We are cleaning the Perfume Room and giving it a new paint job. It’s quite a BIG DEAL so over the next couple of days I am dropping in some Video stuff that I’ve found interesting, educational or took me outside my box. Some of it is ONE TOPIC but some will alsao be TOTALLY OFF TOPIC!
Here are a couple of the beautiful Holiday Wish series the big guns are putting out this year. They are getting less outrageously gorgeous each year and a bit generic, these are two of the better offerings.
We are cleaning the Perfume Room and giving it a new paint job. It’s quite a BIG DEAL so over the next couple of days I am dropping in some Video stuff that I’ve found interesting, educational or took me outside my box. Some of it is ONE TOPIC but some will alsao be TOTALLY OFF TOPIC!
Today we are meeting Davers from the Fragrance Bros who will be talking Essence and Alchemy by Mandy Aftel. I hope you enjoy meeting him and seeing his take on a book that was so interesting , sometimes way over my head and full of re readable bits that I needed to digest and then come back to.
Sometimes it’s wonderful to dream. I will probably never own a hand crafted or bespoke piece of CHANEL jewellery and I can live with that. Something that does excite me though is watching somebody put so much attention, love and pure magic into what they do. Doesn’t mater what it is, it’s always good to watch masters at their task. There is a certain ease and relaxedness about them, it inspires me every time.
I hope you enjoy the creation of a spectacular piece of CHANEL jewellery.
Portia xx
CHANEL: L’esprit De La Haute Joaillerie (The spirit of hand crafted jewellery)
For anyone who is battling sadness, loneliness or depression this Christmas then that is shit. I am sorry. All I can say is do something that you like, doesn’t have to be something big or crazy or life changing. Just think of something that you like that you can do. When I’m down and there’s nobody around to talk to I spritz some fragrance, light a candle, make a coffee, eat a biscuit or chocolate or read a book. Any of these are guaranteed to change my downward spiral trajectory enough to realise it’s depression and it will go, like rain. It also reminds me that like rain I can’t make it go away but just have to wait it out.
Another good thing to do is go to the fragrance boards on FaceBook, there are plenty of options. FACEBOOK FRAGRANCE FRIENDS, Peace ☮ Love ❤ Perfume, MyMickers Fragrance Community, International Fragrance Split Association or Aussie Fragrance Network are the crews that I belong to but they are only the tip of the iceberg. They are running 24/7 and no matter what time you are at there is bound to be someone else from somewhere else around who might chat with you, even reading the madness that goes on can be fun. Comment on a post with respect and about fragrance and pretty soon you’ll have a new frag family from the WORLD!
Even the bleakest Christmas can be lightened by watching the Dolce & Gabbana Christmas video below. The singing is atrocious but the sentiment good.
Still I wish you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, we love you and are grateful that you drop in to see us.
Portia xx
Today I am reviewing my perfume of choice for exercising. I have so many cheap and cheerful celebrity scents that are perfect to use as a body spray. Do you wear perfume when you exercise and if so what is your choice? This year I have started doing hot yoga classes. It can get really smelly in there so I started wearing Britney Spears Curious to class to hide the bad smells. Curious is refreshing and uplifting which is what I need when I feel exhausted from the heat and exercise.
Fragrantica gives these featured accords: Top: fresh lotus, mouthwatering pear and magnolia. Heart: tuberose, jasmine and pink cyclamen. Base: musk, vanilla and precious woods
Curious is the first perfume from Britney Spears and Britney Spears perfumes are generally very good, Curious is no exception. The packaging of Curious looks great as well, with its blue glass bottle and dangly pink charm. You can get larger bottles of Curious with an atomizer that makes it so pretty and girly and would make a lovely gift. I think this would be very special to a teen girl and the perfume is perfectly suitable to that age group.
Curious opens with the distinct smell of fresh crisp pear. It is as cool and refreshing as the sparkling pear cider I crave after hot yoga. It feels light and breezy making it perfect for summer. There is also an aquatic element to Curious matching the gorgeous blue glass of the Curious bottle. Slowly the white florals emerge from the fragrance and they smell beautiful but not very strong. This is a good introduction to white florals for anyone new to perfume.
The strength and longevity of Curious is reasonably good until we get to the base notes. The soft sweet vanilla and musk smells lovely but fades away too quickly. Luckily by then I am home and showered after my hot yoga!
Having loved the Claude Debussy Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun as a child, it was on one of my Dad’s records and it had some heavy hitters after it but I thought that this was so beautiful and soft by comparison. A gentle, pastoral piece of loveliness. I could imagine the naughty faun watching beautiful languid girls going down through a paddock to the water to bathe, laughing and carefree, the trill of their voices mixing with the gurgle of the river. Anyway enough of that, Etat Libre d’Orange released their fragrance in 2012 with a sister, Dangerous Complicity (which I found a bit meh) but…
Afternoon Of A Faun by Ralf Schwieger for Etat Libre d’Orange 2012
Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Bergamot, pepper, cinnamon, incense, immortelle, orris root, myrrh, leather, benzoin, rose, jasmine, oakmoss
Afternoon of a Faun is a totally different and much more enjoyable piece of fragrant art. Unusual, nuanced, enveloping and slightly awkward it is both fun and pretty. The lovely wet pepper and citrus opening that quickly becomes deepened and broadened by the spices and immortelle, it’s cool and elegant iris all underpinned by a sweet darkness that feels both alluring and a little bit wicked. Afternoon of a Faun is not sensual in the bodily scent or skank way but it does have a wonderful frission of notes that keep me sniffing my hand compulsively because i can’t quite believe that it smells like it does. There is a vegetal funkiness, a dankness or earthiness that must be the oakmoss, immortelle and leather combination (or quite possibly something unmentioned in the notes list). Sadly i am too unschooled to really be able to parse this out. Through the heart I am seriously thinking Afternoon Of A Faun is a vetiver fragrance on my skin, not in the notes but it does have that feel and later the spice and rose make definite star turns.
Excellent sillage but only moderate projection and a good life at around the 6 hours mark before I lose the ability to smell it completely, Afternoon of a Faun becomes a softly insistent resinous wash in its last couple of hours and I find the ride enjoyable and interesting when I take special note but easy enough to wear as a daily scent too.
Gaia says, “The Afternoon of a Faun” is the name of a French poem written by Stéphane Mallarmé between 1865 and 1867 and published in 1976 (thank you, Wikipedia). Lucasz tells us that it was the 100 year anniversary of original L’après-midi d’un faune ballet choreographed for The Ballets Russes by Vaslav Nijinsky and that the inspiration here are the nymphs and fauns playing together.
I don’t know if you ever read E M Forsters short stories but The Story Of A Panic tells the story of young Eustace being changed forever by the attentions of a faun. The whole omnibus is excellent reading but I always loved The Story Of A Panic especially. There is something of the foreboding in ELdO’s Afternoon Of A Faun that we get in the E M Forster story.
Here is Prelude to Afternoon Of A Faun by Claude Debussy, the music and fragrance are a perfectly symmetrical accompaniment.
There are a crew of bloggers doing this fabulous theme at EXACTLY the same time. Scroll below the video to meet the rest. Everyone has been asked to pick a Christmas song or carol that resonates and perfume it. I think there will be some fun ones, and from all around the world.
For me there is a kind of madness associated with Christmas when we all listen to silly, often puerile, songs while wearing bakery/spicy/incense laden perfumes. This on top of the great crazy Christmas shopping, more food in one meal than many families eat in a month, seeing family with whom you may have little or nothing in common with and in Australia anyway, HEAT!!
Tonight in the 30+ celcius heat I wore 2010 L’Heure Bleue EdP. This fragrance is made for heat. A fluffy blue powder puff of tra-la-laaaaaaa. A perfect fit for the early years of Barbra Streisand and her incredible voice, while she was still fun, camp, hungry and sensational. I don’t have a live video of her performing Jingle Bells but I have been miming to it EVERY CHRISTMAS since 1989. The song feels like a part of me and I never listen to it in between but around December you can be guaranteed that if I have to do a number then this will be it.
Just as a little extra Christmas cheer I have added another incredible favourite carol done by another one of the voices that has played soundtrack in my life.
In our house there are a few favourite actors and actresses, mostly they coincide like the lovely, versatile and elegant Scarlett Johansson who is Jin’s absolute favourite actress and who I really like too. Then we have the don’t agrees, top of that list is Matthew McConaughey, frankly I will walk over glass to see him but Jin would rather roll in glass than have to see him, in anything. Here is a very interesting pairing of the two and I like the story, the detail, the mood and NYC. Also the fact that Scarlett’s character is coming to Sydney, always a thrill to hear the home town used.
Fragrantica gives these featured accords: Top: Mandarin, bergamot, litchi, peach Heart: Jasmine, lily of the valley, white lily, plum Base: Vetiver root, amber, musk, vanilla
Well, I had a totally different post planned for today but something happened fragrance-wise over the weekend that I felt compelled to share with you.
I became reacquainted with one of my old favourites. The sexy, sultry tuberose had been sitting in one of my drawers for ages, silver cap taken off as the bottle had leaked from time to time, looking forlorn and neglected. I spritzed some on Saturday morning and haven’t looked back since.
Michael by Laurent Le Guernec for Michael Kors 2000
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Freesia, incense, Chinese osmanthus, tamarind
Heart: Tuberose, iris, peony, orris root, arum lily
Base: Musk, cashmere wood, vetiver
Michael has been in my collection ever since I first tried it back in 2001. I was living in London with my brother and a friend. Most Saturdays we’d wander down to the local shopping centre at Brent Cross and we’d part ways for about half an hour or so before going grocery shopping at Tesco. They would look at useful stuff such as clothes and household goods and I’d go sniffing at Sephora and a department store, Fenwick’s. Once they’d come back, I’d annoy them for ages, wrists held aloft with the command: “Sniff!” It was on these sojourns that I first became acquainted with Creeds, Diors, Fracas and finally, Michael. I’d gladly take one of the textured camel spray blotters from the SA each visit and tuck in in my handbag. I sniffed and sniffed for months before I begged my brother to but me a bottle for my birthday.
The scent is powerful throughout its development and a complete sillage monster, which is exactly how I like it. It starts off with a big blast of tuberose, tempered with the bright sweetness of osmanthus and freesia. The lily appears and then the woody spices unfold, providing some depth to the heady tuberose core. It stays pretty much this way throughout its development.
I did say in a recent review that I thought Nasomatto’s Narcotic Venus is a poorer, albeit much higher priced, relation of Michael. I still stand by this claim. The main difference between them is that the spices are rounder here, whereas in Narcotic Venus, they feel more angular and almost metallic. If you have Michael, Narcotic Venus does seem like a bit of a extravagant frippery.
Needless to say, I love that I rediscovered this and that it remains part of my collection. There are naysayers though: Luca Turin and Tanya Sanchez gave a scathing review in Perfumes the Guide, and I concede that overspraying it could lean towards suffocation territory. But I think it is a lovely tuberose for the price point and it’s always been a compliment getter for me.
However, the thing I like about it most is that it was part of that old bastion of department store scents that took a chance and developed something with attitude and personality and very un-focus group like before Aquolina Pink Sugar and the sweet fruity patchouli things became the new normal.
Still looking for the perfect Christmas gift for someone who has everything? here is a beautiful looking book presented by two of Christian Dior’s most famous models. It looks really swanky and elegant and brings us an as yet untold story of the beginning of the relationship between the photographer and the houses of fashion. WOW!
Portia xx
‘Dior Glamour’ by Mark Shaw – Interviews – Victoire & Kouka
Photo Stolen Jerine Lay Flickr
Australian Perfume Junkies 