Chris Collins Sweet Taboo Review
Does anyone else have childhood memories of eating raw green olives? I feel like even other Chinese kids with Chinese childhoods don’t recall eating green olives.
Read Moresmell
Ellis Brooklyn Sci Fi Review
An intriguing, otherworldly blend of green tea, pink freesia, bitter orange and vanilla beans.
My first reaction was that there’s a dessert that smells just like Sci Fi. A cookie. A Girl Scout cookie? The lemon ones? My third favorite cookie to the OG Samoas and Thin Mints. Let me look them up real quick. Lemonades, ah.
Yeah, those.
Ellis Brooklyn Raven Review
This stunning peony-patchouli vies for the same complexity of character—the seduction lasts long before the first notes of mandarin and rhubarb, developing into a heady olfactive brew underlined by blond woods and liquid musks.
Both the Myth and Raven note descriptions said that I’m supposed to smell patchouli, and while I got a bit of patchouli in Myth in the base as promised, it is the belle of the ball in Raven. It starts off sweet and creamy, with a sharpness like a tart apple, and then a sort of dogwood kind of woody. All of which play their part in the dry down as well in various strengths.
Then the patchouli has pulled its boots on and really gets everything going.
Read MoreEllis Brooklyn Myth Review
I think it’s that citrus-y and herbaceous bergamot on top of the cassis that makes this one almost scrumptious, or at least very tangible on the tongue.
Myth is “Bergamot, cassis and jasmine petals makes a first impression before lingering with patchouli, liquid musks and white cedarwood.”
It doesn’t matter that pineapple and mango and melon aren’t listed as notes. Whatever the cassis was supposed to provide turns into a way more tropical fruity note. Like a mango or melon Hi-Chew. Myth smells like a twist on a mimosa with the brunchiest, Instagram-friendly accouterments: sunshine, lily petals strewn around the base of the glass and a few thrown in the glass itself for good measure, served on a coaster because the wood for table that was chosen doesn’t actually hold up to the function it was purchased to serve. Read More
Ellis Brooklyn Fable Review
Neroli is the essential oil of the orange blossom drawn using steam distillation from the bitter orange tree. Orange blossom also comes from the bitter orange tree, from the same blossom, but via enfleurage, which is the application of fat solids to pull out fragrance compounds from an item. Petitgrain is from the same tree but is made from steam distillation of the twigs and leaves. (Thanks Jessica Murphy from NST and Perfume Professor for that info. Also shout-out to Brooklyn Brainery because even when I look through the list of classes in their email newsletter like “I am not free for ANY of this” I’m still like “what is shibori even though” and “maybe I should start wool-working and also make a puff representation of my dog.”)
You’re so lame mom, please don’t.
I’m not the biggest fan of neroli. Most of the purer forms of it remind me too much of Froot Loops and I just don’t have any fun memories that would make the smell of neroli as significant to me as it is unique. During sniff-tests I’m usually standing next to neroli lovers, lovers of the Italian coastline, lovers of the Spanish coastline who are smiling and talking about their grandparents and their past trips and trips they want to take and saying absolutely nothing, smiling with them, appreciating the fragrance as objectively as I can, and swallowing down cereal jokes until that part of the conversation is over.
Penhaligon’s Artemisia
And so it begins, not with a bang, but with a whisper.
Perhaps this review would have been different if I sprayed you? I doubt it though.
Artemisia
- Wet: violet, makeup powder, sandalwood
- Dry: violet, makeup powder, sandalwood, apple, jasmine, vanilla, amber
Poetry
Part of a window at La Basilica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. Taken in March 2016 by moi.
I was looking for a quote from Pablo Neruda when I came across a few other poems I wanted to share. The first one is also a translated Spanish poem by Fernando Pessoa. I’m going to reserve judgment until I read more of his corpus, and then attempt to read and understand it in Spanish, but I’m kind of into this one, if only because it surrounds fragrance and humanity.
I know many people, myself included, who gladly wear the badge of “unnatural and strange” who also adore perfume. I may drop this into the purview of a few people in the fragrance community. Read More
Ormonde Jayne Rose Gold
I snagged this one up during Ormonde Jayne’s promotion celebrating the British team’s 67 medals in the Olympics! Too bad the US crushed that number with 121 medals and China edged you guys out at 70 as well, though Great Britain did get more gold medals.
Details aside, everyone did well this year at the Olympics and everyone had something to celebrate in Rio. Except, of course, for Ryan Lochte’s teammates who had to face the consequences of their (and his) actions while Mr. Lochte celebrated getting the hell out of Rio in business class and out of the clutches of Brazilian law enforcement; for a little while at least.
But I digress.
Zoologist Bat
Like a bat with a 9 to 5, Mr. Chokkattu hasn’t really slept in two days, so I’m writing this review after cuddling him to sleep at an incredibly early hour (It’s 9PM! Madness!)
Cheap Fragrances Review – Amazon Edition
Now that I’ve graduated school and have a job, you would think I would be less broke but that assumption is incorrect. Being a hedonist in a city is quite the balancing act, though I think I’ve been balancing it well, and my business school education definitely comes in handy when it comes to budgeting and restraint.
Because of my limited spending money, I think it’s worth taking the time to troll grey market sites and second-hand stores for gems. This time around, I stumbled around on Amazon and ended up picking out three that I thought would be diamonds in the rough.
Pomelo girl thoughts 