Julian Bedel

Scent Samples: Love & Loss

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 14 Comments

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TinaG

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Hi APJ,

My fragrance collection had a bit of a rough ride last year. I packed up my house & put everything in storage in May while I travelled overseas for 7 weeks, and then it stayed in storage while I found another place to live. It wasn’t until September 2016 when I got access to everything again. The full bottles and decants were fine, but there was substantial loss from my samples. This varied from leakage & evaporation, to label text disappearing.

Scent Samples: Love & Loss

Moral number one of this is: samples are intended to be used. They aren’t there for you to build a mini-Osmothèque style fragrance library, the vials aren’t that robust at the best of times. Use them, make notes, talk about them, and if you fall in love… buy the bottle.

So, I’ve sorted my samples, laid them out, & thrown out the empties. The ones which have leaked but still have juice left in the vial have been put aside for testing. So today I grabbed two as I walked out the door to give them a run through. These are Fueguia 1833 – Don Giovanni, and Castillos.

And – do you know what? I looked up Fueguia 1833’s current catalogue, and these two aren’t listed. Some time back I purchased full sample sets of Destinos and Special Projects, of which Castillos and Don Giovanni and were included as at March 2016. Now in March 2017, a year later, they’re no longer available – which leads us to moral number two: things change. What was available 6 months or 12 months ago, may be discontinued and therefore so much more difficult to access. And if you fall in love, you’re screwed.

So what do I do with these two samples? Do I treasure them,put them in tightly packed glass vials or on the shelf? I think we need to go back to moral number one: samples are intended to be used.

Here’s what I think of both:

Fragrantica

Castillos – Destinos collection

Notes: Tuberose, Jasmine, Mate.
This is weird. The mate isn’t dried powdered green tea, it’s fresh and floral and slightly rotten, with the tuberose and jasmine rounding out the overall indole. It is old flowers in a jungle – damp, wet and lush but with that meaty heaviness which you can find in tropical plants. Would I wear it again? Maybe. It’s dried down to have a woody background note and what I think is a touch of ylang ylang.

Fragrantica

Don Giovanni – Special Projects collection.

Notes: Tuberose, Civet, Jasmine
Interesting that I’ve picked up another fragrance with tuberose and jasmine in it today, and once again they are pretty sexy and indolic. The civet seems to me to be refined, its funky but without being feral and I think there’s a lemon note in there smoothing things over. Think: a woman who’s been with her lover all day, but has freshened up and got dressed to go out to a movie premier. She’s looking elegant but still has a slinkiness & smell of dangerous liaisons about her. Rawwwwrrrrr.

Have you ever mourned the loss of any fragrances from your collection?

Have a wonderful week!

Tina G xx

La Tierra Del Rayo by Julian Bedel for Fueguia 1833 2014

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 12 Comments

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Post by TinaG

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Hi APJ!

On first approach, Fueguia 1833 gives me the feeling of both utter fascination and being totally overwhelmed. Fueguia 1833 is an Argentinian niche perfumery based in Buenos Aires, however, with no Australia retailers, their range is difficult to access. Some online fragrance companies do sell selected stock, but at last glance Fueguia 1833 have 63 perfumes and home scents in their standard catalogue. Where do you start?

JulianBedel_2014Julian Bedel

Firstly, to the catalogue. Every single aspect of the creation of their fragrances is a study in meticulous attention to detail and a deep passion. The company founder himself, Julian Bedel, is noted as undertaking yearly expeditions to source medicinal and aromatic plants, some of which are then used for the first time in fragrances through Fueguia 1833’s research and development efforts. The wooden boxes which house the fragrances are sourced from native wood from fallen trees, and are crafted in a carpentry school teaching young kids woodworking skills. Everything about the creation of these fragrances is simply beautiful.

In the last year or so Fueguia 1833 have started selling 2ml samples at a reasonable price, so I picked up a set of three of their collections: Destinos, Fábula Fauna and Special Projects.

La Tierra Del Rayo by Fueguia 1833 2014

La Tierra Del Rayo by Julian Bedel

La Tierra del Rayo Fueguia 1833 FragranticaFragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Oak, red wine, leather, tobacco, fruity notes and resins

From the Fueguia 1833 Catalogue: La Tierra del Rayo (Tunuyán) is considered one of Argentina’s most important regions when it comes to high-quality wine production. This perfume was made using chromatography of Argentina’s Pinot Noir wines to analyze the aromatic volatiles in the wine, and then later use the same molecules in the composition of the fragrance.

La Tierra del Rayo Fueguia 1833 Cavalli_Al_Pascolo_Ai_Piedi_Del_Massiccio_Del_Fitz_Roy,_Patagonia WikiMediaWikiMedia

La Tierra Del Rayo opens with an accord of sticky red berries and astringent crushed green leaves. Pepper and wood notes float in and out of the silage. At 1 hour, the wood also becomes quite damp which seems to deepen the berry note, however there’s an overarching dryness to the whole composition.

At this stage, it really does give the impression of a red wine, with a nod to pinot noir’s fruity characteristics and a light touch of dry tannins which run across the tongue after a sip. It’s really quite clever, although as a fragrance it is a bit odd to leave the smell of red wine on your skin – my instinct is that a glass has been knocked over and I was one of the spillage casualties.

At around 2 hours, the dampness of the fragrance has disappeared leaving the smell of the inside of an ex-red wine oak barrel –juice drained away and the barrel slowly drying out. The fragrance has run its course at about the 3 hour mark, leaving a subtle woody musk note on my skin.

La Tierra del Rayo Fueguia 1833 Pinot Noir Didgeman PixabayPixabay

Some friends and I went to an Argentinian restaurant last week, and was very excited to see a 2012 pinot noir on the menu “Siesta” from Tunuyan Mendoza – so I grabbed a glass and enjoyed not only the beautiful wine but the understanding that I had gained about this wine region through testing “La Tierra Del Rayo”. To me, this is the purpose of this fragrance – no so much that you are wearing a ‘red wine’ scent, but much more about the exchange of knowledge through showcasing Argentina’s history and stories.

First In Fragrance has €230/100ml + Samples
Fueguia 1833 has $138/33ml + Samples

Have you had a chance to try Fueguia 1833?

Tina G xx