Better safe than sorry.

I´ve got a lot of perfume samples. The last time I counted them they where about 300! At least that are many to me, and I guess a lot of perfumistas have many more samples than I do.


When receiving new perfume samples of course I test them. Some of them am I so curious about that I try them at once they´ve arrive. Others I try after a coupple of days, while some of the samples can be untested for quite a long time. It´s not possible to be as curious about all the perfumes. But some of the samples that haven´t been tested at once become happy surprises when I finally try them.


Quite often the most longed for samples become dissapointments. Maybe, because I had such high expectations.


Some perfumes takes me with storm at the first sniff. Half an hour later I know this is a scent I need more of. Maybe I try to get a bigger decant of it while I still got something left in the sample. This is perfumes that make me sit with my nose attached to the wrist. On a scale between 1-5, this is of course straight up fives!


Other perfumes takes some time for me to realise how much I like them, and that I don´t want to live without them. Maybe, perfumes in this cathegory smells a little less me. Anyway this is still really, really good perfumes. About steady five or strong four.


Then we come to all the perfumes i try that isn´t really that good. They are usually very nice, fine and good smelling perfumes. Maybe I think they´re a little to expensive. Or not so longlasting. Or I think I will not use them so often. Or maybe someone in my family don´t like them at all. This perfumes are weak fours or strong threes.


Anything worse than that is perfumes that I easily forget about. They usually smells really good, but there is something vague about them and a similarity to lots of others perfumes in this cathegory. Yes, three.


The perfume I forget about while I still wearing them are about grade two.


Then there is the kind of perfumes smelling fishy on me. Like they are created for someone with a totally different sense of smell or skin chemistry. Grade one.


In an own cathegory I would place the perfumes that gives me a great olfactory experience, but that don´t smell really like a perfume to me. There is something about them that make them more like apice of olfactory art than perfume. I know art is discussed when it comes to perfumes. I think it´s a complicated issue, so this are my own labels, that works for me and maybe no one else. Anyhway, for perfumes in this cathegory, a little sample can last a lifetime.


Yesterday I used a coupple of drops of Profumum Roma´s Dulcis in Fundo. Doing that made me realise that there only was about two drops left in my little sample. I´ve had the sample about 1½ year and it was only half full when i´ve got it, so that 0,5 ml has lasted quite good. I´ve consider Dulcis in Fundo as too expensive, but now with only one use left I realise I don´t want to be without it! Not often I use it, but perfcet this time of year. And when I am longing for Dulcis in Fundo nothing else comes even close!


L'Artisan´s Bois Farine is also like that. Not so longlasting on me, but when I feel like wearing Bois Farine, nothing else will do. There isn´t ANYTHING even reminding of it.


Ego Facto´s Poopoo Pidoo is another and Florascent´s Umami. Calé Fragranze D'Autores Tepidarium and Lostmarsch´s Lann-Ael. Ormonde Jayne´s Ormonde Women, Ava
Luxes Silk (Soie) that I don´t even like all the time. Honore des pres Sexy Angelic that smell as little as a newborn baby and well, I am sure there will be alot of others when the samples are about to run out.


This perfumes has a thing in common. They´re not spot on "me". But they´ve all got something unique that I not have been able to find in any other perfume. Still, it´s nice to know that a 5 ml decant of Dulcis in Fundo would probably last about ten years, wich makes it not such a expensive investment after all.


Wich perfumes have you surprisingly discovered that you won´t manage without, even tough they aren´t really "you"? Do you have any tips on those kind of unique perfumes that cant be replaces with anything else?


Pic: Mu own perfume bureu.

Ineke - Field Notes From Paris

Who hasn´t dreamed about café life in Paris? I can imagine myself resting my feets in high heels at a small table on a Paris café, after a gorgeus shopping in Parisian perfume boutiques.


Unfortunatly, my only visit to Paris is as far from that image as one can come. We where totally lost and had no more cigarettes and at that very time France won Soccer-EM and the whole city of Paris went crazy! OK, it was really fun to see the happy people, but it didn´t make it easier to drive!


Ineke Rühland seem to have got her share of Parisian café life while studying perfumery there. Ineke Rühland is the perfumer and creator of Ineke perfumes. http://www.ineke.com/index.html


This far, Ineke offers six different scents, After My Own Heart, Balmy Days & Sundays, Chemical Bonding, Evening Edged In Gold and the last Field Notes From Paris. You can also order a sample set of all six scent at Ineke´s homepage. As you can see Ineke´s perfumes come in alphabetical order, I think it´s a funny and personal concept. Unfortunatly I haven´t yet tested any of the other perfumes from Ineke.


Anyway, Field Notes From Paris is about tobacco, not about coffee. Well, to smoke cigarettes on a café in Paris is probably almost as usual as drinking coffee.


The tobacco in Field Notes From Paris is an aromatic, golden and almost a little chewy tobacco note. It makes me think more of raw tobacco then of cigarettes or pipe tobacco. The tobacco scent smells very genuin and fresh. Even tough non such notes are listed, I get a very prominent green feeling. Like the tobacco is being mixed with something fresh, green and grassy. The note of tobacco and grass goes in and out of each other in a very interesting way,


During this phase in the perfume, I can´t at all associate to a café. No, it makes me think of an old fashioned tobacco farm, with tobacco hanged to dry in a barn and fields of lush summer greenery outside it. A very living and interesting scent, but there is something in it reminding of mosquito reppelant as well. Don´t misunderstand me, I think the note of mosquito reppelant smells quite nice and homey. Like tobacco grown in Northern Sweden.


Anyhow, the opening and heartnotes are fresh, aromatic, chewy and a little sharp. But after a while the green sharpness wears off and this is when I like Field Notes From Paris the most.


It slowly changes to a creamy, warm and golden gourmand scent, with an interesting note of soft leather. Now, it is more of a café scent I think! Really comfy, nice and great this time of year. If the opening is a little on the masculin side, the dry down is more on the feminin. But, still I consider it easy to wear for both sexes.


The most negative is that the scent become very soft during this phase. As soft as it is really hard to notice it. I have to sit with my nose close to the wrist to smell it. Ans since it has been quite powerful from the start, this is a little dissapointing. Field Notes From Paris is an eau de perfume, but to my nose and skin chemistry, it´s more like an eau de toilette.


As I said, I haven´t tried any of the other Ineke scents, which among them shouldn´t I miss?






Pic: paris_cafe Philip Levine

Nicolas Danila - Arabian Gardens

Arabian Gardens is pretty much the opposite to Asian Gardens. It´s warm, woody and aromatic while Asian Gardens is cold, airy and soft. Arabian Gardens is mood lifting and gives energy and happiness while Asian Gardens calm you down. Despite a lot of differences there are also similarities, both (actually all in the line except Amazonian Gardens) are light, easy and transparent creations. Not that strange when it´s about an aquatic perfume, but more so when it comes to an oriental scent.


Arabian Gardens have that quite rare glowing sensation that I´ve found in perfumes like M. Micallef´s Gaiac and Montale´s Red Aoud. Even if it´s glowing, warm and aromatic it´s also soft, caressing and subdued. There isn´t anything strong, loud or to much about Arabian Gardens.


Arabian gardens make me think about the peace in an Arabian Garden with trees that offers shadow and the calming sound of purling fountains, but also having lessons in Arabian calligraphy with an old and very peaceful calligraphy master or to sit with my back against a thick wall that protects against the heat from the sun and eating ripe fruits such as oranges, tangerines and mango...


Yes, I notice a scent of sun ripe fruits in Arabian Gardens opening, the green notes that are supposed to be there escape my sense of smell or my skin chemistry. This isn´t at all sweet, spritzy or sharp fruits, this is more of a floral, soft and very comforting fruit note. After a short period of time the fruits get companied with the amazing glowing note. Hot wood, like in a sauna, with a little trace of tar. And no, this is no way close to noisy, hard or strong only fascinating. I have to sit with my nose close to my wrist a lot when I´m wearing Arabian Gardens.


Arabian Gardens is something that rare as an oriental perfume you can use in any occation. You can use it at the office or whenever you don´t want to smell to much or to strong (but still oriental). Don´t make the mistake to believe this to be a boring scent, because it´s everything but that, Arabian Gardens is truly an enchanting and sensual scent.


Among the perfumes in Aladin Gardens, Arabian Gardens is the one that is most me. And if Asian Gardens isn´t that perfect for cold weather, Arabian Gardens is as made for this time of year.


After a while the fruity notes wears off, but the spicy and glowing scent stays for a long time, after a while accompanied with dry, aromatic vetiver. Despite it´s lightness, Arabian Gardens is very longlasting, little traces of vetiver still lingers on my skin after the night. The sillage is very easy, but a little more than in Asian Gardens.


Generally I find the scents of Aladin Gardens to be beautiful, well made and fine, even tough it´s Arabian Gardens and Asian Gardens that manage to capture me.


Aboriginal Gardens smells soft citrus floral on me, with some green notes, after a while it turn more creamy milky. Amerindian Gardens have a cool rose rhubarb note, but become a little to sharp on me. Polynesian Gardens is a sunwarmth tropical scent with some salty sea notes as well. European Gardens I´ve already written a little about and Amazonian Gardens is... well, so outstaning and strange it deserve to be mentioned.


Yesterday, I make my husband try Amazonian Gardens, he got a small drop on his wrist before we get outside with the dog. And that tiny drop followed us all around the forest, even tough it was hided beneath winter jacket and glows! Amazonian Gardens is more than a perfume, it´s a phenomenon. Even tough I can´t really like it, I find it amazing and almost a bit frightening. In my opinion, it would be more suitable among the darkest creations of Serge Lutens, than in line dedicated to gardens. I am so very curious about how Nicolas Danila and others that worked with this perfumes thought about Amazonian Gardens.


Alhambra (with garden) is actually situated in Spain, but after all Alhambra is of Arabian origin and therefore I think of the garden as an Arabian garden, and it´s also very, very beautiful I think!


Pic:Alhambra_Garden, wikimedia

Nicolas Danila - Asian Gardens

Surprisingly, Asian Gardens become one of my favourites among the Aladin Gardens perfumes. Surprisingly, since it´s a green, aquatic and very light perfume. Not a cathegory where I usually find favourites. It´s not really the right season for this kind of perfume, with cool notes of mint among the notes. Still, Asian Gardens manage to captivate me, maybe most of the seven perfumes from Aladin Gardens.


Asian Gardens is a calming perfume, close to meditative. That an east asian garden has been the source of inspiration for this perfume isn´t surprising at all, since it make me think of the sound of the wind trough the bamboo leafs, the raked pebbles of a zen garden, a pond bright as a mirror with gold fish in it, shortly speaking, peace, quiet and tranquility.


With notes of bamboo and mint, Asian Gardens become like cool, green and pure water. The scent itself is delicatly thin, actually so thin it´s hard for me to associate to anything else than air and water. The mint note gives a impression of cool air, than the actual smell of mint. All the notes in Asian Gardens are toned down, on the border to scentless, without being scentless. It could be a mineral water with the most delicat flavour of mint and bamboo. And, yes Asian Gardens has the slightest notes of minerals as well.


During the whole cycle of Asian Gardens, the scent doesn´t change or evolve so much, it stays cool, pure, aquatic and airy for many hours. But it´s also really longlasting, I dabbed it on yesterday evening, and still this morning I could still could feel it lingering around, but now with some warm and soft floral notes as well.


Asian Gardens is a really delicate perfume, beautiful and refreshing, adorable and transparent on the border to invisible. Outmost refined. Calming and sothing. Like having a private and secret Asian retreat, where you can hide from every day hardships for a while.


As I said, it lasts and lasts, wich is an art with so light notes. The sillage is discrete, but not really skin scent. Asian gardens is probably more of a summer scent, but I think it work as an indoor scent this time of year, even tough I don´t want to put it on before a walk in the forest. I do recommend it to everybody that are curious about a beautiful and pure aquatic perfume with meditative calmness.





Pic: David lee, Koi and bamboo

Nicolas Danila - Aladin Gardens

It´s hard to know where to start when it comes to Nicolas Danila´s perfume line Aladin Gardens. All the seven perfumes in the line are 100% allergen-free. Appearantly they´ve used some kind of modern technology to get rid of the allergens from some raw material. I have no idea how to do that, but I guess it´s a really good thing if it works. Those of you that knows more about the upcoming prohibition of some notes used in perfumes as citrus oil and mosses maybe knows more about this subject than I do?


Aladin Gardens consist of seven different perfumes (EdP), Aboriginal Gardens, Amazonian Gardens, Asian Gardens, Polynesian Gardens, Amerindian Gardens and European Gardens. The bottles are in rainbow colours, each bottle looks beautiful on it´s own, but together they must make a gorgeus impression. I imagining the sun reflects trough the glass of the bottles even tough I know that direct sun is the last thing to be close to perfumes.


The perfumes will be produced in 7000 bottles. All the perfumes (except of one) in the line are cherful, bright and easy to wear. They would be perfect on women in all ages, pretty and sweet on girls in my youngest daughters age (12 year), beautiful and feminine on a little older women and vibrant and youthful on more mature women. I am sure Nicolas Danila´s perfumes would please a global audience, wich is appropriate since the line have a global theme.


I do like the bottles, and I also find the story and philosophy behind the line interesting, but do I like the perfumes?


As a perfume nerd, it isn´t how beautiful a bottle is that is the most important, it´s the perfume inside. The sam goes for the story behind each perfume, no matter how interesting, pretty or adventurous, still it´s the smell of the perfume that matters.


When going trough the notes of each perfume i find some of them more interesting and some of them sounded nice, but honestly, a bit boring. My impression before trying them, was that they sure was pretty and nice, but maybe not pretty, nice and interesting.


Was I wrong or right?


Actually, both. Three of the perfumes (Aboriginal Gardens, Amerindian Gardens, Polynesian Gardens) was nice, but didn´t do anything for me. Did they smell good? Oh, yes. Do they last? Nothing to complain about there. Worth to remember? No, not really.


European Gardens has a note of anise. And it isn´t that commonly used anise that smell like anise-licorice, no it´s the kind of anise used in bread. My dear grand mother used to bake a kind of deep fried anise bread. European Gardens smell that kind of anise, and with the scent of freshly (or actually, halfbaked) bread. Despite it´s orginality I don´t feel this is a perfume for me, but I do recommend it to anyone looking for an unique anise scent with bakery notes as well. Oh, and it´s really strong in the beginning and long-lasting.


Aboriginal Gardens have a dark grey bottle, but if I could chose, Amazonian gardens would have that bottle instead. I am really curious about how they´ve decided wich perfume to put in wich bottle?


Amazonian Gardens is, in my opinion, the one in the line that doesn´t really fit among the others. All the other perfumes in the line is quite sodt, bright and easy to wear, but Amazonian Gardens is anything but that. This is massive perfume darkness, in fact the most interesting of them all, but also really (REALLY!) hard to wear, at least on me, that have -as usual- troubble with moss in perfumes. This is moss over dose, but together with a very interesting note of Yerba maté-tea. Something in this scent is extremly attractive, but at the same time almost as extremly repellant. I can´t really figure out how something with such a strong smell of moss can be allergen-free. This is also the only perfume in the line that can be difficult in a global point of view. I can imagine for instant a japanese women that usually like soft, fruity, floral perfumes can be frightened to death by Amazonian Gardens! Beware! Maybe I will write a better review of it, if I dare to try it once agaian. Anyway, Amazonian Garden is a must try for anyone looking for unique, hardcore perfumes.


You realise there is two perfumes left from Aladin Gardens. Yes, Arabian Gardens and Asian Gardens, the two in the line I like the most.


Until I wrote about them, here´s a link to Nicolas Danila´s perfumes. http://www.nicolasdanila.com/





Pic: rainbow-ocean-by-thelma

Aral - Un des sens

As you know I really like to discover perfumes that not "everybody else" all ready has written about. Sometimes that may depend on that the perfume itself isn´t something to write about, but as often it depend on that the particular perfume haven´t get stucked in the usual perfumista net.


I am usually quite updated with perfume releases in the niche genre, but not at all as updated when it come to mainstream perfumes. Still, I take the chanse to try A scent by Issey Miyake when we where in Norrköping. Floralgreen, fresh and airy with a pleasant and quite different earthy basenote, but not really my kind of perfume.


Anyway, now I sit here with a sample of the perfume (or eau de toilette) Aral - Un des sens
http://www.aralara.fr/


Catherine Lara is a french musician and singer. Quite big in France appearantly, but totally unknown for me. She have 25 music albums in the CV, one of them named Arala and wich the perfume Aral is named after.


I´m a embarrising sensitive person, because the perfume Aral makes me think a lot in musical terms. This is a perfume in minor, it´s kind of musical tuned down. A perfume with a surprisingly melancholy and depth.


Aral remind me a little of Thierry Mugler´s Eau de Star or Florascent´s Umami, but if Eau de Star is aquatic and Umami is a soft gourmand, Aral is a scent lovered in deep fog. I think of all the notes in Aral as distant and like it is a thin coat between me and the actual scent. I don´t know how to achive this in perfumery, but Aral is exciting and different.


The notes are classical orientals, warm and spicy. Cardamom, patchouli, amber, incense, vanilla, tonka and musc. But the scent reaches me as if I was on a trip trough a jungle in compact fog. Among hte oriental notes, there is also notes of sea alges, maybe that whats lend Aral is foggy, milky and opaque character?


I don´t find anything bright, strong, sweet or clear in Aral. It´s all the time subdued, adventurous, sensual and with a very captivating depth. Actually, it´s a celebrity perfume, but more of Miller Harris L'Air de Rien (Jane Birkin) or Etat Libre d'Orange´s Rossy de Palma, than anything with Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or Jennifer Lopez.


Aral seem to be hard to get outside France, but since Catherine Lara isn´t that knowned outside France, I find it ok. Even tough I would prefer to find Aral at the shelf at the local mall rather then most other perfumes I find there. That is one thing I find so fascinating about France, and also Italy, any little town have a small perfume shop offering even the strangest perfumes. This would never be possible in Sweden!


Aral last pretty long on me for an eau de toilette, at least four hours. The sillage is discrete, this is a skin scent, easy to wear on any occation. As a scent, maybe not for the youngest audience, but apart from that a very good choise for anyone looking for something quite discrete but still very unique.


If you´re travelling to France I do recommend you to try Aral if you happen to stumble upon it. I think it´s possible to order a bottle trough the home page, even tough I think you have to contact them before if you are outside France.


Anyway, Catherine Lara can be very proud of this perfume!




Pic: diego gurgel, flickr

Christian Dior - Hypnotic Poison

When i wrote about Organza Indecence I realised that I haven´t wrote about Dior´s Hypnotic Poison, even tough it´s a perfume I like, or at least like when I am in the mood for it.


The red bottle remind of a red apple, and from that there isn´t such a big step to start thinking of Snowwhite and the poisonous apple from her evil stepmother. Stepmothers, evil or not, is a difficult subject. Do you know of any stepmother that call herself a stepmother without any difficulties? In Sweden, we have come up with several words to use instead of stepmother, such as bonus-mum and plastic-mum. Bonus-mum is ok I guess, but is really plastic-mum so much better than step-mum?


Since I´ve been mother to my husbands -now- grown up daughter for 23 years I think I´ve deserve to be just her mum, and of course she is my daughter and her little, pretty son is my grand son.


Well, this haven´t got so much to do with the smell of Hypnotic Poison. If I´ve been an american I guess I would say that it smells like root beer. But I haven´t drink so much root beer, so i don´t really get those associations. To me, Hypnotic Poison smells almond, vanilla, bitter almond and a little cherry. Yes, it could very well be the smell of an under cover and fast killing poison. That kind of poison hard to not taste, because it smells so good.


Hypnotic Poison is a really strong perfume, the kind of perfume you spray out in a cloud and walk trough... really fast. Just like Organza Indecence I think of Hypnotic Poison as a party perfume. Preferable with ruby red lipstick and an ivory full length dress. Anyway, it´s not often I get the opportunity to go to that kind of parties. So I can wear Hypnotic Poison when I am at home cleaning or out in the forest with the dog. A small spray of Hypnotic Posion in the evening will last until next morning. But then all that is left is a lingering, soft scent of vanilla. Otherwise Hypnotic Poison is a quite linear scent.


I haven´t forget about my blog, but this week I have mainly amuse myself with autumn break together with husband, kids and dog. We visited Norrköping, where I manage to spend almost all my money on Lush. How come the sales persons on every Lush store is such great sellers? I always end up leaving Lush with things I didn´t at all know I needed.


Apart from that I have cher myself, and my family, up with bleaching my almost blackish brown hair. First it got orange yellor, then I belached it agian and it become more of yellow. Then I dyed it with a dark honey blond nuance. So now my hair is the colour of autumn leaves. It looks quite interesting. I guess it will brighten up the winter really good.


Wich of the Poison varieties do you like the best?



Pic: Schoolclipart