Ann S., a librarian in Eastern Pennsylvania, divides her love of perfume into three phases. The first was when she was a girl. “The tops of women’s dressers were these mysterious, adult places” holding sparkling jewelry, cut glass, and, of course, perfume bottles. On her mother’s dresser sat a bottle of Jean Patou Eau de Joy. In this phase of Ann's perfume life, the two fragrances that stood out were Chantilly, which her mother gave her, and Coty Muguet des Bois, a gift from her aunt. (Ann admits she wasn’t wild about Muguet des Bois. She remembers playing “kidnapper” with her sister, and they doused a washcloth with Muguet des Bois and pretended it was chloroform.)
Phase two of Ann’s involvement in perfume began in high school. Ann is six foot one, so wandering the mall with friends shopping for clothes that never fit wasn’t much fun. It didn't take long for her to realize that accessories, cosmetics, and perfume don't depend on size. The first bottle of perfume she bought was The Perfumer's Workshop Tea Rose. Later she bought Guerlain Jardins de Bagatelle talcum powder and wore it to her prom. Then, in college she discovered Chanel Coco, which opened the door to a love of orientals. Ann says she usually had about a dozen bottles of perfume.
The third phase — and this one sounded familiar to me — started about seven years ago. Ann had smelled Chanel Eau Première when it was first released and liked it. When Eau Première then disappeared for several months due to bottle issues, she turned to the internet to track it down and discovered Now Smell This, then niche perfume houses, swapping, and samples.
Her taste in fragrance used to run to orientals, but now she says, “I’m like the buffet. I’m everything.” Through sampling, she conquered aldehydes, overcame an initial distaste of oak moss and galbanum, and, thanks to Chanel Sycomore, came to love vetiver. She’s still not wild about pronounced oud, and despite repeated sampling, Chanel No. 18 still smells like salad dressing to her.
Ann’s perfume collection now encompasses 68 perfume houses and runs near 200 bottles, counting back-up bottles. She hesitates to list her favorites, but when pressed she says she continues to adore Coco, and she loves Chanel No. 5 and No. 19, and Guerlain Chamade and Nahéma.
Ann stores most of her perfume in dresser drawers. She notes that a dresser has a few advantages. First, it keeps the perfume away from light. Pulling out the drawer lets her see all of her bottles; by contrast, bottles can end up hidden in the back of a shelf. Plus, not everyone understands an enthusiasm for perfume. The dresser neatly keeps her bottles out of sight. She keeps the bottles roughly sorted by house, and puts decants in boxes to keep them upright. (She labels the tops of decants to identify them. For instance, Lancôme Magie Noire is “MN”.)
Ann says perfume is “fun, frivolous.” She points out that “you can’t share a jacket or necklace with people, but you can share perfume” through decants and samples. “It’s art, fashion, and beauty all in one.”
Love love LOOOOOOOVE this idea!!Thank you Ann S for sharing your marvelous collection!!I am jealous of your two Badgley Mischka bottles!!lol!Enjoy all of it,ALWAYS!!Great idea Jessica,MORE please!hehe!x
Yes, thank you, Ann, for sharing! As long as these features are popular, I’m guessing we’ll keep running them.
OMG…sorry Angela!!Was thinking about a post I saw earlier that Jessica(LipstickRose) did on twitter while I was typing!Thats why I called you Jessica!Apologies and full credit to you!!And yes,I am an over-enthusiastic perfumista!!Lol.x
Gosh, there’s no need to apologize! Being confused with Jessica is a GOOD thing.
Phew.OK.Awesomeness.You all are after all one big happy NST-family,yes?Yes.hehe.
Definitely!
I was Drooling at the 2 Bottles of Badgley Mischka as well! 😀
I like my two Badgley Mischka bottles too, lol! I actually have a back up bottle of the original BM extrait, which is even cuter b/c it’s so small and squatty. I don’t wear it as much as I used to, but it’s my fav in the genre. I love the Fleurs de Nuit too. I realize after I sent these photos that I should have spun the caps around so the name wasn’t upside down!
No Ann,your pictures are really authentic and very cool!I loved-and covet some-them all!This voyeuristic little glimpse into your life was pretty cool to see in pictures!Thank you for sharing your part in our crazy love of “a perfumed life well lived!”xo
I second that!
I Third That! Fills a Perfume Addict like myself with Joy seeing such… As the Italians would say… ABBONDANZA!!! It’s A Glorious Sight!
Yes, definitely in spades!
I chuckled: “Ann admits she wasn’t wild about Muguet des Bois. She remembers playing “kidnapper” with her sister, and they doused a washcloth with Muguet des Bois and pretended it was chloroform.”
🙂
Thanks for sharing, Ann! I love these.
I couldn’t resist including that story! It was too good. (Besides, I remember playing kidnapper with my cousin. I thought we were outliers, but maybe not.)
This is like confession now: We used to play “drug addicts” too – use of Smarties and old-fashioned glasses with ice cubes and ginger ale. We were very dramatic while throwing those “pills” back! We were obviously imitating something we saw on TV….
That’s hilarious! Okay, I’ll confess that my cousin and I used to tie our ankles back around our thighs and play “amputee.” It’s awful.
I love the story too! It reminded me of summers at my Grandmother’s house, when my sister, cousin and I would play Charlie’s Angels — imitating scenes we’d see on TV.
Which Angel were you? I always vied to be Kate.
Kelly/Jaclyn Smith.
My sister and cousin would call for Jill/Farrah, and while they were deciding who’d be Jill , I’d say “I’m Kelly!!”
I was in the Jaclyn Smith fan club, lol! I still have the picture she sent to me somewhere.
I can’t believe I actually told Angela that story, lol. My sister would jump out of a closet and hold a wash clothe over our faces. One of use would pretend to faint, etc, etc. And be put up for ransom. Well, one time that wash clothe was doused with MdB. I almost puked. It took me a very, very looong time go appreciate the smell of LOTV again, which I still don’t care for in fragrance!
I wish I could have seen it in real life! It’s a great story.
I loved this too!
Thanks, Ann S., for opening your perfume heart (and home!) to us. While I don’t share your passion for Chanel, I do for other good smells and libraries!
I’m hoping Ann will develop a perfume Dewey Decimal System for us!
I’ll think about it. I’ll have to do some research on special collections!
Great article. Thank you both, Angela and Ann!
I do the same, although my addiction is kept on the down low because I’m a bit embarrassed by the number of bottles I won.
I also like to keep boxes for various reasons (protection and tracking of year of manufacturing etc.)
What’s the consensus on refrigeration vs room temperature nowadays? I’ve been tempted to buy a refrigerator for fragrances only but can’t find one large enough!
Buy a wine cooler for the precioussss…lol.I got a fairly big one for most of my vintage perfumes and some treasured ones!It is a neccesary item here in South Africa,as it gets really hot in summer,to the point where the AC is rendered useless.I also use beverage cooler boxes for storage,which does protect them fairly well from sunlight and heat as well.And always stored in boxes,although I realise most people consider it just a hassle to take them out of the box with each wearing.
You’re a good perfume conservateur!
Thank you!I try!But the most fun is still in wearing all the lovelies.
It’s great that you can do the wine cooler. It makes sense with the heat – that’s the worst. If I had the space and funds I’d probably get a giant wine fridge as well – I’ll just plan to remodel my whole house around that. 😉
I know a number of people who have wine refrigerators for their more delicate or special bottles. I know a few people, too, who reserve their crisper drawers for perfume, or who store perfume in the basement. I haven’t gone that far yet, but it’s tempting!
Appreciate the advice!
My downstairs is definitely cooler than my upstairs during the warm months, even when I’m away from home on business and my thermostat is set up to 83 degrees F because I’m thrifty on electric.
So I store in my downstairs cabinet my rarest and most beloved, the likes of Feminite’ du Bois by Shiseido in Parfum concentration from the 90s, Le Feu D’Issey, Mystere de Rochas and Gucci Pour Homme.
Those are my treasures because you just can’t find them anymore!
Here I am advertising to the entire world that they can break in and grab my things while I’m away! LOL
That would be worth writing about: a robber who specializes in rare and vintage perfume. His signature could be that he leaves a sillage of Coty Chypre.
I have a townhouse so it is small enough that I can be indulgent and keep it at a constant 72 degrees and the basement is several degrees cooler. I keep part of my collection there in some boxes and a cupboard.
Basements are great for that. (They’re fabulous in a heat wave, too, as I rediscover from time to time.)
As much as I know about conservation from my studies getting my MLIS degree (old books, paper, objects, archive stuff), I think the general strategy is best for consistency. We all know that light and heat are damaging to fragrances, and this is true for about anything actually. As constant a temperature as you can achieve is the goal, without wild fluctuations. Putting a bottle in a regular fridge, and then taking it out and letting it warm up to regular room temperature, over and over, is really not so good. Wild swings in environmental conditions are what damage things the most. If you are going to put it in a fridge, you need to commit to the fridge or you may as well not do it. I think people’s comments about a wine fridge is the best if you can swing it, but you’d not have to have it really cold – something like the temperature of a basement in the 50 degrees would suffice. It’s the consistency that’s important.
Maybe we should market our own line of perfume fridges!
Ha, yes. Is there an engineer in the house?
Yes, an attractive fire-proof perfume fridge with pull-out drawers.
And maybe a mini-drawer for decants.
fire proof – you must be reading my mind. I always joke with my husband about which bottles I’ll throw out the window first….
I actually keep all my boxes if I have them, but it takes less storage space in the drawer for them to be without. I have two hefty bags with the boxes in an upstairs closet. Talk about a waste of space! I do like to keep them for the same reason – data and also for if I sell or swap them. People always like to get the boxes.
They do like the boxes. I’m sorry recycled so many of mine.
I forget what temperature the Osmotheque uses, but it’s a bit above refrigerator temperatures. That said, I do keep some of mine in the refrigerator and haven’t noticed any problems. Light is the more serious problem, and I’m scrupulous about storing them in their boxes or in a drawer.
That’s the beauty of a wine refrigerator. I believe you can set the temperature to something perfume-friendly.
I suspect that since the Osmotheque is in France that they used whatever is believed to be the ideal temperature for wine. 😉
I also keep mine in the fridge, as many as I can on the shelves on the door which is supposed to be slightly warmer than the interior of the fridge.
I bet your mustard is to die for!
I think it’s only 4ºC. So quite cold. I think Luca Turin mentioned it somewhere in his now no longer existing blog.
Loved this. Especially the chloroform part. I’m going to show it to friends who think I’m insane. Just to let them know that there is safety in numbers.
I keep my bottles in their boxes and the more fragile ones in the fridge. I’ve been thinking about a wine cooler, and will probably end up buying one at some point. Still, I live in a temperate zone, so my bottles don’t suffer that much.
AnnS: you should have been born in the Netherlands; tall people are the norm here, although truth be told 6’1 is fairly tall even by Dutch standards.
I think we all have some safety in numbers regarding our silliness and obsession. I also keep my really important extrait in their boxes. The only one I don’t have a box for is my No19. I don’t know where it came from via fragnet discounter, but it was boxless. It is pretty chilly where I live so I store all my back ups in a box in my closet on the floor. The floor temperature hovers around 60 or less all year round. The only bottle I keep in the fridge is 4711.
I’m sure whatever arrangement you have is working!
I actually put my boxless bottles in discarded socks. Works a treat and the socks have a second job. I’m not very organised about what goes where. Although I do sort of organise things by house.
OMG – yes! I used my daughter’s old toddler socks for very small or delicate bottles or boxless when I store them. That is so funny. I thought I was the only one.
austenfan and AnnS, what a great idea!
Heh, my bottles are wearing socks too :^)
And so fun to see your collection, AnnS!
I never thought about the sock trick, but it sounds popular!
Oh, and, yes! I should have been born in the Netherlands or anywhere in northern Europe! I always wanted to live “over there”.
I remember you mentioned your height somewhere else on NST as well. And I remember thinking; that’s tall for an American woman. I spent 6 months in the Stated in the early nineties and even I, at 5’9″ felt tall. I don’t at home. At all.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! It was fun to write, and Ann is marvelous.
No, you are marvelous!
Ann is the best. A sample swap with her led me to buying at least three things, but learning about so, so many more. Her curatorial sense comes out here, too. This is a definitely fun feature.
Hey, the vintage Je Reviens and the no 5 edp – which is definitely “older” – are so awesome! I remember liking and wanting Je Reviens when I was a teen and my mom told me it was too old for me. So I guess that means I’m the right age now!
Awesome. I am glad they are working out. And, of course, that you are old enough. Heh.
She really is the best, and I’m so glad you’re enjoying the feature!
I think we all want to peek into each other’s draws/cabinets etc. Perhaps for lack of being able to share with all the normals out there?
That must be it!
I love this! Thank you Angela for the idea, and AnnS for your generosity in sharing this with us. You have a lovely collection, and it’s apparent you’ve given it much thought, care and consideration.
I’ve had pretty much the same phases, except I’ll throw in the aromatherapy phase which has been simultaneous with phases two and three.
I keep a few bottles out, and the rest I also like to keep in drawers. I’ll also ‘fess up (again) that I have The Sample Sea (aka gyre) which is composed of samples, decants, back-ups and includes unopened Olfactif deliveries (among others) as well as plenty of plastic bags and other flotsam and jetsam. That’s in a closet (or two.) Do not tell one of those hoarder reality shows. I will deny all.
I am definitely a frag horder – I didn’t bother to send photos of my small boxes of vials (some are on top of my dresser), my drawer with fragrant dusting powders (I have a thing for that too), even though you can see the lovely cobalt blue glass dusting jar of Elixir of Love #1 on top of my dresser. Nor did I show my back up box, my box for swaps and give-aways, or the one drawer that has squatty bottles (eg, Encre Noire, Mauboussin, et. al.) in with my cardigans…. I am like a squirrel. Did I mention that I keep small decants in my office desk???
The cobalt blue glass is gorgeous!
It really is – does it make sense to say that shade of blue glass makes my mouth water? Thankfully the dusting powder smells heavenly or it would just be an “objet”.
Actually even the phrase ‘cobalt glass’ makes my mouth water!
I know for a fact you’re not alone!
I think until Smell-O-Vision becomes popular, you’re safe!
What a beautiful collection! Thanks for sharing Ann. My collection is mostly samples and decants, so all those gorgeous bottles (especially the Chanels) make my heart race!
Lol at the “chloroform” perfume. Think I’ll skip that one if I ever see it!
My husband calls my top drawer there my “treasure chest”.
Samples and decants can be hard to store in a useful way, too!
Should I do my Mom’s Perfume Collection… (as well as my own!) For here… Over the years I and my Dad and She herself have obtained quite the Fragrance Library… WELL Over 100 bottles of Fragrance…. hmmmmmm…..????
Yes!Go for it!!would love to see yours too!Sounds like there might be some interesting perfumed tales attached to your pic-story!!
I think I would have invariably ended up with quite a few bottles of perfume over my life just b/c of how I am, even if I’d never discovered all these online resources and vendors. You should contact Angela!
I’m keeping a list of possible perfume cabinets to feature, and the list is getting sizable! I’ll add your name.
Thanks for letting us view your system, Ann. It’s very tidy and organized–makes we wish I had more of your librarian orderly instincts! I notice the longer we’re at this hobby, the more all-encompassing our tastes become. Started off preferring green chypres, now I’ll even wear Shalimar on occasion.
I’m actually wearing Shalimar today. It’s a particularly animalic vintage EdT. Love it.
Oh god! I am not organized! I am an accidental librarian!! You should see my office…my home. Yikes. I think my main frag drawer is probably the most organized part of my house. The other drawer with the mash up of bubble wrap, samples and decants is more the norm for me.
That top drawer DOES look like an amazing treasure trove 😀
Love all those beautiful fluted Goutals and I’m realizing I NEED at least one Parfum Rosine, because the bottles are just so lovely… Is that one Ecume?
I know! I’m almost tempted to take out a magnifying glass to identify the bottles.
It’s actually Une Zeste de Rose. I love it. I’ve always been perturbed that Rosine are so hard to come by. I’ve only sampled a few of them. It does look fat and happy in the middle there.
Oh! That is one I like a lot 🙂 Probably the best that I have tested…
Beautiful collection of perfumes! I enjoyed reading the article.
You take very good care of your lovelies!
I’m glad you enjoyed the article!
I need to! I’m glad I shared. It was a lot of fun- especially talking to Angela about fragrance for a little bit.
Great post! It doesn’t matter how many bottles I have myself, I still want to dive into those perfume dresser drawers for a couple of weeks. Congratulations on amassing such a yummy hoard, Ann!
By the way, what are those two lovelies next to the Diptyque Essences Insensées?
Isn’t it fabulous? I can practically smell it.
Yes – the other nice thing about keeping perfume in drawers is that they smell fantastic when you open them.
It’s true – you can smell them. Sometimes that’s a bad thing b/c you know there’s evaporation. But I do keep clothes in all the other drawers, so the whole thing ends up smelling kind of nice.
L to R – The EI, as you note, and then the old bottle of Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier Secrete Datura that I got used on ebay, and the old special (glass) edp bottle of Annick Goutal Ce Soir ou Jamais. I wish I had another one of these. I decanted about 10 mls of the CSoJ from that bottle so I didn’t have to worry about slippery hands!
The Ce Soir bottle looked familiar, although I could not place it, but I’ve never seen the MPG bottle, I’m sure. I’m sorely tempted to order Essences Insensées unsniffed…
It smells a lot like a slightly more “green”/less almondy L’AP Mimosa Pour Moi. So, if you like that you’ll probably like EI. And the bulb atomizer twist locks so you don’t have to worry about evaporation.
Fun piece! I love the way perfume bottles look in a collection. Reminds me if an old apothecary with vials and bottles of potions. Something magical and mysterious about it. Thanks for sharing your story and photos. It satisfies my voyeurustic tendencies! My collection is tiny and fits in one drawer that my husband calls Pandora’s box because of the aroma that is released when I open it. Which I guess is scary to him.
if one hasn’t been made already, I’d love to see a documentary done on perfume from the collector’s standpoint with bits of history mixed in.
I’d watch that film in a second! Have you seen the BBC documentary on perfume? It’s on YouTube and well worth finding.
No! Do you know what it’s called? I s’pose if I type in BBC Perfume it’ll rear its head.
Here’s a link to the episode guide:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0129dlf/episodes/guide
I watched them on YouTube in 15 minute chunks.
That’s one thing I like about fragrance too – there are a rare few consumable products that you can store, use, collect, share, etc, etc, like you can fragrance and still have a viable, costly, useful item. I have some bottles that are decades old, and still smell wonderful! I’d love to see a documentary on this too.
I agree. Look at the community that has sprung up here around perfume.
I’ll add to the chorus in thanking you, Ann, for giving us a glimpse of your lovely collection. It is such a thrill to be able to have a peek like this! Drooling over everything, but that set of Chanel’s is ultra-fantastic!
I love them, too!
Thank you! There is something about the classic Chanel bottle that is so wonderful. Chanel is one of my most favorite houses.
I think that Ann should give tours of her collection and you can sign me up!
Very impressive!
That would be fun!
And decants included in the admission price!
Woo Hoo!
We can dream, right?
I’d would consider that very seriously if you brought your own vials, a nice cake or pastry, and some Prosecco too! 😉
A case of Prosecco! We’re in–woohoo!
Great read, Angela! And thank you, Ann, for taking us for a tour of your personal perfume world. I too use a dresser drawer and like that it’s easy to find what I want and keeps my space tidy.
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you and great minds! The dresser just kind of worked out b/c it’s right at hand when I get dressed and I never had a cabinet anyway that would be the right size. I’m just glad the one I have is actually an old beast b/c the drawer is really heavy with all that liquid and glass. It’s persuaded me to hold off getting any nicer bedroom furniture b/c I’d need something with some serious runners!!
I’m just noticing how companionable Calypso and Tocade look standing together. 🙂
Yes – they are peeking out from behind. You can definitely tell who they are for sure. I have so many bottles that kind of look the same from the top – especially the decants! I was perturbed b/c I couldn’t find the very long acrylic cap for the Kenzo Flower Essentielle for when I took the picture – it’s lost in the void now. That bottle is so tall that I have to tip it over even with the cap off to put it in the drawer. That image is my “oversize” bottles that I have to keep in another drawer.
This is such a great article Angela. Thank you Ann for sharing your story and collection. Perfume can be so personal and emotional, I had to stop myself from getting a little weepy. beautiful story.
No weeping, only smiles! The act of smelling is really special – reacting with senses, emotion, and the mind all rolled together. It’s so internalized and yet public too. It’s wonderful that we can all share and chat about these things. I’m glad Angela had such a great idea to do this, and that everyone is getting a kick out of seeing my bottles.
I love how you describe perfume as a personal yet public item. So true.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the post and that it inspired an emotional reaction!
What a wonderful idea/article, Angela! And a huge thank you to Ann S. for sharing such great pictures of her wonderful collection. Ann S. is one of my perfume buddies and she’s even more lovely than her collection. <3
Please stop! Do you see the lovelies that YOU helped bring to me? There is a good percentage of my collection that comes from excellent swaps and private sales for sure! That vintage Vol de Nuit extrait purse spray looks like a jewel for heaven’s sake!
I’m glad you liked it, and I’m especially glad that Ann agreed to be a subject! I’m not surprised that she’s a particular perfume buddy.
Thank you for sharing!!! Of course, I covet your Chanels!
Your Guerlains are lovely! Those bottles are beautiful. Really nice post.
The great thing about Chanels is that they are so easy to get for a bargain on ebay. You kind of have to hover and do some homework to make sure they are good, but almost all of my No 5’s are used from ebay. I like thinking about who used to own the really old ones. I am glad that right now there are no more Chanel’s that I want. I’ve been spared wanting the last few LE’s. It helps with the wallet!
Don’t you wish you had the stories of each of the bottles? I’d love to know who bought them originally, and why.
This is turning out to be a really, really great series of posts! I love the pics and stories. Thank you for putting this together, Angela, and thank you for sharing, Ann!
You’re welcome! It’s so fun to do.
I’m glad everyone is having so much fun with it. It will be interesting as the other future posts come out to see how everyone’s collection is different and the same. So cool.
I love this post and a peek into a fellow perfumista’s collection! AnnS, you are so organized and well informed about perfumes based on personal experience!
She really has assembled an amazing collection, and a lot of research and determination went into it. I just wish there were a “smell” function on these posts!
I love the research part – it helps to keep it interesting for me. When I first fell down the rabbit hole I was all about these note cards with notes lists and working on developing my nose, making my spreadsheets, etc. I used to try and memorize every bottle I had – reminded me of my college art history days. I’d go through each of the classic houses then branch out with the indie/niche. It’s really been hard to keep up recently b/c of so many releases and not having so much free time anymore. And I don’t spend nearly what I used to, so I only go where my nose leads me now. Or where lucky swaps and samples come from… There is a lot to keep a girl interested. These days I am mostly chasing down back up bottles when absolutely necessary of my favs that I am afraid of reformulation or discontinuation. But I need to be careful about that too. I have a lot on my hands. I only buy a few bottles a year now, and I should hardly be doing that!
I completely understand! At one point–years ago now–I actually constructed a Venn diagram of the fragrances I loved and the points at which they overlapped. Not anymore. And like you, it’s the rare bottle I buy these days.
Ha! And I actually don’t see you as a perfume nerd!
Thank you Ann and Angela, and all commentors (perfume socks!), this post has become a real treasure trove of stories and useful perfume conservations methods (so good to read that fluctuation in temps is to be avoided)!
And what a pleasure to have a look in your collection, the Goutals sitting there amicably, the Chanels, and besides the lovely CeSoir etc. bottle I see a bottle that has a Lalique design (the one with the spiralling leaves), I don’t know if it is a Lalique perfume, but I recognise the pattern (there is a small but lovely Lalique museum in the Netherlands, which includes quite a few of the very first Lalique/Coty perfumes).
I keep my perfumes in a drawer as well, falling down the rabbithole coincided with having my bedroom redone, and I had a chest of drawers made, one destined to be the perfume drawer. I thought that would be more than enough space…but I may empty another drawer at some point in time.
Moving to read your all time favourites, I have my late mother’s no 5 EdT in splash bottle, it survived marvellously in non perfumista conditions, but now I understand why, no fluctuations.
How terrific to have a custom perfume drawer! More than once I’ve sketched out a perfume cabinet. Maybe one day I’ll have one made.
Your drawer sounds amazing! Now I’m dreaming of a custom closet the size of my room with special “cool” drawers for my entire collection! I am glad to hear your MIL’s No 5 is in good shape. The vintage No 5 are amazing.
Love love love this idea! A custom closet featuring a divine perfume collection rather than designer clothes! Fantastic!
Hamamelis: the bottle you are commenting about is the Diptyque Essences Insensees (a mimosa fragrance) released last fall in the US. I don’t know who designed it. But it is certainly very pretty.
Ann, I looked it up (could have been a librarian myself 😉 ) and it is made by Waltersperger, a glass designer located in Normandy. They found an old mould, and used that. This company was founded in 1916 and this bottle looks very much Art Deco/Jugendstil to me, like Laliques vases and perfume bottles.
Is the fragrance as pretty as the bottle?
AnnS and Angela, thank you for this wonderful tour of a really fabulous collection! And Ann — thank you for bringing fun, frivolity, and glamour to the library profession! You should be featured in one of those calendars that show the “unexpected” sides of librarians. I know we (I have an MLS, too) aren’t all grey-haired, stoop-shouldered, orthopedic-shoe-wearing shushers — but you are the first perfumista librarian that I’ve “met.”
As a kid, I adored my big sister’s bottle of Muguet des Bois, but I can see how things might have turned out differently if she’d clocked me in the face with a washcloth full of it… 😉
Librarians seems to get the short end of the image stick, but Ann is proving that wrong for sure.
I am glad to hear at least you enjoyed your bottle of MdB!! LOL!
You know, I get the strangest comments from “normal people” when I tell them I’m a librarian. My favorite ever was: you don’t look like a librarian! I was like, well, thank you very much. I think it’s a changing mode. I am rather more frazzled than glamorous however!! I knew there were some other MLS’s hanging around here. Cheers!
Oh my goodness, I loved this so much! AnnS, your collection is amazing!!! Thank you so very much for sharing it with us! And thank you, Angela, for making this happen.
I’d share mine, but lord knows when I will feel like dusting again! 😛
You are so welcome! I am glad everyone had a good time being voyeurs. As for dust…. you can only see the motes and fuzzies in the full sized images I sent to Angela. These tiny little ones above are really good for hiding the flaws. A lady never tells her secrets, but I did have to clean some distracting lots of my daughter’s pony tail holders and random lip glosses off my dresser…
You’re welcome! I was so grateful that Ann was willing.
Yay! I loved seeing your collection, Ann! The bit about using Muguet de Bois as play chloroform made me laugh. 🙂
I’m very very late to the party, but thank you Ann for sharing! I would love to spend an afternoon sniffing my way through your fabulous collection. And with your extensive knowledge of frags, I know I would learn a lot too! Thank you Angela for the lovely article. I can’t wait for more in this series!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I’m looking forward to writing more of them.