Pilar and Lucy, tiptoing through chambers of the moon

It should be fairly clear by now that I am easily seduced by names. The more fantastic the promise, the more snake oil I am likely to buy.

Alas, this Pilar and Lucy scent only lived up to the "tiptoing" part of its name. Its pretty, inoffensive floral note creeps in on little cat feet of powdery musk and then is gone before you know it. Wearing it out, I had difficulty believing, as the promo materials claim, that I was being "romanced under a moonlit night with the faint scent of a tuberose garden lingering somewhere near." Bad writing aside (the website also urges us to "trust our surrender"), the description is just wrong. The tuberose garden is indeed somewhere near, but it's not nighttime - it's seven o'clock in the morning and I'm fresh out of the shower, catching a moment to myself in the breakfast room before the kids are out of bed.

Unlike "Perfect Veil," this scent does call a real woman to mind, an admirable one in fact. She is one of those sensible women who eat healthy food, meditate, and raise competent children. I picture a well-appointed Regency-era interior in cornflower blue, with Elinor Dashwood carrying on her polite correspondence at a writing table. It's a steady, sober, practical, powdery-soft kind of feminine smell, suitable for reflecting on one's virtues but not one's sins.

In other words, not for me. For some women, this scent is probably wonderfully calming, like L'Heure Bleue, the Guerlain classic that also doesn't suit me in the slightest. For me, it is a cage of stillness. Like yoga, it just reminds me that I feel most alive when in motion, and most relaxed when I'm asleep.