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Sandra
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Hi APJ! How is everyone doing?
As you read this I will be packing up my home in Rotterdam. We have had an amazing two years here in the Netherlands and will miss so many people and places. It has been a truly wonderful experience for me.
Xerjoff
Bouquet Ideale by Xerjoff Casamorati 1888: Seeing Colour
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Sandra
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Hello dear APJ! How are you doing?
Can you believe that Halloween is already here again? Halloween is when My mind switches into holiday mode. I can decorate for Halloween, celebrate Thanksgiving with my family and enjoy Christmas and New Year’s. It is a busy time of the year for most of us and I love every moment of it.
Florists around town are showing their most glorious bouquets all in the deep rich hues that I associate with autumn. The reds, oranges, yellows and purples are lovingly displayed and it is near impossible to not stop and drool. This is also the time of the year that we are greeted with stunning sunrises and sunsets where the skies are burning on fire.
Throughout the house I place autumnal accents in the form of candles, table cloths and flowers adding pops of colour here and there. My weekly meal plans get altered as I add spicy soups and pumpkin muffins full of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
The other day as I was cleaning up the house, I decided to go shopping in my perfume wardrobe.
Bouquet Ideale by Xerjoff Casamorati 1888
Continue reading
Hiccups, Perfume and a Winner
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Sandra
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Hiya APJ! Anybody smell anything wonderful recently?
First things first, the winner of the Neela Vermeire Creations sample pack is AnnieA. Congratulations! Please get in touch with Portia with your address at portia (_) turbo (@) yahoo (.) com (.) au so that I can get your package out to you.
Hiccups, Perfume and a Winner
Stress?! Did somebody say STRESS? I am not one for coping well with stress so I have decided to call it hiccups. I am a creature of habit and when I get thrown a curveball or two or twelve, I start to fall apart. Continue reading
Xerjoff Xerjoff Xerjoff: Dipping My Toes In
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Sandra
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Hi APJ! Hope everyone is having a lovely smelling spring or autumn. I am currently surrounded by beautiful spring flowers and blooming trees and all of my senses are in overdrive. Here are a few pictures of the mesmerizing spring in the Netherlands. Every turn I take and every day brings a new colourful image to lock away in my memory chest. What is your favorite part of spring or autumn?
Rotterdam Photos by Sandra
Xerjoff: Dipping My Toes In
I am sure you are all well ahead of me when it comes to Xerjoff. It is an overwhelming brand for me and I have only really sniffed and enjoyed the Casamorati line and a couple from the Join the Club line. As a Vienna farewell gift I received three minis from the Shooting Stars collection. (Thank you so much – you know who you are.)
So, here I am freezing my butt off in chilly and beautiful Rotterdam and eagerly sniffing these little gems from Xerjoff. They are harbingers of early summer days. Here are my thoughts.
Xerjoff: Shingl
Notes are: bergamot, basil, anise and artemisia, iris, rum, patchouli and vetiver, vanilla, amber and musk.
Shingl opens up quite sharp and spicey making my nose cringe. The sharp opening is herbal as well and it was confusing until the rum settled in. I always thought that rum or alcohol notes are not appealing, but the note here is subtle. It smooths out the opening together with the introduction of iris. What I find not only interesting but also addictive about Shingl is that it moves into a powdery, woody scent and is an intoxicatingly easy to wear good mood scent.
Xerjoff: Lua
Notes are: bergamot, orange, lemon, melon, rose, iris, pink pepper, lily, cedar, vanilla and musk.
Lua opens up fresh, floral and full of spring promises. I love the touch of melon here as it cuts into the citrus nicely. This is a perfume for spring days where the vast changing skies provide a dramatic backdrop to the new young green leaves and grass cropping up everywhere. I cannot help but smile when I smell Lua. It is a beautiful perfume full of hope for the next six months of gorgeous long days. I will be wearing this through the warmer months here.
Xerjoff: Dhajala
Notes are: african orange flower, galbanum, bergamot and orange, pink pepper, jasmine and rose, resin, amber, vanilla and musk.
To be perfectly honest with you, when I first spritzed Dhajala I recoiled. Something was not working for me. Perhaps it was the orange flower or the citrus vibe (which I normally have issues with), I do not know exactly. I promptly forgot about it being on my wrist and I put it in the pass pile. Well, after another hour or two I was taken aback of how good my wrist smelled. It was well rounded and very pretty but also easily unisex. I would love to smell this on a man.
I have been pleasantly surprised by these perfumes and would love to take the time to try others.
LuckyScent has the Xerjoff line
Surrender To Chance has a selection of Xerjoff samples
Do you know Xerjoff? Do you have any recommendations or favourites?
Sandra
Mamluk by Sonia Espelta and Laura Santander for Xerjoff 2012
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Post by Trésor
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I have a fascination with gold. To me there is something so powerfully mesmeric about the opulent splendor of visions graced by the hand of Midas. Anything from the lustrous sheen of a treasured piece of jewelry to the scintillating hue of a lover’s skin bathed in a radiant aura of summer sunlight, just before the star collapses into dusk. I am enraptured. For ages I’ve been on a ravenous hunt for fragrances which mirror the essence of this exquisite ore and very few have fully realized my desire. Very few except for Mamluk.
Mamluk by Sonia Espelta and Laura Santander for Xerjoff 2012
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Musk, osmanthus, jasmine, amber, benzoin, vanilla, bergamot, agarwood (oud), honey, caramel
Mamluk opens in a most extraordinarily ebullient sequence of rich, highly sacchariferous honey and a lemon who’s skin seems almost bio-luminescent in its vivid incandescence. It is a prismatic pas de deux, illuminated citron trapezing alongside the toothsome honey’s molten gold as if in a cosmic light show. There is a fleeting animalic undercurrent, the very faintest whiff of urinous vapors making way for scintillating flashes of an almost candied oud.
Photo Stolen Flickr
This is not the challenging, fecal oud found by the tola in prolific collections of connoisseurs but oud envisioned as an utter confectionery delight. Beneath the oud lay a bed of blossoming jasmine flowers, their indolic form bathed in the oozing fluid luxuriance of decadent and flowing caramel. It’s sumptuous amber hue held in glorious juxtaposition with narcotic white petals, all the while maintaining a perpetual radiance which never quite disappears despite being ensconced in an exorbitantly dulcet density.
Photo Stolen Wikipedia
As the composition progresses your sensory experience is permeated with the dazzling facets of a beautiful crystalline musk that calls to mind the scent of salty, sun soaked skin but as seen through the fractured light of broken crystal. It bounces and refracts in the most peculiar way that leaves me in a state where I am transfixed, my wrist glued to my nose. The hours pass and the composition gains a speherical quality and becomes exquisitely diffuse until finally it registers at a faint hum of honeyed sweetness just above the skin.
Photo Stolen DeviantArt
A word to the wise: this is one potent elixir so I implore you not to go guns blazing with the atomizer. A single spray (or two if you’re a hedonist like me) will do, trust me. When I first received my bottle I sprayed at least 6 times and thought I just might just drown in those gilded, thrashing tides of honey. This darling has quite a gorgeous, fairly powerful sillage and wears like iron. I get a good ten to twelve hours, quite impressive if I do say so myself.
Further reading: Kafkaesque and Perfume Posse
First In Fragrance have €247/50ml
Surrender To Chance have samples starting at $7/.5ml
So tell me, my sweet honeybees, what are your favourite fragrances for those who’ve an appetite for the olfactory manifestation of this precious ore?
Trésor xx
Oroville: Shooting Stars Collection by Christian Rostain for Xerjoff 2010
Hello Tobacco Lovers,
Thanks to Michael for passing me his sample which I decanted into a spray. You know those great photos of women wearing killer dinner suit inspired suits or gowns. They always look so elegant, except poor old Celine Dion who put hers on backwards. Remember the whole YSL Le Smoking? We studied that phase of his design life at fashion school. Remember also Alexander McQueen’s love of tailoring, fit and suits that worked perfectly with women’s bodies, often camouflaged by the OTT overlaying of belts, buckles and other pieces of drama? This is the fragrance I would spray lavishly on a person wearing such costume.
Oroville: Shooting Stars Collection
by Christian Rostain for Xerjoff 2010
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Roman chamomile, clary sage, orange
Heart: Leather, orange blossom, Italian neroli, carnation, Cuban tobacco leaves, galbanum
Base: Mysore sandalwood, vanilla, amber, white musks
You’d think by reading the notes that I would be expecting a lush, green, herbal opening but it surprised me. I always expect Xerjoff to be hefty oudh or amber. Not here, this is extremely fresh, like CHANEL 19 but nothing like it, that is just the nearest correlation I can give you. I think it may be the sage and galbanum, but of course I could be dreaming. Reading Ca Fleur Bon, Mark Behnke got indole and when it comes in it is beautiful, before reading his review I had missed it because it doesn’t stay indolic for long and it is only up close that I can smell it so put your Oroville on the back of your hand and then rest your chin in your hand.
Photo Stolen Wikipedia
When I see tobacco as a main note my mind goes straight to the pipe tobacco of my Grandma’s second husband Jim who put up with her nagging in return for the cleanest house and best cooking I’ve ever tasted. His smell through my earliest memories up until I was about 12 years old was a thick boozy miasma of stale pipe that had sunk into his cardigan and was ultimately “His Smell”. I really loved that smell and him. Sadly when he gave up the pipe all he smelled like was old man and cuddles were a lot less enjoyable. I digress, this is NOT what Oroville’s tobacco gives me, I get fresh plucked tea leaves/tobacco with a mini dose of leather, supple and plush early on which opens up into a very slightly toastiness both unusual and enjoyable, still crisp and snappy due to the flowers and resin. Curiously honeyed and not as green as I was expecting. The heart stays solid for about 3-3.5 hours, I continue to get wafts of the notes listed and the clove-ish carnation especially maintains.
Sadly the base has been eaten up by my skin leaving only the merest whiff of what seems like clean laundry musks. I did get three good fragrant hours with a small projection and soft sillage. Worth the $$? You need to try it, my skin is notoriously scent hungry. I’ve given this sample 3 good wearings, 1 x dab and 2 x spritz. The spritz gives me nearly 4 hours of fragrant life, and the scent is excellent till it all sort off collapses at base level. If I had the money to burn I would buy a bottle and reapply every 4 hours because the top and heart are lovely.
Further reading: Ca Fleur Bon and The Scentuary
LuckyScent has $260/50ml
First In Fragrance has €199/50ml
Surrender To Chance starts at $5/.5ml
What did you think? Tried it? Want to?
Till tomorrow, be good to yourself and those i your orbit,
Portia xx
Al-Khat by Sergio Momo, Sonia Espelta, Laura Santanda for Xerjoff 2012
Hello High End Nichers,
Do you ever have a sample that rolls around in your drawer for a long time, ignored, and then one day you give it some skin time to find that it is the most beautiful and engaging scent and that you can spritz the whole decant away over the next 4 days at different times?
Al-Khat by Xerjoff 2012
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Jasmine, bergamot, cashmeran, vanilla, oakmoss, benzoin and agarwood (oud)
For some reason I was expecting Al-Khat to blow the back of my head off then pick me up and throw me against a wall while laughing at my outrage, panic and pain. No way, this is SMOOTH! Al-Khat is the Belgian chocolate of oudhs, if you have a problem with the note then this is a perfect way to start with this pretty, caramelised, chocolate covered song of a fragrance.
The opening is rich but light, it smells like the vaults of treasure hoarded by a dragon, with a slight animalic that owes more to scales than fur, like the dry rustle of a snake section at the zoo. The citrus and jasmine is sparkling quietly away but you only notice when you look because this baby is all base. Warm, sweet, sexy and pretty with a slight edge and darkness provided by the oakmoss and oudh. I also get a soft powdery woods scent running in and out that is very comfort scent and as it leaves I hope for it to return, which it does a few times, like a manly talc smell.
Douglas Fromm Photo Stolen FineArtAmerica
I smell amazing with Al-Khat on, the decant is nearly all gone after 3 wears and I am thinking that a bottle is definitely in my future, and can’t wait to put it on Jin. It smells like clean, youthful, healthy, moisturised skin warming up for sex as it progresses into the second hour. The drydown is very nice, a slightly dirty vanilla, but not outrageous, inviting perhaps.
Though the scent is ridiculously gorgeous Al-Khat is not a huge projector, staying within a half meter of my body, though it does leave a very light, sweet sillage for a moment and as a fragrance I get about 3-4 hours before I become a slightly better smelling me. Unless you went crazy with the spritzes I think it wearable even for a work scent.
Photo Stolen FramingPainting
Further reading CaFleurBon does the whole Xerjoff Oud Stars range and I couldn’t find another review on the first 5 pages of Google. I wonder why? Did the Xerjoff crew piss perfumistas off at some point?
LuckyScent has $315/50ml
SurrenderToChance starts at $7/.5ml
The Xerjoff line is interesting to me, there is not a lot of talk about them on the scentbloggosphere but on FB there is much more. Often Xerjoff will come up as a SOTD. Whatever they are doing for promotion, it’s working. Which of the line have you tried?
See you tomorrow,
Portia xx
Australian Perfume Junkies 