Tag Archives: Jovoy

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. 😉

Sample of the day: Ambrarem by Histoires de Parfums

Sample of the day, World of Perfume November 14, 2012 Comments: 7

I’ve been smelling this sample for over a week now and each time I smell it, I have something else to say about it. I find it extremely strange and I don’t think I could wear it but I am strangely attracted first to its brooding peculiar smell and then to its ambiental nature. It would be the perfume for a strange, dark sexy, ambivalently good hero of the Northern sea-dwelling people. 🙂 I have no idea where that came from but that’s how it made me feel this time around.

Top Note: Pink Peppercorn, Elemi
Heart Note: Iris Absolute, Oud, Saffron
Base Note: Castoreum Absolute, Bourbon Vanilla, Sandalwood, Amber

In the beginning, I thought of it as an herbal amber, leathery, slightly green (as in shrubbery green) and lightly smoky. Now I smell the light pepperiness, leatheriness and smokiness rising from my arm and feel the connection to the rest of the Histoires de Parfums collection (there is something in there that makes you connect the dots to the rest of the collection).

But after I got the impression of my dark hero, later on, I smell the place he lives. It smells like dark, weedy sea at the beginning of a stormy night and the oud definitely adds to that idea. Really ambiental. And the image makes me go weak at the knees.

I sincerely appreciate the strangeness that is this perfume.

The notes work in synergy to bring to life this transporting perfume – those that I can smell not being the whole of what I smell (peppercorn, elemi, oud, hints of sandalwood and ambery saltiness in the drydown).

 

My sample was made by the lovely people at Jovoy while in Paris.

P.S. Aragorn was the closest to my sexy imagined dark lord I could find.

Paris perfume highlights

Perfume shopping June 11, 2012 Comments: 20

Even though we managed to visit and sniff our way through many perfume shops (Serge Lutens, Costes/Iunx, Colette, Rosine, Guerlain, JAR, several stands at Printemps) there are two places that stand out in my mind as the highlights of the trip.

I knew Asali was disappointed we didn’t get to visit Jovoy together in December and we decided this time around, it was one of the non-negotiable stops.
And I now understand completely why someone who’s been there would be disappointed if another perfumista in Paris skipped the store and the experience.

I don’t think my words will do justice to the whole experience. I believe we spent over 2 hours there, taking some time to rest on the couch and sofas located in the back for just that purpose.
Even the espresso we all received upon arrival couldn’t keep us on our feet after the sniff-a-thon we had there.

As Asali is already known there, she was the one discussing perfumes with Monsieur HĂ©nin the most while we slowly worked our way through the store, coming together to check who tried what and sniff each other’s arms and then went on our own again to discover new fragrant wonders.

At some point we all converged on the oud range by Xerjoff and had a lively discussion with Monsieur HĂ©nin there over oud while smelling the Oud Stars. And when I say lively, I mean we all had fun and laughed a lot as Monsieur HĂ©nin is this charming, smiling, elegant man with a slightly wicked sense of humor which he wields as part of his charm. And he even burned oud chips for us. 🙂

If I remember correctly, the whole Xerjoff oud series is very good – there is something to be found for every taste (possibly not wallet). 😉

I will let the girls tell you their side of the story – I just know I’d go to Paris just so I could go and have fun at Jovoy again.
The bottles  I came out with were Mona di Orio Vetyver (which I knew I would finally buy in Paris) and Brecourt’s Haram – another oriental for my ever growing collection.
(I should also mention a bag full of samples of everything I wanted to get to know better)

Mark’s photo of the three of us outside Jovoy


The other place that stands out in my mind as a great smelling experience was a stand at Printemps which holds several collections, among others: Nez a Nez, SoOud, Boadicea and Nasomatto.
Asali is also known there, and she recommended the place as there is a great SA working there who, lucky for us, was there when we arrived.
His name is Alexi(s) (we didn’t get to hear it right) and he also remembered Asali (like Suzanne said, men love her).
So he proceeded to familiarize us with the ranges and we smelled our way through many of the perfumes on display there. At the end of the session I fell madly in love with Nez a Nez Bal Musqué and promptly took the bottle home with me.

In the end, an honorable mention goes to the nice man at the JAR boutique who was very generous with his time since we entered the boutique after its closing time (the doors weren’t locked) and we asked if it would be ok to smell the perfumes even though it was after closing time, and he was very nice and said we had enough time for a quick tour (only it didn’t seem quite that quick and he was displaying the perfumes for the four of us rather elegantly, without any hurry).
The one I fell for is the Bolt of Lightning. It is THE perfume I imagined in my post here. It has that metallic smell of lightning in the warm air and the smell of wet asphalt is in the mix. The fact that all this is possible through white flowers never ceases to amaze me. (I knew the price would amaze me too, so I didn’t even ask) 😉

The pic of all of us in front of Jovoy is Mark’s and Suzanne’s.

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