My interview on Olfactoria's Travels revisited, ten years on...

2013 me

Another month has passed - I am taking the notion of slow blogging to the most leisurely extremes, I know, but I do feel I should only post when the muse moves me, and it seems to be on a bit of a go-slow these days, for the reasons I mentioned last time, topped off with another round of health investigations. Though as I can testify, a degree of slowing down is probably normal for most aging organisms! I certainly won't post more frequently simply to placate the cyberbots that measure that sort of thing. On a whim I put my URL into one of those Google page rank checker sites, and my ranking has in fact gone up a point to 4(!), so maybe less is more after all. I honestly don't mind if I slip all the way down the SEO snake to zero though, like the way I lost my Superhost status on Airbnb by taking time out with my neck last year.

The unexpected trigger for this post, which jump-started my mojo, was a recent Facebook message from a US friend (not a perfumista):

"Sooooo, I was looking you up thinking I was on my email and not general Google search and this came up. Fun read. Anytime you want to see the sea, come visit us in Ireland."

She had copied the link to an interview I did with Birgit of Olfactoria's Travels ten years ago today(!), so I decided to make this the subject of my current post, and to reflect on how far my answers would be the same now. I shan't reproduce B's interview in full, obviously, as that would infringe her copyright, so if you didn't see this first time round - or can't remember what I said (I only remembered fragments myself!) - may I trouble you to take a look so that what follows below makes sense?

People in Perfumeland - Vanessa Musson of Bonkers about Perfume

There are 20 questions (I never noticed that before), and I shall confine myself to commenting on whatever caught my eye, either because I am the same, or have changed in some way...

First up then...sleep. Ah dear, I am still that intermittently insomniac soldier, though my sleep difficulties tend to come in waves (like sadly elusive sleep itself!). I was thinking of writing a piece specifically on this topic in fact, as I have tried everything under the sun (and moon!) to address the issue, and am having some success with melatonin at the moment, especially the kind that is bundled in with soporific herbal ingredients like valerian, lemon balm, and Californian poppy. Do let me know in the comments if a post on sleep would be of interest - I even came up with a title already: "Chasing Morpheus". I could always shoehorn lavender into it somewhere to meet the "minimum perfume content threshold", hehe.

As for my morning cup of tea, it is exclusively decaffeinated now, following the advice of an A & E doctor two years ago, though I have no idea if that was really necessary for the organs he was trying to placate at the time. I figured that reducing my caffeine intake right down might at least help me sleep. I have no idea if that worked either, haha. But I persist with decaf tea. Having tried half a dozen brands, I can unequivocally recommend Yorkshire Tea (with the blue stripe on the box). Some of the rest taste like insipid dish water, with or without a disagreeable metal tang, giving the variant a bad rap.

Moving on, I still have key-related anxiety, which is if anything worse than ever. I must go back and lock my car three times if I lock it once. I am still in a committed relationship with kitchen towel, or "roll" if you prefer, and I still feel good when sitting in the sun, though the pleasure is more ambivalent these days: I didn't sunbathe once this year for the first time ever, and probably only once or twice in previous summers - as opposed to every time the sun came out when I was younger. ;) I am much more conscious of the harmful effects of UV rays, and can feel my skin getting drier and acquiring more and more brown spots and other examples of "hyperpigmentation". Recently, I have also come out in a startlingly scarlet smattering of cherry angiomas, though they are nothing to do with the weather. 

Then I do still love Germany, but haven't been there for years, and now I have a house in France I am going there instead every opportunity I get! I am mindful that while my French is coming on by leaps and bounds, notably  in terms of vocabulary to do with woodworm, roof repairs, and steel struts in masonry for hoiking up wisteria, my German is withering on the vine (or "Rebe", should that be?). I probably could still describe my dress style as "preppy grunge", and the French charity shop in the village where my house is is a treasure trove of quirky examples of the style...perhaps more grungy than preppy in the main.

As for my favourite perfume, I do still love Guerlain Plus Que Jamais, and wore it only the other day indeed, but as time goes by I find it more difficult to declare any perfume my absolute favourite. 

I still spend way too much time on social media, which I think is partly responsible for my fragmented attention span and sapping of creative juices - as well as being quite depressing after a while. On days when I notice my phone battery dipping below 50% I definitely feel more flat and listless than when I engage in low tech activities like going for walks - or even hoovering!

What else? I still do lots of research favours for people - most recently identifying companies specialising in bathroom renovations for an elderly (and increasingly immobile) friend; it has become a substitute for my old job, which I quit when I was 60. Well, it quit me, more like, as the work dried up, and by the time it appeared again post-Covid, I wasn't in the right headspace to carry on.

Then I still have tottering piles of books everywhere - the front room in particular is Tsundoku Central! 

Lastly, I drink much less than I did ten years ago - I only have one drink twice a week, or maybe three times (except when on holiday, of course). I can't say I feel any better for it, but my bones or other organs may tell a different story. I do still take to my bed in the afternoon if I am having a really bad day (or a migraine, which is grounds for a bad day in itself). 

Coincidentally, at a mindfulness class I now attend once a week, we were talking about the "continuity of the self" throughout one's life, and the same day I happened to spot this quote in a post by Maria Popova in The Marginalian, talking about the poet Mary Oliver:

'She identifies three primary selves that she inhabits, and that inhabit her, as they do all of us: the childhood self, which we spend our lives trying to weave into the continuity of our personal identity (“The child I was,” she writes, “is with me in the present hour. It will be with me in the grave.”); the social self, “fettered to a thousand notions of obligation”; and a third self, a sort of otherworldly awareness.'

So yes, although ten years is not a big time difference to chart one's own changes, I can see a strong thread of continuity between the 64-year old me and the 54-year old one, and confidently predict that the child I was will be with me in the grave, wrapped like a mummy in kitchen towel.

Editor's note: I'd also like to say a big thank you to Birgit for including me in her Perfumeland series. It was a rare treat for me to be on the other side of the interviewing process...;)

"The Liz Declension": meeting perfumer Eliza Douglas in an English country garden

I have been having a lot of bother with my neighbours lately: by which I mean more bother than usual, which is already quite a lot. This week saw them nearly set their kitchen on fire by deliberately leaving butter in a hot oven as a prank, hard on the heels of a toaster fire last week, and a broken kitchen tap caused by a botched dousing attempt. A bottle was later thrown out of an upstairs window, which smashed to smithereens exactly where my paying guest's car had been parked, had I not presciently advised him to move it earlier that evening. There were also several angry shouting matches in the small hours that penetrated my most hermetic style of ear plugs, as well as slammed doors, running up and down corridors, and assorted things going bump in the night. 

By Saturday morning my nerves were shot, and it was with a great sense of relief that I set off for Oxfordshire to stay with my old friend and walking companion, Nicola and her husband, in their idyllic Cotswold cottage. Nicola had been cooking all morning, and within half an hour of my arrival we were seated at the garden table outside, sipping refreshing water melon and vodka cocktails, and about to tuck into the enormous banquet of vegan mezes she had painstakingly prepared. And not only had my friend gone to great lengths to distract me from my stressful preoccupations with food and drink, but she had also lined up a very special guest to join us for lunch, namely Eliza Douglas: perfumer, fragrance evaluator, teacher, IFRA staff member, scented event organiser, and general promoter of all things olfactory. Eliza lives near Nicola and is part of their well-knit local community.

A quick digression may be in order to explain what I mean by "The Liz Declension". Well, it struck me that there are several notable people on the UK perfume scene whose names are variants of Liz: Liz Moores of Papillon Perfumery, Lizzie Ostrom (Odette Toilette), and Eliza Douglas. We just need the odd Beth or Betty, a full-blown Elizabeth perhaps - or God forbid, a Lilibet! - to complete the set.

Anyway, the first amusing thing that happened is that Eliza and I had both thought to bring a book to give to the other: I chose "The Secret of Scent" by Luca Turin, which was a bit too technical for me, while Eliza chose "The Perfume Collector" by Kathleen Tessaro...and of course we already had these books. ;)

Eliza, however, had had the forethought to bring a back up book for this very eventuality, namely "Olfaction: A Journey", which celebrates a decade of the IFRA Fragrance Forum. (One of Eliza's numerous hats being that of Membership Liaison Secretary for IFRA.) I quickly got past my usual objection to the use of the word "j*****y" in the title, which as regular readers know is a particular bugbear of mine. For the book is a truly fascinating compendium of articles on scent-related topics, under broad headings such as "Arts & Culture", "Technology & Innovation", "Health & Well-Being", "Psychology" etc. It is chock full of more interesting nuggets than you can shake a blotter at, some of which I sense may provide a springboard for future blog posts. And to top it all...the book is a teal colour! Eliza could not possibly have known that I have a teal book theme going on in my house - indeed one could be forgiven for thinking that only teal-spined books are allowed on display. So that was the second amusing thing.

Soon we were tucking into the vegan feast in earnest, and had moved on from the refreshing cocktails to summery rose wine. I could feel the stress melting away, partly because I always relax when talking about perfume. As I chatted to Eliza about her past and present fragrance projects, and swapped notes on the various people we knew in common, I lost myself in the moment and completely forgot about my neighbour woes - much like that time I talked to a surgeon while I was on the operating table about his wife's preference for scents composed by Sophia Grojsman, which helped me tune out to the fact that he was excising a mole at the time!

For anyone not familiar with Eliza, she studied at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery and lived in New York for six years, where she worked for Frederic Malle (accents on request), before going on to collaborate with the innovative and maverick perfumer Christophe Laudamiel - he of the avant-garde arm scrunchies - who describes himself (comprehensively!, hyphenatedly!) as Master Perfumer-Creator and Chemist-Inventor. His DreamAir company provides "highly customised fine fragrances, as well as applications and technologies to play and display scents, on skin, in the air, or in many other surprising places". Typical examples of these Scent Sculptures or "ambient atmospheres" may be found in hotels, museums, music festivals, operas - or operas in museums indeed. Wikipedia has a tantalising and exhaustive list of them under the heading "Scent Sculptures, Art Installations and Performances", and a few particularly caught my eye: "Hamburg Harbour" (of which I have many happy memories), "Elephant in Rut", "Guilty and Orgasm aromas", and the teasing oxymoron of "True Fake Cocaine". I can't comment on which ones Eliza may have worked on, but I bet she had fun. Staying with the theme of Hamburg Harbour, I would suggest another ambient scent Laudamiel might consider creating, namely "Third Biggest Banana Dock in the World", which I have seen, but admittedly not got close enough to sniff. I note that there is already a banana-themed scent on the list - "The Banana and the Monkey" - so it should be straightforward enough to knock up a nautical flanker. Anyway, suffice to say that I really like the cut of Laudamiel's whimsical jib - I had heard of him, but had quite forgotten how fabulously bonkers he is. With such a vivid imagination, he must have been exciting as all get-out (as the Americans say!) to work with. The idea of Scent Sculptures very much reminded me of the "olfactive animation" projects of Zsolt Zólyomi, Hungary's only perfumer - or he was at the time! - upon whom I chanced during a work trip to Budapest. In that post I mention my own abortive attempt to sniff the inside of a museum he had scented just before closing time...

Source: Instagram

Eliza and Laudamiel are also champions of the Academy of Perfumery and Aromatics in the US, of which Eliza is Treasurer. Founded in 2002 by Laudamiel, it houses the American branch of the Osmotheque and has as its mission: "to introduce olfaction, scent history, scent design and culture into school and university curriculums as well as to the general public".  In 2014, they launched an educational venture called "A Sense for Scents"; the centrepiece of the kit supplied to schools was a set of 20 "whispi" mini-pumps that use fresh air to deliver scent in a fragrant puff. Eliza has given me one and I am blowed if I know what the smell is, even though I am long out of school, hehe. Here is a mini-blog post about the kits by Luca Turin, who is a fan, and used them with pupils in Greece!

Ye whispi

Along with Eliza, Nicola Pozzani also co-developed this project; his name rang an instant bell, and I realised that he was the chap who ran the synaesthesia workshop for Le Labo in 2011 which I blogged about for Cafleurebon. Small world indeed...

What else has Eliza done? She has evaluated fragrances for Gallivant, and runs independent perfumery workshops and classes with groups and individuals. UK-based readers may remember the Perfume Lab "drop in"-style project at Somerset House, where a series of perfumers took up residencies "to showcase the art and science of crafting a fragrance". Eliza took part in 2017 - I don't know if the project is still going, mind, or whether it got kiboshed by Covid.

Oh, and she is also writing a book...I can't say too much, but perfume materials and botany feature, together with food, and - intriguingly! - meditation. The food angle is not surprising, for I also learnt that Eliza is related to Prue Leith, no less.

So, as very often happens with perfume meet ups, the afternoon simply flew by, and there wasn't nearly enough time to talk about everything. So you may imagine my delight when Nicola announced that Eliza was popping back on Sunday morning with some samples for me, to wit a goodly clutch of Frederic Malles, including Lys Mediterrranee, of which I had recently drained my own sample. I had not tried Noir Epices, so I put it on today, notwithstanding its wintery style, and was instantly transported. I rushed to see what Boisdejasmin thought of it, as we have strikingly similar taste. I correctly predicted that she would have given it four stars (guessing Victoria's star attribution without peeking really could be a party trick of mine). This is not the time or place to describe Noir Epices in detail, even if I could do justice to its gauzy allure, but I commend V's review to you.

Samples complete with attractive bag!

One inevitable question that came up in conversation was our favourite perfumes: I had brought along House of Cherry Bomb Immortal Beloved and Guerlain Plus Que Jamais, which are in my top "two to three-ish", and Eliza was very taken with PQJ, which is a great shame as it is discontinued. See my eulogy at the time of its demise. Eliza said her favourite perfume was possibly one she greatly admired, yet wouldn't actually wear on account of its hugeness, namely FM Une Rose. Curious to understand this accolade, Nicola sprayed a trace amount and promptly saw exactly what she meant. ;) Then in terms of a favourite wearable scent, Eliza plumped for Roger & Gallet's rose perfume, which I assume is this one. I shall look out for it when I am in France next!

Source: FragranceX

In closing, I would like to give a big shout out to Nicola for having the idea to arrange this meeting with Eliza, on the assumption that we would have a fair bit in common and to chew the cud about (we did!).

And here is a photo of Nicola's pet lion, Tio, who has to be the most statuesque domestic cat I have ever encountered.

Bonkers turned Ten the other day!

Source: cakecentral.com

I know, I know, another nonchalantly asynchronous blog anniversary - the actual date being 25th October (I am pretty sure, but will just check...). I don't think readers will mind though, indeed I am not at all sure I even deserve an anniversary owing to the spasmodic and infrequent nature of my posts this year: a measly 16 to date in total. Still and all, it is a bit over a month at the current rate till I will reach two million page views, and I have written 678 posts in the past ten years. (679 now...) That does sound like quite a lot, actually(!), especially when I reckon up how long each one takes.

Meanwhile, I could have accepted various offers from would-be guest posters down the years, most recently one from the PR of a company that makes 'fermented skin products'. I was offered $35 for the privilege, but turned her down. I know I hardly post myself, but if you started to see features on beauty in a completely different - and doubtless conspicuously advertorial - style by someone called Mindy (not her real name, but you get the idea) you would probably smell a rat.

The thing about not posting very much, however, is that people naturally drift off after a while, unsure whether you will ever get your act together again. I understand that blogs may be somewhat on the decline anyway, and Instagram in the ascendent, but I am not going to start blogging on there in my twilight years, as it were - OR in bitesize snippets on Twitter, though I have seen that done. The format on that occasion proved spectacular, in a relentlessly bludgeoning kind of a way.

Now I do get a few comments from genuine perfume lovers still, but the vast majority are bot-driven(?) gibberish from spammers of every stripe. Some of these are funny though, so here is a small selection, reproduced verbatim:

"Thank you for the good write up. It in fact was an amusement account it. Look advanced to more added agreeable from you. However, how could we communicate?"

"Yes finally someone writes about url shorten." (I didn't!)

"Hurrah that's what I was exploring for, what a data! present here at this blog, thanks admin of this website."

If I am honest, I do find the slew of spam comments depressing, even if, for the most part, they are intercepted and await my moderation. I know that if Blogger was not such a cantankerous and unuser-friendly format, I might get a few more real people making it through, but I am not going to jump ship to Wordpress at this late stage either.

Rather, I will continue to sputter on, not unlike the tramps in Waiting for Godot:

"I can't go on. I'll go on."

My blogging helper and familiar!

For I do love perfume and wear it most days. It's the sadly discontinued Guerlain Plus Que Jamais today, rather aptly, as it was always my kneejerk choice whenever anyone asked me what my favourite scent was. And maybe it still is, though there are numerous others biting at its heels, not least HOCB Immortal Beloved, and now Bengale Rouge.

And of course there are the great friends in this community, my regular exchanges with whom mean the world to me (you know who you are!).

Then behind the scenes I continue to convert more of my 'civilian'* friends to niche fragrance. One in particular doesn't have a clue what they are wearing on any given occasion - the samples they've been given are all simply called 'sprays'- but the main thing is that they are 'spraying' at all(!).

So, you know, there is still a degree of scented goings on in my life. But while I do genuinely think that some of my early posts were proper reviews with perfume (more or less!) firmly centre stage - eg this seasonal one of L'Etat Libre d'Orange's pumpkin-forward Like This or this ode to body odour and libraries that is my take on Miller Harris's L'Air de Rien - I would be the first to concede that fragrance has become an increasingly tangential theme over time, such that I doubt very much whether anyone would stop by Bonkers these days for a real review of a new release.

But that's okay. I think Nature is quietly trying to tell me that I am if anything a travel writer who happens to like fragrance. I have been doing a fair bit of travelling lately in fact - interspersed with bursts of renovations and repairs to two houses! - and that is my main focus.

One of those black eyes is genuine!

In summary therefore, I am definitely slowing down in blogging terms, but am not at a complete stop yet...and if you don't mind the topic veering a bit to the left and right of perfume per se, you can look forward to more 'added agreeable' from the admin of this website for a bit longer at least...;)

*(copyright Tara of A Bottled Rose)

Proustian purses: travel bags of perfume samples with stories to tell

As time goes by, I seem to have accumulated more and more small bags full of perfume samples. Now I consciously put the word 'travel' in the title to distinguish the type of bags I am talking about from your basic polythene baggie with one of those easy seal tops that are in practice quite fiddly to close, especially when passing through security at airports. The staff will not fail to ask you to shut your bursting bag of sub-100ml toiletries that is on the point of disgorging its contents onto the belt, the gaping top of which you vainly try to conceal with some combination of passport, shoes and belt.

No, I mean the cosmetic or regular purse variety made of fabric or leather etc - and that's regardless of whether you do in fact travel with such things. And by purse I may mean wallet, depending on which side of the pond you are on.

Not the kind of travel bag in question!

So the other day I was having one of those 'reorgs', to reprise my favourite management speak term, and laid my multitudinous bags out on the bed, moving samples from one to another in a very loosely themed way: 'summer', 'winter', 'overflow winter','ones with myrrh in them', 'Guerlain Plus Que Jamais Only', 'a lucky dip of evening-y things I can just grab and go', and so on. But this post is not about the perfumes contained within, but rather the bags themselves, and the memories they evoke, which may only partly relate to their scented cargo.

So I have selected the purses (which is most of them!) which have a particular resonance - either because of the time they were acquired, or the place, or the person who gave them to me.

Source: tripadvisor

No 1 - The Düsseldorf bag

I have had this black patent bag since about 2008 at a guess. It was on offer in a bargain bin in one of those pharmacy-cum-perfumeries you get abroad - in a shopping mall in Düsseldorf. I bought a cheap bottle of Yves Rocher Voile d'Ambre at the same time, which turned out to be a mistake, and which was re-homed shortly thereafter. The bag has been an absolute workhorse ever since, however, and I just have to touch its shiny - and now somewhat scratched - surface to be instantly transported back to dark autumn nights in the city...to the slippery mulch of leaves underfoot, and the inviting glint of tea lights in the windows of arty cafes; to grandiose buildings with baroque flourishes juxtaposed with more brutal concrete blocks; to the sluggishly dark depths of the river Ko, and the cosy wood panelled interiors of traditional German restaurants serving monstrous hunks of ham on the bone with sticky dumplings and mounds of vinegary cabbage.

No 2 - The Nick Gilbert bag

Now this bag wasn't given to me by Nick, but I associate it very closely with him because I bought it in T K Maxx the day before I went to meet him in the branch of Boots where he worked at the time - on a retail park on the outskirts of Bristol. Yep, I was his mate before he was famous! I managed to hover by his side for some two and a half hours while he let me test a ton of perfumes - including a bunch of men's scents which were new to me - without losing any sales in the process. I will have had the bag with me to show him some samples of my own and possibly to take home bits and pieces Nick gave me. It was six years ago, but I can place the bag at the scene!

Check out the funky interior!

No 3 - The lost Sabine elephant bag

Right, so this one was given to me by Sabine of Iridescents - she brought it back from her holiday in Thailand. I thought it very sweet, being a sucker for elephants in all their incarnations. I took it with me on my work trips last summer, full of pretty floral fragrances like Mona di Orio Tubereuse, which I remember wearing several days on the trot in the sweltering heat wave.

But then, not long after I had acquired it, the elephant bag was sadly lost in my stolen luggage, and I felt frankly bereft. So I was delighted when Sabine presented me with a replacement purse, bought on her next holiday to Japan!  No elephants, but a pretty velvet and brocade design in red and black.

No 4 - The repurposed Tara perfume bag

A few years ago Tara of A Bottled Rose gave me this charming bag for my samples, with an applique perfume bottle on it and my initials on the back. A perfume purse just doesn't get more quintessential than that! However, I must 'fess up to the fact that owing to its capacious size, it makes the perfect travel bag for make up, of which I need more - and more voluminous - items than perfume on a typical trip. ;)

No 5 - The vivid Val perfume pouch

I cannot for the life of me remember what was in this bag, but I know that Val kindly gave me some perfume in it. The quirky felt design with its retro tie closure - reminiscent of medieval money pouches, if you overlook the small matter of its being shocking pink! - is a gift in itself to be fair, and ideal for taking away a couple of larger decants, which is what I think may have been in it to start with. Half a story, I know - sorry, Val! 

No 6 - The go-to gig bag

I bought this pretty silk drawstring bag in a hippy shop in Sidmouth, which if any of you have been there - and I know Blacknall has - is an incongruous sort of emporium to find in a town congested with mobility scooters. Anyway, I love the fabric and the feel of it, and it holds enough small vials for a one-off gig (I need to whip up a bit of option anxiety even for a single night out!) or even a longer tour.

No 7 - The cat bag

I think this bag - a serendipitous find in T K Maxx a while back - was telling me to get a cat.

Sorted!

The cat's pyjamas - for Lindaloo

Do you have perfume sample travel purses that are lined with memories? 

'Full juice count': sorting the lemmings from the lemons in my bottle collection

The loved-up lemming list

Over the six years that I have been bonkers about perfume, I have mostly managed to dodge those frequently asked questions along the lines of: 'What are your top twenty perfumes?' - or your top ten or top five or top three.  I always cite the sadly discontinued Guerlain Plus Que Jamais as my HG / 'top one' scent. It is a bit of a glib answer though, for there are a bunch of other perfumes all hustling around the podium for that coveted No 1 spot, and if I were to let them fight it out amongst themselves, I would not be overly bothered which one won.

Then, following a recent massive reorganisation of my perfume collection - the tedious and largely illogical principles of which I will spare you - I kept coming back to the idea that I would really love to own far fewer full bottles - maybe around 30, say, instead of well over twice that number.  I couldn't quite face sitting down with a blank piece of paper and compiling a list of which scents should be in the 30, so I decided to approach the question from another, more intellectually - and emotionally - forgiving angle.

I took a long hard look at my current collection of full bottles and asked myself which ones I would buy again if I had my time over.  But I still had to bear in mind the overall constraining factor of an upper limit of 30.  Otherwise, there was a real risk that I might keep a bunch of bottles that I like well enough, not least because they only cost me £10 on eBay or whatever.  I decided to strip price out of the equation and focus purely on which perfumes I would wish to hold on to for themselves, and not because - when considered in the round - they represented 'good value for money'.  And their 'selves' could include the appeal of the bottle, but for me that is generally a lesser factor.

My kneejerk HGS ~ Source: fragrantica

So that little whittling exercise stripped out a goodly number.  I managed to get the list down from 70(!) to 19.  Here they are in no particular order - not even alphabetical, and not all with a full complement of accents - how sloppy am I? ;)

Roja Dove Scandal

Bvlgari Black

Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur

PG Brulure de Rose

Lancome Cuir de Lancome

Serge Lutens Un Lys

Kenzo Flower by Kenzo Oriental

The Different Company Bergamote

Le Labo Labdanum 18

En Voyage Perfumes Zelda

Diptyque Eau Duelle

Diptyque Volutes edt

Jo Malone Dark Amber & Ginger Lily

L’Artisan Parfumeur Séville à l'aube

DKNY Gold

Opium Fleur de Shanghai

Agent Provocateur L’Agent

Bal à Versailles edc

Sonia Rykiel Woman Not for Men!

Some of the 50-odd bottles that didn't make the cut may be featuring soon in this year's Bonkers Yard Sale, should anyone be interested in my cast offs...

Relative lemons languishing in the hall cupboard

So the next rather tricky job was to edit the list even further, so that I could add to it the next category of 'perfumes I wish I had bought instead'; again, money was no object.  You see where this is all going, don't you?  I shall arrive presently at my 30 favourite perfumes in the whole world (allegedly) in a few slightly deceiving stages, the way my mother used to encourage my brother and me when we were kids to complete a long walk: 'Just as far as that tree up ahead.'  And when we would reach said landmark, it was of course a false summit - or its level ground equivalent - because Mother would immediately announce brightly that we now only needed to walk as far as 'that lamppost a little bit further on'...

Long story short, the five perfumes listed in italics above didn't make the next round, to help make way for the following 16 additions:

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Cimabue

Guerlain Plus Que Jamais (if it could be found!)

Ormonde Jayne Ta’if

Ormonde Jayne Tolu

Tom Ford Shanghai Lily

Chanel Bois des Iles

Ramon Monegal Ambra di Luna (another potentially reckless spontaneous purchase!)

Tauer Perfumes PHI

FM Carnal Flower

Annick Goutal Musc Nomade

Puredistance BLACK

Damien Bash Lucifer #3 

Robert Piguet Calypso

April Aromatics Unter den Linden

Neela Vermeire Creations Ashoka

Maison Kurkdjian APOM pour Femme

We want limes, not lemons! ~ Source: aprilaromatics.com

I have to tell you that the very act of committing - even theoretically - to a collection of just 30 perfumes is pretty scary.  I note that my choices do tend to lean towards fuzzy, comforting orientals (woody, with vanilla or a kick of spice). This is notwithstanding the meteorological arrival of spring, though there are a smattering of blowsy feminine florals in there.  And you might well observe that as with clothes, so with perfumes, I am most definitely guilty of that classic 'buy the same top in every colourway' syndrome, or something perilously close to it in scent terms.  There is also a glaring omission of a bracing lemony cologne, but I couldn't make my mind up, so went for two orange ones instead.  And I have almost certainly put the odd perfume on there that I don't quite love enough, and forgotten several that I do.  Feel free to draw my attention to any such obvious anomalies.

Hmm, it is quite shocking to think that even if I didn't supplement the hard core of perfumes I am hanging on to with these imaginary acquisitions, there were in fact only another 5 or so on top of the 14 that I was really attached to - out of a starting point of 70.  Which begs the question of how I managed to clock up so many lemons. Or to mix metaphors somewhat, my stash turns out to be a veritable albatross sanctuary. Well, that is perhaps too strong a term for it - a sanctuary for 'moderately liked ex-lemmings' is the size of it. I could definitely undertake that analysis another time, but for now I am still reeling at the stark split between the keepers and the rest.  Many of the other bottles in my collection are nice enough as I say, and I might reach for them occasionally, but if I am going to settle on 30, they have to evoke a fiercer, more visceral kind of emotional connection, which I think is true of this combined list.  Or it is at the moment!  Being an incorrigible Flittersniffer, it goes without saying that I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.

Source: dmvi.cf.ac.uk

And even though 30 is actually a pretty luxurious number - in the eyes of any normal person, surely! - there was still a fair amount of podium hustling by the also-rans, including Van Cleef & Arpels Gardénia Pétale, Prada Candy and L'Eau Ambrée, Amouage Honour Woman and Chanel No 5 Eau Première, to name but a few.  Then PG Aomassai and Jardins de Kerylos, Balenciaga Cristobal and Jasper Conran Woman, to name but a few more.

So if you have ever carried out a similar 'full juice count' - which I suppose one could equally well term a 'full dud count' -  what proportion of your current collection are you totally happy with?  I don't suppose anyone else has a ratio as low as 30%, to which my 19/70 equates?

This has been quite a sobering exercise, it must be said...I should perhaps rename my blog 'Clueless about Perfume'... ;)

Bonkers "On Tour" in Germany: The Scent Of The Underground

I am sure I have written posts in the past featuring the word "tour" before - as in "A Bonkers Grand Tour", to name one example. But last week I guess you could describe me as being "on tour". I wasn't doing my usual work, which has been quite scarce of late, though ironically I had several job inquiries just as I was packing to go away(!), ranging from phone interviews with van dealerships in the UK to so-called "intercept interviews" with German tourists on car ferries. But like a large ocean-going vessel myself, I cannot turn myself around that quickly, and ended up going over to Germany on the original mission. I guess you could call it a sort of "VSO work", the voluntary services in question being the manning of a merchandise stall at a series of gigs, which in turn explains the aptness of the phrase "on tour".

Yes, over the course of four nights, I single-handedly clocked up quite a respectable sales total, selling to about 25% of the audience each time, which Mr Bonkers tells me is a very good ratio. I have known this particular group for 30+ years: the music critic of the German broadsheet, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, last year dubbed them "the best unknown band in the world". I suppose I inhabit a comfortable no-man's land somewhere between fan, friend - and now "crew". : - )

As it happens, I have had two prior stints of retail experience in my life, in a cheese and a fruit & veg shop respectively, also some 30 years ago. However, this was a whole new category of merchandise to me - one bearing that very name indeed - though it was typically shortened to "merch". I basked in my newly-coined job title of "Head of Merch etc, Germany", the "etc" referring to ad hoc assistance with the provision of maps, in-train snacks, and deciphering the more arcane paragraphs in the Terms & Conditions of the Deutsche Bahn website.

As well as honing my retail skills, I learnt a new set of vocabulary unrelated to my usual business milieu. This included such up-to-the-minute German terms as the splendid "bemannen" ("to man!"), "Album", "CD", "Song", "T-shirt", "Drummer", "Backstage", "Download" and "Vinyl" (for which there are currently no plans, in case you were about to ask). Yes, I fielded so many requests for old-style vinyl in fact, that if I had had a euro for every one, I could almost afford to press the blessed things myself. While speaking German, I don't think I fooled anyone as to my real nationality, though one lady complimented me on my "good endings".

As time went by I started getting quite creative with my sales techniques, positioning the silver-coloured CD as a "handy emergency compact mirror". To some people I mentioned that if you bought nine of the CDs and arranged them in a rectangle you would have a pretty sizeable bathroom mirror. It would cost you an arm and a leg, mind, and the actual CDs might warp in the condensation, but you won't find anything like it in IKEA.

Then the album lyrics were printed on a folded pocket version of the band poster, tucked inside the sleeve, and I lost no time in pointing out how the CD - especially factoring in its reflective characteristics - was tantamount to a complete "activity pack", perfect for long car journeys - assuming you aren't driving, that is.

Then when the small T-shirt size sold out, I began to extol the versatility of the M and L sizes to the more petite customers, explaining how they would make a first rate nightie or even a mini-dress if you teamed them with a stylishly low slung belt.

"Bemanning" the merch table gave me an opportunity to meet and chat to fans from all over Germany and further afield, including a man from Nuneaton who was thrilled to find himself in Frankfurt on business on the day his favourite band happened to be playing down the road.

In terms of my "Scent Of The Gig" choices, I wore just two all week: Orris Noir, as it seemed suitably dark for the unrelenting gloom of my working environment, and Guerlain Plus Que Jamais, which struck me as an amusingly ironic choice for the grungy outfits I had taken to wearing. Well, my best efforts in a grungewardly direction - I may not have been layering perfumes, but I was layering T-shirts like a pro!)

Now I was only dimly aware of other scents - ambient or otherwise - over the course of the week. I do recall the burning smell of brake fluid on Berlin trains, and the smell of crusty egg rolls, but that is about it. I guess the trip was more about sounds than scents, and maybe it is good to switch sensory track sometimes...

Well, I say that...the band did half-jokingly wonder if they should have a perfume of their own, which could be another potential merch idea. They have already come up with its name: "The Monochrome Scent", a rather nifty play on "The Monochrome Set".

Well, I was instantly reminded of Tarleisio and The Devil Scent project, though in that case the scents being created are for an individual band member who is a character in Tarleisio's book, Quantum Demonology, albeit one based on a real musician of her acquaintance.

So on the long train rides - I was travelling independently of the band - I gave the idea of The Monochrome Scent some more thought. It occurred to me that whilst it might well be overcomplicating this hypothetical creation to do so, it could be fun to have top, heart and base notes in the perfume that not only characterised the traits of each musician but also correlated with the role of their respective instruments in the overall musical composition. That way, the notes associated with the bass player would be base notes (of course!), ditto the drummer, and so on.

Or if that was too tricky and restrictive (and it almost certainly would be!), one could just ensure that the scent included at least one note that was strongly
associated with each band member. So the drummer asked for something to denote curry and sweat - cumin? : - ) ), then the guitarist (who is from Quebec) requested maple syrup and pipe tobacco...and I am thinking some kind of Canadian lumber might also hit the spot? The singer is half-Indian so he could be Mysore sandalwood (not least because he complained about his feet a lot!). Then the female violinist likes magnolia and citrus notes, while to represent the bass player it would not be beyond the realms of possibility (Christopher Brosius-style!) to replicate the odour of his signature mac...

Or - the simplest of all routes - one could just stick in a load of notes
that the band members collectively associate with being on tour: after a quick brainstorm, curry and sweat predictably topped the list! Now...even if The Monochrome Scent ever saw the light of day - or the gloom of night on a merch table, rather - I shan't promise to sell it to one in four punters unless this madcap, olfactory "camel designed by a committee" ends up smelling half-way decent...

And finally, here are some more "tour snaps": Germany does a nice line in eclectic venues (an Art Nouveau villa, a former hospital, a Lost Property Office, a punk squat) - actually, most of them look like a punk squat on the inside, which in the case of the Art Nouveau villa was particularly unexpected.

EXTERIOR!

INTERIOR!


And no round up of tour photos would be complete without an example of one of the doors, for finding your way into an alternative music venue is the ultimate initiative test.

For anyone who may be curious, here is a review by John Robb (formerly of The Membranes) of a recent UK gig, which also looks back at the history and influence of the band.

And thanks to one of those surprise Google coincidences, I have just learnt that Tigrushka, known to many as one of the moderators on Basenotes, is also a fan. I stumbled upon this review on her blog (in Finnish!) and the following tweet of hers:

"Listening to the new Monochrome Set album Platinum Coils for the first time. It's stunningly good."

And this unexpected collision of two fumeheads' musical and fragrance interests is - you might think - further strengthened by a mention of perfume in the opening lines of "On My Balcony", one of my favourite tracks on the new album:

"Through the perfume of sweet velvet sleep
I glide into the afternoon"

Except that the singer tells me the use of the word perfume is quite gratuitous, and he probably just liked the sound of the word without any reference to what it meant. Ah well, you can't have it all. : - )

BACKSTAGE SIGN IN DARMSTADT

OBLIGATORY BACK-OF-TOILET-DOOR GRAFFITI

UNCHARACTERISTICALLY COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF TOILET PAPER FOR A MUSIC VENUE


Now I did hope to meet up with a couple of perfumistas on my travels, but sadly it didn't work out in the end due to illness and a job move. A round up of my solo sniffing experiences follows in the next posts!






Photo of villa from fotocommunity.de, other photos my own

A Trio Of Bonkers Trips: No 2 (Belgium & France) - A "Drowned And Out In Paris" Sniffathon: Printemps & Guerlain

I am still "coming down" from the excitement of meeting Olfactoria again yesterday - together with her family this time - but Bonkers is nothing if not chronological, so I will carry on this account of my latest series of work trips with a report from Belgium and France. Nothing much happened in Brussels, except for a major bus-taking coup to my appointment, saving some 55 euros on taxis, which I promptly went and blew on a bottle of Tom Ford Violet Blonde later in the week. Oh, and the fact that within the space of 24 hours I was kerb crawled AND had a teenager give up her seat for me on the Metro. This prompted me to speculate whether I am now on that finely balanced cusp between cougar and care home... ; - )

Then last Tuesday found me in Paris. The day got off to an inauspicious start: I had to get up preternaturally early (for me) and caught a train out to a gritty and rainswept suburb north of the city centre. By 8.40am I was queuing outside a branch of McDonald's waiting for them to open. I was cold and wet to the bone (umbrellas being a liability in the prevailing high winds), and the day had barely begun. At 9am, the drive-by hatch opened (though unfortunately not the seating area), and I enjoyed the freshest egg McMuffin ever made, washed down by a piping hot cup of tea (for McDonald's!). I could even overlook the lack of milk just to have something warm to wrap my hands around.

By 1pm, things were definitely looking up. My meeting over, I was in position in the area around the Gare Saint-Lazare, home to the upmarket department store Printemps, with several more cups of tea inside me and a grim determination not to let the truly diabolical weather get in the way of a good sniffing session. It turned out to be an episodic day - or a "sodding epic" day, to borrow Mr Bonkers' robust phrase - and here are the highlights...

I had visited Printemps on my last visit to Paris in 2009, and remembered that it offered a good selection of niche scents in a compact area within the main perfume hall known as the Scent Room. To be honest, given the rather fluid floor plan, I couldn't quite work out the demarcation between the Scent Room and the rest of the perfume counters, not that it really mattered.

I decided to be quite focused in my approach and spent most of my visit split between the Jo Malone, Dior, L'Artisan Parfumeur and Etat Libre d'Orange counters.

JO MALONE

The tea range was nowhere to be seen, and the assistant was tied up with a "proper customer"(!), so I couldn't even blag a sample of Wild Bluebell (to replace the grapefruit one I was given in error in Germany!); instead I contented myself with having a quick and ginger sniff of a couple of the Intense Colognes.

Iris & White Musk

Does what it says on the bottle - pleasant enough, but forgettable.

Rose Water & Vanilla

Thick and throat catching, a bit like one of those treacly Guerlains.

I steered clear of Amber & Patchouli and Oud & Bergamot, as patchouli and oud are not my favourite notes at the best of times, never mind amplified by an "intense cologne" effect!

DIOR LA COLLECTION PRIVÉE

I asked to try a few of the Collection Privée range of which I had read favourable reviews, and the sales assistant also suggested one or two others for me to try.

New Look 1947

I already know and love this one, and cherish my small decant. I picked up the cylindrical 125ml bottle with its clunky magnetic top, fondled it for a bit and put it back again. I don't need 125ml of any perfume, though 150 euros was a reasonable price to pay, ml for ml. I shall wait to see if the lemming gets the better of me, in which case I can always pick it up in London for the slightly lower price of £120. I gladly accepted the sales assistant's offer to perfume me generously around my neck area. In this way she was able to mark her territory and hopefully reel me in to make a purchase later in the day. "With an EDP or EDT you'll find that if you really love it, you will use it up." And despite my collection of bottles now topping the 70 mark, I almost....almost...believed her.

Ambre Nuit

Soft, sheer, barely there, faintly spicy oriental. Very elegant - my next favourite after New Look 1947. I only tried it on card but liked it enough to look up the notes:

Pink Pepper, Bergamot, Spices, Turkish Rose, Amber, Balsamy (sic) Notes, Cedar, Patchouli, Gaiac Wood

Mitzah

Didn't get beyond a tentative sniff of the nozzle with this one. Heavy, spicy ambery, boozy fright wig of a scent. For all I know, the drydown might be spectacular, but I am not sure I could last the course to find out!

Bois d'Argent

A pantomime horse with Juniper Sling at the front end - with the merest hint of Craft, the most metallic scent from Andrea Maack - and Chanel No 19 Poudré at the back end. A very stylish and wearable unisex scent. "Pantomime" is in no way meant as a criticism.

UPDATE: I have now been given a generous decant of this by Tara, and it smells nothing like the scent I smelt in Paris. As a check, I have just sprayed Bois d'Argent on card, which clears up the discrepancy - it is a totally different animal on card, on initial spraying, certainly - then it becomes more like the decant version. On skin this is the faintest leather and honeyed vanilla, while on card the opening was bright and citrus-y with the iris peeking through. How weird!

Granville

As I think I said in a comment over on Olfactoria's review of Granville, this scent is forever destined to remind me of a local wine bar with the same name. That aside, it smelt just as I imagined, if not better: that MH Fleur de Sel-like, bracing, aromatic, seaside vibe. Not a genre that is really "me", but extremely well done.

Milly-la-Forêt

A ho-hum fruity floral not worthy of inclusion in the range, imho.

L'ARTISAN PARFUMEUR MON NUMÉRO COLLECTION

Having torn myself away from a purchase of New Look 1947, I headed over to the L'Artisan counter to check out more of the Mon Numéro Collection, being only familiar with Nos 6 and 8 to date. No 6 was an unfortunate mix of Fleur de Liane crossed with PG Papyrus de Ciane (beware of scents ending in -iane is the clear learning point here!), while No 8 was the pretty iris skin scent I remembered. The assistant tried to nudge me towards a purchase by playing the scarcity card: "This is the one developed for the Japanese market, you know, and when it is gone it is gone. No 10 has already gone, for example."

In fact, the only other ones left to try were Nos 3 and 4, both of which were resolutely not my thing. According to the SA, No 3 contained notes of lavender, vetiver and patchouli, while No 4 had notes of lavender, carnation, spices and muscat. The only useful comment I can add to that is "Yeek!"

ETAT LIBRE D'ORANGE

Moving on swiftly, I had a quick test of a couple of scents in the neighbouring Etat Libre d'Orange fixture: Sécrétions Magnifiques (which I had managed to dodge up to now: in hindsight - or in "nethersmell" - with good reason!), and Bendelirious, of which I had just read a review by the Candy Perfume Boy that day, so it was top of mind at the time - and very much the ditzy, va-va-voom floral he described.

Pausing briefly in the Hermès concession to cadge a sample of Santal Massoïa for Olfactoria (using my tried and tested "boyfriend with upcoming birthday" ruse), I started to wander vaguely in the direction of Place Vendôme. In view of the weather, I more or less gave up trying to navigate, but still managed to pass entirely at random a Maître Parfumeur Gantier outlet, two Guerlain boutiques, one of Annick Goutal, one of Comme des Garcons and one of Maison Kurkdjian.

GUERLAIN BOUTIQUES (and ongoing forensic inquiries about Plus Que Jamais)

I only actually went into the Guerlain boutiques, because I was either familiar with the ranges of the others, or didn't care for them in the main. Well, the former reason also applies to Guerlain, but I was on a continuing mission to find out what became of Plus Que Jamais - or Plus Jamais , as it should now be known since it was discontinued. In both stores the assistants tried to find me a substitute - namely Nuit d'Amour and (most oddly), Jardins de Bagatelle.

Try as I might, I couldn't seem to convey the fact that I only wanted this particular scent, or if I couldn't have it, I wanted to know why it had been axed. One assistant had heard that a specific ingredient in it was now on the prohibited list, so rather than reformulate the scent, they had decided to knock it on the head completely.

I find this terribly sad... If I get a moment, I might ring up the people at No 68 (which I didn't have a chance to visit this time) to see if they can confirm the truth of this. I would also like to know what the offending ingredient might have been that led to the premature demise of Plus Que Jamais, and whether they had had any inkling of the rule change. I sense not, for they can't have recovered their development costs during the scent's all too short lifespan.

Time to dive into another cafe for more tea and homemade creme caramel...

Coming up in Part 2 - the Fragonard Museum, JAR, and IUNX revisited (hard on the heels of Ines and Asali!)


Photo of Printemps exterior from routard.com, photo of Printemps display from parisdeuxieme.com, photo of Jo Malone Rose and Vanilla Intense Cologne, L'Artisan Mon Numéro No 8 and Guerlain Plus Que Jamais from fragrantica.com, photo of Dior Ambre Nuit from aufeminin.com, photo of Place Vendôme by night from destinationsperfected.com - no photos my own on account of the rain!