I couldn’t let this cute bottle not be appreciated. Chanel No. 5 L’Eau and my first time owning this scent. To my nose it’s so fresh and smells quite different from the No. 5 edp that I have. This cute bottle is now sold out online.
New Chanel No. 5 L’Eau, Limited Edition Packaging
Rosendo Mateu #4
The person who wears Rosendo Mateu 4 benefits from vanilla’s sweetness in this perfume, because the truth is that they don’t care to be liked. They’re fine smelling like medicine from the oud, spicy leathery saffron, or like a spiced vanilla. If you come too close that’s because you need to and you’ll suffer the consequences… Rosendo Mateu #4 is the scent that rewards the wearer if they can wait out the bitter opening and let their skin warm up to the saffron and vanilla in the base. On me, it doesn’t take long and my nose goes straight to the vanilla. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Rosendo Mateu, the perfumer of this fragrance, was a perfume executive for many years before he started his own eponymous line of scents, and as I smell No. 4 from his first line, I have to wonder if this would ever make it to another brand’s line because this scent is so interesting and different than most of what you’d smell at a department store. The main notes are written on the bottle, and the perfume is heavy on the saffron which reads like a spicy leathery cinnamon but also has the propensity to smell like band-aids. But if your brain can tune that out, combined with the vanilla, the effect is almost edible. The oud that keeps things in check – here, it’s green and wooden, like biting into bitter seed when you’re not expecting to. The bitterness smells like it belongs to a more masculine perfume, and keeps the vanilla and saffron from being too sweet. Still, this is a spicy warm perfume that envelopes the wearer and anyone who happens to be within arm’s length. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I’ll admit that I got more than one compliment when I wore this, although I can never be sure if it’s just that people compliment anything they can smell. A jolt to the senses is always nice and so is a compliment. I missed the Rosendo Mateu booth at Esxence, but these are perfumes to be savoured slowly anyway. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Posted in Perfumes
Tagged Niche Perfume, Perfume Blog, Perfume Review, Rosendo Mateu
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A Winter Melody by Gucci – summer perfume without citrus
Calgary is finally having some warm weather. Time to spritz on something cooling and light but also… perfumey. Gucci The Alchemist’s Garden A Winter Melody is a rose-patchouli with cooling cypress as a top note. It really does smell wintery which makes it the perfect perfume to wear on a hot day. It’s a water perfume so you can mist on generously. The Gucci scents are under-rated in my opinion. Maybe because of the price… but they’re in beautiful bottles and I haven’t smelled anything cheap that comes close. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Posted in Perfumes
Tagged Alberto Morillas, Gucci Perfume, Perfume Blog, Summer Perfume
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Ledda 14 Isla Coco Review
Juicy tangy citruses and coconut milk make Ledda the beachiest of beachy scents around. I have a few perfumes in this category, but many skew heavy on the florals, especially using tuberose. 14 Isla Coco has hints of jasmine and ylang ylang, but creamy coconut and the sparkly lemon/lime notes make this smell more you’re drinking a pina colada in the sun, covered head to toe in sunscreen, and sand between your toes. It’s transportive and my favourite Ledda to launch. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The perfumer here is Frank Voelkl, who did all the other Ledda perfumes too. He is also behind Glossier You and many Le Labo perfumes.
An Interview with Baruti Perfumes
Baruti perfumes are some of the most unique scents I’ve smelled, and so I asked the founder and perfumer, Spyros Drosopoulos some questions about his perfumes, what inspires him, and his history with perfume, and he was kind enough to answer my questions.
1. What do you want people to know about your perfumes before they smell them?
I don’t think that for me, it’s important people know anything about the perfume, to be honest…actually, I like it if people don’t know much so that they really smell in an unbiased kind of way. I can provide context and why I made it, but at the end of the day, you know, the perfume needs to resonate with the customer and the rest is adding more to the magic. The story is interesting or captivating, but sometimes the story can maybe change a little bit of perception. Maybe the context helps it fall into place, if you know the context, but at the end of the day, the perfume should be a standalone and should be understood and appreciated by itself without any context, name, or notes.
2. Many of your perfumes are quite literal, for example, Chai, Hot Cotton, and Oh My Deer! How do you approach creating a perfume? Does the idea come first or the scent?
It’s more interesting than only the big Impressions of the materials that are present. So I think in all my perfumes when you see the notes you’re actually able to detect them. This is a deliberate design stylistic choice that I made, because I think for me, I like it much more than blending everything so much in that you jus create a soup and then there are only some Impressions of bits and pieces leftover in the cloud of perfume.
3. Where do you find inspiration – what is it that speaks to you to create a perfume?
In terms of how I create, the inspiration, sometimes it can be anything. It can be the material, sometimes it dictates some ideas, but very often I smell the perfume in my head and then I just try to get it into a bottle. Uh, and other times it’s something
that I found interesting or intriguing, it could be something that I that I’ve seen or heard like music or movie or some piece of art or a place that I visited that somehow resonated with me and then I’m trying to translate the emotion or what I felt into a perfume formula.
4. What kinds of perfume did you grow up with?
When I was young, I don’t think we had so much perfume in the house I think, other than, you know, some maybe some aftershaves of my dad and my mom. Cologne only a few times, if it was like a special occasion, And from what I can trace back, this must have been some chypre because I’m a child of the 80s, well, the late 70s, as a matter. But there were a lot of smells I grew up in Greece, especially when we went to the countryside. The smells there were quite strong and intense. Some were pleasant some were less pleasant, but I found all this very intriguing. I did spend my find myself often sniffing around even though I didn’t realize that as a child this was anything unusual or uncommon, but yeah I did always find myself to be very intrigued by by smells and my surroundings and very often stopped to sniff them to to take them up.
5. From whom do you receive feedback when you’re in the process of creating your perfume? How do you know that your creation will be wearable and will work for people?
I spend quite a lot of time with the perfumes, wearing them myself, so that already gives me an indication you know, of how the perfume performs on skin, but I don’t work with the panel. Sometimes, you know, I will offer the perfumes to be worn by friends and family, so then they act as my subjects. But, it’s more us, the team and me that are testing the perfumes and checking to see how they they work on the skin.
6. What an idea for a perfume that you’ve tried to bring to fruition but have not been able to yet?
There are many ideas that I’ve abandoned at some time, some I’m working on, and some I’ve completely abandoned. I’m looking for ways to make something that, I find worthy of adding to the line, so this means that it needs to add some sort of novelty and at the same time, stay wearable because, for me, these are two the main pillars in the way that I create for Baruti. The thing that I’m working on is a white floral. With my previous brand, I used to have a Jasmine soliflore that I liked but it was a little bit bland, I guess in a way, I guess in a way. I mean it had a high dosage of Jasmine, but other than that, there was nothing super interesting about it, although a lot of people liked it at the time. But anyway, I’m working on making something like a Jasmine soliflore or more white floral narcotic perfume that will be Baruti-worthy but I’m not there yet. It’s in the works for the future.
If you have a chance to smell Baruti perfumes in store, or via a sample set, do try them. They are fragrances that smell like things we have in our lives. I won’t use the term “photorealistic” because that applies to objects we see, but these are olfacto-realistic. For example, the perfume Chai smells like perfectly blended warm spices, black tea, and even milk to create a scent that smells like Chai. It’s one of Baruti’s most-loved and I can see why. Anyone who drinks chai knows how good it feels to hold a steaming cup of chai in their hands and inhale… it’s such a comforting scent.
Hot Cotton is my favourite because it smells like steamed linen. It’s clean and cozy at the same time, and it’s done without pretension.
You can find the brand here: https://barutiperfumes.com/
Tatcha Kissu Lip Balm in Wisteria
This is the new Tatcha Kissu Lip Mask in Wisteria. This is a light purple glossy lip balm that hydrates and keeps lips soft. I will admit that I don’t always use the spatula that it comes with. Gorgeous skincare that’s meant to be enjoyed on every level, not just to be useful.
Fenty by Rihanna – Perfume as Cultural Commentary
A while ago, when Rihanna was still putting out music and touring, other celebrities would always comment on how amazing she smelled. When asked, she said that the perfume she wore was Kilian Love,Don’t be Shy, a sweet but relatively expensive perfume that, objectively, does smell pretty good. But the perfume launched for her brand is completely different, a blueberry, rose, and patchouli number, really a fruity-patch. The perfume is a study of paradox – we realize that we know almost nothing about the real Rihanna, but also that it would be like Rihanna to give us what we weren’t expecting. We’re surprised but not surprised that we’ve been surprised. Whether or not Rihanna wore this was besides the point; Rihanna had a hand in creating it so everyone wanted it. Let’s not forget the hype created around the launch of the perfume. Online only, then limited stick in stores, and now ubiquity. If you want a bottle, you can get it.
The scent profile fits into a Sephora but also seems to offer something different – the patchouli in this is unisex and leans masculine, and so if the fruity notes dissipate on you, then this will seem quite masculine-leaning. On days that the fruit sticks around, it’s syrupy sweet, almost reminding me of a canned fruit cocktail. There’s a coconut note that nearly gets lost in the fruit and a floral that adds sourness, a soft velvety texture against the paper-like feel of the patchouli. In short, the star that we grew up with in early 2000’s gave us a throwback fruitchouli, but it’s gotten a makeover with a classic, almost anonymous feeling, glass bottle.
It’s a bold perfume with persistence and is meant to be worn by a strong personality. None of this is an accident – this perfume will announce itself and you, and I think we can agree that it’s probably how Rihanna would have wanted it.
Diptyque Brings Back Ilio for The Summer
You know it’s summer when @diptyque brings back Ilio and their Citronelle candle. 🍋☀️💛
Cute display at Holt Renfrew.
Drake’s Personal Perfume
Drake is back in the news and not exactly for the right reasons, but maybe one of the smartest things that Drake did was not attach his name to the line of candles he came out with.
The company is Better World Fragrance House, with Drake serving more as creative director and not appearing in any imagery associated with the candle line and perfume. I’m not one to throw out the baby with the bath-water, so I’m holding on to this 10ml perfume oil that came out a few months ago. It was pricy for a 10ml rollerball oil, but it smells exactly like the Carby Musk candles. The perfume sold out within hours and then was quickly restocked.
As far as celebrity brands go, it’s best not to get too attached to any of them, and enjoy the brand before the celebrity disappears from the spotlight. Carby Musk is a blend of warm musks that smell comforting. There’s an amber base, an ambergris saltiness that reminds me of salty skin, and the clean base of ambrette. If there are any flowers present, I don’t get them. With weak projection or sillage, this is an intimate scent that invites people to come in closer to smell it.
While the Carby Musk candle had incredible throw even when it wasn’t lit, the perfume is in a roll-on oil format that makes it difficult to overapply. As I type on my laptop, I can sometimes smell it on my wrists, and I get whiffs of it every time I tuck my hair behind my ear. Is it worth it? You need to see if it’s in your own budget, but as far as scents go, it’s the perfect warm salty musk and there’s not much out there like it. You either love it or you don’t, but it started out as a perfume oil that the perfumer Michael Carby made for himself and you can tell – it’s pretty special.
Posted in Perfumes
Tagged Better World Fragrance House, Carby Musk, Celebrity Perfume, Drake, Perfume oil
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Celine Nightclubbing
Because of its limited distribution – you can only find the perfumes at Celine stores, or high-end department stores – Celine perfumes still seem to be under the radar, and not much known about. The good news is that they sell samples sets on their website, so you don’t have to go in blind. Although they get compared to Chanel because of the packaging and price, they are very much their own, aside from having some twists on classics.
Nightclubbing might be polarizing but it’s still my favourite from the brand – cigarette ash, powder, vanillic warmth. It’s bitter but not unhappy. It’s that older woman you work with who has seen it all and knows it all, but she still greets people with a smile and isn’t afraid to laugh and learn. It’s that food that’s an acquired taste, and you like it because someone cool introduced you to it ages ago. It’s appreciating the past but also living in the present.
Can you pull it off?