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Browsing by category: perfume talk

5 Perfumes: unexpected comfort scents

Posted by Jessica on 2 February 2021 28 Comments

I recently attended an online work meeting that opened with an “icebreaker” question: what’s your favorite comfort food? I enjoyed hearing the responses, which included some sweet-and-starchy favorites but a few spicy and savory treats, too. The idea of “comfort,” just like most things, can vary and shift. I’d say the same thing about “comfort scents” — I definitely have a few vanilla-based favorites that make me feel like I’m tucked into a fluffy blanket, but lately I’ve also been reaching for fragrances that offer other olfactory routes to calm and security. Here are just a few that I’ve recently encountered or re-encountered.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Couverture d’Hiver: This is DSH’s latest Holiday edition, which takes “a foresty hillside covered in snow” as a starting point and segues from a whiff of brisk winter air, with hints of petrichor and pine, into a cozy white-cocoa-and-musk skin scent…

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What Not to Buy: Perfume Samples

Posted by Kevin on 25 January 2021 106 Comments

Seattle is a smallish city; comparable to San Francisco in population. We have lots of perfume shops but New York puts us to shame when it comes to variety of product in those shops. And many stores in Seattle are stingy with perfume samples; they won’t even sell me a sample when I ask or beg. Years back, most perfume companies abruptly stopped sending me samples of their wares. Was it because I sometimes gave negative reviews — so it was risky to put a new perfume in nose-shot of me? Was it because I ignored samples that didn’t interest me instead of promoting them?

I didn’t worry about it; I had always re-gifted not only full bottle/full-size products I received from perfume companies, but samples, too. I did this happily! Well, there was the time Amouage sent me a beautiful little bottle of Gold Man. After I pried the bottle from my clenched fist, I gave Gold to a friend at work who said she liked it. I still laugh when I remember the day I took a drive in her truck and smelled Gold; she excitedly admitted she sprayed the mats in her car with Gold…

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Chanel Le Lion de Chanel ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 11 January 2021 53 Comments

In my mind’s eye, it went down like this: “Amber? You want us to develop an Exclusif focused on amber?” I picture four or five people around an ebony table in a taupe-tinted room with black moldings — the board room version of a Chanel suit.

“You did it with patchouli,” the executive says. “No one smells Coromandel and thinks of Woodstock.”

“Not at that price,” the intern mutters…

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Serge Lutens Des Clous pour une Pelure ~ fragrance review

Posted by Jessica on 7 January 2021 20 Comments

Last February, Serge Lutens launched Des Clous pour une Pelure, a new fragrance in the brand’s Les Eaux de Politesse collection. (You may remember that Les Eaux are designed to be “light, fresh, devoid of the heady, sticky, overly masculine notes of colognes.” I didn’t, and had to check.) Lutens himself says, “I use the word ‘clous’ — meaning nails, or things that are practically worthless — metaphorically, because this Eau is dear to me! The orange peel pricks your eyes, and by nails I mean cloves, of course.” Of course.

We also learn that “[t]his invigorating and spicy fragrance traces its roots back to the medieval tradition of clove-studded pomanders” — now, there’s some information I can work with…

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Caron Aimez-Moi Comme Je Suis ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 4 January 2021 46 Comments

I have a mind that classifies — non-stop. With perfume houses, I often shove them into categories such as:

Holding Steady: Acqua di Parma; Arquiste; Goutal; Chanel; Diptyque; Etat Libre d’Orange; Frédéric Malle; Guerlain; Hermès; Jo Malone; Kilian; L’Artisan Parfumeur; Le Labo; Memo; Ormonde Jayne; Parfum d’Empire

Should Be Better Known: Aesop; Astier de Villatte; Blackbird; Cire Trudon; Salvatore Ferragamo; Vilhelm Parfumerie; Zoologist…

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The Great Perfume Reduction Plan
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How to get fragrance samples
Perfume for Life: How Long Will Your Fragrance Collection Last?

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