shopping

MUD01: Mud Australia Candle by Ainslie Walker 2014

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 19 Comments

Hey there APJ Family & Friends,

One of our very own APJ correspondents, Ainslie Walker (Jasmine Award Winner 2014), has been working for nearly a year closely with the Mud Australia crew designing a fragrance and creating a candle and beautiful ceramic/porcelain re-usable vase/candle/container. I have been lucky enough to be a watcher and listener through this process. Much trial and error, some highs and a bunch of lows as the wick, soy, fragrance, vessel all had to undergo testing and retesting till it is exactly how Ainslie envisioned and Mud Australia was thrilled. Then the packaging became its own separate drama.

Finally I am extremely proud to announce….

MUD01: Mud Australia Candle by Ainslie Walker 2014

Ainslie gives these featured accords in one line (the extended notes list for perfumistas): Tuberose, jasmine, orange blossom, tolu balsam, fresh green ginger, warm spices, cinnamon, clove, prune

 

MudAustralia Candle Ainslie Walker #4Photo Donated by Ainslie Walker

From Ainslie Walker’s site: Tuberose, green ginger, tolu resin and spices were fused to encapsulate a warm, sensual, feminine, gently spiced, green-floral scent for the home. In developing this fragrance for Mud Australia I wanted also to represent the smooth, innerside of Mud Australia’s iconic porcelain, so focused on a creamy texture to the scent.
Handmade in Australia, each soyblend candle is presented in Mud Australia’s unique porcelain vessels, with five colourways available (dust, milk, red, slate and ash). After burning, these vessels can be reused, utilising Mud01 candle refills or as a vase etc for the home.
Each candle comes with a small mud sniffer plate to place candle on, and cover when not in use. Candle burn time is 80 hours.

MudAustralia Candle Ainslie Walker #7Photo Donated by Ainslie Walker

Just so you know I am quite superstitious and have some very embarrassing beliefs around the burning of candles. Yes I’ll share them. Firstly, I believe that the light attracts good energy and prosperity into the house. Secondly, I believe the flame helps to burn the bad energy and the heat in the air and fragrance (smoke too if burning incense) captures bad energy to ground and neutralise it. Not only bad energy but all other bad odours etc that could be lingering or lurking. What I want from a candle then is scented but not overpowering, clear the air not perfume it heavily.

MudAustralia Candle Ainslie Walker #3Photo Donated by Ainslie Walker

Though Ainslie mentions tuberose as her number one ingredient, and yes there is a lovely warm, creamy, white flower sensuality to MUD01 I find it to be a fully rounded balmy and spicy fragrance. The candle is quite fragrant on its own but until you light the wick you miss out on some really gorgeous smoky overtones that heat and relax the whole fragrance. Here we have a perfect synergy at work and my room smells freaking amazing. Maybe I need to change my list for a candle, I am surrounded by the most beautiful fragrance. I could imagine this being the signature fragrance for my home. People would smell it every time they walked in and it would become the scent memory of home. Then, should they be lucky enough to be given a MUD01 candle, or purchase one, the fun and good times we have at our place would be a forever memory that would make them smile down the ages.

MudAustralia Candle Ainslie Walker #2Photo Donated by Ainslie Walker

MudAustralia Candle Ainslie Walker #1Photo Donated by Ainslie Walker

I love that the vessel is refillable and that it can be used as a vase, toothbrush holder or glass: the porcelain is 100% food approved. Shiny on the inside and matt on the outside, which Mud Australia is famous for. All hand made so each vessel is slightly different, unique and created with love.

Ainslie Walker has MUD01 candles $100 (min. burn time 80 hours), refills $60 (min. burn time 100 hours)

SPECIAL APJ OFFER: Add Coupon Code: APJMUD01 and Ainslie will add 5ml of her original Parfum that was the inspiration for MUD01: Mud Australia Candle

From Ainslie they come beautifully gift wrapped and she can send to the world as a wonderful gift for someone you love, or yourself.

Mud Australia stores/stockists are located in Sydney, Melbourne and Soho, New York.

BRAVO Ainslie. I am so happy for you and proud to be your buddy.
Portia xx

 

 

Alien Taste of Fragrance: Thierry Mugler 2011

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Hi Hi Hi APJ Crew,

I hope this finds you all happy and well. Some time ago I grabbed a few unloved bottles from Birgit at Olfactoria’s Travels. Every now and then she clears out some of her wardrobe to make way for new loves. I really love the Alien line, the Aqua Chic was a bit crap, and the Sunessence and Amber ones are particularly excellent on my skin though I don’t have bottles of either of them. I tried a buddies Taste and fell deeply in love but by then it had disappeared from our stores and hadn’t made it to the discounters yet, so right time, right place…

Alien Taste of Fragrance: Thierry Mugler 2011

Alien Le Gôut du Parfum: Salted Butter Caramel

Alien Taste Fragrance Alien Thierry Mugler FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Sambac jasmine, caramel
Heart: Cashmere wood, solar notes
Base: White amber

OsMoz gives these featured accords:
Top: Citrus, spices
Heart: Jasmine, caramel
Base: Cashmeran, Amber

So, um, SALTED BUTTER CARAMEL!! Oh My Freaking Gawd! You had me at hello. Whenever I spritz Alien Taste of Fragrance instantly that hit of Salted Caramel Macaroons (which are Jin’s specialty, you can not even imagine how divinely delicious) makes me smile and my mouth water in remembrance. Just like the macaroons the whole experience is so good that it borders on overkill. No surprise there, Mugler is famous for pushing the boundaries as far as he can and then pushing some more.

Almost every time I wear Alien Taste of Fragrance a couple of people ask what it is and I have also had one Trivia mate that I know of go and buy a bottle. You know how some fragrances feel like they are made for you from the very first moment? That is how Alien Taste of Fragrance wears on me. It’s like a warm, sweet, comfortable jumper and filled with the kind of fun that only old friends can bring, fun that comes of knowledge.

Alien Taste Fragrance Alien Thierry Mugler CreativityOnlinePhoto Stolen CreativityOnline (problem with the image? tell me I’ll remove it)

How does Alien Taste of Fragrance smell on me? Well, all the notes are present but I get some extras. After the initial caramel and spice opening I get a lovely creaminess, like the cream part of a Strawberry & Cream lolly. Fresh cream whipped with vanilla and sugar, yum. Then everything proceeds with more caramel and here I get the salt but not like salt, more a nod to where salt should be but through all this I get a very animalic, slightly urinous honey: this mixed with the caramel is utterly startling but fits perfectly into the fragrance and it lasts for quite a while. The amber is smooth a still sweet but there is a very manly, sweaty undercurrent in the dry down of Alien Taste of Fragrance that is both gorgeous and disgusting. Sometimes I have to check to make sure I’m not a sweaty mess.

Sillage is awesome for the first 2-3 hours, with good projection for that long too. I have to be careful not to overspray Alien Taste of Fragrance because it can become completely overbearing even for me. Lifespan can be up to 8 hours depending, this is one fragrance where an amber-ish lotion will give you far greater longevity. Using Halle by Halle Berry body lotion means that I will smell great until lunchtime tomorrow. For work? Keep the spritzes to a minimum, maybe just one on your chest so you can enjoy the magic.

I think I will finish my Birgit bottle fairly soon, that’s how much I’m loving it.

Further reading: Perfume Candy Boy and Katie Puckrik Smells
Beauty Encounter has $42/30ml tester
Surrender To Chance has $5/.5ml

So, are you a fan? Did you try the Alien Taste of Fragrance? Was it all you hoped?
Portia xx
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Vetiver Extraordinaire by Dominique Ropion for Frederic Malle 2002

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Hi there Frag Family,

Do you ever read blog posts and think about the sly sexism of fragrance? We are taught through advertising images, sales people and our general community to think of certain things as Masculine or Feminine. I know this discussion goes on quite a bit but today’s fragrance is one that is sold towards the masculine side of the tracks and for many people that is right and proper. To me though it’s another way that we are manipulated to conform, which is not something I’m completely down with so I am asking all you lovely ladies to take a moment next time you are at the counter or sample site to have a go at this fragrance. With an open mind and a keen nose so you too can enjoy a fragrance that I think is worthy of your attention.

Vetiver Extraordinaire by Dominique Ropion for Frederic Malle 2002

Vetiver Extraordinaire Frederic Malle FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, bitter orange
Heart: Pink pepper, cloves, vetiver
Base: Sandalwood, cedar, oakmoss, myrhh, musk

Well, straight off the spritz the fun, wet, citrus is so intense that I feel almost as if I have spritzed a cologne, that instant burst of feel good refreshment that orange is known throughout the aromatherapy world grabs me a whisks me to my happy place. I think the pink pepper and clove come in pretty quickly to add a zingy spicy whirl and the whole experience is very foody, but not in a bakery way. There are all foods that we eat and it comes through here for the initial 5 minute rush of fireworks before the composition is grounded by the slightly salty, grassy, wet earthy addition of vetiver. Though this aspect arrives it is never dank or dark, there is a light breeziness to Vetiver Extraordinaire, a more interesting and nuanced take than Guerlain’s Vetiver with a much longer lifespan and speaking of lifespan L’Artisan’s Coeur de Vetiver Sacre, while having a sensational story also isn’t much of a longevity monster either.

Vetiver Extraordinaire Malle Vetiver Nursery TreesForTheFuture FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Vetiver Extraordinaire grabs what I feel is the essence of vetiver, an amazing plant originally from India but now grown and used all over the world for such important stuff as fighting soil erosion, cleaning polluted water of deadly metals and detergents and stabilising hills as well as as a crop. Few people talk about the saltiness of vetiver, I wonder if I am the only person who gets that particular correlation? I find something very clean seaside air in Vetiver Extraordinaire that wants to wrap me up and fly me away.

In dry down I find Vetiver Extraordinaire a very clean wood, slightly herbal. I can’t put my fingers on exactly what happens here but it remains fresh, without the many poor connotations that that has come to include in modern fragrance writing. Clean in a very nice human way, no I’m not making sense and can’t explain it any better, sorry.

Vetiver Extraordinaire Malle gangsters & mole itterbiirmalin DeviantArtPhoto Stolen DeviantArt

Vetiver Extraordinaire is both interesting and long lasting. I get more than 5 hours fragrant to my nose, longer in cool weather or the evening and a second spritz an hour or so later will add hours to that. Projection is very good for the first 30 minutes and then it comes close, by the end it is a mere whisper of fresh skin overlaying your personal fragrance. Ladies should take this fragrance and wear the freaking hell out of it, wonderful for everyone.

Further reading: What Men Should Smell Like and Perfume Shrine
Aedes de Venustas had $280/100ml
Surrender To Chance have samples starting at $7/ml

What gender boundaries do you cross already? Do you like to mix it up and play with scent image? Did you try Vetiver Extraordinaire by Frederic Malle or any other vetivers that caught your fancy?
Do leave a comment, we love to read your thoughts too,
Portia xx

Vohina by Pierre Guillaume for Huitieme Art Parfums 2010

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Hiya Niche Nerds,

I know how much you all love Pierre Guillaume’s physique, handsome face and abject fear of wearing too many clothes. The fact that he makes lovely, wearable, interesting fragrances can be bypassed quite easily for a lingering look at some of his images, he is quite stunningly spectacular. One of the great things for me about this man and his frags is that all three of his perfume companies, I think they are his businesses but he may be their perfumer only, feel like they are a good fit for me. Huitieme Art Parfums, Parfumerie Generale and Phaedon all have something intrinsic that invites me in, as if I’m already part of the gang and I can just come and have a casual sniff that may tuirn into full blown love at any moment. I feel much the same way about Guerlain, Olympic Orchids, L’Artisan and Estee Lauder: not that all of these companies offerings work for or on me but they feel friendly.

Vohina by Pierre Guillaume for Huitieme Art Parfums 2010

Vohina Huitieme Art Parfums FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
White honey, peach blossom, hay (LuckyScent calls it Lavender Honey)

Huitieme Art Parfums is a brand that I particularly like. The scents that I have spent any real time with have all worked on some level for me. So today I want to look at Vohina, I tried it in BLOOM Perfumery in London back in February and because I was too excited and couldn’t concentrate properly the girls have me a lovely carded sample which I’ve only just come across. Now I can spend some dedicated sniffing time with Vohina, YAY!

SMILE! This is so different to my memory and expectations. The white honey is waxy and animal, peach blossoms are pretty and surprisingly sweet (to be honest I get more fruit than blossom) and the hay seems still green at the beginning. I love how Birgit says in the middle of her winter, “I need the warmth of the sun, not an oven, I need blue skies and green meadows, not my living room. I need the sparkling freshness of a light summer scent.” Yes, Vohina is spring in a bottle, perfect for wear in any season and shot through with the splendid zing that can only come from the huge resurgence of life that spring is, like the world’s annual heart beat.

Vohina Huitieme Art Parfums Spring Blossom Catherine FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

The honey takes a waltz with the peach right through the centre of Vohina, they are beautifully paired and in constant frisson. There are more things going on but if I told you I get a soft BarBQ and smoke through the heart you would think me bananas, and when I say that there is also a candy sweet sugariness like the strawberry part of Strawberries & Cream lollies and the pink Musk Sticks I know you will think I’ve gone barmy but there they are for me. Bold as brass.

As Vohina moves through its lifespan the spring turns to summer, the honey becomes less apparent, fruitiness recedes and the green haystacks brown off to straw. There is a clean-ness to Vohinas dry down, the musks? Could it be the lavender? Is there a whisper of it twisting through?

Sometimes I think my nose has gone a bit haywire, Vohina bears closer inspection.

Vohina Huitieme Art Parfums Haystacks Geograph.UKPhoto Stolen Geograph.org.uk

Vohina is lovely but my skin eats most of it in under two hours and leaves me with a very soft, a faint sweet musky woodsiness. It is pretty and wearable and I could imagine Vohina being an excellent gateway fragrance for someone who is testing the niche waters from a steady diet of designer.

Further reading: Olfactoria’s Travels and Scented Hound
LuckyScent has $125/50ml and samples
First In Fragrance has €95/50ml and samples

Which of this line have you tried? Do you like Pierre or his fragrant aesthetic?
Come on, join the conversation, we love to read what you think in the comments below.
Portia xx

 

 

Laine de Verre by Christopher Sheldrake for Serge Lutens 2014

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 20 Comments

Woo Hoo!

Always a little frisson zings through me when I read of a new Serge Lutens. Living on the other side of the world from most of the fragrant action I usually get my sniff on through samples or splits and so I have in my hot little hands a decant from Surrender To Chance, have you seen their New Perfume Releases page? Broken down into the last couple of months of release, it means you can tell as soon as something new hits the store, excellent if you are living in a fragrant backwater.

Laine de Verre by Christopher Sheldrake for Serge Lutens 2014

Laine de Verre Serge Lutens FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Citruses, aldehydes, musk, woody cashmeran molecule

So loads of people not loving this one. Usually I don’t read reviews before I sniff but a way back in November 2013 I was introduced to Laine de Verre by Denyse at Grain de Musc and then caught Victoria’s post on Bois de Jasmin both of whom were interesting for the differences in their wear story. Because they had such different experiences, these two women I revere, it caught my attention though I did not feel that this would be a fragrance that I could like, or love. So my sample is here, it’s a beautiful sunny 20C in Sydney and I have been out sunbaking. Time to try Laine de Verre or Glass Wool.

Laine de Verre Serge Lutens Rockwool WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

Whoa! Cold, sharp, sparkling. The moment I spritz I think “This is what the palace in Disney’s Frozen would smell like.” CLEAN! Stainless steel spoon on tongue. Brand newly finished cycle on the dishwasher after all the heat has gone. It doesn’t stay this shiny for long, maybe 20-30 minutes, then something a bit feral crawls out.  All clean, angular, reflective lines and an antiseptic clean hiding filth, well not filth but something jarringly unclean.

I’ll give you an analogy, sometimes after a huge day out on holidays you run back to your hotel lobby and have to use the toilet immediately because you’ve been out all day. So you walk into this frigid, antiseptic and cover fragranced toilet, everything is immaculate. As you sit down to use the toilet up huffs a whiff of your humanity, you aren’t dirty or anything more than a bit sunburned and slightly sweaty but in this arctic smelling environment you are a surprise. All the while though you can still smell the UBER clean bathroom smells. Does that register?

Laine de Verre Serge Lutens Hotel Toilet WikiCommonsPhoto Stolen WikiCommons

So I originally spritzed Laine de Verre at around 5pm tonight, it’s now midnight and there is a lingering metallic musk with a dash of rubber that is both interesting and slightly freaky. It’s very close to the skin but I smell completely other and quite inhuman, I imagine this to be the smell of a humanoid robot trying to pass for life. Though I can’t imagine spritzing this regularly I will keep the sample and see if the mood does take me. Do I like it? Only on an intellectual basis, it doesn’t move me towards it. Actually it might be a good scent for giving the stay away vibe…

Laine de Verre Serge Lutens space PixabayPhoto Stolen Pixabay

LuckyScent has $110/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $5/ml

Did you try Laine de Verre? Lover or hater? Is Serge Lutens a house you feel fits you?
Do something nice for yourself today, something simple like walk for 10 minutes in the day to enjoy the weather if it’s good, or under an umbrella if it’s rubbish. Maybe spend 10 minutes pulling weeds in your yard or cleaning out your fridge. I always feel good after doing any of these.
Portia xx

 

Balenciaga Fall Winter 2014 Ad Campaign

/ australianperfumejunkiescom

Good Morning Frag Heads,

Here is one of the most beautiful and inspiring images of fashion this season. Gisele Bündchen looking like a rocker cross pixie plotting her next move in a crystal cave of reflection. Hair shorn and very androgynous looking, it could be a poster for a modern take on Peter Pan.

Balenciaga Fall Winter 2014 Ad Campaign

As so often is the case I found this at my go to fashion image news page art8amby

 

Balenciaga’s dark ad campaign for fall features Gisele Bündchen, who in February walked the brand’s runway show in a rare catwalk appearance.

In one image from the campaign, shot by Steven Klein, a moody-looking Bündchen, her typically long locks apparently shorn and slicked, sports thigh-high patent boots against an infinitely reflecting backdrop of cracked mirrored surfaces.

“This is how I see Gisele for Balenciaga; strong, powerful, mysterious and uncompromising,” Balenciaga artistic director Alexander Wang said of the campaign.

Behind the makeup look is Diane Kendal, while Anthony Turner styled the hair for the shoot. (source)

Black Cashmere by Rodrigo Flores-Roux for Donna Karan 2002

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 11 Comments

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Post by FeralJasmine

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Here in the southwestern USA it’s hot as hell and my winter scents are taking a break at the back of the cabinet, but it’s the perfect season to inflict my highly personal opinions about cool-weather scents upon the unsuspecting Aussies. So here is my first opinion: mass-market fragrances used to be a lot better than they are now. Part of it is that this is a tough decade for someone who despises most fruit notes, but also it used to be that, when companies went to the trouble and expense of launching a new perfume, they actually wanted you to be able to tell it from other perfumes. Now, I would swear that they’re all jostling for the rail in the Just-Like-Everybody-Else Sweepstakes. The wise and lovely Portia once reminded me in a comment that it’s all cyclical, and that in a few decades today’s mass-market consumers will be 2044’s aging perfumistas, grumpily complaining that you just can’t find good fruity florals anymore. Probably true. But Black Cashmere, with its hefty dose of wenge, has always smelled unlike anything else on the market.

Black Cashmere by Rodrigo Flores-Roux for Donna Karan 2002

Black Cashmere Donna Karan FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Saffron, nutmeg
Heart: Red pepper, white pepper, carnation, rose
Base: Woody notes, patchouli, African woods, vanilla, amber

Here’s my second strongly help opinion: reformulation is not a bad thing if it keeps a distinctive perfume on the post-IFRA market in a recognizable form. Case in point: my winter favorite, Donna Karan Black Cashmere. The first really distinctive perfume that I fell for, the one that tripped me so badly that I fell right down the rabbit hole, was the original DK Black Cashmere. I bought a dab sample and was lost in the wonder of something unlike anything else that I had ever smelled. Rich, plush, highly distinctive, and beautiful. What an evening that was.

Then I went on EBay to look for a vintage bottle, and it occurred to me that I had acquired a very expensive obsession indeed. Finally I did find a bottle of the vintage that I could afford, more or less, but I also swallowed hard and bought a decant of the reissue.

Black Cashmere Donna Karan WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

Was it a shocking disappointment? Not really. Certainly the vintage has more depth and more oomph. But unlike the current Opium, which is a sick travesty, the current Black Cashmere makes a real effort to transmit the scent and spirit of the original. It’s a little lighter and extends itself a little further into warm weather. Overall, I dare you to find something more distinctive at that price point, which is a little over a dollar a milliliter if bought off the DK website. I have since bought a full bottle of the reissue, and often I wear the current one on one arm and the vintage on the other, to make my precious vintage last.

So why don’t more firms make an actual effort with their reissues? Beats me. But I also have both vintage and reissued Chaos from DK, and the reissue is a bit lacking compared to the vintage but is a genuine attempt to reproduce the very distinctive vintage recognizably in an IFRA-friendly form. DK Inc. seems to make real efforts to meet their fans halfway.

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Further reading: Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This
Donna Karan has $120/100ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $4/ml

I hate to rub salt into my readers’ wounds, but what’s your most distressing reissue story?
FeralJasmine xx

Anais Anais L’Original by Cacharel 2014

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 17 Comments

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Post by Gabriella

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Anais Anais was my foundation perfume. As I have explained previously, it was my very first signature scent and thus accompanied me on many rites of passage throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It was the scent of my high school travails, my first love, my 21st birthday and countless Christmases. I was lucky in that it was not ubiquitous amongst my coterie of friends and so it was truly my scent, inextricably linked with my character and the foundation for my subsequent perfume journey.

The perfume has not been left unscathed by the passing of time. Over the years, the lovely soap, body lotion and deodorant slowly disappeared from shelves. The EDP also went, only to be relaunched in a new guise some years ago with new Kate Moss ads and then became difficult to find. The current EDT, while still lovely, is but a whisper of its former glory: subtle refomulations have rendered it sunbleached and ghostlike as if someone has taken the pastel-hued maidens of the ad campaigns and watered them down: they have become fuzzy and indistinct.

Anais Anais L’Original by Cacharel 2014

Anais Anais L’Original Eau de Parfum FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Hyacinth, galbanum, orange blossom
Heart: Jasmine, rose, lily
Base: Sandalwood, cedar, incense, amber

So when I heard that Cacharel was relaunching the 1978 classic under the name Anais Anais L’Original, I was excited but also somewhat worried and perplexed. Here was the chance to go back to a great love. But what if it didn’t match my olfactory memories? Furthermore, if Cacharel had this formulation at hand, then why had it persisted in keeping the current EDT on shelves?

All my worries vanished upon first sniff. Memories flooded back and I felt like I had come home. Here it was again, my scent, my bastion of a perfume.

Anais Anais L’Original Hyacinths WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

The only difference I could detect between what I was smelling and my olfactory memory is that L’Original appears a to have a stronger hyacinth top note, rendering the composition brighter and rounder. Comparing it to the current EDT, I was struck by the difference between the two: the Anais Anais EDT is harsher upon first spray, the hyacinth is more astringent and the whole composition a little bit more powdery and dry. The sillage and longevity is also markedly different: L’Original sings on my skin as it did all those years ago and lasts and lasts whereas the current EDT is but a mere shadow after a couple of hours.

Anais Anais L’Original Pastel Sunset Versageek FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

I’m very thankful to have an old love back. And I’m comforted by the fact that in these days of IFRA restrictions and reformulations that an old classic has been given a new lease of life.

Further reading: Bois de Jasmin and The Non Blonde
Anais Anais L’Original (available in both EDP and EDT) and Anais Anais EDT are widely available at department stores and online sellers.
FragranceNet has the current EDT starting at $31.19/30ml before discount
Surrender To Chance starts at $3/ml

Do you like Anais Anais? Have you tried L’Original? What was your foundation perfume?
With much love till next time!
M x

Sweet Anthem Perfumes and perfumer Meredith Smith

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 11 Comments

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Post by Azar

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Sweet Anthem Perfumes and perfumer Meredith Smith

Indie Fragrance Criterion – Discover Pacific Northwest Perfumes

An Interview, Review and Giveaway

On February 24th of this year APJ posted an introduction to Sweet Anthem Perfumes and perfumer Meredith Smith. Today I have a few questions for Meredith about the business of perfume in the PNW. My next post will be a review (and a give-away) of the six fragrances in the Indie Fragrance Criterion – Discover Pacific Northwest Perfume sample set.

Something extraordinary is going on in the Pacific Northwest perfume scene. In the February 24th post I referred to the PNW as a “hot spot” for Indie perfumers and attributed this phenomenon to our dreary winters and to the local creative climate but didn’t even consider that perhaps the business environment might be what is really driving the astounding growth of great noses in the PNW and all along the west coast; see Ca Fleure Bon

Instead of operating via the old industrial economic model of “survival of the fittest” through negative competition for limited resources (creating perceived value through perceived scarcity), what seems to be happening here is more of a collaboration. This collaborative model succeeds by taking steps to grow the customer base for everyone while encouraging new talent and supporting existing businesses. The perfumers are independent but recognize and foster their interdependence, creating mutually beneficial events and opportunities as well as sharing information and resources. This kind of information based, collaborative economic model works on the principle that sharing creates interest and value, supporting not only the perfumers themselves but the suppliers and related businesses as well.

Sweet Anthem Perfumes BottlesPhoto Stolen Sweet Anthem Perfumes

Meredith, you have been one of several PNW perfumers encouraging, as you say, the “Seattle Sisterhood” of perfumers for several years now. Would you describe what you perceive to be the reasons for this local explosion of interest in perfume?

Honestly, I have no idea how it happened! For me, though, I can say that I probably would not be a perfumer if I didn’t live in the PNW. That’s not to say that I wasn’t into perfume before moving here, but the pioneer spirit and the way we interact with nature – from the mountains to the sea – helps fuel the olfactory palette. We have such intense connections to the earthly plane that it’s difficult not to be inspired on a daily basis when living here, and that helps fuel many industries of pioneers. Plus, having spirited colleagues in many kinds of industries helps keep me going – from my fellow perfumers to other Etsy-style brand owners, the PNW is really a community of talented makers in many stripes. I know my perfume sisters agree!

Can you give us some examples of how and why whatever it is that you do works so well in the PNW?

This is the crux of the reason I moved to the PNW. Everything here seems to be done in the DIY spirit. We love to branch out and get our hands dirty. We love to learn (it’s one of the smartest places in the country to live). We love to do things no one has ever done before (the $4 coffee being a prime example). PNWers are not afraid – pioneers that we are – of going upstream, avoiding the mainstream, and eschewing the man at pretty much any and all costs. I think that’s a part of why collaboration is so vital to the NW. If going upstream is the norm, there’s no point in going it alone.

Sweet Anthem Perfumes OilsPhoto Stolen Sweet Anthem Perfumes

I understand that the curated collection I will be reviewing is part of a collaborative exchange between San Francisco and Seattle area perfumers. Could you give us a little of the back-story?

This is actually a curated collaboration between myself and Antonia from Tigerlily Perfumery, a little perfume shop in the Valencia neighborhood of San Francisco that features mostly indie and niche lines. Initially, Karyn, Nikki, and I were trying to do this sort of thing with a shop in New York (who shall remain nameless) but that fell through, much to our dismay. I had a chance to meet Antonia before the perfumer’s salon last March and we really clicked, both owning perfume shops that carry a lot of the same inventory and really loving indie perfume lines. I pitched this idea to her about the PNW gift set, and she loved it! It was actually her idea to do a Bay Area box in tandem, with launch events in both cities. (It worked out nicely that several of us Seattleites were already going back to San Francisco for the summer Renegade Craft Fair, so the launch event got neatly wrapped into our existing event schedule.) But really, Antonia’s the big idea gal here, so I’m excited she’s on board!

Can you explain why/how these specific perfumes were chosen for this first Indie Fragrance Criterion?

By and large, the perfumers were asked to submit their best works! In the Seattle set, we all submitted things with a bit of a Northwest-y vibe, and I consulted with many of the perfumers what I thought would be the best fit (I’m thankful that they trust my judgment and happy that they’re all brands I’ve come to know and love). In the San Francisco set, you’ve got some IAO award nominees and winners, and some noses new to me but not to Antonia. Antonia and I talked a lot about themes, but in the end we decided that for a showcase of raw talent, generally the talent knows their works best, and so we left it up to each of them.

 Indie fragrance critereon AzarPhoto Donated Azar

Meredith, thank you so much for taking the time to share your perspective on indie perfumery in the PNW. Stay tuned, everyone, for the upcoming review and give-away!

Azar xx