Boucheron

Happy Busy Life
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Happy Busy Life

Hi crew, I’d seriously put aside time to write but it has slipped through my fingers. Happy Busy Life has had me in its bear claws. Not sure how many of you are longtime readers, or even care, but my not perfume blogging life is as a Drag Queen. Yes, that has been my major source of income since 1988 and continues to this day. Turbo Trivia is the weekly event I run and have some other gorgeous Drag Queens working all over Sydney under its banner. Personally I work 4 nights, Sunday through Wednesday but also manage to pick up some extra gigs here and there hosting other things.

Currently (though I’m on a bit of a sabbatical) I’m also studying to become a Wedding Celebrant. In Australia it’s a really big deal. Cert 4, one year and loads of hours each week. There’s just 5 real life fake weddings to go and then to be approved by the Governor General’s office. I’m both excited and terrified about the prospect and have been arseing about. Next month I’m hoping to get it all done and dusted.

The reason I’m giving you this life update is because I find myself at 2am on Tuesday morning here in Sydney with nothing prepared to go up later on today. So thought you might like a couple of recent pics of events I’ve been hosting and what perfume has been getting the spritzes with each outfit. Please remember that it’s been Autumn and just hit Winter so many of the choices are cool weather leaning.

Happy Busy Life

First shot is Sunday Night Turbo Trivia at Austral Bowling Club. As you can see, feathers are my fave! On this night I was drenched in Neela Vermeire Creations Eshal. Tuberose with a zillion bells and whistles. Perfect for this slightly OTT outfit.

Happy Busy Life

This is my early years Boy George look, Before he got really outlandish with the huge hats and shirt dresses. This night was a Jaipur PH by Boucheron night. It’s a creamy spice bomb that wears so beautifully. It surprises me that it’s not a bigger perfumista hit. In this photo I’m with some of the girls who have played Turbo Trivia at Club Parramatta for well over a decade.

Happy Busy Life

This weekend my mate Jason married the love of his life. Jason and I were in shows together at the Albury Hotel for a few years spanning the century divide. He flew me up to Brisbane on the Saturday afternoon, I got dressed, hosted his reception and partied a bit with the crew, up again at 5am to get a plane back to Sydney because I was working again Sunday night. Here I am with Australian singer and cabaret performer Rhonda Burchmore who was the entertainment for the night. She’s legendary and Jason was one of her dancers for years, he also danced in the movie Moulin Rouge and others. I wore Olibere Parfums Escapade a Byzance because I wanted something opulent and fabulous to match the occasion.

Happy Busy Life

So, there you have it. three looks and three fragrances that got some wear in my life lately.
What have you been wearing?
Portia xx

Jaipur Homme by Boucheron
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Jaipur Homme by Boucheron

Jaipur Homme is 20+ years old, Boucheron wasn’t really on my radar at that time. It wasn’t till late 2000s that I smelled it. In the early 2000s, I was living with a man who came from halfway between Delhi & Jaipur. He took me to the Rambagh Palace for a few nights on our first holiday to India, and he knew every nook and cranny of the town, so I got a really fabulous look at it. After we had broken up and he’d returned to India, I found the Boucheron fragrance. It was so subtle compared to the reality of India but there were lovely reminders and the name itself conjures happy memories. Over the years, I’ve brought or sent him bottles of Jaipur and it’s been his signature scent.

Anyway, thought I hadn’t bought myself a bottle of Jaipur Homme in years, so I grabbed a super cheap EdT from FragNet recently and have been wearing it a bit. It’s still very nice.

Parfumo gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, Heliotrope, Cardamom, Lime, Lemon
Heart: Amber, Jasmine, Carnation, Nutmeg, Rose, Vanilla, Cinnamon
Base: Benzoin, Clove, Patchouli, Tonka bean, Cedarwood

If you know ground cardamom from your spice cupboard then you’ll instantly recognise it in the opening of Jaipur Homme. The citrus creates an initial sparkling, zingy opening, and the cardamom becomes apparent almost immediately. It stays after the citrus burns off, and the cool powdery fluff of heliotrope is then a tangible note that leads us into the heart.

I’m drinking chai as I write this post, and the heart of Jaipur Homme is a softer, more French perfumery armchair dream of it. Very softly animalic, vanilla-heavy amber with spices. Clove is more noticeable than anything else, but I definitely get the sweet milky tea reference. It’s not the MAIN heart accord, but it plays alongside everything else.

The dry down is sweet amber woods. I become nose blind to it after a couple of hours, but it stays on my clothes for days. When I pick up a top to wash it, I am hit gently with a beautiful spiced wood fragrance. It’s really lovely, so I know that’s what I’m wafting at the end of a day.

Don’t let the homme fool you. Jaipur Homme is unisex. It doesn’t even lean towards a modern traditional masculine. It could be brought out as a women’s fragrance today, and no one would have questioned it. Longevity is excellent, projection after about 30 minutes is moderate to low but oh so lovely.

Did you ever try Jaipur Homme?

Portia xx

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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).

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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)