Narcissus + Tuberose: CB I Hate Perfumes GIVEAWAY WINNERS

April 7, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 5 Comments

Hi there junkies,

Thanks for all getting so on board with this giveaway. Clearly we hit a fave frag manufacturer and the prohibitive cost of these lovelies must be another factor. I have enjoyed these immensely and can’t wait to read what our winners think.

Narcissus + Tuberose: CB I Hate Perfumes GIVEAWAY WINNERS

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

WHAT COULD YOU WIN?

This week we will have 2 winners who will get:
1 x .5ml sample Narcissus Water Perfume by CB I Hate Perfumes
1 x .5ml sample Tuberose Water Perfume by CB I Hate Perfumes
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 so I know. Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged.

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

Tell me any memory of daffodils or narcissus, their smell, how they look, a fragrance you love with them. Maybe you grew them, grow them or love them as a cut flower, anything narcissus related will get you in.

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie ~~CB I Hate Perfume Narcissus~~ GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-2Eq #Perfume #Giveaway @CBrosius712

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Sunday 6th April 2014 10pm Australian EST
Winners were chosen by random.org

Photo Stolen markmontanoblogs

Patty Pong

Sister Mary

The winners will have till Thursday 10th April 2014 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.

Frapin 1270 by Sidonie Lancesseur for Frapin 2010

April 6, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 27 Comments

Hi There Crew,

I have only spent real time with one Frapin fragrance before and that was L’Humaniste which I liked very much, interestingly today’s fragrance was also re-created by the same perfumer. The original 1270 was created by Beatrice Cointreau. I don’t know why they had it reformulated, anyone?

Frapin 1270 by Sidonie Lancesseur for Frapin 2010

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Dried orange, pineapple, hazelnut, resins, dried plums, cocoa, tonka, coffee
Heart: Lime blossom, linden tree, pepper, spices, dried fruits
Base: Wood, Guaiac wood, white honey, vanilla

I have spritzed 1270 Frapin a few times before. I don’t know why but it has not struck me before as very likeable. I think my tastes may be expanding to include much more fun and frivolous fragrances because while trying to use up my unloved decant I have fallen madly in love.

PINEAPPLE, like smoking a pineapple flavoured hookah while eating fairy floss. 1270 is weird and fun and a little bit crazy. I get sugar and pineapple, some other amorphous fruit and some smoky, warm resins. At no point do I get any chocolate, damnit. But still I just LOVE it. So fun. There is a fizziness that doesn’t seem at all aldehydic but like pineapple flavoured Fanta, bubbling around in your mouth with that delicious, sugar filled, fizzy rush that you get on your first swallow from the can. MMMMMMM. Boozy? Kind of. You know those sweet drinks that you can’t taste the alcohol in? The ones that often go down quickly and you drink them like soda pop because all that sugar makes you incredibly thirsty? Then BAM you are drunk. That’s the kind of booze here in 1270.

Lime blossom passes me by but the pepper, spices and dried fruits give a wonderful night in a Delhi bar in a bazaar vibe during the heart while still pumping out the fizzy pineapple right through the heart of 1270. Gradually the whole fragrance warms through as the honey, killing off the pineapple completely, takes centre stage standing right out front of the woods and vanilla but you can tell they are just waiting their turn to complete the story as we head to dry down. Warm soapy vanilla and woods, like VERY expensive mini bath soaps from the 1980s, are a beautiful end to a ride that has been so diverse, interesting, fun, frivolous at times and in the end a big gentle hug. How did I miss all this before?

Photo Stolen WikiMedia

Interestingly 1270 is not on the Frapin parfums site any more. Are they discontinuing it? Does anyone know? All the online stores have it…..

Wearing? Almost everywhere. After the first 30 minutes you won’t be skunking anyone unless you are an outrageous oversprayer. In frag phobic workplaces it may be a bit much but otherwise I see 1270 as an excellent and fun choice. It is pricey but now that I get it I feel that I might even contemplate a purchase, let’s see if I finish my 5ml decant first, only 1ml of it has gone yet.

Further reading: Olfactoria’s Travels and Another Perfume Blog
Libertine Parfumerie has $199/100ml (with FREE postage in Australia)
First In Fragrance has €105/100ml and samples
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $4/ml

Have you spent any time with 1270? Any of the Frapin frags? Have you ever had one of their cognacs?
Portia xx

Pineapple Photo Stolen Flickr

ELIE SAAB Haute Couture S/S 2014

April 6, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 6 Comments

Heya APJ,

You want to see how G L A M O U R should be done? Need a refresher course in absolutely over the top elegance that harks back to the days of Hollywood’s finest hours? This runway show may not push any boundaries but I bet it’s selling like crazy. This is fashion for the wealthy and I bet they lapped it up. So lavishly gorgeous and crazy that it could almost have been a Christian Dior or Oscar de la Renta show from the 1990s. Perfect.

Photo Stolen Telegraph (any problem with me using this shot, tell me and I’ll remove immediately)

Enjoy
Portia x

ELIE SAAB Haute Couture Spring Summer 2014 Fashion Show

Supreme Bouquet by Yves Saint Laurent 2013

April 5, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 14 Comments

Hey there Fellow Fumie Family.

Today we are chatting about one of Yves Saint Laurent’s newest lineup, the Oriental Collection. These are a new last year, extremely spendy, designer try at regaining some of their lost consumer ground through their own, and enforced, ruthless reformulations and cheapening of many of their products. Here is the big ticket item to lure us back. There are now four in the Oriental Collection with the addition of Splendid Wood this year.

Supreme Bouquet by Yves Saint Laurent 2013

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Fruity notes
Heart: Ylang ylang, tuberose, jasmine
Base: Patchouli, amber, musk

Supreme Bouquet, seems like they have made the bar pretty high, Supreme? Really Supreme? I was already pre disposed to not like it just from the name, which seems both overblown and lame. Who is in charge of this stuff at YSL Fragrance, it just makes me squirm with embarrassment that out of the WHOLE English language (and the thousands of others available) that Supreme Bouquet is the BEST name they could come up with. Let’s wear it and see if it lives down to it’s moniker.

Photo Stolen WikiMedia

Peaches from a can, mango and pineapple? Like a fruit cocktail with added sugar syrup, actually, like the syrup that canned fruit comes in. YUMMY! I am taken directly back to my childhood in the first spritz, sadly this crazy fun, 100% unnatural scent only blasts for about 3-5 minutes before it is lost in a very honey-like sweetness that still manages to be dry, as the white flowers come strolling in with a sinuous, sensuous, insouciant abandon and wrap their lovely coils around the fruit till all you can smell are sweet, buttery, green, fatty white flowers. So beautiful there is almost a fairytale quality, Supreme Bouquet is ethereal but solid and wafting gently around me like a nimbus. It is like you have sat yourself in an arbour of exotic dream flowers that bear only a passing resemblance to anything of this world, more like the flowers I would expect Queen Amidala to cultivate. Sometimes I worry that I have TERRIBLE taste in fragrance, I think these are nearly completely aroma chemicals but still they smell fabulous to me. I love it.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

The amber highlights and warms the flowers as they start to fade, they don’t really leave but they do become less assertive, relax their hold and give some space to everything else, sadly the uber clean patchouli and musks smell a trifle generic and that lets the whole composition down a bit, after the fireworks of the opening and heart it would have been nice if the patchouli had given us a raspy, earthy depth. It doesn’t.

Photo Stolen Flickr

Further reading: Katie Puckrik Smells and Kafkaesque
Available in department stores (not in Australia yet) UK YSL site £195
I bought my sample from Surrender To Chance from $5/.5ml

OK, so is this the SUPREME Bouquet? Naah, but it is lovely, wearable and sexy, super perfume-y and a look back at fragrances of the past till its slightly boring, but very nice, dry down. Would I pay £195 for a bottle? Probably not. On 50% discount? I’d be definitely thinking about it. Actually, for US$100 I would have been online and purchased a bottle already. It is very nice, great gift for someone but extremely overpriced to me.

Have you tried any from the new Oriental line at Yves Saint Laurent yet?
Portia x

Narcissus: CB I Hate Perfumes Rare Flowers Series

April 4, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 54 Comments

Hi there FUMIES!

I have been lucky enough to try this amazing, no amazing is too banal & used a word for the experience, sadly my vocabulary doesn’t stretch to how joyful and wonderful my experience has been trying today’s fragrance. I feel like one of the luckiest people just to have spent time with this magnificent creation that has bloomed so spectacularly on my skin in ways completely unexpected. I am moved.

Narcissus: CB I Hate Perfumes Rare Flowers Series 2013

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

OK the note here is Narcissus, pure and practically unadulterated. Here are the words I wrote on my first wearing to refer back to while writing this review: Bitter, dark, tobacco-esque, green, earthy, herbal, poisonous, hay, urine, wind, fresh, sunshine, picnic, happiness, love. This is NOTHING like I expected. Narcissus is a complete revelation and not all of it lovely. I find myself twisting and turning with the notes as if caught in a flurry during a storm, or buffeted by the sea when you misjudge a wave. Narcissus smells like a concentration on the leaves and stem of the plant, not the flower, or at least very little of the flower.

Photo Stolen GeographUK

From CB I Hate Perfume: Narcissus Absolute is one of the rarest and most fabulously expensive floral absolutes still available in the world today. It is also to my mind one of the most stunningly beautiful and therefore very much a personal favorite. Although obtained from the flower of a quite common plant, the scent of Narcissus absolute smells not in the least like a pot of paperwhites. To me, the scent of the actual blooming flower is overpowering, piercing and usually quite nauseating. I really can’t stay long in a room where paperwhites are blooming. The perfume of Narcissus absolute on the other hand is magical. Have you ever walked though a field in spring when thousands of narcissus were blooming? It’s like that – a delicate spicy breath of spring.
Please note that the water perfume is translucent, and may have some sedimentation. If this happens gentle rock the bottle back and forth to reincorporate. This will not detract from the fragrance in any way.

Further reading: and Perfume Posse
CB I Hate Perfume has $500/100ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $7/.5ml

Narcissus: CB I Hate Perfumes GIVEAWAY

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have 2 winners who will get:
1 x .5ml sample Narcissus Water Perfume by CB I Hate Perfumes
1 x .5ml sample Tuberose Water Perfume by CB I Hate Perfumes
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DO YOU WIN?

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie ~~CB I Hate Perfume Narcissus~~ GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-2Eq #Perfume #Giveaway @CBrosius712

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Sunday 6th April 2014 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org
The winners will have till Thursday 10th April 2014 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.

Grandma Tells The Truth: A Story

April 4, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 21 Comments

Hello Lovely APJ Crew,

Here I have a story that will warm the cockles of your heart. I wish all Grandmas were so outrageously outspoken, especially with today’s politicians. Wouldn’t that be something.

Portia xx

Grandma Tells The Truth: A Story

Photo Stolen FotoPedia

Lawyers should never ask a Georgia grandma a question if they aren’t prepared for the answer.

In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, ‘Mrs. Jones, do you know me?’ She responded, ‘Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I’ve known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you’ll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.’

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, ‘Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?’

She again replied, ‘Why yes, I do. I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a
youngster, too. He’s lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can’t build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.’

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said,

‘If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I’ll send you both to the electric chair.

Penhaligon's Iris Prima GIVEAWAY WINNERS

March 31, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 6 Comments

Woo Hoo APJ!

Another sensational Libertine Parfumerie and Australian Perfume Junkies GIVEAWAY! Thanks for being part of our fab, fun and fragrant family. We are super glad to have you all along.

Let’s see who our lucky winners are…

Portia x

Penhaligon’s Iris Prima GIVEAWAY WINNERS

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, pink pepper
Heart: Iris, jasmine
Base: Leather, sandalwood, vetiver, amber, vanilla, benzoin

WHAT COULD YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 Major Winner who will get:
1 x Penhaligon`s Iris Prima 100ml bottle
(minus the Secondary Winners Prizes, the lid is wonky but spritzer perfect.)
P&H Anywhere in the world

3 x Secondary Winners who will each receive:
1 x 10ml decant of Penhaligon`s Iris Prima
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DID YOU WIN?

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

Go to Libertine Perfumes<<<JUMP and find me one of their BATH PRODUCTS and the COMPANY…………….. NO DOUBLE UPS!!

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Sunday 30th March 2014 10pm Australian EST
Winners were chosen by random.org

Photo Stolen shannonmayer

Wheelspinner (Bottle Winner)

Hotlanta Linda

Victoria

Becky (Rebecca via Twitter)

The winners will have till Thursday 3rd April 2014 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.

Special THANKS to LibertineParfumerie for these amazing giveaways. Please visit their site because they are so generous and helpful. If you wonder why they are sometimes more expensive than the discounters or OS retailers it’s because they are the only licensed company selling their fragrances in Australia; where you know you are buying new, fresh and genuine product. The cost of importing, and buying the right to import, alcohol based fragrances (and having the right to send alcohol based fragrances throughout Australia, which are illegal to send in the Australia Post air system) is expensive and they must cover their costs to bring you these luxury goods.

Oliban by Keiko Mecheri 2004

March 30, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 16 Comments

Hello Niche Nerds,

Keiko Mecheri houses her fragrances in fabulous bottles. I love the whole enjoyment of holding them in my hand and spritzing, it adds luster to a house that for some reason I feel close to. In my collection I have the fabulous old Loukhoum bottle

Photo Stolen LuckyScent

and Jour d’Ete, which was my first salty coconut and jasmine fragrance, one of my all time favourite mixtures. Keiko Mecheri is one of the houses like Guerlain and Patricia de Nicolai that I have often felt as if they are made with me in mind, even though not all the fragrances work on or for me. I just like the houses aesthetic.

Oliban by Keiko Mecheri 2004

Photo Stolen Libertine Parfumerie

Fragrsntica gives these featured accords in one line:
Virginia cedar, incense, olibanum, (blonde) tobacco, (Damascene) rose, palisander rosewood, tonka bean, ambergris

Sweet, jammy rose and woods surrounded by lovely incense. It all smells like a VERY expensive hotel foyer. Loads of woods and beeswax shine, I get a hint of leather too and the tobacco/honey accord is beautiful. Oliban opens so well and with such a heady religious air that I swoon every time.

While wearing and writing this article I chatted to a mate on Facebook at Australian Fragrance Network and during her ride she noticed tea, specifically the spicy Indian cooked black tea with milk and spices called chai. Now through the incense and woods, the honey and leather I get a distinct memory/feeling of chai. It’s like sitting up in Mcleodganj in the Indian Himalayas where the Dalai Lama is in exile. Sitting and watching the prayer flags fluttering outside while in a wooden tea house. The whole mountain top smells of incense and most of the tea shop/restaurants used to smell of wood, cigarettes and beeswax. Progress has smartened them up though and they are much more Westerner friendly nowadays than they were. Still some of the accommodation on the top of the hill has the old wooden beeswax smell, it’s fabulous. Taeko, my friend didn’t get the frankincense till a couple of hours in on her skin but I get it from the very first spritz, it’s warm scratchy resinous scent fueling the whole fragrance for me. Interesting how different people get dissimilar rides, even in the same temp zone.

Photo Stolen Flickr

From I Smell Therefore I Am (sometimes someone else gets it so right, in this case Abigail): It’s a fabulously well crafted incense fragrance with gorgeous whiffs of blond tobacco, woods, rose and honey. The initial burst of incense and cedar are refreshingly spiritual (don’t most incense frags seem rather churchy to you?). Oliban, especially at the start, seems soothing, calming, centering and cleansing. When I feel harried, rattled or just tired, Oliban serves as a meditative pick me up.

Photo Stolen Flickr

If you are after an incense bomb then please look elsewhere. Oliban is incense, with a lovely softening rose accord and a warm honey/tobacco accord that also stop the incense and woods from being too hefty and unfeminine, anyone can and should wear Oliban. It will never be so loud as to override your own skins fragrance but will work harmoniously with it and create a patina of scent that could be worn anywhere and will be particularly good for very up close and intimate encounters. Soft enough for work, different enough to set you apart from the crowd. I think it is a tad too soft for it to be a fb in my collection; too tasteful, sophisticated and too suavely elegant to really fit with my bigness. I could buy this for almost any of my friends though and know that they would be incredibly happy with my choice for them, and that it could be a signature for quite a few of them too.

Further reading: Katie Puckrik Smells and I Smell Therefore I Am
Libertine Parfumerie has $195/75ml including Australian postage
First In Fragrance has €145/75ml and €5/4ml Samples

Oliban is worth a try.

Portia xx

Christian Dior Lady Dior Handbags Spring 2014 Ad Campaign

March 30, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 5 Comments

Heya Fumie Fashionistas,

LOVE a handbag. Love DIOR. Love Marion Cotillard. Imagine a world where they all come together in one glorious print ad scenario? Here is Marion Cotillard, shot by Jean-Baptiste Mondino for Lady Dior. The bags are nice enough but the fashion and model, FAB U LOUS!!

Don’t forget to enter our Libertine Parfumerie and Penhaligon’s Iris Prima GIVEAWAY

Christian Dior Lady Dior Handbags Spring 2014 Ad Campaign

(source via art8amby)

Christian Dior Lady Dior Handbags Spring 2014 [Making-Of]

Carnal Flower By Dominique Ropion for Frederic Malle 2005

March 29, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 26 Comments

Hello Fellow Fumies,

The story goes that this fragrance was created around the idea of Frederic Malle’s aunt, Candice Bergen, star of the movie Carnal Knowledge with Jack Nicholson, Ann Margaret and Art Garfunkel. I’ve not seen the movie but I love this little tit bit of information garnered from Fragrantica. It makes my enjoyment even sweeter as Candice was one of my great TV glamour girl loves from Murphy Brown and who could ever forget her in her 2000 star turn as Kathy Morningside in Miss Congeniality, awesome. Many of you will have loved her too as Shirley Schmidt in Boston Legal but i digress.

Don’t forget to enter our Libertine Parfumerie and Penhaligon’s Iris Prima GIVEAWAY

Carnal Flower By Dominique Ropion for Frederic Malle 2005

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line (but writes them tiered):
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

I love how Carnal Flower opens with a huge plastic white flower surrounded by sharp citrus and greenery. I know the notes say melon and eucalyptus but I don’t get them definitively in the open. I get a sweet and sappy greenness like when you cut hydrangeas and lovely white flowers that move to fatty pretty quickly, they are potent and exciting but not as outrageous as the hype leads you to believe and they become quite dry through their life. Not dried or dessicated but the oily wetness, the sappy green loses its potency and becomes a high white floral with a green tiara on sending out occasional flashes and sparkles.

Photo Stolen Flickr

Just so you have placement, I am writing this on Wednesday which is my cleaning day. I do the house from top to bottom once a week. It’s a big job that can take 5 hours but usually I get it done in 3-4 hours. Today I decided to see how Carnal Flower copes in warm weather while active. At midday it’s 26 degees Celcius and I started cleaning at 9.30am. At just over halfway point so I’m taking a sneaky break to write to you.

Well I’ve dusted, vacuumed and cleaned the bathrooms. All that’s left to do is empty the kitchen benches and give them their full scrub. Still there are delightful wafts of coconut-y white flower and now I smell like summer. My sweat and Carnal Flower have come together to create something that smells like a beautiful deadly night flower that calls insects and small animals to their graves, it may even work on the men. I find sneaky reminders at this point of one of my favourite summer scents Bronze Goddess, though they have different stories at the Carnal Flower 3 hour mark they have a crossover.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

At the 5 hour mark I have lost all but the merest traces of something musky floral but to all intents and purposes gone. I have to be honest here and tell you I think Carnal Flower not at all carnal and really it is a very pretty white floral with other stuff but not fearsome or challenging at all. Bigger than most modern perfumery but not outrageous, give the opening a moment to calm down and I find it extremely wearable. Maybe not a confined spaces or work fragrance but definitely doable for dinner.

Further reading:
Mecca Cosmetica in Australia have AUD$259/50mlFrederic Malle has €160/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $9/ml

Carnal Flower. Have you braved the name? Did you feel it was worthy of such a fearsome title?

Till tomorrow, treat yourself with respect, you deserve it and try to forgive yourself your minor flaws.
Portia xx