Portia

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?

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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

Woodcut GIVEAWAY WINNERS

/ 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

Woodcut Olympic OrchidsPhoto 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: Olympic Orchids Perfume GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-3vv  

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.

Azar New sunhat

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

/ 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

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Lys Soleia Guerlain FragranticaPhoto 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.

Lys Soleia Guerlain Lady_Elliot_Island WikipediaPhoto 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.

Lys Soleia Guerlain Kim_Cattrall WikipediaPhoto 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.

Lys Soleia Guerlain man ambroochizafer PixabayPhoto 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)

/ 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.

Claude Debussy June 1908Photo Stolen WikiCommons

What fragrance am I engulfed in today to listen?

Carnal Flower by Dominique Ropion for Frederic Malle.

Carnal Flower Frederic Malle FragranticaPhoto 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

/ 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.

 Singapore_skyline_viewed_from_Gardens_by_the_Bay_East_-_20120426Photo 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

/ 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

Cadjmere Parfumerie Generale FragranticaPhoto 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.

SONY DSCPhoto 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.

Cadjmere Parfumerie Generale Red Sandlewood WikiCommonsPhoto 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