A Twilight zone Tom Ford encounter, meeting the Undinas, extreme burritos, and pancake urges: Part Two

I don't know about you, but I find shoe shopping quite a fraught business. However, undeterred by my usual trepidation, I have just ordered a pair of grey lace up plimsolls online. Or sneakers, as American friends might term them. Or gym shoes - or gutties, indeed - as comes more naturally to me. Pumps, if you will. It took me over an hour to find 'the ones', though that was a vast improvement on the seven hours I spent researching microwaves recently. There are of course so many factors to consider:

• Price - £5.99 is worryingly cheap, while over £30 is pushing it
• Customer reviews on quality and fit
• Not having excessive lettering or logos
• Not having gratuitous colour accents that hamper outfit coordination
• Minimal white soles and toes - some of them look like a hovercraft
• Returns policy
• The website not making reference to 'millennials'

So this is the pair I have bought, for £25 including postage. Toes crossed!

I mention this purchase partly because as you know I have a habit of blogging about whatever happens to be uppermost on my mind at the time of sitting down to write a post(!), but also because there is a genuine link to the next part of my US tour post. In the end I decided to split it into three, so this is the perfume part. No, really it is!

A Twilight Zone Tom Ford encounter

For at the New York gig - held in Lower East Side's historic Bowery Ballroom - I hooked up with friend and fellow fan Brian, who is based in the Mid-West and had flown over specially, and his wife's cousin Peter, who lives in the city. Brian was keen for me to meet his cousin-in-law, for while his main business is an understated brand of Italian-made 'luxe sneakers' - he really does just say 'I make shoes' if you ask him what he does - Peter has been a creative and artistic director in various guises down the years. And one of his projects was coming up with the packaging design for the entire Tom Ford perfume line. (That's boxes and bottles.) This left field nugget of information knocked me properly for six, having owned examples of both the standard ribbed bottles and the tall rectangular version of the Private Blends collection. Peter readily admitted that it was just another brief for him, and that he doesn't have the same visceral connection to fragrance that we fumeheads have. Which makes it all the more of an achievement to have come up with such elegant and aesthetically pleasing designs. And in the case of the ribbed bottle, a haptically pleasing one to boot. (I promise I wasn't trying to shoehorn in a footwear pun there!)

Brian, Gerry and Peter

Anyway, Brian and Peter came out with us to dinner - stood us dinner, no less!, which was very kind - and then we all headed back to the venue. The gig went down a storm and garnered some very good reviews afterwards. I was chuffed to see my own handwritten set list feature in one of them. It even gets a mention in the title!

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-monochrome-set-bowery-ballroom-pics-setlist-video/

Source: P Squared 

After the show I got into conversation with some other fans, including Diane, whom I instantly recognised from the gig a couple of days previously in Philadelphia. I had clocked her there as a person who looked nice, and broadly my age, but never managed to have a word on that occasion. However, on seeing her again I didn't let the opportunity slip by, and soon we were chatting away at breakneck speed about all sorts of things. The speed being due to the fact that Diane had to catch the last train back to Philly shortly. And as we stood together, I noticed how good she smelt, and asked her what perfume she was wearing. "It's Tom Ford", she replied. Whoah, I thought. It is going to be one of those nights...! D wasn't too sure which, except that it had Vanille in the name. I think it may well have been Vanille Fatale, but will check. It has to be either that or Tobacco Vanille, but I think the word Vanille came first, which would point to the former.

Source: Fragrantica

Top notes: saffron, coriander, myrrh, olibanum
Heart notes: coffee, narcissus, frangipani
Basenotes: vanilla, mahogany, suede

Source: mixedgems.co.uk

Mixedgems closes her review with the observation: "This will be for you if you like to feel a ‘good enough to eat’ scrumptiousness when you catch an air of your fragrance." And having sniffed Diane I can but agree. As we were talking, we were joined by Bid, the singer, and at my suggestion he also leant in and had a sniff of my new fumehead/fan friend, whom he also pronounced to be very fragrant. While she had a reciprocal sniff of his chest, or what was visible of it, though I am not sure he even knew what he was wearing. The scene was all rather primal, indeed we were not unlike a trio of sniffer dogs - not to preempt a theme of Part Three, mind...;)

Meeting the Undinas

So that gig was on the Monday night, and by Friday we had made it to San Francisco, via Seattle, Portland and Redding. After the sound check, during which I diligently crafted my latest version of the set list (still without mistakes at this point!), the band headed off to one restaurant, Steve, our driver, peeled off to another to meet friends, while I hotfooted it to another eaterie again (all three in the vicinity of the venue) to meet Undina and her vSO. It was called Corridor, and we sat upstairs - that is our table for four - though we were of course three - in the far corner below the long mirror.

Source: Yelp

I had exactly two hours with Undina and her husband, which simply flew by. Having been in this exhausting but highly entertaining 'band on tour bubble' for the past ten days, where our whole routine is dictated by 'get ins' at gigs and radio stations, check ins at airports, and pick up times by vans and occasionally cabs, it took me a little while to adjust to being in the company of friends from a different sphere, though I have met Undina and her husband twice before, in Paris and London. And here I was on their home turf. It was all a bit discombobulating, but as lovely as ever to see the two of them. They kindly treated me to dinner too, and Undina gave me a zipped up cosmetics case full of samples, through which I am still steadily working my way, some six weeks on. Undina knows my taste very well, and the strike rate of success with this selection is pretty high, Maybe I could do a bunch of 'tiny unreviews of unprecedented vacuousness', as I keep promising Portia I will some day. Not that the perfumes don't deserve a better standard of review, it is just that I have such trouble describing what I smell. Shortly after 10pm, the Undinas hurried back to their parking garage, as their ticket was about to expire, while I plunged back into the murky gloom of the venue and snapped back into tour mode, marvelling that that brief encounter with a favourite fumehead friend and her vSO had really happened...

The rather pink green room at Rickshaw Stop, SF

UPDATE: Have checked with Diane, and it was indeed Vanille Fatale she wore to such great effect!

Bonkers meets Crikey, in another happy intersection of the Perfumista and Monochrome Sets

Source: The Voodoo Rooms

It's good to have a hobby. Perfume, knitting, and the music of a particular band (no prizes for guessing which!) would be my top three. I have knitting friends, perfume friends, fellow music fans - and then very occasionally, friends who fall into more than one category. When that happens, it is as exciting to me as one of those uncommon astronomical events that I often forget to look out for - like the Super Blue Moon Eclipse in January, though I did catch that one, as it happens. The moon wasn't particularly blue though, or even what I'd call 'super', but I daresay these things are relative.

That said, 'knitting perfumistas', while not exactly two a penny, are by no means as rare as hen's teeth - and may in fact be commoner than I think. On the other hand, perfumistas who are also fans of The Monochrome Set are an altogether different - as in highly sliverish - intersecting set, in punning Venn diagram parlance. To date, for example, there is Val the Cookie Queen, who got into the music in the 80s, when she lived in Amsterdam. She and husband Chris have now clocked up four gigs with me in Germany and Austria, where she massively endeared herself to the band with epic feats of impromptu roadie-ing.

Up next is Katie Puckrik, who attended her first Monochrome Set gig in 1980, the same year as me, though she saw the band in Washington DC, and I saw them in the Tottenham Court Road(!). I cannot honestly say whether Katie has an ongoing interest in the music, but I am shoehorning her into our intersecting set until I hear to the contrary!

Then we have Susanna Pellinen, who was a moderator on Basenotes about ten years ago when I used to hang out there - and may still be, indeed! - it's just that I never visit the site now. I know Susanna has a ton of Monochrome Set records, as she has posted attractive montages of her collection on the band's Facebook page, though I can't speak to her gigging history.

But the most striking and dramatic crossover of our two sets has to be Rachael Potts. Rachael has the double distinction of being a perfumista and married to Tony Potts, the band's video maker of yore, who is widely regarded as the TMS equivalent of 'The Fifth Beatle'. Rachael was arguably catapulted into fandom by dint of her attachment to Tony, rather than getting into the band organically like the rest of us through the normal channels of record shops, the NME, the John Peel show etc. However, she is now a card carrying lover of the music in her own right, quite independently of spousal influence / three line whippery. ;)

Finally I could count a slightly looser category of people associated in some way with The Monochrome Set, namely those whose interest in niche perfume I have in some way encouraged - equating to a small handful, certainly. Posts about my fragrancing exploits within the wider band scene do pop up from time to time, for example about Jessica of The Would-be-goods, and her (now happily concluded) rose perfume quest.

Source: Edinburgh Spotlight

And then recently....drum roll...a reader of various perfume blogs (including Bonkers) named Crikey 'came out' as someone who had been to a Monochrome Set gig in the mid-90s, at the 12-Bar Club in London, right before the group split up (again!). I only went to three gigs in the 90s - none of them beyond 1992 - so I was most interested to hear of someone who heard their UK swan song, as it were. Though the swan turned out to have strong phoenix-like proclivities, for here they are, still touring some 20+ years later.

But firstly, how good an Internet handle is Crikey? So quintessentially British, so understated and faintly retro. I am not aware of a blog reader called 'Blimey' or 'Golly', but there is surely a vacancy for both. Crikey and I have engaged in a few perfume swaps, plus she had the misfortune to win one of my most ludicrously lacklustre raffle prizes - a strangely sexist perfume book focusing on mainstream classics of the 20th century - so, you know, we had already had a bit to do with each other postally, and by email.

But when I heard Crikey was thinking of coming to a gig in her home town of Edinburgh in April, I was beyond delighted! There were several concerts in a northern cluster, and I managed to get round them all as well as spending several nights with Sibling and SIL Bonkers (aka Hazel). The Edinburgh gig was the last date, held (as is customary) in the highly characterful Voodoo Rooms, noted for its fin de siecle grandeur, and featuring ornate chandeliers, gilded swag-type architectural mouldings, and special offers on gin. It was in The Voodoo Rooms that I famously spotted an Andy Tauer lookalike called Graeme, and ended up devoting a whole post to this remarkable Doppelgaengerish incident.

Crikey and I didn't make a specific arrangement to meet in advance, as I wasn't sure quite what was happening in terms of my own logistics, plus those of several other friends I knew were coming. These included my 'dancing partner' of 13 years, Ruth from Belfast, and a former band member from Staffordshire(!), now resident in Edinburgh. Things worked out really well though, for Crikey arrived just as our party were finishing eating, and we adjourned to another part of the bar for a proper chat - initially just the two of us, but gradually joined by Ruth, then the current keyboard player, Jon, then Sian, a former keyboard player(!), and last but not least Jane Barnes, the promoter.

While the two of us were together, Crikey most generously gave me a little travel pot of Frederic Malle's Portrait of a Lady, which just happens to connect me to two of the other fumehead fans I have come to know - Katie Puckrik and Val. For when I first properly met Katie she was wafting PoaL on her pashmina - my first encounter with the scent too - while Val has worn it to at least one TMS gig. I distinctly remember her spritzing herself with abandon with PoaL in an underground car park in Augsburg, though not on the most recent occasion, when she was rocking Dior Oud Ispahan. But PoaL is an absolute link amongst us all now - a gossamer scented thread, if you will - and I have worn it several times since I got home, enjoying in particular the intensely rosy note in the drydown.

Before the others joined us, Crikey and I also had time for a 'turbo download' about our respective lives: Crikey is a world class power lifter in her spare time, lifting being another thing she has in common with Val, along with statement lippie, short stature, a love of cats, and more besides. I was also pleased to hear about - and see photos of - Crikey's two cats, the charmingly chubby-cheeked Herschel and the newest addition, monochrome-themed ;) Atkins. In case anyone is curious, Crikey was sporting Encens Mythique d'Orient by Guerlain, while I was in my new winter squeeze (it was still winter then, believe it or not!) of House of Cherry Bomb Immortal Beloved.

And then before we knew it, it was time to go into the venue itself, as the gig was about to start. Jane had thoughtfully reserved a table for our party near the front, so we had the option of sitting or standing, and most importantly, somewhere to deposit coats, bags and drinks!

Crikey told me afterwards that she had very much enjoyed the set - and later in an email added that it had serendipitously featured a number of her favourite tracks - but sadly had to head home straight afterwards, as it was technically a school night, as it were. The rest of us took root at our table, and had an interesting conversation about how all people can be divided into one of two types, foxes and hedgehogs (FYI, I count myself as an out-and-out hedgehog, though with a small 'standby' fox somewhere deep inside, to be deployed in dire emergencies). We also drank the remains of the wine rider, and were finally ejected by the venue staff in the wee small hours (as is also customary).

The next day, I bumped into Jon, who mentioned that he would be glad for me to find him a perfume if I was up for that, and that he was completely open in terms of fragrance style. Are bears Catholic?!?! So I eagerly said yes, and now I would be grateful if readers could help me with that. For info, Jon has long hair and a beard, but typically wears gender bending stage outfits that nod towards the 70s. Here he is in Newcastle the other night...while the shot above was taken in Germany or Austria - I can't quite remember which. ;)

Any suggestions gratefully received! I hope to assemble a little clutch of half a dozen or so samples for him to try. So far I have set aside Rima XI, as it is a wispy woody number that might fit the bill. I wouldn't exclude an outright feminine fragrance either. Also, Jon enjoys a swift half or two, so I wondered also about Penhaligon's Tralala, which has a whisky note and even features in the lyrics of a TMS song!

Finally, I have the good fortune to be seeing Val and Tara and a whole clatter of other perfumistas tomorrow in London! No more TMS fans to my knowledge in our midst, though I should perhaps just check....

Jon looking happy on a train

A spritzing blitz in London with Tara and Undina: Day 2 - Ormonde Jayne, Selfridges, Les Senteurs, & opaque bottle overload

Avery scent animals

Day 2 of my London trip dawned sunny and warm. Obviously, in my windowless room I learnt this from my phone, not empirical evidence. I was due to meet Undina and her vSO at their Airbnb flat at whatever time we all surfaced, a relaxed arrangement of which I heartily approved. Just as well really, for having ascertained that it was in fact morning, and with devices fully charged, I soon ran into another logistical snag: the mirror in the bathroom misted up following my shower, and in the absence of ventilation took over half an hour to clear again, rendering makeup application a hit and miss affair involving a compact mirror propped up on a pillow. The cord of the hair dryer wouldn't have stretched as far as the en suite anyway, so I cut my losses and blow dried my hair from memory. It didn't look too bad, considering, albeit the ends were all pointing the same way - as in towards the hotel exit.

It was about 10.30am by the time I arrived at Undina's and her vSO's place, luggage in tow. Having stashed it in a corner of their living room, we sat down to an impromptu breakfast of cheese, crackers and truffles (I like the cut of their culinary jib!), washed down by two mugs of most superior Earl Grey. I was intrigued to see Undina put marmalade in her tea, which I hadn't come across before, but a spot of googling confirms it as a thing. Then I was excited to note that their accommodation had the exact same make and model of bathtub (Carron Delta!) as in my bathroom, along with towels the colour of the woodwork - Purbeck Stone, to any Farrow & Ball fans out there - which made me feel even more at home.

Before we set off, Undina helped rationalise my bags and applied a prophylactic blister cream to my heels, as I wasn't wearing any form of hosiery that day. I did say in Part 1 that I love being 'straightened out' by Undina, and I really meant it! I think I was quite good during the day at keeping my one remaining bag shut (and safe from robbers, a tip I learnt from Undina in Paris), but my persistent habit of walking fast and/or jaywalking between parked cars needed periodic reining in. Undina's vSO came with us, and did his usual thoughtful peeling off trick in search of blokey emporia at each of our perfume destinations.

Royal Arcade, Old Bond Street

Ormonde Jayne

First up was Ormonde Jayne's original store in Royal Arcade, Old Bond Street, where we quickly got chatting to two ladies from South Carolina - serious fragrance lovers who were just off the plane and ready to pound the pavements between perfumeries on a major acquisition offensive. Undina was able to help them out with information on reclaming VAT and/or getting their purchases past customs - I was only listening with half an ear at this point, as it didn't apply to me - and they were fulsome in their thanks for her seasoned advice.

At Ormonde Jayne, Undina was keen to sniff Jardin d'Ombre again - on skin this time - though it can only be bought at Fortnum & Mason. Meanwhile, my wrist was deployed as a scent mule for Ambre Royal, a Harrods exclusive. Jardin d'Ombre seemed promising to begin with - a citrusy green floral reminiscent of Tiare - but as the day wore on, it collapsed down to a nondescript blur of cleanish musk. Ambre Royal was a pleasant fuzzy amber, but we both felt we had that box ticked already in our respective collections, so it too was ruled out of our inquiries, along with Sensual Lover and Passionate Lover. The names alone of that pair might have done it for me, to be fair. And I speak as a huge admirer of Ormonde Jayne, one of the brands with which I have historically had the best 'strike rate'. I once likened their original range to a fragrance capsule wardrobe. I even thought up actual outfits to go with each one. ;) And Ta'if is possibly in my top two fragrances of all time - certainly my top five. However, Ormonde Jayne's range seems to have mushroomed since I last looked, as well as adopting an exclusive positioning (in terms of both distribution and pricing) on certain fragrances, and I must confess I find it harder to relate to the brand these days.

While in the Ormonde Jayne store we also sniffed the powdery, slightly oudy oriental, Rose Gold, which we both liked, even though it costs a wallet-whittling £345 for 120ml. Its manly counterpart, Black Gold, weighs in at a hefty £420 for 120ml, which would be exorbitant if it had in fact been actual oil. At Selfridges, our next stop, we encountered the third scent in the trilogy, White Gold, which was upcoming at the time of our spritzing blitz, but which has now been officially launched in that store, also on an exclusive basis. I liked White Gold even more than Rose Gold, to the extent that I shall post its notes, collated from Now Smell This.

Notes: jasmine absolute, white musk, orchids, leaf green molecule, pink pepper, mandarin, bergamot, clary sage, carnation, orris, freesia, vanilla, ambrette, cashmeran, amber, moss, tonka, labdanum, opoponax, vetiver and cedar.

Selfridges

We had estimated half an hour to 'do' Selfridges' - now even more extensive perfume halls than when I was last there - but thanks to the indefatigable patience of Undina's vSO, managed to renegotiate this to nearer an hour. In that time we scored samples of Rose Gold (Undina) and White Gold (me), and I was able to study the opaque bottles of this trilogy for the first time. Rose Gold was in a hot pink bottle that wouldn't look out of place on a Bond No 9, and which was also not dissimilar to my small pink knitting indeed. My views on opaque bottles are well documented elsewhere on Bonkers, but it doesn't stop me loving Amouage Honour Woman, say, and it wouldn't put me off White Gold either, had the price been right.

Editor's note: A reader has kindly pointed out that the bottle in the centre of this display in in fact ONE. I think the SA must have whipped a tester of White Gold out from behind the counter.

There was heaps more of interest in Selfridges, not least these animal-themed ceramic scent diffusers offered by Avery. (See also the pair of dogs at the top of the post. Undina and I scoured the fixtures in vain in search of a cat.)

Avery turned out to be the surprise stable for a host of brands, including ROADS Fragrances, which I have reviewed on the blog. I should point out that throughout the day, Undina had far more stamina than me for the actual business of sniffing, mainly from nozzles and on card. From time to time she would encourage me to join her in appraising something she considered of interest, or to ask my opinion on the notes we were smelling. (Tara would have been a better person to approach, had she been with us!) And here and there I got a rush of blood to the nose and got stuck in myself, notably when we came across the highly original - and punning! - Italian concept brand, Jusbox, whose bottles, sleeve notes, blotters, and assorted promotional material were based around the theme of vinyl records, the whole thing executed with gloriously whimsical attention to detail.

Undina and I were deeply impressed by the novelty of this brand, which had an extra resonance for me on account of my musical connections, and we tried them all on record-peeping-coyly-out-of-its- sleeve-shaped cards.

I initially thought I liked a spicy number called 14Hour Dream, but was quickly troubled by a phantom heliotrope note that I still seem to smell on the card some 10 days later.

We both liked Black Powder best, which is inspired by the 90s Grunge scene and its iconic spokesman, the late Kurt Cobain, and both came away with a sample. The blackcurrant top note caught Undina's fancy - no surprises there!

Notes: blackcurrant, apple, pimento, suede, tobacco leaf, olibanum, sandalwood, tonka bean, patchouli

We also swung by the Jo Malone concession briefly, where Undina public-spiritedly paused to refresh the 'tester stoppers' of one or two of their scents. I reminded myself how much I like Mimosa & Cardamom, and noted in passing that 30ml now costs £44 instead of £30 odd back in the day. I don't know if that is down to rising costs of ingredients or general opportunism, but prices of niche (I use the term loosely) seem to have increased across the board in recent years, with Roja Dove's line famously seeing the price uplift equivalent of a Harrier Jump Jet taking off from a warship. And being a bit of a born again tuberose lover, I also tried Tuberose Angelica, part of the Cologne Intense range, but it was too intense, sadly, despite a flurry of card wafting attempts to quieten it down.

Other highlights from our Selfridges session were the male fragrances, Layton and Pegasus from Parfums Marly, though I was found the fussy pink livery of the top-selling feminine scent, Delina, a tad disturbing.

It reminded me of talcum powder or those rather garish opaque Xerjoff bottles, and to my eye looked cheap, to be perfectly honest.

Source: essezna-nobile.de

Just around the fixture, I fell hard for Amouage Blossom Love, despite its also coming in a pink opaque bottle! The opening notes were like being in a pillow fight of orange-inflected petals, and again I feel moved to document the notes:

Notes: bergamot, heliotrope, amaretto, ylang, rose, cherry blossom, amber, tonka bean, vanilla and suede

Source: fragrantica

Well, well, I see there's an actual heliotrope note and it didn't bother me at all. Colour me inconsistent! We also smelt Bracken - again in Undina's case - and whilst I found it interesting, it was absolutely not my thing, and got progressively 'strange fruit-ier' as it wore on.

Don't ask!

It was way past lunchtime by now, and so we popped into the cafe on the corner by Les Senteurs for a quick snack to fortify us for the final leg of our sniffathon. And here we had another of those comedy moments when Undina and I discovered we were both carrying Dior lipsticks...in Paris it had been a case of 'Burberry bingo'. What are the chances of that? So obviously Undina's vSO had to photograph this uncanny coincidence...

'I'll raise you Pisanelle Pink!'

Les Senteurs

Undina's vSO sat on the famous stripey sofa to the rear of the store that is the ideal base for resting spouses, while Undina and I went for one last testing 'push', aided by the chatty and helpful Harley, who turned out to be proprietor Claire's niece. I daubed myself in Superstitious, the much talked about new release from Frederic Malle, in the hope that it would come up as prettily as on Tara; an hour or so into its development Undina and I remained to be convinced. I did come away with a sample to try further at my leisure, ditto one of ELDO's Fils de Dieu du Riz et des Agrumes, a bottle of which I definitely see in my future. Or more likely a split bottle with my friend Rachael Potts. I was also delighted to introduce Undina to Caron's Parfum Sacre, which I was hopeful she would like, and so it proved.

By five-ish we really were all sniffed out - okay, speaking for myself, I mean - for back at base, Undina went on to roll up a trouser leg and spray a sample I had brought for her to try on her knee (one of the few remaining clear spots left), before quickly rustling up a reviving meal of salmon and sour cream tortilla wraps. I will definitely try replicating that back home. I also extracted all Undina's blotters from between the leaves of my notebook where I was keeping them carefully separated for her, collected my luggage, and said my goodbyes. It was a real wrench, no question.

Not the ones we ate, but we discussed all meanings of 'tortilla'

Unfortunately, due to a conspicuous absence of tubes at Bayswater, I missed my (specific!) train back to Stafford. It took me eight conversations with staff at two rail companies and London Underground to extract a chit that confirmed the delay on the Circle Line (which they vehemently denied, but gave me the benefit of the doubt anyway!) to get my non-transferable ticket authorised for use on the next service, so I didn't have to buy a whole new single for the same money as my return. So that was a result, and only added an extra hour to my journey time.

So what did I learn over the course of the two days about the stage I am at in this hobby? Well, that I am somewhat less eager to try new scents than I was a few years ago, probably because I have so many things I feel I should use up first. However, I still have the capacity to get excited about new perfumes (and even crave bottles of them), though I might struggle to integrate them into my oversized collection without pangs of guilt.

And I also had further confirmation - not that it was needed - that it's the people in our perfume world who matter most. And that while fragrance is the catalyst for our bonding, if you took it away, the friendships would still have a momentum of their own...

NB Val gave me this bunny via Tara. It didn't make it beyond Rugby.

A spritzing blitz in London with Tara and Undina: Day 1 - Bloom Perfumery, a fried food frenzy, and a trickyHotel

Langley Court, home to Bloom Perfumery

Tara of A Bottled Rose and Val's daughter Hannah, aka the Blondeswunder, recently posted about their meet up in London earlier this month, including a sniffing, skincare and make up spree, some tasty street food, and a tour round Highgate Cemetery (not including George Michael's grave, as the guide was at pains to point out). For health reasons I wasn't able to make it down to join them for 'the graveyard shift', as it were, and though I was very sorry to miss Val, I had the opportunity to hook up with Tara last Sunday, along with Undina of Undina's Looking Glass and her vSO, whom I had not seen since our 2013 rendez-vous in Paris. They were spending a whole week in the capital, so it seemed like a golden opportunity to see them, given that they live over 5000 miles away in California.

Now I usually manage to pack quite discreetly for my trips, but Truffle happened to catch me in the act of fetching a case out from the cupboard under the stairs, whereupon the human's intentions were out of the bag, swiftly followed by my clothes going into it.

'I know those triangular things with clothes on, and they don't bode well.'

I think she also smelt a metaphorical rat at the sight of outfit contenders hung over the bed rail, and might reasonably have inferred I was going away for a week rather than one night. Hence her 'hangdog' look in the photo below. I've got all the animal metaphors going on, it would seem!

According to my time-honoured tradition - and despite considering myself a seasoned traveller - I forgot several things this time: antihistamine tablets, shampoo, and plasters (beyond the prophylactic ones I was stood up in - that were on my heels, I mean - which I knew would not survive a good wetting in the shower).

The journey to London was supremely slow, for on a Sunday the train wends it circuitous way through the little known outposts of Northamptonshire. I mean, whoever heard of Long Buckby, never mind wanted to go there any day of the week?

Tara and Undina had already got a few hours' sniffing under their belts and had lunch before I joined them around 4pm, though not before making a detour to my so-called easyHotel to check in. They were about to put me in a room on the ground floor when I reminded them that I had asked for an upper floor in the 'Special Requests' box, explaining that with the ground floor there is a risk people in the street might walk past your window and look in, possibly as you are getting dressed. So the hotel promptly put me in a room without a window instead, which I did not see coming. 'No chance of her being overlooked there', I bet they thought.

'The key to an easy night's sleep'...hohoho!

And not only did my room have no window, but it also lacked any furniture whatsoever apart from a bed - nor did it have any hangers, a bin, or a bedside light. Moreover, you had to choose between 'having the benefit of electrical current', as the estate agents say, and an unrelenting electrical hum. More on this anon, along with the geographical shortcomings of the electrical sockets. So yes, I am renaming the chain: 'reallyquitetrickyHotels'. And it is not as though I haven't stayed in this chain before, for example in Berlin last December, but the hotel in Old Street raised the bar in its testing of the customer's resourcefulness in the face of such compact and minimalist accommodation.

Having quickly freshened up (after a fashion ;) ), I made my way to Covent Garden, where I was due to meet Tara, Undina and her vSO in Bloom Perfumery. I was early, and popped into a nearby branch of MAC cosmetics to gaze in awe at the myriad shades of lipsticks that spanned several perspex display boards. I was drawn as ever to the pinky brown nudes of which I already own half a dozen variants, and accosted several young people eyeing up the same fixture to ask them to read the shade names that were in tiny lettering on the underside, before being momentarily sidetracked by two rows of astonishing Smartie-like colourways in purple and mauve, magenta and blue. I certainly did not need to know their names.

After a quick swoop on Holland & Barrett, where I picked up a bargain pack of sesame sticks and succumbed to an explosive piece of crystallized ginger they were giving away free at the till, I assumed a lookout position on the corner of Long Acre and Langley Court, the little alleyway in which the Bloom store lies tucked away. People-watching in London is as rewarding in my book as visiting any of the official tourist attractions the city has to offer, and even a ten minute stint didn't disappoint. I noted an emerging fashion trend for cut off bell bottoms-cum-sailor's trousers, while the sleeve style du jour that I can best sum up as an 'arm peplum' was also in evidence. And then all of a sudden Tara & co were there! Of course they arrived from the Floral Street end, so I didn't see them coming either...

Once in Bloom - notable for its open glass displays, exposed brick walls, and steel 'customer ladder' for reaching the uppermost shelves - Undina scoped the fixtures for brands that were either on her hit list or otherwise caught her eye, and got stuck straight in. My own MO was more desultory and haphazard, reflecting perhaps my current plateau phase in this hobby. I was genuinely curious about the Zoologist line, however, and tried a handful from that, including the upcoming addition, Camel. With a name like that it surely has to be a tobacco scent - as one of the others may be able to confirm. I do remember that my erstwhile nemesis Civet was surprisingly approachable, while 'floral fruity gourmand' Hummingbird by Shelley Waddington was a standout favourite.

Tara, looking winsome in 'Little Mermaid' pose

Later in the trip Undina rightly pulled me up for writing the name of a perfume on the same end of the blotter that I had sprayed with the tester. (Let me say right off the bat that I LOVE being 'straightened out' by Undina - she could do so all day long as far as I am concerned, with her uniquely endearing blend of common sense and motherliness.) Then additionally I see that I sometimes write on the opposite end to where I have sprayed, but then my writing may get jumbled up with the logo of the perfume house or store in question, such that I can barely make out the name later on. And occasionally, I do both ie spray and write on the end that already has writing on it.

We also had a browse through the Imaginary Authors range, whose bottles with their vintage scrapbook-like labels appealed to me, along with one or two of the admittedly quite straightforward - and inexpensive! - scents, though I am blowed if I can remember which ones now. I remember being intrigued by a perfume whose ingredients included 'the month of May', and marvelling at how they had managed to fit the whole of May in the same size bottle as the rest of the range. February might have been marginally less ambitious.

Then predictably the Beaufort range, which we briefly sniffed from the nozzle, only made me squeal ever louder with each one I tried. I am guessing their target audience is not lovers of dreamy summer florals like Songes. We also dabbled in the Dusitas, and I was quite taken with Issara, though I don't remember it reading as a fresh fougere, particularly. I also found myself muttering darkly over and over again that the sumptuously feminine floral, Melodie de l'Amour (featuring gardenia, tuberose, honey, peach and jasmine, to name some of the more punch-packing notes), would most likely give me a headache. 'Ooh, that would give me a headache....definitely give me a headache...oh yes, headache...mmm, headache...', and more of me banging on in that general throbbing, cerebral vein.

It was at that point that we spied a wrench** lying on the work surface, which is not something you see every day, least of all in a perfumery.

After about an hour Undina's vSO - who had peeled off to check out the menswear stores in the immediate vicinity - rejoined us, and we set off in an easterly direction in a bid to avoid the worst of the tourist crowds and find a quiet spot for a proper cup of tea (and coffee). Patisserie Valerie came up trumps, even though they expressly barred us from sitting at the far end of the cafe, for reasons none of us could fathom. Some kind of technical explanation was proffered - that involved opening a window, I think - but there were vital connecting bits of information missing such that whatever it was that they said simply didn't compute.

With the working week looming, Tara headed home after tea, while I led Undina and her vSO somewhat erratically on a walking tour of Holborn and Soho (the Holborn bit was accidental!), before we finally lit upon an inviting looking tapas restaurant just off Regent Street, where we had dinner. There was much ribaldry about my inadvertent menu choices, which turned out to be resolutely fried, from the chicken to the courgette to the cabbage and the parsnip fries.

A piece of fried chicken too far

And because our order as a whole was delayed, the management threw in some complimentary patatas fritas with that, which turned out to be...ahem...more fried food, clearly applying my pinky brown nude lipstick principle to Spanish cuisine.

'Have some fries with that, why don't you?'

After the meal, we said goodbye at Oxford Circus station, and went our separate ways until the morning. Back at my evermorechallengingHotel, I had the difficult call to make of whether to charge my phones overnight and put up with the electrical hum, or have a silent night and dead appliances in the morning. In the end I went with a compromise: silence till 5am, then I put my phones on charge and my ear plugs in. I was too perturbed by the claustrophobic concept of a windowless hotel room to sleep much anyway - in vain did I try to pretend I was on a ship!


Editor's note: I have just been informed by my bathroom handyman that these are in fact 'waterpump pliers'.

To be continued...

Bengals, birthdays, and blotters galore: another visit with Liz Moores of Papillon Artisan Perfumes

It was my birthday last weekend. Since hitting 50, I have been hopelessly in denial about getting older. If you ask me, your 50s are not the new 40s - they are very much the 'How come nobody ever thought to tell me about (insert debilitating physical or mental malfunction)!' decade. And I just turned 57. Now I am quite sure of this, because I counted the rings on my neck. ;) No really, it's not just trees you can date in this way. Worryingly, turkey necks may turn out to be for life, not just for Christmas, but such gloomy thoughts didn't stop me moisturising that general 'neck of the woods' - or 'woods of the neck', even - for the very first time ever this week.

Speaking of woods, that is also where I was headed on my birthday, to visit Liz Moores in her forest hideaway again, along with my dear friend and fellow blogger Tara of A Bottled Rose. The run up to the big day was full of excitement, though sadly not of the pleasant anticipatory kind.  I stupidly locked myself out of my house the night before(!), but managed to break back in using only a screwdriver and an armpit-swivelling yoga posture I didn't even know I knew. My relief at this cat burgling coup - and yes, the cat flap was also involved! - was shortlived, however, for I spent a near sleepless night thanks to an unholy rumpus next door, the least said about which the better.

So anyway, the plan was that I would pick up Tara from Salisbury station, so we could travel down down to Liz's together. I was just half an hour into the journey, swigging water and munching on flapjack in a bid to offset that dastardly duo of sleep and glucose deficits, when the warnings of tailbacks on the M5 prompted a Gordian knot-type manoeuvre at Spaghetti Junction, and a radical rethink of my chosen route. This was a good call, as I made it to the station with twenty minutes to spare, even though this was not quite time enough to change, buy a compact to powder my nose (the obligatory forgotten item of the trip!) - or to take a photo of the sign for Nether Wallop.

On arrival at Liz's, there was a comprehensive exchange of presents, which would have made for an intriguing and densely plotted graph if you were to draw lines from donor to recipient: there were early birthday presents for Liz, late birthday presents for son Rowan, who turned 10 this week, and presents for Daisy for no particular reason other than that she is the baby, and impossibly cute. Then there were presents for me because it was my birthday that day, and presents for Liz in her capacity as hostess, plus a few extra random items I offered up to anyone who wanted them, including a set of lavender guest soaps and a jar containing what Tara confirmed to be an Indian condiment.

Lemon verbena soap in  a Papillon-themed box!

After I had changed into one of the several outfits I had hastily grabbed on the way out that morning, the three of us repaired to the patio with drinks; Richard E Grant-style, I demanded tea in the biggest mug Liz owned, as I set about addressing my caffeine shortfall - yes, make that a tricky triumvirate, not a dastardly duo of dietary and other deficits.

I should also mention that because of the immense floor plan of Papillon HQ, even though we stayed home the whole time, we hung out in three distinct zones over that time: patio, kitchen, and perfume studio, which felt almost like going to three different addresses. This periodic decamping to other parts of the house created the sense of an 'episodic' day - or of a 'sodding epic' day, as ex-Mr Bonkers was waggishly wont to transpose the term.

And epic it was! Our conversational topics lurched seamlessly(!) from hangover cures to genetic legacies, to the wonders of M & S and the mindset of artists - and everything in between. At one point Liz demonstrated the relative mobility of each of her arms, following her shoulder surgery earlier this year. On the plus side she is now able to rub sun cream into that awkward spot between the shoulder blades that eludes some of the most able-armed amongst us, myself included, however, anything around head height or higher remains a challenge. So no overhead jerks with dumb bells or pinning of fascinators on elaborate top knots any time soon.

The middle phase of our visit took place in Liz's humongously big kitchen - any bigger and we would have needed to have communicated via Messenger. I was delighted to see my friend Gillie's 'big jugs' gracing the long dining room table. It was here that Tara and I installed ourselves, as Liz went about making lunch, deftly navigating her way round the combined no-go lists of ingredients that Tara and I had submitted (of which more anon...).

Son Rowan sat at one end, and in an admirable display of diplomacy, got stuck into assembling Tara's present of a Lego Ninja figure, while simultaneously 'building a burger' out of the jelly sweets I had given him (one of several items of whimsically interactive confectionery that caught his attention).

'Burgers someone built earlier' ~ Source: emmalemmadingdong

In a matter of minutes the Ninja figure was finished, complete with retractable helmet and multilateral weaponry, and before you could say: 'That chap who played Cato Fong in The Pink Panther has just died', Tara and I were being showered with a hail of minute plastic pellets, which we dutifully retrieved from the interstices of our laps and handbags - not least to ensure they didn't stray into the burgers.

My newly Ninja-ed handbag

Apart from the sporadic pellet gathering, Tara and I were by no means idling all this while. No, we had been assigned the important job of testing Liz's pretty much finished mod of White Moth, together with a still 'potentially to be tweaked' one of a new chypre fragrance. Over the course of an hour or two, we would continually resniff our own and each other's wrists and report back to Liz about what the perfumes were doing at that point in their development, and how we felt about them at every stage.

So White Moth is a pretty summery floral, with a bouquet of frangipani and tiare and a tangy, sherbety accord (involving some kind of fruit of which I am sure Tara will have made a note) - the whole thing laid over a gauzy vanilla base. Or so it seemed to me!

Then the chypre has three distinct phases: a bright opening of a very unusual orange that presents as grapefruit(!), which segues into a spicy heart with cinnamon and clove, which Liz may well beef up with narcissus, followed by the most deliciously sweet and sultry musk, the like of which I have never smelt before.

And while all this was going on, family members and friends would turn up in dribs and drabs, starting with Liz's partner Simon and Daisy, zonked from her first swimming lesson, and followed at intervals by the three older daughters and their boyfriends. This drip feeding of arrivals smacked of those cumulative nursery rhymes-cum-memory tests that get progressively longer as they go on - the likes of 'Old Macdonald had a Farm' or do I mean 'The Farmer's in His Den'? So Liz and Ro, and Simon and Daisy, and Lily and C, and Jaz and...Poppy and T...and have I forgotten anyone? - and E.I.Adio, we all pat the bone! ;)

Speaking of farms, in my review of Angelique I have already reported on the eclectic menagerie that also lives at Papillon HQ: the horses and dogs, the Bengal cats (twice as many as before!), the snakes, owl(s) and cockatiels. Turns out I completely missed the tortoises, but Tara spotted them in a terrarium by the fridge as Liz was contemplating what to give us as a takeaway snack for the road (or rail).

Blotter monitor

After a hearty lunch of asparagus risotto (completely free of anchovies, offal, squid, gherkins, onion, sweetcorn and Tiramisu!), followed by birthday cake for me with one(!) tactful candle, we adjourned to our final destination, Liz's perfume studio. I covered Liz's business generally - and the wonders of her studio at every turn! - in more detail in my earlier post, but there were still new things to sniff and see this time around. For example, I was interested to know how Liz handled the alcohol side of her perfume business, not least from a H & S point of view, and she showed me the plastic jerrycans she buys the alcohol in, which reminded me of oversized packs of screenwash, though mercifully not blue.

Alcohol to the right, blotters just about everywhere! ;)

I spied a couple more of those comically named materials on Liz's shelves this time round - there was one that looked like 'Aggression' and another that I read quickly as 'Frank Sinatra'. I think it was in fact something ending in 'Serrata' - a type of frankincense, perchance? ;)

Under Liz's expert guidance, Tara and I sniffed a ton of fragrance materials, from fruity notes like apricot, plum, rhubarb and pear, to florals such as jonquil, narcissus, lilac and tiare, to vanillas and musks of every stripe, as well as black tea, jade, a markedly clean patchouli, and the specific orange used in the new chypre.

At one point we also stared out an unsettling lump of ambergris floating in a murky liquid in a see-through tub. At another, Liz warmed a canister of hyraceum - and one of a Persian rose material - between her thighs(!). Tara captured this 'money shot' on camera and I look forward to seeing it on her post. ;) And as she had done for me, Liz scooped out a generous spoonful of orris concrete for Tara to take home - you get a quality goody bag at Papillon, I can tell you! None of your lame Sherbet Dip-and-balloon combos, oh no.

And all too soon it was time to take Tara back to Salisbury, and drive on to the pub where I had booked in for the night. Many thanks are due to Liz and Tara for giving me a fun- and family- and fragrance-filled birthday to remember!

And I simply can't wait for White Moth and the chypre to see the light of day - I am sure they will be winners. For to reprise the names of Lego figures for a moment, Liz Moores may not be the Ninja of the perfume world exactly - she doesn't have the range of movement in her arm to do all that abseiling business, for one thing - but she most certainly is its Aroma Transformer...