For me, fragrance is an invitation to a dream. It’s an intimate form of self-expression that amps creativity, encourages tomfoolery, and makes the heart a little happier.

Being alert to smells – everyday odors as well as the perfumed variety – is just another way to be alert to the beauty and stimulation in the world around us. And choosing to wear something inspiring gives us a portable bubble of joy wherever we go.

I invite you to experience five of my favorite, err…“joy bubbles”, and through the generosity of my fragrance enablers, Perfume.com, receive 20% off their purchase. Quote promo code PUCK20 for your 20% discount. Offer ends June 30, 2010.

My selections reflect a range of fume moods:

Bulgari Black – Chic Mystique

Bulgari Black is an intriguingly confounding oriental. It’s simultaneously warm and cool, butch and femme. It’s classy, but not uptight. Its puff of vanilla pleather reads like a skin scent, but whose skin has rubber in it? Only the sexiest android ever, that’s who!

My first time with BB was an in-store spritz at the mall, and when I collected my husband (listlessly waiting for me on a sofa in the “man nook”), he instantly de-glazed and snapped to attention. Black was officially the first fragrance that made him utter the magic words: “Mmmm…you smell good! What’s that perfume?” And before too long, Black was officially the first fragrance that he stole from me.

Fine by me. Makes a nice change from his usual: mosquito repellent, worn while hiking. Black smells a lot better, but I’m not sure how it works on mosquitoes.

Agent Provocateur – Queen of Sheba

At the beginning of this, our second millennium, I experienced Agent Provocateur for the first time. I loved the cool feel of the pink porcelain bottle, shaped like an egg, or a tear, or a breast. I loved the peep show box it came in. I was less sure about the actual perfume, which had the bombast of rose, sharpened by coriander, muted by vetiver, dusted by saffron.

It wasn’t the ingredients themselves that gave me pause, it was their effect. On each other, and on me. After Agent Provocateur’s grand entrance, the rose becomes more languid, raunchier. I’m not sure exactly how this happens, but I’m looking hard at you, jasmine and ylang-ylang.

Ten years ago, I wasn’t woman enough to carry off Agent Provocateur. It’s a sexually aware perfume. Its sultriness is frank. The haze it leaves on the skin smells of intimacy. But now, I feel confident enough to live up to AP’s glamour, and bedazzled enough to follow it down its to sordid depths.

Christian Dior Escale à Pondichéry – Indian Summer

For a perfume to captivate me, it needs to have a point of view. I’m a sucker for drama and flair, too, so a lot of the fumes in my collection are busy and dense with exotic ingredients. But a life continually cranked to eleven eventually starts to wear the enamel off of your teeth, and that’s when soothing music, cashmere wraps, and quiet scents are in order.

Escale à Pondichéry is a quiet scent with a point of view. The view is India, reflected in the eau de toilette’s cardamom, jasmine sambac, black tea and sandalwood. The treatment is sheer, and enough citrus drifts through the composition to keep it clean and refreshing. Over an hour in, Escale à Pondichéry gets warmer, but never heavier. Just like that cashmere wrap. EaP is the perfect fragrance for a late summer twilight, for either flavor of gender.

Miller Harris Fleur Oriental – Perfume Blankie

I love love love this perfume! Perfumer Lyn Harris has created a “night at the opera” fragrance which transitions admirably to one’s private “naughty ballerina” moments. Sweet orange blossom, almondy heliotrope and spicy carnation are the beauties dancing with beastly amber and incense accords, and the whole production stays bewitchingly lilting – never heavy.

Because these classic oriental components are handled with such a light touch, I think of Fleur Oriental as “vintage” with quotation marks. A transparent cloud of soft vanilla powder wisps across the drydown, turning it into an unexpected snugglepuss of a scent. When I want to feel cozy or soothed,
I reach for Fleur Oriental. Wearing it triggers deep, appreciative breaths, calming the squirrels in my head.

Hermès Bel Ami – Leather Lover

It’s only in recent years that I’ve come to appreciate and crave girly flowers in my perfume. Before, my tendency was to cruise the guy’s side of the fragrance aisle, drawn to those irresistible spices, aromatics, incenses, leathers.

These days, boy fumes are increasingly fruity and sweet, and seem to have lost some of their swagger – and all of their class. Thank goodness for Bel Ami, born in 1986 with plenty of swagger and class. This eau de toilette combines citrus and earthy spices with a refined leather.

“Refined” meaning there’s no barnyard in this hide – I mean, c’mon: it’s Hermès leather we’re talkin’ here! There is, however, a smudge of fresh dirt ground into the composition, courtesy of the appealingly rooty vetiver and patchouli. The vetiver shimmers between grass and smoke, and as the long, looooonnng, drydown stretches on, a suggestion of vanilla and musk appears. Bel Ami is ready to become your comfortable, quietly confident, and always-beautiful friend.