Fountains and firemen's hoses: En Voyage Perfumes Rainmaker review

Source: wweek.com

The other day I entrusted a king size mattress protector to the genial proprietor of my local launderette, which offers service washes for bulky items. He quoted me £15 before adding gnomically: "We pray for rain." "Well, you can stop now", I thought to myself, for it had absolutely chucked it down not twenty minutes previously.

How odd that a man in Posh Wash in Stafford should try to conjure up rain, just like those Native Americans whose shower-charming ritual is referenced by the name of the perfume I was about to review - Rainmaker, the upcoming release from En Voyage Perfumes. Then in modern parlance, a rainmaker is also someone who drums up business with rabbit out of a hat aplomb, or who is the 'creator of something valued'. As Shelley Waddington, En Voyage's founder, elaborates:

"In expanding my creative work, I wanted to provide a fragrance of beauty and attraction that would in turn become a 'Rainmaker' for the wearer."

And then Rainmaker the perfume also gives a humorous nod to the clouds hanging over Shelley's adopted home town of Portland, which she wryly describes as "some of the best rainmakers in the world".  ;)

Ha! I can relate to that here all right. For when I sat down later in the week to gather my thoughts about Rainmaker, in a fine show of pathetic fallacy the weather promptly obliged with another downpour. Which, like the Portland clouds, it often does with or without the supplications of the faithful.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

On to the perfume itself, a "woody-amber chypre for men and women".

Top notes: Rose leaf, Silver Pine Tips, Wild Citrus
Heart notes: Incense, Patchouli, Iris, Rhododendron
Base notes: Mossy Rain Forest Notes of Cedar, Fir, Redwood Needles, Petrichor, Oak Moss and Amber

As regular readers know, I am the world's worst deconstructor of perfumes, able only to articulate the vaguest of impressions - which reminds me, I still have to do that set of "tiny 'unreviews' of unprecedented vacuousness" that I promised Portia in my review of Papillon's Salome.

But eyeballing those notes, it is not hard to imagine that Rainmaker was inspired by the "forested terroir" of the Pacific Northwest, as well as its "Bohemian lifestyle". 'Imagine' is the operative word, mind you, for despite having spent a week in the state (on a mission to do with a fairly niche kind of plastic), I didn't encounter any Bohemians, and the terroir I stayed in - a suburb of Portland called Beaverton - was forested largely by the signs of nail bars, used car lots, and branches of Taco Bell. That was where I first came across the fast food chain's  masterly slogan  of "Think outside the bun", a mantra I have been trying to live up to ever since.

Source: yelp.com

So what do I make of Rainmaker? Well, I was drawn to it right off the bat: it felt obviously 'niche' in quality terms, and seamlessly blended. I note that Rainmaker has a "high percentage of pure extraits, natural materials, and proprietary blends", which are perfectly well behaved here, the epitome of suave urbanity indeed. In truth, the scent doesn't feel particularly Bohemian or 'indie' in the sense of quirky to me. I could picture the wearer as a go-getting professional, who likes to kick back at the weekends, don some high end walking gear by The North Face or its Pacific Northwest equivalent (Trew?, Poler?, Holden?), and get amongst nature.

Which is not to say that I don't feel I could wear Rainmaker too, even though I don't exactly fit that profile(!) - I like the scent for its own sake and because of my own memories of that region - and further down the Pacific coast (of which more anon). The dominant aspect is fairly full-on woodiness,  as you would expect from that quintet of tree species, but as its creator intended, to my nose Rainmaker stays bang on the gender divide, This is no Marc Jacobs Bang or whichever Comme des Garcons scents are particularly woody - you know the ones I mean(!). Its glowing amber core and rich earthy/patchouli base lend a warmth and softness to Rainmaker that tone down the woodiness, and also ensure that the delicate inflection of damp forest foliage never tips into anything remotely resembling strident janitorial pine.

Mount Hood ~ Source: pinterest

Also, foresty scents can sometimes skew plangent and austere - arguably Ormonde Jayne Man and Woman lean that way, ditto FM Angeliques sous la Pluie. Of the latter I once wrote that it reminded me of "rolling fog in Northern California on a November morning". But I'd say Rainmaker captures the spirit of this general neck of the woods more comprehensively - and without being at all bleak!

And Shelley Waddington has also pulled off quite a coup in making Rainmaker authentically foresty, whilst incorporating more feminine facets, thanks to the iris and rose leaf. Carner Barcelona's D600 walks a similar line with its inclusion of jasmine and iris in an otherwise resolutely woody composition, so if you like that scent, I'm willing to bet you will like Rainmaker too. They are very much in the same vein / 'register', albeit D600 is possibly a little sweeter.

So would I wear Rainmaker? Sure! Would I like to smell it on a man? Oh, yes.... Has it displaced my current top three from the En Voyage Perfumes stable - Zelda (review here), Captured in Amber and Fiore di Bellagio? Well, noooo, but that is because genre-wise I happen to be more drawn to florals and orientals - I do think Rainmaker is very well done. It is polished, smooth and naturalistic, and thanks to the addition of incense, verging on meditative and cosy too. Not so much your well worn 'cashmere wrap' kind of cosy, as that afforded by donning a bolero of sphagnum moss maybe - a short garment which obviously I can't resist shortening further to 'sphag bol'.

Ron and Nina's house! Source ~ zillow.com

So yes, back to memories of the region... First off, when I see redwood trees mentioned anywhere I am immediately transported back to my childhood, to afternoons spent reading Look & Learn magazine and gawping at images of (what would now be vintage!) cars driving through the lofty pines' humongously thick trunks. I also remember more recent visits to my Swiss cabinet maker friend Ron and his wife Nina, who lived in the middle of a redwood forest in a Hansel & Gretel-style house they built themselves(!) out of local timber (see above). Strictly speaking, this was NorCal rather than the Pacific Northwest, but I imagine that the general ambience - and scent - of the forest might have been similar to the more northerly 'terroir' Shelley had in mind.

California again, but it's down the road (and through the tree!) ~ Source: Pinterest

Going back to my trip to Oregon, I based myself in Beaverton as it was closest to the headquarters of a well known sports brand, which incorporated the plastic in question in some of its running shoes. I stayed at the Shilo Inn and Suites, noted for its gardens - and fountains. I would lie in my room at night listening to the soothing plishing sound - not of rain, admittedly, but falling water for sure. And of course some other people who are in the business of 'falling water' would be the fire service. Thus it was that I also drove south to Medford to interview a group of fire fighters about the performance of this plastic in their hoses. (No, really!)

Shilo Inn and Suites ~ Source: booking.com

Then on my way to the airport, I chatted with the shuttle bus driver who took me from the rental car lot to the terminal. He asked how long I had been in the area. "A week!" I answered brightly. 'So did you go to the Crater Lake National Park? The Columbia River Gorge? You must have seen Mount Hood?' Dismayed to learn I had missed all these 'must see' sights in the state, he tentatively inquired where I had been. "Um...mainly Beaverton?" He shook his head in disbelief, at what clearly struck him as an epic tourist fail.

But though I didn't manage to breathe in the scent of the forest floor in the actual Pacific Northwest, or hang out in the boho cafes of downtown Portland - famous for their coffee I believe, if that is your thing - and though I don't remember it raining the whole time I was in Oregon, or even being noticeably overcast, I did at least have a brush with the wet stuff in my own bonkers way....plus the road that Ron's house was on is called Bohemian Highway...

Hoses stowed ~ Source: Wikimedia Commons

PS It is a further testament to this perfume's instant appeal that I felt moved to write about it so promptly after receiving the sample from En Voyage. As anyone who follows the blog will have noticed, I might take weeks or months to review a new release - if I ever do at all, even if I like it - but once in a while the muse is pretty much perched on the postman's shoulder.

PPS My elderly friend's verdict in a blind testing of Rainmaker: "It's a strange smell. It's quite strong to start with, though it's softer after a while. And it's not as...as scented as Fleur de Shanghai."

PPPS I did also buy this woody pen out there...

Manufacturers' samples - the long and the short(age) of it

Over the five years of my interest in perfume, I have noticed a gradual decline in the availability of manufacturers' perfume samples - more so in the mainstream segment of the market, but to a degree also in niche.  It used to be the case that you would ask a sales assistant in a department store or the duty free section of an airport if she had a sample of the latest release, and she would open the bottom drawer of the fixture to reveal serried ranks of little carded samples of the scent in question - and of many other, older scents displayed.

These days I am more likely to be greeted with a blank look when I inquire about the availability of a sample, or the news that: 'We had some right after (insert name of perfume) came out, but they are all gone now'.  Boots - that stalwart of the designer perfume retailing scene - stopped stocking samples some time ago.  Whether this can be correlated with Nick Gilbert's departure to pastures new and more deserving I cannot say... ;-)  And when I popped into a large M & S in Preston last March, keen to try the new line created for the store chain by Lyn Harris, they only had a 'scratch and sniff' card for one of the three female scents, and none for the men's range.  The staff there couldn't have been more helpful, however, hastily fashioning decanting receptacles for me out of tester pots for face cream which they sealed with sticky tape.

Then in Paris in June, the Frédéric Malle stand in Printemps had no samples of Denise Van Outen (sorry - Dries Van Noten) - had never had them I think - but didn't bat an eyelid when I asked to make my own using one of my snap-on ink pots Freddie of Smellythoughts got me into.  Ormonde Jayne once made me up a sample of Tiare after I sent them my own vial in an SAE, ditto Fortnum & Mason's when I was after ones of the Comtessa di Castiglione scent I spied in Sidmouth this summer. Actually that isn't strictly true - they mislaid my envelope with the empty vials in it and decanted a bit into two screw top Dior pots that may also have been destined for make up samples by the looks of them.

Manufacturers' carded samples - an endangered species?

Which reminds me that Dior - in Selfridges, and possibly generally - have now stopped giving out those generous 4ml pots of their Privée range that a certain perfumista friend of mine used to routinely snaffle for me every time she was passing... ;-)  And the Chanel Exclusifs 5ml ones are of course as rare as hens' teeth. You would probably have to queue up the night before the launch with a sleeping bag to score one of those coveted 5ml bottles now.  I missed the 1932 mini in Glasgow, for example, which was gone in a blink of an eye apparently.  And don't get me started on Le Labo - let's just say that when I think of them in this particular connection, the words 'blood' and 'stone' spring to mind...;-)

So you get the picture...a general backing off from the provision of samples for in-home trial, a general fobbing off with bits of card - sometimes enormous oversized square bits of card!  Or ribbon, or some other scrap of silky cloth if you are lucky, which in fairness do retain the scent quite well, though it is not the same thing at all as being able to apply it on skin.  Or we are invited to sniff scrumpled bits of tissue squashed into votive glasses, or stick our noses down metal trumpets, or inside perspex tuboid things - it's all rather strange...And on the basis of this we are meant to know if we wish to spring for a full bottle or not.

But....at the other end of the scale there are still some houses which are generous - perhaps too generous - with their samples.  Take Hermès, for example, who give out 4ml samples in long glass-stoppered vials slipped into those distinctive orange card cases.  Hermès has to be the most forthcoming with samples of all the luxury brands I know, and I am borderline ashamed of the times I have sauntered in (invariably wearing my good, sample scoring coat or its summer frock equivalent, depending on the season), spun some line about a friend / husband / relative with an upcoming birthday / wedding / anniversary, and walked out with not one but two of the 4ml vials.  For two fit better into the card case than one - one just rattles around, quite frankly - so the SA usually cracks and sticks two in there, one for me and one for my imaginary friend.  In my defence, I have genuinely given away a number of the Hermès samples I have procured using various ruses - my old English teacher did wear Vetiver Tonka at her wedding (er...the sample, not a full bottle) - but I cannot pretend not to have squirrelled away a few vials for my own nefarious use.  Though some of the ones pictured above were gifts to me by friends and relations on similar morally questionable foraging missions.

How 'grand' is my Grand Bal sample?!

Then there was my super tall grande(!) Dior sample of Grand Bal, which should have been a gift with purchase, but which the SA in a branch of Dior in Paris gave me for no good reason at all, other than that I complimented her on her Swarovski crystal-encrusted lips.  And this despite the apparent clamp down on even the 4ml Dior pots.  Then in Germany once, in a small niche perfumery in Wasserburg, the assistant showered me with a fistful of carded samples, plus a large mini of Micallef Hiver, and that was just for shooting the breeze with her.  So there are still some great instances of unprovoked generosity, which as I say remains positively systemic within Hermès. ;-)

Micallef mini bag - you'll have to imagine the bottle!

But the problem with large samples is that you may never need to buy a bottle, for if you have a few of those 4ml-ers away they will quickly accumulate to nearly 15ml, the size many perfumistas agree is the ideal for a 'full bottle'.  I have just bought a bottle of En Voyage Perfumes' Zelda, for example, which is of that order I think.  So Hermès may be shooting themselves in the foot there, and Dior too, though they seem to have caught themselves on now pretty much.

So I would be interested to hear about your experiences in terms of sample scoring...specifically:

Are manufacturers' samples becoming more scarce generally?

Is a 4ml sample too generous for the brand's own good?

Are you also a wee bit sheepish about your own sample scoring forays?

More perfumista path crossings...meeting Natalie of Another Perfume Blog

Source: Wikimedia Commons ~ Andy Jamieson

Natalie of Another Perfume Blog has been getting about a bit lately, popping up in various European countries where fellow fumeheads have availed themselves of the chance to meet her in person: Ines reports on their encounter in Croatia here, Tara hooked up with Natalie the day before me in London, and it is Asali's turn next in Copenhagen. And soon Natalie will be moving continents again, to somewhere as far flung as where she has just come from, so I count myself very lucky to have managed to catch her in person yesterday - in Nottingham of all places, which is just 60 miles east (and up a bit) of me.

Natalie, who knows the city well - having lived and studied there not so long ago - suggested a central location for our rendez-vous, to wit the steps of The Council House in Old Market Square.  On my arrival I sent her a text to explain that I was the same side as a funfair, in between two stone lions.  I was mindful of the pitfalls of 'multiple entrance syndrome', of which I once fell most spectacularly foul in Toronto.  I gaily offered to meet a colleague at The Bay department store, which boasts no fewer than eight doors across all four facades.  I ended up circling the building for a full 45 minutes looking out for a stranger of unknown physical description who was at least also looking for me...

Source: Wikimedia Commons ~ Andy Jamieson

Now I did have a pretty good idea of Natalie's appearance, gleaned from glimpses of her long curly hair in photos on APB, supplemented by dim recollections of an eyebrow tweezing video she posted there.  But even armed with these mental images, I was surprised to find not one but two women sitting on the steps of The Council House who looked broadly as I imagined Natalie to.  I discounted one of them because she was wearing hi-top baseball boots - an assumption that was wholly vindicated when the woman in question got up moments later and legged it. The second woman lingered a little longer, but her high-waisted spangly black jeggings didn't quite chime with my impression of Natalie's sartorial style either. ;-) And I was right again, for at that point the real Natalie hove into view, dressed in jeans and a white blouse, her luxuriant hair tied in a plait curvng round one shoulder.  I am pleased to report that she was sporting one of her scarves, in a mix of jewel colours of which purple was a principal component.  I think it is the penultimate one featured in that post, but will await confirmation from its owner!

We repaired without ado to a nearby branch of Caffe Nero, where we proceeded to catch up on the broad outlines of each other's lives.  From an early age Natalie appears to have ricocheted all over the place like a ball in a bagatelle; she seems well adjusted to her peripatetic lifestyle though - and I bet she is an ace at packing too! We discovered that our studies and current professions had a surprising bit of crossover, though the same cannot be said for our attitudes to exercise.  For wherever she is living, Natalie makes time for a regular and varied fitness regime, incorporating different dance styles, yoga and walking, whereas I have been known to toddle down to the corner shop if it isn't raining.

Source: Tripadvisor

Next up, Natalie took me on a walking tour of the city centre, pointing out buildings of interest and favourite hang outs from her student days.  At the first stirrings of hunger we headed for an Italian restaurant recommended by Natalie's friend, and were soon tucking into a couple of hearty pasta dishes.  At this point I must say what a good sport Natalie was, for at the start of the meal we had agreed to share our dishes. However, having lobbed an initial morsel of ravioli onto Natalie's plate, I promptly forgot about our deal and polished off the rest of my food myself.  Not only did Natalie politely overlook this aberrant behaviour, but she even invited me to minesweep her leftover cannelloni.

Source: beerintheevening.com

From the restaurant we adjourned to a pub called The Pitcher & Piano, which is housed in a former church.  It was a vast, cavernous and echoing space, and reminded me a bit of the gothic wine bar Freddie of Smellythoughts had taken me to in Birmingham.  At this point in the evening we finally got on to the subject of perfume(!), chewing the cud about the latest releases, our approaches to blogging, people in Perfume Land we would like to meet, as well as the seemingly endless differences between US and British English, which were a source of much hilarity.  'You say plugboard, I say power strip...'  (And I must mention here that Natalie has the prettiest and most infectious laugh I have ever heard!)  I had brought along some bottles from my vintage collection, and managed to comprehensively drench us both in Blue Grass from the 1970s. Natalie gave me a sample of Zelda by En Voyage Perfumes to try, and we bonded over our mutual appreciation of its fine magnolia note.

At about 10pm I reluctantly thought I had better make tracks - I had the drive back ahead of me, plus I hadn't clocked when the car park closed.  I gave Natalie a lift back to her digs on the university campus - well, once I finally found the car park where I had left my car, that is. ;-)  Oh, and once we found the correct building on the campus.  I tried programming my sat nav with various addresses and postcodes, but English Kate, the voice in the machine, was flummoxed by all of them, so we resorted to peering through serial gloomy expanses in a bid to discern Natalie's accommodation block, eventually coming up trumps.

Natalie, improvising with the menu in the absence of a large camera

With Natalie safely dropped off I had a clear run home, and when I got back to Stafford I was suddenly struck by the unreality of the day's events. I think this was because I expect to have to travel further than I just did to meet a perfumista who is herself from so far away - to London at the very least, if not mainlaind Europe indeed.  But the vial of Zelda is proof that I did in fact meet Natalie in Nottingham.  I wonder if I could pull this stunt off again, and rendez-vous with other perfumistas in places near me...for example Ines in Ingestre, Kafka in Keele, Asali in Aston, Suzanne in Sutton Coldfield and so on.  Now there's a challenge!