Marchesa Parfum d’Extase ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 22 October 2012 30 Comments

Marchesa Parfum d'Extase advert, cropped

Perfume has mystique. It’s supposed to add a powerful but invisible allure, they say. Men should feel faint in your sillage. A whiff of your fragrance should call you to mind, eyes cast seductively aside and all.¹ Given the hype, I understand why so many new launches are for whopper fragrances with “sexy” stamped all over their branding. (Whether you actually find any of it sexy is another matter.)

Fortunately, Marchesa Parfum d’Extase takes a more subtle approach, and for that alone it’s worth smelling. Despite its ambitious name, Parfum d’Extase is delicate, fresh, and old fashioned. If you’re looking for purple fruit, heavy musk, patchouli, and gardenia, move along. There’s nothing for you here…

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Dolce & Gabbana Pour Femme ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 15 October 2012 50 Comments

Dolce & Gabbana Pour Femme 2012 advert

Last week I casually scanned the perfume display at Sephora while a sales assistant made me a sample of the new Marchesa (review to come). My eyes lit on the familiar gold and red Dolce & Gabbana bottle. In the 1990s, the original Dolce & Gabbana was in my regular perfume rotation. I loved its diffusion, hint of tangerine and spice, and wide load of oriental seduction. But I hadn’t smelled it for years. “Could you make me a sample of that one, too?” I asked and pointed at the bottle

Sure, the bottle looked more slender and elegant than the boxy rectangle I remembered, but the fragrance had so much personality I was sure it couldn’t have changed too much. I confidently spritzed my arm and lifted it to my nose, expecting a rush of memory.

Nothing. Not a single “clang” of the mental bells…

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Geo F Trumper shaving cream ~ scented body product review

Posted by Angela on 8 October 2012 17 Comments

Geo F Trumper shaving cream

Sometimes I thirst for luxury. I want a Corot in a gilt frame hanging next to my daybed where I can lift my eyes from a novel and stare at it. I want a mid-century arm chair upholstered in grass-green silk velvet at my desk. I want all my underwear replaced with the kind that doesn’t come three to a pack. Like most people, my budget isn’t up to major purchases these days, so when the itch for luxury needs scratched, I turn to peaches and speckled farm eggs. And George F. Trumper shaving cream.

I first heard of George F. Trumper — on labels as Geo F Trumper — in an article about Pauline de Rothschild, who favored Trumper’s Extract of Limes cologne.¹ Trumper, a British company, also sells shaving supplies and even offers one-on-one shaving lessons. When I saw tubes of Trumper shaving cream lined up at a local perfume boutique, I bought the lime. Over the years I’ve also tried rose, violet, and sandalwood…

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What is “Clean,” Anyway?

Posted by Angela on 1 October 2012 196 Comments

soap bars on towel

Perhaps this scenario is familiar: You express enthusiasm for a fragrance, and a friend notes — maybe with a little smugness — that she doesn’t wear perfume. She’d rather smell “fresh and clean.”

Little does she know that the fresh and clean smell she likes so much is perfume. The bar of soap in her shower, the box of laundry detergent she bought last weekend, the spot remover she uses when kitty has an accident — it’s all scented and calculated to smell clean. These products define and perpetuate our idea of “clean.”

Soap? Musk and orange blossom practically define “soapy” these days, although the musk could also be hopped up with rose, linden, or grape-sweet lavender. Citrus, especially orange, often registers as clean. Pine smells clean, too. Think of Pinesol or the tree-shaped air fresheners dangling from so many rear view mirrors. Thanks to the calone explosion in the 1990s, the combination of ozone, melon, and cucumber often read as rain fresh. Air fresheners have ruined lilac for me for good. And then there’s powdery clean…

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Parfums MDCI Chypre Palatin ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 24 September 2012 65 Comments

Parfums MDCI Chypre Palatin, bust edition

You can’t have been a thrift store junkie as long as I have without honing your eye for beauty and solid craftsmanship. The problem with a lust for 1930s crystal cocktail glasses with their fine, imperfectly etched bowls, for example, or the ability to suss out vintage alpaca or 1940s rayon by touch alone, is that I end up toting home too many gorgeous things I’ll never use. That butter-soft tweed Brooks Brothers overcoat? It went to a friend’s husband whose girth supported it. The chocolate brown Manolos two sizes too small? Seven dollars later, an intern in my office was wearing them. Let’s not even get started on geometric mid-century lamps, Murano glass ashtrays, and mouton jackets. I crave these items for their quality and style, but they don’t always fit into my life.

That’s how I feel about Parfums MDCI Chypre Palatin. I love everything about it and long for a bottle, but it was made for someone else. However, if Chypre Palatin suits you, you are in for a real treat…

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Now Smell This

a blog about perfume

Marchesa Parfum d’Extase ~ fragrance review

Dolce & Gabbana Pour Femme ~ fragrance review

Geo F Trumper shaving cream ~ scented body product review

What is “Clean,” Anyway?

Parfums MDCI Chypre Palatin ~ fragrance review