'La vie est belle': thoughts on 'Lancôming' home to Limousin, and a curious confluence of perfume and porcelain - Part 1

I have just been away for a few days to France, visiting my friend L, who recently bought a house out there. Much of the travelling I do these days is gig-related, so it was unusual for me to go to a place where not only was no music involved, but where I was struck by the profound silence that reigned at night, though her village was also pretty peaceful by day. Lying in bed, the snuffling of barn owls in the eaves of the house opposite and the occasional gurgle of vintage plumbing were pretty much the only sounds I could make out. Ironically, I found the silence so extreme that I wore ear plugs anyway, to recreate more normal sleeping conditions. ;)

I left home on Wednesday morning, having managed to conceal the whereabouts of the suitcase from Truffle right up until the moment of departure.  From the baleful look on her face as I said goodbye I think she may have known all along anyway, the constant transferring of clothes and other assorted objects from room to room over several days in the run up to my trip being a bit of a giveaway.

I caught the train to Birmingham without incident, and had a luxurious amount of time to kill at the airport. Now that my hobby is in its 'mature' phase, I tend to walk straight through the perfume section of the Duty Free, but my resolve weakened at the sight of a bottle of Narciso Rodriguez Poudrée. I had been curious to try Poudrée ever since reading Ines of All I am a Redhead's glowing review, and it was as lovely - in that dreamy, cold creamy, and finely milled powder kind of a way - as I had expected.

Source: Fragrantica

CHANEL

Heartened by my favourable take on the Narciso, I decided to pop to the Chanel Exclusifs section to retest Misia. I also got my first sniff of Boy, and had a spritz of the already familiar Coromandel and No 22 for good measure. I am still not sure about Misia - it reminded me of a rosier version of 1932, and there was something slightly suffocating about its stereo cosmetic powderiness - from both the violets and the iris/orris. I also thought I got a hint of lavender and heliotrope, but maybe it was the tonka bean playing tricks. I guess it is not a good sign if you even think you smell notes you don't care for in a scent. Plus it didn't have half the staying power of Coromandel, not that that really warrants a black mark in my book.

I also had a quick whiff of Boy on card, which struck me as a refreshing, faintly fougèristic, broadly unisex cologne with a lavender(!) twist, that didn't seem to bother me unduly. I would like to give it another go, as I was distracted by my Misia musings.

And to be truthful, the most memorable part of the visit was chatting to Kelly, the very helpful and knowledgeable sales assistant, about their (I think relatively new?) porcelain 'dipper sticks'. If anyone knows the proper technical term for these, please do let me know in the comments!

Some readers may be aware of my longstanding interest in perfume sample delivery mechanisms - I can only find this post (on the subject of 'olfcartophiles'), but there have been several. Over time, I have detected a gradual evolution from giving physical samples away to encouraging people to make do with cards, blotters, lengths of ribbon, Frédéric Malle-style walk in fibreglass Tardises, IUNX- and Mugler-style trumpets, bell jars and so on. This was my first encounter with porcelain dipper sticks, mind, and as I was about to board a flight to Limoges, the ceramics capital, the Stoke-on-Trent if you will, of France - or do I mean the Dresden? - I took a lively interest in this novel and niche application. They are white tubular things, thicker at one end, and looked ever so slightly like a certain feminine accessory that enables you to play tennis, swim and canoe, even if you have never previously engaged in such active pursuits. Or perhaps like a deeply disappointing satay skewer. Anyway, they certainly did the job here.

I asked Kelly how long the dipper sticks sit in their little wells before the scent is refreshed - it turns out that they are redipped once a week in small screw cap bottles that live in a cupboard behind the counter. Well, I thought, that is interesting. Kelly also showed me her tray of raw material miniatures, which guide clients through the process of choosing a perfume by enabling them to discover which notes they are drawn to - like the Ormonde Jayne Perfume Portrait idea, but without the blind sniffing aspect. And there was also a table with samples of the complete Chanel range laid out on it, organised by fragrance style, to help the customer narrow the field further to specific perfumes that might match their olfactory leanings. Here it is, together with the examples Kelly gave me for each - or rather at least one that I managed to jot down:

Citrus - Cristalle
Green floral - Bel Respiro, No 19
Light floral - Chance (make that dull, insipid floral for me!)
Intense floral - No 5
Aromatics - Bleu
Soft woody - Bois des Iles
Intense woody - Sycamore
Enveloping oriental - Coco Mademoiselle
Oriental - Coromandel

Now I was tickled by the idea of an 'enveloping oriental', however for my money the categories are transposed and I'd call Coromandel the true enveloper of the two. I mentioned this to Kelly and we went on to discuss the ubiquity of Coco Mademoiselle, which is now the biggest selling perfume in the world, you won't be surprised to learn.

Finally, Kelly mentioned the imminent launch of No 5 L'Eau, a lighter version of No 5 aimed at a younger market, or anyone who finds the original a bit aldehyde-heavy. I was quite happy for Eau Première to fulfil that role, but am intrigued to try this new interpretation.

ARMANI PRIVE

After Chanel, I spied a display of Armani Privé scents, which was definitely new since my last visit. They favoured the 'bell jar' system of perfume dispersal, and I dutifully picked them all up and stuck my nose inside. What really caught my eye though were the geologically lifelike bottles of Rouge and Vert Malachite. Well, I say that, but to be honest the green one reminded me a bit of Shield deodorant soap from the 70s if anyone remembers that. No, seriously, they did have the marbling and sheen of an actual geode of malachite, but there was also a fake and plasticky aspect to the bottles that put me right off the scents - though if you ask me what they smelt like I would be hard pushed to describe either.

I certainly wouldn't have recognised Rouge Malachite from the company's oddly capitalised PR blurb, for example, which I found on Now Smell This:

'The singular meeting of an opulent, voluptuous and carnal Tuberose and a wild Sage along with the surprising vibration of AmberXtreme.'

I have resisted the urge to put a comma in after 'Sage'! Actually, come to think of it, Rouge Malachite was a little like a more demure Coromandel, and I note that both scents have a big white floral, amber, and benzoin in them, albeit Rouge Malachite is more about the tuberose to Coromandel's jasmine, plus there is a shedload of patchouli in the Chanel. I did like Rouge Malachite though. And I didn't mind Vert Malachite, but my inability to classify it in any way whatsover rather spoilt my appreciation of how it smelled. (Ooh, there's a meaty behavioural topic for another time!)

TOM FORD

Next up, I swung by the Tom Ford fixture, drawn by the blingy ribbed allure of the bottles of Orchid Soleil and Velvet Orchid. As I was spraying one or other of these on a blotter - yes, blotters are still with us!- a man came up behind me and asked: 'Are you looking for something for yourself or your husband?' And he didn't even work there. ;) Yep, he was just another punter, who reached for the tester of Noir and pronounced it not 'Extrème' enough. 'I only really like the Extrème' he added, deftly reinforcing his he-man credentials, before vanishing as suddenly as he had appeared. Maybe he should have given Rouge Malachite and its AmberXtreme a spin(!) - the pair are unisex after all.

On a side note, the number of Tom Ford scents with 'Orchid' in the name is spiralling out of control if you ask me, like the whole sorry busy of confusing Stella flankers, which I elevated to the status of a 'Scent Crime' in this post from 2009. My nose had sort of had it by this stage however, so I shan't attempt to describe my impressions, which would have been sketchy at the best of times...And now I am scratching my head about another perfume by Tom Ford that was discontinued, and that I thought was also called Velvet Orchid - it contained a notorious blue cheese-inflected gardenia note and oozed a general aura of sex and depravity that was straight out of John Fowles' The Magus. Like a more complicated and corrupt version of Versace Crystal Noir perhaps...Velvet Gardenia, that was it!! So 'Velvet' may be shaping up as the new 'Orchid' in terms of irritating iteration.

JO MALONE

Nasal fatigue notwithstanding, I couldn't walk on past the Jo Malone concession, yet another niche-ish line to have popped up at Birmingham airport in the past year. They didn't have any long porcelain dipper sticks, but they DID have short white porcelain cork-like stoppers adorned with black ribbons, also resting in scent wells. So obviously I had to ask the assistant how often they refresh / redip the stoppers in the perfumes, and the answer is every day! Make of that what you will - there may be a correlation with the relative evanescence of the Jo Malone range versus the Chanel Exclusifs in terms of adhering to the porcelain surface, or something to do with how the scent wells are designed to minimise evaporation - or it may be an arbitrary frequency on the part of each brand!, I don't know. I would be interested to sniff a Jo Malone 'cork' that has not been redipped for six days, say, to see if you can still smell the perfume in question or not. (And in case you were wondering, I failed to ask about the receptacles in which the dipping supplies are housed. ;) )

The assistant, whose name I also didn't catch, allowed me to smell a tester of the upcoming September release, Basil & Neroli, which is billed as a more modern take on the bestselling Jo Malone classic, Lime, Basil & Mandarin. As with the latter, I sense that Basil & Neroli may work beautifully on the right skin; but even if I had the right skin, I don't care for basil in a perfume, though I love it on the plant and in the mozzarella and tomato salad, so I was destined not to like this. The neroli gives the basil a good old run for its money, mind. To be honest, the basil seemed more sage-like to my nose, though I am not big on sage either. Anyway, please don't be put off by my lack of enthusiasm - if you like herbal citrus compositions it may be just the ticket.

After all of that, there was just time to grab a takeaway tea and rush to the gate as instructed, only to be kept waiting on the steps down to it - and in the bus to the plane - for a further 40 minutes or so, as you do.

PS Interesting factoid about Narciso Rodriguez!....My friend's niece, whom I met at dinner the other day, used to work for Kenneth Green Associates, which has Narciso Rodriguez in its marketing portfolio. During her time there she had the job of pre-spraying the ribbons-in-lieu-of-samples with perfume, and also did a stint of promotional work. Her top tip for clinching the sale was to give the ribbon to a small child, assuming there was one available, from whose possession the ribbon would eventually get transferred to the mother's handbag, who would marvel at this lovely smell wafting up from its interior when they got home, and go back to the store to buy a bottle! This lady is also one of the world's top experts in voodoo culture (no kidding), so she clearly knows a thing or two about making stuff happen...

Bleary-Nosed Sniffing At Birmingham Airport: "Eyeing" Candy, Molton Brown Perfumes, And Floris Mahon Leather & Sirena

I went out to Germany and back yesterday for one meeting. I don't recommend it - I was up and abroad (quite literally!) before I was properly awake. And that is such a quick turnaround that you are never quite “in” the foreign country in question. There is a slightly unreal quality to the day’s events, which started for me when the alarm went off at 5.20am - a time which is just as much a foreign country to me as where I was headed...

And it seems hard to credit that I was wandering around the duty free perfume hall of Birmingham airport at 7.30am! That’s a full hour before I normally think of opening my eyes – and sometimes even when I do, I promptly think better of it again.

All of which is just to explain that I was in a bit of a daze yesterday as I cruised the fragrance fixtures on auto-pilot. Yes, I can say with authority that I have no interest in testing perfume, or giving it much thought at all, before the "nine o’clock watershed" – a.m., I mean. Yet even in my dopey state I couldn’t fail to spot a very good deal on a set of Prada Candy perfume and body lotion, and on cue I did that picking up and fondling routine again before putting the box back on the shelf. It wasn’t so much the price as the weight I baulked at, given that I was going to be on foot all day. Also, this week I have already treated myself to a hot pink and black satin Candy iPhone holder(!).

This irresistible and impractical accessory was a GWP on a large bottle of Candy that was going for a whopping 89 euros at Schiphol airport last weekend. I wrestled that lemming to the ground and beat the life out of it with my boarding pass, but the hankering - for the free gift at least - remained, and I didn’t hesitate when I saw it for sale separately on Ebay the other day for just £14 delivered. So that is my fix of Candy for this week. Now it won’t protect my iPhone against any impact stronger than a stray hair or bit of lint, but I will of course put it in a case first before putting it in this pretty pink padded apology for one – what my late father would have dismissed as a “frivolous fabric frippery”. (And before you ask, my penchant for alliteration is genetic.)

UPDATE - the iPhone doesn't fit! I shall have to use this frivolous fabric frippery flop as a soft glasses case instead. My specs are black, so they match at least...

Going back to my meanderings in the fragrance aisles, as on my last visit I skirted round the Chanel Les Exclusifs counter, keen to dodge another close encounter with Jersey. Then, directly opposite the Chanel section on a prime “end of gondola” position, a new range of perfumes from bath & body brand Molton Brown suddenly caught my eye. Five squat, rectangular, stippled glass bottles, not unlike a dumpier version of Boss Orange For Men.

Behind the bottles was a line of trumpet-shaped flowers made of wood, with a wooden pole-cum-stamen poking out from inside each one. As my visit to IUNX Parfums was still fresh in my mind, I immediately picked up the first wooden flower and stuck my nose in it. It didn’t smell of anything. Feeling a little foolish, I went and grabbed a load of fragrance strips from the Escada counter and set about testing the Molton Browns from the testers instead. First impressions - based purely on the presentation, and also factoring in the self-consciously quirky names – were that this was going to be a me-too exercise in Tom Ford PC / Armani Privé territory, just as the latest D & G numbered collection always struck me as a very poor rip off of Chanel Les Exclusifs. In its own product segment of bath and bodycare products Molton Brown is pretty high end. However, as I stood in front of the fixture armed with a fistful of fresh blotters, I couldn't get my head around the notion of Molton Brown as a credible perfume brand, any more than I would a scent from Bayliss & Harding, though I would be happy to receive a gift of liquid hand wash by either brand.

So I embarked on my sniffing session in a somewhat cynical frame of mind, compounding my general lethargy and desperate wish to be back in bed. Of the five scents in the Molton Brown range, I quite liked one, disliked one a lot, and could take or leave the other three. That said, I could see them appealing to some people, even in perfumista circles. So please do take these mini-reviews of the range with a big handful of salt, as the sampling circumstances were massively stacked against it!

SINGOSARI

Soft, peppery spice – a homoepathic version of Marc Jacobs Bang – busy, without enough going on, if that is not a contradiction in terms.

IUNU

Woody scent with an offbeat vegetal note – a bit like PG Papyrus de Ciane, but not as bleak.

ROGART

Woody, fruity, leathery number. (My second “favourite”.)

APULDRE

Incense? and flagstones overgrown with miscellaneous herbaceous matter from the contents of a counter top compost bin. This one reminded me a bit of the cool dead stoniness of Pierre de Lune by Armani Privé, with added vegetation and more fight in it.

LIJIANG

A light, vaguely fruity floral. It had stylistic echoes of Xerjoff Lua ie pretty, but not original enough to be in keeping with the other scents in the range.

UPDATE - I wrote up my impressions of the Molton Brown scents over a beer and another exceptionally creamy bowl of soup(!) at Frankfurt airport. I didn't get a chance to google them till I got home, whereupon I discovered that the collection is in fact called Navigations Through Scent, and has a whole story behind it comparable in its complexity and detail to the Scents of Time range.

Yes, turns out each scent has its own geographical associations and "mood board" of sorts: here is the one for Apuldre, which represents LONDON VIA KENT, and was the one I actively disliked:

May Contain Mischief

"Twilight on a summer's day in the garden of England. Picnic blankets on fresh cut grass. Fizz and gin. Irreverent. Cheeky and a bit mad."

Notes: juniper berries, wormwood, cedar wood, violet leaf absolute, modern leather accord, styrax absolute.

I'll give 'em a bit mad! Look at those notes - with wormwood, styrax and leather it was never going to be my glass of G & T. And Juniper Sling it ain't neither, but it gets brownie points for weirdness. In fact it is not unlike that scent I once likened to "sticks of celery peeping coyly through a freshly creosoted fence" - Unicorn Spell by Les Nez, that's the one.

I have also since come across proper reviews of two more from the line (Lijiang and Iunu) on Candyperfumeboy here.

Now I don't know if my reaction to these scents would have been more positive had I known IN ADVANCE about the idea behind the collection and the theme for each of the five scents. The Molton Brown website sums the range up as follows:

A brief history of perfume,
told through five distinct fragrances.
From lost worlds,
along ancient silk and spice routes
to a brave New World.

Hmm, quite possibly, as the colourful imagery in the press material and the exotic associations with the four other countries - China (Lijiang), Egypt (Iunu), Canada (Rogart) and Indonesia (Singosari) - do rather get you in the mood for an olfactory adventure. And to their credit most of them smell original. But they still weren't for me - not at that time of the morning, and probably not ever.


Additionally, I sniffed two new Florises.

FLORIS MAHON LEATHER

Too "Rawhide" and chaps. I know I wasn't at my best, and it is a masculine, but the opening seemed a bit rough.

FLORIS SIRENA

Watery floral with top notes of peony and rose, and a heart of yawn-yawn. Sirena it may be, but it most certainly isn't calling my name.

On the way home, I spent four hours hanging around Frankfurt airport. It wasn't so hard to do, as they make the travelling perfumista feel right at home!




Photo of Rogart bottle and poster from Molton Brown, photo of Floris perfumes from Fragrantica, other photos my own

A Trio Of Bonkers Trips: No 1 (Germany & Switzerland) - More Sniffing At Birmingham Airport

Just when I think I have got this travelling lark down to a fine art, St Christopher throws me a curved ball... (I think I mean St Christopher - St Nicholas is Christmas, right?). For the journey to the airport on this, the first of my three work trips, was more than usually fraught, starting with impromptu roadworks on all the main roads leading into Stafford town centre. Traffic was at a standstill, but luckily the taxi driver had already fallen foul of the gridlock with his previous fare, so we wove a circuitous route via the back roads and I made my train with minutes to spare. I was glad I had thought to reserve a seat, because the coaches were so full that in the absence of seats - or even standing room - some passengers had wedged themselves into the luggage racks, quite literally "stowing" themselves away...

On reaching the airport, I thought I would soothe my frazzled nerves with some stodgy comfort food, but the gristly grey sludge that passed for the filling of a Cornish pasty only served to put me more on edge. "Never mind", I said to myself: "The duty free section is always good for a spot of perfume therapy."

I had travelled through Birmingham only last August, so didn't expect a great deal to have changed in the fragrance section. I gave the Chanel Les Exclusifs counter a wide berth this time, for fear that an assistant would waft a blotter with Jersey on it under my nose. I could see the large size tester prominently displayed on top of the fixture and shuddered as I scuttled past, training my eyes on the Dior lipsticks straight ahead.

I did get nobbled by one sales assistant, who urged me to try Kenzo Flower Tag of all things. As it was one of the few scents in the line I had not sampled, I relented, though not before I had warned the SA that I wasn't exactly the target demographic for Tag and fully expected not to like it. The SA looked a bit taken aback, then downright puzzled as I added: "This is just in the spirit of scientific inquiry, you understand". In the event Tag reminded me of a weedier, more watery version of Hugo Boss Deep Red.

"It's got rhubarb", remarked the SA helpfully. I was impressed by her powers of intuition, for it so happens that I will cut a "rhubarb-forward" perfume a lot of slack, though in the case of Tag, it still wasn't enough. "I know", I replied, "but the overall effect isn't doing it for me."

"What about Kenzo Amour? That's nice - would you like to try that?"

"No, I do know that one, but I blow hot and cold with heliotrope, I'm afraid."

"Do like heliotrope, then?"

Which was my cue to melt into the nearby Tom Ford fixture, where I managed for the umpteenth time to pick up a bottle of Violet Blonde and put it down again. I went through a similar charade with both Bottega Veneta and Prada Candy - somehow the mere act of picking up the pack and fondling the smooth cellophane in my hand for a moment seemed to miraculously assuage some of my spenderlust.

So what did I actually sniff, apart from Tag? Here are some mini - or even micro nuggetlet - reviews of a few scents that were either new to me or which I was retesting:

Balenciaga Paris L'Essence

Green cut-glass violets

YSL Paris

Violent violets - as opposed to Parisienne, its younger cousin, which is (as I have said before) merely disgruntled purple talc. I didn't get the rose very much, though maybe it was busy stoking the furious violet furnace. Wasn't it Luca Turin who called this one "roaring rose"?

Chloe EDP Intense

Tautology

Estée Lauder Sensuous Nude (reprise)

Burnt hazelnuts (still), but smoother on skin than on the blotter when I last tried it in August. More of a cold cream and truffle feel to it as opposed to sharp fragments of shell.

Vivienne Westwood Cheeky Alice

Floral oxymoron

Supposedly the "sexier older sister" of Naughty Alice, you just know from the sales blurb below (courtesy of Now Smell This) that this simply cannot be so...

"At the heart of this cheeky and delightful fragrance is a fresh and floral bouquet that perfectly captures Alice’s femininity and impertinence. The delicacy of the lily of the valley catches your attention and subtly leads you to a voluptuous and noble fragrance of fresh peony mixed with a touch of rose, eternal symbol of womanhood."

Even allowing for the touch of rose, "voluptuous and noble fresh peony" is patently a contradiction in terms. Trust me on this - the musky, peppery, Kenzo Amour Indian Holi-esque Naughty Alice is the cheekier of the two, and frankly it is no more cheeky than a slightly upturned nose.

And d'you know what? - after about six hours they all smelt quite pleasant, even Chloé Intense (just about : - ) ).



Photo of Birmingham airport from bhxflightguide.blogspot.com, photo of pasties from flickr.com, photo of Kenzo Flower Tag from feelunique.com, photo of Chloé EDP Intense from comparestoreprices.co.uk, photo of Chloé EDP Intense from perfumediary.com

A Bonkers Grand Tour: Birmingham Airport - Chanel Les Exclusifs, Prada Candy & Narciso Rodriguez For Her In Color

Given my posting hiatus last week, it occurred to me that Bonkers is in danger of grinding to a complete halt if I neither manage to blog while I am away nor when I am at home in between my trips. So I thought I would have a go at writing at least one post this week - which is less hectic overall than the next fortnight in terms of the number of interviews, if not the amount of driving involved!

Three days (and three countries) in, I am struck by the fact that an extraordinary number of things seem to have gone right, contrary to the norm. For starters, Birmingham airport’s duty free shop has mushroomed beyond recognition since my last visit, and the fragrance section is well on its way to rivalling Harrods’ perfume hall. Okay, I may be exaggerating slightly, but...get this...the Chanel counter now carries Les Exclusifs – the only UK airport to do so, apparently. I clapped eyes for the first time on the new, more humane 75ml bottles. These were at “better than high street” prices, according to the sales assistant, by which I presume she means the prices in the Chanel boutiques, as you won’t find Les Exclusifs on any high street near me. There’s a clue in the name, in fact. Now as it happens I am not in the market for even the 75ml size of my favourites from this range, but for anyone who is, and who might be passing through Birmingham airport, that could be good to know.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of Miller Harrises in the “New” fixture: Figue Amère and Fleur Oriental. Yes I know, those scents have been around for a while, but they will surely be new as far as the airport is concerned! I spotted my lemming du jour, Elie Saab, and then my eye lit on the new Prada Candy. What between the sweetie shop name and the rather twee packaging, which reminded me of that gimmicky range from Benefit with the silly girls’ names, I very nearly walked on by. However, it just so happened that I had seen Candy listed on a split site recently, so I figured it must have something about it, and so it proved.

I have since caught up with Robin’s review of Prada Candy on Now Smell This: she liked it more than she expected to, and her description chimes with my fuzzier reading of the scent. I found it sweet, but not too sweet – a gourmand woody oriental with a hefty dollop of benzoin apparently, though it isn’t all that obvious to my nose.

My initial impression is of a scent in similar vein to Kenzo Amour Indian Holi (which is a sweetish, powdery, peppery floral with darker undertones from the woods and incense in the base). However, the vanilla is more pronounced in Prada Candy, and segues into a caramel accord in the drydown. Yes, cross Indian Holi with Ava Luxe Love’s True Bluish Light in a two thirds one third ratio and you might get something in the right ball park. Or there again maybe not(!), but I would sum this up as an edible yet edgy scent…

Although my nose kept nuzzling the spot where I had sprayed Candy, I also tried Narciso Rodriguez for Her In Color on skin for the second time:

Notes: rose, peach, amber, musk, sandalwood and patchouli

It struck me once again as a deeper version of pink NR for her, NR for her given a sort of Stella spin if you will, as in the original Stella McCartney. Still powdery and super musky, but with a pronounced rosy-amber thing going on. Does the world need yet another Narciso flanker any more than it does another Stella flanker, most of them just a slightly nuanced variation on their predecessor, in a different coloured bottle, or the same coloured bottle with squiggly flowers climbing up it? I think not.

I also tried Lalique Encre Noir on skin because it is such an out and out cult classic, but sadly, it just smelt of ink on me, and rightly or wrongly I couldn’t get images of squid out of my mind.

Then I had a snifter of Guerlain Jasminora (straight up, knock ‘em dead jasmine), and Bouquet Numéro 2 (a watery and rather indeterminate floral scent I couldn’t quite put my finger on, which turns out to have only litchi, rose and iris in it. What's with the "litchi"? I take it that is a more botanically correct word for "lychee"...)

So I have set myself the challenge of acquiring a sample of Prada Candy by hook or by crook on this trip. I failed dismally to secure another Elie Saab sample this morning (the cheek of me for even trying, given my existing stockpile!), but that story belongs in the next perfume "bit"...


Photo of Chanel Les Exclusifs range from thedollonfashion.blogspot.com, photo of Guerlain and Chanel counters from moodiereport.com, photo of Prada Candy from gizmodiva.com, photo of Narciso For Her In Color from fragrantica.com