Author: Undina

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In the Search for the Perfect Grapefruit

 

I think I was about ten years old when grapefruits first appeared in our grocery stores. Nobody knew exactly what they were but the rumor had it they were a hybrid of orange and lemon. Since beside those two the only other citrus known to the population was mandarin, the information didn’t seem all that absurd.

Masses hadn’t appreciated the novelty: even though it was bigger than an average orange it was too bitter. The idea to peel each wedge didn’t occur to people at first and once it did seemed like too much work.

Fruits were scarce and expensive and there were hardly any I didn’t like. So I liked grapefruits as well.

Rusty and Pomelos

Since then I’ve tried many more different varieties of citrus including grapefruit’s real parent pomelo but grapefruit is still one of my favorite fruits and I enjoy it in many forms.

 

Perfumes

This is a perfume blog so I’ll start with the perfume-related part (though for whatever reason – holidays? – my thoughts are all over the place). Grapefruit is a popular note in both supporting and leading roles so I am not trying to cover even all grapefruit perfumes that I’ve ever tested and still have samples of but will mention only several in-you-face grapefruit fragrances that I liked the most.

Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune by Guerlain is probably one of the best-known grapefruit perfumes. If you want a real review, I suggest reading Suzanna’s (Bois de Jasmine) five-star rated review. If you’re familiar with the perfume, I recommend reading Vanessa’s (Bonkers about Perfume) post Bonkers “In Edinburgh”: The Guerlain Pamplelune Sniff-Off And A Bid To Rescue Birgit’s Grapefruit Scent Squeeze – just for laughs. I like Pamplelune and two mini bottles will satisfy my grapefruit cravings for a while. Once they are gone I suspect I’ll want more.

Guerlain Pamplelune

Not surprisingly, Grapefruit by Jo Malone is the second perfume that comes into the conversation every time somebody raises the topic of perfumes with the homonymous note. Gaia (The non-Blonde) in her review was even more generous towards this perfume than I would have been: I think it’s nice but not interesting enough to tolerate the usual Jo Malone perfumes’ vanishing act and too expensive to use it in, again, usual for the brand’s DIY layering games. But I love Jo Malone’s Grapefruit Body & Hand Wash Gel. My travel-sized bottle is gone so now I’m thinking about buying the real bottle. I do not like the price but I enjoyed taking showers with that gel so much that I might just take the plunge.

JM Grapefruit‘s half-sibling, Pomelo by Jo Loves… (same perfumer but different brand and relations become even murkier if to consider fruits themselves), starts like a juicy grapefruit (well, technically pomelo but those two are close enough) but the drydown on my skin is very similar to the older brother’s one. And with an even higher sticker price this one isn’t making it into my collection. For real review of Jo Loves… Pomelo read Lucas’ (Chemist in the Bottle) post.

Another half-sibling, Assam & Grapefruit by Jo Malone (same brand but different perfumer), much more subtle with grapefruit, was a limited edition a couple of years ago (it’s still available online) so even though I have a bottle of it and wear it in summer from time to time, I don’t think it’s special enough to recommend hunting for it.

Eau de Pamplemousse Rose by Hermès in its opening is an unmistakably grapefruit perfume. Every time I try it, for the first couple of minutes I have to hold myself from leaking my wrist – so believable Eau de Pamplemousse Rose smells of sweet and juicy grapefruit! But then it dries down to a floral skin scent. It’s pleasant but the only reason I might go for a small bottle is because I like those colored bottles from the line. Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) thinks that Eau de Pamplemousse Rose can be trusted to revive the spirits, even if the rain keeps falling.

Rusty and Guerlain Pmplelune 

Drinks

I’m not a tea connoisseur (so if you are please disregard this part of my post) but I like tea and throughout the years I found different teas that I enjoy drinking. One of such teas is Lupicia Grapefruit Green tea. It’s very fragrant and has a very believable grapefruit smell. I bought this tea more than once which I do only with teas that I really liked – otherwise I just move on.

 

Food

Several years ago at Out The Door restaurant in San Francisco I ate Jicama and Grapefruit Salad with Red Cabbage, Candied Pecans and Sweet Soy Dressing salad. It was created by a known master chef Charles Phan (Slanted Door). I liked it and started making a variation of it at home. You can simplify the preparation by buying candied pecans instead of making your own. I found a blog with detailed instructions and pictures for this salad, so I won’t reproduce it here but rather give you a link.

 

Do you like grapefruits?

 

 

Images: my own

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Entertaining Statistics: November, 2013

 

November this year was uncharacteristically warm (average high was 65F/18C) and still very dry (we’ve got only two rainy days). Work-wise it was the craziest month this year so the testing rate fell below one perfume per day. On a couple of occasions I even skipped wearing a perfume, which is very unusual for me. And I didn’t test almost anything new, which upsets me a little.

I’m trying to switch to the “winter mode” and start wearing ambers that I enjoyed so much before but because of the temperature outside most of them still feel wrong and I regret putting them on a minute after the application. But maybe in December it’ll start feeling right?

Quick November stats:

* Different perfumes worn1: 23 from 16 brands on 28 occasions;

* Different perfumes tested2: 28 from 22 brands on 28 occasions;

* Perfumes I tried for the first time: 5 (!!!);

* Perfume houses I both wore and tested the most: Diptyque (I tested Volutes before making the final decision to get a bottle and then wore it a couple of times while writing a post about it);

So since not much was happening in my life perfume-wise, in the above-mentioned post I turned to my readers for the data on their perfume acquiring habits. The question was:

Have you ever bought a full bottle of perfume on the spot, the same day you smelled it for the first time?

As I found out, I was almost the only one who has never done that so far. “Almost” – because I abused my power as a pollster and declared Lucas’ answer as No though it was a close call. The other seventeen (17) respondents said Yes (“and more than once” was a general sentiment). So instead of charting that impressive 2/17 ratio, I’ll leave you with that picture from the times when we were still having rains and my hope that there will be rain soon and that one day I’ll leave a very nice shop in a very romantic place with a very special bottle of perfume.

Rusty and umbrella

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.

2 For 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

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Spontaneous me: Diptyque Volutes

 

When it comes to perfumes there are different degrees of impulsiveness. And while I do not approve of blind buys of any amount of perfumes larger than 5 ml (unless the bottle itself is the goal), I find spontaneous perfume purchases at a store romantic to a certain degree.

I have that dream of going into a perfume shop while on a vacation or at a fragrance event and finding perfume, without which I wouldn’t want to leave that store. It hasn’t happen to me yet but every time I read this kind of a love story by one of my friends in the Perfumeland, I make myself a mental note about the perfume.

Lanier’s tale of the premier party at Diptyque San Francisco was one of those stories. It got me very curious about Volutes – the perfume to a bottle of which Lanier had committed just after a brief first encounter.

Diptyque Volutes

The only place around where I live that carried Diptyque’s perfumes at the time was that San Francisco boutique to which I usually can get once or twice a year but I wanted to try it so much that I just had to go… to Madison Avenue Diptyque boutique in New York where I smelled Volutes for the first time.

Both my vSO and I liked Volutes but since he is even less spontaneous that I am, what could have become a great memory of that wonderful New York trip ended up being just a sample.

That Volutes sample came back with me to California and then accompanied us to our vacation in Ukraine earlier this year. I brought it with me not to use it myself but as one of the perfumes for my vSO to test-wear for me.

As I complained in that month’s statistics post, most of the perfumes I hoped I would enjoy wearing during my vacation didn’t work at all in the hot and humid weather. One day I noticed that Volutes smelled really great on my vSO hours after the application and despite the weather. I tried wearing it and ended up loving it on me as well.

Last week I went to the local Nordstrom, which now carries Diptyque line, and bought a bottle of Volutes EdT. So it took me just slightly over a year to get from the first lemming to a full bottle in my collection.

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For the November statistics post, please tell me:
Have you ever bought a full bottle of perfume on the spot, the same day you smelled it for the first time?

 

Image: my own

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A Postcard from Undina: From under a Pile of Work with Love

Thad Markham Tangelohm

I’m extremely busy at work recently and I’m not sure when it is going to change. I do not always work after hours (though from time to time that happens as well) but I get so tired that I have absolutely no strength left not only to write anything but often to read as well.

I know that not posting on my blog is fine: with the number of blogs on everybody’s reading list not posting might be considered a public service. But since the number of unopened blog subscription e-mails reached 600 I’m writing this card to say to all of my blogo-friends: I’m sorry for abandoning you. I’ll try to stay afloat or at least rise to the surface from time to time.

 

Miss you all.

Undina

 

Image: my own (picture of one of Thad Markham’s figurines)

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In the Search for the Perfect Carnation

 

Through my childhood carnation was considered an official flower. Probably because of their resilience and color (red – the color of the 1917 Revolution, the anniversary of which was just a couple of days ago) carnation bouquets were traditionally brought to monuments of political leaders, used in decorating official gatherings and as funeral flowers. People were buying them for personal use as well but they always had a little stigma about them being too official and not personal enough. I remember one patriotic song’s refrain:

Red carnation is a troubled times companion;
Red carnation is our flower!

I didn’t dislike carnations but wasn’t too fond of them either. Those still were flowers, which meant better than no flowers at all, but not the first… let’s say five choices.

Soviet October Revolution Postcard

I have to mention also that the art of making real bouquets – as the opposite to just putting several stems in a bunch – didn’t come to the country where I grew up until I was well into my adulthood. Just so that you could feel the depth of it: I got married holding a cellophane cone with a bunch of (extremely expensive!) long-stemmed roses. And that was how it was done back then; it wasn’t some eccentricity on my part.

My perception of carnation had changed on my wedding day. In lieu of flower decorations it was customary for guests to bring flowers as a gift to the bride. There were many bundles of flowers, mostly roses. Some relatives brought me a huge bouquet of white carnations with greenery. It wasn’t done for me. They did it because they were very wealthy and wanted to stand out in the crowd (can you tell how I feel about them?). But regardless of their intentions they impressed me: it was one of the most beautiful bouquets I’d seen by then. And because of the mentioned above natural resilience of carnation that white-green composition well outlived all the roses we hauled home after the celebration. The bouquet below is just an illustration, “my” was three times bigger and even more beautiful.

Carnations Bouquet

Carnation isn’t the most popular note in perfumes. There are not that many soliflores or carnation-centered perfumes. I wasn’t really looking for the perfect carnation scent but I tested those that came my way.

Vitriol d’oeillet by Serge Lutens – created in 2011 by Christopher Shedrake, notes include clove, pepper, carnation, Gillyflower, woody notes, powdery notes and sweet notes. I won a decant of Vitriol d’oeillet in a giveaway on Ines’ blog (All I am – a redhead). Carnation – check! Woody notes – check! Sweet notes (whatever it means) – check. Altogether… it’s a nice and calm (despite the name) carnation perfume that I wish had a better longevity. I like it and wear sometimes but I do not see myself going beyond a bigger decant that I bought recently.

Terracotta Voile d’Ete by Guerlain – created in 1999 by Jean-Paul Guerlain and Mathilde Laurent, notes include bergamot, jasmine, mint, carnation, heliotrope, lily, pear, rose, iris root, vanilla and ylang-ylang. Lovely Tara (Olfactoria’s Travels) sent me a generous sample of this perfume. Terracotta Voile d’Ete is a warm and spicy perfume with a prominent carnation note. It’s not as transparent as Vitriol d’oeillet and has a much better tenacity. I like it as a scent but I’m not sure if I want to wear this perfume.

Eau Eternelle by Poncet – created in 2011, notes include grapefruit, jasmine, lemon, mandarin, petit grain, carnation, lavender, pink lotus, rosemary, water lily, clove, guaiac wood, moss, patchouli and sandalwood. Eau Eternelle is one of those perfumes with which I feel puzzled comparing the notes list to what I smell. The first second after the application I smell an interesting floral burst but really for just a second. Then – a relatively boring scent. Some lily, some carnation… It’s never unpleasant, just completely unremarkable and not memorable. Did it really require all those ingredients to create this?!

Oeillets Rouge by DSH Perfumes – created by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, notes include bergamot, green peppercorn, nutmeg, beeswax, carnation, amber, ambergris, myrrh and vanilla. My sample came from Joanne (Redolent of Spices). Oeillets Rouge is a very believable carnation scent. I liked it when I tested it first but now it smells to me as a prototype, a pencil draw for the perfume I describe next.

Euphorisme d’Opium by DSH Perfumes  – created in 2012 by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz as a part of the Tribute to YSL collection, notes include aldehydes, bay leaf, bitter orange, mandarin, peach, pimento, pink pepper, Bulgarian rose, carnation, cinnamon, clove, amber, Atlas cedarwood, benzoin (styrax), civet, incense, Indian patchouli, musk, myrrh and vanilla. Don’t let that plethora of notes confuse you: this is a carnation-centered perfume. Too bad that “pissed-off carnation” name had been already taken: in my opinion, it would have suited this fragrance much better than Serge Lutens’ one. I sample it from a dab vial sent to me by the perfumer and thought it was a very powerful perfume. I’m not sure I could stand it sprayed – this is how intense it is. I’m still testing Euphorisme d’Opium trying to figure out if I should go for a bottle of it – while it’s still available.

I tried Bellodgia by Caron but either my sample is too… vintage or my nose isn’t trained enough but I’m not getting a carnation from it.

Carnations

Do you like carnations?

 

Images: not a single one is mine, I found them all through a search engine but I can’t find proper attribution.

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Entertaining Statistics: October 2013

 

October was very warm (too warm if you talk to my vSO), with no rain (which isn’t good whoever you talk to) and a lot of work (no comments). I’m hopelessly behind reading blogs and commenting and I suspect my testing is hitting an all-time record low so I’m glad that this month I decided my readers to help again with the data for the October statistics post.

I asked my readers: Have you ever given a perfume as a gift not knowing beforehand that the recipient wanted to get/liked that specific perfume?

I’ve got thirty-one answers (plus my response). Respondents came from 10 different countries (and 2 not disclosed locations). Out of 32 votes, 22 reported more or less successful perfume-giving experience and 10 stated that they’d never given a gift of an “unsolicited” perfume. It would be interesting to conduct a similar study on a control group of people who do not consider themselves perfumistas.

October 2013 Stats

Until today I’ve hidden only draws announcements in the body of my posts. Today I reached new heights: I’m not mentioning the results of the draw in the headline. But – as I promised – here we go: according to random.org the winner of the Scent Library by Ineke is hajusuuri (#10). Please contact me with your mailing address.

Rusty and Ineke Scent Library

For those who didn’t win: consider buying this limited edition set as a collector item before it’s gone. I have absolutely no financial interest in posting this, it’s just a “public service” type of post. I decided that I will buy one set for my collection. Rusty approves.

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Jul et Mad Love Dose

 

In January I ended my, very favorable review of Jul et Mad‘s Amour de Palazzo with the following passage:

My only complaint about Amour de Palazzo and the brand in general is that it’s only available in one size (50 ml beautiful bottle + 7 ml refillable travel atomizer that is also very nice). Most perfumistas (read – those who will know about the brand and are potential customers) do not need 50 ml of almost any perfume. We will be fine: we’ll do splits. But I think the brand might benefit from selling smaller sizes – even if those will be more expensive per ml than a bigger bottle.

I’m happy to report that starting today small 5 ml bottles of all three perfumes by Jul et Mad – Stilettos on Lex, Terrasse à St-Germain and Amour de Palazzo – are available for purchase from the brand’s website. These perfumes come in beautiful small bottles and boxes in Extrait de Parfum concentration.
The price of each is 22.50 € / $ 29 (including delivery).

Love Dose Palazzo 

Image: provided by Jul et Mad

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A Postcard from Undina: Happy Halloween!

 

Halloween 2013

I like Halloween and we usually celebrate it with friends but this year this holiday coincided  with  an extremely busy time for me in the office so I could barely breathe – let alone organize anything during the work week.

Ironically, with all that crazy work, my biggest celebration will be in the office: we did great werewolf-themed decorations; I thought of some type of costume (I will dress up as a tuxedo cat and wear Brainwave Emotion Controlled Cat Ears), cooked a dish for our traditional Halloween potluck and even drove to work after hours to put up my entry into The Best Werewolf Detection or Protection Device contest.

I made a “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CREATURE?” twin-peaks-type poster with a picture of the werewolf, a figure of which we used to decorate the office; ten posters in different parts of the office urge everybody not to approach the werewolf and contact me. I plan to fight werewolves with silver but not by the old-fashioned intracardiac injection (a.k.a. silver bullet in the heart) but via the progressive nasal route of administration using Silver Rain by La Prairie in a beautiful drop-shaped silver bottle (I used to like this perfume and wore it for several years but not any more – so I’m glad I found some use for it).

Do you do anything special this Halloween?

Undina

 

Image: my own (it’s an actual picture, not a compilation)

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A Gift of Perfume

 

At fourteen I swapped my first love, to which I held on for four years,  for a new imaginary relationship. I do not mean that the other person didn’t exist: S. was a perfectly real 15-years old boy I met and befriended during the summer break. Our romance started months later, as the result of the frequent letters exchange, real hand-written letters sent over the regular post. Since we lived a 6-hours bus ride apart, in two years that it all lasted we spent together less than three weeks and even that was only because we had smart and understanding parents who would organize carefully supervised his visits to my city or my trips to his. We would write every 3-5 days, talk on the phone once in a while (long distance calls were expensive) and spend together several days during school breaks.

Where I lived back then, being a rare and expensive commodity, perfumes were not just acceptable but rather desirable gifts and not just for romantically involved people or relatives: a bottle of perfume could be gifted by parents to a kindergarten teacher, offered as a “special thank you” to a doctor by a patient or presented to the retiring accountant by colleagues. Personal tastes weren’t taken into the consideration. As today most people wouldn’t think twice before bringing a bottle of wine as a gift, the same way people felt about giving a perfume while knowing nothing about recipients’ preferences.

Tet-a-Tet Cologne

S. was the first person in my life to whom I gave a perfume as a gift. It was cologne Tête-à-Tête produced by Nouvelle Etoile (Moscow). I remember that I liked the scent but I have almost no recollection about how it smelled. I don’t know if S. liked and wore Tête-à-Tête: it hadn’t come up in our correspondence and six month later he outgrew our love story. I wonder if I would have recognized it today. It’s still in production but I decided not to chase it either in its modern or in the vintage form: since I smelled Tête-à-Tête only from the bottle I have no nostalgic feelings about it.

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It’s hard to predict whether I would like a perfume – even though I know my tastes, read notes and other people’s impressions. So with other people it’s almost impossible to guess the right perfume for them. And for many years I steered clear of gifting people with perfumes unless I knew which one they liked. The brand that has changed it for me is INEKE.

On my last trip to Ukraine I brought two travel bottles from Ineke’s Floral Curiosities line – Poet’s Jasmine and Sweet William – as gifts to two of the relatives who do not wear perfumes much but I thought would appreciate them: not revolutionary but pleasant perfumes created by a perfumer from the city where I live (well, if you look from Europe) and with the impossibly cute packaging (I couldn’t resist and bought four “books” for my collection). Both recipients liked their gifts.

Ineke Scent Library

With upcoming holidays that involve family gatherings and gift exchanges, I want to suggest a perfect, in my opinion, gift for somebody who isn’t into perfumes, is in the beginning of their fragrant journey or uses mainstream perfumes primarily: Scent Library from Ineke. It’s a set of samples of all five perfumes in the Floral Curiosities line presented in an unbelievably attractive package. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a presentation of samples with more attention to the smallest detail. For $22 (including S&H) you’re almost guaranteed to get a smile from your mom or sister who still remembers old library system with the paper pocket in each book and library cards or a conversation with a younger niece about the changes that happen during the lifetime of any generation, hand-written letters and rotary phones. And if they end up liking any of the perfumes in the set they will be able to redeem the full price of the set against any 75 ml bottle purchase from the site.

Ineke Scent Library

Scent Library set was sent to me by the brand (without any conditions). I haven’t decided yet if I should get one for my collection: I love it but I have four perfumes from the set already and the packaging of each fragrance “book” that I bought is almost as cute as the one for the Library. Meanwhile I decided to have a draw for the set I’ve got. It’s new but I sprayed one of the samples twice (Briar Rose) and Rusty “helped” me with the pictures. I will send it anywhere in the world but I won’t be responsible for the package if your postal service decides it’s too cute dangerous and destroys it.

Usually I don’t have any special conditions for entering into my draws but this time I have a requirement. To be entered into the draw answer the question below (I’m gathering data for this month’s statistics post) and tell me the country where you live (this way I’ll know that you want to be in the draw). If you do not want to enter, just answer the question for my stats. I’ll close the draw on Thursday, October 31 PDT, and announce the winner in the October Entertaining Statistics post in the beginning of November.

Rusty andI neke Scent Library

Have you ever given a perfume as a gift not knowing beforehand that the recipient wanted to get/liked that specific perfume?

 

Images: Tête-à-Tête from some auction site; all others – my own