Rena “Carol” Aulick-Lynn 1949 – 2016

June 20, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 19 Comments

Post by Azar

Hello APJ,

One of the most commercially influential and probably least appreciated perfumers of the 20th and 21st centuries passed on January 30, 2016. Few of us fragrance junkies have ever heard her name but probably most of us have smelled her creations. We may even use the products that carry her perfumes on a daily basis.

Rena “Carol” Aulick-Lynn 1949 – 2016

Rena “Carol” Aulick-Lynn was born on July 7, 1949, the eldest daughter of a Kentucky tobacco farmer. As a child Carol loved all things musical, eventually becoming an accomplished vocalist, singing for radio commercials and performing as a member of the May Festival Chorus under the direction of Maestro James Levine. She was also an accomplished pianist and taught piano and music theory.

After various twists and turns of fate, Aulick-Lynn eventually found her path as a scientist and perfumer working for Proctor & Gamble. With P&G she studied perfumery all over the world and was subsequently promoted to Principal Perfumer/Scientist for the company. She later moved to Firmenich in New York as Perfumer and Director of Evaluation and then to Houston Texas, as the Director of Fragrance Development and Executive VP for Intercontinental Fragrances.

This remarkable woman loved adventure sports. In addition to sailing and flying sail planes she also raced trans am with the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America).

Tide

So – which fragrances did Carol Aulick-Lynn create? Some of her most recognized functional perfumes grace an extensive variety of household, beauty and hygiene products, including Dreft baby detergent, Tide detergent (probably the original and at least one flanker), Dash detergent, Secret and Sure deodorants and Dawn and Joy dishwashing liquids. Her last iteration of the Tide fragrance won the American Society of Perfumers award for Best Detergent Fragrance on the market.

Years of exposure to scented household, bath and beauty products have blunted my appreciation of the considerable artistry (yes, really) and manipulative science involved in their creation. Lately I’ve resolved that I will no longer turn up my nose at functional fragrances but instead approach them as I would “real” perfumes. I’ve found that there are some amazing beauties in the functional fragrance world that could easily hold their own (albeit a somewhat linear “own”) with many of what we snobbishly refer to as “fine” fragrances.

Recently daughter Lauren forwarded the video below. Not only is it hilarious but it has also given me a new perspective on my addiction to scent.

Here are a couple of questions, APJ: Is there a household product that you use just because it smells so good? How about a beauty product that you love or hate based on its fragrance?

Azar xx

Miyako Extrait by Eugene and Emrys Au for Auphorie 2015

June 6, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 21 Comments

Post by Azar

Hello Frag Junkies!

Have you ever encountered a scent that you like (maybe even love) one day and then can’t abide the next? Recently I had that experience with Auphorie’s Miyako, one of the winning fragrances in this year’s Art and Olfaction Awards Artisan Perfumer category.

Miyako Extrait by Auphorie 2015

Miyako Extrait by Eugene and Emrys Au

The Power of the Peach III – Jekyll and Hyde

Fragrantica

Fragrantica Gives these featured accords:
Top: Apricot, yuzu, peach
Heart: Osmanthus, jasmine, green tea, leather
Base: Hinoki wood, cedar, sandalwood, patchouli, musk, katsura leaf

YUM! It is easy to imagine the power of this peach!

In late March, after reading a couple of complimentary reviews, I purchased a sample of Miyako Extrait and fell in love at first sniff. The heavy richness of peach and sweetness of osmanthus (reminiscent of Olympic Orchids Red Cattleya) were brightened and lifted by the dry, airy elements of an astringent yuzu and a perfect green tea (not the screechy kind). This rather unique take on peach developed into warm, woodsy leather, integrated with the continued presence of osmanthus. As time went by Miyako opened up as a glowing floral, eventually settling into comforting, amber-y sandalwood. The beautiful experience lasted about five hours, the last three as skin scent. My initial sampling of Miyako Extrait convinced me that here was a fragrance worthy of the time it takes to write up a post. As you can see, I’m still writing, but with trepidation…

PDP

My next encounter with Miyako was not so pleasant. Two weeks after the first spritz I sampled the extrait again. Instead of being transported to a garden of earthly delights, I found myself opening a nasty closet in an old, smoky motel room; a closet that had not been cleaned or even aired for many years in a room redolent of mildew, old leather, dust and ineffectual fruity/floral room freshener. What ever happened to my lovely Miyako?

The weekend after this experience I was visiting a couple of friends who just happened to have their own sample of Miyako. That day we all experienced the smell of nasty motel room. Previous to this my friends had been in love with their sample too. But the story doesn’t end with a stink.

Yesterday one of the friends joined us, at our home, for dinner and a distillation. After the fun we decided to sample Miyako once again. We were surprised and pleased to find that the perfume (my sample this time) was once again a beauty.

Wikipedia

So…what’s going on here? I’ve pretty much ruled out body chemistry as the cause, as three different bodies had similar good and bad experiences. The only explanation that comes to mind has to do with atmospheric pressure, humidity and/or temperature. Last night I loved Miyako but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Further reading: Perfumes I Love and Colognoisseur
Scent Trunk has $90/30ml

Have you ever smelled a perfume that exhibited such a blatant split personality disorder? Do you have any idea what explains this Jekyll and Hyde effect? Have you tried Miyako?

Azar xx

Elizabeth Taylor Black Pearls 1996

April 18, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 37 Comments

Post by Azar

Greetings Perfume Pals!

My previous post on APJ recalled my adventures in Spring Cleaning and the subsequent discovery of several bottles of the original Elizabeth Taylor Black Pearls. I also wrote a bit of a back-story to the fragrance. Today I am attempting a review of vintage Black Pearls.

Elizabeth Taylor Black Pearls 1996

The Power of the Peach – Part II

Fragrantica

Fragrantica lists these featured accords:
Peach, gardenia, bergamot, water lily, white rose, lotus, amber, sandalwood and musk.

First of all I have to say that there is nothing quite like vintage Black Pearls. For me this frag is, at once, peachy, wet and powdery, a combination unique in my experience. Some people report a surfeit of lilac and/or melon in Black Pearls. My experience is one of citrus, lotus (of sorts), honeysuckle, vanilla, synthetic smelling sandalwood, a rich floral combo and, of course, the powerful peach.

I am not talking about a fresh peach here. Even though there is an obvious attempt to simulate freshness with the addition of aquatic elements (via the lotus and water lily?), Black Pearls has very little of that squeezable, tart juiciness that characterizes newly picked fruit. Instead, Elizabeth Taylor’s peach is big, fuzzy and over-ripe, sliced, spiced, powdered; vanilla sugared, battered, buttered and baked into a cobbler drizzled with cream. This fragrant, mouthwatering dessert is set out to cool next to a huge bouquet of lilacs, gardenias, pale roses and osmanthus. Can you imagine that? Most days my skin loves Black Pearls and the resulting sweetness and warmth is not unlike the tender, young voice of Elizabeth Taylor as Velvet Brown in the 1945 film National Velvet. Sometimes, though, she smells like the sound of ET portraying the screeching, bitching Martha from the film adaptation of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (the film – 1966). The split personality of this fragrance – either a middle aged harridan with monster sillage or a sweet, shy girl who stays close to home – makes Black Pearls a perfume I can wear for a variety of occasions and purposes. The problem is I can’t predict how she will behave on my skin from one day to the next.

Flickr

Black Pearls started me wondering what percentage of the fragrances in my collection feature peachy notes. I haven’t come up with an answer to that yet, but a couple of the peaches I am currently wearing are Viktoria Minya’s Hedonist (date) and the new Miyako extrait by Auphorie (date). I imagine I will write more about those two sometime soon – in the Power of the Peach Part III?

Azar xx

YouTube

Elizabeth Taylor Black Pearls GIVEAWAY

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have 2 winners who will receive:
Continental USA DRAW: 1 x vintage Black Pearls .25 ounce parfum in the box
Worldwide DRAW: 1 x 2ml decant of the original Black Pearls EdP
1 x a little sample of a rare, impossible to find, weird mystery peach
P&H Worldwide

HOW DO YOU WIN?

Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged. 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 (portia underscore turbo @ yahoo dot com dot au) so I know.

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

USA or WORLD

and

Please tell us your favorite peach-centric fragrance – if you have one. Or any fruit in a fragrance.

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Thursday 21st April 2016 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winner will be chosen by random.org
The winner will have till Sunday 24th April 2016 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.

Elizabeth Taylor Black Pearls 1996

April 4, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 31 Comments

Post by Azar

Hi there, Perfume Pals!

It’s time for spring -cleaning! Well…I’ve actually been at it for over a month now! While rummaging around in the chaos of the perfume storage I discovered mass quantities of back-ups bottles https://australianperfumejunkies.com/2016/02/15/back-up-bottles/. This stash includes a surfeit of vintage Elizabeth Taylor Black Pearls, in various concentrations, totaling approximately 400 ml. At one point I must have been grooving on Black Pearls, but for some reason I forgot all about it. 2016, the 20th anniversary of the Black Pearls fragrance, seems to be a good year to resurrect this old beauty and re-discover –

Elizabeth Taylor Black Pearls 1996

The Power of the Peach (Part I)

Fragrantica

When I sat down to write this post I wasn’t surprised that the name of the individual perfumer or team responsible for creating Black Pearls has vanished in the mists of time. I did learn that the fragrance was concocted and distributed by the Elizabeth Arden division of Parfums International, the same company that put together Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds, the fragrance that is, arguably, the best selling celebuscent in the world.

The creation of the Black Pearl fragrance, like most ventures associated with Elizabeth Taylor, has a romantic back-story featuring gifts of precious gems. Elizabeth Taylor was a client of Salvador Assael, the flamboyant New York pearl trader and marketing genius who single handedly transformed what were once considered “junk” pearls grown in the black lipped oyster into precious Tahitian cultured pearls, creating new multimillion dollar pearl farming businesses in the process. It is rumored that Assael was infatuated with Elizabeth Taylor and courted her with a perfect pair of very large Tahitian pearl earrings. It is also said that he claimed to have inspired the creation of the Black Pearl fragrance. In addition to Elizabeth Taylor, Assael’s client list included many other celebrities, politicos, industrialists, their wives and mistresses, including Margaret Thatcher, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Rosalynn Carter and Evelyn Lauder. Several of the women were also recipients of precious black pearl earrings.

NYTimes (If there’s a problem using this photo please get in touch)

Elizabeth Taylor’s Black Pearls perfume seems to have been designed to appeal to a consumer who wanted to associate herself with the 1990s NY celebrity scene and the glamorous excesses of Assael’s clients. I have to admit that it is hard for me to understand how spritzing a cheap fragrance created by a big mass-market firm could create the illusion of exclusivity, wealth and glamour. It may very well be that the power of the press, featuring print ads of the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor and the power of the fragrance itself, rife with luscious peach, amber, lotus and vanilla contributed to a public image of sexy, sensual entitlement.

I’m running out of room here and will have to reserve my actual review and a give-away of the vintage version of Elizabeth Taylor’s Black Pearls perfume for my next post. I do have a couple of questions this week. Can a fragrance make you feel like a celebrity? Do you ever wear a perfume that is over the top sensual or one that gives you a sense of entitlement and privilege?

Azar xx

Hello by Harvey Prince Organics 2014 + GIVEAWAY

March 21, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 34 Comments

Post by Azar

Hey – Howzit, APJ!

I recently stumbled upon the fragrances of Harvey Prince Organics, a perfume house named after two brothers, one who went to Harvard, the other to Princeton (hence Harvey Prince Organics). When I first read about how this house got its name I immediately thought of my Hawaiian friend who tends to flow into pidgin at the drop of a hat. I can just hear her referring to these guys as “high maka-maka” or “ivory league”. Now please excuse my pathetic attempts at pidgin. I don’t mean to talk stink here, perfume pals. A fragrance house can call itself anything it wants to. I have a problem, though, with how Harvey Prince uses the terms “organic” and “natural”. What are the two brothers referring to? What exactly do those words mean – to them?

Harvey Prince Organics

What Does That Mean?

As far as I’m concerned, the term “natural”, in reference to perfume, can suggest just about anything taken or processed from nature – and that covers, well, just about everything. The Harvey Prince tag “Organics” is more problematic and gives the impression that the USDA or some other regulatory agency certifies these fragrances to be organic. Defining “natural” and “organic” in relation to perfume brings to mind yet another difficult word – “is”. Who remembers the famous US politician who just couldn’t figure out what the meaning of “is” was? But I digress. Let me tell you a little bit about one of Harvey Prince Organics’ “natural” fragrances.

Harvey Prince Organics

Hello by Harvey Prince Organics 2014

Harvey Prince Organics gives these featured accords:
Meyer Lemon, White Grapefruit, Satsuma Mandarin, Summer Forsythia, Pink Plumeria, Wild Verbena, Tahitian Vanilla, Sensual Musk. Style: Welcoming. Loving. Refreshing…”

Hello is one of the house’s newer frags. The following description is taken directly from the website: “…The world’s a busy place. Let time stand still for a moment and with one spritz taste the sweetness of Meyer lemon in your cold glass of lemonade. Smell the pink plumerias budding and revel in the jubilant tweets of the nearby hummingbird. Before diving back into reality, say “Hello” to your body and soul…

Pixabay

I was surprised to find that my body and soul actually enjoyed Hello. This perfume is reminiscent of my favorite cheapie, Curve Kicks, minus the effect of the screaming synthetics. It is highly likely that the same synthetics (AKA aroma chemicals) are used in Hello, but with a bit more subtlety and sophistication. The overall impression is that of a well-crafted, light, invigorating lemon/tropical floral combo. I am very fond of several other Harvey Prince fragrances too, including Bailando and Yogini but find their Ageless perfume to be a total scrubber. I have to admit that it is comforting to know that Harvey Prince Organics “…WILL NEVER CONTAIN any harmful chemicals such as phthalates, parabens, sulfates, benzene, GMOs, or triclosan.” HP goes on to describe their products as “karma-free”. What the heck does that mean?

Azar xx

myprettypaints