Manguier Métisse GIVEAWAY WINNERS

December 25, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 2 Comments

Portia

Hey Hey Crew,

Another excellent giveaway. Let’s see who won.
Portia xx

Manguier Métisse GIVEAWAY WINNERS

Manguier Métisse by Pierre Guillaume

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Fruity notes, mango, tea, sugar, frangipani, woody notes, powdery notes

LuckyScent has $125/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples from $5/ml

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week there will be 3 winners who will receive:
1 x Manguier Métisse decant (from my decant)
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Sunday 24th December 2017 10pm Australian EdsT
Winners were chosen by random.org

Sue Mills

Saffyishere

Undina

The winners will have till Thursday 28th December 2017 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

Saturday Question: Of your 2017 scent purchases, which did you wear most?

December 23, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 90 Comments

Portia

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.

Over 100 responses I will draw a $10 Surrender To Chance Gift Card.
Over 200 responses I will draw a $20 Surrender To Chance Gift Card.
Comment purposefully on yours or anothers comment & you’ll have a chance, random.org will draw on Friday.

Last Weeks Winner: Sadly we only made 63 comments last week.

eMail me at (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with the eMail you’d like me to send your Gift Card to.

Saturday Question:

Of your 2017 scent purchases, which did you wear most?

Most of us shudder as we think of how much money we spend on fragrance in all its forms each year. This addiction is expensive, wasteful and hardly environmentally friendly. Yet still the thrill of the chase, the spend, the bargain and the vintage keeps us plowing through our cash reserves as if money grows on trees. Trolling the WWW at night to read reviews, search out deals, catch up on the FaceBook boards etc inevitably leads to sample, bottle, set purchases.

One of the guys I know online asked this question and it REALLY got me thinking. What have I used from this years spectacular haul? Has there been a favourite that I reach for constantly, or even often?

What I realised was that though I keep buying new bottles on the back of loving a sample or decant, what I wear the most are my collection and samples/decants. When I’m not trying oodles of new to review then I like to be reminded of the bottles I love, give them an airing and reconnect.

My Answer:

There are a couple of ways I can answer this because quite a biot of my fragrant spend goes to buying extras of discontinued fragrances that I adore and whenever I see a bargain snap it up. So vintage parfum atomisers of Miss Dior, Mitsouko, Samsara, Shalimar and Bal a Versailles along with Silences PdT & Niki de Saint Phalle EdT are regular purchases and they get worn a LOT!

If we are talking buying of new bottles then I think that there are two that have seen a bit of use

Serge Lutens: La Fille de Berlin: The very first week that the new bottles came out in the Palais Royale store I rang Elvire and had her send my package via a mate in Europe. The 100ml bottle is lovely, I really like the way it feels and spritzes. It arrived here through the cooler months which meant La Fille de Berlin went into instant rotation and got some serious skin time. Roses done right with a honeyed sweetness that always feels like raspberries to me.

Penhaligon’s: Ostara: Having gone through a good sized decant and seeing a new bottle for sale at a reasonable price I finally caved and bought Ostara. It has been a spring staple for me in 2017, so fresh and bright. Yellow/white flowers and a weird earthy undertone. It’s pretty and unusual. Can’t work out why it wasn’t a bigger hit.

My Saturday Question to you is:

Of your 2017 scent purchases, which did you wear most?

Ummagumma by Bruno Fazzolari 2017

December 22, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 7 Comments

Portia

Hi there lovers of NEW!

Ummagumma arrived in the December LuckyScent Sample Pack. People whose noses I admire have praised it unconditionally and with great gusto. I admit to be excited at this new release from and independent perfumer making interesting and beautiful fragrance.

Ummagumma by Bruno Fazzolari 2017

Fragrantica

Parfumo gives these featured accords:
Saffron, Carnation, Chocolate, Tobacco, Leather, Labdanum, Sandalwood, Cedar, Frankincense, Tonka bean, Vanilla

Imagine. It’s 42C (107F) and I am wearing Ummagumma. Chocolate, tobacco and labdanum. It’s thick, rich and ropey and I have brought to the table sweaty fat man to add to the cacophony. Choc/amber done majestically. Ummagumma smells a little like something I can’t quite place.

It’s about 2 hours later now and Ummagumma has lost most of its potency. What remains is a soft focus, vanilla heavy amber. It is clean and sweet, but not confectionary sugar sweet, resinously sweet. A comfortable amber that doesn’t really live up to the explosive extravagance of the opening or the name. Ummagumma sounds like it’s going to maintain its fragrance like gum does as you chew it for hours. Not here. Maybe I was over-expecting because I did read Claire’s post at Take One Thing Off.

I also think that I may be paralleling this work with unfavourable comparison to the way Pierre Guillaume does sweet amber heavy scents. Now I question myself, would I buy this if I were sniffing in a store? The answer feels like it might be a yes. It is lovely and the opening spectacular.

Not a bad dry down scent, very nice, extremely wearable, comfortable and unchallenging. Second and third wearings have shown me that it is a seamless and smooth blend. The ingredients smell expensive and lavish to me (though I have no real knowledge of ingredients or costs) and I find myself enjoying the ride much more. Sadly, that’s the end of my sample, I have my eye on the Portfolio Discovery Set now.

LuckyScent

Further reading: Take One Thing Off and Colognoisseur
LuckyScent has $125/30ml
LuckyScent also has $30/Portfolio Discovery Set: 5 x 1.7ml atomizer vials

Have you tried any of the Bruno Fazzolari fragrances?
Portia xx

Manguier Métisse by Pierre Guillaume for Huitième Art 2010

December 21, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 25 Comments

Portia

Hi there APJ,

It’s interesting how a new brand will come out with three or four fragrances and often only one or two get any interest generated on the scentbloggosphere. So much so that when I saw the name Manguier Matisse my immediate thought was, “Ooooh! New Huitième Art. Must try that immediately.” So I bought a Surrender To Chance decant. On further delving I discover it was in the original release back in 2010. So I figured, if I’m a complete fan and don’t know it, then how many of you have never had time to adore this beauty?

Manguier Métisse by Huitième Art 2010

Manguier Métisse by Pierre Guillaume

Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Fruity notes, mango, tea, sugar, frangipani, woody notes, powdery notes

Interesting, Manguier Métisse means Mango Tree.

Opening gives me mango tea, radiant style, creamy white floral backdrop. Imagine if original Gucci Guilty Femme (2010) was mango centric, used the best quality ingredients and was smoothed by a softly laconic creaminess. There, you have it. That is exactly how Manguier Métisse smells to me. It perfectly presents the dreamy idea of sitting in the shade of a flower gardens Mango Tree in the tropical, humid heat.

PDI

This is not the big band creamy tropical lasciviousness of Annick Goutal’s Songes but more like a summer flanker of Elie Saab Le Parfum (2011), yet I find it a more sophisticated, elegant scent. Less such you in the nose to get your attention and more come hither, just a little bit closer.

Manguier Métisse maintains its heart scent for hours, very linear, until as it fades a nondescript woodsiness underplays the creamy florals.

Ultimately wearable and I’m really liking it in the heat of Sydney summer but I bet it could wash away the winter blues in a moment.

Further reading: Confessions of a Perfume Nerd
LuckyScent has $125/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples from $5/ml

Manguier Métisse GIVEAWAY

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week there will be 3 winners who will receive:
1 x Manguier Métisse decant (from my decant)
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 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 tell us a scent you use in winter to remind you of summer

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Sunday 24th December 2017 10pm Australian EdsT and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org
The winners will have till Thursday 28th December 2017 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

Helicriss by Sylvaine Delacourte 2016

December 20, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 6 Comments

Kate Apted

G’day APJ family,

The weather in the southern states of Australia has not been particularly ‘spring-like’ lately. I finally got around to separating my scent collection into four piles; one for each season. I am beginning to think this somewhat futile an exercise, simply because I never know what each day will be like. As a result, I dig into my other piles for more temperate offerings. It is pretty much back to disordered mayhem. I did, however, find a little 7.5ml bottle of summery sunshine I’d completely forgotten I had!

Way back at the beginning of the year, I ordered Sylvaine Delacourte’s sample set. I quite liked the range, but I found them a little quiet in general. Musk based, with each scent promoting a different facet based on Ms Delacourte’s memories. I was drawn to the powderiness of Florentina and the smooth ylang ylang of Lilylang. The most interesting I found was Helicriss. So, over the winter months, I ordered travel sizes of four of them. In time, they got lost amongst all my smaller sized bottles. The one it seems I had used the most of, though, was Helicriss.

Helicriss by Sylvaine Delacourte 2016

Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, cinnamon, rosemary
Heart: Grapefruit, lemon, tonka bean
Base: Immortelle, patchouli, benzoin, musk

What is so enticing about this one? It has a very unusual blend of notes to produce a musky curry. There is no doubt immortelle is a major note, but it is the blend of patchouli, grapefruit, benzoin and the musk that gives it a firey heat. I am grateful this is a skin hugging scent. It would be completely headache inducing if it projected Poison or Angel like. It is the constant reminder of the scent just being there that makes it pique my curiosity.

PDI

I have absolutely no idea how others find it. Thirty minutes after applying, the curry accord dies down to leave a warm, aromatic rosemary and musk. So, by the time I leave the house, Helicriss has already begun its metamorphosis into a herbally musk. No one has ever made mention of this scent at all, so I guess it is polite enough to wear around others. Interestingly, of the entire range, which does lean to a slight ballet-pink-feminine feel, I think this would smell heavenly on a man. There is one guy at work I am hoping I can get to spray this on himself. After months of helping him search for THE scent, I secretly suspect Helicriss is it.

When I used Helicriss over winter, it always gave a feel of dried grass, hay and the dense heat of the midday humidity of an Australian summer day. It has a dusty, wind like sense that makes me yearn for a sudden rainstorm. I am unsure how Helicriss will fare over the blistering heat of summer, but now that it has joined my spring pile, I’ll get to find out. In the meantime, Helicriss will bring sunshine on a temperamental grey spring day.

PDI

Further reading: Now Smell This and Scent for Thought
LuckyScent has $160/100ml and Samples

Which scents suggest, or are indicative of, summer months in your country?
K xxx

Ambient Scent Wishlist for Santa

December 19, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 9 Comments

Sandra

Hello dear APJ! How are you all doing?

The holidays are a around the corner and thankfully I am done with the shopping and just have to finish wrapping everything. We are having my parents over for Christmas this year and it will be special as my eight year old has not spent Christmas with his grandparents since he was six months old.

While I was telling my husband what I had bought for our son, he exclaimed that I am the most difficult person to buy a gift for! Seriously???!!! Me -difficult to shop for??!!! If he would listen to what I have been whispering to him (not so much whispering as it is me telling him what I wish for)… He was in Tokyo for a week and went looking but came back empty handed because he could not find it despite the fact that he had Japanese colleagues helping. He is off to Rome this week so fingers crossed… In all honesty I would love a new set of sheets and new bath towels but he says that he refuses to buy household items for Christmas – I understand his problem. So if I am honest with myself, perhaps I am a tad challenging to shop for.

The one luxury item that I am loving this year is ambient scents. So, while I am not holding my breath on receiving something scented for Christmas, I would love to share with you what has had me intrigued over the past six months.

Ambient Scent Wishlist for Santa

While buying the roses for the perfume talk at the school, I spotted a brand which was completely new to me. L’Objet. The florist carries the bath salts, bars of soap and room sprays. I started out smelling all of the bath salts and loved each one of them and would have bought one on the spot if I had not seen the room sprays.

L’Objet

The black bottle is heavy and has a white label with the name of the scent and two reliefs on either side of the name. Very modern and elegant. The one that came home with me is called Rose Noire which is all about the exquisite rose and tea with some added spices for good measure. I spray the room, the upholstery and sit back and dream of walking through a garden of rare fragrant roses. Divine. I will certainly be trying out the two other room sprays in the collection.

Mecca

Another brand that I have always loved is Fornasetti. Their incense sticks are subtle and leave the room scented for hours. This summer I splurged on the Fornasetti room spray Flora which leaves a scented trail of a white floral bouquet which I find stunning on a warm day. It of course helps that it comes in a gorgeous ceramic holder with a lid and looks like a piece of art.

Becker Minty

Cire Trudon is another brand that I started exploring this summer. I am eyeing one of their Christmas candles with the festive scents and colours of the ceramic holders.

There is a whole new world out there with home fragrances that I have yet to tap into. If I cannot have flowers every week, why not a room spray or a candle that brings a smile to my face.

Do you like to scent your home? Do you use candles, incense or room sprays? Any suggestions for me? I would love to hear what you have to say.

Be safe over the holidays.
Oodles of fragrant kisses, Sandra

SOTD 18 – 24 December 2017

December 18, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 183 Comments

Portia

Hi APJ,

I see these SOTD (Scent Of The Day) threads all the time on Facebook and they are really good conversation generators.

SOTD 18 – 24 December 2017

The idea is you’ll chime in through the week with whatever scent you are wearing. You don’t need to be super knowledgable, have high faluting tastes or be a published author to comment. Just tell us what fragrance you’re wearing, smelling, buying etc.

You probably won’t have time to write every scent, every spritz but whenever you feel the mood take you share your current spritz and a few things about it. Maybe you love/loathe it, want it, are excited by the notes/bottle/SA who sold it: WHATEVER! As always here at APJ, taking sides never means taking offence and everyone keeps it respectful and light, even though we can sometimes trawl the depths.

Hopefully you will come back and see if anyone has responded to your comment and you can reply to them.

Over 100 responses I will draw a Scent Sample Pack (from my collection)
This week:

Aftelier Perfumes: Parfum de Maroc
Leone Reinthal: Antarctica
Guerlain: Shalimar (vintage extrait)
Ex Nihilo: Fleur Narcotique
CHANEL No 19 (vintage EdC)

Comment purposefully on yours or anothers comment & you’ll have a chance, random.org will draw on Sunday.

LAST WEEKS WINNER: Cassieflower

Send your address to portia_turbo AT yahoo DOT com DOT au

Go To It Crew.
Portia xxx

Charlatan by Fort & Manle GIVEAWAY WINNERS

December 18, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 1 Comment

Portia

Hi there APJ,

Thank you to Rasei of Fort & Manle. Such generosity. It’s wonderful to have this beautiful bottle and the scent is freaking amazing.
I hope you’re a winner,
Portia xx

Charlatan by Fort & Manle GIVEAWAY WINNERS

Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Pear, dark chocolate
Heart: Damask rose, Moroccan jasmine, vanilla, tuber
Base: Osmanthus, Australian sandalwood, amber, Madagascar vanilla

Fort & Manle parfum has $230/50ml
Peony Melbourne also has the range

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week there will be 10 winners who will receive:
1 x Fort & Manle Charlatan decant (from my bottle)
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Closed Sunday 17th December 2017 10pm Australian Edst
Winners were chosen by random.org

Hage Kay
Monica Beaton
Tim
Jyotsna
Crikey
Kerri Clarke
Paul mills
DW
Jaybee
Sue Mills

The winners will have till Thursday 21st December 2017 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

Saturday Question: What Scented Gift Are You Hoping For Under The Tree

December 16, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 63 Comments

Portia

Hello Fellow Fumies,

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.

Last Weeks Winner: Didn’t make 100

eMail me at (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with the eMail you’d like me to send your Gift Card to.

Saturday Question:

What Scented Gift Are You Hoping For Under The Tree

It’s Christmas (and many other giving times) right now. Aside from our religious or secular beliefs we can all pretend that these times are about giving but seriously, it’s all about what you get to open. Come ON! Admit it. Even if only to us. We won’t judge. We are all greedy AF too. Well maybe not that extreme but wouldn’t it be nice to get exactly what you dream of for once?

So here’s your chance at a fantasy gift receiving. What do you get? Imagine yourself unwrapping it, the sheer incredulity that your crew got it SO right.

So let’s all give our one true hearts wish for fragrant gifts. Who knows, maybe they’re reading…..

My Answer:

Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Rhubarb, vetiver, red berries, tomato leaf, incense, green apple, hazelnut, honeysuckle

The original Aedes de Venustas fragrance. In the purple bottle. I’ve wanted it since it was first talked about on the blogs and for some reason I never bought it. It was a glorious revelation when released, we all swooned. The bottle, the scent, everything was just right. To have this under the tree would be un-freaking-believable.

My Saturday Question to you is:

What Scented Gift Are You Hoping For Under The Tree

Merry Christmas 2017

December 16, 2017 / australianperfumejunkiescom / 6 Comments

Portia

To all who are celebrating, and those who are not, APJ wishes you a safe and peaceful holiday season. Here are some healthy young lads to help you celebrate. If they’re not your cup of tea for sexy time elf play then they double as handymen and will get all the stuff that needs doing around your house done. Now isn’t THAT the best Christmas Wish anyone ever gave you?

We are having a lovely warm day here in Sydney. Lunch with Kath’s sister & family and then a sneaky swim at her parents place. Jin worked Christmas Eve overnight so he is sound asleep till at least midday.

Fragrance wise I wanted something cool and calming, also something I had a small travel size to take with me for respritzes throughout the day. What better a choice than my lovely old standby Niki de Saint Phalle.

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Artemisia, mint, green notes, peach, bergamot
Middle: Carnation, patchouli, orris root, jasmine, ylang-ylang, cedar, rose
Base: Leather, sandalwood, amber, musk, oakmoss

FragranceNet has $22/14ml before coupon

So what did you wear for the festivities?
Portia x