Palimpsest by Mandy Aftel for Aftelier Perfumes 2014

September 27, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 25 Comments

Hiya Niche Nerds,

The other day I went and had lunch at the Sydney Opera House with a cool frag crew: Karen Gilbert (evaluator, perfumer, author, teacher, business coach), Ainslie walker (perfumer, candle creator, Jasmine Award winning writer, project manager, business woman) and Clayton Ilolahia (What Men Should Smell Like blogger, Director of Mens Fragrances for The Perfume Magazine, ex-Louis Vuitton Australiasia trainer and current Sydney Opera House trainer). Yes, these people are really inspirational, knowledgeable, interesting and fun. It was a fun lunch and I loved seeing these go-getters bouncing off each others energy. You know what they say, If you’re the smartest person in the room then you’re in the wrong room. I was in the RIGHT room, just sitting with them I learned so much, and their noses are spot on.

So, Mandy Aftel had sent me a spritz of her newest fragrance and I wanted to see how the super-clevers would like it. The deal was we would all get a spritzed touche, biro and writing paper and I would spritz my hand back. Then over the next 5 minutes we would record our first impressions as 10 words. That was the plan anyway….

Palimpsest by Mandy Aftel for Aftelier Perfumes 2014

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica Gives these featured accords in a circuitous line:
Grapefruity Yuzu essential oil, Gamma dodecalactone (a natural isolate exctracted from apricots) brings a soft, milky peach/apricot, vanilla absolute, banana facets of ylang-ylang, jasmine, suede, rose, tobacco, honeysuckle, chocolate, firetree, ambergris, phenylacetic acid (an organic compound with a dirty honey aroma and animalic tones)

Aftelier Perfumes gives these featured accords:
Top: Gamma dodecalactone, phenyl acetic acid, yuzu
Heart: Jasmine grandiflorum, peach, ylang ylang
Base: Firetree, vanilla, ambergris

Gamma dodecalactone: Waxy, fatty, sweet aroma with green-rind undertones
Natural Occurences: Found in apricot, bilberry, guava, papaya, pineapply, blackberry, strawberry, celery, cheese, butter, milk, meats, rum, beer

Phenylacetic acid is used in some perfumes, possessing a honey-like odor in low concentrations, and is also used in penicillin G production.

SPRITZ!

THE WORLD EXPLODED!

Seriously, we are sitting in the Green Room of the Sydney Opera House, there are maybe 50-70 people around eating their lunch from all parts of the theatre and our table goes freaking ballistic. We are all speaking at once, sniffing chatting, getting louder so we can get our points across and gesticulating, talking, laughing. This was a totally fun experiment and using such a polarising fragrance made it even more fun.

#1: Jasmine, honey, honeysuckle, sweet sherbet, effervessence, civet, narcissus, ambergris, much

#2: Honey, heady, animalic, spicy, Absolue Pour Le Soir, hippy shop, patchouli, incense, karma

#3: Auto rickshaw ride through Mumbai, outdoor toilet, spicy, bubblegum, fun

#4: Heavy, sweet urine, floral, gods, hair/fur, back of neck, musk, amber, sensual

As the fireworks became less intense a friend of mine walked past and I jumped up to hug her, the first thing out of her mouthy after “Hi Portia!” was “Wow! What is that perfume? Is that you? You smell amazing!” and then she leant over my Palimpsest by Mandy Aftel and swooned. What better expression of love can a fragrance get. That is one spritz on the back of my hand.

Here are some pics of us MADsters

Palimpsest: noun

1. a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.

Sweet, feral, delicious and naughty Palimpsest is not for the faint hearted, is full of the joy of natural perfumery while smelling as finished, buoyant and aerated as the best niche offerings. Mandy Aftel seems to have captured the idea of rewriting fragrant history and planting her own delightfully wicked animal version on top of everything else we have. I was going to do a giveaway of the remaining juice but I have used it up. Sorry everyone. This is a fragrance all dedicated perfumistas are going to need to try….

Aftelier Perfumes has samples from $6

Portia xx

Paris by Chanel – Inside CHANEL Movie

September 26, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 1 Comment

Hi there Fashionistas,

Here we have another block in the Gabriel “Coco” Chanel story/myth/legend. She has been so painted, glossed and glammed that she could be a decoupage. The house lives on in splendour and Karl Lagerfeld is the reigning monarch. Still the house CHANEL is a major player and an international billion dollar money making factory.

I hope you enjoy their latest mini movie, a piece about the atelier, store and apartment at 31 Rue Cambon and Coco. Magic.

Portia xx

Photo Stolen WallPaperMine

Paris by Chanel – Inside CHANEL Movie

Femmes Savantes GIVEAWAY Winner

September 26, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 1 Comment

Hey there APJ Crew,

Great response and thank you to the lovely Azar for doing another amazing GIVEAWAY.

Portia xx

Femmes Savantes GIVEAWAY WINNER

Photo Stolen La Comédie des Parfums

WHAT COULD YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 Winner who will get:
For today’s drawing Mr. Abraham has generously provided a sample of Femmes Savantes for one lucky winner residing in the continental US.
P&H to the USA

HOW DID YOU WIN?

Open to everyone USA ONLY 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

Please comment on any of the fragrances from La Comédie des Parfums or tell APJ about your favorite citrus perfume (or fruit).

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie Femmes Savante: La Comédie des Parfums GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-3cx #Perfume #Giveaway

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Thursday 25th September 2014 10pm Australian EST
Winners will be chosen by random.org or a fun other way

Photo Stolen HighestSelf

CAROLINE

The winners will have till Sunday 28th September 2014 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.

Perfumes That Never Offend My Coworkers

September 25, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 21 Comments

Post by FeralJasmine

I work with a fantastic bunch of ladies. We have all been together for several years now, and couldn’t be happier with the arrangement. We know each other’s thought patterns, can predict each other pretty well, and have no serious trouble making decisions by concensus.

So when does the serpent enter paradise? Usually it has to do with perfume. My good colleagues are (thank The Lord and/or Lady) very outspoken and not given to passive aggression, which means that when I wear a scent that one of them doesn’t like, I am going to hear about it. Sometimes this is pretty damn funny: one of them calls anything that she dislikes “patchouli,” which leads to hilarious remarks like “I don’t like that patchouli perfume you’re wearing today” when I’m drifting around in Chanel #5. Aldehydes are a total no-go. Gagging pantomimes greet anything too sweet.

Perfumes That Never Offend My Coworkers

So what does work? I have a stable of stuff that draws purely positive comment. To my surprise, two of them are patchouli scents (but don’t tell my colleague!) Vanillas are happily tolerated if they aren’t too sweet, confirming my suspicion that for many of us, vanilla is THE primal comfort scent. The players are:

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Kate Walsh Boyfriend: this lovely warm patchouli-plum-tobacco scent is miles above the usual celebrity perfume and therefore is discontinued, but is still readily available on eBay. I have stocked up and will not be bidding against you.

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Kerosene Unknown Pleasures: Earl Grey tea followed by a soft slightly sweet bakery vanilla. What’s not to like? This one is a great value, and I have obtained a backup bottle.

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Xerjoff Lira: An exquisite soft vanilla that wafts in the most delicate and appealing way. Unfortunately, it is also $285 a bottle, which works out to quite a bit per waft. Still, I wear it sometimes because there is nothing quite like it. But Unknown Pleasures, after the somewhat brash lemony opening, ends up in much the same place for less than half the price, so no back-up bottles of Lira for me.

Photo Stolen DSH Perfumes

DSH Pink Gardenia: my one objection to Ms. Hurwitz’s vanillic gardenia is that it is too civilized and private. Which is why I can wear it to work to universal approval. Nobody is aware of it unless they happen to get very close, and then they like it. Now, if only she made a louder version to put on when I get home…

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

PG Coze: I can’t get my mind around wearing this one to work. But I did once, by mistake, and people loved it. Even the Patchouli-Slaying Queen commented on the lovely spicy resins. So I wear it once in a while at work, and a lot on weekends.

Here are a couple of sample sites that you can go see to try these.
Surrender To Chance
Posh Peasant
My Perfume Samples

I should add that I have dry perfume-euthanizing skin and these might not be subtle enough on everyone. But unless your workplace forbids perfume, there is something that you can get away with. Solicit honest feedback from a few work-buddies, and pay careful attention to what they say. After all, it’s their airspace too!

FeralJasmine X

En Passant by Olivia Giacobetti for Frederic Malle 2000

September 24, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 9 Comments

Post by Gabriella

Hello fragrance friends,

Do you ever get cravings for perfumes that you don’t have in your collection? This very thing happened to my last week. It’s actually very surprising as the scent in question was one of the very first perfumes to blow me away when I first started exploring niche scents and yet, after all these years, I still don’t have a bottle. Today, I’m talking to you about an oldie but a goodie – the fragrance I am going to discuss is the sublime En Passant.

En Passant by Olivia Giacobetti for Frederic Malle 2000

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Lilac, surrounded by watery and green notes, cucumber and wheat

My reaction to the initial spritz of En Passant is one of feeling overwhelmed, but in a beautiful way. I’m enveloped in the distinctive yet delicate scent of masses of white lilacs. It is morning and their tiny petals are covered in tiny droplets of rain from an overnight shower. The rain has freshened the blooms, providing an ethereal aqueous quality. I don’t get the cucumber note that has bothered quite a few people with this scent. It’s just pure fresh and fresh lilac and quite linear, yet when the sun starts to peek over the blooms in the yard, you can just begin to smell the warmth of baking bread from a nearby kitchen window. Yet the yeasty aspect doesn’t overwhelm, it just provides a welcome temperateness to the green, watery quality of the lilac.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

Even as I write, I’m conscious that my words don’t capture the loveliness of this scent. The perfume is an essence of time and place the story it tells is a very distinctive and emotional one. The best I can do is a series of adjectives: it’s diaphanous, it’s ephemeral, and it’s impressionistic and just plain beautiful. It is a story of lilacs, bread and spring What Giacobetti has done with these elements in perfume is akin to what Monet or Pissaro did with light and texture in painting.

En Passant is not powerful, its beauty is sotto voce and it’s a terribly personal scent as Portia has mentioned in her review. Despite its quietness, I still get a good 4 to 6 hours of wear; over this time, it just seems to waft gently from the skin like a breeze.

Photo Stolen DeviantArt

Because of its discreetness, En Passant is something you could wear almost anywhere. But I find it’s best when I’m craving beauty and solitude. Oh, and the promise of spring that sadly, just quite hasn’t made it to Melbourne yet. Better satisfy those cravings and just get a bottle of this beauty.

Further reading: Olfactoria’s Travels and Perfume Posse

Mecca Cosmetica has 3x10ml/$124 in Australia
Frederic Malle has €110/50ml

Surrender to Chance starts at $6/ml

Have you tried En Passant? What perfumes have left you speechless?

Until next time,
M x

Fragranze 2014 Photo Essay: Cookie Queen in Florence

September 23, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 38 Comments

Post by Val the Cookie Queen

Hey All,

Val sent me these pics and I thought they would make a fun, light look at the Fragranze 2014 experience.

Portia xx

Fragranze 2014 Photo Essay: Cookie Queen in Florence

Arriving after 8 hour drive

Chatting with Jeroen Oude Sogtoen. Absolute highlight. So passionate

On the way to dinner on the first night, bumped into Yosh Han and her friend Ineke

Heading in on the first day

Sorting out some VP samples so I don’t have to empty my own bottles!

Florence by night

One of the ceilings in the Santa Maria Novella Farmacia. Beyond lovely

Checking in with Portia. Live texting. Haha!

Vero

Neela sharing secrets. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more

Femmes Savantes by Gabriel Abraham for La Comédie des Parfums

September 22, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 24 Comments

Post by Azar

Hello APJ,

La Comédie des Parfums is an indie perfume house based in Seattle and Paris. The multi-talented nose and CEO, Gabriel Abraham, currently offers seven perfumes on his website http://www.perfumescomedy.com, all but two inspired by the comic plays of Molière (AKA Jean-Baptiste Poqueline 1622-1673). Today’s review sniffs the EdP Femmes Savantes, Abraham’s fragrant take on Molière’s satire about the “learned” women of 17th century Paris – “Les Femmes Savantes”. These days this play is often described as overtly “sexist” but I read it simply as a commentary on humanity’s incredible capacity for pretension.

Femmes Savantes by Gabriel Abraham for La Comédie des Parfums

Photo Stolen La Comédie des Parfums

The listed notes for Femmes Savantes from the La Comédie des Parfums factory site are:
Top: Bergamot, lemon peel, green leaves
Heart: Osmanthus, sheer jasmine, muguet, cinnamon spice
Base: Cedar wood, balsamic, musk.

I adore the lemon top note of Femmes Savantes. It is not the dishwasher detergent lemon or the lemon meringue lemon but a light, powerful impression of the complete fruit including a whiff of the juice, pulp and the oily rind smelling much like the large, round, thin skinned Persian limoo shirin (C. limetta) that I love so much. This refreshing and pungent opening is reinforced by bergamot and a bouquet of green herbs resulting in a sparkling and sophisticated first impression, not at all pretentious, quite the opposite of the women in Molière’s comedy. As the lemon subsides the herbaceous floral heart blossoms into osmanthus, jasmine and a cool hint of muguet drying to a diaphanous (Ooo) cedar and musk. I have to admit that I don’t detect the cinnamon but perhaps you will?

Photo Stolen Perfumes Comedy

Femmes Savantes is probably the most skillfully composed lemon I’ve experienced in a long time. The opening is my favorite part of this fragrance. The light to moderate sillage and medium longevity (no more than five hours) make it possible for me to madly spray several times a day for the lemony rush I crave.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

This year our PNW summer was particularly hot and dry. Femmes Savantes, Pirouette’s Wild Spruce and Tobacco, Borsari Parma Acqua Classica Cologne and EdT as well as another Abraham fragrance, V. Van Gogh, were all part of my summer strategy to beat the heat.

You can purchase Femmes Savantes at Perfumes Comedy

Be Cool.

Azar xx

Photo Stolen myprettypaints

Femmes Savantes GIVEAWAY

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?