Paying it Forward: (in) Puredistance Gold

"This post is a part of a joint mini project, a.k.a. giveaway, held by Undina (Undina’s Looking Glass), Vanessa (Bonkers about Perfume), Lucas (Chemist in the Bottle) and Portia (Australian Perfume Junkies) – see details at the bottom of the post."

Ooh, I haven't participated in a joint blogging project in forever. I do remember one in 2010 on The Scents of the Mediterranean, and there must have been an example or two since. However, with being a bit of a lone wolf that walks by itself I haven't tended to do much in the way of collaborations with other bloggers. To be fair, I haven't done much blogging lately, period, which has as much to do with the ongoing jip from my sprained pelvis (and inability to sit still for long periods) as it has with any dip in my fragrant mojo. Be that as it may, the rationale behind this particular joint exercise struck me as so worthwhile that I am delighted to have been asked to host the UK end of the giveaway.

Without further ado I should add that this initiative is the brainchild of Undina, who explains how she lit upon the idea on Undina's Looking Glass.

For the full background do hop over to her blog, but in brief, Puredistance is a fine example of 'slow perfumery' (to annexe a term perhaps best known in the context of cooking and travel). It has gradually increased both its stable of fragrances and its retail network, growing the company in a measured and organic way, also in terms of its marketing approach. Undina feels (and I wholeheartedly agree) that Puredistance has always been appreciative of the varied and highly individual ways in which bloggers have spread the word about its perfumes. The company even collated their reviews into a presentation book, which I have never seen done by a brand before. To this day, 11 years on from the launch of PD 1, Puredistance continues to be unstintingly generous to the blogging community in its provision of samples. This was never conditional on their part, and by the same token, we bloggers wrote from the heart and not as part of some tacit quid pro quo arrangement that 'free stuff' would automatically come our way. But because of Puredistance's respect for the blogging community and its voice, I'd say this naturally led to closer - while still independent - ties.

Conversely, owing to the limited distribution of the brand, the fact of the matter remains that most people reading reviews will probably not have the opportunity to try these perfumes in a store anywhere near them. Which is why Undina thought it would be a nice idea to hold parallel giveaways in the four regions of the participating bloggers, enabling one reader in each area to win a sample of Puredistance's latest release, GOLD.

Here's the technical detail, courtesy of Undina:

"Puredistance Gold Sample(s) Giveaway

One ~ 1.5ml handmade sample of Puredistance Gold is offered in a giveaway on each blog for a reader from the specific geographical region:

Bonkers about Perfume - the UK

Undina’s Looking Glass – the US and Canada

Chemist in the Bottle  – Europe (without the UK)**

Australian Perfume Junkies – Australia

While you’re invited and encouraged to comment on any/all of the participating blogs, to be entered into the draw you should leave a comment on 'your' region’s blog, following the instructions given there.

The draw will close on February 23. You know all the disclaimers etc."

Now I love GOLD myself and for anyone who hasn't tried the line, it is an ideal introduction to Puredistance's luxurious yet wearable style. Links to my review of it and those of five other scents are listed below, along with one to my post about visiting the offices of Puredistance in 2011 - I was apparently the first blogger to do so. I received a very warm welcome from Jan Ewoud Vos and his team, and at the end of our meeting was given a memorably packaged(!) ;) slice of apple cake for the road.

Visit to Puredistance HQ

Review of Puredistance 1

Review of Puredistance BLACK

Review of Puredistance WHITE

Review of Puredistance SHEIDUNA

Review of Puredistance WARSZAWA

Review of Puredistance GOLD

The travel escapades of a sample of Puredistance M

Editor's note: It occurred to me that as Bonkers receives few comments anymore - looking again at these reviews has rather reminded me of that - if you are in the UK the chances of scoring a sample here are extremely high!

**Europe (without the UK) Ah, how true...;(

WHITE and BLACK cosying up together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: waterforum.net

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

Source: spoonflower.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Results of the Puredistance GOLD 'Paying it Forward' giveaway!

I see that the last draw I featured on Bonkers was for a dishcloth, lovingly handknitted by moi, with Annie A in Canada the lucky winner - or unlucky, depending on how you feel about doing the washing up. I do remember that across the pond generally, what we call 'washing up liquid' is known as 'dish soap', though that is not so far removed from 'doing the dishes', I suppose. And funnily enough I am busy knitting a whole stack of dishcloths in different colours and patterns at the moment...

But hold on, I hear you cry...can you please get to the point of who won the Puredistance GOLD draw?

Well, I excluded the DNEMs, who were several, and put everyone else's name into the virtual hat that is the online number generator, Random.org. Back in the day, as long term readers may remember, I used to get Mr Bonkers to call out a random number, and funnily enough he was here this afternoon, but I had already done the deed by that point, so didn't need to resort to my trusty human method.

It was noteworthy that of the eight participants who wished to be entered - I told you the odds were good on here! ;) - no fewer than three had Christian names beginning with 'H'. So I did think there was a fairly high chance that an 'H'-named person would win, and so it has proved.

Without further ado I can reveal that the winner of the Puredistance GOLD giveaway is:

HAYLEY

Congratulations!

Let me know your address on flittersniffer at gmail dot com, and I will post your sample off to you. 

Puredistance WHITE review: honky-tonka yellows and lazy hazy daisies

'Tonka beans blogger's own'

I seem to start every review of a Puredistance scent by saying what a fan I am of the house: their friendly people, their relaxed PR style and unstuffy approach to the very concept of luxury products which is the backbone of the brand. It may not be the case anymore, but for a while there I was the only blogger to have made the trip to their offices, tucked away in a lofty converted church in Groningen, where I  (very loosely) interviewed Jan Ewoud Vos over tea and apple cake. Of the six perfumes they have launched to date, I was very taken with Puredistance 1 and the startlingly upper case BLACK, but didn't get on so well with Opardu, much to my chagrin, as everything about its concept and composition should have appealed. And it wasn't just me - two fellow bloggers have sniffed me wearing it, and pronounced it to be pleasant, but not spectacular - and not to smell of very much beyond a veil of white musk. But more of that anon....my subsequent volte-face on this wistful lilac beauty deserves a post of its own, I sense.

So nowithstanding my underwhelmed reaction to Opardu, I was very excited about the release of WHITE, the capitalised counterpart to BLACK, one infers. It is a tribute to the palpable enthusiasm and verve of the staff at Puredistance that they can still whip me into a fervour of anticipation at this semi-jaded plateau stage in my hobby. I must admit that some of that excitement is due to the exquisite way in which they present their press packs. Well, I wasn't so keen on Opardu on that score actually, as the sample vial arrived in a clunky big black lacquer box, which frankly seemed like overkill, also on the postage front. But my sample of WHITE arrived in a flattish white box, which opened to form a sort of 3D picture frame-stroke-diarama, in tones of white and gold / cornfield yellow, featuring a white silk lining - and oh joy! - an actual dried daisy!

Readers, I inspected this flower very thoroughly, and its very fragility (I accidentally dropped it twice on the floor) tends to confirm that it is REAL. That fact is worthy of upper case letters, I feel. It instantly took me back to my childhood, when I used to make collages of 'found things', as well as pressing the coloured foil wrappers of sweets between the leaves of weighty novels - or flowers (and once infamously, a roadkill lizard!) in the pages of a beloved scrapbook. The whole pack had a lovely aura of an adorable interactive educational toy-cum-ornament-cum-picture. The company had also generously enclosed a coffret of all the Puredistance scents, which is a great aide-memoire, not least because I had drained my vial of Opardu and was keen to try it again.  But I will save that story for another time, as I say...;)

Accompanying the box was a rather attractive flyer with a radiant sun design in this same buttery, muted yellow veering to old gold. It features a handwritten note from Puredistance's PR lady, plus sketches of the key ingredients in the new scent for handy identification! Who knew that vetiver looked like a shaving brush?! (Or it does when it is in a bundle, say, while patchouli looks surprisingly like vetch.) There is also an account of the inspiration behind the fragrance, and a list of its 'ingredients' (unexpectedly partly capitalised!) and their provenance, to wit:

"Rose de Mai from France, Tonka bean absolute from Venezuela, Orris absolute from Italy, Sandalwood from Mysore, Bergamot from Italy, Musk, Vetyver from Haiti and Patchouli from Indonesia."

I am not usually one for backstories - or let's say I approach them with a certain degree of caution - but I rather like the premise for WHITE. Here is an excerpt from the leaflet:

"The main idea behind the creation of Puredistance WHITE Perfume has been to create a perfume so beautiful and positive that it gives the wearer an instant flow of happiness. We asked Master Perfumer Antoine Lie (who also created Puredistance BLACK for us) to create a white and golden dream; an intimate escape from harsh reality....In this era of global negativity our aim is to give our customers a positive, mood transforming perfume. We hope WHITE will make many moments in your life a little bit more beautiful and colour your world in shades of serene white and warm gold - instead of grey. ;)"

My bedroom: fortuitously in this exact colour scheme!

I like the addition of the smiley face - possibly also a reference to a certain film doing the rounds at the moment, hehe...? ;) But anyway, I like the concept - I have blogged myself recently on the subject of bad stuff in the news and the current, rather downbeat Zeitgeist - so it is a nice thought that Puredistance are seeking to yank people out of that slough of despond, and neatly bridge the gap between winter and spring with WHITE's combination of white and gold tones. For this perfume doesn't evoke simply white to me - it is richer than that. A fitting crossover scent for the chilly yet sunny days of early March we are experiencing at the moment...there are some yellow coloured flowers in gardens - daffodils, crocuses, tulips - but it could just as easily hail at any moment, and did do on Sunday! So the timing for a fragrance launch with that message - both weatherwise and in terms of counteracting negative events in the media - is spot on.

So how does WHITE smell?

Well, I have tried it three times now on consecutive days, with pretty consistent results, though I might get more or less of the floral notes poking through, like spring bulbs in our flowerbed analogy. My overriding sensation, however, is of a seamlessly blended nutty, woody, slightly peppery?, tonka-centric gourmand scent. The tonka itself has those characteristic overtones of coumarin and hay as well as vanilla, which lend it a slightly sterner, drier, more offbeat facet - possibly buttressed by the vetiver. Now I don't know what the scent of a daisy is exactly, but I imagine it might also be a bit austere and vegetal, so in that regard it is a fitting emblem to represent this scent, not least because of its teaming of these two signature colours within its own flower.

Then texturally - you know how big I am on texture ;) - WHITE is muzzy and musky - and warm in very much the style, if not the scent, of Puredistance 1. By the same token it is also quite tenacious. WHITE is 'thickish' and opaque rather than sheer, and although I did spot the odd appearance of iris, I can't say I detect rose at any stage. I should mention that my nose / skin tends to amplify anything on the tonka-heliotrope spectrum, and I see tonka as a halfway house towards heliotrope, although I may be completely wrong there. For me, tonka and heliotrope both hover around that vaguely almondy, milky foody territory, with just a hint of a bitter or anisic twist.

In terms of any other perfumes WHITE resembles, the only one that sprang to mind was PG Tonkamande, though it is a while since I sniffed that, and there is only partial crossover, notewise. On my skin, WHITE is so tonka-forward, at least initially, that it sets itself apart in that way. So overall I would say that I like WHITE quite  a lot; it does fit the brief of being warming and comforting in these troubled times. I particularly like its quieter phase about 1-2 hours in, when the coumarin-y aspect of the tonka has settled down, and the composition becomes a little sweeter and more floral (more the iris than the rose, in fairness). The feel of the scent on skin is also more silken and smooth than at the outset. This is when WHITE truly slips into its lazy, hazy, dreamy phase. And after my unexpected bonding with the later stages of MAAI, readers will not be surprised to hear that I am well up to a bit of waiting now when it comes to a perfume's development. ;) I can see myself progressively warming to WHITE, indeed. I would say that it is not an obvious perfume, but strikes me rather as something of a grower.

In the Puredistance literature, I note that the people on whom WHITE was tested 'immediately started to smile and then started to smell again, telling us WHITE filled them with happiness.' I would imagine they must be bigger fans of tonka bean than me. For that reason, I doubt that I will ever feel mad love for WHITE in its entirety, as I am not that keen on tonka bean when it's centre stage like this, and I think you really have to be to fully appreciate WHITE. But props to Puredistance for going a rather unconventional route with this latest release, nailing their white and yellow colours to the tonka mast!

Then on a whim, I googled the origin of 'Honky-tonk blues' which inspired the first part of my title. I knew it was a song, but didn't know what about. I learnt that 'honky-tonk' refers to both a style of country music and the rather rickety bars in which it was performed. 'Honky' on its own, meanwhile, appears to have been a pejorative nickname used for white people, possibly originating in Chicago's meatpacking plants. Well, we'll draw a veil over this nugget of info, as that way lies more gloom and negativity(!), except to say...how curious that 'honky' should mean white.  And of course WHITE is designed to drive away the blues, by suffusing the world in white and yellow. Of which it does a pretty good job, I'd say, all things considered.

Not the right yellow, but still ~ Source: ratemymusic.com

PS A props credit is due to Victoria Frolova of Boisdejasmin, who gave me the tonka beans when I visited Brussels in 2012. I knew they would come in handy one day!

My equally colour-coordinated bedroom wool stash!

'In the midnight hour, she cried: "Myrrh, myrrh, myrrh"': Puredistance SHEIDUNA review

After eight years, I would probably describe my interest in perfume as 'mature'. That's 'mature' in the sense of being in a plateau phase - I don't mean to imply that I am any more knowledgeable about the subject of fragrance than I was when I first got into this hobby. And the recent twitchiness of my skin means that my interest has been going backwards if anything, not helped by the slew of 'nouveau niche' releases that continue to flood the market, many of them a sorry epitome of style and hiked price over substance.

But as jaded and scent-shy as I have become of late, my perfume mojo never fails to perk up at the mention of a new Puredistance release. For while the Dutch brand trades on an undeniably luxury platform, their products are developed slowly and thoughtfully, with quality ingredients and a high degree of attention to detail in every aspect of the marketing mix.

So when a sample package arrived the other day with SHEIDUNA, the latest addition to the still not overly populous Puredistance stable - I know, I know, they are still on a roll with their CAPITALISATION OF NAMES - I fell upon it with glad cries, metaphorically speaking. In the PR material for SHEIDUNA I had noted that the planned colour scheme for this scent was based around orange and red, and was pleased to see the use of 'red brown paper', if that makes sense, for the outer wrapping of the parcel.

Inside the black outer cardboard was the usual white 'padded coffin'-style coffret lined with sumptuous gold satin. The perfume itself was delivered this time in a small, refillable purse spray (as opposed to the Travalo used to present Penhaligon's Juniper Sling); of particular interest to me as a long time bottle splitter and sample maker was the inclusion of a small gold funnel to use when decanting from the full-sized test tube bottle of SHEIDUNA the company is clearly confident we will one day wish to own.

But back to our muttons. Readers, it is a very fine funnel indeed, of sturdy construction with optimum hole diameter and smooth, well finished edges. And I speak as someone who owns a whole clatter of tiny, tinny, sharp and useless funnels I got in a job lot from China. And even some of my better quality ones have such a narrow aperture that perfumes of higher viscosities sometimes refuse to pour through the blessed things at all. So, never mind the perfume, big fat tick for the funnel right off the bat!

On a side note, I have to mention that in her nice little card with the parcel, Puredistance's PR lady, Mary Gooding, wrote Sheiduna in lower case. Yes indeed! I like the idea that she kicks back from time to time and doesn't stand on capitalised ceremony.

And before getting into the perfume itself, a quick word on the name. You can readily see where Puredistance are going with SHEIDUNA: it is another of those sultry desert-inspired numbers, like Ormonde Jayne Ta'if and l'Air du Désert Marocain, for the likes of which I personally have a quite voracious appetite. And if this were a game of Countdown it would be the work of a moment to make 'SHEIK' and 'DUNE' out of the name. Okay, if you had a 'K' and an 'E' admittedly, but bear with me. (Just checked the PR material and the name was in fact invented from the words 'She', 'Sheika' and 'Dune', 'sheika' being a married woman / wife of a sheik. I didn't guess 'she' - not a high enough word score, obviously, to be on my radar, but I was in the right ball park as you can see.)

Interestingly, I read in a Basenotes comment that 'sheiduna' in Arabic means 'female devil'. I cannot find anything to corroborate this spelling in Google, though 'sheitan' comes up. From this it is surely a short hop and skip to SHEIDUNA as female dune-dwelling devil.

Then further to the Billy Idol song of the title (Rebel Yell, slightly adapted), I don't know why, but the song 'My Sharona' by The Knack popped into my head as soon as I thought of SHEIDUNA, and has remained an annoyingly persistent earworm ever since. It is possibly that song title that has made me now associate SHEIDUNA with the VW SHARAN, the Kia SEDONA, and other (not usually capitalised) SUVs of that kidney. That is after all just the sort of rugged vehicle you need when exploring the challenging terrain in question.

Source: Wikipedia

Here is the official Puredistance statement of the scent's inspiration:

"SHEIDUNA is a rich and intense Perfume inspired by the panoramic views and feel of golden sand dunes in the desert during sunset - soft female curves changing from deep gold to warm, orangey red - embodying a promise of sensual comfort and silent seduction."

I must say I had never thought of sand dunes in quite that way before, but come to think of it their globular nature does rather lend itself to such comparisons. The other key aim of the creative brief from Puredistance founder Jan Ewoud Vos was 'to create the perfume marriage between Oriental Sensuality and Parisian elegance'.

Orange and red Persian rug from Central Casting

Then I greatly enjoyed trying to decipher the notes which passed back and forth between perfumer Cécile Zarzokian and Jan Ewoud Vos during the development process. I see that Catherine Deneuve, Eva Green and Charlotte Rampling are cited as muses, and that the perfume should be sensual, veering towards sexual, without tipping over into vulgarity. Or was it supposed to tip over slightly into vulgarity? I can't quite make out the snippet which may or may not say: 'Hint of vulgarity'. So of course I had to write to Mary and ask for clarification, also of the word that on balance probably isn't 'Cabillaud', which is 'cod' in French. Mary told me that my phantom cod was in fact 'Cotillard', the surname of a French actress, singer-songwriter, environmentalist and spokesperson for Greenpeace (Wikipedia informs me).

Marion Cotillard ~ Source Wikimedia Commons (George Biard)

I didn't get any further with the vulgarity issue, mind, for Mary replied:

"I spoke with Jan Ewoud about deciphering the rest of the post card and he explained that the card is meant for feeling, not analysing. Please take the feelings and emotions you have when viewing the cards with the earliest hand-written notes and messages between Jan Ewoud and Cécile Zarokian to bring you a little closer to the development of the concept. 

I hope this proves to be an interesting endeavour for you!" 

It certainly did. I like a bit of mystery at the end of the day.

So how does SHEIDUNA smell?

Well, first up, here are the notes;

Lemon, tangerine, blackcurrant, aldehydes, Bulgarian rose essence, geranium, clove, vetyver, patchouli, amber woody incense, benzoin, myrrh, tonka bean, vanilla pods and musks

Eyeballing that list I was immediately reminded of the notes of Puredistance 1, with which there is a surprising amount of crossover.

Fresh tangerine blossom, cassis, neroli bigarade, magnolia, rose wardia, jasmine, natural mimosa, sweet amber, vetyver, white musk

Diptyque's L'Ombre dans l'Eau and Baume du Doge by Eau d'Italie also sprang to mind, with their crackling tension between (respectively) blackcurrant and orange notes - and myrrh. While the mixture of aldehydes and incense inevitably conjures up Serge Lutens' La Myrrhe.

Tried burning the stuff once but it was myrrh trouble than it was worth

In the opening to SHEIDUNA, the crystalline texture of the myrrh coupled with the amber base convey a simultaneously warm and granular feel, as befits the sandscapes which form the thematic backdrop to the scent. (Purple prose alert!!) The prickly heat effect is further reinforced by a coruscating canopy of spiced aldehydes. To my nose there is a vaguely odd aspect to the scent at this point, possibly because of the juxtaposition of fruit and the amber woody incense accord, or just the latter on its own packing a punch - I can't quite put my finger on it. The feeling of oddness varies from spray to spray - depending perhaps on how liberal I am with the application. But if you are happy to wait a little while, SHEIDUNA soon gets into more classical 'desert oriental' territory. I LOVE the drydown in particular, when the scent becomes a fuzzy caressing tingle of ambery incense. I am sorry, I have tried several versions of that sentence and they all sound a bit louche. Yes, there is a lot going on here that I cannot begin to describe, but as ever with Puredistance scents, you really can't see the join.

Puredistance display in Fortnum & Mason

SHEIDUNA is opulent and elegant and mysterious and completely its own thing: it is not simply an oriental spin on Puredistance 1 as I at first wondered - and if you like any or all of the fragrances mentioned earlier there is a good chance you will enjoy it, singular opening notwithstanding. A perfume with three separate notes that smell of vanilla already has a lot to commend it in my book.

I also tried SHEIDUNA out on the trusty sounding board that is my elderly friend - Facebook friends will recognise who I mean. She didn't want to sniff my skin itself, as she got enough of a whiff some inches away. 'It's creamy', she remarked, adding: 'It's nice', and as an afterthought: 'I wouldn't call it delicate.' Which may have been a reference to SHEIDUNA's powers of projection...or the fact that it does contain a 'hint of vulgarity' after all. ;) My elderly friend seemed to approve either way.

And as well as Rebel Yell, I am minded of a track by The Monochrome Set called Rain Check; it is a surprisingly jaunty ditty about cheating death, who is depicted as a black caped figure swinging his cane and smelling of (presumably) funereal incense:

"The scent of myrrh on your skin..."

SHEIDUNA, the scent of myrrh, and so much more.

Hidden gem, aka a corundum conundrum: Puredistance RUBIKONA review (eventually!)

Source: Puredistance

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved secret things. I don't mean secrets as such, though goodness knows I have kept a few of those down the years(!), but things in secret places...usually, but not always small things. The miniaturisation aspect contributes greatly to the objects' sweetness, it always seemed to me. But I also mean something observed from afar, so it appears mysterious or elusive. Take the puppets you watch longways in a shoebox theatre, for instance. Then on childhood holidays in Ireland on the way to our seaside caravan, we would pass a house at the end of a long drive. It had a wrought iron gate which was overgrown with creeper, and the drive itself was more like a tunnel due to the intertwined branches of trees on either side. You could just about spy a glimpse of the house itself in the distance, which massively piqued my brother's and my curiosity...A good everyday example of 'small secret things' might be an advent calendar. (It's nearly that time!) I haven't had one since I was a kid, but I can imagine I'd still get the same frisson of excitement on opening each little door and viewing the picture behind. Or finding the piece of chocolate, to which the secret may well have upgraded these days. Not forgetting nests of Russian dolls - the littlest one in the set was impossibly sweet! - and roos in kangaroo's pouches.

Source: Amazon

One of the most memorable illustrations of this principle was a plastic souvenir altar my father brought back from his travels to Spain or Italy, which stood on the mantlepiece of his study. Despite its being unashamedly cheap and kitsch, I derived endless fun from opening the little door in the centre of the altar to reveal a tiny gold chalice - in my memory it is against a red background and backlit, but that is perhaps the embellishment of my imagination. I may be getting muddled with this votive candle I lit in St Therese's basilica in Lisieux last year. The candles in the photo are actually a bit blurry, but that serves my purpose in fact, as will become clear. But you can tell a red theme is at least forming, with a side of religious imagery that may also prove significant in these meandering musings. I thought I might be able to play on the perfume's namesake of the Rubicon river and its wandering course, but having consulted a map I see that the river believed to have been the ancient waterway so famously and irreversibly crossed by Julius Caesar is in fact shortish and disappointingly straight.

Here is the altar, or one just like it, which does indeed have a red back panel. This is from a Worthpoint auction site, so it may have been worth a bob or two, had we known!

And lastly there is the miniature cargo that came with one of my favourite childhood boardgames, Buccaneer. How adorable are those gemstones and little ingots and barrels of rum! How many attractive combinations there are to play around with of boat colour and pirate swag. ;) These little plastic replicas still thrill and excite me, like the chalice in its niche. Check out those tiny rubies...

Source: Shpock

And now - rather circuitously - we have at last come to the gemstone itself which inspired the creation of Puredistance's latest release, RUBIKONA.

I do actually have some professional experience of the jewellery business, having worked all over America for De Beers on a project mapping the supply pipeline for diamonds. Coloured stones were mentioned in passing, but diamonds were the main focus. A quick google of industry websites has confirmed that the market for rubies, like diamonds, is every bit as arcane and insiderish, with its own impenetrable jargon. ;) Here are a couple of fun facts I gleaned:

1) Burmese rubies are the most prized of all. The Prince of Burma weighs in in its raw state at 950 carats. If it were cut, it would produce a stone of 300 carats, which the jeweller from whose website I learnt this staggering nugget, wrily observed is: 'possibly not realistic for a stud earring'.

2) The most desirable colour for rubies is 'pigeon blood red', which is a very deep shade, though I have not dissected a frog in biology class, never mind a pigeon. Interestingly, if you google 'pigeon blood red' you get a whole slew of pictures of rubies - loose and set in rings etc - and absolutely nary a one of pigeons, wounded or otherwise. Oddly, there are pictures of fish, which appear to have annexed the name. Then some rubies have their colour enhanced through heat treatment, which arguably involves the same cheat factor as acquiring your sunkissed look in a tanning salon.

The 25.59 carat Sunrise Ruby, via Wikiwand

And now on to some specialist terms from minerals.net and the GIA website, which are every bit as eclectic as in the diamond world, and which I see include the term 'inclusions', meaning anything naturally occurring which gets trapped inside a mineral as it forms:

3) Rubies and sapphires are the same mineral, known as 'corundum' - they just differ in colour. And there's more...

"Typical ruby clarity characteristics include thin mineral inclusions called needles. When the mineral is rutile and needles are present in intersecting groups, it is called silk...Some inclusions can actually contribute positively to a gem’s appearance. The presence of rutile silk causes light to scatter across facets that might otherwise be too dark. This adds softness to the color and spreads the color more evenly across the ruby’s crown."

I will spare you asterisms, cabochon cuts and pleochroism(!), about which the article goes on talk, or we really would be here all day.

But hey, 'rutile silk' - wasn't the detour worth it for that gem of a term!?

There is much more on this mineral phenomenon here, in which the author - amongst other gloriously offbeat revelations about the formation of silk inclusions - quotes Joni Mitchell, and also likens these 'daggers of rutile' to a 'beguiling silk lattice'; meanwhile The Natural Ruby Company speaks of the 'sleepy transparency' conferred to rubies by the little needles. 

Source: Lotus Gemology

EDITOR'S NOTE: REVIEW PROPER STARTS HERE!

I apologise for that monster preamble before getting down to the nitty gritty of what RUBIKONA is like. But I would make a case for all the foregoing being relevant, for one of the key powers of scent is to trigger memories, and as you can see, that has happened to me in spades here! And there is also the alchemy of how RUBIKONA conjures the impression of this red jewel in olfactory terms. Where is it in the composition, when does it emerge? As the fragrance unfolds, there is a secret, hidden, trompe-nez of a gem, glimpsed from afar - and occasionally close up - which teases and fascinates my nose in equal measure.

The first thing to clear up is the actual inspiration for RUBIKONA, as oppposed to my own gemological and other riffings. 

"The creation of this perfume started with the word RUBIKONA that combines the deep and warm colour red of a RUBY with the timeless beauty of an ICON...RUBIKONA is 'Chic inside Out'".

The word 'icon' is meant here in a couture sense, rather than my religious take on it, but Jan Ewoud Vos, Puredistance's founder, is not the sort to mind where the mind takes the wearer of one of their fragrances. Though this post may test him to the max(!).

Source: Puredistance

I say, does this dress look like rutile silk to you? ;)

The perfumer behind RUBIKONA is Cecile Zarokian, who created SHEIDUNA for Puredistance.  As ever, the fragrance is extrait strength, at 28%.

Notes

Top notes: Grapefruit, bergamot, mandarin

Middle notes: Rose, iris, ylang, clove, orange blossom, creamy notes

Base notes: Patchouli, cedarwood, vanilla, solar notes, musk

When I heard the name of the new scent, I wondered if it might be diva-esque like Vero Kern's Rubj, with its vampish teaming of narcotic white flowers and an exotic fruit bowl. It isn't, and doesn't smell remotely like Rubj, which I do like, but which is quite full on. I note that Vero Kern's scent also has bergamot, mandarin, orange flower, cedar and musk, which information I will park for now and possibly feed into my 'ruby detection matrix' by and by.

A perfume I thought of fleetingly when I first sniffed RUBIKONA was Guerlain Shalimar Parfum Initial. Here there are seven crossover notes: bergamot, orange, rose, iris, patchouli, vanilla and musk. The only similarity that struck me though was its patchouli-forwardness, notwithstanding the many notes in common. The vetiver and green notes - and possibly what Robin of NST cleverly identifies as its "flat" feel and "ever so slightly almond-y" facet - take Parfum Initial in a dull, vegetal and relentlessly patchouli-driven direction. I am so with Robin when she says: "It's something else entirely, and whatever that something else is, I don't find it all that compelling."

No, I think the stylistic register to compare RUBIKONA to might be Penhaligon's Iris Prima, which I included in my 'Careful Whispers' series. It has the same 'diffusive, indistinct' quality, which makes it so hard to parse. Funnily enough, I originally thought of dropping RUBIKONA into that series, before I even spotted the atmospheric likeness between the two scents, but what a waste of a good title that would have been...! ;)

Source: Puredistance

It is hard to parse, as I say, but here goes anyway...RUBIKONA opens with a noticeable showing of patchouli, but the earthy salvo is held in check by a wistful posse of powdery iris, sensual florals, and a creamy musky trail that persists throughout. It is not chilly or austere as some iris-containing scents can be, and strikes me as neither vintage nor especially modern. This is despite the mention of 'solar notes', which I first came across as a term in Guerlain's Lys Soleia, and which I associate with contemporary scents, even though I gather they have been used in perfumery in one guise or another for a long time. Here I am guessing they infuse the composition with a sunny radiance that helps connote the idea of a ruby catching the light. I am not really aware of any overt citrus element at any point in the fragrance's development, but I expect the rose (betcha they were red!) - and the various orange notes (as in Rubj) - together suggest the warmth and depth of a ruby. Of the requisite pigeon blood shade no less. Now RUBIKONA is not a dark scent, for it is of course refracted by our rutile silk inclusions(!), but it is 'darker' and more grown up than Iris Prima, while remaining resolutely subtle and staying close to the skin. Over time, RUBIKONA becomes a gentle, attenuated version of the aforementioned wistful posse, their having by now wrangled the patchouli into submission in fairly short order, not that it was ever loud to begin with.

So did I find the ruby in the composition? I am going with a combination of patchouli, orange, rose and solar note facets (see what I did there?)...final answer!

To sum up, I am a big fan of Puredistance 1, and BLACK, and GOLD in particular. Puredistance 1 reminds me nostalgically of the early days of my perfume hobby, coming out just a year before I fell down the rabbit hole; BLACK I associate with happy times touring with the band; GOLD makes me think of my work trips abroad, which once even took me to the HQ of Puredistance itself.

 And now the understated, hidden gem in the Puredistance stable that is RUBIKONA is definitely up in my top two or three of the eleven releases so far. It reminds me of so many things as you can see! Which may go a long way to explaining why I feel such a visceral connection to the Puredistance brand. Their scents are elegant, singular, wearable, and made from high quality materials, with exquisite packaging. And to be fair, prices to match - though as Undina points out in her post (see link below), considering the perfumes are extrait the price per ml is in fact very reasonable. And crucially they are also evocative - and as I said above in mitigation for my meandering memories - for me that is what the best perfumery is all about...

The Graff ring via truefacet.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Source: Wikipedia

NB Note the Rubicon river above - a lot less wiggly than my review, as you can see - but if you have got this far, it is TOO LATE NOW! The die is cast, and the post is read...

er...not quite!

The forgotten anniversary

For it is only now that it has suddenly occurred to me that it might be my 11th blogging anniversary around about this time of year, and it turns out that it is in fact today. ;) Well, there is no point writing a separate post to mark that milestone, but I can think of no more fitting brand to devote this post to instead. I will celebrate with a virtual Ruby Red Buttercream cake. (Photo via Liggys Cake Co.)

JUST ADD 11 CANDLES!

Results of the Puredistance RUBIKONA giveaway!

Now that lockdown is upon us, I am getting on with indoor activities, including the all-important task of selecting two winners of the Puredistance RUBIKONA samples.

I promised readers that the odds were excellent, as Bonkers receives very few comments, plus I am mindful that other giveaways had preceded my post, heading off some of the demand. 

The last time I held a draw - for a Puredistance GOLD sample - there were eight participants who wished to be entered, and one vial up for grabs. This time there were only four such readers living in the UK - at least I think they all do - and TWO samples, giving entrants a 50% chance of winning. How much better is that than the National Lottery! Or even the throw of a dice. 

I used Random.org again, which seemed surprised that the number range was so short I could almost have flipped a coin. If there had been three winners, I really could have picked the last one that way. ;)

Without further ado I can reveal that the winners of the RUBIKONA samples are:

Catlady1649

AND

Speranza16

Congratulations!

Drop me a line on flittersniffer at gmail dot com with your postal address and I will happily brave the lockdown regulations to get your perfume off to you. I will choose a Post Office that is also a shop and construe the sortie as a unit of exercise or a foray for milk.

Lalique Flora Bella: A Four Star Sleeper Bought With Eyes Wide Shut...

In the very early days of Bonkers, I wrote a review of Jasper Conran Woman, a super cheap citrussy chypre of which you can still pick up gift sets (with body lotion!) for under a tenner in UK supermarkets. Tania Sanchez gave it four stars in Perfumes: The Guide, and likened it to Chanel pour Monsieur, yet it remains lost in obscurity and condemned to a slow death languishing in the bargain bins of Asda.

While I was over in Berlin recently, I had a good old chat with the male sales assistant at Sahling best of beauty in Galeries Lafayette, whose unbridled enthusiasm for Lalique Flora Bella (which he didn't stock, sadly) made a major impression on me. It prompted him to dream of a tropical paradise, where a handsome, raven-haired surfer dude with violet eyes crests the waves and flits in and out of view like a tantalising chimera.

You won't therefore be surprised to learn that one of the first things I did when I got home from Germany (after the usual suspects of unpacking, washing, emergency plant rescue and placating the cat, who always pretends not to recognise me if I have been away for more than a couple of days), was to get onto the Cheapsmells website and snag a bottle of this for under £17, including shipping. As I said in my Berlin Sniffathon report, it was well worth that amount just to see what all the fuss was about - or wasn't...And of course Flora Bella was created by Bertrand Duchaufour, who surely must be incapable of having an off day and creating a duffer.

Now I haven't blind bought anything for a very long time - in fact, I can't remember what the last bottle was, it is so long ago - but sometimes the thrill of the gamble is worth the risk, and if you do end up liking the scent in question, you really are quids in. Well, I have now worn Flora Bella a few times and what can I say? I thought I had smelt it all...but then this lactonic beauty came along. Hmm, I can't seem to find two note listings that agree, but here are a couple to kick us off:

BASENOTES

Top Notes: mandarin, bergamot, baie rose

Middle Notes: Daphne flower, frangipani blossom, vanilla, sweet almond

Base Notes: amber, vanilla, white musk

FRAGRANTICA

Notes: mandarin, bergamot, rose, violet, frangipani, freesia, cassia flower, mimosa, tuberose, carnation, orchid, tiare flower, white musk, vanilla and spices

I had to google Daphne flower and came across an authoritative article on the subject by Octavian of 1000 Fragrances, of which this extract seemed the most relevant:

"Daphne mezereum is maybe the best known type, but there are other scented Daphne flowers like Daphne alpina, Daphne cneorum, Daphne striata, Daphne philippi, Daphne blagayana, Daphne laureola, etc. They are all scented, covering many types of notes: rather strong, heavy, vanilla-like around an aromatic spicy concept, and there is even one that has a violet note."

That's assuming there is Daphne flower in here, of course, and the lack of congruence in note listings suggests that the jury is not only "out", but has long since dispersed and toddled off home. I have just googled a few more note lists and found sporadic additional references to lilac and blackcurrant! What an olfactory shapeshifter this scent is turning out to be...it definitely has a "pick your own" style of note list, so I am going to keep Daphne flower for starters.

A word on the packaging next: for example, the box is a rather nasty shade of mauve - I say nasty, though that is in fact the colour of the bedroom carpet in the spare room, which is also picked out in the curtains, so I must have liked it at one point. As for the bottle, it has those pleasingly square and chunky Lalique "house" contours, with hobnail studs on the edges, not unlike a musician's flight case, or the milk jug pictured further down. (I will come back presently to these twin themes of metal rivets and dairy products...)

Now here's another shapeshifting dimension to this scent - if you google pictures of the bottle, 90% of the images you find show the juice to be blue or mauve! How mad is that? I found just one or two where the perfume looks its actual colour, which is in fact a sort of washed out plum. Why should that be, I wonder?

On to the smell of the fragrance - not before time, I hear you clamour! The first thing that struck me is its lush, enveloping warmth. Texturally, I was reminded of Puredistance 1, another ambery-musky scent, but this struck me as a much airier version - and I said Puredistance 1 was airy in my recent review of it!

And I am of course assuming that Flora Bella does have amber in it, which it seems to to me, so I'm going to appropriate amber too in my pick 'n' mix note list. Oh and on my friend at the weekend - who also fell in love with this one and has probably bought her own bottle by now from the same site - it smelt remarkably similar to DKNY Gold. Once again it seemed lighter and airier than Gold, while still managing to be potent and lush. Now for sure, that is a clever stunt to pull all right - to be simultaneously full-bodied and airy - but Flora Bella is that contradictory chameleon!

DKNY GOLD

Notes: patchouli, balsam, acacia flowers, jasmine, Casablanca lily, clove, amber

Okay, so those notes looks nothing like Flora Bella on paper, but they share a beguiling sensuality, and even in the absence of lily in Flora Bella, the similarity was compelling on my friend's arm. I don't get any particular development with Flora Bella, just this initial big whoosh of gorgeous sweet florals, suspended in an airy, milky cloud over a musky, amber base. And for the record, my friend doesn't care for overtly vanilla-y scents, so this manages to be milky without straying into Yankee vanilla candle territory.

In a Facebook exchange, Olenska of Parfumieren drew my attention to the fact that Tania Sanchez also gives this scent four stars in Perfumes: The Guide. Which was an additional source of "post-purchase cognitive assonance", not that any was needed by this point, as I was well and truly smitten.

Tania's overall caption for this scent is "milky metallic", and she goes on to speak of its "dreamy, dense, milky note, which reminds me of a Filipino dessert of sweetened condensed milk poured over shaved ice", later summing Flora Bella up as "Silver, chilled cream, and a far-reaching transparent glow: it should have been called Luna Piena instead".

So now of course I had to google "Luna Piena", whose preeminent incarnation in Google seems to be an Italian restaurant in Whitby. I don't suppose Tania had that in mind at all. I have now quickly consulted an online dictionary and confirmed that this phrase is simply the Italian for "full moon". : - )

I had already formed my thoughts before reading this review, but I totally agree with the dessert-y aspect. And there is definitely a steely, flinty edge to Flora Bella too (cue rivets and milk jug!). Alain in Sahling spoke of a saltiness counterbalancing the lush tropical flowers, but it may well be this helional-"sucked spoon" note Luca Turin has identified, and to which Tania makes reference in her review.

Olenska picks up the lunar theme in her own review of Flora Bella, describing it as: "truly a lunar phenomenon, unsettling and alien."

Now that I have lived with Flora Bella for a while, I can totally see why Alain the SA is captivated by it, and why it is his favourite scent of all. I would also urge anyone who normally shies away from blind buys to take the plunge on this one. It is dreamy and creamy, and it is a bit metallic, though I personally find it warm rather than chilled. Maybe it's my age - a lot of things feel warm to me these days!

But anyway, my advice is simple: "There's a full moon, so do something a little lunar/loony - close your eyes and hit "Add to cart"...




Photo of island from capacitacionvirtual.net, photo of surfer from blog.holidayparkhols.co.uk, photo of Daphne flower from slice-heaven.com, photo of flight case from ranedj0.co.cc, photo of jug from trocadero.com, photo of Flora Bella bottle (blue) from perfumezilla.com, photo of full moon over water from chicks-beach.com, other photo my own