Thursday, July 08, 2010

LULA/LULU...


Finally I popped up to the Lula pop up shop in Harvey Nichols. Behold, my lightning fast investigative reportage. Aren't you glad we have the internet so that we can communicate about new things instantly? So, the Lula pop up shop has been there for about a week - shall I just hand calligraph this post, seal it with wax and cycle round to your house to hand deliver it instead?

I don't get over to Knightsbridge much these days, but I'll always have a soft spot for Lula so I went today and had a look at the very charming little Lula bit, which was designed by Fiona Leahy and is there to celebrate 5 years of the magazine. (You can read a proper, timely and informative post about it here.) There were "J'aime Rodarte" and "Radarte" sweatshirts, which I'm so tempted by even though I never wear anything like that. There were also cute things made especially for Lula by Leith Clark's and your faves: Lover, Erdem, Miu Miu, Charles Anastase, Rachel Antonoff and Sonia Rykiel. And Lula/Harvey Nics lollipops. What else would one expect. The bits and bobs like the Vanessa Bruno CD and APC DVDs were a nice touch and I had a flip through Derek Blasberg's book, Classy, which only made me even more curious about him. Is he really the Truman Capote of our era? A question for another day.

And then in the beauty department I tested Escentric Molecules. The name had kept popping up and then a while ago I was in a restaurant and there was this woman who this bloke kept saying was Lulu and she clearly wasn't. We had to get her over to confirm this and she smelled amazing. I kept asking what her perfume was and she was saying, it's me, it's all me. Eventually I got her in a firm headlock and she admitted it was Escentric Molecules. It's not quite true that it was all her - it was in fact a single aroma chemical called Iso E Super. There's a range of scents but I wanted to test the original one (Molecule 01) that has no added perfume, just the pheromone whatsit thingy. I sprayed quite a bit of it on my arm and at first I couldn't smell anything. But after a while it smelled really nice - comforting, and then on the tube MEN kept eyeing me up, I swear. I'm surprised they didn't all start sticking their noses in the inside of my elbow because I certainly did when no one was looking. Even after a shower I can still smell it. So after years of Frederic Malle and Miller Harris, I may too convert to wearing this perfume that isn't really a perfume recommended by fake Lulu.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

...geez...nothing "pops up" here. funny post!
escentric molecules...sounds or rather smells or sounds smells interesting!

Claire said...

If Jane - oh, everything is a pop up here! I can't smell it today, I think it made me go a bit doolally actually, hence the funny post! Approach with caution...

Anna said...

I need to smell this molecule thing. Personally, I have always thought of EDP's L'Eau d'hiver as perfection in a bottle.

Claire said...

Me too with En Passant but this is different. It makes people act weird around you!

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

I'm not too sure that I desperately want people to act weird around me ...
But irresistibility out of a bottle is a tempting idea !

Rose said...

Ah Lula, magazine of my dreams, i fear going really because I will shop.

Re Escentric Molecules I always dismiss it as gimmicky but it's true iso e super is very very more ish- I just can't imagine it alone working on me- I shall try!

Claire said...

S & S - I am not so sure myself now. It would mean any time anyone was nice to me I'd think it was only because of the perfume!

Rose - don't worry, you probably won't shop 'cos it's the size of a broom cupboard and there are only about 3 things in there...

I know, it is sort of gimmicky and I was thinking about how it might have other effects on your body chemistry if you used it every day. It made me feel a bit kind of drunk on Iso E Super (though I did douse my entire left arm in the stuff) and a bit weird really. I need to find the delicate balance between putting perfume on in the morning and not being able to smell it after 10 minutes and making people pass out in front of me swooning...