way from the airport was able to view the many chestnuts in blossom while experiencing some Parisian morning traffic jams. The apartment I’m staying is close to everything (walking distance from the Champs Elysees for one thing) is quite old and has very steep swirling staircase leading to it. There I met my boyfriend and his sister and we spent the entire day together.

After spending a couple of hours recovering from the longish trip and its various side effects (via Montreal – over all about 11-12 hours flight), which included eating fresh strawberries from the market and some baguette and trying to taste a ripened cheese with a sharp taste of cooked cauliflower, we left the apartment for the first little tour of Paris on the Champs Elysees. Our first stop was Sephora, a very short stop that is because the entrance was infested by what I could only describe as petroleum fumes. I had to leave before getting an idea of what’s in the store, but I did notice it was gigantic – almost like an entire mall of perfume and makeup! – and that there is some lighter version of KenzoAmour already out in France, that comes in a beautiful white bottle with gradually transparent edges. I left as soon as possible and immediately spotted Guerlain, which is almost the next door neighbour but decided to cross the street and have some tea at Laduree so I can recover some of my strength before the strenuous mental activity of perfume sniffing…

Laduree had the nicest muted turquoise-green entrance in a somewhat art-deco style with a butterly motif and purple accents. We sat at the bar at the back and had some of Laduree’s house-blend tea (very fragrant with roses and violets I suspect), and accompanied by some of their newest macaroons – mango & jasmine, muguet, bergamot and the violet-cassis ones. The mango and jasmine was mostly mango, with the slightest hint of jasmine and quite delicious with an almost jelly-like texture of the mango filling; the muguet tasted primarily of almonds, the bergamot was intense and impressive and the violet-cassis was a heavenly balance of floral sweetness and tart red fruits.
On the way to Laduree we spotted an Arabian Oud boutique and now was a good time to check it out. I smelled 5 types of oudh – two Indian and 3 Cambodian ouds, ranging from light and woody to smoky and animalic. My favourite was one mild Indian oudh and also another more smoky Cambodian oud. This is the first place I’ve seen that actually sells real oud as well as the oud wood chips. The shop owner was kind and knowledgeable and even let me take picture of him and the shop.

We than crossed the street and went over to Guerlain, where the walls of two story shop are stacked with shelves of perfume and eaux de cologne vats ranging from 500ml to 1 and 2 litres. On the second floor is where the exclusive perfumes reside – including Sous la Vent, which I had planned to impulsively buy on this trip and wear it in my 5 days in Paris so it would be how I remember the trip by. .. I tried it at Montreal once and was immediately smitten… I also smelled a few other perfumes there: Vetiver pour Elle, which I had hard time not buying on the spot as well (and my boyfriend loved too – he seems to be really into the vetivers I like – i.e. Sycamore and Vetiver Tonka and always comments on them). He was also smitten with white florals and I think Cruel Gardenia was his favourite. But than he’s also smitten with my gardenia plant that blooms in the middle of my living room…! I love the dry gin beginning of Sous la Vent. It is quite herbaceous and dry with only very little florals and gradually warms up into a chypre base with only the slightest hint of tonka bean. This is how I'm going to smell in the next few days...

By now it was time for dinner and we wanted to check out l’Atlas – a Morrocan restaurant at St. Germain. Unfortunately, 5pm was too early for them to be open and we had to find something else. Of course we knocked into another parfumerie on the way – Diptyque – and I got a chance to check out all the candles I was curious about (Flouve, Figue Vert, etc.) and their new eaux. I was particularly taken with the freesia soap though above all things.

We went on and had some cheese fondue in a little side street and got scratched by a friendly yet aggressive resident cat and than went home all the way through Notre-Dame and along the Sienne, going through the Louvre and Jardin de Tuilleries and than all along the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triumph.

James Bay looked beautifully moody on this grey spring day. The misty air smelled of salt and wet grass as we approached the hillsides, trimmed with strange hedges and covered with grassy meadows, specked with early daffodils. The beauty of this bay has the ability to soothe the most troubled soul with its harmonious horizon of snow capped mountainous islands.

And it greeted me yesterday with the most smiling of all faces - the setting sun sending horizontal rays through the layers of grass and diffuses through the atmosphere with moving dots like swimming plankton.

The lobby at James Bay Inn smells vaguely of almonds and baby powder and has everything one needs to pass time meaningfully - a piano and a chess set. The only thing missing was people to play with (or play the piano for me). But even just looking at the space and the antique Victorian sofas and upholstered chairs creates a lively conversation in one’s head.

In the evening, as we walked on Toronto street, approaching Beacon Hill Park, a strangely familiar scent permeated the air: brewing tea! Was it Early Grey, or something else? It was obviously present but also slipped away quickly before I was able to fully analyze it. It reminded me mostly of wet tea leaves. A few steps later, it was Blueberry tea. “Hmmm, Victorians must be true tea lovers if their streets smell like this!”. I was determined to come back through the same street on the way to the inn, but the winding trails on the parks mossy belly distracted me and I was walking in a different street. I almost just arrived at the hotel, when the tea waft appeared again. This time, it was more like a lychee tea. Cleverly, I stopper right there and than and bent over the nearest branch of flowering bush that happened to be just by my feet. Sure enough, this was the source of the scent. The bush looks like pittosporum with green blossoms. And smells amazingly like fruity black tea.

I’m in the ferry boat to Victoria, British Columbia’s capital whose downtown is dotted with Irish pubs. I’m on a strange spring break-meets-spring-cleaning tour. In other words, my space is being redecorated and I’m trying to avoid the chaos of living and working among scattered furniture and splashes of paint (the walls will be green, of course, when I return home in two days).

The sea route goes through the lusciously green Gulf Islands, where Celtic hippies reside; and today I’m told they will summon the devil with their squeaky violins as they drink alfalfa juice specked with spirulina powder. Therefore it is only appropriate to talk about green scents.

And although I’m away from my explosive library of samples and my head is dizzying as the ferry spiraling in-between the fjord-like moss covered rocky islands in an attempt to enter Salt Spring Island’s dock - I will make an attempt all the same to list all those green scents that make life worth living and hay worth harvesting.

There are all kinds of green. This has become even clearer to me as I had to go through swatches of paints to choose from - dill pickle green, or avocado mayonnaise? We went with the timothy hay after all. But I digress, as my intention was to talk about green scents and not so much the colour. Yet, there is some kind of equivalence - green being a mixture of blue and yellow can lead to difference direction - dark and cool with more blue; or bright, lively and vibrant with more yellow. There are the olives, which are more dirty; and than there are greens that are bordering with grey.

Similarly with scent, there is the green the evokes crushed living leaf and than there are the greens that reminds us more of dry stacks of hay. Green goes both ways - sharp and fresh or warm and sweet-herbaceous. There is coniferous green and than there is also floral green. And I haven’t even mentioned green tea yet!

Galbanum - Sharp or Sweet:
Galbanum, the resin from a plant related to carrot and fennel, is responsible for the green bite in scents such as Vent Vert and Miss Dior. However, in its absolute form it is sweet and soft and almost berry-like. Yohji perfume accentuates galbanum’s sensuality by anchoring it with caramel and berries, resulting in a delicious, powdery-green-caramel confection.

Green Tea - Sheer and Fresh:
Miller et Bertaux Eau de Parfum #3: Green, green, green and green, is exactly the kind of scent that has both green tea and freshness. Balmy Days & Sundays by Ineke brings a more brisk and minty aspect to the theme of tea. And if you like the tea but not so much the greens, opt for Eau Parfumee au The Vert or Osmanthe Yunnan.

Not-So-New Mown Hay
Many fougere fragrance play on the bitter-sweet aspect of the coumarin present in hay or liatrix. Yerbamate is an example where the sweetness is amplified.

Tomato Leaf - Quirky Garden:
For a floral green, get a taste of originality with l’Ombre dans l’Eau’s juxtaposition of green tomato leaves and dewy roses. Tomato leaf appears in only very few other fragrances and adds the distinct aroma that rubs to your hands along with the colour green while attending to your tomato vines.

Cucumber, Violet and Iris:
Violet leaf has a cucumber-like, floral powdery scent. The accent on the cool rather than the powdery-sweet-floralcy of violet appeals to me especially in No. 19 and also in the more recent Kelly Caleche.

P.s. And as if my day wasn't green enough, when I arrived to Victoria I had dinner at Green Cuisine.

Photo: Happy St. Patrick's Day, originally uploaded by jciv.