scent

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

Posted on by elemonated

“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.

By Kilian Addictive State of Mind Series – Smoke for the Soul

Posted on by elemonated

“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunwards I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a thousand things”

– High Flight by John Magee

Smoke for the Soul
Wet: pepper, cardamom, marijuana, tobacco, citrus rind
Dry: lemon rind, marijuana, tobacco smoke, medicinal herb, leather

Spicy, herbal, woody like an apothecary, except without that weird salty hit that you find in some places. The only non-apothecary smell is the citrus, and that really lightens it up where the other two are heavy and rich. Acts a little like the orange on a Blue Moon or a squeeze of lemon on some salmon. This one I think smells the most like leather. It reminds me of a young, attractive businessman at the airport lugging their expensive tote and their frequent flyer miles and their ability to turn their tiredness into disdain.

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.

Puig buys Pengalion’s and L’Artisan

Posted on by elemonated

http://www.basenotes.net/perfumenews/3014-puig-buy-penhaligons-and-lartisan

I wonder what this will do to the brands’ quality. I know on the consumer side that there have been complaints about the delayed shipping of L’Artisan’s Tea for Two recently, likely due to the shifting organizational and department changes actions like this cause. On the other hand, Paco Rabanne and the Gaultier fragrances have been rather popular, and I don’t think Prada, Valentino, or Comme des Garçons have suffered.

From the Puig website (that keeps thinking I’m on a tablet when I’m not):

“Puig is committed to continue expanding its presence in the prestige perfumery category. This acquisition firmly positions Puig in the growing exclusive, high-end fragrance category.”

This explains the strategic moves behind the acquisition, but it doesn’t say what Puig is planning on doing with the two brands. I haven’t gotten to try Penhaligon’s yet, but I love L’Artisan and I hope the quality will stay consistent throughout this whole process.

A question of scent: lavender aroma promotes interpersonal trust

Posted on by elemonated

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-olfactory-fragrance-lavender.html

This is an interesting study, but the authors of this study write quite a bit about how the experiment could be improved upon. I wonder as well how much of the Affect Grid especially was influenced by the fairly common knowledge of the effects of lavender and peppermint.

The “trust game” used in the experiment is also known as the game made up to help demonstrate Game Theory created by John von Neumann. Business students like myself are taught this game generally within the realm of economics to the end that rational people will try to optimize their benefit, and to teach the Nash equilibrium, which is when everyone involved in a situation is making a decision that takes into account everyone else’s choices, and an individual cannot stand to benefit from changing their strategy.

Sometimes, when the game is set up so that being unified in every decision results in the highest reward, a sort of positive Nash equilibrium that wasn’t really demonstrated in Game Theory’s conception which indicated unity as a neutral state, it’s used to teach business students not to step on each other on the path to success. That working together instead of indulging our innate competitiveness, we stand to have win-win situations instead of win-lose.

Perhaps the next time I need to negotiate for something, I should put some of Caldey’s Island Lavender on and the game will swing in my favor, or maybe it will just make me the sucker, and I’ll end up risking too much as a result of my own inclusive state of mind.

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.

By Kilian: Imperial Tea and Love and Tears Review!

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By Kilian won the Indie Fragrance Foundation Award for Amber Oud and Playing with the Devil, so perhaps I should have started with those two, but I’m on a jasmine kick at current, so this will just have to do until I go back.

Imperial Tea

Wet: magnolia, jasmine, green tea, water
Dry: jasmine, magnolia, violet, musk 

This one confused me when I sat down to review it. In the air, it turns into something closer to what jasmine green tea smells like. And I’ve sprayed it on other people and each time, I more or less received a black tea in a jasmine garden. Light, fragrant, tannic but not aquatic, and the jasmine took its place where it realistically would in a black tea: as a strong background character. Now it’s a green tea with jasmine and magnolia dropped in it, maybe a tablespoon of cream near a pond. I don’t take cream with my tea, so that takes the dry down away from the water and into the sun for me. It’s a great, uplifting scent, and not too sweet. I find it really comforting. This is perhaps for the librarian who doesn’t take sugar in his tea.

Love and Tears, Surrender

Wet: white floral, indolic jasmine, dandelions
Dry: jasmine milk tea, ylang-ylang, cedar, mulch

Mm, so I just read about the galbanum and petitgrain in this, and I’m almost positive they’re what leads to that realistic, piss-like under-bite to this. Does cedar, styrax and oakmoss together smell like mulch? Because the flowers I’m wearing are definitely still alive and feeding on something.

I feel like my head’s stuck in the roots of a jasmine bush in Asia because of the grassy and indolic facets of the jasmine, but it also reminds me of jasmine boba milk tea and I’m sure that’s due to the creamy ylang-ylang and soft lavender among other things.  It makes my nose feel funny. Now I’m light-headed, but it’s all good. I like it. Like really enjoy it. I sprayed this one a few times before as well, and this one was the one that earned me compliments like “That smells really good, is that you?” and “I need to give whatever that is as a present to someone.” It’s rather sensual and sweet, but still light enough not to trigger headaches. This is the type of scent you want to be rubbing into someone else’s sheets.

Perfume Adventure NYC Part 1!

Posted on by elemonated

The other week I wanted a break from the onslaught of final presentations and final papers and finals in general, so I poked my boyfriend really hard and demanded we go do smelly things. Like go to New York and visit things on this map. Because he gets headaches pretty easily from perfumes and I wanted to take my time and talk to people in each of the places I went to, we divided the places they listed up by area of the city to visit on different days, and because I like lists and Racked offers a pinned map, I put it in an Excel sheet.

I think you can guess where we hit first. And we went to Papyrus to pick up my Reddit Gifts card exchange gift.

I had a great conversation with the Aedes De Venustas guy about jasmine perfumes and the history of one of his favorite brands, Acqua Colonia, and I got the names of a bunch of stuff I might buy later when I have money, plus a refresher on brands I had completely forgotten about (BYREDO and Eau D’Italie!) and I’m fairly determined to go back and prove myself a customer that was eventually worth the time he spent on me. Sorry man, I probably should have just told you up front I was there for research purposes that day, but I will get you that commission! I got a bunch of people to say they’ll check out the place for gifts and already went through part of the choosing process with them so I hope I already earned some of your time back. I’m sure you guys earn on sales, and I know how that feels.

We went took a detour to Radio Shack to clear the boy’s nose because someone had accidentally sprayed some Amouge near him and that ish is strong stuff, and then headed over to Jo Malone because I thought he would appreciate how simple the scents were in comparison. Again, awkward sales rep avoidance ensued until we took haven with the Art History grad student named Kate making Christmas ornaments for people who purchased over $150 in the store. I did grab a few samples I liked though, like the Wild Fig and Cassis and Earl Grey and Cucumber that I’ll review another time, along with notes on other things I liked. We made off with the samples and a secret ornament that Kate accidentally messed up and then handed my boyfriend to finish, hehe.

I had by this time completely forgotten what Enfleurage was, so I wasn’t prepared for an essential oils distillery, and I just kind of ended up a bundle of awkward in that little store. I’ll come back with questions, and perhaps earlier, as the guy behind the desk seemed to be pretty tired. We didn’t stay long because I couldn’t think of any questions to ask, unfortunately.

But after we left, I realized that we still had time to hit the last of the stops I wanted to hit, and my energy was renewed from getting to pet some puppies in sweaters being walked. I was able to speak and think again without an overcast of uncomfortable. At our last stop, By Kilian, I got to meet Kimberly Waters of the reminiscent30 blog and Modern Urban Sensory Experiences, and we had a whole discussion on careers involving scents and the By Kilian brand, which was a lot of fun and pretty enlightening for my amateur mind, and it made me feel like I could do something I enjoy, for a living. She reminded me that, contrary to my belief, I was not running out of time. I guess I’ll just keep writing. Reviews for Imperial Tea and Love and Tears, Surrender coming soon!