Top Sniffs - and Nasty Niffs - of 2013 - a slightly wonky edition...;-)

Source: hedgeco.net

It's been a couple of years since my last round up of the best and worst of the year in scent terms - I just checked and 2011 was indeed the last one.  This coincided with a stage in my perfume j***ney when I was still doing a lot of testing and seeking out samples of new things - aided by overseas business trips that took me to top perfumista hunting grounds like Paris and Zurich and Berlin.

Then 2012 was consumed by upheaval in my personal life and the house move - but though I was diverted from the business of chasing after novelty, my fragrant Wanderlust was already starting to wane, and I was bonding more with what I already owned.  Much as Birgit has explained in her retrospective of 2013, though not quite so marked.  Moreover, all the work I have had last year has been local - or on the telephone! - so my sniffing oppos have been much curtailed anyway.

Offsetting that, I seem to have received more promotional product lately, but these packages rarely contained any of the few lemmings I was harbouring (can you harbour a lemming? - you can now!) - more a case of random stuff that perfume houses saw fit to send me, often the smaller, newer brands looking for exposure in social media.  And just occasionally new lemmings were ignited this way (can you set a lemming on fire?...of course you can!).

Lemming on ice (best I could find - and topical at least!) Source: pogo.lakesideschool.org

So in view of the woefully limited and lopsided nature of my sniffing experience lately, this post will do no more than nod in the direction of actual releases from the past year, and focus on my perfume-themed highlights of 2013, however they came about...

And as I mentioned in my 3.6 year stock take, this hobby remains as much about the people I meet through it as perfume itself, hence why I would probably say my happiest moments of last year were the meet-ups with fellow perfumistas: the Smelly Cakey Drinky event in March, hooking up with Freddie Albrighton in April, Lucy Raubertas, Undina and Denyse Beaulieu in June, Natalie in August, and Lavanya and Tara in London just last week.

NB Apologies for the veritable thicket of hyperlinks in this post - they do get more sparse from this point on!

TOP SNIFFS (etc)

Best niche perfumes

En Voyage Perfumes Zelda - a sumptuous floral oriental with (to quote myself!) 'a sultry magnolia heart in a crisp galbanum shell'.  Zelda is a Southern belle in a pencil skirt, Vivien Leigh in geek glasses, and other images of optimally constrained flounce and sensuality. (Thanks to Natalie of Another Perfume Blog for the sample!)

Puredistance BLACK - review here.

Source: Puredistance

Neela Vermeire Créations Ashoka - If I didn't already own not one but TWO bottles of PG Bois Naufragé, I would have considered Ashoka to be FBW; and though I prefer it by quite some margin to the PG, it is too much in the same 'milky-woody-fig' vein to justify a further acquisition. ;-(

Source: Neela Vermeire Créations

AND

Best under-the-radar niche release

Téo Cabanel Barkhane - a hauntingly beautiful woody oriental with the understated snuffed out quality of Diptyque Volutes edt or Puredistance BLACK, rather than the chutzpah of Amouage Lyric Woman or Tauer L'Air du  Désert Marocain - though all four scents have a similarly elusive air of mystery to them.

Source: Luckyscent

Honorable mention - niche

Chanel Les Exclusifs 1932 - Chanel No 5 meets Tom Ford Violet Blonde and makes out on a bed of silk.

Frédéric Malle Dries Van Noten / Denise Van Outen(!)- a wispy biscuity scent unlike the aggravated Danish pastry that is Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau and other patisserie perfumes of that kidney.


Favourite perfume discoveries in 2013 from earlier years

Diptyque Volutes edt - see also Barkhane above: a cosy, smoky, powdery caress of a scent (thanks to Tamsin Simmill for the sample of this one).

Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles - I didn't think I liked a pine note in perfume, but the needle has finally dropped!

Yesterday's Christmas tree carnage

L'Erbolario Méharées - a poor man's Musc Ravageur with notes of myrrh and dates (thanks to Odiferess for samples of these last two).


Best oud perfume release (that's enough now, please)

(I have a special note category - for oud?? Yep, that is how 'off kilter'/odd my year has been...)

Exidolo Thirty-Three - wispy rose and oud composition using 33-year old Chinese oud oil, if vintage is your thing!  Wild-harvested no less. It is paradoxically evanescent for a scent built around such a tenacious note, but that is okay by me.


Best cheapie oud scent discovery (for any 'dyed in the wood' oud  lovers out there)

Dehnal oud

My friend Gillie tumbled to this, and it only costs about £2 for a purse-sized roll-on! Plus it has the seal of approval of a bunch of men on Basenotes, and goodness knows they don't take any prisoners...;)

So cheap it's rude not to - whether you like oud or not!

Most oddball use of a note in a perfume

Mark Buxton Emotional Rescue (gooseberry!)

I don't think Emotional Rescue the perfume will replace chocolate or wine any time soon.  And gooseberry's place is firmly in a fool.


Perfume I smelt briefly, have no sample of, and which is now haunting me

Ramon Monégal Ambra di Luna - the moment is captured here.


Perfumes I think I would have liked a lot that I haven't smelt

Dita Von Teese Erotique
Marni
Givenchy Dahlia Noir L'Eau


Most liked perfume that a SA insisted I try (enforced sampling normally being the kiss of death, as we know)

Louise Kennedy (the new scent by the Irish designer of that name)

Described as a 'romantic, floral bouquet with refreshing top notes of geranium bourbon, mimosa and Rose de Mai underscored with bergamot and lemon'.  The lemon gives it a pleasant, almost granular tartness, while I also detected a galbanum or hyacinth prickle that stopped the whole composition from straying into girlish tweeness.  Before, sadly, the Miss Dior Chérie-style bottle dragged it squarely back again.

We are so over chunky tops bedecked in pink bows... Source: www.her.ie

Most eye-catching set of perfume samples

Téo Cabanel

Spirograph squiggles(!) and meticulous colour coordination 

Most unexpected event of the entire year (in a good, horizon-broadening kind of a way)

The Neela Vermeire chicken liver incident.


NASTY NIFFS

Worst niche niff

Viktoria Minya Hedonist

Now I don't go a bundle on boozy notes or peach - or excessive honey twizzling - in a perfume, so this scent was always going to have its work cut out, but still.  It was muddy, with a strange, slightly off note, as Freddie of Smellythoughts is my witness!

(Hedonist also takes the award for the perfume where I felt most out of step with the views of other bloggers.  Last year that accolade would have gone to Puredistance Opardu if I had written a review of 2012 - it was pretty enough, no question, yet came off as a little too mainstream and laundry musky on my skin.)


Worst mainstream niff

Giorgio Armani Si

Who let that 'orrible blackcurrant note out!  And the overpowering vanilla accord that mugs you on the drydown.  And hey, I like vanilla.  I can almost tolerate vanilla-scented tealights, but not quite.  I disliked this scent so much I can't even be bothered to give it its rightful grave accent.  It is gravely bad!

Source: Fragrantica

Marketing let down of the year

Ormonde Jayne has been one of my absolute favourite houses, but I feel compelled to let readers know that its Perfume Portrait service - glowing review here - now costs £20 if you book it in advance, but bizarrely remains free if you just walk in off the street.  And contrary to the time I had it done for myself, there is now an expectation that you will make a purchase on the spot, which of course is alien to most perfumistas who prefer to procure a sample first and take their time deciding before springing for a full bottle.  Assuming they even like anything that much from Ormonde Jayne's relatively compact range (though I personally have a very high strike rate with them).  Now it may be that this is not in fact general policy, but it was clearly the deal when I went along with a couple of friends, one of whom had the portrait done.  Also, the exploding flower tea ceremony appears to be a thing of the past, albeit we arrived a little late - we were only offered water.  And neery a chocolate either.

UPDATE - re the Ormonde Jayne saga above, see Lavanya's comment below for the latest developments, in which she 'outs' herself and Tara as the other participants - it was Lavanya who had the portrait done. ;)

The Ormonde Jayne Perfume Portrait Service: Pulling Out All The Stoppers To Find Your Perfect Scent

I had toyed with calling this post something like "A Sliding Scale of Scent Selection Strategies", and was going to compare all the different ways of choosing a perfume, from blind buys in T K Maxx - "It's cheap, so how bad can it be?" - to being advised by sales assistants intent on pushing the latest DKNY flanker in the largest unit size possible. But I have already written a post about Ormonde Jayne with a form of the verb "slide" in the title, and decided two slidey posts might be pushing it.

So anyway, my meeting with Linda Pilkington last Friday was not to be, owing to a "signal" lack of crew on my scheduled train, but I said I would drop into the new store near Sloane Square on the Saturday instead. It proved to be a bit of a challenge getting across town from my hotel in St Pancras, partly due to my own incompetence and partly to a few rug pulling stunts on the part of Transport for London.

For starters I took the wrong branch of the Northern Line - via Bank instead of Charing Cross - though I later discovered that this was because the Charing Cross line had been closed, and everyone looking for the Northern Line was automatically steered down the remaining branch. Once on a train, I quickly realised it was going well out of my way. I got off at Moorgate and was about to take the Circle Line eastbound, when I heard an announcement about engineering works at Tower Hill, so I jumped on a tube heading west instead, insofar as compass directions are meaningful in a loop scenario... Are you keeping up so far? : - ) : - )

This circuitous route eventually took me to Sloane Square. I stood in the rain outside the station and rummaged fruitlessly in my handbag for the store details. In their absence, I was reliant on the combined knowledge of several passers by (none of whom were local), a sales assistant with Internet access in Ortigia(!) and three separate members of staff in Peter Jones, including their Customer Services Manager, who walked me to a window of their arty cafeteria and pointed down at the street below. "Okay, so it's not that street there, but Pavilion Road is sort of up a bit and to the left." Having just about absorbed these aerial directions, I promptly got lost looking for the "florist exit" of the store, before emerging blinking into the street, none the wiser now that I was on the ground.

By now somewhat bedraggled from the drizzle, I dived into a Chanel boutique, where two assistants pored helpfully over my 20 year old street guide, as loose pages fluttered softly onto the glossy hardwood floor. At the heart of the problem was the fact that Pavilion Road was on the fold of the book, which was not helped by the tiny print and my failing close sight. I am fast getting to that desperate stage where I have to annexe a young person every time I want to read.

Now in narrating this sorry tale I am not saying that the new Ormonde Jayne store is particularly hard to find - granted, it is tucked away in a little alley, but it is still only a stone's throw from Sloane Square. However, my initial failure to bring the address, coupled with the curved balls served up by TFL, my decrepit A-Z and dodgy vision all conspired to make the journey more arduous than was necessary. I should probably have taken the Clear Pill, for which there were numerous advertisments in the underground. If I took it every day, I'd be "LIMITLESS" apparently, able to unlock my potential and "become the perfect version of myself". Clearly, a better map reading version of myself would be a good start.

Unfortunately, the Clear Pill seems to come with a lot of baggage in the way of side effects, to wit: "paralysis, psychosis, amnesia, extreme sexual appetite, brain damage, irreversible coma, homicidal blackouts and sudden death."

So in deference to Monica and Bona, the staff of the Ormonde Jayne store, who were lovely and welcoming when I did eventually make it, it is probably best that I wasn't taking this pill during my visit - I don't suppose they'd have thanked me if I had had a homicidal blackout on their premises, especially if I had selected one of them as my victim moments before the attack.

Oh dear me...that was a bit of a longwinded introduction, and I realise that I may have shed a few readers somewhere around Paddington on the anticlockwise section of the Circle Line, but for anyone still reading, MY PERFUME PORTRAIT EXPERIENCE STARTS HERE... The store itself is a triumph of elegant design, featuring the orange and black livery that is the unmistakable calling card of Ormonde Jayne. There was lots of gleaming black marble - or gleaming black something - on the display surfaces and the walls. The lighting was discreet and twinkly; the product reverentially displayed. The sense of awe and wonder I felt in this sleek temple to high end scent was on a par with the feelings evoked by a visit to an upscale jeweller's or a prestigious art gallery. I could also liken my response to a grown up version of my childhood excitement at visiting Santa's grotto in our local department store - also with gift (for girl aged 50-55), as it turned out...

I was invited to sit down at a big counter and offered a selection of Ormonde Jayne's own handmade chocolates and a cup of jasmine tea with a real jasmine flower in it. You were supposed to wait for the flower to open fully before drinking the tea in which it bobbed. It was a novel take on my customary infusion method of mashing the tea bag against the side of a mug with the back of a spoon, and though the delicately fragrant tea was very refreshing, I joked with the staff that I couldn't quite rise above the sensation of drinking a rockpool through the tentacles of a sea anemone.

Then Monica, the store manager, kicked off by explaining the idea behind the Perfume Portrait service, namely to invite clients to sniff a selection of raw materials to identify which ones they liked or disliked, thus narrowing the choice of perfumes from the Ormonde Jayne range which they would be invited to sample. Key preliminary questions focused on the occasion this scent was intended for, perfumes the client had worn in the past, and any other information they could provide about their tastes in fragrance.

So then we started testing the various individual fragrance oils, on the end of black lacquered stoppers impregnated with each scent. These were arranged in seven families: "Hesperidic", "Delicate Floral", "Intense Floral", "Balsamic", "Oriental", "Woody" and the intriguingly named "Atmospheric" category, but I preferred not to know what each oil was - or even what family it belonged to - as I proceeded to smell each in turn.

Now I don't wish this post to act as a "spoiler" for anyone who might be planning to try out the Perfume Portrait service themselves, so I will just give you a flavour of how my blind testing went. Predictably, I was pretty rubbish on the whole, though in fairness, at this level of concentration it can be difficult to recognise certain odours, even very familiar ones.

Out of 21 fragrance oils I correctly guessed just two on the first attempt: mandarin and vanilla! The vanilla extract was white and crystalline and so scrumptious-smelling that I would happily have sucked the stopper like a child's dummy (pacifier)! Several oils I got on the second attempt, like gardenia and tonka bean, and I was often in the right general ballpark: for pimento I said cloves, and for pepper I guessed spice or woods.

Bizarrely, I got freesia and iris root round the wrong way, which makes me realise that I am probably only familiar with the more austere scent of the iris flower. I also didn't recognise the champaca note at that concentration, which surprised me as I know how it smells in the OJ perfume of that name. And when I smelt hemlock (arguably OJ's signature note, being the first company to use it in perfumery) and also moss, to both of those I am afraid I just said "nasty!"

So that was all a lot of fun, and quite instructive: I emerged from the process with some clear likes and dislikes, but also some in-between notes, which I decided I might enjoy in small doses. It now fell to Monica, who had been logging my comments along the way, to tot up my stated preferences within each family of oils, cross match that information with the families into which each Ormonde Jayne fragrance is classified as belonging - also bearing in mind that some perfumes fall into multiple categories - and make recommendations from their range of 12 scents.

Before this experiment, I would have said I had pretty broad tastes, but if I could only have two styles of perfume in my wardrobe those would have to be citrus (for daytime) and probably woody oriental (for evening wear). Looking at my score card, I have come out as squarely in the Hesperidic camp, closely followed by Delicate Floral, Oriental, Woody and Atmospheric on an equal footing, all of which feels about right. My least favourite fragrance style came out as Intense Floral (true). (Ormonde Jayne don't do any ragingly civetty scents, or those would doubtless have come out bottom, as it were.) Some intensely floral scents I do actually like, but don't really feel are me. And then my response to resinous fragrances was a bit mixed, which is also true. I do love some incense scents, but they shouldn't be overtly resinous in the sense of "piney". The only thing that puzzled me about the way the oils were grouped was "frangipani", which is classed as a delicate floral, and which I think of as quite intense - though I do happen to like the note, as I do ylang-ylang - in moderation, anyway.

From her analysis Monica shortlisted five perfumes: Osmanthus, Frangipani, Orris Noir, Ta'if and Tiare. This was a pretty canny selection, because unlike most clients who will go through the Perfume Portrait process, I came to it already knowing my favourites from the range, namely Orris Noir, Ta'if and Tiare, and was curious to see if we would come back to these by starting from first principles and identifying my preferences amongst the base ingredients. Additionally, I own Osmanthus Interdite by Les Parfums d'Empire and Ajne Calypso, a frangipani and jasmine scent, so I do dabble in these other fruity/floral directions.

At this point, Monica offered me my choice of fragrance to take home, a generous gesture that caught me completely offguard! With spring round the corner I opted for Tiare - one of the releases from the past two years that has most impressed me. We also talked about Ta'if, the most strongly indicated fragrance from the Perfume Portrait exercise, and a big favourite of mine for winter. Apparently it is a popular choice amongst Middle Eastern clients, including as a men's fragrance.

So what conclusions would I draw about the Perfume Portrait service as a method of orientating clients towards the perfect scent? Couldn't they just sniff all twelve OJ perfumes rather than the 21 base oils, you may be wondering? Well, sure they could, but this is so much fun! Now I don't think the exercise is totally foolproof, given that some of the oils are a bit intense and may put people off at that level of concentration - whereas they might like them well enough in the more attenuated strength at which they would typically end up in a finished formulation. However, I definitely think that the service is broadly indicative, and that the chances are that the shortlist that comes out the pipe will include at least one fragrance the client will like a lot - it my case, it was all three of my favourites!

Beyond that, there were two other great aspects to the Perfume Portrait service in my view. The first was the educational value of smelling oils blind and guessing what they were. I believe that that process alone could tip some ordinary perfume consumers into becoming full blown perfumistas. And given the pleasure that we fumeheads derive from fragrance, the possibility of converting even a few souls through a practical sniffing exercise could only be A Good Thing.

And then there is the whole pampering aspect, for, quite frankly, the care taken by the staff to understand your taste in fragrance, together with the beautiful store environment (not forgetting the chocolates and novelty tea), is as relaxing and therapeutic as a spa treatment. So, Santa's grotto, a spa, it comes to much the same thing. This experience could not be further removed from the "spray and pray" method of scent selection that obtains in your average department store - the staff at Ormonde Jayne have a thorough knowledge of their product line and the fragrance market in general, and clearly care about matching you with the right scent, as opposed to foisting one upon you that they are supposed to promote.

And yet - complimentary bottle aside - I wouldn't have felt pressured to make a purchase at the end of the session, and the one friend I know who has also had her Portrait done said the same. So from the consumer's point of view, as retail experiences go, it doesn't get better that this. And one thing that is also worth mentioning is that I didn't feel at all uncomfortable either in this stylish store - despite my dishevelled appearance and casual ensemble. I was even wearing a pea coat from Asda(Wal*Mart!), and when one of the girls helped me on with it, I swear she didn't visibly flinch. : - ) I remember feeling more awkward in Space NK in Bath, which is a bigger and more mainstream chain. The sales assistant there clearly resented me using the testers.

To sum up, I had an interesting and most enjoyable time, and left the store in a far less frazzled state than I had arrived. If you are not familiar with the Ormonde Jayne range or think you know your tastes in scent but fancy having these hunches "subjectively verified" by sampling individual components, the Perfume Portrait is well worth a shot.

PS I must also apologise for getting Monica's and Bona's names mixed up at one point. Both names feature "on-a" after all, and the black uniforms fuelled my confusion. Now what was that freephone number for the Clear Pill...?

Ormonde Jayne's blog features the new store here.

And here is a link to Ormonde Jayne's website.

Photo of tube map from studioincite.com, photo of view from Peter Jones from panoramio.com, photo of Clear Pill ad from thoughtsinflight.typepad.com, photo of exterior of store and of Tiare from Ormonde Jayne, photo of spa from bannatynespa.com, other photos my own.