fragrance

Ineke A-H: Field Notes From Paris

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Piano as an accompaniment to string today! I think I first heard this song when I was 16, though I don’t quite remember why. I try not to question discoveries of beauty.

Norihiro Tsuro’s Last Carnival, from the Acoustic Cafe album

Field Notes From Paris

Wet: lavender, coriander, citrus, leather, wood
Dry: coriander, lavender, tobacco flower, patchouli, cedar, tonka bean, lime, maybe a little rosemary

This is my new sexy scent, directly in competition with all of the jasmine I adore. It’s incredibly delightful: deep, dark, and warm, as well as complex. It moves in a swirl like a gust of warm wind, something absolutely welcome in this frigid cold. Strangely, it’s the herbs, the coriander and the bit of rosemary I get that reminds me most of the coffee implied in the description, though the tobacco comes through and keeps the fragrance warm. I love that its sweetness is wholly tempered, and it gives it depth and dimension that I don’t normally come across. It reminds me of bedroom eyes on an attractive person, or simply a person you’re in love with, as love automatically makes them beautiful.

I wear this personally, and I think this is a scent that benefits from a little dancing and sweat, but it’s a beautiful scent and I can see it on a guy who isn’t afraid to wear purple, and is trained in some art or another, which he pursues with passion.

Ineke A-H: Evening Edged in Gold

Posted on by elemonated

I learned the piano for this song when I was younger. Still in my head!

The Hush Sound’s Lighthouse by Michael Williams (Piano only)

Evening Edged in Gold

Wet: wine, plum, mahogany
Dry: plum, apricot, dusty flowers, sandalwood, leather

Mm, no soap in this one, and perhaps it’s because I was doing my homework while sipping a merlot, but this was a lovely pairing; both slightly sweet, the perfume sweeter, but both plummy, with a little bit of a bite. At first the image in my head was a tragically spilled glass of wine ruining some gloves on an expensive desk. It changed after a while into a woman eating fragrant pit fruits with her gloves still on over the same expensive desk, which is not really the appropriate table to be eating dripping fruit on. Which I guess it the point; it’s just a little inappropriate. And I like it. I may be biased since I’m a brunette, but this is a brunette lover’s scent through and through. Brunette, dark gem colors, hooded eyelids.

Ineke A-H: Derring-Do

Posted on by elemonated

Something light and fairly cheerful today!

Derring-Do

Wet: water, grapefruit, vetiver, pepper
Dry: pepper, cedar, water, fern, flower stalk

Derring-Do doesn’t smell like soap! I’m so happy. With the cedar and the aquatic notes I get from this, it seems like more of a masculine scent, if only because these are notes marketed within the male fragrance sphere. It’s warm and a little sweet from the floral and pepper notes, and while it’s a little complex right up to the nose, it’s fairly harmless from afar. Like an every man’s kind of scent, and not in a bad way. This would be quite welcome in an office full of Acqua di Gio and Ralph Lauren, but it probably wouldn’t really stand out. It’s warm and clean, and a scent that’s comfortable and inviting. Perhaps this would be best on a young man wearing a navy blue sweater vest.

Ineke A-H: Chemical Bonding

Posted on by elemonated

This one’s a little sharper, exciting, jumpy, quite fun!

Anton Rubenstein’s Staccato Etude Opus 23, No. 2, by Jouni Somero

Chemical Bonding

Wet: grapefruit, lemon, soap, tomato, floral notes
Dry: lime, grapefruit, lemon, vinegar, peony

It’s that musk again interfering with my enjoyment of this scent. It would otherwise be a rather nice cheerful, bright scent, but the musk makes it smell like a combination of Pledge and roasted tomatoes after two hours. Very strange. I don’t understand it very well, but it’s kind of tasty in that weird “maybe I’ll just take one bite” kind of way. It eventually gets softer and the peony takes over, and it becomes much less “odd tomato tart” and more “flower salad dressed with lemon vinaigrette” with pepper notes, and would probably smell fantastic on someone who uses a lot of cocoa butter on the daily.

Ineke A-H: Balmy Days & Sundays

Posted on by elemonated

I’ve never seen Paperman, and I really want to now. This is some gorgeous music.

Christophe Beck’s Paperman, by Camden Tilley

Balmy Days & Sundays

Wet: Lime, honeysuckle, rose, musk
Dry: lime, honeysuckle, angel slippers, rose, musk, oakmoss

I don’t know what type of musk Ineke uses, but the scents are all so soapy on me. This one’s a little less so, and the oakmoss I think really helps to counter the weird, soapy musk. The notes online don’t indicate any sort of citrus, but the lime for me is front and center, though I don’t know what freesia smells like. It reminds me of times on the slip and slide, the squashed grass and mud mixing with the smell of detergent or bubble soap or whatever was mixed into the water to give it a slick quality, but it’s definitely cleaner and prettier, as if we were engaging in the activity in a field of wildflowers.

Ineke A-H: After My Own Heart

Posted on by elemonated

I usually put poems here, but I think I’ll do music this time.

Robert Starer’s Pink, by Dr. Jason Sifford

After My Own Heart

Wet: lilac, Dove soap, magnolia
Dry: lilac, jasmine, musk, flower stalk

This reminds me of a gift soap shaped in the form of a bouquet of purple flowers of all shapes that my family was once given. I loved that soap because it was purple (and not pink) and it smelled like flowers, which I had a vested interest in from a young age. I used to format huge guides of flowers, their pictures, and their meanings and print them out on our home printer. This is a nice memory of those times, but the musk makes this stay rather soapy on me, and I unfortunately can’t see myself wearing it. For those who don’t mind the soap however, it’s a really fresh lilac fragrance, a little creamy, not too sweet, and because of the soap, really quite clean.

Avon’s Haiku

Posted on by elemonated

This was probably my second blind buy ever, and it was because someone mentioned how gorgeous the bottle was and that it was a strong white floral. Since I agreed that the bottle was pretty enough just to decorate my desk if I didn’t end up liking the scent, I’m a sucker for white florals, and the bottle with shipping cost me like $11, I took the tiny jump and got it.

“I must have flowers, always, and always.” – Claude Monet

Avon’s Haiku

Wet: lily, yuzu, water, musk
Dry: lily, jasmine, pineapple, musk, water, yuzu

Haiku is a very girly, fruity iced drink, all cold floral notes and a slightly tart sweetness, kind of like a frozen margarita if the recipe included yuzu, pineapple, and some essential oils stripped from flowers. It’s a strong floral with a fruity bite to it, and I think it’s very approachable without being boring. It gets to be like a lotion smell when it warms up a little, which should prove very pleasant to some people. I just wish there was something dirty or salty about it. That, I think, would make this a really wonderful fragrance. I’ll take it to the beach with me this summer and find out.

Happy Lunar New Year, guys!

Baaaa.

Ineke & Imaginary Authors reviews coming soon!

Posted on by elemonated

I purchased the Ineke sampler a month ago, but it arrived the day after I moved back into my dorm so I wasn’t able to retrieve it until earlier this week, and I’ve already started to work on the reviews and how I want to structure my posts. I’m also pretty sure I just received my Imaginary Authors sampler in my school mail room, but I’ll have to check. I bought it for myself as a Valentine’s Day gift, and I’m hoping it’s worth the hype!

The next few weeks will probably be full of fragrance since I’m running out of time to do anything else, and sitting down and writing about fragrance helps relax me and get me away from all of the stress and the emotions and the ridiculousness. I feel like I’m already falling behind on some things and I have no idea how to make up that time.

By Kilian Addictive State of Mind – Light My Fire

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“Here, Heracletus, did you build of fire
And changing stuffs your prophecy far hurled
Down the dead years; this midnight I aspire
To see, mirrored among the embers, curled
In flame, the splendor and the sadness of the world.”

– Princeton – The Last Day by Scott F. Fitzergerald

Light My Fire
Wet: nail polish remover, tobacco
Dry: tobacco, patchouli, vetiver, maple syrup

Really it just smells like a fragrant chewing tobacco, or the basement of a Chinese restaurant reserved for smoking and cards and gangster activity. Like a good chewing tobacco, which I have only been exposed to a few times and have never tried myself, it’s a little floral, but it lacks the sourness that tobacco can have sometimes. It smells like gangsters, but during Sunday mass or attending their sons’ graduations; whichever culture you want to use. As if they washed and scrubbed themselves and their suits clean, but the scent lingers, just like the consequences of their actions.

By Kilian Addictive State of Mind – Intoxicated

Posted on by elemonated

“So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ‘twixt a miser and his wealth is found.”

– Sonnet 75 by William Shakespeare

Intoxicated
Wet: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, gasoline, patchouli
Dry: speculoos, lapsang souchong

This one is really yummy. I love speculoos cookies and the spread more than I love Nutella or peanut butter. And the dry down smells like speculoos served with lapsang souchong, a smoky black tea from Fujian, and it’s so nice. I know it’s unisex, but I can’t really see a guy wearing this. It’s very sweet, and it makes me want to lick my wrist, even though that’s a terrible idea. It reminds me of a girl I know who’s incredibly beautiful and warm, and she’s the only one who comes to mind when I try to think of a character profile to fit this fragrance.