Posts Tagged ‘Paris’

Looking for a new perfume for Spring, Kikidoll got this email from a fellow fumie friend in Paris:

Dear Kiki,

I am in the Galerie de Valois in Palais Royal and just bought this amazing scent by Serge Lutens called Tubéreuse Criminelle.

You have to smell this–it’s like sitting at night in our lanai back home in Waikiki. Costs a bomb–110 Euros for 75 ml.–  but you gotta have it!  Will give up eating my daily crepe just to buy it for you.

Yours,  Smellarella

Kikidoll wrote back:

Dear Smella,

Yes, heard of it, but can’t buy it here and they won’t ship to US–it’s exclusive in Europe. I googled it and it says it has tuberose alright, but also jasmine and something else…spicey?

Why don’t you just come home and sit in your lanai?  Hawaii’s air is already so perfumed it’s practically criminal.

Save your Euros. And enjoy your crepe au chocolat!

Ever your sistah,  K

Ah, criminal tuberose, like a night thief!

Kikidoll read on:

The lingering, wafting scents of  tuberose, jasmine, orange blossom and hyacinth are laced with spicey nutmeg, clove and vanilla and levelled off with musk for mystery. Developed for Serge Lutens Perfumes by Chris Sheldrake it was first released in 1999 and by now it is well-ensconced as a classic, no, great, tuberose fragrance that’ll steal your heart and wallet.

Nothing prepares you for the ‘ta-dah’ opening  blast it gives. Tubéreuse Criminelle has at times been compared to everything from’ sewer gas to moth balls to Vick’s Vapo-rub.’

Eventually during the dry down once the top notes fade the tuberose left behind is enveloped in a lush, velvety spice bath. Not creamy and dreamy like the tuberose so prominent in Fracas, another heady tuberose perfume that like Tubéreuse Criminelle has its fans swooning and squeeing its delights. Take Fracas as the girlier version; Tubéreuse Criminelle, although not masculine, could cross-dress it can be so seductive. And chilly. And dangerous.  (All props to Now Smell This)

Smella confirmed Kikidoll’s fear that Tubéreuse Criminelle is only available if, like Smella, you are in Paris (or the EC). Eating crepes. Giving up your pocket money just  to own this mysterious, dangerous, cat burglar of a scent.

Or, you could just go to Hawaii and smell the flowers in the air!

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No one personifies the All- American surfer girl in a swim suit more than uber-model Christie Brinkley. Here she is catching rays in a red-white and blue flag inspired one piece.

The 1981 cover of Sports Illustrated Swim edition showed off her sculpted physique and natural glamor in a pinky lavendar bikini that captured the feathery look of the pelicans and seabirds behind her on Captiva Island.

Her 1000 kilo-watt smile, perfect features, tawny golden locks and athletic,womanly form made her the choice for three consecutive covers for Sports Illustrated‘s famed Swim Issues from 1979-1981, the first time anyone appeared three times in a row.

For more than thirty years, Christie has graced over 500 covers of the world’s leading fashion magazines and held the longest contract for modelling as the face of Cover Girl cosmetics nearly as long, for 20 years, signing back in 2005 to represent the maturing market.

Though born in Michigan, she was raised in the Pacific Palisades/Brentwood area of Los Angeles, California, and after attending the French Lycee there, left to study art in Paris in 1973. Discovered in a Parisian post office by a photographer who introduced her to the legendary Elite Modelling agency, her modelling career zoomed to stratospheric proportions at Ford making her one if not the most recognized faces in the world.

Of her new-found status, Christie quipped later: “I was basically a surfer girl from California. I never looked like a model.”

Christie has also appeared in films as ‘the girl in the red Corvette’ in National Lampoon‘s Vacation and reprised her role in a sequel Vegas Vacation. Hosting television shows, writing books, promoting products such as jewellery, perfume and home gym equipment in infomercials, selling patterns, and campaigning for animal rights has kept this vegetarian mother of 3 toned and active and engaged in her still-vibrant career.

But modelling is still what keeps her at the top of the lists when she was voted the number 3 rank in AskMen.com’s  Top 10 Supermodels of all Time, and on Playboy‘s list of 100 sexiest women of the 20th Century.

Perhaps the most enduring testament to her golden girl looks came in 2005 when she was featured in the special Sports Illustrated 40th Anniversary Issue’s Hall of Fame, celebrating the most revered figures in the magazine’s history.

Christie’s posters, covers and calendars are still beaming her sunny beauty to all her many admirers.

More designer swimwear

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