Tag Archives: Parfumerie Generale

O Tannenbaum! (part 2)

Joint blog project, Short perfume review December 21, 2011 Comments: 28
Welcome to my part of the O Tannebaum! blog project. 🙂
I’m running a bit late after my co-bloggers but that’s because I tried to put my thoughts on my 3 choices in order, only to discover I can’t.
I find all 3 beguiling, extremely interesting, strange and therefore meant for me. 🙂
In a random manner (not as to how much I like them) here they are.
Parfumerie Generale – Un Crime Exotique
My readers probably remember that I was on a hunt for a Christmas perfume. This one fits the bill only partly. The cinnamon and ginger are here, as is the black tea, but Christmas here doesn’t smell like this perfume.
But I surely wouldn’t mind spending it where it does smell like UCE. 🙂
With this perfume I keep going through what of the notes I can smell and then trying to guess how in the world do they combine into what I smell.
Notes: Chinese osmanthus, gingerbread, tea, cinnamon, star anise, mate absolute, vanilla sugar, South Sea Island sandalwood
It starts sweetly gingery-cinnamony (I don’t know how gingerbread smells like so gingery it is) and now that I know what to look for, I can smell the tea underneath (of the black variety). My notes made me look for a bit of raspberry-ish fruit but I guess the osmanthus-anise-tea combination could make me feel the fruity aspect in this.
I keep having problems describing this but I blame it all on the anise. It gets more barky-cinnamon and there is the underlying smell I cannot describe that I’m guessing is made refreshing by mate, anise, vanilla and sandalwood.
The good thing about this perfume is that it doesn’t lose the cinnamon tinge, even though it lessens, it is still there. And the wonder lasts.
La Via del Profumo – Oud Caravan no1.
I was lucky to win a sample of this from Suzanne and it came in time to be included in my O Tannenbaum choices.
If there are notes for this listed somewhere, someone please let me know as I had to smell this blindly (so all manner of strange associations might crop up). 🙂
First of all, I need to say it doesn’t smell as oudy as I keep thinking oud perfumes should (having the previous Montale experience). Then again, it does smell oudy, in that good, smoky, serious, lightly leathery and incensey way. The way that makes you a bit scared of the aura it is projecting.
At the same time, it makes you come closer to try and define what is it that makes it enticing.
As I don’t know the notes, it makes it easier for me to describe what I’m smelling without wondering why am I not smelling something (or smelling something that isn’t there). 🙂
Sometimes I smell it and think there is a light herbal tinge to it – the kind that makes your nose clear but in this case it’s not very apparent.
Anyway, a bit later, light balsamic feel emerges (as in the woody-resiny kind) giving this just a hint of sweetness so as to not make it too dry to smell. But it still smells dry with a light woody creaminess in the background. And all the time preciously oudy.
Burren Perfumery – Winter Woods
It seems Burren Perfumery is this very well hidden little perfumery in Ireland because so far I’ve never seen a single perfume review of any of their scents (including myself who is aware of their existence).
Winter Woods is their latest release and I was lucky to receive a sample when the release was announced (along with all other of their perfumes).
Notes: rosemary, bergamot, lemon, iris, lavender, cedar, pine and vetiver.
I see they are calling this a quietly masculine fragrance – I can’t really judge, I like it and I have a tendeny to fall into the “masculine” part of the perfume world.
It starts with a refreshingly bitter – powdery feel. Considering the fact that both bergamot and lemon are listed, it is remarkably subdued in the citrusy department. I mean you can smell the light citrusness, combined with a bitterness and what I tend to call shampoo freshness (which always reminds me of nettle but that’s not listed as a note).  Before I lose your interest, the clean freshness doesn’t last that long. I’m pretty sure iris is exorting its effect on this whole composition, making it bitter and powdery.
At the same time, the idea of winter woods is becoming more and more true. But these winter woods are covered in snow (the wihiteness of the perfume comes very clearly out) and you can smell the crisp air, the wood bark and the powdery feel of the snow.
I’m not one to fall for powdery (at least I never did before) but the bitterness and powderiness of this are getting under my skin.
(actually they already got there)
I could go into details of the notes but unless you really pay attention to what you’re smelling, they won’t reveal themselves (they will if you really want to know them).
But I find that I don’t want to deconstruct them – I want to walk in those woods.
Please visit other participating blogs for some more Tannenbaum perfumes. 🙂

Another Perfume Blog
Beauty, Bacon, Bunnies
Beauty on the Outside
EauMG
Eyeliner on a cat
Fragrant Reviews
Muse in Wooden Shoes
Olfactoria’s Travels
Parfumieren
Redolent of Spices
Scent of the Day
Suzanne’s Perfume Journal
The Candy Perfume Boy

I need to stop loitering and start writing – starting with Parfumerie Generale

World of Perfume January 28, 2011 Comments: 27
I’ve tried so many good perfumes lately that it’s high time I stopped loitering about writing reviews and just do them. I do get into phases when I think that no matter what I write, it will never be good enough to describe the perfume so why bother, but I really need to talk about these because even though not many people read my blog, it just feels I need to spread the word.

I don’t know how many of you are aware of the fact that I love Parfumerie Generale offerings. Of course, I haven’t tried them all and not all of them are for me, but generally speaking, I find them made for me. 🙂
I’ll start with Drama Nuui because I thought I will like this one more than Bois Blonde.

Notes:petit grain, absinthe, jasmine, spices, guaiac wood, sandalwood, musk

That petit grain keeps bothering me. I can never figure it out for myself but after reading my notes and then the perfume notes, I can see how they merge.  I guess it takes a lot of time to train one’s nose into getting all these notes.

Initially I thought it smelled like white flowers iris or lily of the valley with a slightly soapy twist, all together reminiscent of jasmine. Like I said, in retrospect, I see where petit grain fits in.
It smells like it’s a white floral laced with some vanilla and with ylang-ylang hiding in there. But the petit grain not only gives it slight soapiness but also piquancy.
Honestly, the absinthe thing completely passed me by, and that is probably because I have no idea what it smells like in real life.

But the drydown of Drama Nuui is absolutely wonderful. You smell fine and delicately sweet and flowery sandalwood. I’m pretty sure the spices part is responsible for the whole structure of this smelling interesting throughout but I can’t really say I spied any with my nose. 🙂

Bois Blond

Notes: cereals, grass, galbanum, cedar, hay, blond tobacco, amber, musk

I’m not sure what cereals are supposed to smell like, understated probably with everything else in this perfume. It starts grassily green, smelling of grass sap, like grass was recently cut and is emitting that sweet, green smell (which works for me always). I guess galbanum really does its best here. 🙂
At some point when the grassiness starts to subside, I was sure I could get hints of something cuminy through but as the note is not listed, my guess is that hay and amber combined with grass had something to do with it.  And even though you smell the grass, it’s at all times tempered with some woodiness, making the perfume smell of wide, green, open spaces in the sun.
Once I read the notes, I could finally smell cedar and while the grass element is slowly subsiding, some smokiness gets a hold of you while you’re enjoying the warm, sweet cedar wafts. I don’t really smell tobacco, to me, it smells more of whiffs of that aromatic tobacco burning.
What I find absolutely stunning is the temperate nature of all the notes that can usually be quite overpowering. I’m still wondering where did the slight piquancy (a light pinching in my nose) in the start of the drydown come from? Smoky cedar perhaps?

In any case, a truly enjoyable perfume but as it’s part of the Private Collection, I’m not sure how available it is. I see Luckyscent carries it, 110$ for 50ml.

Pics and notes by: http://www.luckyscent.com/

A bit of everything

Uncategorized July 2, 2009 Leave a comment

I’m just going to go through things I want to say, in order to clear the jumble in my head.

I tried Elixir de Merveilles on me and it is nice, but wasn’t as uplifting as when tried on a strip. It’s fresh and citrusy (unfortunately chocolate is not prominent enough for me) and the drydown smells like oranges (turning somewhat to orange juice) with a nice but barely there incense hint. I’ll definitely be wearing my decant but I’m not sure I’ll be buying a bottle.

This morning I made a mistake – I put on a perfume I swapped for last summer and well, it almost made it into scrubber category, but I’ll survive today and never spray it on again. I’m talking about Yuzu Ab Irato by Parfumerie Generale. It smells like a strong lemon lollipop (having that artificial candy lemon smell). I’m all for citrusy fragrances, but this one is just not me.

Notes by http://www.nstperfume.com/ :yuzu, spearmint leaves, pepper, magnolia, jasmine, hyacinth, absolute of thyme, hyssop, myrtle, and bamboo.
I finally got a package containing Bal a Versailles (been on my list of things to try for a while) and while I did spray it on yesterday, I was so busy the whole day I wasn’t able to give it my full attention. But what I fleetingly got, I liked very much. 🙂 More to come…

Now, onto something non-fragrance related. I don’t know how much people follow Croatian politics (or politics in general) but our PM resigned yesterday. And while that is not a strange thing by itself, PMs resign often enough following scandals – at the moment, the only scandalous thing in Croatia is the fact that due to our governments politics, Croatia is facing bankruptcy. And getting into European Union seems to be further away than ever. There were enough scandals over the years which would force other PMs out of their offices, but ours would never. Now, when we face the biggest crisis since independence and war, now he decides to leave. Does this seem like he’s a rat abandoning a ship to someone else as well? Well, I’m not going to dwell much on that, it’s frustrating as hell, and I never liked him. I hate when people are full of themselves and know what’s best and all they do is perfect. He was an awful PM if you ask me and I sincerely hope whatever happens now, whoever comes next will do better.
That’s all from me today, hopefully tomorrow I’ll be happy when I put my perfume in the morning. 🙂

Picture from:www.viette.indigofiles.com

P.S. I was looking for a picture of a lemon lollipop but it turns out there is a flower with that name, so I took the flower instead.