Fraîche Passiflore by Jean Laporte for Maître Parfumeur et Gantier 1988

July 2, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 4 Comments

Hi there APJ,

I quite like this brand, Maître Parfumeur et Gantier is one of the original niche houses, but I rarely buy the bottles because I find it impossible to say the houses name without mangling it beyond recognition. It’s a shame because they do some really great scents and have been doing stuff that still feels revolutionary since day one. It’s surprising how many of the line still feel bang up to date. Last time I was in Scent Bar in LA they gave me three samples of the Maître Parfumeur et Gantier range on a card to try, I have rediscovered the card in my cleanup this week and found a surprise delight.

Fraîche Passiflore by Maître Parfumeur et Gantier 1988

Fraîche Passiflore by Jean Laporte

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Parfumo gives these featured accords:
Top: Raspberry, Peach, Tagetes
Heart: Jasmine, Passion flower, Pimento
Base: Musk, Mysore sandalwood

Fraiche Passiflora opens with the funnest fruit punch ever.It’s like a crisp cut fruit salad sprinkled lightly with sugar and a little rose water.Without being super sweet, overbearing or outrageous Fraiche Passiflora manages to be radiantly delicious and makes me smile. Oh, and it smells great. I can’t believe that this beauty came out in 1988, it’s like a fun and flirty precursor to Angel and the gourmand craze that followed in its wake. Passionfruit, not flower, seems to be the central theme here, and everything else dances attendance on it well through the heart. It’s so yummy that I can almost feel the pips as I chew with cool refreshing gelato. This is a perfectly gorgeous summer, or memory of summer, scent that will have you smiling along at how freaking fab you smell and wafting delicious sillage behind you that will definitely be turning heads.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

The heart has a real feeling of soft sugared jubes, like Jelly Tots but bigger. The ones that you put three in your mouth and as you chew they all stick in and around your teeth and then you spend the next hour or so getting lovely sweet reminders of them as they slowly melt. Mum used to always have a small bag of them in her purse because giving us a mouthful of these when our attention or energy was flagging would give us an instant pick up.

Photo Stolen WikiCommons

If you have someone in your life that likes a joyful fruity fragrance, even if it’s you, then I think Fraiche Passiflora would be an excellent next step into a real quality version of the genre.

LuckyScent has $130/100ml and samples

What is your fruity favourite? Do you have any of the Maître Parfumeur et Gantier range?
Portia xx

Bronze Goddess by Rodrigo Flores-Roux for Estée Lauder

July 1, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 21 Comments

Hi there Crew!

The beach scent! One of my all time favourite groupings and I’ve noticed that my collection overfloweth with them. An excellent summer spritz but also perfect in the depths of winter to remind you that the sun will come again. I love the Bronze Goddess line and that each year they get a new perfumer in to do their own take on the idea. I have two bottles 2008s Bronze Goddess Eau Fraîche Skinscent and …..

Bronze Goddess 2011 by Estée Lauder

Bronze Goddess by Rodrigo Flores-Roux

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Mandarin, bergamot
Heart: Magnolia, orange blossom, tiare flower, jasmine, myrrh
Base: Coconut, caramel, sandalwood, amber, vetiver

No matter when I use Bronze Goddess it fits like a glove. One little spray and my world is filled with the heart and memory of summer, if I close my eyes I am completely transported to my dream day at the beach. 28C with a very light breeze from the water and a few clouds dappling the world, the beach must have a tide pool and some excellent eateries nearby and I prefer to hang with a smell crew, around 5 or 6 maximum. Give me a book to read and I am in HEAVEN! I particularly like beaches with a grassy area behind the sand where I can comfortably lay my towel and gear and only get all the sand in my feet on the way to the water.

Photo Stolen WikiMedia

2011s Bronze Goddess is all about tiare/jasmine, coconut, caramel and amber on me. While every other note is presented in a wash of smooth and beautifully blended tropical holiday it’s these accords that stand out distinctly through my wear and I particularly love the warmth of the dry down, it still feels beachy and fun but it’s the kind of scent you imagine being present while you walk along the waterfront past moored boats, eateries, palm trees and watching the sun going down with a crew of people you love or someone special. Bronze Goddess is a summer holiday fantasy in a bottle.

Though Bronze Goddess is a very fragrant perfume with good projection and longevity its very nature makes it seem light as air and much like wearing a tropical moisturiser. Though it is a tropical beachy scent I find there is a lovely fresh cleanliness (not in the obvious laundry way, though I think there is also a place for that in perfumery) that continues all day. Sensual and alluring I often wear Bronze Goddess for date night and also for times when I can feel myself falling into a funk. Bronze Goddess is the perfect foil, it’s hard to feel gloomy or blue when you smell this lovely.

Photo Stolen Flickr

Further reading: Into The Gloss and Now Smell This
FragranceNet has a couple of choices from $61/100ml before Coupon
Surrender To Chance has a few different samples from $3/ml

Do you have a favourite Beach Scent? What is it and why?
Portia xx

Elle L'aime by Lolita Lempicka 2013

June 30, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 19 Comments

Woo Hoo! Heya Fragrant Family,

You know that frag you buy a decant of? You know you’ll never need a full bottle but you might like to gran and spritz every so often? Well, I wrote about today’s offering in 2014 because I’d run across it in the mall and loved the bottle, which is why I’d bought my first decant. Having run through two 5ml My Perfume Samples decants and well into my third I thought perhaps it was time to bite the bullet and go FB.

Elle L’aime by Lolita Lempicka 2013

Elle L’aime by Christine Nagel + Serge Majoullier

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, neroli, lime
Heart: Coconut, jasmine, ylang-ylang
Base: Sandalwood, vanilla, myrrh

So it arrived a couple of days ago while Scott was over and we sniffed it on him. We both went CRAZY because it’s super yummy and was really masculine on him. Quite a different scent life compared to the ride that I get.

I know, there are probably a bunch of you that are rolling their eyes or have even not clicked on the post because Lolita Lempicka is a bit too mainstream and uncool but I’d like you to remember how groundbreaking her licorice & violet Lolita Lempicka was in the Disney-ised poison apple, how outrageous to do a hyper gourmand mens like Au Masculin and how much fun and whimsy her whole range contains.

Photo Stolen Flickr

What do I smell? It’s the perfect summer scent, a cool tropical creamsicle over a lovely warm base that will have you smiling along and enjoying the ride. Even here in the depths of our Sydney winter I am instantly transported to glorious tropical evenings and those crazy drinks by the pool. Elle L’aime is sunshine in a glass and I bet you’ll find it hard to scowl while bathing in its enveloping radiance.

Sadly Elle L’aime seems to have been a flop, I can’t see it in the department stores any more. The upside is that you can currently get it for nearly FREE at the discounters! As it was released and dumped so quickly I don’t imagine it will last there for very long though. If Bronze Goddess or Aqua Allegoria Lys Soleia are fragrances you like then I reckon Elle L’aime will ring the same bells.

Photo Stolen Pixabay

Further reading: Now Smell This and Australian Perfume Junkies
FragranceShop has $26/40ml
My Perfume Samples has $2/ml

Last time I wrote, I think Elle L’aime will be a perfect first grown up fragrance or a lovely addition to your easy wear, spritz and forget wardrobe. In fact, though they don’t smell much the same I am reminded of Annich Goutal’s Songes, a sugared version made in the 21st century perhaps. I think it still captures the sense and feeling of Elle L’aime perfectly.

What is your mainstream spritz & go?
Portia xx

I Love My Man by Fabrice Pellegrin for Dear Rose 2014

June 29, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 8 Comments

Hiya Crew,

I am really liking the Dear Rose fragrance house. They are doing mainstream fragrances in luxurious ways. They are not incredibly ground breaking but they do smell a cut above a lot of the current mainstream offerings and I think they will be appealing to a section of the community who is sick of the sweet stuff aimed at teens but who aren’t ready to go heavy duty old school or super niche either. I reckon they are happy to smell nice and have a cool looking bottle of something reasonably expensive that is just a little harder to find than CHANEL or Guerlain.

I Love My Man by Dear Rose 2014

I Love My Man by Fabrice Pellegrin

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Bulgarian rose, centiflora rose, carnation, sandalwood, tonka bean

In my opinion one of the WORST names for a fragrance ever, what rubbish! How freaking embarrassing if someone asks you what scent you have on today. Gack! I would never wear this outside the house just in case.

I Love My Man opens so much better than I expected. A lovely, lively, jam-sweet rose that feels both fully, strongly present and ethereal like mist. The tonka bean has a softly breathy, fleshy warmth warmth to it and the whole seems to be drizzled lavishly over a huge wallop of musks (it could easily be something else but it feels like musks). I can’t think of a fragrance that does this exactly the same way. It’s a beautiful mixture that I find utterly smooth and captivating.

Photo stolen WikiCommons

It’s a lipstick rose, a makeup box, waxy and powdery and so devilishly lavish that you may find yourself stuck like glue to the parts of yourself that you’ve spritzed. Probably best not to do the backs of your knees then, keep body parts accessible unless you are a contortionist. It’s so like the scent of doing my make up but yet really only a nod to it because I Love My Man has this lovely sweetness that takes it beyond maquillage and into some completely other realm.

I could really imagine I Love My Man becoming a bunch of peoples signature scent for a while. It’s classy and classic but still manages to feel bang up to date, clean, fresh and glam. This is a really fun rose that I think the men with the balls to wear it will smell freaking amazing in it, if only it was called something else.

Photo Stolen Pixabay

Further reading: Candy Perfume Boy
Libertine Parfumerie has $210/100ml with FREE Delivery in Australia
First In Fragrance has €125/100ml

Do you ever wish for something perfectly constructed sheer and enveloping? Would you forgive the name and wear it anyway?
Portia xx

Jackal by Goest Giveaway WINNER

June 29, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom

Hey APJ Crew,

Thanks for joining in the Goest fun. One lucky commenter is going to get some yummy sniffing, let’s see who.

Photo Stolen Goest Perfumes

Bitter chocolate, vanilla, patchouli, toasted tobacco and sweet smoke. It is a parfum.

Goest Perfumes has an excellent Sample Set 6 samples $22
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $6/.5ml
Good Luck,
Portia xx

Jackal by Goest Giveaway WINNER

WHAT COULD YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 winner who will receive:
1 x Jackal by Goest decant (about 1.5ml in a spritz)
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DID YOU WIN?

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. Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged.

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

Please tell us if you have tried Goest Perfumes yet? Do you have a fave Independent? Who are they and why?

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie Jackal by Goest GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-42D #Perfume #Giveaway @GoestPerfumes

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Sunday 28th June 2015 10pm Australian EST
Winner was chosen by random.org

Photo Stolen HighestSelf

LENA

The winner will have till Thursday 2nd July 2015 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.

Eau Noble by Marie Duchene for Le Galion 2014

June 28, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 6 Comments

Hiya Happy Huffers,

Not so long ago while Nicolas Chabot, the Le Galion resurrector, was in Sydney he took a day to introduce his fragrance range to us. I fell deeply and madly in love with a couple but never really clicked with Eau Noble, I was like “OK, another lavender cologne style fragrance, meh” and moved on.

Eau Noble by Marie Duchene for Le Galion 2014

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Citron, mandarin orange, orange, galbanum, chamomile
Heart: Neroli, jasmine, lavender, geranium, cedar, marjoram
Base: Patchouli, oakmoss, sage, labdanum, sandalwood, civet, musk

The other night I was looking through my samples without my glasses on to find Sortilege by Le Galion, when I thought I’d found it I splashed a little on before bed. WOW! was I surprised and now I can’t get enough…..

Sweet and sizzling citrus opens boldly but not outrageously and there is a hint of split leaf and branch that makes my green loving nose twitch in delight. The galbanum comes through in its weird sharp syrupy way that always sends a shiver of excitement down my spine. I love how some green fragrances manage to capture the sharp poisonous spines of an alien cactus, keep the cool smoothness of green glass and add in the large waxy sheen of the sunny side of magnolia leaves. Eau Noble opens and leads into its heart with all three of these qualities. There is a feeling of wearing the most exquisite cross between barbershop and high end fragrance, someone really thought about crossing the borderlines and blurring tradition here.

Photo Stolen WikiMedia

The heart of Eau Noble is a lavender-centric bouquet. No, if you are anti lavender it won’t punch you in the face and I think Eau Nioble could be an excellent gateway fragrance to the world of lavender if you have previously shunned its elegant beauty. Here it is the large lilac diamond set in the centre of such a lot of other beautifully blended accords that you may even miss it, maybe not miss it but you can certainly overlook it.

Eau Noble is bright and sweet and green, a glittering glissando that moves with lively but stately grace. Though it smells nothing like CHANEL No 19 I find myself thinking of the straight laced wearer of it that hides a wildness just below the surface and should you be lucky enough to hang with this prim by day, work oriented, uptight person on a Friday night then you may see a free-er, funner, hair down bon vivant with a full throaty laugh, come hither eyes and a lovely burning fragrance that calls you closer and closer.

Photo Stolen Pexels

Totally and utterly unisex I think anyone with a sparkle in their eye and a need to fly under the radar during the day would rock this baby. An extra couple of spritzes and you are good to go for night where the warm resinous animalics really have a chance to shine. The more time I spend with Eau Noble the more I feel it fills a gap in my collection.

Further reading: Colognoisseur
Libertine Parfumerie and Peony Melbourne have $249/100ml
First In Fragrance have €140/100ml & samples

Do your fragrant cravings ever surprise you? When has it happened that something you didn’t care for turned to love?
Portia xx

Chance Eau Vive: The Film – CHANEL

June 28, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 2 Comments

Hi there Crew,

Chance has been given a quick facelift by Olivier Polge with its newest flanker Chance Eau Vive. I tried Google translate but the closest I could get was Eau Vivre = Living Water. That works well enough for this language trog.

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Grapefruit, red orange, providing citruses
Heart: Jasmine, white musk
Base: Vetiver, cedar, iris

CHANEL usually does amazing ads. Whenever one pops up in my YouTube feed I get excited so of course I clicked on this one. It’s not really what expect from a CHANEL production but it is fun and silly and what it lacks in glamour it makes up for in cutesy. I’m clearly not its target audience and that’s cool.

Enjoy,
Portia xx

Photo Stolen CHANEL

CHANCE EAU VIVE: The Film – CHANEL

Courtesan by Pierre Bourdon for Worth 2006

June 27, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 25 Comments

Hi there Fragrant Family,

The other day a few of us met for lunch and a sniff. Willa who is a contributor here at APJ, a mate of mine Millenia and the lovely Sonya who used to write for APJ. We had lunch and chatted, sniffing stuff and Sonya opened a bottle of vintage Fidji parfum for us all to try. We did it with all reverence and made it a real Opening Ceremony. It’s nice to have clever noses to sniff with and lunch with. Sadly Millenia has had his nose broken so often that his sense of smell is virtually zero so he just provided fun and eye candy.

Courtesan by Pierre Bourdon for Worth 2006

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Cinnamon, cardamom, clove, pineapple, red berries, bergamot
Heart: Orange blossom, magnolia, jasmine, rose
Base: Sandalwood, peach, raspberry, caramel, dark chocolate, cacao, amber, vanilla, musk

Sonya had a bottle of Courtesan for me. I have smelled it before in the Surrender To Chance Animalic – Skank Sampler and it was all sweet fruit salad and sweaty body.

The modern Courtesan is much lighter on everything. The fruit opening is a lovely synthetic pineapple spiced up a bit and sweetened by citrus. Not nearly as big as I remember it, muted, a watercolour but still very nice. The pineapple continues well into the heart and only slowly fades to a less distinct amorphous fruitiness that dances around a pretty bouquet of vaguely green florals.

Underneath all this lovely floaty floral fruitiness is a sweet fleshy, slightly worn but basically clean scrotum accord. I know right! Totally unexpected with what’s gone before but there it is. That warm flesh as yet unripened by a day of movement and life fragrance. It’s both animal musky and laundry musky. Imagine a man who has showered on waking up a little late on Sunday. He’s thrown on some fresh jocks and then padded down to the kitchen to make you some raisin toast done as French Toast and a big pot of tea with a couple of slices of lemon in the pot. He’s fed you and flirted over breakfast and you decide to give him a thank you treat. While you’re down there before his undies are off, THAT’s the smell.

Photo Stolen Pinterest

But. Here’s the thing. You have showered and spritzed your favourite summer type fruity whisper of a fragrance and the two have met….. you are smelling him and you. NOW you know what Courtesan smells like. Courtesan smells like heaven.

I get around an hour of fragrant and then Courtesan sinks into my skin and leaves a soft warm wash of amorphous yumminess that hangs around for a while. To be fair I haven’t let it dry down properly because I keep madly spritzing. I got the bottle a few days ago and I reckon over an eighth is gone already. Freaking sensational.

Further reading: Non Blonde and Perfume Posse
FragranceNet has $50/90ml before Coupon
Surrender To Chance Animalic – Skank Sampler $19/9 x .5ml ( I went crazy and bought 2ml spritzers $67)

What is your sexy sweet smell? Do you have one?
Portia xx

Jackal by Jacqueline Steele for Goest Perfumes 2012

June 26, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 16 Comments

Hey Independent Perfumery Lovers,

One of the things that makes Indie Perfumery stand out for me is their fabulous ability to ignore the mainstream, mass-tige and niche restraints by ruling bodies. If they want to put an overdose of some regulated ingredient then they damn well will. That opens up a world of fabulous ingredients that the rest of the fragrant world must skimp on or ignore. As you can tell I LOVE Independent perfumery……

Jackal by Goest Perfumes 2012

Jackal by Jacqueline Steele

Photo Stolen Goest Perfumes

From Surrender To Chance: Goest Perfumes is a Los Angeles-based artisan fragrance house. Perfumer-owner Jacqueline Steele creates fully handmade fragrances with an intuitive unisex aesthetic using only pure, essential, raw quality ingredients made especially for the sensual person wanting to enhance, rather than disguise, his or her persona.
Jackal’s effect is that of your own skin, only sexier. It wears very close to the skin and can easily enhance your other fragrances. It features notes of bitter chocolate, vanilla, patchouli, toasted tobacco and sweet smoke. It is a parfum.

I bought my Jackal sample today from Surrender To Chance and I grabbed a nice big spritz decant (pricey but well worth the spend). Resinous chocolate!! The first spritz is dark chocolate with a earthy, breathy, funky patchouli. Quite a big scent to start with and I’m surprised there’s no mention of birch, there is real darkness and depth and the patchouli is old school. The vanilla tempers the darkness of both patchouli and chocolate and round the fragrance out beautifully.

Photo Stolen Flickr

Here we smell a perfumer using essential oils but completely bypassing the often murky and dank natural creations for something luminous and nuanced but with a burning dark heart. I could imagine the Goth crews going apeshit for Jackal and filling their lightless clubland with its compellingly dark lustre. To be fair I could imagine this appealing across genres to a very wide audience; from hippies to hipsters, Dads and daughters, even office appropriate if you give it half an hour to burn off.

Jackal smells amazing up close and is quiet from a few steps away, interesting how they do that, longevity is really good for a natural too.

Further reading: Forties Wardrobe
Goest Perfumes has an excellent Sample Set 6 samples $22
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $6/.5ml

Portia xx

Photo Stolen TheTruthAboutMummy

Jackal by Goest Giveaway

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 winner who will receive:
1 x Jackal by Goest decant (about 1.5ml in a spritz)
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DO YOU WIN?

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

Please tell us if you have tried Goest Perfumes yet? Do you have a fave Independent? Who are they and why?

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie Jackal by Goest GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-42D #Perfume #Giveaway @GoestPerfumes

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Sunday 28th June 2015 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winner will be chosen by random.org
The winner will have till Thursday 2nd July 2015 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.

Maria Amalia GIVEAWAY WINNERS

June 26, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 1 Comment

YAY! Thanks to Azar we’ve had another spectacular GIVEAWAY. APJ, you are the luckiest crew around.

Portia xx

Maria Amalia GIVEAWAY WINNERS

Photo Stolen Perfume Emporium

WHAT COULD YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 USA winner who will receive:
1 x 5ml decant of Maria Amalia by Morris, Italy
P&H USA ONLY

HOW DID YOU WIN?

Open to USA ONLY who follow 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. Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged.

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

Please tell us if you have heard of or have tried the Maria Amalia fragrance or give us your take on marketing perfume in the 21st century.

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries CloseD Thursday 25th June 2015 10pm Australian EST
Winner was chosen by random.org

Photo Stolen nodepositforum

FeralJasmine

The winners will have till Monday 29th 2015 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.