Shower Gel

Portia’s Gift List 2019

/ AustralianPerfumeJunkies / 37 Comments

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Portia

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Heya APJ,

This time of the year is a nightmare if you want to buy something lovely for friends. First and foremost being that our friends mostly already have everything they need. So for us to get them something special and important means either we have to spend a LOT of money, or we need to be a little savvy. As most of my closest don’t really understand my perfume mania it would be churlish of me to buy them something in that mode unless I’ve really thought it out. Here are some perfume and fragrant adjacent gifts that should get their eyes popping and not break the bank for you.

This is a list of things I’ll be gifting this year. Most of them are bought already, just awaiting packaging.

Portia’s Gift List 2019

Candles

While being fragrant, candles occupy the happy middle ground where they are decorative, functional and useable. You don’t need to store them because they sit out and get their burn on a couple of times a week to help freshen the air in our homes.

Cire Trudon

VERY spendy but really good if you need to impress or the person you’re buying for is impress oriented. I love their packaging and the fragrances always smell uber luxe. This year my choice of their Christmas scents is Hupo. Ambergris, Incense and creamy woods combine majestically. Libertine has these with FREE Australian Postage.

Gascoigne & King

The newest fragrance from Gascoigne & King is unbelievably beautiful. Mainly jasmine, and vanilla with the warm, feral addition of honey. G&K are a Sydney brand, created with love by hand in the home of my girlfriend Bronwyn Gascoigne. I buy a cartload of these every year because everyone who gets one comments how lavishly glamorous they make the house smell. Very reasonably priced and Gascoigne & King send to the world with a AUD$20 Flat Shipping Rate.

They also do the To Die For Rose Gold Candle Care Wicker and Snuffer, in case your friends already have candles galore. ^^

Glasshouse

Confession time. I bought the new Glasshouse Carousel for MYSELF! Yes, I paid full retail and it is freaking gorgeous. When it’s lit in the dark of the evening the light creates fabulous patterns on the walls. It’s like a fairyland. I will run myself a midnight bubble bath, light the candle and turn the lights out. INSTANT fantasy land. Amusingly, when I told Ainslie Walker that I’d bought it she squealed, it is one of her releases for the brand! Double win.

Bathtime

That leads us beautifully to my favourite, Bubble Baths. Most of my mates aren’t deep into perfumes but all of them have to bathe. A simple, useful and well priced gift is always a shower gel. Excellent if you know their preference in perfumes because you can buy their attendant products but also cool if you don’t, open their minds to something new and wonderful.

Lyric Man Shower Gel by Amouage

Lyric Man has been Amouage’s best selling mens fragrance for years. It’s cool, masculine rose is beautiful and flies under the radar enough that it can be the perfect choice for the wealthy working man (or the one with a partner/friend/family with really good taste). The packaging alone makes this a gift of distinction with the added benefit of a 300ml pump pack. Guaranteed to last months, even with daily use.

Mon Guerlain Shower Gel by Guerlain

Mon Guerlain, the hit from Guerlain that has spawned a thousand flankers in its few short years. I like the simplicity of this packaging. Right now there are also wonderful Gift Packs that come with a shower gel and fragrance. I really like the less flamboyant scent they’ve used in this and it will work beautifully across the range, so no matter which Mon Guerlain is your intendeds fave this will be a perfect bath starter.

Cherry Blossom Shower Gel by L’Occitane

I was gifted this bottle for my birthday by some girlfriends. The bottle alone is a winner with its cherry blossom branch relief. The pretty cherry/cherry blossom fragrance is so much better than it needed to be. I’m surprised each time I use it how good the fragrance is. Also, though it looks pricey, it is really good value.

Basil Lemon by Korres

Want to kick start your day with a zingy refreshing fragrance, or are thinking of wearing some cologne or citrus scents for your day? This is a really good value choice and the big bottles always look impressive. 400ml will probably last till the next time you have to buy a gift for them. I like the no nonsense packaging too, perfect for the boys but not so butch that the girls will feel awkward.

Rose Jam Shower Gel by LUSH

Special Christmas time release and my favourite shower gel by LUSH, by far. Rose Jam is a scent I want to always have around. It is the perfect base coat to any rose-centric fragrance but isn’t so strong that it really interferes with anything you choose to wear fragrance wise over its remnants. Super good value and comes from 100m up to the huge 500ml. This is a great love of mine. Excellent gifting response too.

Other Great Stuff

Liberty & Co Colour Block Mug

Jin bought me one of these last year. It has been my most coveted coffee mug ever since. It’s perfect in every way. The feel, the colours, the size and the handle. PERFECT! So perfect in fact that I have bought it this year for others, so they can enjoy the luxuriousness of a Tiffany & Co cuppa.

Tea Towels

I know, right! So many of my friends really do have EVERYTHING! It’s impossible to get them anything they really want, let alone need. So wherever I go, be it Art Gallery, Holiday Destination, Event or Place of Note I grab a couple of Tea Towels. We all use them, most people have a couple of skanky old rags or even a set bought a few years ago at the local supermarket but rarely does anyone think much about them. So getting a pretty, interesting or luxurious one is nice. They are also good to use as safety wrapping inside put together gift boxes.

 

OK, so there are some thoughts. You’ve got nearly three weeks of shopping left for Christmas or whatever your ritual is at this time of year.

No matter what you do or don’t buy, who or what you do or don’t have, I wish you a safe season. Hoping it’s free of drama, pain and depression for you, and if any of those hits I hope your coping mechanisms get you through. Plan ahead, make sure you are not putting yourself or others in danger. Hugs from me, and the APJ crew.

Portia xxx

When over spraying is Scandalous – A lesson in the subtle art of applying perfume

/ katesplace356115470 / 21 Comments

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Kate Apted

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A hearty good evening to you all from balmy Melbourne. Well, it is for now; tomorrow might be another thing.

For months, I have been making my way through a 200ml bottle of Scandal shower gel by the one and only Jean Paul Gaultier. A quick spray on a card when it was first released confirmed it isn’t my style. I found it sweet, waxy and all too flighty. There was a Pentavite* vitamin drops note to it that annoyed the hell out of me. I happened upon the shower gel at an absolute steal, though, and gave it a chance.

After my first use of the gel, I found a lingering note of bees’ wax. A thick, rich, almost honeyed milk type of note. I had washed my hair with the gel too and adored the gentle warmth of the bees’ wax that emanated from me all day. It has been a good ten uses later and I find myself craving the enveloping depth of the wax. I have made a truce with the Pentavite vitamin note, strangely. It also heralds the end of my bottle of gel.

Rather than try to track down an inflated priced replacement, it made financial sense to source a bottle of the EDP. So, I did.

Scandal by Daphne Bugey, Fabrice Pellegrin and Christophe Raynaud for Jean Paul Gaultier (2017)

Scandal

Fragrantica – Fragrantica lists the following notes: honey, patchouli, bees’ wax, blood orange, gardenia, caramel, licorice, orange blossom, peach, jasmine, mandarin orange.

 

My fatal mistake was to over spray myself. Just don’t. Take it from me, Scandal smells infinitely better with one, maybe two, sprays on the decolletage. I applied my usual 7 sprays and moaned for the rest of the evening that I could smell NOTHING! A very vague sweetness with a ghost of an orange blossom or something. No trace of the dense wax at all! Not even Pentavite. Then, last Thursday night, I absent mindedly applied one quick spritz on my chest and continued on with the clothes washing. Miraculously, an hour later, it registered in my brain that the wax was there in all its abundant glory.

I tried two sprays after showering with the last of my gel Saturday morning. All I could sense until lunch time was the golden elixir of bees’ wax.

So, the very simple moral of my story is to be judicious in how one applies perfume. Something that may have not appealed in the past, or didn’t release a particular note may have just been applied in a manner not intended. It may take a bit of playing around with some perfumes to bring their best sides out. Much like relating to people, I suppose. Our relationship to our perfumes are never really fixed and much can be discovered by exploring the myriad of ways we might wear it. Trying different formats helps to familiarise one’s self to a new scent, or even find new facets to an over looked cheapie.

Have you ever discovered you were wearing a scent wrong? Or have you used a scent you dislike in perfume form, only to enjoy it in another format?

Be safe, APJ family, in this busy time of year.

Kate xx

*Pentavite vitamin drops were commonly used with tins of Carnation evaporated milk to feed babies in the early 1970s in Australia. Particularly if the mother could not breastfeed her child.

Rose Jam Shower Gel by LUSH

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 10 Comments

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Post by Portia

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Hi there APJ Bathers,

Yes, you’re reading it right. That ultra cool, Limited Edition, shower gel that you just missed out on because they usually sell out in SECONDS is back. Be quick.

Rose Jam Shower Gel by LUSH

ROSE JAM SHOWER GEL 100G LUSHLUSH

LUSH says: Inspired by our love for roses and the benefits of nourishing Argan Oil, this shower gel is as decadent as it gets! Skin brightening Goji Berry Juice and Sicilian Lemon give your skin a boost, while Rose Oil and Rose Absolute leave it soothed, softened and beautifully fragranced. A luxuroius way to start each day. 

Sure, the blurb is nice but I wait till the afternoon to bathe because I get ready for work, which usually happens at night. One of the ways I really love to pamper myself is by drawing a bath. Now what better way to laze away the better part of an hour than laying in the warmth (or cool in summer) of a glamorously scented bubble bath? NONE! I tell you truly that it is the most relaxing, turn off the world, indulgent me time that I have.

ROSE JAM SHOWER GEL LUSHPortia in the bath

Rose Jam Shower Gel makes a wonderful bubble bath. It foams well, smells great and leaves me with a soft skin tinged with the fragrance of a sweet garden rose in full bloom that then creates the perfect base for some of my favourite rose scents. Mohur by Neela Vermeire Creations, Rosa sur Reuse by SOIVOHLE, Ballets Rouges by Olympic Orchids, Diabolo Rose by Parfums de Rosine, Midnight Oud by JHaG and Agent Provocateur to name just a few of my faves, there are oodles more.

I bought my Rose Jam bottle in the sale at the end of the last time it was in. The last bottle too because I thought I should get an extra and by the time I went back in the next day to get another they were sold out. Anyway, I bought it and tried it and thought it was awful. So it sat here for ages unloved. Not so long ago as I was organising the frag room I stumbled across it again and have been using it a couple of times a week since. The sweet jammy rose is so much like putting your nose right up to a garden rose that is in full bloom, so simple but also so incredibly nuanced.

LUSH Australia has $18.50/250g

Do yourself a favour. Go grab it.
Portia xx

Japanese Rose by Korres

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 7 Comments

Hi There Crew,

A couple of years ago now one of my besties bought me a Korres set with Body Milk and Shower Gel. It was completely serendipitous because I had run low on my shower gel at the time and didn’t have a lick of moisturiser in the house anywhere. What did I do? I used it, used it all up in record time and have always got extra on hand in case, I have also gifted this duo to a bunch of my mates, yes it’s that good….

Japanese Rose by Korres

Korres Japanese Rose Body Milk Bath & Unwind

Absolutely expecting it to be a LUSH style scent, bold, big, in your face and take no prisoners I was pleasantly surprised by the quiet grandeur yet tenacious staying power of the fragrance. Roses, roses and more roses, though I don’t get the Japanese connection. Are their Japanese roses known especially for being a spicy, boozy, citrus smelling variety? Apparently they grow in sand dunes near the seaside and have very interesting bark effects so the plant is beautiful when leafed and bare. It’s fun and refreshing in the shower and the lotion makes a fabulous base for any rose fragrance and I also use it for my ambers, it adds a glow that emphasises rose notes but also creates lovely new variants on perfumes without rose. I also find it an extra good fragrance life extender.

Loads of people work in fragrance free environments, Japanese Rose is good because it leaves you softly and subtly fragrant all by itself. After work you can add a spritz of your favourite frag and it will smell gorgeous over the top. Win Win! Today I’m wearing Guerlain’s Shalimar over the top and it gives a whole new rosy sheen to my favourite grand dame of a perfume.

Korres Japanese Rose Showergel Bath & UnwindPhotos Stolen Bath & Unwind

Nowadays I grab mine from Bath & Unwind where you can get both Shower Gel and Body Milk for under $40 delivered anywhere in the world. So not only lovely and lavish but a cheap thrill too.
Till tomorrow,
Portia xx