Scent Diary 21.9-27.9.2026

Portia

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Hello Australian Perfume Junkies and friends, So glad to have you drop by Scent Diary. Grab a cuppa or beverage of choice, sit back and check what has happened, been eaten, spritzed and seen in our lives in Sydney, Australia.

At then end please leave us some comments. What or who did you see, do, eat with. Did you spritz, purchase, have arrivals or finish a sample? What’s happening in your world? If you’re writing or reading opinions, we can disagree but keep it nice and try not to give or take offense. Right now the world needs a web of friendships and connection more than ever. We all have perfume and each other in common. That’s a whole lot.

Scent Diary

Scent Diary: 21.9-27.9.2026

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New Sniffs + Thunked: 25.4.2019

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Portia

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Hey Hey Perfume Junkies,

I’d love it if you get involved: agree, respectfully disagree, have any thought-out opinion and want to share, do so in the comments below. The point is starting a conversation.

Anything worthy of comment, either good or bad, that’s passed under my nose through the week will get a short write up. If I think something is terrible, shamefully lazy, greedy or stupid and you should know about it, it will be said. As always YMMV.

Thunk is the sound of an empty hitting the bin but there is some leeway here, selling or gifting away can also count.

We also want to know what you have tried or thunked each week too, please share in the comments below. You don’t need to be a hardcore perfumista to join in, just give your impressions. Others will join in with their impressions too, everyone has a slightly or hugely different experience with scent. That’s part of the fun.

New Sniffs + Thunked: 25.4.2019

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LuckyScent Sample Shopping Haul

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Portia

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Hi there APJ,

Somehow the day got away from me. Dog Walks, Meetings, Lunch, Art, Afternoon Tea, Dinner and a Movie (Murder On The Orient Express).

While I was doing all this I had a VERY exciting box arrive from a recent Retail Therapy Session at LuckyScent. Con’t wait to get my sniff on these beauties.

LuckyScent Sample Shopping Haul

Histoires de Parfums Sample Set

J F Schwarzlose Sample Set

LuckyScent November Sample set

Atelier Cologne Cafe Tuberose

GWP Parfum de Nicolai Patchouli Sublime and some extra Samples.

Thanks LuckyScent

What came in your mailbox this week?
Portia xx

Scent Diary: 16.10 – 22.10.2017

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Portia

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Hey Hey All,

In the week before a holiday I am seriously busy trying get everything ship shape. We did manage to have a life, eat out, wear a bunch of fragrances but I’m only 70% concentrating on living. The rest of my head is organising and planning, making lists and ticking things off.

Scent Diary: 16.10 – 22.10.2017

Monday 16:

Monday morning and my bladder woke me a couple of hours early. He He he he. I’m now wide awake so doing FaceBook, Australian Perfume Junkies and some other computer updates/comments/posts. It’s so calm at this time of morning I feel like more work gets done due to lack of distraction.

A couple of cheeky spritzes of the new DIOR PrivéeJasmine de Anglais from a decant. It’s a very pretty white floral, clean and uncomplicated. Reminds me of something else that I can’t put my finger on exactly, maybe an Annick Goutal?

Jin and I had our first Real Estate guys in to look over the apartment. They were very interested in the place but think we will not see as much for it as we hoped in the current market. Still, the money is not to be sneezed at. Apparently the market in our area is stabilising and maybe even dropping a little. That’s cool. Seeing another guy tomorrow, let’s wait for his appraisal.

Lunch at our favourite cafe. We shared a Burger with the Lot and some Chicken Salt & Vinegar Hot Chips. Delicious. Half each was exactly enough, we even left some chips on our plates.

Had a ONE HOUR LONG bubble bath in Radox Bath Salts and Bath and Body Works Rainkissed Leaves, like standing in a sprint rain shower in the garden.

Night Guerlain Champs Elysees EdP. Fruity violets, mimosa and dewy lilac fluffed up with powder. Perfect for writing my Trivia Q&A.

Bed The Different Company Oriental Lounge

Tuesday 17:

Scott came over for office day today. There was hardly anything to do so we chatted, had lunch with Jin and pottered around. It was a really no sweat, fun day.

Jin’s knee has turned to shit. Poor little bastard has done some ligament damage at work. He’s not a happy camper but we are keeping it iced and resting him as much as possible.

Super lavish bubble bath in La Chasse aux Papillons L`Artisan Parfumeur. Madonna Truth or Dare lotion and I can’t bloody remember what fragrance I wore. Sorry.

Diptyque 34 for Bed

Wednesday 18:

TRIVIA Q&A

Jin’s Korean Chicken Curry left overs for lunch. YUM! On toast! Added peas, so AUSSIE! SHHHH Don’t tell him.

Heeley Cuir Pleine Fleur, dry, velvety soft leather. So fricken luxurious.

Dinner with Jin who ordered enough for four people. Dooley’s Catholic Club in Lidcombe where Jin worked for a couple of years. Everyone was so happy to see him and there were shouts from the kitchen. Food was delicious. We ate most of it too. YUMMM

Jin was given a porcelain pendant from Neela Vermeire. It hung in his wardrobe until he got a new car. Now his car smells of Neela Vermeire Creations Bombay Bling. It’s very freaking cool. See him peeking in the rear view mirror, so cute.

Thursday 19:

Woke up to a Perfume delivery. We recently found a site selling 1 litre demijohns of Tom Ford. I created a split among the Aussie Fragrance Network crew, 900ml sold in under 24 hours. Woo Hoo!

BUT the Window Fix guy had left a card. GRRRR! Sure I’d been sleeping but a couple of good knocks on the door or buzzing the buzzer would have had me ready for action. Now I have to pay for him to come again. So bloody annoying.

It’s a Niki de Saint Phalle kinda day. Sometimes only a chypre will do.

I am so sad today. Keep having fits of tears.  Why is the world going to hell? How can the Church and Politicians say they are for us, the people, then not cure poverty or end war? How are there kids growing up illiterate in 2017? Why is Health Care so ridiculously expensive? How did business get to rule us so effectively? Why do I have to ask 26 million people if Jin and I can be married?
If I feel like this, one of lifes lucky ones. How bad must it feel for the less lucky?
Helpless is how I feel, helpless to create change in a world that seems to have gone bad.

For my bath I used Boucheron Trouble, Madonna Truth or Dare lotion and I’m spritzing myself with Le Galion Sang Blue. As close to an eighties menswear fragrance as is possible in 2017, yet curiously modern. Got a lovely compliment from one of the barmen as he hugged me goodbye, “You smell so good”

Bedtime tonight? Bal a Versialles from my 15ml vintage parfum bottle. SO GOOD!

Friday 20:

Woke up this morning to the long awaited sound of rain. We have been bone dry all through winter and spring, this is a much needed drenching. I love the sound of medium level driving rain that sounds like it can keep the level up for hours, especially as I wake up in my own time, curled up warm and safe in bed under my duvet. Wonderful way to wake.

Morning spritz Histoires de Parfums Ambre 114. Simple crunchy amber, thick and luscious.

Chained myself to the computer and did Trivia Q&A and Blog Posts,. Drank LOADS of tea & coffee. Organised some giveaway stuff and generally made some headway with the list of to dos.

Had a spectacular order from Surrender To Chance arrive. Some fabulously interesting stuff to be reviewing and wearing. Woo Hoo! Now I have about 4 fragrances spritzed on different points of my body. Interestingly Ramon Monegals Cotton Musk seems to be the dominant player, who knew a white musk could be so insistent?

It’s late, the computer is going fuzzy as I try to read and blog. G’Night all. Radox Bath, then bed.

Saturday 21:

Bloody Hell! I thought after my bath, “I’ll just watch one episode of the Good Wife to wind down.” It’s now late and I’m spritzing Phaedon Tabac Rouge from a decant to sleep. Night.

Woke up to the Jehovah’s Witnesses buzzing my apartment block. Our intercom doesn’t let me hear what people are saying so I let them in, thinking it was a delivery. I told them that the JWs stole my sister and she won’t talk to me. Rang me the night before her wedding to tell me she was getting married but didn’t want me to attend. For the first time that I’ve told them this story they seemed genuinely moved, they apologised. It was a very nice moment but I still sent them on their way, nicely though.

Here are the boys at their favourite hour, feeding time.

In the saddle again early to get the blog organised.

We leave on Monday for a Ghan and Indian Pacific trip. Our six year anniversary present to ourselves. Neither Jin nor I are perfect. We are slobbish, sometimes grumpy, manipulative, unhearing or aggressive for no reason and we are full of human frailty. I’m really happy we’ve been able to navigate six years, there’s no promise of a happy ever after but I’ll gladly take a comfortable right now.

Covered in a bunch of fragrances and reviewing. I love this, so fun.

Kath and Scott joined Jin and I for dinner tonight. We had Chinese takeaway, so obviously I was thrilled. Loads of laughs and chattering away on topics from politics and religion through to fragrance, work, lives and families. It was such a fun night I completely forgot to take pics, sorry. Kath gave me this one of our food.

Back at the computer now blogging. FULL and fragrant. Good day.

Sunday 22:

Today I got a postcard from Val the Cookie Queen. What a freaking great surprise. Busses = kisses in Austrian

Chinese Reheats. Is there any better consumable anywhere? Throw it all into a saucepan together with some oil and water and mix it up. DE LIC IOUS!

Spritzed lavishly with Guerlain Champs Elysees tonight. I smell freaking gorgeous.

Worked tonight. Varun gave me a beautiful necklace for my birthday so I wore it this week. Isn’t it fabulous?

 

How was your week? Please share some things that went on: family, food, fun or fragrance. We love to read about your weeks too.
Portia xx

1889 Moulin Rouge by Gérald Ghislain, Sylvie Jourdet for Histoires de Parfums 2010

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Portia

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Hey there Niche Nerds,

A while back my mate Sonya was having a clear out. One of the fragrances that I loved when I first smelled it but never came back to again is today’s scent. You know how that happens yeah? You’re MADLY in love with it when you spritz it in store, you buy a 2ml decant and use it up but before you pull the trigger on your credit card something else gets you excited and you move on. TBH I wish that would play out a bit more often for me, HA! I’d have 1/3 the collection currently in this house.

1889 Moulin Rouge by Histoires de Parfums 2010

1889 Moulin Rouge by Gérald Ghislain, Sylvie Jourdet

Fragrantica

Parfumo gives these featured accords:
Top: Mandarin, Plum, Cinnamon
Heart: Absinth, Damascus rose
Base: Iris, Patchouli, Musk, Fur

Plum and cardboardy iris are my first whiff, it’s VERY stage make up smelling. We used to use pots of carmine lipstick and they smelled remarkably like this. The rose waltzes in underneath the radar and gradually makes itself known. Personally I think of absinth as far more herbal and astringent than the soft focus booziness in Moulin Rouge, it feels more creamy cocktail-ish or even that drink that you have at Harry’s bar in Venice; the Bellini. Sweet and lightly sparkling.

Moulin Rouge by Histoires de Parfums Bellini_at_Harry's_Bar WikiMediaWikiMedia

Iris though is king in Moulin Rouge, from top to bottom it dominates, quietly but insistent. One of the things I really love about Moulin Rouge is its understated smellability. Though you are fragrant and people can smell you it does not feel intrusive or overpowering, somehow it manages that fine line of smelling fabulous but not intrusive.

Skewed towards what we think of as a feminine fragrance I think it an excellent choice for the guys as well. I can easily imagine it being a signature scented point of difference for a man in an office.

Moulin Rouge by Histoires de Parfums Quadrille_at_the_Moulin_Rouge WikiMediaWikiMedia

Further reading: Olfactoria’s Travels and Non Blonde
ParfuMaria has €95/60ml

What is your favourite olde world makeup scent?
Portia xx