Category Archives: World of Perfume

The Outlaws, part 1

World of Perfume January 14, 2011 Comments: 10

I am so happy Carol organized sample packages for all of us who didn’t participate in the Outlaw Perfume Project but still wanted to try the perfumes that got so many great reviews.

I spent a lot of time in the last 10 days or so since the package arrived smelling them over and over again and trying to gather notes that would do them justice.
I plan on writing about each of them and because I can’t talk about them all in one post, I’ll do several but in no way does appearing in the first means I think those are the best. Actually, I can’t really say which one I find the best. I would like to own several of them, and some are extremely interesting but at the same time, not something I like to wear. I usually don’t spend so much time sniffing perfumes before deciding to write about them, but these I feel I could smell over and over again and each time discover a new facet I didn’t smell before.

Wing and a Prayer: Notoriety

Notes:Oakmoss,Amber,Rose,Wild Rose,Lavender, Violet Leaf,Carnation absolute,Geranium,Bergamot and Rosewood

This was the first sample I took out of the bag. It was instant love. It’s piquant, green, earthy and well, slightly meaty for only a short while in the beginning (missable really). It has a nose-clearing sharpness of geranium, lavender and rosewood while at the same time it smells tame. Then it gets a rainy, metallic quality and gets very dark, my thoughts were that I’m finally getting what the oakmoss should be like. The original rose (the way I learned it smells here) is there as well, amid some light woodiness, like it’s a bush, not an actual tree.
It really escapes me for words, it’s a bitter rose smelling slightly patchoulish (there is no patchouli in the notes). It’s really another shapeshifter, in the end, I think it smells refreshingly cute and sweeter than before.

Tabela: Rose of Cimarron

Notes: pink pepper, black pepper, pandanus, rose absolute, wild rose absolute, jasmine absolute, labdanum, patchouli, angelica root, ambrette seed, blond tobacco and amyris

I got to smell this directly after Notoriety so my initial thoughts were, wow, a sexy rose and completely different from Notoriety. It reminded me of jasmine I bought in an Indian shop, like there were sandalwood and cedar in there as well but I guess I could be mistaking those for a patchouli with something else. It has that dark, sultry feel to it. It does have that peppery sharpness which I love, but it’s also fuller somehow than Notoriety while at the same time more dry. They both drydown to a nice ambery, rose, light woody feel.

Providence Perfume Co: Gypsy
Top Notes: Galangal, Lavender, Lemon Petitgrain, Cardamom
Heart: Pink Lotus, Bulgarian Lavender Absolute, Violet Leaf
Base Notes: Tonka, Oakmoss, Vetiver, Patchouli, Costus, Vanilla

I find it a bit difficult to talk about these perfumes as I often can’t describe the half of what I smell. For me, this starts peppery, green and strange. I love how I classify perfumes as strange, like that means the same to everyone. 🙂  Anaway, on my second go, I was completely sure I smelled cinammon but as you can see from the notes, it’s not there. My conclusion is that cardamom and petitgrain made me think that.
Then it gets sweet and resiny with something green like herb peeking through. It’s at the same time cool and hinting of sunshine.
I like it very much and my word for describing this is charming – spicily sweet (cardamom is in there) and slightly floral. Charming really.

Pic of rose by: http://www.tambela.com/

Surprising myself

World of Perfume January 8, 2011 Comments: 25

I love surprises. So I don’t mind when I manage to surprise myself. 🙂

I know I love white flowers, especially tuberose and orange blossoms. What I wasn’t aware of is that I obviously adore tuberose as it seems I have quite many perfumes featuring that note. I wouldn’t even be aware of that if I weren’t preparing a tuberose package for a fellow blogger and stuff seemed to pop out of everywhere. Which also means I’m walking around in a tuberose cloud (making me feel happy and smiling) and as some of the tuberoses I handled are only in sample sizes, I’m considering which one I need in a bigger size (probably bottle). 🙂

And I have it! I knew the instant I smelled it, it was the first tuberose I plan on buying once I recover from my recent splurge. *

Histoires de Parfums – Tubereuse Animale! When I received their sample package some months ago, the 3 tuberoses were in it but at that time I didn’t talk about them because they were discussed on many blogs previous to that. I do plan on doing reviews on them, esepcially because I think all 3 are really good but Animale is in my opinion perfect for me.

So, basic line is, I’m a tuberose freak and I’m proud of it. Not to mention I’ll be smelling it all day long as decanting can be a messy business and I have some all over my clothes. 😀

* I have the best of friends. 🙂 My friend Branka was in Paris for only a few days and I’m incredibly grateful that she found the time to look for the bottles I wanted and now am the proud owner of – SL Boxeuses and Shalimar Ode a la Vanille.

Pic by: http://www.easytogrowbulbs.com

We Three Kings: Frankincense

Joint blog project, World of Perfume December 26, 2010 Comments: 18

I left this one for the end as I still have unresolved issues with incense and it was too optimistic to think I’d be able to resolve it this week if I haven’t been able to do so in years.

Way before I got interested in perfumes (and sucked into its world), I was a practising Catholic. I went to mass each Sunday, for all Catholic holidays and pretty much did what every practising Catholic does. I don’t really remember what mass it was (and luckily for me it was only one) but incense was burned during it. That was the only smell so far that made me think I was going to get nauseous and faint. I almost did. A friend of mine can’t stand it and reacts the same way so she thinks we were witches in a past life. 😉

Whenever I get my hands on a frankincense smell, I’m a bit wary. So far, they never made me feel nauseous or faint, but wariness remains. Especially if it smells more churchy than Cola-like. The thing is, here we have a cola type of drink called Cockta that obviously has some incense for smell in it because when I first tried Shaal Nur (my first incense perfume) I was very much taken aback that it smelled exactly like that soft drink.
So basically, incense perfumes fall into two categories for me, those that smell more church-like, more dry and austere and those that smell like Cockta, wet and sweet but both very obviously incensey.

Today, I’ll talk about Parfum d’Empire’s Wazamba. Which although seriously incensey doesn’t fall into any of the two categories I have but has one of its own. A foresty incense.

Notes: Somalian incense, Kenyan myrrh, Ethiopian opoponax, Indian sandalwood, Moroccan cypress, labdanum, apple, fir balsam

I always get surprised by how much more I am able to smell once I read the notes. The whole apple (fruity) thing would completely escape me if I wasn’t looking for it. It almost managed to escape me like that as well.
It really is a strange incense – like I said, it reminds me of forests, more probably of how I picture a rainforest (I was never even close to one, let alone in one) but that’s what this reminds me of – except for the incense part, I’m sure you can’t smell that there. But there is an underlying dark green, woody, slightly wet vibe to, and interspersed in all that, you get myrrh (I can’t believe I actually can smell myrrh in my incense choice) and the barest fruit hints (I do have a  cold, so they might not be barest to other people). Anyway, as incense goes, this one makes me always think about what I’m smelling and doesn’t fall into any of the mentioned categories.
Not that those categories are bad, they just have an existing association in my mind and that makes me not appreciate them appropriately.

So, once more, here is a list of participating blogs and I do hope you enjoyed our week of gifts of the three kings. 🙂

Redolent of Spices

Scent of the Day

EauMG

Parfumieren

Bonkers about Perfume

My Perfume Life

The Perfume Chronicles

Chicken Freak’s Obsession

Notes from Josephine

Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch

We Three Kings – Gold

World of Perfume December 22, 2010 Comments: 28

The interesting thing about gold for this blog project was that I was completely sure out of the three gifts we were asked to find perfumes for, I would have most problems finding the one for gold. Turned out, it was the first I knew which one it would be and didn’t change it in the process (I deliberated on the other two).

My choice is Montale’s Pure Gold.  Even the name fits – the blog project, still not that sure about the juice though.

Notes: neroli, Egyptian jasmine, Italian tangerine, apricot, white musk, vanilla and patchouli.

I get the whole neroli-tangerine opening although not quite in those words. More in the line, oh, what a lovely light green, citrusy floral opening full of sunshine.The fruity juiciness coming from tangerine (even though I said citrusy, it’s no lemon of any kind) and the rest coming from neroli which I noticed that whenever I come up with floral sunshine in my mind, it usually stands for neroli. Which is one way of learning how to distinguish notes.

As I’d like to think that my fruity-floral days are over, every once in a while, there comes one that changes that. I loved this one from the first sniff of my already half-empty sample.
While smelling this for reviewing purposes, I wrote down that it smelled happy and innocent. I’m still finding it happy, but I’m no longer sure about innocent. I know why I thought it, because it reminds me of spring meadows on sunny days and carefree times, but I no longer think it’s innocent like that, it’s more sexy-happy. You know, slightly intoxicating and happy, the best way to seduce someone. 🙂 My thoughts on why, neroli+jasmine+white musk (in an amount that I find not only tolerable but enjoyable and that’s rare).

My guess on why it was called Pure Gold (except for all the yellow, orange notes in it) is because as evocative as it is of happy, sunny spring, the gold in this is the sun for me.

I took a look around the forums while looking for the notes and noticed this didn’t get much love, and at some point, I even wondered if there are two of these perfumes out there smelling differently as one reviewer described it as woody-floral and another likened it to Coromandel. For the life of me, I can’t find any similarities with Coromandel, except the fact that both containing patchouli. I could have sworn though that in the drydown, someone put in just a drop of aoud to tease us but that could well be patchouli working another miracle (I find patchouli an extraordinary note in perfume – so many ways it can go and you never which way it took until you smell the perfume).

So, go take a look at my fellow bloggers and what Kings’ gift they are discussing today:

Redolent of Spices

Scent of the Day

EauMG

Parfumieren

Bonkers about Perfume

My Perfume Life

The Perfume Chronicles

Chicken Freak’s Obsession

Notes from Josephine

Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch

P.S. Commenting on any of my posts for We Three Kings, gets you a possibility to win a little Croatian Christmas gift. 🙂

We Three Kings – Myrrh

Joint blog project, World of Perfume December 21, 2010 Comments: 24

As announced last week, this week my fellow bloggers and I are going to talk about perfumes that are in some way connected with the gifts the three kings (magi, wise men, however you wish to call them) brought little baby Jesus. Here is where I’ll confess – I was raised a Catholic and I knew all about the three kings and how they came and brought gifts but it was actually quite late that I learned what those gifts were. All I cared about is that the little guy got gifts and I thought how nice for him. And now we all get to exchange gifts on his birthday. 🙂 I don’t know when that particular tradition started but I really love it. 🙂

Anyway, on to the topic at hand. My choice for myrrh is Balmain’s Ambre Gris. Btw, do you have any idea how hard it is to find a scent that contains myrrh that is actually smellable and not just lost amid all other resins and woods and trying to make an appearance? In this case, I’m not talking about all those that have myrrh in the name (I’m pretty sure there’s no problem with smelling it in those).

So, Ambre Gris and I have a past. It’s been more than 2 years now we hit it off in Paris’  Sephora and I took it home with me. And that was it. I never wore it. I have no idea why exactly, sometimes I smell it and think yes, I know why I bought you, and then I try it another time, and I wonder. It’s funny how it is labeled as feminine while my first thought upon smelling it is how masculine it smells. It opens on a cool (as in very hip and good looking) ambrish note and I’m lost trying to figure out what exactly is that I’m smelling that makes it so masculinely cool.

Here are the notes: myrrh, cinnamon, pink pepper, benzoin, immortal flower, tuberose, ambre gris, white musk, guiac wood.

I know there is musk in there because sometimes it just overpowers everything else in this perfume and gets too shrill and unwearable for me. But most times, I’m wondering what is that coolness I’m smelling? I would love smelling this on a guy. After that initial sharpness, you can tease out some floral hints out of it, but if I didn’t see tuberose listed, I would never be able to guess what flower was lending this floral sweetness and approachability. To say I smell myrrh, wouldn’t be completely true, but I smell the woodiness and herbal sharpness in this and I can feel myrrh doing its thing from the depths of this. In time, I get more and more myrrh holding this wonder together but never forcefully, very gently.

Honestly, just by reading the notes, I would never have guessed it smelled like this. And I seem to be starting to develop a fondness for pink pepper which along with white musk helps the initial cool feel.

Btw, what in the world happened to cinnamon?! I adore it but couldn’t discern it in there no matter how I tried.

So, this being the week before Christmas and the topic this week are the gifts of the wise men, I want to give you something as well. All you have to do is comment on any of the posts regarding the 3 gifts and you will be entered to win one of the 3 prizes (they aren’t large but are from the heart):

– large decant of Ambre Gris, Melem (Croatia’s remedy for chapped, dry skin) and some Croatian chocolate
– several samples of my choice, a smaller Melem and some Croatian chocolate
– while the third place only gets chocolate.

I want to thank once more Krista from Scent of the Day and Joanne from Redolent of Spices for inviting me and please visit other participating blogs for more interesting takes on the Kings’ Three gifts.

Redolent of Spices

Scent of the Day

EauMG

Parfumieren

Bonkers about Perfume

My Perfume Life

The Perfume Chronicles

Chicken Freak’s Obsession

Notes from Josephine

Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch

Lacking words – Mona di Orio: Chamarre and Nuit Noire

World of Perfume December 20, 2010 Comments: 6
I’m not even sure I should be writing about these two as I don’t feel I can describe them appropriately but then again, I would like to put my thoughts into words.
The two perfumes I want to talk about today evoke feelings of strangeness and therefore I feel I lack words when I want to describe them.
Chamarre
Notes: Lavender, clary sage, aldehyde, Turkish rose absolute, iris from Florence, violet, opoponax, cashmeran, ambergris

To me, it starts as a leathery scent with some vioelt in the mix. That was the  best I could come up with after several tries. 🙂

You get some floral hints and some soapiness (my guess the aldehydes) and it gets more leathery by the minute with some smokiness peaking through. The best word for me is still strange. I’m not sure if I like it or not, I can certainly say at this moment I find it strange but I’m still not sure this strangeness is going to be something I’ll like or not.
With time, it gets more floraly sweet and the leather feel subsides, until the perfume reveals its happy side and leaves you wondering if what you smelled in the beginning was real or not. That also seems to be a recurring theme for me with Mona di Orio’s perfumes.
In the end, I’m left with the most things I can identify, the drydown smells of rose, musk, amber, something green as well and I’m completely at ease. And then I can’t help myself and I start all over to check if the beginning was really as strange as I remember it. And yes, it was. 🙂

Nuit Noire

Notes: orange flower, cardamom, ginger, orange guinee, Olibanum, cinnamon, tuberose, sandalwood, clove, cedarwood, Amber, leather, musk, tonka

Luckyscent describes it as dirty, dark and delicious and I can’t help but wonder if we are smelling the same thing. I can agree with delicious part after a while but dark and dirty escape me. Which also makes me wonder if I’m way down on the dirty road…
I find the opening strange again. And when I say strange, I actually mean strange enough that I cannot say exactly what I’m smelling – a leathery variant of some white flower? I’m not really sure, there are some similiraties with Chamarre but only so far as I think I smell leather. And then, there are some almondy aspects to it, which could be wrong, but was the best I could come up with. After a while it gets more florally sweet but I still cannot tease out cinnamon. And I usually get cinnamon as I love it very much and have no problem smelling it.
But in these two perfumes, the notes are so well blended that I would be lying when I said I smell this and that. The best I can do is say that after the initial strangeness, I get some piquancy (which I’m guessing is cardamom) and then it takes the road toward more of the white flowers and starts getting lusher (in a tropical way) and that is pretty much it for me.

With both of these, I’m not really sure in the beginning where the road will take me, but boy, do I get a reward for being bold and patient!

Notes and pic by: http://www.luckyscent.com/

Mona di Orio: Lux

World of Perfume December 15, 2010 Comments: 6

I’m not writing down any comments regarding the name of this perfume. 🙂  Or whether the name is appropriate.
It does sound nice though.

What does it smell like?

Many things actually. It starts with a citrus burst, all lemony and sparkly, sometimes I seem to detect a slight waxy twist to it, most of the times I’m just preoccupied with the live lemon feel. Very cologne feeling.
And that’s even before I detect barest whispers of bitter greens – I say barest because they are very light and besides the citrus doesn’t back off that easily, it lasts for quite some time.
Today I got some peppery whiffs through the leaving lemons and dry woods. It’s just, there are so many things happening, if your nose is not glued to your wrist, the chances are, you’re going to miss some. It gets slightly smoky while the citrus is still waving which lead me to believe there was some patchouli in.
So, I wonder, how did I get from what I wrote up there to the beginnings of drydown which smelled lush and tropically warm with what I thought was ylang-ylang mixing in there? Yes, I got some sandalwood and cedar, especially late in the drydown, but ylang-ylang is not listed in the notes.

Notes: Sicilian lemon, Litsea Cubeba (whatever that is, I need to google it), petitgrain Bigarade South Africa, Haitian vetiver, Moroccan cedarwood, Mysore sandalwood, musk, amber, Siamese benzoin, bourbon vanilla, and cistus labdanum.

Basically, I love it. I love how it changes, I love its phases, I love the fact that each time I smell my wrist there is something slightly different happening there (even now, 8 hours after application), I love the fact it still manages to produce softness through all the aspects that might not be prone to that and I love the fact that it’s available in Zagreb (ok, it used to be, I need to check if it still is).
I just don’t love the fact that it’s another Mona di Orio perfume I want and which is, well, not acquirable at the moment as if I decide to buy one, I will have to choose among many of her perfumes for the one I want the best.

Notes and pic by: http://www.luckyscent.com/

Mona di Orio: Carnation

World of Perfume December 13, 2010 Comments: 6

UPDATE: Well, it seems I need to pay more attention to all the texts concerning fragrances I try as I managed to completely miss what the name of this one means. 🙂 As it’s not in English but in French (which also means I’ve been pronouncing it wrong – at least that was only in my mind).
Thanks to Carol for pointing it out, Carnation in French actually means complexion. So, my whole carnation introduction is completely beside the point. 🙂

Carnations are forever in my mind asssociated with having no smell and being THE flower of Communist/socialist regimes. That would probably be because for the first 10 years of my life, I grew in one. Which from my perspective then had absolutely no impact on my life in any matter, except that we all became little pioneers in our first grade and got a red carnation as well. So having held it for several of those type of occasions, I must say I don’t remember it having any smell.
And for some reason I keep thinnking that whenever I see carnation appearing in a name of perfume, it is not going to smell good to me (lately I wonder where do I get these associations?). I wasn’t able to find a reference to its smell, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a carnation out there without one.

Anyway, you can probably tell from the introduction that I didn’t think it wasn’t good upon smelling Mona di Orio’s Carnation. 🙂 And I didn’t. I was actually very much surprised.

It doesn’t come often that if you don’t smell a perfume straight away, you miss the opening. Lucky for me, I tried Carnation several times before this review so I got it from my second try. There is this initial sparkly burst of slightly citrusy aldehydes and if you’re not there the second it happens, a bit later it’s gone. And then the ride starts.
Smelling it without notes I kept thinking (again) how jasmine and orange blossoms were there in the beginning, and I don’t know which part of the whole picture made me think old-fashioned but not in a bad way, but as in, you don’t come across things like this any more. Some greenery peeks in through musky florals and there is a slight soapy-cream quality to it but lucky for me, the soapiness is here and then it’s gone. It smells quite summery actually, I guess it’s all the white flowers, green and citrus. But there also comes a time when a light leathery aspect appears, smelling rooty and chewy (not in a bubble gum way).

I hate the fact that I simply lack words for appropriately describing this.

There is just a vintage feel to the way this smells. And I guess a look at the notes can be revealing: bergamot, clove bark, Bourbon geranium, ylang-ylang, violet, jasmine, woods, msuk, amber, styrax.

It settles down into a lovely soft floral and you wonder if all those intriguing whispers along the way actually happened…?

Pic by: http://www.luckyscent.com/

Mona di Orio: Jabu and Amyitis

World of Perfume December 7, 2010 Comments: 6

I still can’t believe how quickly I dismissed Mona di Orio perfumes when I first tried them some year and a half ago. Although honestly, at that point, I don’t think my nose was able to appreciate them.  I certainly notice changes in what I like in perfume and the fact that I smell more just makes me want to write about it less because it doesn’t feel like I can give them the words they deserve. Which is stupid because writing about them actually helps me form more coherent thoughts on them and remeber them more vividly (those I write about).

Anyway, I’m taking my time this time around and I’m taking a leisurely walk through Mona di Orio samples. There and back again (I sound like I came from the Lord of the Rings). 🙂

First off, I have to say I smelled these without the notes and wrote down my thoughts. Then I went to check the notes and got completely discouraged by the list. 

Jabu

Notes: Brazilian orange flower, South African petitgrain, Manoi oil, Rose damascena, Comores ylang-ylang, Santal amyris, Siamese Benzoin, plum, myrrh

The name is totally apt (basically meaning happy). If there is one thing this perfume manages to convey, it’s definitely happiness.
For me it starts sweet and neroli/jasmine-like smelling. As you can see, I’m close. 🙂 It’s like you took L’Artisan’s Vanilia and put some white flowers over it. Absolutely wonderful and slightly intoxicating in a way that makes you feel happy and smiling. I kept thinking that the sweet vanilla aspects smelled like they were mixed with some coconut, but then I saw manoi oil and benzoin, and there was my answer.
I don’t really think you can describe this in words well enough to transfer the warm scent wafting from my wrist. It’s warm flowers, warmed by the sun, amid coconut trees. God, I really need a bottle of this. It’s instant smile on your face with a bit more serious drydown. It gets you from feeling happy and smiling, into more mature happiness, where you know you are not always going to feel like this but that’s fine, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to appreaciate the real deal when it happened.

Amyitis

Notes:caraway, savory, capsicum, green leaves, iris, violet, gaiac wood, cedar of Virginia, saffron, opoponax, moss, amber

That caraway thing keeps cropping up and I still have no idea what it smells like. Well, actually I think I do now that I smelled it in several places and couldn’t place it.  If it doesn’t work any other way, then the method of elimination is what I’m left with. The thing is it gets translated into Croatian as cumin which isn’t it (and some googling ensured me it doesn’t smell the same either).
Now that I got that cleared in my mind, Amyitis starts for me as smelling like leathery roots. Well, more like suede roots. You know, that iris-earthy combo that spells smelling of roots. And violet sometimes evokes suede for me (probably in combination with something else but I haven’t taken it so far yet).

I read the Luckyscent description and got discouraged again. Cucumber and mint? Can’t say I got that impression. Although I can smell some sweetness I associate with mint notes but very faintly. 

Honestly, I have no idea why I like this one so much. If I were to guess by the notes, I’d be very iffy regarding the possibility of me liking this. It’s a bit strange, hard to pin down and describe, but so very intriguing. It has that green, rooty thing going on that I pretty much always like but it’s not obvious and it’s just one of the things going on, most easy for me to get so that’s why I’m highlighting it.
So, now I have both good and bad news. Good news is that Mona di Orio perfumes are available in Zagreb. The bad news is, they are not very economically approachable – especially if you realize you like more than one. 😉
Notes and pics by: http://www.luckyscent.com/

Finally a HP movie worthy of the book

World of Perfume November 22, 2010 Comments: 8

Honestly, after the disaster that was the HP 6 movie, I didn’t expect the first part of the Deathly Hallows to be so much better. I don’t know if it was directed by the same person (I never remember these things) but if it was, I think whoever it was listened to what people had to say after movie 6. As someone who is a huge fan, I watched all the movies again previously to Deathly Hallows coming out, except for movie 6 because I’m still boycotting it. It was just a huge disappointment for me.

So, I am extremely glad that this one was everything I expected after reading the series several times. It’s dark, it sticks to the story so well that I, for a chnage, didn’t have any complaints as to the changes that were made for the movie, which I think is a first for me, the story feels real and the acting is excellent. There really isn’t anything that I have any complaints about – except the fact that I need to wait 8 months for the last installment. But I waited so long for the last book, I can survive these 8 months. I’m a bit scared of thinking how tragic that one is going to be, but well, the book wasn’t very happy (or almost at all).

One thing I’m wondering though is how are people who haven’t read the books enjoying these movies?! I just can’t imagine not reading the books but going to watch the movies (and I know many who did exactly that). I keep thinking they must be missing so many things I take for granted as I read the books and they have no underlying knowledge why some things happen or what they represent. Not to mention the fact that they probably forgot the stories (and little important bits of information) from the previous movies.

Can you tell I’m a huge fan? 🙂