Sniffory: New Decant Service

October 3, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 34 Comments

Post by Azar

Hello Gorgeous Smelling Peeps,

Whatever the purchase (or the path), I feel it absolutely necessary, as well as empowering, to have solid options and viable alternatives. This political season, I’m sure that many of “my fellow ‘Mericans” had hoped to make a good choice between solid, viable candidates in the 2016 presidential election. No such luck! Sadly, what we are being “offered” this time around is anything but viable, let alone believable. The recent political process has left me feeling not only powerless to effect any change but politically disenfranchised as well. The prospect of once again having to vote defensively simply to maintain the status quo is an abhorrent, although seemingly necessary, reality.

Fortunately for me, when the American political landscape is so bleak and devoid of honest, sweet smelling alternatives, I know that I have literally thousands of wonderful fragrances to choose from in Perfumeland. Also, to help me make the perfect full bottle
choice, there are now more than a score of services offering samples and decants for individual purchase or by subscription. I am currently subscribed to two of these and use a couple of the others for occasional sampling and collecting.

Sniffory: New Decant Service

Coming in November, 2016 there will be a new “candidate” for decant services on the sampler/decant ballot. Sniffory, the brainchild of perfume industry veteran Judah Abraham, will be a decant service website, offering an extensive selection, low prices and proposed great customer service. Here are a few of Sniffory’s campaign “promises”:

1 – $15 US for a 15 ml decant of your choice from Sniffory’s extensive collection of designer fragrances. Niche will be in their collection very soon.

2 – Every order, every time, will include a nifty, refillable travel case.

3 – A $15 promo code will be included with each order, good towards the purchase of a full bottle of your choice.

4 – The $15 cost includes US shipping. International shipping is in the works.

While Sniffory is not a subscription service, subscriptions will be rolled out soon and will include even better discounts on the 15 ml decants and the already low priced full bottles. Judah Abraham does not anticipate waiting lists or queues for most of the popular fragrances and plans to work hard to improve any glitches that may surface.

All of this sounds great to me and, unlike the promises of our US political candidates, these assurances seem good for everyone, totally doable and well within the realm of possibility.

Today’s give-away will be for one 15 ml decant of your choice from Sniffory’s designer collection. Sent ONLY TO THE USA. To be eligible to win you don’t have to tell us which candidate you are voting for.

Azar xx

Sniffory GIVEAWAY

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 winners who will receive:
1 x 15ml Sniffory designer sample (once they open for business)
P&H USA ONLY

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. 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

Please tell us if you have used a sampling or decant service or what you like (or don’t like) about these companies.

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Thursday 6th October 2016 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org
The winners will have till Sunday 9th October 2016 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

Sycomore EdT by Jacques Polge + Christopher Sheldrake for CHANEL 2008

October 2, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 17 Comments

Post by Robert Herrmann

Hi there fragrant friends,

Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere.

God how I LOVE Autumn.

The gorgeous sunny days in the high 50’s to 60’s, the cool nights that require the extra blanket, all of it just speaks directly to my heart. But especially the light, whose tone and quality manifests as sheer, dreamy, and soft as velvet; the sun lower in the sky beaming through the trees in the woods behind our house. The geese are on a flyway now, heading somewhere, but they stop and gather to feed and sleep in the pasture to the south, providing hours of wonderful albeit noisy viewing. The last of the apples are almost ready to be picked from our tree, just waiting to be stewed for sauce with a buttload of spices and fresh ginger before I ladle them into the steaming hot glass ball-jars for the winter months. Yup, love it.

One of my most perfect scents for the Fall, and always in my top 10 of all time would have to be Sycomore EdT. It is to me simply autumn in a bottle.

Sycomore EdT by CHANEL 2008

Sycomore EdT by Jacques Polge + Christopher Sheldrake

Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Vetiver, sandalwood, aldehydes, tobacco, violet, spicy notes, pink pepper, juniper, cypress

One of my all-time favorite vetivers, this is a jus that always takes me on a journey to the heart of a forest, late afternoon or early evening just as it’s starting to get cold. The leaves and soil underneath my feet releasing the heat of the day in a perfect, loamy scent. The last glimpses of sunlight throwing brass and copper colored beams through the branches, like light in nature’s own cathedral, providing solace and beauty and an almost holy silence.

WikiCommons

I can smell the smoke from the wood-stove in our house combined with the rich forest smells. I inhale deeply, the cold air providing a slightly bitter and piney aroma that mixes with the scent of the last flowering bushes of the season. It always makes me smile like a crazy man, creating that white, hazy and unmistakeable fog that turns me back towards home, promising warmth and security unlike anything else.

All of this and more is what Sycomore gives me, and I always re-apply with abandon trying to hang on to that perfect introspective vision in the changing of the seasons.

Yup. Autumn. Damn near perfect.

PDI

Further reading: Bois de Jasmin and What Men Should Smell Like
CHANEL now has sycamore EdP! Go spritz it at a CHANEL store.

What are some of the scents that remind you of a changing season?

Robert XoX

Bois de Paradise by Michel Roudnitska for Parfums DelRae 2002

October 2, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 16 Comments

Post by Claire Vukcevic

Hi there APJ folk!

Have you ever built a fragrance up in your head for ages before even smelling it? I do that a lot. The town where I live sells nothing fancier that Beyonce Heat, so I am completely dependent on the Internet. So, I read. 95% of the pleasure I get from perfume is reading other people writing about it. Words set off a moving train of vivid images in my head, and if a person is a talented writer, they can bring a perfume to life for me in a way that just smelling the damn thing simply will not do.

These images and dreams of a perfume can slosh around my head for years until I actually smell it. Can you imagine the utter joy when the images I’ve filed away in my mental library actually lines up with how the perfume smells? Unfortunately, Parfums DelRae Bois de Paradis doesn’t quite live up to the movie reel in my head.

Bois de Paradise by Parfums DelRae 2002

Bois de Paradise by Michel Roudnitska

Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Citruses
Heart: French rose, blackberry, spices, fig
Base: Amber, woodsy notes, resins, incense

There is just something a little too insistent, too overwrought about Bois de Paradis. It bowls me over….then sticks in my craw. Each time I put it on, I think of the immortal lines of Hotel California – this could be heaven, or this could be hell.

The problem: In the middle of a pool of rich, luscious florals, fruits, and woods, a strident tone eventually juts out and catches my skin on its jagged edges. It’s like running your hand down a gleaming wooden banister and finding one tiny splinter. It gets in the way of what I signed up for.

Wikipedia

What I signed up for: A luscious rose-berry syrup, heavily spiced but suspended in a golden elixir, so delicious I want to drink it. Fresh blackberries and dried currants swimming in some kind of quaint alcohol, like mead or mulled wine and draped in the same golden, autumnal haze that I associate with other rich, honeyed harvest scents such as Botrytis and 1270 by Frapin. This, right here, is my bailiwick. Mah wheelhouse.

The splinter: The syrup boils over and becomes pure resin. The woods funnel into pine sap, with a helping of mint, blackcurrant leaf, and camphor, introducing an “aftershave”-like aftertaste. These notes interfere with a creamy-dry, rosy sandalwood in the base. I want to shove aside the throat-catching resin, pine needles, and mint, and enjoy my sandalwood unfettered. It won’t allow me. (If I wanted pine needles and mint, I would wear Nuit Etoilee).

Despite the odds stacked in its favor at the start, it is not a buy for me. But I am grateful to have been given the chance to try it. DelRae stuff is almost impossible to find in Europe.

Flickr

Further reading: Non Blonde and EauMG
LuckyScent has $150/50ml
Surrender to Chance has samples from $4/0.5ml

What about you guys? Have you ever built a fragrance up in your mind while reading reviews, only to have your hopes (and expectations) dashed to the ground when you actually get your nose on it?

Slán from sunny but cold Ireland,
Claire

Claire also writes for Take One Thing Off

What Fragrances Did You Wear Last Week?

October 1, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 29 Comments

Post by Portia

Heya Fumie Family,

It’s been a riotous week here in Sydney. So much happening and I was so involved I forgot to take photos of everything so here’s a smattering of what my week looked and smelled like.

What Fragrances Did You Wear Last Week?

KFC Brunch with buddies and BFF Kath’s family. It was short and sweet because I had to work that night, fun though.

Hosted the most sensational Hen’s Night that night. The girls were hilarious and we had a wonderful time.

Pedi Sunday. You can tell my Hobbit feet a mile off.

Yum Yum Cha Cha Cha with the crew. These are the heart of my friends circle and I love them.

Sunday night the JACKPOT went off at Austral Bowling Club. $1000 split 4 ways. Wonderful.

Tuesday it was head shave day and now you can see why I get it done so regularly. What a spunky barber. So sweet and he does a good job too.

Down at the local pool I’m up to 700m. Weather is perfect for getting my swim on. At 9am I have the pool pretty much to myself.

Morn to Dusk by Eau d’Italie: A vanilla-centric fragrance that is perfect for me. It’s warm, sweet and I’m surprised it doesn’t have more notes because it tells a beautiful story.

Divine EdP: Old fashioned BWF glamour done for the 21st century. I know it’s older than that but never feels dated or retro.

Mohur by Neela Vermeire Creations: All the roses set as a centrepiece with an enormous backing lineup that makes Mohur smell only of itself and slightly different every wear.

The Aoud by Mancera: Simple synth oudh with a minty kick in the heart and a longevity that beggars belief. Don’t get it on your clothes because they still smell after washing. I love this baby though and wear it quite a bit.

Tokyo Bloom by The Different Company: Lovely soft green cologne. Wears for me like an EdT but loads of people have problems with its longevity. Like walking on grass after the rain, so fresh and alive.

Antaeus by CHANEL: Just scored this vintage tester and it smells exactly like the bottles we had of it in the 1980s/90s. Jin stole my other bottle so I had to replace and it was well worth it. YUM!

Cabochard parfum by Gres: Not sure how old this baby is. I thought it was a vintage buy but it smells absolutely perfect, clear as a bell with that heavenly chypre dry down. Calm , cuddly and ever so elegant.

Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier: The original and best. One of my partners in the 1990s and I wore this exclusively for nearly a year. Good times, great memories. I just opened this new bottle so it’s getting quite a bit of wear.

No 19 EdC by CHANEL: One of my great green loves. The old EdC is surprisingly tenacious and spectacularly furry in dry down. MMMM

Boy by CHANEL: I had about 20ml left after I split this and it’s down to 5ml or less. I love it. Easiest wearing thing in my wardrobe right now. It’s very lavender-centric on me with a soft focus dry down of sweet nothings. I really like it.

So! How was your week? What did you do and what fragrances did you wear?
Portia xx

Taklamakan GIVEAWAY WINNER

October 1, 2016 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 1 Comment

Post by Portia

Heya APJers,

Woo Hoo! Thanks to Sandra and Maison de Parfum in Vienna for their generosity.

Let’s see who won!
Portia xx