Perfume blogging and parenting - a pair of 'embryonic' hypotheses...

Source: Wikimedia Commons ~ Ida Waugh

At the last meeting of Cake Club, it came to light that only one of the five of us had children - M (one son). That's an average of 0.2 of a child between us.  At a gathering a few weeks earlier, when my Scandal- and Fracas-loving friend Sharon came to visit with four of her friends in tow, we established that out of the six of us only one of our number had children - A (one son) - so the average fell to 0.17.  Then at a reunion of school friends in 2012, I distinctly recall that there were six women in our party and one man.  Yet again, only one had kids, albeit she had an impressive total of five - one for each of the rest of us - all fathered by the token man in our midst, her husband!  A pattern seems to be forming here, namely that by and large my circle of friends appears to include a disproportionate number of childless women.  Possibly for the very reason that the ones with children - and I do have a number of dear friends in this category - aren't free to come out as much.

And so this observation got me thinking about the perfume blogosphere, and how many female blog owners I know (or can think of) who are mothers or not.  I am curious to know whether the not inconsiderable amount of work involved in regular blogging - Gaia Fishler's comment always comes to mind at such times, namely that 'blogging is not for the fainthearted' - is difficult (though by no means impossible) to combine with being a mum.

Source: Wikimedia Commons ~ Giovanni Dall'Orto

The other point I would be interested to know - but which is not so easily ascertainable - is whether any of the bloggers without offspring feel that their blog is in any sense a child substitute.  I do think that might be true of me up to a point.  I guess blogging does give a focus and structure to my free time in the same way that bringing up a kid might.  Okay, not really in the same way, as child rearing is much more full-on(!), but a blog needs regular tending, say.  And the more it grows in terms of post output, the more satisfying I find the whole undertaking!  Hmm, maybe blogging is more like gardening than having children - please do let me know what you reckon, whichever side of the parenting fence you are on.

And this is by no means a scientific exercise, because in some cases I simply do not know the parental status of the blog owners in question, and there will be many others out there whom I have omitted to include or simply don't know at all.  So I will just start by tossing a few names into the arena, and see where it gets us.

Source: Wikimedia Commons ~ Joseph Martin Kronheim

Female perfume blog owners with known children - UPDATED

Robin of Now Smell This
Marina of Perfume Smelling Things
Patty of Perfume Posse
Elena of Perfumeshrine
Birgit of Olfactoria's Travels
Carol of Museinwoodenshoes
Carol of Bloody Frida
Sheila of The Alembicated Genie
Samantha of iscentyouaday
Lena of Olfactorialist
Sigrun of Riktig Parfym
Lavanya of Purple Paper Planes

NB Interestingly - and this may just be coincidence - some of the above currently have co-bloggers to help spread the load.  I don't know the early history of the other blogs, but I do know that Birgit started Olfactorias Travels on her own, and her prodigious output in that initial phase was matched only by her remarkable time management. Special mention should also be made of Carol of Museinwoodenshoes who manages to combine solo blogging with raising a large family of children.  And until fairly recently she used to have a day job too!  In response to my post, I also heard from Lena of Olfactorialist on the subject of blogging and motherhood: 'I have a son born in January and I have to admit that I completely underestimated what it means to be a mom.  The cuties eat up all your time.'

There are further refinements to this classification - and doubtless others I have failed to think of! - such as the age of the children and whether they are dependent and living at home, which would likely have a bearing on a blogger's free time for creative pursuits.

Female perfume blog owners with the pet equivalent of at least one or two children

Gaia of The Non-Blonde (somewhere in the realms of 10 -16 cats?  I envy her those - well, at least three, certainly)
Kafka of Kafkaesque (one large & emotionally demanding dog - the Hairy German ;-) )

Source: Wikimedia Commons ~ D Lothrop Company

Female perfume blog owners with no known children - UPDATED

Victoria of Boisdejasmin
Denyse of Graindemusc
Katie of Katie Puckrik Smells
Victoria of EauMG
Ines of All I am a Redhead
Suzanne of Eiderdown Press
Lucy of Indieperfumes
Natalie of anotherperfumeblog
Carrie of Eyeliner on a Cat
Michelyn of Cafleurebon
Martha of Chicken Freak's Obsession
Ari of Scents of Self (in her defence, she is only about 22!)
Sarah of Odiferess
Olfacta of Olfactarama

Me!

And it goes without saying that there are A TON of other people who could be added to this list, and their status clarified - do please suggest other blog owners to round out and balance the picture, which I will update accordingly.

Source: Wikimedia Commons ~ Elmar Ersch

Three Thin Women of Antibes - a postscript...(for Suzanne & Lavanya)

Source: les40kartierslesplusdifs2.skyrock.com

In a comment on my last post Suzanne expressed her curiosity about the presence or otherwise of any Frenchmen in my life during my year spent teaching English in a school in Cannes at the end of the 70s.  I explained that there was one rather unconventional fellow called Pierre that I hung out with.

I should point out that I never dated Pierre.  He was a little on the thin side for one thing, and had trouble remembering where he had parked his car.  Milk for tea was an alien concept. Tea itself was an alien concept.  I spent one night on a camp bed in his living room, having declined his invitation to 'walk a portion of the way' with him, which I took to be code for a cosier sleeping arrangement.

So without further ado, here is my story:


"Pierre was a philosophy student at Nice University with Communist leanings, a punk haircut and a year to live - something about an Alsatian and a heart attack.  Certainly his cadaverous features and shabby clothes suggested a fey attitude to life, as did the squalor of his ant-infested council flat.  A dog-eared poster of Lenin hid peeling paint in the bathroom, while photos of Watford cemetery decorated the living room walls.  An insomniac, Pierre spent most nights in the abattoir opposite, 'looking on'.  He rarely ate, and the only provisions in the flat were a tin of salsify and a bowl of pear halves, black with mould.  For entertainment, he read overdue library books and listened to bootleg tapes.  He once gave a party, but a fight broke out, the stereo was clogged with peanuts and Pierre collapsed.  He turned a disquieting shade of purple, but survived."

Source: moderndaytruth.net

Dita Von Teese edp review - a less lairy LouLou?

Although my interest in fragrance was pretty minimal most of my life, I did get excited about LouLou by Cacharel.  I bought a bottle, no less, a very unusual move at the time.  It reminds me vividly of my year teaching English in a lycee on the French riviera.  I lived in a villa - well, more of a bog standard bungalow that had been embellished with squiggly flourishes of wrought iron - with two fellow students, who rejoiced in surnames that were also body parts (Dick and Knuckles).  They were both extremely body-conscious as it happens, with matching eating disorders.  One of the duo existed entirely off Granny Smith apples, which she sat munching while devouring the complete works of Emile Zola, I never did figure why.  I once thought of writing my memoirs from that year and calling it 'Three Thin Women of Antibes' in a homage to Somerset Maugham.  

Now my villa-mates may have been slim, but they punched above their weight when it came to 'relationships' - I use the word loosely, because they were.  Yes, the year was punctuated by a steady procession of hot-tempered, arm windmilling Frenchmen coming and going at our villa, while I stood meekly by, occasionally emptying waste paper baskets full of apple cores.  In short, the Mediterranean is a very sensuous part of the world, and our villa arguably its pulsating heart - or pulsating something...  

My next visit to the area was in the mid to late 80s around the time of the launch of LouLou, a loud, intoxicating, tropical oriental centred around the sweet note of tiare.  I promptly bought it, possibly even at the airport - I don't remember - and it has served as a symbol of pugnacious sensuality ever since.  I must have worn it back then, but I cannot abide it now, as it gives me an instant headache, in much the same way that Giorgio does.  If you eyeball that note list you just know there is no way your that your forehead is going to escape its darkly heady vice:

Source: fragrantica

Notes: violet, plum black currant, marigold and anis, tiare flower, tuberose, ylang-ylang, orange blossom, orris, Tonka bean, vanilla and balsam.

And as it happens, Fragrantica, from whom I pinched that note list, agrees that LouLou is a polarising scent: 

"LouLou is a controversial perfume that people either like, or dislike, the one that provoke different emotions, and indifference for sure is not one of them."  For sure not.

Fast forward to 2012, and the release of burlesque artist Dita Von Teese's first eponymous scent, which is also built around the tiare flower, and which I think has some crossover with LouLou, though you might not think so from the notes. 

Dita Von Teese ~ Source: stuffpoint.com

Notes: bergamot, peony, Bourbon pepper, rose, Tahitian tiare flower, jasmine, incense, patchouli, musk, guaiac wood and sandalwood.

For starters, both scents have raunchy connotations.  As Elena explains in her review on Perfumeshrine:

"LouLou was meant to evoke the great film actress Louise Brooks and her Lulu role in the silent 1928 Pabst film Pandora's Box (tamer than its title would hint at, but not by much considering)." 

Another similarity is the fact that they are both cheap, and in LouLou's case, the bottle is both cheap and tacky.  Dita Von Teese, on the other hand, has a brassy-looking box with a hideous red plastic inner tray, but the bottle itself is pure class!  How many ways do I love the bottle?  Let me count the ways...!  I make that at least three.

- It has a flat facet you can rest it on.

- It is an intriguing cross between Neela Vermeire's classy ribbed flacons and a small incendiary device.

- It has a cute tassle that will amuse your cat for hours.  (Note to self to get cat.)

Bottle resting on its flat facet, though it probably would have done so anyway on that soft surface

Then as I say, they both feature the tiare flower, which isn't that common a note in perfumery, and which has a distinctive sweetness to it that not even a shedload of other foghorn florals in LouLou can manage to mask. And both scents are sweetly floral - not unduly so in Dita Von Teese's case, mind.  Then while LouLou mugs you with a fuggy base of vanilla-esque variants, Dita Von Teese is relatively sheer and inoffensive, with no noticeable base at all.  I'd describe it is a watery, faintly tropical floral braced with a shot of pepper that gives it the faintest smidge of raunch.  I completely agree with Natalie of anotherperfumeblog's of Dita Von Teese here.

So for the princely sum of £10.80 (for 20ml) delivered from Cheapsmells, I think I have discovered in Dita Von Teese something rather remarkable - a 'louche-lite' aka an 'office-appropriate business scent'.  Which isn't meant to be tautology - or oxymoron - though it may look that way.

Juan-les-Pins ~ Source: Wikimedia Commons via jwieski

Results of the Bonkers milestone giveaway!

Source: bugloaf.com

So last night's deadline for the giveaway to mark the occasion of my 400th post and 150th follower is past, and I compiled a list of all the readers who had left a comment.

Then, in time-honoured fashion, I had recourse to that virtual bouncy ball number generating machine that is Random.org and can announce that the winner is No 3:


UNDINA


Congratulations, Undina!

Do please get in touch to discuss whether anything from my list appeals, or if not, what selection of samples or other decant might hit the spot.

Oh, and I must just share this post-it note with you, which I left on my desk last night as a reminder to myself about the giveaway.  It rather suggests that I am not such a whizz at spelling as I like to think...

Rigid rats reeking of Revlon - perfume conversations you never thought you'd have

Three years ago I had a suspect mole removed in hospital, and to my great surprise ended up discussing the work of Sophia Grosjman with the consultant - as I was lying on the trolley in the operating theatre having my wound stitched up!  For anyone who missed this curious tale, the relevant blog posts are here and here.  There are two, because on a whim I sent a link to the first post to the consultant and his response is featured in the second one!

So yes, that was a clear case of a perfume conversation I never thought I'd have in that surgical setting...Then just the other day at Cake Club, my fellow members lobbed another conversational curved ball at me on the theme of perfume.

But to rewind for a moment, you may well wish to know what it is exactly, this Cake Club. Well, of course 'The first rule of cake club is that you don't talk about Cake Club!'  But waiving it for a moment, a group of five women from Staffordshire and Shropshire come together on a Monday evening every six weeks or so at one of our houses.  (It should be six women, but one of our number has yet to put in an appearance, two years on; we still assiduously copy her in on all our emails on the off-chance that she might turn up one day.) We each bring a cake - usually of our own making, though I did get special dispensation once to bring a bought one from a Farmer's Market because I had been working crazy hours the preceding weekend (it was pronounced the best!).  And then at the last meeting one person simply forgot Cake Club was on and rocked up empty-handed, which we generously overlooked.  It's not like there isn't enough cake to go round or anything. 

Prototype 'Pacman cake'

But yes, generally the idea is to bring a cake, eat a bit of everybody's cakes, and go 'Oooh' and 'Aaah' about everybody's cakes unless they are truly inedible - like my first attempt at banana and walnut.  Photos of my friend Clare's hens appeared on Facebook at 8am the next morning showing a flock of her hens fighting over the leftovers (which was the entire cake in fact).  One shot pictured two hens, each holding the end of a piece of my cake in its beak, tug-of-war style.  That was the low point in my club attendance, no question.

A victorious hen making off with her cake spoils

But at the recent session in question I had brought along a low rise but perfectly passable chocolate sponge with orange glaze, so thankfully the night was not memorable on account of one of my culinary misfits.  No, it was an odd night because the conversation turned quite spontaneously to people's scent memories - I am not even sure how - I was certainly not the instigator, as I always assume friends are a bit fed up with my hobby by now.  Before I knew it, each member of the group was sharing a perfume-related experience - some from many years ago - others ongoing.

As a courtesy, I will abbreviate their names to initials only!

Early practice attempt at a cake-like entity

 J: Brought up in the country, J spoke of her attachment to the usual range of rural smells: horses, grass, hay, manure, silage etc.  We asked her to please stop there as we were tucking into M's courgette and lemon icing cake at the time.

M: A policewoman by profession, M declared her abiding love of the smell of Faberge Brut, the signature scent of a fellow copper at her police station.  She admitted to regularly asking him to proffer his arm so she can sniff it - I am assuming a short sleeved scenario here.

C: C kicked off with a typical childhood scent memory of her mother's silk scarves impregnated with perfume, and of her father's old woollen cardigan that smelt just of 'dad', and which she snuggled for some time after his death.  But then her memories took a more avant-garde turn, as she recalled a gift of AnaisAnais from a boyfriend who - as she later found out to her horror - turned out to be married.   Another policeman in fact, but not the current sniffing subject of M.  AnaisAnais had in fact bordered on being C's signature scent during her time with a previous boyfriend, but the policeman's purchase of it was purely fortuitous.  AnaisAnais was very common at the time - the Coco Mademoiselle of its day, if you will.  So as you can imagine, any positive associations with it were now well and truly out the window following the wife revelation, so C set about disposing of the bottle in a psychologically cathartic way. 

Source: scentstore.co.uk

With the help of her father (still very much around at the time, and doubtless sporting the favourite cardy), C positioned the family's metal dustbin a challenging distance away and proceeded to throw the bottle at it.  The idea was to get it in the bin, but a lateral smash would have been a perfectly acceptable outcome.  On the first few attempts her aim was wide of the mark, but eventually the bin was moved to a position which was both pleasingly far away and yet within range of her increasingly ferocious underhand bowling, and she was gratified to hear the clunk of the bottle hitting the inside of the bin and shattering. Which nicely exorcised the memory of both scent and associated Lothario.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

K: But in terms of rum stories, the best was yet to come, for K casually revealed that she associated the scent of Revlon Charlie (didn't get the exact colour, but it scarcely matters, as you will see) with third form biology classes, specifically with the lessons where they had to dissect rats.  In order to get full value out of the rats' complex and extensive anatomy, they would dissect one rat and - I don't know - look at its heart or whatever, then the teacher would pop them back in the freezer till the next time.  On retrieving these rigid, semi-mutilated corpses, K and her classmates would recoil at the smell - formaldeyde? freezer coolant? general odour of deceased rat that's been round the block a bit? (she didn't elaborate) - and promptly spray Revlon Charlie all over it before the next round of dissection, which apparently made the 'net pong' half way tolerable.  To this day she hasn't personally worn any variant of Charlie, strange to tell.

Source: amazon.co.uk

And then the conversation got onto rodent droppings and another topic embargo had to be imposed, following which we got on with the business in hand of eating more cake.  C's raspberry streusel was up next!

Do you - or does anyone you know - have any scent memories that are right out of left field, so to speak?  The more bizarre the better.  Do share them in the comments!

And meanwhile here is a photo of a cake I made the other night completely out of synch with club meetings - my first wholly gratuitous bake, you could say. It nicely used up some very elderly and spotty bananas and I must say I am rather pleased with how it turned out.  No pressure to perform, that'll be it...

Another Bonkers milestone giveaway! - 400 posts & 150 followers

Source: lifewithasideofcoffee.com

Well, it was back to work with a vengeance this week for me - I may appear to be on Facebook all day, but I am just logged in permanently and treat myself now and again to five minute bursts of activity on there, honest...!  So yes, posts may become a bit more sporadic as the autumn kicks in in earnest, though I hope to avoid the yawning hiatuses (hiati? No, that looks like Haiti spelt wrong) of last year, when I was 'with woodworm' (on multiple fronts) and without furniture - for what felt like endless tracts of time.

And it just so happens that this is my 400th post, and that it coincides with the appearance of my 150th follower - thanks, Pop!  Followers are like gold dust on Blogger, because people have to actively choose to follow you, much like prospective organ donors.  Actually, I just checked the statistics, and in 2011 an impressive 30% of Britons had registered for organ donation.  I can only dream of such a high conversion rate of readers to followers, but am delighted that as many as 150 have taken that trouble.  More on taking trouble anon...

Source: taterstalltails.com

400 posts is not an especially high figure in today's blogosphere, with some stalwart bloggers clocking up that number in little more than a year.  However, up until last year I used to go away a lot with work - so I guess that is a plausible tally for the amount of time I have been able to devote to blogging - and I expect it will trundle along in future in similarly ad hoc fashion.

Then back in June, I marked the (completely arbitrary!) occasion of my 3.6 year anniversary with a stock take of where I am up to in my relationship with perfume and some thoughts on blogging itself.  So I thought I would take this opportunity to bat around a few more ideas from the semi-philosophical to the wholly mechanical.

What I blog about, and why

It's a bit late to be puzzling over what Bonkers about Perfume is all about,  you may well say, and I guess I probably set out my stall at the start, when I described my output/-pourings as 'random musings of a born again perfume anorak - an aldeyhdic blend of passion and irreverence'.   That is still a pretty fair descriptor of the staple fare on Bonkers, interspersed of course with travel posts cataloguing curiosities from other cultures and my foreign (mis)adventures.

Unfeasibly long place name in Hungary

In this connection, I also want to quote from a lovely post - that just appeared today  in fact - on novelists Tania Kindersley's and Sarah Vine's blog, Backwards in High Heels. (I am not at all sure about those apostrophes.)  Backwards in High Heels could best be summed up as a journal of whimsical observations from everyday life, and there is much to savour and admire in the duo's eye for detail and humorous take on the curved balls and lemons of outrageous fortune.  

Here, Tania Kindersley hits the nail on the head in her summary of what propels her to write in the public domain:

"It is a marking of the days, a recording of my beloved Small Things, a small existential stamping. Yes, yes; here I was."

I can related to the aspect of 'beloved Small Things' - I suppose I call the odder end of the Small Thing spectrum 'foibles'.  I recently wrote on Natalie's blog that I love winkling out foibles, the foiblier the better in fact.

An existentialist stamp ~ Source: minitrue.it

And blogging is undoubtedly a kind of 'existential stamping' too.  After all, if I just wanted to record my personal thoughts for myself, I'd still use a five year diary, as I did from 1973-1978, keeping it locked and in a drawer.  I even wrote 'Keep Out!' in (my own) blood on the inside cover, which feels a bit Twilight series now. By choosing to blog, I clearly wish to leave some kind of a footprint in cyberspace, however light - and hopefully to entertain a few people along the way.  

Posting frequency

Well, I may have partly answered that one above, and also in my previous milestone post where I explained how my friends are becoming increasingly worried about my Internet dependency, and are encouraging me to get off Facebook and out more (and by implication, blog less).  Tania also touches on this issue of frequency, and voices another of my concerns, that of reader expectations:

"I feel a very faint bat’s squeak of obligation. This is nuts, of course, but sometimes I do not fight my nuttier imperatives...You come here, and give me the gift of your time. I feel that in return, I must give you something, as many days as I can. I sometimes feel bizarrely guilty when I go missing in action, even though there is usually the most excellent excuse of life getting in the way."

Source: zazzle.com

Is Bonkers too British?

I am mindful that quite a number of my recent posts have been British in their focus - the review of Iris Prima, the upcoming Penhaligon's release, the ones of Bex Londoner SE1 and of Time to Draw The Raffle Numbers from Sarah McCartney's quirky perfume house, 4160 Tuesdays.  Not to mention my review of the decanting supplies situation over here or my account of a visit to a perfumery in Sidmouth, Devon, though that did - most unexpectedly! - unleash memories of happy childhood holidays for one US-based reader, Blacknall Allen of aperfumeblog.  

Now according to my Google stats, only about 30% of my readers hail from the UK. Some 50% are from the USA, with the balance made up from a whole clatter of countries, notably Germany, Russia and France.  So put like that, I don't appear to be making much effort to gear my content to my audience... ;-( Though you could argue that the population of the USA is 5 times that of the UK, whereas my US readers are not even double my British ones, so I do in fact have a British bias after all!  And the bottom line is that I am British, so it is natural that I would wish to cover local perfume houses and stores, just as some of my favourite US bloggers feature a number of indie perfumers, notably a bunch based on the Pacific West Coast.  All of which is just to say to overseas readers everywhere that I really do appreciate your interest, and sincerely hope you aren't too deflected by the British bias.  

St Chad's, Stafford ~ Source: geograph.co.uk

The infernal faff of Blogger comments

This section is dedicated to Birgit of Olfactoria's Travels, whom I am delighted to have introduced to that most useful of words, 'faff', the other day. Earlier in this post I alluded to the fact that a modicum of effort is involved in following a Blogspot blog, however, this pales into insignificance compared to the annoying protocol associated with the Blogger comments system.  Readers have reported all manner of obstacles to me down the years: there's the need (sometimes, but apparently not always) to have a Google account - though hopefully there are other options on Bonkers - please do say if not.  Then there is possible incompatibility between the commenting software and certain electronic devices - iPads have been cited as a prime example.  Adding insult to injury there's that infamous phenomenon known as 'Blogger ate my comment', where one's carefully typed thoughts suddenly vanish in a puff of blank box.  And lastly but not leastly, there is the everpresent spectre of the gobbledygook par excellence that is the captcha.  Very occasionally it tosses up fortuitously apt and amusing offerings that perfectly match the blog post on which the reader is attempting to comment, but mostly it just hunkers down there like a sullen gatekeeper, spewing out its indecipherable nonsense - and yes, both letters AND numbers have the capacity to fox even those with pin-sharp vision and an enduring love of puzzles.

Source: singularityhub.com

To all those readers who have been baffled or frustrated by captchas on Bonkers, may I extend a blanket apology, and take this opportunity to thank those who have persevered and managed to comment regardless.  I will say that latterly the captchas have seemed to regain a bit of clarity, so if you are minded to comment in principle, it is worth quickly looking to see how unfathomable the captcha is on any given day, for you may just strike lucky.  I would not, on the other hand, expect anyone to be arsed to make repeated attempts to second guess the more arcane formations Blogger has been known to generate.

Which leads me neatly to my last point, which is to mention a small giveaway, to mark the above milestones and also perhaps the fact that I recently passed the 500,000 page view mark.  So I figured that as the summer is all but over (in this neck of the woods, anyway), I would try to stall its passing just a little bit longer by offering a 5ml decant (or thereabouts) of any of the following summer-appropriate fragrances from my collection:

L'Artisan Séville à L'Aube 

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Lys Soleia

Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur

Penhaligon's Orange Blossom Cologne

Penhaligon's Castile 

Annick Goutal Le Chèvrefeuille

Olfactive Studio Lumière Blanche

OR

A decant of La Perla edp in case my recent review has piqued anyone's curiosity!

OR

If you don't like the sound of any of those, let me know, and I am sure that in the event of your winning the draw I could probably sort you out with something that hit the spot instead. 

The giveaway is open to anyone anywhere (as ever, we fly in the face of postal regulations!)  Just leave a comment indicating your preferred fragrance by close of play on Friday 6th September.  And please feel free to have a good old moan about captchas or to flag up any wishes about content you'd like to see on Bonkers in future.  There is of course a very real risk that I'll just keep writing about wispy gauzy fragrances and Strange Things on Poles, but it is always worth a shot.

NB You don't have to become a follower to qualify! ;-)

And finally, I have to confess that following the redecoration of the spare bedroom, my twin perfume fridges have been decommissioned and relegated to the garage...  As I type, my perfume collection diaspora is regrouping in plastic containers in the dark (and relatively cool) cupboard under the stairs.  Their next move is not yet certain, but I will continue to publicly document their continued displacement round the house.  

Now this doesn't mean I am growing disenchanted with my stash, just that the fridges would be an eyesore now in that room.  Moreover, I have taken to sleeping there at weekends - for a change of scenery really - and can no longer tolerate the intermittent whirr in the night, even with ear plugs in.  Maybe I am becoming more detached from my collection, who knows?  Hmm, maybe my obsession with paint is gaining the upper hand after all....;-)

Perfume decanting supplies - the UK perspective revisited

Every perfumista reaches a point when they wish to share their collection with a fellow fumehead. This may be in the form of a so-called 'care package' or a swap - whether private or via the lively swap board on Makeupalley.  I have racked up some 75+ swaps on MUA, and have sent perfume as a gift (I narrowly stopped myself there from saying 'I have gifted'!) to many of my friends, both corporeal and virtual.  To this end, I have bought and rebought decanting supplies (atomisers and small stoppered vials mostly) many times over the past five years.  In a recent post on Bois de Jasmin, Victoria takes an in-depth look at the whole business of decanting.  I gazed in awe and wonder at the photographs of her spraying 'commando' (ie straight from the nozzle, without the safety net of a funnel) into a perfectly behaved receptacle.

She also canvassed opinions about the best place to buy decanting tackle in different parts of the world.  Undina of Undina's Looking Glass has also compiled a very useful post on this subject, which Victoria referenced in her feature.  Undina's top choice is BestBottles, which has a superb selection of atomisers at very reasonable unit costs.  BestBottles is appreciably cheaper than Accessories for Fragrance, also based in the USA, with a pretty good range and ultra-friendly service.

But here's the thing - last night I had a jolly good trawl of the top perfume bottle websites and UK Ebay.  I placed dummy orders on both BestBottles and SKS Bottle & Packaging, another site that was mentioned in Victoria's post.  Hey, they would have been actual orders, were it not for the fact that the shipping in both cases - for a $50 minimum order approximately - topped out at $148 via UPS!!!  And there did not seem to be any other postal option.

Accessories for Fragrance, meanwhile, has international shipping costs that are vastly more proportionate, albeit its unit product costs are a lot higher.  So I ended up buying a large quantity of plastic atomisers from them in a selection of sizes - I really can't afford more than the occasional purchase of the glass ones on there (beyond the 1ml stoppered vial kind, that is) - and my shipping total was something like $22, ie much more in the ballpark.

I had never investigated the BestBottles site before, though I recognised many, many of the glass atomisers pictured!, which American swappers have sent to me over the years.

For a small-scale decanter like me, the only other overseas site I clocked with reasonable prices and decent international delivery rates - as in included in the price! - is Proud Style, which also gets a name check in Victoria's post, and which (sadly) I only explored after I had placed my Accessories for Fragrance order...however, I may venture there next time.

It is a while since I last looked on UK Ebay, which is a near total desert where cost-effective glass or plastic atomisers in the 2 - 5ml range are concerned.  Where it does score is in knock-off Travalos, ie refillable atomisers of the Travalo style but very much cheaper.  I even saw one seller called Max Trading offering them at £1.99!, compared to a normal retail of about £8 for the branded version.

Source: Ebay

Ebay also sells a lot of those burnished metal purse spray atomisers - some quite cheaply - but having had a bad experience with a seller in the Far East (where many of the cheaper ones hail from), I would be a bit wary again, tempting as their candy colours may be.

Lovely but leaky!

Ebay is also good for these odd little graduated snap top vials to which Freddie of Smellythoughts introduced me.  They hold about 1.5ml or so, and though the lid is very secure when snapped shut, and they are easy as anything to fill commando, I do get splashback issues with them ie as the vial fills up - the impact of perfume hitting what is already in there causes the next squirt to ricochet out again.  So unless my technique is totally to cock, I'd say these are only good in practice for a 1ml fill level at most.

So my assessment today would be: if I was an American I would use BestBottles in a heartbeat.  As a UK-based decanter, I will try Proud Style next time, with Accessories for Fragrance as an expensive but faithful fallback - for plastic anyway, and for 1ml glass vials, which don't strike me as being all that expensive from them for a big bag.  And then Ebay comes into its own for one-off fancier items such as Travalo-type atomisers.

Now I know there is a general preference for glass over plastic in the perfume community - partly for reasons of longevity, and partly on aesthetic grounds - but whilst I have had a few plastic atomisers turn in the past four years or so, it has only been the odd one.  To be honest, I much prefer the look and feel of glass myself and would only ever use glass for decants of 8 or 10ml, say, because it is a much nicer way to present a larger decant, but up till now I hadn't figured out anywhere cost-effective to buy glass atomisers in any quantity (as in 12, for example!).

1ml glass vials with plastic stoppers (somewhere in this bag!)

I mention this fact about my plastic decants not going off because I have got...ahem...about 100 of the things on their way to me as I blog!, so anyone receiving a small decant from me between now and the foreseeable, is likely to cop for one or two of this less desirable variety... ;-) ;-)