December 9, 2011 by Undina

Body Heat: Perfumes under Extreme Temperatures

There are people who love running, playing tennis or swimming. I heard they can experience a withdrawal if they have to skip several training sessions. It’s not my story. I hate exercising as long as I can remember myself. I do engage in different activities but do it out of the necessity only: if I could get Kathleen Turner’s body and don’t worry about my health without exercising I wouldn’t (I wonder which perfume bottle she’s holding in that scene).

Well, since a lean gene wasn’t one of those passed to me from my parents I do my part in at least keeping myself healthy.

At least as much as physical activity, if not more, I dislike heat. I don’t like cold either. My comfortable zone is somewhere around 24°C (75°F).

All that makes it hard to explain why out of all available types of physical activities I chose Bikram yoga – a system of yoga practiced in a room heated to 40°C (105°F). I’ve been practicing Bikram yoga (with some breaks) for 18 months. I still hate every minute of a 90 minutes class. But I plan to keep doing it.

For me yoga is just an exercise. I do not subscribe to the philosophy. If I follow the breathing instructions I do it only if it helps to maintain the posture. I do not try to clear my mind and concentrate on what I’m doing. I’m not pushing myself too hard. I’m just trying to survive. One of the things that help me through the class is thinking about perfumes – about which I read or plan to write or which I want to try.

For a long time I tried not to wear any perfumes to my classes thinking they wouldn’t perform well in high heat or would bother me or my neighbors. And then one day I didn’t think about the class I had scheduled in the evening. I wore a perfume to the office and even re-applied it mid-day. By the time I started the first breathing exercise I forgot about it. And when my body heated up enough suddenly the perfume started blooming on my skin. It was magical. It was much more interesting than what I experienced earlier that day with the same perfume. It was Serge Lutens’ Boxeuses.

Since then I started experimenting with different perfumes. I apply just a little bit of a perfume in the décolleté area and on my wrists an hour before I go to the class and then during JanuShirasana or Pavanamuktasana I inhale wafts of the hot air mixed with moisture and perfume particles. It makes my classes go by faster and gives them some additional purpose.

Perfumes that performed the best under such strange conditions: another Serge Lutens’ creation – Ambre Sultan, Ubar by Amouage and Alahine by Teo Cabanel.

Tom Ford’s Arabian Wood, Chergui by Serge Lutens and Mitzah by Dior were very nice but didn’t survive Garudasana (approx. 15 minutes into the class). All three were applied from a dab vial so maybe a more generous spray application would produce a better effect – I’ll re-try them when I get those into my collection.

No 19 Poudre by Chanel didn’t work at all. Not possessing a remarkable staying power as is, it disappeared from my skin by the time I unfolded my yoga mat. It was a strange experiment but I thought that maybe it had some hidden powers. It didn’t.

I remember reading on one of the blogs that I always read a topic about a “treadmill scents” (or something to that effect) but now I can’t find that post. If an owner recognizes it from the description or if you covered this topic in your blog, please post a link.

What is your torture of choice and what perfumes (if any) make it more enjoyable?

Image: Kathleen Turner in Body Heat by allposters.com

November 22, 2011 by Undina

Rainbow Autumn in Sonoma

From time to time, facing the obvious, we tell ourselves: Of course! How haven’t I seen/thought about it before?! And it’s not a case of an acute hindsight bias but something you’d have realized before if you had just thought about it. But you haven’t.

I’ve been living in San Francisco Bay Area for more than a decade now. I always knew that a downside of the climate that I loved so much was a lack of some defined seasons. Autumn to name one. It’s not summer all year-long here, it gets cold, rainy and windy – our version of winter. But in between, with all evergreen plants common in our area, it’s hard to say where summer ends and winter begins.

Did I know that grapevine is a deciduous plant? I did. Many times I saw green leaves when we visited Sonoma in summer and then bare vines during our traditional December trips there. I just never thought what happened in between. Golden, purple, yellow, red and all hues in between grape leaves – that’s what happens in between! Views were just amazing! We couldn’t believe how beautiful nature around us was. During this visit to Sonoma we found autumn that we haven’t seen for more than ten years. From now on we’ll be going to Sonoma in November if we can.

Accommodations

Every time I plan our trip to a wine country I struggle with choosing where to stay. It is so close to home that it feels wrong to spend too much on a room for one night. But at the same time I’m so demanding to where I sleep that I have to try to find the best option for the price I’m willing to pay.

This time we stayed at Marriott Courtyard in Santa Rosa. Pros: price ($135 total cost, no resort fee), location (close to the downtown), clean, good mattress, friendly front desk employees. Cons: old and noisy under the window AC/heating unit, uncomfortable pillows and, the worst part, a very loud bathroom exhaust fan that turns on with the light. I remember reading Vanessa’s horror story about the fan that would work for 10 minutes after the fact of using bathroom’s lights. The fan in our room was on a strict on/off regime so we both voted for relying on our senses other than sight for this night’s bathroom visits. Too bad our neighbors weren’t on board with that decision…

Tasting Rooms

As I mentioned in the post about my recent trip to Napa, in my opinion Sonoma is a much more pleasant place to go wine tasting. And this visit just confirmed my thoughts. The main goal of this trip was to pick up shipments from all the clubs we belong to, so we mostly visited places we like. And I want to share those with my readers.

Suncé Winery is a small family owned and operated winery with Croatian roots (suncé is Croatian for sun). Several years ago a friend suggested we went there. It was a cold day mid-December. We came to a small but warm and inviting tasting room. They fed us hot chicken gumbo and let us try a wide selection of their wines… Three years of a membership in their club later we still like and buy many of their wines (in addition to obligatory bottles) and enjoy every trip to Sunce. All people who work there are so friendly and nice that you just want to go there again and again.

Paradise Ridge Winery is another family owned and operated winery. Paradise Ridge is bigger than Sunce and more formal but that feeling of being welcome is carefully maintained by the staff. In addition to making good wines (not only we like them but also they’re getting all kinds of awards), Paradise Ridge has beautiful grounds (check their website for sculpture exhibits they had over the years). Almost every time we visit we see something new. Also, their tasting room and a picnic area have a breathtaking view.

I urge everybody to visit Sunce and Paradise Ridge if you have a chance. I really hope you’ll like them as much as I do and will have great time there.

The third winery a member of a wine club of which we currently are, Jacuzzi Family Vineyards, also has an interesting history, decent wines and nice grounds. What they also have is an excellent marketing department. Unfortunately for us they seem not to be able to handle the results of their marketing success: they are understaffed and just plainly have no time to cater to loyal patrons. We gave them three chances every time hoping it was a fluke. But no, this is how they are now. We’re dropping a membership with them and will choose a winery that cares. But if you do not mind a crowd it’s not a bad place to visit once.

Food

If you like Indian food (which I do) Yeti Restaurant is a good place to have lunch. Ordering chai, make sure to confirm they’d brew a fresh pot. I had to send back a cup of a microwave-heated liquid they tried to pass as chai but after that I got one of the best cups of chai I’ve ever tried. Food was good without any back and forth dances.

One of the wineries we visited featured local truffles made with one of their wines. I bought one, ate and liked it so much that later we went to that local company’s chocolate tasting room and bought more truffles. Wine Country Chocolates. I’m not sure they are worth ordering online but if you are in the area try them. I plan to go there again next time I’m in Sonoma.

Perfumes

Any trip report wouldn’t be complete without that important part. This time I did something I never do: I wore the same perfume two days in a row. I chose vintage Miss Dior parfum. I figured out that with a small parfum bottle I had a better control over the amount of the fragrance and its placement. It didn’t interfere with wine tasting and I felt happy every time I’d catch a whiff of Miss Dior from my sleeve or scarf.

I brought back something new from this trip but I’ll write about it in my next post.

Overall it was a wonderful trip – a trip to rainbow-colored Fall from my memories.

Fall in Sonoma Images: my own

November 10, 2011 by Undina

Great Expectations

There are so many classic perfumes I haven’t tried yet and niche lines’ recent creations I plan to try (as soon as I lift my self-imposed moratorium on buying samples*) that usually I keep an eye only on counted upcoming new releases from brands I like. But there was a whole new line the launch of which I waited for the last six-seven months. I do not want to name names so let’s call this company Undina’s Great Expectations (UGE).

Having signed up for the website updates (a couple of times – just in case), I kept checking both UGE’s website and a FB page from time to time – again, just in case. Nothing changed for months.

When I got an e-mail from UGE about the launch of the line and an online store I immediately went to the site hoping to find samples. Not only there were no Request a Free Sample as some new brands do in the beginning but I didn’t find even an option to buy samples. I was a little disappointed but wasn’t ready to give up.

I sent a letter to the contact e-mail in which I explained how much I waited for that launch and asked if I could buy samples of new perfumes since UGE wasn’t available in the U.S. I did mention my blog but I didn’t try to play that angle.

Four days later I got a reply (I used green to mark places I changed):

Dear Undina

Many thanks for your email we are delighted that you would like to try the new UGE fragrances.

Unfortunately we do not have samples of the fragrances, however as you are such a fan I could pop some spritzed scent strips in the post to you which will hopefully give you an idea of the X different fragrances. If you would like me to do this please do give me your address and I will send these out tomorrow.

We hope to be able to ship orders to the US as from MMDD so please do check the website then, or pop me an email to confirm.

Kindest regards

Name
Marketing Manager

I was prepared to many different outcomes. I expected they might ask for a nominal price, offer me free samples, ignore my request altogether or respond politely that they had no samples to offer at this time. I didn’t expect that offer. For a while I was stunned. I still don’t know what it was. A tongue-in-cheek “go away”? But why? I wasn’t a freeloader with a bogus story, I sincerely offered to pay (mostly because after reading some of Andy’s and Laurie’s thoughts on samples I realized how hard it might be for small companies without a huge marketing budget). Or was it a genuine attempt to help? But really, can a person in any way related to the perfume marketing be that naïve? How did she envision that? X envelopes with X scent strips? One envelope with all X together?

I chose to believe it was an offer in good faith. I wrote her back, thanked for the response and declined the offer citing doubts that those blotters would survive a transatlantic trip.

But I still can’t believe it. Sprayed blotters in the mail? Really? And I had such great expectations…

Images: my own

* I decided to stop buying samples until I have just a month-testing-worth number of untested samples (free samples from stores or swaps do not count).

October 7, 2011 by Undina

The Eye of the Green

Where does a perfumista who lives in Northern California go to find an artisan brand from Southern California? Of course to Hawaii! (yes, this is the promised addendum to my vacation post)

Since I can’t stand sun for too long usually in the morning we would have a short sortie to the beach, swim or snorkel, then quickly retreat to the living quarters for a shower, then drive somewhere for a hike, sightseeing or shopping (trying not to stay under the sun more than necessary or covering ourselves thoroughly) and then return to the beach a couple of hours before a sunset for more swimming.

One such afternoon we drove to the neighboring resort (Four Seasons), just to check it out. It was smaller than I expected and much less interesting than I wanted. We walked the grounds, figured out there was nothing to see and were almost leaving when I spotted a shop.

I love visiting small shops in tourist destinations. I always have a childish hope there would be some miracles and wonders. There never are any. Which isn’t bad since it allows me not to spend money and not to clutter my dwelling. But I like those minutes of anticipation and hope; so every time I venture into the next new shop as if there weren’t several hundred previous failures.

An expensive resort, which Four Seasons is, requires an expensive and better than average shop, which Seaside Luxe boutique is. I was browsing their offerings enjoying just the right temperature inside (more than once I had to cut my visit to a store short because of AC set to a freezer temperature) when my vSO shared with me his observation that it looked like Missoni boutique (I was sniffing some ambiance fragrances and didn’t make to the rest of the store yet) and offered to guess a price for a very neat Missoni candle made in the form of ball of yarn. Thinking of Amouage candles and having added four-seasons-hawaiian-luxury surcharge I braved $200. Yeah… Now you try to guess. To get an answer look at the price of this Gomitolo wax candle and subtract $80 since the one in the store was smaller.

As I reached a sales counter I noticed something I was secretly hoping to find in the store but wasn’t really counting on – a couple of bottles with perfumes. A couple of completely unfamiliar bottles of perfume. Yessss!!! Well, technically there were four bottles – two with fragrance essence (oil-based perfumes) and two with the misting oil – but they contained just two different scents. I smelled both first and then tried them on the skin. Names were displayed prominently – KOA and UME – but I couldn’t read the brand on the label.

And then a small miracle happened. I met Mauri – a very friendly and enthusiastic sales person who seemed genuinely fond of these perfumes. She told me that they were hand-made for their boutique by a perfumer Haley Alexander van Oosten (brand L’Oeil du Vert – “the eye of the green”) from Los Angeles. Then she brought paper inserts for both perfumes. I asked if she had an extra set of those pamphlets for me to take with and explained that I might write about the perfume in my blog so I would need some information. I didn’t even ask for samples because I figured out that with L’Oeil du Vert being a small artisan brand and Seaside Luxe not specializing in perfumes they wouldn’t have any samples and I left my vials (which I had with me on the trip – just in case!) in the hotel. Not only Mauri gave me those inserts but she also offered me to take one of the testers (with probably 30% of a misting oil left in it) since she had an extra tester of that one. And she expressed regret she couldn’t give me the second tester since it was the last one.

The tester I got was for the perfume UME. “Ume means plum blossom in Japanese – the first flower to blossom in spring, it offers renewal and vitality.” (Haley Alexander van Oosten)

From the insert:

Ume is created in reverence with custom distilled oils of Japanese delicacies – organic jasmine Green Tea extract, purifying Yuzu citron, fresh Seaweed, Hinoki cypress for strength, Siso leaves, Lime blossom, sacred Agarwood, and other botanical rarities from Asia.

On my skin the Ume smells very dry, herbal and almost bitter but not medicinal. I do not smell any floral notes in it. It’s definitely a unisex perfume. As with most all-natural perfumes Ume takes some time to warm up to it but the more I use it the more I like it. The tenacity of the misting oil is regular for natural oil perfumes – 1.5-2 hours. For me it makes Ume a perfect sleep scent: it lasts long enough to smell it while I’m falling asleep. I don’t know if the fragrance essence version has a better longevity and I didn’t ask how much it cost but a 30 ml (I think, I can’t find the size on a tester bottle) misting oil costs $144, which, in my opinion, is too expensive for what it is – unless you fall in love with the scent and do not mind re-applying it often. I like Ume but do not love it. Though I think it might be addictive. We’ll see how I feel once I’m done with the oil remaining in that tester.

I wish I had at least a small vial for the second perfume KOA. First – because it’s sweeter and has more floral components that I can smell (and I do prefer floral perfumes) and second because it was inspired by the native Hawaiian tree (“Live like the Koa Tree – brave, bold and fearless”) and made of all local materials (from the insert):

sustainably harvested koa wood, naturally dyed kappa barkcloth, … Ili’ahi sandalwood, awapuhi ‘ai ginger root, hala flowers, plumeria blossoms, and vanilla orchid.

I think that out of these two I liked Koa better. How cool would it be to bring back from Hawaii something you can’t find anywhere else?! But it seems the SA was right – L’Oeil du Vert did make Koa for that store and even though I liked it, after testing it just once it didn’t feel like an immediate “must buy” and now I can’t find it anywhere to try again.

What I like about both Ume and Koa is the attention to details – a nice wooden cover for bottles, fabric bags and beautiful inserts with information about perfumes. On the other hand, at the price level L’Oeil du Vert tries to fit in (see a small article I found in the LA Times) I wouldn’t expect anything less.

Have you ever heard about L’Oeil du Vert? Have you tried Ume, Koa or any other of their perfumes?

Images: Missoni candle – net-a-porter.com; perfumes – my own.

October 1, 2011 by Undina

Scents of My Hawaii Vacation

What did my Hawaii vacation smelled of? It smelled of freshly mowed grass on a golf course next to our condo; of papayas, mangos and dragon fruits we were eating for breakfast; of a night ocean breeze and sun-heated seaweed as we walked along beaches; of orchids (including the one that smelled like chocolate!), plumerias and other tropical flowers, of greenery wet with rain and of dusty lava fields – as we hiked in the volcano park; of 100% Kona coffee and white Hawaiian honey we tried at different coffee farms. But since it is not a travel blog I should probably write about more important stuff – perfumes.

For this week-long trip I decided to be “minimalistic”: one full bottle, one mini, one travel spray and two sample vials. I’ve voted against any new perfume testing not to skew the first impression by the unusual heat, humidity and … by being on a vacation.

You know how when you’re flying any airline they start the boarding with the first/business class passengers, then members of their super-duper-exclusive clubs, then… During this trip United has overdone itself: I couldn’t imagine there were so many special privileged categories. It felt like there were more passengers labeled one way or the other than “regular” ones.

My vSO and I have many small rituals and traditions when we travel together. One of the newest rituals is sharing Voyage d’Hermes scent for the flight. We use it from a mini bottle (dabbed, not sprayed) so it’s very light and not offensive to those around us but if we lean close we can get a whiff of it from each other. So my flight was scented by Voyage d’Hermes and, on a several occasions, by my neighbor‘s very strongly perfumed but luckily short-lived B&B Works’ Orange Ginger lotion (I didn’t ask, I recognized the scent).

Bronze Goddess with dragon< fruit>s

Bronze Goddess is such a beautiful perfume! Never too much, never too annoying but always summer-y, bright and perky. Just right for a perfect day in tropics. Being “pigmentally” challenged (©Olfactoria’s Travels – please read her very enticing and nicely illustrated review of Bronze Goddess), the closest I could ever get to being a bronze goddess is to smell like one. I did.

Speaking of [not] tanning. I know that summer is over for most of my blogo-friends, but I still want to mention three products with sunscreen by which I swear (links aren’t affiliate, just for the illustration purposes): Aveeno Continuous Protection Sunblock Spray for body – very easy to apply, not greasy, with a subtle scent (for a sunblock), doesn’t leave white residue; Shiseido Ultimate Sun Protection Cream SPF 55 PA+++ for face (for swimming or hiking) – absorbs well, doesn’t leave shine or residue, doesn’t clog pores (I have a sensitive skin); and Shiseido Urban Environment UV Protection Cream SPF 35 PA+++ for face (for less engaging activities) – the similar characteristics as for the face cream above but with less SPF and not being water-resistant, it’s really lightweight.

As I promised to my new perfume friend Tiare by Ormonde Jayne, I took her with me on my tropical vacation. In the evenings when an ocean breeze would put out a day heat, all dressed-up for dinner I would adorn myself with Tiare. I truly enjoyed her company. I think it is a perfect perfume for a tropical night out. It feels so right in place on the open terrace under the moonless starry sky, surrounded by palm trees and the sound of the invisible ocean just a hundred steps in front of you. And a slick travel spray will fit even into the smallest purse. Read real reviews for Ormonde Jayne’s Tiare at Olfactoria’s Travels and Bonkers about Perfume.

Two samples that I brought with me to Hawaii were Frangipani by Ormonde Jayne and Black Orchid by Tom Ford. I wore Frangipani one night and I was surprised that I liked it much less than I remembered. It was still nice but something was wrong. When I came home and checked my notes, I found out that I liked Frangipani a lot in winter (ok, that was a Californian winter), on cool but sunny days. So for whatever reasons a tropical flower-based perfume doesn’t work for me in tropics – go figure. On the other hand, Black Orchid about behavior of which in a hot weather I had my reservations was just wonderful. I do not know if I should partially attribute that success to the place I was visiting at the moment, so – just in case you ever decide to reproduce the experiment to a tee – I give you all the details.

Mauka Coffee Farm

If you ever travel to Big Island I full-heartedly recommend visiting Mauka Meadows Coffee Farm. I’m a coffee fan but not a connoisseur so I cannot tell if their coffee is really good though I liked it enough to buy some coffee to bring home. But it’s not the coffee that made the place special for me. It’s their garden. Their own website doesn’t do them justice! They have beautiful well-kept grounds – a coffee farm surrounded by a very organic fusion of a tropical-themed Japanese garden and a fruit orchard. This area of the island is very wet, so it’s not too hot and it rains there often in the afternoons. The first nice touch was a selection of umbrellas to borrow in a shed on the parking lot. As you walk through the gardens, down to the main pavilion, you can not only enjoy the view but also you can sample fruits from the trees along your path. We ate very ripe and flavorful small red guavas right off the tree. Also, for the first time in my life, I tried fresh macadamia nuts (there was a special cracker placed next to nut trees). I’m glad I do not have an easy access to those nuts: it would have been an awful temptation.

When you reach the foot of the hill you are greeted with a sample of their coffee. You can sit (either under the roof of the open pavilion or, if weather permits, outside at one of the lawn tables) and enjoy the tranquility of the view – a water pool flowing to the horizon and meditation music. There is no pressure to buy anything but if you want they offer three types of coffee in a variety of sizes and local honey. A minivan is ready to take you back up to the parking lot (unless you choose – as we did – to walk back through the garden). The first time we came there just by chance when we couldn’t find the coffee farm recommended on Yelp. But it was so peaceful and so beautiful that in a couple of days I just had to go there again. That was when I wore Black Orchid and it completed the wonderful experience.

If anybody still had any doubts, here’s the proof that Hawaii is a Paradise on Earth: more than once we observed the commensalism, peaceful coexistence of local cats, birds, and mongooses (click on the image to see two mongooses eating/drinking from cats’ bowls).

The trip, as great as it was, wouldn’t be complete without some interesting new perfumed experience, right? So for those who are still reading, I want to announce that in the upcoming week I plan to publish an addendum to my vacation story to share with you my unexpected perfumed encounter. Stay tuned!

As always, feel free to post a link to your blog’s post(s) related to the topic.

Images: my own

August 18, 2011 by Undina

Lock, stock and barrels

Customs official: Anything to declare?
Avi: Yeah. Don’t go to England.
Snatch

I’m lucky not only to live in the area with a great climate but to live really close to two wine regions in California – Sonoma and Napa. Being wine enthusiasts, my vSO and I belong to several wine clubs in Sonoma and three-four times a year we take short trips there “to pick-up our shipment”. Of course, we could use a mail delivery option since if to add up the cost of gas, hotel and meals for those trips there will be no savings whatsoever – quite the opposite. So we use that reason just as a pretext to go away from a daily life for a couple of days.

Normally during Sonoma trips we would go to one-two new (for us) wineries, visit two-three places we liked and wanted to see which new wines they’d released and also stop by those wineries where we had a pick-up. This time we decided to stir thing up and go to Napa.

We’ve been to Napa before many years ago and had some warm memories about that visit so the idea was to just spend some time there, do some tasting and go to those places we liked from the previous time.