I have nearly finished reading a book by Hannah Jane Parkinson called "The Joy of Small Things", a collection of her columns of the same name for The Guardian, which were inspired in turn by J B Priestley's "Delight" - a book with which I am not familiar, despite having played the odious Ernest Beevers in Time and the Conways. I remember delivering the line: "You've done a lot of silly things in your time, Mrs Conway, but I think you'll find that's the damn silliest!", whereupon Mrs C would slap my face and a great cloud of talcum powder would whoosh up into the air.
But I digress...
"The Joy of Small Things" is similar in format to the late, great Michael Mosley's compendium of health tips, "Just One Thing", except that instead of being a collection of interventions you could do to improve your well-being, "The Joy of Small Things" features a bunch of things the author already finds conducive to her well-being, such as "The perfect dressing gown", "Cheating a hangover", "Closing browser tabs" and "Recovering from a cold". No selection does justice to the 100 or so titles of small sources of joy she covers. I would urge you all to get yourselves a copy, but maybe hold off for a few months in case I buy you it for Christmas. ;)
It occurred to me that "The joy of thunking a decant or sample" could very well have featured in the book, had Hannah Jane Parkinson been a perfumista. I have found one reference to fragrance in the book so far, but only about the relative cost of cedar and sandalwood oil in the context of an episode of The Apprentice. ;) Re thunking, it's not even about the decisive noise of the glass hitting the table as you set it down, empty at last. It is more the satisfaction of frankly finishing ANY receptacle of perfume you own, however small. There's a glaring paradox in my being a person who hates waste, yet who has managed to acquire a sprawling collection of perfume that will greatly outlast my remaining time on earth.
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| Source: House of Cherry Bomb |
So given my scent surfeit, you might think it strange that I could ever get anxious about running out of a particular perfume. And by "olfactory range anxiety" I don't mean a situation where you apply a fragrance at King's Cross and it wears off before you get to Peterborough, but simply the sense of using something up. I wore Bois des Iles and House of Cherry Bomb Immortal Beloved this week, and found myself getting really quite twitchy about the dwindling level of my decant of each. So much so that I ordered 2ml of Bois des Iles from a guy on the Fragrance Sale / Swap / Split site on Facebook, which arrived today. I realised my original sprayer (pictured at the top of the post) actually has more left in it than I remembered - 3ml maybe? - but still the fear took hold...
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| Minor reinforcements |
It will be much harder to source some more Immortal Beloved, because this indie perfume house doesn't seem to have a normal website anymore where you can buy stuff, plus it is based in Brooklyn, and I know to my cost that sending a perfume shipment across the pond is a perilous enterprise, though I might be able to find a US-based "scent mule". The name of the fragrance also seems to have changed since I last looked, to Immortal Mine II. I have messaged HOCB via their Instagram page, but have not heard back. If anyone reading this happens to live in New York, and has news of the brand, do let me know. So for the moment I have just topped up the Chanel by £4.50's worth. Maybe I will have to accept that when Immortal Beloved is gone, it's gone, like Texan and Marabou Delite bars, and Walkers Gently Infused Lime with Thai Spices crisps. And no, their Lime & Coriander Chutney-flavoured poppadoms are not acceptable substitutes.
I spotted an actual Texan bar on eBay for £99! It is listed as "new", but I'm not sure how it would taste after 40 years...?!
6 comments:
Ah, the satisfaction of thunking a sample or decant. I just thunked a sample vial of Chanel Cuir de Russie. I looked at my collection and realized it's entirely too large. Lost my sense of smell two years ago when I contracted the covid virus. I've since regained it, but somehow I just don't like many of the perfumes I own. So I'm trying to downsize.
Cherry Bomb has an Etsy page, but it seems they're "taking a break". And that message was posted January 2023. I need to source a copy of "The Joy of Small Things". It sounds like just my kind of read.
Hi Tatiana,
It is so true that no amount of thunking can make a real dent in our stashes, though it still feels good at the time. "Every little helps", I try to believe. Sorry to learn that Covid messed with your sense of smell and turned you off a lot of your collection. That makes the job of using it up even more of a challenge, short of selling it. Thanks for the tip off about Cherry Bomb - that's a long break...hope they do eventually come back. And yes, do give The Joy of Small Things a whirl if you can find it on Amazon or somewhere.
We are strange humans, us perfumistas Vanessa. If you saw how much perfume I have, and the amount that are decants and samples, you'd have a fit.
Last year I did a Sample/Decant thunk series on the Posse and over the 12 months I thunked more than 300 of them. Still there are boxes and boxes.
I'm seriously thinking of repeating the exercise in 2025.
Bois des Iles, sigh
Portia x
Hi Portia,
I might have a fit, as my own collection already troubles me, haha, and I know you are still adding to yours? 300 thunks in a year is phenomenal - the vials must have had very little left in them? ;) I don't think I finish more than a dozen things a year, but to be fair I haven't had a concerted campaign to do so.
With perfume vials I was emptying the whole 1 or 2 ml at once onto myself. It was fun. Some of the 8 & 10ml decants took a few wears. A lot of it was finishing things I'd been saving the last 2ml of or a dribble in the vial for reference. Doing early morning, work and bed on many of the days.
When I think about it the amount does weigh me down a bit. The incoming has definitely slowed in the last two years or so.
Emptying the whole 1 or 2ml onto yourself at once?! That's cheating, haha, as I could get about 10 wears out of 2ml - maybe even out of 1ml. I am a very light applier, so when thunking, I follow my usual MO, which is why it takes forever. Yours is a bit like a plane dumping fuel, hehe, but I admire your panache...;)
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