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Saturday Question: Do You Own Any Solid Perfumes?

Following great tradition started by two wonderful bloggers, Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) and Portia (Australian Perfume Junkies), once a week I or one of the guest writers will keep the lights on in this virtual leaving room, but I hope that you, my friends and readers, will engage in conversation not only with me or the other host, but also with each other.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #8:

Do You Own Any Solid Perfumes?

Solid perfumes are much less typical version of perfumes than many others, but some brands produce them. Do you have any of them in your collection? Are they of the same scent as you have in other format (EdP, EdT, etc.), or are they unique? When do you choose to wear them?

My Answer

I looked at my collection and realized that I do not own a single solid perfume. For a while I was entertaining the idea of getting Diptyque‘s Volutes in this form since it is perfume that my vSO and I share when we fly somewhere, but since this one is (was?) available only from the Paris Boutique, and I made us a decant into a tiny roller ball bottle, I’d never gone through with that plan.

Later, I was tempted by Jo Malone‘s solid perfumes, but since I never saw them in a store, I told myself that I wouldn’t expect them to be more tenacious than their liquid siblings, which already are pushing my tolerance towards the necessity to re-apply perfume multiple times per day, so that lemming had also died unfulfilled.

Thanks to hajusuri who sent me a tiny sample, I tried Bergamoss by Aftelier Perfumes. I didn’t expect that, but I like it very much. Not $275/8 ml much, though. I mean, I do not question the price of this creation (it includes a “refillable” $50 sterling silver case): with all that goes into the development of these perfumes, it might be well worth the money. I just do not love that perfume in that form enough to want to pay this price. But maybe I’ll buy another tiny sample, try again and change my mind? It is quite unique.

 

Do You Own Any Solid Perfumes?

 

Disclaimer: this blog doesn’t use any affiliated links or benefit from any of the G-d awful ads that some of you might see inserted tastelessly by the WP engine inside the post and/or between comments. Encouraging readers to post more comments does not serve any purpose other then getting pleasure from communicating with people who share same interests.
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Discoveries: A Perfume Story

Even though there were at least a couple of guest writers on Undina’s Looking Glass, over the last couple of years I was a sole contributor, so for a while I will be reminding my readers to look at the By line (Undina).

* * *

Discovery sets. Do you buy them? They seem like a great idea. A decent amount of each juice thematically selected by a perfume house, often nicely packaged. Sadly though I have sworn off discovery sets. Invariably in a set of five I will love two, talk myself into maybe liking one and outright dislike two more. Then I sit there looking at my discovery set thinking about how it costs half the price of a nice fat bottle of the one I like the most. Math is cruel. Last time I bought one it was out of some weird guilt after having sniffed every last thing in a shop and taken up the owner’s time and conversation. I had been unable to decide on any of the sale items so I sprung for a discovery set of the illustrious candle maker Cire Trudon’s perfumes. Trudon has been making candles since 1643 and perfumes since 2017. As discovery sets go, this one beat the odds.There are three I like, one I have no need of and then the subject of this post, Trudon Deux/ II (2017).

Notes: green leaves, pine, juniper, Ambroxan, Cashmeran

Deux perfectly captures one of my nature loves, the dark, viscerally bitter greenness of so many plants. There’s pine, but it’s not a sweet pine, no cozy winter associations here. If you’ve ever tasted pine sap because it was so pretty and recoiled at its bitterness, this is that pine. Now I LOVE bitter things. Bitter beer, bitter foods. Just thinking about cruciferous vegetables makes my mouth water. It’s watering right now with the visions of broccoli, my best friend vegetable, that popped into my head when I typed “cruciferous”.

Since I was a small child, I have loved bitter flavours. My dad used to give me non-alcoholic beer in order to get me used to the taste. Yes, I realize how this sounds! He was a true foodie, and he wanted to make sure my palate was ready for anything. We ate grapefruit many a morning and of course we did not put sugar on it, the bitterer the better! Fresh, bright, rindy, pithy grapefruit. I was naturally attracted to bitterness, and this was encouraged. People who put sugar on their grapefruit were weak!

 

Trudon Deaux II

 

Deux is sharp, linear, dark green and bitter, bitter, bitter. It smells exactly like a plant, impressively so. I’m not one to ask “but is it perfume?” however this phrase did jump into my head while wearing it. Though I love to eat bitterness, it seems I do not love to smell it, a confusing and sad revelation. I have always tried with green perfumes because they seem like I should love them, my personality is whispering “make that your scent… yes that green sappy one…”. But I can’t do it, the more realistic and dark green the fragrance, the more it bothers me. I can love a fragrance that is a water colour in a green wash, such as Diorella, but once we’re in niche or vintage territory where true greenery is the point I have to sadly bow out.

If you are on a holy grail for greenness I do encourage you to try Trudon Deux/ II. It doesn’t bother with smelling like a beautiful woman in a forest, or even the whole forest. It’s crushed dark leaves and pine, bright and bitter and good.

 

Image: my own

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Saturday Question: How Do You Sample Perfumes New to You?

Undina: Following great tradition started by two wonderful bloggers, Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) and Portia (Australian Perfume Junkies), once a week I or one of the guest writers will keep the lights on in this virtual leaving room, but I hope that you, my friends and readers, will engage in conversation not only with me or the other host, but also with each other.

This week your host is hajusuuri.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #7:

How Do You Sample Perfumes New to You?

With so many perfume launches and buzz about both new and old perfumes, how do you actually get to sample them?

My Answer

For the past several years, including this year, companies have been launching multiple perfumes in one shot. In just the last two weeks, and only relying on Now Smell This (NST) for perfume news, there were launches for 2 (Louis Vuitton), 3 (Memo Paris) and 9 (Givenchy). Interspersed with these multi-national companies with relatively large marketing budgets, there are also many niche and indie brands that tend to rely on social media such as Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, among others. Coupled with new perfumes, there are older perfumes that one may not have caught up with as yet. It is, therefore, not surprising to feel like Sisyphus in trying to keep up with perfume!

I narrow down perfumes I like to try by paying attention to what my favorite bloggers, NST commenters and Instagrammers I follow wear, as long as there’s a description that excites me. With a shorter list, here’s how I get to sample them:

  1. Working in New York City, I have access to higher end department stores, boutiques and niche perfumeries. I breeze through and sniff as many perfumes as possible (via scent strips) and beg for samples. (NB: This is currently not possible to do since all the non-essential stores are closed and I am also working from home in New Jersey.)
  2. Participate in swaps and splits.
  3. If I happen to buy perfumes online, I include a notation as to which other perfumes I would like to sample. Tip: Always add one or two more on the list than the number of samples you are entitled to; more than half of the time, the seller will include extras.
  4. Purchase a niche / indie perfume subscription service. My favorite one is the Scented Subscription Program at Indigo Perfumery. Every month, I get 3 atomizer samples, along with a newsletter with information about 2 of the perfumes and a write up on a perfumery note. There’s also a discount on a full bottle purchase of the featured perfume, as well as a chance to win a full bottle if you guess the mystery sample correctly. Although the monthly samples may not necessarily include the perfumes I am keen to try, every set ends up being a curated set of perfumes worth sampling.
  5. And not for the faint of heart — Buy a large “sample,” sometimes referred to as a hajusuuri-sized sample.

 

Indigo Perfumery Subscriprion Samples

 

How about you? If we get to 100 comments, there will be a prize: a random draw for a $25 gift certificate to (your choice) either Indigo Perfumery or Surrender to Chance (not affiliated with either).

 

How Do You Sample Perfumes New to You?

 

Images: hajusuuri’s Scented subscription program samples, October 2019 – March 2020.

Disclaimer: this blog doesn’t use any affiliated links or benefit from any of the G-d awful ads that some of you might see inserted tastelessly by the WP engine inside the post and/or between comments. Encouraging readers to post more comments does not serve any purpose other then getting pleasure from communicating with people who share same interests.
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Got Milk?

This is not a post about COVID-19-related shortage of milk, though the last time I checked, my local store was out of condensed milk, and at least some of Amazon prices for it tripled recently.

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From what I read, it’s international: children do not like milk. When I was growing up, I was a strange child (probably, more than in one respect, but for this story I’ll mention the one that matters): not only I liked milk, I liked hot milk and even milk skin. Besides keeping my mother and grandmothers happy, it made me popular in my class.

For the first three years of the elementary school, children were given hot milk after the second period. I suspect that it was an attempt to provide nutrition to everyone, so that children from poor families would not go hungry. Most of my classmates came not from those families, so after having a good breakfast at home a couple of hours earlier, by the time milk was served they weren’t hungry yet. And did I mention it was hot milk? So, most kids in my class hated it. But drinking milk was mandatory, and our teacher would pressure pupils to empty their glasses. And almost every day, after finishing my glass, I would drink at least one or two more instead of my classmates (and they would bribe me with cookies or candies that they were given by parents to go with milk). And since I almost never had anything with me (I’m not sure if there was a reason for that, or if my mom just didn’t think of doing that), both parties were quite happy with the arrangement.

In addition to regular milk that I liked, I loved condensed milk. Nine years ago, I told a couple of stories from my childhood and teenage years that had a strong olfactory connection to Jo Malone’s limited edition perfume Sweet Milk (“Here’s a photo I’ve been looking for…”: Sweet Milk by Jo Malone), and I still have a strong bond with that perfume.

 

Sweet Milk by Jo Malone

 

My bottle is almost empty, and all these years I was on a lookout for another milk scent. Thanks to my perfumista friends, not only I got to try many great perfumes, but I think I found several excellent replacements for my favorite perfume – or at least something that I enjoy wearing.

Neyronrose from NST was very kind to send me her sample of Demeter’s Condensed Milk. Fragrantica lists just 2 notes: milk and sugar. I’m positive it has more. If you are familiar with Yves Rocher’s Pur Desir de Rose, it has a similar artificial spicy note as I can smell in Condensed Milk; and I do not care for it in either perfume. Still, as an exercise it was interesting.

Brigitte shared with me samples of two perfumes that fit this Single Note Exploration topic: Fichi e Panna by Kyse and Milk oil by Ava Luxe.

Fichi e Panna (notes: fig, milk, sugar, vanilla and sandalwood) is more about fig than milk, but it’s so delicious that I couldn’t stop sniffing my wrist as I tested it. If you like fig in perfumes, do yourself a favor and try Fichi e Panna: it’s very warm and naturally smelling fig and vanilla custard. It comes in a variety of sizes and very reasonably priced. Now you see that I just had to get a travel spray.

But the second perfume, Ava Luxe’s Milk, was a clear winner: not identical, but it smells very close to Jo Malone’s Sweet Milk. Comparing them side by side, I think that Milk is slightly sweeter but otherwise – a perfect match. Since Brigitte’s sample was for oil, I decided to buy a small bottle of Milk oil perfume as well. But I was curious, so I also ordered a sample of EdP. I’m glad to report that they both smell identical. And both formulations have a good longevity. So, you can decide what you want to try based on your preferences for the medium without sacrificing the experience.

 

Ava Luxe Milk

 

I got a small decant of Fresh Cream Warm Cashmere by Philosophy from hajusuuri. Notes listed: coconut, cashmere wood, vanilla, sandalwood and musk. Initially I dismissed it because it didn’t smell like Sweet Milk. But it wasn’t intended to! And once I accepted that, I realized that I liked that warm vanilla scent with milky undertones. A small travel bottle of Fresh Cream Warm Cashmere is making its way to me as I’m writing this.

You would think I would have stopped after finding not one but three milk-related perfumes, while still having my favorite perfume. But no. As I was recently placing an order with DSH Perfumes, I just couldn’t resist ordering a sample of her Au Lait VdP (notes deconstructed from the brand’s site: ambrette seed, buttercream accord, French vanilla, sweet cream, tonka bean, milk). If to go just by the opening, I think, I like Au Lait more than all other perfumes covered in this post: to my nose, in the very beginning it has some boozy quality that I just love. Had it been even slightly more tenacious, I would have bought a bottle already. Alas, this wonderful stage lasts just a couple of minutes. What is left after that is still eminently enjoyable: a beautiful gourmand scent that doesn’t project much but warmly enfolds you. But what I get from it is very close to Ava Luxe’s Milk that I already have. And for some reason I’m still not completely on board with the new Voile de Parfum format. I still plan to get a 3 ml sample spray of Au Lait the next time I order something from DSH.

 

Milk Perfumes

 

And now I’m off to the store to see if they’ve restocked sweetened condensed milk. If no, I’ll have to drink my weekend coffee black while sniffing my wrist: luckily, as you can see, there’s no shortage of milk-inspired perfumes in my household.

 

Images: my own

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Saturday Question: What Was The Last New Perfume You Tried?

Following great tradition started by two wonderful bloggers, Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) and Portia (Australian Perfume Junkies), once a week I or one of the guest writers will keep the lights on in this virtual leaving room, but I hope that you, my friends and readers, will engage in conversation not only with me or the other host, but also with each other.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #6:

What Was The Last New Perfume You Tried?

As always, I have more questions that just the main one. What was the last new (for you) perfume that you tried? Where did you get it (unless you tried it at a store)? What’s your impression?

My Answer

Recently I had a surge of desire to test perfumes I hadn’t tried before. And I thought that supporting a local business might be not a bad idea at the moment. So I ordered several samples from Tigerlily. In addition to samples I ordered, they’ve included one more – Hereafter by Sarah Horowitz.

It’s oil perfume with the notes of blood orange, cardamom, Iso E Super, cedarwood, sandalwood, amber and vanilla.

I don’t think I would have tried this perfume even if I saw it at a store: a couple from this brand that I’d tried didn’t work for me before, and I usually don’t like oil perfumes. But since it just appeared at my house, I gave it a try. And unexpectedly I liked it very much. It starts with a touch of sweetness that subsides into a slightly bitter woody notes. I will be testing it more but I’m tempted to get that small bottle to use as a shared perfume for air travel. I mean, I hope, we still have some of those in future.

 

SHP Hereafter

 

How about you?

What Was The Last Perfume You Tried?

 

Image: Tigerlily site (but I think it’s from the brand)

Disclaimer: this blog doesn’t use any affiliated links or benefit from any of the G-d awful ads that some of you might see inserted tastelessly by the WP engine inside the post and/or between comments. Encouraging readers to post more comments does not serve any purpose other then getting pleasure from communicating with people who share same interests.
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Fun in the Car with Youth Dew

Even though there were at least a couple of guest writers on Undina’s Looking Glass, over the last couple of years I was a sole contributor, so for a while I will be reminding my readers to look at the By line (Undina).

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“You’re a perfume snob”. So said my friend as we drove to lunch together. I was quite taken aback, “What, no! I’m not!” but my friend continued on seemingly enjoying herself. “Oh yes, you are, you are absolutely a perfume snob!”

This was hard to take, especially so as I was asphyxiating under a roiling cloud of Estee Lauder‘s Youth Dew, my friend’s favourite perfume. I had given her a bottle as a gift, even though I feared being in just this situation, trapped in a car full of Youth Dew, which I very much disliked. Neither youthful nor dewy to my nose, I thought it did not suit my friend at all but she loved it.

Trying to prove my lack of snobbery I informed her that I was wearing Britney Spears Curious in Control (a pleasant apple custard scent), so therefore I could not possibly be a snob. She laughed, “Oh, you’re 100% a snob!” Ugh, this was getting uncomfortable. I started worrying that offering up Britney as an example of my willingness to embrace  the cheapest celebuscent was actually proof of my snobbery, “Some of my best friends are celbuscents!” But then I got a grip and realized I didn’t have to prove myself to anyone. The word my friend was probably looking for was aficianado aka someone who knows too much and talks too much on a topic other people don’t deem worthy of a conversation. Sometimes (who am I kidding, most of the time) it’s better to just agree that Youth Dew is enchanting without harping on about oakmoss. It’s straight back to my childhood when I thought spouting facts about krill was a good response to a kid saying “penguins are nice”.

I love perfume and I love smells, some days it feels like I love every single smell in the world. I try to appear a little less of a weirdo, to pocket the leaf or cheese rind or odd flinty rock and not inhale them deeply in front of people. I think many of us who started out on this perfume journey because something smelled pretty have ended up here. Nose deep in a stout thinking about oud. Analyzing funk and and oils and laughing when connections are made. Once your brain and your nose start having deep and meaningfuls, there’s no going back.

So I must declare I am not a snob. I am just someone with too many facts and too many opinions on too many topics and one of them is perfume.

 

Gold Plated Bathroom

 

Photo is of my GOLD PLATED BATHROOM. Not really, but did you know that pure gold has no smell of its own?

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Saturday Question: Do You Keep Perfume Boxes?

Following great tradition started by two wonderful bloggers, Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) and Portia (Australian Perfume Junkies), once a week I or one of the guest writers will keep the lights on in this virtual leaving room, but I hope that you, my friends and readers, will engage in conversation not only with me or the other host, but also with each other.

Last week we had 91 comments, and the winner is: cookie queen cassieflower. Please contact me before the next SQ post with your choice of an indie brand’s site, for which you’d like to get the offered gift certificate.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #5:

Do You Keep Perfume Boxes?

On those rare occasions when I visit Facebook, I come across people posting in different perfume groups pictures of their collections: beautiful bottles displayed on shelves, dressing tables and vanity trays.

Also, in the same groups, people are selling perfumes, oftentimes without box or specifying that they’d send a box with extra postage.

It always makes me wonder: were all of those bottles testers? Or do people throw them away? Or store separately? Aren’t they afraid to expose their precious perfumes to light?

My Answer

In almost five years since I did a post on a similar topic (Thinking outside the Box), nothing has changed: all of my perfumes that have boxes are stored in them in the walk-in closet. Decants and rare “naked” bottles are tucked away into drawers in the same closet. And from time to time I’m adding to or changing a set of decorative bottles on my display tray. Wait… not exactly “nothing has changed”: we’ve added an accordion door to the closet, so now my perfumes are even more protected from a stray sunbeam that theoretically might peek into my bedroom through shades.

So, throwing away a box or keeping perfume that came in a box outside feels completely unnatural to me.

 

Rusty in the Box

 

How about you? If we get to 75 comments, I’ll do one more round of a random draw for a $25 (or equivalent in pounds or euro) gift certificate to an indie brand of your choice.

 

Do You Keep Perfume Boxes?

 

Disclaimer: this blog doesn’t use any affiliated links or benefit from any of the G-d awful ads that some of you might see inserted tastelessly by the WP engine inside the post and/or between comments. Encouraging readers to post more comments does not serve any purpose other then getting pleasure from communicating with people who share same interests.
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Better than a New-Car Scent

Do you still remember those times when you could go to a department store, pick up a tester from a counter and spray it on a paper strip or on your skin? …

It was just a joke; I’m not practicing my March 2021 “A year in ‘shelter-in-place’” post. But when I started writing this post, I realized that I wasn’t sure what tense to use. Let’s pretend that life is (or very soon will be) what it used to.

In early days of getting acquainted with niche perfume world, as many of you probably did as well, on a single perfume shop trip I would use 4-5 spots on each arm to try multiple different perfumes after a quick sniff from a bottle or a test strip. But in the last 3-4 years I rarely test more than 2 perfumes at a time, and most days when I find myself at a store where I could try something, I am on my way to somewhere (a party, some theater or other performance or business trip) where I don’t want to reek of a cacophony of random perfumes.

So, what I normally do these days is: after sniffing from a nozzle (yeah, I know, extremely scientific approach), I identify perfumes that I want to try, spray those on paper, walk around, discard those that do not smell promising, try to get samples for a couple of those that I liked the most to test on skin at home and take away with me 5-6 paper strips with scents that I liked the most and want to check how they develop. If one day you happen to be around one of the “perfume centers” of San Francisco/Bay Area and see a woman walking the mall or adjacent streets with a fan of paper blotters in her hand who can care less how it must look like – there is a high chance it would be me. And then, when I get to my car, I use a vent grid to hold those strips separated until I get home.

 

Blotters in a Car Vent

 

That was exactly how it went last year when, on the spur of the moment, I went to Tigerlily Perfumery to try perfumes that are hard to get to test for free anywhere else around here. I went through, in my estimate, 40-50 bottles, bought several small samples (I love that they do that! I’d rather officially pay a small amount to take what I want to test at home than do all the dancing for maybe getting what I want) and left with 5 or 6 strips, mostly (but not all) of perfumes samples of which I bought.

At home I re-smelled the blotters and left them on the bathroom counter to re-visit the next day to see what remained from the scents. Samples went into the “to test” box but I wasn’t in a hurry to reach for them: I already smelled all of them in the store, I had them – so what is a month or two before I put them on skin?

But my car smelled wonderfully the next day. And the day after that. And probably for the next couple of weeks from time to time I kept catching a pleasant waft… It took me a while to realize that one of the paper strips fell into the vent and kept emitting an unknown aroma from the depth of my car. But which one was that? I hoped it was one of those that I bought a sample of, but I wasn’t sure. I went on testing, two at a time, waiting for that magnificent drydown.

I got lucky: it was one of the samples that I had. Naomi Goodsir Or du Serail, created in 2014 by Bertrand Duchaufour (BTW, have you noticed that he almost disappeared from the perfume scene last year? According to Fragrantica, there were just 7 perfumes he released for 4 brands – and I’ve never heard of 4 of them. In 2014 there were 15 and in later years there were even more). With Or du Serail it was one of those times when you know that you want that perfume. So, I bought it.

 

Naomi Goodsir Or Du Serail

 

Or du Serail is rich and very warm perfume. It’s not timid – it’s loud and strong and present. And I love wearing it. If you want a fuller review, read Kevin’s (Now Smell This) impression. But if you haven’t tried it yet, I think it’s one of those perfumes that is worth trying whether you end up liking it or not.

 

Images: my own

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Saturday Question: How Are You Doing? What Are You Doing?

Following great tradition started by two wonderful bloggers, Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) and Portia (Australian Perfume Junkies), once a week I or one of the guest writers will keep the lights on in this virtual leaving room, but I hope that you, my friends and readers, will engage in conversation not only with me or the other host, but also with each other.

Last week I asked you to name 3 most favorite Serge Lutens perfumes. 33 perfumes got nominated, some of them more than once. Top 3 were Iris Silver Mist (10), Ambre Sultan (7) and De Profundis (6).

This week I want to do something slightly different. I want to try to “document” what’s happening in different parts of the World where you, my friends and readers live in these strange times.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #4:

How Are You Doing? What Are You Doing?

What is the situation where you live – city or country, be as generic or specific as you wish. Did you get any extra food and supplies?

What is the situation with your job (if you were working)?

If you’re staying at home more than usual, what do you do?

Have your perfume habits changed recently?

My Answer

All individuals living in the State of California have been ordered to stay home or at their place of residence, except as needed to maintain continuity of operation of the federal critical infrastructure sectors. This was announced on Thursday night following the last week’s “shelter-in-place” order in the county where I live. But my office sent everyone to work from home a week before then. So far, everyone I know personally is healthy (or at least not symptomatic).

After some initial panic last week, currently it’s calmer in our area. And while all the stores seem to be permanently out of toilet paper, cleaning supplies and some random items, in general, food is available. But of course, uncertainty breads fears, so, just in case, we stockpiled more food that I’ve probably ever had at one time in my house. My only excuse is that we bought almost nothing that we normally wouldn’t buy. So, I hope not to waste any food.

While I enjoy working from home once in a while (and last week it was quite convenient since I wasn’t feeling good – not virus/flu/etc.; getting better now), doing it every day is not fun: the boundaries between work and home life blur and not in a healthy way. And since both my vSO and I are doing a number of meetings and phone calls each day, one of us periodically has to leave the office not to interfere with the other’s activities. But we manage. Rusty, so far, seems to enjoy our company, though I suspect he’ll get tired of us soon.

 

Rusty Sleeping

 

My perfume habits followed the change in the work environment: I stopped wearing perfumes. If I were telling you this, I would have kept a longer pause. But I won’t do it here in writing and hurry to tell you that while I’m not wearing perfumes, I use this opportunity to test and re-test a lot of samples, trying to resolve some of the issues discussed a couple of weeks ago in the SQ#2. I tested more than 30 perfumes during last week and wore just one perfume – Amouage Dia for the grocery shopping today. But this weekend I plan to dress up for dinner (just for a change) and wear one of my favorite perfumes. But after that I’ll continue going through the piles of samples.

I want to share with you several links I collected during this week from different sources:

The Metropolitan Opera every day does HD streaming of famous operas. The one that was streamed the night before (7:30 PM EDT) is available for 20 hours. I’m not a huge opera buff but I figured out that it was a good opportunity to listen to/see some famous singers.

12 Famous Museums offer virtual tours. I haven’t tried them yet myself but plan to soon.

For the US readers: a grocery tracker that shows if grocers have made operational changes for your safety and theirs as well as whether or not employee benefits may be offered to those hard workers that help you get the items you need. This is a great way to choose where you shop during this craziness. There is detail on each grocer below the main list.

 

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63 comments last week means that there was no draw. Let’s lower the bar this week and shoot for 75 comments. If we reach it, there will be a prize: a random draw for a $25 (or equivalent in pounds or euro) gift certificate to an indie brand of your choice (I suspect they’ll need our support).

 

How Are You Doing? What Are You Doing?

 

Disclaimer: this blog doesn’t use any affiliated links or benefit from any of the G-d awful ads that some of you might see inserted tastelessly by the WP engine inside the post and/or between comments. Encouraging readers to post more comments does not serve any purpose other then getting pleasure from communicating with people who share same interests.
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Turkish Delight? Yes, Please!

Even though there were at least a couple of guest writers on Undina’s Looking Glass, over the last couple of years I was a sole contributor, so for a while I will be reminding my readers to look at the By line (Undina).

* * *

When I was a child, I loved to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and I read it multiple times a year. In it a rather unpleasant child is offered a box of Turkish delight by a beautiful woman. He likes it so much he trades everything for more and more Turkish delight, everything being his siblings, Jesus, summer time, kittens… everything! I had no idea what Turkish delight was, but it was obviously very delicious since it was worth betraying everyone you ever met. For my whole childhood I imagined it was rum truffles, something I had tasted only a few times. They were rich and decadent, and you were never allowed to have as many as you wanted, so that to me was Turkish delight.

Many years later, I discovered what Turkish delight really was, and I love it far more than rum truffles! I’m also aghast that Edmund managed to eat boxes and boxes of it. I’ve always loved any foods with a perfumed note and rose flavour is the queen. Rose pastilles, rose truffles, rose gelato… I remember them all because they are not easy to find. Turkish delight, however, is readily available, and I buy it a few times a year and cover myself in powdered sugar eating far too many delightful cubes of rosy joy. So when a perfume smells like Turkish delight I am absolutely in LOVE.

My beloved favourite Turkish delight perfume is the original Boucheron Jaipur for women. It’s a beautiful bracelet (and confusingly one of the flankers is named “Bracelet” but that is a different perfume), and it I adore it. Sticky, candied rose and fruits created in 1994 by Sophia Grojsman. There are plenty of sweet rose perfumes that are delicious, such as Lush‘s Rose Jam, but to evoke Turkish delight you need that perfumey note. It’s more a caricature of rose than rose itself. Boucheron Jaipur just plainly makes me happy.

Top Notes: Pineapple, Apricot, Freesia, Peach, Plum
Middle Notes: Carnation, Iris, Jasmine, Lily of the Valley, Orchid, Peony, Black locust, Rose
Base Notes: Amber, Vanilla, Benzoin, Heliotrope, Musk, Sandalwood, Styrax

Turkish delight, or lokum can be flavoured with a variety of things, but the rose flavour made with rose water, which is a distillate of rose petals, is the most popular. There are synthetic versions as well and who knows which ones I’ve eaten. I’ve bought it in markets from huge slabs, as well as chucking it in the trolley from the supermarket. I have loved them all!

 

BoucheronJaipurAndLArtisanTraverseeDuBosphore

 

Though I have no idea if Sophia Grojsman ever thought about Turkish delight when creating Boucheron Jaipur, it was the inspiration for my other sticky perfume treasure, L’Artisan’s Traversee du Bosphore (2010) by Betrand Duchaufour.

Top Notes: Apple, Pomegranate, Tulip
Middle Notes: Iris, Leather, Saffron, Rose, Pistachio
Base Notes: Vanilla, Musk

The heart of Traversee Bosphore is a plasticky, perfumey rose, without a doubt more cheap rosewater than the actual flower. This is what makes it a true Turkish delight scent, that the rose is all about confection. There’s a powdery iris that speaks of the powdered sugar very well without altering the perfumey rose heart. Violet would have created something quite different here. However fear not, this is still a grown-up scent. Saffron and leather are very sexy skin scents in this creation, and the brightness of the top notes keeps it surprisingly fresh.

Rose is a constant perfume love for me, but I have a special place in my heart for the ones that evoke Turkish delight. I’ve tried some that claim to do so but add an almond marzipan note, which moves the creation firmly away from the simple joy of lokom and into a fancy cake shop. I want an indulgent sticky mess!

 

Images: my own (Narth)