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Signature Scent

L’eau D’Issey

One night many years ago, I was catching up with high school pals during Christmas Break when my friend Adam blurted the strangest thing.

“I smelled you last month.”

What he meant to say was, he’d smelled someone wearing Sung. And while his comment made me smile, it also stayed with me.

I’ve always been a monogamous girl when it comes to fragrance.

In elementary school I wore honeysuckle by Avon bottled in a frosted glass teddy bear. I wore it everyday until the scent was discontinued on the eve of my entering junior high.

It took a little while before I found Primo, a knock-off of the more expensive Giorgio. I think back now and wrinkle my nose. I must have wreaked of Primo – considering the scent was sprayed on with a slender aluminum can (groans inwardly). But in the time of tight-rolled pants and skinny ties, jelly bracelets and paisley patterns, I stayed true.

By the time I reached high school, I’d moved from Maybelline to Clinique and from Primo to the more expensive and more sophisticated Poison. Every morning, before strapping on my Swatch, I’d spritz my wrists with a little Poison.

Granted, every now and then I’d be tempted by something lighter like Elizabeth Arden’s Sunflower or Estee Lauder’s Beautiful but I never strayed for long. Until, the summer before my senior year when I discovered Sung.

Alfred and I had a long affair, lasting well over seven years. In fact I’d never gone so long with the same scent. Even my beloved honeysuckle didn’t last that long. I imagined each time someone I knew well caught a whiff of Sung, they’d think of me.

So I decided to switch things up a bit, broke off with Alfred, and moved on to Issey Miyake.

Though I’m not as faithful. Most days I wear L’Eau D’Issey, but sometimes I’m in the mood for a little Flowers – usually in the fall and winter. And for real memorable occasions, I bring out the Must and dab those drops of heaven on my pulse points.

What’s your signature scent?


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Entombed in Amber

 amber

On Saturday, August 18Dr. Jorge Santiago Blay will speak on “Entombed in Amber” at 2:30 p.m. at the National Museum of Natural History.

An injured plant releases a resin that entraps an insect: about 120-130 million years later a Smithsonian scientist contemplates Earth history in that bit of hardened and fossilized resin, now called amber. Dr. Jorge Santiago-Blay studies amber and shares his broad understanding of this and other plant exudates as they may inform deep geologic time and have supplied important resources for humankind. Following the lecture, chat with Dr. Santiago-Blay at display tables and learn about these substances and how to spot fakes.

Like most people, I became enamored with amber after watching Jurassic Park. For years I’ve collected gold and green amber set in silver — rings, pendants, and a bracelet.

If you’re in DC on Saturday, think about dropping by Blay’s lecture.


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Art Heist

Cliffs Near Dieppe

In less than five minutes, five armed and masked thieves stole four paintings from the Jules-Cheret Fine Arts Museum in Nice.

The two Impressionist paintings — 1897 Cliffs Near Dieppe by Monet and the 1890 Lane of Poplars by Alfred Sisley — and two by Jan Bruegel the Elder — Allegory of Earth and Allegory of Water– are worth about $1.4 million.

The art museum is housed in an Italianate mansion that once belonged to a Ukrainian princess.

Because of all the publicity and the works that were taken, it’s not like these paintings will go up on the auction block at Christie’s or Sotheby’s anytime soon.  Someone is spiriting them away to some private vault somewhere for their viewing pleasure. Why these paintings? And why not visit the museum and admire them like everyone else? Why do people covet these works?

And — if by some stroke of ingenuity and lapse of morality — you could take a very public painting and bring it home, what would you choose?

I would be torn between de Kooning’s portrait of JFK and Susanna and the Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi. Not that I ever would.