September was warm and pleasant. We even had several light rains, a couple of which I missed while I was in Maui (if you haven’t done it yet, you still have time to play a guessing game I started in that post). Rains didn’t make a dent in our drought situation but still it was nice to sleep with the rain drumming on the roof.
For this month’s statistics in Make Way for hajusuuri – Perfume Shopping in Boston post I asked a question:
Which city in the World is your mecca for perfume shopping: not sniffing, testing or getting to know brands and their offerings but actually buying perfumes – based on your previous experience?
Twenty four (24) people answered the question (thank you, everybody!) and named 13 cities. I grouped all participants in three regions – U.S., Europe and Other. 67% of people (16) didn’t have to take a long pilgrimage to their perfume mecca: they named a city from the region where they live.
I don’t think it’ll surprise anybody that Paris got the most votes (7). New York got silver (4 votes), which was also expected. What I didn’t expect was San Francisco taking the third spot (3 votes) leaving behind Los Angeles (1.5 votes), London, Las Vegas, Cancun, Chicago, Dubai, Hamburg, Houston and Warsaw, each of which got just one vote and Bruchsal with a half vote.
I checked Perfume Shopping around the World page and discovered that less than half of the cities that made the list of the best perfume shopping for the respondents have a blog story written by a perfumista. Of course Your Perfume Guide online catalog referenced from that page has lists of stores and boutiques in most of those cities but it misses a personal touch of somebody who loves perfumes. So I urge you to write a shopping guide for your mecca, post it on your blog (or you’re welcome to do a guest post on mine if you do not have a blog) and send me a link to it.
And finally, we have a winner for the draw of the 3 ml decant of My Inner Island Vaniglia Sopraffina e Rhum AND 3 other vanilla-based perfumes from hajusuuri’s collection:
Nancysg, send your shipping address to hajusuuri at gmail. If a prize isn’t claimed until 11:59 PM on October 10, 2014, hajussuri reserves the right to randomly select another winner.
Images: kind of my own (I used as elements free pictures from http://www.clker.com and http://yoursourceisopen.com)
Undina's Looking Glass 
What a wonderful way to start my weekend – coming home and reading that I was the winner of Hajusuuri’s vanilla scent give away! Can’t wait to give them all a sniff. Thank you.
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Congratulations on your winning!
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Hm. Should I write a post for London? Or Barcelona? I do love perfume shopping both of those places. Though in all honesty I probably would never have gone as deeply into perfumes as I have if I weren’t so close to New York. Though I seldom shop at its touchstone stores. And it has definitely lost something now that Henri Bendel’s fine fragrance section is gone.
I should really visit Aedes de Venustas more.
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There are no Barcelona guides at all – so please do! As to London, even though there are several posts on that topic, each blogger brings something new so I think it’s also a good idea.
As to the closing of Bendel’s perfume section, while it’s sad, in my opinion, you still cannot complain: between MiN NY, Osswald, Aedes and Barneys you’re pretty much covered :)
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I picked New York but I thought London would have done better. I’d like to go shopping there. With the way I mangle the French language I don’t think they’d let me into Paris anyway.
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Paris is fine if you plan to try and buy perfumes – they speak perfect English when it comes to selling you luxury goods. Talking about perfumes and getting samples – that’s where you need language. As I complained last year after visiting Jovoy, with a full bottle purchase (Bombay Bling! – not the most “budget” perfume in the store) I could barely get 2 (two!) samples of perfumes I wanted to try. I don’t know how people leave that place showered with samples (and I read about it more than once!). Oh well… London is one of my favorite destinations. I’ll shop there one day.
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My 3rd would have been London. I’ve visited San Francisco quite a few times but I didn’t know any better :-)
I really like that cross-tab you did for where people live and which they chose.
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Thank you, hajusuuri! I was actually proud of my small table :-)
Compared to NY, SF doesn’t have much to offer. I don’t know anything you can get here but can’t get in NY. We need ScentBar to move here! :-)
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Pleased to see Paris come out top, having voted for it myself. ;) Sadly quite far from home in my own case.
I have done a post about a Barcelona perfume bottle museum and an attached perfume store in Barcelona, but by no means would I construe that as a ‘shopping guide’, so it would be good to have a more comprehensive post on the city.
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Silly me, it would obviously be in Barcelona too if it is attached, hehe.
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I remember that one but I decided against using it because it didn’t have enough shopping.
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Hi there) “Of course Your Perfume Guide online catalog referenced from that page has lists of stores and boutiques in most of those cities but it misses a personal touch of somebody who loves perfumes.” – well, because that wasn’t the purpose of this blog, to be personal etc ;). The purpose was to create a clearly arranged databank. Hmm, however I chose the blog plattform… =)) I think, there’re people who can do personal blogs much better than me (first of all because they can speak english much better than me =))) ) So I concentrate more on something most of the blogs don’t deal with.
Greetings!
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Dear Daria,
It wasn’t a criticism of the way you do your catalog but rather a nod towards it and encouragement for my readers who are bloggers to create something in addition to what you have in your resource – from which I wouldn’t expect to be more than it already is.
I really appreciate the work you do, find the collection of addresses to be very useful – and try to propagate it as much as I can.
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