Witches brew root canals and carrots; Lovely, Friendly Perfume Thread - 8

[MrsPestilence]

A continuation of our Long running thread. Think this is just in time.

Lots of lovely things to smell.
Everyone is welcome.

Hello lovely perfume addicts. Its 3/OnTheSherry here

I've missed so much of the thread, but work has been exceptionally intense lately.

Skim read a bit and very envious and in awe of the blind swaps/guessing games. You're all so amazing!

I'm in a very uninspired but compulsive perfume phase right now. Craving sweet and warm fragrances I know and love, rather than being experimental.

I've been living in a cycle of odd layerings of Hypnotic Poison, Black Opium and Jessica Simpson's Fancy (don't hate me, niche and luxury lovers) by day. Dior Addict for nights out. Kenzo Amour to sleep in. I literally cannot tear myself away from this vanillic deliciousness since the weather has started to turn.

Interestingly, I sniffed 4160T Doe in the Snow on two separate strangers recently, and it fired me up to dip in to a bit of chypre magic as soon as the weather really turns. But right now I need my sugar hit.

Impressively I have stuck to my buying-ban for a good few weeks and intend to keep going until the Jan sales. Coveting a new bottle of YSL Paris EDP, 4160T Tart's Knicker Drawer and possibly a first-time Tauer full bottle purchase if funds stretch. We shall see how broke Christmas leaves me...

I know what you mean 3/spicy
I'm not sure of its general state of the world or simply the changing of the seasons but I'm going for old reliable comforting scents too atm
My avon nightmusk and soft musk has been worn quite a bit lately!!

TK Maxx has Geoffrey Beane Grey Flannel for £4.99 for 30ml. (It's cheap on-line everywhere too - but this way you avoid postage). Ml for ml that's probably the cheapest LT 5 ? Have you tried Green* - it has a great galbanum opening.

Hey Spicy! Don't want to mess with your head but TKD is half price this week at 4160 and there is still some Custard left at Indiegogo (would suit your vanilla phase perfectly).

Judy that really does suck. So sorry and hope the better times cone soon.

No place on the Venn diagram scrabble section for me - up there with Monopoly in the category of "mum took it far too seriously so it was never fun. Count me in on needing to get my passport sorted though. Have been intending to get my Irish passport since June last year.

SotD was Miss Dior (proper one). Nice and punchy. Had a spritz of some of the Guerlain Aqua Allegorias at a tiny Guerlain concession in a department store but not on me what with the Miss Dior already going full pelt. Liked Herba Fresca and wonder about it's staying power. Yet to find a mint that lasts. It was in the eBay stash that should be arriving soon so will find out then! Also went to talk from a Food Hero which was really good fun so not a bad day here.

"Fucking Fucky Thing". I like that - much better than the original!

SOTD is FM Hiver.

Thank you all for being so lovely, and I’m sorry to bring the thread down. Last night was miserable, but we’re no worse off than we were last week. It’s all just so rubbish though, and stressful. I know we are lucky that I earn a good salary, but without meaning to sound like a dick, we are used to two good salaries as DP has always been the higher earner. I feel like I am spinning all the plates, all the time, and that there’s no-one to catch them, or me, if they fall.

floofy yes, I got Morrissey tickets - so that’s something to look forward to.

Is perfume the equivalent of the rolled up poster you bought at Athena Amazon, the numbered lithograph, original purchased at an exhibition or a commission?
Mostly I think it is the poster, it has a formula and can be reproduced.
It is quite easy to make something that smells quite nice (we did it at the workshop), to make something beautiful takes skill. The nose is the artist.
You can buy art pictures at B&M or you can buy art from the National Gallery shop. So which noses do people regard as artists?

Athena! Blimey there's a blast from the past!

Hmmm...artists....

Sophia grosjman is a genius imo. Oddly she has created both one of my all time favourites (sun moon stars for lagerfeld) and the most PM of them all 😁 (ysl Paris)
She is also the nose behind ET diamonds and rubies, eternity by CK...

Aurelian guichard I also rate...valentino poudree is one of his

Jacques cavalier is a worthy mention too.

Elie Roger is the nose behind knowing
A truly great scent

I guess one would have include coco chanel and Jacques guerlain even though I'm not a fan of either

Christopher Sheldrake and Bertrand Duchaufour for me. Duchaufour is behind Avignon, Amour Nocturne, Timbuktu, Aedes de Venustas and Sheldrake is basically the Serge Lutens line, which I have a tricky time not loving.

Pest - I've been thinking about that too. But I don't think we're experiencing a reproduction. We are experiencing the art first-hand (all be it in unique circumstances with our own sensibilities). A poster is 2D, you can't understand it's texture and the colour may be seriously distorted. Spray a little of your favourite 4160s and you experience all the magic Sarah Mc intended. I guess I wonder whether, especially when perfume is produced on an industrial scale, there is a loss of 'aura' (I need to go and re-read Walter Benjamin!). And are there parallels with photography (where multiple 'originals' are possible)?

I feel we are in lithograph territory, where the original is designed to be reproduced.

SotD is Iris Nazarena. This stuff is soft, mellow almost addictive. A beautiful floral winds itself between wisps of wood, incense, juniper and spices. Nothing is dominant and yet it shifts subtly, not linear. Not a hint of sweetness, this is dry. A rich businessman who comes from somewhere near Lebanon.

Wonderful description there Pest

SOTD MH Noix de Tubereuse

I wore Rhubarb & Custard last night and it’s growing on me.

I want to smell that now too !

Changing the subject, has anyone tried Dirty English? (Apologies in advance if that's something else as well as being a perfume).

This Dirty English? Not yet

SotD Eau de Vicks here today. Full of the cold and my project is still going pants so spent the day running around site letting the relevant people know. Lots of meetings again tomorrow so an early night for me tonight to make sure I don't cough my way through them.

Lithograph or photograph is a good comparison I think. Although we're probably in craft territory where there's originality in the initial design but also quality control in the repeated manufactures. Like whisky rather than wine (although that difference is blurred by single cask whisky or non-vintage champagne). Or a piece of Meissen pottery.

Just realised my Papillon samples that I ordered by mistake have arrived. I'm now happily sniffing my wrist trying to smell Tobacco Rose. So far I'm getting the rose

Countfosco aren''t they absolutely beautiful?
I have annointed myself with all of them.Tobacco Rose really reminds me of a vastly superior Roses Musk by Montale. I think it's my stand-out favourite with a true pure Rose coupled with the almost edible salty Ambergris. Anubis also really surprised me with its unexpected beauty.
Dryad was a clear green herbal symphony before settling to a dark witchy bitter green that's slightly scary.

Count - one end of perfume making definitely is about art, in as much as it is about ideas, concepts and abstractions. But it is also requires mastery of technique and materials.

Wasn't sure about the Meissen. That got me thinking about Grayson Perry as an artist working in the medium of pottery. He says:

The essential distinction between art and craft is that art has an emphasis on feelings and ideas and the crafts have an emphasis on technique. I always give things the Antiques Roadshow test: would an object be interesting if it came up on the programme? Can I imagine a Sarah Lucas tin can cropping up on Antiques Roadshow and us looking at it in awe? It has to have something of quality about it, either the craftsmanship or rigorous ideas or strong feelings. My least favourite outcome is the beautifully crafted ugly thing.

Very interesting chat today ladies! Goodness. Photography fascinates the he'll out of me in the sense of how can something as intangible as my sight become something hard that I can pick up?! Blows my mind. I also spend a lot of time wondering about how we experience colour- colourblindness aside I can accept that we all categories of colour the same way. What I can't say for sure is whether the way I experience - say - green is the same as everyone else. Maybe my green is someone else's red and maybe that's partly behind differences in taste? So now I wonder the same about smells. If I could smell through your noses would florals still smell like the group I categorise as floral or would they come out as something else?

And what is smell anyway? Something defined when it's produced, or when it's experienced by a nose or something that's constantly changing and reacting? If nobody's there to smell it does it even exist?

I think that ramble was prompted by MrsM's observation that we get the magic Sarah M intends through a spritz of a 4160s scent and I wondered whether we really do. We might get some sort of magic but is it the one she intended, and the one she smells? I just don't know!

Onto easier stuff. SotD was SJP Lovely and I took delivery of my Guerlains and Girl. Quick spritz of the Girl seemed quite masculine but will have to see where it settles. And no rhubarb and custard yet.

Teta yes, and I'm holding you responsible for the state of my bank balance if I end up buying a FB.

MrsM As usual Grayson Perry speaks a lot of sense. Although the beautifully crafted ugly thing is a matter of taste, I know older women who knit beautifully but use cheap acrylic yarn. It's not to my taste because of the materials but the creators like what they make.

Cheap - LT says, "mostly we don't smell things differently - we interpret and describe them differently".

Interesting MrsM. Quite happy to believe that just don't really know how we can know that. What would an empirical test look like?

Now you're talking Fosco. Wool is yummy. A local farm has bred a colour of alpaca wool so gorgeous that if I had display space I'd happily make a feature out of the just the balls all unworked and beautiful, never mind making anything with it!

The biochemistry of how we see and smell is understood but how that is interpreted by the brain is the variable.