Last week was very serious: I haven’t come across any funny posts or comments. And I read most of the posts not only on my reading list but from “news & noise” category as well! So please, if I missed something laugh-worthy – give a link in your comment.
UPD: For a smile read Susan’s (Fine Fragrants) Juicy Crittoure dog shampoo review.
Lemmings
Victoria (Bois de Jasmin): Santal Majuscule is […] a romantic and tender scent of warm sandalwood brushed with honey and scattered with rose petals. Never mind Scheherazade’s palace, her skin must have smelled like this–of milk, roses and sweet spices.
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Modesty Brown (Modesty Brown loves make-up): On selected dates from 27th July, artists will be available in Jo Malone Boutiques in the capital, to customise boxes with your favourite London landmarks. There is no extra cost for the service and as you can see above, the sketches look really striking on the signature cream and black gift boxes. There’s no doubt that this would make an extra special gift for someone. (you have to click the link to see a picture!) WANT!
Loves
Blacknall Allen (aperfumeblog by Blacknall Allen) muses on the pedigree of Coco by Chanel: Polge thought he could reproduce this atmosphere of richness, of muffled ultra-refinement, by fusing three existing Chanel formulas to come up with a correspondingly intricate and Byzantine mixture to reflect the subdued baroque richness of the late Mademoiselle’s decor, so he combined Bois des Isles, Cuir de Russie, and Sycomore. Et voila, the resinous, slightly sweet woody oriental that everyone now associates with the successful excesses of the eighties.
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Denyse (Grain de musc) shares beautiful pictures and haikus for the Hermessence collection. For my favorite Vetiver Tonka:
And away it flows,
Robbing the sun’s bright light
Such is the source!
Find your favorite here.
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For those of you who scans through posts headlines to decide if to read it, I want to bring to your attention touching Angela’s (Now Smell This) review of the discontinued Dior-Dior perfume by Christian Dior. This one was my least favorite out of three that my mother had when I was a child and it is discontinued and practically unavailable so I could have missed this post as well. And I’m glad that I haven’t: perfume itself doesn’t matter. It’s hard to use a vintage, discontinued fragrance knowing that when it’s gone it’s likely gone for good. But enjoying a perfume sure beats simply having the perfume.
Leftovers
In case you missed, Sigrun of frafrancefanatic has moved her blog. New blog is Riktig Parfym.
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I like Atelier Cologne brand. I was an early adopter and bought two small bottles of their colognes two years ago. So of course I was thrilled to read that they will release two new perfumes this Fall – Rose Anyonme and Vétiver Fatal. And when they come to my local Neiman Marcus I will test them. But I’m mildly annoyed: did they really need to release two more agarwood perfumes? Well, yes, they did – how else do you justify nowadays raising prices 20-30% (two years ago I paid $55 for each!)? And it’s not even read agarwood!
Undina's Looking Glass 
I think we can conclude – no new Bonkers post, no laughs :)
That new sandalwood from Uncle Serge is a major lemming of mine too. Thank goodness it’s not an exclusive. Santal Mysore and Santal Blanc sadly didn’t work for me.
I thought Angela’s post is very thought-provoking and moving too. A must-read for anyone scared to wear their vintage or discontinued ‘fumes.
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Yeah, I thought about it. Vanessa, Ari and Birgit are my “usual suspects” when it comes to finding good laughs. So with them posting less often (for different reasons) our Perfumeland seems like a more serious place.
I liked Santal Blanc and I haven’t had a chance to try Santal Mysore yet. But chances of me liking this new one are high (I’m not sure it’s good :) ).
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Unfortunately Victoria really started a lemming when describing the new SL sandalwood. I thought i could skip this as I’m not particularly fond of Santal Mysore & Santal Blanc. But from the description and as it have some similarities to a true SL favourtite of mine,Jeux de Peau, this is very dangerous :-)
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It’s interesting: when I tested Santal Blanc it reminded me of Jeux de Peau that is also a favorite of mine; I thought of it as of a “dryer” version of JdP.
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Thank you kindly for the mention! I’m thinking of re-checking Coco. I’ve actually smelled Sycomore and Bois des Isles a lot more recently than Coco. Must say, I have some misgivings that it will smell different than when I wore it!
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It’s on my “to do” list to re-try BdI in parallel with Coco. I’m not sure I’ve ever tried Sycomore on the skin – for no specific reason, just didn’t have enough exposure to the Exclusiffs line to try everything. I’ll get there eventually since I’m a Chanel fan.
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I started lemming Santal Majuscule when I sniffed it at the SF Sniff. Victoria just helped to confirm how much I want it, especially since Santal Mysore just clunked on my skin this weekend.
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I missed the recent event – I had great time elsewhere and couldn’t have moved my plans even if I wanted to (an anniversary) – but now I’m a little bit more upset about not going there :) Oh, well – I have to be patient, I’ll get to try it once it’s at Barney’s and I go there for the next sniffing trip.
I haven’t tried Santal Mysore yet so I don’t know if to sympathize with you or congratulate you on one less “have to have” perfume :)
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I thought my dog shampoo post was at least mildly amusing. Was that last week though? I don’t even know! ha!
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You are right! It was last Sunday – which technically falls into the week I “rounded-up”. Fixed! :)
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I did not notice “velvet oud accord” and “dark oud accord”. Hummm. Yep, I agree — this is no justification of raising the prices. Would still love to smell them, though.
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I will smell them, don’t get me wrong! It’s just I’m completely onboard with Robin’s (NST) tag/plea please no more oud.
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Thanks for the mention :) I tried to fix your points about adding subscriptions and getting a picture of myself on the blog, but it seems like the theme I’m running does not support those widgets. As this is a WP blog as well, do you know if you can only use the widgets listed in the widget menu or are there open source type of widgets library out there for WP where you can just import the widgets you like?
And I’m also very curious, both about the Santal Majuscule and about the new Ateliers. Santal Mysore is one of my very favourite winter comfort scents, so I’m very excited that Serge is churning out another Sandalwood :)
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The flexibility of the customization depends on where your site is hosted. If you host it on WordPress itself, they don’t support HTML customization. If you host it on your own site you might be able to do that. Here is the list of recommended hosting sites that allow you to edit HTML templates for WP’s themes.
Are you sure you do not have suitable widgets in there? Can you use Gravatar for the picture, for example? I know that you’re quite proficient with computers but if you want you can add me (UndinaBA) temporarily as an administrator to your site (through Users) and I can take a look at Widgets available for your theme and see if any of them are just named the wrong way (compared to Blogger that you’re used to).
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Ha, now I’ve managed to find where to add more widgets :) I had somehow only seen the prechosen ones that came with the theme and not noticed the place in the menus where one can search for more. Thank you so much for your offer to help!!!
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I like the idea behind Atelier Cologne, but I’m not sure that they are colognes anymore. There is so much coming in the fall, I can’t keep track.
I was surprised how hard I fell for SM. I didn’t think that I would need another sandalwood from Lutens. I love Santal de Mysore and Jeux de Peau (Santal Blanc turns too sweet on me, which is strange, because I wear the much more gourmand Jeux de Peau with no issues).
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Atelier Cologne’s colognes are too concentrated so I think about them as of EdPs. I think it is a marketing strategy – both in design and naming – to appeal to male customers.
That’s where it gets really interesting! You helped me to find one more perfume in which I cannot smell sweetness when others can. When I tested Santal Blanc, as I’ve mentioned above, I thought of it as of a drier version of Jeux de Peau. Interestingly, another one I remember off-hand is Santal 33 by Le Labo. I’m curious if it’s just a co-incidence.
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No, I don’t think that it’s a coincidence. I’ve smelled some sandalwood fragrances (include Le Labo) on different people, and in some cases, I was shocked by how sweet vs how dry they smelled. It has something to do with perception, that’s true, but also a lot with skin chemistry. To see which one it is in your case, put some on a piece of paper and some on your wrist and compare (and if you want to make it really formal, sniff something citrusy in between like a piece of lemon peel to clear your nose–citrus is a contrasting scent to sandalwood). :)
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Well, there might not have been a lot of laughs around the perfume blogosphere last week, but you often manage to make me laugh, Undina. Case in point:
“…did they really need to release two more agarwood perfumes? Well, yes, they did – how else do you justify nowadays raising prices 20-30% (two years ago I paid $55 for each!)? And it’s not even real agarwood!”
:) Hee!!!
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Thank you, Suzanne. I’m just trying to do my part :)
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