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The Royal Nonesuch of Perfume

Several years after we moved to the U.S., we found our friend F. who we knew back in our student days. He emigrated about 8 years before we did, and we lost each other. So it was great to re-connect. But since we settled down on the opposite coasts, we visited each other several times over the years, but mostly our communications were over the phone.

Most conversations with F. revolved around the topics of trips and theater attendance – mostly F.’s since my vSO and I, being new immigrants, weren’t traveling or going to theaters much. We would also talk about books and movies, and there we probably still had a lot in common, though sometimes during those calls I had that strange feeling as if I was being quizzed on how interesting our life was. Most likely, it was all in my head and F. was sincere in his attempts to share with us cultural experiences and impressions but I do remember the feeling and my limp attempts to keep up. And then one day F. told me about a wonderful new film they’d just seen: a very unusual, avant-garde and so forth…

Today I don’t have much patience to waste time on something I dislike, if I can help it. But 17 years ago I patiently sat through the complete 81 minutes of The Blair Witch Project, going through the stages of confusion, disbelief, annoyance, anger and – did I mention disbelief? I couldn’t believe F. actually liked that and recommended it to us! And he wasn’t the only one who raved about it: there were enough high ratings and favorable reviews and articles online. It was beyond my comprehension… And then something clicked: I knew what it was!

AT THE COURT HOUSE!
FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
The World-Renowned Tragedians
DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
AND
EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
Of the London and Continental Theatres,
In their Thrilling Tragedy of
THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD,
OR
THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! !
Admission 50 cents.

LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED

I’m not sure if you were as impressionable as I was when I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to remember what that handbill was about, but I was so captivated by the psychological component of the scam that it stayed in my memory for decades.

In short, a couple of scoundrels announce that performance in a small town. First night, when it proves to be not much of a performance, the audience figures out that, in addition to losing money, they will be ridiculed by their peers. So instead of beating up the con artists right there and then, the first half of the town goes out and tells the second half how hilarious the play was. Then the rest of the town’s population pays for the same questionable experience. So the third night the whole town comes to the performance anticipating the revenge and armed with things to throw. But the con men disappear right after collecting the entrance fee.

My theory is that with The Blair Witch Project it just took too long for the “whole town” to watch it, so meanwhile the “first half” had time to cool down.

Recently, after reading Mals’ (Muse in Wooden Shoes) review of Oriza L. Legrand‘s Chypre Mousse, I started thinking that for the last couple of years I was participating in another adaptation of The Royal Nonesuch. And while it’s definitely not on the TBWP’s scale, I would say that it covers a population of at least several Twain’s towns.

The Royal Nonesuch

Mals was the first blogger (out of those whose blogs I read) who openly described how awful her experience with Chypre Mousse perfume was. Until then I read only positive reviews and I paid my “admission fee” (I got a 5 ml decant in a friendly split). The first test was such a shock! I actually hated the scent but suffered through the development hoping it would get better – it didn’t. Then it took me some time to get around testing it once again – the same result but that time I quickly retreated to the shower.

I do not plan to ever test Chypre Mousse again and, just in case, I will probably stay away from the brand altogether. But for some strange reason not only I didn’t write about that experience in my blog, I don’t think I’ve ever commented on any discussion of this perfume. I call it strange because I don’t have any loyalty towards this brand, I didn’t get it as a gift from somebody’s deeply loved bottle and it’s not even a small indie company, which I would be afraid to harm by saying something negative. Of course, it means I wasn’t saying anything good about it either so analogy isn’t complete but still I feel like with my silence I helped propagating the illusion of the consensus about this perfume being great, and one day we may end up in the “third night” crowd, as it was described through the eyes (nose?) of Huckleberry Finn:

I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging or something muffled up under his coat – and I see it warn’t no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in.

 

Now, when I feel that I’ve done everything I could to warn “the rest of the town”, I do not mind hearing how great Chypre Mousse works on your skin. Does it?

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From the Cutting Room Floor: Perfume? What Perfume? Where??!

Initially I planned to use this series for sharing with you pictures of Rusty that I made for my posts but ended up not publishing because I had more good pictures than I needed. But Scented Hound’s comment “Where’s Rusty??!” on my recent post gave me the idea to show you why it is tricky to get a good shot with both Rusty and perfume in one frame.

First, here’s the only one more or less sharp picture of Rusty and perfumes that I managed to take that day:

Rusty and Climat, Chamade and Chanel No19

After that he uncooperatively laid down on the chair and fell asleep completely ignoring all my attempts to attract his attention. I was rearranging the bottles, making noises and even pretending that I had some food in there – it didn’t work. To test a suspicion that it was Climat that cast a sleeping spell on him (the last time I was taking pictures of that perfume, Rusty also ended up napping – see the proof below), I removed that bottle and ended up with just Chamade and No 19 in the post picture, but it didn’t interrupt Rusty’s beauty nap.

Rusty and Climat

And even on those occasions when Rusty would get curious enough to get closer to a perfume bottle I was shooting and not fell asleep, he would keep turning away, checking out the walls behind him or the ceiling above as if asking “Where did you say that perfume was??”  I swear he doesn’t do it “in real life” when camera is not present.

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And one more of my cat’s favorite poses, with which many of you are already quite familiar, is his back to the camera:

Happy Mother's Day 2016

Happy Mother’s Day to all my U.S. readers!

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Dab, Spray or Roll-on?

As I was writing about Guerlain Chamade extrait, I realized that as much as I love the bottle it comes in, I never use perfume directly from it: I transfer a couple of milliliters at a time into a small sample bottle and spray it. That made me thinking about how I normally use perfumes and the reasoning behind that.

Dabbing is good for applying a discreet amount of perfume without creating a serious projection. It is also a more sensual and “lady-like” ritual – a stereotype created by decades of ads and perfume-featuring movie scenes; though in recent years the industry was working hard on changing that.

A couple of years ago Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) shared her feelings about applying a special perfume:

The application alone feels terribly luxurious and sophisticated. It is almost an anointment, the ritual of application is very important here. It is certainly not a spritz and go thing. Applying Amytis needs time, respect and love for what you are doing and you are rewarded with the feeling of having done something special, of being part of age-old rites and not least of all – you smell divine.

It was a powerful image and I remembered it better than I remembered the name of that perfume (I had to look through the list of reviews to find it). Reading it makes you want if not to go for that super-exclusive perfume with a 24K gold-plated applicator, then to have at least a similar ritual with one of your own perfumes.

The disadvantage of that approach is that a stopper transfers oils and skin particles into the perfume, which leads to it getting clouded and going off faster than with a spray application. I think that using a stopper (or, for tiny bottles, your own finger, which is even more intimate) made sense for perfumes that were meant to be used up and replaced with a new flacon within a short period of time. But with a collection of perfumes…

Guerlain Chamade and Chanel No 19

Spraying is good for applying perfumes that you like when you are not afraid to overdo it. It also keeps both your fingers perfume-free and perfumes fresh(er). But it’s harder to control the amount, especially for bottles that you do not use too often and do not remember how their sprayers work: more than once I managed to gas co-workers in a small meeting room with just a couple of sprays – completely unexpected for me. And it feels not as glamorous as applying perfume from a splash bottle – unless, of course, you have one of those old-fashion bulb atomizers, though after I read in one of the Fragrantica’s threads about those atomizers being blamed for perfume evaporation, I keep mine safely tucked away in the dark closet. Separately from perfumes. But, in general, spraying is my preferred application method for perfume wearing.

Guerlain Cruel Gardenia

Using roll-on bottles is also good for the “portion control” and minimizing the projection, but, in addition to the same “contamination” issue as with the dab applicator, it seems even less romantic and more functional than spraying. I use those for air traveling but usually I do not consider roll-on perfumes for my collection.

Pacifica FrenchLilac and Arquiste No 57

Solid perfumes are one more option that didn’t even make it into the title since I do not own a single solid perfume, and I completely forgot about that choice until I was half through the post. Since other than Diptyque and Teo Cabanel’s, I don’t remember any other real brands that make solid perfumes, and I rarely use indie perfumes, this form isn’t much of a choice for me anyway, but even if there were more offerings, I don’t think I’d gone for those and mostly for the same reason: I do not like touching my perfumes.

What about you? What application method do you prefer when you wear perfumes and why?

 

Images: my own

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Guerlain Chamade: Surrender? In a Heartbeat!

When I started thinking about this post, I couldn’t remember the exact occasion when Chamade came into my life. I have a documented evidence of the time when I didn’t have a single bottle of Guerlain perfume in my collection and was looking for guidance and inspiration from my readers. Then in the post that I published just a week later to report the success of my search, I mentioned that Chamade was the most recommended perfume by my readers and that I liked it and considered it as a “back-up” purchase should I have not found something even more desirable. So I assume that Chamade won me over lighting fast (“in perfume years”, I mean). Looking back I think that I might have gone for Chamade for my-first-Guerlain-perfume quest (instead of Cruel Gardenia, which I still love), had I seen in that Las Vegas boutique the real Chamade bottle and not the standard square store tester. But once I saw it several months later, the resistance was futile.

There are many great reviews for Chamade out there, so if you somehow missed the story of the perfume, both romantic and not so much connotations of the name, origin of the bottle, revolutionary use of some ingredients and a lot more, I want to refer you to the comprehensive six-part series published on Perfume Shrine (start here), concise but informative entry on Monsieur Guerlain‘s site and poetic (and useful if you’re curious about different reformulations of this perfume) 5-star review on Bois de Jasmin.

I’m positive that I tried the EdT version at some point but since my heart was taken by the modern extrait, I’ve never pursued real testing of any other concentrations or vintages. Chamade extrait feels very refined, elegant and poised. And the bottle… Even after I already had the real one in my collection, I couldn’t pass a vintage mini bottle in an antique shop. Since the perfume in the mini was slightly off, first I used the bottle in my Thinking Outside the Box project. But recently I found an even better use for it.

Chamade & Zen Garden

For many-many years I pondered the idea of getting a desk Zen garden. The problem was that, while I liked the idea, I’d never seen any of them in real life, so fearing disappointment, I kept postponing an Internet purchase in hope to come across it in a B&M store one day. When I started in the new office earlier this year, I decided that after a leap of faith I’d taken with that move, I was desensitized enough to take a risk with Zen garden kit that I had in my Amazon wish list for the last decade.

The set that arrived promptly was exactly like I imagined it! I unpacked everything, raked sand into some waves and circles, and carefully placed six rocks and two plastic cranes that came in the box in some deeply meaningful arrangement. I was happy probably for a couple of weeks. But then those plastic cranes started annoying me: they felt completely foreign – wrong size, poor liking and, in general, too much “made in China.” And then I figured out that I didn’t have to be limited by the original kit – and that was when the fun really began.

Chamade & Zen Garden

I think Chamade looks very zen in my garden.

Images: my own

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In the Search for the Perfect Coffee

Ally McBeal is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. I loved it deeply and thought that the first two seasons were just magical – funny, romantic and witty. I stopped watching it at some point in the Season 4, when, in my opinion, the magic was gone. But I keep going back and re-watching some of my favorite episodes and scenes. One of such scenes is dedicated to coffee; not just to coffee in general but to drinking a first cup of the day. If you watched that show, most likely you remember the scene. For everybody else in short: one heroine (Ally) teaches another one (Georgia) how to drink coffee. Here’s a link to a 3-minute video clip (questionable quality but it’s the only one I could find) and a transcript of the most important dialog (if you’re not in the mood to watch):

Ally: You were about to drink this cappuccino like most men make love: skipping over all the foreplay. Now just… just hold it in your hands. Just knowing that it’s close.
Georgia: Yeah, I see what you mean.
Ally: Now, close your eyes. And just think about tasting it. Now, smell it. Just a little.
Both: Mmm…
Ally: Now, pull it away. Just tease yourself a little. Up, and down. And up. Longer sniffs. Now, you see that foam on the plastic? Lick it off.
Georgia: I have to drink it!
Ally: Now, bring it up slow. Don’t rush it. It only happens with the first cup. Slow. Slow. Slow. And drink.
Georgia: Mmm…
Ally: Mmm…

This scene made a strong impression on me: not as much because of its sexual references but because of the idea of savoring the experience and engaging all of your senses. I can’t say that I treat every cup of coffee like that but from time to time…

Coffee art - Heart

Smell from a freshly brewed cup is a big part of the enjoyment I get from drinking coffee. But it’s different when it comes to an “unattended” coffee smell (when a cup is not present).

One of the offices where I used to work was strategically placed in a short walking distance from two coffee shops. Since there was no proper lunch room in the office, my co-workers would go to either Starbucks or Peet’s Coffee, dependent on to which camp they belonged, for lunch or during breaks. I didn’t have taste preferences (latte tasted very similar in both places) but after a while I noticed that after I would spend 15-20 minutes at the Peet’s, my clothes would reek of sour and burnt coffee grounds. I didn’t observe the same effect from visiting Starbucks – so given a choice I would go there.

Years later I figured out the mystery: back then that particular Starbucks shop had been just freshly built and Peet’s had been around for a while; nowadays if I sit inside of that Starbucks café I get the same unpleasant odor absorbed into my clothes and hair.

Coffee & Truffle

So, do I like coffee note in perfumes? I like some perfumes that feature this note but my gripe about most of them: I get a toothache just smelling them – so sweet they are. But while I do not put sugar in my coffee, I do (or would, if I had them) wear some coffee-and-sugar perfumes.

Montale Intense Café gives me such a perfect coffee aroma in the opening, that I can make my peace with its sugary development. I will never need a bottle of this perfume but a nice decant that I got with my Scent Bird subscription will keep me satisfied those days when I need an extra shot.

By Kilian Intoxicated smells very nice on my skin though I cannot say that I get much coffee from it. Testing Intoxicated in parallel with Thierry Mugler‘s A*Men, I could miss neither the similarity of the two perfumes, nor the difference in the refinement and materials of the Kilian’s creation. The bottom line: I won’t wear A*Men because now I know how harsh it is compared to Intoxicated, the price of which I cannot even consider paying knowing how similar it is to A*Men.

I liked Jo Malone Black Vetyver Café enough to snatch a bottle of it on eBay after it had been discontinued. Unfortunately, I think it was too old when it got to me and now it is turning. But I still have a decant that is in good health, so I should probably start wearing it more often – before it also turns. Black Vetyver Café is much less sweet than other coffee scents that I’ve tested and vetiver adds a nice woody note. I could easily find 2-3 other Malone’s scents I would rather see discontinued but the brand probably knows better.

Coffee Art

I tried several more perfumes with this note but they weren’t my cup of … coffee.

EnVoyage Perfumes Café Cacao is nice but too sweet for me. But if you like sweet scents, give this one a try.

In Plume Perfumes Coffee & Cedar, which isn’t too sweet and has a nice coffee note, I can’t stop smelling an oil base and it completely kills the perfume for me (and it’s probably for the best since I don’t think this brand is still alive).

But the biggest disappointment for me was Tom Ford Café Rose: I can’t say that it’s “too much” of anything; I don’t find it unpleasant; but as a Tom Ford perfumes fan I wanted this perfume to be much more interesting. I can’t remember how it smells the next day after trying it.

Have I found the perfect coffee though? I have! It’s Jamaica Blue Mountain that I freshly grind every weekend morning and make on the stove in jezve from my favorite designer Michael Aram. Mmm…

Rusty and Michael Aram Jezve

Images: my own

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From the Cutting Room Floor: Rusty plays Milo

Those of you, to whom Rusty owes dozens of treats for complimenting him on many of his appearances on this blog, probably think that he is a natural on camera. He is – if we’re talking about those times when he didn’t know what was happening: I have hundreds of cute, funny and entertaining pictures of Rusty sleeping, napping or packing himself into the next newly arrived in the mail box.

Rusty on the Pillow

But when it comes to catching him on camera with perfume I plan to feature in the post, it takes a careful planning and some trickery on my part. Without a fail Rusty will photobomb the picture I’m trying to shoot if it’s something new that he hasn’t seen earlier. Unfortunately, he does it with a complete disregard to the lighting, composition and other important things. And then, 15-20 seconds later, he’s done with the exploration and there’s not much I can do to persuade him to stay longer and allow me to take a proper picture of him and the object in question. I tried explaining to him that modelling pays well but in vain: you know how fickle those prima donnas can be. So usually I have to bring everything I want in the picture to the place with an appropriate light, quickly assemble the composition, take the camera, wait – and then quickly take as many pictures, moving around, as possible, hoping that at least one of them will be usable. So from time to time I finally choose one of the “less bad” pictures or give up and go with “still life.”

But sometimes… sometimes Rusty is in an especially good mood, he slept for too long and got bored or some element of the packaging caught his attention – then I get minutes of Rusty’s not paying any attention to my paparazzi act. And then I get another conundrum: which picture to choose when each one of them is good but different?

Sometimes I work around it by using a slide show. But mostly, after agonizing for much longer than I should, I decide on the one I liked a little more hoping that maybe one day I’ll get to use other pictures as well… It doesn’t happen too often, so I decided to do a new series – From the Cutting Room Floor, in which I’ll be publishing pictures of Rusty not included into the posts for which those were taken.

For the first episode I decided to go with pictures of Rusty “playing Milo” during my recent attempts to take a picture of the mimosa confiture (and a YouTube link to the scene from The Mask for those who did not recognize the reference):

Rusty playing Milo (The Mask)

By the way, this dog toy was also a birthday present from the same friend who sent me the confiture. That’s why I wanted to take a picture of both of her gifts with Rusty, which I managed to do in the end (see below), but I think she liked the one above even more.

Rusty playing Milo (The Mask)

Images: my own

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In the Search for the Perfect Mimosa, Take 3

There are scents that we like on their own – because they smell nice, make us feel good or appeal to our sense of beauty. Other scents (while being all that as well) are linked to pleasant memories, positive experiences or special occasions. Mimosa is one of the scents of the second kind for me.

Mimosa

I told my mimosa story short after I started this blog in the first post of this “In the Search for the Perfect…” series (since most of you weren’t here back then, you could look over the first two paragraphs of that post so I do not repeat myself). At that time I tested several perfumes – Amarige Harvest Mimosa 2007 by Givenchy, Mimosa by Calypso, Mimosa pour Moi by L’Artisan Parfumeur, Le Mimosa by Annick Goutal and Amouage Library Collection Opus III. The conclusion was that I really liked only the one, a bottle of which I already had – Amarige Harvest Mimosa (though as time showed it became one of my “tsundoku” perfumes).

A year later I approached the subject again (you can skip this post unless you want to see a picture of Rusty playing with mimosa) and realized that as much as I enjoyed the scent of real flowers on a branch mimosa note in perfumes interested me mostly as a part of a bouquet and not as a soliflore. I wasn’t sure then if I liked it enough, but several years later a travel bottle of Une Fleur de Cassie by Frederic Malle has joined my collection.

Mimosa

I still like mimosa and can’t pass by a blooming tree without stopping and smelling it. I would gladly buy a bunch of mimosa but I’ve never seen it in a shop so I don’t know if it’s sold anywhere in the U.S. And I’m still drawn to mimosa-centric perfumes.

When I came across Jo Malone‘s Mimosa & Cardamom in a store for the first time I immediately had two thoughts. The first one was: why have they decided to release it in September when there was absolutely no chance to get real mimosa to decorate the stand (so they used artificial flowers, which looked a little weird)?! And the second one was: I want it!

Mimosa & Cardamom is just a mimosa perfume I was looking for: its mimosa note is sunny and happy but there is something beyond that note that makes this perfume not boring. Same as for Victoria whose review I recommend you to read if you haven’t tried Mimosa & Cardamom, it stays on my skin for a long time – and I enjoy every minute of it.

Mimosa

This year’s mimosa season brought me one more pleasant discovery. A friend of mine from Texas who came to California last month to celebrate her and my birthdays, while in wine country, collected mimosa flowers, pre-processed them, hauled them around on the trip, then back at home made them into an amazing confiture and sent me a jar of it as an extra birthday present. Did I say already it was amazing? It’s real mimosa in a jar! It’s light, not too sweet and a little bitter. And it’s great with ricotta cheese. I don’t think everybody would like it: you have to like mimosa to appreciate this confiture. I happen to love mimosa.

Rusty and Mimosa Jam

I’m not sure if it’s possible to buy mimosa confiture (and even if it is possible, I doubt it would be as great as my friend’s creation) but if you have access to mimosa and would like to try making it yourself (or if you just want to see how it looks out of the jar), I refer you to my friend’s recipe.

Images: my own

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Dreaded D-word and Back-up Bottles

Discontinuation is a horrifying word for many of us. More than once I caught myself feeling sad when I heard the news about perfumes being disconnected – sometimes even if those weren’t perfumes I loved or wore.

A while ago in the post on this topic Blacknall wrote:

Anyone who loves perfume tends to complain about the arbitrary way in which one scent after another can bite the dust, but we have to remember after all these are businesses, not revolving exhibitions. Either perfumers manage to stay current with public tastes and fashions or they don’t, and when they don’t, sales decline.

Even though I agreed with her in principle, something bothered me – so I kept thinking.

While discontinuation might be a necessary evil, a conspiracy theorist in me has a lot of doubts. Are those perfumes that get discontinued really worst sellers? Or, with everything else being equal, do companies put on the chopping block something that is more expensive to produce – be that due to costs of raw materials, bottle production, packaging or any other components that affect the bottom line? And isn’t it a negative reinforcement: companies train customers to like simpler perfumes that are cheap(er) to produce, put much more into promoting those – and as a result get lower sales for better perfumes and then discontinue them?

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I’m not even sure that reasons are the same for different companies in the same market. But I’m wondering if it is really in companies’ best interest to silently kill off the scent that didn’t meet whatever criteria are required for staying on the show for the next season. Is there really any downside to letting loyal fans know that the discontinuation is coming, which would allow them to stock up on their favorites? (And if we’re talking about the U.S., those would be acquired at full price since perfumes never go on sale in big department stores here.)

Whatever the truth is, I don’t expect to learn it from any of LVMH or Estee Lauder‘s companies. And since the reasons would be different for those brands, for which economies of scale do not apply, there’s not much sense in asking them either. So I’ll have to keep wondering until somebody publishes an all-revealing memoir.

When I recently heard of three of the perfumes I like being discontinued – Diptyque Volutes, Bvlgari Black and Tom Ford Fleur de Chine, – I realized that I wasn’t ready to buy a second bottle of any of them. Eau de Tommy Sooni II has disappeared with the brand, but even if I could find a bottle now, I’m not sure I would buy it. I might regret it one day but for now it feels like I have enough of them, taking into the account SABLE (Stash Above & Beyond Life Expectancy – Vanessa ©) state of my collection. I thought about it more and realized that Ormonde Jayne Ta’if is the only one, about which with a 100% certainty I can say that I’d buy a back-up bottle (or two) in a heartbeat at the first mentioning of the D-word.

Ormonde Jayne Ta'if

Look at your collection. Disregard decants, samples and “to buy” lists and concentrate only on full bottle of perfumes that are still in production. Now imagine that you learn that those all are being discontinued (not all at once: that would be too cruel even for a hypothetical question). Are there any perfumes for which you would buy a back-up bottle?

Images: my own

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And the Oscar for Best Oscar Weekend goes to…

For many years we would have Oscars party with friends – watching together while eating, drinking, making predictions or discussing red carpet arrivals. A couple of times we even did an evening attire party with our own nominations and voting. Over years several things happen: our big company broke into smaller groups, so we rarely have large parties any more; Oscars got duller and, what probably is the most important, my vSO and I almost completely stopped watching movies, Oscars nominated or otherwise.

Last year we still tried to make an event from it and watched it with a couple of friends but it wasn’t as much fun as it used to be: it was too long for four of us to watch together and there wasn’t enough of us to seamlessly fill in commercial breaks. So this year we decided not to do anything special and instead of dressing up and going somewhere we stayed at home and each of us did what we enjoy doing.

My vSO spent several hours working on the financial planning while watching on Netflix a B horror flick. Since he likes both of these activities (and I’m amazed that he still manages to find a movie in this genre that he hadn’t watched yet), I should say that his weekend went well.

I watches the complete Oscars show on iPad (who would have thought 10 years ago that TV would become that portable!) while ironing everything I could think of.  It felt good to combine doing something useful (like picking up some future water cooler conversation topics) with pleasure (I love ironing!). And I was wearing Guerlain Habit Rouge Dress Code, which I loved (thank you, hajusuuri!) and which fit perfectly with pajamas I wore for that occasion.

But Oscar for best Oscar weekend goes to Rusty: he got to sleep on the sofa in the room where I was ironing (and to which he usually doesn’t have access) for more than three hours. He enjoyed every minute of this year’s Oscars.

Rusty sleeping

Do you like Oscars? Do you watch any part of the show?

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In the Search for the Perfect… By Kilian Perfume

Ever since I met Killian Hennessy and fell under his spell, I tried to find a perfume in his line that I’d like to add to my collection.

Thanks to the brand’s generosity to their FB fans, I got a chance to test the complete L’Oeuvre Noire collection without any pressure from SAs. I really wanted to love one of the perfumes: I liked Mr. Hennessy’s passion for his perfumes; I liked perfumes names and their packaging. After a thorough testing I found two perfumes I thought I wanted to wear – Prelude to Love and Love & Tears. I’ve got decants and after wearing both realized that I didn’t love any of them enough to go for a bottle.

Later I liked Bamboo Harmony and Water Calligraphy, which I also got from the brand’s FB fans club, but those light and cologne-like perfumes just didn’t feel substantial enough to warrant the price of the bottle.

With In the Garden of Good and Evil I came extremely close to splurging for a bottle but I had to stop myself when I realized that I was talking myself into buying it because of the serpent-adorned clutch while liking but not loving any of the perfumes in the line. And while I occasionally pay $200+ for perfume, I’m yet to pay that much for a clutch. I still haven’t tried Voulez-vous coucher avec Moi (and that clutch looks even more appealing!) but for now these two series stay on my “watch list”: I might eventually get a clutch partial bottle if I find one.

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Amber Oud wasn’t love at first sniff most likely because of the name: I’ve never been an agarwood fan so I was very cautious approaching this perfume. But on the second or third approach I fell in love with it.

Amber Oud isn’t about oud at all – and that’s probably why I like it so much. It’s soft and creamy and amber-y. I don’t get a harsh opening as some other wearers do. For me it goes from very pleasant to simply amazing. And whatever stays on my clothes after I wear this perfume makes me want to wear it again the next day, which doesn’t happen to me too often.

So, has it become a bottle in my collection? Well… First I went through a sample, then used up a decant generously gifted to me by Birgit (read her extremely sensuous review for Amber Oud). And finally last December I decided to reward myself for the hard year I had.

As I had previously confessed, I do care about perfume bottles and even bought a couple of perfumes mostly for the bottle and one actually for its bottle. Also, even though I can’t find it now, I remember Birgit’s comment to the effect that she regretted not getting a real bottle (I think) of this perfume and going for a more economical refill option.

Taking all that into the consideration, I browsed around for the best possible deal for Amber Oud until a combination of cash back and GWP brought me to saks.com. Everything seemed to be coming together perfectly… but I just couldn’t. So while my answer to the Portia’s question from her recent review for Amber Oud is “Yes, for me this amber is much better than many other ambers I tried, liked and use” (and its place on “Perfumes I love and don’t ever want to be without” list of My Perfume Portrait speaks to it), I still couldn’t justify paying extra $200 (!) for the real bottle and beautiful box. So the official refill bottle it was! It’s still expensive but a more reasonably priced than the “full presentation.” Plus, “the refill bottles of Kilian perfumes are not exactly ugly, they are better than many regular bottles of other lines” (©Olfactoria).

By Kilian Amber Oud

What are your relationships with this brand? Do you like any of their perfumes? Do you own any?