Smell Bent

Smell Bent Perfumer Brent Leonesio Interview

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 14 Comments

Hello pursuers of fine fragrances,

This week I have again chosen to highlight the incredible talent of an Independent Perfumer; Brent Leonesio from Smell Bent. It wasn’t so long ago that I discovered the Smell Bent brand, I’m not even sure how it happened now. Maybe another blogger was writing or I could have stumbled upon them in a late night google search. Maybe I came across his picture, because the man is really, decidedly, damned cute. Yummy McYUM!!

Doesn’t matter where I found Smell Bent, what do matter are the juices, they are fun, frivolously named, sideways and sometimes shocking fragrances. The fun belies the fact that if it’s a Smell Bent fragrance, then it will be awesome. Not always to my taste, it’s true, but something extraordinary never-the-less. The first scent I bought was a bottle of Tibet Yr Bottom $; a fun look at incense, woods and stuff, it stayed front and centre of the collection for 3 months, unheard of. Then, more recently, it was the Vocabulary range, the wolf pair, some gourmand Christmas frags, a couple of the Frankin-Smelly releases and to go along with this interview Brent has sent us 4 new sample size frags from his latest range for me to review and then for you to WIN! Check back on Thursday for details of how you can.

Here are a few questions that Brent was kind enough to take some time to answer, what a star….

Tell us about young Brent please?
I was definitely a curious kid.  I lived in my head and frolicked in fantasy.  And I think I still do.

What were you doing before you became a perfumer?
I worked in the fashion industry, had a bunch of different jobs – designing, wholesaling, buying.  But I got a little disenchanted with the business and was ready for a change.

How did you become interested in fragrance?
I ran out of a bottle of Armani Prive Bois d’Encens, which was going at about $200 at the time.  I went online looking for an affordable replacement when I fell down the rabbit hole known as Basenotes.  If only I had shelled out that cash, I wouldn’t be here today.

What qualifications do you have as a perfumer?
I love perfume and have studying it for 6 years and creating it for just over 3.  I guess you could say my qualification is passion.

Who were and are your mentors and inspirations?
I’ve been influenced by numerous artists in various mediums.  I look up to people like Franco Moschino, Estee Lauder and E.M. Forster.

Do you still wear mass market fragrances, if yes which and why?
I don’t wear much perfume as of late.  I usually save my nose for my work.  Recently though, I’ve been spraying myself with a bit of Alexander McQueen’s (sadly discontinued) Kingdom.

Who is your favourite independent perfumer and why?
I just got back from a show with 19 other indie perfumers.  I can’t think of a more exciting time to be working in the medium.  For the first time, in a long time, perfume is opening up and individuals who are passionate about making perfume are able to do so.  If you’re going it on your own, my hat is off to you!

Synthetic or natural, why?
I love a mix.  Naturals are incredibly interesting and complex on their own.  But there are so many exciting synthetics that offer smells the natural world doesn’t.  I couldn’t choose one over the other.

What constitutes a Smell Bent customer?
Anyone who thinks perfume can and should be fun.

How has your online business developed?
I started with a website and an email.  A friend ran a blog and wrote about me.  I just followed the aspects of businesses I respected- quick-turnaround, personalized service and high quality products at a good price.  I try and keep things as simple as possible.

Smell Bent is renowned for its quirky names and slightly sideways scents, why have you chosen that road?
When I started, I wanted to put me in the work.  And I guess a big part of it is just my personality coming through.  I also think that sometimes perfume takes itself too seriously and I wanted to change that.

Do you wish someday to work for the big end of perfumery, why?
I can’t say where I’ll be or with whom.  I’m gonna stick with smell bent for the foreseeable future.  The company is growing and finding an audience beyond my wildest dreams.

What fragrance, that you have made, do you always refer to in your mind as success, why?
I know which are most loved by my audience – scents like St. Tropez Dispenser or Bollywood of Bust.  I’m loving Short Fuse and Little Miss Panda Gets Lei’d.  But I’m always partial to the last things I’ve done.

What are the 5 most important things you have learned so far that could help budding perfumistas/perfumers?
1.     Start small.
2.     Ask for help.
3.     Don’t be afraid to try something new.
4.     When you’re most afraid of being different than everyone else, just keep going.
5.     Believe in yourself.

Where do you see Smell Bent in 5 years?
I would love to see the business continue to grow.  Every year has been a real adventure for me and I feel incredibly fortunate to be doing what I love.

Told you, Ah May Zing guy. Tomorrow I want to take you through the 4 newbies I’ve been sent to review for you, if you want to check the site before then SMELL BENT <<<JUMP
See you back here tomorrow then,
Portia xx

Photos Stolen Fragrantica

Reindeer Games and Hippie Holidaze by Smell Bent

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 2 Comments

Hey Smell People,

Don’t forget to enter our THURSDAY GIVEAWAY COMPETITION

Recently on Smell Bent the lovely Brent Leonesio had a warehouse clearance sale. So never one to let an opportunity for gratuitous fragrance shopping go by I ordered half the shop and a bag of chips. I love Brent’s irreverent style and sense of fun. He seems absolutely unafraid to experiment and aside from the quirky names and funky home made feel to his artwork the fragrances are the BOMB! My first true love from the Smell Bent range was Tibet Ur Bottom $, a super incense laden sparkly juice that would wash over me like waves of religion, it almost had me speaking in tongues. So what did my current haul turn up? And this is only a tiny sneak preview…

HIPPIE HOLIDAZE oil 2009: This was the Smell Bent Christmas offering for 2009. In the past I have always felt a bit, ” Gourmand? Really, smells like food? I don’t get it? I can’t smell that this is foodie.” Hippie Holidaze has changed my tune. On my skin we open with a a crisp tangerine (citrus anyway, but not a screechy bergamot) and then after about 15 minutes straight to pancakes and maple syrup with a cinnamon dusting. OMG! It is so rich and delicious, almost burnt. I am salivating. Ha Ha HAH! I can’t believe what I’m smelling on myself. Genius! Now I get the patchouli, yes here it is. I have nothing in the fragrance world that I’ve sniffed to compare it to except Angel by Mugler, this is cooler but hotter. All the ways that I hate Angel have been shorn away into something that I love. Great work Brent!

REINDEER GAMES oil 2010: Built for the Yuletide season again a year later this is like a grown ups version of Hippie Holidaze, the citrus is brighter, with incense to add a cool churchy feel at the beginning, instead of maple syrup this fragrance gives us hot and spicy, Christmas pudding with custard and freshly polished wood furniture, freshly cut wood for the fire that remains unlit and I know there’s no note listed as floral but I am getting something that I can’t pinpoint but it feels like a flower I should remember. This is Christmas done elegantly, or the dream and vision of it anyway. Not only is this a lovely body perfume but I think it would be gorgeous as a candle or room diffuser oil, especially for showing houses.

LIBERTY FOR ALL 2012: I don’t have this yet but the Smell Bent team have, um, maybe I better let the website explain

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve kinda got a thing for animals.  so do the folks over at liberty wildlife.  when they asked us to come up with a perfume to help celebrate their annual fundraiser, we were happy to oblige.
One of our favorite memories of our Phoenician adolescence is the smell of orange blossoms in the desert spring.  so that is where our composition begins.  and though it goes without saying, liberty for all was designed to be enjoyed by both men and women.
Notes: desert orange blossom with bergamot, ozone, tonka bean, hay, vetyver and sandalwood.
For each full bottle purchased, $25 will be donated directly to liberty wildlife

Go and have a look at Smell Bent they do some really inexpensive samples and ship worldwide, I have particularly enjoyed his Vocabulary range and Incensed. We do have an interview on its way with Brent Leonesio so look out for that in a couple of Mondays time. As always, thank you for spending your leisure time with us,

Portia xx

Towards 10,000 IVs, Cartier Film

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 3 Comments

Hiya Everyone,

We made our 6,000th individual view (IVs) over the weekend! For anyone who’s run a blog for a long time that doesn’t seem like a lot but we only started in mid March 2012. Individual views (IVs) is the amount of separate people who’ve viewed the site, each day you can make a new entry. If you come to the site and look at 10 pages you count as 10 in page views, only 1 in individual views. So you can imagine there were a few rowdy Woo Hoo’s when we noticed it had clicked over.

Click here for more graphics and gifs!Click here for more graphics and gifs!Click here for more graphics and gifs!Click here for more graphics and gifs!

GIF Stolen from picgifs

This got me to thinking, can we make it to 10,000 individual views (IVs) by the end of June? On stats it should be doable; March we did around 700, April just over 2000, May we’ll fly over the 3,000 mark. So then the CHALLENGE for June is to do 4,000 individual views (IVs). If we hit 10,000 IVs all up in June I think there should be a SUPER DOOPER GIVEAWAY.

Photo Stolen dancingastronaut

How can you help to make this happen? Easy Peasy!
TWITTER = Portia@OzPerfumeJunkie
FACEBOOK = Portia Turbo
Every time there’s a new post that you find interesting, reTweet or share on Facebook with all your buddies. Hopefully some of them will have a look, like what they see and continue the process.

Here’s what we at AustralianPerfumeJunkies will give away if we make 10,000 IVs in June.

Brand New Box In Plastic Wrap L’Homme Sport 50ml EdT by Lanvin
5ml spray decant Smell Bent Tibet Ur bottom $ EdT (Discontinued)
5ml spray decant Rochas Byzance EdT (Discontinued)
5ml spray decant CHANEL No 5 Eau Premier EdT

WOW! 4 lucky winners will win one of these great prizes each with postage anywhere in the world.

If you are a regular scentbloggosphere reader you will have seen this lovely Cartier mini movie before. Every time I am about to post it someone else I read puts it up, last time it was Birgit at Olfactoria’s Travels (AT) and this time Nathan Branch at Good Taste Is A Trillion Dollar Industry (NZ) but I’m going ahead today because it’s so incredibly and ridiculously lovely. Please enjoy.

I hope you loved it and on a completely different track I re-found this wonderful quote on the weekend and thought it would be fun to share it.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months, Oscar Wilde

Thanks for tuning in again, we are grateful that you do. Don’t forget to help us reach

Photo Stolen brisseaux

Wishing you only the good stuff,

Portia xx

5 QUICK SNIFFS and JUDE LAW

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 10 Comments

Hey fellow FumeHeads,

Quick Sniffs! Reviews <5 sentences each.

One thing I would like to ask though is if you could all please get the word out about our blog. It’s one month and we’ve had over 2000 separate people visit us, which is beyond AH MAY ZING! To really help create the community we dream of though we would like to take that to the moon and back. So if you enjoy reading our blather, know someone who loves fragrance or have an enemy that you’d like to torture with us, please go ahead. Facebook, Twitter, Phone, Email, Letter, Sky-write, Radio or TV, please mention us at every stop. Some of the Independent/Natural/Niche Perfumers that we are reviewing, interviewing and writing about just need a nudge to make them global concerns. We’d like to be part of making that happen for them and you are the only people who can help. Thank you in advance and please enjoy today’s offering.

L’ANONYME OU OP-1475-A by A LAB ON FIRE

This is minimalist, like a clean scent but with a bit more balls. It starts quite citrusy and wears softly to a slight, lovely warmth.  My skin eats it pretty quickly, a whisper in 40 mins; gone in 2 hours. But it’s so affordable that you won’t feel guilty for respritzing.

Fragrantica has the notes, accords and reviews LuckyScent does an admirable pitch and you can buy.

AMBER OUD by BY KILLAIN

This is the most easily accessible Oud scent I’ve tried so far. It is warm vanilla, spicy bay and amber with a hint of Oud. Extremely expensive in feel, smell and fact.

Notes etc by Fragrantica while TheCandyPerfumeBoy and BoisDeJasmine do reviews from different perspectives

MUSCHIO NOBILE by NOBILE 1942

Looking on the first 3 pages of Google I could not find single English review for this lovely soft Italian fragrance that wasn’t a press release revisited. The notes tell me a story that my nose doesn’t smell though. I miss the musk and citrus completely after the initial rush and am left with a linear floral and woodsy fragrance quite unlike anything I’ve smelled before. I find this fresh, light and unusual fragrance quite cool but friendly. I will get a 5ml decant to really try it out.

Fragrantica has the skinny, LuckyScent has a blurb and shopping

AOUD CUIR D’ARABIE by MONTALE

WOOF! Want an Auod faceplant with a block of freshly hewn wood in a barn with livestock and a rock hard Romeo just off his horse and ready for action? YES YOU DO. Insanely FBW!

Fragrantica for notes and stuff Scentrist & NathanBranch have opposing views to each other.

SHE WOLF by SMELLBENT

This starts with the same candied fried citrus that we have seen in loads of stuff and took me completely off guard because I was expecting a skanky ho of a fragrance. The gang were saying what a sexy masculine fragrance this is but all I smelled throughout was spicy citrus. My nose is MENTAL! She Wolf, I think I love you!

Fragrantica has the stuff and CaFleurBon writes about the whole SmellBent North by Northwest range

Thanks for making it to the bottom of my sniffy thoughts for today.

Portia xx

All photos Stolen from Fragrantica today.

The delicious Jude Law, Enjoy!