Cedarwood Virginiana Has a Secret!

April 2, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 10 Comments

Post by Suzanne R Banks

Cedarwood Virginiana has a secret – it’s a juniper tree! It’s botanical name is Juniperus virginiana but in Aromatherapy today it’s referred to as a cedarwood. I’ve always seen this tree and oil referred to as cedarwood and perhaps it’s because this native to North America is commonly called Red Cedar and/or Aromatic cedar, and a few other names too! It is from the Cupressacae family and the Juniperus genus whereas Cedarwood Atlas (Cedrus atlantica), for example, is from the Pinacae family and the Cedrus genus. Himalayan cedarwood (Cedrus deodora) is from the Pinacae family and the Cedrus genus too.

Cedarwood Virginiana

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

So back to our Cedarwood Virginiana. You can see by the pic above it has berries like a juniper tree, and leaves like a cypress, but the oil is very different from juniper essential oil and cypress essential oil. This essential oil is thick and creamy and smells like it could easily come from a wood, but also carries a very cleansing energy about it like juniper. I think in my very early days of aromatherapy I blended this oil like it was a basey wood and was never disappointed with the results. I’ve even read a description of the scent of this oil as “pencil- like” and it is also referred to as a pencil cedar , as the heartwood has been used to make lead pencils.

Photo Stolen DeviantArt

In Native American medicine this common tree has been used for respiratory infections and other ailments including arthritis and rheumatism, skin disorders and as a treatments for venereal infections (according to Salvatore Battaglia).

In Aromatherapy today Cedarwood Virginiana is used –

* as a treatment for oily and acne skin

* as a treatment for other skin conditions like psoriasis and dermatitis

* as a soothing treatment for coughs and colds and as an expectorant

* to induce more spiritual connectedness

* as a space/energy cleanser

Photo Stolen Flickr

I’ve always loved using this oil so check out some simple recipes –

1. Cedarwood Virginiana Pure Pulse Point Perfume

In a little dish mix these oils and anoint your pulse points or chakras – 3 drops of essential oils and dilute with a few drops of carrier oil

“Psychic Awareness”

Open your upper chakras –

Cedarwood Virginiana 2 drops

Mandarin 1 drop

—————————————————————————————————————–

“A New Start”

Cleanse and refresh you attitude –

Cedarwood Virginiana 1 drop

Lemon 1 drop

Rose Geranium 1 drop

——————————————————————————————————————

“And… Breathe!”

Take a quite moment for yourself –

Cedarwood Virginiana 1 drop

Roman Chamomile 3% 3 drops * see my article for more info on 3% blends in jojoba

——————————————————————————————————————

2.Cedarwood Virginiana Nourishing Body Oil Blend

For a coat of your body use 3 teaspoons of carrier oil in a little dish and, add 7 – 8 drops of essential oil.

***** Always put the drops of essential oil into the bottle or dish first, then add the carrier oil. It gives the scents time to create a synergistic fusion.

For a 50ml bottle of oil add 25 drops

“Classic”

This is my go-to classic body oil blend –

Cedarwood Virginiana 2 drops

Orange 4 drops

Lavender 2 drops

——————————————————————————————————————

“Give Me Strength”

A warming blend for courage and physical strength –

Cedarwood Virginiana 2 drops

Bergamot 3 drops

Rosewood 3 drops

——————————————————————————————————————

Happy blending and remember to use your intention when you are creating your formulas.

Suzanne R Banks XXX

Suzanne R Banks Blog
Suzanne R Banks Aromatherapy
Suzanne R Banks FaceBook

The Afternoon of a Faun by Ralf Schwieger for Etat Libre d`Orange 2012

April 1, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 21 Comments

Post by Ainslie Walker

Named after a Russian Ballet, this fragrance certainly is a dance, and tells a story. But not a pretty one. Nor a sexy one either. According to Wikipedia, a faun is a rustic forest god or goddess of Roman mythology often associated with enchanted woods and the Greek god Pan and his satyrs. Half man, half goat. I’m thinking big sexy leather and man smells, but I’m getting A LOT more goat. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE goats…but I think this this one’s going feral.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

CS Lewis describes Mr. Tumnus, the Faun in his Narnia series as having reddish skin, curly hair, brown eyes, a short pointed beard, horns on his forehead, cloven hooves, goat legs with glossy black hair, a “strange but pleasant little face,” and a long tail.

The Afternoon of a Faun by Ralf Schwieger for Etat Libre d`Orange 2012

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Bergamot, pepper, cinnamon, incense, immortelle, orrisroot, myrrh, leather, benzoin, rose, jasmine, oak moss

I’m first hit with a big 80’s oak moss projection…My Dad wore grey flannel in the 80’s and it’s as if he has blasted past on his way out to work, doused. Saving the day, an aerated twist of iris and green dry foliage notes break in and take over. I feel its well structured, and giving me all the right imagery, but I’m not sure I like it. There’s something pungent. Daisies? Pee? Maybe it’s the immortelle?

WHERE’S THE PRETTY?

Not a pretty mix….more like some herbal witches brew. I WISH I could smell the jasmine or rose, but nope. I’d like to smell some hints of violets and more orris, for an enchanted forest, but no. Suddenly I am reminded of the smell of autumn leaves, as if I am kicking my way through them, or rakeing them up, dry, crispy leaves, crackling, underneath earthy moist mossy smells are also being exposed. I THINK I like it a little more. In fact this is my favorite moment in my Afternoon with a Faun.

Photo Stolen Pixabay

Spicy, sparkly and fresh it continues. Playful and tart. Despite all the spice I’m not reminded of any foods so to speak. There’s no gourmand. I don’t like it much on my skin, and I cannot imagine nuzzling up to someone with it on either. It’s old fashioned, almost old mannish…slightly dated, and synthetic. I’m struggling, but slightly enchanted to make it through to the end.

I have a headache. I can smell it all day on the other side of the room. I am sensitive to one of its ingredients, but which one??

There’s something sweet, maybe fruity I’m thinking berries and brambles, but again none in particular. Maybe some frankincense, but not the smoking variety, and some cinnamon-sweetness. I think the Faun must be trotting about on a warm sunny autumn day. Kicking up earth, herbal roots, moss, moss and more moss…berries…herbal…and peeing in delight. Something does sparkle..maybe more of a sprinkle? Perhaps the ballerina has an old injury and is wearing a STRONG herbal liniment…a Thai healing balm smell. Could be cinnamon, possibly medicinal Myrrh. Immortelle is also commonly found in liniments, so maybe why I make this connection.

Photo Stolen Flickr

Further reading: Australian Perfume Junkies and Chemist In A Bottle
LuckyScent has $149/100ml
Etat Libre d’Orange has €110/100ml (Delivers to the world)
Surrender To Chance starts at $4.50/ml

Dry. Green. Twisted green. I like the green. I’ve read one reviewer who thinks the green smells of celery. I know what they mean, and yet I don’t agree. Instead, I am picturing the dark green suede platform clogs my kindergarten teacher used to wear. Weird, but interesting. The drydown is gentler, leathery suede.

Despite busting to wash it off, and pack my decant away in a tightly sealed zip lock bag, far far away, I enjoyed trying Afternoon with a Faun. It’s EXACTLY what it says on the bottle!!

Ainslie Walker

Nectar of Love EdP by Tanja Bochnig for April Aromatics 2012

March 31, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 12 Comments

Post by SarahK

Hello all! Valentine’s Day may have been and gone this year, but love is, I hope, never far away, so today I want to share with you my experience of April Aromatics fragreances. April Aromatics is a line of natural, organic perfumes and cosmetics created by Tanja Bochnig and based in Germany and this is one of my favourite fragrances from the range. It is available both as an EDP and perfume oil: this review is for the eau de parfum only, as I haven’t tried the perfume oil.

Nectar of Love EdP by Tanja Bochnig for April Aromatics 2012

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Tuberose, Indian jasmine, Bulgarian rose, sandalwood, fruit notes, amber

Nectar is definitely the right name for this scent. The notes Tanja gives for the fragrance include tuberose, neroli, rose and jasmine but, besides the neroli, none of these flowers jump out at me in their usual guises. Rather than a traditional ‘floral’ perfume, I experience Nectar of Love as a sweet plant perfume, in the way in which Clarins’ Eau Dynamisante is a plant perfume. When sniffing it I get crushed fleshy petals, pollen and nectar, mixed with some sweet benzoin resin reminiscent of the sweet balsams in by Kilian’s Sweet Redemption.

Photo Stolen Flickr

The fragrance starts as an aromatic mix with green overtones and a bit of ripe apple. As the top notes develop, the pollen drifts up, along with the scent of a sugary, yet slightly bitter, green sap. All the floral notes combine into a concentrated version of the honeyed scent of purple buddleia. It’s as if you are a bee in a summer field, flitting drunkenly from flower to flower, poking your nose right into the hearts of the blooms and inhaling deeply. The fruit in the top notes slowly dries, and a couple of hours after application the fragrance is a narcotic mix of caramelized apples and prunes and a little bitter clove spice. It’s darkly sweet, but not overly so. Instead, the heart of the fragrance feels like drinking a cup of smooth, slightly citrussy chai. As it dries down, woody elements come out to play and there’s a touch of smoke and black coffee. The whole experience is rich and dense, but never overwhelming, and the presence of an aromatic element (mostly reading to me as cloves over neroli) keeps this within unisex territory, especially in the dry down. I’d love to smell this on a man.

Photo Stolen Pixabay

For the first hour Nectar of Love creates a noticeable scent cloud around me, but sillage drops noticeably in the second hour, and by the end of hour three the scent is hovering softly above my skin. It remains noticeable for 8 hours or so, ending in a caramel coffee whisper. The more I wear it, the more I love it.

Further reading: Smelly Thoughts and Bonkers About Perfume
April Aromatics has €189/30ml and Samples from €13.99/2.5ml

Have you tried any of the April Aromatics line?
SarahK xx

Penhaligon's Iris Prima GIVEAWAY WINNERS

March 31, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 6 Comments

Woo Hoo APJ!

Another sensational Libertine Parfumerie and Australian Perfume Junkies GIVEAWAY! Thanks for being part of our fab, fun and fragrant family. We are super glad to have you all along.

Let’s see who our lucky winners are…

Portia x

Penhaligon’s Iris Prima GIVEAWAY WINNERS

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, pink pepper
Heart: Iris, jasmine
Base: Leather, sandalwood, vetiver, amber, vanilla, benzoin

WHAT COULD YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 Major Winner who will get:
1 x Penhaligon`s Iris Prima 100ml bottle
(minus the Secondary Winners Prizes, the lid is wonky but spritzer perfect.)
P&H Anywhere in the world

3 x Secondary Winners who will each receive:
1 x 10ml decant of Penhaligon`s Iris Prima
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DID 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 Libertine Perfumes<<<JUMP and find me one of their BATH PRODUCTS and the COMPANY…………….. NO DOUBLE UPS!!

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Sunday 30th March 2014 10pm Australian EST
Winners were chosen by random.org

Photo Stolen shannonmayer

Wheelspinner (Bottle Winner)

Hotlanta Linda

Victoria

Becky (Rebecca via Twitter)

The winners will have till Thursday 3rd April 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.

Special THANKS to LibertineParfumerie for these amazing giveaways. Please visit their site because they are so generous and helpful. If you wonder why they are sometimes more expensive than the discounters or OS retailers it’s because they are the only licensed company selling their fragrances in Australia; where you know you are buying new, fresh and genuine product. The cost of importing, and buying the right to import, alcohol based fragrances (and having the right to send alcohol based fragrances throughout Australia, which are illegal to send in the Australia Post air system) is expensive and they must cover their costs to bring you these luxury goods.

Oliban by Keiko Mecheri 2004

March 30, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 16 Comments

Hello Niche Nerds,

Keiko Mecheri houses her fragrances in fabulous bottles. I love the whole enjoyment of holding them in my hand and spritzing, it adds luster to a house that for some reason I feel close to. In my collection I have the fabulous old Loukhoum bottle

Photo Stolen LuckyScent

and Jour d’Ete, which was my first salty coconut and jasmine fragrance, one of my all time favourite mixtures. Keiko Mecheri is one of the houses like Guerlain and Patricia de Nicolai that I have often felt as if they are made with me in mind, even though not all the fragrances work on or for me. I just like the houses aesthetic.

Oliban by Keiko Mecheri 2004

Photo Stolen Libertine Parfumerie

Fragrsntica gives these featured accords in one line:
Virginia cedar, incense, olibanum, (blonde) tobacco, (Damascene) rose, palisander rosewood, tonka bean, ambergris

Sweet, jammy rose and woods surrounded by lovely incense. It all smells like a VERY expensive hotel foyer. Loads of woods and beeswax shine, I get a hint of leather too and the tobacco/honey accord is beautiful. Oliban opens so well and with such a heady religious air that I swoon every time.

While wearing and writing this article I chatted to a mate on Facebook at Australian Fragrance Network and during her ride she noticed tea, specifically the spicy Indian cooked black tea with milk and spices called chai. Now through the incense and woods, the honey and leather I get a distinct memory/feeling of chai. It’s like sitting up in Mcleodganj in the Indian Himalayas where the Dalai Lama is in exile. Sitting and watching the prayer flags fluttering outside while in a wooden tea house. The whole mountain top smells of incense and most of the tea shop/restaurants used to smell of wood, cigarettes and beeswax. Progress has smartened them up though and they are much more Westerner friendly nowadays than they were. Still some of the accommodation on the top of the hill has the old wooden beeswax smell, it’s fabulous. Taeko, my friend didn’t get the frankincense till a couple of hours in on her skin but I get it from the very first spritz, it’s warm scratchy resinous scent fueling the whole fragrance for me. Interesting how different people get dissimilar rides, even in the same temp zone.

Photo Stolen Flickr

From I Smell Therefore I Am (sometimes someone else gets it so right, in this case Abigail): It’s a fabulously well crafted incense fragrance with gorgeous whiffs of blond tobacco, woods, rose and honey. The initial burst of incense and cedar are refreshingly spiritual (don’t most incense frags seem rather churchy to you?). Oliban, especially at the start, seems soothing, calming, centering and cleansing. When I feel harried, rattled or just tired, Oliban serves as a meditative pick me up.

Photo Stolen Flickr

If you are after an incense bomb then please look elsewhere. Oliban is incense, with a lovely softening rose accord and a warm honey/tobacco accord that also stop the incense and woods from being too hefty and unfeminine, anyone can and should wear Oliban. It will never be so loud as to override your own skins fragrance but will work harmoniously with it and create a patina of scent that could be worn anywhere and will be particularly good for very up close and intimate encounters. Soft enough for work, different enough to set you apart from the crowd. I think it is a tad too soft for it to be a fb in my collection; too tasteful, sophisticated and too suavely elegant to really fit with my bigness. I could buy this for almost any of my friends though and know that they would be incredibly happy with my choice for them, and that it could be a signature for quite a few of them too.

Further reading: Katie Puckrik Smells and I Smell Therefore I Am
Libertine Parfumerie has $195/75ml including Australian postage
First In Fragrance has €145/75ml and €5/4ml Samples

Oliban is worth a try.

Portia xx

Carnal Flower By Dominique Ropion for Frederic Malle 2005

March 29, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 26 Comments

Hello Fellow Fumies,

The story goes that this fragrance was created around the idea of Frederic Malle’s aunt, Candice Bergen, star of the movie Carnal Knowledge with Jack Nicholson, Ann Margaret and Art Garfunkel. I’ve not seen the movie but I love this little tit bit of information garnered from Fragrantica. It makes my enjoyment even sweeter as Candice was one of my great TV glamour girl loves from Murphy Brown and who could ever forget her in her 2000 star turn as Kathy Morningside in Miss Congeniality, awesome. Many of you will have loved her too as Shirley Schmidt in Boston Legal but i digress.

Don’t forget to enter our Libertine Parfumerie and Penhaligon’s Iris Prima GIVEAWAY

Carnal Flower By Dominique Ropion for Frederic Malle 2005

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line (but writes them tiered):
Top: Bergamot, melon, eucalyptus
Heart: Ylang-ylang, jasmine, tuberose, Salicylates (natural, toxic product of herbal origin, a sort of a herbal pheromone which is used by plants as a warning)
Base: Tuberose absolute, orange blossom absolute, coconut, musk

I love how Carnal Flower opens with a huge plastic white flower surrounded by sharp citrus and greenery. I know the notes say melon and eucalyptus but I don’t get them definitively in the open. I get a sweet and sappy greenness like when you cut hydrangeas and lovely white flowers that move to fatty pretty quickly, they are potent and exciting but not as outrageous as the hype leads you to believe and they become quite dry through their life. Not dried or dessicated but the oily wetness, the sappy green loses its potency and becomes a high white floral with a green tiara on sending out occasional flashes and sparkles.

Photo Stolen Flickr

Just so you have placement, I am writing this on Wednesday which is my cleaning day. I do the house from top to bottom once a week. It’s a big job that can take 5 hours but usually I get it done in 3-4 hours. Today I decided to see how Carnal Flower copes in warm weather while active. At midday it’s 26 degees Celcius and I started cleaning at 9.30am. At just over halfway point so I’m taking a sneaky break to write to you.

Well I’ve dusted, vacuumed and cleaned the bathrooms. All that’s left to do is empty the kitchen benches and give them their full scrub. Still there are delightful wafts of coconut-y white flower and now I smell like summer. My sweat and Carnal Flower have come together to create something that smells like a beautiful deadly night flower that calls insects and small animals to their graves, it may even work on the men. I find sneaky reminders at this point of one of my favourite summer scents Bronze Goddess, though they have different stories at the Carnal Flower 3 hour mark they have a crossover.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

At the 5 hour mark I have lost all but the merest traces of something musky floral but to all intents and purposes gone. I have to be honest here and tell you I think Carnal Flower not at all carnal and really it is a very pretty white floral with other stuff but not fearsome or challenging at all. Bigger than most modern perfumery but not outrageous, give the opening a moment to calm down and I find it extremely wearable. Maybe not a confined spaces or work fragrance but definitely doable for dinner.

Further reading:
Mecca Cosmetica in Australia have AUD$259/50mlFrederic Malle has €160/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $9/ml

Carnal Flower. Have you braved the name? Did you feel it was worthy of such a fearsome title?

Till tomorrow, treat yourself with respect, you deserve it and try to forgive yourself your minor flaws.
Portia xx

Iris Prima by Alberto Morillas for Penhaligon`s 2013

March 28, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 48 Comments

Hiya Fellow Fumies,

My mate Nick from Libertine Parfumerie sometimes sends APJ product for giveaways. A package from Nick is ALWAYS a sweet surprise and he is a lovely guy who wants to have a great range of fragrance for Aussies to choose from. Please, even if you don’t enter today’s competition, go and have a look at the amazing fragrant beauties that Libertine Parfumerie has for sale, you will be astounded. Lately Nick’s buying power has become so good that some (not all) of his products are the same numerical value as you would buy them for in the USA, that means with the current Aussie dollar that they are in fact 10-15% cheaper!!! AMAZING!

Iris Prima by Alberto Morillas for Penhaligon`s 2013

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, pink pepper
Heart: Iris, jasmine
Base: Leather, sandalwood, vetiver, amber, vanilla, benzoin

Iris Prima has certainly cut the blogging world in half. There are some who know Penhaligon’s aesthetic quite well and got a lovely fresh and pretty iris-ish fragrance with light sillage and wearing close to the skin unless you spritz yourself wet. Many people because of the name Iris Prima and the story of the ballet had extraordinarily high expectations that Penhaligon’s would completely change its soft focus, easy wear self for something cutting edge and boundary pushing. Naah. This is the softest, least intrusive scent I have smelled from the line. I wonder if it’s aimed at children of wealthy families who want to be ballerinas?

The bergamot and pink pepper are exactly as you would expect them to be and very much how they are in 1.000 other fragrances released over the last 5-10 years, the very first spritz has a whiff of leather but that burns off quickly to reappear later. It’s a fun, fresh, zingy opening that is completely unoffensive and will not scare anyone away. Very general public wearing and nice. The iris is cool and ever so slightly carroty on my skin and I hardly notice the jasmine at all, either my skin eats it, I am anosmic or it plays a far away back up role. After that Iris Prima becomes a very soft wash of fragrance that doesn’t really have notes so much as it is a quiet and reserved, I want to say leather but it’s so muted that I can’t even call it a name warmed by a splash of vanilla.

I get about 3 hours of fragrance until I cannot smell anything at all other than me. I can see Iris Prima being a big hit for non perfumistas who want to smell something as they get ready in the morning but who work in fragrance free or very close working conditions. Iris Prima is soft enough to be a very pretty fabric softener remnant that you are wafting, no one will be skunked by you EVER.

I like my fragrance bigger but many of you might really love Iris Prima.

Funny follow up: I was wearing quite a bit of Iris Prima to write about it today. Tonight THREE separate people complimented me on my fragrance at work, one of them was the barmaid who I never would have thought to be a fragrance noticer. Genuinely and totally entranced by Iris Prima. Interesting that others notice Iris Prima and think it’s drop dead gorgeous.

Portia xx

Further reading: Another Perfume Blog and Olfactoria’s Travels
Libertine Parfumerie has $254/100ml delivered in Australia
First In Fragrance has €170/100ml and €5/4ml samples

Iris Prima GIVEAWAY

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have 1 Major Winner who will get:
1 x Penhaligon`s Iris Prima 100ml bottle
(minus the Secondary Winners Prizes, the lid is wonky but spritzer perfect.)
P&H Anywhere in the world

3 x Secondary Winners who will each receive:
1 x 10ml decant of Penhaligon`s Iris Prima
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DO YOU WIN?

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

Go to Libertine Perfumes<<<JUMP and find me one of their BATH PRODUCTS and the COMPANY…………….. NO DOUBLE UPS!!

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie @PenhaligonsLtd Iris Prima GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-2Ck #Perfume #Giveaway @LibertineParfum

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Sunday 30th March 2014 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org
The winners will have till Thursday 3rd April 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.

Hard Leather by Jerome Epinette for LM Parfums 2014

March 27, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 18 Comments

Post by FeralJasmine

Sometimes civilized people have to agree to disagree. There is a lot written about the fecal aspects of LM Parfums’ Hard Leather. To which I say: Really? Seriously? Have these people ever actually smelled feces?

Hard Leather by Jerome Epinette for LM Parfums 2014

A Night in Hard Leather

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Leather, rum
Heart: Iris, honey
Base: Sandalwood, cedar, agarwood (oud), olibanum, vanilla, styrax

That is SO not what I smell. Initially, I smell clean, healthy barnyard, the kind you get with a really good oud. All the animals here are bursting with animal vitality, and you can smell it. The stroll through the barnyard lasts about 15 minutes on me. Then you come to the rough heavy wooden door into the tack room, and walk in among the leather. Through the scent of the wooden walls and the oiled and polished saddles and bridles hanging all around you, you smell a clean, vital male behind you. He is your wild lover, your animus, the one you’ve never confessed to anyone that you wanted, the one that you dream about and are sorry when you wake, the one you can only see out of the corner of your eye because he disappears when you turn to look straight at him. Dionysus. That’s what I smell.

Photo Stolen Fotopedia

If I were in charge, which I certainly am not, all men in my vicinity would wear Hard Leather at least occasionally. Ah, what a world it would be.

Does that mean that a woman can’t wear this scent? Not by a long shot. There is a honeyed vanillic softness to the leather that makes it lovely on women. Probably all of us have a Dionysus aspect if we admit it, and scent is a splendid way to channel your inner incubus.

So where does the talk about feces come from? I think it’s possible that some people smell all strong animalics as having notes of urine or excrement. I have heard similar talk about Muscs Koublai Khan, which has animal notes but no urine or poop to most of us. To noses of the Fresh’n’Clean type, anything that suggests nature may suggest dirt or even excrement. Or it may be a genetic difference in the way we smell things, which is known to exist with some scents. In this context I always think of Hermès: Vanille Gallant, a lovely vanilla-lily scent to many, a fishy disaster to some.

Photo Stolen Flickr

Further reading: The Scented Hound and
First In Fragrance have €295/100ml and €9/4ml Samples

So, sample first, by all means. You should always sample first, because your olfactory universe is not like anybody else’s. But if part of your own olfactory realm is out on the fringes, beyond civilization and governed only by natural law, the primal beauty of Hard Leather is likely to produce an interesting degree of shock and awe.

FeralJasmine

New Ad: Coco Mademoiselle by CHANEL with Kiera Knightly "She's Not There"

March 26, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 5 Comments

Hiya APJ,

Kiera Knightly seems the perfect choice for advertising, gorgeous and quirky looking she is both elegant and seems to have a pretty good handle on fun. I loved her since Bend It Like Beckham and wish she was in more stuff that I see. well THANK GOODNESS for CHANEL who have created some wonderful ads for her to star in.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEIRA KNIGHTLY!!

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

Coco Mademoiselle by CHANEL with Kiera Knightly “She’s Not There”

The Evolution of Keira Knightley

CelebBuzz.com

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

Zelda by Shelley Waddington for En Voyage Perfumes 2013

March 25, 2014 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 24 Comments

Post by Val the Cookie Queen

Zelda: NOT the Legend of Zelda

Photo Stolen DeviantArt

When this fragrance was brought to my attention, I already decided that it wasn´t for me. After years of computer gaming in my home I fall into the traumatized mother category. I could´t imagine anyone naming a perfume after a computer game, unless perhaps they were traumatized too? Despite hearing good things, it was not on my hit list.

Fast forward a few months to the legendary Blogger´s Meet in London. In the middle of eating a very nice plate of fish and chips I was handed a bottle of Zelda from the extremely charming Vanessa, her of Bonkers About Perfume fame. I gave myself a hefty spritz, which I promptly ignored. Nevertheless she packed me up a little sample to take home with me.

Photos supplied by Michael

I now have my own bottle.

A Perfume Trip

I spent several summers in the seventies and early eighties at Stonehenge and Glastonbury, in the days when they were free festivals. I remember very clearly (which is surprising) a particular psychedelic experience. We were sat on the stones of Stonhenge and as my friends and I spoke to each other the words came out of our mouths in sheets of colours. Each more vibrant than the other.

Each time I wear Zelda I have a comparable experience. I exhale, put my nose to my skin, and then inhale deeply. The notes unfold in layers like magic. First the spicy top layer, and then the thick magnolia and flowery layer, and then hidden under that you hit a smoky, musky, vanilla, sandalwoody and who knows what else accord. It stays layered on the skin. Absolute genius, and it doesn´t stop. It is deep and complex, and I wonder how Shelley Waddington came up with this. Be careful though it´s a twelve hour trip! Still there in the morning.

Photo Stolen Flickr

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900 – 1948) “I don’t want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.” – Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda was inspired by Zelda Fitzgerald, quintessential flapper and inspiration for her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald. She lived her life to the full, but hovered on the edge of madness. She was a writer in her own right. Gone are my thoughts of computer games.

Zelda by Shelley Waddington for En Voyage Perfumes 2013

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Italian Bergamot, Spices, Iranian Galbanum
Heart: Magnolia Blossom, Garden Florals
Base: Amber, Musks, Vanilla, Peru Balsam, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Cedarwood, Oakmoss (Mousse de Chêne)

You can order from En Voyage Perfumes and they do samples too. I look forward to exploring more of the line.

Further reading: Jordan River at Australian Perfume Junkies and Smelly Thoughts

“Nobody has measured, not even poets, how much the human heart can hold.” Zelda Fitzgerald

Bussis
CQ