Tag Archives: Caron

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.

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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). 🙂

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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.

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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. 😉

Caron: Aimez-Moi

World of Perfume October 24, 2010 Comments: 6

I started swapping much earlier than I started blogging. So when I decided I wanted to write about perfumes, I already had a significant collection of decants and samples. One of them being Aimez-moi (or Love me).

What I should mention is that, even though I had this decant for quite some time, I never actually wore it. I must have tried it at the time I recieved it, but after that, forgetting what it smelled like, I sort of went around it each time I chose a perfume to wear.
Well, today is the day Aimez-Moi finally got some wear space. And I’m glad I decided to do it.
I can’t say I was smitten, then again, I tend not to like statements as the name of this scent so that is definitely a deterrent.

I was pleasantly surprised when upon application I smelled mint. 🙂 As some of my readers might know, I’m a huge fan of Charmes et Feuilles by TDC which is heavy on mint (more than Aimez-Moi). So, I thought, all right, we’re off to a good start. Some sweet and peppery smelling mint – I’m always ready for that. Especially when I got little whiffs of green grass peeking through. I found the opening totally fascinating because it is not often that I come upon mint in perfume, especially mint not hinting at toothpaste.
 I will give you the notes now so you can see that what I’m getting  is not exactly the stuff listed.

Notes: anise, freesia, violet leaf, bergamot, mint, caraway, magnolia, cardamom, jasmine, peach, iris heliotrope, tonka bean, amber, musk and cloves

The more I smell scent, the more I realize that the list of notes can’t come close to making you imagine what a scent might smell like.
I mean, I can’t say I got to smell the fruit in this one. I mean, I could say it was underlying what I was smelling and giving it sweetness that only fruit can give but that’s about as much as I cansay about the fruit in it. I did smell a flowery accord but getting to particular flowers, not really. Which I think gives credit to the perfume – it is so well-blended that individual notes escape me.
The drydown was what really made me decide I will be using my decant more often. It also made me realize I need to distinguish better between vanilla and ambery sweet drydowns. In this case, the drydown is lighty sweet amber with floral nuances. Quite lovely really.

In the end, I can’t say I was swept off my feet and I love this, but I do like it a lot and that’s a good start for love, don’t you think?

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

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