… and just a note on collections in general.
Just some old Prada perfumes. I don’t ever wear them or even feel like wearing them, but every so often I like to just take the bottles out and smell them. I’ll always keep old or empty perfume bottles. We all have our collections, this is mine.
I just got Diptyque’s Eau Lente and it is perfect for the moment.
Eau Lente is a slightly spicy resinous, incense-based perfume but opens with an aromatic blend that would work in summer making this a very versatile perfume. It wasn’t at all on my radar, but I sprayed the first perfume I saw when I entered the Diptyque boutique in Toronto and then ended up going back for the bottle. It turns out that I inadvertently bought a perfume that had a scent profile that I had been looking for anyway: a fragrance that smelled like Gripe Water.
The opening delivers. Fresh and flavoured with anise which is often the key ingredient in many treatments meant to calm the tummy. It’s a nostalgic smell and not one that I want to smell all the time, but to randomly come across a perfume that gave me that felt magical. The anise melts into sweet and spicy cinnamon, like cinnamon hearts, and the warm vanilla finish has an incense backbone that seems to go throughout this scent. The combination of vanilla and incense makes this a perfect winter perfume. Not overbearing and heavy, but cozy and fresh, a crowd-pleaser that’s still unique.
I definitely haven’t seen many people talk about this one, probably because it’s only available at Diptyque boutiques and not at all the counters that also carry Diptyque.
The new Skinproud body line is actually really good, offering something a little different than most other body care lines out there. There’s a body serum that has lactic acid in it, a lotion that’s light, and a thicker moisturizer that has a jello like formula but melts into a cream. The scent is fresh and soapy, the pear listed on the bottle isn’t too strong and blends with the musky base very nice. The body lotion and the body wash have the same scent and it lingers on your skin but it’s just clean and fresh so I don’t mind. It’s the perfect night time scent, or the perfect scent for just smelling fresh and clean.
You can find SkinProud at Walmart stores in Canada. I’ve tried many of the products for the face and I love those too.
In conjunction with the Boss Bottled Elixir launch, I was able to send some interview questions over to Annick Menardo, one of the perfumers of the scent. Have a read!
Each new brief is an intense moment where I start brainstorming what could be the new scent for the brand. The perfume I like to create are first and foremost about convictions, I always like following my conviction in my creations and this sentence of “being your own Boss” resonated quite well with my way of working.
For the original Boss Bottled, I strongly believed in the apfelstrudel association: cooked apple, cinnamon and vanilla. With Boss Bottled Elixir, I wanted to approach the gourmand family 25 years later in a more contemporary way with an overdose of vanilla notes sophisticated by a strong patchouli signature and a rich ambery background.
BOSS is a deeply creative brand. Boss Bottled was the first fruity for men. There was no men perfume with this fruit overdose at this time, it was a revolution. It was daring! Boss Bottled marked the creation of a fruity fragrance for men, the creation of a new family. This inspiration for bold creativity caried on in this new take on the iconic accord. I imagined a golden patchouli, beyond the material towards a unique and daring fragrance.
Each fragrance made by BOSS is a unique signature. Bold and brave fragrances pushing the boundaries of what it means to be your own BOSS. Forever finding new and creative ways to embody fearlessness through fragrances shaping the olfactory landscape of the perfume industry. Just like I did 25 years ago with BOSS Bottled, I wanted to create with BOSS Bottled Elixir something new, take a leap to create something even more contemporary, a true timeless signature for today and tomorrow’s BOSS customer.
The BOSS customer is an audacious, inspired, and empowered person able to be their own BOSS and able to integrate this idea into every aspect of their life.
Wearing Meharees today – the perfect weekday perfume. Cinnamon and spice and everything nice. Really, almost like a cinnamon sugar cookie. Some say that it’s a dupe for Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur and I’d say it’s pretty close, as close as one can get for 1/5 of the price.
This is my everything is gonna be alright perfume. Not just for me but for everyone else too. if you smell this, I hope that’s what you think, because it’s pleasant, innocuous, good.
I started doing Diwali perfume picks because I saw the big retailers and mainstream media completely getting it wrong, often picking the trending scent instead of what fit the times.
This year’s Diwali pick is Amouage Fate, equally opulent and restrained, a mix of soapy powdery incense, heady and cleansing. I love the clean smoke that this represents. Its as if the perfume represents the metaphorical cleansing of incense smoke mixed with a literal cleansing from a powdered Ivory soap. It’s so good, it lasts all day, with an intense projection to start, sillage for a few hours, and turning into a skin scent at the end of the day.
May light always prevail.
Happy Diwali.
Dispatch from the Guerlain counter. Last week, I popped in for their holiday event and I stopped by the Guerlain counter to smell the new extraits. First, we sprayed on paper and then one made the cut for the skin test.
The Iris is a cold take on the iris, not too purple, more a crisp blue. No lipstick in this bottle.
The bergamot is zingy, I liked it, and I know it would be great in the summer.
The tonka is sweet.
The rose is rosy. Honestly, maybe the only one I’d skip for sure because it’s not hard to find a good rose.
The jasmine one is indolic.
Finally – the surprise winner was the vanilla. Cozy and rich without being too sweet. It didn’t last very long, but I just had one spray and smelled a lot that day.
Honestly, these are extraits but they’re wearing like eau de Parfum. For the price… I’d rather a bottle of Diaghilev… or Shalimar Extrait… or Coromandel Parfum…
The Boss brand’s latest release is an “Elixir” and it’s done by one of my favourite perfumers: Annick Menardo (although Fragrantica lists this as a collaboration with Suzy Le Helley).
This Elixir is a dry crisp scent. It opens with green cardamom, and then goes to a cedar and smoky frankincense blend. There’s also vetiver here which helps with the smokiness and accentuates the dry nature of this scent. It really sparkles against the usual ambers of the season but it would work well in any weather. There’s a molecule in this with epic longevity that goes with the dry woody notes in the scents. This is truly a Boss perfume – try this if you have to dress professionally to work and have a lot of energy. The dryness will contrast with any type of heat that might be around.
Although this is an “elixir”, the formula is a parfum and it behaves like one too. It’s meant to last the whole day and it delivers on that front.
Boss Bottled Elixir is marketed as a masculine perfume but if it wasn’t for that one ultra-long-lasting molecule, I feel like I’d be able to pull it off. It’s an almost niche-smelling perfume (a compliment here) with how strong its dry woody character is. The cardamom is *chef’s kiss*, but I can never resist cardamom.
For the first time ever, there was a bit of a break in Calgary in the month of November, so I left town for a few days. I always take all my hair care with me, but this year, I grabbed this Olaplex Smooth Your Style Hair Kit to cover my styling bases. I don’t know why I thought this would be just enough for 4 days – it’s probably enough product for 4 months. The no. 6 Leave-In Styling Cream is a full size (100ml), and for a little bit more, you also get the No. 9 (serum), the No. 3 (pre-shampoo treatment) and a mini of the oil.
If you thought that you use these in order (3, 6, 7, 9), you’d be wrong. Actually, the number 9 is a light gel serum (watery in finish) and you apply it as the first styling step. No. 7 is an oil that’s applied to finish the routine – add shine – or you can mix it with No. 6. Whatever order you use, I like the idea that I’m get the benefits of Olaplex every step of the way. I also recommend leaving the No. 3 in the shower because you’re supposed to apply it to soaking wet hair. So I wet my hair, apply No. 3, wait a while and then shampoo it out. It works in as little as 3 minutes.
That’s the routine – and it’s working.
I forgot that I was easing into wearing perfume, and went back to my old habit of doing four sprays first thing in the day – that is, 4 sprays of Amouage Jubilation 25. I forgot how concentrated it is, so everyone got to smell it. This is a chypre, and as a perfume-lover I know that there’s a peach, a mossy drydown, a sparkly aldehydic opening, and some florals thrown in, but it was interesting to hear other people’s impressions of it. It’s superbly blended so I can’t always pick out the notes, but I feel like I’m wearing a wool tweed skirt suit when this perfume surrounds me, even when I’m in a hoodie and running shoes.
Comments I got:
It smells like a melting glue gun in here!
It smells amazing in here. (What does it smell like?) Perfume! It’s you!
Wow, it smells so good in here. Like a crystal shop! Good vibes, earthy and sweet.
I think the “sweetness” is the resinous labdanum, which adds so much richness to Jubilation 25, showing up more when the scent warms up on your skin. It lasts without wearing out its welcome.
Super thankful for this decant which was given to me by a perfume friend. It’s being enjoyed, and I’m putting a full bottle on my wish list. Hopefully, it’ll be mine before the end of the year.
