Favorite Perfumes

Perfumes that I love and use

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Vacation in the Time of COVID-19: Episode III, Hawaii Big Island – Perfumes

Whenever I go to Hawaii, I take with me perfumes that I consider my tropical perfume wardrobe. Over years I kept finding more and more perfumes that I thought would be suitable for that purpose. So, each next time I had more and more contenders for my attention (and my body) on those tropical retreats.

This year I think I went a little bit overboard when packing perfumes for the trip: even not counting samples I brought to test (and didn’t!) and shared perfumes, I had more than three perfumes per day of my vacation. Considering that our “social life” (i.e.: visiting restaurants and any indoor venues) was extremely limited and our current physical shape didn’t support the twice-a-day beach visits routine we used to follow when we felt stronger, even two perfumes per day would have been a stretch. But I have so many perfumes that wait their time to join me on a trip, that I couldn’t bring myself to pare down the set. The picture below doesn’t show new samples brought for testing that I didn’t even unpack (I’ll do a post about them later, once I finish testing) and a couple of perfumes that I forgot to bring for the photo shoot.

Kona Vacation PerfumesLast year, longing for a tropical vacation that we had to cancel, I did a post on my typical perfume selection for these trips. This time in Hawaii I wore seven out of nine perfumes that were featured in that post (I didn’t re-read it until I started writing this one): Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess, Ormonde Jayne Tiare and Frangipani, L’Artisan Parfumeur Traversee du Bosphore, Parfums DelRae Bois de Paradise, Byredo Bal D’Afrique and Yosh Ginger Ciao. I don’t have much new to say about these perfumes in addition to what I wrote last year (I still love them all), but I want to share that on this trip, for the first time, I smelled Ormonde Jayne’s Frangipiani side by side with live plumeria and realized how complex Frangipani was while prominently featuring this note.

In addition to these, I managed to wear Diptyque Volutes (EdT), our shared perfume for plane flights (I decanted it into a tiny roller ball bottle, so we can use it discreetly without bothering fellow-travelers), Moroccanoil Hair & Body Fragrance Mist, which together with Bronze Goddess spent the whole vacation in the fridge, and Serge Lutens La Dompteuse Encagée, which I wanted to try in tropical surroundings – and yes, I still want to get it, even though I confirmed my initial impression that its longevity in a humid hot weather wasn’t great. My vSO wore Atelier Cologne Orange Sanguine (love-love-love it) and three of Tom Ford‘s perfumes (I don’t envision any of them in his full bottle collection, but they were fine as the after-the-sunset wear).

 

The next time I go to Hawaii, I will probably bring that exact line-up, because all of them are gorgeous in tropical weather, and each of them deserves more skin time. I don’t need any more tropical perfumes! And yet, I’m still curious… Do you have any favorite perfumes that are especially great in hot weather?

 

Images: my own

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Saturday Question: Do You Ever Put Perfumes in a Fridge?

As extensive as some of our collections are, Osmothèque Museum they are not, so I don’t expect that any of my readers (or at lest those who usually comment on my posts) maintain 12C/53F temperature where our perfumes are stored. But do you ever do that?

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #83:

Do You Ever Put Perfumes in a Fridge?

Maybe not for the permanent storage but for using on hot summer days? Or as a temporary solution for especially hot days? Or for the most precious or volatile perfumes in your collection? Or maybe for the transportation?

My Answer

I remember being impressed by Vanessa’s (Bonkers About Perfume) two wine fridges that she used to store her perfumes at some point of her fragrance j****y. And when we were getting a large wine fridge for my vSO’s wine collection (OK, it’s “ours,” but I tend to attribute it to him), I had some ideas that I would claim one shelf for storing my perfumes. But it proved to be completely impractical: I wouldn’t want to go downstairs every time I want to use one of the perfumes stored there; it’s not the healthiest way for the wine fridge to be opened once a day to get out perfume I wanted to wear that day; all of my perfumes would not fit on that one shelf anyway, and, finally, my vSO’s wine collection outgrew already the whole cabinet, so there is no extra space in it even for wine.

But I do use a regular refrigerator from tie to time. It started with me bringing my bottle of Estee Launder Bronze Goddess with me on my Hawaii vacation. It was a tradition, so unlike all other perfumes, for which I would make a decant for traveling, Bronze Goddess was coming with me for the last 10 years. I would be worried that my perfume would get too warm during the day when we were away, and an A/C was out, so I started putting it into the fridge. And then I discovered that I enjoyed spraying it cold. So, since then, on unpacking in a new vacation spot, a bottle of perfume would immediately go into the cold/

Over time, I found a couple more perfumes that I enjoyed sprayed cold from the refrigerator in summer. As an example, I could offer Jo Loves No. 42 The Flower Shop.

Recently, I bought one more perfume refrigerator-friendly perfume. I brought it with me to my Hawaii vacation, and I enjoy it immensely: a year after I told you how much Moroccanoil‘s Dry Body Oil and Hand Cream’s scent is associated for me with Hawaiian vacation, the brand came up with a Hair & Body Fragrance Mist with that scent. Of course, I had to get it and bring it with me to Big Island. Now my Bronze Goddess isn’t all lonely and intimidated by those large wine bottles.

In case you were wondering about the scent of that Hair & Body Fragrance Mist, it is very close and recognizable compared to the body and hair products, but I think that this is the case where in the oil-based form it both smells slightly better and lives longer. But I wouldn’t be able to spritz those oil products cool from the refrigerator. So, al-in-all, it was a good find for my vacation. And it combines perfectly with the body oil.

https://undina.com/2020/07/16/fantasy-vacation-scent/

Do You Ever Put Perfumes in a Fridge?

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Saturday Question: What Perfume Would You Wear Back to School Today?

Several years ago, when NST had a community project for the “back to school”perfume associations, I did a post about it. And those of you who were reading my blog then commented about perfumes they wore to school and other school-related topics. But today I suggest a slightly different twist: not a trip down memory lane but rather a fantasy.

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

Saturday Question #79:

What Perfume Would You Wear Back to School Today?

Think of yourself from the time of your last year at school. Imagine that you could send yourself to the past a magical gift – a bottle of any perfume that you have in your collection today or can buy now – to wear on your first day back to school. What would you choose and why?

My Answer

Have you ever thought of a great question to ask someone… and then figured out that you would have hard time coming up with the answer? This is what happened to me. As usually it happens at that time of the year, the “back to school” notion was on my mind, and I thought it would be great to do this question. But what would I want to wear on that day? That is the question.

As I mentioned more than once before, since they weren’t that affordable or easily available, perfumes weren’t widely used in the daily life when I was growing up even by adults, let alone teenagers. I’m not sure if there even were any official rules as to wearing scented products to school. The rules were strict about makeup: colorless chopstick-like balms were the closest one could get to wearing makeup to school. But I would think that any perfume one would be able to get and wear to school would be a vast improvement over odors that were “naturally” present in the day-to-day life. So, maybe it wouldn’t have been frowned upon? I don’t know.

But as rebellious as I was back then, I still wouldn’t want to be completely out of order, so probably I shouldn’t send myself to the past any sillage bombs.

Also, back then I was still mostly a signature scent person (on those rare special occasions when I wore perfume, it was my beloved Climat by Lancome – surprise!), so I wouldn’t want to send myself something I think I wouldn’t have liked at 17.

And of course I’d want to wear something that my friends would think smells great, especially that particular boy… (though, if I remember it correctly, there wasn’t a one when I was returning to school for my last year, but you got the idea).

Having taken all that into consideration, I chose Iris Poudre from Frederic Malle. My reasoning is: I like it and consider pretty any easy going. Besides, even though I tried and liked it when I was much older, since I think that Iris Poudre smells a lot like another perfume that became my favorite in just about 10 years after school, it’s very likely that I would have liked any/both of them a decade earlier as well.

Frederic Malle Iris Poudre

What Perfume Would You Wear Back to School Today?

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Saturday Question: What Is Your Favorite Puredistance Perfume?

With the news of the upcoming new release, Puredistance has been on my mind recently.

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

Saturday Question #78:

What Is Your Favorite Puredistance Perfume?

Do you own any? Do you like any of those that you tried but don’t currently own? Are there any that you’d like to try?

My Answer

Puredistance is “my brand.” I do not love all of their perfumes, and ironically their main perfume – Puredistnce I – has never found its way into my heart, but among the rest of their creations I have several perfume loves and strong likes.

Antonia is probably still my most favorite perfume from the line, one of those that made it to the “love and don’t ever want to be without” category in My Perfume Portrait. And that light green bottle!

Puredistance White, Puredistance Gold and Rubikona are all strong rivals for the second place spot in my heart. I don’t think I could choose just one of them: they fit into different moods and seasons, and I think that all three are beautiful.

I find Opardu, Warszawa and Sheiduna very pleasant and wear these from time to time, but admittedly they are just in the “like and wear” category: unlike the previous four, I wouldn’t be chasing these but I’ll enjoy them as long as I have them.

Finally, I like Puredistance Black on my vSO (he seems to like it as well). Not surprisingly, two the most masculine perfumes in the line – Aenotus and Puredistance M – do not work for me at all.

What I also like about this brand is that because I’ve done many posts about their perfumes over years, I have a wide choice of previously published pictures of Rusty that I can use again for this Saturday Question post.

 

 

What Is Your Favorite Puredistance Perfume?

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Just Splendiris!

I loved the name long before I got a chance to try this perfume and before I found another favorite from the brand. I read a beautiful review Lucas (Chemist in the Bottle) wrote for Spenderis by Parfums Dusita and thought that I wanted to like it. Usually, it’s a recipe for disappointment. But not in this case.

Splendiris ticks almost all the boxes for me. It is beautiful: I don’t think that it’s a universal pleaser, but if it’s your cup of tea, you don’t have to work hard on liking it. It is original: I have many iris perfumes, but Splendiris doesn’t remind me of any of them. It has a presence: while not a “powerhouse,” it is not timid, and the scent is quite distinct and pronounced. My only complaint is that Splendiris is less tenacious than I’d like it to be. But I do not mind re-applying.

Rusty and Dusita Splenderis

I’m sure that most of my loyal readers have tried Splendiris by now (so, tell me – do you like it?), but for those few who might have missed it, I want to say that, in my opinion, unless you dislike iris perfumes in general or cut out perfume testing at the price level that is lower than Parfums Dusita’s offerings, this perfume is worth trying: you might still not like it, but as far as spending money on perfume testing hobby goes, Splendiris is a solid candidate (check out Lucas’s review linked to above if you want more details).

I bought a travel set earlier this year, and it arrived packaged beautifully and with wonderful attention to details. Both Rusty and I enjoyed the unboxing.

 

 

In general, I applaud the brand for their testing and purchasing options. If you’re not familiar with the brand, you can buy a set of their first 9 released perfumes + select one of the two newer perfumes (EUR 59 + EUR 9 for S&H to the US). Those are large (2.5 ml) manufacturer’s samples, and the set includes EUR 40 voucher to be used for the future purchase. It is possible to buy separate samples as well, but I suspect it’ll be too expensive to send them to anywhere but France. They also have all of their perfumes in travel sets (3 x 7.5 ml), 50 ml and 100 ml bottles. When you buy anything but just samples, you get a choice of three additional samples with your order. Orders above EUR 150 are always shipped free of charge, and I saw once or twice a promotion where travel sets were shipped free of charge. I don’t think they have a newsletter to subscribe to, but the brand is active on Instagram and Facebook, so if you were to follow it there, you’d catch the next promotion.

 

Images: my own

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Second Sunday Sample: Serge Lutens La Dompteuse Encagée

Let’s talk about the weather for a moment. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, what was the highest temperature in the area where you live this summer so far? (Please mention where you are – at least a country, city or area, if you feel comfortable doing so – for those who don’t know you.) How do you cope? And for my readers from Down Under, what was the coldest so far?

In the SF Bay Area where I live, we had a day or two really hot in June (I did a screenshot of the Weather app with 36C/97F on June 17), but other than that our weather was surprisingly nice all that time while I heard and read horror stories from all over the world.

But my vSO and I managed to choose the hottest days to visit a wine country this week. Given, we were limited by dates for which we planned that trip since we did it as a part of celebrating our anniversary, we had to book everything in advance, including the most important part – feeding Rusty in our absence. So, once it became clear it’ll be extremely hot in our destination spot, we discussed whether we should cancel but decided not to.

Two days that we spent in Sonoma wine country, it got to 37C/99F at the peak. Wine tasting in these circumstances was a tricky proposition. But since everything these days must be planned well in advance (and is mostly not refundable), we tried to make the best of the trip (I plan to do a separate post about it soon).

LaRue Winery

And since we were going to the almost tropical environment, I decided it was a great opportunity to test new Serge Lutens La Dompteuse Encagée, which after the initial test at home seemed like a perfect tropical scent.

Since I missed several years of Serge Lutens’ new releases, and after Barney’s demise there are no more B&M places around here where I’d be able to test the brand, recently I got some samples from the Surrender to Chance. I was going back and forth choosing perfumes and sizes (for most of my samples I go for 0.5 ml – 1 ml), and somehow I ended up with two 1 ml samples of La Dompteuse Encagee. I was surprised but then thought that since it’s a new 2021 release, I’d test and review one sample and pass onto somebody else the second one. Nope. Somebody won’t be getting it: for testing on the road, I decided to pour both into a spray vial.

Serge Lutens La Dompteuse Encagee

Serge Lutens’ ad copy is cryptic, as always, so I don’t want to spend time even trying to make any sense of it. When it comes to providing any specific information on the composition, they are also not being too generous. But I find it entertaining how being given just three notes – frangipani, Ylang Ylang and almond – most reviewers dance around them not daring to speculate on other notes. Too bad Kafka isn’t reviewing perfumes any longer: this is one of the cases where I’d be extremely curious to know what she smells here. Me? I’m sure that this perfume contains more ingredients than the mentioned three. But since I rarely recognize notes even when they are listed, I’ll do what I always do – impressions and comparisons.

As a rule, I don’t like the almond note in perfumery, so I’m very pleased that I do not smell it in La Dompteuse Encagee. When I applied it for the first time, not expecting to like or be interested, it immediately reminded me of something else – not an identical aroma but rather the mood… After searching my mental perfume library, I realized that it reminded me of Annick Goutal Songes. Interestingly, Songes’ notes include frangipani and Ylang Ylang as well (also jasmine, tiare and vanilla). I tried La Dompteuse Encagee and Songes side by side, and I think I was right: they don’t smell similar, but for me, they evoke the same summer vibe. I rarely think of perfumes in colors, but both these are yellow in my palette (even though they both are predominantly white flowers). Speaking of white flowers, both in Songes and La Dompteuse Encagee I imagine smelling tuberose (which isn’t listed in either) and jasmine (not given for the latter perfume’s pyramid).

La Dompteuse Encagee is one of the florals in the Serge Lutens’ line (so, no stewed fruits), but unlike most other florals that I like – De Profundis, Vitriol d’oeillet or Iris Silver Mist – La Dompteuse Encagee is not solemn and austere but very bright and radiant. I liked it much more than I expected. I don’t even mind the name, whatever Mr. Lutens meant (online consensus has it translated as a “Caged Tamer” with the noun being feminine). My only complaint is that in hot weather it is more fleeting than I’d like it to be. But I still want a bottle (if/when I can get at least 20% off): I need to give it proper wear in a real tropical environment. I still hope to get there eventually.

Butterfly

Images: my own

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The Color of Spring

This year the company where I work decided to change the way we’re naming our regular releases from the previously numeric values (e.g., 2.718 or 3.14) to season names. It was March, and in most parts of the US it was still cold. So, a co-worker from Texas (where it was much warmer than elsewhere) who was responsible for collecting slides from everybody and putting together a presentation of the first “named” release – Spring 2021 – for other departments was quite enthusiastic, and his cover slide was slightly playful:

Spring Is Here

The presentation for the US-based teams went well. But then the APAC team insisted on having a separate session for them claiming that a recording wasn’t enough. It was very inconvenient for most presenters who live in the US, so the manager “volunteered” for that presentation a co-worker from Europe – as a more time-zone-wise-appropriate choice, especially since he was responsible for the feature that was expected to have the most questions. So, he listened to the recorded presentation we all did together, got the slides and confidently opened the presentation: Spring is here!

“Well… We all are in Australia…” interjected someone from the group.

* * *

Had you asked me (or the co-worker who did the presentation) what season it was in Australia, we would have told you “autumn” – everyone knows that, right? But we know that Spring is warm, and Spring is green, having lived our whole lives in the northern hemisphere, instinctively, without pausing we think that March is Spring.

But I wouldn’t start theorizing about being self-centered or any type of bias. I think it is deeper. I remember how a couple of years ago, as Christmas was approaching, I thought that I felt sorry for Australians whose Christmas comes at the pick of summer: since traditionally this holiday is associated with winter and cold and snow – aren’t they missing on the true Christmas spirit?… And then I stopped myself: what am I talking about? How about us, in California? It is never cold here, it never snows – and still, it doesn’t prevent people here including me and my friends (who are not even Christian) from celebrating or feeling festive.

Same as we don’t have winter, we don’t really have Spring: weather doesn’t change much in March or April compared to, let’s say, a warm day in January or February. And still, every March my perfume wardrobe changes: I don’t want to wear my favorite ambers – instead, I crave green perfumes.

If you check Fragrantica, you’ll see how many different perfumes are classified as “green.” This Spring I went through my collection and chose seven to wear as my Green Week project.

* * *

I do not wear Penhaligon’s Lily of the Valley too often, but every Spring it comes out for at least a day or two because it’s a perfect Spring perfume and a good representation of the flower.

One would argue that Chanel No 19 is seasonless. I wear it year-round, especially the EdP and extrait, but the EdT for me is a Spring perfume.

I’ve owned DSH Perfumes Vert Pour Madame for years but somehow I never wrote about it other than a couple of mentions. It is an amazing perfume! I rarely fall for indie perfumes. But Vert Pour Madame won me over many years ago, and every time I wear it, I think that Dawn got it just perfectly. I think of it as classic Miss Dior but greener.

Yves Rocher Nature has been with me for several decades. I told its story many years ago, and I still wear it every Spring.

Puredistance Antonia is a green-eyed beauty that I loved from the first time I tried it 10 years ago. I enjoy its sharp greenness and perfectly blended floral bouquet. When I finish the current bottle that I won many years ago in the brand’s competition, I will buy the newer packaging – a wonderful green bottle.

I’m not sure if Hiram Green’s Arbolé Arbolé is considered green perfume, but in my mind it is. Arbole Arbole one of just three all-natural perfumes in my collection, which says a lot. It is so unusual. It is herbal, somewhat medicinal, slightly sweet. I wouldn’t be able to wear it too often, but I’m glad I have it in my life, and I enjoy wearing it in Spring.

I bought a small decant of Amouage Myths Woman in a Facebook split because it wasn’t much more expensive compared to a sample. It was absolutely not what I expected, and the first time I tried it I even disliked it. But as I tested it more in a while, not remembering either my expectations or the previous reservations, I liked it more and more each time. Myths is quite cheerful, which isn’t a characteristic I would think of first when considering Amouage perfumes. It is green and floral and aromatic. Though I wouldn’t say that they smell similarly, I think that Myths has some “weirdness” to it that reminds me of Arbole Arbole. Warmer months (but not hot!) suit much better for wearing Myths – at least for me. I think I’m now at the point where I’m considering a FB purchase (deeply discounted, of course).

Green Perfumes

For more green perfumes, see Narth’s guest post from last May.

 

Images: my own

Jaipur Homme by Boucheron
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Jaipur Homme by Boucheron

Jaipur Homme is 20+ years old, Boucheron wasn’t really on my radar at that time. It wasn’t till late 2000s that I smelled it. In the early 2000s, I was living with a man who came from halfway between Delhi & Jaipur. He took me to the Rambagh Palace for a few nights on our first holiday to India, and he knew every nook and cranny of the town, so I got a really fabulous look at it. After we had broken up and he’d returned to India, I found the Boucheron fragrance. It was so subtle compared to the reality of India but there were lovely reminders and the name itself conjures happy memories. Over the years, I’ve brought or sent him bottles of Jaipur and it’s been his signature scent.

Anyway, thought I hadn’t bought myself a bottle of Jaipur Homme in years, so I grabbed a super cheap EdT from FragNet recently and have been wearing it a bit. It’s still very nice.

Parfumo gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, Heliotrope, Cardamom, Lime, Lemon
Heart: Amber, Jasmine, Carnation, Nutmeg, Rose, Vanilla, Cinnamon
Base: Benzoin, Clove, Patchouli, Tonka bean, Cedarwood

If you know ground cardamom from your spice cupboard then you’ll instantly recognise it in the opening of Jaipur Homme. The citrus creates an initial sparkling, zingy opening, and the cardamom becomes apparent almost immediately. It stays after the citrus burns off, and the cool powdery fluff of heliotrope is then a tangible note that leads us into the heart.

I’m drinking chai as I write this post, and the heart of Jaipur Homme is a softer, more French perfumery armchair dream of it. Very softly animalic, vanilla-heavy amber with spices. Clove is more noticeable than anything else, but I definitely get the sweet milky tea reference. It’s not the MAIN heart accord, but it plays alongside everything else.

The dry down is sweet amber woods. I become nose blind to it after a couple of hours, but it stays on my clothes for days. When I pick up a top to wash it, I am hit gently with a beautiful spiced wood fragrance. It’s really lovely, so I know that’s what I’m wafting at the end of a day.

Don’t let the homme fool you. Jaipur Homme is unisex. It doesn’t even lean towards a modern traditional masculine. It could be brought out as a women’s fragrance today, and no one would have questioned it. Longevity is excellent, projection after about 30 minutes is moderate to low but oh so lovely.

Did you ever try Jaipur Homme?

Portia xx

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Saturday Question: What Was Your Starter Brand?

Last week when Portia posted about the most worn L’Artisan Parfumeur perfumes, I noticed that several commenters mentioned that they started their niche perfume stage of the hobby from that brand. That’s why I decided to run it as a formal Saturday Question.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #62:

What Was Your Starter Brand?

Many of us came to this hobby through the years of using 1-2-5 (or more) “OTC” perfumes at a time. But then there was a moment when we discovered niche perfumes. And usually the next step would be hunting for samples of perfumes from that brand and, more often than not, becoming a lifelong fan of the brand.

So, it would be interesting to know whether it happened this way for you and, if yes, what was the brand and whether you still love and wear it.

My Answer

Formally, I could have named Jo Malone as such a brand since back 15+ years ago it was still kind of niche-ish brand, and the only place I could try it was at a local Neiman Marcus, to which I didn’t dare to go for a long time (unless accompanied by a family member visiting from another state where she worked at NM). The fact that back then they didn’t accept any credit cards but their own wasn’t helping either. Only later, when they started accepting all American Express cards, I remember venturing into the store to pick up a bottle of Jo Malone’s perfume, fearlessly presenting my Costco AmEx card to a quite snobbish SA.

I think Jo Malone is still the most represented brand in my collection. I still like and wear perfumes that I own, and whenever I can I check out their latest releases. But these days I rarely like any of them enough to buy.

But the true niche brand – something that I’ve never seen or even heard of before and then got to investigate – was Amouage. After reading multiple reviews, I bought a set of five 1 ml vials from Aedes de Venustas – and that was a beginning of long relationships with the brand.

I love, own and wear several Amouage perfumes (to name a few, Gold, Dia, Lyric and Memoir), and having been given a choice of getting perfumes just from one brand for the rest of my life, I would have been really torn between Amouage and Ormonde Jayne, with probably Amouage winning because of Gold that reminds me a lot of my most favorite perfumes of all times – Lancome Climat (I’m just not sure that these days I would be able to settle on one perfume, even if it’s my number one, but I wouldn’t be able to choose too many alternatives from Lancome – that’s why it wouldn’t have been a contender in that cruel hypothetical choosing game).

But as to Amouage newer perfumes… I should probably do a separate post about it. Soon.

Rusty and Amouage Epic

What Was Your Starter Brand?

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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