Perfume shopping | All I am

Category Archives: Perfume shopping

The future of home fragrance is here?

I've been thinking, Perfume shopping, Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume March 25, 2021 Comments: 6

I listened to a webinar from Scentys today and got very excited! 😀 New technologies generally have that effect on me.

Before today I wasn’t aware of the brand (Scentys) and what they offer. While listening to the webinar I browsed their offer and got hooked up on the home fragrance products they offer.

I will wait for a few days to see if I’m really that captivated with the diffuser and if yes, proceed with procuring it. 😀 I do believe I will eventually give in. I already found the scents I want to try.

But I got sidetracked from the topic.

What caught my attention is the fact that they have developed a new technology that uses IoT and makes diffusers controllable by either a virtual assistant (Alexa), or over a phone app. You can turn it on and off by giving Alexa a command or using your phone. You can also check whether the amount of fragrance in the air is too much and decrease it in that case.

The whole project is still in development stage but I do hope it evolves soon and becomes widely available. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Maybe by the time it becomes widely available, they add spaces for 3 different scents in the diffuser to choose from (without removing one and adding another).

In the meantime, I’ll ruminate some more on the benefits of having a Scentys diffuser (the non-AI, as it is at the moment).

And I already know what I’ll be buying my driving friends for their birthdays. 😉 Luckily, none of them read my blog. 😀

I don’t like it at all

I've been thinking, Perfume review, Perfume shopping, Perfume thoughts, Sample of the day, World of Perfume August 26, 2018 Comments: 3

I just realized my love of perfumes is back but my writing skills aren’t.

I can write about things but I’m drawing blanks when it comes to perfume. I’m really not happy about that but I lost the practice and now it will take a while to get it back.

In this post I’ll try to explain why I love the perfumes I’m writing about.

I’ve been wearing April Aromatics’ Tempted Muse before my vacation and loved it so much that the decant is gone. Btw, thank you Asali for sending it – you really know my taste. 😀

Which brings me to Undina’s post and her explanation how perfumes are thunked.

Of all the muses out there, the one that speaks to me is Urania (surprise, suprise)

My decant is done but the perfume is definitely not thunked.

After a long time, I used up a decant and now I know I want a bottle of it. It’s kind of funny that when I look back at the bottles of perfumes I fell in love with, ones that I purchased in the last few years, they were all perfumes that I labeled completely wrong with my nose.

For example, the beginning of Tempted Muse reminds me a lot of Jicky and therefore I concluded the perfume must contain lavender. Turns out, that’s not one of the listed notes.

Notes: Frangipani, tuberose, jasmine, rose otto, tonka bean, sandalwood, ylang ylang, pink grapefruit, vanilla, anis fruit accord.

In accordance with smelling something that isn’t there, I also have a hard time imagining this as a seductive perfume as the name would suggest. For me it evokes happiness and purity. So I guess the muse didn’t give in to temptation in this case.

Which brings me to the seductive one.

On summer vacation evening I went out for a stroll along the seaside and as this was a quick weekend getaway I brought no perfumes and just fished out of my purse one of the samples I always have there for backup. Turns out it was Andy Tauer’s Une Rose de Kandahar.

What an amazing perfume to wear on a hot summer night!

I would never have guessed it and feel a bit ashamed. I always felt ouds were too much for heat which is the opposite of where they originated. Luckily, I found out for myself how great they work in heat. I could smell it wafting off of me all the time but in an easy wave that is enjoyable to smell. You’re not sure where it’s coming from but you like that it’s here and want it to remain in the air around you.

Notes: Apricot, cinnamon, almond, bergamot, Bulgarian rose absolute, rose from Kandahar, bourbon geranium, tobacco leaf, patchouli, vetiver, vanilla, tonka bean, musk and ambergris.

Being true to the introduction, I cannot describe it better than that it’s a rose oud but I’ll work on that. 🙂 I mean out of all these notes, in the drydown I get vetiver in addition to the beginning of rose and oud. Which also isn’t a note of this perfume (oud) but hell, obviously the base notes combine well to give that impression. And that makes it even more amazing.

Now that I wrote this, I realize that it’s the small niche brands I’ve been enjoying the most lately. Little gems of novelty brilliance in the sea of sameness.

The Jicky issue

I've been thinking, Paris, Perfume shopping, Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume August 19, 2018 Comments: 3

If you remember, some time ago I asked for help with opening the golden Jicky casing. I finished my bottle and wanted to remove it from the gold in order to be able to get a new one.

Optimist that I am, I thought that would be easy.

A friend of mine went to Paris this week, and of course I asked her to check the Champs-Elysees Guerlain store in order to purchase a bottle of Jicky.

Turns out there is no Jicky to be had for my golden cage. 😔

I mean, I certainly hope that is what the sales assistant meant when she told my friend that the series is discontinued. Because the other possibility is unfathomable. Right?

So, does anyone know if it’s only the Jicky in gold casing that is being discontinued? I’m still being optimistic. 😉

And if so, where could I possibly find a bottle before they are all gone?

I won’t be powdering my nose – Narciso Poudree

Perfume review, Perfume shopping, Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume February 23, 2016 Comments: 4

I’ll be powdering everything else I can. 😉

It’s funny – one day you’re lamenting how you can no longer find a perfume that will make you fall in love and then, suddenly, from the most unexpected place, one appears.

I’m not complaining though. Ok, maybe a little as it’s not yet out so I can’t get a bottle of my own but in the overall scope of things, I can live with that. I can even live with the fact that I’ll be encountering many other people smelling like me once it’s released.

I think Narciso himself introduced this perfume in the clearest of ways:

“With the original NARCISO fragrance, I wanted to create an extremely sexy fragrance. NARCISO eau de parfum Poudrée captures femininity at its core in an even more seductive way. It is both tender and powerful and immediately addictive.”

I cannot but agree with everything stated here. I liked the original Narciso perfume but it is this one that is at the same time sexy as hell and feminine and not overpowering. It speaks to me like in all the ways I didn’t think a perfume can. It reminds me of younger days when I thought Very Irresistible by Givenchy was all the rage. There is a character note they share (rose) and where Very Irresistible made the air in the room unbreathable with its overbearing silage, Narciso Poudree is the wisp of air that makes you turn your head in search of the sensuality you think you noticed and want to make sure you didn’t imagine, because it smells too good to be truly there.

Yes, it’s obvious I’m in love, isn’t it? 🙂

Notes from I gathered from the press release include: jasmine, Bulgarian rose, vetiver, black cedar, white cedar, powdery musc.

Before going on to what I smell, I want to say a big thank you to Raquel Zimmerman who made me re-think the fact that synthetic muscs will never work for me. It is obvious this was made expertly as this perfume never veers off into territory where muscs take over, even though the longevity is here – my blotter still smells amazingly strong after 3 days and it smells great.

I admit with shame now that when I first smelled this I have no idea what it was I was smelling, I just loved it from the first spray. The best thing I can say for myself is I understood why they named it Poudree. 🙂 It took me a while to understand that rose was the one seducing me from the start, accompanied by her minions whom I ignored. It is only now that I smell the drydown again and again I can understand where vetiver comes into play (I would never have guessed it was there by myself) and I would swear there is some vanilla in the base as the warm, seductive sweetness it exudes cannot all be attributed to the mentioned notes.

I love the powdery feel of this perfume as it keeps the rose in check and I love that the creaminess you feel in this perfume is a sleight of hand done by jasmine. And even though I would say that vetiver adds its dryness and sweetness to the poudree part of the name and the perfume drydown, I still think a drop of vanilla helps. 😉

So, I hope now you are all as eager as I am to see Narciso Poudree released.

Please let me know what you think once you get the chance to smell it.

And I would like to say a big thank you to Ivo who shared this gem with me. 🙂

Traveling in France – Paris

Paris, Perfume shopping, Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume January 14, 2016 Comments: 25

In December I finally had a chance to visit Paris again, even if it was only for two and a half days. It was a quick getaway that happened at exactly the right time to re-charge my batteries before work hit me hard for the rest of the month.

I arrived on the first Sunday of the month and the optimist in me thought to visit museums for free. 🙂 This is the closest I got to a museum – this is Rodin’s. Louvre and Musee d’Orsay were out of the question, the queues were unbelievable! Still, just walking in the gardens of Musee Rodin was a beautiful experience.

DSC_1341[1]

So, since my free entrance to Louvre was out of the question, I decided to pay for it and used most of my Monday to stroll around it. I seem to have been fascinated with staircases this time around but I’ll post just one picture of them (ok, maybe two). 🙂

DSC_1370[1]

There are so many beautiful things to see in Louvre. I’ve been there once already, my first time in Paris, but I really wanted to visit it again.

DSC_1383[1]

DSC_1389[1]

The jewelry on display is “magnifique”! DSC_1394[1]

DSC_1396[1]

This time I was actually able to snap a rather ok photo of Mona Lisa.

DSC_1401[1]

It is not a worthy trip to Paris if you don’t visit a perfume shop and this time, my perfume wanderings took me to Jovoy (no pictures from there but a perfume did come back 😉 ) and to Caron which had an amazing Christmas display in their window. I didn’t buy anything there but the SA was amazingly nice and cooperative and explained everything. I went away with arms smelling of many perfumes and a sample of Poivre.

Honestly, I feel old French perfumery is calling me back to its folds. I seem to enjoy it more and more.

DSC_1422[1]

Of course that no trip to Paris would be complete without a visit to Guerlain. This time a friend and I decided to visit the famous tea room (Le 68 Guy Martin) at Guerlain and it was the first time I discovered what the French insolence feels like. You see, you need a reservation for the place and we didn’t have one. But as it wasn’t really full we somehow managed to convince them to let us in for tea and cake.

That was misstep number 2. You see, you cannot come around 2 for tea and cake. 😀 Because that is lunch time. As we were very haughtily informed. Still, they obviously made an exception in our case.

DSC_1423[1]

And since I didn’t know if taking a photo of my dessert would be misstep 3, I took it quickly so it’s not the best one.

That said, once we started eating our dessert and being so obviously appreciative of it, the chief waiter (one being frenchly mean to us) actually appeared with a smile on his lips. Honestly though, this was I believe the best dessert I ever had in my life. And I can’t even remember its name and can’t find it on the restaurant’s menu either (some kind of chocolate profiterole).

DSC_1424[1]

My Guerlain visit ended with a purchase of Shalimar tea. Again the optimist in me thought I’d buy more than just Shalimar tea, but once I saw the prices, additional tins were out of the question. 🙂 Oh well, at least I tried one of them with my dessert. 😉

Profumo di Rovigno

Croatia, Croatian design, I've been thinking, Perfume shopping, Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume September 17, 2015 Comments: 6

I would have been a very bad perfumista if, when possible, I wouldn’t had visited the only different perfume shop in town where I was staying. In Rovinj, it was a little shop called Profumo di Rovigno where I spent more money than I expected, all thanks to the lovely owner and her products.

There are only two perfumes, the woman and man variant of Profumo di Rovigno and I admit that the woman version is a really nice floral. It contains the synthetic musks I have a problem with, but I still liked it a lot and thought is was extremely reasonably priced for the perfume you got (it’s been a while but I think it was around 30 Euros for 100ml).

The things I bought were a home perfume with the note of oud – La Notte di S. Lorenzo, a herbal/floral refreshing water Aqua di Rovigno and several soaps. There is something for everyone in that shop, I dare you go there and leave empty-handed. 😉

I thouroughly enjoyed my experience and almost succumbed to the amazingly beautifl silk scarves they have (that would be the only reason to advise anyone to not go there – they might succumb to silky temptation).

Still, if you’re ever in Rovinj, go visit the store, it’s definitely a place to see and smell and enjoy your senses, both scentual and sensual.

You can check more of what they have on offer on their site.

Entrance

Interior

The owner

Soaps! 🙂

Tuberose as a mood enhancener

Perfume shopping, Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume April 22, 2015 Comments: 8

Or a review of Agent Provocateur’s Tuberose Intoxication massage oil.

I don’t use it as a massage oil. I use it when I need an anti-depressant. Ok, that sounds too drastic as I’m not depressed but I use it on days when I feel down for no reason and need something to make me feel better. I use it as an after shower body oil instead of the lotion I usually use.

I love the smell of tuberose and I know it is usually reviewed as a seductive perfume (and I agree) but I think its narcotic nature is what works for me. 😉 What other reason would there be for me to crave it when I need a pick me up if not for its narcotic nature? 🙂

OK, now that I admitted I like narcotics in my flowers and perfumes, the reason I really enjoy putting this oil on (except the fact that I smell tuberosey for hours) is its silky texture. It applies well to moist skin but it also feels like you still have some on because its silkiness makes your hands glide and you can’t lose that feeling. No wonder it’s advertised as massage oil…

The bad thing though, it seems it’s no longer available. That’s a shame as there were 3 oils released at the same time (I only tried the tuberose), but it makes me think that the others would smell and feel great too.

The one and only – Parfumarija

Perfume shopping, Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume May 25, 2014 Comments: 10

I’m saying one and only as it’s not only Dublin’s sole niche perfumery, it’s also Ireland’s only niche perfumery as I’ve been told when I was there.

Personally, I love the name as it’s a play on words, perfumery is called “parfumerija” in Croatian (and most of ex-Yugoslav countries) and the owner’s name is Marija (she’s Macedonian) so there it is – Parfumarija.

I didn’t spend nearly enough time in there as my group was waiting for me, but the little time I did spend there was great.

I was greeted by a fellow perfumista/blogger Freddie who also has a youtube channel where he reviews perfumes. It was quite a lot of fun discussing perfumes with him. 🙂

Freddie talking me through perfumes

He talked me through the novelties they have and through some perfumes I haven’t had the chance to try yet, as they aren’t available in Croatia.

He also gave me the new F. Malle to try – I can’t remember the name, but it is Carlos Benaïm’s new scent by F. Malle.

*Eau de Magnolia* by Lucas’ comment

It’s a magnolia perfume and honestly, the beginning didn’t really wow me due to my idea of magnolia watery-green scent smelling like botanical garden, but its development gets more and more interesting and I want to smell it again and give it more time and thought.

I tried the two MDCI I haven’t yet had the chance to try, Nuit Andalouse and Vêpres Siciliennes. I should’ve known a white creamy floral would win my heart in an instant, but realistically speaking, I really don’t need another one (even though that Nuit Andalouse has my name written all over it). 😉

For the first time, I got to try Ys Uzac line and I must say I was rather impressed. There were only 4 perfumes in the line, Pohadka, Monodie, Metaboles and Immortal Beloved. And in all the hurry I remember liking Pohadka and Monodie rather a lot, but I would need to re-smell the whole line again for a better memory.

It seems I was there only for the experience of a new perfumery but even so, I loved it.

I finished my quick smelling escapades by smelling Aqua Sextius by Jul et Mad which Freddie said reminded him of Womanity (luckily for me it didn’t). But I understand why he would say it.

I read Lucas’ take on Aqua Sextius and for some reason thought it would be too watery/ozonic for my taste. But no, it’s actually quite lovely and very easy to like and wear. Unfortunately, it’s also 230 Euros for 50ml of edp…

*Lucas informed me it’s actually extrait de parfum*

Parfumarija is also on Facebook if you want to follow them. And if in Dublin, go and visit them for a little bit of perfume fun. 🙂

The Roman holiday (part II)

Perfume shopping, World of Perfume September 29, 2013 Comments: 23

Where I talk about perfumeries and put in a little give-away. 😉

Even though Paris might sound like the city for a perfumista, Rome definitely has perfume merits of its own. Personally, I am generally not one for Italian perfumery but among all the available choices, even I found an Italian perfume to like. More on that later.

Our perfume wanderings started with the Alé parfum perfumery which we discovered by accident as it was just down the road from where we were staying.

It’s a small shop full of wonders. 🙂 I find it incredible how many different perfume brands were there. The perfumes that stand the most in my memory are Iris Nazarena I finally was able to try and the new Jovoy perfumes which I would need to smell better at leisure. I did like Iris Nazarena just not that much to warrant the price tag.

The next shop on our perfumista quest was HB Profumeria. It is a rather large shop with many cosmetic and perfume brands and here is where we spent the bulk of our perfume money. 🙂

Of all the Italian perfumes I smelled there, I decided to take home Electra by Sigilli which is a really strange perfume with metallic/ozonic vibes and radioactive longevity. It really requires you to spray it sparingly. 🙂 It’s labeled as an amber which it is but only after being so much more.

One of the main reasons to visit this perfumery became obvious after Asali’s talk with the SA after she spied an old version of L’Heure Bleu. 🙂 It seems the owner of HB Profumeria goes out of his way to procure the old Guerlains. So, who knows, if you’re lucky in Rome you might come across one for you.

The last perfumery we visited has several stores in Rome and after visiting the first, smaller one, we were told to go and visit their main store where they have more lines and which they use for perfume events (F. Kurkdjian’s event was this past week which unfortunately we missed).

If you’re going to visit just one Campomarzio 70 store, my advice is to go to the flagship store at Via Vittoria 52 and hope the beautiful blonde, blue-eyed SA is there. Unfortunately, I don’t know her name and didn’t think to ask at that point but it is very rarely you come across such a great SA. After learning a bit about our general taste in perfume, she proceeded to offer perfumes to try that would fit with what we had said. And she was guessing unbelievably well. As luck would have it, they ship all over Europe so if I decide I need a bottle of Isabey’s L’Ambre de Carthage, I’m getting it from there. She was also kind

giulietta

enough to help me on that way by giving me a sample. 😉

She also gave us Giulietta Capuleti perfume to try which you get on a cloth tissue. It has 20 different rose essences in it (and the price shows it, over 400 Euros for 100ml) but smells wonderful (if you like rose perfumes).

This ends our Rome perfume journey and as it was such a good one, I would like to share a 10ml decant of Electra with one lucky winner. Just state your interest in the comments. 🙂

Pics for Ale Parfum and Giulietta taken from their respective sites.

Perfume shopping in Zagreb – TOP

Perfume shopping, World of Perfume May 14, 2013 Comments: 11

There is a new niche place to visit in Zagreb! 🙂 And, it’s one that is right on me routes around the town. The address being Tomiceva 4.

You can check their facebook site too.

It opened yesterday, when I learned about it from my Zagreb perfume crowd – so of course I went to check it out today.

The place is rather small and cosy (when compared to other niche destinations in Zagreb) and at the moment, you are greeted by Borut, the lovely SP who I first met at Viktor Koncept.

It might seem like there aren’t many lines there at the moment (the number will definitely grow once Croatia enters the EU) but I had to stop smelling at some point as my brain decided to process what I’ve smelled so far.

So, here are my reflections so far.

I am happy to say it seems L’Artisan’s Caligna will be available here (and I might get to try the tester even sooner, hopefully next week).

I finally got to test Blood Concept and even though I’m not sure I would wear any but my own group (A – strangely likeable) and realized again that I pretty much suck at rebus because I had to have the name +MA explained.

Also for the first time I tried A Lab on Fire perfumes – What We Do In Paris Is Secret is my favourite of the trio. The more I smell it, the more I fall in love. Well, I’m predisposed to it just by seeing the name. 😉 It is very romantic and seductive.

JHAG Mad Madame had the most intriguing opening and is the first JHAG perfume I liked from the start and the next time I’m there, I’ll give it some arm space (didn’t have any left today).

The more I smell Byredo line, the more I like them. I am not a fan of Inflorescense (or whatever is the name) but I quite like La Tulipe.

Of the LM Parfums I only tried O de Soupirs and I admit, it smelled much better on the blotter than on me.

A lovely surprise was Eight & Bob which I find a rather lovely concept and a perfume I will try at a later time when in passing.

So, from memory, here are the lines that can be found at TOP: