“Four legs good”

Pets-related stories

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Does the size… (strike that) bottle matter? Yep!

 

A while ago Monday Question on Olfactoria’s Travels was: How Important Is The Perfume Bottle To You?

Out of 38 respondents 25 (66%) said bottles were very important for the enjoyment of a perfume; 7 (18%) didn’t care for bottles much and 6 (16%) put bottles into the “nice to have but not crucial” category.

I’ve added my voice to the “bottles, please” crowd but my position is a little quirkier; so even though this post covers a slightly different topic I want to reiterate the answer from my comment there.

If I’m in love with a perfume I want to own a bottle of it. And it has to be a real bottle, with a cap and a box: a tester or a refill bottle won’t satisfy my need for a full aesthetic experience. I have no problems with partial bottles though.

When it comes to the perfumes that I just like I’m attracted to unique bottles. And if a brand has standard bottles (Chanel Les Exclusifs, Dior La Collection, Frederic Malle Editions de Parfums, Ormonde Jayne, Guerlain L’Art et La Matière, etc.) owning just one bottle from the line seems to lull the cravings and I feel content with just decants of the other perfumes from that line.

Chanel Cuir de Russie

In the same post Birgit referred to her earlier post about the purchase one of the reasons for which was the beauty of the bottle: So I saw this bottle […] and knew I wanted it for its beauty alone. That it holds an exquisite scent is only the cherry on top and something that makes me happy, but unexpectedly so, because all I knew about 24 Faubourg before I laid hands on my precious Quadrige Edition was from one spray on the back of my hand right there in the store.

I went even further: recently I bought several perfumes… just because of the packaging.

Last July at the First Artisan Salon in San Francisco I saw new packaging for Ineke‘s Floral Curiosities line for Anthropologie and thought it was great. When I initially tested perfumes from the line they were fine but I didn’t love any of them enough to go for a full bottle. But these travel sprays disguised as poetry books were just calling my name. Also since I keep saying that companies should be releasing more perfumes in small bottles I felt like I just had to buy these… So I bought all four: Scarlet Larkspur, Poet’s Jasmine, Sweet William and Angel’s Trumpet.

Ineke Floral Curiosities Travel Bottles

I’ve tested Premier Figuier Extrême by L’Artisan Parfumeur before and thought it was nice but there are several other fig perfumes in my collection and I already have one bottle from L’Artisan Parfumeur line (though those colored labels add some appeal to otherwise similar bottles). Then I came across a special edition bottle… and just couldn’t resist. I will gladly wear Premier Figuier, I like this perfume and think it’ll make a very pleasant office scent. But I do not think I would have bought it any time soon if it hadn’t been for that gorgeous bottle.

Rusty And L'Artisan Premier Figuier

There are several more bottles on my “to buy” list but I think for now I’ve scratched that itch… unless you know where I can buy L’Artisan’s Mure et Musc Extreme in the blackberry-shaped bottle.

4 people from the survey mentioned above also confessed to buying perfumes just for the bottle.

Have you ever bought a perfume just because of the packaging?

 

Images: my own

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Orange Cats in My Life – Part II: A Grin without a Cat

 

For how it all started read Part I: Found and Lost

For years after moving to the US owning a cat was out of question for various reasons. But it was always somewhere in plans for future because both my vSO and I loved cats and wanted to have one. So for a while we had to figure out how to deal with that.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened but I think one morning my vSO found him at our door. And from this first comic strip (see below) through years of newspaper subscriptions, dozens of comic books and even membership in the Garfield Club (it doesn’t exist any longer) this fat well-fed, lazy, mischievous, sarcastic but still charming orange cat moved with us from one apartment to another.

Garfield-1997-10-13

Garfield became our virtual cat. We would use phrases from Garfield stories in appropriate situations.

Diet is ‘die’ with ‘t’.

Give me coffee and nobody will get hurt.

I’m not overweight—I’m undertall.

We had favorite comic strips that we would repeat to each other the way people relive real life memories.

How did you sleep?

Garfield-1988-05-02

I just had a thought…

Garfield-2000-1-6

Crumbs!

Garfield-1998-1-22

So even though we didn’t have a cat we had plenty of grins.

Garfield-1980-04-80

Images: All from garfield.com.

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My First Niche Perfume: Tiempe Passate by Antonia’s Flowers

 

Ten years ago I knew nothing about the existence of a niche world in perfumery. When I got a sample of Tiempe Passate by Antonia’s Flowers among other samples with a perfume purchase, it was just that – another sample.

At the time I was arrogant enough to think that I knew most of the modern perfumes and could find online any of those for less than available from department stores. So I was a little surprised that I didn’t know the brand and never heard about that perfume.

The scent was very different from everything I knew and liked then but unlike many other fragrances  that left me indifferent or were resolutely classified “not for me” this one caught my attention and kept drawing me in.

Antonias Flowers Tiempe Passate

By the time I’d used up my Tiempe Passate sample I knew that I wanted more. That was when I found out that it could not be bought not only from those mass-market online discount sites but also from B&M stores.

Several years later I finally found Antonia’s Flowers website and ordered a set of samples. I was curious to try other perfumes from the line but the main purpose was to see if I still liked Tiempe Passate because $140 for 60 ml seemed totally unapproachable.

The minute I put Tiempe Passate on I felt an awful disappointment: not because it didn’t smell the way I remembered – it just didn’t smell at all! All other samples were fine but this one had just a faint smell of alcohol. I wrote to the company asking if it was possible that the sample just was off. They were surprised but sent me another one. This time it smelled great.

Three years ago my vSO got me a bottle of Tiempe Passate for my birthday. And it was the first niche perfume in my collection.

Rusty And Tiempe Passate

Tiempe Passate by Antonia’s Flowers – created by Norbert Bijaoui in 1999, notes include (I’ll go with NTS’s list) bergamot, clementine, sage, mimosa, cyclamen, Montauk rose, white orris, cedar, vetiver and amber.

Tiempe Passate starts really strong and almost unpleasant for the first minute. All I can smell is alcohol and something plastic-y or rubber-y. And then it settles and smells… just wonderful. For hours Tiempe Passate is a very pleasant skin scent with unexpected bursts of projection. I’ve got multiple compliments while wearing it.

In my two years anniversary post I mentioned that there were some personal posts that haven’t got as many readers as I’d want. One of such posts – Elusive Perfume – in addition to (hopefully) being entertaining, will explain what happened with me and the first Tiempe Passate sample vial.

Rusty and Tiempe Passate

I didn’t figure it out until today: though the list doesn’t mention Iso E Super, it is there, I’m sure. I tested two of my favorite perfumes in parallel – Molecule 01 by Escentric Molecules and Tiempe Passate by Antonia’s Flowers and I have to concede that the latter is just a nicely embellished variation of the former. And Iso E Super is exactly what I was enjoying in both (on those occasions when I could smell it). And now I know why I was having a hard time trying to describe what Tiempe Passate smelled like. Well, at least I’m being consistent in my fragrant crushes.

Even though I’m slightly disappointed I still think Tiempe Passate is worth trying. Barney’s carries Antonia’s Flowers line. Or you can order samples from the brand’s website for a more than reasonable price.

Rusty and Tiempe Passate

There are not too many reviews for this perfume. I was surprised that Robin (NST) liked it (though it was many years ago).

Do you remember your first niche perfume?

 

Images: my own

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Undina’s Looking Glass Turns Two

 

This day two years ago I dared to publish my first story on this blog – a story of my first and still lasting perfume love. Actually, it was my first story written in English ever. Those who had a similar experience with giving a public speech or writing in a foreign language know exactly how nerve-wrecking it felt (and those who hadn’t can imagine). Has it got much easier now? Ask me again in two years.

Since the beginning I published 164 posts – more than I thought I would. My most read post is Coco Noir… Light by Chanel (I won’t even link to it!) written just a half-year ago. This is both very symptomatic and sad. Is there a post I wished had more readers? I would probably want those of the readers who are my friends to read some of the more personal posts I wrote, but I do not want to list them today. As to the outside world that comes to my blog from search engines (most popular search was “las vegas strip map” but it fades if you add numbers for all variations of “coco”, “chanel” and “noir” that brough people to my blog), I’d want them to read the post that started Perfume Shopping around the World page (it has been recently updated here and on all participating sites) and to use information from those posts on different blogs.

Perfume Around TheGlobe

 

Why Undina? Why Looking Glass?

I’ve been asked that question more than once. So here’s how it went.

Are you familiar with FidoNet and BBSs? … Kidding, I’m not that old experienced. But long before forums, blogs and social networks, chat rooms were my online habitat. For the first chat room I frequented I chose a gender-neutral nickname and used to communicate in such a way that it was hard to tell if I was a man or a woman (which wasn’t easy with my native language specifics).

When one of my friends invited me to visit a new role-playing chat room that he found and liked, I got stuck on the registration page: I had no idea who I wanted to be. I was ready for a more feminine character but that was it. Ундина (transliterated into Roman alphabet Undina, in English – Undine) was my spur-of-the-moment choice. I don’t know why I decided to be a water nymph but it seemed a fitting choice for a community inhabited by vagabond knights, friendly ghosts and talking animals. The host of the chat was an incorporeal being Nechto (something/somebody unknown), so the chat room was called У Нечта (At Nechto’s).

UNechta Chatroom Entrance

I stayed in that chat room and became a regular. My character transformed into rather a mermaid than a nymph. If you’ve never belonged to a half-closed moderated chat room it’s hard to explain what people were doing there… We joked; we discussed books and philosophical dilemmas; we even staged improvised theatrical performances. We’d created our own mythology and even furnished the room. Of course everything was imaginary, so it lived in memory of participants and was re-iterated for newcomers gaining more details and becoming a little more real with every next tale.

One of the elements of the room was a magical looking glass on the wall. I (Undina) would swim into the room from it and dive into it to leave. I would conjure necessary things from there – a tea set or a box of chocolates for the imaginary tea party; I would threaten to get a paddle out of there and beat up whoever was misbehaving. It was a useful piece of the interior.

I enjoyed years spent in that community, and I have the fondest memories of that time. So when a decade later I was choosing an online identity for the Perfumeland I decided to go with Undina (though I had to add BA – stands for SF Bay Area where I live – since the exact one had been taken). And I resurrected my looking glass when I started this blog.

 

What’s coming?

For my birthday many years ago a friend gave me my own domain. It currently redirects traffic to this blog but since it’s done not through WordPress it’s done half-way. In a couple of days I plan to switch my blog from https://undinaba.wordpress.com/ to www.undina.com officially. It shouldn’t affect e-mail subscriptions or an RSS feed but if you do not hear from me in a week come back and check.

 

What stays the same?

Everything stated on my About page will stay true for Undina’s Looking Glass. Let’s keep building the better perfume community together.

And of course there still will be pictures of Rusty.

Rusty and perfume vials

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A Postcard from Undina: Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year!

New Year is my most favorite holiday and I like it for itself – a festive celebration, good food and gifts that we exchange – and not as much for what it stands – the beginning of something new, hopes for the better next attempt, etc.  

Happy New Year to all my friends and readers! I hope to see you next year.

Undina

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Orange Cats in My Life – Part I: Found and Lost

 

Usually in this blog I write not-a-review life stories about perfumes. This one is a life story that has no perfumes connection whatsoever.

 

Do you know how children usually ask parents to get a dog and parents are reluctant since they know it will be an extra chore for them? When I was a kid in my family roles were switched: my mother used to bring home homeless dogs to live with us (luckily one at a time) and I tried to dissuade her (without any success). So even though I was always more of a cat person it had never even occurred to me to ask for a cat.

The first cat appeared in my life after I got married. One morning my mother in law knocked at our bedroom door (we lived together at the time), peeped inside and asked unsurely: Did you bring home a kitten last night? We woke up completely, looked at each other, back at her and asked: What kitten?

As we deduced later (though we weren’t sure), a little kitten sneaked into the apartment the day before and hid. I’m not sure what would have happened to him had one of us stumbled upon him that night. But he was smart, lucky or just scared and showed up when there was no chance anyone would get spooked by that scrawny white and orange lump of fur. It was late autumn, cold and unpleasant outside and we just couldn’t throw him out there.

I named him Rizhik.

Lactarius deliciosus (Rizhik)

He was a funny kitten. He loved to lie on my lap with his belly up. He cartoonishly followed his reflection in the polished wood to the end of the reflective surface and tried to peek quickly around the corner to see where it went. He used to purr so loudly at night that my vSO would through him out of the bed.

He grew up, became an outdoor cat, stopped chasing his reflection and didn’t purr anymore. We moved out and Rizhik stayed at the parents’ place but whenever we visited he still liked spending time with me.

One winter he disappeared. Not as mysteriously as he came into our lives: he just went outside, as usual, and didn’t come back. We didn’t know what happened to him.  But it was a very bad winter in the country – economically- and weather-wise. It was rumored that homeless were eating stray dogs and cats…

Months later we saw on a street a cat that looked exactly like Rizhik. We followed him as he was running away (as cats usually do); I kept calling his name, he stopped for a second, turned his head as if recognizing my voice and then he was gone. We tried looking for him again – with no luck.

We chose to believe that he just found a place where he was happy and decided to stay there.

 

Image: from the Wikimedia Commons

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Joint Blogging Event: Three Ghosts of Christmas – Ghosts of Perfume Past, Present and Future

 

Ghost of Perfume Past

She was 27, single mom and worked as a CEO’s personal assistant (even though she graduated from a university – those were strange times in my native country). From time to time our boss used her real specialty – a translator – during business meetings with English-speaking suppliers. On one of those trips she met and started dating an older American guy. I’d never seen him but heard a lot about him from her.

Looking back now I think he was just a creep who figured it wouldn’t cost him much to get a younger lover in a poor country to where he had to travel on business. But back then both she and I were quite naïve and we both thought about those relationships as real and going somewhere.

On one of his visits he brought her a lot of clothes from Victoria’s Secret catalog (do you know any men shopping that catalog??!) and a perfume. Rapture.

For me it was love from the first sniff. I liked everything about Rapture – the scent, the heart-shaped bottle, that it came from the U.S. My co-worker let me try it once but after that I was tortured by her wearing the perfume I wanted.

Until then I’d never heard about that brand, it wasn’t present in the country. But I wanted to get it so much that I asked a friend who by that time moved to the U.S. for help. It was before Christmas when he’d got to the store and there was some huge promotion happening so I got not only a bottle of the perfume but also some other treasures.

Because of customs, it didn’t make it to me in time for Christmas or New Year. But eventually I got it and owning this bottle that came to me from another part of the world made me happy.

When I moved to the U.S. that bottle of Rapture came with me. For several years I enjoyed wearing it but since it was my “dressed-up” perfume I didn’t go through the full bottle. And then I grew out of Rapture as well as Victoria’s Secret’s other offerings. But I just couldn’t throw away that bottle!

Victorias Secret Rapture

The remaining juice is more concentrated than it used to be and, I think, the smell changed though not much: those were quality chemicals, you know. I need to take a trip to the mall and check out how Rapture smells today though it’s a commitment: once Rapture bonds with my skin it stays there for hours – even 15 years old juice from my bottle.

What is the oldest perfume bottle in your collection (not by vintage but by the time you owned it)?

 

Ghost of a Perfume Present

What is your favorite color? For many years my favorite color in clothes was black. The reason was rather unpoetical: when you do not own too many items black is the easiest to combine and the most stain resistant. Even now with enough clothes not even to joke about “absolutely nothing to wear” the number of black pieces especially when it comes to shoes is completely disproportional.

When it comes to perfumes, this year I suddenly developed a soft spot for blue/navy bottles and juice.

My Bleu Bottles

Yes, I have a long love story with Angel and its great flanker Angel Taste of Fragrance was a logical continuation of it. My star bottle is old and the color has changed a little – that’s why there is a small bottle of the same perfume in the picture.

Yes, I liked Lancome‘s Mille et Une Roses for a while and used up some samples before snatching a partial bottle on eBay.

Yes, I hoped I’d like Annick Goutal‘s Nuit Étoilée not only because I liked the brand but because I loved the bottle. But at least I tried the perfume before adding that beautiful bottle to my collection.

And yes, I did test Armani‘s La Femme Bleue from a small test vial before deciding if I want to open the bottle I’ve bought un-sniffed.

But there is no reasonable explanation to why I’m browsing Internet for cheap bottles of Van Clef & Arpels’ Midnight in Paris and Feerie: I’m not sure I smelled them – let alone tried on skin.

I am under a Blue Spell.

Will you guess what perfume I plan to test next – solely because of the color?

 

Ghost of a Perfume Future (aka New Year Resolutions)

From the list of New Year resolutions for the current year I failed mostly on the new bottles in collection limits so for 2013 I made a decision … to remove any limits.

I’m restricted to some extent by a common sense, budget considerations and space limitations – so I think those will be enough for me not to go overboard completely. But otherwise I do not want to restrict or formalize my hobby any more.

I decided not to care how many untested samples I’ve accumulated already – as long as I know that I have them. I’ll get a hundred more (though I’m still not ready to pay for most of them – let’s swap!): one day I might want to test them even if I don’t feel like doing it today.

I will not hold back on publishing pictures of Rusty: he’s one of the best perfumed cats since he spends a lot of time on my lap and doesn’t mind an inevitable transfer of the perfumes I test from my wrists to his fur.

Rusty December 2012

I’m not sure if I’ll make any general NY resolutions but when it comes to the fragrant part of my life my resolutions are to enjoy my perfumes, my blog and my perfume friends.

 

Images: my own

 

Take a look at more Christmas Ghost posts on these blogs today:

All I Am – A Redhead
Another Perfume Blog
ChickenFreak’s Obsessions
EauMG
The Muse in Wooden Shoes
Olfactoria’s Travels
Suzanne’s Perfume Journal

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My Wish List for the Perfume Industry

 

The holiday season is upon us, we start at least thinking about all the lists – to sum up the past or plan the future. So I decided to get to it early and prepared my personal Wish List for the perfume industry.

I’m not going to come up with anything new: we all are saying all these things now and again while discussing brands, perfumes and new releases. But with my tendency to collect things I did it for a while for that topic. I do not think that brands/companies have to follow these requests (some of them might not be the best economic strategies from companies’ stand point) but I wish they would.

Samples and Sample-to-buy programs: many brands aren’t easily accessible for testing in B&M stores. So, first of all, there should be samples available for purchase and preferably with the same delivery mechanism as the actual perfume (spraying or dabbing). Also since most brands spend money on marketing anyway they could arrange programs where customers pay for samples (that will ensure that people aren’t just hoarding samples for selling on eBay or using instead of buying perfumes) but if customers decide to buy a bottle they’d get a discount for the amount paid for the sample set.

Sizes for bottles: 5-10-15-30 ml. For big lines – mix/match sets of smaller “travel” bottles. Regular customers do not need more than a couple of perfumes at a time and “collectors” do not need most of the perfumes even in 30 ml size. For many brands I would have paid more for the official small bottle than for the same size decant.

"Shalimar" Bottles and Rusty

Warnings about any reformulation: it’s unfair for consumers to buy a perfume they thought they knew and liked without realizing the formula has changed. I don’t think even Rusty is capable of smelling anything from a sealed bottle (and a domestic cat’s sense of smell is known to be about fourteen times as strong as a human’s). There should be at least some change in packaging to indicate that it’s not the same perfume.

Production Date (Year): since perfumes are perishable and they cannot be tested before the purchase, I think it is only fair to require brands to put at least a year of production on the packaging. It would be fun to discuss perfumes’ vintages: “Oh, I remember, 1985 was a good year for Miss Dior” or “Miss Dior Cherie 2006 was still drinkable wearable.”

Warnings about the upcoming changes/discontinuation: companies might be able to sell more perfumes for the original price before they are moved to various discount stores if those who love perfumes being put on the chopping block know they need to buy a back-up bottle (or a box of bottles?).

Discontinued perfumes re-issuing: companies could do even something like a Perfume Club (similar to wine clubs) or pre-orders where first they gather requests (even with a deposit) and then produce a perfume once the necessary minimum number of orders is received. Maybe even in more generic packaging – for those who know the perfume and want it for the perfume itself.

Limited new launches: three-four perfumes simultaneously is a good number for a new brand launch but well established brands shouldn’t bombard customers with all those endless multiple new releases.

Packaging: do not waste beautiful bottles on mediocre perfumes and do not undermine a beautiful perfume by an ugly vessel for it.

Perfume notes: please no more oud (agarwood) perfumes! There are so many wonderful ingredients; customers won’t think less of the brand if it doesn’t jump on every note du jour wagon.

Naming: most people are really bad with numbers. Just saying…

 

Have I missed anything?

 

Image: my own