.
Portia
.
Hi there Fashion Forward Fumies,
I love the CHANEL videos. Though I am ambivalent about Coco the person I do love the video creations of propaganda that the company makes. They are slick and watchable, even if they are not always 100% fact accurate.
Enjoy the latest in the series,
Portia xx
.
Portia
.
Hey there Indie Frag Lovers,
My mate Jocelyn is the perfumer at Cult of Scent. She is a fast talking, fun and passionate perfumer whose work is definitely Indie and really, really good. She was lauded by no less than Luca Turin in 2015 and we have written about others in the range here on APJ before. Here are links to those: Fire Amber Baby, Sweet Libertine, Something Beautiful and Hedonist.
So it was with real sadness that I read of the discontinuation of one of her best sellers Karavanserai……
From Jocelyn (edited): Just a heads-up folks. I am discontinuing Karavanserai. There is about 200mL left, then that’s it. I love it, but the Angelica root & Cedrat oils are hard to get good reliable stocks of, so it’s time to let it go.
If you’ve been wanting to buy this dry herbaceous citrus cologne, now is your chance.
To sweeten the deal, I am extending the DISCOUNT CODE APJ10 till the end of this month.
Cult Of Scent gives these featured accords:
Cedrat, Vetiver, Angelica, Bulgarian rose otto, Frankincense, Cedarwood
So, how does Karavanserai smell? Imagine a cologne fragrance based around rose. I know, it’s simple but revolutionary. Well, it’s not merely rose. It’s mainly citrus with a lovely slightly salted dry grass that last and lasts. The rose seems to be more about the rosewood and sharp green rose flower than the usual fruity or honeyed variations of the theme.
Karavanserai is not a bit what I’d expect from something of that name. In my mind I expect a spicy frankincense blend full of hot wind and dry, straggly shrubbery. Maybe some camel or goat and the smell of horses and their tack. Interestingly the Persian word means the inn or stop where travellers could rest and recover from the day’s journey, not the caravan itself.
Lasting power is excellent with the first hour having big sillage that softens off considerably for the rest of the ride. By 5 hours I can still smell the remnants and they still have a woody citrus wash about them. Very, very nice.
Nevertheless it is gorgeous and I’ve used quite a lot of my 8ml from my VAGABONDS CHOICE Travel Set.
Don’t forget the DISCOUNT CODE: APJ10 it works on the whole site till the end of January.
What would you expect to be the notes for something called Karavanserai?
Portia xx
.
Portia
.
Hi Crew,
We seem to have a bunch of people who are followers of the blog not getting their post updates via eMail. This has happened a few times through APJs lifespan and I have no idea why we are getting drop outs, or why peoples settings may have changed without their knowledge.
Please check that you haven’t been OPTED OUT of WordPress eMails. I just had to go readjust my own settings so I could get APJ back into my Inbox. After I got my settings back to eMails coming in then I had to resubscribe to APJ.
Sorry for any lack of eMails. Sorry for the bother.
Portia xx
.
Portia
.
Hey there APJ Crew,
So many oudhs on sale. I love Annick Goutal and wanted to see how the house would treat oudh. Luckily Surrender To Chance has samples because we can’t get these to look at in Australia. Here’s my experience.
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Agarwood (oud), papyrus
Heart: Agarwood (oud), rose, pimento
Base: Agarwood (oud), birch, guaiac wood, myrhh
Ouds? Well kind of. It’s clearly a synthetic rendering of the oudh experience. There is plenty of the band aid, rubber tyres and eucalyptus hiding inside but not so much of the barnyard. If you are an oudh aficionado then you may think 1001 Ouds is a poor cashgrab by Annick Goutal to add the middle Eastern market and jump on the oud bandwagon. Maybe that’s true BUT if you don’t really like oudh in its heavier incarnations this could very easily be a good gateway oudh. While showing some of the less confronting facets of the accord it is far less challenging. Here we have a warm, comforting fragrance that nods to the Middle East from a very comfy recliner with a large drink.
PDI
The opening does have a sweet dry grass accord nestling softly into the oudh and I like that the opening lasts long minutes before we see any sign of the rose making it’s appearance. When it does come rose is not treated in the modern Montale rose/oudh style. Here it is completely backup, a pretty filigree to add luster and I find it very difficult to even notice the pimento, which is a shame because I was interested.
The birch is clean in the beginning and doesn’t feel like it’s painting tar onto the back of your throat and sinuses until well into dry-down. It is happily offset by the myrrh but also smells to me like there might be some vanilla holding the bottom half of the fragrance together.
I think 1001 Ouds is definitely an oudh for people who don’t like oudh. Wearable even to work if you are lucky enough to be able to go fragranced. I think it’s also a very nice date frag and will try it out at the movies tonight with Jin…….
PDI
Further reading: Perfume Shrine and ScentBound
FragranceNet have a few Testers left at AUD$120/75 after Coupon
Surrender To Chance has samples from $4.50/.05ml
Did you try this when it was released?
Portia xx
.
Sandra
.
Happy New Year APJ! May 2017 bring peace, love and joy to our lives.
Let me just come right out and say it. Moving is terrible. Leaving the comfort of my flat and all the luxuries of the known has been the most challenging aspect. Please do not take this post as a complaint, rather as a funny side to the moving experience.
The bandaid has been ripped off and we landed safely in Rotterdam. The movers got us into the house and then promptly abandoned us at 2 pm stating that they did not want to unpack all the boxes because there was not enough flat surface to place the items on! WTF?! Seriously – we have four floors!!! Too emotionally spent to argue with them, we let them go home. Now, imagine us climbing, sometimes on all fours, the three crazy steep stairs with boxes – no stairmaster is needed. We have it in the house and no health club membership will be necessary.
One major challenge with which we are faced is figuring out what foods are safe for my allergic son. To give you an example – the first night in Rotterdam we mistakenly thought that a sushi restaurant would be safe. The waitress tried telling us to leave because she could not handle my request. All I wanted to know is why there was egg in an avocado maki! The manager came and told me it was because all the sushi has mayonnaise. Really?! I kindly requested that he makes the maki without the mayo and voila we have safe food! So, it will take us several weeks to get our bearings and figure out which grocery stores have the right foods for us and which restaurants we can visit.
On another note, I know that I am short – but I feel positively elflike here. Both men and women tower over me! We needed to buy a step stool to actually climb into the bath tub – my legs are just not that long. My husband placed one step stool on every floor as there are even light switches I cannot reach on tippytoe. Don’t even get me started on the cupboard space in the kitchen – I don’t remember what I placed up top and cannot even see all the way up there from the ground.
With all the stress and now culture shock setting in, I have two favourite perfumes giving me the much needed comfort and hugs.
Knowing how stressful this would be, I decided several weeks before the move that for the five or six days that it would take to pack, move, stay in a hotel and then move into the house I would be fragrance free.
Once unpacked, I spritzed Shalimar EdP lavishly and was in scented heaven. It has grounded me when I found myself wanting to whimper in a corner.
At night I require an extra dose of sugar and reach for Spiriteuse Double Vanille which sends me off to dreamland with its wonderful boozy vanilla cloud.
All in all, I am excited about the adventure and am looking forward to discovering new places and meeting new people. The Dutch are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. People smile and are willing to help us and most go out of their way when we explain that we are newly implanted foreigners in their country.
Here are a few pictures of the last night in Vienna and then my first impressions living in this vibrant city. If you are interested, you can follow my Instagram (vienna_living) to catch a glimpse of my latest discoveries.
.
Robert Herrmann
.
Hello. my name is Robert and I’m a fragaholic……
I started writing this in response to something that happened to me on New Year’s Eve day. I suspect it’s happened to all of us. I was working in my office (a.k.a. The perfumed desk from hell) and decided to finish off a sample vial that was sitting next to my right arm. I applied the perfume, and threw the vial in the trash can and BOOM! Suddenly I was facing seeing the old year out wearing something truly spectacular! But I had NO idea what the hell it was 😡 !!
Because as soon as I applied the remainder of the perfume I was Immediately surrounded by the most GORGEOUS scent, floral, animalic, deep, intense. Just stunning. My first thought was “Wait…. Do I have a bottle of this marvel? And if not, how fast can I order one???”
So I went searching through the trash (of course it was at the very bottom), found the vial only to realize to my horror that the vial was unmarked. U.N.M.A.R.K.E.D. !!!! wtf?? I LERRRRVE this perfume, I MUST own it, it might be my “precioussssss….”
I scoured my desk for a clue.
I searched UNDER the desk for a missing tag.
I sneezed my way through monumental dust bunnies.
I TORE THE FREAKING HOUSE APART…. but no such luck.
I then started noticing the god-awful pile up of perfume on my desk. And on the table next to my easy chair. And the TWO full boxes of samples awaiting sniffing since 2014!!! Suddenly I realized that my rabbit hole was a “perfumeaggedon” waiting to happen. It was clearly out of control.
Now I know for a fact that Ikea and Target have a multitude of storage options available to me if I could just figure out which was best. More shelves? Possibly. A wine cooler for perfume bottles? Sounds a bit too intense. Chic and cunning little boxes to HIDE the mess? Oh, you mean like I already have? Le sigh….. Only time will tell, hopefully the next few weeks…. now if I could just start making that damned perfume spreadsheet I’ve been thinking of for the last few years….
My name is Robert and I am a fragoholic.
Are your samples like this?? Here’s where I take a stand. Let’s do a draw for yet ANOTHER mystery sample…….
This week we will have 1 winner who will receive:
1 x Mystery Fragrance from Robert’s collection
P&H Anywhere in the world
Open to everyone worldwide who follows AustralianPerfumeJunkies via eMail, WordPress, Bloglovin or RSS. Please leave how you follow in the comments to be eligible. I must be able to check that you follow so if you have an email address on your gravatar that’s different to your follow address then please email me so I know. Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged.
You must tell me how you follow APJ
and
Please tell us some effective perfume and sample storage ideas, or a sample you tried recently that you swooned for
Entries Close Thursday 5th January 2017 10pm Australian EdsT and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org
The winners will have till Wednesday 11th January 2017 to get in touch (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with their address or the prize will go to someone else.
No responsibility taken for lost or damaged goods in transit
.
Portia
.
Hi there crew.
On the 30th December 2016 a small crew of fragrance/fragrant enthusiasts got together to troll the Sydney City department store David Jones. Then we headed down the road to extremely Ra Cha Cha hotel and watering hole QT Sydney at 49 Market St for nibbles and beverages. It was a fun, frolicsome crew with loads of smiles and laughs, spritzing, bitching and fabulous repartee. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment and got to spend some quality time with people I’d only ever spent skim time with.
Normally we would fit in more than one fragrant store but on this particular day David Jones had enough to keep our noses and credit cards working hard for about 2 hours before we all catwalk down to drinks.
Here is a small snapshot of our afternoon.
Here are TinaG, Jocelyn Fullerton of Cult Of Scent and Angela.
With the handsome Simon
Kerri & Gina
Angela, Gina & Chairman Meow
Angela, Gina, TinaG, Chairman Meow, Kerri
At QT Sydney
Maybe you should get together with some like minded frag heads in 2017. It’s amazing how much fun we all have together.
Portia xx
SHIT!! Totally forgot this APJ,
Let’s see who won,
Portia xxx
Hensley Perfumes gives these featured accords:
Stone fruit, mixed berries, rose absolute, blonde tobacco, sweet resins, musk complex, ambergris
Hendley Perfumes has $18/9ml + Samples
This week we will have 1 winner who will receive:
1 x 9ml Amora EdP Travel Spray
P&H Anywhere in the world
Entries Closed Thursday 29th December 2016 10pm Australian EdsT
Winners was chosen by random.org
The winners will have till Wednesday 4th January 2017 to get in touch (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with their address or the prize will go to someone else.
No responsibility taken for lost or damaged goods in transit
.
Portia
.
Hey fumes,
I wrote about Apollo Hyacinth back in 2015. It has remained in my head and on my To Buy List since, so recently I bought another 3ml decant to see if I’ll go through it. My major concern, and why I haven’t gone FB on this green beauty is the bottle. I really love how it looks and think it’s perfectly gorgeous but if I had to decant it out to wear I think it would just not ever get used. Yes, I know how petty that sounds but let’s be honest here. If I have 17 green fragrances to choose from and 3 of them need to be decanted out to be worn then you can be bloody certain that those three will end up being totally ignored while I spritz some CHANEL No 19, Giverny In Bloom, Silences or Niki de Saint Phalle.
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Neroli, pear, galbanum
Heart: Hyacinth, lily of the valley, angelica
Base: Haitian vetiver, oakmoss, cedar
Candied pear, or pear with sugar on top, galbanum and greenery. Imagine a stinking hot day and you’re walking through the shaded bushland eating a pear and drinking pear fizzy soda. That’s how Apollo Hyacinth opens for me. Elegant, spacious and yet friendly. This is no austere No 19 or arctic Giverny in Bloom, no, this is welcoming green. Even the angelica has a sweetness to it and I’m not sure how it has happened but it’s so different that I am surprised every wear. About an hour or so in I smell the soft, drippy, green stalk of cutting flowers from bulbs as plain as day. Also the LotV makes an appearance around this time but not as a lead player.
Because I’m wearing Apollo Hyacinth today in 35C heat my own sweat has added an extraordinary saltiness that I have never noticed before that skews the whole fragrance a little towards the salty white floral. Very interesting.
Lasting power is excellent, though after 4 hours you have to be very close to notice.
I’m thinking I will buy the Discovery Kit at $315 with 8 x 10ml of the whole range except the new one. They are all spritzers and come with a Travel Case.
Further reading: Perfume Posse and Australian Perfume Junkies
Eric Buterbaugh Florals has EdP $295/100ml
Surrender To Chance has samples from $5/.5ml
Would you be bothered decanting?
Portia xx
.
Portia
.
Hey All,
Thank You for another year of amazing fragrance chatter and beyond. Last year I wrote that the world was in trouble. SHIT! Seems the world took that as a challenge. Brexit, Putin, Trump, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, almost everywhere there is backlash against saving our planet, it’s flora and fauna and people. Big business has us all hoodwinked and most governments are in the pockets of Pharmaceuticals (drugs), War (guns) and Oil. The big picture is bleak.
Around me though I see regular bright sparks of creative giving and helping that gives me hope for the small picture. Jin cut his beautiful hair for leukaemia fundraising this year and raised thousands. He did it on my Mum’s The gang at Hair by Phd Parramatta Store cut it for free so we could send it off to become a wig for children with leukaemia. Jin is a dead set hero in my eyes.
My friends Rita and Cathy (and a GF of theirs whose name I can’t bloody remember) are fundraising and cooking with the One Meal crew here in Sydney to provide one decent meal a week to families who are right on the edge of the poverty line and street people. We did a Turbo Trivia Fundraiser for them and raised nearly $22,000. In a year filled with fundraising this was a major highlight.
Another mate Matt Moore and his buddies Matt White and Ben Dunley have started the idea of using the Aussie men’s mates’ mantra ‘Grab a pie, Grab a mate, Have a chat’ helping men to talk about their feelings. From Matt’s own depression problems sprung this idea of doing something so regular, so common amongst Aussie mates and making it a moment to discuss life issues. In 2015, preliminary data showed a total of 3,027 deaths by suicide (12.7 per 100,000), 2,292 males (19.4 per 100,000) and 735 females (6.2 per 100,000). Aussie guys are 3x more likely suicide and at a rate of over 6 per day, from a population of just over 23 million. That’s bad, anything that can help is good. Go visit Guys & Pies and donate.
What do I do? Well, I give myself at a heavily discounted rate for fundraisers, help a few people who I know are struggling sometimes with food, time or cash, give regularly to charities that I feel the money is being spent on helping not admin and we rescue dogs. While none of these things are earth shattering they are game changing for the people that are helped. That’s all I can do.
So Happy New Year Australian Perfume Junkies. To everyone that’s contributed, commented, lurked and followed I wish you a peaceful & prosperous 2017. Fill it with fun & laughter, fragrance and stuff you enjoy. Make time to care for yourself, push yourself to be the best you can be and treat everyone you come in contact with as you’d hope to be treated.
We love you all,
Portia xx
Australian Perfume Junkies 
