The trials and travails of committing to a Travalo

This isn't the post I intended to follow the one about Jessica's rose perfume quest, but I sort of fell over this fairly short and snappy - or should that be pumpy! - topic today, and decided to report on it while it was fresh in my mind. The seed for it was sown last night when I did one of those silly Facebook quizzes, in this case about which nationality best fits your personality profile. I got Australian, on account of my allegedly 'relaxed and even temperament'. On a good day, maybe. ;) Though as it happens, I have an Australian mother and the same birthday as Kylie Minogue. Frankly, I'd rather have her bottom and a birthday in March, but there you go.  One of the questions - the precise relevance of which continues to elude me - concerned the way one goes about making decisions. Was this:


- Impulsive and spontaneous
- Methodical and efficient
- Emotional and intuitive
- Delayed and avoided
- Laborious and agonising

(Or 'none of the above'.) Well, ask anyone I know about how I cannot choose a dish in a restaurant, even one I have had before!, without asking at least one, if not several, questions about the menu - see also the notorious Mushrooms on Toast incident in this connection. So obviously I clicked on 'laborious and agonising' - I'm a researcher!, I visited every bathroom showroom in the West Midlands! The act of completing the quiz, while just a bit of nonsense really, made me keenly aware of my tortured decision-making process, which I confronted again today when I decided to open a Christmas present of a twinpack of Travalos and their accompanying case.

What to put in them? Shall I fill one and leave the other for a future acquisition? Shall I leave both for now? Decisions, decisions...

I wandered from room to room, poking around in my boxes of bottles and very large decants that might also warrant siphoning off into this handy travel format. In a past post on Travalos I focused mainly on the mechanics of filling them, with just a brief aside on what scents readers might consider 'Travalo-worthy'. For I had only got as far as filling one at that stage, but have filled a few more since - and today my mind was exercised yet again by this same question.

In the end, after a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I filled the silver one with PHI Rose de Kandahar. After all, if I loved it enough to make it my one new bottle purchase this year, you would reasonably assume I would love it enough to commit some to a Travalo for trips away. And I put the black one back in the cupboard for another occasion...

Then I thought to review my existing collection of Travalos and decide whether I was experiencing any 'filler's remorse'. I don't know how many Travalos you own, but this is likely to be a much easier exercise to conduct than reviewing the wisdom of purchasing your whole bottle collection in the first place!

In my current collection are two atomisers that I was given, one filled with Shalimar Extrait and one with Juniper Sling. So while I can't take myself to task for the fact that those particular perfumes are contained in Travalos, I can decide if I would have kept the contents as they are if it had been up to me. And the answer is YES for the Shalimar and NO for the Juniper Sling.  Hold on, the Shalimar is just a purse spray shaped like a Travalo, of which more anon.

The interloping bullet-style purse spray

And here is my verdict on the rest, for whose act of filling I was responsible (Happy with decision - YES/NO):

Diptyque Volutes edt (black) - YES
L'Erbolario Meharees (red) - YES
Chanel 1932 (gold) - NO (this is elegant, but doesn't move me like the first two)
Ormonde Jayne Tiare (gold) - NO (as above)
L'Agent Provocateur L'Agent (pink) - NO (but I think it looks great in pink!)

I realise that strictly speaking - given the fact that no atomiser can really be reused - you could extend this review to one's whole decant collection, but there is something really special about a Travalo. I could certainly include the bullet shaped purse spray of similar size that looks like a Travalo, but it would have to be pretty high end to count, as this one surely is - costing £8 and up, say. For as I see it, the weightiness of the decision directly correlates with the cost of the atomiser and the fact that it contains so little juice - 4-5ml tops.

Yes, what I take from this exercise is the fact that in order to commit to a Travalo, I have to feel a visceral attachment to the scent, which I suppose is pretty obvious really, but it was interesting to me to nail it.

The remaining empty Travalo and its nifty stripy case

And now I have to ask...

Do you have a collection of Travalos, however small? 

Did you find the decision-making process as to what to put in them difficult? 

Do you regret any of your choices?

Have you ever tried to rinse out a Travalo? ;) (Which is a whole other controversial can of worms...;) )

And here's another thought...the branded Travalos at least, which are the only ones I have experience of, come in a fairly limited range of colours. This means that - given the inadequacies of my nose - if I acquire too many more of the things I may have to resort to labelling, which I am very reluctant to do, as it spoils the sleek look of the burnished metal exterior. So yes, another question would be...

Could you bring yourself to label a Travalo, however tidily?! 

Have you tried any Travalo knock offs, and if so, were they as good?

Kate Walsh Boyfriend: My New Relationship Is Cut Tragically Short, And A Stuart Crystal Atomiser Gets Shirty

In my last post I featured my new purse spray of Kate Walsh Boyfriend from Ari of Scents of Self - one of my more successful blind buys. I wrote about its comforting woody, ambery, vanilla-y vibe, and likened it to a "Lite" version of Huitième Art Myrrhiad. I wore it on Valentine's Day and on the day after, reapplying it now and again in my quest to identify the oddball licorice/liquor note I thought I detected.

On Thursday, I was planning to use it as my sleep scent, and nipped into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, the Boyfriend spray in its box in my other hand. As I turned away from the sink the purse spray suddenly fell to the ground, smashing into smithereens and scattering glassy shards for a radius of several feet. I had upended the box without noting that the top was open, and the glass vial had slid out and shattered easily on the tiled floor.

It took me a good twenty minutes to mop the viscous mess and sweep up all the tiny fragments of glass. Mr Bonkers nearly trod on one the next morning and asked if I was trying to see him off too! I was quite upset and annoyed at myself for my clumsiness, though at least my curiosity to try Boyfriend had been well and truly assuaged, and thanks to my frequent reapplications I shall probably remember how it smells for a long time to come.

The irony didn't escape me that a perfume inspired by Kate Walsh's ex-boyfriend should now bite the dust, hit the deck - and the wall, indeed - in short, become my very own fragrant Ex-Boyfriend...

But it wasn't long before my rational self reminded me that I am not exactly short of perfume, and the loss of 12ml is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of my bursting fridges.

So to cheer myself up, I did that thing I sometimes too - does anybody else do this? - I got out my decanting kit (partly in preparation for the upcoming prize draws), and fiddled with some of the more attractive and tactile items in their repurposed Ormonde Jayne bag container. This involved fighting my way through several layers of empty plastic bags and one of pipettes to reach the materials contained within. Particularly guaranteed to lift the spirits are those little coloured gauze bags you get from The Perfumed Court (and fellow swappers), which appeal to my eight year old self's love of spangly purses and all things jewel-coloured. The pink and mauve ones are a personal favourite, also those with butterfly motifs. Then I picked up and fondled some burnished metal atomisers in pleasing bullet shapes: silver and red, chocolate brown and gold.

And then, all of a sudden, I came across a Stuart crystal atomiser which I had bought years ago on Ebay, meaning to put a favourite perfume in it or possibly give it as a gift. Its cross-hatched design sparkles in the light and its chunky gold top feels pleasingly smooth and solid in your hand.

I dug deep into the presentation box and fetched out an adhesive label, bearing the following legend:

WARNING

THIS ATOMISER IS ONLY SUITABLE FOR EAU DE TOILETTE AND EAU DE COLOGNE FRAGRANCES FAILURE TO FOLLOW ABOVE WILL RESULT IN LEAKAGE FROM ATOMISER

Oh dear, I thought, that's me told then! And obviously, "failure to find label" in the first place would have resulted in a similarly leaky scenario. But the next question that crossed my mind - and the one which I would be pleased if anyone reading can help me answer - is: why only EDP? Is it something to do with its strength or density (specific gravity? I never know the correct terms here), which inclines it to leak? I naively thought leaking occurred when a seal was not watertight (or liquid-tight, in this case). Which would mean surely that one liquid would be as prone to escape as the next one, but apparently not so...

And I have read about general leakage problems with puffer atomisers, but this is the first time I have heard of a regular glass atomiser with a standard spray mechanism selectively leaking in this way. Or threatening to do so anyway.

I can't think offhand of any EDTs I like enough to dedicate this pretty bottle to, so for the moment it remains empty, uncooperative and muttering its admonitions from the dark comfort of its (dark blue) box. There's nothing on the label to say so, so I am only speculating, but it wouldn't surprise me if - were I to fill the atomiser up with perfume of any kind and drop it on the kitchen floor, that might result in "leakage from atomiser" too...

The Travalo: Trending Travel Tackle aka More Things On Poles

The Travalo seems to be everywhere these days. I hesitate to speak of it in the plural, because "Travalos" without an apostrophe sounds like a budget hotel chain (or its Greek equivalent). Now as some readers know, such is the vehemence of my opposition to the deployment of the grocer's apostrophe in plural nouns, as in: "it's raining cat's and dog's", that I will see how far I get without cracking and plumping for "Travalo's" after all. And while we are on the subject of grammar, I am not entirely comfortable with "trending" as a word, but it is a descriptor for topics on Twitter, so it is probably here to stay.

Back to the gizmo in question, a new take on the concept of a refillable perfume atomiser. Here is the description from the company's website:

•pocket sized perfume spray bottle that refills in seconds directly from a big fragrance spray bottle.
•no funnel, no spills, requires no skill
•over 65 sprays

As I observed at the top of the post, the Travalo seems to have taken the market by storm recently - in terms of its distribution at least - I can't speak for the sales side. I first came across one last May at Fascination perfumery - Lynn, the proprietor, let me sample Elie Saab from a pink Travalo she had filled up with the fragrance at the Esxence show in Milan. Then in the summer Penhaligon's kindly sent me 4ml of Juniper Sling in a pretty silver Travalo, and in between times I have spotted them by the till in various department stores and other perfume outlets, and also clocked ads for them in the duty free section of several in-flight magazines.

I have since invested in a pack of four of these refillable fragrance atomisers (there - I think I got away with it!), and plan to use them as travel-sized / purse sprays of a few of my favourite fragrances. For that is the first downside of the Travalo: you can't reuse it, any more than you can reuse a plastic or (I would argue), a glass atomiser. It will be impregnated with your chosen scent forever.

And unlike a conventional atomiser that you can unscrew to fill - such that if you had a number of smaller samples of a perfume you could consolidate them all in the one container - the Travalo only works with a full bottle of perfume. Consequently, when my Juniper Sling Travalo is empty, I can't top it up with my one remaining carded sample of the scent, because there is no way of opening the Travalo to pour the vial in.

No, the way the Travalo works is that it has a hole in the bottom, which you place over the "stem" - or "pole", as it seems to me - of the bottle's atomiser mechanism before pumping away to fill it. (Miraculously, the perfume doesn't then fall out of the hole again, which as far as I can tell is "open" at all times.) So basically, the Travalo is no better than any other pretty brushed metal atomiser except for the fact that you don't need a funnel to fill it. For a seasoned decanter this is no big deal, though I don't doubt that this is a major part of its appeal to the public at large.

As for the pumping action itself, it is straightforward enough. At the outset, I had doubts about whether all the bottles in my collection would really prove to have Travalo-friendly tops. I did my first "pumped decant" with a bottle of L'Agent (modelled below by Mr Bonkers) and that worked a treat. I knew it must also work with Penhaligon's bottles, of which I have four - though crucially not Juniper Sling - so if I want to reuse my Travalo of that I will have to bite the silver bullet it resembles and buy myself a full bottle for that specific purpose.

Right, so I will just go and take a random selection of bottles out of my fridge and report back which ones have "easily flirt-offable tops".

Well, I am happy to say that very nearly all of them passed the test, even Ajne Calypso, in its atypical Bohemian filigree bottle. The tip to remember is to be assertive and assume the top WILL come off. If you are a bit of a wimp about it you may find the top resists, as happened to me intially with one of the Jo Malones.

The only top to cock a complete snook at the Travalo mechanism was my humungous bottle of IUNX Eau Frappée, which - let's face it - is more light sabre or police truncheon than perfume bottle.

So that was a happy discovery, though so far I have still only filled up the pink one with L'Agent. For the most significant thing about the Travalo - given its relatively high unit cost versus a conventional atomiser bought in bulk - is not the mere fact that it is a handy travel format. No, the Travalo's key function is to force you to decide which scents really are your favourites, and worth dedicating one of these refillable sprays to.

Which may be why the other three are still empty.



Would be interested to hear people's thoughts on this apparent trend.

Have you taken the Travalo plunge?

If not, are you *pumped up* to try it?

If so, what scents did you consider "TW" or "Travalo Worthy"?

And do you own any bottle with a non-compliant atomiser mechanism like my IUNX?

Over time I am standing by to compile a list of Travalo Refusenik bottles on this post - though maybe the IUNX bottle was a case apart.

And finally, seeing as the stem of the atomiser sticking up reminds me of a little pole, here again are the other things of poles I saw on my travels lately.







Photo of Travelodge from www2.travelodge.co.uk, other photos my own.