Brent Leonesio

SmellBent

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 29 Comments

Hey Hey Hey APJ!

As you may know we have been moving house, repainting, reorganising, decluttering etc to sell this apartment. Well during that madness I’ve found a few larger samples that did not get used, the sheer weight of samples and full bottles in this house would give you pause to think about my sanity, or lack of.

A favourite Independent Fragrance House, SmellBent makes affordable, fun filled fragrance that is both beautiful and sometime quite challenging. Owner Brent Leonesio is quite the hunk and has a super brilliant LA white smile and last time I caught up with him electric blue hair.

Brent Leonesio Facebook
Today on APJ we are giving away a supercool set of mostly discontinued SmellBent samples.

FrankenSmellie s13#916: Absolutely no idea what this is meant to smell like. I’m getting incense, wood, resins, some unnamed florals and musk. I think there may be some honey or something else quite sweetly animal.

Gimme A Break!: My skin amps the musks in Gimme A Break and it smells like a hookers Christmas panties, tenacity is extreme.

Ice Station Zebra: Resins and musk, a little bit of Vicks Vapour Rub too. I don’t get the zebra…

Pere Noel Coward: Dry, dusty, woodpile with the teeniest hint of syrup and a nod to the sauna.

Winter Vixen: Imagine the yummiest chocolate mud cake ever with rich chocolate, butter and cream icing. You have just been to the gym, you get home all sweaty and disheveled, you are taking a bite….

Till Valentines Day Feb 14 you can get FREE SHIPPING with SmellBent orders over $30

Go to it crew,
Portia xx

giveaway kbairdPhoto Stolen kbaird

SmellBent GIVEAWAY!

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 Winner who will receive:
5 x SmellBent 4ml samples: slightly used (FrankenSmellie s13#916, Gimme A Break!, Ice Station Zebra, Pere Noel Coward, Winter Vixen)
P&H

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

Go to SmellBent and find me a fragrance and one of its notes. NO DOUBLE UPS!!

Extra Chance?
Tweet:  http://wp.me/p3PURw-3C9 SmellBent GIVEAWAY!   @smellbent

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Friday 13th February 2015 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org
The winners will have till Monday 16th February 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.

Smell Bent Holiday Limited Editions 2013/4

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 4 Comments

Hey Niche Nerds and Indie Lovers,

Every year Brent Leonesio from Smell Bent and his crew create a madcap/wonderful range of seasonal scent specialties, this year has been no different and I ordered myself a set of the 4ml EdTs this year to see what the buzz would be about. I have reviewed my favourite 3 from the 5 piece set today, they are the most Pop-Out-And-Surprise for me. They are available for purchase till February 2014 but don’t wait, they are awesome…

Smell Bent Holiday Limited Editions 2013/4

Gimme A Break Smell Bent

Gimme A Break

Smell Bent gives these featured accords:
Silky patchouli, smokey wood, sheer jasmine and sultry musk drenched in sticky honeycomb

My skin amps the musks in Gimme A Break and it smells like a hookers Christmas panties, tenacity is extreme. I spritzed it last night at around 10pm and have had 2 swims since then yet still I can smell dirty patchouli, jasmine and musks. I think it doesn’t smell as intended on me, but maybe it does. Naughty!! It is excellent under other fragrances too to reinvigorate a thinner reformulation, my Mitsouko modern smells positively vintage with it.

pere noel coward Smell Bent

Pere Noël Coward

Smell Bent gives these featured accords:
Sweet immortelle, atlas cedar, jasmine, fir balsam and pinon sap

Dry, dusty, woodpile with the teeniest hint of syrup and a nod to the sauna. Pere Noël Coward is intensely woody and I feel like a lumberjack when I wear it. Oddly disconcerting but fun, wearing this is like playing dress ups. Brent has a way of making the most deliciously nuanced and interesting fragrant rides. I am not a person for whom the season normally matters for frag wearing but I am going to save my Pere Noël Coward for Europe in Jan/Feb where I think it will be perfection, right now it’s opening is almost a caricature. I get around the 5-7 hour mark in summer here.

snow birds 3 flakes Smell Bent

Snobirds

Smell Bent gives these featured accords:
Orange flower, aged amber, candied resins and dark patchouli spiced with cardamom and golden ginger

Snobirds is my favourite of the 2013/4 Holiday set. Gourmand, spicy, amber with cake-ish depths and glace fruit heights. You want to smell delicious, edible and sexy? This is your friend. Bakery with a sensual backbeat, I received my set about 3 weeks ago and Snobirds has seen more wear than the others put together. YUMMY McYUMMY!

Smell Bent has the 5 in a 4ml each Travel Set for only $28,
add their current Frankinsmellie as an extra and it only comes to $33 (that is what I grabbed)

Wishing you a wonderful, joyful, peaceful and profitable 2014, filled with good health, great friends and some of whatever it is that you like.
Portia xx

Chile Vanilli By Brent Leonesio for Smell Bent

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 24 Comments

Hello lovelies,

Make no mistake, I am a Smell Bent fan girl. I love their fun and interesting take on fragrance, their gorgeous Chairman and their price point. Smell Bent’s modus operandi is to spend all their money on the juice and little on the packaging, next to nothing on advertising. Now that is a sensible niche game plan to me, and it’s generating worldwide interest. Recently I dropped by the website a grabbed a couple of their perfumed oils.

Chile Vanilli By Smell Bent

Chile Vanilli FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Patchouli, Vanilla, Cinnamon

Firstly, I love the little oil pots from Smell Bent with their glass want applicator in the lid, it feels very new and ancient at the same time: this is how the Indian and Arabic oils are often presented and it’s really easy. Another wonderful thing about oils is that you get a longer wear time and slower development of the fragrance, though in Chile Vanilli’s case not really important because on me it wears quite linear. A lovely soft, warm blend that is perfect for Spring and Autumn. Today Sydney is a little brisk and I am feeling cuddled and coddled in a divine dry dessert fragrance that is delicious without being overly food-ish, though there are bakery moments towards the dry down. I think the patchouli, which is not excessive, keeps the composition grounded and earthy.

Smell Bent oils FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Though Chile Vanille is fragrant, it will not skunk those around you, especially in the oil form. I think it would be a perfect work, date, dinner scent where you want to smell fresh, clean, warm and inviting but not announce your perfumista status too loudly. In oil form there is less projection though any length of time spent somewhere and you will be smellable, soft but invasive.

For a complete list of the current, and often changing, Smell Bent choices go to the Smell Bent Site (<<<JUMP) my Chile Vanilli 8ml Oil was around $20, super good value for money!!

Here is a shot of the lovely, movie star good looking Chairman at Smell Bent, Brent Leonesio. If that’s not a good reason to go check out the Smell Bent Site then I don’t know what is.

Brent Leonesio FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Until tomorrow, Be Nice To Yourself.
Portia xx

SMELL BENT SALE

/ australianperfumejunkiescom

Hey Everyone,

Today is the last day of the massive SMELL BENT SALE. Sale ends midnight.robot

10 of their precious frag nectars are on sale at 50ml for $31.

Have fun shopping. They also have a fabulous sample section too.

Sorry there is not a fuller post today but Jin and I have taken our Aunty to watch the Sydney Gay And Lesbian Mardi Gras. WOO HOO! So it’s MADNESSS.

SMELL BENT SALE JUMP <<<

Portia x

Photo stolen Smell Bent

Smell Bent Reviews

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 11 Comments

Hey Fragrant Obsessives,

Yesterday we talked to Brent Leonesio from Smell Bent, indie perfume house. Today we are going to look at some of the newest creations from the range. These only went live less than a month ago and I am really excited about them. Brent reminds me of the Dad in The Book Of Lost Fragrances by M J Rose, who created scents for the sake of seeing if he can for his children. He is a master of surprise for me, and the tongue in cheek. Just look at that cheeky grin, you know you’re going to be in trouble with this wild boy.

Brent at the salon last week

Today I am proud to present 4 of the latest Smell Bent range for your edification. They are an interesting look at where Brent is currently. On Thursday we will be giving these away, 2 each to 2 lucky winners so be sure to come have a go at that. I am SO annoyed that we are giving these away, now I have to go and buy myself a set! GRRRRR!

Little Miss Panda Got Lei’d: Oh! This opens white floral and green, maybe it’s the guava that smells green to me. The honeysuckle and teak come through later but the white flowers maintain themselves softly too. Very late in, around 2 hours, it sweetens up to fruit, which may be the guava back to say hello, it just rides on top of the others for a while before it all disappears.  Smell Bent gives these accords; pikake (jasmine sambac) and tuberose leis with guava, japanese honeysuckle, and teak

Apres Soleil:  On my skin it opens with yummy honey, coconut and leather, it is gorgeous. About an hour later I get jasmine with sandalwood and coconut. It sounds dreadful but it’s not. There’s a warm, almost salty, delicious feeling to Apres Soleil. Not in your face, more close to the skin than any other Smell Bent fragrance I’ve tried and if perfume is there to make you smell good then this is a winner. The lasting power on Apres Soleil is about 6-7 hours on me with a lovely soft coconut/sandalwood dry down. Smell Bent gives these accords; jasmine absolute dressed up with honey, coconut, soft leather, sandalwood and nitro musk.

ORDER.html

Frankin Smellie S12#599 (Musk Melange): Green and musk to open, interesting. There are 9 musk aromachemicals in this fragrance. Brent tells us in his blog which means that many of us can’t smell them all, due to musk anosmia because we smell them in our laundry, dish and house cleaning, deodorants air purifiers etc etc. Goes on strong for me, almost leaves and then comes back all Muscs Koublai Khan and stays. Then it becomes almost vanilla towards dry down, this is not a big fragrance after its opening sequence on me.

Incensed Short Fuse: Delicious pepper and incense opening with a lovely swipe of cardamom, it’s like an Indian kitchen in here. This is so resonant with my memories of traveling through India. The memories are flooding back. My mates hotels, train Chai, Kerala houseboat, Dalai Lama’s cantonement, roadside stalls, 5 star hotels, Kashmiri wedding, steamy heat, freezing cold. This is like a travelogue. Thanks Brent AH MAY ZING!! The cardamom lasts right through to dry down in a clean, fresh and invigorating alternative to citrus. Smell Bent gives these accords; incense ignited with cardamom, pepper, amber resin and dry woods

Some of the Smell Bent fragrances have been a bit unwearable in close quarters company for me: Wolf Lumberjack, one of the Frakin-Smellies and Steve from the Scented Hound says Commando too. You wouldn’t wear Giorgio  or original Opium out to dinner either these days, but it’s fun to wear them at home for yourself, or to a garden party, or on a solo long drive, or the disco. None of the four I’ve brought before you today are offensive in any way, I think you could wear these anywhere without fear of reprisals.

My favourite? I knew you’d ask. I have 2, Incensed Short Fuse, obviously, and Apres Soleil because it’s winter here, even though I was out sunbaking for an hour at lunchtime, and this reminds me of long lazy summer days by the pool with a tonic water and orange slices.

Thanks for dropping by. You can buy a Travel Spray Set of all four of these for $23 including US shipping HERE (<<Jump) from the Smell Bent website. Do yourself and your nose a favour, go try them. You will not be disappointed.

Portia xx

PS I’ve used corresponding Smell Bent Artworks to illustrate each scent

Smell Bent Perfumer Brent Leonesio Interview

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 14 Comments

Hello pursuers of fine fragrances,

This week I have again chosen to highlight the incredible talent of an Independent Perfumer; Brent Leonesio from Smell Bent. It wasn’t so long ago that I discovered the Smell Bent brand, I’m not even sure how it happened now. Maybe another blogger was writing or I could have stumbled upon them in a late night google search. Maybe I came across his picture, because the man is really, decidedly, damned cute. Yummy McYUM!!

Doesn’t matter where I found Smell Bent, what do matter are the juices, they are fun, frivolously named, sideways and sometimes shocking fragrances. The fun belies the fact that if it’s a Smell Bent fragrance, then it will be awesome. Not always to my taste, it’s true, but something extraordinary never-the-less. The first scent I bought was a bottle of Tibet Yr Bottom $; a fun look at incense, woods and stuff, it stayed front and centre of the collection for 3 months, unheard of. Then, more recently, it was the Vocabulary range, the wolf pair, some gourmand Christmas frags, a couple of the Frankin-Smelly releases and to go along with this interview Brent has sent us 4 new sample size frags from his latest range for me to review and then for you to WIN! Check back on Thursday for details of how you can.

Here are a few questions that Brent was kind enough to take some time to answer, what a star….

Tell us about young Brent please?
I was definitely a curious kid.  I lived in my head and frolicked in fantasy.  And I think I still do.

What were you doing before you became a perfumer?
I worked in the fashion industry, had a bunch of different jobs – designing, wholesaling, buying.  But I got a little disenchanted with the business and was ready for a change.

How did you become interested in fragrance?
I ran out of a bottle of Armani Prive Bois d’Encens, which was going at about $200 at the time.  I went online looking for an affordable replacement when I fell down the rabbit hole known as Basenotes.  If only I had shelled out that cash, I wouldn’t be here today.

What qualifications do you have as a perfumer?
I love perfume and have studying it for 6 years and creating it for just over 3.  I guess you could say my qualification is passion.

Who were and are your mentors and inspirations?
I’ve been influenced by numerous artists in various mediums.  I look up to people like Franco Moschino, Estee Lauder and E.M. Forster.

Do you still wear mass market fragrances, if yes which and why?
I don’t wear much perfume as of late.  I usually save my nose for my work.  Recently though, I’ve been spraying myself with a bit of Alexander McQueen’s (sadly discontinued) Kingdom.

Who is your favourite independent perfumer and why?
I just got back from a show with 19 other indie perfumers.  I can’t think of a more exciting time to be working in the medium.  For the first time, in a long time, perfume is opening up and individuals who are passionate about making perfume are able to do so.  If you’re going it on your own, my hat is off to you!

Synthetic or natural, why?
I love a mix.  Naturals are incredibly interesting and complex on their own.  But there are so many exciting synthetics that offer smells the natural world doesn’t.  I couldn’t choose one over the other.

What constitutes a Smell Bent customer?
Anyone who thinks perfume can and should be fun.

How has your online business developed?
I started with a website and an email.  A friend ran a blog and wrote about me.  I just followed the aspects of businesses I respected- quick-turnaround, personalized service and high quality products at a good price.  I try and keep things as simple as possible.

Smell Bent is renowned for its quirky names and slightly sideways scents, why have you chosen that road?
When I started, I wanted to put me in the work.  And I guess a big part of it is just my personality coming through.  I also think that sometimes perfume takes itself too seriously and I wanted to change that.

Do you wish someday to work for the big end of perfumery, why?
I can’t say where I’ll be or with whom.  I’m gonna stick with smell bent for the foreseeable future.  The company is growing and finding an audience beyond my wildest dreams.

What fragrance, that you have made, do you always refer to in your mind as success, why?
I know which are most loved by my audience – scents like St. Tropez Dispenser or Bollywood of Bust.  I’m loving Short Fuse and Little Miss Panda Gets Lei’d.  But I’m always partial to the last things I’ve done.

What are the 5 most important things you have learned so far that could help budding perfumistas/perfumers?
1.     Start small.
2.     Ask for help.
3.     Don’t be afraid to try something new.
4.     When you’re most afraid of being different than everyone else, just keep going.
5.     Believe in yourself.

Where do you see Smell Bent in 5 years?
I would love to see the business continue to grow.  Every year has been a real adventure for me and I feel incredibly fortunate to be doing what I love.

Told you, Ah May Zing guy. Tomorrow I want to take you through the 4 newbies I’ve been sent to review for you, if you want to check the site before then SMELL BENT <<<JUMP
See you back here tomorrow then,
Portia xx

Photos Stolen Fragrantica

Reindeer Games and Hippie Holidaze by Smell Bent

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 2 Comments

Hey Smell People,

Don’t forget to enter our THURSDAY GIVEAWAY COMPETITION

Recently on Smell Bent the lovely Brent Leonesio had a warehouse clearance sale. So never one to let an opportunity for gratuitous fragrance shopping go by I ordered half the shop and a bag of chips. I love Brent’s irreverent style and sense of fun. He seems absolutely unafraid to experiment and aside from the quirky names and funky home made feel to his artwork the fragrances are the BOMB! My first true love from the Smell Bent range was Tibet Ur Bottom $, a super incense laden sparkly juice that would wash over me like waves of religion, it almost had me speaking in tongues. So what did my current haul turn up? And this is only a tiny sneak preview…

HIPPIE HOLIDAZE oil 2009: This was the Smell Bent Christmas offering for 2009. In the past I have always felt a bit, ” Gourmand? Really, smells like food? I don’t get it? I can’t smell that this is foodie.” Hippie Holidaze has changed my tune. On my skin we open with a a crisp tangerine (citrus anyway, but not a screechy bergamot) and then after about 15 minutes straight to pancakes and maple syrup with a cinnamon dusting. OMG! It is so rich and delicious, almost burnt. I am salivating. Ha Ha HAH! I can’t believe what I’m smelling on myself. Genius! Now I get the patchouli, yes here it is. I have nothing in the fragrance world that I’ve sniffed to compare it to except Angel by Mugler, this is cooler but hotter. All the ways that I hate Angel have been shorn away into something that I love. Great work Brent!

REINDEER GAMES oil 2010: Built for the Yuletide season again a year later this is like a grown ups version of Hippie Holidaze, the citrus is brighter, with incense to add a cool churchy feel at the beginning, instead of maple syrup this fragrance gives us hot and spicy, Christmas pudding with custard and freshly polished wood furniture, freshly cut wood for the fire that remains unlit and I know there’s no note listed as floral but I am getting something that I can’t pinpoint but it feels like a flower I should remember. This is Christmas done elegantly, or the dream and vision of it anyway. Not only is this a lovely body perfume but I think it would be gorgeous as a candle or room diffuser oil, especially for showing houses.

LIBERTY FOR ALL 2012: I don’t have this yet but the Smell Bent team have, um, maybe I better let the website explain

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve kinda got a thing for animals.  so do the folks over at liberty wildlife.  when they asked us to come up with a perfume to help celebrate their annual fundraiser, we were happy to oblige.
One of our favorite memories of our Phoenician adolescence is the smell of orange blossoms in the desert spring.  so that is where our composition begins.  and though it goes without saying, liberty for all was designed to be enjoyed by both men and women.
Notes: desert orange blossom with bergamot, ozone, tonka bean, hay, vetyver and sandalwood.
For each full bottle purchased, $25 will be donated directly to liberty wildlife

Go and have a look at Smell Bent they do some really inexpensive samples and ship worldwide, I have particularly enjoyed his Vocabulary range and Incensed. We do have an interview on its way with Brent Leonesio so look out for that in a couple of Mondays time. As always, thank you for spending your leisure time with us,

Portia xx