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Browsing by tag: incense

Montale Full Incense ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 25 May 2011 38 Comments

Over the years, I’ve been told I smell like 1.) a Christmas tree, 2.) an ashtray, 3.) a sacristy, and 4.) an “ethnic” gift shop. On each of those “occasions” I was wearing an incense fragrance.

I’ve never reached the saturation point with incense-centered colognes. I love incense (and incense perfume) in all seasons. The aromas of frankincense, sandalwood, halmaddi, agarwood, kyphi, and copal can take me on a sensory journey from chilly European cathedrals to steamy Southeast Asian temples, from ancient North African and Mesoamerican pyramids to the high and dry deserts of the American Southwest. For me, incense evokes rites, festivals and magical landscapes.

Montale Full Incense includes notes of cedar, labdanum, patchouli, elemi, and frankincense…

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Cire Trudon Spiritus Sancti room spray ~ home fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 22 December 2010 37 Comments

The holidays are about simple pleasures. I recently expressed that sentiment with a straight face to a friend — after shouting with glee: “Cire Trudon makes room sprays now!” My friend read the Cire Trudon Les Parfums d’Intérieur PR announcement and said: “I get the ‘pleasure’ part, Kevin, but what’s so ‘simple’ about a $142 room spray?” Fair enough.

Cire Trudon’s new room sprays come in its most popular candle fragrances: Roi Soleil, Spiritus Sancti, Abd El Kader, Ernesto, and Nazareth. Since one of my favorite churches, Santo Spirito in Florence, is thousands of miles away, I opted for the Cire Trudon fragrance that might help me conjure its atmosphere this Christmas (provided I close my eyes, get my imagination in high gear, and queue Monteverdi, Cavalli and Albinoni on the CD player); I chose Spiritus Sancti.

Spiritus Sancti smells like “classic” church incense…

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Holiday fragrance gifts 2010, part 6 ~ home fragrance edition

Posted by Robin on 10 December 2010 17 Comments

More gift ideas for the 2010 holidays. This round is home fragrance (you can also find some home fragrance items in the earlier editions: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5). More to come!


From Fornasetti Profumi, the L’Ape scented candle with lid (above left), 300 g for $150, and the Pistola Incense box (above right), with 40 incense sticks in a wooden box with decorated ceramic burning tray, $220. Both items are in the Otto fragrance (thyme, lavender, orris, cedar, Tolu balsam, incense, birch/styrax and labdanum) and can be found at Ron Robinson…

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Holiday fragrance gifts 2010, part 3

Posted by Robin on 30 November 2010 25 Comments

Still shopping? Here are some more gift ideas, and if you missed them, check out Holiday gifts part 1 and part 2. And of course, more to come…

Joya & Vane perfume solids

From Joya & Vane, solid perfume lockets in Royal Jasmine (jasmine, tuberose, tonka bean, toasted marshmallow and sandalwood; watch chain, above center, $68), Starleaf (orange blossom, honeysuckle, jasmine, lily of the valley, honey and sweet musk; heart brooch, above left, $38) or Moro Blood Orange (blood orange, tangerine, yuzu, tiare flower, vanilla, blonde woods and musk; oval + perfume pin, above right, $38). All at Anthropologie…

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Olivier Durbano Pink Quartz / Quartz Rose ~ fragrance review

Posted by Robin on 14 October 2010 54 Comments

Olivier Durbano rose quartz necklace

Pink Quartz / Quartz Rose1 is the latest from niche line Olivier Durbano, and joins the other fragrances in his Bijoux de Pierres Poèmes series. Like the others, it’s named for a semi-precious stone that Durbano uses in his jewelry. So far none of the stone-fragrance pairings in the collection have really resonated with me in any way, but this one is obvious enough (pink = rose) that even I get it.2

Pink Quartz is supposed to be a spicy chypre, and who knows, perhaps it is, although it does not smell like either a classic or a modern chypre to me. Under my own idiosyncratic (and somewhat random) classification system, it goes in the “rose + saffron” drawer, where it is far from lonely, rose + saffron combinations being rather thick on the ground lately. The opening is briefly sparkle and light, then it’s jammy-rich and spicy, and leans towards the Washington Tremlett Black Tie / The People of the Labyrinths A.Maze school rather than more transparent efforts like L’Artisan Safran Troublant…

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