Fun

MAC Cosmetics x The Simpsons 2014 Ad Campaign

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 6 Comments

OMG!!

MAC is constantly coming up with super fun stuff but this is the BEST idea in ages. I can’t wait for this set to hit Aussie stores, just so I can check that it’s real. I love MAC and I love the Simpson’s. How totally excellent that they have been married in make up. Too Freaking Good

Portia xx

MAC Cosmetics x The Simpsons 2014 Ad Campaign

As always my first in fashion blog supplied the piece: art8amby

 

To celebrates the 25th anniversary of The Simpsons, MAC Cosmetics is launching a limited edition range of make-up inspired by our favourite cartoon family. The colourful range includes Nacho Cheese Explosion yellow lipglass, false lashes, a powder peach blush and Marge Cuti-cles nail stickers.

The limited edition collaboration will hit stores and online starting September 04th. (source)


Drew Carey, Richard Simmons: Living Scenery

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 10 Comments

Hi there APJ,

Today’s post is one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen in my life. Sometimes a little video can make your day seem lighter and brighter. If you haven’t seen it before then I promise you a rare treat. For those that have seen it, watch it again. It only gets better every time you see it. Drew Carey, Richard Simmons: Living Scenery from Whose Line Is It Anyway.

Today I am taking a perfume break. Hanging out with Jin, fixing my BFFs parents electrical problems and riding the motor bikes. Then I’m off to work tonight where I will probably be wearing Vintage Boucheron Femme. Loads of it. YUMMO!

DREW CAREYPhoto Stolen ScreenInsults

No matter how shit your day, I think Drew Carey, Richard Simmons: Living Scenery may just turn you around

Be well.
Portia x

 

whose line is it anyway-richard simmons special!!

Korea 2014: Photo Essay

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 35 Comments

Hey Crew,

I hope you are all happy and well. So we are back from our Korean adventure and it was hectic! I have had to spend the return week recovering from the amount of stuff we packed into 17 days. There is no way I could show you the whole trip and all that happened because it was just too full on.

So here is a mini view of some of our highlights, obviously I couldn’t include every meal but some of my favourite stand outs were Korean Bar B Q beef (bought for us in a very chi-chi restaurant in Yangsan) and pork (in a tiny street food restaurant in Gangnam near the Zaha Hadid designed arts centre). We also fell in love with the Lotte Burgers and Paris Baguette. The rest of the crew had loads of extra fresh seafood and pronounced it wonderful and I even ate some of the fish we caught on our fishing trip.

As we were with a local, Jin my partner was born and raised in Korea, we had the inside skinny on what was good and crap so we went to a couple of important temples, Jeju Island which is the honeymoon destination of Koreans where newlyweds wear couples outfits (super cute). We were also lucky enough to go to the JSA (Join Security Area) in the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) between North & South Korea which was both incredible and frightening because we went into the border house where talks happen and crossed over into North Korea, we were supposed to be there for 15-20 minutes for photos etc but the armed guards who were escorting us got new information and we were ushered out after only about 2 minutes, the guards and our guide becoming very nervous and agitated. Jin could only catch some of the conversations but there was a drama and we needed to be out PRONTO. It was all quite disturbing but so amazing to have been there. If you are in Seoul; there is a small tourist market for trips there, ask your Concierge.

We also did a bunch of shopping. South Korea has an amazing array of excellent makeup and fragrance chains of their own (Etude House, Skinfood and Japan’s Shu Uemura) and every time I shopped they gave me some testers of their other products, which brings us to

giveaway manoneileenPhoto Stolen manoneileen

Korea 2014 GIVEAWAY

etude house fresh cherry tint EbayPhoto Stolen Ebay

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have 2 winners who will each get:
1 x Etude House Fresh Cherry Lip Tint
1 x mixed bag of 6 Etude House, Skinfood & Shu Uemura samples
1 x pair faux LV socks
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 me a memory that involves a travel fragrance experience or a beauty product someone brought back from overseas for you.

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie Korea 2014 Beauty Product GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-2PW #Beauty #Giveaway

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Sunday 8th June 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 12th June 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.

Korea 2014: Photo Essay

Korea 2014 Jeju Island Weather Stone

Korea 2014 Jeju Asses

Korea 2014 Jeju Love Seat Jin:Portia

Korea 2014 Jeju bird

Korea 2014 Jeju from hotel

Korea 2014 Korean Flags

Korea 2014 Dior Counter1

Korea 2014 City Lights

Korea 2014 Zaha Hadid Art Centre

Korea 2014 Jin & Portia shopping

Korea 2014 Suspension Bridge

Korea 2014 Matthew, Portia, Jin Wet Willy

Korea 2014 #1

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Korea 2014 #20

All photos donated by Kath, Matt and Portia.

I hope you enjoyed this little look into our trip. Sadly I was so busy seeing and doing that I didn’t capture enough vistas or places of interest. Also you’ll notice that there is often someone at the table using their iPhone, this is ONLY allowed after mains are finished and the time I would remember to take a snap.
Portia xx

 

 

Louis Vuitton Presents Travel Books Vietnam by Lorenzo Mattotti

/ australianperfumejunkiescom

Hey All,

I’m traveling through South Korea but back in 2008 a whole group of us went to Vietnam to celebrate my birthday. Friends, Aunties and an Uncle. It was a super terrific few weeks and we saw Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi and it was incredible.

Louis Vuitton Vietnam PixabayPhoto Stolen Pixabay

Enjoy Louis Vuitton’s take on a marvelous country that we all hope to revisit someday.
Portia xx

Louis Vuitton Presents Travel Books Vietnam by Lorenzo Mattotti

Sniffa – Eugenie, Oregon 2014

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 4 Comments

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Post by ElizaD

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Hi Australian Perfume junkies,

What do you get when you combine wine, food, perfume and friends in Eugene, Oregon USA? A Sniffa – Eugenie!!!!

Sniffa – Eugenie, Oregon 2014

Here’s the recipe:

Sniffa – Eugenie! Ingredients

1 tiny coffee table
5 fabulous fumehead friends
lots of small glasses
lots of cotton balls
your favorite perfumes–any size bottle or container will do
food
drink
stories

Sniffa - Eugenie 2014 girl Esri Nederland FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Sniffa – Eugenie! Instructions

Invite your friends over and ask them to each bring 3 to 5 of their favorite perfumes. If they only have one, tell them not to worry, you have lots! Encourage them to think of a story about their perfume and be ready to share it. Then ask them to bring a little something to nosh on and a complementary beverage.

Prepare your space by gathering as many small glasses as you can muster and a bag of cotton balls (which is what we call them here in the States–I think others call them cotton wool 😉 ). Place the glasses and the cotton on your coffee table, along with a small bowl of lemon slices (coffee beans make everything smell like coffee, lemon dissipates quickly). Spend the rest of the day thinking about what perfumes you will choose to share from your expansive collection of samples and bottles. Will it be your treasured 1978 bottle of Guerlain L’Heure Bleue, which you bought on eBay for a song, or your tiny sample of Chanel No. 5 Eau Premiere? Your equally small sample of Cacharel LouLou or your mini of Prada L’Eau Ambrée? Remember, only three to five!

Vacuum your floors, puff the sofa pillows, prepare the food table, and wait for the magic to happen.

Which it did!

C brought an amazing walnut spread, olives, and a lovely bottle of Blanquette de Limoux, a sparkling wine from Languedoc; K brought home-made brie en croute; and E provided bread and veggies and other bottles of whites and reds.

Since C and E are enthralled with perfume history, they arranged the fragrances by release date, using the book Scent and Subversion: Decoding a Century of Provocative Perfume by Barbara Herman as a guide. As each perfume was introduced, the owner carefully sprayed or dabbed a cotton ball and then placed it under an upturned glass. As the scent released, it was caught in the glass from which each took a sniff. Anyone watching this group would surely had thought we were participating in something most illegal!

Sniffa - Eugenie 2014Photo Donated ElizaD

And the stories!

C had her treasured bottle of Guerlain’s Mitsouko, brought all the way from Paris, and her Andy Tauer minis. She told the stories of how she had been captured by Mitsouko’s incense notes, and how she had discovered Andy Tauer on her trip to the Perfume House in Portland. E shared how she had been sitting in a meeting when she found out that she had won the eBay bid for her bottle of L’Heure Bleue and had immediately launched into a hamster dance. K had everyone in fits of giggles as she related how her perfume, Revlon Intimate, had been a gift during high school and how it still made her feel oh so sexy, even fifty years later. S was so happy that she had found other fumeheads and how perfume was becoming a wonderful connection between her and her daughter. T brought a tiny bottle of Holy Smoke Oil….”one drop lasts all day”…and entertained us with the story of how she found it in a small shop on the lower East Side of Manhattan, far from where she lives now.

Sniffa - Eugenie 2014 The Perfume House Portland TwitterPhoto Stolen Twitter

And when the wine was drained and there were just crumbs left of the brie, we all agreed that this event had only sharpened our appetite for even more fragrance fun…Perfume House in Portland, here we come!

Have you ever participated in a fragrance get-together? DO TELL!
ElizaD xx

Fragrant Confession Time

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 18 Comments

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Post by Sister Mary Magdelene, Patron Saint of Perfumers

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Hello APJ! Have you got a habit? Lord knows I have. Confession time…

Fragrant Confession Time

I have been guilty of being quite set in my ways, feeling that certain fragrances have their season, or fit only certain social situations, even that they “match” with particular outfits or colours! (My Bandit ensemble is a favourite). A gorgeous friend has gone one further, making a beautiful dress in celebration of Ma Griffe. Now I know lots of people do this sort of thing: saving zesty summer spritzers for only the hottest days, categorising scents for business or parties or the gym.

All that is wonderful, and serves well most of the time, but lately I have wanted to mix it up, to experience my collection in new ways. I also wanted to avoid falling into unconsidered habits. And then, some days I just need help to decide…

I have my fragrance collection stored on a fragrance social networking site* that has a cute tool. It’s a way to make a random selection from the fragrances listed in your wardrobe. So… each day I ask the Random Button what I should wear.

And…? I have been selecting my SOTD like this for a month now, to entirely delightful results. I have worn much more broadly from my wardrobe, and from samples and decants at least as much as full bottles. This has been a great prompt to discover some “new” scents.

Parfum Sacre Caron Shopping.comPhoto Stolen Shopping.com

Taking my cue from this fragrance wheel of fortune, I have fallen into the waiting spicy balmy embrace of Parfum Sacré, I have floated on the criminally overlooked cool green florals of Givenchy III, Incense Rosé has risen above L’Air du Desert Marocain in my Tauer of love.

Eau d'Epices TauerPhoto Stolen Tauer

Recently I mentioned the unusually cool Spring and Summer weather where I am. Although in no way intended as a complaint, it seems that I was heard where it matters, and since we have been smote with a long and blistering heat wave. So fiery it’s been that I fancied I heard the thunder of Apocalyptic hooves, but thankfully it has transpired merely to be the clip clop of a Happy New Chinese Year.

Black Bvlgari FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

At the zenith of this heat, the Random Button decreed I should wear Bulgari Black. I do believe this fragrance is exulted in extreme heat. Rather than resisting the roasting, I made a cup of Lapsang Souchoung, unfurled and became one with the melting tarmacadam of the city, the scent of rubber, tea and vanilla swirling as I yielded.

I’m not especially good at being told what to do, so I won’t claim I’m consulting the Random Button religiously. There are still days when I know I *have* to wear a certain scent. But I’m looking for a suggestion a lot more often than I thought I would. And enjoying the outcomes more than I imagined.

How about you? How do you select a fragrance to wear? Any quirky habits?

Confess!
Sister Mary Magdelene, Patron Saint of Perfumers

 

*I’m using Parfumo, which is great! Once you’ve loaded all your perfumes into your Wardrobe and Samples collections, you can use the Parfumo Assistant to suggest perfumes adjusting their settings for season, time of day, whether it’s a week day or weekend, even occasion (leisure, night out, business…) You can choose to include or exclude your Samples in the suggestions. The assistant gives 12 suggestions that you can then choose from. And of course you can mess about with it however you like: when it becomes really cold over winter I will be dialling up some spring morning suggestions just for some relief!

You can use your account to keep a record of what you wear (the accumulated record is visible only to you). If you do this religiously, you get an archive of how often you wear scents and what you rarely wear – great info for reminding you of neglected beauties, or for keeping tabs on what can justify its place on your shelves and what should be moved along!

I Hate That Perfume Because… Sydney Perfume Lovers

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 48 Comments

Hiya APJ,

A lot of what we as perfume, fragrance and scent lovers do is done solo. We read our computers, test, smell, enjoy and buy a lot of our fragrance alone. It’s one of the things I really love about the whole perfumista life. Never having to wait for anyone else to do what I love, smell scents. Sometimes though getting together and sharing the love is as much or, Gods forbid, more fun. Imagine a crew of about 12 frag hounds all sitting around eating, drinking, laughing and sniffing. That’s what happened today here at my house. I don’t know if you’ve seen online a thing called MeetUp? In our modern day, high pressure, quick moving, ever changing world sometimes we lose touch with those that are near and dear and find ourselves unable to create new ones, or maybe what you love is very niche and you’re looking for some mates to enjoy it with, whatever the reason a friend of mine Catherine de Peloux Menage (Writer, Fragrance Finder, Personal Scent Consultant and glamorous, great girl about town) decided she would start a crew of her own called Sydney Perfume Lovers – MeetUp. From the tiny germ of an idea there are now well over a hundred members, events scheduled regularly and we have created a Sunday Scent Salon in my home once a month where we come together about a fragrance related topic and have a wonderful morning tea, here’s how today’s went down.

Sunday Scent Salon: I Hate That Perfume Because

Sydney Perfume Lovers – MeetUp

So the topic this month was “I Hate That Perfume Because…” and we were challenged to find a fragrance that really irks us in some way, drives us batshit crazy when we smell it, gives us hives, creates confusion or any other reason that we hate it. There was a catch though, we weren’t there to be only negative, we had to provide an explanation that went further than “YUCK, Disgusting shit. Hate it.” We had to bring a reasonable argument and scent memory with us, and preferably the fragrance too so we could all tell what you were thinking when you gave your spiel.

WOW! We got some DOOZIES!!! People had really gone all out to obtain their anti-elixir and had their stories primed and ready.

I hate that perfume because#1

Some of the fragrances we hated included, L’Heure Bleue by Guerlain because it smells like urinal cakes. Fahrenheit because it smells like bug spray, Rexona Men’s Sport Deodorant because it’s cheap, nasty and ubiquitous, BVLGARI BLV Pour homme because it is a nasty mess and melange of everything unwanted in a fragrance, La Petit Robe Noire Parfum by Guerlain because it is nice for the first hour but then lasts eternally and becomes both sickly and boring at the end, Tweed by Lentheric due to family remembrances, Giorgio Beverly Hills because of its overuse in the 1980s but we all agreed that it smells rather lovely now having not smelled it for years, L’Eau d’Issey Femme because it is a solid wall of scent that lasts eternally and is a metallic, super sweet mess. There were others including an art book infused with the scent of fear obtained by putting swatches on the inside legs and armpits a men and making them do really scary stuff, then recreating those scents artificially for a book which was strange, subversive and extremely compelling.

I hate that perfume because#2

There was heaps of lighthearted banter and no one took offense, we all really had a great time and as always I feel like I’ve made some new friends. People who like something I am completely beserko about. Good people who I was lucky enough to spend some time getting to know today, a couple I’ve met before and some others who are already my friends. More than anything it reminds me how lucky we all are. Without the internet I would still be a completely solo fragrance lover, which can be nice but now I can share my love with people all over the world.

I hate that perfume because#3

Be it these lovely MeetUp Scent Salons we organise, on the Facebook pages, reading blogs and articles or here in this wondrous space (APJ) where I feel like there is a whole fragrance family where we can share our Cuckoo, fly our freak flag and generally unleash our love of fragrance.

I hate that perfume because#4

I hate that perfume because#5

I do apologise for my TERRIBLE photo taking, getting the lights in and rotten framing. We were having too much fun to be sensible and I am glad.

Today was great, you should think about starting a MeetUp where you are. Nobody has too many friends and you never know where your next BFF will come from. Should you wish to join us at a Sunday Scent Salon you must first join Sydney Perfume Lovers – MeetUp. We can’t wait to meet you and hear your stories over some great food, some champagne and tea.

Love and fragrant hugs from me,
Portia xx

 

Wonder Woman

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 13 Comments

Dear APJ,

Sometimes something found on facebook resonates so completely and utterly that I feel I have to share. This made me snort my coffee because it felt like it was speaking to me so loudly. Please take this gem out in the world with you today with my love.

Portia xx

Wonder Woman