Fashion

Geranium Bourbon by Miller Harris 2005

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Post by Tina G

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A nice surprise decant from a friend! An intriguing scent – I’d not come across Miller Harris as yet, and I couldn’t begin to think of what Geranium Bourbon entailed. Was it a boozy scent? Did it really have geranium? And how did those two things work together? After a bit of research I discovered that geranium bourbon was actually a particular type of geranium. OK, sure, let’s give this a run through….

Geranium Bourbon by Miller Harris 2005

Geranium Bourbon Miller Harris FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Palmarosa, cassis, geranium
Heart: Violet, rose, black pepper
Base: Vanilla, amber, patchouli

Geranium Bourbon opens with a watery pink rose, like rain which has been cupped in a heart of a bloom and then poured across my skin. It is so refreshing and light, really wonderful. After about 10 minutes there is a peppery scent which comes through along with a lemon ‘juice’ accord. I’ve never smelt geranium bourbon plants themselves, but fresh geraniums definitely have that peppery/lemony background to their leaves. The scent deepens throughout the first half hour, gradually becoming more earthy and green.

I enjoy the dry down of Geranium Bourbon as it transitions from fresh & light, to earthy, and then some amber & smoky notes come through with a trace of vanilla in the basenotes. And then this becomes for me one of those scents which triggers some strong visual imagery – I hope you don’t mind if I indulge in the story it wove for me:

Geranium Bourbon Miller Harris spring PixabayPhoto Stolen Pixabay

Sitting on the cold, wet white wood of the outside furniture & wrapped up in a blanket stolen from near the inside fire, I sit watching the drips of water fall from the plants in the luscious English summer garden. The storm shower passed through quick and heavy though there is no sign of sunlight yet through the grey sky. The trellis behind me is thick with a blooming tea rose vine, the myriad of simple pink flowers releasing a pervasive but delicate fragrance into the now-still air. The earth in the flower bed has been turned recently and is damp and rich.

Geranium Bourbon Miller Harris Angeleyes_Randy WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

The bedded violet and geranium plants have been beaten by the heavy rain. There is a lemony-rose scent from the geranium flowers, mixed in with a tart herbal pepperiness from the succulent leaves. For a while I sit in the coolness just watching, listening, and breathing, until the damp starts to seep in. Snuggling down into the blanket further I can smell the sweet smoke from the lounge room hearth embedded in its fibres. From somewhere inside the house, a tendril of sweet vanilla from something delicious baking is enough to rouse me from quiet contemplation and head inside to the warmth.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

Further reading: What Men Should Smell Like and I Smell Therefore I Am
Perfumery Australia has $110/100ml
Posh Peasant has samples starting at $4/ml

What about you? Have you tried Geranium Bourbon? Any of the Miller Harris range? What did you think?

Wishing you all a lovely week.
Tina G

Prelude to Love by Calice Becker for by Kilian 2008

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Hi hi hi Sniffas,

While in London earlier in the year my mate Tara (of Olfactoria’s Travels) gave me a set of the by Killian samples. It’s beautifully presented in a little velvet pouch of 2ml vials. On my return from traveling I searched high and low and couldn’t find the damn thing, then I forgot about it in the way you do. While cleaning up stuff in anticipation of our move I discovered the baggie in a small cardboard box that had been packed and put to the side with a bunch of other stuff from the trip. I would swear I looked in the box thousands of times……

Prelude to Love by Calice Becker for by Kilian 2008

Prelude to Love By Kilian FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, Seville orange, Amalfi lemon, bitter orange
Heart: Ginger, neroli, rose, cardamom, orange blossom, freesia, pink pepper, lavender
Base: Iris, Cypriol oil, musk, Russian leather

Basenotes gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, orange, lemon
Heart: Ginger, neroli, orange blossom
Base: Florence iris

The glorious, pithy citrus tinged with green is juicy and ripe. It is the warmest cool fragrance, with a very interesting oily/petrol taint that I find peculiar and inviting. Like pashing/snogging a recently showered and cologned mechanic. There is something extremely lived in about Prelude To Love that makes it more than a cologne, it’s a cologne involved in a sexual tryst, even to the lightly breathy orange blossom and neroli in the heart.

Prelude to Love By Kilian Orange_zest WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

As an aside: I was standing next to a gardenia hedge early this evening and the absolutely gorgeous/disgusting fragrance emanating from the flowers was completely engulfing, I was transported into a world of scent, shut my eyes for a moment and just breathed in the luscious, lascivious, overwhelming fragrance.

Prelude To Love is nothing like that but it does have elements of that sweetly erotic, human in close contact but cleanly washed idea. Freshly washed flesh but in a hairy nook or crevasse that always maintains the humanity.

Prelude to Love By Kilian sext mechanic PinterestPhoto Stolen Pinterest

Then, not long after I am swept away by an extremely pretty floral, it’s a bouquet, thick, rich and heavy. That’s what’s so weird about Prelude To Love, though it feels a bit cologne-ish, the heft and nuance seem too deep and mercurial for it to be put in such a simple category. This cologne has cajones. A honeyed, animalic sweetness runs under the whole life of the fragrance that has me smiling as I get huffs, very, very nice to wear. I can see why Prelude To Love is still so popular.

Prelude To Love is fabulous, you can tell it is the best. You want similar results but for a fraction of the price? 4711, even the newest formulation, is a very good bright citrus cologne. You will have to reapply more frequently but isn’t that half the fun?

Prelude to Love By Kilian QM2 Sydney WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

Further reading: Bois de Jasmin and Olfactoria’s Travels
LuckyScent has $155/4 x .25oz Travel Spray Set
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $4/.5ml

Do you love the by Killian range? Is there a favourite amongst them for you? I love sweet Redemption and Back to Black, Prelude To Love is wonderful, I’m pretty sure though that there are 6 other citrus frags in my wardrobe that I’d reach for first.
Portia x

 

Kalemat by Arabian Oud

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Post by FeralJasmine

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Some time ago, my friend Kafkaesque did a review of a then-unknown perfume called Kalemat, from Arabian Oud. It was $60 for a big bottle, and such is the seductive power of Kafkaesque’s prose that large numbers of us blind-bought it.

Kalemat by Arabian Oud

Kalemat Arabian Oud FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Blueberry, anise
Heart: Rosemary, cashmere wood, floral notes
Base: Musk, amber, honey

To see exactly what seduced us, there is no alternative to reading the original post, because nobody can write like Kafkaesque. You will also note that, like a comet, the post developed a very long tail as we all reported back with our experiences. My own response was a tiny bit disappointed at the time, and that’s where matters stayed until a few months later, when I noticed that the level in my bottle had decreased visibly and bought a back-up bottle. In cool weather, I reach for it at least three times a week, and often wear it as a comfort scent in the evening and on weekends.

Kalemat Arabian Oud Women's_Day_in_Egypt WikiMedia)Photo Stolen WikiMedia

So why did it take me weeks to fall in love? Chasing a youthful dream, I’m afraid. To this day, my dream amber is one that I smelled on a woman in Egypt over 20 years ago as she passed me in the street, and I am still seeking that honeyed amber spice-bomb and haven’t found it. When I read about Kalemat, I was sure I had found it, and felt irrationally disappointed when Kalemat was its duplicate but, on my dry perfume-eating skin, was a soft memory rather than the concentrated bombshell original. All the notes are there, but the volume is turned down.

Kalemat Arabian Oud Amber Ann Porteus FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Is that a bad thing? Not at all. If I found my dream amber, Kalemat Cubed, it would probably clear elevators. Kalemat has a beautiful sunset-honeyed cloud of an opening that has excellent projection and killer sillage, and for the first 20 minutes projection is several inches off my skin. I spray before going to work, and enjoy this part along the commute. By the time I arrive, the sillage is soft and polite and it never raises an eyebrow among my colleagues. I don’t get the rivers of amber that Kafkaesque got, but I do get trickles of honeyed spiced amber that delight me every time I can sniff my wrist surreptitiously, and waft to me with every movement of my hands. A few other notes, like the blueberry-spice note, drift by and turn my thoughts firmly to pleasant things when they reach my nose. Sprayed more heavily in the evening, it reminds me that life is so lovely and generous that those of us who can’t afford the Roja Doves can still smell wonderful. It is killer on a scarf in the winter, warming you subtly. The packaging is also lovely, with a heavy, substantial 100ml glass bottle that arrives in a lovely Arabic-lettered book box.

Kalemat Arabian Oud mosque CarlMaxwellLewin PixabayPhoto Stolen Pixabay

The parent company, Arabian Oud, moved off Amazon but Kalemat can still be found on EBay for very reasonable prices. Someday I still hope to find my dream amber for special occasions, Kalemat Cubed, but this one will hold me just fine until then.

FeralJasmine X

Cuir de Lancôme by Calice Becker and Pauline Zanoni for Lancôme 2007

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Post by Trésor

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As I am writing this the very first snow of the season is beginning to fall and winter’s crystalline breath is rushing through the labyrinth of tree branches outside my window, sounding with an orchestral percussion as if greeting the frigid embrace and welcoming it with open arms. My world is now captured within a veil of glimmering virginal white and my heart longs for a warmth that’s slipped away as sand through an hourglass.

Cuir de Lancome Grandma Katina Rogers FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Not the physical warmth of being cocooned within a favourite blanket but an intangible emotional warmth that only blooms with the reminiscence of being held in the arms of one who’s love has served as both shelter and unfailing nourishment. Someone who’s love remains only as radiant aura held within a sacred chamber deep within your heart. Few fragrances are able to manifest such cherished memories for me, to transcend space and time and revive as this fragrance does. Today I review Cuir de Lancôme, a magical potion and olfactory time machine who’s precious vapors transport me and pay tribute to my beloved grandmother. A pulchritudinous woman, a force of nature who’s luminous soul taught me of absolute joy and unconditional compassion.

Cuir de Lancôme by Calice Becker and Pauline Zanoni for Lancôme 2007

Cuir de Lancome Lancome FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Mandarin orange, saffron, bergamot
Heart: Patchouli, hawthorn, jasmine, ylang-ylang
Base: Orris root, birch, styrax

The opening of Cuir de Lancôme is a spectacular symphony of brilliant, spherical mandarin and delicately bitter bergamot. The effect is so incredibly familiar, not dissimilar to the aroma of an exquisite artisinal soap procured on a journey through the south of France. This is a most beauteous prelude to what I can only describe as one of the softest, most creamy and positively unctuous leather notes I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Cuir de Lancome leather_jacket WikipediaPhoto stolen Wikipedia

Cuir de Lancôme is not akin to the subversive, BDSM black of Etat Libre d’Orange’s Rien but a master class in restrained elegance. Utterly smooth with textural symmetry to that of whipped butter and kissed with delicate swirls of saffron and I’m certain other spices which are so meticulously blended that they simply register as a gossamer veil of whispering heat. Beneath this leather smolders a rich, deep and dry patchouli interlaced with the balsamic splendor of a languid styrax and an exceptionally photorealistic note of birch.

What’s so terribly beautiful about this act of the fragrance is how it pulsates from the skin in a soft and gloriously diffuse halo, maintaining a poised restraint while beckoning you closer as if to draw you into a tender hearted embrace. It is this precise moment where Cuir de Lancôme is most fragile but as with all creatures of beauty it is in this fragility where it exhibits it’s most extraordinary power, an immaculate vulnerability. An achingly divine swan’s song leading the fragrance into conclusion, just traces of powdery warmth dancing upon the skin.

Cuir de Lancome Swarovski_swan elektriksheep DeviantARTPhoto Stolen DeviantART

I usually get a good 8 hours wear out of this deeply beautiful elixir with a moderate sillage that’s surprisingly enveloping despite it’s modest nature. Though I prefer it as the temperatures descend I think one could wear it any time they pleased, it’s really quite versatile in that way.

Further reading: Now Smell This and Olfactoria’s Travels
Galaxy Perfume has $79/50ml
FragranceX has $102/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $5/ml

I’d love to know which fragrances bring to life memories of an incredible happiness as this does for me. Sending each of you all of my love.

Trésor xx

Onda Extrait by Vero Kern for Vero Profumo 2007

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Post by Val the Cookie Queen

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Hi APJ

1. “There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe.” C.S Lewis. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Onda Keep CalmPhoto Donated Val CQ

2. “I think I’m on another world with you
I’m on another planet with you
You always get under my skin
I don´t find it irritating
You always play to win ……” “Another Girl, Another Planet” The Only Ones 1978

3. “When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.” Joseph Joubert 1754 – 1824

Onda Extrait by Vero Kern for Vero Profumo 2007

Onda, Stilletos and One Year On.

onda Vero Profumo FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Vetiver, ginger, mace, coriander

From Vero Profumo site:
“Ambrosial whisperings, sweet nothings, tender and potent – and deeply moving.”

Onda StilettosPhoto Donated Val CQ

It is just about a year to the day that I received my bottle of Onda Extrait.

There has been much written about Vero Kern’s Onda masterpiece. Like it or hate it, it will leave you reeling. And it delights me. It took time to understand it, it wasn´t love at first try, Slowly it wrapped its coils around me. Now I long for it.

onda Vero Profumo Foggy Hill GeographPhoto Stolen Geograph

Onda permeates my thoughts. I listen to music and feel Onda. I read and feel Onda. When I met Vero Kern she was wearing Onda. If I had not know that it, I would have wondered if she was wearing anything at all. It was a part of her. Vero Kern says “I´m not interested in “clean” scents. I need characterful scents both in my creations but also as a wearer. Besides this, I love everything that reminds of the smell of skin.” Onda Extrait in that case is a breathtaking success.

Onda is very erotic, very sensual, but furthermore it is calming.

onda Vero Profumo Black Stilettos Dubois PixabayPhoto Stolen Pixabay

Like wearing black patent stilettos, Onda is for when the time it right. It might not be often but it is critical to own both.

Onda is much more than a perfume, indeed it is art. It is a part of the current exhibition “Nirvana, Strange Forms of Pleasure” at the MUDAC (musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains) in Lausanne, Switzerland, which runs from the end of October 2014 until the end of April 2015.

onda Vero Profumo Fleshy Scent JLightning FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Further reading: Now Smell This and Olfactoria’s Travels
First In Fragrance has €160/7.5ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $10/.25ml

A year on I say thank you to Vero Kern. Her creations complete me.

What about you? Do you love Vero’s work? Have you tried them? If so, what was your favourite?

Bussis
CQ

"Kaleidoscopic India" au 68 – Guerlain mini movie

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Hey Hey APJ,

I wish I could have been in Paris to see this exhibition. Guerlain and India, two of my most treasured passions.

Did any of you get to see the exhibition? I’d love to read your impressions.

Portia xx

guerlain Kaleidoscopic India exhibition TwitterPhoto Stolen Guerlain Twitter

“Kaleidoscopic India” au 68 – GUERLAIN

Vernissage de l’exposition proposée au 68, Champs-Elysées dans le cadre du parcours privé de la FIAC, du 17 octobre au 14 novembre 2014. (Second video is in untranslated French, it’s pretty though I can’t understand it)

“Kaleidoscopic India” au 68 – GUERLAIN

Kelly Calèche by Jean-Claude Ellena for Hermès 2007

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Hey Perfume Junkies,

Do you remember when Kelly Calèche was released in 2007? It was a huge kerfuffle, and it seems both a million years ago and yesterday. There was a while that it was the fragrance de jour in the clubs and I think about one in five young women of a certain cadre were sporting it day and night and smelling so young, hip and fresh, even (dare I say it?) GROOVY! I think that many Sydney girls will have fond memories of fun times in Kelly Calèche,

Kelly Caleche Hermes FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Grapefruit, narcissus, lily of the valley
Heart: Mimosa, rose, tuberose
Base: Leather, iris

The opening of Kelly Calèche is a dry, green, astringent burst that shocks you awake and into the here and now. This fun high octane fizz only lasts a few moments but it is an excellent mind refresher. Then the whole fragrance changes into a surprising leather that smells on my skin like the leather, glue, colours and stitchery inside the back of brand new high heels, never worn, straight from box and tissue paper. The flowers and fruits big moment are all over for me so quickly, around 15 minutes, and then play a light backing track to this almost patent leather smell. (From Hermès, Hermès, Hermès in 2012)

Kelly Caleche Hermes pink leather norulesstock DeviantARTPhoto Stolen DeviantART

So fun, light and yet very present, that oh so soft suede-ish iris dry down is my favourite part, though other reviewers find it not so good. A whisper of fragrance that huffs out at you every so often to remind you that you’re fragrant. It’s just for you and your nearest and dearest friends. It’s no wonder that Kelly Calèche was such a hit at the time, I wonder if those pretty young things still wander round in a soft fog of sweet iris leather or if they’ve moved on?

I grabbed my 15ml mini bottle from Birgit of Olfactoria’s Travels wardrobe clean-out back in 2012. To be honest it doesn’t see a LOT of wear but I have made decent inroads into it, there is some good air in the bottle. I like to wear it when I need a pick me up, have to be somewhere that a loud or hefty frag would be inappropriate or to remember the lovely girls who wore Kelly Calèche when it was released.

Further reading: Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This
Beauty Encounter has $52/50ml EdT
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $3/ml

Are you a fan? Has Kelly Calèche ever been your go to or does its quiet, refined leather waft leave you bored and stone cold?
Portia xx

Beyond Paradise by Calice Becker for Estée Lauder 2003

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Hello Hello Hello,

While moving I have rediscovered an old favourite bottle.

Way back in the early years of this century I had a beautiful partner called Varun, we traveled often to his homeland India. On our first journey to India I was taken by the lovely smell of jasmine and marigold that women would wear in ropes in their hair, a thick, rich and intoxicating smell that could become completely overpowering in a small shop with two or three women thus adorned.

Beyond Paradise Estée Lauder taj-mahalPhoto Stolen Pixabay

So 2000, 2001 and 2002 visits were filled with this glorious and enchanting waft at unexpected times, not every woman would wear the garlands and I never found out what prompted it though at weddings they were everywhere. Sadly the practice is seen less and less in modern Incredible India.

Beyond Paradise by Calice Becker for Estée Lauder 2003

Beyond Paradise Estée Lauder FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Orange blossom, blue hyacinth, Jaboticaba berry, lemon, bergamot, grapefruit
Heart: Laelia orchid, pink honeysuckle, Japanese mahonia, jasmine, gardenia
Base: Natal plum blossom, golden melaleuca, zebrano wood, ambrette seed, amber

Fast forward now to 2003, and I am traveling alone to meet Varun who has had to go home to run the family business. As I’m walking though the Duty Free an Estee Lauder rep hands me a miniature bottle shaped like a teardrop with my gifting purchases. The bottle itself was so beautiful, exquisite, a rainbow teardrop and inside was a fragrance filled with bittersweet heartache. The smell of glamotous Indian women wearing their jasmine and marigold hair garlands, the hot wet heat of southern India’s spring and the cooling breeze blowing over lotus ponds into Kerala wooden pole houses. On my first sniff I was overcome with nostalgia and nervous tummy butterflies of anticipation.

Beyond Paradise Estée Lauder Flower_garland WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

Ha ha ha! Of course, I arrive in India and Varun is like, “What for are you wearing that nasty cheap roadside stall jasmine oil?” Ha Ha ha! So away my little bottle went for that holiday but on my return Beyond Paradise became the scent of India for me. Even though I have been to the oldest and most reputable scent wallahs in Old and New Delhi, Jaipur and Kerala it is Beyond Paradise that takes me to the first few visits to India every time.

Beyond Paradise Estée Lauder Varun PortiaVarun & Portia 2004

Basically Beyond Paradise opens like a vase of flowers, all wet, green leaves, a little crackle of bitterness, crisp white flowers and softly sweet fruits, it goes more white flowers through the heart and then dries down to dry white flowers, a very little bit fleshy and ripe, then fades to nothing musky woods. The story isn’t big and the shifts aren’t monumental, Beyond Paradise is fresh and light but gives you really good sillage and projection for most of the day.

The Little Book of Perfumes LuckyScentPhoto Stolen LuckyScent ($18 at LuckyScent)

Fast forward again to 2011 and I am given a book called The Little Book Of Perfumes by Luca Turin & Tanya Sanchez. Though I had been a mad collector of frags on and off through my life never had I been given such purpose in my collecting as that book gave me. Instantly I wanted to try ALL 100 fragrances in that book, but to find something I have loved so well for so long in that book was a complete surprise.

Further reading: Sweet Diva and Scentualist
Beauty Encounter has $55/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $3/ml

Are you a Beyond Paradise fan? What was one of your excited fragrance epiphanies?
Portia xx

Agent Provocateur FATALE / FATALE PINK launch

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Post by Ainslie Walker

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Hey APJers, remember recently, that night, full of heavy rain, flash floods, sideways downpours, thunder, lightening and hail in Sydney? That night I attended the Agent Provocateur Fatale fragrances launch at Carousel Bar in Kings Cross.

Agent Provocateur FATALE / FATALE PINK launch

Entering the club in my water-filled heels, I was spritzed with FATALE PINK fresh and light it struck me as different to the Agent Provocateur fragrances I already knew.

 

Gathered were TV personalities from The Bachelor, foodie Rick Stein, beauty editors, PR people and Fragrances of the World lovelies, Anna and Virginia. We had a giggle, ate canapés and “stalked” Rick together – he partook in a 30 minute conversation with us about fragrance, flavors, travel and food – a highlight of the night.

Newly designed bottles were on display, a big change from porcelain curves of past fragrances. Marketing blurb says the facets reflect the many sides of a woman’s personality…not at all original, but pretty. Boxes are indented stylishly, a nod to fishnet stockings and very Agent Provocateur!

In the background, a seductive Agent Provocateur film was projected, staring Monica Cruz. The evening was relaxed, glamorous and cool.

Fatale by Jean-Marc Chaillan for Agent Provocateur

Fatale Agent Provocateur FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Pink pepper, black currant, mango
Heart: Patchouli, orris, gardenia
Base: Vanilla orchid, musk, chocolate, labdanum

Mango- juicy and ripe, in a bed of vanilla, and chocolate, hinting at seduction but not as sultry and distinctive as expected. Pink pepper fizzes with the mango. Blackcurrant, tart with a dollop of cream. Patchouli? I’d say a touch of maltol / fairy floss in there too. Musk and orris come out to play after 30 minutes or so. Lasting power of 4 hours. It’s fun, I suppose it’s sexy, but not in the way Agent Provocateur’s first fragrances were- they were naughty and daring. Agent Provocateur has stepped into mainstream terrain. Within an hour I am reminded of Coco Mademoiselle. I have none to hand right now to compare, but somehow it nods in that direction…fresh, fruit, sweet and isoE!

In “the naughties” I was a party girl living in London – out EVERY night- obsessed with Agent Provocateur underwear. Gifted Chanel’s Mademoiselle and I wore it,  a touch of fun glamour. Today I am more likely to be wearing Chanel clothing and add this fun Agent Provocateur fragrance on top, nodding back to those fun days!!

Fatale Pink by Jean-Claude Delville for Agent Provocateur

 Fatale Pink Agent Provocateur FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Tangerine, pear blossom, yuzu, whipped cream
Heart: Datura flower, white camellia, pink lotus
Base: Bamboo, musk, black saffron

This fragrance was released for the Asian market and they’ve nailed it! I would wear this on a hot humid day, it’s watery and light. I love the pear notes. Gritty like tinned pears. The other notes give a pretty, white cream floral and fresh blur. Tangerine gives soft citrus. It’s easy to wear, easy to gift, clean, perfect for summer. Unobtrusive. Hours later there is a surprising sudden floral peak. There is a “thinness”- I think pink lotus has that effect, but with cream, and interesting sounding notes like saffron and datura I would expect a denser scent. Enigmatic and glamorous could describe this, but seductive? Introverted, innocent seduction- a hugely new direction for this usually racy brand. Perhaps we are to experience the many facets of seduction and provocation from this brand? From innocent, pretty and clean, right through to hot, foxy and downright naughty!!

Ainslie Walker x

Tubéreuse by Mona di Orio 2011

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Post by TinaG

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Whilst first wearing Mona di Orio’s Tubéreuse I must admit I was confused. It really wasn’t the “tuberose” fragrance that I had expected to find….

Tubéreuse by Mona di Orio 2011

Tubereuse Mona di Orio FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Pink pepper, green notes, bergamot
Heart: Tuberose, benzoin, heliotrope
Base: Musk, amber, coconut, milk, cashmeran

Tubéreuse opens with a flash of floral milkiness. This quickly changes to an enticing sweet pink pepper with a shadowy smoky bergamot lifting and supporting it. The scent shifts and changes rapidly in the first 10 minutes, slowly settling into a light fresh green accord. I can smell a warm and slightly waxy scent, like coconut water, translucent and milky. The greenness draws a linear thread through the life of the scent as a supporting anchor point. There is a gentle powder which joins the flow at about 1 hour and it stays this way during the dry down. So fresh, peppery, floral, clean, milky, waxy – I realised this fragrance is a study of the tuberose flower itself.

Tubereuse MdO TinaG2Photo Donated TinaG

I found my thoughts being drawn back to evenings where I’ve had bunches of tuberose in the house. Tuberose is “night-blooming”, in that the bloom’s fragrance intensifies during the early evening to night. The time of transition to twilight is a treasure. If I can resist switching a light on, instead maybe lighting a candle, with some quiet background tunes, and may or may not have a glass of chilled white wine – it’s lovely to sit for a while letting my thoughts ramble in whatever direction they take me.

Tubereuse MdO sydney PattyJansen PixabayPhoto Stolen Pixabay

The scent of real tuberose at this time of day is quite simply stunning. Its fragrance edges into the consciousness, bringing thoughts back to the present and reminding that it is this moment, this time, which is precious. It reminds me of the novel “Island” by Aldous Huxley – in a fictitious country where the inhabitants recognise the importance of the ‘conscious self’, taking a step back from your thoughts to be able to see more clearly. The islanders had trained mynah birds to call out “Attention”, and “Here and Now” at random intervals as a reminder to bring one’s self back to the moment. The growing intensity of tuberose scent at twilight has this same effect – the headiness is all encompassing and so beautiful, why wouldn’t you just want to breathe deeply, silently watching as the day fades to calmness, and colours start to drain away into grey-blues and blacks.

Tubereuse MdO TinaGPhoto Donated TinaG

It was at this point whilst wearing Tubéreuse that I realised I was experiencing the work of a master artist. Mona di Orio has captured the impression of night-blooming tuberose with a deeply profound and exquisite skill. There is an expression, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Trying to dissect and analyse Tubéreuse you could definitely identify the parts, but that’s not the story, not the whole picture, and certainly not the limit of its boundaries. The fragrance has a three-tiered connection with me now – the practical identification of notes, a reminiscence of the quiet times, and the deeper meditative space that the ‘present’ can provide. I’m grateful for that journey.

Further reading: What Men Should Smell Like and Perfume Posse
Peony Melbourne has $230/100ml with FREE shipping in Australia
Parfum1 has $230/100ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $7/ml

How many of you have tried the MdO Tubéreuse? Or any of her scents? Did you love them or not?

Tina G