Solo Sniffing In Zurich: Armani Privé La Femme Bleue, Hermès Santal Massoia, BLOOD Concept, And The Sample-Scoring Power Of A Good Coat

After meeting my perfumista friends in Basel, I headed for Zurich, and spent a couple of hours in the Bahnhofstrasse (Zurich's "Golden Mile" in perfume terms). I retraced the steps of my ill-fated sniffathon with Potiron last summer, when I was suffering from a humdinger of a migraine aggravated by the blistering August heat. On this occasion it was a perfectly crisp autumn day with a slight nip in the air, and my head was as clear as the blue sky above me.

I only had a couple of hours before continuing my journey to St Gallen, so I was pretty focused in my sniffing tactics, deffing out the less upmarket options, and targeting instead the smarter department stores (Globus and Jelmoli), along with the niche perfumery Osswald and the Hermès boutique.

GLOBUS

As soon as I entered the cool slate-grey interior of the store, I had vivid memories of being violently sick in the ladies' toilets on my previous visit. As it happens, I had occasion to use the facilities this time, and revelled in how well I felt by comparison!

Fending off the sales assistant who did her damnedest to sell me a boxed set of Valentino Valentina, I had a quick whiff of Annick Goutal Mon Parfum Chéri, par Camille. I don't know if it was the EDT or the EDP, but it was a patchouli-fest that I felt had the potential to trigger another headache, something I was determined to avoid at all costs.

Moving on, my eye was soon distracted by the new Limited Edition release from Armani Privé, La Femme Bleue... Its polished gleaming flacon stood in splendid isolation on a plinth, like an ancient rune crossed with a bluebottle. The blue theme is linked to Armani's Spring/Summer Fashion Collection, which is inspired in turn by "the Tuareg woman, a blue nomad crossing the desert". What between this and Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania, I seem to be bumping into a number of scents aimed at the travelling woman, even if my wardrobe is somewhat lighter on navy ensembles than your average Tuareg.

The sales assistant explained that the production of this perfume has been limited to 1000 numbered bottles for "1000 exceptional women" - exceptional no doubt, because any woman who wouldn't flinch at dropping 400 euros on one of these bottles clearly has money to burn. I must say I spotted a fair few likely candidates cruising the Bahnhofstrasse.

Note listings vary for this scent: the SA mentioned iris and chocolate, while Perfume Shrine also lists woodsy notes, incense and vanilla. The overall vibe of La Femme Bleue is of an elegant, soft powdery oriental: I liked the teaming of the cooler, more severe iris with the warmer, cosier gourmand notes of the chocolate and vanilla. In hindsight it seems fitting that I should be featuring this and Valentina in the space of a week. For it appears that while my Wikio Beauty Blog rating may be languishing in the lower quartiles, I now have an up and coming chocolate Klout reputation to maintain!

The other notable fragrance I sampled in Globus was Prescriptives Calyx. I made a point of reminding myself how this scent smelt because of a chance remark by a reader of my Illuminum White Gardenia Petals Review:

"My bottle that I bought in late April must be from the second 'duff' batch, and I actually like it much better. I described it at the time as being like Prescriptives' Calyx, and as not smelling of gardenia at all."

Well, the opening of Calyx reminded me very much of the official version of White Gardenia Petals - the same tangy, green, airy and almost watery vibe. I wouldn't say I got gardenia in the opening particularly, but there was a definite similarity in the tart, metallic, juicy greenness. Then blow me if the later stages didn't remind me equally markedly of the wrong version of the Illuminum fragrance! - the more softly floral, musky variant. So that was all very strange, and now I would like to get my hands on a sample of Calyx to try the side-by-side comparison at more leisure.

JELMOLI

After Globus, I popped into Jelmoli, the Harvey Nicks to Globus's Selfridges. I whizzed through the niche area, quickly testing Guerlain 04 London, the latest in the Les Voyages Olfactifs Series.

Notes: sheer rose, violet, warm cardamom with sour gourmand nuances of rhubarb.

The SA mentioned the rhubarb note and also tea, those two quintessentially British food- and drinkstuffs...! (Well, I'll given them the tea.) When I sampled it on card I thought I got a huge and offputting whoosh of grapefruit, but maybe it was the "sour gourmand nuances" of the rhubarb. :- ) Incredibly tart, certainly. Despite the SA's best efforts to woo me with a complimentary bottle-engraving option, I moved on to the Tom Ford counter and tried Jasmin Rouge on a card. It was a rich, spicy floral, not really my thing, but better than expected. For some reason I thought it might be an animalic monster like Rochas Femme.

Next up was the Jo Malone counter, where I really liked the new Wild Bluebell cologne. It had all the soft fragrance of the flower without the sharp tinny quality of the Penhaligon's version, the only other bluebell scent I know.

Notes: clove, jasmine, bluebell, lily of the valley, persimmon, eglantine, amber and musk.

Working my good coat for the first time, I boldly requested a sample and the sales assistant opened her drawer without demur. Imagine my disappointment to realise later that she had given me a sample of Grapefruit cologne (presumably in error). Grapefruit, of all things! (Note to self to read the name on the vial before leaving the store...)

Still in Jelmoli, and on a sample-scoring roll, I went across to the Chanel sales assistant and played my "on a mission for a friend who is keen to try this scent and lives in a remote rural area" card, in a bid to wangle a sample of Chanel No 19 Poudré. I was passed over to two other SAs before the drawer magically opened again, but this time I was in luck and got Poudré and not Idylle or Mademoiselle.

In another part of the Guerlain area I was lured over by the curious spectacle of the SA fluttering a clutch of oversized feathers in garish colours that put me in mind of a burlesque dancer. Moments later, I was myself peeping coyly out from behind a feather pre-sprayed with Nuit d'Amour, a rather lightweight floral oriental.

Notes: pink pepper, lychee, rose, violet, rose, iris, sandalwood, musk

Nuit d'Amour was launched as an Exclusive just a year after my - and now also Olfactoria's! - beloved Plus Que Jamais. Sadly, given that Plus Que Jamais has been discontinued, Nuit d'Amour doesn't share the former's affecting Guerlinade base, but has more of a contemporary musky drydown. It was pleasant but not particularly memorable, and went a bit soapy in its later stages. As we were playing the dance of the giant feathers, the SA explained that Nuit d'Amour was partly inspired by a Klimt painting depicting a redheaded lady and a boa. This unexpected variant of the fragrance blotter suddenly made a lot more sense!

I also had a sniff of Liu while I was there (oh, dear me, no!), and clocked the sparkly Christmas edition of Vol de Nuit Shimmer Powder with a gimmick-hardened eye, before briefly scoping the designer fixtures. Here I was mildly intrigued by Givenchy's Dahlia Noir, mainly because of its film noir connotations, but the SA was unable to tell me anything about it or its key notes. "We have so many perfumes on the shelves", she sighed, with a dismissive sweep of one arm, adding helpfully: "You could look it up on the Internet?" So I did, and can report that the notes are nice enough if not groundbreaking.

Notes: mandarin, pink pepper, mimosa, rose, iris, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla and tonka bean.

I don't remember Dahlia Noir very well except as a pleasantly smooth modern chypre of some kind. Significantly though it lacked the plasticky note that spoils a lot of Givenchys for me, and that alone made me sit up and take notice. Here is a good example of the "least worst syndrome" in action which we were discussing the other day! Well, that is not quite fair, as I did actually like Dahlia Noir, so you could say that my favourable response was amplified to "like a lot", as opposed to mere indifference being upgraded to "like".

HERMES

My next port of call was the Hermès boutique, scene of my finest moment of working the good coat in pursuit of samples, in this case the newest addition to the Hermessences range, Santal Massoia. I played the same "friend in remote location" card, giving it a further twist of "with upcoming birthday", and the ploy worked better than my wildest dreams. For the assistant popped not one but TWO 4ml vials into one of those little orange holders, so that I wouldn't have to go without a sample myself. How thoughtful of her! And what a shameless display of low cunning on my part!

I couldn't find a definitive note listing for Santal Massoia, but there is sandalwood and massoia in here, obviously, and beyond that we have this description of the scent from Jean-Claude Ellena himself.

"There are linear, vertical woods like cedar, and others that are horizontal, round, supple and velvet-smooth, such as sandalwood and massoia. With this understanding in mind, I composed this enigmatic, inviting yet distant perfume of milky woods, with its unusual, pungent hints of resin and dried fruit, and familiar smells of dulce de leche and flowers."

Well, having tried Santal Massoia on skin now several times, I don't think I need to add anything more to Ellena's description, for this surely is "enigmatic" and nuanced milky woods. There's a slightly darker, spicy edge to it, but none of that "trapped in a tea chest" vibe you sometimes get when you put two types of woods together in a fragrance, especially if one of them is cedar, which can come off as quite rough and scratchy. Texturally, Santal Massoia reminds me a bit of Etro Etra, which has pepper and sandalwood and is also very smooth. Much as I love Etra, Santal Massoia smells more subtle and "luxe".

Now I did find that Santal Massoia doesn't last very long on me, but I rarely mark a perfume down for that, and will be happy to reapply it from me and my imaginary friend's generous vial allocation, which more than paid for the hideously expensive left luggage lockers at the station...

OSSWALD

Rather foolishly - a bit like our MO in Basel - I left the most prestigious perfume store to the end, by which time I had used up most of the prime skin sites, and damn near exhausted both nose and brain. So my sniffing in Osswald was more perfunctory than it should have been, and I kicked myself for not heading there first.

I noticed on this visit that Osswald now carries the full range of Illuminum scents, and had a quick check of White Gardenia Petals (correct, greener version!). I also sniffed the four scents in the BLOOD Concept range, which is founded on the rather offbeat notion of choosing scents to match your blood type. However, I gather that crossover is by no means discouraged, as people may be drawn to the characteristics of a different type.

Well, I have no clue what blood type I am, but I only remotely cared for O, the original blood group. (This was once again very much on a "least worst" basis, I should make clear!) As for the official description of O by Giovanni Castelli and Antonia Zuddas, the innovative duo behind BLOOD Concept - why, I certainly didn't see that one coming... : - ) They might as well have called this scent The Marquise Of O!

"It had to be the most intense and wild compared to the whole range. We wanted roots, cuir and wild berries, a carnal and sexual composition of raw elements. When getting into its whiff, people should think of sex, raw and instinctual sex."

Notes: thyme, raspberry, cyperus esculentus, rose hips, leather, birch, cedar wood, metallic notes

Hmm, I wonder if I actually am O... If you read the potted history of blood group evolution on Fragrantica, I sound more like A or B really, as a vegetable-eating person who toggles between a travelling and sedentary lifestyle.

"(After O) Then comes A, when people started to eat vegetables and get more sedentary. Then B, when people started to travel and mix habits and foods."

For descriptions of all four scents, check out BLOOD Concept's Facebook page. As I say, I really didn't like any of the others - they were just too weird and disagreeable. So if you ask me - and as it proved with the Andrea Maack range - this range is another example of a quirky concept taking precedence over wearability. And coincidentally, like a couple of the Maack scents, all four of the BLOOD Concept scents contain metallic notes, though that is no more than you would expect really, given what they are! : - )

In Osswald I also tried the new Miller Harris La Fumée and La Pluie (which smelt much as their names suggest, but didn't wow me particularly), and had a quick sniff of the nozzles of the Olfactive Studio range, which weren't my thing at all. However, I quite liked one of the bafflingly various Biehl Kunstwerke range, a pretty white floral called mb01 (I always have time for another take on tuberose gardenia, or any loose variation on that theme).

Notes: bergamot, mimosa, blackcurrant, tuberose, gardenia, champaca, jasmine, amber, musk, sandalwood.

Then I couldn't help liking the ultra-cute packaging of Swiss range YsUzac (though the four scents left my - admittedly by now deeply jaded - nose unmoved). All in all though, it was a good couple of hours' work, what with the samples of Santal Massoia and Chanel No 19 Poudré, after discounting the Wild Bluebell wild card sample that wasn't. Sadly that is all the time I had, having lost a good 20 minutes out of my schedule when I got sidetracked by a large branch of Zara. I ended up trying on an armful of trousers, which collectively failed to fit in every way imaginable. There was also a set of Zara fragrances I could have investigated, but on such a day that would have been above and beyond the call of duty.




Photo of the Bahnhofstrasse from sengers.ch, photo of Globus from buildingtechnologies.siemens.com, photo of La Femme Bleue from giorgioarmanibeauty.com, photo of Calyx, 04 London and Biehl Kunstwerke mb01 from fragrantica.com, photo of Wild Bluebell advert from jomalone.co.uk, photo of Klimt painting from canvasreplicas.com, photo of Dahlia Noir advert from blog.purentonline.com, photo of Hermès store from global-blue.com, photo of Hermès bottle from the company website, photo of Osswald perfumerie from abelerbro.com, photo of BLOOD Concept logo from artnectar.com, other photo my own (taken by hotel receptionist whose hand could have been a bit more steady).

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...