Am I Cucumber Basil or Peppermint Pomegranate?

Since mid-July, I've been on a pretty strict weight-loss diet. I've done well, losing 18 pounds in 6 weeks. My clothes are starting to feel loose... not so loose that I can get rid of the fat jeans altogether and go down a size... but loose enough that I have to hitch them up whenever I stand.

So it's too early to start shopping for cute new duds. I have 42 pounds yet to go, so the big shopping spree is going to take a while.

Still, I think 18 pounds is worth some kind of reward. And I was itching to buy me one on Friday, when I took my daughter to the mall for the last of our back-to-school shopping. This is how we ended up in the cosmetics department at Nordstrom, which has a large counter devoted to the British fragrance and skin care line, Jo Malone.

I had lusted after the Jo Malone fragrance and skin care line since I first stumbled upon it in the cosmetics dept. at Harrod's. This stuff is insanely expensive, especially in the UK -- but after our last visit, I decided that I could *just* afford to buy the fragrance, if I stuck to the 1 oz. size.

So I got online (cheaper than buying overseas) and ordered myself a small bottle of the Lime Basil and Mandarin scent, which is fresh and citrusy and well suited to warm SoCal days. And I love it. But buying fragrance from a description on a website or catalog is kind of iffy. Had I known that I could sample the full Jo Malone line of 18 different scent combinations -- before I bought -- well, I might have picked something else.

Now, it's hard to shop for myself when I have the kid in tow. For one thing, if we're not looking for stuff SHE wants, she whines about how bored she is. Or she peppers me with a constant stream of requests to buy her this, buy her that, either until she wears me down to open up my pocketbook... or she makes it so unpleasant that we leave.

But it was different at the Jo Malone counter. You see, Megan has a thing for scent and things that smell pretty. For years, whenever a friend came to the house, they would end up in the bathroom together, mixing up "perfume" out of whatever products happened to be there (i.e., shampoo, conditioner, hand lotion... I'll never forget the time they tried mixing hairspray and toothpaste. That was nasty!) She cannot wash her hands in a public bathroom until she has sniffed the soap out of the dispenser. And one of our favorite stops on our trip to the Cotswolds was a tour of an 18-century perfume mill.

So standing in front of 18 testers of fresh-smelling cologne was her idea of FUN. The cool thing about the Jo Malone line is that the scents are designed to mix and match, so you can create your own signature scent. No one stops you from sampling as many of the scents as you wish -- in fact, the helpful salespeople encourage you to linger and enjoy for as long as you want. So the two of us stood there for a good half hour, spritzing and sniffing.

It reminded me of the episode of Sex and the City where Carrie and the gals are sampling similar scents (while talking about the men in their lives, naturally). And when Charlotte seriously asks, "Am I Cucumber Basil?" Samantha asks her why she would want to smell like a #%!% salad.

I ended up buying the Pomegranate Noir. It's richer and darker, appropriate for the onset of autumn -- and it complements the Lime Basil and Mandarin stuff I already have (so buying a second "flavor" essentially gives me THREE fragrances to choose from).

And it smells divine.