Category Archives: World of Perfume

The easy choice – Labdanum 18 by Le Labo

World of Perfume October 29, 2011 Comments: 20

I’m calling this an easy choice because each time I have to go someplace and don’t know what to wear, I reach for this. 🙂
My relatively large decant came through a split and the speed I’m going through it, makes me think I will have to start looking for another one soon.

Notes: Labdanum, tonka beans, vanilla, castoreum, patchouli.

If I were to describe this perfume in one word, I’d say it smells ambery. 🙂

Lately, I realized I write down my notes on a perfume, then I go see what are the notes listed and then I go investigate which parts combined to get me the smells I was getting.

One of the good things about Labdanum 18 is that I believe I know what castoreum smells like. The process of elimination brought me there. 🙂
So, the vanilla, labdanum and tonka beans are responsible for the ambery feel but all very nicely tempered so no note overpowers the other. I also detect light whiffs of some herbal sharpness and I thought that came from patchouli but cannot really say for sure.

The problem with this perfume is that it is better smelled around you than on you. I mean, for reviewing purposes, I get less when I smell it on my wrist than when I smell it around me when I wear it. Then it sort of jumps out at me at all times. Not that this perfume jumps, it’s more like it suddenly stealthily overpowers you and you are left wondering how you didn’t know it was there a second ago.
It’s an aural perfume to me (you know, it has the amount of sillage like an aura – just right).

Which brings me to the last note and castoreum. I have a problem detecting that particular tinge to this perfume on my writs, but when I catch a whiff of my “aura” there is a light sexy, possibly dirty or animalic to some, tinge to this perfume. But when you want to take a better look, it’s gone. And then when you’re not watching, it hovers around the edge of your vision, only to disappear when you take a better look.

There doesn’t seem to be much development to this perfume (at least not to me) but I don’t mind that because I really love the way it starts and those “sleight of hand” changes it does so it remains smelling the same with some minor changes for the  duration.

P.S. I just checked the Le Labo site and they list more notes than Luckyscent.
The ones missing up there are: cista, civet, musk aubepine, birch tar, cinnamon, gurjaum balsam.
Can’t say I got any cinnamon but the first 3 could be all responsible for what I thought was solely castoreum’s part. Oh well, I guess I still need to learn how it smells then. 🙂

Late to the party – L’Air de Rien by Miller Harris

World of Perfume October 26, 2011 Comments: 14

It seems everyone knows how this smells and it has quite a lot of fans out there as far as I could tell.

I only tried it today. So, yes, quite late to the party. 🙂

Notes: French oak moss, Tunisian neroli, sweet musk, amber and vanilla

I’ve been thinking of how to describe this all day.

On me it doesn’t really display many changes, and I don’t want it to.
(I also tried Lorenzo Villoresi’s Dilmun today and wished it wouldn’t change from the opening, but unfortunately it did, once again confirming LV perfumes and I don’t go together)

Basically, L’Air de Rien smells like a cool, dry cover over a warm ambery base. The cover wouldn’t let me get to the warmth hiding inside even though I could almost touch it.
Honetsly, I can’t tell what notes the cover is made of, but as I see the list, the oakmoss must have done its thing with keeping the warmth and sweetness inside and neroli and musk as far as I can tell kept everything smooth and cool.

I really need some of this.

Tom Ford: Black Violet (and I’m upset)

World of Perfume October 22, 2011 Comments: 14

Seriously upset! I mean, for the love of god, Mr. Ford, 200$ for 50 ml?!

And that was the cheapest one I could find.

I don’t know how private these blends are, but unless Mr. Ford made them himself, there is no way I want to give that much money for 50 ml.
No matter how much I love this perfume.

I can’t even convince myself Profumum’s Ambre Aurea would be a justifiable purchase even though I go weak at the knees thinking of it (240$ for 100ml but the blend is 40% perfume).
Btw, is that normal? Going weak at the knees at the smell of particular perfume? Because Ambre Aurea isn’t the only one – but luckily there isn’t many of those around.

On to Black Violet.

It smells perfect to me.

It starts lightly citrusy-piney to me, the masculine accord but soon after that I get the sweet “pulpy” fruitiness, and the woods and I believe some resins too but the notes themselves are very misleading. There’s got to be more in there than what is enumerated (I guess everyone who smelled this came to the same conclusion) but I can’t figure out what.
I just love the way it smells. A lot.

I’ve been testing it for a whole week and I still have problems writing this review. Each time I try it, something new comes out. And it’s not the violet. 🙂
There are some florals in there, beside violet that is. And I hope it’s not my wishful thinking conjuring the violet feelings of this perfume (I hate being influenced but sometimes I can’t tell if it’s happening or not). Still, can’t say I smell anything violety, I just have the color in my head.

That middle stage, after the masculine accord of the beginning and before the one in the end, lasts quite a long time. And I lack words to describe it – a woody, lightly salty moss lightened by fruity sweetness.
And the woody masculine drydown is still discernible after 8 hours of wear.

But still, 200$?!

No matter how much I love it, I won’t be buying a bottle at that price (but if anyone can point me to a cheaper one, please do). 🙂

Notes: citrus, pulpy fruit, black violet, woods, oakmoss

Vitriol d’Oeillet – friend or foe (and a draw)

World of Perfume September 20, 2011 Comments: 24

It seems that lately there isn’t so much love for the SL releases. Beats the hell out of me why that is so, because to me, they are still so very Lutenesque. And by that I mean, it takes several wearings for me to get to know it and then get friendly with it and then, comes love for life.
That’s my usual path with any SL perfume (exceptions exist but aren’t many).

Therefore, I don’t get disappointed if a SL perfume doesn’t instantly sweep me off my feet. It is usually a complex stranger you would be wrong to take at initial value.
So, I don’t. 🙂

I’ve been testing and wearing it for some time now and what can I say? 🙂 I’m a huge clove fan. For some reason, I keep thinking of this as a clove perfume even though it exhibits the carnation most of the time.

Notes: cayenne pepper, black pepper, pink pepper, clove, carnation, wallflower, lily, ylang-ylang, nutmeg.

I guess you can tell by all the peppers it’s going to smell sharp on the start (clove helps too). If you ever smelled an SL creation, you probably know that no description can prepare you for what you’re going to smell. So, when I say it starts peppery sharp with a clove twist, I’m hoping you’re imagining your nose tinkling in response. 🙂
But before that happens, just after the initial spray, before the pepper takes over for a while, you will get the  sweet whiffs of nutmeg being propped by ylang-yland and lily. I’m still not sure on how good the lily part is  but it seems to work. Later, it will take much more work to smell all this under the peppers.

For me this perfume emits a constant light charge – each time I smell it, it seems my nose gets a little electrical charge. Quite interesting really. And then I smell the carnation. But for the life of me, I can’t think of this as a carnation perfume. 🙂 Yes, most of the time, it smells like carnations. But those are metallic, strange carnations, emiting even a lightly meaty smell at one time. Ok, so that last part might not sound enticing but it’s not bad.
And yes, I noticed my constant use of “buts”. 🙂 That’s because I keep thinking that while I’m describing this, I’m making it sound bad and my opinion couldn’t be further away.

Once the carnation gets going, there’s not much change, it lasts and slowly loses the charge. Less clove-y, more floral.

And each time I wear it, it seems more friendly and easier to love (less sharp, more sweet). Luckily, I’m not going to run out of it any time soon… 🙂

As I was the lucky recipient of a whole bottle, courtesy of Ca Fleure Bon and  Serge Lutens (it was supposed to be a mini bottle but they generously sent me the whole), I have 2 little decants and a sample to give. State your interest in the comments, and let me know whether you think you can like this or not.

De Profundis

World of Perfume September 8, 2011 Comments: 15

By Asali

I can’t remember anticipating a Serge Lutens release as much as this for a long while. The name of De Profundis had captured my imagination well before the beautiful bell jar with the purple juice arrived in its black box. Describing De Profundis, M. Lutens once again reached Sfinxish heights, referencing certain periods of French and English literature and its flirtatious fascination with death.

I find it is a fragrance full of quiet surprises on every corner you turn with it, from the very first green notes of the funeral march, to the last sweet whispers from beyond. Much has been written about the resemblance to funeral wreaths, church yards and mourning veils, but to me it’s not gothic and dark, if any connection to these, it’s more like a remembrance, a peaceful celebration, a sanctuary. But having said that, I don’t feel that the fragrance has limitations as such, I could certainly wear it often. Perhaps because it’s a quiet, all be it persistent, Serge. De Profundis Clamavi might translate as I shouted from the depths, but there is never any shouting from De Profundis EdP.

I like the opening of the green yet friendly, chrysanthemums followed by the cool violet and rest of the bouquet, which together with the aldehydes are all together more extrovert and less melancholic than I would have expected. The flowers have a bit of own spiciness and it feels like some musk works its way into the bouquet as the violet softly withers from the perfume. I get the decided feeling that the fragrance itself yearns and beseeches you to think of the violet, once gone, like an echo. There is incense but I find it only detectable as a feeling of calm and quiet, it isn’t a dominant note, and yet it almost feels like it is a main player of the fragrance because of the serenity it emits. Is it perhaps some chamomile which reinforces that sensation of peacefulness as the perfume slowly descends into the base? This is richer than one would have expected of the opening and the aldehydic flowers, yes, it turns out to surprise by its Lutenesque familiarity. Like a last caress, it whispers of spices and warmth.

I imagined many different poems and poets, before receiving De Profundis, but the one I’d like to share with you that I find to be the closest poetic soundtrack is by Rainer Maria Rilke and called Traumgekrönt.

Traumgekrönt

Das war der Tag der weißen Chrysanthemen,
Mir bangte fast vor seiner Pracht…
Und dann, dann kamst du mir die Seele nehmen
Tief in der Nacht.

Mir war so bang, und du kamst lieb und leise,
Ich hatte grad im Traum an dich gedacht.
Du kamst, und leis’ wie eine Märchenweise
Erklang die Nacht.

Crowned with dreams
That was the day of the white chrysanthemums,
Its splendor almost frightened me,
And then, then you came to take my soul
At the dead of night.

I was so frightened, and you came sweetly and gently
I had been thinking of you in my dreams.
You came, and soft as a fairy tune
The night resounded.

Olympic Orchids, part I

World of Perfume August 26, 2011 Comments: 7

As I announced the other day, I want to finally put to words my thoughts on some of the less known perfumes out there made by people who obviously have a perfume vision unique to themselves.

One of those people is Ellen Covey aka Doc Elly of Olympic Orchids.

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been sitting on the samples she sent for months now, not even getting around to smelling all of them, but now my vacation is over, and I feel I should be rested even though the heat here won’t let me feel rested, I can finally start reviewing perfumes that I ought long time ago.

So, I’ll go through them in batches, which means they’ll be a bit shorter and here is the first. 🙂

Olympic Amber

Notes: labdanum, vanilla, benzoin, incense, resins, patchouli, and woods

Being a fan of labdanum, you’d think I’d recognize it when featured in a perfume. 🙂
For me, this is a raspy, lightly fruity, green-spicy amber. Not sweet and actually rather serious.
And in the beginning, amber is sort of hidden under that bold opening.

Which brings me, almost Ellen’s perfumes seem bold to me. She has a signature of her own that you can recognize after smelling several of her creations and it’s like nothing I ever smelled before. Can’t say if it’s in any way connected with orchids because the only ones here don’t have any kind of smell.
Out of all the notes listes, the only one I can smell on its own is patchouli in these little, cute whiffs while the amber feel broadens.

Although as I said, this isn’t a cuddly amber. Quite an achievement if you ask me.

Carolina

Notes: longleaf pine, hay, tobacco, lavender, green grass, magnolia, kudzu flower, honeysuckle, star jasmine, and tonka

Sometimes I wonder why I even review perfumes when there seem to be a lot of notes in there that I have no idea what they smell like.
I think for me, one of the easiest ways to know if a perfume is great is when I can’t tease out the notes. Which seems to happen a lot with Olympic Orchids.

The best I could come up with for Carolina is that it’s a flowery sweet, sunny and refreshing as a spring day with barest fruity whisps in the air.

I don’t appreciate sugary sweetness in perfumes, but when the sweetness in there is from blossoming flowers, well, I’m on my knees. It’s one of the best smells in the world if you ask me. I honestly couldn’t figure out the notes I was smelling – they were combined into a perfectly lovely experience.
And here is the description Ellen wrote which seems more appropriate than my words:

“A dreamy scent of the American South that takes you from a day spent among sun-warmed longleaf pines, grassy fields, magnolias, and kudzu flowers through a warm, humid night sweetened with the scent of honeysuckle and star jasmine, always with an undercurrent of tonka-rich tobacco curing in the wooden barns and historic red brick factories.”

Gujarat

Notes: saffron, tulsi, lime, tagetes, jasmine, rose, cardamom, cumin, fenugreek, ginger, curry leaf, turmeric, mango, spikenard, olibanum, vetiver, patchouli, choya loban, black agar, and sandalwood

Gujarat is among my favorites from the line. But that one is not for the weak hearted (or cumin-phobic). Not that you get a lot of cumin, just the underlying musky warmth of it but I still need to warn people as I can tell it’s cumin, so I’m sure other people would too.
I hate it that my starting line is about cumin because that’s such a minor player in this. This is a spice fest of the most luscious kind.
As you can see from the list of notes, there is no lack of spices in there. Which again brings me to the fact that I have no idea how most of those spices smell like. I do know though that they combine into a powerfully attractive mix to me.

The perfume starts for me slightly menthol-like with warm spices (here is where I detect cumin underneath) and lightly fruity as well. It practically emits warmth from where you apply it.
Again, I can smell the floral sweetness and the idea of what I come to call Ellen’s signature.

By the time I can detect mango and oudishness, I am thouroughly glued to my wrist.
Which brings me back to the fact that I saw black agar listed here and oud listed on one other of Olympic Orchids perfume together with black agar, and I somehow thought it was the same…? Obviously, I need to learn a lot more. 🙂

Olympic Rainforest

Notes:cedar leaves, green sword ferns, rhododendron, forest mushrooms, beebalm, myrtle, oakmoss, black spruce, balsam fir, and Port Orford Cedar wood

This is my last Olympic Orchid for today.
This is the one that smells of lavender, and pine needles, of woods and fern. The whole deal.
It starts refreshingly and invigoratingly, it makes you breathe in fully and then lets you enter the underbrush of the rainforest, as it smells grassy and ferny to me (again barest fruity whisps, I seem to amplify sweetness in these perfumes).

One of the best things about perfume is that you learn a lot. I kept smelling this menthol-like freshness (many things piney smell menthol-like to me) and it turns out cedar leaves come from an evergreen, coniferous tree. And as I’ve never seen a cedar tree in my life (there aren’t any here), of course I didn’t know that.
The perfume then goes on to smell like you’ve entered the rainforest, lightly sweet fungi smell, slight dampness and rottiness of leaves and underneath all that, the smell of fern.

It gets less and less sweet until you are left with flowery cedar woods (I really don’t know where am I getting all this floweriness from).

Pics taken from http://www.fragrantica.com/

Smitten by vetiver – Mona di Orio Vetyver

World of Perfume July 25, 2011 Comments: 8

Basically, you all need to smell it and then go buy a bottle (or a decant, the bottle is quite expensive and I’m not one bit grateful to MdO for making me want to buy it). But boy, it surely smells great.

This is by far my favourite vetiver. I am completely smitten by it. I keep testing it in order to get better

ideas of how to describe it but nothing worthy comes to mind. I am simply in love. 🙂

Notes: Bourbon vetiver, blue ginger from Madagascar, Virginia cedar, violet, cistus labdanum, clary sage absolute, tonka bean, musk.

I don’t think any of my readers have any doubt now that I am a huge Mona di Orio fan.  I love her creations but some, I love more than the others. Those are also the most difficult to describe. I spray my little vial of Vetyver and I think I’m going to concentrate now, and describe what I smell, only to be disarmed and seduced by it and then I come up with only rudimentary notes. But nevertheless, here they are. 🙂

It’s a sunny, dry, hay-like vetiver but the hay is interspersed with flowers and therefore smells a bit sweeter than hay usually does. But at the same time, the vetiver is giving it a  masculine vibe underscored by cedar. I think the ginger again is more in line with the sweet and feminine side of this vetiver.  The fact that it is all there makes this a perfect unisex perfume for me. Not that I ever take those labels into account.
It’s a warm, snuggly vetiver, one you smell and then do everything to come closer and keep smelling it. I never thought I would say this about vetiver, but this one seduces you by making you weak at the knees.
I keep sighing deeply trying to describe it. 🙂

Eventually, it does veer into a more masculine vetiver, losing some of that initial floweriness (which  I have no idea why I keep referring to as such, as notes don’t really list any except violet).

This is not a refreshing vetiver, it is a vetiver in line with the summer. It does nothing to cool you but instead makes you feel warmed by the sun somewhere in the flowery summer fields.

When perfume speaks, you can only listen – Pentachords by Andy Tauer

World of Perfume July 22, 2011 Comments: 20

I am happy to be able to host a guest post by Asali who was recently a lucky recipient of some Pentachords samples and I feel lucky she wanted to share her experience with us by writing a post. 🙂

Three samples from Andy Tauer’s new line Pentachords arrived at my door some days ago. Two of them would not leave me alone, but kept telling me to write, so I did.

Andy Tauer did the perfumer’s answer to the painter’s restricted palette, and wanted to show how to create beautiful and innovative fragrances out of only five ingredients. 
Let me start with Verdant which is an edt with notes of (in his own words) dewy leaves, suave leather, brown tobacco, sweet earth, vibrant amber. This fragrance is quite unlike any green scent I ever smelled before. It is definitely earth and leaves, both moist and heavy with scent. It’s not aiming at transparency nor is it a stylized picture of nature forced into a little neat pastel. This smells like nature when you’re out walking in the rain drenched woods in your mac and wellingtons.  The leaves I find are more soaked than dewy and have, together with the rain-wet soil, the slight sense of bitter decay.
Doesn’t sound good? Well, it is. It’s rather marvelous. Because the tobacco sets in and gives the scent warmth underneath the dampness, and the leather makes you feel well equipped for this kind of walk in the forest. The slight bit of amber in the base feels like the anticipation of being home again. For me personally, this fragrance evokes memories of my childhood spent in a daytime forest kinder garden, with no playground and actual playthings, just the grounds and the forest at our disposal. This was in the late 70’s, and I suspect the memory connected with this smell of woods after the rain together with the scent of pipe tobacco which hung in the smoking caretaker’s clothes, to me breathes comfort and safety.

 White is an equally surprising white fragrance, which gives the extreme quality bourbon vanilla scent off, so that it almost has a whiff of sweet tobacco, it’s both a tiny bit fluffy and at the same time retains a low sense of gravity, and again the sensation almost of damp earthiness .  In contrast to Verdant, and although I think Andy Tauer was inspired by a winter morning run for this one, I feel very much like this fragrance is the one you put on as you’d wrap yourself in a comfy shawl, once you’ve returned home from your country walk. You hang up the damp clothes, make a cup of vanilla scented tea, and comfy yourself up in the sofa with a good book, ah, and then just enjoy.

The violets then kick in, but only after a substantial amount of time with the vanilla, so beautiful and a bit powdery and yet so earthy and rich, a real surprise after the bourbon vanilla. The dry down of ambergris and warm wood, is the lovely base on which the two main players are resting. I like the way as you read the notes, and kind of second guess the fragrance, only to be proven utterly wrong. White has notes of Bourbon vanilla, orris root, violet blossom, amber gris and warm wood, and it’s lovely.

May I suggest if the ‘wildlife’ of verdant is a bit too much for you, that you might try layering. Oh, yes, I know the whole idea was to restrict the perfume to 5, but they do go awfully nicely hand in hand. Both have 8+ hours at least.

The picture I get from both fragrances, the stories they tell, the time travelling is so vivid, so beautiful I can only encourage everyone who reads this:  Do go and try all of the Pentachords, I’m sure you’ll find they will tell you your own story, if you’ll let them.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part 2.

World of Perfume July 14, 2011 Comments: 6

As you all probably know by now, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan.

So, of course I had to watch the last movie as soon as it started playing here, which was yesterday.

Basically, I am content. 🙂

I’ve had serious misgivings about The Half-blood Prince movie, but both Deathly Hallows movies were great.
Now, I have no misgivings regarding the changes they made to the story as it works great in the film, every part of the book I consider important is in this movie and in the midst of all that destruction that is the end of the Voldemort-Potter story, the movie managed to put in some scenes that make you laugh.
In my case, there are also scenes that make you cry as well.  But it’s never pathetic and the love causing them feels real.
And speaking of scenes, I don’t know what rating this movie has, but I wouldn’t recommend children watching it. It is rather brutal and dark.

I’ve had no problem following the story and understanding why things happen and who did what, but again, I can’t help but wonder how do people who never read the books manage to follow the story and how much do they actually get out of it? I have to think not as much as the readers of the books.

I’m not going to give any spoilers as I don’t want to ruin the experience of those who didn’t watch.
I just can’t help but feel a sense of closure I didn’t really feel after reading the book.
I guess that’s due to the fact that I wanted it to go on and in the mean time, I had enough time to come to terms that the story is finished and now that I saw it on the movie screen, it finally feels done.
And I mean that in the best possible way.

As I’m already planning when to go see it again. 🙂

P.S. I need to add one observation more. I think Daniel Radcliffe is an outstanding actor as there are parts in the movie when one might consider his acting stilted when actually he is portraying the HP character as he is supposed to. Harry doesn’t feel comfortable in all the situations happening in the book/movie and that is portrayed by Daniel’s acting.

Peach and Love – a guest post

World of Perfume July 9, 2011 Comments: 8

Dear readers, I am very proud to present my first ever guest poster. 🙂

Asali is a friend I’ve been given by our lovely perfume community. I’m really happy she commented on my blog and from the on, we’ve been sharing thoughts on perfume and perfumes themselves, sending emails and packages galore. 🙂
And now I am happy to say she agreed to write a post for my blog.
(I do hope to get her to write some more as I love her thoughts on perfumes, maybe even get her to start a blog of her own, but I’ll temper my exuberance for now). 🙂

So, here it is.

Peach and love,

I am really honored that the wonderful Ines, will share the space of her redheaded blog with me. Not that I am surprised that she wants to share, since she must be one of the most generous perfumistas in the blogosphere as I am sure that most of you will readily agree on. She taught me before anyone that perfume love goes around.

Talking of love, I have for some time now been smitten with peach. I feel that peach done well is a treat which tends to give an aura of luxury to the fragrance and its wearer. My peach love started with a decant of vintage Rochas Femme, and after that, peach has sought me out everywhere I went.

On my recent trip to Paris it came to me in the shape of Fath de Fath. Jacques Fath launched the original back in 1953, but it has since been updated twice, most recently in 2010 and turned into a sumptuous oriental by Mark Buxton.

So why would I want to write about an oriental in July? Well, first of all I can always wear/buy/write of/think of /sleep in/etc orientals, second, June has been terrible here, cold and rainy, so comfort scents have been called for. And third, if ever there was an oriental to go well on (cooler) summer days this one might be it, with the layers of ripe fruits, like those that surround us at this time of year.

The bergamot and a little green start out, but wink and you’ll miss it and a mixture of fruit notes bloom before settling with plum and peach. Those two are delicate and at this stage the perfume almost goes gourmand, although never so gourmand I want a bite of my arm. I feel that the tartness of the fruits really is singing a duet with the resins and the amber making me unable to detect where the fruit stops and the amber begins. Later in the heart of the scent, there is the orange flower which is perhaps the easiest detectable, but all the way down to the fragrance’s last ambery chords, you keep getting whiffs of flowers; heliotrope, and hmm, was that perhaps some jasmine? The dry-down is an oriental proper, amber and vanilla, and it lasts 6-8 comforting lovely hours. It’s a beautiful fragrance which takes you on a journey- and it also holds your hand all the way.

For this golden, lush oriental, really the price is a steel 58euros for 50ml, and should it become true love for you, you can get 100ml of extrait for 98euro! Get it amongst other places at http://www.parfumsjovoy.com/

Top notes: Black Currant, Peach, Tangerine, Plum, Bergamot, Green Notes
Heart notes: Jasmin, Lily of the Valley, Rose, Heliotrope, Tuberose, Orange Blossom
Base notes: Patchouly, Cedarwood, Vanilla, Benzoin, Ambergris, Musk, Tonka Bean