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Saturday Question: Jo Malone Brit Veggie Collection – Should We Even Bother?

Jo Malone (brand) has done it again – launched another quirky limited edition, the Brit Veggie Collection, that consists of three fragrances – Carrot Blossom, Velvety Butternut and Scarlet Beetroot – in unique, colorful bottles.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #301:

Jo Malone Brit Veggie Collection – Should We Even Bother?

Did you try these perfumes? Do you want to? Will you? What about the next new collection from the brand?

My Answer

Jo Malone was my “starter brand” (back when it still could be considered a niche brand). I still own and wear many of their creations. At least three of them will easily make it into my top 25 (and several more would not be far behind). Some of my favorites behave amazingly on my skin. Others are more fleeting, but I don’t mind reapplying them throughout the day. Every time I read about a new limited edition collection, my immediate reaction is: I should try it before it’s gone!

The last time I liked a new perfume from the brand was two years ago, when I briefly contemplated buying one (or three) bottles from their Mementos Collection. I didn’t buy any of the bottles (I haven’t even finished the set of samples yet!), and I don’t think I’ve ever regretted it. But still, it was a positive experience.

Since then, I’ve tried everything new I came across in stores, and I can barely remember even that I did, let alone the details of how those perfumes smelled (other than that I wasn’t impressed).

Today, the main goal of venturing into the local mall was to check out this new Brit Veggie Collection: even though I found the inspiration behind that collection odd, I thought it could be interesting and unusual. It wasn’t. The bottles were quite cute. The perfumes were so uninspiring, even on the first spray, that I wasn’t tempted to try any of them on my skin.

I am officially annoyed: there is no justification for releasing such boring perfumes in a line with 40+ current fragrances. $90 for 30 ml isn’t the highest price out there, but at that quality level, the lineup of brands available at Sephora beats these hands down. It could have been so much more interesting! Those bottles are new and unique; it’s not as though they needed to reuse an existing bottle size. They could have done smaller bottles for the same price with better ingredients and more interesting compositions – and they would sell out anyway. But they chose mediocrity. And I think that I shouldn’t even bother checking out this brand any longer. It’s sad.

Jo Malone Brit Veggie Collection

Jo Malone Brit Veggie Collection – Should We Even Bother?

Terre d’Hermes Intense by Hermès
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Terre d’Hermes Intense by Hermès

Hello my lovelies, Today I thought we could talk about EVERYONE wearing Made For Men fragrances. By now, in 2026 I know most of us have gender bended perfume and loved it. While in our local Hermès the other day, my mate Nick gave me a carded sample of this newly and asked me to have a sniff at my leisure. Which I did. This is an exciting reinterpretation of the OG JCE Terre d’Hermes. Here Christine Nagel has shorn it of the spikier elements and given that punch in the face a delicate, gourmand twist. It’s still an earthy ode to woody citrus but restrained. Sophisticated. Terre d’Hermes Intense floats my boat.

Can I also say how much I loved the OG. It was the first bottle Jin stole from my collection and wore it so well I haven’t taken it back. It would just be a let down now. So here is my chance to revisit and maybe get my own bottle of Terre d’Hermes Intense. It’s different enough that I’ll not feel sad and similar enough to scratch the itch.

Terre d’Hermes Intense by Hermes 2025

Terre d’Hermès Intense Hermes

Hermes gives these featured accords:
Wood, bergamot, lava

OOOHHH! Stripped bark-isk opening few seconds that grabbed my attention and disappeared into a very scratchy pepper and citrus. The citrus reminds me of the opening of Montale’s Aoud Lime, squeaky and a bit freaky.

Ten minutes in everything has come together cohesively. If I sniff real close I can smell licorice, the dirt laden, rooty dryness and having read about the coffee note, I’m thinking it smells more like a latte than coffee beans. This could be BECAUSE I read about it though.

Terre d’Hermes Intense Hermes Carded Sample

Deep dry down is those amber/woods that so many people complain of. I do get the problem when you’re in a fragrance hall or perfume convention. It’s an overwhelming miasma. In singularity, with the added warmth of humanity, and an added mineralic feel I’m good with it.

Unisex but leaning masculine. Longevity is off the charts but diffusion is not. It’s scalable but you’d have to spritz pretty hard to make Terre d’Hermes Intense objectionable.

Already available on the discounters starting around a US$1.50/ml and getting cheaper with size. So while not bargain, is very affordable.

Would you? Could you? Terre d’Hermes Intense?
Portia xx

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Saturday Question: Do You Throw Away Old Samples?

Years ago, when niche perfumes were hard to come by for testing and our collections were much smaller, samples were actively used, swapped or even sold. These days, I suspect they often stay in our collections to die. Unless you get rid of them sooner, of course.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #300:

Do You Throw Away Old Samples?

Do you check the ones you kept from time to time? Do you throw away evaporated or almost empty ones? Are you tempted to try them one last time before chucking them?

My Answer

At the onset of this hobby, I often went back to previously tested perfumes – to compare them to newer ones that reminded me of them, write single note exploration posts or just check whether my opinion of them had changed. So, for years, I kept all samples that came my way in the “library.” These days, after I’ve tried them once or twice, most of them just sit in the boxes, never to be sniffed again.

Today, I went through one of the boxes and discarded 17 samples that had evaporated since I last looked at them. That felt good: I have my recorded impressions from testing them, I never wanted to have more of those perfumes, and some of them have been limited editions or have been discontinued since, so there was no reason to keep them, even if they were still full. But even while doing that, I couldn’t bring myself to getting rid of a couple of vials that still had a smidge of perfume left in them. Now they sit on my desk next to my laptop, and I hope to try to get that last… not even a drop of juice tomorrow, so that I can dispose of them. And then next week I should try going through the next box. Maybe.

 

How about you?

 

Do You Throw Away Old Samples?

Bois d’Argent Esprit de Parfum by DIOR
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Bois d’Argent Esprit de Parfum by DIOR

Hi there Looking Glass crew, Bois d’Argent Esprit de Parfum is Francis Kurkdjian’s reimagining Annick Menardo’s 2004 blockbuster for a 2025 aesthetic. Francois Demarchy also had a go at it in 2018. Of the Esprit de Parfums released Bois d’Argent is the only one I thought about buying. Sadly though, my finances have been in such a state that the dropping of AU$880 for it was unconscionable. I did want some of my own though so bought a decant from Surrender To Chance.

Bois d’Argent Esprit de Parfum by DIOR 2025

Bois d'Argent Esprit de Parfum

DIOR gives these featured accords:
Vanilla, iris, ambroxan, ambergris, frankincense, honey

I know you are all heading to high heat up in the Northern Hemisphere but this is primarily cool woods. It is a real step up and a little across from the original.

Opening spritz is a moist, fresh breeze of rooty iris, tap water and some unnamed greenery that smells like an artemisia or wormwood. Pretty soon after it gets a swipe of honey and cool smoky incense. Like the already burned incense powder that’s left in the big urns after a day of worship.

The first noted note on most lists is vanilla. I don’t smell it at first. Maybe it’s subsumed by the big players.

At about the two hour mark I’m well into the dry down. Charred vanilla and ashes. It’s fabulously dark, much darker than the original. Overlaid over that amber woods we are so used to in modern perfumery. It and oudh are like the oakmoss of the 1900s. Ubiquitous. I can hear the current crop of perfume lovers screaming when they get found to be unusable due to health problems.

Bois d'Argent Esprit de Parfum

Unisex, moderate projection and sillage after the first hour. It does keep pumping that gritty darkness quietly for several more hours, in a very introverted way. I’ll happily use up this decant but have no further need for more.

Aside from the price, or if money was no object, does Bois d’Argent Esprit de Parfum read enticingly?
Portia xx

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Saturday Question: Would You Want To Restart Your Collection?

Before you start freaking out, hear me out. It’s not a sudden disaster scenario where you inadvertently lose everything you lovingly collected over the years. But imagine that all your perfumes, let’s say in 10 ml or larger format, magically moved to a different dimension: they’re all safe there and can be brought back, but don’t have to be. Now, you get a choice: you can wish any of them back or forfeit that bottle forever and receive money instead. The caveat for the first choice is that the bottle you’d be getting would be your current bottle (so, if it’s turned or is almost empty, you won’t benefit from this magical reset). Choosing money would also come with its own limitation: you would get the portion of the price you paid for that perfume proportional to the remaining quantity in your bottle (but in today’s money), and you could spend it only on something related to your perfume hobby. With all that said…

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #299:

Would You Want To Restart Your Collection?

My Answer

I would! While I don’t dislike any of my perfumes and probably even like most of them, over the last couple of years I’ve noticed that I rarely feel that I love whatever I decide to wear. That increases my indecisiveness every time I try to choose a perfume, so sometimes I end up not applying anything at all for fear of putting on something I won’t enjoy. At the same time, I know myself too well: I won’t be able to voluntarily part with any perfume I previously welcomed in my collection. So that magical intervention might be the only way for me to get back to enjoying my perfumes every day.

How about you?

 

Would You Want To Restart Your Collection?

Tobacco Honey by Guerlain L’Art & La Matière
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Tobacco Honey by Guerlain L’Art & La Matière

Hi there ULGers, The Guerlain L’Art & La Matière line is their mass-tige offering. Priced far above their regular lines but never feeling especially luxe. I love and own a few of them but with the introduction of the new bottles am finding them less and less appealing. Especially at this price point. Yes, I feel like a broken record but the dumbing down of fragrance bottles shits me. Guerlain had such a vibrant, beautiful range of bottles that spoke of their legacy. Sure, not all of them were winners but gah… Having said that, I am excited they went with the Flacon Bouchon Coeur for regular range now. It harks back to 1912 L’Heure Bleue and was Mitsouko‘s original bottle too. Anyway, I’m sitting here with a mini of Tobacco Honey. It came with a recent purchase and I’m retrying it again. First go was a no-go but it may have been my mood, weather, health etc. So I’m coming back at it, join me.

Tobacco Honey by Guerlain L’Art & La Matière 2023

Tobacco Honey Guerlain

Guerlain gives these featured accords:
Top: Honey, Cloves, Anise;
Heart: Tobacco, Vanilla, Tonka, Sesame
Base: Agarwood (Oud), Sandalwood

Delphine Jelk created Tobacco Honey. it’s big, loud, sweet and flamboyant. Spiced honey, dry vanilla, dark woods all combine to give an extraordinary, very immortelle like experience.

You know how cough drops are hyper sweet, cordial-like, very slightly medicinal tasting versions of whatever fruit they are purporting to be? That’s what Tobacco Honey is like for me. A confectioners recreation of these notes in a very gluggy immortelle style, but without the deep or dark of that note. All high intensity confection and a medicinal backtaste.

Wearing Tobacco Honey again tonight for work I enjoyed it immensely. Thick, rich, treacle like ropes of fragrance. There were multiple positive comments and I enjoyed smelling so delicious.

Leans heavily modern femme, has excellent projection and sillage. Careful, it can go full beast mode. Longevity is really good but during the last couple of hours I’m left with an amorphous sticky sweetness. Interestingly, for something so dense, this works of warm sunshiny days and sultry nights as well as it does in the deep cold.

Honestly, my favourite tobaccos are a bit darker and woodsier. This is very gorgeous though and I can imagine it being a wonderful signature for the kind of perfume wearer who does that.

What are your thoughts on Tobacco Honey by Guerlain?
Portia xx

 

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Saturday Question: What Are the Longest-Lasting Perfumes In Your Collection?

Over the years, we discussed whether the longevity maters and our ideal perfume tenacity. Some perfumes seem to disappear almost before we finish applying them, while others stay with us all day and sometimes well into the next one. Whether you enjoy that kind of persistence or find it occasionally overwhelming, most of us probably have at least a few perfumes in our collections whose staying power stands out from the rest.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #298:

What Are the Longest-Lasting Perfumes In Your Collection?

For those specific perfumes, do you consider it a benefit or something you tolerate?

My Answer

As with most of my recent questions, this one came to me as I was experiencing the topic. I woke up the next morning after a Mother’s Day celebration and realized that I could still smell Amouage Gold, which I had applied around 2 PM the previous day. And it was still wonderful.

I think most of my favorite Amouage perfumes easily last overnight on my skin and at least several days on a pillowcase. I always enjoy them and don’t remember ever getting that “the perfume wears you” feeling that I sometimes get even from less tenacious perfumes hours into wearing them.

 

How about you?

 

What Are the Longest-Lasting Perfumes In Your Collection?

Paddock by Hermes
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Paddock by Hermes

Hi there ULGers, Quietly and without fanfare Hermes (yes I know it’s Hermès but SEO) released a complete fragrant stunner in 2024. Only available in their stand alone stores. It’s also spendy. Not Roja spendy but still, you’ll have to really NEED IT to fork over that kind of money for something that literally goes up in fragrant smoke. I really, really want Paddock. It plays on my mind in the most inopportune moments. Currently I’m down to my last 2ml of a Surrender To Chance decant. They now seem to be totally out of it!?! GAH! I can’t even scratch the itch now.

Paddock by Hermes 2024

Hermes gives this description of notes:
Honeyed hay, Amber carrot seed

Christine Nagel has received a slew of hate mail through her tenure at Hermes. Following Jean Claude Ellena was never going to be easy. He had redefined the way that Hermes perfume lovers chose to smell. His fragrances seem austere and minimalist, even when they aren’t. His gluggiest (that I love BTW) Ambre Narguile, while being warm, rich and a little over the top gourmand still feels calmly restrained.

This feels like Mz Nagel is arrived. Like Eau de Citron Noir, H24, Cardomusc Terre D’Hermes Eau Intense Vetiver and L’Ombre and Eau des Merveilles Bleue (the ones from her I paid retail for) were just practicing to become this stunningly astounding perfection.

On my first sniff I’d completely dismissed Paddock. Then, this time last year Val the Cookie Queen came to stay with us. When she wore it I suddenly got what was meant to live in someone’s sillage.

This pic makes me so sad, only a few wears away from zero Paddock.

Paddock by Hermes STC Decant Apr26

Paddock is horsey, and yard-ish, and paddock, its feed room and tack room. It’s a whiff of all those things BUT it’s also none of them. Paddock is a surrealists dream of all that, while still being pure fine fragrance.

Please don’t go try it. Don’t fall in love with it. Don’t even go near it. There’s not enough to share and I freaking WANT IT ALL.

Did you try Paddock? Thoughts?
Portia xx

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Saturday Question: Which Perfume Names Refuse to Stay in Your Memory?

With the largish collections many of us have, it happens sometimes that we forget we have a perfume (especially if it’s in a decant or sample format). It would be strange to ask you about those. With perfumes from different countries, named in different languages, we might not know the exact pronunciation of some names. Not asking about those either. Do you have perfumes in your collection that you remember owning but can never remember their exact names?

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #297:

Which Perfume Names Refuse to Stay in Your Memory?

What do you do about it? Do you have nicknames for those? Do you use partial names? Do you approximately envision the form of the name on the label?

My Answer

There are three perfumes in my collection that I can never remember – and I love them and have full bottles of each!

Mona di Orio Les Nombres d’Or Vanille – all I can remember is “Vanille,” so for my daily records in the database, I had to “rearrange” the name to Vanille Les Nombres d’Or (so that it would appear in the type-ahead field when I enter the only part that I remember).

Houbigant Quelques Fleurs Royale – that “Quelques”… Too many vowels. I checked the pronunciation, and still I can’t remember the name when I think about that perfume, even though the last two words don’t confuse me at all.

Serge Lutens La Dompteuse Encagée – even though this was one of the latest additions to my collection, the name disappears from my inner eye as soon as I stop looking at the bottle or the screen. I haven’t come up with a good mnemonic for it yet.

 

How about you?

 

Which Perfume Names Refuse to Stay in Your Memory?

Miutine by Miu Miu
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Miutine by Miu Miu

Hi there Looking Glassers, Miutine Miu Miu was released in 2025. Presented in the clear Miu Miu bottle but with black lid detail. One of two 2025 releases along with Miu Miu Rosee. They had a fallow year in 2024 and I thought they might be letting the fragrance side drop but happily not yet. I need to preface the review by saying that I really don’t think Miu Miu is making perfume with me in mind as the consumer. Though I’m madly in love with their signature bottles, especially the turquoise 2015 original, my wallet has not left my pocket for any of the offerings. They’re not bad but they just don’t seem to fit me. So I go in today with zero expectation to love this. Happy to be pleasantly surprised though. They’re selling it as a gourmand chypre, inspired by the timeless classic. As it’s created by master perfumer Dominique Ropion that gives me a thrill, his first for Miu Miu.

Miutine by Miu Miu 2025

Miutine Miu Miu

Miu Miu gives these featured accords:
Head: Wild Strawberry
Heart: Gardenia
Base: Brown Sugar, Vanilla, Patchouli oil, Oakmoss

Straight out of the gate I’m getting a confectionary, sugar free fizzy drink. Strawberry but not related to any strawberry that ever grew on earth. Also, with that strange, metallic backtaste of some of the fake sugars. I wasn’t expecting it to be SO sweet. Miutine is a bit like a strawberry Mugler Angel, but where Angel is full sugar fairy floss this is one of the pretenders.

Of gardenia I smell nothing.

The heart and dry down are extremely sweet. My hope was that as Miutine developed there would be a hit of deeper, richer patchouli and the furry weirdness of oakmoss. There is development but it’s not that. Some more bakery style confection. Maybe a strawberry iced doughnut.

My decant is from Surrender To Chance.

I can imagine someone who wants to smell like this going ape shit for it. Sadly, it’s not me. This is hyper childish feminine fragrance and smells to me like something you’d get in a $1 kids lip gloss.

Are you the target audience? Did it float your boat?
Portia xx