Collection

Saturday Question: How Many Bottles Is Your Ideal and Why?

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 115 Comments

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Portia

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Hello Fellow Fumies,

Every Saturday we have a Question, an idea purloined from Olfactoria’s Travels. Everyone gets to chime in with an answer, chat with other responders and it is a fun event each week. Taking sides never means taking offence and everyone keeps it respectful and light, even though we can sometimes trawl the depths.

The idea is you’ll see it on the weekend or chime in through the week. Hopefully you will come back and see if anyone has responded to your comment and you can reply to them.

Continue reading →

Saturday Question: What Do You Have Backups Of?

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 142 Comments

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Portia

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Hello Fellow Fumies,

Every Saturday we have a Question, an idea purloined from Olfactoria’s Travels. Everyone gets to chime in with an answer, chat with other responders and it is a fun event each week. Taking sides never means taking offence and everyone keeps it respectful and light, even though we can sometimes trawl the depths.

The idea is you’ll see it on the weekend or chime in through the week. Hopefully you will come back and see if anyone has responded to your comment and you can reply to them.

Continue reading →

Back-up Bottles: Obsession or Collection?

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 76 Comments

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Post by Azar

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Hello Perfume Pals,

The other day, while digging through “the collection” in search of an old Bal a Versailles, I was surprised to find a number of un-opened back-up bottles of fragrances that I still like or even love but rarely use. I had forgotten that I had so many of these extras lying around and began to wonder what had prompted me to purchase them. Had I been dreading a reformulation or discontinuation? Were the extras received as gifts? Did I find such a good deal that yet another bottle was simply irresistible? Why wasn’t I using up these scents? This last question opened up a real can of worms: How much perfume do I actually use?

Back-up Bottles: Obsession or Collection?

Back Up Bottles Perfume Collection YouTubeYouTube

I pondered this for a while and realized that I probably average no more than two sprays or dabs per day – unless, of course, I am testing or sampling or writing a post. At two per day I will need several lifetimes to use up all the perfume I’ve stashed away over the many years I’ve been collecting and enjoying fragrance. Here is an incomplete list of partially full bottles, ranging in size from 30 to 300 ml, all backed up with at least two extra, full size bottles:

Annick Goutal Grand Amour
Aramis Calligraphy Rose
Basile EdP – vintage
Bourbon French Oriental Rose
Dior Hypnotic Poison EdT – vintage
Elizabeth Taylor Black Pearls EdP – vintage
Fidji EdT – vintage
Jacomo Silences EdT – vintage
L’eau de Monteil EdP – vintage
Lucien Lelong Sirocco cologne – very vintage
Maria Amalia
Micallef Black
Micallef Gardenia
Niki de Saint Phalle EdT – vintage
Olympic Orchids Siam Proun
Queen Latifah
Rasasi Amber Oud
Red Moscow
Sung EdT – vintage
Tom Ford Estee Lauder Youth Dew Amber Nude (I’d forgotten I had this and bought another!)

The list goes on, but there is simply not enough room to complete it in this post! I have reviewed several of these, either on APJ or on Perfume NW.

There will be a HUGE giveaway in March when Portia gets back from Europe.

How many back-up bottles do you have in your collection? How much fragrance in the form of parfum, extrait, cologne, EdP or EdT do you use on a daily basis? It’s OK to guess!

Azar xx

 

Shalimar by Guerlain: Back To My Favourite

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 33 Comments

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Post by Portia

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Hiya Frag Fiends,

Shalimar has been my enduring fragrant love. Since it was the fragrance of my Mum for years and some of her friends continued to wear it right through our childhood. Then working a couple of summers at the fragrance counter in a suburban mall, Carlingford Grace Bros. and getting to know a slew of fragrances it still held sway as the most beautiful of them all. Even now after being down the fragrant worm hole for years I still come back to Shalimar regularly and every time I do I quietly ask myself why I ever needed to stray from its billowing extravagance.

Shalimar by Guerlain 1925: Back To My Favourite

Shalimar by Jacques Guerlain

Shalimar Guerlain Ad FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Citruses, mandarin orange, cedar, lemon, bergamot
Heart: Iris, rose, vetiver, jasmine, patchouli
Base: Civet, musk, tonka bean, opoponax, leather, incense, vanilla, sandalwood

All I knew of Shalimar through my childhood was that it smelled incredible: its sweet, lemon ice-creamy vanilla over a hefty dollop of animal warmth, woodsy incense and plush leathers was so alluring and engulfing.

Named for the Shalimar gardens of Lahore (and Kapurthala’s homage) but the back story is of the love of Shah Jahan for a princess from the Persian nobility who he fell in love with, married and made her his favourite queen, after she died giving birth to their 14th child he nearly bankrupted his kingdom building the Taj Mahal as her crypt. The second time I was at the Taj Mahal the whole experience was so overwhelming that I needed to sit on the steps leading into the park and have a little moment. Yes, I was wearing Shalimar.

Shalimar Guerlain Collectionj 2015

Above is a picture of my Shalimar collection. Only the bottles of open boxes are shown, quite a few remain unopened because they are doubles, I have decants or they are discontinued and having/holding/looking at them is as good as smelling them. One of my parfums is not parfum at all (maybe EdC?) and another smells like it has been stretched with perfumers alcohol. The rosebud bottle is still sealed as are the 16oz watchface bottle and the little parfum on the navy box. The batwing bottle that is 1/3 full is my 4th bottle of EdT over the years, I really want to buy one of the newest but feel naughty as I have 2 backups bought at extremely reasonable prices when buying this one. What is interesting is that though the Shalimars are all different, they are so similar that if you’re wearing them for pleasure rather than parsing and blogging they are all pretty much one. No matter what era though the lemon ice-creamy fizz with the vanilla and an animal growl fits me like a glove. My number one.

Further reading: Erica Golding at APJ and Portia on EdC at APJ
FragranceNet has EdT $49/90ml before Coupon
Surrender To Chance has EdP samples from $3/ml

What is your number one?
Portia xx

Life, Friends, Collecting, Tea Towels

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 45 Comments

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Post by Portia

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Hi there Beautiful APJers,

Friday is my birthday so I thought we should do something special and only mildly fragrant.

My life is pretty blessed, without going into great detail I feel pretty lucky and have been given an enormous amount of advantages and every now & then good fortune has shone down too. The friends that have shared my life are amazing, fun, self sufficient, supporting, driven, caring, whole hearted and thoughtful (as in Full Of Thought) people with whom I share the big & small triumphs and tragedies, time and sometimes cyberspace. My work is fulfilling and suitable, homelife is sunny & comfortable and I get to travel regularly.

Something that is quite obvious is how much I love to collect things, each piece in the house has a memory attached (or several) and even my wardrobe is filled with happy memories and momentoes, wearable pieces of my personal history and a joyful life shared around the world. There is art collected from nearly 30 years of world travel, my parents 6 seater Royal Doulton mid 1960s wedding-gift starter set is now a nearly full 20 seat set with all add ons. Books have been culled by 50% need another 30% to fit into this apartment and you know how crazy my fragrance collection is.

In that same way I started collecting Tea-Towels. Tea-Towels are the ubiquitous collection for travelers because they are light, transportable, reasonably priced, useful and beautiful. Every time I grab one from the drawer I can instantly see where I bought it or who gave it to me (yes, once people know you collect they feed your collection on their holidays too). I try to use them all in rotation but it is becoming less possible to see any one towel even once a year, which is starting to make me a little sad, which in turn is diminishing my enjoyment. There is also a question of space in the new apartment.

Tea Towels 2015

Time to cull. The Tea-Towels have all been washed. The ones that I grab and can be bothered to iron (yes, I know but I find ironing Tea-Towels zen) will get to stay and the rest will be making journeys around the world to grace your kitchens.

So here’s the deal, I know some of you also have Tea-Towel collections and many of you use them only as things to wipe dishes and tidy messes. It doesn’t matter how you use them, or if you’ve never used one before in your life. Here is a chance to be sent a little bunch of Tea-Towels that have my and my friends love, travels, home and away happy memories. What you will be getting is a little package of joy that can be used every day, just throw them in the washing machine after use and they come back to life ready to be used and loved again.

giveaway kbairdPhoto Stolen kbaird

TEA TOWEL GIVEAWAY

Tea Towels 2015a

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have 5 winners who will receive:
Tea-Towels (some will be Aussie or International)
4 x Samples of Fragrance from my collection (Vintish/Vintage Beauties)
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. 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 (portia underscore turbo @ yahoo dot com dot au) so I know. Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged.

Please leave in the comments below your country and your fragrance today.

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Thursday 24th September 2015 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winner will be chosen by random.org
The winner will have till Sunday 27th September 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.