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| Source: viral.us |
So one of the perfume packages I was making up comprised a full bottle and a few decants, including one of Lalique Flora Bella. The very last of the bottle, as it happened. For anyone not familiar with this languid, milky, tropical-leaning floral, I have uncharacteristically featured / reviewed it twice - here and here!
But the subject of this post is not how Flora Bella smells, but rather its consistency or texture. Specifically, the fact that as I was decanting the last 15ml for a fellow perfumista, I couldn't help noticing that there were...ahem...'particulates' suspended in the juice, to borrow the technical term for those little 'bits' in soup and yoghurt. I might be inclined to describe them as 'foreign bodies', only it seems inconceivable that anything could have entered the bottle after manufacture. Which left the twin theories of the perfume itself separating out and emitting? / spawning? a shower of tiny white flecks, or some kind of partial disintegration of the plastic atomiser tube, my preferred theory.
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| Flecky Flora Bella |
This curious phenomenon reminded me fleetingly of those gold sparkle-type perfumes - Thierry Mugler Alien Eau Extraordinaire Gold Shimmer being one example that springs to mind, though there are others. You know, where the perfume has little flakes of gold shimmer deliberately added, so that it resembles a snow globe when you shake it, and the little gold bits add a glint to your skin. Come to think of it, the very best execution of this concept simply has to be Jean-Paul Gaultier's discontinued tuberose scent Fragile, where the bottle was an actual snow globe, but with gold rather than white flakes!
Anyway, this was not that, and the white flecks were certainly not some kind of 'late onset snow' that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
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| Source: fragrantica.com |
Obviously I 'fessed up to the prospective recipient that the Flora Bella was strangely adulterated in this way, and she gamely agreed to take it anyway, assuming it smelt the same, which it does.When I carried out a few test sprays, I had no sense of little white pellets landing on my skin like fine gauge ammo or - God forbid - dandruff! Or should that be the other way about in order of disagreeableness? Haha...now images of White Shoulders by Elizabeth Arden have just popped into my head. ;)
The parcel is still en route to my friend, but should make landfall this week. If there are any developments, either in terms of the flecks having disappeared - or multiplied(!) - in transit,I will be sure to do an update.
And in a curious coincidence, not only do we have an instance here of 'flecky Flora Bella', but there is a rather fine bluegrass / jazz fusion / funk rock band called Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.
Okay, so that was a bit contrived, but I toss it out there, much as this atomiser seems to be doing with its little white specks...
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| Source: fragrantica.com |
Have you ever observed any floating detritus in a perfume?
If so, whether 'small bore', or big chunks of flotsam or jetsam, do share your experiences of unexpected items in the spritzing area!
