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Imaginary Signature Scent

 

Most perfumistas aren’t a “one perfume person.” We get defensive every time we (voluntarily!) participate in creating all sorts of lists – Top N Favorite/Desert Island/Apocalypse/etc. Perfumes – and try to sneak in an extra bottle or three.

But what if you were told that starting tomorrow for a week you’ll have to wear just one perfume from your current collection (FB or a decant big enough to last for a week). It’s not for the rest of your life; before and after the experiment you could wear absolutely anything; you wouldn’t have to get rid of the rest of your perfumes so you do not need to choose the most valuable or your one and true love – just the one that you think you could wear for seven consecutive days in this season.

My choice – Nature by Yves Rocher. Why?

Yves Rocher Nature

For many years I didn’t wear the same perfume for two days in a row let alone for a week so I’m not sure how I would feel about wearing most of my new favorites for that long. Nature and I, on the other hand, have a long history together so I hope that I could still tolerate its company for longer than with most other perfumes. And since Nature has a sentimental value for me, even if after such an experiment I get so tired of it that I don’t want to wear it again for a while, I think our relationship will survive.

What perfume would you choose as your Imaginary Signature Scent for a week and why?

Now the hard part: starting tomorrow… no, I’m not that cruel to suggest you to actually wear the same perfume for the whole week. But every time you apply any other perfumes during the next seven days just think about your ISS: was your choice the right one? Would you still want to wear it that day? Come back in a week and let me know – I’ll start a new post to share the results of my experiment with Nature.

 

Image: my own

 

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In the Search for the Perfect Berry: Strawberries

 

Where I come from, in 1970s and ’80s students from schools and universities as well as clerks, engineers and even scientists from cities would be taken to work at kolkhoz (a form of collective farms) for days or even weeks during the summer and fall months – as a part of the yearly Battle of Harvest. It was a mandatory activity that most people hated but in which they had to participate.

One summer after the seventh grade I spent two weeks at such kolkhoz. Since we were children, we got the more pleasant work than digging up potatoes or weeding: we were picking strawberries.

Strawberry

We lived in large barracks with outhouse and outdoor washing sinks; food was awful and the only entertaining we had were a couple of movies we watched in the local club house. But we were young, our friends and class-mates were there and a long-awaited summer vacation was coming right after that so it was rather a pleasant adventure. In spare time we played badminton, cards and guitars. Life was good.

Being city kids, most of us could never get as much fruit as we would like to: those were scarce and relatively expensive. So for the first couple of days in kolkhoz strawberries that we were picking went into our bellies/baskets roughly in 50/50 proportion.

Since the whole day (well, it was probably just 4-5 hours but it felt like more) we were moving through the rows of strawberry plants looking for ripe berries, when we went to bed at night all we could think of was picking strawberries. I remember discussing it with several friends and we all had the same experience: as soon as we would close our eyes but before completely falling asleep we had visions of parting leaves with our hands to reveal an abundance of very large red strawberries.

By the end of our time in kolkhoz none of us could look at another strawberry.

Strawberry

Strawberry note in perfumes isn’t one of my favorite. Probably because it’s so ubiquitous not only in cheap mainstream perfumes but also in many other functional products. But as with any other note strawberry can be done well.

Miss Dior Chérie Originale (pun intended!) by Dior, created by Christine Nagel in 2005, from what I get reading multiple reviews, was a perfect example of the “good strawberry perfume”. It was never “my perfume”, I never wanted to wear it but I remember it smelling nice on one of my friends. Unfortunately it has been reformulated and renamed so many times that by now nobody can be sure what version they smell. If you didn’t live through all the transformations of this perfume you might want to take a look at a very useful comparison article from Perfume Shrine.

Miss Charming by Juliette Has A Gun, created by Francis Kurkdjian in 2006, is my absolutely favorite strawberry perfume. I do not like JHAG’s bottles. I do not like the brand’s name. So I tried their perfumes very reluctantly. Had I known who was the nose behind this perfume, there was a good chance I would have never tried it at all (since MFK doesn’t like perfumistas, I do not like him). But I didn’t know. And from the first test I loved how Miss Charming developed on my skin. It’s soft, bright, not too sweet or too fruity and… very charming. Many roses get very soapy on my skin, which I do not like. Miss Charming stays tender and beautiful until the drydown. If it weren’t for the above-mentioned reason I would have bought a bottle by now.

Are there any perfumes with a prominent strawberry note that you like?

 

Images: my own

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The Perfume of Mystery: Black. Puredistance Black.

 

Puredistance, a niche brand from the Netherlands, has just announced the upcoming release of their fifth perfume – Puredistance BLACK.

From the press release:

Puredistance Black is an understated elegant and mysteriously charming perfume inspired by the concept of BLACK; a concept that for centuries has been associated with secrets, mystery and style.
[…]
The essence of the concept was to create a perfume that is close to the wearer and releases sensual and elegant scent layers in a whispering way – without shouting. A mysterious fragrance that stays in the shadow, giving away – only every now and then – part of its nature.
[…]
a sophisticated perfume full of charm with the same elegant personality as the timeless classic Puredistance I, but then more masculine and oriental.

Puredistance BLACK is created by Antoine Lie “[a]nd as a consequence of the concept of BLACK (that treasures the beauty of the unknown) we will not reveal the ingredients of Puredistance BLACK…. Envision, Smell, Feel. Don’t analyse”.

Puredistance Black

I am conflicted here. My first reaction to the announcement of this December release was: A new release from Puredistance? Great! I want to try it now! By the way, what’s in it?..

I have an utmost respect for the Puredistance brand but, from the market point of view, Chanel they are not. Their perfumes are available at very limited POSs. So even with the black bottle (hi to the last year’s fever for Chanel’s Coco Noir) it’s not like they can intrigue a huge segment of potential customers enough to go and sniff it at the closest department store. And with the brand’s price point I doubt there will be significant number of blind purchases. Then why all the mystery?

As soon as first bloggers get to test this new perfume they will start to speculate about which notes went into the composition. Well, ok, not everybody will – I, for one, won’t trust my nose enough unless it’s something very-very prominent (but then, again, we all know we can’t completely trust what we smell) – but just give it to Kafka, Lucas or Mr. Hound and they’ll immediately come up with a list.

Puredistance is one of the brands that have my loyalty and brand recognition to the point where I’d test anything from them regardless of the notes choice. But it’s for me. As Robin at NST said: “What if all 1500 fragrances a year did this?”

I’m really curious what went into that advertising model. Do you have any thoughts as to how Puredistance Black benefits from that approach?

 

Image: from the Puredistance press information kit

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Entertaining Statistics: July 2013

 

– Why is it so cold?
– Because it’s summer…
A typical exchange between me and my vSO

While many places in the world were suffering from a heat wave here, in San Francisco Bay Area, we had just a perfect July: a couple of hot days – right in time for the 4th of July – and then a very pleasant warm breathy weather for the rest of the month.

For this month’s statistics I decided to look into my readers’ answers to the question from the recent post “My” brand and “not my” brand. I didn’t want to warn anybody beforehand about my intentions but I naïvely thought that after I explain with examples how I define terms “my” brand and “not my” brand I would be able to get two examples from each commenter. Right… Well, it’ll teach me to be more forthcoming about my plans the next time I decide to do anything like that. For now I’ll go with all the votes I’ve got.

33 participants in this poll named 46 unique brands (total 152 votes). The first interesting discovery was that people were more generous naming favorites than bringing up nemeses: 91 positive vs. 61 negative nominations. 21 brands were mentioned just once and 5 got two nominations. For my chart below I used top 20 brands by the total number of votes regardless of the sign (+/-).

My Stats July 2013

How to read the chart: each bar represents 100% of votes for each brand (so all bars are of the same size regardless of whether the brand got 15 or 3 total votes); each bar is placed vertically against horizontal (X) axis in the way that corresponds to the ratio of positive/negative votes for that brand with the number (N%) representing the percentage of the positive nominations; pink asterisk marks the total number of votes for each brand using the vertical (Y) axis as a scale.

For example, Serge Lutens was mentioned the most – 15 times (see the asterisk) but only 10 votes (67%) were positive and 5 votes (33%) were negative – that’s why Lutens’ bar is placed lower than the bar for the next most popular Guerlein that got 11 total votes (see the asterisk) but 9 (82%) of them were positive. The most “controversial” (50/50 split) were Chanel and Hermes (5/5 and 2/2 yay/nay votes correspondently). Several brands got 100% positive responses (that’s why they are placed above the X axis) albeit with just 3 or 4 votes. The only brand that got all negative responses (all 3 of them) was Bond No 9. There would have been 4 negative votes had I considered them a brand worth my attention. But since I’m boycotting them as an opposite of “not getting” but appreciating other “not my” brands I didn’t cast my nay vote for them.

After putting together the chart and an explanation to it I realized that it was probably a little (?) too much to be entertaining so I promise to do something lighter the next month.

 

Image: my own

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“My” brand and “not my” brand

 

As I was updating My Perfume Portrait I looked closer at my favorite perfumes from the brands prospective.

In my pre-perfumista life I didn’t even think about brands. I would try all new mainstream perfumes, no matter who’d created them, choose those I wanted to get immediately and those for which I would wait to buy online discounted. Over years I wore Dior, Givenchy, Yves Rocher, Elizabeth Arden and YSL. I might have owned a couple of perfumes from the same brand at the same time but I’m not sure.

The first brand I recognized as such was Jo Malone. I can’t say that all of their perfumes immediately became my favorites but I kept finding more and more perfumes I liked and wanted to wear. Even today Jo Malone’s perfumes dominate my collection with at least 2:1 ratio to any other most popular brands.

Jo Malone in my collection

But while the number of bottles might be a sufficient condition to qualify a brand as “my“, it’s not a necessary one. Taking into the account prices of modern niche perfumes as well as bottle sizes and the size of my collection, a couple of samples or a small decant sometimes is all I need to enjoy the perfume I like. And sometimes I simply have the feeling that the brand is just right for me.

Do you remember how it was for you in the beginning? For me it was an enormous amount of information – names, notes, perfumers and brands.  The first brand I consciously approached three years ago, when I was just starting my voyage into the unknown world of niche perfumery, was Amouage. My first samples order consisted of seven perfumes from the brand; five of them were hits. Amouage is one of “my” brands ever since – even though I can’t add all the perfumes I like to my collection as full bottles.

Rusty and Amouage Memoir

Among other brands that I consider in the same category (not counting new(er) brands with less than five perfumes in the line) are Ormonde Jayne,  Annick Goutal, Atelier Cologne, Tom Ford, Chanel and Dior (exclusive lines from the last two). I do not love or want to wear all of the perfumes from these lines but on average these brands create more perfumes that I (at least) like. These are “my” brands.

On the other end of spectrum there are brands, work of which I respect, find interesting and sometimes even love but in general I feel like those brands are “not my.” By Kilian, Guerlain, Tauer Perfumes, Serge Lutens or Frederic Malle are good examples of such brands. Even though I own several bottles and decants from all these brands, their perfumes don’t work for me more often than they do.

Perfume bottles

If you were to name just two brands – one that is totally you and one that mostly leaves you cold – what would those be?

 

Images: my own

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Orange Cats in My Life – Part III: Love from the First ‘Awww…’

 

When I published the first episode of this series in December I thought I’d be done with all parts within a month. But then something kept coming up. So for those who recently started reading this blog, here are the links to the first two episodes of Orange Cats in My Life – Part I: Found and Lost and Part II: A Grin without a Cat

 

I do not like going to movie theaters. I have multiple reasons for that but three main ones are: the length of modern films (who can sit straight through three hours of anything??!), not numbered seats (which for me adds anxiety and at least 30 minutes to an already insane time at cinema) and popcorn smell (I hate it).

For most new releases I wait for a DVD to watch in the comfort of my home with food (and smells!) of my choice. But some movies are just made to be watched in theaters. Titanic, for instance. Ok, I’m joking – I haven’t seen this one in a theater or otherwise. But once a year I find a movie that I want to experience on a big screen.

For three years Lord of the Rings films were my once-per-year cinema fix. But after the last chapter was over it was hard to find a suitable candidate. After some considerations the choice was made: Shrek 2. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first movie and the only reason for seeing the sequel that I can remember was that there were going to be two of my favorite singers – Tom Waits and Nick Cave.

The first time Puss in Boots put on his doe-eyed expression the theater went “Awwww…” and I could swear I heard not only women’s and children’s voices there. That was the moment when I fell in love with that adorable deceitfully innocent gaze.

Puss in Boots

I became obsessed – not even with the character himself but with that particular video frame. Once I found it (it took some time for people to steal it in a good quality and share with the World), this cuteness overload epitome literally stayed in my day-to-day life for years: I used this picture as a wallpaper on two (consecutive) laptops and two (once again, consecutive) smartphones.

A couple of years ago while moving to the next computer I decided that it was time to let him go. But every time I come across this transfixing gaze somewhere on Internet my heart sinks a little in that culturally acquired* “Awww… “

 

*I do not recall a similar exclamation or sentiment itself in my native language/culture.

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Winners of M.Micallef Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture Draw

 

I thought of bribing Rusty to help me with the draw but realized that choosing 10 winners out of 31 entries would take him forever so I decided that random.org wouldn’t be as cute but quick and accurate.

Micallef Draw Winners

The winners of the draw are (please check the screen names in comments since there were some similar names with different initials): hajusuuri, Christina Segal, civet, Juli B., Dubaiscents, taffyj, Natalie, Lisa B., leathermountain and susan.

You have until Sunday, July 28th, to send your US shipping address to Mr. Dame: jd at jeffreydame . com (you know what to do to get a proper address from this, right? If no, contact me)

And this is what Rusty was doing instead of choosing winners:

Sleeping Rusty

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M.Micallef Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture: The Oud That Wasn’t There

 

That day my morning started at 6:30, a good three hours before my comfort waking-up time and at least ninety minutes before I force myself into the regular work day, with a call from the office. While I was trying to ascertain the problem and decide who else to wake up, with a sudden clarity I realized what was that pleasant scent that haunted me from the sleeve of my bathrobe for a couple of days:
Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture by M.Micallef.

…

A PR person of M.Micalef brand had contacted me several times in the past offering samples for the review. I truthfully explained that I did not do actual reviews, even for perfumes I liked, if they din’t come with a story – and I never knew when (or even if) I’d think of one. But they still kept sending me samples that didn’t speak to me (even though I liked some of the perfumes). So when they’ve announced M.Micallef’s release of Le Parfum Couture Denis Durand and suggested to contact them for a sample I decided not to – since I felt bad enough not writing anything yet.

But I got Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture sample from the company anyway. I avoided reviews that started to appear on the blogs until I could try that perfume (sorry, guys and girls – in case you wondered why I didn’t comment).

When Le Parfum Couture arrived, I sprayed it, sniffed and told to myself: This is how agarwood perfume should be done! Not too much, not too sweet – just right.

The Oud That Wasnt There

How do you feel when you do a blind sniff, clearly smell some note but later find out the perfume doesn’t contain it? Since I don’t think much of my nose I don’t get upset when it happens. I was rather surprised – not as surprised as when I actually get the note right (then I feel both surprised and proud of myself) but still.

When I started reading other bloggers’ reviews, I discovered that I wasn’t alone: many reviewers reported smelling agarwood (oud) in Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture. If you haven’t read theories/explanations on what we all smelled in the perfume, I recommend reading the first two links below and choose which explanation works for you.

What I want to point out is that for all intents and purposes we can say that Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture has agarwood among its notes. How did I figure? Most modern perfumes do not use real agarwood anyway (as well as many other real notes but it’s a different story) so who’s to say that this aroma chemical or accord is less oud than any other one if we all smell it like such?

I wish I could take a picture of Rusty with that beautiful black-laced bottle. Maybe one day I will since I like Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture a lot. But for now I’ll leave you with a picture of a sample vial – one of the 10 that you can win if you live in the U.S. (thanks to Jeffrey Dame at Hypoluxe, an official representative of M.Micallef in the U.S.).

Micallef Denis Durand Parfum Couture Vial

To be eligible for the draw all you need to do is to leave a message saying that you live in the U.S. before 11:59PM on Sunday, July 21. You do not have to write anything else (but do not stop yourself if you do have what to say). I’ll choose winners using some random method.

Read actual reviews of Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture by M.Micallef:

Ca Fleure Bon, Now Smell This, That Smell, Kafkaesque, Chemist in the Bottle, The Scented Hound, Perfume Project NW, The French Exit, The Non-Blonde.

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Honor System Posting

 


This is the Honor System Virus.
Please send this to everyone in your e-mail address book, and then format your hard drive.
Thank You!
Parody of virus hoaxes, late 90s


A couple of months ago Puredistance held a drawing for samples of M and Opardu on the Kafkaesque blog. One of the conditions was that each randomly selected winner would “take a nice (creative) photo of his/her satin pouch and spray vials, and post that photo on either your Facebook status or on Twitter.” And since that was a future action request Kafka wrote:

Obviously, there is no way to check if you have or have not, so we’re going by the Honour System here. :) But it’s a tiny request from a wonderful perfume house that not a lot of people know about, so I think it would be nice to get the word out, don’t you?

I was one of the winners. Since I read that post, every time I think about the “honour system” I can’t help but smile remembering that old joke about the virus.

I couldn’t figure out any really creative way for taking those pictures so, as often, I just moved my photo shoot to the area where Rusty would have no problems inserting himself into the said pictures. I will post some of them on Facebook and Twitter, as was requested, but for my readers I present all of them here.

Rusty and Puredistance Bag

Rusty and Puredistance Bag

I tested M on my vSO. I like it on him; he likes it but says that it’s a little spicier than he’d like – not refusing to wear it though so it’s still a candidate for getting into my collection one day. If you’ve tried Puredistance M you know what I’m talking about. If not, I recommend reading reviews by Kafka (Kafkaesque), Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels), Suzanne (Eiderdown Press) and Steve (The Scented Hound) – and then testing it.

Rusty and Puredistance Bag

Opardu is very pleasant and I would not mind wearing it but I’m not in love with the scent so probably the sample (or a small decant in a swap) will be the extent of my involvement with it. Other bloggers were much more enchanted by Opardu so if you haven’t tried it yet read reviews by Kafka (Kafkaesque), Suzanne (Eiderdown Press) and Birgit (Olfactoria’s Travels) – and then hunt down a sample: you might just love it.

Rusty and Puredistance Bag

I would love to hear your thoughts about Puredistance M, Opardu, Rusty or creative pictures but, just in case you’re in the mood for a non-perfume-related questions, I have one for you:

What was the most memorable computer virus you’ve ever encountered or heard of?

 

Images: my own

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Entertaining Statistics: June, 2013

 

Most of June I’ve spent either traveling or recovering from it so perfume-wise that month went like in a haze.

Since I didn’t want to bring samples with me in June I tested1 less perfumes than I normally do but I had a chance to sniff a lot of new perfumes both in Vienna and in Paris so most perfumes I tested this month were new for me.

For my trip (have you seen my pictures of linden blossom I took in Ukraine, Austria and France?) I took with me about 20 different perfumes but I wore2 only 14 of them.

What I realized was that living in the area with a great climate and adequate AC systems everywhere I’ve got a completely wrong idea about what perfumes would be suitable for heat. Not only I couldn’t enjoy many of my favorites I thought I would but also I discovered that hot humid weather disagrees with most of my perfumes: they would disappear from my skin within a couple of hours after the application and under the circumstances I didn’t even feel like re-applying.

For this month’s statistics I decided to look into how weather conditions affected my enjoyment of perfumes. I compared my reactions during this trip to the most recent pre-trip ones I had for the same perfumes.

June 2013 Stats

I still enjoyed the perfumes I wore on more occasions than not. And there was even one perfume – Diptyque Volutes that I loved much more wearing there than when I tested it earlier. But eight times of twenty the weather came between me and perfumes I used to enjoy at home.

Has anything like that ever happened to you?

 

Quick June stats:

Numbers in parenthesis are comparison to the previous month’s numbers.

* Different perfumes worn: 23 (-3) from 19 (-1) brands on 29 (0) occasions;

* Different perfumes tested: 24 (-4) from 17 (-1) brands on 26 (-4) occasions;

* Perfumes I tried for the first time: 21 (12);

* Perfume houses I wore most often: Jo Malone, Keiko Mecheri, L’Artisan Parfumeur and Le Labo;

* Perfume houses I tested the most: Neela Vermeire Creations and Xerjoff;

 

1 When I wear a perfume I apply it to at least three-four points and usually I plan to spend at least 4-8 hours with the same scent so I’m prepared to re-apply if the original application wears off.

2 For the testing I apply a perfume to one area on my arms easily available for the repetitive sniffing. But, most likely, I’m the only one who can smell it. I can test two, sometimes even more perfumes at the same time.

 

Image: my own