Ormonde Jayne Tiare - Small SPLAT Review

Well, after pleading extreme fed upness and a chronically dismal quality of life, I managed to convince the doctor this morning to make me a pointy stick appointment tomorrow, even though he had no slots free for the foreseeable future. My glum faced look must be more compelling than I realised.

So from tomorrow, we hope that my sniffing faculties will be restored, in all their delineated, differentiated and nuanced glory (well, back to what they were, anyway). But today my sample of Tiare arrived from those nice people at Ormonde Jayne and I couldn't wait to try it. The girls had run out of official samples but agreed to my offer to send them an empty 1ml vial and a funnel, so now at last I am able to test this major lemming, belatedly and in my own impressionistic and extra blurry way.

For reference, here are the notes:

TIARE

Top: Mandarin, Orange Flower and Sicilian Lime
Heart: Tiare, Freesia, Water Lilies, Jasmine, Orris and Ylang
Base: Cedar, Vetiver, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Moss and Musk

When I first heard about the impending release of Tiare, I focused completely in my mind on the Tahitian gardenia note, imagining it to be how I hoped Un Matin d'Orage would smell, ie a watery, sheer, green tropical floral reminiscent of a hothouse in a botanical garden. Un Matin d'Orage started out promisingly, not unlike the gardenia equivalent of Carnal Flower, but became sharply sour and indolic on the drydown, rendering it sadly unwearable. And as it turns out, Tiare is like neither my imagined nor the real version of Un Matin d'Orage...

Tiare is still sheer, but not remotely tropical to my nose - or so ethereally so as not to register on a catarrh-compromised nose. The citrussy opening flows into a light, refined, green floral, anchored by a whisper of moss. It is elegant without being standoffish, and could be worn on pretty much any occasion other than "downright scuzzy" or "on the pull". Comparing it to the other exotic florals in the OJ line - such as Sampaquita and Frangipani - I'd say it was much more "intellectual", thanks to the moss. Moss is a jolly severe note, I have decided. If I had to pick one look to epitomise the person wearing this scent, it would be geek glasses and a pencil skirt, so we are clearly a million miles away from Polynesian flower garlands. I realise now that Tiare ACTUALLY smells exactly as I hoped EL PC Jasmine White Moss would, however, JWM was way too mossy for me, even more mossy than Cristalle, with which I have also seen this scent compared. A comparison of notes shows Tiare to have SEVEN notes in common with JWM (if orange flower equates to blossom, which I don't see why it wouldn't).

ESTEE LAUDER PRIVATE COLLECTION JASMINE WHITE MOSS

Top: Mandarin, blackcurrant buds absolute, Sambac jasmine absolute, bergamot, galbanum
Heart: Indian jasmine absolute, orange blossom, ylang-ylang
Base: Patchouli, white moss mist and vetiver.

If you were to liken Tiare and JWM to those novelty Bavarian weather houses, JCW would be the man and Tiare the woman, for there is a definite "his" and "hers" quality to the duo. By a weird coincidence, I sprayed Stella Nude on my wrist in town today, just below the Tiare test area. Back home, I was googling the notes of Stella Nude and found a review of it by Robin of NSTperfume, directly under her review of Tiare. (Twilight Zone!!). Stella Nude starts out as grapefruit soap, but quickly goes splat and ends up as a soft, faintly soapy skin scent, and the FEEL of it (not the smell, before anyone throws their copy of Perfumes: The Guide directly at my head) is similar to Tiare - ultra smooth and silky, like a satin slip shimmying off a well moisturised thigh.

Patty, in her review on Perfume Posse, states that she is "not the queen of the mossy greens", and likes, but doesn't love Tiare. D'you know, I think I could grow to love this, because the moss is so beautifully soft and unobtrusive.

And I bet you are all curious to learn Mr Bonkers' verdict...

When first applied: "Extreme craft shop!"
After an hour: "Like the bowl of pot pourri half way down the craft shop behind the didgeridoos."

Well, we can completely disregard that, I think. He is clearly playing to the gallery. Oh, and his view on Stella Nude? "Better, because you can't smell it so much." I despair.

I will end with this fascinating titbit from "The Tahiti Traveler" website on the ways to wear a Tiare flower in your hair, and what each position signifies:

"Worn behind your right ear, it means you are single, available.
Worn behind your left ear : you are married, engaged or otherwise taken.
Worn behind both ears : you are married but still available.
Worn backward behind your ear : you are available immediately."

I like the sound of Nos 3 and 4! Maybe "on the pull" is a possible scent occasion after all...

Scents Going SPLAT! - A Temporary Phenomenon?

Since Christmas Day I have been suffering from blocked ears and sinuses. One ear is so bad that it constantly booms, and when I eat, it sounds like a ballet of twelve JCBs in my mouth, which as anyone from round here knows, has actually been performed. On Wednesday, heartily fed up and having tried a futile and mimsy succession of remedies involving drops of one sort or another, I am seeing the doctor again. It is my intention to lie on his couch and not budge until he has done his worst with A Very Pointy Instrument.

During this time, I have also noticed that perfumes are behaving oddly on me - they are not mutating through the usual sequence of top, heart and base notes in the expected time frame of 20 mins, 2 hours and up to 8 hours respectively. Instead, right after I have applied them on skin, all scents are going SPLODGE SPLAT, before dissipating within a few minutes into an indeterminate blur, which is more akin to the scent's drydown if I had to place this mess.

I am quite chagrined at the turn scent events are taking. Suppose you went to see a play and instead of a Prologue and Four Acts, for the same ticket price you just got the last half hour of Act Four. You would be confused, wouldn't you? - and struggle to pick up the plot. And you would probably want your money back.

Now, I cannot say whether this disappointing telescoping of scent development is attributable to my present ear problems or not. I think I can still smell - but maybe I can't. After the doctor has done his worst, I should be in a better position to say, one way or the other.

But what is slightly troubling is the thought that this SPLAT business may in fact be a permanent shift due to my changing hormones. I do have an acquaintance who is roughly the same age as me, about whose Venus Fly Trap skin I have often joked, without it ever occurring to me that I might be like her down the line. For this lady's skin used to grab the top and heart notes sharply by both lapels and ingest them instantly, before allowing the base of a scent to linger a while in a somewhat dazed and confused state. Much like this Ferre by Ferre EDP I am currently wearing, in fact. Two minutes after application, it is anybody's guess what is in it, though I know for a fact that iris is a key note somewhere, leading some people (though not me, even with my previously intact faculties) to dub this the Poor Man's Iris Poudre.

This possible association with the menopause is rather worrying, for it is a process that may take some time to run its course - 10 years or more, according to people I have spoken to - and I am just off the starting blocks. My extensive reading on the subject has uncovered a plethora of unpleasant symptoms, most of which I have experienced, but there doesn't seem to be an official listing for "Perfume will become prematurely indistinct on skin", which to any perfumista is of equal if not greater concern than the flushes, insomnia, mood swings and dry skin.

I simply couldn't be doing with this SPLAT business for the rest of my 50s or even beyond, so for now I am putting all my hopes in the doctor's pointy stick.

Of Mice And Men...

In my local paper last week my eye was caught by a startling headline:

"NOSES MAY HOLD CLUE TO DEMENTIA"

"Loss of smell may be an early indication of Alzheimer's disease, research suggests.

Scientists found that changes linked to the most common form of dementia begin in mice in an area of the brain responsible for recognising smells.

The physical symptoms coincided with impaired olfactory, or smell, function. Affected animals had to sniff odours for longer to remember them than healthy mice. They also had problems differentiating between smells....

...Reduced smelling ability in the mice was linked to the appearance of amyloid plaques - sticky lumps of protein in the brain. Daniel Wesson, from the New York University School of Medicine, said: 'What is striking in our study was that performance of the mouse in the olfactory behaviour test was sensitive to even the smallest amount of amyloid presence in the brain.'"

I have to say that this article rang immediate alarm bells with me. For Mr Bonkers has a very rudimentary sense of smell, and has HUGE difficulties distinguishing between different scents. Hence his dismissal of 90% of the perfumes to which I expose him as smelling generically of "craft shop" (meaning that vague scented candle/pot pourri/room fragrance smell you find in shops that sell jewellery, homewares, teddy bears and general fripperies aka "stuff"). The very few variations on this broad category are: "fly spray" (Jasper Conran Mister), "nice soap!" (SJP Lovely), "craft shop with the window open" (some very attenuated Giacobetti number) or "the garden at the back of the craft shop" (MH Fleurs de Bois).

So I am not saying that Mr Bonkers has no sense of smell at all, just that it is - in the vast majority of cases - a bit of a blunt instrument. So on the basis of Mr B's results in my own "olfactory behaviour tests", it might not be a bad idea to get him some puzzle books and flaxseed oil in the first instance. If he persists in rudely dissing everything from Chanel to Ormonde Jayne and Penhaligons to Parfumerie Generale as "craft shop", I may reserve the right to check out the EMI units in our area. : - )

Mr Bonkers? Not yet, I hope! Though the words "petard" and "hoist" spring worryingly to mind...

The Scent Crimes Series: No 7 - "Binning" The Classics

The other day I helped a fellow shopper in Asda to find a packet of polenta, and thought as I did so how much our small market town had come on in recent years in terms of the range and quality of food items available. You can now also get Dr Karg crispbreads from Germany, which are not just sprinkled with pumpkin seeds, but have molten Emmental drizzled on top. Our Marks & Spencer does a nice line in Gastropub meals, which you could almost pass off as your own, and the new deli in town stocks every kind of arcane condiment you will ever need - and many you won't.

All of which scene-setting helps to explain why I was so disappointed with the response of my local department store to a question about Guerlain posed by a friend of mine. The store has a sleepy, oldfashioned air about it, admittedly, but stocks a wide range of designer fragrances, so when she reported the following exchange it came as a bit of a shock.

Friend: "Hello there - I am looking for a bottle of Mitsouko."

SA: "Mitsouko?"

Friend: "That's right - by Guerlain (pronounced in a perfect French accent). Do you have their range?"

SA: "Oh, you mean Gear-LANG (with the emphasis on the second syllable). No, no, we don't - that stuff is like...really...OLD."

Friend: "Er??" (stunned mumble)

SA: "Right. I mean, you could try that discount chemist further down the high street - they have bargain dump bins by the till with remaindered and old stuff in them. And it is quite cheap too. That's the only place I can think of."

The chemist in question did indeed have such a bin, containing dusty minis of Joop! and Calvin Klein, boxed sets of Coty L'Aimant, Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds, Elizabeth Arden Red Door and Sunflowers, all nestling amongst bumper packs of tissue and facial wipes.

Strangely, no Guerlain.

I don't know why, relatively speaking, the supermarkets in our town should be so gastronomically advanced, while our department store is such a backwater on the perfume front. Actually, it is a backwater on EVERY front, so I can kind of see why Guerlain might not consider such a store to be a "good fit" for its portfolio.

I think, though, that the house veers too much the other way ie towards exclusivity. Even the largest and most prestigious department stores in the UK do not stock anything more exotic than the likes of Apres L'Ondee and Chamade. You have to go to Paris or North America to find the full range, including my favourite scent of all, Plus Que Jamais. The shipping rates from France are punitive, mind, as I have inquired.

So yes, the most important message in this post turns out to be that Guerlain should be more widely stocked. Not necessarily in my town - but a few major cities in Britain would be a start...

The Top Sniffs - And Nasty Niffs! - Of 2009

Yes, I know that is an appallingly tabloid-esque headline, but as I am very late to the party with my 2009 scent round up, I figured I needed to go with an attention-grabbing headline. There again, regular readers of Bonkers about Perfume will know full well by now that they are not automatically going to get a considered and impeccably researched review of the latest releases, whether at the time of the launch or indeed ever. What they can count on is a lucky dip, a potluck supper - albeit one made with a packet sauce. For I am arguably the convenience food equivalent of the perfume blogs, the redtop newspaper - with apologies to Ines and her "All I Am - A Redhead" blog!

Right, so where was I? Hopefully off the hook now for posting this on 18th January. Nor is it probably necessary to go into much detail about most of the scents I have chosen, for they have been extensively covered by people with better noses and a more felicitous turn of phrase than me. So here goes, and I reserve the right to toss in a few sub-categories along the way as the mood takes me.

OVERALL TOP SNIFF OF 2009

Penhaligon's Amaranthine

I am probably the last to include Amaranthine in my top ten of last year, though I was one of its "early adopters" back in August when I first smelt it, and I have been doing my darndest to spread the word ever since! A lush tropical floral which manages to be simultaneously green and sheer; comfortingly milky, but with a dark side.

TOP TEN SNIFFS OF 2009 (in approximate order of preference)

Penhaligons Amaranthine
Hermessence Vanille Galante
Jo Malone Vanilla & Anise
Tom Ford White Suede
Prada L'Eau Ambree
Kenzo Eau de Fleur de Magnolia
Miller Harris Fleurs de Bois
Van Cleef & Arpels Collection Extraordinaire: Muguet Blanc
Van Cleef & Arpels Collection Extraordinaire: Bois d'Iris
Natori EDP by Natori

RUNNERS UP

Guerlain Idylle
Versace Versense
Issey Miyake A Scent
Acqua di Parma Magnolia Nobile
Eau de Sisley (2 & 3)
Helena Rubinstein Wanted (surprise, slightly naff pick!)

Well, what do the scents in these winning categories reveal about my taste, I wondered to myself? With the exception of Amaranthine, they are all pretty polite fragrances, I suppose - several I would even go so far as to describe as "skin scents". I would also observe that I seem to like vanilla and musk notes, also lilies, ylang ylang and magnolia. Citrus should be light and not too astringent. And I like my amber to be a quiet purr at most.

OUTRIGHT NASTY NIFFS OF 2009

Boss Orange (furry orange squash/cordial)
Prada Infusion de Fleur d'Oranger (as above)
Gucci Flora (this should have been light and inoffensive throughout, but the whole thing got hijacked by an unpleasant earthy patchouli note about half way through)
Comme des Garcons Daphne (an unpleasant woody spicy accord)
Armani Idole (headache-inducing pear drop note!)
Viktor & Rolf Eau Mega (as above)
Marc Jacobs Lola ("not good", but my mind has blocked out the reasons why, suggesting it really wasn't very nice at all)

RELEASES I DID NOT CARE FOR PARTICULARLY

Here are some of the (mostly niche) releases from 2009 that were too "difficult" or just not my style. The list also includes a number of scents which I expected to like but didn't, on each of which I have included an explanatory note.

DelRae Mythique
Amouage Epic Woman
Amouage Ubar (re-release)
SL Fille en Aiguilles
AG Mandragore Pourpre
Parfums d'Empire Wazamba
Byredo Baudelaire
Hermes Eau de Pamplemousse Rose
Hermes Eau de Gentiane Blanche (flat, cold, depressing, blue-grey musk)
EL PC Jasmine White Moss (I think I am fundamentally not a moss lover, Cristalle aside, though I had high hopes of this one)
AG Un Matin d'Orage (spoilt by the indolic ending, otherwise it would have had my name on it)
Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte (way too sharp and acidic)
Miss Dior Cherie L'Eau (green colour gave me heart, but it too was overly shrill and tart)
YSL Parisienne (disgruntled purple talc)

SCENTS I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE TRIED BUT DIDN'T

Ormonde Jayne Tiare (current top sniff list lemming! This sounds like my sort of thing...)
Van Cleef & Arpels Collection Extraordinaire (ie the others in the line)
L'Artisan Havana Vanille (mainly because it is by BD!)
Maison Kurkdjian range (especially APOM and Lumiere Noire pour femme, because of good reports from the Basenotes event with FK that I missed)
Ineke Field Notes From Paris (because of Robin's recommendation on NST)
The Different Company Oriental Lounge (because of the name really : - ) )

I am quite pleased that the "missed" list is as short as it is. This is either because my frenetic interest in sampling is finally starting to plateau or because of a faulty memory, or a bit of both.

The Scent Crimes Series: No 6 - Opaque Perfume Receptacles

In choosing the title for this post, I could have said "perfume atomisers", as these are the receptacles which bother me most - I am thinking specifically of the little spray vials you get in carded manufacturer's samples. However, my bottle of Creed Love in Black is also opaque, as is Love in White, though I don't have that one. My Bal a Versailles is in a white and gold bottle, and other opaque brands I can think of are Keiko Mecheri and Juliette Has a Gun, though I don't own anything from those lines either. Several of the Bond No 9 line are in opaque bottles as I recall, not that I would be especially tempted to buy any of them even if they came in clear glass with measurement markings printed down one side. And there are doubtless many more examples of the phenomenon - Habanita by Molinard just popped into my mind, also Tom Ford, Narciso Rodriguez and the Piguet range.

What prompted this "rantlet", for in all honesty the opacity thing is more of a "scent niggle" than a "crime" as such, was the fact that I wore a sample of Guerlain Idylle the other day from a little white vial, and couldn't work out how much was left in it. I shook it a few times to try to work out the remaining level from the noise it made, but with so little in there to start with you can't really deduce much by sound alone. And this also begs the question: when I bought a job lot of six of these vials from an Ebay seller, were they in fact all full to start with, as stated?

Going back to my Creed bottle, I have swapped and given away a few decants from it, but if I were ever to swap or sell the remaining bottle (offers welcome, by the way!), I wouldn't have a clue how much is in there to put in the description of the item. Which - with such an expensive scent - is pretty fundamental information. Holding it up to the light doesn't help, and the shake test only suggests there is "quite a bit still in there". So if anyone wanted to carry out a series of "fill level scams", opaque receptacles are definitely the way to go!

I am sure I have seen a bottle - possibly a men's one - where the front and back were opaque, but you could clearly see the fill level down the sides. So that is not a bad compromise, if you must do opaque at all, and personally I favour translucent every time.

I also think that opaque bottles/vials look cheaper somehow - not the Piguets or the Tom Fords particularly, but those JHAG ones look a bit basic. They could quite easily be Aussie shampoo...

So as with politicians' expenses and perfume reformulations that are sometimes slipped past us as soon as our backs are turned, when it comes to the the design of perfume bottles and vials I would like to call for greater transparency!

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz And The Parallel Universe Of Perfume Acronyms

Last night Mr Bonkers and I were having one of our disputes over who owns Charlie, our cat. These regularly arise following any kind of misdemeanour committed by the cat, in this case vicious leg kicks to my hand as I tried to administer her ear drops. "Look what your cat has done!" I yelped, startled by the sharp pain of her frantic clawing. Later, once I had calmed down and dabbed some TCP on the scratches, for some reason we got to wondering about whether the cat was listed in her vet's record book as belonging to one or other of us.

The cat's entry clearly showed that she was mine, registered at my former address. But suddenly my eye strayed to the topline information about her:

Name: Charlie
Date of Birth: 1995
Sex: F
Breed: DSH

Breed: DSH??? DSH can mean one and only one thing to me, namely DAWN SPENCER HURWITZ Perfumes, the niche label with a bias towards natural ingredients based in Colorado. So what on earth did DSH mean in the context of a veterinary record? And then the penny dropped......DOMESTIC SHORT HAIR....

I laughed and laughed at the incongruity of this alternative version of the acronym, and it wasn't long before I started to think of other abbreviations of perfume house names that had very different "mainstream" meanings.

So here we go - it was harder than I thought, and I am still stumped with lots of them, also the two character ones don't offer such rich pickings. Please feel free to chip in with your suggestions.

Maitre Parfumeur & Gantier (MPG) - Miles Per Gallon

Strange Invisible Perfumes (SIP) - Self Invested Pension

Etat Libre d'Orange (ELO) - Electric Light Orchestra

Parfumerie Generale (PG) - Parental Guidance

Serge Lutens (SL) - Service Level / Second Life (the game)

Ormonde Jayne (OJ) - Orange Juice / "OJ" (Simpson)

Frederic Malle (FM) - FM (radio wavelength)

Keiko Mecheri (KM) - KM (kilometre!)

Lorenzo Villoresi (LV) - Loan to Value (slight cheat!)

Black Phoenix Academy Lab (BPAL) - very, but not quite BOPAL in India (not an acronym, admittedly, but I reserve the right to make up the rules as I go along!)

Estee Lauder Private Collection (ELPC) - Entry Level People Carrier (okay, okay, I know I am getting silly now...)

Parfums MDCI (don't know what the MDCI stands for!) - Management Development Centre International (first outright cheat through googling - this is a centre of postgraduate learning in the Gulf, apparently).

Any more for any more?