Nowhere to ask...

On Sunday, I was doing a rough draft of a long-term budget.

There's the breast reduction surgery I want to get done at the end of December/beginning of January - some 1200 euros plus possibly a little bit more, gotta make detailed inquiry what the listed price includes so that I don't get the band-aids charged extra, especially since I'm somewhat allergic to latex and latex-free shit is more expensive than normal shit.

New camera is needed before the new botanizing season - at the end of February or so. 800 - 1000 euros. Well, not a camera, only the SLR body. I'm not using a soap bar for macrophotography regardless of people saying that the 20x whateverthefuck macro is better than my big honking macro lens, that I'm no fucking pro who would need a SLR, that the SLR is too heavy and impractical to drag around (O hai, dad). I have a small fortune in lenses (they are excellent lenses) and I'm definitly not using the prime examples of applied optics as paperweights. Hey, a few months ago, I got a 77mm polarising filter for better architecture and landscape pics (140-ish euros, FIY).

I will need some money for furniture, as sometime next year, I'll have a craft room and I totally want a hardwood floor there; the parquet under the carpet is reputedly awful.

And small things. One needs shoe polish or paper clips.

I worked hard and long on it, including a discovery that I have two bags of each cashmere and cashmere blend in my stash, plus a bag of black cashmere for that black cashmere sweater I desperately need, so I don't need to search internets for black cashmere blend yarn.

I included a serious weight loss into the savings because I never throw anything away and I have a shitload of undersize clothes.

I failed to decide to block my access to fleabay, mainly because there's a yarn I need for the other half of a sweater... and on Monday, I just browsed stuff. I collect old Lancôme' perfumes and I have always some money set aside for an offer that cannot be resisted.
Well, I was digging in the muddy depths of fleabay and discovered a thing I would love to own but have given all hopes long ago:



Image snatched from Fragrantica

The white doves in black! How excellent that would be among my small collection of objets d'art!

Now... Technically I can afford the thing. I have the money at hand. However, there's a financial crisis, it's a totally useless thing, I have umpteen hundreds of perfumes and I'm generally using only Iris Ukiyoé, a bookshelf would be much more practical, the savings for new boobage will be stalled by two or three months.

I can't decide. Being a magpie of epic proportions, I'll likely go for it but I'll feel awfully guilty.

Being a perfumista is tough.

"You cooked something, am I right, and burned it."
"No. I just set a kitchen towel on fire. Don't ask me anything."
"WHAT?"
"Uh, I set a kitchen towel on fire."
"How the hell you did it? [In this entirely electrified kitchen, the steaming hot hell]"
"I heated it in the microwave. And no, I didn't set the microwave on fire. The towel just turned brown and stinky."
"For goodness sake, why did you nuke a kitchen towel?"
"Um, I needed to heat it up."
"What else have you burnt? And why did you need to heat up a kitchen towel, of all things?"
"It was the towel only, and, frankly, I was advised that to open a stuck bottle, one should heat up a towel in the microwave and wrap said bottle in the heated towel."
"[sniff?] Are you sure you didn't set anything on fire? It stinks awful here. And what sort of idjit told you about this?"
"The towel caught fire. But only after I took it outside to stink here. It's the wind, too much fresh oxygen. And I opened the door to the terrace. I beat the shit out of the burning tower with a stone so that the flames die out. And, a friend advised me on the stuck stoppers."
"Your friend is freaking crazy. Are you hurt? And are you sure nothing else caught fire? It stinks awful in here."


A few side notes

1. The friend in question was Elena.
2. No, I didn't open the bottle this way. Remember, I threw the towel outside, it caught fire and... well.
3. The bottle did get opened. I tried to heat it up by immersing it in hot water which cleaned the outside of the bottle nicely and released a bit of smell. Then I gave up and asked dad to do something with it. He tried, cussed and went to the garage to find a wrench.
4. It was Balenciaga's Fuite des Heures, it smells nice and expect a rant sometime soon.
5. Yes, my mom thinks I'm a bit crazy.
6. No, the towel wasn't salvaged, it burned and evaporated entirely but for the bit under the stone.

The Winter 2012 Top Smells - a joint blogging project

I had a reliable trio of winter fragrances: Donna Karan's Black Cashmere, Annick Goutal's Encens Flamboyant and L'Artisan Parfumeur's Dzongkha. Especially Encens Flamboyant which smells like fire.

It's either because I'm getting old or because this winter is taking a toll on my nerves. Or because this is not a proper winter. I just didn't feel like using my winter classics and way too often, I went around without any fragrance at all - me who carries a bottle or two in her bag, just in case. (I would still carry those without using them.)

I got a Christmas bonus just before, well, Christmas so I decided to invest it wisely. I bought a few books, an Issey Miyake purse (no idea what I will do with it but it could hold a small knitting project, I envisage), a pair of Blahniks and a few other things I'll be painfully decluttering in a few years' time... and somewhere between a crapton and a shitload (the decision which of them is bigger hasn't been reached yet) of raw materials.

It all happened to arrive within three days - four different orders from four different directions, mind you. I'm often surprised how raw materials smell differently from the plants they come from (I haven't had a chance of a close encounter with a civet cat and I know the musk ox only from the fine fibre it yields). I'm a wood freak so now I'm richer by one big bottle of Atlas Cedar essential oil, which is so much nicer and more interesting than the generic cedar oil I used to get in the local fancy faux handmade cosmetics store, more smoke, more of a certain harshness. Or oakmoss - the absolute is dark green, smells faintly of crushed vegetation and glowing embers and it's totally different from the smell of actual oakmoss or whatever I thought it in fragrances that contain it.

Should a dear reader remember some of my former perfume musings, I have a certain predilection for weird stuff. Eyewatering leathers (such as Cuoio di Spagna by Santa Maria Novella), patchouli that needs three or four baths to disappear from one's skin (I'm looking at you, Patchouly Indonesiano) or just something plainly extraordinary.

Being pretty choleric, once again I chose the DIY path. Upon careful reading and considering my financial situation, I ended up with several bottles of basics - Siberian fir, vetiver, cedar, cypress, rosewood or benzoin, and hear me say, there's never enough benzoin and cedar, several bottles of basics I was able to afford only due to huge discounts, such as neroli or vanilla absolute.... and then the odd stuff. I wouldn't believe what can be distilled, dissolved, absoluted or extracted.

I spent a fruitful evening trying to render a cuir-cologne version of a perfume I've been making for myself for a few years but that needs maturing or I need to mature and find out what my opinion actually is. I don't really like citruses and I can smell that damn petitgrain and neroli in it but day after day, it appears to be more and more promising

Meanwhile, the ugly brown jus made of birch tar and many a viscous dark thing is living its own life. I blended the dark and viscous things with all things leathery I could think of (which amounts to exactly two, ylang-ylang and vanilla) and some odd-smelling plants - mainly but not exclusively tagetes. I wanted to render a salty floral and I was hugely disappointed when it smelled of vetiver and vanilla - nice in itself but not what I wanted. Things kept happening, though, and this is the magic of natural materials - they keep changing. Now, four days later, I'm wearing the would-be salty floral which is actually.... sweet and leathery. I need to find someone to blame yet but meantime, to put it in Elena's words, I'm walking around wrapped in an olfactory equivalent of expensive fur - warm, pleasant, protecting one from however evil the surroundings may be.


Speaking of fur, I got half of a fleece the other day. For those who don't happen to be fibre maniacs, fleece is what comes off a sheep. Half of a fleece... go figure, my dear smart readers. Almost a kilo of sheep fibre along with an occasional bit of twig or grass. It was washed but not totally devoid of both lanolin and vegetable matter so bit by bit, I soaked it in hot water with some soap and it's then when wool yields the most beautiful smell of lanolin. I did a cursory search but I couldn't find any information regarding possible existence of a lanolin absolute or any other sort of extract of whatever the fragrant bits from the complex composition may be.


And now excuse me while I go and bury my nose in my virtual fur. Meantime you can check variations on the same theme at Abigail's, Katie's, Gaia's, Ines', Carol's and Elena's blogs.

Added two hours later: Reconsidered. My newest thingy was a virtual fur yesterday. Today it's approaching towards the salty garden. Life is interesting.

Only words

I bought a new battery charger, which means that the misplaced one will precipitate in the middle of my table tomorrow. Anyway, there will be pictures and with pictures, more knitting rants and perfume rants and other rants that deserve to be illustrated. Not now, though.

I spent a part of my Giftmas bonus on raw materials and I devoted one afternoon to a bit of alchemy. I got a bottle of birch tar which pleased me quite a bit. Well, after I wiped my ears and nose because it smells salty and sort of meaty. It's an important ingredient for the old-school leather fragrances (I guess that it's banned in all civilized countries because it smells good and someone claimed that it caused him a bit of itch) and I'm a leather fiend. They say Bottega Veneta is a leather fragrance (reviewy rant to follow when I run my camera again, I have a bottle on my table) but it's rather some nice flowers with a bit of what the crowd out there calls leather and I call it chalk.

Anyhow. I also got vanilla absolute which is somewhat leathery too, and tagetes oil which is positively weird, Crithmum maritimum oil - I don't remember how this plant smells but it's broken easily with a typical sound and feel and the oil corresponds well to this. It's somewhat tangy and green and with a hint of something salty.

Etc. The birch tar is strong like hell, I had to place the blotter at the far end of my table so that it wouldn't mess with the other smells but I'm afraid that my room still smells like a den full of smoked meat. The main task was to overshadow the salty smell with something reasonably complementary... or not complementary. I decided to go for the contrast between salty and leathery accords and dry, sweet stuff. Thus fennel, neroli and what else contrasted with said birch tar, vanilla, ylang-ylang, crithmum and tagetes. Plus Siberian Fir to add another eye-watering quality, oakmoss just because and a few other things.

I'm quite happy with the result. It's a dark, suspicious-looking liquid and it came out sort of as I wanted. I need to dilute it first to see how it wears. It's all natural so it may be really different on skin. And, it's called Halophyte Garden. Salty floral - sometimes I'm very simple.


I couldn't resist and made some leathery cologne. I'm afraid that I overdosed it with geranium - it seems that any amount of geranium is an overdose because that drop overshadowed quite an amount of the stinky birch tar and the Siberian Fir which could drill holes in the wall. Well, either I'll make the sample into a candle or I'll add half a bucket of petitgrain. We'll see.


And, well, serves you right. Blame the Illuminati and Universal Jewish Conspiration for these bad stupid internetz that cannot convey smells.

Santal Massoïa

It's weird. Seriously weird.

I should get some santal essential oil to relate, the closest I got to a santal is Keiko Mecheri's solilignum (1) Bois de Santal, which is sweet, creamy woody thing. I expected more of the same from Jean-Claude Ellena but I got this weird stuff.

They finally got it at Hermès, the sales lady sprayed me generously and I went Oh what the fuck. No creamy sweetness but something weird. I smelled and sniffed and wondered until something connected in my little blonde brain and shouted Salted butter!!!

At which point, I got even more whatthefucked and puzzled. I went to Hermès to buy this thing and I wanted to love it to shreds but it was so weird. I chatted with the sales lady, tried on Voyage (probably goes to the no, thanks file) and Jardin sur le toit and hiris and then the thing on my wrists went all celery root fried in butter. Not bad, actually a nice smell, it's one of my fave foods, fried celery root. In a perfume, though? That crossed my mental border of perfume accords and the ideas started to veer into the dangerous areas of food scents. Something in my brain started to yell What's going to come next? We've already had caramel and butter and honey, is there going to be a Boeuf Gardénia or Pizza Labdanum in the Hermessence line sometime soon, or even worse, Chocolat Roquefort?

What saved me from running away was a blotter sprayed with Hiris. Hiris went surprisingly well with Santal Massoïa and I ended up buying two bottles although I cursed myself that I get a perfume and then another perfume only to make the first one wearable.

I went home, did laundry and some other random stuff and then brought myself to unpacking my loot from the shopping war. I sprayed myself with Santal Massoïa again and I noticed the sweet creamy thing I had imagined as proper santal and a soapy facette. Maybe even a touch of iris but the aldehydes or rose or what may be the cause of the soap could explain why it works so well with Hiris.

At the end, I did come to like the Santal Massoïa. Earlier than expected, even. After all, if the chefs can spray food with perfume (2), why there couldn't be a Quattro formaggi cologne. With some extra peperoni on a good day.

For some factual information, check Perfume Shrine here. I only do rants.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


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(1) the word soliflor is used for a fragrance based on one accord. It means single flower, though, and being a generally anal person and a proud grammar Nazi, I've already coined soliradix for vetiver stuff and soliherba for whatever comes from the leaves and stems. Solilignum is a natural addition to the line.
(2) it's actually essential oils. (3)
(3) and I'm skipping the whole field of food flavourings because it's another can of worms.

Vere Novo

And now for something less obscure: Guerlain.

Vere Novo, the internets agree, was created by Jacques Guerlain in 1895. That's all I know and the rest is rants.

There is it, a two ounce 'apothecary' bottle, sitting on my table. The bottle was made by Pochet et du Courval until 1939, which is also the ante quem date for the content. I'm not that much of an expert to set a more exact date based on the label so I welcome any further clarification.



1895... back then, people used to put perfume on their gloves and handkerchiefs. There were only a few synthetic materials used in perfumery. Holy shit, this thing may have been made before my great-grandma was born!!! For some reason, I expected that Vere Novo would be something like Shalimar, just uglier. I'm not the biggest fan of Shalimar, it's somewhere between the I wouldn't mind it as a gift and Quite like it on my appreciation scale, which is probably why I have two bottles of it but that would be another story. Maybe later, and after all, everybody knows Shalimar. Back to the ancient Vere Novo, which is not similar to Shalimar.

It took me quite a time to get a grasp of this fragrance. It happens rather often with vintages, some are so well blended and matured that it is pretty hard to discern the perfume accords or ingredients. The same is happening again and again with Vere Novo: whatever was it made of, now it is a perfect unity. I dabbed it generously on my forearm and it surprised me again. Three words: galbanum, leather, vanilla. I'm sure there's more to that (I suspect some cade and vetiver at least, and anything that suppresses the annoying sweet facet of ethylvanilin) but there's a green blast of the top notes, which may rather be some aged citruses than actual galbanum, or citruses and galbanum. The first half an hour, there's even a teeny tiny touch of sillage, from two steps away, it may be supposed that I could be wearing a perfume. A bit later, when I moved my arm around, I'd stop and wonder how come I smell so nicely and now, in the afternoon, there's a spot that smells vaguely of vanilla. Or rather vanilla leather, don't you dare to think about in-your-face vanilla of a drugstore body lotion. If I understand what a skin scent is, then this is the skin scent.

I like quite an amount of fragrances and I don't have a strict preference, even if I rather dwell in the smoky resiny territory most of the time. The occasions when I get really enchanted are few and far between but this is one of them.

Mourn for this fragrance because it was discontinued a hundred years ago or around. However, in spirit, it is close to Vol de Nuit and less so in Shalimar (which is too sweet but there is something in common). Or believe in a stroke of luck.

A special message for the Guerlain headquarters: should you kindly revive this one, too, and preferably in an affordable presentation? With a nice skin product, preferably perfumed oil. Thank you very much.

My badly guessed notes for Guerlain's Vere Novo: lime, galbanum, leather, vanilla, touch of vetiver.

Dignita

The other day, I've wondered about Shiseido's perfume naming strategy. It appears to me that someone picked a word they liked, possibly tweaked it around a bit and here we go, let's stick it onto the bottle, nobody would care anyway. Because... Sourire? To smile? Why not, say, Pour sourir or Une souris?

Same thing with Dignita. It suspiciously reminds me of the good old Latin-derived dignity but none of the languages I'm familiar with uses it in this form. I may be wrong and it means something like Tender Flowers in an extinct dialect of Inner Mongolia.
I however suppose that someone in the marketing department just liked the word. I could imagine the smell of dignity, something between moth balls, old leather, expensive woods and incense. Or some such. The brownish jus and brown and white packaging would also hint something more substantial but Dignita is anything else but moth balls, old leather and the general air of old mansion that could use some redecorating and thorough cleaning.

I did my best to find the notes listed somewhere but I've failed. My smell detection device, which is not the bestest, says that there's a gentle whiff of PVC at the beginning but that doesn't surprise me, many fragrances give out a very chemical odour before the alcohol evaporates. Then, Dignita becomes a really nice floral - there's a whiff of violets, not the alph amethyl ionone sort from violet pastilles (oh, yum) but a greener variety, and then the fragrance evolves into a lovely bouquet of roses, although the first identifiable smell is that of a soap named Green Apple, which we used when I was a child - maybe I should check some bad drugstore which has the less fashionable stuff and I'll find it somewhere. Or it may be some other tart fruit - wild cranberries or white currants; one way or another, it (a) makes me drool (b) reminds me of Dior's Chris 47. Anyhow, tart fruits and armful of roses. Those of the soapy variety, then the lemony Gloria Dei and maybe a whiff of the most extraordinary Mainzer Fastnacht, which was elaborated in another Shiseido's fragrance, Blue Rose (which will be dealt with shortly), and some cut grass.

After the initial multifaceted impression, Dignita remains rather linear. Fruits and roses wear down a bit, revealing a soft resiny and powdery base - elemi and iris, I would say, along a well crafted base of general leafy greenery. And a bucketful of lovely musk, that bright, cheery, clean and soothing type, which is the reason why Dignita lasts rather long but after an hour it quietens to a slightly powdery skin scent that still keeps a bit of tartness.

I have no clue whether Dignita is still produced. Uncle Google found several Russian online retailers that sell it, I scored my bottle in France.

A point about the picture above: The beautiful Old English rose of unknown cultivar just fits to the fragrance. Of slightly indefinable colour between apricot and yellow which fades as the blossoms wilt, it smells faintly of, well, roses of the sweeter variety, with a touch of something incense-y. And it matches colour of the jus. Coouldn't resist the kitsch. I however resisted cutting my last iris despite how it would fit in.

To make the blog more interactive, I'm asking a question, dear readers. What Shiseido fragrance would you want to read about next? Let me know in the comments.

Shopping spree: random new stuff.

Today's primary mission was to check perfumeries and drugstores to get a few handfuls of blotters. Checking autumn releases would be an inevitable side effect, though. So, my impressions, with no particular order (as the blotters come up):

Prairie's Life Threads, Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire: expensively and exquisitely boring.

L'Occitane's lavender cologne: Now that's interesting lavender, unlike another lavenders. And they have the essential oil. It's A. O. C. (1) and they had a little flyer with the picture and name of that lavender farmer but I forgot to take one.

Bleu de Chanel: erm, well.

Etro's Messe de Minuit: I can't still decide on this one. But I wanted to try Guerlain's Habit Rouge, which I did, and I had a blotter at hand while testing this one. And then I found out that Habit Rouge is exactly the piece of puzzle I miss in Messe. Should you please me, give me both at once.

Lalique's Encre Noire pour Elle: Encre Noire pour no-one was a hit and apparently someone decided that since it was already marketed to guys, it can't be claimed unisex so they made a ladies' version, which was specified as such. It's a waste of good alcohol, black glass and just about everything. Instead of a variation on that swampy vetiver (a friend of mine said once that wearing Encre Noire, he feels like a posh corpse. Yes, he's somewhat gothy type), it's an indefinable fruity watery something. I do bet that it sells well, that those ladies who are terribly scared that they may be perceived as weird for wearing men's scents, will be buying it and persuading themselves that it's almost like the good ole Encre Noire sans.

Guerlain's Habit Rouge: I love that one. But, the thing is that I was hanging around the store, sniffing the blotter, and an assistant asked if she may help me, I said Well, not really, I'm just checking what's new, she showed me something and I mentioned that I have this Habit Rouge here, isn't it prety, and she jumped up and said Ooooooops, madam! But it's for men!, to which I soothingly replied that indeed, and I'm well aware of it but that I like it quite a bit anyway. I got a look that said Warning, weird customer.

Gaultier's Le Mâle Terrible: fine with me. I've loved Le Mâle ever since it was launched and I'm still wearing it but it has a very strong chemical undertone which I do not mind at all but I don't always feel like wearing it. The terrible version is in fact much lighter, soapier, cleaner and without this chemical whatever-it-is so it would be an excellent complement. Now they need to make a version with extra cade and frankincense.

Lanvin's Marry me: Yawn.

Floris' White Rose: Here with it.

Masaki Matsushita's Fluo: I haven't smelled that much synthetic fruit since... since I had very non-organic hard candies that were free of natural colourants and flavourings. Not that bad as it may sound, in fact I wouldn't mind if I got this one for free, some days, I feel like I was 12. The bottle is horrid, though.

Masaki Matsushita's M;O°C: what the fuck this is for a name? Also, it smells of tap water and mint. Not that bad as the bottle might be hinting.

Masaki Matsushita's Aqua: Now that one is a pretty lemony scent. In a horrid bottle.

And at last, Estée Lauder's Sensuous Noir: for me, much better than the rather simple but nice Sensuous. The noir version (which lives in a blue bottle) is woodier and incensier (2). It would make a good trio with Habit Rouge and Messe de Minuit. Again, horrid bottle.

At the end, I discovered a discount corner and everything by Annayake was 70% off. It means that their cosmetics got to the rather expensive range, (the usual prices being damn fucking above the roof) and I got their Matsuri, of which I'll write some other day. No nail varnish today, after all, I have five bottles of turqouise nail paint already.


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(1) Appellation d'origine controlé (pardon my French). In other words, it's known where exactly it comes from, unlike Made in EU, just somewhere there, and it may well mean that somewhere in the EU, someone mixed lavender oils from who knows where.

(2) See? I made a word.

Shopping spree

I set off too late to get the yarn Anna and Kristin wanted, yarn store has a lunch break so I only went to Chanel's to get a bottle of Sycomore for someone. I ranted about my collection - the staff/customer ratio was around six to one - and stated my wishes for No. 46 reissue, and the guy at the till was all Oh I need to find some information about this one, I've never heard about it, you're a collector, ooh, aah, cool. I forgot to throw the blog url at him, though.
Another fellow perfumista wanted me to ask how much the Armani Privé stuff, those bottles with stones, cost, and whether they have miniatures, and that they'll have it cheaper online but I should still go and ask. Well, I hate the souk mentality and I'm busy enough to solve someone's mental problems but I went to have a look because it's a nice shop and I had a chance to, well, try stuff.
So:
Eau de Lutens: if I got it as a gift, I wouldn't mind but I don't need another bland neroli cologne, I already got Soleil du Capri.
Piguet's Baghari: goes to the wish list. Powdery leather, for times when paint-blistering leather wouldn't be the best option.
Fille en Aiguiles: see Eau de Lutens.
Chanel's Cuir de Russie: I have a bottle of extrait but I could indeed stand the big one.
Tom Ford's Japon Noir: Reminds me of one thing by Annick Goutal whose name I forgot, plus a touch of wood and roses and incense. I would love to have this one.
Fleurs du Orangier: see Fille en Aiguiles
Fleurs du Citronnier: see Fleurs du Orangier
Piguet's Bandit: not bad but I'm not sure I like that much galbanum.

I got a heavily discounted Feminité du Bois body milk, now I need only the 100ml eau de parfum and Eau Timide to have the complete line of everything. I got a sample of the Lutens' version so I see a comparative review in near future.

Escale aux Marquises (or, not really)

Let me start elsewhere.

I know that it's a stylistic approach I use so often that it may qualify either as being boring or as abuse. But this story indeed starts elsewhere.

I went to buy some stuff. Namely a tunic of fine white linen. This is a clothing item that probably exists only in my wild dreams because all that would have the right shape was made of slippery polyester satin, weird indefinable stuff that scratched from ten metres afar... and if it was the right material, it wasn't a white tunic but a shirt embroidered in faux mother of pearl. At the end, I wandered to a department store, got something in turquoise polyester (1) (I almost got a matching bra. Almost because I'm fat but that's yet another story).
The department store has a perfume and cosmetics department so I leered around in case there was something I had missed and I spotted Cristal Boreal on display.

The jewel that contains a lip gloss of marginal colour. Last year's limited edition. I wanted to get it but I forgot and on fleabay it sells for around $200. The shop assistant noticed me loitering, asked Can I help you, I said yes, I want this... and there it was. For 71 euros. Apparently, the shop assistant was glad to have sold old crap because I got a generous handful of freebies. Miniature coral red lipstick, for example, and I have an urge to actually wear it (my usual colours being gold and silver....) and some samples, including the Escale aux Marquises.

I actually tried that even in the store and I'm somewhat underimpressed. I'm not much of a citrus person and this one smells so strongly of lemon peel that it makes my eyes water. There's some petitgrain, a hint of myrrh and after a few hours, the adstringent quality wanes and the fragrance gets rather resinous. I didn't find tiaré in the composition, I'm easily overwhelmed by citruses (2).

I like the Cruise Collection as an idea. Alas, Escale à Portofino gets stinky on me and Escale à Pondichéry is nice but with no staying power - on the contrary from the citrus couple. If the Diors make a myrrh cologne next year, I'll be standing in the line. Now, should anyone want my sample, write a blurb in the comments, and excuse me for now, I have to adore my lip balm in a shiny box.

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(1) I should have gotten a tube of sunscreen, SPF 50, tan and turquoise do not mix well unless I would want to look as a beach volley instructor. Which isn't a way to go, trust me.
(2) Thinking of it, there are two prominently citrusy fragrances that I like: Nina Ricci's Bigarade, velvety bitter composition with so much petitgrain that in theory I shouldn't survive it and Montale's cold and distant Soleil du Capri. Cologne has to be myrrh and more myrrh to me. Green tea would be fine, too but I haven't met a fragrance that would have a decent staying power on me.

Le parfum du Maharajah de Kapurthala

part II
(part I to be found here)

There's a technical issue with vintage perfumes. For some reason, at the first sniff, they tend to smell weirdly and pungently citrusy - I don't really believe that all of them contain a bucketful of neroli, petitgrain and whoknowswhat aldehydes. It needs quite a considerable time to decipher a really old fragrance, at least that's what my experience says.


I kept wearing Le Parfum du Maharajah de Kapurthala for three days in a row. I expected an oriental. Cinnamon, sandalwood, something like that. The odd citrusy top notes didn't fit into this preconceived idea, possibly introduced by earlier testing of Route Mandarine so I was somewhat disappointed. Not for long, upon closer scrutiny, that neroli, along with carnation and possibly rose developed into a lush green accord and I started to purr because it was a a thing of pure beauty. It only takes a while and the fragrance shifts elsewhere, to spicy floral accord (pepper, ylang-ylang, jasmine, some such). At this point, the whole thing could remain a lovely green floral but it is a true chameleon, changing to... wonderful soft leather.
I'm still learning to understand leather fragrances and I probably started from the tougher end, I really like leather scents which are so pungent that they make paint flake off. The realm of the less aggressive ones is yet to be explored but after a short flirt with Guerlain's Derby (okay, I would be glad if someone gave me a bottle but when I run out of my sample, I won't regret) or the famous Knize Ten (just fine but where's the leather? It's chewing gum and a hint of spices...), I was left rather surprised by the tendency towards blah. Until now.

Le parfum du Maharajah de Kapurthala is one of the great abstractions - a few ingredients can be guessed. And every time I try, I find something different, just now I opened the bottle and it was all cinnamon, vanilla and pepper. Great olfactory toy, I would say.


This perfume is long discontinued and hard to find so I'm afraid you have to trust me on the description. I at least threw in more pictures.

Cry into the darkness

Two ancient Guerlains appeared on eBay last week.


This beauty sold for $1274.



This one went for over $1400.

Guerlains, it could be you earning that money if you relaunched things from your archives. I would be willing to pay some 400-500 euros for Djedi, don't need the posh bottle. I'd love to sniff tens of your creations of the past and I believe I would get some because, admittedly, I care a damn about your violets (the Meteorites powder I got the other day reeks of violet bon bons, damn)

I know that I'm not going to be heard but I just needed to vent. Aaaaargh.

Guerlains, for your information, I'm getting my vintage perfumes elsewhere. Serves you right.

Amérique

There's a movie called Amerika, based on one of Kafka's short stories.

The theme song is no big deal, I'd say, but the dark stylization oscillating between art deco and greasy industrial atmosphere is utterly cool. Upon seeing that there's a perfume named Amérique, I fell immediately for the name. It took me some time to actually find it, it's been discontinued for long.
First, I got a miniature of EdT which seemed all carnations to me. Carnations have a warm peppery aspect. Also, the sweaty facet of coriander is present and certain bitternes.
Then I got a bottle of extrait and that hit me straight and plain: Fruity chypre. Sometimes one doesn't need complicated metaphors and florid verbiage.

I had imagined Amérique as a cross between Dzongkha and Black Cashmere and I got fruity chypre. For around five seconds, the cognitive dissonance irked me and then I went off to look for something inspirating for this blog post and stumbled upon... and now the weak of heart and those with taste, sit comfortably and have some alcohol at hand.
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Okay, here it is, the original advert for Amérique. Ladies, gentlemen, kittens and other creatures, see the Sunday Morning Hangover after Saturday Night Fever.


Did I say that Amérique is very neat fruity chypre? I did? Well, a reminder. Now, instead of brain bleach, a plain pic taken by yours truly on a sunny morning, if you enlarge it in your photoshop, you'll see the blue sky and my elbow reflecting on the stopper.


Amérique was discontinued long ago but it sometimes appears on auction sites or in various corners of the internetz.

Notes for Amérique: rose, jasmine, geranium, mimosa, hyacinth, neroli, chamomile, vetiver, clary sage, coriander, pepper, iris, rosewood, sandalwood.

La Vallée Bleue

Take a heap of lavender, add a bit of petitgrain and for the base, some benzoin and a touch of civet or some such.

No, it's not as easy. At the very beginning, the citruses are more complicated than just petitgrain - my guess is grapefruit, lemon and maybe even touch of lime. There are definite woody undertones, maybe a touch of sandalwood and that buttery something which is for certain benzoin may also contain a bit of tuberose. I guess that without the huge bucket of lavender, it may be a decent fragrance on its own.

But... well, go and sniff Penhaligon's Lavandula. Great soliflor. Or check the lavender essential oil you have in your bathroom. That's lavender. (Yes, I'm being Captain Obvious. It's to increase the suspense and to underline my nearly-genial thoughts. Now leave me alone, you damn nitpicker there.) Or your grandma's soap. But for Lavandula, I can't remember a lavender fragrance which wouldn't be a room freshener. Lavender is used frequently as a component in perfumery and cosmetics but it is hardly ever given a prominent place. Alas.
Now, La Vallée Bleue is lavender revisited and lifted to another level. The only place I've been to where lavender grows in the wild was the isle of Hvar and I don't remember how that place smelled, it was umpteen years ago and a few more, but the idea conveyed by La Vallée Bleue is close. A lavender-grown landscape.
I've always loved lavender. The smell, the taste, the colour of the blossoms. There is something cooling about them, which is happily absent from the essential oil. Now I got a rendering of live lavender...
... and it was launched in 1943, discontinued some time later.

Asja

I don't really remember where I learned about the existence of Asja. I however do remember the hunt – it has been discontinued for a while, they still had it at a few discounters but whenever I placed an order, the response was Oops, out of stock so the hunt started. Not that it wouldn't be available here and there but I wanted it for a civilized price.
After some time, I succeeded. Meantime, I grabbed a few minis which I've been using until three days ago when someone asked me for a decant and I found that both the spray nozzles in both of my bottles refuse to work.
Due to the necessary poking and prodding to get the substance out of the bottle, I had a chance to sniff this fragrance more than I would have planned... so.
Fruity oriental, created by Jean Guichard, launched in 1992 and sadly, discontinued for quite a while and never to appear again – LVMH got hold of the Fendi perfume division and axed it all.

Asja is one of the fragrances that are so well constructed that they are almost seamless – no accords sticking out. Upon closer scrutiny, it appears that the fragrance is based on honey, vanilla and soft sweet resins. The fruits are there, none of them any prominent, though, and the soapy rose and lily of the valley are somewhat discernible, too. Thanks to this soapyness and a generous dose of eugenol (think of carnation, good part of rose and some clovebuds), Asja is wearable pretty well even in summer, which I frequently did. Where Opium becomes a weapon of mass destruction, Asja was still pleasing, in a different way than in winter.
Another slight drawback of Asja, along with the not-exactly-excellent spray nozzle design is the lack of lasting power, maybe that's another reason why it keeps being wearable even in summer. It stays longer on fabric or paper than on skin (1) but beware, the juice is very orange, don't spray on light-coloured fabrics.
I've found remarks here and there that Asja is very Lutensesque – I cannot really judge because I never really fell for Serge Lutens with the exception of Feminité du Bois (the Shiseido version with lots of bois and hardly any feminité) and since this is the only Lutens fragrance I own, I found a bottle to check, without actually believing that there would be any apparent affinity. Well, there is. There is some superficial similarity in the scent as such, I'd say, but also something about the style. I guess these two will make a good mix, which I'll try someday soon.

Now, all things shiny. The bottle! It looks indeed exquisite on pictures and I coined an image of heavy black glass, or rather very deep purple or red, so deep that it appears to be black, with gold print. The reality wasn't that impressive, the bottle is encased in two plastic shells but still it reminds a piece of Japanese work in lacquer if you back away a few metres and it's a misty evening, in other circumstances, it's just plainly cool. Says me who would vote for rectangular bottles of clear glass because most of the 'creative' flacons tend towards ugly. I have a slight tendency to love the overdone. I also solemnly promise to dig up the boxes in red, black and gold, to update you on the whole concept that seems to refer to a ball in the Opera. I haven't found a mention that Asja would be ever made in extrait but I can well imagine the flacon – finally that gold stamped glass – and a faux lacquer coffret. Neither have I found the designer of the packaging, should someone know, let me know.

If you only vaguely like orientals, Asja is a must at least to try.

Asja was made in eau de toilette in sizes of 20, 40 and 75 ml and it's sometimes seen at discounters, dusty corners of very local drugstores and at auction sites.

Quand vient la pluie

Yeah, this one. Almost half a litre of extrait.

The picture won't get any better, the bottle got split and decants are already mailed in all the directions. On Sunday, I and Domenica, who sort of organized it (although some of the gals started arguing that they got the idea first, that they mentioned it first etc.) met, decanted, got ready for mailing and then had a bottle of wonderful Cabernet Sauvignon from Moldova.
The Guerlain people could rething the big bottle, though. It's that sort that calls for relabelling it 'cherry brandy' and filling it with anti-freeze (1). And, I don't have a clue how is one supposed to pour it from the bottle to the tiny lovely flacon because the big bottle is full nearly to the brim and in order not to spill the contents, one needs to pour it rather vigorously. My table will smell of chocolate violets for quite a time, I guess.
I have a cold so I can only provide a cursory impression: Quand vient la pluie has nothing to do with rain, it's violets and bitter chocolate and I could imagine it as excellent bonbons. And, it blends perfectly well with Dzongkha which I happened to wear yesterday in the chocolate violets impregnated room.

I'm a magpie and I like all things shiny, which is no news to anyone who knows me at least a little bit. So... Quand vient la pluie comes with a round spray bottle and a bottle holder in the shape of a brick with leaf imprinted. Big one for extrait, with a bejewelled bottle, while eau de parfum gets a smaller brick of glass and plain bottle. Domenica owns the edp and brought it for comparison.

I got hold of the glass brick (2), now it sits on my table and it's being pretty. I think I could tie a piece of string through the flacon-holding hole and use it as an assault weapon, should it be needed. And yeah, I have a red table. It was on sale in Ikea... sometimes money wins over taste.

Quand vient la pluie was a limited release in 2007 and it may still be available at Maison Guerlain. Or not anymore.


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(1) It's an old joke: Darling, where is the vinegar? Oh, you old fool, between the cleaning stuff, in a wine bottle labelled Developer.
And, my jams are in yoghurt or mayonnaise jars, we're a recycling household. In other words, unless you're absolutely sure, it's recommended to at least sniff every container or you find yourself being suffocated by truffle oil in the pharmacy bottle that says it holds some skin ointment, knowing that I use used pharmacy bottles for perfumes... or drinking the infamous thermonuclear calvados brandy and wondering why the Martini is so strong. And I'm not mentioning turpentine.
(2) because it's shiny

Initiation

Molyneux is one of the venerable couture houses that live only as ghosts of their former glory. Edward Molyneux opened his house in Paris in 1919. He started his career in the fashion world as a sketcher for Lucile, lost his eye in the Great War, was promoted to the rank of Captain in 1917 (he was nicknamed Captain Molyneux in the fashion world, too), and in 1919, he started his couture house in rue Royale in Paris.

Edward 'Captain' Molyneux entered the world of fragrance by launching his Numéro Cinq, the legend has it, the same day as Coco Chanel launched her No. 5 - they were friends and played this game between them (1). The story is perpetuated on the internet and elsewhere and I cannot say for sure how many grains of truth are in it but I like it.
There were a few other numbered fragrances (3 and 14, says Perfume Intelligence) and a host of others; in 1950, Edward Molyneux retired, left the house to his cousin and later on, the couture salon was closed (it was reopened and re-closed later on) and the fragrance trademark sold.
Nowadays, the brand falls under the house of Berdoues (that of Violettes de Toulouse) and only variation on Quartz seem to be in production. I suspect that the distribution is somewhat limited, I don't remember having seen it in a shop anywhere.

Initiation (by Ilias Ermenidis, says Fragrantica) one only passed throught my dirty paws, I and a collector friend bought some stuff from one place and I got it shipped to my place because I had other stuff for M. With her permission, I decanted a sample for later messing with... and even while messing with the bottle, I was overwhelmed.
Initiation is indeed a late spawn of the powerhouses of the 80's but there's something from the upcoming bland nineties, after all, it was launched in 1990.

The mixture of conservative and creative (see the hexagonal but not really so bottle to get what I mean) evokes one single thing to me: bal des débutantes. Old money, satin, tiaras borrowed from grandmas, pearls, dangly shiny crystal chandeliers. And no, my inner cynic didn't wake up to remark something about good girls from filthy rich families throwing up champagne in the small hours. That could be present in another fragrance but not in this one (2). A young lady who would wear Initiation wouldn't throw up champagne because this lady has manners enough not to drink in excess and moreover she's cute and entertaining.


The packaging would go to the better half of what I've seen. Not exquisite but good enough - the bottle that looks like a crystal pendant on an expensive chandelier, box with burgundy wood grain print and some gold are neat.
The fragrance is done well - launched after the weapons of mass destruction (think Opium) were slowly fading from fashion but not too late to be one of the ozonic florals. It's somehow in between: aldehydes, florals, tuberose, muguet - the latter two used rather carefully so that they don't overwhelm. Tuberose does stick out but it doesn't try to kill anyone as in the hell of Fracas. A handful of citruses and peaches.
The base notes are a bit puzzling to me, there should be civet and coconut and patchouli and amber which I can't smell at all, just some patchouli and vetiver. Along with the aldehydes it creates a sort of breath mint - not bad, just slightly odd.

There's one thing that doesn't happen too often - as if there were two parallel fragrances: one of the breath mints, fresh and rather straightforward, and one of oversweetened fruity floral. Not a bad fragrance at all but the sweet streak kills me so no, I don't intend to live with this one.

Initiation is discontinued but it can be found occassionally at discounters or random places.

just a note, the post got published while unfinished, I mistook Publish for Save.

top notes: Aldehydes, Gardenia, Mandarin Orange, Peach, Bergamot, Brazilian Rosewood
middle notes: Carnation, Tuberose, Jasmine, Heliotrope, Ylang-Ylang, Lily-of-the-Valley, Rose, Narcissus
base notes: Honey, Amber, Patchouli, Coconut, Civet, Oakmoss, Vetiver

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(1) I have a bit of Numéro Cinq, I need to check whether it's totally rotten or true to its original nature. A rant will come anyway.
(2) Something sour reeks from certain Guerlains, for example

The Perfumista Challenge - one more update

Should anyone not know what's going on, the information is here and here.
I was occupied elsewhere so the deadline is shifted to Jan 6, midday (1200 CET. Six hours more in New York, eight hours less in Japan or something like that. Find your own timezone, please.) Should some latecomer want to join, do it NOW.

Also, Melissa, please, mail me with your postal address so that I can effectively add you to the swap.

I already have something ready so I'll be eagerly waiting for another homemade perfume.

Update of the update: I've sent out the addresses to the participants so now we have to wait and see.

Barynia

Helena Rubinstein launched a new fragrance, Wanted. It keeps in line with several recent launches, to my mind comes Idylle, that feature sugary fruits and linoleum and I find them all equally uninteresting. The last Rubinstein's fragrance before Wanted, of which I may want a sample to ponder upon but not a drop more, was Barynia, launched in 1984 and long discontinued.

I have a large box full of random miniatures. I use them as testing material, they are still larger than sample tubes, easy to get rid of towards collectors and some are even pretty (one would think about several starry creations of Thierry Mugler, for example). One of the pretty ones is Barynia, too. The usual bottle, differing only in size for the miniature and a full-size one, is a neat piece of Cubist sculpture, featuring a prism on hexagonal base, with burgundy cube-shaped lid, standing on its vortex. More showy version existed at least on the adverts, with crystal cubic stopper. And you guess right that with my predilection for all things pretty and shiny, I would love to have this bottle.



The box design follows the Cubist inspiration. I wonder whether the creator of the bottle and packaging had Cubist architecture of Prague on their mind, since it's the only source of direct inspiration I can think of. It could have been plain geometry, though.

Alas, the purse atomizer design lacks the enchanting juxtaposition of a prism and a cube, it was reduced to a simple crystallic form. Well done geometry, still; I wish I could rave like this about many more bottles.



The fragrance itself was a bit puzzling to me. It doesn't go too well with my skin, it seems to be a boring fruity-woody something and remains so for half an hour before disappearing into oblivion. It took me a while to get the ingenious idea of trying it on fabric but without the interference of my evil sweat, it gets much better. After the first blast of something weird (in the last few days, I have a general impression that many perfumes just start ugly) but after a while, it settles not to fruity-woody-boring but to.... intensive salty tone I seem to find in Amazone by Hermes (1) or, to a certain degree, in Via Lanvin (2). All three of the fragrancs were launched in the earlier 80's so I sense a tendency.
I wasn't able to find notes for this fragrance, only Perfume Intelligence says 'floral bouquet, classified as b3f' (3), I'd add spices and a handful of musk. It is very eighties, strong and pervasive and I'm talking only about the eau de parfum, I didn't bring myself to trying the parfum. For those who are scared of the eighties' powerhouses like Opium, be assured that Barynia is much lighter, it's violets and lily of the valley that spread across the whole room, not spices and musk.
Barynia has been discontinued for years but it is possible to find it in the internets at a few discounters, mostly in eau de parfum concentration.


Advert taken from Parfum de Pub, the neo-Cubist paper comes from Kubista.
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(1) I plan to get some soon so a rant or a review should follow
(2) There's extrait waiting for me at O.'s and a huge bottle of eau de toilette in the P-space
(3) here and no, I don't know what 'b3f' means. I should find out someday.

Mahora

Launched in 2000, discontinued in 2006, reformulated and sold in Les Parisiennes collections as Mayotte.

I would gladly say that Mahora is unremarkable but it wouldn't be true. It is indeed very remarkable. Like being hit with a tuberose scented brick and choked by roses and then drowned in coconut suntan lotion. It's overwhelming in the worst sense of the word. I had a sample of the eau de toilette concentration and it was all coconut - it's not listed in the fragrance notes but I do smell it there.
Now, I got rid of whatever of Mahora I had (I must say that I'm not sure at this point because a part of my collection sort of oscillates between me and my friend O. so that Mahora might have been hers or there were more specimens) and then I saw the extrait.

The 'normal' eau de parfum bottle, as seen on the advert featuring Elsa Benitez and Ayers Rock is a weird art deco-ish mess of shapes which was designed by Robert Granaï and, well I think it was a mistake.
I suspect that the extrait flacon was a way how Monsieur Granaï regained his reputation. The heavy golden pebble with a glass window that shows the golden liquid is utterly cool.

From the concave side, it looks like a model of some small universe, with a sun and a purple satellite.

Still, the fragrance didn't get any better in the extrait concentration. It is more rosey, sweet and sickening, and dries down to overwhelming coconut soap. I can barely bring myself to smell it from the blotter in fear that I may die of too much sweetness.

I bought it because of the flacon. I admit it. Apparently I'm not the only one who detests Mahora because nobody wants the decanted content so that I could use this lovely pebble bottle for something that actually smells nice.


Perfume notes for Mahora by Guerlain:
top notes: orange, aldehydes, almond blossom
middle notes: tuberose, jasmine, neroli, ylang-ylang, frangipani
base notes: sandalwood, vanilla, vetiver

Mahora is discontinued and it was a good riddance. Widely available in the internetz, just look around. Or I can send you that extrait in a neat roll-on bottle.