brand

Malin + Goetz

Posted on by elemonated

Incorporating the sales of a skincare/fragrance line is something I didn’t really expect out of a restaurant, and I certainly don’t go and eat out for the perfumery discoveries I might find in the bathroom. It is, however, always nice to stumble upon some stuff you’ve never tried before, and to find out they’re not only e-commerce, they’re also rather close by.

I visited Osteria/Talde with my boyfriend riding on the buzz of the foodie crowd that extended from conversations in the depths of Isakaya MEW in Midtown, to the patrons around Dale Talde’s original restaurant in Park Slope to, of course, the artists of the Jersey City neighborhood it’s in the process of opening up in as I write this. I’ll write more about the food when the other half opens up, and I decide to write that big post about Jersey City hipsterification (said with love. They serve a freaking kale salad and their other salads have grains in them. Not hating, it was delicious.)

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This was our table. And then they moved us because it was too small for the food we picked out. And then I stopped taking pictures because I was hungry.

The place is also proceeded by Carrino Provisions which is a little gourmet market that sells meat, cheese, and…bath products. It’s rather interestingly placed in the store; it’s in a bad place if you’re coming in, since it’s on a shelf facing inward against a wall next to the entrance, but it’s in a great place if you’re leaving. The soap in the bathroom is also their rum hand + body wash, which is interesting and lovely smelling, with the main draw being the rum, and when a patron leaves, they face the shelf with Malin + Goetz on it on the way out. They also sell their lime body lotion, alongside the rum soap and body lotion. I tried. I liked. I’m penciling in Malin + Goetz for a visit.

Wix Breakfast: Brand Personality!

Posted on by elemonated

Actually called: Wix Breakfast: Life Attracts Life- Give Your Brand a Personality Boost!  IMG_20150114_081015

School’s getting closer, so I decided to retrain myself for it by going to bed ridiculously late and waking up ridiculously early for a lecture! Yay! I found it on Eventbrite while browsing and took a chance.

And I’m really glad I did. It was a really interesting seminar, a little on the short side, full of little tips I would have never thought of, like how important emotional touchstones, big and small (“anything from a big brand experience to a tweet”), are to a customer base. There are tons of examples of these connections with consumers that I can think of. Some smaller gestures include Xbox’s (T, F) and T-Mobile’s (T, F) avid usage of their twitter handles and Facebook support apps to annual events like Krispy Kreme’s Day of the Dozens, Talk Like a Pirate, and National Doughnut Days. Everyone remembers larger political gestures like Oreo’s support for gay pride, to well-established, company-wide policies like Starbucks’ C.A.F.E Practices (they work with Conservation International to keep the farming sustainable) and TOMS Shoes policy of donating a pair of shoes for every pair purchased. All of them work to improve the perception of the brand and endear its consumers to it, while actually decreasing a little of the bad in the world at the same time. And of course, little gestures like that are key for small business owners to create their own communities; Milk Sugar Love’s content on their Facebook page regularly attempts to engage users with questions and relatable expressions.

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Jo Malone: Wild Fig & Cassis and Earl Grey & Cucumber Review!

Posted on by elemonated

These are some of the Jo Malone reviews I promised in my perfume adventures post! Jo Malone was a brand founded by a woman named Jo Malone in 1994 who sold it to Estee Lauder back in 1999, and stayed chair and creative director until 2006. She has her own fragrance company that started in 2011 named Jo Loves and as far as I can tell as maintained the simplicity of the fragrances of her first brand, as the website graphics are very similar, as are the fonts used online and on the physical packaging.

Wild Fig & Cassis
Wet: almond, fig, coconut, some wood like a combination of pine and mahogany, cherry
Dry: that wood combination, fig, leaves, amber

I usually get a lot of “coconut!” exclamations when I spray this one for other people, which is always confusing to me because I smell more almond and fig than that round, fatty scent of coconut. I can see it sometimes, when I’m not smelling too hard, but it’s an astringent coconut, obviously cut with something; perhaps the cherry Fragrantica mentions? It might not be coconut to me, and I don’t know what cassis is supposed to smell like, it’s a very creamy and woody scent, quite warm and comforting. For the most part, I smell the components of a tart I like; fig on a combination of cheese leftover from yesterday’s fondue, with a little clover honey. And that fades off after a while, and I’m suddenly in the woods just thinking about food.

Earl Grey & Cucumber
Wet: bergamot, myrtle, tea, clotted cream
Dry: bergamot, floral, tea, cedar, vanilla, clotted cream, cucumber insides

Maybe it’s cheating if I already knew earl grey is made with bergamot, but that first breath was all juicy, spicy acidity tempered with sweetness, though the cream was present and promising. On the dry down, it’s still effervescently floral and bright, but the beeswax, vanilla and musk have made an appearance as a few tablespoons of cream. I’ve sprayed this for others and everyone so far has correctly guessed “earl grey” and no one at all has guessed “cucumber” and I felt like I was missing it as well for a while until I realized that I was looking for the stiff, outer skin of English cucumbers, when I should perhaps be looking for the watery innards. So I looked for it. I can’t say I definitely, absolutely figured it out, but I believe it’s there, masquerading as tea water. Which is weird now that I’ve found it, but it explains why I think this scent’s colder than Wild Fig & Cassis.

Now I know Jo Malone is known for the emphasis on layering and creating your own signature scents, which is partly why I gravitated towards these two for the first review. Wild Fig & Cassis warms up the Earl Grey & Cucumber when I put them together on my skin, while the acidic, floral, and aquatic notes cut through all the creaminess. It makes the earl grey seem a little more authentic, since the fig supports peppery notes that a tea drinker smells when they put their head in a jar of earl grey. The downside is that it is almost too sweet, and I lose the figs and the almonds to the assertive earl grey, and they stay in the background. As it dries, the woody cassis and the cedar notes start to turn to powder, which may be totally fine with some people, but I’m not a fan of powdery scents. Still, the scent is still juicy by the 3rd or 4th hour despite the wood making it a little dusty.