If you are sick of being sick this winter, you are not alone. Flu season started early in the more populous parts of the United States, Canada and the U.K., with several urban centers reporting up to six times the normal number of confirmed influenza cases by late December 2010. Doctors and heath practitioners in North America are also seeing more viral gastroenteritis and strep throat cases this year. Vaccine numbers are down, hospital admissions for children and the elderly in many areas are up, and with all the storms and frigid temperatures some of us have experienced, we're trapped inside our homes, schools and workplaces with miserable, germy companions. My extended family spent the holidays passing around a virulent Norovirus. The infection casualties totaled 21 people. Since then my household has seen one bout of hacking cough, two solid weeks of influenza (four consecutive cases, with the result that I also came down with cabin fever), an infant ear infection, two cases of eczema and one four-year-old who apparently needs more liquids and fiber in her diet. The heat rash and insect bites of summer can't come soon enough.

Being a perfumista doubles the despondency of a stuffed nose. Two or three days last month, I was unable to smell anything properly and I was bereft. During a voluntary fragrance break, you still have access to other scented comforts: food, fresh air, scotch whisky. The last few bad colds I've had have served to remind me how much I've come to rely on my sense of smell to give color and focus to each day. Every time the congestion has passed, even if I'm still suffering from other symptoms, I've returned to my life and my perfume cabinet with glee and relief. The world is in HD again.

There are a number of different approaches to perfuming your convalescence...

Remember that lovely "rice steam" note from Kenzo Amour? Poopoo Pidoo, one of the debut fragrances from French niche line Ego Facto, takes that idea and brings it into sharper focus.¹ Poopoo Pidoo is a powdery floral by perfumer Dominique Ropion, and I take it it's supposed to be sexy — the tag line is "declare that you're not just the girl they think you are" and the brand description notes that "...just like the person wearing it, it is not that well-behaved". I haven't made up my mind about the sexy part, but I love Poopoo Pidoo.

It starts with a sharp, citrus-y orange blossom, and very quickly moves into the gauzy, rice powder/heliotrope heart, which smells like a dusty blend of marshmallow cream, basmati rice and crushed toasted almonds...

Felanilla — and let's not even talk about the name, 'kay? — is one of the latest fragrances from Parfumerie Generale, and it did make an immediate impression. My testing notes from the first trial say simply "Shalimar", not because it's a dupe, mind you, but because it struck me as something like a modern niche meditation on the Shalimar theme...

Amour Le Parfum is Kenzo's new limited edition Parfum (extrait) version of 2006's Kenzo Amour. It was inspired by the "gold of the Orient", if that helps you in any way, and was developed by perfumer Daphne Bugey, who along with Olivier Cresp created the original Amour fragrance.

Amour Le Parfum does for Amour what Kenzo Flower Oriental did for the original Flower: it sticks with the main theme but tempers the sweetness with a darker, woodier base. Amour's pale opening of cherry blossom and rice steam (other notes in the original: white tea, frangipani, heliotrope, thanaka wood, incense, vanilla and musk) is amped up and winterized with warmer notes (amber, incense, benzoin and patchouli). It is very dusty-resinous in the early stages, later, it's flatter and more ambery-woody...

In some ways, 21 Costume National makes a perfect follow-up to Friday's post about fragrance notes; the "21 notes" is a nice conceit, no? Perhaps someone can make out all 21, and no more, but I'm not that someone...

If you have too much activity with simultaneous launches, the customer is overwhelmed and very few products will actually break through to become successful.

That's Robert Brady of Givenchy, speaking in 1996 about his company's decision to delay the US launch of Givenchy Organza so as "to avoid a packed playing field" (via Women's Wear Daily, 10/25/1996). Strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with today's fragrance, Organza Indecence, which launched in 1999 as Organza's "vampy little sister" (Ibid, 5/28/99), I just couldn't help cracking up when I read it. There were around 200 fragrance launches in 1996; this year, we're expecting some 800. Enough said.

Organza Indecence was meant to attract a younger audience to the Givenchy brand, and it reportedly did very well in its early life. As it was subsequently discontinued, I can only assume that at some point it stopped doing so very well...

We've featured an unusual number of mainstream designer fragrances here over the last month, so today we're going all the way to the other end of the spectrum. Sonoma Scent Studio is the California-based indie perfume house of self-taught perfumer Laurie Erickson, and she is one of several small etailers who have gained a following on the fragrance forum at MakeupAlley. My favorite from the line is Bois Épicés, described as "soft, warm spices over a musk/wood base", with notes of musk, sandalwood, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, mandarin, cedar, cypress and coffee.

I suppose everyone has their own idea about what constitutes a comfort scent. There are fragrances that so extraordinarily soothing that they function almost like spray-on Valium (Diptyque Tam Dao, Comme des Garçons Kyoto) but that don't quite qualify as comfort scents in my book. A comfort scent must be more than just soothing: it must be the perfume equivalent of putting on your favorite pair of beat-up jeans and a sweatshirt...

Kenzo Amour, aka kenzoamour, is this year's fragrance release from the house of Kenzo. Amour was created by perfumers Daphne Bugey and Olivier Cresp and features notes of cherry blossom, rice steam, white tea, frangipani, heliotrope, thanaka wood, incense, vanilla and musk. It was...

...inspired by a couple's voyage through India, Japan and Vietnam.

"The basic idea was a voyage of love, of emotion, and a bird as a symbol of love," explained Patrick Guedj, Parfums Kenzo's creative director and head of marketing, referring to a multicolored turtledove featured on the fragrance's packaging and in advertising. (via Women's Wear Daily, 5/15/2006)

Amour starts with a sweet, highly stylised floral accord. After that, the floral notes rapidly fade into the backdrop, and the whole thing settles into a fluffy, cloud-like concoction of vanilla and musky woods...