A spritzing blitz in London with Tara and Undina: Day 1 - Bloom Perfumery, a fried food frenzy, and a trickyHotel

Langley Court, home to Bloom Perfumery

Tara of A Bottled Rose and Val's daughter Hannah, aka the Blondeswunder, recently posted about their meet up in London earlier this month, including a sniffing, skincare and make up spree, some tasty street food, and a tour round Highgate Cemetery (not including George Michael's grave, as the guide was at pains to point out). For health reasons I wasn't able to make it down to join them for 'the graveyard shift', as it were, and though I was very sorry to miss Val, I had the opportunity to hook up with Tara last Sunday, along with Undina of Undina's Looking Glass and her vSO, whom I had not seen since our 2013 rendez-vous in Paris. They were spending a whole week in the capital, so it seemed like a golden opportunity to see them, given that they live over 5000 miles away in California.

Now I usually manage to pack quite discreetly for my trips, but Truffle happened to catch me in the act of fetching a case out from the cupboard under the stairs, whereupon the human's intentions were out of the bag, swiftly followed by my clothes going into it.

'I know those triangular things with clothes on, and they don't bode well.'

I think she also smelt a metaphorical rat at the sight of outfit contenders hung over the bed rail, and might reasonably have inferred I was going away for a week rather than one night. Hence her 'hangdog' look in the photo below. I've got all the animal metaphors going on, it would seem!

According to my time-honoured tradition - and despite considering myself a seasoned traveller - I forgot several things this time: antihistamine tablets, shampoo, and plasters (beyond the prophylactic ones I was stood up in - that were on my heels, I mean - which I knew would not survive a good wetting in the shower).

The journey to London was supremely slow, for on a Sunday the train wends it circuitous way through the little known outposts of Northamptonshire. I mean, whoever heard of Long Buckby, never mind wanted to go there any day of the week?

Tara and Undina had already got a few hours' sniffing under their belts and had lunch before I joined them around 4pm, though not before making a detour to my so-called easyHotel to check in. They were about to put me in a room on the ground floor when I reminded them that I had asked for an upper floor in the 'Special Requests' box, explaining that with the ground floor there is a risk people in the street might walk past your window and look in, possibly as you are getting dressed. So the hotel promptly put me in a room without a window instead, which I did not see coming. 'No chance of her being overlooked there', I bet they thought.

'The key to an easy night's sleep'...hohoho!

And not only did my room have no window, but it also lacked any furniture whatsoever apart from a bed - nor did it have any hangers, a bin, or a bedside light. Moreover, you had to choose between 'having the benefit of electrical current', as the estate agents say, and an unrelenting electrical hum. More on this anon, along with the geographical shortcomings of the electrical sockets. So yes, I am renaming the chain: 'reallyquitetrickyHotels'. And it is not as though I haven't stayed in this chain before, for example in Berlin last December, but the hotel in Old Street raised the bar in its testing of the customer's resourcefulness in the face of such compact and minimalist accommodation.

Having quickly freshened up (after a fashion ;) ), I made my way to Covent Garden, where I was due to meet Tara, Undina and her vSO in Bloom Perfumery. I was early, and popped into a nearby branch of MAC cosmetics to gaze in awe at the myriad shades of lipsticks that spanned several perspex display boards. I was drawn as ever to the pinky brown nudes of which I already own half a dozen variants, and accosted several young people eyeing up the same fixture to ask them to read the shade names that were in tiny lettering on the underside, before being momentarily sidetracked by two rows of astonishing Smartie-like colourways in purple and mauve, magenta and blue. I certainly did not need to know their names.

After a quick swoop on Holland & Barrett, where I picked up a bargain pack of sesame sticks and succumbed to an explosive piece of crystallized ginger they were giving away free at the till, I assumed a lookout position on the corner of Long Acre and Langley Court, the little alleyway in which the Bloom store lies tucked away. People-watching in London is as rewarding in my book as visiting any of the official tourist attractions the city has to offer, and even a ten minute stint didn't disappoint. I noted an emerging fashion trend for cut off bell bottoms-cum-sailor's trousers, while the sleeve style du jour that I can best sum up as an 'arm peplum' was also in evidence. And then all of a sudden Tara & co were there! Of course they arrived from the Floral Street end, so I didn't see them coming either...

Once in Bloom - notable for its open glass displays, exposed brick walls, and steel 'customer ladder' for reaching the uppermost shelves - Undina scoped the fixtures for brands that were either on her hit list or otherwise caught her eye, and got stuck straight in. My own MO was more desultory and haphazard, reflecting perhaps my current plateau phase in this hobby. I was genuinely curious about the Zoologist line, however, and tried a handful from that, including the upcoming addition, Camel. With a name like that it surely has to be a tobacco scent - as one of the others may be able to confirm. I do remember that my erstwhile nemesis Civet was surprisingly approachable, while 'floral fruity gourmand' Hummingbird by Shelley Waddington was a standout favourite.

Tara, looking winsome in 'Little Mermaid' pose

Later in the trip Undina rightly pulled me up for writing the name of a perfume on the same end of the blotter that I had sprayed with the tester. (Let me say right off the bat that I LOVE being 'straightened out' by Undina - she could do so all day long as far as I am concerned, with her uniquely endearing blend of common sense and motherliness.) Then additionally I see that I sometimes write on the opposite end to where I have sprayed, but then my writing may get jumbled up with the logo of the perfume house or store in question, such that I can barely make out the name later on. And occasionally, I do both ie spray and write on the end that already has writing on it.

We also had a browse through the Imaginary Authors range, whose bottles with their vintage scrapbook-like labels appealed to me, along with one or two of the admittedly quite straightforward - and inexpensive! - scents, though I am blowed if I can remember which ones now. I remember being intrigued by a perfume whose ingredients included 'the month of May', and marvelling at how they had managed to fit the whole of May in the same size bottle as the rest of the range. February might have been marginally less ambitious.

Then predictably the Beaufort range, which we briefly sniffed from the nozzle, only made me squeal ever louder with each one I tried. I am guessing their target audience is not lovers of dreamy summer florals like Songes. We also dabbled in the Dusitas, and I was quite taken with Issara, though I don't remember it reading as a fresh fougere, particularly. I also found myself muttering darkly over and over again that the sumptuously feminine floral, Melodie de l'Amour (featuring gardenia, tuberose, honey, peach and jasmine, to name some of the more punch-packing notes), would most likely give me a headache. 'Ooh, that would give me a headache....definitely give me a headache...oh yes, headache...mmm, headache...', and more of me banging on in that general throbbing, cerebral vein.

It was at that point that we spied a wrench** lying on the work surface, which is not something you see every day, least of all in a perfumery.

After about an hour Undina's vSO - who had peeled off to check out the menswear stores in the immediate vicinity - rejoined us, and we set off in an easterly direction in a bid to avoid the worst of the tourist crowds and find a quiet spot for a proper cup of tea (and coffee). Patisserie Valerie came up trumps, even though they expressly barred us from sitting at the far end of the cafe, for reasons none of us could fathom. Some kind of technical explanation was proffered - that involved opening a window, I think - but there were vital connecting bits of information missing such that whatever it was that they said simply didn't compute.

With the working week looming, Tara headed home after tea, while I led Undina and her vSO somewhat erratically on a walking tour of Holborn and Soho (the Holborn bit was accidental!), before we finally lit upon an inviting looking tapas restaurant just off Regent Street, where we had dinner. There was much ribaldry about my inadvertent menu choices, which turned out to be resolutely fried, from the chicken to the courgette to the cabbage and the parsnip fries.

A piece of fried chicken too far

And because our order as a whole was delayed, the management threw in some complimentary patatas fritas with that, which turned out to be...ahem...more fried food, clearly applying my pinky brown nude lipstick principle to Spanish cuisine.

'Have some fries with that, why don't you?'

After the meal, we said goodbye at Oxford Circus station, and went our separate ways until the morning. Back at my evermorechallengingHotel, I had the difficult call to make of whether to charge my phones overnight and put up with the electrical hum, or have a silent night and dead appliances in the morning. In the end I went with a compromise: silence till 5am, then I put my phones on charge and my ear plugs in. I was too perturbed by the claustrophobic concept of a windowless hotel room to sleep much anyway - in vain did I try to pretend I was on a ship!


Editor's note: I have just been informed by my bathroom handyman that these are in fact 'waterpump pliers'.

To be continued...

Moomin for a day: Pia and Nick's Smelly Cakey - and a bit rainy - Perfume Meet in London: 1.10.16

I didn't make last year's Smelly Cakey Perfume Meet, and sadly missed all the amusing messing about with Bogue Profumo fencing masks, though I could probably fashion something not too dissimilar by slicing off a bit of the wasp's nest in the loft and painting it white. But as we always say, it is all about the people, not the props, and when this years SCPM was announced (not to be confused with Supply Chain Process Management, though there was a bit of that along the way, actually), I signed up with alacrity.

And so it was that the alarm woke me at 6am yesterday, and I staggered downstairs dazed and incredulous that it could be so early and still so dark. From the comfort of her favourite spot on the sofa, Truffle shot me a look of baleful suspicion. I must be up to no good to be moving around with such purpose at this ungodly hour. Then the time-honoured tradition of a last minute outfit crisis before an event, promptly followed by forgetting to bring at least three items, didn't disappoint this year. All the bedroooms were laid waste with discarded ensembles, rejected in turn for being too evening-y, too normcore, too 'Oh God, are those jeans actually acid washed?!!', too constricting / chafing / miscellaneously uncomfortable, too synthetically sweat-inducing, too clashing, too low cut, too potentially warm in a retail environment, too short, too likely to let in water, and too 'trying too hard and fatally failing to look like the cool urban socialite' I am not.

So in keeping with my designated membership of the Moomin subgroup, I settled on a tunic dress from Finland - a charity shop steal at £3.99 - teamed with 16 year old oxblood Camper boots, whose soles are showing surprisingly little signs of imploding despite their advanced age. Oh, and the forgotten items: a handful of empty vials for spontaneous sample making, my Oyster card, a hair brush, a change of top (my back was already running with sweat before I even got to the station!), and a tube of Lovehearts for those moments when only sherbert and a gnomic romantic banality will do.

Pia and Val

I spent most of the journey down listening to the repeated clunk of the toilet door slamming open and shut every time the train stopped at a station, and de-pilling the back of my quilted Hobbs coat. How long had I been walking around with dozens of tiny white puffs of padding making a run for it, like micro-vapour trails from a jet pack?!?

Twice during the trip, a Japanese lady chatted to me while waiting to use the wayward WC. She seemed genuinely disturbed at the time it was taking to get to London from Crewe (three hours). I did my best to 'express' empathy with my comment that it was 'not exactly a bullet train, to be fair.'

Val (CQ Sperrer) was waiting for me at Euston with an emergency comb she had just bought for me, the little duck, and shortly afterwards we rendez-vous'ed with Pia, one of our trusty duo of organisers. The startling coincidence of their matching outerwear and red rucksacks warranted the first photo call of the day.

Fenwick: Ruth Mastenbroek

Our first stop was Fenwick, a store chain I had never visited in my life till last weekend, when I ventured into one in Colchester, on a doomed mission to buy a bottle of water. After a cursory and equally fruitless rummage in the toy department for a small, tasteful toy chameleon (for reasons too obscure to trouble you with) - chameleons of any kind were conspicuously absent, or maybe they had temporarily morphed into teddies? - I walked straight through the ground floor and crossed the street to M & S instead. So imagine my surprise to find myself in yet another branch of Fenwick, a mere week later.

We kicked off our perfume itinerary with a talk 'in the round' by Ruth Mastenbroek. I knew some of her work already, but hearing about the inspiration for her previous scents - and the reason why she creates perfume at all (one of those ineffable urges for self-expression) - really brought her range to life. Well, in truth I didn't catch everything in Ruth's talk - she was softly spoken, and it was tricky with some of us being behind her, but I did glean that Amorosa came about as a result of Ruth's search for a house in Italy; with that scent she sought to capture the essence or quiddity of the area, in terms of its history, terrain, culture etc.

Ruth Mastenbroek, Nick, Suzy, Rachael, Garfield, and Liz Moores

We sniffed a mixture of finished perfumes and materials they contained eg Javanol (an intense sandalwood) and cistus oil. I was especially drawn to her most recent release, Oxford, a unisex perfume which speaks to her memories of a somewhat sybaritic time at Oxford university, where Ruth studied chemistry, punted down the Isis, smoked Gitanes, and by inference only just got her assignments in under the wire. Oxford the scent includes notes of amber and cistus and other things I have sadly not recorded, though the overall impression to my nose was more of a bracing citrus composition akin to Blenheim Bouquet. I have yet to wear Oxford on skin though, and may only have smelt the top notes.

Ruth has another perfume coming out next year: a feminine with a masculine edge - two male perfumers to whom she showed it have said they would wear it - but that is all we know at this point!

Freddie, Val and Rachael probably checking Facebook

Lalique

After the talk in Fenwick, our party divided into its two subgroups, like trains at Three Bridges. We Moomins stopped by the recently opened premises of Lalique in Burlington Arcade...so recent that - never mind the exquisite crystalware, perfume and humongous floral arrangements - I got immense pleasure simply from inhaling the sublime new carpet smell!

We were ushered into a compact but bijou upstairs room, lined with Lalique vases and ornaments and festooned with what I took to be a mixture of mostly hydrangeas and delphiniums, but please don't quote me on that. Our host, Lalique's UK Director, Frederick Fischer, was absolutely charming. He apologised for the overpowering scent of the flowers, which he had allegedly been trying to tone down before our arrival - I am not sure he mentioned how exactly. ;)

For the next 20 minutes or so, in a captivating French accent, we were treated to a fascinating and detailed account of the history of the Lalique brand and the life of its founder René Lalique: how he started out as an apprentice jeweller, inventing the category of costume jewellery for theatrical productions at the turn of the 20th century. This was bold, chunky and impactful from a distance - think 'tiara with a snake'. Gradually, Lalique went on to win commissions to design brand-specific glass perfume bottles for iconic houses like Coty, Guerlain and Nina Ricci. Branded perfume bottles were a quite new presentational format, as scent had previously been sold in generic apothecary bottles and decanted into the customer's own atomiser. In the early 1990s, with the business now managed by René Lalique's grand-daughter, Marie-Claude, the brand ventured into fragrances under its own name.

Frederick let us sample several scents from the line, all of which I liked, in particular the floral Lalique de Lalique from 1992. (If you are curious, check out this beautifully nuanced review by Kevin of Now Smell This.) Frederick also demonstrated a particularly generous technique for spraying the blotters in a fan shape from a distance, which he had learned from Roja Dove, who coincidentally has a shop in the same arcade. This method bypasses the alcoholic top note you get when perfume is sprayed directly on a scent strip from close range, though you could of course just wait a bit. I sense that this 'nozzle-happy' school of spraying blotters may also go some way to explaining the high price point of the Roja Dove portfolio. I was also encouraged to have confirmed that directly sniffing the nozzle of a tester bottle - a favourite sampling method of mine, that cuts out the middleman of paper - gives you as good an idea of how a perfume smells as any, for some of the juice will have crystallised around the atomiser top.

Frederick also shared with us the rather sweet story of how his mother had managed a perfumery store in Paris when he was a little boy, and brought home miniature bottles, kindling a lasting passion for fragrance in her son at an early age.

At the end of our visit, we were treated to goody bags of samples and a glass of champagne, which owing to our military schedule we had to knock back in five minutes flat - or do I mean 'five minutes pétillant'?! Anyway, for an old lush like me that was no bother at all. On the way out I photographed a hobnail Lalique vase (see the top of the post) that bore an uncanny resemblance to my antique sherry glass below. I sense I might have been doing Frederick a service by minesweeping some of the blowsy Triffid blooms, but desisted.

By Kilian

I also resisted the very real urge to pop into the Roja Dove store, and drop £275 on an 'incredibly masculine, self-assured chypre' for the highly successful Russian Oligarch in my life, and dutifully went instead with my Moomin group to the next stop, By Kilian. Here we were made welcome by the engaging and bubbly Davina, who looked ever so slightly like an upmarket jewel thief or a magician's assistant in her monochrome outfit of white blouse and black gloves. By Kilian is another brand noted for its luxury positioning. I was familiar with the refillable lacquered black box-style of packaging, but was now introduced to the giant decanter bottle, which will set you back somewhere along the spectrum of £2100 - £5000. Readers, I am not on that spectrum, and even if I had the funds to blow on such an outsize thing, struggle to use up a 50ml bottle. However, for someone who loves one particular scent it could well be a case that buying in bulk is the economically sound way to go. Plus you do get to choose your own top and tassle! Though as with Ford cars, it seemed hard to imagine any other colour apart from black. So, you know, that degree of customisation counts for a lot.

Of interest to me (academically at least!) in this new era I am entering of having intolerant, allergic skin, you can additionally buy accessories with novel perfume delivery mechanisms as opposed to spraying on your own skin. In addition to four candles, none of which are now scented with the main fine fragrance line, so as not to debase it with a more functional take in a candle - you can buy perfumed jewellery such as earrings and cufflinks, which incorporate a cunningly concealed ceramic compartment that you spray with your chosen scent - and get this, there is also a tassle with a little trunk concealed within its fibres, similarly containing a perfumed core. Apparently Kilian Hennessey pops them in his wardrobe between his suits, if you needed any further persuasion. ;)

During our time in store we tried an interesting clutch of By Kilian scents, including one which smelt insufficiently of 'weed' for my liking though it was meant to evoke it(!) (Smoke for the Soul), and one that smelt perfectly sufficiently of vodka and tonic (Vodka on the Rocks). A firm favourite with most of our Moomins was Single Malt, featuring notes of whisky, plum and tobacco. It reminded me a bit of Liaisons Dangereuses, but happily lacks the latter's additional coconut note that turned that one into a headache-fest no-no for me. I am fine with coconut in Beyond Love (bewitched review here), and have recently been smitten with Amber Oud, thanks to Undina's compelling description and subsequent enabling. Blotters of that one were also circulated, and I was able to blag a sample, hurrah!

Davina holding a candle to Kirk and Val

Fortnum & Mason

Before our next formal stop at Miller Harris in Monmouth Street, a ragged gaggle of us wandered into Fortnum & Mason, fired up by the 'runaway' desire Val had instilled in us to smell Galop d'Hermès.  Galop proved as elusive as the fire-resistant toy chameleon, but we whiled away an interesting - and at times deeply disturbing - ten minutes in the perfume hall, focusing mainly on that ne plus ultra of 'you could put your eye out with that' fragrance ranges, Xerjoff (which Rachael persisted in calling 'Jerk Off'), and Beaufort London, with which Freddie was comprehensively and frighteningly anointed. Of particular note is Symposium by Xerjoff - I have no idea what it smelt like, but check out the bottle decoration!, which would not look out of place in a Clive Christian kitchen worktop, whose perfume range coincidentally was on an adjacent wall. ;)

The highlight of the flying visit to Fortnum & Mason for me has to be the trip to the Ladies' Powder Room - for the obvious reason you might infer, but also on account of the sumptuous fittings - mushroom grey walls accessorised by ornate gilt mirrors. I would have taken a photograph, but it was a high traffic area and I didn't want to hold the group up, so am taking the liberty (no, wait, that's a different store!) of pinching a snap from the Porcelain Press, which appears to be a dormant blog on rest rooms the world over.

Miller Harris

Starting to feel a bit peckish, I grabbed a bag of upmarket cheesy wotsits (or Organic Chickpea Puffs, to dignify them with their proper name) before the Miller Harris visit. Well, a combination of a store visit in the classic sense of going inside the shop, and a general milling around by people on the street outside. There were about 17 of us after all, for our two groups had coalesced again by this stage.

One of the friendly sales staff in Miller Harris invited us to complete short questionnaires to determine the fragrance styles which would most complement our lifestyle. As a market researcher, obviously I had to have a go at this, given that it was not a formal enough exercise to have exclusions to that effect. But as a semi-unemployed / -retired person, I struggled rather with the questions on fragrances worn during 'the working week' versus 'on days off' - partly because I work from home when I work at all - so the whole principle of office-appropriate scents goes right out the window for starters. I ended up with recommendations of Etui Noir, Feuilles de Tabac and Poirier du Soir, but was actually more drawn to the rose scents in the line, the citrus duo of Tangerine Vert and Le Petit Grain, and that glorious 'eau de Jane Birkin's armpit hair' that is L'Air de Rien, as I may or may not have quite called it at the time of my review. Yeah, maybe I should give up the day job.

I took this opportunity to inquire about the current status of the line Lyn Harris created for M & S, which I have previously championed on Bonkers, but was told it was a limited edition venture that is no longer extant. Miller Harris also generously gave us all a goody bag of samples, including a new one on me, which I look forward to trying - Cassis de Feuille. I would also like to give special mention to the gorgeous backdrop of wallpaper.

Bloom Perfumery

Our final stop was Bloom in Covent Garden, which I had visited before, but not since they rearranged their stock along 'note' lines rather than by brand. In principle I thought that was a rather clever idea, but I found it more confusing than not in reality, partly because it is hard to pigeonhole perfumes in that way, and partly because it made for a rather jumbled looking display both in and out of the cabinets.

Freddie and Tara deep in conversation

But also, to be honest, I was a bit tired by this stage and had almost shot my sniffing bolt, which in the wake of my recent skin woes hasn't been very lively of late at the best of times. The highlight of the visit was without doubt chatting to Louise Woollam of Get Lippie about her horrible brush with parosmia, which thankfully is a lot better now. I had a sniff of Paradox, the perfume Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays created for her, which managed to combine the few elements Louise was still able to smell and enjoy when the condition was at its most acute. Louise also didn't mind me hitting her up for eczema-friendly skincare tips, for which I am grateful.

Nafia, Lisa, Rachael, Suzy, Pia and Phoebe

After Bloom, some of the group - Moomins and Flamingos now thoroughly mixed up at this point ;) - peeled off to go for the Cakey part of the event, while others went straight home. Meanwhile, the Monochrome Set fan / perfumista crossover contingent(!), comprising Val, Rachael and me, holed up in a cafe for an hour to catch up on news, where we encountered our longest tea bag ever. It was positively sock-like. Why, I have even seen shorter Christmas stockings.

And before I knew it I was speeding home on a much faster Virgin train - no sign of the Japanese lady this time, who I feel sure would have been happy with the journey times of that service. I found myself sandwiched between two area managers of the St John's Ambulance on their way back to Merseyside from a conference, so I knew I was in safe hands should my cereal bar happen to go down the wrong way. One of the ladies was additionally a vicar, so even if they fluffed the Heimlich manoeuvre I could at least be sure my soul was in good hands.

And speaking of good hands, it remains to thank Pia and Nick very much indeed for organising such an eventful and enjoyable day. What I would call 'episodic' and ex-Mr Bonkers would have called 'sodding epic', in a good way. And we didn't even get sodden as such, though it rained on and off, as billed. It was great too to meet old friends again and meet others for the first time - you know who you are... Did I say it was more about the people than the props? But props - and perfume - there were in abundance, which will take some time to explore / get through. Here is Truffle, attempting to photobomb the substantial haul from the day, which included Welsh Cakes, and of course my emergency comb, which (unless I lose it) I expect will outlast everything else...

'Hot orange': Au Pays de la Fleur d'Oranger ~ Néroli Blanc Eau de Parfum Intense review

The other week I was contacted out of the blue by Bloom Perfumery in London asking if I was interested - on a no strings basis - in sampling a brand they had just acquired, Au Pays de la Fleur d'Oranger ('in the country of orange blossom'). The company, founded in 1998, is owned by Virginie and Antoine Roux, who have a longstanding family connection to perfumery: Antoine Roux's great-grandfather, Victor, was a flower merchant supplying the perfumeries of Grasse. Bloom described the trio of scents, which are exclusive to the Spitalfields store at the moment, as "a simple, very French, collection of neroli straight from Provence".  Well, in this sort of weather - okay, it has been intermittently warm lately, says she looking out the window at dense cloud cover - I am rather drawn to perfumes featuring orange blossom, and 'simple' is never a bad word in my book, so I said "Yes, thank you" to their offer. Actually, it's not the latest fragrance collection Au Pays de la Fleur d'Oranger has released - this spring saw the launch of La Collection les inédits, which recently featured in The Chemist in the Bottle. Additionally, Au Pays de la Fleur d'Oranger offers a range of room fragrances, soaps and other body care products, all focusing on the scents associated with this part of France, such as rose, jasmine, lemon blossom, lavender and above all, orange blossom.

As the Rouxs (not sure about the plural -s, but no matter) state on their website (translation is my own): "Au Pays de la Fleur d'Oranger...a brand where orange blossom, recognised for its gentle and soothing virtues, is queen."

'Do I look a bit warm in this?'

Such an orange-centric range of perfumes got me thinking about my own personal associations with oranges, going back to my childhood. I remember 'hot orange', for example, a rather watery drink made by diluting orange squash. We were issued with thermos flasks of this warming but insipid stuff on school youth hostelling trips, to wash down the queasy-making spam sandwiches. By contrast, Haliborange tablets provided a gloriously intense hit of orange sweetness - the one vaguely 'medicinal' product I used to look forward to taking.

Then in the early 70s I went on holiday with my parents to Yugoslavia, and this photo of me in a woolly tank top standing in front of an orange tree forever sums up that holiday. It was unseasonably warm for April, and I must have been boiling. So there is another instance of 'hot oranges', if you will. To see the actual fruits growing on trees was impossibly exotic to my 12 year old self.  Fast foward to the end of the 70s, and I spent a year teaching English on the French Riviera, from where I made many forays into the hinterland, including to the village where Au Pays de la Fleur d'Oranger is based, and has a shop - La Colle sur Loup. For anyone not in a position to visit, but wishing to steep themselves in the ambience of Provence, I would heartily recommend La Gloire de Mon Père by Marcel Pagnol or the film Manon des Sources, which has some lovely footage of the area. You can't smell it though, which is where the Néroli Blanc collection comes in...

Suitably stonking bottle ~ Source: fragrantica

I have tested - and like - all three fragrances in the collection, but the edp and eau de cologne are relatively fleeting on me.  I should perhaps clarify that they are all quite different - not just in terms of concentration - and despite sharing four common notes: neroli, bergamot, rose and jasmine. My standout favourite was the Néroli Blanc Eau de Parfum Intense (henceforward to be referred to as 'Néroli Blanc Intense' or possibly just 'Intense' if I am feeling lazy):

NEROLI BLANC INTENSE

Notes: neroli, verveine, bergamote, jasmine, rose, cedar

I don't know if there are some key notes missing from that list - and I am not aware of either the verveine or the cedar - but my overriding impression of the Intense perfume is of a sweet, honeyed, juicy, jammy wallop of orange blossom, flanked by jasmine and rose, and resting on a pillow of warm, unctuous vanilla. It is hot, and it is bothered. Imagine the love child of Serge Lutens Fleurs d'Oranger and Van Cleef & Arpels Orchidée Vanille. It differs from the Serge Lutens in two key ways, namely that it is more vanillic, in a nuzzling, cosseting way, and it also teeters just the right side of indolic. Yes, Néroli Blanc Intense is sultry and exotic, but not out and out erotic. I checked the notes of the SL for comparative purposes - the addition of tuberose may help to amp up its vampish, orange bombshell vibe:

SERGE LUTENS FLEURS D'ORANGER

Notes: orange blossom, jasmine, tuberose, rose, citrus, cumin, nutmeg

Source: vaporizer-shop.co.uk

A 'big white floral scent with vanilla' of which I was also reminded - especially texturally - is Annick Goutal's Songes. So I dug out my sample of that and promptly fell in love! It has different floral notes: frangipani, tiare, jasmine, ylang-ylang (though ylang-ylang has a bit of a tangy orange-y facet to it). Crucially, it has the vanilla base that I detect in Néroli Blanc intense, though it is not mentioned and I may be making it up. And Néroli Blanc Intense also has something of the dreamy, soft quality of Songes - Songes is actually a tad quieter I might add, in case that helps people position the two along the diva spectrum. Songes melds with my skin more readily, whereas the Néroli Blanc Intense sits on my wrist like a big gorgeous hot shouty orange thing. Big and shouty, yet paradoxically warm and comforting at the same time, like Songes. But it is in a louder register all the same - it never loses its 'not quite indolic twang', if you know what I mean. Interestingly, both scents are a similar colour.

Another analogy I might draw would be with an orange-forward Lys Soleia or Mary Greenwell Plum, say. We are talking those kind of levels of projection and radiance and 'juiciness' and 'in your face-ness'. There are also echoes of Ajne Bloom de Nuit, which includes notes of flowering orange, citrus and rock rose, amber and sandalwood, but I don't suppose too many people will have tried that one, and my own memory of it is pretty distant now. I could also say that it smells the way I hoped Guerlain's Mon Précieux Nectar would smell, but that was a bit of a disappointing fuzzy mishmash on me.

La Colle sur Loup ~ Source: voyages.carrefour.fr

Aha - I just spotted the note list for Néroli Intense on Fragrantica, and it is more extensive, with added vanilla, sandalwood and fruits!

Top notes: orange blossom, Sicilian bergamot, mandarin orange
Middle notes: jasmine, rose and fruits
Base notes: cedar, vanilla, musk and sandalwood

I am retesting all three of the Néroli Blanc collection at the moment - they have been on skin for a couple of hours and the other two (even the edp) are indistinct blurs, sadly, so I shan't dwell on them. The openings were very pretty though, and other reviewers - as with Tauer's new Cologne du Maghreb - seem to have got more mileage out of them, so do give them a go if you get the chance.  The older I get, the more my skin seems to eat perfume.

So, the upshot of my testing of this trio is that I would love to have a bit more of Néroli Blanc Eau de Parfum Intense - a purse spray-sized amount, say. And the other surprise finding is that I am now dreaming of a bottle of Songes...

Source: vanitytrove.com

A Tattoo Named Desire: Vero Profumo Rozy edp review, and musings on perfumer bias

The Rose Tattoo House in Key West, Florida

I would have written this post earlier in the week, and blame Birgit of Olfactoria's Travels for the delay. Yes, I have been devouring one of her book recommendations, Louise Doughty's Apple Tree Yard, and much of my free time this week has been lost to that.  It was a chilling, truly electrifying read, and I heartily endorse her selection.

Then, thanks to Tara of OT, I have had a sample of Vero Profumo's Rozy edp for a little while now, and have tested it a number of times.  At least six in fact, toggling between wrists to preclude 'wrist bias'.  And I am going to spell it 'Rozy' rather than '.rozy.' as per the bottle, if you don't mind, because of the risk of grammatical confusion - and the fact that I am too lazy to 'dot my full stops', as it were.

Source: Bloom Perfumery

So...the leviathan that is mainstream perfumery trundles on apace with its unseemly number of launches every season, but as readers may have noticed I mostly tune out to that.  Instead, my ears are at least half-cocked to the latest niche launches.  The blogo-planets seems to be moving through the house of Vero Profumo at the moment, with numerous reviews appearing - notably of all the Rozy variants, but also Mito, Rubj and Onda.  Less so Kiki, though I do like that one.  We also seem to be in a bit of an En Voyage Perfumes phase, and one of Liz Moores for that matter, though I have yet to try her line.  Not so long ago Perfume Land was reverberating with reviews of Neela Vermeire's original trio, followed by a delightful aftershock of acclaim for Ashoka, while Puredistance has also caused a few spikes of interest, most recently with its launch of BLACK.

The Vero Profumo range I spied at Mussler Beauty, Stuttgart

But right now, if I had to 'call the market', I would say that Vero Kern's work is riding particularly high and capturing people's imagination, not least because Vero herself is such a vibrant, original and down to earth character by all accounts.  I would venture to say that she is the perfumer equivalent of Vivienne Westwood crossed with Germaine Greer.  A number of my blogger friends have met Vero in person - several times even, properly hanging out with her, indeed! - I am thinking of Freddie of Smellythoughts, for example, and Val the Cookie Queen of (mostly) Australian Perfume Junkies.  And then of course at the recent workshop in London hosted by Bloom Perfumery, a number of other perfumistas and bloggers had the opportunity to meet Vero and learn more about the inspiration behind her work, including Tara herself and Sabine of Iridescents.

Tennessee Williams and Anna Magnani ~ Source: swide.com

So the collective reports of meet-ups with Vero Kern have predisposed me to like her even more, which is what I mean in the title by 'perfumer bias'.  I really, really want to like all of Vero Kern's work, because I admire and am drawn to what I know of the woman.  And I am conscious that I have probably tried harder with her fragrances than I would if they had been the latest release by Parfums d'Empire or Parfums de Nicolai, say. I will also admit to having been nervous about testing Rozy. As I wrote to Val via Facebook: 'What is Rozy like?  Sounds a bit massive / 'out there' from the notes?', to which she replied: 'Not massive, just gorgeous.'

Notes: Rose d'Orient, lilac, peaches, passionfruit, honey and sandalwood

But whilst I have instantly taken to scents like Kiki edp, Rubj edp and Mito Extrait and Voile d'Extrait - the opening of Mito edp remains a little acerbic for my tastes - Rozy has proved a bit more of a challenge.

Determined to keep this pink theme going ~ Source: Wikipedia

The inspiration for Rozy has been well documented in other reviews, namely that Vero Kern's muse was the Italian actress Anna Magnani, especially in her role as the lusty, headstrong and hot-tempered Serafina Delle Rose in the Tennessee Williams play, 'The Rose Tattoo'. According to one rather sparse plot summary I found online, it 'tells the story of an Italian-American widow in Louisiana who has allowed herself to withdraw from the world after her husband's death and expects her daughter to do the same.'  To be fair, Rosario the husband isn't dead all the way through, and the play also involves dressmaking, smuggling, long distance lorry driving, adultery and betrayal, together with rose tattoos on the person of practically everybody except Serafina herself, though she does experience a sort of 'rose tattoo stigmata' early on in the story on learning that she is pregnant. The film was mostly shot in Key West, and the house where much of the action is set is still known as Rose Tattoo House.

Source: findyourtattoo.net

Google the name 'Rozy', however, as I did in an idle moment, and in that well known resource of Urban Dictionary you will find a much less rumbustious kind of a gal:

'A cute and very sweet little girl living in Connecticut who likes to sleep with cuddly gray sweatshirts on, sleep with her chubby and very soft bunny, stay up all night working on English essays...' and more in that vein.

So banish that image of a Rozy 'perzona' from your mind right off the bat, though lilac could be thought of as a bit of a demure, cutesie note I guess (FM En Passant springs to mind.)  But not here....

Anna Magnani ~ Source: Wikipedia

Okay, so I have written down my impressions each time I have tried Rozy edp...The opening is a bit of a shock, and not the sort of thing I usually like - powdery in a musky, intense way. Texturally I am reminded of PdN Sacrebleu, which hits you with an opaque 'wall of stuff' that I am at a loss to describe in more detail. Sometimes, but not on every test, I detected a slightly sharp, angular quality to the opening that quickly subsided.  On one such occasion my thoughts also drifted to some unidentified boozy-fruity-woody scent by Frapin - or maybe Ginestet's Botrytis.  The fruitiness morphed into more of a distinctively winey, woody, almost menthol-y scent.  I have written 'corked claret' to evoke the woody undertow, and also 'cough syrup'.  For what Rozy most resembled after about twenty minutes or so was Halls Soothers in blackcurrant flavour - possibly cherry, but a dark, deep fruity one for sure.  But as I say, sometimes Rozy skipped this very brief Soothers stage and segued from the musky opening straight into 'broadly beaming fruit'.

For up next is a phase that was uniformly present and much more winsome and accessible - more in the style of Rubj (which I like a lot), but Rubj oozing with honey, and with different flowers.  It is a radiant phase, bright and upbeat, and still noticeably fruity. I get more of the peach at this point - the passionfruit may in fact have been what my nose read as blackcurrant earlier? - and the rose and lilac are pushing through, drenched in honey.  Now honey is a tricky note for me at the best of times - Viktoria Minya's Hedonist was all kinds of wrong on my skin, for example, as Freddie is my witness! - but the honey here is one of the highlights.

A bolt of silk fabric, doing a good impression of a rose ~ Source: ebay.com

As Rozy wears on and becomes generally more attenuated, predictably I like it even more.  Images of Greek yoghurt laced with honey float into my mind, or a shower creme based around honey and milk.  This is the most beautiful part - a silken, honeyed, milky lava, flowing at an almost imperceptibly slow speed.

And then, in the far drydown - on most occasions, but not all - Rozy bites back again, when the honey note turns ever so slightly urinous - what Elena of Perfumeshrine once described as 'honeyed piss' in connection with Absolue pour le Soir by Maison Francis Kurkdjian.  This is phenylacetic acid, apparently - or something behaving very much like it on my wrist.  I can tolerate it these days, as my threshold for animalic notes has greatly come on since I first developed an interest in perfume.  It made me smile, if anything.  There was still a trace of it on my skin this morning after yet another wearing last night.  I should give Schiaparelli's Shocking another go, as I may be ready to meet that same animalic note there again...

So, believe me, I tried to love this, but a diva fruity scent like this was always going to struggle to reel me in. Even Plum by Mary Greenwell, one of the few 'big fruity chypres' to get under my radar, can be a mistake on some days.  But apart from the fuggy wallop of the opening, and despite Rozy being fruitier than I normally go for, I do genuinely like it, and just wish I liked it even more!

And I remain as keen as ever to meet Vero Kern some day. And her dog.  And I don't even like dogs - or most dogs, certainly!  That's perfumer bias for you.

Source: Facebook

PS I would be interested to hear whether you are prone to 'perfumer bias' in relation to any particular fragrance line or collection of that perfumer's work, and how this plays out in your sniffing experience?

A fishy fumehead encounter, featuring Val the Cookie Queen and Portia Turbot-Gear

Val and Thomas at Bloom, with Michael and half of Nigel in the background

Readers may well have been following the adventures of irrepressible Antipodean drag queen Portia of APJ and her urbane fellow contributor Michael as they have been on a bit of a world tour in recent weeks. This has taken in Austria, Germany and France, to name just the countries I have clocked in blog posts and Facebook updates.  In the final leg of her travels, Portia blew into London the other day, as did another member of the APJ crew, Val the Cookie Queen, accompanied by her daughter.  Portia and Michael had already visited Val and family in Austria, as well as hooking up with Birgit and Sandra of Olfactoria's Travels in Vienna for - amongst other things - that all-important tea towel handover. Yesterday, a group of about ten perfumistas (mostly bloggers, in the event) foregathered in the Spitalfields district of London for a mini-perfumery crawl and hearty fish and chip lunch.  Which doesn't have quite the same ring to it as 'fish and chip supper', but there you go.

I say 'blew in', not just because both Portia and Val are live wires, which they are in spades (do spades have wires? Of course they do!), but because it was unfeasibly windy that day.  Umbrella-thrapingly so, if I had had the foresight to bring one with me, topped off with a side order of cold lashing rain.  Now we have had gales all last week where I live, but I don't expect such dismal weather when I come down to London. Why, London is practically in the tropics as far as I am concerned, and I expect my full thermal value - I had even doffed my winter vest in anticipation! - but it was signally lacking yesterday.

Spillover clothing crisis in the office

I don't know if the weather had anything to do with it, but I nearly missed my train in the morning, owing to a clothing crisis of unprecedented proportions that lasted a full hour and laid waste to several rooms (by no means all of them bedrooms).   It seemed impossible to pick out a single outfit that went even some way towards a harmonious union of colour, shoe comfort, fabric type (including any day/night connotations), trouser length, weatherproofing, warmth, and flexibility of warmth.Trying to add a fashionable element into the mix would have tipped me into complete meltdown, if indeed I had owned garments that nodded in that direction. But eventually, reason prevailed and I settled on a tunic top and suit trousers, flat shoes - and no vest!

Epicentre of the clothing carnage

When the train reached Milton Keynes, I hooked up with Thomas, The Candy Perfume Boy, and his soon-to-be-husband Nigel, though not before I had sewn up not one but two knitted hats!  Nothing like a wifi coldspot for prompting the completion of an abandoned crafting project.  The three of us made our way to Aldgate East tube station, where we had arranged to meet Tara.  There we spent the obligatory ten minutes being royally flummoxed by 'multiple exit syndrome', before fortuitously popping up at Exit 3, where Tara was waiting for us, looking serene and lovely as ever - and not the least bit buffeted or rainswept.

We struck out intially in the wrong direction, but Thomas quickly google mapped us back on track, and we wove our way deftly through the narrow streets around Brick Lane.  I stuck closely to him, not least because he was emitting beguiling whiffs of Tom Ford Shanghai Lily, which I had briefly sampled in Paris in June, yet somehow its spicy floral glory had failed to woo me till now.  I may have offered to marry Thomas at one point, possibly within earshot of Nigel.

My new scent squeeze ~ Source: harveynichols.com

When we arrived at Bloom in Spitalfields, it was already packed out with a lively throng of fumeheads in full sniffing mode, including Val and Portia, Michael, Nick Gilbert (Fragrant Reviews) and Joshua Ang (The Smelly Vagabond). Freddie Albrighton (Smellythoughts), whose train had been delayed, joined us shortly afterwards.)  Introductions over, a small flurry of mutual present giving ensued.  I gave Val a poster of The Monochrome Set and a purse for keeping samples in; she gave me cookies of her own manufacture (yay!) and an antique silver button hook, which belonged to her grandmother.  Tara copped for a hat(!) - my hat knitting compulsion having lately escalated to the point where I have exhausted the pool of potential recipients in Stafford - while Portia took custody of a pair of minuscule notebooks and a slightly broached box of fudge that was briefly pre-owned - or at the very least funded - by Tom Cruise. Thereby hangs a tale which will feature in Bonkers in due course, along with its Portia-enabled sequel...

Nick in classic raised forearm pose, with mischievous grin (not pictured)

Oh, and I did remember to do a bit of sniffing, but only a couple of things.  For example, I finally caught up with the new rose release from Parfumerie Generale - No 26 Isparta.  When Pierre Guillaume kissed me(!) after the talk at Les Senteurs in 2012, he also whispered in my ear that he was working on a rose scent. Well, all I can say is that it's been a long time coming, and as Nick pointed out, it does smell somewhat similar to Portrait of a Lady - you might be forgiven for thinking that in the space of two years PG might have taken his composition in a more original direction, but apparently not.  So no new lemming there, thankfully.

The lovely Tara, pictured with her 'To Sniff' list?

Soon it was time to repair next door to Poppies, a retro diner famous for its prize-winning fish and chips. The table assigned to us wasn't quite big enough, but by sheer force of numbers and a bit of strategic staring we quickly saw off the two couples at adjacent tables, and suddenly had ample room to accommodate our own substantial party.

Nick, Freddie, Portia Turbot-Gear (sic!) and Michael

Inevitably, we couldn't stop passing round bottles and samples for one another to sniff, and I got to try the new Dita Von Teese Erotique - which was exactly the 'teesingly' spicy, sandalwoody number Thomas had described in his review - also Vero Profumo Mito Voile d'Extrait, which is less acerbic and more floral than the original EDP, thanks to the addition of tuberose.  I sprayed it liberally on my front, then later wiped the overspray from my Zelda bottle (from when I was making samples for other people) on the back of my neck.  I felt like a scented version of Janus!

Tara, Joshua and Nigel

Our food came pretty quickly, so we had to clear away some of our perfume tackle to make way for huge plates of fish and bottles of condiments.  Not only was its flesh as white as a Hollywood smile, but my haddock was intriguingly upended on its side, though I had to knock it over in order to set about eating it. Sarah, another perfumista who joined us at the restaurant, also had vertical fish, which is not a style of presentation I had previously encountered.

Sarah's fish standing to attention

Replete from our big meals, our slightly bedraggled gaggle braved the weather again to make our way to - no, not Angela Flounders as you might very well imagine, with it being in the immediate vicinity - but Les Senteurs in Seymour Place. As we walked I chatted to Portia a bit about his time in London some 20 years ago, and mentioned that I had also been to Sydney and owned a koala called Mosman.  Only a toy, obviously, but the real things are, after all, not markedly more lively.  Or not the ones living in Canberra Zoo in late 1993.  Portia endeared himself to me by guessing that he was the eldest in our group, when he is fact nine years my - and Val's - junior.  Also by describing me as 'glamorous', which I mistakenly heard as 'cadaverous', to people's amusement.

The By Kilian invasion

Since my last visit, Les Senteurs had been rather taken over by By Kilian, to which an entire wall had been devoted. I ignored the whole fixture and instead made a beeline for the opposite, more diversely stocked wall, where I tried Atelier Cologne's Silver Iris.  It was every bit as likable as the reviews had suggested, and - like The Monochrome Set's penultimate album - its shiny silver surface could have doubled up in a pinch as an emergency compact mirror, however, I think I have enough irises in my collection.

Val, 'valiantly' keeping the FM red lippie theme going

I also tried Sybarite by Cloon Keen Atelier - the Ateliers were out in force yesterday, as you can tell - but couldn't place the scent and it registered as neither overtly pleasant or otherwise.  A little bit like YSL Nu EDT, if I had to think of any remote point of comparison.  Major props for the name though - I love the word 'sybarite' in all its variants. Maybe I should have tried it on skin, as the composition sounds much more congenial than I remember it smelling.  The top notes of incense and bergamot may not have worked for me, though.

Michael and Freddie at Les Senteurs

Then Freddie drew my attention to Mona di Orio's Eau Absolue, an unusual citrus and honey scent with an animalic base.  It grabbed my attention much more, even on card, and we both agreed that this was a treatment of honey that was more to our liking than Viktoria Minya's Hedonist.  Portia had meanwhile ensconced herself at the back of the shop, looking rather grandee-like amongst the rococo furniture and gilt mirrors.  As well as describing me as glamorous, he told Tara she had great legs, prompting me to call him a 'caution', prompting me in turn to explain what this peculiarly British term means.  I just looked it up and it is classified as 'informal' and 'dated', with a meaning of 'amusing' and 'surprising'.  Well, Portia's sense of humour is certainly both of those! ;-)

Portia striking a pose, possibly involving the sniffing of a mobile phone

All too soon it was time to make tracks and catch my train back.  Thomas and Nigel set off for Euston with me, but we had to part company at the tube station when Nigel got his ticket stuck in the lining of his jacket. ;-)  Before I knew it I was speeding north and back to normal life - the excitement of the day's events had assumed an almost dreamlike quality.  Though the two cookies Val had given me - which didn't make it past Watford Junction - said otherwise...