Portia

5ml Fabulous Fragrance Fridays at Surrender To Chance

/ australianperfumejunkiescom

So APJ,

It’s Friday!! What does that mean?

Surrender To Chance Logo

5ml Fabulous Fragrance Fridays at Surrender To Chance<< JUMP

From $2.99 – $32.99 for 5ml. All heavily discounted and on sale today.

Some examples?

At $32.99 for 5ml

  • By Kilian Light my Fire – In the Addictive State of Mind
  • By Kilian Smoke for the Soul – In the Addictive State of Mind

 

At $18.99 for 5ml
  • Arquiste The Architect’s Club
  • Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles
  • Slumberhouse Vikt EDP
  • Tauer Perfumes L’air du Desert Marocain

At $12.99 for 5ml

  • Frapin Passion Boisee
  • Le Labo Jasmin 17
  • Montale Orient Extreme

At $5.99 for 5ml

  • i Profumi di Firenze Manto di Rugiada
  • La Prairie Life Threads – Gold
  • Maison Berdoues 1902 Eau de Cologne Premium Collection Cardamom
  • Molinard Vanille Patchouli

At $2.99 for 5ml

  • Bvlgari Blv Notte Pour Femme
  • Ciel Perfume FR2 – Red Pomegranate
  • Comptoir Sud Pacifique L’Homme
  • Costume National Scent

 5ml Fabulous Fragrance Fridays at Surrender To Chance<< JUMP

So go visit my friends at Surrender To Chance and grab yourself some serious BARGAINS!!!
Portia xx

CHANEL Spring-Summer 2015 Haute Couture Show – Short Edit

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 2 Comments

HI HI

As you know I love fashion and adore Karl Lagerfeld at CHANEL. This is not one of his best seasons but there are some interesting things to note. Midriffs, jewel brights and soft pastels, long skirts still around, flat heels, big outlandish hats.

chanel-spring-summer-2015-haute-couture-look-23

To be honest the set outperformed the frocks.

Enjoy this short look at SS 2015 CHANEL

Portia xx

CHANEL Spring-Summer 2015 Haute Couture Show – Short Edit

Khôl de Bahreïn by Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 2013

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 20 Comments

Hey Heyy Niche Nerds,

So you may be familiar with the brand names Nez a Nez or So Oud? Here is the man who created some of those fragrances. The scentbloggosphere has been quite slow to catch onto this house but my mate Sandra from Olfactoria’s Travels put me onto them earlier in the year and I went straight to Ruth at FFF (Facebook Fragrance Friends) and grabbed some of her splits. This was quite a while ago and I’m only now fully getting to the bag she sent, time has been a very scarce commodity around here lately…….

Khôl de Bahreïn by Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 2013

Khôl de Bahreïn Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Violet, sweet notes, resins
Heart: Iris, sandalwood, ambergris
Base: Peru balsam, musk

Khol has long been used through Asia, Africa and the Middle East on children to strengthen their eyes and ward off the evil eye, it was also thought to help kill bacteria from flies and other insects. The lead in khol has been noted as high as 84% and the authorities are trying to regulate it better to make it safer. Khol can be seen around the eyes of many adult women through all the regions and is particularly spectacular when worn with headgear that leaves only the eyes uncovered, framing glorious eyes with black really makes them pop and gives added nuance to every movement of them.

Khôl de Bahreïn Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 Nefertiti WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

 MMMMMMMM the opening after I spritz reveals a warm, sweet and engulfing mix of resins, I am surprised that there is no vanilla listed because I get a very bakery themed gush. You know when a fragrance makes you feel safe, loved and hugged from the outset? Here it is. This is the most comfortable comfort scent. Khôl de Bahreïn is what teddy bears should smell like, and fresh washed duvets. Resins, cream, wood that all meld together to smell the way a perfectly polished piece of amber that has warmed in the sun or on your skin feels against your face.

Khôl de Bahreïn Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 Teddy Bear Armando Maynez FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Dense but surprisingly light, and simple but not boring Khôl de Bahreïn reminds me in mood of two of my favourite amber fragrances, Ambre Ceruleen by Huitieme Art and Dries van Noten by Malle. Here we have a scent that hits and triggers every one of my safe, loved and happy buttons. So vanilla it’s almost a hot chocolate, that kind of warming right through feeling and experience. There is a very slight animalic and furry note that creeps in through the heart: it has my eyes rolling in the back of my head as I compulsively sniff myself. Khôl de Bahreïn, where have you been all my life?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

Thank Sandra for this particular lemming, though I think we must have talked of it because I can’t see a review. Now that I’ve tested it Sandra, even in the high heat of Sydney’s summer Khôl de Bahreïn wears a winner for me. Damnit! I thought I’d finished my amber search and had enough……..

Further reading: Ca Fleure Bon
LuckyScent has $220/50ml and samples
First In Fragrance has €148/50ml and samples

Have you heard of this brand? Is it on your radar? Will you be trying Khôl de Bahreïn?

Portia xx

BUSY…………….

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 25 Comments

Heya Fabulous APJ Family,

Shit is real around here, real BUSY. I am spraying new stuff a bit. Today I wore a new Australian house

Cult Of Scent

Magnolia ’13 by Cult of Scent
WOW!! Creamy, furry, citrus with a pithy undertone and a lovely sillage that lasts well into the second hour, even into the fourth hour I can softly smell a musk/vanilla/white flower/citrus wash. I am going to use my very small amount up this weekend, FABULOUS!

Kokorico Jean Paul Gaultier FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Kokorico by Jean Paul Gaultier
Also a divinely delicious scent Kokorico is smooth, woody and sweet. I was surprised that vanilla was not in the notes. Why was this not a huge hit, I only have a decant but I freaking LOVE it. I smell really good. MMMM

..this-moment-is-your-life

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Live-your-life-quote

living-without-fear

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Now, please do yourself a favour. Just for an hour. Log off, get up and walk around, make a coffee and sit in a room you rarely sit in, go to the corner store, go pat your dog, go pull up some weeds. Spritz yourself with fragrance and get going. You will feel better about almost everything if you do.

See you back here later.

Portia xx

log-off-and-go-live-life

Eau Suave by Parfum d`Empire 2005 + Kate Bush

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 10 Comments

Hi there Music Lovers and Fumies,

Recently I posted a piece of music and told you how I love to put on the classical music and saif (spray a LOT) myself in a particularly big fragrance, close my eyes and just let myself float away on the music and fragrance together. Sometimes when the world gets too much, when I am bombarded by questions or negativity, when the next step seems unreachable or when I am completely overwhelmed by my to do list. Look at it this way: I could continue freaking out for 5 minutes or I can concentrate myself elsewhere, completely give myself to something else, and let my subconscious do its job. Quite often I find myself at the end of the piece of music 100% calmer, able to focus, aware of the next bite sized step or in touch with my gut feelings.

Eau Suave Parfum d`Empire Josephine WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

Last time it was Debussy: Rêverie but today I went looking for a childhood memory song. One that used to make me feel happy and sad, I used to play it repeatedly on my 3in1 and sing along in my thin childish tenor until one of the family would bang on the door and ask me to turn it down and stop that catterwauling.

Today it brings back happy memories and a smile as I completely let myself be taken away by the amazing voice of Kate Bush. What did I spritz today to listen to it?

Eau Suave by Marc-Antoine Corticchiato for Parfum d`Empire 2005

Eau Suave Parfum d`Empire FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Coriander, saffron, rose
Heart: Peach, raspberry, red berries, pepper, tea rose
Base: Vanilla, musk, oakmoss, patchouli

Spicy, sweet rose. I think the top notes of my bottle have been compromised slightly because the zingy coriander opening that I loved so well is muted nowadays. The rose is still lovely and sweet, not quite jammy but a fruity sweet and that wonderful hint of cracked pepper that some of the apricot rose flowers have when you grow them in the garden. A perfect soft focus fragrance to lose yourself in while listenbing to Kate Bush and beyond into the afternoon where it becomes a lovely soft rose and vanilla wash.

My review is for the vintage, I have not smelled the new in their very austere new bottles.

Further reading: Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This
LuckyScent have $145/100ml
Posh Peasant has samples starting at $4/ml

Whjat music or fragrance makes you float away?
Enjoy,
Portia xx

Kate Bush – The Man with the Child in His Eyes – Official Music Video

Santal Royal EdP by Thierry Wasser for Guerlain 2014

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Hello Fabulous Frag Heads,

I am a Guerlain creature. You know it. When they released Santal Royal I was so freaking excited because in my mind I was thinking the Australian sandalwood plantations are going gangbusters and that we would be getting a modern “next Gen’ look at Samsara. A beautiful creamy and delicious fragrance that would have me smelling like a very rich hippy just back from India via Paris.

Santal Royal EdP by Thierry Wasser for Guerlain 2014

Santal Royal Guerlain FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica giuves these featured accords in one line:
Sandalwood, leather, oud, neroli, cinnamon, rose, amber, musk

There has been a lot of hate for Santal Royal and I think our expectations we just too high, and saints preserve me but that bottle is to freaking die for. Don’t tell me that marketing plays no part in my buying, the black and gold flaccon is amazing. I got to hold one in Las Vegas at the Venetian Guerlain store. LOVE at first sight. we spritzed it and on me it was OK but Jin smelled absolutely fabulous in it all day. He already has Mona di Orio’s Oud so having this would be tautology.

Though I’m sure there is a bunch of sandalwood in there, and I will say the longevity is extraordinary, this is an oudh fragrance. Yes it is, sorry to say it. It’s very nice. It does have a story and it changes through time to something soft and very sensual but even to the bitter end I still get that oudh. Which I like very much but it’s not so groundbreaking that I feel the need to purchase because there are other oudhs in my wardrobe that I would reach for before it, even with that killer bottle.

Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $5/ml

Have you tried Santal Royal? How did it strike you?
Enjoy the ad,
Portia xx

 

Santal Royal – Eau de Parfum – GUERLAIN

How do you pronounce Hermès?

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 35 Comments

Hi there APJ,

French, the word inspires terror in speakers everywhere. Not only is the language at least as convoluted as English but their words have SEX! Pronouncing French words is bound to make all except the most intrepid, dextrous and fearless quake in their boots. When I am in France I say my very poor schoolboy French in the most obvious and terrible Australian accent so that everyone can at least have a laugh, and then get on with speaking English to me.

Hermes Box Maegan Tintari FlickrPhoto Stolen lovemeagan

When questioned why I speak so little French I always tell the asker that I went to Sydney University (our most prestigious halls of learning) to learn Hindi and if they’d like to switch to that I can also massacre that language with an Aussie accent. Usually they are so ridiculously impressed that I would try to learn something so outlandish as Hindi that they forget to ask me to say a few words, remaining unused for so long I have only a smattering of half formed sentences and a plethora of swear words.

So here is a helping hand. A word I hear massacred quite regularly and in fact pronounced disgracefully until my friendly SA at Hermès in Sydney put me right. I made sure to OK it on my travels just to be sure she wasn’t extracting the urine (taking the piss, as we so elegantly say in Australia).

So I used to say Her-Mees. How do YOU say it? Are there any other hard ones?
Portia xx

How do you pronounce Hermès?

Fantasia de Fleurs by Henry Creed Third Generation for Creed 1862

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 8 Comments

Hiya Fumie friends,

A bottle I have long had in my possession, one of the earliest big ticket purchases I made, Creed’s Fantasia de Fleurs. I think I’ve told you before of my love for many things Austrian? Back in 1994-5 while I was living in London one of my childhood friends was in the Vienna Stat Opera Ballet. I would go to Vienna and visit him. These were in the days of the Ringstraße trams that were free and you just hopped on and off and they would take you around the inner precinct of Vienna. Even though there was not a lot of English in Vienna at the time it was totally easy for me to navigate and I felt incredibly safe at all times day & night.

Fantasia de Fleurs by Henry Creed III for Creed 1862

Fantasia de Fleurs Creed FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot
Heart: Bulgarian rose, Florentine iris
Base: Ambergris infusion

The reason I went on about Austria at the top is because this wonderful fragrance, Fantasia de Fleurs, was created for Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary (or Sisi as she is known there) and I fell madly in love with her story when first in Vienna, seeking out all the places I could find from her biography and trying to piece together in my mind what her history could have been like. My mate was rehearsing and doing classes most days, we would hang in the nights unless he was performing, then I’d go see the show. It was cool.

Fantasia de Fleurs Creed Empress Elisabeth of Austria WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

SO, when I found out that Sisi had a fragrance made for her I bought it unsniffed when there was an incredible sale on somewhere. BTW I do NOT think blind buying is a good idea.

I was SOOOO lucky that on first sniff I was wrapped in a super sweet, jammy rose that has other stuff buoying it up but really stays pretty gorgeously linear through its life, getting slightly more salty and animalic at the end which is also added to by my sweaty man skin. The opening has this great dryness, like a tea note that cuts through the sweetness, making the whole fragrance easy to wear and quite unisex.I am under no illusion that this is EXACTLY how Fantasia de Fleurs smelled in 1862, I am pretty sure we are smelling an updated version but it still is a big, blowsy, royal fragrance that has a sillage you could do waterski jumps on.

Fantasia de Fleurs Creed WadeWilliams WikiCommonsPhoto Stolen WikiCommons

Through most of my time with Fantasia de Fleurs I have complained of its lack of longevity but recently I learned the trick. You need to wear it for a couple of hours and then do a light respritz. It brings fragrance life up to a ridiculous length, after doing this last night after my shower and then giving myself a blast in the morning i was still quite fragrant at 5pm this afternoon! That is awesome longevity for me.

So if you like the sweetest and most jammy roses, want to smell like an Empress and love the Creed bottles for ladies then Fantasia de Fleurs could be one to try. I am surprised at how much of my bottle has gone.

Fantasia de Fleurs Creed Mathilda Samuelsson FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Further reading: I Smell Therefore I Am and EauMG
Peony Melbourne has $279/75ml with FREE Australian P&H
First In Fragrance has €155/75ml

Which Creed do you love or which fragrance that is aligned with a celeb or royal did you ever buy because of that affiliation alone?
Portia xx

The Smelliest Surprise: A Tale

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 22 Comments

OK APJ,

I do love a good story, and never pass up a fart joke no matter how awful. Yes, I admit it, I love to fart. There you have it. This story could so easily have been Jin & I and as I first read it I felt like I was reading my own writing. The husband could definitely have been Jin, this is such a Jin thing to do……

The Smelliest Surprise A Tale WikiMedia.pngPhoto Stolen WikiMedia

Here we have the story of a loving husbands dinner surprise gone terribly wrong.

Enjoy,

Portia xx

The Smelliest Surprise: A Tale

The Smelliest Surprise

GUCCI Eau de Parfum by Daniela (Roche) Andrier for GUCCI 2002

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 24 Comments

Hey there Junkies,

You know those serendipitous moments? You’ve been searching for a long discontinued fragrance that someone sent you a sample of. Had you known it was discontinued you may have chosen not to try it and passed it along to a friend. One more freaking impossible lemming may send me to the poor house. Anyway, you’ve basically given up the search and one day you’re in a SALE, you look down and there it is….. All alone, lidless, friendless and looking kinda beat up. A just over half full 50ml TESTER.

I picked it up and walked over to the counter. There I proceeded to tell the story of this fabulous fragrance, how it was now long discontinued, they’d be getting no more stock, it was a sad but hopeless case to find it anywhere. Could I please buy the tester? Half the retail price? Are you mad? Look it’s been used and badly stored in light and the heat of a shop. How about a quarter of the retail? A third? SOLD!

GUCCI Eau de Parfum by Daniela (Roche) Andrier for GUCCI 2002

Gucci Eau de Parfum Gucci FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Orange blossom, heliotrope
Heart: Caraway, iris, thyme
Base: Incense, leather, sandalwood, musk, vanilla, cedar essence

I Smell Therefore I Am gives these featured accords:
Top – orris, heliotrope, orange blossom, vanilla absolute
Heart – cistus, cumin, thyme
Base – patchouli, vanilla, deep musk

I put both these note lists here to show how arbitrary they are, yet both have pieces to the puzzle that are completely valid to me.

Daniela (Roche) Andrier is nose from well known fragrances like: Bottega Veneta Pour Homme, Tardes Carner Barcelona, Angélique Noire Guerlain, Marni, Prada Candy and Infusion d’Iris. That’s quite a roll call and only a fraction of her output.

That opening spritz! It reminds me of two of my favourite fragrances that see quite a bit of wear around here Oriza L Legrand Jardins d’Armide and Terry de Gunzberg Ombre Mercure. It’s a fabulously plastic/powdery iris/heliotrope/violet thing that my nose aches for, in a good way. All of them have white flowers as a raft to float the rest of the fragrance on too. Similar but different. Succulent and desirable GUCCI Eau De Parfum is not huge but it is insistent.

GUCCI Eau de Parfum succulent BlueSnap PixabayPhoto Stolen Pixabay (searched for something succulent)

As we move from that fun opening GUCCI Eau de Parfum becomes happily lived in. Human/animal/fleshy but not skank really, more clean healthy flesh in the early afternoon. It doesn’t scream sexual tryst or workout, there’s no rankness. The seeds/herbs/roots are curiously sweet, quite inviting. Not bakery sweet but they have a burnished quality, like you are smelling them through lightly ambered glass. Yes as an analogy that is particularly clunky but that’s how my minds nose is seeing/smelling GUCCI Eau de Parfum.

There is something slightly sweltering about GUCCI Eau De Parfum, a let your hair down, relax and let go-ness about it that is very calming.

GUCCI Eau de Parfum Rupert_Bunny,_Summer_Time WikiCommonsPhoto Stolen WikiCommons

I can absolutely see why Abigail finds patchouli in the base. Now that I’ve read it I can smell it clear as day, a very clean waxy patchouli surrounded by a very soft leather and vanilla with musks that I can smell softly playing back up. All through its life GUCCI Eau de Parfum is a sheer veil but fragrant, not something that will skunk those around you but a designer fragrance from the days when GUCCI knew how to make perfume.

GUCCI Eau de Parfum Brad Mc1This is how sexy you’ll feel wearing Gucci Eau De Parfum (My mate Brad Mc)

Further reading: I Smell Therefore I Am and Scented Salamander
eBay is selling around $100/30ml
Posh Peasant has samples starting at $4/ml

Did you ever spend time with GUCCI Eau de Parfum? Do you have any other favourites from the house?
Portia xx