Saturday Question

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Saturday Question: What Perfume Would You Wish To Be Named After Or Dedicated To You?

Thank you all for your kind words about my dear Rusty. Your warmth, kindness and sympathy meant a lot to me.

For a couple of years, long before Rusty got sick, thinking about the future I was telling myself that I would keep this blog going while he was with us and then stop because it would be too painful to continue. But in the last 8 months, as on many days I had to hold off wearing perfumes not to provoke Rusty’s asthma when I gave him the medication or held him on my lap and didn’t have much time, strength or inspiration to write for my blog regularly, these Saturday Question posts were the only strong link to the Perfumeland left, and I held onto it and appreciated all of you coming here week after week to talk to me (and sometimes even to each other). So, after giving it some time (Thank you, Portia, for the support!), I decided that I wanted to come back to at least these weekly posts – and then see how it goes with other topics.

I also want to mention that today’s post is somewhat special: #222 was the last post Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) did for her Monday Question series (though, she didn’t number them), which was an inspiration to Portia’s (Australian Perfume Junkies) Saturday Question series, which I “inherited” 4+ years ago. Some of you participated in one or both of those “original” series. Some joined SQ posts on my blog. And I am happy to see all of you here, so I’ll keep coming up with new Saturday Questions.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #222:

What Perfume Would You Wish To Be Named After Or Dedicated To You?

It’s a fantasy question not connected to reality. Just think of any perfume and imagine that you could magically become an inspiration for that perfume and have it either named after you or be dedicated to you. What would it be?

My Answer

I contemplated this question for a while. I wouldn’t want a perfumes to be named after me. I mean, I wouldn’t mind creating/inspiring a wonderful new perfume called something like Undina’s Dream. But for this exercise, I don’t want to mess with what already exists. But I wouldn’t mind if I could claim that I was a muse for one of the great perfumes that I love. Strangely, my choice is not one of my top two perfume loves – Lancome Climat or Ormonde Jayne Ta’if. It’s the #3 on my list – Amouage Ubar. It would have been great to have it dedicated to me. But I would settle for just having it re-launched – not for me, I probably have enough of it for years to come, but for others. Though, judging by the fact that it was discontinued, Ubar wasn’t doing that well for the brand.

Amouage Ubar

How about you?

 

What Perfume Would You Wish To Be Named After Or Dedicated To You?

Saturday Question: What Three Would You Bring Back
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Saturday Question: What Three Would You Bring Back

Hello Fellow Fumies,

At ULG we have a Saturday Question. Everyone gets to chime in with an answer, chat with other responders and it’s a fun event each week. Taking sides never means taking offence and everyone keeps it respectful and light, even though we can sometimes trawl the depths.

The idea is you’ll see it on the weekend or chime in through the week. Hopefully you will come back regularly and see if anyone has responded to your comment and you can reply to them. The aim is to generate real conversation and connection even though we are scattered around the globe.

Saturday Question: What Three Would You Bring Back?

So many fragrances have been Discontinued, Changed or Reformulated over time that it’s hard to wrap your head around it. Anyone buying Opium, Magie Noire, Diva or Miss Dior in 2024 will be gobsmacked by how different they smell to the originals. Even some less vintage fragrance lines like CHANEL exclusives, Maison Christian Dior Collection, Serge Lutens or the Malle line have been hacked into and given refreshes. We await changes on other brands bought out by big fragrance. Then there are the slew of fragrances that have gone from the counters forever, impossible to find for less than a small countries annual GDP and then you better hope it’s not a fake or refilled.

So what are the three you REALLY wish you could have 200ml of in pristine condition? Imagine there was a perfume fairy that could grant these wishes. No question of expense or postage, snap and the three bottles appear.

My Answer:

Guerlain Paris-Moscou

This is an old photo of my bottle which only has maybe 3ml left in the bottom. I really don’t know why this overly sweet, sticky, glug of a perfume captured me so completely and utterly. Plum cheesecake? Is there such a thing. Screamingly sweet. Still, whenever I spritz the smile goes from ear to ear and I huff deeply for about 5 hours. Loving every minute. Sadly these travel perfumes were not popular and went the way of the dodo in what felt like minutes.

Niki de Saint Phalle

While I love many of the mossy floral chypres, Niki de saint Phalle is the one that speaks loudest to me. I’m pretty sure that at least some of the reason is Niki’s story, art and sheer brazen ability to make her way in such a mans world. Fortunately I was aware they were coming to the end of the road when the discounters were practically giving bottles away and I bought a drawer full. Even if I wore Niki de Saint Phalle exclusively my stash might last 10 years.

Versace Blonde EdT & extrait

Don’t worry. I also have a stash of this magnificent tuberose/jasmine/ylang sillage monster. What makes me sad is something so fabulous and glamorous, created the year before Versace Dreamer (another favourite), heralded the pinnacle of Versace fragrances. It was the diamond that came before they seemed to give up on making fine fragrance. Yes, they still make fragrance and they are not terrible but they also miss the interest, aspirational creativity and magic of the Versace mid 1990s releases.

 

My Saturday Question to you is:

What Three Would You Bring Back?

Saturday Question: What Would Your City’s Le Labo Exclusive Smell Of?
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Saturday Question: What Would Your City’s Le Labo Exclusive Smell Of?

Hello Fellow Fumies,

At ULG we have a Saturday Question. Everyone gets to chime in with an answer, chat with other responders and it’s a fun event each week. Taking sides never means taking offence and everyone keeps it respectful and light, even though we can sometimes trawl the depths.

The idea is you’ll see it on the weekend or chime in through the week. Hopefully you will come back regularly and see if anyone has responded to your comment and you can reply to them. The aim is to generate real conversation and connection even though we are scattered around the globe.

 

Saturday Question: What Would Your City’s Le Labo Exclusive Smell Of?

Found this amazing question on  Facebook many years ago. Audrey posed the question and there were some really terrific answers. Don’t worry if your city has been done. Give it your own twist, tell your story through scent.

If Le Labo did a city exclusive for your closest city, what would be the note focus? You can only choose one city for the name but include a bunch of notes that you think would be symbolic of the atmosphere there.

My Answer:

Sydney: Aquatic, Ozonic, Salty, Car Fumes, Eucalyptus and Mown Grass with the smell of baristas making sweet, clean Coffee running in and out through the whole life of the fragrance. There would also need to be some Spices, Sydney is very multicultural and one of the things I love about walking its streets is the diversity of food smells coming from shops and homes. I’m thinking there should also be hints of smoke from the famous Aussie BarBQs.

My Saturday Question to you is:

What Would Your City’s Le Labo Exclusive Smell Of?

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Saturday Question: What Is the Most Youthful Perfume in Your Collection?

I’m running a little late this week because in the last moment, I decided to make a question that I had into a longer post (hopefully, coming up soon), and then I had to quickly find another SQ that would feel right for today. But here we go.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #219:

What Is the Most Youthful Perfume in Your Collection?

Leaving aside that we all subscribe to the idea that any perfume can be worn by any gender or age and not trying to use any formal definition of “youthful perfume” – just based on your internal feeling and personal classification, what perfume from those that you have in any format (not counting samples) you would consider the most youthful? If it helps, imagine that you would want to make a decant for a 12 years old niece or recommend to a 14 years old son of a friends whose tastes you do not know but had to limit the choice only by what you have at home. If 12-14 is too young, try 16-18.

My Answer

I think I mentioned it before, I come with these Saturday Questions first and then start thinking how I would answer. So, imagine my surprise when I went through the list of perfumes I own and realized that I would have a really hard time making that decant. Looking through my favorites, I find them either not interesting enough or … “too much” for an imaginary teen or adolescent.

But I can’t not answer my own question, can I? So, I spent some time sifting through the list and came up with three perfumes I think might fit the bill: Jo Loves No. 42 The Flower Shop, Jo Malone Peony & Blush Suede and Ineke Hothouse Flower.

Rusty and Jo Loves The Flower Shop

How about you?

 

What Is the Most Youthful Perfume in Your Collection?

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Saturday Question: Are You Tempted by Chanel No 5 L’Eau Drop Bottle?

On June 13, Chanel is releasing a new limited edition of their Chanel No 5 flanker – Chanel No 5 L’Eau. It’ll be available in their boutiques and on chanel.com. I’m not sure why they decided to call it “Drop”: it looks rather like an egg, but that’s how it is referenced on the Chanel site. And “a drop of perfume” sounds a lot better than… you got it. It holds the same No 5 L’eau from 2016 (or at least they claim so: who knows how many reformulations it went through in the years passed). It will be available in one size, 50 ml, and the US price is $155. You might be more than positive that it will sold out, and even if it gets to one of the retailers, it won’t survive long enough to wait for some site-wide promotion.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #218:

Are You Tempted by Chanel No 5 L’Eau Drop Bottle?

Do you like this perfume? Do you have it in your collection? Are you contemplating the purchase of this limited edition bottle?

My Answer

I tried just a tiny sample of No 5 L’Eau (that’s how I requested it from a perfumista friend since I didn’t expect to like it and didn’t want to waste her perfume), and unexpectedly I liked it. It wasn’t love-love to send me buying that perfume immediately, but I was considering a purchase if I happen to come across it at a Duty-free store. It haven’t happened yet.

This bottle looks appealing to me. If it weren’t for my “low-buy” this year, I would have tried to buy it. I am arguing with myself and still not sure if I want to make an exception. We’ll see.

How about you?

 

Are You Tempted by Chanel No 5 L’Eau Drop Bottle?

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Saturday Question: Are Perfume Splits Dead?

I like NST. Whenever I get there, I enjoy glancing over some perfume news and reading friendly exchanges in daily SOTD threads. It doesn’t happen often these days because I’m too busy when most people are active there, so by the time I can take a break most commenters are already gone – and I didn’t see a point in talking into void. So, with any extra time I have, I prefer to visit friendly blogs. But I am trying to watch for splitmeets because it used to be my steady source of 5 ml “samples” for interesting new releases.

This year I knew it was coming – and then almost missed it. I remembered about it last moment, went there in some giddy anticipation… and was both surprised and disappointed. Not only I didn’t find anything that would interest me (I’m not even sure what I wanted – maybe Chanel Comete?), but the even itself was quite underwhelming: 8 splits were offered, just 2 of them “closed,” 2 got no takers, and the rest gathered some interest, but I don’t know whether they went through.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #217:

Are Perfume Splits Dead?

From the SQ four years ago, I know that many of my loyal readers did not participate in splits for various reasons. But my today’s question is not just about whether you stopped or didn’t start participating in friendly splits, but also about your opinion as to what’s happening with this part of our hobby. And, if your answer is “Yes,” why do you think it is happening?

My Answer

I know, this is my fault, it happens to me all the time: I might be going to a restaurant or a store for years; then something happens that introduces a prolonged pause in my visits; and the next time I decide that “It’s been too long, let’s visit X!” I find that X has closed. So, with my no/low-buy in the last couple of years, I’m not surprised the splitting subsided.

Jokes aside… I know, this is my fault. Well, not just mine, since probably each of you contributed to this. More and more brands have finally realized that “perfumista size bottles” (10-15 ml), about which we all kept talking for the last 13+ years, is where money are. And while small bottles from brands are more expensive per ml than a friendly split, those official bottles survive better than their manually decanted counterparts. So, having said our farewells to more than one evaporated decant neglected in our collections for two long, when (or rather “if”) adding anything else to our SABLEs (“Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy,” according to Vanessa’s (Bonkers About Perfume) SIL), we might be more inclined to buy a travel bottle.

 

What do you think? Is it my fault?

 

Are Perfume Splits Dead?

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Saturday Question: Do You Like Musk Perfumes?

Musk in perfumery was recently on my mind: Portia just published a post about Musk by Lorenzo Villoresi, and while commenting on that post, I discovered that I had more than 25 perfumes in my database that had one of the variations on the word “musk” in the name. Also, one of new perfumes I’ve been testing features that note (stay tuned for the mini-review post).

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #216:

Do You Like Musk Perfumes?

If yes, what are your favorites? If no, are you sensitive to any musks or some specific ones?

My Answer

I have never thought about musk as a leading note in perfumery: it was mostly a base note in perfumes I liked or didn’t like but not something that would define how inclined I am to feel one way or the other about new perfume I intended to try.

What I didn’t like about this (or any other) note was when it was used as a name of perfume. Not because I know that I do not like the scent profile but because I don’t like that type of names.

But what about perfumes? I decided to look only at those perfumes from the list of testes perfumes that had “musk” (“musc”) as a part of their names.

It looks like I don’t like musk in my perfumes, after all: of the 27 perfumes in my database with “musk” in the name, I do not own a single bottle (full or travel) and only one small decant.

Out of all musk perfumes I’ve ever tested, I would like to own only three – Annick Goutal Musc Nomade (the original one; I haven’t tried the last at least two reformulations, so I’m not sure that I would even like it now), Hermes Musc Pallida (maybe one day, but today I can’t bring myself to pay its price) and maybe Ramon Molvizar Musk Oriental Goldskin (but I tried it only once, many years ago, so even if it hadn’t been as expensive as it is, I wouldn’t have bought a FB without trying it again). There were 2-3 more that I thought were nice but not to the extent of wanting more.

 

How about you?

 

Do You Like Musk Perfumes?

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Saturday Question: Perfume Names In What Language Do You Prefer?

Many of us speak (or at least read) more than one language. Does it influence what names we favor when it comes to perfumes?

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

Saturday Question #215:

Perfume Names In What Language Do You Prefer?

It doesn’t matter whether you own or even like those perfumes, just thinking about perfume names, do you have a preference for the language of the name?

My Answer

I do not like French names: it’s enough that probably until the end of my days when I speak English people will be asking me “Where are you from?”, so trying to figure out which of the 5 letters in the end of the name are silent when answering the question “What perfume are you wearing?” isn’t my idea of fun.

I thought I would go with “English” as my answer, but after thinking about it for a while, I realized that I prefer portmanteau names, which merge parts of two or more real words (preferably English) into a single, innovative term, such as Splendiris, Felanilla, Irisistable or Sheiduna.

Rusty and Dusita Splenderis

How about you?

Perfume Names In What Language Do You Prefer?

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Saturday Question: Have You Ever Gave Your Mother Perfume as a Gift?

Unlike the New Year Eve/Day or some common religious holidays, Mother’s Day is celebrated in different months either on the specific date or certain day of the month. But since it looks like countries from where many of my loyal readers come share the same day, the second Sunday of May, this SQ is in celebration of this beautiful holiday.

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

Saturday Question #214:

Have You Ever Gave Your Mother Perfume as a Gift?

Not necessarily for Mother’s Day, but for any other occasions or just because? If yes, was it something you knew she loved, or was it an experiment?

 

My Answer

In my childhood, since perfumes weren’t widely available, even adults used perfumes as gifts just occasionally, so no romantic stories about saving pennies and buying anything perfume-related. As I grew up and started earning money, times were hard, so money were designated for less frivolous, day-to-day necessities. But once we moved to the US and settled down, on each of my visits home I would bring my mom some perfume as a gift. And I always saved some perfume samples: since years ago department stores were much more generous with samples with purchase, I always had a bunch of extras to share with her.

She would actively use them up (but kept bottles for a while, so I know that she finished them), but I don’t think she cared enough to remember which ones she liked more. Or maybe she didn’t want to ask for another bottle trying to be considerate – even though I always asked for her wish list (in general, not necessarily perfume-related).

Since every time I would bring something different, the only three perfumes I remember were Diorella, Yves Rocher Desir de Nature and Elizabeth Arden Green Tea. I wish I could remember more. I wish I would have shared more.

Rusty and Orchid

How about you?

Have You Ever Gave Your Mother Perfume as a Gift?

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Saturday Question: What Are Your Top 5 Favorite Flankers?

Last week, as we discussed Mugler‘s Angel, the topic of this (and some other) perfume’s flankers was raised several times, and I realized that we haven’t discussed this question in the SQ series.

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

Saturday Question #213:

What Are Your Top 5 Favorite Flankers?

Do you have any in your collection? Do you consider them independent, “stand-alone” perfumes, or do you think that they are secondary to the original one?

My Answer

In my pre-perfumista years, I expected perfume variations (the word “flanker” in its perfume-related meaning came to my life much later) to be exactly that: an almost identical composition with one or two notes intensified or maybe added. And I remember my surprise and indignation when some of those new versions smelled completely different from their predecessors.

Since then, I learned that in many cases, the only common denominator is the part of the name (and the desire to cash out on the popularity of the original one). While I can’t say with any confidence that my attitude towards flankers is affected by my past thoughts, somehow it happened that my top 5 favorites are those that still have the DNA of the original perfumes.

  1. Ormonde Jayne Ta’if Elixir
  2. Thierry Mugler Angel Taste of Fragrance
  3. Givenchy Amarige Mimosa
  4. Prada Infusion Mandarine
  5. Elizabeth Arden Green Tea Mimosa

How about you?

What Are Your Top 5 Favorite Flankers?