Perfume Lovers In Summer - vol. 7

[canny1234]

The summer thread!

What are you planning to wear this summer?( assuming we're going to have one).

I have a jug of Pink,peach and yellow Roses from my garden on my desk.All the Roses smell different but the deep pink smells like delicious Turkish Delight.

I've received the partially used bottle of Penhaligons Orange blossom purchased from eBay.I really love this.Its a very English lush flower bouquet with a dominant orange blossom note that calms down to a naturalistic flower garden scent.Its similar to the smell I get walking round my garden on a warm day catching whiffs of scent as I brush past the Philadelphus,Roses,honeysuckle and currently an almondy vanilla scent of a white clematis.

SOTD is ninfeo mio but it's just making me want to be somewhere hot and sunny NOW... so deliciously reminiscent of a hot grove in the Southern Med....

SOTD is Hermes Eau des Merveilles, tried for the first time since I have a HoF where I'm housesitting. Gorgeous!

I love Eau des Merveilles. It doesn't smell like anything else in the shops, which is wonderful. My husband isn't a fan, but I love it regardless.

So agree with Myrtle and Hatie: Eau des Merveilles is almost the only scent that I automatically replace when I run out. Love it all year round, day and night.

Just missed a vintage Amazone Fraiche on EvilBay yesterday as I walked the dog in the evening during the final bidding. I used to love it and was curious to know.

SOTD is MMM Replica, which is green and fresh, full of grass in flower but not even slightly floral. My 8ml decant is dropping quickly, nearly as fast as the lovely sweet peas have dropped their petals.

You're all making me want to try Eau des Mervailles now.I live in the middle of the country and no one stocks Hermes round here.The email requesting a Hermes sample has also been roundly ignored by their head office( and I didn't bid high enough for the Hermes samples on eBay).Humph!

I've received my big demo bottle of Aqua Allegoria Rosa Flora.It's a very gentle slightly spicy,faintly herbal Rose scent with a fruity burst at the beginning.Its the safest blind buy as its almost impossible not to like.I need to spray it on with gay abandon though as its longevity is minimal in this warm weather.Its a good thing I have a 125 ml bottle!

Loving the sound of all these summery scents!

L'Artisan's Safran Troublant for me today, it's really grown on me this one. Spicy yet fresh, gourmand yet light. One of those 'suits all occasions' day time scents.

We are very fortunate; the local HoF has a good perfume department and the sales assistants are kind and will usually make you a sample to take away to try if you are nice and they are not rushed off their feet. And they have Serge Lutens, Annick Goutal and Hermes, as well as the standard mainstream stuff. For a not-very-affluent port and dockyard city, it's an astonishingly upmarket selection. Far superior to the much naicer and larger town up the road IMVHO.

I wore Safran Troublant to my wedding! It's gorgeous. I love the spicy, prickly, opening, and the creamy, smooth "pudding" finish. I must wear it again soon.

cresset it's funny where they put good HoFs! I am housesitting in Beds/Bucks/Herts in a middling size commuter/market town and found Hermes and other less mainstream fragrance brands in the local HoF in the tiny shopping centre. On the other hand the one in Northampton (much bigger town than where I am staying) has now closed down so now the only fragrance buying options are Boots/Superdrug/Savers etc, a tiny shitty Debenhams, M&S and The Fragrance Shop. Aside from M&S with their Roger & Gallet etc, everywhere else just does the same old mainstream stuff and it's awful. I don't think HoF in Northampton did Hermes/Serge Lutens etc though, although it was the only place I could get hold of classic Guerlain and not just La Petite Robe Noir/Shalimar L'Initial.

My summer scents I wear in rotation:

Frederic Malle: carnal flower

MFK: APOM

Creed: Jardin d'amalfi

Creed: love in white

Chanel: cristalle eau verte

Bulgari: eau thé verte

Herme: Un jardin sur de nil

Estée Lauder: modern muse

Narciso Rodriguez: musc intense

Mona di orio: musc

Donna Karen: black cashmere

Annick Goutal: Ninfeo Mio

I need a good coconut one! Virgin Island water fades in an instant. Any suggestions ladies?

Sorry to jump in, I have been trying to find Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess locally (North Yorkshire) to try but am struggling. Does anyone know where I can get a sample of this? I have looked on Ebay, but do not want to spend £20 upwards in case I don't like it. Thanks

Apatite thats a varied selection of scents.I l love that you have so many that you rotate!
Toomuchtea full bottles of Mfk sometimes come up on eBay.But I'm never sure how 'safe' they are.Nose sell the sets of 11ml refills for a reasonable price ( use your discount voucher).There is also an American seller of decants of Mfk on eBay.

Kazza..... Boots and House Of Fraser shops usually have Bronze Goddess in stock.

SOTD is Aqua Allegoria Flora Rosa.

I don't have House of Fraser nearby. I looked in Boots, but they didn't have it

My local Debenhams has Bronze Goddess in stock and it's a tiny crappy Debenhams!

Thanks I'll look there next time I'm near one.

toomuchtea yes the East Mids is pants. Fortunately on the Birmingham-Milton Keynes-Euston train line so getting to better places for perfume/general beauty shopping is fairly easy!

Hello perfume-people.

I visited Harrods the other day and I have news! The new Serge Lutens is out!! I was on a mission to buy a particular kind of thing and couldn't spray it on me, just paper, and couldn't devote much time but ... I can report that it is very cold and strange on an initial blast-on-paper. However, as we know, first impressions are most definitely nothing to stake your life on with SL. (Which is pretty amazing and daring and completely at odds with current selling practices/modern culture when you think about it.) I think I will be returning to try again.

I also came across the new Clinique fragrance: "Beyond Rose". Now, here's a thing, is it the new Clinique fragrance? Harrods is full of perfumes that are developed by familiar fragrance companies, for the Middle Eastern market, and are otherwise not very available in the UK. I always think it's kind of like those pop groups in the 80s who did commercials for the Japanese market, but not in the UK - and then videos of the adverts would sell for large sums in the small ads section of the NME!

This fragrance is definitely quite Middle Eastern - there is a big nod to the whole "oudh" thing.

But I think it is for over here.

And now I'm wondering what it might "mean".

If you're in London, or another big city, or quite into perfume, oud is almost certainly very familiar to you. but I'm guessing that is not the case for people outside that circle.

What do you all think about that? Is that true?

Anyway, that would make the Clinique fragrance a bit of an attempt at a "breakthrough", bringing something that's been bubbling away right into the mainstream. Maybe??

I don't know - I'd love your thoughts.

One review I read pointed out that since all the regulation changes about what you can and can't have in perfume these days, there has been an almighty hole in the European and American market for the big, heavy scents (not the Angel-gourmand-alikes) that can't really be made anymore. And the oudh thing has been addressing that cultural gap.

Do you think that's true?

Anyway, it's quite nice, I think. It reminds me - a lot - of the Body Shop "Amber Oud" (I think that's what it's called, I'm too lazy to run upstairs and check) that I bought for £6 a while back. I tend to wear it layered with a rose scent and a vanilla bourbon. It's surprisingly similar in its "directness"! It's very mentholly in its initial opening - which, again, strikes me as being quite brave in a mainstream perfume. But perhaps I'm wrong? And it then settles into the sort of rose/oud inspired scent that is ... not unfamiliar to those of us who are familiar with such things.

Anyhow, I'd love to hear all your opinions!!

Toomuchtea - I tried Lumiere Noir the other day - it's very lovely, isn't it?

I don't really quite get the Ambre Merveilles love. I quite like the Ambre de Merveilles but the gourmand thing ... I just can't do it. I think that whole olfactory area has been destroyed for me by too much Angel on the tube. I think it's a kind of Pavlovian response. I'm hoping it will wear off as the popularity of Angel declines. (It must decline, surely? One day?)

There are very few gourmand type scents I like now: I like the vanilla + Body Shop amber-oud thing (it's very bitter) - and even that I can't cope with for an entire day, and Divin Enfant by Etat Libre d'Orange.

I really do feel quite unhappy about this.

Sorry. That first "Ambre Merveilles" should be "Eau de Merveilles". I feel as though I'm really missing out. (And I am, actually.)

Hmmm Eau de Merveilles wasn't especially gourmand on me (I found it quite hard to describe but mostly ambery) and my skin tends to amplify that. I am very hayfevery at the moment though which may be affecting my smelling abilities!

I am OK with gourmands when they're interesting, complex, not too sweet gourmands. Because my skin amplifies sweetness so much, a little sweetness goes a long way. Angel is awful for me, but the oakmoss peachy cinnamon weirdness of Mitsouko is fine (just using Mitsouko as an example even though it's not the best classic Guerlain on me).

If it makes you feel better thecat I really, really struggle to wear florals. They either disappear on me almost immediately, just smell of soap/air freshener or worse still smell rotten and awful. Sweet florals like Roger & Gallet Fleur D'Osmanthus or Elie Saab EDP are manageable as long as any orange blossom is kept quite fresh, or something more woody/vanilla/ylang like Lust by Lush. Lust is only £5 for a solid perfume but is so much nicer on me than most standard florals, I think because the base notes are very Guerlainade-ish. The jasmine turns very indolic and dirty on me which I quite like.

Re oud fragrances - they've been around for a while now here eg with Tom Ford fragrances, but are fairly niche still. I hope they go mainstream sooner rather than later! And of course, oud is as standard a scent as roses or jasmine to Middle Eastern/South Asian communities in the UK.

That's interesting re. the florals. Can skin do that? I think you are right, though. My skin's relation to various scents seems to be changing as I get older. It may be my paranoia, but I think it enhances the wet bread scent in "En Passant", for example. Which isn't so nice.

I do love florals myself, so I'm wondering if there is some sort of equivalent of a scent colour-wheel, where if you are strongly drawn to one area, you are slightly not-drawn-to another area?

For me, the gourmand thing is definitely a post-Angel reaction: I used to love all things sweet and edible, and used to happily douse myself in Body Shop Vanilla. I think you have made a good point that there are degrees, though. Still, I really do feel that there is a whole room full of types of perfumes that I'm not able to enjoy and I need to get past my psychological "flinch".

I think I'd like to be polygamous when it comes to my perfume affections. I wonder if it's possible?

And you are right about Eau de Merveilles - I'm bundling it with the Ambre. I want to love it as much as you all do!

By the way, there was a thread earlier this evening that made me wonder what people thought might be a good "First Date" perfume ... any suggestions?

I'd probably go for a soft patchouli-ish thing, like Paul and Joe "Bleu", on the grounds that it's not too strong, and it's warm and inviting. I wonder what everyone else thinks? (It's a just-for-fun sort of question.)

Hello perfumistas!

Have been working through my box of samples from the perfume society (has anyone else signed up to this?), and so far I have loved Dali Wild, liked Miller Harris Fleur de Sel, hated Versace Crystal Noir and decided that Atkinson Old Bond Street is too masculine for me. I have also received some Tuesdays samples to try, and have fallen in love with Sunshine and Pancakes, which on paper I didn't like the sound of at all! I'm unconvinced about the vintage tuesdays series so far. Paris and New York are definitely not my things at all. I am also wearing Jo Malone Vintage Gardenia a lot, because the lid has broken! It is perfect in this weather, so it is no hardship.

Vintage gardenia would be a good first date scent, I think. Pretty, warm and feminine without being overpowering. Familiar enough to not scare, but unfamiliar enough that it would make an impression.

I haven't really liked my MFK samples. Apom was awful on me, and Aqua Universale and Aqua Vitae were nice but forgettable. Lumiere Noire remains the only one I like.

There are a few fragrances I am keen to try at the moment: Dolce and Gabbana Dolce, Jo Malone Tuberose and Angelica, Chanel Coromandel and Frederick Malle Carnal Flower. Has anyone any views?

I have certain fragrance family likes and dislikes. White florals and citrus are fab for me, also florals and orientals (though I have certain hates within those families), but not chypre or gourmand. I love cooking, yet things like vanilla just turn my stomach when on my skin. I am unsure about oud. It can be a bit sickly to me, and I think evokes bad memories.

Right, off to shower and spray!

First date fragrance for me would be either Penhaligons Gardenia or Orange Blossom or Amyris Femme by MFK.I also find Penhaligons Gardenia perfect for this weather - so cooling and refreshing.
I am really not keen on gourmand scents at all.I don't get why anyone would want to smell like a cake.I've never gone for sweet scents - always citrus/fresh/green/florals even when young.I don' t even want to try them.But I have just bought a sample set of the Hermessences and Eau des Merveilles.So I hope I like them and they're not too gourmand on me.Otherwise I shall be swopping!
Rosy oudy purfumes are lovely on cold winter nights.I love Byredo Rose Noir and Kilians Rose Oud.They smell musty and horrible on warm summer nights .You really wouldn't think it was the same perfume.
That new Clinique has had a very limited release in just one shop hasn't it?Its also very expensive and Kilian-like in description and bottle design.I'm not sure whether its designed for spread through the provinces.
Science what do you think of the Perfume Society?I thought about joining but wasn't sure.I've been buying fair bit on eBay and some decants on Fragantica instead.