A 24 Karat Caress: Pure(distance) GOLD "review" (aka enthusiastic ramblings)

Or should that be "Karess"? Maybe not, as the word looks too far removed from its original spelling and meaning to be recognisable. Actually, a number of possible titles sprung to my mind for this post, unusually for me, including "Opulent Skin Scent" and "Molten Luxury". I could perhaps park this "not really a review, as my posts never are these days" right there, because those three images sum up most of what I have to say about GOLD, but readers don't get off that lightly, so I shall meander on regardless...!

Yes, a parcel from Puredistance arrived the other day, as I was right in the midst of a distressing multi-lateral mouse infestation. The "errant varmint" (as I would call them if I were American) laid waste to my best, most expensive - and previously pristine - sofa, along with a Welsh dresser, which is only mine on a long loan basis. When I say "laid waste", that is a literal definition of what occurred, accompanied by a frenzied side of cushion and quilted throw chewing. So the arrival of the parcel, with its gold-themed contents, cheered me up considerably - and this long before I opened the box.

Puredistance packaging is very nicely coordinated, such that I was happy to contemplate the ribbonry - ribbonage? - for a whole evening before steeling myself to (irrevocably) undo the bow and broach the box within. I love a good ribbon, and made a mental note to repurpose it in one of my knitted hot water bottle covers. I even have some matching old gold yarn ready to roll.

But eventually the following day my curiosity got the better of me and I opened the box, to reprise the famous line in 'Take your Pick', that hoary old game show of yore. The test tube 'bottles' come in burnished metal these days, and have a little bicycle clip round the neck. I am not quite sure of its function - maybe to forestall leakage - nothing to do with keeping trousers away from chains, obviously.

The people at Puredistance had enclosed a pack of postcards covering different aspects of the background to the fragrance. The image below on one of the cards illustrates the artistic idea for GOLD, namely to recreate in olfactory terms multi-tonal gold blocks in the style of a Mondrian painting - or Mondriaan with an extra 'a' if you are Dutch, and they are.

"Antoine Lie created GOLD to finish a trilogy showcasing the 3 signature Puredistance colours using incredibly high quality ingredients. The visual inspiration for GOLD has been the 'Metallized Mondriaan' above (created by Mr Vos). Chic shades of gold - varying in intensity and warmth - are harmoniously laid out in a well balanced pattern."

Here are the notes - I have omitted whether each one is essence or absolute etc, but the ingredients are pretty sumptuous all right.

Top notes: Green mandarin, Bergamot, Pink peppercorn, Rosemary, Clove buds
Middle notes: Jasmine, Ciste, Geranium, Cinnamon bark
Basenotes: Styrax, Benzoin, Myrrh, Patchouli, Vanilla green beans, Tonka beans, Castoreum, Vetiver

Source: waterforum.net

Two thoughts about this - well, three, when I get to it - namely that I have an odd link with Mondriaan and The Netherlands: In 2002 I had occasion to go to Dordrecht, an underrated town on the coast, to interview a chemicals company about I know not what now. The meeting was held in a big office, on the white wall of which was an enormous Mondriaan painting - well, not an original I assume - in those typical striking shades of red, blue and white, with a hint of yellow, and black borders in between the blocks of colour. The memory has stayed with me ever since. It was long before I 'found' fragrance, and I little knew at the time that one day I would be sampling a Dutch scent inspired by the painter - and loving it...

Source: spoonflower.com

Secondly, it occurred to me that that multi-tonal assembly of blocks is reminiscent of a bronzer palette, a make up item with which I have never engaged. Maybe even one to do with contouring, a technique about which I am on even shakier ground! But you know what I mean. I have an Estee Lauder capsule weekend makeup palette somewhere and it also illustrates the point, albeit in less metallic / goldy terms.

So that was that...I already liked the premise of the scent before I sniffed it. And when I did I was not disappointed. Long term readers may recall my post about Apres L'Ondee and Virginia Woolf, in which I mention how a review by journalist Hannah Betts was a major trigger for my falling down the rabbit hole.

"I also experienced 'sudden onset perfume mania', but for me it was not so much a fragrance which triggered this epiphany, as a review of a fragrance, namely Hannah Betts’ 2005 article for The Times on 'glacial perfumes'.  She starts by quoting former French Vogue editor Joan Juliet Buck’s comment about her heightened emotional response to narcissus absolute.

'Just a drop on each wrist and two in the bath were enough to send silver running down the walls. It set the world throbbing out of control when I wore it. I became a little weird.'

Betts point outs that the sense of silver trickling down bathroom walls is all the more pronounced if the perfume already smells of silver – 'then walls course all the sooner'.  This leads her neatly into a discussion of her own favourite cool, metallic scents, namely Après L’Ondée and Hiris by Hermès, and how this effect is created by the use of orris butter, one of the most expensive perfumery materials of all, a creamy paste derived from the iris root."

I refer back to that pivotal moment in my hobby, for it struck me that Puredistance GOLD could be the gold equivalent! There may just be a clue in the perfume's name...;) It is warm to silver's cold, but stops well short of hot. Call it the power of semantic suggestion, but when I first sprayed GOLD, I had a sense of liquid slowly creeping across my skin in a soothing way, as though my skin were being dipped in fine gold leaf. And there it sat, the ultimate skin scent, with a very subtle opulence to it, though as ever I find it awfully hard to describe. I can say that when I first sniffed GOLD, an image popped into my head of the love child of Opardu and Sheiduna, but I don't want to imply too much by that - only to report that it happened(!). Though there is a fair bit of crossover notewise with Sheiduna, I see (7-8 notes, even), while GOLD and Opardu both feature jasmine. I may be clutching at straws there, admittedly.

GOLD is a smooth, silky, ever so slightly sweet oriental. There is not a hint of resinous fuzz, or only the faintest murmur at the outset, despite the several basenotes that can read that way: myrrh, benzoin etc. Sheiduna is definitely more overtly fuzzy in that regard. I have quite a high tolerance for fuzzy notes in fact, though some of the Tauers can be a bit scratchy. But in any case, GOLD soon subsides into the silky - and slinky - concoction mentioned above. It feels luxurious in a 'barely there' kind of way. As with Bengale Rouge and Papillon Perfumes, this latest release is my standout favourite of the line, and I speak as someone still fiercely attached to Puredistance1.

Then it occurred to me that I could have posted about GOLD in my 'Careful Whispers' series - whatever happened to that? It seems to have stalled in 2014! But I see that one of the scents included was Penhaligon's Iris Prima. GOLD has a bit of the vibe of that scent too, but with more oriental notes and overall oomph. A skin scent with 'lo-fi welly' if you will, which I know sounds paradoxical, as does 'opulent' in this context, come to think of it, conjuring up a grander, more unctuous production as a rule. But nevertheless GOLD really does manage to be both.

And finally, a word on Karats...18K tends to be the standard for jewellery, as it has a percentage of alloys that increase the metal's strength. By contrast 24K is the purest grade, but is not considered robust enough.

However the purer 24K is perfectly suitable to spray in perfume form(!). And there's a clue in the brand name too...

Mini-leopard in the boudoir: Papillon Perfumery Bengale Rouge 'review'

Source: eBay

Topic advisory: this post may end up being more about cats than the upcoming release from Papillon Perfumery, the 6th perfume in Liz Moore's carefully curated scent stable. That is no reflection on the merits of the fragrance itself, which has all the hall- - and paw- - marks of a (highly-hyphenated) feline-themed lemming-in-waiting, but rather on my own increasing shortcomings as a reviewer. The inability to parse notes is one aspect, for which some combination of nose and brain are to blame, but I also struggle these days to even convey the overall 'vibe' or atmosphere of a perfume. I shall of course give it my best shot, confident that there will be other reviews along shortly which will more than pick up the slack, if they haven't already indeed.

But first, to cats. I received this sample in the post at the weekend, along with an amusingly surreal card painted by Liz's artist friend Tracy Dovey. "Those fish aren't long for this world", was my first thought. "That poor woman is going to stink of them", was my second - assuming she escapes the cat's embrace, which is moot. The sample was accompanied by a note list written on the back of a photo of Liz's beloved cat Mimi, one of her Bengal harem.

In an exchange following my receipt of the package, Liz explained the inspiration behind Bengale Rouge:

"...little Mimi was my muse for the new perfume. It is my attempt at recreating the scent of her fur, which is generally a mix of cat or any fragrance that I seem to be wearing."

Mimi muffler

While here Liz seems to be wearing her cat...;)

A bit of background may be in order on these 'mini-leopards', as they have been dubbed by the magazine, 'Your Cat'. Today's Bengals are descended from the Asian leopard cat, which was bred with regular moggies. Prized for their beautiful markings, 'Your Cat' goes on to describe them as 'a domestic cat in wild wrapping'. The Chairman of the Bengal Cat Club has likened them to the Duracell bunny on account of their boisterousness and boundless energy, which - as Liz would be the first to admit - often spills over into 'a funny five minutes'. She rather aptly calls her home in the New Forest 'the funny farm', which is at least in part a reference to the madcap behaviours of the cat contingent rather than just the foibles of her human family. Here is Noo, eschewing her designated sleeping spot in order to luxuriate in a sea of discarded polythene, in time-honoured cat fashion.

Noo, coming over all unnecessary on some packaging

So we know that Mimi - and more specifically the smell of her fur - was the starting point for Bengale Rouge. But we don't know exactly how she smells. I am kicking myself now, as I have been to Liz's house a few times, and reckon Mimi would have been threading herself between people's legs on each occasion. I had the perfect opportunity to bury my nose in her fur and sniff her thoroughly, and would then be able to compare that scent memory with Bengale Rouge the perfume. Oh well, 'hindsmell' is a wonderful thing.

Mimi the muse

Hunting digression - contains upsetting scenes that some readers may find distressing

There is nothing for it but to compare the perfume with my own cat, Truffle. An important point to mention, with olfactory implications, is the fact that she and Mimi both go outside. In Mimi's case this is only during the day - to stop her wandering off under cover of darkness and into other people's homes, for which she has form apparently - whereas  Truffle pulls many an all-nighter on the tiles. This is of course prime hunting time, and Truffle's killing sprees have been escalating lately, Jack the Ripper-style. Only this time last week she brought in both a disembowelled starling AND a mouse in a similar state of intestinal disarray. In a curious presage of my writing this post, I had a nightmare the other day in which I conflated Liz's diverse menagerie with Truffle's prey, and dreamt that she had brought in a whole owl and a cock's head and neck. An owl would have been jolly tricky to pick up using only a bit of kitchen towel, my go-to disposal method on such occasions. In desperation, the next day I made Truffle wear a collar again for the first time in three years. And added a bell to warn wildlife of her approach! Tolling of bell = reduced death toll, was my thinking. It has worked a treat all week, until Sunday morning, when the pitter patter of rain helped disguise the telltale tinkle of the bell, and Truffle left me this on the landing...Hmm, she looks like she is sniffing the mouse there!

Not saved by the bell!

Despite their big cat vibe, Bengals are apparently not that bothered about hunting. Here is the Chairman of the Bengal Cat Club again:

"Bengals don't prey on wildlife. Even with their history and where they've come from, they're not mass killers. Bengals are generally not good hunters; they're more likely to just watch."

Goodness me, that gives a whole new meaning to the term 'peeping Tom'(!). So it seems like Mimi wouldn't need a bell then, even if she hadn't been grounded for sauntering nonchalantly into neighbours' houses. She is more likely to curl up on top of someone else's Aga than bring a brace of pheasant home at dawn, with or without their full quota of innards.

So given that she does go out (hunting!), Truffle's fur has its own innate animal smell, plus a few extra accords from the great outdoors. Chief amongst these is an earthy, patchouli-like scent from her routine latrine-digging in flowerbeds. I have often caught a hint of gravel or concrete too - some kind of stone, anyway - and when it has been raining, this of course morphs into the full petrichor, haha. Oh, as is the case for Liz with Mimi, there's also a smidge of whatever scent I am wearing thanks to my frequent nuzzling in her fur.

The particular sniffing action pictured below was staged specifically for this post, mind, and took about ten takes before I got both of us in the shot, and the shot vaguely in focus.

Notes: Turkish rose, orris, sandalwood, tonka, oakmoss, honey, vanilla, labdanum, benzoin, sweet myrrh

On first sampling Bengale Rouge, I was struck by how quiet it was compared to the big production bodice ripper that is Salome, and Liz agreed with me that it was more understated, adding that it was 'fluffier', and the 'softest' of her creations. I cannot convey how soft it is - I could have included Bengale Rouge in my 'Careful Whispers' series if I could have been bothered to work out from my archives which number it would be. Editor's note: No 4 at a guess, but I am not going to change the title now...!

From the off I have to say that Bengale Rouge smells a lot more like an indoor cat, notwithstanding Mimi's daytime excursions. Lose the earthy smell and the petrichor; there is none of that here. It is a 'Bengal with a bell' scent, ie de-wilded (no really, that is a word, like de-planed), even though we have established that it doesn't need to wear one. It is a mini- or should that be a Mimi-? - leopard in the boudoir, an image that came to me after I chanced across this item on eBay (see above):

HUGE BESPOKE BOUDOIR DOWNTON ABBEY STANDARD LAMPSHADE LEOPARD ANIMAL PRINT

This is not a Lipstick Rose kind of boudoir scent, mind - it is nowhere near as overtly feminine and stylised as that - but there's not a whiff of rock hyrax either. Bengale Rouge's fur is faintly sweet smelling and clean. It is a cat that has been freshly bathed and dusted down with talc. Yes, Bengals like water apparently, though I don't know quite to what extent. Truffle won't let me near her paws when she comes in muddy and sopping wet, though she is not averse to a quick back rub with a tea towel. Hmm, I should perhaps have said 'en suite' rather than 'boudoir', being less loaded with sexual imagery, but Bengale Rouge is still sensual all right, in a muted kind of way.

Then by analogy with the 'YLBB' style of lipsticks, I could say that this is '(The Scent of )Your Cat, But Better'. And if you aspired to be 'Catwoman', you might very well wish to smell like this. Bengal Rouge is unmistakably animal-like, thanks to the cunning interplay of the oakmoss, sandalwood, labdanum and myrrh - more so than a woman, yet more fragrant than a cat. Though not more fragrant than a cat that lives with a perfumer...!

Liz and Mimi, briefly tolerating the pose

On first spraying Bengale Rouge, I get a faint hint of rose trussed in a corset of oakmoss and labdanum, The overriding impression is smoky and resinous rather than floral, but I love labdanum, so that's okay.. Even the opening is quiet, then very soon the composition becomes wistful and attenuated, and very slightly sweeter as the honey and vanilla notes kick in, buttressed by puffs of orris and little wisps of incense. The myrrh does not have that vaguely static buzz you sometimes get with the note - for example in AG Myrrhe Ardente, where it fizzes like Pepsi or root beer. The overriding feel of Bengale Rouge is definitely more powdery. That and meditative, and Lord knows my cat sleeps a lot when she is not out killing things, so 'meditative' is the very word for it.

I should also mention my observation that over the course of writing this post, Truffle's scent has changed slightly. You wouldn't believe how many times I have toggled between sniffing my wrist and her fur! I am now getting a distinct aroma of carpet, which I swear wasn't there earlier, but which may simply be scent transference from her fabric collar to her head and neck area as she has been scratching herself. And there have been times in the past - most notably when she got stuck in a garage for 36 hours - that she ended up smelling primarily of cobwebs and piss. So while your cat's smell is very much a moving feast, as it were, Bengale Rouge has deftly rendered a generic 'base smell' that would be typical of most cats, then cleaned and prettied it up just enough to elevate it from smell to fragrance.

In short, Bengale Rouge is a ballgown scent without the va-va-voom. It's the ne plus ultra of discreetly mysterious sillage as you swish past in your bustle of silk. (Sorry, I have uncharacteristically been watching the period drama Gentleman Jack, but only because it's got swashbuckling, coal mine sinking Suranne Jones in it.) Bengale Rouge is where - perhaps counter-intuitively - orientals meet 'office appropriate'.  Through her ingenious blend of 'actual cat smell' and notes more closely associated with 'perfume properly speaking' Liz has delivered on the brief she set herself of recreating her 'collaterally scented cat'. And because of its quiet elegance - think Volutes edt, but even quieter and more refined, and I love Volutes! - Bengale Rouge is 'paws down' my favourite of the line to date.

Finally, here is Truffle, weary from her earlier mousing exploits, followed by a long stint of being the 'control' sample.

Truffle's bottom partially obscures the notes

PS Any fans of Volutes edt would love Bengale Rouge, I reckon. The scents have a similar languid vibe, and though the compositions are obviously different, there is some crossover of notes, namely iris, honey, benzoin and myrrh.

PPS Hmm...now Truffle has come in smelling of coal. I think I might start smelling people to work out where they have been.

Estee Lauder Intuition - The Missing Link?

You don't read much on the perfume boards about Estee Lauder Intuition. I am not sure I have ever seen it listed as someone's SOTD, nor have I come across a person wearing it, heard of anyone receiving it as a gift, or wanting to. You don't hear it cited as people's top lemming, and I doubt whether you can order a sample at The Perfumed Court. Just checked - you can't. My next door neighbour owns a bottle, but these days she favours Chanel Chance and Coco Mlle.

But I have a significant connection with this scent, for it is the only one I owned between the time of its UK launch in 2001 and my being struck down with "sudden onset perfume mania" in January 2008. I don't know exactly how or where I came to buy Intuition, but I shall take a flying leap and say that it could have been in a duty free shop in Lanzarote, where we holidayed that year. The fact that I don't remember anything about the circumstances of its purchase tells you all you need to know about my near indifference to perfume until comparatively recently.

I also have next to no memories of actually applying this scent, which doubtless explains why it was 98% full eight years after purchase. I probably wore it on a handful of special occasions that are now lost in the mists of time. Once perfume mania had taken hold, I was quick to have another sniff of it to remind myself what this haphazardly acquired "signature scent" actually smelt like. Only to find that the juice had gone off - not surprisingly, given its twin habitats of sunny bedroom windowsill and en suite bathroom. The dark amber liquid was a dead giveaway, had I known its significance at the time.

So, not long into my new hobby, I decided I should replace the bottle, as a tribute to the fragrance that connects the old "normal" - or some might say "sub-normal" - me with the current "abnormal", bonkers about perfume person I had abruptly become. I got a bargain on Ebay for about £15 and vowed to take greater care of it in future.

Any readers who have not tried Intuition may be curious to know a bit more about it. Classed as a "vanilla oriental" on Osmoz, it was created by Alberto Morillas, and the notes are as follows:

Top notes: Mandarin, Bergamot, Grapefruit

Heart notes: Gardenia, Rhododendron, Freesia, Double Delight Rose

Base note: Mineral Amber

I would liken it a little to the original Stella in terms of overall "vibe". Though Intuition has rose and amber like Stella, it is not noticeably rosy by comparison, grapefruit and citrus generally being the dominant characteristics both in the opening and for a large part of its development (though, not liking grapefruit as a food or drink, I may be picking up on the note more than anyone else would). Stella is more obviously feminine and sweet in its rosiness, but both scents have the same warm, powdery, amber base and a similar level of projection. By "powdery", I don't mean the sort of powder as you get in a classic Guerlain, but rather the modern, synthetic equivalent that stays just the right side of "furry", and which could be best summed up as "fuzzy". Some of Morillas' best work (ie scents of his that I particularly rate!) is also on the fuzzy side of things eg Bvlgari Omnia Crystalline, Armani White for Women, Armani Sensi and Kenzo Flower Oriental.

Going back to the comparison with Stella, I much prefer Intuition, but only when it mutes down into the drydown after about three hours - before that I still get too much grapefruit.

Here is one of the rare mentions of Intuition in a blog site review (The Scented Salamander). Mimifroufrou is actually writing about Amber Ylang Ylang, but at one point draws an interesting comparison between the Private Collection scent and Intuition:

"It (AYY) has the same soft, understated ambery aura. But where the diffusion of Intuition seems very calculated and is a veritable technical achievement in the art of the discreet sexy sillage, Amber Ylang Ylang is simpler in its aim to warm you and make you feel comfortable with just a suggestion of golden-skinned Mata-Hari, albeit safely held captive in between the leaves of a good adventures book."

I would agree that Intuition is sexier than AYY - and Stella, for that matter - as long as you have got well past the grapefruit business. I have to say that I am only dimly aware of the presence of the heart notes, even though you would think gardenia and freesia might register. I'll bet they are acting as a floral buffer between the citrus top and amber base, absorbing some of the hesperidic sharpness, but the overall effect is so blurry that I really cannot single out any flowers at all.

So would I wear Intuition now on a big night out? Almost certainly not, though it is a perfectly pleasant (grapefruit gripe aside), slightly sultry designer scent that used to fit that bill in the past, before I discovered "the drunkenness of things being various". And not only various, but in many cases, better.

But Intuition will always hold a special place in my collection - as a "missing link". Wikipedia gets to the heart of the matter:

"Transitional fossils (popularly termed missing links) are the fossilized remains of intermediary forms of life that illustrate an evolutionary transition. They can be identified by their retention of certain primitive (plesiomorphic) traits in comparison with their more derived relatives, as they are defined in the study of cladistics."

In a sense, my original bottle was a sort of "fossilized remains" - it was rancid, certainly - and I am sure you could have stood a spoon up in it. Moreover, it definitely "illustrates an evolutionary transition" in terms of my appreciation of scent, in the sense that I was on the cusp of a epiphany. And it is characterised by "certain primitive traits" (fuzziness! prominent grapefruit!) in comparison with its "more derived relatives", such as Guerlain's Plus Que Jamais, a superior floral oriental of more recent vintage. Okay, so I may be using "relative" in the loosest sense possible.

And I haven't studied cladistics either, come to that, but intuitively I know I am on to something here...