Woodcut GIVEAWAY WINNERS

January 17, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 3 Comments

Heya APJ Crew,

Another sensational GIVEAWAY comes to a close. Thanks to Azar and Ellen Covey. Do go and check out the wonderful stuff for sale at Olympic Orchids, you’ll be glad you did.
Portia xx

Woodcut GIVEAWAY WINNERS

Photo Stolen Olympic Orchids

WHAT COULD YOU WIN?

This week we will have 2 Winners who will each get:
1 x 1ml sample of Woodcut by Olympic Orchids
2 x additional decants of “woody” fragrances from Azar’s collection
P&H to the world

HOW DID YOU WIN?

Open to everyone in the world 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

Leave a comment about the new Woodcut fragrance or name your favorite tree or wood smell.

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie Olympic Orchids Perfume GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-3vv #Perfume #Giveaway @EllenCovey1

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Thursday 8th January 2015 10pm Australian EST
Winners were chosen by pulling names from a sunhat (maybe)
The old sunhat was getting pretty ratty looking. As sunhats don’t sell well in the winter around here I was able to fund a nice new one for a really cheap price.

The Woodcut winners names were drawn from my spiffy new hat! And the winners are:

Robert Hermann

Jaybee

The winners will have till Sunday 11th January 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.

Azar xx

Lys Soleia by Thierry Wasser for Guerlain: Aqua Allegoria 2012

January 16, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 4 Comments

Hey Frag Fiends,

Hey Northern Hemisphere, remember summer? Here we are down here sweltering in the heat and humidity and loving it. Days are long, fruit and vegetables are abundant and cheap, the extremely fragrant frangipani, lilies, jasmine and lemon trees are all blooming like crazy, the beach and pool are awaiting, we’ve just had holidays and life feels good. I’m even lightly sunburned, getting my vitamin D levels up so my body will run efficiently and has the tools to fight disease and depression.

Well today In am writing about one of my summer fragrance staples which I also use midwinter to remind me of the warmth and steamy tropical evenings of summer.

Lys Soleia by Thierry Wasser for Guerlain: Aqua Allegoria 2012

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, lemon, palm leaves
Heart: Lily, ylang-ylang, tropical fruits
Base: Tuberose, vanilla, white musk

Lys Soleia basically opens right in the heart already for me, the citrus is so fleeting but it does add glitter to the bouquet and there is a green sugariness that I can only detect with a respritz. Lily, ylang and vanilla like a beautiful warm tropical dream. Sweet and sensual I am immediately transported to faraway islands, feasting on platters of fresh cut super sweet fruits and walking through gardens decked with evening blooming exotic flowers that pump out their fragrant song. Hot and sweaty skin fresh from swimming in the sea and from sunbathing, there is even a trace of sun lotion. The white flowers and vanilla wear hot, ripe and sensual in such a “come hither and ravage me” way that I am always blown away. It’s a welcome surprise every time. No wallflower is Lys Soleia but a red blooded, thrumming sex drive, naughty and fabulous adventure waiting to happen.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

One of the most obvious and perfume-y of the Aqua Allegoria line Lys Soleia is a sirens song that makes me smile in secret, guilty delight. Deeper and more dense than the rest I find its intoxicating and mesmerising beauty a bit of a brain scrambler. Seriously, this will have your dates so befuddled that they will be putty in your hands. Always a good thing.

Rich, yes very rich, and regal I could imagine Lys Soleia on a woman of supreme confidence, Samantha Jones of Sex and the City played by Kim Cattrall in her powerful sexual woman mode. It can also be worn by a man who wants to stand out from the crowd as someone who is unafraid to be their own person, who is happy to be known to be different, maybe someone in business who needs to sell their own angle or point of difference.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

As we head towards dry down the tuberose and vanilla stand forth over a slightly furry musk that I can barely smell but which feels a bit fuzzy. I know that description is absolute shit and gives you no clue to what I smell but there you have it, that’s the way I perceive Lys Soleia in the later stages before it starts to really fade out.

Fully fragrant and good longevity for an Aqua Allegoria. You need to be careful because with an overzealous application you could suck the air from a room and dry clean the curtains.

Photo Stolen Pixabay

Further reading: Now Smell This and Candy Perfume Boy
Available through Guerlain counters at large department stores
FragranceNet has $61/125ml before coupon

What do you like to wear to remind you of summer, or in the midst of it? Are the Aqua Allegoris to your taste?
Come on and join the conversation, I love to read your thoughts.
Portia xx

Debussy: Rêverie (1890)

January 16, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 18 Comments

Hey there lovely APJ Crew,

Thanks for stopping by, it’s always nice to have you in the house. Sometimes I like to sit in front of my computer with a cup of coffee or tea (today it’s one of Jin’s freaky flower teas from Korea) with a large amount of fragrance on and put on a short piece of music, close my eyes and float away on both fragrance and sound.

Today things are quite hectic around here so I thought I’d take 5 minutes for myself. It can become very hard to focus on one thing when there are five or six problems, ideas or deadlines all pressuring you. I often find this a help. By the time my 5 minutes is up I am calmer and more able to think my way through stuff, in this short break my subconscious has also had time to create a list and action plan by the time I open my eyes. It’s not a universal cure all but it can be just enough to let me think clearly.

Photo Stolen WikiCommons

What fragrance am I engulfed in today to listen?

Carnal Flower by Dominique Ropion for Frederic Malle.

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, melon, eucalyptus
Heart: Ylang-ylang, jasmine, tuberose, Salicylates (natural, toxic product of herbal origin, a sort of a herbal pheromone which is used by plants as a warning)
Base: Tuberose absolute, orange blossom absolute, coconut, musk

Perfect to sit and listen to this Debussy piece that is tranquil, yearning and questioning.

Please enjoy,
Portia xx

Debussy: Rêverie (1890)

Louis Vuitton Presents the Singapore City Guide

January 11, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom

Heya Fragrant Travel Nuts,

In under 3 minutes Louis Vuitton is about to show you a couple of things in Singapore that you probably never thought of doing, and a few on everyone’s lists.

No matter what style of travel you choose, backpacker to 6 star, there are always a few “Must See” destinations in every city you land, disembark or alight. Of course I have been to cities and not seen them all, often unwittingly or because I’ve been working in the clubs and our hosts have taken us to do very low key local stuff instead (equally valid way to see a city but very different). Louis Vuitton always manages to pick a couple of things I’ve not done in the city or did too quickly to enjoy.

Photo Stolen WikiCommons

I hope you enjoy a little slice of Singapore, one of the few places I’ve landed in that I felt totally at home.
Portia xx

Louis Vuitton Presents the Singapore City Guide

Cadjmere by Pierre Guillaume for Parfumerie Generale 2007

January 10, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 18 Comments

Hello Frag Family,

It was very early in 2014 and Michael & I were traveling through Europe, first stop Vienna in Austria where we met up with Birgit and Sandra of Olfactoria’s Travels and Val the Cookie Queen who writes both for OT and APJ. Vienna is its most beautiful in winter but sadly 2014 was not so cold as previous years and there was almost no snow, to make up for that loss we did get loads of rain which meant the city was greener than I’d ever seen it while maintaining its bare branches on the trees. Basically, though we were there in winter it felt like we had arrived in spring, a very pleasant way to see Vienna especially for Michael’s first glimpse of Europe.

Of course, what is it that perfumistas do when they are in a new city? We shopped fragrances! I did a fair spend at the CHANEL store there and a couple of vintage finds in the smaller, niche hole in the wall stores that Vienna seems to have an abundance of yet also these places seem to have stock from 60 years ago too.

Cadjmere by Pierre Guillaume for Parfumerie Generale 2007

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Myrtle, cypress, Brazilian rosewood, blood mandarin, vanilla, sandalwood, coconut milk, amber

Amber, vanilla and something green burst off my skin as soon as I spritz Cadjmere. They turn almost immediately to this weird, funky almost nasty curdled green leafy milk. It’s interesting, intriguing and awkward: LOVING IT! The notes really aren’t correlating to what I am smelling, what I get here in my head is a bakery in a plant nursery and lumberyard that’s in turn right next to a tip. There’s something of that compost sweetness, rotting vegetation and plastic. Ha ha ha ha! I have just read back what I wrote. OMG! I make it sound dreadful but it’s not.

Photo Stolen WikiMedia

Pierre Guillaume has a way with fragrance and often combines beautiful sweet notes, comfortable and comforting notes with something dark, less desirable. What then happens for me is that I will happily smell the sweetness and every so often I will be surprised by an off kilter piece of the puzzle that will draw me in again, searching for it.

Into the heart of Cadjmere I find most of the sharp edges rounded nicely and we are in sweet woods territory, I don’t know if Pierre Guillaume was using Australian sandalwood or a chemical sandalwood but it has some of the lovely eucalyptus menthol hints that the Australian one displays (or it could be some of the greenery). I don’t know and am often getting stuff wrong note wise, it doesn’t matter.

Photo Stolen WikiCommons

What does matter is that Cadjmere is ridiculously gorgeous, a totally beautiful fragrance that will warm the cockles of your heart and give you comfort if you are low. Later on I get a fabulously animal fur and resins mingling with the woods, glorious.

Longevity is above average and for the first couple of hours sillage is moderate, you are fragrant without skunking, after that Cadjmere hums along quietly for hours and hours. If you spray your clothes they will still smell fabulous next day MMMM MMMMMM!

Further reading: Olfactoria’s Travels and The Non Blonde
I was given my sample at Le Parfum in Vienna, Austria
First In Fragrance have €95/50ml
Surrender To Chance have samples starting at $5/ml

Have you tried or bought Cadjmere? Are you a Pierre Guillaume fan? Do you have a favourite?
Portia xx

Versace Blonde by Nathalie Feisthauer for Versace 1995

January 9, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 21 Comments

Hi there Sniffa Crew,

Today we are going back to 1995. It was a particularly good year for me, I was finishing up my time in London (which was totally incredible in itself) and coming home to Sydney in time for Christmas with the family. I cannot tell you how excited I was. HOME!

Anyway, we got this fragrance in Australia in time for Christmas but I think we might have had it for Christmas 1996 because I was working as a drag hostess at one of our clubs and we had to give out samples of Versace Dreamer and A’Men by Mugler on the same night. The whole club smelt incredible with everyone dousing themselves in fragrance and the night was a huge success, one of my favourite nights ever. Though it took me years to stop retching whenever someone was wearing A’Men because right at the end of the night someone Guerrilla spritzed me and it went in my mouth, not nice and the scent seemed to stick in my nostrils for about 3 days.

This is a vintage frag but you can still get your hands on a bottle of extrait/parfum for very reasonable prices

Versace Blonde by Nathalie Feisthauer for Versace 1995

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Gardenia, Pitosporum flowers, violet, orange blossom, bergamot
Heart: Tuberose, daffodil, ylang-ylang, carnation
Base: Benzoin, musk, civet, sandalwood

Perfumer Nathalie Feisthauer has worked on a few frags that you’ve definitely heard of: Hermes Eau des Merveilles, VC&A Collection Extraordinaire Gardenia Petale, ELdO Putain des Palaces and Delicious Closet Queen as well as Must de Cartier Pour Homme. This is just a very small portion of her output.

How does Blonde wear on me? Well it opens green and sappy with a photorealistic (but clean) gardenia that’s sweet, green like bulb flower stems, creamy and the whole experience in the first 5-10 minutes is one of enormous presence. It’s not mentioned but I get a mild galbanum feeling through the opening too. HUGE! Outrageously gorgeous white flowers lightly framed by the citrus.

The opening of the extrait is sweeter and fruitier, very canned peachy.

Photo Stolen WikiCommons

No need to fear, Blonde doesn’t stay at these nuclear sizes for long. 15 minutes in and though you are still quite fragrant the power has been turned down considerably and my head can think of other things. Here is where Blonde is really beautiful and wearable. The heady mix of white and yellow flowers are kept crisp by the carnation and already some of the resins make their way in to give depth and breadth. Then Blonde stays pretty much the same for a few hours getting more lived in and raunchy, up to 5 on a really good day, and slowly the whole fragrance goes from that very sensual animalic base as it fades leaving a very soft wash of nothing pickable to nothing at all.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

Further reading: Australian Perfume Junkies
FragranceNet has $40/15ml extrait (I prefer to decant and spritz)
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $4/.5ml extrait

In 2013 I did a LIVE Video Sniff with Blonde, it kinda captures the feeling of the fragrance better than mere words on screen can. Please be ready to hear the word bombastic about 300 times though.

Thanks for wandering through my thoughts on one of my all time favourite fragrances.
Do you have a discontinued fave that you’ve hoarded a few bottles of?
Portia xx

Tama Blough: A Party for Tama

January 9, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom

Tama Blough Oct 18, 1954 – January 9, 2015

Hiya Australian Perfume Junkies,

Tama Blough, who started SF Sniff – the San Francisco group who’d come together and sniff fragrances (obviously, sorry) and Managing Editor for CaFleurBon is in trouble. We have a fragrant friend in need, diagnosed with incurable cancer and a desire to stay at home with her cat for as long as possible. Tama is not a wealthy person and needs our help to make this small wish come true.

Already the fragrant community has rallied behind this cause: April Aromatics released a Limited Edition fragrance that sold out in minutes, Nina Zolotow set up a GiveForward campaign to raise the $25,000 needed to pay for health care and living expenses (who will BTW give $25 for every blog written about it to a max of $1000, very freaking cool)

Paul Kiler of PK Perfumes has now created TNT (Tama N Tuberose) and is donating 90 percent of all proceeds to Tama’s fundraiser.
60ml/$150 90 percent ($135) going directly to a fund managed by Tama’s family.

To buy TNT click here<<JUMP

Do check the original Ca Fleure Bon post about TNT for more information

A Party for Tama

Coming up on the 17th of January are a couple of amazing events in San Fransisco. If you are nearby then you should definitely think about attending.

Private Lunch and Auction: $35 includes Lunch and Auction (more details about Auction nearer the date)

Shopping event & Cocktails: A percentage of all sales will go to Tama from the Tigerlily event.

And Tama, if you get to read this. Best of luck, cuddle the kitty from us at the Australian Perfume Junkies..
Portia & the APJ Crew

Eau de Cologne Du Coq by Aime Guerlain 1894

January 4, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom

Hello Lovelies,

Just recently I was trolling one of the fragrance discounters we have here in Australia, the good thing about living here is that there are so few perfumistas and quite often stuff gets left in shops for years. I was lucky enough to grab Eau de Cologne Du Coq in the gold foil and black packaging you see below. I’m not sure when Guerlain stopped production of this packaging for Eau de Cologne Du Coq but when I was a squirt bitch in the late 1980s and early 1990s this was the packaging we sold Guerlain in, so quite excited really.

Eau de Cologne Du Coq by Aime Guerlain 1894

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Orange, citruses, neroli, bergamot, lemon
Heart: Patchouli, lavender, jasmine
Base: Sandalwood, oakmoss

I looked up the Batch Code and my bottle was produced November 2003. Woo Hoo! I am pleased.

Photo Stolen Geograph.org

The opening zzzzZING is all about the citrus whooshing away, the happiest and most refreshing burst of sugary sweet citrus that is tart, cool, candy-ish and fizzy. If this doesn’t lift your spirits I don’t know what will. I find myself smiling soon after I spritz and wishing Jin were nearby to spritz him too. Not because he is sad but because this is fun, and so over the top it’s almost a citrus caricature; simple and exaggerated. Lavender slowly makes its way in as the BIG citrus burns off, it is calm and the patchouli is just slightly earthy and already the creamy, buttery, sandalwood goodness is rounding out all the corners and making the whole a delightful and soft scent that feels languid and lazy, but I could also imagine Eau de Cologne Du Coq on a very busy or stressed person who needed to feel some imagined space around them to be able to think and breathe. That’s the kind of thing Eau de Cologne Du Coq would be perfect for, the proverbial breath of fresh air could be really talking about Eau de Cologne Du Coq.

Photo Stolen Shaun Dunphy Flickr

I should never have read The Non-Blonde‘s review today before spritzing because I get the honey accent she talks about where never before had I even an inkling, and I can’t decide if I am smelling it or if auto suggestion has tampered with my head. Never mind, it’s here now and I find it beguiling, both sweet and animal. It’s not a huge part of the fragrance but once you go looking for honey you’ll smell it and your Eau de Cologne Du Coq experience will be forever changed. the citrus holds on remarkably well and even in the end there is a very faint sparkle overlaying the woodsy nothing.

I’m lucky to get 3 hours, really 2 hours of fragrance and an hour of soft, amorphous something that doesn’t really smell like anything particularly but also is not me, great choice for a short burst of lovely and then back to whatever it is you needed respite from. Totally unisex, and only too strong for work in the first 5 minutes, then it settles beautifully. Wonderful for after a lunchtime gym session to take you through till the evening scent takes over.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

Further reading: The Non-Blonde and Guerlain Perfumes Blogspot
FragranceNet has $92/100ml before coupon
Surrender To Chance starts at $3/ml

Till tomorrow please be nice to yourself,It’s hard to be happy when someone is always mean to you.

Portia x

DIOR and Japan: A symbiotic relationship

January 4, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 6 Comments

Hi there DIOR Couture and Fragrance fans,

I love the house of DIOR. It has been with me through my childhood years making clothes for Barbie dolls, the years of fashion school and the fashion industry, even after I have tried to keep up with what is happening on the world’s runways. So here is a very interesting piece of information that I was only vaguely aware of. Christian Dior loved Japan! Now that it’s pointed out so simply it makes complete sense.

Photo Stolen wallpaper

Here then is a short film introducing the idea and giving a potted history of their engagement through time. I really enjoyed it as a forerunner to the DIOR Esprit Tokyo show.
Enjoy,
Portia xx

DIOR and Japan

Esprit Dior Tokyo 2015 Show – Best Of

Narcotic Venus by Alessandro Gualtieri for Nasomatto 2007

January 3, 2015 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 19 Comments

Hey Frag Family,

Today you can come look at a fragrance from a line that I keep hearing great things about. They are often talked about on Fragrance Blogs, the FaceBook Frag pages and among perfumistas and are held in high esteem. Last year in Vienna with Birgit I bought a bottle of Nuda, I haven’t opened it yet, because one 10 minute wear and I was head over heels already. Today’s fragrance is from Nasomatto’s first offerings back in 2007, well that is the first mention I can find and it’s on Perfume Shrine who writes this: The masterminds are both Italian, Allesandro and Arturetto, who had been students in Germany at the H&R company for courses in “medieval” perfumery. We’re told that Allesandro was taught by Arturetto and then went on to create fragrances for designers such as Romeo Gigli, Versace, Valentino, Helmut Lang and Fendi, finally locating in Amsterdam and re-uniting with Arturetto to launch his private vision: a line of his own niche perfumes, called Nasomatto.

Narcotic Venus by Alessandro Gualtieri for Nasomatto 2007

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Tuberose, jasmine, lily, spice

Nasomatto does not release note lists so we can wear the fragrance and enjoy it for what it is meant to be, a culmination of science and artistry that makes a fragrance that is more than the sum of its parts, it is an experience. My nose is so dodgy that I often need to check the notes because I smell things that are quite different, I think my nose and set of memory reference points can be slightly awry.

Anyway, how does Narcotic Venus smell on and to me?

Michael and I saw this lovely painting (Birth of Venus by Cabanel) while at the Musee d’Orsay in Feb 2014, purchased by Napoleon III at the 1863 Paris Salon which was the same year Manet showed ‘Luncheon on the Grass’ which we also saw. I think it a perfect representation of the cool, perfect, unsexy sensuality that Narcotic Venus displays. To be completely honest I like my narcotics more rough and in your face, this little baby is prim and pretty, and seems to be beautifully executed with expensive feeling ingredients but no raging sex kitten. Expectations have let me, and the frag, down I think. Such a shame because with a name like Nartcotic Venus I was hoping to be overwhelmed by a wall of white flowers with very dirty and sexy “come hither me hearty” attitude, sadly I am not. The end.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

Further reading: Scent For Thought and Perfume Shrine
LuckyScent has $185/30ml and samples
First In Fragrance has €118/30ml

What are your thoughts about the Nasomatto line? Which have you tried? Do you like the aesthetic of the brand?
Portia xx