Blistering heat with matching feet: Tara, Val and I 'stick together' on a London sniffathon

The Gang of Three at Les Senteurs ~ Photo by Callum on Val's phone

Last week saw the return to London of Val the Cookie Queen of APJ - she was over in England (which I am flattered to report she calls 'home') for a week's holiday, staying with friends in North London.  Tara hooked up with Val on both Wednesday and Thursday (her report is now up on Olfactoria's Travels!), while I joined the pair at lunchtime on Day Two for an eight hour perfumery crawl. Okay, that is rather a grand term for a visit to Penhaligon's and Les Senteurs, but Tara and Val had done a lot more crawling that morning, as you will learn.

The day started quite early for me, with only a minor clothing crisis by the standard of Val's last visit in February (the bedroom devastation scene on that occasion was captured here). It has been so hot lately that I was naturally drawn to a tiny sub-section of my wardrobe, namely my most insubstantial (while not overly revealing) outfits. This is quite a tricky combination to pull off as it turned out, 'pull off' being the operative term. In the end I went for an apricot, cream and black patterned sundress I bought in Majorca in 2007, which I had only ever worn once! I was particularly gratified to find a use at last for an...ahem...foundation garment featuring apricot coloured straps. That item of clothing has been waiting 20 years or more to come into its own, and last Thursday was the day. On the flip side, my matching cream shoes were chafing terribly before I even made it to the station, prompting an earlier than expected switch to the emergency footwear I had packed in my rucksack for just such an eventuality - a pair of black plimsolls that rather undermined the floaty tea dress look I was going for, but which were endlessly forgiving on the feet.

Piazza pitstop purveying pricey but perfect bagels

Just before the appointed time of 1.30pm, I emerged from Covent Garden tube station to find Tara and Val already outside waiting for me. After ginger hugs all round (on account of our generalised stickiness), we repaired to the nearest eaterie, an al fresco Italian restaurant in a prime spot (read 'tourist trap') on the square. Privately we were all thinking: 'Bring on the robdog prices!', but frankly no one really minded what it was going to cost, so grateful were we for shade, fluid and food, in approximately that order. Oh, and a toilet, mentioning no names... As it happens, our predictably expensive snacks were extremely good - Tara and I had the absolute non-pareil of smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels, and I have tasted a few non-pareil pretenders in my time. As it happened, Val's very generous husband treated us to lunch - and yes, it was indeed one of those 'card holder not present' scenarios. His card was actually present, but not the holder. Thanks, Val and Herr Sperrer!

Revictualled and revitalised, at my instigation we decided to track down the stand of British perfumer Tom Kosmala, whose Rose Amber Musk perfume I featured in a recent post. His address was listed as 'Apple Tree Market', which refers to a collection of stalls under cover, bang in the centre of the Covent Garden complex. We systematically walked the length and breadth of the market, but there was absolutely no sign of the man - or his stand. I checked the opening hours on my phone, in case it was 'Sunday to Tuesday' rather than 'Tuesday to Sunday', but no, this was technically a day when he should have been there. What can I say?  The man is chronically elusive, with his light-as-a-feather Google footprint and conspicuous absence on the ground. Maybe it is all part of a marketing ploy, to whip perfumistas up into a frenzy of pent up curiosity? Meanwhile, the three of us shrugged and ambled into Penhaligon's instead.

The Covent Garden branch of Penhaligon's - formerly a L'Artisan Parfumeur store which I visited two years ago almost to the day for the launch of Séville a l'aube! - is a thing of great beauty.  I am not sure I have ever set foot inside a more lovingly curated and aesthetically pleasing retail space. It has been merchandised to within an inch of its life, with exquisite attention to detail and quirky architectural motifs and artefacts at every turn.

Penhaligon's perfume bottle pendant lamps!

I could have stood there all day, gazing at the fixtures both upstairs and downstairs, a womblike subterranean cavern that serves as both office space and a customer 'lounge' where people can sit down at a long mirrored table to sample the entire range at their leisure. Fellow fumehead Nick Gilbert works for Penhaligon's of course, as their Fragrance Ambassador and Events Manager. He greeted us warmly and invited us to have a sniff of any of the recent releases we might have missed - it was Val's first trial of Tralala, for example, which is shaping up to be a full bottle lemming of mine - at this rate I might even have to make my peace with the scary doll's head. ;)

We also got to try the newest addition to the Penhaligon's stable, Bayolea. Bayolea is the colognic(?) - don't lose the 'g'! - centrepiece of Penhaligon's first ever men's grooming range. It is a reformulated classic scent from the company's archives, in which the citrus aspect has been amped up and the 'barber's shop' vibe toned down. All the products in the range are in fact scented with Bayolea, which is billed by Penhaligon's as 'zesty and invigorating'. And while the rest of the line may be aimed at men, we all agreed that Bayolea the fragrance could work just fine on a woman. It is probably worth a review in its own right once I have caught up with a sample, but while in store we sniffed it on our own and on Nick's skin, and it was variously lovely all round. On me it resembled Tauer's Cologne du Maghreb, with a similar lemon verbena brightness and herbal undertow. It really hit the spot on such a hot day.

Top notes: lemongrass, mandarin, tangerine
Heart notes: cardamom, black pepper, neroli, lavender
Base notes; cedarwood, sandalwood, musk, moss, patchouli, amber

Downstairs, we parked ourselves at the long table, catching up on the latest news and gossip on the perfume scene, such as Nick's recent trip to Paris where he got to hang out in Bertrand Duchaufour's lab - dream job or what?!

Val, Nick and Russian doll-effect Tara

A major highlight of the visit for me was a close encounter with this gorgeous French sink. Apparently the Regent Street branch of Penhaligon's boasts equally splendid sanitaryware from a venerable English manufacturer called Chadder. Well, given my keen interest in bathroom fixtures at the moment, it was an unexpected bonus, and from now on I vowed to pay more attention to this fundamental aspect of perfumery fixtures...

Me, starstruck by sanitaryware

From Penhaligon's we headed over to Nick's previous workplace, the Seymour Place branch of Les Senteurs. Liz Moore's Papillon Perfumery range had recently arrived, and was prominently displayed on a dear little perspex podium, which I signally failed to photograph.  I was too hot and bothered by this stage to do very much sniffing, though my nose was momentarily distracted by a new Creed called Vetiver Geranium, which may well appeal to my vetiver-loving teacher friend, Sheila.

Barefoot Val and no-foot Tara at Les Senteurs

The most enjoyable aspect of our visit to Les Senteurs was flopping on the regal looking sofa and chatting to Callum, the perfumery's Digital Marketing Manager. Val sprang for a bottle of the new Frédéric Malle, Eau de Magnolia, and on the spot gave Tara and me generous decants from her treasured purchase. Though not until she had (quite rightly) copiously anointed herself with the opening spray (or three). It is as beautiful a scent as I was expecting, and now that I have tried it for myself, I can wholeheartedly endorse Tara's evocative review. The comfy sofa also gave me an opportunity to discreetly attend to T's own emerging blister collection with scissors and bandage I had thought to bring along - well, she did have one angry-looking patch on her right? heel. (For anyone studying the photo above, Tara does have feet really...!)

Callum of Les Senteurs

By now, Val's coffee deficit was reaching critical levels, so we legged it round the corner to a cafe, where Tara treated us to the pick-me-up beverage of our choice - a big pot of tea in my case.  Here we chatted about life in general and got to know one another better. As is so often the way in Perfume Land, you could take our hobby away from us all and we would still have loads in common and ample foundation for a good friendship. Then it wasn't long till the first hunger pangs stirred, so we introduced Val to Roti Chai, the modern Indian restaurant round the corner, which a bunch of us had frequented on the night of Neil Chapman's talk on vanilla for Perfume Lovers London back in March. The food didn't disappoint this time round - Tara and I had the chicken curry I really rated from that earlier visit, while Val opted for a spicy dish involving chilli and paneer.

Tara at Roti Chai

Val also tipped me off about the pretty groovy Ladies toilet downstairs, and so it proved. The compact sink was by the sleekly modern brand Duravit - oh, the one at Les Senteurs was by Laufen if anyone is curious, and there was additionally an amusing sign over the toilet which I resisted the urge to feature here...;)

Generous edge for putting stuff on this Duravit sink!

In no time at all, it was the parting of the ways again and I reluctantly headed back to Stafford.  As in February, the presence of a (by now half eaten) cookie on the train home reminded me that the day's events had not all been a pleasant dream.

Well, not just a cookie, even, for between the pair of them I had taken receipt of a number of decants and samples, a tea towel (Portia, what have you started?) and a tube of Bergsalz from Austria (mountain salt). Goodness, I have just read the label and it turns out to be very ancient stuff indeed. If I looked that bright and sparkly after 150 million years buried deep in the Alps, I'd be well pleased.

So yes, a big thank you to Tara and Val, Nick and Callum for a hot, happy and fragrant day out that I will remember for a long time to come...let's do it all again soon!

Penhaligon's Tralala review - the dressing up box, bottled

Source: fragrantica

This isn't going to be another medical post (promise!), but it is relevant to mention that the health issues I have at the moment - with their common theme of 'lowness' (low iron, low blood sugar, low thyroid function) - are also associated with symptoms variously described as fuzzy thinking, poor concentration, confusion and my personal favourite, 'mental fog'. And based on a set of blood results from a few years back, which have only just caught the doctor's eye, I can in fact legitimately claim to have been suffering from mental fog for some considerable time now. A retrospective excuse might come in handy too, I sense.

In parallel, I am starting to wonder if I may also be afflicted with nasal fog, for my nose is not as sensitive as it used to be, and goodness knows it has never been great.  I struggle to pick out more than one or two notes in perfumes these days, or completely misinterpret the basic composition of a scent. Case in point - I just bagged a bargain part bottle of Aftelier Perfumes Haute Claire from Freddie of Smellythoughts, who is selling off a fair chunk of his collection.  That's a perfume I thought was based around the scent of narcissus, Le Temps d'une Fete-style, but its main notes turn out to be galbanum, ylang-ylang and orange. At least galbanum conveys greenness of some kind! Interestingly, another scent of which Haute Claire reminds me is DelRae Debut, which also smells of narcissus to me, and which contains lime, linden blossom, green leaves and ylang-ylang - so maybe I register ylang-ylang + miscellaneous greenness as narcissus.

Source: youtube.com

But what of Tralala, I hear you say?  This quirky new release is a collaborative venture between fashion label Meadham Kirchhoff and Penhaligon's.  Meadham Kirchhoff was founded by Edward Meadham and Benjamin Kirchoff in 2006, and the relationship between the two brands goes back some time. Meadham Kirchhoff have been using Penhaligon's perfumes to scent their fashion shows, notably with Hammam Bouquet, which both designers cite as their all-time favourite scent. And now they have their own edp, created by Bertrand Duchaufour.

Well, obviously I had to google this pair,to get a feel for their aesthetic, and very flamboyant and outlandish it is too.  And colourful and a lot of fun: its latest collection features tweedy boxy suits accessorised with glittery and feathery bits, and clumpy platforms reminiscent of geisha shoes or something Dave Hill might have sported in the heyday of glam rock. In past catwalk shows, the models' pallid complexions were daubed with bright splashes of lipstick - not always on the mouth, I might add - evoking a geisha vibe. There are echoes of that - and also of marionettes and circus side shows - in the clownish doll's head on the bottle, which to me looks like a slightly creepier version of a Harajuku Lover doll, though The Black Narcissus finds it cute enough.  He references Punch & Judy in his review, and the grotesque element in carnival entertainment. There is also a teasing tension between the extrovert outfits and make up and the inscrutable expressions on the models' faces.   I had a look at a video of the Tralala launch and thought: 'Golly, those girls all look very young', only to realise it was a collection for Top Shop.

Source: stylenoir.co.uk

Watching that video, the overriding impression of the clothes being modelled was that it looked as though the young teens had raided their mum's - or grandmother's - dressing up box and make up stash. I had a real throwback to my own childhood, when I would top off some oversized, overly grown up outfit featuring tulle and fur and kitten heeled slingbacks with the ludicrous application of emerald green eye shadow - in matt pressed powder form - along with powdered rouge in a little round cardboard pot, powder being a significant theme here to which I will return.

And while researching the Meadham Kirchhoff label, I chanced upon this piece in Vogue, whose author had had the exact same take on this Autumn/Winter 2014 collection:

"Shapes were exaggerated, and things took on a dressing up box feel. It looked like they had each been sourced after a raid from a wealthy great aunt's wardrobe or a vintage shop in Knightsbridge or some other nice neighbourhood..."

Source: londonfashionweek.co.uk

And so to the scent itself, which has proved a particularly keen challenge to my blunted schnozz.  The first time I tried Tralala all I got was a whoosh of aldehydes and an ambience of FM Lipstick Rose - something powdery and retro - quite literally the smell and texture of the vintage make up I was using in my dressing up games. At the same time, it was what I can best describe as self-consciously artificial rather than synthetic in a cheap drugstore perfume sense. The next couple of times I tried Tralala I didn't really get much more, which was the catalyst for this whole notion of my 'nasal fog'.  Then at the weekend I detected a third accord, hot on the clumpy enormous heels of the Lipstick Rose impression - a sort of darker, liqueur-y whiff, mixed into the cosmetics scent.  And as the scent wore on, it dried down to a powdery, faintly boozy and softly suede-y whisper.  And finally comes what Tara so aptly described as the 'comfy jogging bottoms' phase, with a sweetish vanilla and incense accord uppermost to my nose, and not a lot else.  Slight shades of Eau Duelle at this point, which is probably why I like it a lot. If Tralala was a woman, she would be a heavily made up blonde swathed in a cloud of Chanel No 5 propping up the bar in a speakeasy, knocking back shots. Someone looking like Marilyn Monroe springs to mind - because of the No 5 connection, I mean - though I gather her preferred tipple was champagne, if she even frequented bars that is.

Source: Wikiipedia

And that is all I have to say on the matter of the scent's development, but I do think it is a great fit with the fashion aesthetic of Meadham Kirchhoff which, on the face of it, is fairground fantasy meets geisha house meets granny's wardrobe and Slade stage wear c1971.

Here are the notes, which are impressively odd.  I salute Penhaligon's for having come up with a surprisingly wearable fragrance, notwithstanding its eclectic kitchen sink note list and retro vibe.  But 'vintage' is having more than a moment at the moment, and old may be the new new...

Notes: aldehydes, saffron, whisky, ambrette seed butter, galbanum, violet leaf absolute, carnation, leather, tuberose, ylang ylang, orris, incense, myrrh, resinoid, opoponax absolute, patchouli, vetiver, cedarwood, heliotrope, musk, vanilla

Dave Hill of Slade ~ Source: everyrecordtellsastory.com

And no assessment of this perfume would be complete without some discussion of the name. 'Tralala' is first and foremost a happy-go-lucky refrain denoting general merriment, yet the name caused a bit of a PR incident earlier this year, because of reported darker associations in the minds of Meadham Kirchhoff with the prostitute called Tralala in the book/film Last Exit to Brooklyn. Suffice to say the Tralala in question met an extremely nasty end.  The relevant quote was in a now excised article in Cosmopolitan, and the controversy is explored in Robin's post on Tralala (and the ensuing comments) on Now Smell This. Matthew Huband of Penhaligon's also chimed in to nudge the brand back towards its official - and entirely wholesome - positioning:

"We'd just like to clarify that the name Tralala is simply an innocent and musical expression which reflects the fragrance. The perfume is rich, whimsical and nostalgic in Penhaligon's best tradition, as you'd expect."

And here is a video of Bertrand Duchaufour talking about the development of Tralala, in which he homes in on the myrrh and leather in the base of the composition, harnessed to conjure up old photos, artefacts and textiles from the early 20th century.



Hmm, I feel uncomfortable now about my image of the trolleyed blonde at the bar, though that is what popped into my head when I was contemplating the aldehydes-make up-whisky axis. I was even starting to wonder whether the lopsided bow was not merely a kooky touch, but suggestive of clothing in a state of disarray? Even the expression on the doll's face looks almost supplicatory - or not particularly happy at least. Though hold on, my mind may be running away with me....

Plus I have not finished with the meanings of Tralala yet, not at all.

In French, 'en grand tralala' means 'dress up' (we are back to my charades image), while 'tralala' on its own in French can mean pomp and ceremony, a lot of extravagance and publicity designed to impress - or it may mean complexity, fuss and general hoohah, every nuance of which sounds to me like an excellent description of the Meadham Kirchhoff brand.  So those connotations would have resonated with Bertrand Duchaufour once the name had been chosen, which was admittedly some time into the development process.  Though it doesn't quite explain the whisky note.

And then there is this excerpt from an interview with Duchaufour on Fragrantica in January, which sheds more light on the perfumer's interpretation of the Tralala brief - I could imagine that there might well be a decanter of whisky on the grandparents' sideboard, for every other facet in the composition now falls into place:

"And I came to work on purpose on an old-fashioned accord reminding of L'Heure Bleue de Guerlain, L'Aimant de Coty, things like that. They wanted something powdery, deep, even dark, leathery, with animalic connotations, evoking nostalgia of childhood (linked with the grandparents' moods), old stuff, old lace and lacework, old images, icons under broken glass, as sepia-toned pictures and relics under glass bells."

Source: propstudios.co.uk

Meanwhile, over on Colognoisseur, Mark Behnke remains conflicted by the composition:

"Except I've smelled the fragrance and 'rich, whimsical, and nostalgic' doesn't accurately describe it. The adjectives I would use are 'dangerous, edgy and retro'. Which is where the disconnect happens: this fragrance clearly is going for danger as whisky, leather and patchouli are not the ingredients of nostalgic whimsy. They are exactly as was stated the milieu of Tralala, the fictional character."

I have since found an interview Penhaligon's conducted with Meadham Kirchhoff in April, several months after the pre-launch kerfuffle.  In it the duo explain that the name is just a bit of lighthearted tomfoolery.

Edward: "I woke up the morning after our show and I just knew that we should call it 'Tralala' and could envisage exactly how it should look. I loved Tralala because it had no pretensions, no specific connotations, it just sounds sort of humorous and nonchalant but looks really good written. It has a nice rhythm to it."

Source: Wikimedia Commons via Wilhelm Joys Andersen

Oh, and who knew that 'tralala' is also a euphemism for a male body part?, as featured in the 'Ding Dong Song', a chart hit for Swedish pop singer Guenther.  It was originally released as 'Tralala' by the Dutch band Phil & Company in 1984, so whether such musical precedents will kibosh sales in those countries, I couldn't begin to speculate.

Then of course 'tralala' is also what you say when you have your fingers in your ears - metaphorically or otherwise - and are tuning out to someone who is saying things that you don't wish to hear.

As for me, I shall tune out to any controversy surrounding Tralala's backstory and enjoy the perfume on its own merits.  I think Tralala is a very original and striking scent - sinister head, wonky bow and all.  I do really like the box, mind, which was modelled on an old-fashioned musical jewellery box.

Oh, and I have just received a sample of a perfume called 'Junky', which takes its inspiration from the novel of that name by William Burroughs.  Now Burroughs wasn't the most savoury individual to put it mildly, but a spliff-themed whiff is surely worth a sniff.