Wednesday, December 03, 2008

stressed beyond measure? road trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art

I don’t really hate Christmas, per se. I hate running all over town scoping out gifts, going to Michaels for craft supplies several times a day, and agonizing over cookie recipes for the annual office cookie contest (cranberry bliss? orange-chocolate biscotti? peppermint dipped chocolate wafers?).

Then I read this statement from artist Steven Walker in a press release for his painting exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts: “There’s a solitary elegance that I try to capture in all of my paintings. It’s all about engaging the viewer in the most calm and serene moment, as if to say, ‘Sit down, relax, and everything will be all right.‘“ I find myself daydreaming about how nice that sounds.

Walker was raised in Richmond, and his landscape paintings draw from road trips throughout Central Virginia. “My love and respect for nature has resulted in a quest to show its beauty through the hidden treasures of back roads, mystical skies, and even dilapidated barns… I like to think of my landscapes as friendly reminders that there’s still beauty to the side of the road and even in your own backyard.“ The show runs from December 8 to January 30, at the museum’s Pauley Center.

So if you don’t know what to do with the pile of relatives clambering through the house this December, pack them into the van for an afternoon outing to the museum. Or, better yet, bail on the family and take an afternoon of calm and serenity all to yourself.

photo: “Yonder” is a 2008 oil-on-board work by Steven Walker. (Photo by Travis Fullerton, © 2008 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts), courtesy of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

the Axe bath

Whatever the evil geniuses in the Unilever marketing department are doing to get men (not just frat boys but bonafide men who don’t live with their parents or “bros”) hooked on Axe Body Spray, it’s working. I can’t figure out if it’s the racy, arguably sexist advertising (although one Axe-addicted acquaintance was a women’s studies minor) or the tricked-out new container reminiscent of a can of spray paint. Maybe men find comfort in shopping for fragrance at 7-Eleven; Sephora isn’t exactly home territory for the male species. Regardless, they seem to find joy in liberally spraying Axe across their bodies even when it’s not in place of a shower or actual deoderant. Whenever we leave the house my boyfriend will inevitably say, “Wait, I forgot something,“ and spray Axe, often while walking towards me as I asphyxiate in the cloud of fragrance and propellant. He thinks it’s funny, and to be fair it kind of is.

Thankfully, the makers of Axe have developed some tolerable scents. Kilo, a favorite among Axe collectors with five or six scents in their medicine cabinets, is a generic masculine woody vanilla which thankfully dies down to practically nothing after 10 minutes. If you happen to get up close, it smells like poor man’s Armani Code. It could be better, but it could be a lot, lot worse. Photo from walgreens.com

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

desperate fragrance

If I lived on Wisteria Lane, I would be Bree Hodge (formerly Van de Kamp). I’d be less WASPy and I’d probably go for gin and tonic over wine. But if I were a housewife with apparently unlimited funds I’m sure my domestic talents and vaguely OCD tendencies would manifest in reupholstering projects and baking gourmet breakfast treats. I’d probably be an NRA member, too.

I probably spend a little too much time thinking about how I’d like to be Bree when I grow up. That’s why I’m almost positive Bree would wear Narciso Rodriguez For Her. It opens with an abbrasive head note of cleaning products, perhaps isopropyl alcohol, and orange blossom. But after eightish minutes it settles into a heady floral bouquet of white flowers, assumedly the honey flower, orange blossom, and osmanthus mentioned on Sephora’s website, grounded with a hint of antique shop dust. After a half hour it settles into a warm, whispery floral tempered with dusty musk and a hint of soap. Throughout its development the fragrance courteously stays close to the body and allows the scent of skin to flicker through. It’s the sort of thing I could see wearing to brunch or afternoon tea, and the lingering sillage is appropriate for gardening, ironing linens, or baking tea cakes.

Narciso Rodriguez For Her starts at $64 for 1.6 oz eau de toilette and, for the ultimate perfectionista, $32 for 1 oz hair mist. Available at Sephora, photo from Sephora.