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Portia
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Hey there APJ Crew,
The weather in Sydney this winter is absolutely glorious. Not so good for our drought but wonderful for living, travelling and hanging out with mates. Good news is that my sniffer is getting back into working order, PHEW! Loads of fun fragrances to celebrate.
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Portia
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Hey Hey Perfume Junkies,
OK I’m adding a THUNKED section here too. It’s becoming an APJ obsession and I love the idea of us using our fragrances and hoiking the vial, decant or bottle. Thunk is the sound of an empty hitting the bin so you must empty it for the thunk to count.
Anything worthy of comment, either good or bad, that’s passed under my nose through the week will get a short write up. If I think something is terrible, shamefully lazy, greedy or stupid and you should know about it, it will be said. As always YMMV.
I’d love it if you get involved: agree, respectfully disagree, have any thought-out opinion and want to share, do so in the comments below. The point is starting a conversation.
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Post by Portia
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Hi there APJ Frag Family,
I’ve had this Alfred Sung bottle for years and at one point it was a favourite. Since falling well and truly down the fragrant worm hole it has been sitting at the back of a boxless bottle box getting zero love. I was sure it was a BWF but couldn’t put my nose-memory on how it smelled so at about 3pm today I opened up my shirt and double spritzed…….
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Parfumo gives these featured accords:
Top Bergamot, Galbanum, Hyacinth, Mandarin, Orange, Ylang-ylang, Lemon Heart
Heart: Iris, Jasmine, Lily-of-the-valley, Osmanthus
Base: Amber, Orange wood, Sandalwood, Vanilla, Vetiver
WOW! Tania Sanchez wasn’t wrong when she called this a “Jasmine Diaper”. We have some serious poopy action going on and I LOVE it. Sung is so 1980s it hurts, we have a creamy citrus floral opening. HA! I know right. What the f*%@k does that even smell like? Well it smells big and naughty and completely over the top. Beyond your wildest BWF Skank Dreams Sung delivers.
Then Jin came home and we went and saw a movie (Ricki and the Flash – Meryl Streep and her daughter play with Kevin Kline and Rick Springfield. It’s wonderful. Do yourself a favour.) so I got to really appreciate the fragrance through the film.
Photo Stolen Nordstrom
Sung smells good in an “Allergies to fragrance, you must be joking dear” kind of way. The “I couldn’t care less if you do anyway” or ” Oh do choke quietly darling, we have guests” school of thought and action. It’s big, it’s floral aldehydic, it’s fruity, it’s poopy and it is obnoxious. I freaking LOVE IT!
The photos I’ve chosen are some of Alfred Sung’s designs. Yes he is still designing and nowadays he is doing some really fun retro bridesmaids dresses that are affordable and fun. Loads of jewel bright colours but there are also a lovely lot of very pretty more muted shades to pick from too. If you’re thinking Mad Men Wedding then these are totally going to rock your socks off. Below is a ferocious bride-zilla photographed among the chandeliers looking exactly as Miss Haversham must have looked when she was given the news. Aghast, beautiful, rich and terrified. It’s probably how every bride feels inside somewhere deep down.
Sung is exactly the fragrance she would be wearing, to make a big impression as she walked down the aisle. Her sillage a wake that dolphins could gambol in. The unforgettable, once in a life time (yeah right) dream moment when every guest takes a deep breath in homage to a perfect bride.
Photo Stolen Wedding House
So to be honest Sung was a little overwhelming in the film. I was glad that there were only 3 other people in the cinema and that they were up the back. Though I did not find it disatracting, there were a few times when I moved and great gouts of floral and fertiliser flavoured air swooshed out of my top. It was a perfect accompaniment to the film and I bet it’s what Meryl Streep’s character Ricki wore, so it was kind of perfect.
Fragrance Shop has $20/50ml before coupon
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $3/ml
What has been hiding in your cupboards that should get an airing?
Portia xx
Hey all,
Wasn’t Evie C’s blog awesome yesterday? I am so happy for her. Now that she is enthroned in her new home (read Cape Cod Mansion. Party at Evie C’s!!!) we’ll be seeing an Evie C post every Monday!! YAY!
I have a bunch of fragrances that I wear only for myself, even though I may be wearing them in company. They are either personal memory jogs, scents that are too out there for close contact with other human beings on a number of different levels, fragrances that I feel like certain internally different people when I wear them (a bit like the United Fragrances Of Tara) or maybe just because I don’t want to be interrupted while enjoying the story they tell me in olfactoric terms. I know, I just invented a word, call me William Shakespeare and paint me plum. This is not a complete list but a smattering of ones I’ve put on today and yesterday.
Byzance by Rochas; In 1987 this perfume was released and my parents bought it for my younger sister. It is a dizzying Floral Chypre confection full of spices, woods and flowers. Byzance has such gusto and is quite a force of nature. So 80’s in its size and character that it is almost a parody. When I put it on it fills the room with memories. Mum used to steal it too and when both girls were wearing Byzance the whole house smelled like it had been transported to my idea, at the time, of a night market in India, Saudi Arabia or Persia. With dancing women wearing enormous copper jeweled bracelets and gauzy nothings and the mustachioed men all armed and dangerous. I recently bought a replacement 100ml EDT bottle that is so far inferior to my last Mini EDP that it fair makes me want to weep. I have corrected the error this evening ordering a BIG, FAT 100ml EDP. Budget BLOWN! We are not eating till next Friday, we’ll have to scour the suburbs bins for left overs. Fragrantica and Bonkers About Perfume can give you notes and stories and reviews.
Sung by Alfred Sung; In 1986 the world was first graced with this huge Classic Floral. It is like wearing a jewel bright, shoulder padded jacket with a peplum and gold buttons, spike heels and has a certain breath of air in the hair. Unlike Byzance though, Sung is dreamy and floaty, there is no earth or spice market, just fruit, flowers and sky. Nothing smoky here. It is flowers and the lightest of woods, vanilla and balms. I always feel transported somewhere beautiful when I wear Sung. It has probably been reformulated 100 times but all those past formulations I have no reference for, sorry, this Sung is the one. A bright coruscating trill of warm summer that leaves me dazzled by its effervescent radiance. This is a good Nana nap fragrance for me, I can really lose myself in the scent as I drift off. What’s more, this juice is CHEAP! Fragrantica and Fragrance Bouquet have the nitty gritty and stories, go see them, you’ll learn stuff.
Salvador Dali by Salvador Dali; We seem to be jumping back in time by a year for each of these scents, and here we are in 1985! Here we have a rerun of a fragrant milestone. Salvador Dali and his perfumista wife Gala had designed this glorious Floral Chypre together before she tragically died in 1983, it was so successful as a limited edition that Dali decided to make it commercially available. I have only heard of the original scent and must content myself with the modern remake until I win the lottery. It is hardly a settle for though. Rose, citrus, musk and jasmine with a breathy vanilla and musk all give a lighter and lovelier tone and is a little more modern than our last 2 offerings, though it does have a slightly grungy undertone if you look for it. There is air between the notes here giving it room to show itself to best advantage. Very linear and it is not a long lasting scent, maximum 2 hours on my skin, which is great because by then I want a change usually. I am sending you to the Fragrantica Dali page, the whole Dali shebang.
Lastly I want to offer you a fragrance that came to me through another love. A few years ago one of the guys I was in ballet school with as a kid made it into the Vienna State Opera Ballet. At the time I was living in the UK so it was the work of a moment to trot over and spend a week with him. Hey David! Of course, he was at rehearsals all day so I was largely left to explore a foreign city alone and without the local language, not even a sprinkling. Fortunately Vienna at that time was a lavish and glorious city with friendly, welcoming people who were used to language dunderheads coming up to them and trying to make themselves understood. It was not a big city then either and mostly you kept within walking distance of the Ringstrasse when doing touristy stuff, so I felt cocooned within a friendly and safe environment. So that is how I met and fell in love with Empress Elisabeth, on my solitary wanders around Vienna. Something she would become famous for as her madness descended into its depths, walking till she dropped of exhaustion. Famed as the most beautiful woman in Europe at the time, the first at the jumps in the hunt (riding side saddle no less), an exercise junkie who had terrible trouble getting to sleep, Creed made a perfume especially for her. It was Fantasia de Fleurs. As soon as I found out the story of this perfume I wanted it in my fragrance wardrobe. It is the most hauntingly beautiful perfume I own, certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. Surprising that the Empress was wearing a bouquet of flowers, rose and iris, rather than a soliflor and it is tooth achingly sweet. As with most Creed perfumes, fleeting, at most I get an hour of scent but the joy of holding this heavy embossed bottle and spritzing with abandon is enormous, so spritz again right. Fragrantica and I Smell Therefore I Am will give you notes, breakdowns and buying ideas, Abigail is also the Posh Peasant where you can get samples and decants of these and a gazillion other things.
I’m thrilled you’ve shared my fragrant thoughts today. Do you have a selfish perfume that you wear only for you but sometimes in company? Please tell us in the comments. We are dying to read your secret loves,
Portia xxx
All photos today are stolen from Fragrantica with these exceptions
Byzance ad stolen from PharmacyAtHand
Sung stolen from stylebugs
Empress Elisabeth stolen from Wikipedia
I am not affiliated with any of the companies I mention in my posts.
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