Month: April 2021

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Saturday Question: What Is Your Most Obscure Perfume?

I’m so glad it’s a weekend! Even though I’ll probably have to do some chores, I’m glad I would be able to take my mind off work. And probably I’ll do some perfume planning: I feel I’m getting too absorbed into my day-to-day routine, and I don’t have time to think about what to wear or test during the work week. Maybe I can do a line-up of perfumes to wear for several days in advance… But let’s go back to the current topic.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #61:

What Is Your Most Obscure Perfume?

Whenever a topic of favorite perfumes for one of a well-known brands comes up, or when in a SOTD thread somebody mentions everybody’s darling, people usually get really engaged adding their voices to each other’s choices. But whenever a lesser known brand or perfume is named, it usually sits lonely in the thread. Let’s give it some shine!

Name a perfume from your collection that you suspect most people don’t know or have. How did you happen to get it? Do you wear it?

My Answer

I have a number of perfumes that would fit the bill, but I decided to go with this one – Isa by Ulric de Varens. There are a couple of readers who were reading my blog back when I told a story for Isa, but I bet that most of you have never heard of this perfume (or the brand, though I wouldn’t bet on that part).

For those of you who don’t have time to go through the old post, a quick recap: it’s a nostalgic perfume from my adolescent years, and it took three attempts by three different people to get it to me from France.

I don’t think I wore Isa even once every year since I got it, but I’m still glad I have it because once in a while I can put it on and remember how grown-up and glamorous I felt all those decades ago spraying it on. Can you believe: I still remember a sweater I was wearing that day?

Ulric de Varens Isa

 

What Is Your Most Obscure Perfume?

 

L’Artisan Parfumeur: Portia’s Most Worn
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L’Artisan Parfumeur: Portia’s Most Worn

Hiya ULG, L’Artisan are one of those houses that many perfumistas had as a gateway to the rest of the world of perfumery. L’Artisan Parfumeur was established in 1976 by Jean Laporte making luxurious ambergris scented balls. He stayed till 1982. Interestingly, two of the first years perfume releases (1978) are still available; L’Eau d’Ambre and Mure et Musc. Over the years they have been incredibly groundbreaking. The first blackberry, fig, mimosa and others. Several have gone on into fabled history like Iris Pallida, La Haie Fleurie du Hameau, L’Eau du Navigateur and who can forget the fragrance made for a NYC store that started its own brand; Aedes de Venustas. Through the 21st centuries early naughties and teens they were available at almost every large department store. They have the added bonus of being slightly weird but extremely wearable, perfect for the newly minted perfumista. I have a whole box dedicated to them in my collection but only a few get year round, reach for a lot, wear. I thought it might be nice if we had a look at these easy go-to scents from a brand that I hope will see a new lease of life under their current owners since 2015, Puig.

L’Artisan Parfumeur: Portia’s Most Worn

Honestly, I was quite surprised at which bottles were most empty. A couple that I really adore seem to hardly have been used at all. So I picked the bottles with the most air in them, that seemed fairest. One day I’ll do a favourites from the line post and the outcome will only have a couple of crossover perfumes.

lartisan-parfumeur-portias-most-worn

Al Oudh

You know when the L’Artisan hands touch anything it’s going to be a smooth and classy version of whatever it is. Add in that this is a Bertrand Duchaufour fragrance. Al Oudh was a 2009 entrant into the oudh race. Just before I found you all on the scentbloggosphere. So when I hit the blogs it was a big, talked up fragrance along with Vanille Absolument (a rerelease of Havana Vanille) and Côte d’Amour (their first stab at all natural). A sweet and spicy look at the oudh/saffron/rose/patchouli combo that stays sheer and elegant, even though it has a lovely dirty/medicinal hit of oudh.

Bois Farine

Jean Claude Ellena created this 2003 beauty. I bought my bottle second hand and already there was juice missing to the top of the title. Powder, woods, iris and I don’t know how there are not sugar and almonds in the mix. In deepest dry down ALL I can smell is those sweet, puffy, almond horseshoe biscuits. It’s uncanny. Clearly my nose smells stuff ay out of whack sometimes but I really don’t care. Part of what I love about this beauty is it’s gourmand hints as it dries down.

Caligna

This is my favourite fig from the L’Artisan line up, created by Dora Baghriche. I love its more aromatic and herbal take on fig. Still creamy but with so many more interesting bells and whistles. Sage, citrus leaves, pine and ambroxan make for a very modern look and yet they also make it seem thoroughly reminiscent of the mid 20th century mens cologne fragrances. It’s an interesting mix that really captures my nose but could fit any time or place and any gender. That’s probably why I wear it so much. Also, it’s less OTT than Premier Figuier.

L’Eau du Navigateur

This was released back in 1979 and had gone through some heavy reformulations before I bought my bottle mid 2010s. At the time I’d only read about it in reverent tones and never seen a bottle. One day at a sale I saw one bottle left, didn’t even ask if they had a tester, I just bought it then and there. So happy I did. A Jean Claude Ellena from his earlier, heavier, more note filled days. Here we have a wooden spice boat on the seas, filled with cargo, deck hands, briny winds and the million other smells of sailing. Just close your eyes and live in this cleaned up fantasy of travel in the spice trade.

Poivre Piquant

This foody trilogy was released in 2002. Piment Brûlant, Poivre Piquant and Saffron Troublant are odes to Bell peppers (chilli), Peppercorns and Saffron. Almost photo realistic recreations of the named foodstuff that open each perfume. Poivre Piquant is pepper but wears like a zingy mix of black and pink peppers, drizzled with honey and sweetened to a liquorice deliciousness by dry down. Pepper lollies! Can you even imagine? It sounds as weird and out there as a fragrance could be but mercifully it’s all done in the cool, smooth, low key Duchaufour/L’Artisan style.

Seville a l’Aube

This is my second bottle of Seville a l’Aube. The Perfume Lover book by my buddy Denyse Beaulieu changed the way I viewed perfume creation and I fell in love with her wild and wicked ways. Though the fragrance itself is not sensual I always feel infused with her free spirit and zest for adventure when I wear it. Oranges, smoky incense, white flowers and honey mix together in an overwhelmingly ripe fragrance that tells the story of a romantic adventure remembered and brought to life by Bertrand Duchaufour. What’s not to love?

Tea for Two

When Tea for Two was first DCd in 2013 the Perfume Posse crew organised a Bus Tour through LA to some of the major fragrance venues. I was SO BUMMED about missing out on a bottle and begged the crew at Beauty Habit to give me their tester. As we were leaving they ran after the bus, stopped it and gave me the tester. This unbelievable fragrance. Smoky, incense laden, rich milky chai tea. Olivia Giacobetti masterfully arranges a fragrance rest stop in an Indian backstreet where the chai wallah has your tea at the ready. It’s sweet, milky, spicy and has the slight smell of frizzing electrical junctions, incense smoke, dusty streets and humanity.

I have at least a dozen more bottles of L’Artisan in the cupboard. Some of them I love infinitely more than these few yet these are the ones I reach for most.

What are your Most Worn L’Artisans?
Portia xx

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Saturday Question: What Perfume Did/Will You Wear to Get Vaccinated?

I’ll admit: it’s a lame question: I want to talk about the vaccination, and I tried to tie it into the more perfume-blog-appropriate topic. My excuse is that I think it’s a great opportunity to “document” some gleams of life, and not just my but also of my readers’ from different parts of the world.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #60:

What Perfume Did/Will You Wear to Get Vaccinated?

Did you get vaccinated? If yes, what vaccine? How is it done where you live? Did you have any side effects? Has it changed anything in your day-to-day life? What perfume did you wear?

If no, do you plan to? If you do not plan to get vaccinated, please do not feel like you have to explain your reasons, but if you do not mind doing that, please do.

I do not want this to turn into an argument either for or against vaccination, but I’m curious to know your personal position on it.

My Answer

In my area, at some point, all vaccination-related activities started resembling some type of a sport: people would be hunting for available slots, exchanging information on how to get them, how to find out what vaccine was administered in some of those locations (many subsystems do not provide this information until you arrive at the place, at which point you can decide not to go through, but then you’ll have to start it all over), and a lot of other tips and tricks. Some people were driving a couple of hours to the less populated areas because there were more openings.

Since I wasn’t in any of the groups that officially were allowed to get vaccinated, I wasn’t paying too much attention to everything that was going on. In addition, I really dislike injections of any type, and for most of my life tried to stay away from them. But as the time progressed, more and more people whom I know were reporting “mission complete,” and at some point, it felt like we were the last ones who didn’t figure out a way to get it (if not to count a couple of friends who do not plan to do that at all). Being extremely law-abiding, neither I nor my vSO wanted to play the system. After all, we both work from home, we don’t need to be anywhere, so an extra couple of months wouldn’t change much.

But once there were no more formal limitations to my eligibility, I decided to do it. I had my first shot last Saturday. I didn’t care which vaccine to get. I got Moderna. So, I’ll need to get the second shot in 4 weeks after the first one. It took about an hour from the moment I arrived until the time I left (not counting a 2-3-minutes procedure and 15 minutes I needed to stay in after the shot to make sure I didn’t have a reaction, the rest was standing in line), but still, I was impressed by the way the everything was organized. Until then I didn’t realize the scale of what is happening.

I didn’t have any side effects from the vaccine, but I think the Universe is telling me that my usual attitude towards shots is the right one: the nurse who was administering the shot hit some blood vessel, so there was some unexpected blood (which wasn’t a problem, it stopped soon); but then my shoulder hurt for 4 nights (which also wasn’t a huge problem on its own); and because my movements were restricted during my sleep (I could sleep only on my back), my chronic back problems that were under control for the last 10 months came back. Both my shoulder and my back are better now (still have a large bruise at the place of injection though), and I will get that second shot, but I already have doubts about the “booster” in Fall everyone is talking about now.

Rusty Sleeping

Rusty has no issues sleeping in any pose

As to perfumes… I was a wuss: I feel so nervous about any medical procedures (and shots in particular) that I didn’t want to associate any of my perfumes with this event – so, I went commando perfume-wise (and very comfortably dressed otherwise). But once I got home, I sprayed L’Attesa all over – and it was heavenly (I even got an unsolicited compliment from my vSO, which doesn’t happen too often since because of the allergies he rarely can smell my regular 2-spray perfume applications). But for the next shot I also plan to save my perfume for after the unpleasant part is over.

 

What Perfume Did/Will You Wear to Get Vaccinated?

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“All that is gold does not glitter…”: Parfums Dusita Le Pavillon d’Or

As I started writing this post, it dawned on me how prescient were the lines that inspired Pissara Umavijani to create Le Pavillon d’Or: “… to live more happily in just any confinement” (Montri Umavijani, a Thai poet and the perfumer’s father). In just several months after the perfume release, the whole World suddenly had to slow down and start learning how to live in confinement and if not be happier but at least survive.

Le Pavillon d’Or is very fitting to the circumstances: it is not manifestly shiny, so you don’t have to rationalize to yourself wearing it while working from the kitchen table or blitzkrieging through a grocery store in search of TP, but it possesses an internal beauty that elevates your spirit and contributes to the feeling of well-being and… well, happiness.

Dusita Parfums Pavillon d'Or

Do you remember how Parfums Dusita brand appeared on the scene? It came seemingly from nowhere around 2015, released 3 perfumes by a new perfumer, and those perfumes were offered at a price point that not that many niche brands dared to put on their price tag back then. Especially not those without some history/standing in the community or at least done by renowned “noses.”

While I do not think that perfumes (or any luxury goods for that matter) should be accessible or even reasonable in their price setting, I remember being slightly annoyed by that launch. (Little did I know that from that point on there will be dozens of brands springing up like mushrooms and flooding the market with perfumes at astounding prices.)

But since back then many blogs that were reviewing and discussing new perfume launches were still around, I got curious about the brand because of the general buzz those reviews created. So, as soon as I got a chance, I tried those first three perfumes and … let me put it this way: I still didn’t get either the prices or the buzz. I guess, the fact that two out of the first three perfumes were built around ingredients I usually dislike (agarwood and tuberose) didn’t help.

The next three perfumes that were released I found interesting, but I didn’t want to wear any of them – so, I decided that Parfums Dusita wasn’t “my brand” and could have never tried another perfume from this brand if it weren’t for my perfumista friends. Cynthia (The Fragrant Journey), after in comment to her wonderful review, I expressed interest in testing Le Pavillon d’Or, had shared with me the remaining portion of her tiny sample. And it was enough for me to fall in love with Le Pavillon d’Or.

Dusita Parfums Pavillon d'Or

I’m a little confused with the notes for Le Pavillon d’Or. The brand’s site has the following list (explanations in parentheses are mine): Wild Menthe Citrata (bergamot mint), Honeysuckle Extrait, Boronia Absolute, Frankincense Green Sacra, White Thyme Oil, Vanilla, English Oakwood and Sandalwood Spicata (Australian sandalwood). I do not smell mint, but Cynthia in the review linked to above shares what she discovered about the ingredient used. Fragrantica, Luckyscent and the perfumer’s older posts on Instagram also mention fig leaves, heliotrope and orris butter. I wouldn’t recognize heliotrope (in general, not specifically here), but I thought that I know both fig and iris enough to distinguish them in the composition, and I can’t. So, I’m not sure if they are there, were there before but not anymore, or if they are created by some other ingredients that I don’t recognize as such. Le Pavillion d’Or starts as a very green perfume – a tad herbal, slightly bitter and somewhat uplifting. It develops through sheer resinous frankincense into a woody base, though my nose isn’t sophisticated enough to recognize which wood. But when you like what you smell, it doesn’t really matter what you smell, does it?

Rusty and Dusita Parfums Pavillon d'Or

The pavilion is golden not because it’s made of gold. Imagine a late-Spring morning when a rising sun reflects in dewdrops on the wooden beams of a pavilion making them sparkle through the leafy branches of the old tranquil park.

 

Images: my own

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Saturday Question: Which of Your Favorite Aromas You Do Not Want Bottled?

It’s quite a usual poll when people are asked to suggest favorite scents that they would love to smell in perfume form: realistic flowers (especially those that cannot be steam distilled or processed by other traditional methods), first rain drops, a unicorn tears – we all dreamed about one of those at some point. But today we’re talking about aromas that you think are great but not as perfume notes.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #59:

Which of Your Favorite Aromas You Do Not Want Bottled?

There must be dozens of scents that you find pleasing and enjoy every time you smell them but which not necessarily would work as perfumes. What are those?

My Answer

Let’s start with an obvious candidate: meat. I love the smell of fried meat (though as I get older I eat it less and less often), and I think it’s great… but even the idea of having in perfume any part of the aroma that I enjoy from the plate makes me shiver.

But if to think about some more traditional scents, I can offer an inoffensive and widely used in cosmetics (and in perfumery as well) aroma: a cucumber. As much as I like it on its own and as a part of my meal, for perfumes it’s a deal breaker for me (I’m thinking of you, En Passant).

And the last one that I know is my personal nemesis while many people love it is a peach. While I love eating peaches and enjoy their scent, especially fresh from a tree and warmed up by the sun, there’s just a few perfumes where peach doesn’t bother me, but for the most of them I can’t stand that note. But I would love-love-love to have a bowl of ripe peaches on my table: they smell amazing!

 

Which of Your Favorite Aromas You Do Not Want Bottled?

Shalimar EdT by Guerlain: Current
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Shalimar EdT by Guerlain: Current

Hi Crew, Shalimar seems to have been part of my life forever. That Guerlain released it nearly 100 years ago in 1925 and won the Paris World Fair design award for the bottle was a particularly auspicious start.

Mum and a couple of her girlfriends were Shalimar wearers. It was the scent of daytime and coffee catch up hugs in my early years. Funnily, when I was working as a squirt bitch I made Mum start wearing Samsara so she’d stand out in her crowd. When I started properly down the fragrant rabbit hole it was a big surprise that Shalimar was such a revered scent. Going back and revisiting it was a revelation. It seems to hold the highest place in my heart, nose and brain. Seriously weird that I became such a collector when my favourite perfume has been with me all along.

In the years of collecting I have amassed a Shalimar specific collection. From EdC to extrait, a bunch of the flankers and many vintages. It became a bit of an obsession for a while because every version has its own personality. They have all aged, been cared for and kept differently. Each year, as much as they try for consistency, the batch is every so slightly different. The year specific naturals included react to each other. The regulation, reinterpretation, quality, weather and available synthetics have all given each year of Shalimar a “vintage” much like wine or whiskey. Sometimes the changes are imperceptible till the perfume is 10 or more years old.

Sometimes people ask me which I love more but it’s not really like that. I tend to wear a few of them more than others though for various reasons. I have a small set that remain out of boxes and at hand in a Guerlain box behind my desk. It holds a bunch of unboxed Guerlain beauties and gets quite a bit of action. Impossible to tell what they all are but I know you’ll have fun trying.

Shalimar EdT by Guerlain: Current

Portia Loves: Shalimar by Guerlain

Parfumo gives these featured accords:
Top: Blossoms, Bergamot
Heart: Iris, Jasmine, Rose
Base: Vanilla, Balsamic notes, Tonka bean

Above is my new bottle of Shalimar EdT. It’s a tester bottle bought for sweet nothing from FragranceNet. For favourites that I know will get used to their dregs I don’t need boxes or packaging, just the bottle and juice. This will stay out and get its share of use with my current other Shalimars; EdC and Sha-Lemur.

So I know that a new bottle will smell different. No oxygenation yet. It does seem though that there is a marked difference between this bottle and my last.

That opening swirl of lemon sorbet has been cut down to a rumble. Also the whole fragrance seems cleaner and less animalic. A floral reinvention, more sparkle and less depth. I’m not complaining. It still smells beautiful. It just isn’t as thick or rich. To be honest it smells like a fresh flanker or an Eau Fraiche for summer.

The longevity is still good but not as long lasting as the older formulations, or even the current EdC in the older bottle. Also, I feel this modern version leans more modern traditional feminine.

I think it’s the most day to day wearable of my Shalimar pillar scent collection. Less an event in itself and more a comfortable, longtime travelling buddy.

Have you tried the latest Shalimar EdT?
Portia xx

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Saturday Question: Have You Tried Any Perfumes Released in 2021?

It’s hard to believe but we’re a quarter into the current year. I don’t know about you, but my testing activities subsided significantly. I suspect that many brands have slowed down with new releases as well, but still, if you were to look at Fragrantica’s list for 2021, you’d see a significant number of new perfumes. It got me wondering what my readers were testing this year.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #58:

Have You Tried Any Perfumes Released in 2021?

Have you been to any stores that carry perfumes? Do they allow testing? Or were you buying samples? Were there any interesting finds so far?

A bonus question: are there any new perfumes you want to try?

My Answer

I was amazed to realize that so far I tried exactly one perfume released this year – Tom Ford Tubéreuse Nue. Not surprisingly, I dislike it: even though I do not think it’s a real tuberose, unlike it happens to me with artificial oud, I do not like either natural or artificial tuberose. But it made me to appreciate Malle‘s Carnal Flower and By Killian‘s Beyond Love more (even though I still don’t think I’d wear any of these). I’m not sure how this name continues the infamous line of questionable names, but I prefer not to look for the answer.

Tom Ford Tubereuse Nue

As to perfumes I’d like to try… There are not that many I’m aware of. Probably, I wouldn’t mind trying new Byredo scents, Diptyque Orphéon, new perfumes in Armani Prive and Tom Ford Private Bland lines and Les Parfums de Rosine Rose Griotte. I’m mildly curious about Jo Malone’s limited edition with hibiscus. But I think that’s it.

How about you?

 

Have You Tried Any Perfumes Released in 2021?