A Midsummer Bonkers Road Trip: The Perfume Bit – Ingolstadt And Operation Elie Saab Le Parfum

In my last post I made reference to my German friend Claudia, singling her out for special mention as the lone purveyor of authentic croissants in an ocean of stodgy Teutonic travesties. During my recent trip I spent a very enjoyable weekend at her house in a village near Ingolstadt (best known as the world HQ of Audi cars). Claudia takes the phrase “hostess with the mostest” to a whole new level, indeed the entire family rallied round to make me feel welcome.

For instance, her elder daughter vacated her bedroom for me, where I was greeted by the sight of not one, but four packets of Haribo Gummibears on my pillow. On the bedside table stood miniature bottles of red and sparkling wine, plus one of mineral water (presumably to pre-empt hangovers).

Meanwhile, my friend’s younger daughter had baked some chocolate cupcakes, the icing on which was still wet and glistening as I arrived, while Claudia’s husband put at my disposal a full suite of travel management and business centre services, including questionnaire and map printing. Not forgetting his impressively nimble valet parking of my hire car!

Additionally, it seemed that the whole family had been squirrelling away perfume samples from shops in anticipation of my visit. Claudia presented me with a Douglas bag full of carded samples, including one of that elusive new love of mine, Elie Saab Le Parfum - to which more would be added presently... : - ) There was also a sample of Kenzo Flower Essentielle, which was not previously on my radar, and which warrants a review of its own in due course. So all in all I was very touched at the thoughtfulness and high level of coordination that had gone into the preparations for my stay.

Claudia’s tremendous hospitality also extended beyond the home: on Sunday she took me on a walking tour of Ingolstadt, the highlights of which were the gothic cathedral, the city walls punctuated by turrety gatehouses, and the ghoulishly fascinating museum of medical history, featuring such oddball exhibits (quite literally) as a collection of glass eyes.

And on the Saturday we hit the perfume shops in both the centre of Ingolstadt and an out of town shopping mall. We covered two branches of the “drugstore plus” Müller (more of a cross between a drugstore and a low end department store), and one of the perfumery chain Douglas. My sampling was particularly haphazard on this occasion for some reason – I did test a number of the Korres perfume line, which you don’t often see - well, not in Britain anyway. Korres packs pretty much the entire formulation of its perfumes into their decidedly unsnappy titles: I think the ones I tried were Paeonia Vanilla Amber Pear, Vanilla Freesia Lychee, and White Tea Bergamot Freesia. I remember all three as pleasant but unremarkable.

Then some bizarre impulse made me reach for testers of scents in a fixture clearly aimed at a younger audience: first I tried Katy Perry Purr (unexpectedly grapefruity! – could that have been the “forbidden apple” listed in the notes, “forbidden” perhaps precisely because it is in fact a grapefruit?). Next up was John Galliano Parlez-Moi d’Amour. In the case of the latter, my eye was drawn to the cute bottle, that looks like an airmail letter with a stamp on it (the wrong side, by the looks of that picture!). It turned out to be a sweetish floral woody musk scent – not bad, and crucially, not grapefruity. I also sampled Tommy Hilfiger Loud for Women, as featured in the recent BBC documentary, “Perfume”. It was another rose patch-lite number - a bit watery, but a decent option for that demographic, which also holds true for the Galliano.

Prompted by a review over on Boisdejasmin, I also gave Ange ou Démon Le Secret a go (another phantom grapefruit composition – I am guessing that here my brain could be misreading the tea and cranberry notes?). Now you are going to say that I have really got a downer on grapefruit – whether real or a figment of my nasal reception - but I would just like to say that I am not the only one. For Claudia’s younger daughter made the mistake of spraying herself liberally in DKNY Woman before I could intercept her and explain that that is the citrus fruit equivalent of a nuclear holocaust. She ruefully agreed with me after the event, whereupon I judged it an appropriate moment to explain the concept of the “scrubber”. If anyone reading this happens to know a snappy German term for this, I would be glad to know it!

The highlight of the whole expedition was without question the continued garnering of Elie Saab Le Parfum samples. Elie Saab is not yet in mainstream distribution over here, but there was a huge publicity splash about it in Germany. Now you will recall that Claudia had already scored one sample for me in advance of my visit, then I managed to acquire another in the first branch of Müller we visited. In the second branch of Muller I thought I would try to pull the same stunt and the sales assistant pulled out three samples from her drawer! She was apparently new, bless her. The cynical and parsimonious rot will doubtless set in presently!

Then I dived behind the Clarins fixture for a moment while Claudia went up to this generous SA who bestowed a sample on her too – just the one, as she perhaps had been insufficiently effusive compared to me. Anyway, Claudia promptly passed this latest sample on to me, like a shoplifter stealing to order. Well, I must say I felt a little guilty to have ended up with six of the things. I would consider buying a bottle at some point, but not at German retail prices, oh dear me, no.

To show my gratitude to the cosmos, I doused myself in Elie Saab for several days straight, and can add a few more thoughts to my initial impressions here. The opening was as bright and radiant as I remembered – it is like a whoosh of Jo Malone orange blossom mixed in with a rosy, smooth skin scent. I am also reminded of various facets of Love Chloe, Stella Nude and Dior 1947 New Look, in particular the latter – there is a definite cold cream-and-slinky-satin-teddy vibe going on here. And there is also….now, please don’t be alarmed by this…a very slight synthetic quality, at the beginning at least. I was so pleased to read that Angela of Now Smell This also gets this radiant quality – to be honest I wouldn’t have had Elie Saab down as her thing!

So all in all Operation Elie Saab went like military clockwork to coin a phrase, as did Operation Breakfast on the family’s part on Sunday morning. When I finally ambled downstairs at gone 11am, I was blown away by the elaborate and varied breakfast buffet that awaited me. As I say, I was torn between the cupcakes and the croissants. It was option anxiety, or as they say over there, with a nice touch of assonance: “Die Qual der Wahl”.

Much like the world of perfume, indeed…. Though if I had to wear Elie Saab Le Parfum for a month straight, it wouldn't be a huge hardship… : - )



Photo of John Galliano perfume from fragrantica.com, still photo of "Grapefruit's revenge" from hark.com, other photos my own.

The Bonkers Rail Trip: Part Two - The Perfume Bit

Shortly after my visitors left yesterday, my main PC suddenly gave up the ghost, the apparent victim of "hard drive failure". As I type, it is hooked up to the computer repair shop equivalent of a dialysis machine, where valiant technicians are endeavouring to salvage the contents from just before the crash, including that day's work.

So I hope to cobble together the remainder of the Bonkers Rail Trip report on a combination of an ancient and infuriatingly slow notebook and Mr Bonkers' laptop (if he will let me borrow it...)

To be honest, the perfume aspects of the German trip do not deserve the build up I may have inadvertently given them by constantly referring to their deferral! And they fall into two parts, basically: the duty free shops on the outward and return legs of the journey, and a handful of stores in downtown Frankfurt.

To take the duty free shops first (at Birmingham and Berlin Schoenefeld airports), I always look forward to trying the latest releases in these, indeed I expect it to be the absolute highlight of that tediously protracted "Wait in Lounge" period, which is otherwise spent mindlessly staring at shelves of miniature travel toiletries in Boots, buying unsuitable hair bobbles in Claire's Accessories, or drinking weak tea from oversized cups in Costa Coffee. I try to avoid Wetherspoons and faux Irish pubs on such occasions, for they are usually packed out with holiday makers whose flight to Monastir has been put back five hours, and who have been necking lager solidly since 7.30am.

But the duty frees at both ends of my journey were even more disappointing than usual - so much so that I only applied two scents on skin at Birmingham (Gucci Guilty and Gucci pour homme II) and NONE at Berlin. Admittedly I was feeling pretty whacked and zombie-like by the end of the week, but I would have expected some new or merely untried scent to have caught my eye.

So here is a quick run down of what I sampled at the airports (mainly on paper, as I say):

JPG Classique (wanted to remind myself why I believed I didn't like this, and the answer became abundantly clear at first whiff - huge tuberose-heavy white floral with that trademark vinyl note also evident in the newer MaDame)

Issey Miyake Fleur de Bois - testing for the second time (forgettable aquatic woody floral?)

Chanel Bleu (boring, generic men's "tonic sport" style cologne)

Thierry Mugler Womanity (scary popcorn on steroids!)

Gucci Guilty (softer and lighter than Gucci by Gucci, a bit sweet initially, a bit fruity maybe - I had difficulty detecting a single note in it for sure, but the drydown was quite sheer and more wearable than Gucci by Gucci, where the honey can be a little cloying.)

Here are the notes at last: "mandarin, pink pepper, peach, lilac, geranium, amber, and patchouli."

Calvin Klein Escape (I can't recall exactly what this was like, but I threw the tester strip away immediately, so it must have been pretty horrid!)

So...I am coming to the reluctant conclusion that from now on, as far as perfume is concerned, duty free shops will continue to be a huge anti-climax, such that I really should not get my hopes up every time I fly somewhere. They mostly carry mainstream lines and "promote" (not that I saw true bargains in either) the latest Calvin Klein or D & G over the classic houses like Chanel or Hermes. A "lowest common denominator" approach was even more apparent in Ryanair's on-board fragrance selection, which was dominated by the likes of Kylie, J-Lo, Beyonce and SJP. In fact, it may not be an overstatement to say that duty free fragrances are fast becoming a microcosm of all that I find depressing about the perfume industry today. That said, they are still THE place to go for boxes of miniature Lindt squares and giant Toblerones the size of iron girders - but even these come at a price... for "duty free" doesn't usually mean cheap in my experience.

The remainder of my sampling was confined to Frankfurt as I said, where the week started with a day off - well, not completely "off", for I was still on standby in case the recruiters made me a last minute appointment - but I didn't really expect to get the call. Instead, I mooched around the city centre, visiting several branches of Douglas (the sense of deja vu was overwhelming by Store No 3), and a couple of department stores: the low-mid market Galeria Kaufhof, and the mid-mid market Karstadt. (Demographic classifications are my own...)

The two scents I tried on skin were JO MALONE PEAR & FREESIA and the relatively new Opium flanker, BELLE D'OPUM. I had been eagerly awaiting the new Jo Malone all summer - not that I am a fan of pear, particularly, if anything quite the contrary - but as the owner of four Jo Malone scents (just pipping Penhaligon's in the "most full bottles from a single house" stakes - I have three Penhaligon's), I am always interested in - and even a little excited by - their latest launches.

Curiously, the Jo Malone concession was in the largest of the branches of Douglas I visited, and the sales assistant was both striking looking and exceptionally tall - well over 6ft, at a guess - with a very pale complexion and dyed black hair. She sprayed Pear & Freesia liberally on the prime skin site I had reserved for the purpose, then to my surprise proceeded to pat the perfume thoroughly into my wrist, even though I thought that any kind of rubbing of scent into skin was frowned upon. Perhaps she had my number as a non-pear lover, and wanted to hurry the scent along to a later stage of its development. If that was the aim it didn't work, for the opening still smelt very noticeably of pear to me. There is a much more positive review of this scent on The Scented Salamander here, but I am afraid Pear & Freesia reminded me of an upmarket and more natural smelling take on Armani Idole. In a word, it was too loud, which is not a quality I usually associate with Jo Malone scents, though come to think of it, I gave away my bottles of Nectarine Blossom & Honey and Vintage Gardenia for this very reason!

Moments after applying Pear & Freesia, the SA was already suggesting layering options, and we experimented with Black Vetyver Cafe, which was pretty nice, though she also recommended Pomegranate Noir and Nutmeg & Ginger. Now I know Jo Malone is a line which lends itself to layering, but part of me is always just a little bit suspicious that this may be a way to disguise the fact that a given scent doesn't stand up on its own merits...and to be honest, Pear & Freesia may well smell better toned down by another, more astringent, fragrance from the line.

So that was another little anti-climax. More to my taste, though not exactly groundbreaking, was Belle d'Opium, of which an otherwise faintly hostile SA in one of the department stores actually volunteered a sample, the only one I scored in fact! In reviewing this scent, Denyse of Graindemusc wrote: "Welcome to Blandland", and dubbed Belle d'Opium "Yves Saint Laurent in the Facebook era" - and I know what she means. For Belle d'Opium has no more in common with Opium than Parisienne has with Paris - even less, maybe. When I first sniffed it in store, I remarked to the SA: "Oh, it's a bit woody." "No", came the tart correction: "it's a lily scent". "Is there incense in there at all?" I countered. After a comprehensive rummage in her drawer of sales presenters, which failed to turn up the Belle d'Opium note list, the SA conceded through gritted teeth: "Yes, there is a bit of incense, but as I say it is a lily scent."

Now, I can detect Casablanca lilies if I put my mind to it, but this is a rather fuzzy, amorphous scent overall, and as with Gucci Guilty, I was hard pushed to pick out its different facets. I see that Alberto Morillas co-created Belle d'Opium along with Honorine Blanc of Firmenich, and while I am not familiar with the latter's work, Morillas I associate with a number of indistinct, fuzzy scents, such as Armani She White, Bvlgari Omnia Crystalline and Kenzo Flower Oriental.

I have since managed to find the notes on Osmoz, though I see that the card with the sample also lists Casablanca lilies, incense and nargileh accord, which I am guessing is related to the tobacco note and hookah accord below!

Top note: Mandarin Orange, Lily, Gardenia, White Flowers
Middle notes: Frankincense, Peach, Pepper, Tobacco, Hookah Accord, Fruity Notes
Base notes: Patchouli, Sandalwood, Smoky Notes, Amber

I wouldn't have thought Casablanca lilies could reasonably be combined with incense and tobacco, but the white flowers do seem to meld into the smoky notes surprisingly well. The more I sample this, the more it grows on me, even though I belong to the original Opium generation rather than the young target audience at which this radically reworked flanker is aimed!

The other scents I tried on paper were a motley assortment indeed, and I am not sure I remember what all of them smelt like, but here goes:

S'Oliver Superior (an SA thrust a tester strip into my hand with what she intended as an encouraging comment: "Try this - it is fresh and fruity!")

Gabriela Strehle Strenesse (insipid, citrussy, watery floral?)

Sisley Eau du Soir (animalic chypre - not my thing at all)

Otto Kern Egoluxe (quite liked this but don't ask me why : - ) Have since clocked that its base comprises sandalwood, musk, vanilla & patchouli, for which I am always a sucker.

Clarins Fleurs du Matin (major grapefruit alert!)

But although there were no great discoveries on this trip - Belle d'Opium and Egoluxe being the only scents that remotely caught my interest - there was nonetheless an amusing incident which completely made my day...

During the group blogging exercise on "Scents of The Mediterranean" last month, there were several mentions of the Greeks liking their cologne and being rather heavy handed in their spritzing technique. Well, nothing prepared me for the sight I saw in Karstadt, where a gentlemen of Mediterranean appearance, let's just say - I can't vouch for his exact nationality - grabbed a tester of Bvlgari pour homme and sprayed himself liberally with it...and I mean liberally. For not only did he give his neck area at least five squirts, but he then sprayed the back of his neck, each armpit and every inch of his upper torso front and back, or as far as he could reach. And in case anyone is wondering, yes, he was wearing clothes on his top half at the time, so after this spritzing spree he must have been absolutely drenched, as well as reeking of the stuff! (At least Bvlgari pour homme is a pretty classy choice...) Eventually the chap noticed me looking at me, put the tester back on the shelf and scuttled out of the store, tapping me conspiratorially on the arm as he passed. I could hardly believe what I had just witnessed, were it not for the monster sillage he left in his wake....


Photo of duty free at Birmingham airport from reuters.com, photo of Gucci Guilty from sewmanstore.com, photo of man holding Toblerone from hitched.co.uk, photo of Jo Malone Pear and Freesia from 26.media.tumblr.com, photo of Belle d'Opium from parfums-tendance.fr, photo of Kaufhof from Wikimedia Commons, photo of Hauptwache district from locationsite.de

Another Bonkers Road Trip - The Scented Bit!

I have been back just over a week, and the scents on the blotters I keep finding at the bottom of handbags have long since become an indistinct blur. This actually matters less than you might think, as the perfume names I had scribbled on them were illegible from the off. But I reckon it is time I wrote up the perfume related aspects of from my recent travels - before the memories also become irretrievably fuzzy.

Mileagewise, this trip was 37% longer (in duration) and 48% longer (in distance) than the one in March, yet I seemed to have had less time to explore any perfume outlets that crossed my path. The extra miles covered may have had a lot to do with this, for on three occasions I spotted interesting perfume shops but made myself drive on by because I needed to be somewhere at a particular time. Should anyone be familiar with the Parfumeries in Stolberg, Erkelenz and Herisau (Switzerland) please tell me what I missed!

The few perfume outlets I did manage to visit - in shopping malls near Stuttgart and in former East Germany - barely left an impression: there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of Joop! and Bruno Banani, I do remember that. Well, that is not strictly fair: I did try out a few things that were new to me, for example the Chloe trio (Eau de Fleurs Neroli, Lavande and Capucine). The Neroli was too aggressive; I don't like lavender, and the Capucine was a sort of indeterminate green scent (with nasturtium!) That would explain my nose's complete inability to place it...

I also tried the new Dior Escale flanker a couple of times (Escale aux Marquises), and while I thought on first encounter that I might like it better than the previous two scents in the series - it lacked the sharp edge of Portofino and the overt herbiness of Pondichery - after prolonged wearing I decided it was rather odd: a sort of upmarket fruity floral marred by a faintly unpleasant note I couldn't quite put my finger on. Odd in the way Byredo's Bal d'Afrique is odd, but that is "good odd" and this was "bad odd" - a dubious accolade I would also award to Comme des Garcons' Daphne.

Okay, so far so unremarkable. After all, on my previous trip - as I later learnt - I managed to interest an online retailer, Parfumerie Nidderau, into stocking Kristiansand NYC. And here I was, over two weeks into the trip, having only tried a couple of Chloes, a Dior flanker and Lancome's Tresor In Love (which I wasn't even going to mention).

But things started to look up on 12th June, when I hooked up again with that cosmopolitan trio from Basenotes: Alicka61, Potiron and Wordbird. We agreed to meet in the Marktplatz in the centre of Basel, in exactly the same spot as back in March. This time, as it was the weekend, I was glad not to be suited and booted, or carrying a briefcase.

After a bit of excited chattering on the spot, we installed ourselves at an outside table attached to a quiet courtyard cafe recommended by Potiron: Der Rote Engel. The others ordered mouthwatering slabs of fruit tart, for which I inconveniently developed a major craving a couple of hours later, but I just felt like a cup of tea at the time.

And what an impressive beverage it turned out to be! For it came in the largest cup I have ever seen in commercial use. Mr Bonkers' mother, who has a bit of a phobia about disproportionately large tableware, and who, on our way back from Bruges last year, famously complained in Costa Coffee at Watford Gap Services that the cup her tea was served in was unacceptably large, would have been outraged and totally spooked by this freak of the ceramics industry. (Wordbird kindly placed her hand in the shot to give you a sense of scale.)

Then it wasn't long before we did that "upending of the handbag" trick and samples poured out on to the table. Wordbird was even looking for a new home for half a bottle of a natural floral perfume I had not heard of before. She kindly gave me a selection of Possets' perfumes, one of those kooky indie brands I had been curious about. (I will test and report on them in due course.) I have already sneaked a trial of the whimsically named Ghost Fart, and am bracing myself to try the rest!

After this pitstop - and given that we had loitered last time (without making a single purchase between us) in the niche perfumery Hyazinth for an indecently long time - none of us felt bold enough to return so soon, and instead checked out the perfume section in Globus, Basel's high end department store. I didn't spot any new launches, but we all found scents that were new to us - whole swathes of the Acqua di Parma or Bond No 9 ranges, for example, plus the odd Prada, Marc Jacobs or Etro. I gave Annick Goutal's Ninfeo Mio its fourth or fifth trial but my original verdict still stands: way too sharp!!

From Globus (having said goodbye to Alicka61, who had to head home at this point) we went to Import Parfumerie and had a very satisfying scavenge in their bargain bins. These were crammed with deeply discounted perfumes - some to as little as 10 or 15 euros (a steal for Switzerland!) - but most of them were not on my radar and for the most part looked like Swiss equivalents of Elizabeth Arden's Red Door and things in that vein.

I thought I had found a true bargain in a 30 SFRS bottle of DSQUARED She Wood, only to discover that it was the body lotion. But let me not downplay the thrill of the rummage, which was considerable, and enhanced by Wordbird's helpful commentary about the general style of different brands.

By now my stomach was rumbling, so we popped into an Italian cafe (another Potiron haunt) and ordered freshly made paninis, and in my case a cup of tea served in a receptacle of conventional dimensions. Our energy levels restored, we hit Douglas, where I made a purchase! (Two metal decanting funnels for 2 SFRS apiece, which struck me as pretty good value.) And Wordbird's more substantial purchase of a small Steiff bear bought us some more valuable "loitering time".

In Douglas I used my prime skin sites to retry Rance Eau Royale (fresh, foresty) and Laetitia (woodier than I remembered, doubtless due to the heat). My first trial of Guerlain's Flora Nymphea was a nondescript disappointment on skin - I had expected some kind of honeyed beauty like Chanel Beige. I also sampled DSQUARED Crystal Creek Wood (intrigued by the blue colour of the juice), and found it a pleasant, vaguely aquatic number, just as you would expect.

After Douglas and a mosey round a nearby shoe store (some interesting Camper-esque styles here and there, but with prices to match, sadly!), Potiron suggested taking a ferry ride across the Rhine. It lasted all of 3 minutes, but it was fun to look back at the city skylines on from the water. On the other side of the river we wandered along the tree-lined promenade bordering Klein-Basel, before stopping for a beer within the grounds of a former army barracks (now a green area fringed with cafes, bars and an arts venue). We were dimly aware of the early English goal against the USA in the bar next door (it has been downhill ever since!), and before we knew it it was getting cold and dark and time to accompany Wordbird to the railway station. Potiron and I rounded off the night with an Italian meal, and it was after 11pm when we went our separate ways at a tram stop near the centre.

Summing up, it was fantastic to see everyone again, and this meeting further cemented our international friendship. To the point where - while perfume will always be the interest that first united us, and we will probably brave Parfumerie Hyazinth again one day - I think we could have just as much fun next time hitting the shoe shops instead.

The Bonkers Road Trip - Part Three: Solo Sniffathon in Zürich

So there I was by the end of week two, holed up in a hotel in Wildegg, its foyer steeped in the ambient testosterone of the Serbian U-17 football team. The players may have been young, but they were very tall for their age. And every time I came downstairs, another one would be demanding gluten-free breakfast cereal from the receptionist in an imperious mixture of English and Italian.

Time to break out, I thought, so on Saturday morning I took the train to Zürich, which cost over £20, but it was less stressful than driving (I surely needed one day a week off!), and I managed to persuade myself that the parking would have cost as much.

Zürich has numerous associations for me: hotels on the Limmatquai with geranium-filled window boxes, woozy cheese fondue, banking secrecy, my home and contents insurer - and of course lately the city has become the European capital of voluntary euthanasia.

My first impressions on this occasion were of the North Face of the Eigeresque prices (£1.50 to use a public toilet, £1.50 for a picture postcard, £7.50 for 30 mins' Internet time!) I could tell early on that this was going to be a window shopping kind of a day and resolved to sniff freely, but resist all temptation to purchase anything more than essentials.

My first stop was a branch of Import Parfümerie in the Bahnhofstrasse. A native Swiss perfumista might not give this discount chain a second glance, but for me everything was new and different and interesting. Nothing remotely approaching a bargain, mind you, even in the promotional bins, and after testing a fairly forgettable Issey Miyake (Fleurs de Bois), I headed on to Manor, a mid-market department store, and Marionnaud, the (French?) specialist beauty chain run on similar lines to Douglas.

In Marionnaud I sniffed the new Prada Infusion de Tubéreuse. It really didn't strike me as being much like tuberose at all, but at least it didn't mug me and leave me for dead like its disappointing stablemate, Infusion de Fleurs d'Oranger. I later read Robin of NST's review of this scent, which she dubs "Infusion de Fleur Nonspécifique", which amused me no end - and frankly I couldn't agree more.

Next up was Hermes, where a friendly SA let me have a sample of Voyage d'Hermes - the only sample I scored all day, haha! Sadly it was rather sharp and overly limey - the J-C Ellena equivalent of a "Friday afternoon car", as they say in the motor industry.

I popped into Chanel, and tried to blag a mini of Beige, but no samples were forthcoming. Indeed they didn't even have one of their distinctive square blotters saying "Beige" on it, and I was blowed if I was going to walk out with Beige sprayed on a piece of card saying Coromandel, when I know perfectly well what Beige smells like anyway - I was just on the scrounge.

I also made a detour to the Moroccan-themed book shop - Le Maroc - in the Spiegelgasse, which inspired Andy Tauer to create Le Maroc pour Elle. It was a veritable Aladdin's Cave of books and sumptuous greetings cards featuring arty photos of Marrakesh and the surrounding area. Sadly, they started at 5 SFRS! Just inside the doorway was a homely display of Andy Tauer's scent range - I say "homely", because the tester bottles were tied loosely to the table they stood on with garden twine. Extrapolating from the greetings cards, I didn't even bother asking how much they were, much as I aspire to own L'Air du Désert Marocain some day.

Back in the Bahnhofstrasse, I spent quite a while in a very good branch of Douglas - very good because it had an extensive range of Micallefs, which I had only ever previously come across in an independent perfumery. I sniffed my way through quite a few:

Printemps, Ete, Automne, Black Sea, White Sea and Royal Musk

Printemps and Ete were surprisingly designer-ish to my nose, Automne was spicy but not pleasant, Black Sea was weird in that "push the envelope-loft dwelling-perfumisto" kind of way, White Sea was like a cross between a nice CDG such as White or 3 and one of the dodgier Platinum Life Threads - I am thinking Silver might be the one I mean. Royal Musk smelt of musk and was not the least bit objectionable.

The highlight of the day was my visit to Osswald's, one of the most high end independent perfumeries in Europe, at a guess. On a par with Hyazinth, or slightly better, owing to its Guerlain corner. It was a highlight, but strangely also a low point, for I felt so poor, both in relation to the prices and the well heeled clientele happily shelling out 180 SFRs and up at a rate of several every five minutes. Now I was wearing my good work trousers, a designer padded jacket and Ecco boots (from an outlet store and T K Maxx respectively, but no matter!), and yet I still managed to feel scuzzy and tramp-like, in a way I hadn't at Hyazinth. Maybe it was having the company of three stalwart perfumistas on that occasion that made the difference. It was certainly nothing the Osswald SAs said to me. They more or less left me to my own devices after one or two initial inquiries. I don't know what didn't click exactly, but I didn't feel at all comfortable, and tested less that I would have liked - though still managed to cross off quite a few things from my "to sniff" list:

L'Eau de Serge Lutens (unremarkable, inoffensive cologne)
Guerlain Les Secrets de Sophie (bit too ylangy-musky - almost trashy, which really took me aback)
Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire (elegant, dry, can't remember much else about it)
Guerlain Tonka Imperiale (overly rich vanilla - to retry!)
L'Artisan Havana Vanille (overly rich tobacco vanilla - to retry!)
Miller & Bertaux Shanti Shanti (too rosey, too much patchouli)
Humiecki & Graef Askew (good masculine, bit sharp?)
Humiecki & Graef Geste (unisex and beautiful in a way I am at a loss to describe)
Van Cleef & Arpels Lys Carmin (very pretty lily with added welly)
Van Cleef & Arpels Cologne Noire (pleasant cologne - not groundbreaking, but nice)
Van Cleef & Arpels Orchidee Vanille (sickly sweet mess on me)
Van Cleef & Arpels Gardenia Petale (too sweetly indolic)

Next stop was the department store, Globus, where I lingered for a good while - I would rank it above Manor in its market positioning - the Neiman Marcus to Manor's Macy's perhaps. Or Selfridges to Manor's Debenhams/John Lewis (for British readers).

In Globus I had a Vol de Nuit edt epiphany - it was soft and powdery, comforting like a mole's fur, but with a slight frisson of static electricity.

I also retried Ninfeo Mio (just as sharp off-fan!), Daim Blond (not as sweaty loafer as I recall, but not especially good on me), Tom Ford Grey Vetiver (why did I do that? I am not a vetiver fan particularly, though if you are, that is a pleasant example of the genre). I sniffed Michael Kors on paper at a distance of several feet from my body, and tried Bond No 9 New Haarlem aka "My Gingerbread Hell" rather too close to it. I also sampled Paris by Balenciaga on skin and found it exactly as expected in terms of scent - low key violets and greenery - but wasn't expecting it to be so powdery. It could have taken a "leaf" out of Patou Vacances' book and been a bit fresher for my money...

After Globus I was wandering pretty aimlessly by this stage and quite by chance stumbled across a department store whose name I cannot even remember, though the logo had a black background and there may have been a "j" in the name. Jelmoli? Jellyroll? More important than what it was called, it stocked the Tom Ford Musk range!!! I eagerly sniffed them all, and was predictably disappointed by Pure Musk, Urban Musk and Jasmine Musk, and re-bonded with White Suede on a prime skin site, my sample of which having long since been exhausted. "How much is the 50ml?" I inquired of the heavily made up SA, as optimistically as I could muster. "240 SFRS" (£160). Jeepers! That is £60 more than in the UK as far as I can recall. I asked if they happened to have a sample, so that I could evaluate White Suede at greater leisure. "Why would you need to do that?" came the blunt reply. "You have got it on your skin already." There was nothing for it but to make a sharp exit.

My energy levels were flagging by now, and my search for a cheap bar of chocolate led me to a branch of the Coop department store. I was feeling pretty jaded and disorientated, as evidenced by an impulsive trial of the new Avril Lavigne - that rocky "fruitchouli" number - Black Star? Not my demographic is putting it mildly. It was clearly time to go home.

So in summary, the three standout scents of the day were: Guerlain Vol de Nuit (bergamot, galbanum, petit grain, jasmine, jonquil, spices, woods, iris, vanilla, amber), Humiecki & Graef Geste (soft amber, musk, soft violet petals, soft fir resin) and Van Cleef & Arpels Lys Carmin (Lily, Pink Peppercorn, Ylang Ylang, Vanilla and Sandalwood). Which is about a 1 in 10 "love" hit rate. But given that they say you have to kiss 125 frogs before you meet your prince, that really wasn't a bad day's work...

The Bonkers Road Trip: Part Two - Meeting The Swiss Perfumistas

I have been travelling abroad on business for over 20 years now: always driving, and always on my own. I might take a couple of paperbacks along for company, and on longer trips I have been known to sneak a small soft toy into my luggage: a rat called Maxim being the companion of choice because he is extremely slim and bendy, fitting snugly into the smallest interstices of your car, such as the ashtray or the cubby hole where I keep coins for the Dartford Tunnel.

On this trip, however, I had an uncharacteristically sociable time, thanks to several hook ups with perfumistas in Basel, Switzerland. Basel is a cosmopolitan city with a large expat community, and our mini-gathering of perfumistas from Basenotes represented no less of a melting pot, comprising:

1 x Welsh (Wordbird)
1 x Slovakian (Alicka61)
1 x Swiss (Potiron)
1 x Northern Irish and just visiting (me aka VM I hate civet!)

On Wednesday 24th March, following my two morning meetings, I took the tram back to the market square where the other three were already standing outside our meeting point, Brasserie Baselstab.

The Swiss perfumistas had had some prior contact with one another through the Internet - and I had myself done a swap with Alicka61 on MUA - but none of us had ever met before in person. To have got together with one fumehead in Switzerland would have been exciting enough - suddenly to be greeting three at once was almost emotional overload!

Introductions over, we sat at a table outside and enjoyed a leisurely lunch, only slightly marred by the waiter's signal failure to bring cold milk for my tea. He first brought boiling milk, which is as good as no milk in my view. I requested cold milk, but none was forthcoming. Shortly before we got up to go, the waiter informed me that they were in fact clean out of milk - fresh out of it, even. Or perhaps they were only out of discretionary supplies of the stuff that could be spared for cantankerous foreigners. Anyway, it didn't much matter, for by this point I had long since drunk my glass of tepid black tea.

But not even a serious beverage irregularity could dampen the ebullient mood of our party. We chatted away about our jobs and families, and our likes and dislikes on the fragrance front, pausing every so often to rummage in the pile of samples in the middle of the table. For shortly after we had sat down, Wordbird and Alicka61 had upended their handbags and encouraged us all to help ourselves to the resulting carded sample sprawl. It was like a leisurely version of supermarket sweep, or perhaps like a swinger's party - where (I believe) you toss your car keys into a bowl. On balance, going away with a clutch of new scents rather than someone else's husband probably offered less potential for emotional discombobulation.

All the more so in my case, because I scored a sample of Sonia Rykiel's Women Not For Men from Wordbird and promptly fell in love. A full bottle is currently on its way to me following a lucky break on Ebay. I may do a separate review of this dreamy comfort scent one day, but here are the notes to be going on with.

Pink Pepper, Violet, Date, Jasmine Petals, Solar Flowers, Bulgarian Rose, Black Pepper, Olibanum, Agarwood, Leather, Amber.

After lunch, we repaired to a high end perfumery, Hyazinth, and proceeded to stand chatting and sniffing in the perfume section for the best part of two hours, clearly displaying not even the merest hint of a purchase intention. To their credit, the sales assistants tholed the clogging up of their store by such time-wasting customers with dignified stoicism.

I was in such an excitable state in the store that I did not systematically note down all the lines carried, but Hyazinth had a most impressive selection, greater even than that of Les Senteurs, I would say. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I recall seeing The Different Company, By Kilian, Byredo, Parfumerie Generale, Heeley, Rance, Etro, Divine, Ulrich Lang, Mark Birley, Les Parfums de Rosine, Annick Goutal, Bois 1920, The Party, Bond No 9, Floris, Penhaligon's, Keiko Mecheri, Mark Buxton, Les Parfums d'Empire, Biehl Kunstwerke, Ineke, Parfums 06130, Balmain, and several ranges featuring the prefix Profum-!

I ended up trying the following (on a mixture of card and skin):

By Kilian Back to Black (strong and honeyed, but not as cloying as I had feared)

The Different Company Oriental Lounge (lightly spicy oriental reminiscent of Penhaligon's Malabar or the quiet vibe of Prada L'Eau Ambree overlaid with spice)

Ineke Field Notes from Paris (soft orangey number, that somehow smelt more foody orange than perfumey orange, but then I have been left deeply traumatised by my experiences with Boss Orange and Prada Infusion de Fleurs d'Oranger, so I may not be best placed to judge)

Il Profumo Musc Bleu (perfectly pleasant straight up musk)

Annick Goutal Ninfeo Mio (This scent was wafted under our noses on a fan, but not even such a delicate delivery system could mask its offputting astringence)

Rance Eau Royale (green foresty vibe, a bit like Miller Harris Fleurs de Bois)

Profumu Roma Ichnusa (don't rightly recall, but it was nasty)

Now that doesn't sound like a whole lot of testing given that we were in such a fabulously stocked temple to fragrance, but to be honest I felt a little awkward about running amok with the testers. I got the impression that the SAs would rather direct the customer's sampling experience rather than let us ransack the fixture...

Sadly, Potiron had to leave us to go back to work while we were still at Hyazinth, and finally, after our indecently long stay in the store, we moved on to a branch of Douglas, where we felt less overlooked, though even here we were periodically interrupted by SAs asking if we needed any assistance. This was a good branch of Douglas as far as I could tell, carrying some of the Serge Lutens range, which would be unheard of in Boots, if one were to take the nearest Douglas-equivalent.

I tried a few more things here, while staying just the right side of sensory overload:

Sisley Eau du Soir (classic old school chypre - with skank!)

Jil Sander 79 (classic old school chypre - without skank!)

Jil Sander Sun (strange sun cream number - it is to Ambre Solaire what Clinique Simply is to Johnson's Baby Lotion)

Prairie Life Threads (Silver, Platinum, Gold: didn't care for any of them, but Platinum seemed to be the least worst, and Gold was particularly gross in a Poisonesque kind of way)

Alexander McQueen Kingdom (not the groinfest I was eagerly anticipating - only the merest dusting of cumin to my nose)

Alliage (another green classic)

By 5.15pm, after a solid three hours of fixture scoping and sniffing, we were starting to feel a little jaded, so we wandered over to the Barfüsserplatz, where I jumped on a No 14 tram to Pratteln to pick up my car, while the others headed for the railway station.

It had been such an enjoyable afternoon that we agreed that we must do it all again sometime. Meanwhile, I managed to meet up with both Wordbird and Potiron again during my trip. I rendez-vous-ed with Wordbird on the shores of Lake Zurich the following Monday, where - after a token trip to the lilliputian branch of Manor (a local department store) - we headed for elevenses and some surreptitious at-table sampling at a picturesque cafe. Yet again there was a lamentable failure to bring milk with my tea - any kind of milk - but a small catering portion was finally secured after a bit of pointed staring and slightly less pointed pointing.

The next night I met Potiron back in Basel for dinner in an Italian restaurant and some more discreet at-table sampling. Thanks to her I discovered the woody delight which is Rance Laetitia Milliseme. Unlike the Rykiel, it is unlikely to turn up on Ebay any time soon, and after loitering without intent for hours there the previous week, I wasn't brazen enough to go back to Hyazinth and blag a sample...
All in all then, the Swiss leg was definitely the highlight of my trip, for I made new friends there - and new scent discoveries. And next time I am over, Maxim Rat may well be out of a job...