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Post by Ainslie Walker
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Hi APJ,
Named after Christian Dior’s friend and muse Mitzah Bricard and now sadly discontinued, from the first whiff today’s fragrance takes my breath away. I really don’t know why. Is that what the Dior website means when they describe it as “enchanting”? I’m definitely enchanted.
Don’t Forget to enter our Oriza L. Legrand Sample Sets GIVEAWAY
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured acords in one line:
Coriander, rose, spices, cinnamon, labdanum, vanilla, honey, patchouli and incense
With Mitzah I’m reminded of a freshly baked red velvet cake. Deep red rose, warm vanilla, amber and spicy, balmy cinnamon. Pungent labdanum comes and go, in the first hour taking this fragrance into a far from innocent direction.
Mitzah could easily be unisex.
Photo Stolen WikiMedia
Something smolders, reminiscent of a café in a Parisian street. Coffee…fur-clad fashionistas, still up from the night before. Resinous incense from a nearby chapel in the air. Sultry yet sweet. A touch creamy. More and more amber and burnt toffee notes. Freshly scorched Crème Brulee? Brandy? Some say honey…I’ve never had honey that smelt like this. Vanilla and patchouli stay close to the skin, a soft, deep powdery touch amongst the smolder and amber. It’s hard for me to decide if the amber or frankincense is dominant. They dual fairly equally until the un-bitter end.
Wearing it, I wonder if anyone else around me can smell it? Every few minutes I find myself pressing my wrist to my nose. It’s addictive. I want more. I wish it were BIGGER. It’s rich, but not big. *Sob! It’s almost a little linear, not much movement or change, but I love it. It hugs and comforts, sophisticated, whilst still somehow remaining a little elusive with its unchanging wafts.
Photo Stolen Pixabay
I wear it to bed and sleep well, in a cave of sensual patchouli and sweet deep amber and incense. Just before I drop off there’s a sharp note of coriander seed amongst the mix. I think of Marrakesh for some reason. Longevity is good it’s still there in the morning, mainly the resins. Just there. Not screaming out or anything, just kind of lingering around.
I thought I’d test it further and head out for some exercise doused in it. As my body temperature increases I get slightly more toffee and incense, but I really think it remains pretty constant. Mitzah is subtle and noticeable at the same time. I kind of imagine Mitzah to be introverted, but noticeable. Consistent. Unique. Decadent and sensual. This fragrance is rich, soft and deep.
Photo Stolen Flickr
Mitzah is not so much a journey, she’s just doing her thing. In the background but holding a striking presence leaving some of us a little spellbound.
Further reading: Australian Perfume Junkies and Olfactoria’s Travels
Still available in Paris and rare DIOR stores and counters
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $3/ml
Try it if you can, before it’s gone (or super expensive)…otherwise some say Serge Luten’s Amber Sultan makes a good substitute.
Hiya Junkies,
As you may know I have a bit of an addictive personality, also I am a Drag Queen, so you’d think I would have box loads of make up. The answer is no. Yes, I have backups of my favourite products but everything fits into a small drawer. I do love watching makeup fashions evolve though and this season I think DIOR has hit a home run. Looking like a pastel Bambi with eyes the surprised vacant look of a bunny about to get Dunlop disease, the model is absolutely outrageously gorgeous.
Of course it is referencing Marie Antoinette but in my mind it also harks back to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. GLAM.
Like the look? Want to know how to get it? Below is a how to video.
Enjoy,
Portia xx
Photo Stolen TheMalayMailOnline
Photo Stolen DIOR
Hiya Holiday Campers,
We are cleaning the Perfume Room and giving it a new paint job. It’s quite a BIG DEAL so over the next couple of days I am dropping in some Video stuff that I’ve found interesting, educational or took me outside my box. Some of it is ONE TOPIC but some will alsao be TOTALLY OFF TOPIC!
Here are a couple of the beautiful Holiday Wish series the big guns are putting out this year. They are getting less outrageously gorgeous each year and a bit generic, these are two of the better offerings.
Photo Stolen Jerine Lay Flickr
Hello Frag Heads!!
One of the best known perfumes in the world is J’Adore by DIOR. That fabulously iconic bottle, so simple yet so evocative, elegant and luxe. I have a recentish 2011 EdP. This little beauty by Calice Becker was launched in 1999 and has become so outrageously successful that for a while it was all you smelled, you could pick people in the street wearing it. Sensational projection and sillage it gives a very definite nod to the power frags of the 1980s. A fun, rich, sizzling fruity floral that is so far beyond all the other department store offerings of the genre that it stands alone. even now that it has had some surgery, is leaner and more transparent. So many copy cats have missed the whole allure of …
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Magnolia, melon, peach, pear, mandarin, bergamot
Heart: Freesia, orchid, rose, violet, lily of the valley, plum, jasmine, tuberose
Base: Musk, vanilla, cedar, blackberry
An opening that all the celebuscents and drug store offerings try so hard to imitate, but they never seem to get the melon just at that point of pre-dustbin overripeness, the magnolia doesn’t have that gorgeously plush waxinessand the background fruit salad never seems like it could lead you astray with a wink.Here the proportions are perfect and when I smell J’Adore I think of all those fabulous women that are secure and wonderful enough to wear such a beauty.
The bouquet in the heart is pretty and wafts for hours with its plummy, very slightly indolic, siren call. Even through the heart of J’Adore’s 7-8 hour lifespan the woods and vanilla plump up the flowers and give them a cozy breadth, the musks may be helping too at this point but I miss them completely. Towards the end J’Adore goes transparent and has a pretty woodsy/vanilla/musk wash that has become a little generic because it smells good and everyone wanted their inferior products to smell like that. The dry down reminds me of the Our Moment dry down but it lasts less long and can be washed off, unlike the One Direction offering.
If you spray J’Adore on your scarf or in your handbag it will smell like that for the whole season with one spritz.
Most of the time we aren’t trolling the department stores for our scents now the wormhole has claimed us, but if you happen to be walking by spritz a card, or skin if you have some spare, and enjoy the ride.
Further reading: Bois de Jasmin takes a look at the changes that have happened to J’Adore and Perfume Shrine
FragranceNet starts at $75/30ml before coupon
Surrender To Chance has EdP in current $3/ml and vintage $5/ml
Today we have a wonderful film about J’Adore, created by the DIOR company so it’s really a 22 minute advert. There is some very interesting stuff in here too though if you have the time.
See you tomorrow,
Portia xx
J’Adore the film
Hello APJ,
Here is an interview with Liu Jianhua, the designer of a marvelously opulent set for the DOIR ‘Esprit Dior’ exhibition Shanghai. He is shown erecting the installation and talks of how he came to some of his artistic decisions and the links he brings from Christian Dior’s own magical presence in the exhibition. In under 2 minutes the director has captured both the beauty and intensity of Liu Jianhua’s vision and some of how he brought it to life.
Photo Stolen Wikipedia
Please enjoy.
Portia xx
Hi all,
Just watched this and thought you may all like it. Fun and cute from DIOR. This season’s colours are especially gorgeous!
I think they’ve used stop motion to great effect and LOVE the CD Chairs by the pool. YUMMY!
Enjoy the mini movie,
Portia xx
Photo Stolen TheBeautyLookBook
Hey All,
I hope you like this cutie of and ad from DIOR. The girl is sweet looking, kind of drag queen-ish and having a laugh. Perfect
Portia xx
Hello APJ Family,
You may remember last year Christan Dior brought out a sensational mini movie shot in Versailles, the Louis XIII through XVI hunting lodge turned palace. I was lucky enough to be in Versailles in February and it snowed during our visit. Outrageously, perfectly, incredible. I would very much like to go back and spend three days looking because there was way too much to take in in one viewing. Here then is this years installment in what looks like it may become a tradition.
Photo Stolen Atanar.com
I hope you enjoy it and the making of.
Portia xx
Hello Happy Huffers,
In todays post we look at a fragrance that I’ve always thought of as a mid summer spritz to cool, calm and collect myself. I have rarely worn it in the cooler months and then only for memories of summer. It has always felt beautifully blended but today for the first time I am wearing it for review purposes.
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, petitgrain and lemon
Heart: Almond, orange blossom and juniper berries
Base: Cedar, cypress, galbanum, caraway and musk
BANG! WHOOSH! Citrus opens bright, effervescent and audacious. A sparkling and fun fizz that says summer is around the corner, we are gripped by spring, life is good and wonders will never cease. For a fun pick me up to any blue day then Escale à Portofino is the antidote. A big cheesy smile in every spritz. We maintain a green freshness as the juniper berries sweep in but my skin and nose doesn’t register the orange blossom except as background voices to the lovely green snap of those berries, and the citrus stays around for a very decent length of time into fragrance life.
Photo Stolen WallpapersCraft
When the almonds come through its a sweet milky surprise, woodsy too, adding a lovely depth to what is essentially a very cologne-esque adventure. I am surprised that Escale à Portofino hasn’t been marketed more directly to the men, it would be a perfect masculine as well as being a lovely feminine. The dry down never registered with me before today, it maintains its green heart but warming and unsweetening slightly and becoming a bit more herbal. Very interesting. A very Green Tea scent to close, gorgeous whispers and wafts before finally, gone.
My main qualm with Escale à Portofino is that usually when I wear it the lasting power is terrible, around 3 hours maximum. Today though when worn with the express purpose of reviewing it I got over 6 hours of fragrant life, interesting. This may be better in mid seasons rather that the heat or cold? Today is a lovely 20 degrees celcius with the sun shining and I feel like I have made a new fragrant friend, the whole life of Escale à Portofino got more interesting and longer.
Photo Stolen Fragrance-Oil
Further reading BoisDeJasmin and Olfactoria’sTravels
FragranceNet has $55/75ml
SurrenderToChance starts at $3/ml
Don’t you love it when an old favourite that you’ve worn for ages at a certain time changes its face for you? What frags have done this for you?
Portia xx
