Undina's Looking Glass

In the Search for the Perfect Lilac, Take 2

May 23, 2013

It has been a long time since I published the first episode in which I shared my impressions of Pur Desir de Lilas by Yves Rocher, Lilac by ElizabethW, French Lilac by Pacifica, Lilacs & Heliotrope by Soivohle, Highland Lilac of Rochester, After My Own Heart by Ineke and En Passant by Frederic Malle. Since then I bought French Lilac by Pacifica – as I planned, still haven’t got Highland Lilac and tried more lilac perfumes.

Purple Lilac by DSH Perfumes and White Lilac by DSH Perfumes. They both smell quite realistically: I could clearly picture each of the flowers; purple lilac – slightly wilted, with some green; white – brighter and fresher. I like White Lilac more but both do not seem like a finished perfume.

Lilac by Demeter (2009). It’s perfect for the price I paid (~$5 for 30 ml). I don’t think it’s a perfume for adults but it makes a nice room spray: it smells good but doesn’t stay long enough to become overwhelming.

Purple Lilac (Lilas Mauve) by Yves Rocher (Annick Menardo, 2012). Last year I jumped through some hoops to get it from the U.K. since it wasn’t available yet from the U.S. website. It smells of lilacs if you smell it alone but in comparison to other lilac scents it seems too artificial. I was so disappointed that I haven’t even compared it to the other Yves Rocher’s lilac I own – Pur Desir de Lilas.

After all the testing I realized that even though I still miss lilacs and still enjoy the smell of flowers (and my ideal lilacs bouquet has only lilacs in it) I do not want to wear it as a soliflore. I like the note in perfumes but I want it to be well-mixed with other flowers. I think at least partially it’s because now I know that there is no natural lilac, this note is either created artificially or recreated using other floral notes so a single-dimensional scent seems too simple. If I ever want just it Pacific’s perfume is more than enough (I urge you to try a roll-on if you haven’t tried it yet).

I was really looking forward to trying Opardu by Puredistance (Annie Buzantian, 2012): if anybody, this brand could pull off this note in a beautiful composition… I can’t say I disliked Opardu: it was very pleasant and it did start with a burst of beautiful lilacs but it didn’t wow me. After the first disappointment wore off I tested Opardu again, this time with a better response – that’s how it usually happens to me. Now I plan to try it sprayed since I suspect it might wear differently this way.

Rue des Lilas by Phaedon (Pierre Guillaume, 2011) just happened upon me. I heard something about it and spontaneously decided to buy a small decant from a split. I was pleasantly surprised by the perfume: it’s an interesting composition of wood and my two favorite nonexistent (for the perfumery purposes) flowers – lilac and lily-of-the-valley. Unlike Demeter’s or Yves Rocher’s lilac perfumes Rue des Lilas is a lilac perfume for grown-ups. My problem with this perfume is that I dislike the bottle: it reminds me of functional products. So if I decide to get more after I use up my decant I might go for the next decant.

White Lilac & Rhubarb by Jo Malone (Christine Nagel, 2012) was a strong like from the first sniff. Since it was a limited edition I had to decide quickly… I enjoy wearing it in hot weather. It’s more than just a lilac perfume: rhubarb and heliotrope add complexity and sweetness to the bouquet. I know that there is supposed to be rose in it but I can’t smell it at all (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since Jo Malone’s Red Roses turns awfully soapy on my skin). With White Lilac & Rhubarb I had one of those moments when you keep turning your head trying to figure out from where that great scent comes only to realize that it’s coming from you. I like this perfume but still can’t imagine that anbody in her right mind would pay the price currently asked for it! And it’s not even a question of how good the perfume is: it was out there for such a short period of time that I don’t know how anybody could have developed such a deep connection to it to spend $300-$500 on a 100 ml bottle.

Do you have a favorite lilac perfume?

Images: my own

26 Comments | "Four legs good", Not a Review, Single Note Exploration | Tagged: Annick Menardo, Annie Buzantian, Christine Nagel, Demeter, DSH Perfumes, Jo Malone, lilac, Lilas Mauve, Opardu, Phaedon, Pierre Guillaume, Puredistance, Rue des Lilas, White Lilac & Rhubarb, Yves Rocher | Permalink
Posted by Undina

From Zero to Forty (ml) in less than 15… years: Bvlgari Black

May 16, 2013

Soon after Bvlgari Black had been released I picked up a bottle from a perfume counter thinking: “It looks like a hockey puck!” I sprayed a paper strip, sniffed: “It smells like it too!” And that was it. I haven’t approached Black for the next ten years.

Growing up I lived in a large multi-unit building in the downtown of a big city. After school children would play in the yard formed by the building. I wasn’t a tomboy or too sporty but there were almost no girls of my age in our building at the time so I didn’t have much choice but to play with boys. They weren’t super thrilled by my company (we’re talking about the age between eight and twelve) but when they needed an extra body for a two-team game mine would do (and on rare occasions I wasn’t even the last one chosen!).

Once in winter, I think I was ten, I was a goalie for an improvised hockey team that was one player short. I didn’t have a goaltender mask (none of us did, we were very poorly equipped in general) but I still was happy to be invited… You can guess where I’m heading with the story, right?

I was lucky: I ended up with a black eye that went through the usual rainbow of colors before getting better and a scar on my eyebrow that I carry through my life. No wonder I wasn’t too enthusiastic about something reminding me of a puck and smelling like burning rubber.

When I started my journey in the Perfumeland I read many praises for Bvlgari Black. I got curious and even managed to find it once at a store but I was wearing another perfume so it was a paper strip again. And again I smelled some rubber and smoke but that time I liked what I smelled.

It’s not an expensive perfume so I’m not sure why I didn’t go for a bottle immediately. Probably because it seemed easily obtainable once I make a decision to buy so I didn’t want to do it without testing on skin. Too bad I couldn’t find it in stores any longer.

Finally a couple of weeks ago I got a small decant of Black from Judith (the unseen censer). I sprayed it on, smelled and… It was the fastest start from the first application to the Place Order button: the burning tires smell was still in the air.

Up-close it still looks like a hockey puck but it doesn’t bother me any longer: over the years I mastered the art of covering the scar.

Images: my own.

46 Comments | "Four legs good", Favorite Perfumes, Not a Review | Tagged: Bvlgari Black | Permalink
Posted by Undina

Laughs, Lemmings, Loves – Episode 33

May 13, 2013

The hot weather we had in the beginning of May slightly cooled off, it is now a very pleasant period when very warm days turn into slightly chilly nights.

I’m extremely busy – both at work and in my everyday life but since I came across some posts that fell into one of the categories I try to cover I decided not to skip this week. So here are posts that made me want to try a new for me perfume, made me laugh or reviewed perfumes I love.

Lemmings

If you were to read just one story from my weekly round-up read Christos’s (Memory of Scent) post on the story of the perfume about which I haven’t heard before but towards which I feel warm now after getting to know it through Christos’s words.

I didn’t think of testing this new L’Artisan‘s perfume because I disapprove mass marketization trend of their advertising (a naked model for the Caligna ad) but Lanier (scents memory) told the story in such a way that it made me want to try the perfume: Caligna to my nose is light and soft on my skin and the notes blended into a pure tingling effervescent pop of spring. Lovely and bright, luminous in fact, Caligna is really the perfect uni-sex perfume for springtime or even in the cold months to recall the joys of May in bloom in the south of France.

Laughs

Do you want to know a secret of immortality and look at a peach from a different prospective? Read Judith’s (the unseen censer) The story of sex and a peach (but I warn you: a peach might never look the same to you).

Blacknall (aperfumeblog by Blacknall Allen): Interlude Woman was sleeker and smaller (thank heavens), but still overpowered, still with that insane acceleration rate. Driving it was a revelation in centrifically challenging accelerations, hair pin curves, and how fast the crew could get you back on track (thirty seconds). I came away with a vague memory of iced tea and burning rubber, and that is all that I remember about that test run.

Loves

Kafka (Kafkaesque) reviews one of my favorite Serge Lutens‘ perfumes: De Profundis opens on my skin with a fragile, haunting and delicate bouquet of flowers. There is chrysanthemum with violets, green notes, white lilies and sweet, wet earth. I will tell you my Profundis story soon. I hope.

If you read any interesting posts that, in your opinion, didn’t get enough attention – please share.

29 Comments | Weekly Roundups | Permalink
Posted by Undina

Perfume Layering: Truth or Dare?

May 9, 2013

I have never had that urge to experiment mixing perfumes. I hadn’t come up with the idea of scents layering on my own but once I had been introduced to it I loved it. The idea.

In 2000 Calvin Klein released Truth. It is attributed to 3 (three!) well-known perfumers – Alberto Morillas, Jacques Cavallier and Thierry Wasser – if you ask me, any one of them would have been enough but whatever went on with this perfume creation, not knowing or caring about notes or noses behind perfumes back then, I liked Truth and immediately bought a bottle and a set of five Truth Oil Essences. Each one represented a note in the perfume – bamboo, citrus, sapling, lilac and vanilla. They could be applied one at a time or in any combination with or without the perfume.

As I said, I liked the idea of combining notes, being my own perfumer, enhancing one aspect of the perfume or the other dependent on my mood… The unfortunate part was that oil-based components were so subtle that worn alone they gave almost no projection, I could barely smell them from my wrist pressed to my nose; and applied on top of the perfume they were completely lost (not sure if you remember but Truth wasn’t even the heaviest of this brand’s perfumes out there: CK Obsession or Contradiction it was not – and still…). Applying oils was more hassle than results so while I went through two bottles of Truth EdP my essences stayed hardly touched.

A year later, in 2001, Michael Kors launched a collection of three fragrances called Notes from Michael. The collection included three fragrances (40 ml each), which could be worn alone or combined with each other: Glenplaid, Houndstooth and Tattersall. The set was expensive (I think, $120). A bit too expensive for our budget. But I really liked the idea… My vSO got if for me as a gift for my birthday.

I tried playing the layering game. Tattersall was my favorite so I almost finished it. Glenplaid was fine (2/3 of the bottle found its place on my skin). Houndstooth didn’t attract me at all so the only time I used it was in the combination with one of the other two but since it wasn’t adding anything to the composition more often than not I started skipping that extra step. So the bottle went off almost full.

And then I discovered Jo Malone. I think I loved the brand before I finished sniffing through the complete line: the idea of fragrance combining itself was enough to sell it to me.

Over years I’ve added to my collection more perfumes from Jo Malone line than from any else. You can’t even imagine how many times I wore different Jo Malone’s perfumes layered! Do you want to guess? No? It’s ok, I’ll tell you: three times. I like those perfumes “as is” and do not want to mess with the original composition.

I still like the idea of layering but in reality I’m with Birgit: Who am I to tamper with well-thought out and finely balanced creations? I won’t dare.

For more adventurous perfumistas I recommend reading Victoria’s (Bois de Jasmin) Layering Fragrances : Perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena and French Elle and Elisa’s (The French Exit) On the Scent: Adventures in Perfume Layering.

Images: my own

51 Comments | Favorite Perfumes | Tagged: Alberto Morillas, Calvin Klein, Glenplaid, Houndstooth, Jacques Cavallier, Jo Malone, layering, Michael Kors, Notes from Michael, Tattersall, Thierry Wasser, Truth, Truth Oil Essences | Permalink
Posted by Undina

Entertaining Statistics: April, 2013

May 3, 2013

April wasn’t my best month: I managed to hurt first my back (many things contributed to that) and then my neck (that happened in a heartbeat – who would have thought that a simple morning stretch in bed might be that traumatic!).

I discovered that while effecting my perfume wearing¹ routine these types of health problems did not impede much my perfume testing²: I could still entertain myself by sniffing perfumes even while it was difficult to move.

Since I wear most perfumes just once per month – not intentionally, it just happens this way – I realized that as soon as for whatever reason I repeat the same perfume two-three times the favorite notes calculation gets skewed towards notes from that perfume. I’m not sure if it makes that part of my findings less accurate (or more?) but this month I decided to skip that point.

At the same time I got curious how often with that pattern of a single wear I reach for those perfumes that I chose this month.

So I didn’t neglect most of my favorites: I wore 18 of them (75%) within the last six months. It was interesting to find out that I wore Diorissimo 364 days ago – for May Day 2012. It wasn’t a full year because I knew I would be working from home on that day so this year I wore Diorissimo on the last day in April. Two perfumes that I didn’t wear for the longest time were Dior Diorella and Giorgio Armani Eclat de Jasmin. The completely unexpected was the fact that I wore them 499 and 498 days correspondently before I wore them again this April.

Quick April stats:

* Different perfumes worn: 24 from 16 brands on 26 occasions;

* Different perfumes tested: 40 from 21 brands on 44 occasions;

* Perfumes I tried for the first time: 18 (I liked 5; disliked 5; and felt indifferent about 8);

* Perfume house I wore most often: Guerlain (yep!);

* Perfume house I tested the most: Jo Malone (I was testing Sugar & Spice collection before it’s gone to decide if I wanted to buy any of those. PUBLIC WARNING: Bitter Orange & Chocolate is almost sold out; jomalone.com is the only online retailer that still has it);

Do you think in your collection there are perfumes that you still like but for which you haven’t reached in a long while?

¹ When I wear a perfume I apply it to at least three-four points and usually I plan to spend at least 4-8 hours with the same scent so I’m prepared to re-apply if the original application wears off.

²For the testing I apply a perfume to one area on my arms easily available for the repetitive sniffing. But, most likely, I’m the only one who can smell it. I can test two, sometimes even more perfumes at the same time.

Image: my own

39 Comments | My Stats | Permalink
Posted by Undina

Bouquets to Art 2013: Answers to the Riddle

April 29, 2013

As I promised here are answers to the riddle I posed in my previous post:

Bouquet 4 proved to be an easy guess: everybody got it correct: Gottfried Helnwein, Ephiphany II

2012	2013

With the second bouquet it proved to be harder: only one reader recognized the bouquet correctly (and I was very impressed!) – Bouquet 2: Willard Leroy Metcalf Winter’s Festival

2012	2013

hajusuuri, you’re a winner! I’ll contact you to arrange a prize (I planned to make a prize for this riddle from the beginning but didn’t want my readers to feel like I’m making them to jump through hoops to get something – I wanted them to play with me).

Here are pairings for the other two bouquets:

2012	2013
Recreation, Jerome Thompson

A Dinner Table At Night, Sargent

Images: my own

8 Comments | Random Stuff | Permalink
Posted by Undina

Bouquets to Art 2013

April 25, 2013

Last month I visited 29th annual flower exhibition Bouquets to Art 2013 at the San Francisco Fine Art Museum de Young. Compared to the last year’s exhibition I had a feeling there were slightly less presenters and at least as many visitors if not more, which was a disappointment since we went to a members only evening viewing.

While we were there I thought that this year’s arrangements were less interesting than those from the last year’s event but later at home going through all the pictures I changed my mind. Both years there were more and less artistic interpretations, direct floral reproductions and just abstract bouquets vaguely matching the assigned art piece.

First I’ll show you several bouquets for the same paintings as I showed last year:

Oranges in Tissue Paper, William J. McCloskey

Weaver, N. Oliveira

Ultramarine Stemmed Form with Orange, Chihuly

What year do you like more?

The compositions I haven’t shown in 2012 post and their counterparts from 2013 (click on each image to enlarge):

2012	2013
Some abstract painting

Inukshuk (“like a person”), Judas Ullulaq

California Spring, Albert Bierstadt

Lady in Black with Spanish Scarf, Robert Henri

The Niagara River at the Cataract, Gustav Grunewald

Woman in White Dress, Eastman Johnson

The Blue Veil, Edmund Charles Tarbell

Spring

Last year I also offered a puzzle – matching a bouquet to one of two paintings. This year I decided to make it slightly harder: two out of four compositions below are this year’s take on the same paintings I showed in the post Bouquet to Art 2012: Craft Imitates Art.

Bouquet 1

Bouquet 2

Bouquet 3

Bouquet 4

Can you tell which one goes with which art piece from the last year’s post? (You can either number pictures in the original post going from the top or use the name you can see if you hover over pictures there.)

Images: my own.

23 Comments | Random Stuff | Tagged: Bouquets to Art 2013 | Permalink
Posted by Undina

Undina's Looking Glass

In the Search for the Perfect Lilac, Take 2

From Zero to Forty (ml) in less than 15… years: Bvlgari Black

Laughs, Lemmings, Loves – Episode 33

Perfume Layering: Truth or Dare?

Entertaining Statistics: April, 2013

Bouquets to Art 2013: Answers to the Riddle

Bouquets to Art 2013

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