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COOKIE QUEEN´S PHOTOGRAPHIC SWANSONG.

/ cookie queen / 45 Comments

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Val the Cookie Queen

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I greet you APJ for the last time on this platform!

What follows is a bunch of photos taken during my time as Australian Perfume Junkies raving reporter.  They are in no particular order, and most of them you will have seen already.   APJ has been an incredibly huge part of my life.  I mean freaking enormous.

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In Harrod’s with Portia.  

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Innsbruck with Vero.

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Esxence 2019 with Megan.  (Megan In Sainte Maxime) (Atelier des Ors)

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Tara (A Bottled Rose) and I sniffing Sale Goss in London. 

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With the fabulous JTD JTD in Los Angeles.   

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Carnaby Street with A B.londeswunder and Tara.

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Hannah/B.londeswunder in Bloom. 

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With Freddie Albrighton, perfumista and tattoo artist.  Salzburg. 

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Hannah had arrived around 23:00 in Vienna, having travelled from Salzburg, to see Portia.  She asked for donuts and Portia ran out for a box.  Why just one when ten would do?

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Visiting the amazing  Aus Liebe Zum Duft.  Flat hair because German water made it too soft.  

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Antonio and Vero.  Milan. 

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Thomas – The Perfume Candy Boy

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Vero and me in Florence.  Sorting out samples for me to take to the States.  

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The gorgeous Michael watching me sniff some Le Labo stuff.  Brick Lane, London.  

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Anima Vinci.  Les Senteurs.

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Thomas and Tara.  How I love them both.  

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Milan train station.  Portia, Vero, and Antonio.  

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Coffee and chilling with @scentosaurs in Edinburgh. 

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Last but not least Vanessa (Bonkers About Perfume) and me in Augsburg, Germany.  Meeting up for perfume, and a gig.  But that is a Strange Tale on its own. 

I have loads more photos but setting them into WordPress is about to give me a complete and utter meltdown.  So I am gonna stop.

Bussis to the moon and back.

Your CQ.

 

“Just what is it that you want to do?  We want get loaded and we wanna have a good time.”  PRIMAL SCREAM.    RIP Andrew Weatherall. 

“So long, farewell …… I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye … ” Rodgers and Hammerstein.

/ cookie queen / 65 Comments

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Val the Cookie Queen

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Dearest APJ

Just over six years ago I met Portia in a café in Vienna.  He had posted on APJ that he would touring Europe and that if anyone wanted to meet up with him then cool.  As fate would have it, Vienna was a part of his trip.  Most of you readers know the story.

There is no doubt in my mind that we knew each other in a former life.   This did not feel like a first meeting.  During the course of our non-stop chatter I asked jokingly if he wanted me to write a post or two on APJ.  He said sure, twice a month, alternate Tuesdays.  Boom.  I became Cookie Queen on the spot, and we went and bought a bottle of Coromandel to cement the deal.

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VIENNA 2014

It would not be an exaggeration to say that blind date changed my life.  From meeting Vero to having my radio show, and so much in-between.  I have covered a lot of it in my years of blogging.  I am me, Portia is she, and we pretend nothing.  We are in real life as we are in our posts, except louder.   And that has been the key to the wonderful community that Portia founded here on APJ.   It brought out the real in everyone.

I could blab on forever, sobbing into my Shalimar but no!  A time to build up, a time to break down.   Shit happens and we need to make way for more.

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LONDON 2018

I thank you all for the love shown to me, for helping me to become the person that I am now.  Perfume is the link, but never the whole story.   I am not sad that I won’t be writing about perfume so much, I lost a part of that joy when Vero died.  Not the pleasure of fragrance, but the desire to really write about it.  Moving onto working with Hiram Green will be next thing and that really excites me.  Once a junkie, always a junkie huh?

I am not gone.  I will still be writing my Strange Tales on A Bottled Rose, and staying  perfume themed on my Instagram @armadilloscookiequeen.    And if you have time you can tune into my live radio shows, first and third Fridays of the month.  The livestream link is always in my Instagram bio.

I thank my family for putting up with me.  For sniffing my wrists a million times, for patiently accepting the amount of time it actually took to prepare and write a post.  For  ignoring my tears and tantrums and screaming about deadlines.

Portia.  I love you.

Ciao APJ.

Goodbye Bussis.

CQ. 

I do have one more Tuesday in February and I have never missed a deadline and have no intention of doing so now.  I am gonna dig out a bunch of my favourite photos and just post them.  xxx 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vetiver Cœur by April Aromatics

/ Sandra / 19 Comments

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Sandra

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Happy New Year dear APJ! How did you celebrate the new year? Do any of you write new year resolutions?

We survived the holidays – barely. It was a host of things that just made it terribly stressful for us all. New Year’s Eve was a complete dud as I wrongly assumed that they would be doing loads of fireworks in our village. Not quite sure if it is just not tradition here to do as many fireworks as they do on the national holiday or if it was the thick fog that set in here in the hills. Anyway – we started celebrating on the 1st to make up for the previous night.

Happy New Year and Vetiver Cœur by April Aromatics

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CQ’S New Year, New Direction. Copper by Comme de Garçons. 2019.

/ cookie queen / 28 Comments

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Val the Cookie Queen

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Hey there APJ!

Welcome to 2020.  New year, new direction.  I am not doing written perfume reviews any more.  Well, that is not quite true.  Once in a while IF I find something that I think amazing, then I will.   What I am gonna do is pick perfumes and the review will be contained in  the two or three photos.  Add a line or two, job done.

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CQ’S New Year, New Direction.          Copper by Comme de Garçons.  2019.

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No Radio Silence. And a Little Perfume Homework.

/ cookie queen / 18 Comments

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Val the Cookie Queen.

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Servus APJ

I said I was gonna take a break.  I am so damn busy.  And yet here we are.

“You can’t have silence on the radio; people will turn away from the station.”  Robert Barry.  American artist.  Conceptual art.

I had my first radio show alone last week.  Alone in the studio.  I got there early enough to set it all up without going into panic mode.  I mean there is not a lot to set up to be honest.  I had my suspicions that there might be a hitch when I could not listen to my music on the cue button.  Damn.  I watched the seconds count down until my jingle played, turned on the microphone and — yeah.

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UNSPLASH. 

No Radio Silence.  And a Little Perfume Homework. Continue reading →

“Wild Geese That Fly With the Moon on Their Wings …..” CQ’s Favourite Things 2019.

/ cookie queen / 50 Comments

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Val the Cookie Queen.

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Hi Guys.

Into the last month of 2019.  Time for a round up of my favourite things.  It has been a busy year but when is it not?  Let’s start with books and end with perfumes huh?  Feel free to jump straight to the scents.  Here we go …….

“Wild Geese That Fly With the Moon on Their Wings …..”  CQ’s Favourite Things 2019.

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White Shirts and Perfume.

/ cookie queen / 39 Comments

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Val the Cookie Queen.

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Hey there APJ Crew and Friends

“White shirt now red, my bloody nose,  Sleeping, you’re on your tippy toes,  Creepin’ around like no one knows, Think you’re so criminal …….” Bad Guy.  Billie Eilish.

I recently bought a white shirt.  Damn expensive, beautiful cotton, no collar.  I have wanted one for years but every time I tried one on I looked like death warmed up.  White shirt, gray hair.    I fell in love with this one particular shirt in the window of a store which was at the time shut, and asked Blondeswunder to go in have look at it for me when it was open. Next thing I knew she called me and said she had bought it and that I owed her money.   I love it.  And I have to say that a well cut shirt is worth the extra dosh.  And as long as I put a ton of slap on and wear a coloured lipstick, I don’t look like the grim reaper.

 White Shirts and Perfume.

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Holiday Perfumes; and Jumper Love?

/ cookie queen / 23 Comments

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Val the Cookie Queen.

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Well hello APJ

I am roaming around Scotland as you read this, although I am sat here writing it a good week beforehand.  It is gonna be the shortest post ever as I am up to my eyeballs in cookie dough, packing, decanting, and attempting an online checkin.  altho I lived in England for some years I never made it up to Scotland.  I have always wanted to go and we finally booked a week there.  A couple of days in Edinburgh and the we will head up to Fort William and see that happens along the way.  What scents am I taking?

Holiday Perfumes; and Jumper Love? Continue reading →