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

Saturday Question #61:

What Is Your Most Obscure Perfume?

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

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

My Answer

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

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

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

What Is Your Most Obscure Perfume?

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

Saturday Question #60:

What Perfume Did/Will You Wear to Get Vaccinated?

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

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

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

My Answer

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

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

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

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

Rusty has no issues sleeping in any pose

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

What Perfume Did/Will You Wear to Get Vaccinated?

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

Saturday Question #59:

Which of Your Favorite Aromas You Do Not Want Bottled?

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

My Answer

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

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

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

Which of Your Favorite Aromas You Do Not Want Bottled?

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

Saturday Question #58:

Have You Tried Any Perfumes Released in 2021?

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

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

My Answer

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

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

How about you?

Have You Tried Any Perfumes Released in 2021?

I know that not all of my readers have blogs or publish pictures on Instagram or Facebook. But if you do, or if you take pictures of your perfumes for any other purposes (e.g., for swaps or to sell), please chime in.

Saturday Question #55:

Where Do You Photograph Your Perfumes?

Do you do it – at your place or outside? Do you have any special set-up or do you improvise? Do you use any props?

If you do publish pictures publicly online, would you share a link to any of them that you especially liked or were proud of?

My Answer

Most of the perfume photos I take for this blog, Instagram is kind of a “spill out.” When I travel, if I have a travel bottle of perfume, I can attempt taking pictures in an unusual place, if it fits the idea of the shot. But mostly I travel with handmade decants instead of bottles, and those aren’t interesting enough to take pictures of them.

Since I don’t have a garden, and there are only that many pictures one can take in our tiny and not that picturesque backyard, every time I want to take a picture of a bottle, I start roaming around my house trying to figure out where I have sufficient light to

place a set-up that I came up with. It isn’t that easy to do: my house has a lot of shadowy spots and not that many sunny ones with suitable background to take pictures against.

I was considering a shooting tent, but none of them would be suitable for engaging Rusty. So, for now I try to use either natural light from windows or an additional light I bought for Zoom meetings (because I’m having exactly same issues trying to find a properly lit spot for those video conference calls).

Speaking of Rusty… Whenever I want to brighten my pictures with his presence, it limits my photo shoot location choices even further: I need to organize it in one of a couple of places where Rusty can naturally join in. And preferably do it when those are well-lit.

I usually do not do flat lays, so, not counting Rusty, my props are usually limited to flowers or some objects that have direct relevance to the idea of the photo. I admire people’s ability to do interesting compositions with multiple related (or not) objects, but I haven’t mastered that (yet?).

Where Do You Photograph Your Perfumes?

Undina: I’m not sure if anyone has noticed that, but the last week’s Saturday Question marked exactly a year since ULG picked up the baton of running (no pun intended) this weekly series from Portia (APJ). And since I was always curious as to the various ways that led all of you to this place, I took hajusuuri upon her offer to tell her story of our virtual “meet” and be the host to this week’s Saturday Question episode that opens the second year season.

Saturday Question #53:

How Did You Meet Undina?

The word “meet” is of Germanic origin, meaning, “come upon.” For this question, meeting Undina means any one or all of the following: met her in person, spoke with / texted her, corresponded over email, left a comment here, replied to her comments in another social media platform (e.g. another blog, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) or saw her on some platform and decided to follow her. Tell us how you “came upon” Undina and approximately when?

My Answer

I fell into the perfume rabbit hole around 2010, no thanks to all the perfume blogs that permeated the Internet even before “social media” became a popular term. I mostly lurked and noted some of the names that appeared in multiple blogs. Among the many names, I noticed someone named “Undina” whose comments in Scents of Self (Arielle Shoshana’s currently inactive blog) were always proper, smart, knowledgeable, and humorous. One day in 2012, I happened to accidentally click on her name and voila, the world of Undina’s Looking Glass opened up to me!

While I cannot swear to have read all the posts, I most certainly looked through not only the current posts but also her very helpful tips posts. It was so timely that I learned about Parafilm on her Know-How Post on Decanting, Labeling, Packing and Shipping. Soon after, on August 22, 2012, I left my first comment on the subject of Ineke Sample Sets. Looking back, I did not introduce myself and, instead, just smoothly eased into the conversation. Since then, we’ve corresponded over email, swapped, participated in each other’s splits. Undina also paid me the best compliment by making me her first guest poster in February 2014, in time to debut the new look of her blog! My only regret is I have not met Undina in person but I am confident that once we can travel safely again, we will meet in person.

Art Card Edition Original artwork from hajusuuri’s collection

How Did You Meet Undina?