Favourite - and least favourite - perfume *bottles* in your collection

 

This is a blog post theme with which I have been toying for some time. I have seen features discussing which perfume bottles on the market people consider to be the most beautiful - or the least attractive - but decided to confine the question to bottles I own. Within this finite category I would venture to say that aesthetic considerations have come into my acquisition decisions down the years, but not to any great extent.

So I had a little rummage in the several boxes housing my collection, and started to draw up a list of possible candidates for either title.

Before going any further, I should mention that the twin pack of flacons above are not mine, but rather are from the little perfume museum in Barcelona I have in fact visited (though I can't say I remember them, as there were so many strange and wonderful specimens to take in). The set belonged to Marie Antoinette no less, and is therefore quite long in the tooth. In view of the unfortunate fate of their owner, we should perhaps be impressed they managed to keep their tops all these years...!

 

For the most beautiful bottle, I initially thought of going with this 15ml bottle-ette of Calypso from natural perfumery Ajne in California. It is one of the smallest perfume receptacles that could feasibly be counted as full-sized, as well as being the most expensive I have ever bought. I reviewed the scent in question many years ago here, and am pleased to report that I still have some of this sultry tropical number left, and that it hasn't turned. The problem with the bottle is - if I am perfectly honest - that the metal filigree work is tacky and cheap-looking: the gold is too gold, if you know what I mean, while silver - or any silverish alloy for that matter - would have been more refined. It is so easy to get gold-type metals wrong. See how much better this cheap tea light holder looks next to it? Hmm...actually, the gold filigree doesn't look too bad in my photo, but trust me that it does in real life - and light!

 

Source: amara.com

Indeed I made that very mistake again recently with some make up bags and purses from a company called Elizabeth Scarlett. Several people reading this so nearly got one for Christmas(!), but luckily for them I sent the whole lot back due to the cheap and gaudy-looking fastenings - and made sure to tell the company so. Actually, the pouches were also very creased, and even though I have greatly relaxed my high ironing standards during lockdown, the extremely wrinkly state of the fabric was troubling. Which is a shame as the designs were gorgeous. So yes, it only takes a little slip on one aspect of a product's design to compromise the whole shebang. Going back to Calypso, it also didn't make the cut because its spray mechanism has given up the ghost, so you have to unscrew the whole caboodle and anoint yourself with the rather sharp and pointy end of the little white tube-y thing. Meaning Calypso is out of the frame on two counts. And I swear I am not dismissing it because I felt the shop in Carmel stood me up when I tried to visit. ;)

Now there was a clue to my favourite bottle in the image above of the Elizabeth Scarlett pouch, which has quite fortuitously been styled next to a (bizarrely empty) Annick Goutal bottle. I own three AG perfumes: Grand Amour, Le Chevrefeuille, and Songes, and the prettiest of all is....Le Chevrefeuille! How much do I love that egg yolk yellow ribbon, which nicely sets off the elegant fluted oval-shaped bottle. It is not unlike a boiled egg that has been given a good hard squeeze, something I daresay we Brits are all looking forward to come June, hehe.

 

Then honourable mention should go to DKNY Gold, even though my bottle is scratched and battered.

 

I love its 'beaten' gold panels (in an acceptable shade of gold ;) ) and chunky square wooden top, with a soupcon of a nod toward Brutalist architecture.

Source: news.artnet.com

And what about my least favourite? Well, there was a lively jockeying for position amongst the shortlist: a hot contender was the overblown and space-guzzling Oscar de la Renta, with its floral excrescence of a top, which makes it difficult to store. It is such an awkward beggar in fact that it also refuses to have its image rotated.

 

Then I do like the graceful arch of my Flower by Kenzo Oriental, but it towers above the other bottles, and invariably ends up lying on top of them like a stagediving pop star. But no, the accolade of 'least favourite' has to go to Olfactive Studio's Lumiere Blanche. What a plain, functional, dull, rectangular non-entity it is! I have seen more seductive half bottles of cheap vodka or maple syrup. 

 

Plus my olive oil bottles are all without exception more winsome than this lumpen thing. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must say I didn't actually buy the Lumiere Blanche - it was a kind hand-me-down from a fellow fumehead. And I speculate that my aesthetic sense would have been sufficiently offended to have put me off a purchase even if I had been lusting after the scent. Which is saying something, because the juice usually trumps all.

Finally, another pic of the winner, topped off by its bright and luxuriantly bouffant bow! Spring is not quite here, but how cheering is this sight?

 

And now I would be interested to hear about your own bottle awards, based on your personal perfume wardrobe.

 

(Photo of perfume bottles at the top of the post from Wikimedia Commons via Marta Muntada Artiles; photo of palmier pouch from amara.com; photo of church in Berlin from art.news.com - other photos my own)

Votive duet: Aftelier Perfumes Vanilla Smoke & Amber Tapestry mini-reviews - plus an Ajne retrospective

Made by me - a rare gift TO my elderly friend!

Strange to report, I didn't develop a liking for wine till I was at least 22, and olives still remain a challenge too far today. In the nine years of my perfume hobby, I have also come late to appreciating natural perfumes - that's with the exception of Carmel-based Ajne, a house to which I was introduced by Michelyn Camen early on in my perfume j*****y, before she founded Cafleurebon. I still possess a small bottle of Calypso - a woozy blend of frangipani, jasmine, cardamom and vanilla - which doesn't seem to have turned yet, despite being at least eight years old. Ajne* had quite a low profile in the blogosphere back then, and I never hear tell of them now. For a while though the range exerted a hypnotising pull over me, due to the hyper-realism of the luxurious ingredients, coupled with the delicate filigree of the Bohemian bottles, and the ritualistic way I would dab on my precious collection of samples. There was even one called Om, described as 'a consciousness-altering blend of smoke-laden sandalwood, Himalayan heart incense cedar, deep forest lichen and smooth musk'. I remember liking Om quite a lot, but I was busy chasing samples and splits of the other heady florals in the range apart from Calypso, notably Printemps (gardenia, linden), and Fleur Blanche (gardenia, stone fruit). It all feels like a lost chapter in my life, with only the increasingly amber-toned remnants of Calypso as testament to my ever having had this intense but fleeting dalliance with natural perfumery...

Ajne Calypso

Then something happened recently to ignite a spark of interest in naturals again, namely an email from Mandy Aftel, explaining that she had spotted my comment on a blog post by Tara of A Bottled Rose, expressing an interest in trying Amber Tapestry and Vanilla Smoke, both of which Tara had reviewed. Mandy invited me to pick a couple more samples to go into the package, and after an enjoyable evening spent reading the reviews of fellow bloggers with tastes congruent to mine, I settled on Wild Roses and Honey Blossom (which I may feature one day).

But before getting to my impressions of the scents themselves, I must devote a paragraph or two to the packaging, which greatly contributes to the 'devotional' aspect of my response to them - though not before mentioning the lightning speed with which the package arrived. It took an astonishing three days to come by FedEx Express all the way from Berkeley, California (including a brief pitstop in a depot in Cannock!). Why, I have known Christmas cards take longer to get from Littleworth to the other side of Stafford.

After the speed, I was completely smitten by the packaging...the golden Jiffy bag, the dear little cardboard box with its charming country scene and the tiny scent pots nestling in paper 'straw' at each corner.

Oh, and the distinctive use of priestly purple as Aftelier's 'house colour'. (Which reminds me of the time my father - not known for his largesse - bought me a colour TV on a whim, purely so he could watch a televised procession of bishops in New Zealand in all their ecclesiastical finery.)

Then there are other dainty touches to savour: the mysterious motif of a long stemmed retort, like a spindly garlic bulb, and Mandy's characterfully spiky calligraphy on her little note, enclosed in a glassine bag to protect the ink from the elements.

How much did I love all these thoughtful trappings? It activated whatever part of my brain - somewhere deep in the amygdala, perhaps? - is excited by miniaturisation, and brought back happy memories of dolls' houses and advent calendars of yore.

And there is something very significant too about the little pots; the Ajne samples were similarly presented, though it was all so long ago. I do believe these tiny receptacles predispose one to a mood of solemn reverence when applying - nay, anointing oneself with - the perfumes. And Vanilla Smoke in particular had the meditative quality of Ajne Om, or the Om at least of my distant recall.

So without further ado, here are my impressions of these two - I must stress that they were both written without reference to the note list!:

Source: kevineats.com

Vanilla Smoke 

I was not too sure about the first few seconds of Vanilla Smoke, as it was all about the smoke initially. A resinous puff of something like birch tar - or gunpowder? - in a quiet register, but still a bit too 'medicinal smoky' for me, if that makes sense. Very slightly like burning Band-Aids. But I was not at all daunted, having read enough reviews to be confident of a more seductive sequel, and so it proved. Soon a veiled sweet note emerged, like jaggery sugar or a dark, veering to treacly, vanilla, and smoothed out the smokiness. The texture of the scent was now silken and soft and comforting, the stern opening quite forgotten.  Who knew a bonfire (for there is smouldering wood still going on in the base) could be so cosseting? If anyone knows Om, cross it with Mona di Orio's Vanille and you would be in the right general ballpark. Vanilla Smoke is a judicious blend of austere smoky backbone and yielding vanilla vulnerability, if I may lapse into purple prose for a moment. Given the purple livery of Aftelier, I am hoping this may be excused! Vanilla Smoke is at once haunting and calming, and unlike any take on vanilla I have ever smelt - and vanilla being my favourite note, I have made it my mission to sample as many of its incarnations as I can find. I am not religious, but as I intimated earlier, dabbing a drop of this on my wrist borders on the spiritual. Hmm, I sense the dabbing part is key. Maybe Aftelier perfumes should only be available in tiny, dabbable quantities to foster this association. Now there's a radical idea... Or if my reference to transcendental experiences sounds a bit un-bonkerslike of me, at the very least Vanilla Smoke would be the perfect accompaniment to one of those Headspace apps where you sit still in a chair, scan your body parts one by one, and generally try to feel floppy. I  loved it, and wouldn't mind if I never smelt any of those 'straight up gourmand' vanilla scents (of which I have so many iterations in my collection) again.

Notes: yellow mandarin, Siam wood, saffron absolute, vanilla absolute, lapsang souchong tea essence (for which the tea leaves were smoked over pinewood), coumarin and ambergris

Source; pixabay

Amber Tapestry

Now although I didn't peek at the note list before marshalling my thoughts on this one, I remember reading somewhere that Amber Tapestry had jasmine in it - very likely in Tara's review - and was also waiting for a cosy, more amber-forward drydown. Instead I got a whoosh of fresh, green, vaguely mentholated, mahoosive and slightly bubble gummy phantom tuberose! And I promise I mean this in a good way! It was really, really interesting, and transported me back to the Palm House of Belfast's botanical gardens, inhaling the dewy, fleshy, otherworldly scent of some unspecified and faintly triffid-like plant. Think the blowsy Vero Kern Rubj crossed with Tubereuse Criminelle and you won't be far off, though I have only smelt the latter once. I see Tube Crim contains jasmine AND tuberose, as well as orange blossom and vanilla. And an eclectic collection of spices. And it is amber coloured to boot! So yes, those two...and maybe lob in a soupcon of Nuit de Tubereuse for good measure.

Source; Wikimedia Commons

Amber Tapestry is a highly unusual scent: odd and shapeshifting and not at all what I expected. Now that I have spied the note list, I reckon the faux-tuberose effect may in fact have been created by the combination of heliotrope (which can read big and 'plasticky') and the jasmine. And how intriguing that both Vanilla Smoke and Amber Tapestry should contain yellow mandarin and coumarin, not that I could have picked either of those out unaided. I suspect the coumarin could also be amping up the heliotrope and helping it stage this surprise tuberose stunt. I can't honestly say I get amber. Or even a drydown as such. The compelling tuberose chimera simply becomes more attenuated and finally fades away.

To compensate for my strange take on this scent, which I realise is way off the reviews I have now caught up with(!), I am inserting pictures of tapestries I have made - or co-made with my mother in the case of the footstool. Both feature an orange colour that could loosely be called amber.

Notes: heliotrope, yellow mandarin, jasmine, jasmine sambac, pear and cinnamon, amber, labdanum, benzoin, castoreum, ambergris and coumarin

The full footstool!

*Ajne did of course famously mark their card by unexpectedly closing early on the day I said I was coming to visit, hehe.

Mistaking scents for store cupboard staples

Wedding scent and wedding favour ~ Source: Sue Morley

CONTENT ADVISORY - This post plumbs new depths of tangentially scent-related trivia - no bathroom pun intended. ;)  And that should perhaps be 'shallows'?

I am afraid my posting rhythm on Bonkers has been a bit disrupted of late - partly by a phase of 'extreme research' into bathroom fixtures and fittings, as I embark on the next major home improvement project. My ongoing visits to bathroom showrooms even spawned a blog post, but the unbridled silliness that follows here is nothing to do with my current preoccupation with sanitaryware, but rather with an amusing status update I spotted on Facebook.  In it my cousin's wife, who recently celebrated the wedding of her daughter in Canada (the location is significant) writes:

"One day soon, I will inevitably spray myself with maple syrup and pour Chanel No 5 on my pancakes."

Sue's jokey post struck a chord with me, and I idly started to rummage in my own pantry for inspiration.  It took a matter of mere moments to assemble a collection of store cupboard staples which could readily be confused with fragrances - based mainly on bottle shape in my own case, but sometimes also on the colour of their contents.

I kicked off with this bottle of extra extra virgin cat's pyjamas organic bio olive oil featured in my recent post from Berlin.  It is rather reminiscent of Givenchy Pi, don't you think? - just lose the bizarre top and slightly tweak the trapezoid angle - why, it even has Greek letters on it to boot!  Then before I knew it I was on a roll...

Source: douglas.de

Bottles of olive oil - or the ones in my cupboard, certainly - seem to come in particularly kindred shapes to perfume, as evidenced by this one, which - through half closed eyes at least - is a dead ringer for the Bois 1920 range.  Oh, okay, it really needs broader shoulders, I can see that:

Source: fragrantica

And then there is that good old accompaniment to fish and chips, Sarson's malt vinegar, doing a pretty decent imitation of J-Lo's Glow and its various flaming flankers...

Source: fragrancex.com

Hmm, what about the staple food of my house plants, Baby Bio, giving those ornate Ajne bottles a run for their money...

And finally, I feel sure there is a perfume bottle opposite number for this sweet chilli dipping sauce, but it eludes me for the moment.  If you have an idea about that, or can think of any other frivolous pantry and perfume bottle pairings, do let me know in the comments.  I also had a tall bottle of Styrian pumpkin oil that was a near miss for Profumi del Forte, but the neck shaping was quite a bit off.  I mention this just in case anyone was thinking of giving me a present of fancy cooking oil in the near future.  I think I am luxuriously well catered for in that department thanks, as I have two more bottles besides those (albeit with unremarkable contours). But for the record more gin would always go down well... ;)

Oh, and if anyone has any remaining appetite for things beyond the kitchen that are also shaped like perfume bottles there's a round up of other oddities here.

Ajne Calypso - Embrace Your Inner Nymph(o)!

I had intended to feature Ajne Calypso (or Comme de Calypso, to give the scent its full name) in my 100th post in May. I figured that a review of this, my most expensive perfume, would make an interesting counterpoint to my earlier piece about Lidl's Suddenly D'Or, the cheapest bottle in my collection. For neither perfume appears to have been written about elsewhere. Instead, I chose as my subject Maison de Kurkdjian's APOM pour femme, drawn to the neat symbolism of the phrase "a piece of me" for the way perfume now permeates my daily life.

So, with summer in full swing, this seems like as good time as any to write about Calypso, a tropical floral from the niche natural perfumery Ajne, based in Carmel, California.

Notes: cardamom, frangipani, jasmine, vanilla

If there are any other notes in the composition - I thought I detected sandalwood and ylang-ylang at one point, but I may have imagined it - Ajne is keeping them under wraps. As a rule, its note listings lean to the coy side, as I doubt that all their scents do really contain as few ingredients as those declared.

I own the 15ml gold filigree bottle, which at full retail costs a wallet-busting $225. I did have a couple of gift vouchers to mitigate the pain, but Calypso still worked out (including P & P and customs charges) at 100 times the cost of the Lidl scent: £8 vs 8p per ml. Okay, I hear you all asking: "So does the Ajne smell a hundred times better than the fruity floral, spookily close clone of Ghost Luminous that is Suddenly D'Or?" Well, clearly I am not going to answer that, so let's just say that I like Calypso an awful lot - and more than the other one. It should also be borne in mind that Ajne's scents are made entirely from essential oils, and it isn't inconceivable to me that their raw material costs are in fact 100 times those of the Lidl perfume, whose bargain price may partly be attributable to the knock off packaging and lack of advertising spend.

As the notes suggest, Calypso is a sultry number - a bit like Ormonde Jayne Frangipani but with greater heft. Texturally (thanks to the vanilla?) it has more in common with the demure yet "come hither" style of SL Un Lys, so if you lose the lilies and substitute an even headier duo of frangipani and jasmine, plus a tangy but possibly fictitious hint of ylang-ylang, you won't go far wrong. Calypso is extremely intense on first application (which is of course a feature of essential oils). But relatively soon the scent mutes down to a smouldering tropical blend with no one note dominant.

As for the origin of the name, until now I had associated the word "Calypso" with Afro-Caribbean music, swiftly followed by other stereotypical images of a tropical paradise: cocktails, palm fringed beaches, hammocks, coconuts, avocado trees(?), sea shells, turtles, all-inclusive Sandals resorts, Rastafarian gigolos etc - with the odd spot of gun crime and drug running thrown in to pep things up. The scent is unashamedly sensual - veering to slutty even - but this is high end, sophisticated slutty. Calypso is staying at the Jalousie Hilton in St Lucia. She accessorises her sarong and maxi-dress with metallic flipflops, and is single-handedly - or rather, double-wristedly - pioneering the fashion revival of yellow gold jewellery.

Here is the description of Calypso from the Ajne website:

"Calypso celebrates the magical qualities of a woman. She is at once nurturing, yet independent - confident, yet tender. She will surround you in her mystery, creating a sultry aura of subtle sensuality."

So far, so Bo Derek (minus the sarong, even!). But having dug a little deeper, I think I have found a Greek nymph who may have been the ultimate inspiration for the wearer of this fragrance...

"The Greek goddess Calypso was described in Homer's Odyssey 2,800 years ago. Calypso, who lived on Ogygia, an island near Malta, was unmarried, independent, and history's first documented feminist. There she rescued the hero Odysseus from death as he drifted astride the keel of the his ship that Zeus had shattered with lightning. For seven years she kept Odysseus on her island, passionately loving him and offering to make him a god."

(from www.reverseskinaging.com!)

This account puts quite a positive spin on events, but others cast Calypso more in the role of captor - a sort of one-woman proto Baader-Meinhof gang, if you will. Whatever the truth of the matter (insofar as a myth can be said to be "true"), it seems that Calypso's influence may have had a stultifying effect over time:

"He (Odysseus) is forced to live a vegetative existence, perhaps at first a welcome rest, but then a womblike entrapment. The name Calypso means "eclipse," and indeed, Odysseus' long stay on Calypso's isle is an eclipse of all that he has known of life...and also of his consciousness of himself as a warrior hero and shrewd initiator of action."

So how much of this goddess/nymph back story chimes with Calypso the perfume? Most of it, I'd say. For the goddess and the scent are feisty and feminine, beguiling and comforting - but (as is sadly so often the way...), its sultry charms may pall somewhat if applied continuously for seven years.


Painting of Calypso by Arnold Boecklin, drawing by John Flaxman.