Indie Perfumery

Je Veux Mon Livre by The Strange South
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Je Veux Mon Livre by The Strange South

Hi Crew, Je Veux Mon Livre by The Strange South is a fragrance from 2017. Here we have yet another perfume house I’d never heard of but bought a decant blind from Surrender To Chance because the notes sounded good and the names were very alluring. I think it might have come up as a suggestion and I jumped on it.

Both the following copy and picture are from their site:

Je Veux Mon Livre by The Strange South

The Strange South Je Veux Mon Livre features notes of tea leaves, sage pressed between the ancient pages of a leather-bound grimoire. It is an eau de parfum, edp.
The Strange South’s perfumes are blended by hand and bottled in small batches. They are alcohol, paraben, phthalate, and cruelty-free; the only testing being on willing human subjects.

Je Veux Mon Livre by The Strange South 2017

Parfumo gives threse featured accords:
Tea, Sage, Leather, Aged paper

Sometimes the world works serendipitously. I’ve read a couple of threads lately about the smell of old bookstores. That combination of disintegrating paper and leather, dust, sometimes hints of mould, very old floorboards and shelves. Often accompanied by the scent of the flatulent, not quite clean owners and if you’re incredibly lucky their cat. I love the smell of old bookstores. Each different but all following a common theme. We also have a couple of very ra sha sha bookstores in Sydney that do interesting first editions, have a cafe and are not of the oeuvre. They smell like MONEY. We aren’t talking about them here. Well, I’m not. I like the ones with piles of books, some order but also bedlam. The ones you can scurry around in for half a day. HEAVEN! Haven’t done it for years.

Sorry, Back to perfume.

How does Je Veux Mon Livre smell? The opening is greener and fresher than expected. I think we might be in one of this quite expensive first edition type bookstores. Maybe the greenness is trying to capture the slightly mouldy bread smell but it’s too sunny and springlike to do that properly. More hotel lobby than grimoire. Very pretty though, just my expectations being trampled underfoot.

As we enter the heart it’s tea and sage in the forefront. Green tea and chamomile seem to be the major protagonists. Yet again. A lovely fresh, bright scent that in no way reflects my dreams of old bookstore or even a grimoire.

I am surprised that something so very perfumes is alcohol, paraben, phthalate, and cruelty-free. My mind keeps saying this would be so beautiful in a very upmarket hotel lobby. It would be refreshing and surprising.

Maybe I’m not getting what the perfumer intended on my skin or with my nose. Still, very nice, low projection and longevity but much better than expected. Unisex. I think I’d be more inclined to glowing revue if it was called Garden Tea.

Dry down becomes the softest waft of scent. It’s still green but the leather and slight vanilla of disintegration books is there at last. Sadly, by the time it gets to this point I can hardly smell it. BUMMER!

Did you love the smell of books and old bookstores?
Portia xx

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Flesh by Pekji 2021
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Flesh by Pekji 2021

Hi Looking Glassers, Flesh by Pekji is newly arrived at Chez Portia. My buddy Scotty bought the set as soon as they came out and brought them over for sniffing. It’s taken me a while but now I too have a set of the 2021 releases. They came all the way from Fragrances and Art because Australia has no stockist of these tempestuous beauties anymore (yes, I paid retail, they’re worth it). Omer is such a perfumista himself, and so stringently interrogative of fragrances in general, that the weird, wonderful, confronting messes he makes are also a story running along the knife edge of gorgeous and disgusting. I don’t know how he manages to do this with every single release and still make wearable perfumes that smell excellent. It’s a gift that few share. Yeah, I’m a fan, also he’s a buddy of mine.

Flesh by Pekji 2021

Flesh by Pekji 2021

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Apricot, Spray paint, Vanilla, Iris, Ambrette (Musk Mallow), Musk, Civet, Osmanthus

Before we start on the scent I’d like to take a moment to talk about the packaging. Sensible, very heavy card, lovely print on sleeve and the holographic paper behind the perfume bottle is so beautiful on opening. Like looking at a mermaid. It’s sturdy but not an enormous wank of a box. The bottle is a simple heavy rectangle and the sprayer nozzle is so thoughtfully white against the black of the rest. Making it very easy for super blind me to see where I am spritzing. Bravo!

Flesh by Pekji 2021

How does Flesh smell? Iris, but not cardboard or dough or carrot. I probably wouldn’t have smelt the spray paint but now I know it’s in the notes I keep laughing about it. It’s there alright but I probably would have called it a hair lacquer note. Powder, make up, humanity. Like a drag queen dressing room, NO like the women at the end of Death Becomes Her. THIS is what the over made up, powdered, glued together, spray painted, broken pieces of undead would smell like.

Sounds terrible? Nope, gorgeous. Fluffy and feral, but low key. Iris, leather, osmanthus and tonnes of well powdered but slightly sweaty human.

Have you tried any of the Peckji oeuvre? Favourite?
Portia x

Sambaka by Pierre Guillaume Paris
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Sambaka by Pierre Guillaume Paris

Hi Crew, I have been pretty much out of work since Christmas due to C19 club staffing issues and the general low level of customers. One gig is still going each week, which is just enough to keep me afloat, plus Jin is still working and very generous. This is not to complain about my lot, which is so much better than many of my entertainment buddies. Just that there’s only a trickle of income. Back in November and December though it was going gangbusters. Thinking I could blow a couple of months income because we were definitely coming back first week of January was really bad planning. It did throw up some excellent buys, for really good prices on the FB Sale Docs here in Oz. One such item I blind bought (I know…. but PG and I seem to have very similar taste in fragrance) was Sambaka. The price was so good I’d PMd and bought it before real thoughts happened. I’m sure you know the deal. We’ve all done it.

Sambaka by Pierre Guillaume Paris 2020

Sambaka by Pierre Guillaume Paris

Fragrantica gives these featured notes:
Roasted Coffee Beans, Cardamom, Ginger, Coffee Tree, Brazilian Orange

Ooooh! The familiar super sweet zing of ethyl maltol from Angel by Mugler. This time the offset is coffee instead of patchouli, but I’m surprised patchouli isn’t one of the notes because I feel like I’m smelling it too. Imagine a coffee flavoured A*Men.

Have you ever eaten those candies? They’re chocolate on the inside and caramel on the outside but they always leave a slightly bitter, very more-ish coffee like aftertaste in my mouth. BAM! That’s what I’m smelling here. They’re Jin’s Mum’s favourite candy and he buys a HUGE box of them to send to South Korea every year. Basically costs more than the GDP of a small country but apparently they are SO MUCH yummier than the ones she can get there. HA! They both get huge amounts of bragging pleasure out of the transaction. Well worth it.

So, Sambaka is a child of the Mugler fragrance renaissance. Beautifully worked. Simple. Super sweet but slightly bitter. I’m sitting in ultra humid warm night air and something as full on as Angel/A*Men would probably give me nausea. This doesn’t. A smoother ride, less of an attack, as comfortable as such a fragrance can be.

Can we also please walkabout the beautiful colour of the bottle? WOW!

Sambaka by Pierre Guillaume Paris Jan 2022

Obviously, anyone can wear Sambaka. It’s got strong longevity and moderate projection. There is some story but it’s not profound. You’ll spritz and what you smell like 15 minutes later is it till fade.

I’ll be interested to see how much wear this gets.

Sound like you might like Sambaka?
Portia xx

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Cape Heartache by Imaginary Authors

Hi there Crew. Way back in 2012 Imaginary Authors brought out an original offering of 7 perfumes. It was overwhelming at the time and I kind of ignored them until a friend was wearing Bull’s Blood one day and I became instantly enamoured of the sillage, asking what that deliciously toxic monstrosity was. It was spellbinding. This was January 2013, I instantly bought a sample set from the Imaginary Authors site (GOSH! The set was only US$38 delivered to Australia). I remember sniffing them and writing about a few. Azar, Poodle and Ainslie seemed to write about them the most on APJ in the next few years with a lot of love so I left the brand pretty much to them.

 

I have written about Cape Heartache before but recently I was sent a GWP sample in an order from one of Australia’s big niche retailers LKNU. When I tried it on it sparked such a good feeling for me that I thought I might give it another outing in print.

Cape Heartache by Imaginary Authors 2013

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Fir, Big Strawberry, Pine Tree, Woody Notes, Vanilla, Hemlock

Strawberry ice cream topping and a woody back beat. the two are so decidedly incongruous that it makes me smell and smell my wrist. It’s like one of those lenticular pictures that flash between two images depending on the light. Here I have sharp, dark woodland this unbelievably luscious lolly version of strawberries vying for my brain space. It’s enthralling. Hovering on the brink of falling into a huge vat of both but choosing neither.

That hemlock adds a green bitterness through the heart, it comes and goes. Like biting a tree branch after pulling off the bark, that vegetal bitterness.

I’m thinking the vanilla is what gives the strawberry its cartoonishly confectionary flavour, interesting how well that accord stays present during the life of Cape Heartache.

You know, I’ve had trouble trying to think of a person who would wear this as their stable go to fragrance. It’s a very weird gourmand, definitely jumping out of the box. A interesting ride, when I smell it it makes me so happy perfumers are selling such boundary pushing perfume. I feel like it should be ion a Must Try List of weird assed perfume that will blow your olfactory mind.

Portia x

 

 

 

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Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Subscription Service

Hi there crew. Many of you are already familiar with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and her DSH Perfumes. Did you know though that she now has the coolest HEIRLOOM ELIXIR Limited Editions :: Subscription Service? Yep. It’s fabulous. You can order 1, 3 or 6 sets that come with 3ml of the bi-monthly heirloom release and samples of other interesting DSH smellables. I want to tell you about my personal favourite from my subscription. Don’t get excited it’s now discontinued. There will be more fabulously amazing things coming in the future though, never fear.

Giardini Segreti arrived last year, I sniffed it, loved it and put it into the To Be Reviewed Immediately box. Where it sat for a year or more! DAMN IT!

Giardini Segreti, Heirloom Elixir Limited Edition by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz

WHOA! Straight out of the gate a thick, rich, buried my head in a fully flowering bush of gardenia standing right next to a hedge of flowering jasmine and under a blooming tree of Murraya paniculata at about 9pm. Intoxicating and rich but not an overpowering circus show. Here we have all the fragrance but after the first minute it’s muted and floats effortlessly alongside and around you like a sheer white floral nimbus. As we hit the heart I’m tantalised by a thick, creamy butter and a very slightly feral honeyed sweetness. This stuff is seriously gorgeous.

Even two to three hours later I’m still getting lovely wafts of sensual white flowers and I think it might be sandalwood. So good.

Giardini Segreti or Secret Garden is devoted to those spring bursts of flowering and scented miracles abuzz with bees.

I particularly love that this OTT scent is not a room stinker. I am beautifully fragrant but it stays close. Giardini Segreti is just for me, and those I allow close.

I’m thinking this might be a terrific gift for any perfumista in your life. $27 for a set is very reasonable. What a fun surprise they’d get.

Portia xx