Portia

So Nude EdP by Dominique Ropion for Costume National 2012

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Hello Fabulous Fragrance Fiends,

With special thanks to the crew at Libertine Parfumerie who have generously supplied these So Nude samples for me to try and give away.

So Nude EdP by Costume National 2012 + GIVEAWAY!

So Nude EdP FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Cumin, cardamom, neroli
Heart: Damascus rose, tuberose, ylang-ylang
Base: Indonesian patchouli, Virginian cedar

Costume National doesn’t seem to get a lot of blog time. I am not sure why, their bottle aesthetic is fun, easy to use and different, clothes are the same as well as beautiful and many are extremely wearable too. They just don’t seem to have captured perfumistas hearts in the way that many of the crossover to fragrance crews have done with loads less interesting works. I have FBs of Scent gloss and 21 in my collection and find 21 especially different and so sexy.

So when Nick from Libertine Parfumerie asked me if I’d like some So Nude to give away I jumped at the chance.

What will you smell? On my skin I get SHEER fresh downy soft white flower with a slight skin-ish bent that could be the cumin but this skin is freshly showered. The tuberose and ylang together are fatty, green, milky and buttery but reading that makes them sound full and luscious but they are neither, no one will be skunked by you wearing So Nude. It is quiet, sillage is very conservative as is the scent bubble, if you leave the room with So Nude sprayed on a card, close the door, make a coffee elsewhere and then come back you will smell a clean/fresh/fragrant vibe but it’s not a room filler.

So Nude DIOR PrinceOfWalesCheck WikimediaCommonsPhoto Stolen WikimediaCommons

The heart is very pretty, and this is where you get a little voluptuous, ripe, sexiness but it is restrained sexy, not an open invitation. So Nude is more like a hint that you are a great raging sex fiend underneath this grey Prince of Wales check suit, linen shirt and Hermes scarf. This is a grown up, luxe version of some of the drugstore white flowers that are so pretty, simple, wearable and popular. I bet you would get loads of compliments wearing So Nude because it is the kind of fragrance that men notice, perfumey and slightly old fashioned elegant. Dry down is all wood and white flower on me, it is soft and quite pretty, just don’t expect it to surprise you. Smells like sensual skin for frolicking, excellent for getting naked.

So Nude Johann_Baptist_Reiter WikimediaCommonsPhoto Stolen WikimediaCommons

I can imagine So Nude as a sensational Wedding Scent, excellent for almost everything and even wearable to a non frag phobic office. I get quite good life out of it, around 4-6 fragrant hours depending…

Further reading Bois De Jasmin
Libertine Parfumerie has $135/50ml and other sizes with FREE Australian shipping and you get 3 samples of your choice with your order
Neroli Budapest has 88€/50ml

giveaway TheTruthAboutMummyPhoto Stolen TheTruthAboutMummy

SO NUDE GIVEAWAY!

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

There are 3 prizes this week in our So Nude by Costume National GIVEAWAY. Each winner will receive:

2 x So Nude 1.5ml Manufacturers carded samples (one for you and one for a friend)
P&H Anywhere in the world

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

Go to Libertine Perfumes and find me a perfume and its manufacturer. NO DOUBLE UPS!!

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie So Nude GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p2fQBU-1LA #Giveaway @LibertineParfum @CoSTUMENATIONAL

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Sunday 21st July 2013 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post Monday 22nd.
Winners will be chosen by putting names on same sized papers, folded similarly, put on a tray and Jin will pick a winner.
The winners will have till Thursday 25th July 2013 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 LibertinePerfumerie for the So Nude Samples. Please visit their site because they are so generous and helpful. If you wonder why they are 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 system) is expensive and they must cover their costs to bring you these luxury goods.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE,

Portia xx

Lea by Calypso St. Barth

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Hello Lovelies,

Quite often I check out the Weekly Chance Specials on Surrender To Chance and last month they had a couple of things I’ve been longing to try and this little number that I’d never heard of. On looking through the WWW I found very little information about it but a short and interesting reading note list, so I pulled the trigger on

Lea by Calypso St. Barth

Lea Calypso St Bath Lucky ScentPhoto Stolen Lucky Scent

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Almonds, vanilla, musks

Do you ever want to smell delicious and pretty? Are the freaky niche frags getting you down? Sometimes all I want is to smell good. To smell rich, elegant, calm and sweet. Here is that scent. I can completely understand why Lea has become a cult hit, this is how I dream my skin should smell. I smell clean, fresh and healthy without resorting to “clean” scent of laundry or air. I am fragrant, smell gorgeously snuggly and I am smiling because my body smells so good and young. I know! What a dumb thing to write but this is the sort of fresh scent that really makes me feel so young and, dare I say it, coltish! And if you knew me I am anything but coltish, in fact I am the original old grey mare.

The notes tell the story almost exactly and this is no bombastic fragrance, it is a warm and cuddly, just above skin scent, aroma that is foody: as in smells like almonds and vanilla but only sort of foody, though very early in its development it does have an almond cookie smell. Lea feels sweet in a natural way but without the feeling of a natural perfume. The muscs keep everything skinnish and are very slightly lived in, the sweet smell of healthy flesh in the morning that has bathed before bed, MMMMMMMM. Other reviewers have smelt chocolate but I don’t get it, there is a ylang tint to me a buttery, milky, sensual wash that arrives about 2 hours in and stays till dry down.

Lea Calypso St Bath Almond Cookie MorgueFilePhoto Stolen MorgueFile

Edited from Lucky Scent: Indescribably luscious Léa… Liliane, the owner of the ultra-chic boutique, Calypso, in St. Barth… visits Manhattan, Paris, London and Milan and selects the cream of the crop of fresh new designers and standout designs from established lines and creates a cohesive and trend-setting fashion vision. As it happens, she also loves fragrance, and created Léa for herself, with her daughter as inspiration. Other people fell in love with it, it became a cult favorite….

Excellent longevity upwards of 7 hours on my perfume thirsty skin and I think wearable for any occasion: sloppy, formal, studying, dating, eating and even the closest of workplaces.

Lea Calypso St Bath Sleeping Man MorgueFilePhoto Stolen MorgueFile

Further reading: Now Smell This and For The Love Of Perfume
Lucky Scent has $100/100ml and samples
Surrender To Chance starts at $4/ml

Have you succumbed to the beauty of this little gem? Are you a follower of the Lea by Calypso St Barth? Is it something you’d like or not? Too simple for you or maybe you are annoyed by vanilla scents?

See you tomorrow,
Remember to be nice to yourself, it’s hard to be happy when someone is constantly mean to you.
Portia xx

Lanvin Fall/Winter 2013 Ad Campaign

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 11 Comments

Lanvin Fall Winter 2013 Ad Campaign

I have stolen these images and some copy from one of my fave fashion forward blogs art8amby. Please go check out their stuff, always amazing and totally up-to-date. Seriously, go see them.
Don’t you love them? They seem surprisingly wearable.
Portia xx

Steven Meisel photographed British model Edie Campbell for Lanvin Fall/Winter 2013. Hair and makeup Guido Palau and Pat McGrath.

Images via TFS.

Cuirs by Sonia Constant for Carner, Barcelona 2011

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 14 Comments

Hello my lovelies,

Today we have a fragrance that has seen little scentbloggosphere chatter but what there has been seems completely ambivalent, people either are loving or hating it with no in betweens. More than anything that’s what drew me to try this Spanish offering from a very new house Carner, named for its creator Sara Carner.

Cuirs by Carner, Barcelona 2011

Cuirs Carven FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Saffron, caraway
Heart: Australian sandalwood, patchouli, guaiac wood, Virginia cedar, violet
Base: Musk, French labdanum, tonka bean, agarwood (oud), cypriol oil or nagarmotha, amber, leather, amyris

I am just starting to get to know saffron in a fragrance, here I am getting the amber base right from the first moment I spritz with what I think is saffron over the top(?) and some soft patchouli. For some reason I was expecting Cuirs to be more in your face, more leather tannery than soft kidskin gloves from the outside of a shop. It is very conservative in projection and sillage, this is self indulgent, introverted scent that is soft enough to be worn all day every day and becomes your own scent but better. Even workmates in very close quarters would think you had a lovely lotion, rather than perfume. The story of leather tanneries that is in the ad copies is a fiction, those places smelled like hell. Cuirs is dainty and soft, expensive and anything but in your face.

Cuirs Carvan Italian Leather Gloves FlickrCommonsPhoto Stolen FlickrCommons

Considering how quiet Cuirs is the tenacity is extremely good, well over the 6 hour mark and holding on. Cuirs is interesting and extremely pretty (going from saffron/amber through pretty, sweet woods and then to a well worn leather and smoky amber, the ride is muted but gorgeous) and perfect for anyone who likes the idea of leather fragrance but dislikes the harshness and heft of many leather-centric fragrances on the market today. I think it an excellent gateway scent for newbies or young people keen to experience fragrance, a wonderful office scent and I bet it sells well in some Asian cultures where scent is meant to work with your own body chemistry to create something lovely and different for every user, a wash of fragrance over and weaving through you. To be 100% honest, I want my fragrance to have a certain strength and projection so I will pass on Cuirs by Carner but I am giving the rest of my sample to Jin who I know will absolutely adore it.

Thinking about Cuirs, the price is not outrageous for a well produced and lovely niche fragrance, this could very easily become a go-to for many people. Spritz and forget luxuriousness that will give you mini wafts all day. Even if you are a huge over spritzer like me it’s nearly impossible to skunk with such a subtle scent and you get the joy of lavish spraying. On clothes the tenacity is awesome and a scarf could go for weeks and you would continue to smell Cuirs.

Maybe Cuirs is not for you, for a lot of the perfumista community I can see that Cuirs is a strength let down, for you I offer Cuir Ottoman by Parfum d’Empire, Cuir de Russie by CHANEL, Lonestar Memories by Tauer, Bottega Veneta, Leather Oud by DIOR, Cuir by Mona di Orio, Oud Cuir d’Arabie by Montale, Cuir Amethyst by Armani, Black Rosette by Strange Invisible Perfumes, Cuir Mauresque by Serge Lutens, Tuscan Leather by Tom Ford, Knize Ten and you may even like the plush leather in my favourite Shalimar. This is only the tip of an enormous leather iceberg and you could spend your lifetime enjoying the note and not be done.

Cuirs Carvan Leather MorgueFilePhoto Stolen MorgueFile

Further reading: Ca Fleur Bon and The Scentualist
Min New York has $130/50ml with FREE USA Shipping
Bloom UK has £81/50ml
Surrender To Chance starts at $6/.5ml

Have any of you held the bottle in your hand? I love the look of them, I wish I had searched this out actively on my travels. Next year.
See you all tomorrow,
Portia xx

GUERLAIN – Gloss D’Enfer: Nails + Lips 2013 Mini Movie

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 1 Comment

Hiya FUMIES,

Here’s some more of the Guerlain 2013 mini movie fest. This one is so fun and 50s. I love it. Makes me smile just watching and the colours really POP this season. Lucky us.

Gloss-dEnfer-Guerlain jetsetfashionmagazinePhoto Stolen jetsetfashionmagazine

Guerlain’s Spiel: Discover Gloss d’Enfer collection made of 20 shades of bare lips sensation gloss and 10 colourful nail polishes. Play with colour and shine to capture your admirers’ hearts even more than ever.

Enjoy it,
Portia xx

Fleurs de Citronnier by Christopher Sheldrake for Serge Lutens 2004

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 23 Comments

Hiya APJ Family,

This was originally scheduled to go live the day after Lucasz at Chemist In A Bottle but I didn’t want to tread on his beautiful post (follow the jump if you’d like to read it). So mine is happening a couple of weeks later now. Enjoy.

I found a 5+ml decant of todays fragrance and have no idea where it came from or how it’s in my collection. The writing is almost illegible and I had to check Fragrantica for things that might match. Whoever I have to thank for this lavish largesse you have my complete and utter gratefulness, I would never have chosen to try it and am so glad I have. It seems to be quite hard to find, Lucky Scent has almost every other Serge Lutens except this one and a few of the other regulars are either out of stock or don’t mention it at all.

Fleurs de Citronnier (Lemon Blossom) by Serge Lutens 2004

Fleurs de Citronnier FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Lemon blossom, petitgrain, nutmeg
Heart: Lemon blossom, neroli, white honey, tuberose
Base: Iris, several musks, styrax resin

Citrus, spicy, fresh, fizzy and fun. Fleurs de Citronnier is everything I loved about growing up with citrus trees in the back yard. I miss them but in our temperate climate in Sydney they are particularly prone to infestations and disease. Mum spent a lot of time maintaining a lemon and orange tree. We LOVED them. Fresh orange juice, a great shady place to hide, pretending perfume from flowers, leaves and fruit and let’s not forget the endless uses for a stink bug! Sunny winter days drinking sugared, fresh orange juice with lemon to make it zing.

So now you know where it takes me, what does Fleurs de Citronnier smell like on me? Green, citrus and green, later the honey makes a beautiful, almost naughty, appearance with a silky sweet urinous warmth and the tuberose (white flower) is a little skanky but more soapy. Though it stays citrus it becomes warmer and more lived in as it heads into the 2 hour mark. There have been a couple of times during the first two hours that I thought Fleurs de Citronnier was going to fall into a deep hole of cleaning product fragrance but it nimbly skirted the edge of that nasty abyss and continued beautifully.

Fleurs de Citronnier Serge Lutens lemon blossum AromaPersonaPhoto Stolen AromaPersona

Tonight I wore Fleurs de Citronnier to work, I felt beautiful and floated through the night, catching wafts of myself throughout the evening. Driving home and now back home I can still smell some citrus, some white flowers and the musks have come through very cleanly but the resin is a back up whisper, like a little bit of sweet toffee floating underneath. That’s nearly 6 hours of wear and still going strong, impressive.

I think that unless you have a VERY light hand that Fleurs de Citronnier may be too strong for most workplaces, maybe even a little overpowering for dining unless you have some time between spritz and eat. For my work it’s an excellent choice, a big, phat, bombastic fragrance that takes no prisoners. FAB U LOUS!!!!

Fleurs de Citronnier Serge Lutens Lemon BlossomPhoto Stolen LifeWorksRestaurants

Further reading: Now Smell This and Olfactoria’s Travels
Beauty Encounter has $100/50ml (I have enjoyed FdC so much that I bought one today)
Surrender To Chance starts at $4/.5ml

Have you tried Fleurs de Citronnier? What are your impressions?
Till tomorrow, be nice to yourself and those around you,
Portia xx

Relent by ETRO + Venice Photo Essay

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 34 Comments

Hey there happy huffers,

While Jin and I were in Venice in January/February he had found us a wonderful hotel. My only rules for him to do bookings were 4 star, less than 300 metres from the railway station and that they include breakfast. In Venice he excelled himself. The hotel was very close to the station and near a bunch of major bridges, attractions, ferries and food. The room was bright, clean, spacious, quiet and sunny with a view of the rooftops of Venice and the Grand Canal and the hotel had wifi in the lobby 24 hours, with a bar that was quite comfortable. One of our favourite things about the hotel was the large, super-clean bathroom filled with ETRO Relent bath products: hair & body wash and lotion! We left the hotel every day smelling beautiful from our bath products and kept arm skin clear for frag testing. We also left the hotel CRAMMED with breakfast each day, HEAVEN!! Needless to say we asked for, and received, a handful of the mini shower gels which are big enough to last 10 days of showering. SCORE! The hotel? The Boscolo Bellini, Lista di Spagna 116/A | Cannareggio quarter, 30121 Venice, Italy

ETRO Relent Boscolo Bellini Venice

ETRO Relent Boscolo Bellini Rooftop VenicePhotos Stolen Expedia

Relent by ETRO

ETRO Relent FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Lemon, orange, lime, eucalyptus
Heart: Orange blossom, rose, iris
Base: Amber, vanilla, musk (ETRO adds citron in the base)

From the ETRO site: The true Eden is never a precise location; we need to learn to create it inside ourselves, to carry with us some of the serenity that can be evoked by aromas that brighten the heart. Sparkling citrus fruits and the sweetest flowers, a hint of the sensuality of amber and the languor of rose, a drop of solemn musk.

ETRO Relent venice Grand canalPhoto Stolen MorgueFile

Since Venice, every shop that has ETRO gets a visit from me but nobody seems to carry Relent anymore, only the newer ones in the lineup. So I went to the internet and recently I found a Relent 150ml Eau Parfumee at Beauty Encounter for only $70 and the 200ml Shower Gel for only $39!! I am extremely happy about it and bought fragrance and a couple of shower gels. It is such a vivid memory for both Jin and I, a happy, wonderful memory that we cherish, so easy to bring back just by fragrance. Fragrantica gives 2010 as this fragrances release but MUA has reviews from 2003.

How does it smell? The opening citrus and eucalyptus combination is fizzzy, dry and interesting, the citrus fizzes like a soda pop drink fresh from the bottle but the eucalyptus holds the sweetness in check giving a very herbal, green dryness. If you told me there was some cumin with coriander/lavender/basil here I would totally believe you because it’s such a vegetative yet sweaty green opening. I also smell some wood notes that are unmentioned. It takes a while for the opening scene to develop properly and it stays for a while before the orange blossom makes her appearance, not as an entrance but she comes in though the side door unannounced, no fanfare but there she is whispering something naughty in your ear and rose is giggling wickedly beside her. Then, as the star of the show is about to be announced, like a wedding everyone quietens down and there is a fragrant hush, a lull, a pause before IRIS stands tall at the top of the stairs in full spotlight. A woody, powder puff of an iris, gentle and soft and cuddly and furry with musks comes down the stairs to be the star of the night. Everyone gets to dance with her, maybe the best analogy would be a round dance where everyone is involved but only a few are near iris for the rest of the evening before the last slow dance and then gone.

ETRO Relent Venice Boscolo Bellini Light

ETRO Relent Venice Garden Block

ETRO Relent Venice Canal

ETRO Relent Venice Bridge portiaPortia’s first Venetian Bridge

ETRO Relent Venice Carnivale Costumes JinJin loving Carnivale

ETRO Relent Venice Canivale Costumes Purple

ETRO Relent Venice Carnivale Costumes Silver

ETRO Relent Venice Last Gondola MakerThe Last Gondola Builders

ETRO Relent Venice Gondola

ETRO Relent Venice Grand Canal CathedralThe Grand Canal

ETRO Relent Venice RestaurantFrom our restaurant

ETRO Relent Venice Wood Bridge

ETRO Relent Venice Palazzo

ETRO Relent Venice Pegggy GuggenheimPeggy Guggenheim Modern Art Museum, so fabulous

ETRO Relent Venice Cafe CeilingCafe Ceiling

ETRO Relent Venice Jin on BridgeJin loved this bridge

ETRO Relent Venice Main Square

ETRO Relent Venice PalaceMain Square at night after the Carnivale crowds are gone

ETRO Relent Venice SunsetVenice sunset

I think Relent could be worn anywhere, including frag phobic works, it is soft and pretty enough to be passed of as body lotion but interesting enough to wear. Light, cuddly and to Jin and I joyful. Maybe you will think so too.

My scent hungry skin gets about 3-4 hours before there is only a sweet amber musk that smells like me. Jin says the scent continues but I have lost the ability to smell it.

Nobody else on the first 4 pages of Google has reviewed Relent
Beauty Encounter has the best prices I could find and none of the sample shops carry Relent, though some have other ETRO frags.

I hope you enjoyed our ETRO Relent and Venice Photo Essay. All unattributed photos taken by Jin or myself.
See you tomorrow for more fun and madness,
Portia xx

Anya’s Garden Winners Announced

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 1 Comment

Hey there all,

We had a terrific response to thew Anya’s Garden Giveaway. Thank you all for getting on board and having some fun.

Anya's Garden peace MorgueFilePhoto Stolen MorgueFile

Anya’s Garden GIVEAWAY WINNERS!

WHAT COULD YOU WIN?

There are 3 prizes this week in our special 4th of July GIVEAWAY. Each winner will receive:

3 x .5ml Anya’s Garden samples (missing what I used to review and no you don’t get to choose)
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DID YOU WIN?

Open to everyone worldwide who:
Follows AustralianPerfumeJunkies via eMail, WordPress, Bloglovin or RSS.
Left how you follow in the comments.
Went to to Anya’s Garden website and got an ingredient from one of her perfumes and the perfume it came from. NO DOUBLE UPS!!

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Sunday 7th July 2013 11pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post Monday 8th.
Winners were chosen by putting names on same sized papers, folded similarly, put on a tray and Jin picked a winner.

winners propercoursePhoto Stolen propercourse

Charlene C, Sita W., Amria

The winners will have till Sunday 14th June 2013 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.

THANKS EVERYONE for joining in.

Portia xx