The Big Sniff Mk II

[UnnecessaryFennel]

After the success of the first Big Sniff earlier in the year, let's have another one!

This time around, we're going to try the Bloom Perfumery Greens in Perfume sample pack. Bloom is an independent perfumery in Covent Garden which is a treasure trove of unusual and 'niche' perfumes, so there's bound to be some interesting stuff to try.

This is what Bloom have to say about their Green edit:

'This edit and sample pack explore green nuances in perfume and materials that perfumers use to create it.

A perfume belongs to a green family if aromas such as green leaves, cut grass, cucumber, runner beans, green tea and so on dominate in the character. Green perfumes are much brighter, sharper and juicier than anything in the related aromatic (herbaceous) family and are not as woody as coniferous perfumes. However, some notes/materials such as basil, or pine span families revealing greener or woodier nuances depending on what else the perfumer chooses to put in the formula

The most straightforward green materials are: lentisque (mastic) and galbanum resins, green tea (real essence or an imaginary accord), green grass/ leaves accords (made with hexenal and other molecules which really relate to what grass/leaves emit when damaged or molecules that just smell similar), freesias, neroli, violet leaves and pine.'

The sample list is as follows:

1. The Soft Lawn (Imaginary Authors)

1. Aube Pashmina (Huitième Art)

1. Elephant (Zoologist)

1. Gardens of Temptation | Tenderness (Brocard)

1. Eau Simple de Concombre (Phaedon)

1. Panorama (Olfactive Studio)

1. PG24 Papyrus de Ciane (Parfumerie Générale)

1. Pure Azure (Phaedon)

1. Lentisque (Phaedon)

The cost is £15 plus £2.70 p&p in the UK (and they deliver within the rest of the EU as well). No discount on the pack this time around but if you're a new customer you'll get 5% off your next order.

Since it's a bank holiday week, it will probably be best to give people a bit more time to order and for packs to arrive, so let's start on Sunday 20th May.

So, order your pack, sign in here every Sunday and let's get sniffing!

Tomorrow's scent is Pure Azure by Phaedon.

Notes are fig, orange blossom, vanilla, jasmine, tonka bean and salt.

Another promising list of notes...we'll see!

I cheated and tried this last night.

The opening, I get a lot of salt, mixed with sweet (maybe Tonka?) - reminded me very much of salted caramel which I love. I love it more than is healthy, and have done since way before it became a big thing.

Unfortunately the salty note disappears pretty quickly.

Settles into a lovely fresh orange blossom - with a hint of something powdery. I can't figure out what that is?

I really liked this, it reminds me very much of JPG le male Classique. My DH used to wear this when we first started dating. After a nose upon Fragrantica it does indeed also contain Tonka & Orange blossom.

Lots of luscious green leaf initially, then oily neroli and white flower aldehydes from the jasmine. I don't get any vanilla or tonka bean. I thought this would last and last but it's already fading after 3h. I have a cheapy Neroli that fades quickly but for £10 for a FB I can respray with abandon, this not so much.

Soapy and powdery. Pink camay?

Phaedon: Pure Azure. This one for me had a fruity fig and orange blossom in the opening and hardly any green. Then lots of sweet jasmine as well as the orange blossom/neroli. It lasted quite well, about 3 hrs with several hours more as a pleasant skin scent. I found it not very interesting, to be honest, and much preferred last week’s Concombre, from the same house, Phaedon.

Bunty, the skin scent stage was a bit soapy, I agree. Expensive soap, though! (I must go and have a sniff of pink Camay!)

Absolutely love this. I get soapy and clean long lasting fragrance that keeps wafting up at intervals. Interestingly I can’t really pick out any individual notes but the overall fragrance is lovely.

It’s strange that people haven’t found the pure azure long lasting. I could still catch it as a skin scent the morning after, even after a shower. Def full bottle material for me.

Tomorrow's sample is PG24 Papyrus de Ciane - Parfumerie Generale. I'm wearing another PG scent this evening and I lurve it, so high hopes for this one.

Notes as follows:

Top: broom, galbanum
Heart: incense
Base: isoquinoline, mousse de saxe, musk, oakmoss

Just realised I totally forgot about last week's sample

Anyway, am enjoying Papyrus de Ciane very much. There is a definite 'paperiness' to it; could just be suggestion I suppose, but I do get a dry, woody note which is lovely. Quite sweet as well now. This is very nice, one of my faves so far.

I had a couple of tries with this one (Papyrus de Ciane). I wasn’t at all sure I liked it, as I’m a bit scared of anything too strongly churchy incense. For instance, the Comme des Garçons Avignon at the Somerset House Exhibition last year that some of us went to gave me the willies. But this one was very friendly - I loved it! It was like a local neighbourhood church that has been there for hundreds of years, embued with incense and candle smoke in the pews. It has been closed up for a while, but today the friendly flower arrangers have opened up the doors and have used lots of the overgrown foliage in the churchyard to start off some flower arrangements. No flowers as yet; those are going in tomorrow. It’s just the greenness of the cut leaves you can smell. The church is a bit fusty dusty - it hasn’t been used for a while. And there’s a definite smell of parchment (hymn books?) which is swirling around with the incense.

It lasts about 3 hours on me, but then completely disappears. I don’t even have a remaining skin scent. So, I probably wouldn’t consider a full bottle as it would be too expensive, but I did really enjoy it 😍. It reminded me of L’Artsan’s Nuit de Tubereuse, which also has the lovely dusty note, but no incense.

calm that's a lovely description.

Thanks Fennel! I was trying to write something that would remind me of what it smelt like, as I am unlikely to smell it again unless I get another sample. When I looked up the notes I found that they include leather, but I don’t get that at all.

Found my samples after The Move so tried this today. I don't think my description could possibly match Calm's lovely evocative description. I get a big green opening, lots of foliage like she says. That'll be the galbanum. Not sure I've smelt broom in a perfume before and wonder if it's the yellow freshness at the start (like the hills in Scotland at the right time of year) or the warm dustiness later (someone's been sweeping in Calm's kirk). Then it settles into some subtle incense which is a lovely contrast to the opening. Still getting the odd blast of green as well. Not a lot of sillage but lovely and interesting.

Tomorrow is The Soft Lawn by Imaginary Authors.

Notes are: ivy, cut grass, laurel, linden, oak moss, vetiver and...tennis balls.

Must admit this is the one I have been waiting for - it's taken quite a lot of self-discipline not to have had a sneaky spray already! I have been really, really impressed recently with two IA scents (Memoirs of a Trespasser and City on Fire) but they are very different beasts, note-wise, to TSL. So we shall see!

Wonderfully appropriate that this is the scent that's come up the day before Wimbledon starts, though

The notes sound lovely but is IA quite the most wanky concept perfume house ever even more than ELDO and SM?

Oh god yes, completely! But I forgive them for MOAT, which is just bloody gorgeous (vanilla though, you'd hate it )

Thanks to you perfumistas I keep walking past teenagers, getting a whiff of vanilla and wrinkling up my nose and saying 'bloody gourmands, bloody Thierry Mugler'.

Anyway, first sniff and I'm getting oakmoss and vetiver. So far so good for me

This is great 😄 Loads of oakmoss, not too much vetiver on me which is good, sweetness from the linden. Very green, almost a chypre, but fun/playful as well. I like this very much, another winner from this house!

Yes, lots of oakmoss and touch of Linden. Reminded me of Mrs Gloss Outdoors which also contains lots of oakmoss (plus Linden). Lasted well even on a sweaty day. My favourite so far.

Imaginary Authors - The Soft Lawn. I found this green, soft and pleasant, but after about half an hour, it was so ephemeral I could hardly smell it. I finished the sample in two goes. Not full bottle-worthy for me.

Lentisque this week? I've tried this one before so will be interesting to see how it changes with the heat.

Yep, Lentisque by Phaedon today. This has a top note of fresh peas on me, then quite quickly starts to dry down into a more traditional chypre-style scent with lots of oakmoss and galbanum. I can also get what I assume is the mastic/lentisque as it reminds me a bit of Habanita. Not an obvious 'love' personally but I can see why people would. Just about to head out so will see how it opens up in the heat!

Sadly this has ended up as a no - too much vetiver in the drydown for me. Still, the first couple of hours are interesting.