I take advantage of the cold-weather months and pour on amber-rich, resinous, incense-y, musky, and powdery perfumes (known as “gasp-inducers” in hot weather) but I also use perfumes to help me forget winter woes — my flowerless garden, chill-induced headaches, spark-filled hair, and dry-as-bone skin (citrus and florals…come hither). My top-ten list of winter fragrances is, of course, personal, and far from definitive; these are simply perfumes I’m enjoying this winter.
I usually wear “sharp”/herbal amber fragrances such as Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan and Tom Ford Amber Absolute, but it’s nice to have a classic amber scent handy as well. Enter Histoires de Parfums Ambre 114 (with notes of patchouli, cedar, sandalwood, tonka bean, vanilla, benzoin, and musk). Like many amber perfumes of its type, Ambre 114’s soft and sweet aromas transport me to a particular “scene” (a snowy twilight landscape viewed from inside a warm, dim room) and state of mind (contented…but nostalgic too). I suppose that means amber scents make me feel safe and comfortable and, perhaps, remind me of someone time has erased from my life.
Aesop Mystra is bold — and a bit severe…
Being an indoor sort of person, I appreciate winter only inasmuch as I can glance out the frost-feathered windows and admire the perfect pillowed hummocks of snow I won’t have to shovel. (We rent.) To heartier types I leave the joys of those first cleansing breaths of cold air, the silvery light and quiet walks in forest wonderlands. I shall stay right here, thank you, with my double scotch, my copy of 
Perfume blog newbies often comment that some of the regulars have a language of their own, and indeed we even have our own dirty words, the f- and s-bombs: “fruit” and “sweet”. I must admit to being among the contingent that usually gives a snobbish shiver of repulsion when I read a note list that includes grape, litchi or coconut. Unfortunately, sales assistants flogging candy cocktails are attracted to my chubby cheeks, decade-old sweatshirts and general lack of bearing. I notice this most often in big city, higher-end department stores: salespeople ignored by the older, impeccably groomed customers going by zero in on me as being the only person in the area who could conceivably be within the age range for their fragrance. Since I was a child, I've had a particular fear of situations in which somebody is giving an embarrassing or futile speech and I am obliged to stand there, smiling politely. I feel this fear as a pain in my chest, as heartburn, while I stand there with my frozen grin, waving around a testing strip or ribbon sprayed with something that is attracting flying insects. 
