ARS AROMATICA

.:ARS AROMATICA:.
"The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion, but cosmetics are easier to buy."
—Yves Saint Laurent

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If you're new to this blog, then read our guides to the basics: Skin (Part I), Skin (Part II), The Supernatural, Color Theory I, Color Theory II, Eyes, and Brushes.

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Contents
· Most Wanted: The Phantom Tollbooth
· Globetrotter: Coming Next Week

Favored
Art Tattler
the glamourai
The Non-Blonde
Perfume Shrine
Lisa Eldridge
Garance Doré
Smitten Kitchen
Into The Gloss
Grain de Musc
Lacquerized
Res Pulchrae
Drivel About Frivol
The Selfish Seamstress
Killer Colours
Bois de Jasmin
Glossed In Translation
Jak and Jil
Toto Kaelo
Worship at the House of Blues
I Smell Therefore I Am
Food Wishes
The Natural Haven
Messy Wands
1000 Fragrances
Moving Image Source
Wondegondigo
The Emperor's Old Clothes
M. Guerlain
Colin's Beauty Pages
Barney's jewelry department
Parfümrien
loodie loodie loodie
The Straight Dope
Sea of Shoes
London Makeup Girl
Sakecat's Scent Project
Asian Models
Ratzilla Cosme
Smart Skincare
Illustrated Obscurity
A.V. Club
Tom & Lorenzo: Mad Style
Eiderdown Press
Beauty and the Bullshit
La Garçonne
Flame Warriors
Everyday Beauty
Fashion Gone Rogue
Now Smell This
Dempeaux
Fashionista
The Cut
A Fevered Dictation
Nathan Branch
101 Cookbooks

Most Wanted: The Phantom Tollbooth by Dain

After the epic, children's literature is perhaps the most difficult. To entertain so young an audience, the writer must be gentle and attentive and very, very deft, executing in a few simple words a universe of the mind unusually vivid, and above all, he needs a sense of humor, a rare commodity in adult fiction. It is a gift. The writer of adult fiction may take refuge in the obsessions of melancholy, with its ornate infrastructure between word and intellect, and for his pains the reader's reward is sometimes obscure, though that too is a truthful answer. Experience is an accumulation of error, and an adult's vision is cluttered by it: past regrets, fear of the unknown future, the opinions of those around him, disillusionment, love and loss, the inexplicable presence of unhappiness and suffering in the world, all out of his power to control. A child knows only the present. He is simpler in that way. When he hurts, it fills him entirely; he has none of the adult's ability to add context to his situation, that a scraped knee will soon heal, that domestic abuse is no fault of his own. As for joy, it doesn't take much to make a child happy.

The writer of children's fiction inhabits both these worlds, the adult and the child. There may be a twinge of escapist wistfulness there, such as in Alice in Wonderland or L.M. Montgomery, or a slight contempt for adult hypocrisy, which is often the case for Roald Dahl, but these are not children who write these words. A firm understanding of adult existence saturates the text: Charlotte the spider finds fulfillment by giving to others, Aslan is definitely not a tame lion, "Little Red Riding Hood" is a cautionary tale against rape, and the vagaries of fate provide the plot of Holes. It is an attempt at guidance, to a reader whose limitation is innocence, from the vantage of experience, towards what is ultimately worthwhile.

Take, for example, one of my favorite children's novels, The Phantom Tollbooth. Milo, an Odyssean figure, suffers from inertia. He can't understand the bother of school. Through the magical device of fiction, he undergoes a thorough mental awakening to all that the world has to offer, accessible through the tools of knowledge. At the gates of Dictionopolis, he and the stalwart watchdog, Tock, are questioned by the guard:

On the surface, this little episode is not much but absurd wordplay. The gateman has taken the request for a reason, literally. As long as Milo has got a reason, even the aimless WHY NOT?, it's not particularly important whether he's kept in or out. But here in The Phantom Tollbooth, everything metaphorical is made literal. Milo is a boy without any sense of purpose in his life, but now he is must acquire it in order to move forward. Is it not fitting then, that here at the point of entry into the kingdom of words, where everything has been assigned a meaning as neatly as a dictionary, a reason for its existence, Milo should be stopped and demanded to provide one for his own? And indeed once he enters the city, he discovers his quest, to return Rhyme and Reason to the Kingdom of Wisdom. In spite of the fantastic journey and crazy characters, Juster's final message, as with all other great children's books, is rather simple and very real: "whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way... And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer."

This outfit's theme is back to school. Terribly late, but I've been on vacation.

More dapper than sneakers, there's old-world charm to a pair of oxfords. Hard to imagine a more delightful pair than these Robert Clergerie ($585), with such lovingly detailed chocolate leathers: like pralines for your feet.

How much more modern for a young woman to sport a single note, after the material-focused manner of Serge Lutens, than the usual signifier of youth, the ditzy fruity floral. 10 Corso Como ($85) teases out facets of honeyed warmth and bright rose from the meditative aroma of sandalwood, an ideal complement for the deepening chill and leaf drift and dusty books. For every day, the body lotion ($55) imparts a subdued, allover sillage; layer the eau de parfum for intensity.

Buying a new jacket always signaled the start of a new school year for me. It would be the rare schoolgirl indeed who'd sport this Wunderkind Lambskin Jacket ($2100), a runway showpiece, but the Most Wanted caters not to reality but to fantasy, so let us run with the most exquisite finds. For cold weather, I'm a firm believer in a great coat to lend an outfit style and substance.

It's a trend that's here to stay: jeans so skinny they're essentially denim tights, grotesque as any trend done to excess. Even the purported tastemakers can't budge its grip on closets worldwide. Lanvin showcases ladylike cocktail dresses. Palates exhausted by the 80s revival flock to Celine's pure, deftly handled lines. Even Kate Moss, its origin point, attempted bellbottoms at one point. Still, if you can't embrace an oversaturated trend in high school, then when can you do it? At least these Etoile Isabel Marant Marbled Velvet Cords ($360) have an original twist that'll outlast the vagaries of fashion. Addendum: I do like the way Isabel Marant styled her skinnies, by rolling them to a 50s flood length, the silhouette seems better balanced.