Make Me Beautiful » Perfume

What’s Your Friday Perfume?

leily — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:27:00 +0000

Hello friends! My Friday perfume is L'Artisan Premier Figuer, from a sample reader Nikki C shared with me. I cannot believe I haven't tried this. The notes are fig, fig leaf, milk of almond, sandalwood, and coconut. Sounds rather fresh and summery, no?

What are you wearing today?

Have a happy Friday!

*image from luckyscent.com

What’s Your Friday Perfume?

leily — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:30:00 +0000

Happy Friday everyone! I'll be continuing my Penhaligon's sampling with Artemisia, with notes of nectarine, green foliage, green apple, lily of the valley, jasmine tea, violet, vanilla, oakmoss, sandalwood, musk, and amber. Lovely for spring, no? I plan to post about this and Malabah, so I'll say no more. Shhh.....

What are you all planning to wear today? From the look of the weather forecast, spring is not being a cooperative season this year. Some of you are buried under snow, while we here in Atlanta are buried under pollen--for now. Early next week we are expecting highs in the low 50s and lows in the low 30s! I am sorry to sound like the Weather Channel, but this is unheard of! I'm so tired of my sweaters...I am ready to wear a skirt and sandals!

*image from Penhaligon's

What’s Your Friday Perfume?

leily — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:12:00 +0000

I thought this week would be a "comeback" of sorts. I had everything planned for my reviews this week, and then...another stomach bug. Half the office seems to have it. I make a solemn vow that soon I will have more than one post a week about perfume!

Today I'm feeling much better, and I've decided to go all springy and try Diorissimo, even though it's a bit rainy and not super warm. I'm hopeful.

What are all of you, my friends, wearing today...or this weekend? Are you trying something new, or wearing an old favorite? Either way, I hope it enhances a happy weekend!

*image from FragranceX.com (which unfortunately has none of this in stock)

What’s Your Friday Perfume? (Psst…and a Giveaway)

leily — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:53:00 +0000

Good morning all! I'm planning to wear Penhaligon's Bluebell today. I've never tried it before...should be interesting!

What are all you lovelies wearing today or this weekend?

I have a little prize for you. Over the past couple of years I've collected a number of samples from purchases, friends, and well-wishers. I hate to see them languishing in the drawer, so I've assembled a bunch of sample grab bags. These are samples I've tried, or duplicates of things I already own. Some have several days' worth, some have just enough to wear once to see if you like them. I've distributed all kinds of scents across five bags, and I'm giving the first one away this weekend.

Let me know in the comments if you'd like to be included in the drawing. I'll keep this open through the weekend, and I'll draw a name on Monday evening.

Happy weekend, everyone!

What’s Your Friday Perfume?

leily — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:07:00 +0000

Happy Belated First Day of Spring! I am wearing Ormonde Jayne Champaca today, which is one of my favorite perfumes for spring. What are you all wearing to celebrate the first day of spring?

Have a happy Friday, everyone!

What’s Your Friday Perfume?

leily — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:31:00 +0000

Hello Friends! This morning I spread out all my new goodies, closed my eyes, and selected Ineke Evening Edged in Gold. I haven't even sniffed it yet, so this should be an adventure.

What are all of you wearing today? I hope your Friday is a happy one, and your weekend is full of fun and relaxation.

*image from Ineke

What’s Your Friday Perfume?

leily — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:37:00 +0000

Happy Friday everyone! What's your perfume today? I'm going with Jolie Madame . It's cool and wet today, and supposed to get colder--forty-two degrees tomorrow. Where the heck is spring?

Have a wonderful day!

*image from FragranceDirect

Tips For Buying Perfume

leily — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:22:30 +0000

Perfume works well to highlight our individualities. Once you know what smell fits your personality, image and lifestyle, it’s time to go shopping. But be aware - shopping for perfumes usually is not an easy task. Do you know how to shop for the right perfume?First of all, don’t use any fragrance before going to the shops. If you perfume yourself and then go out and use another perfume, you won’t be able to detect the real smell. This can lead to disappointment later because the new perfume will smell different than the first time, unless of course you use both fragrances each time. Avoid spicy food before shopping, as it might temporarily take away the ability to distinguish different scents. Remember that your nose is ‘rested’ in the morning, thus it’s the best time to try out new perfumes. You may be too tired in the evening to choose between sandalwood with a hint of amber and sandalwood with a hint of musk.

It’s very important to try on the perfume before you actually buy them. The same perfume smells differently on each person because of different reaction to one’s body. So if the commercial says it smells like fresh citrus with a hint of patchouli, it’s better to try out what it really smells like when it mixes with your own scent. Individual body chemistry is also the reason why you shouldn’t buy perfumes just because you like how they smell on your friend or cousin. Always try a fragrance on your skin, not on your clothing or a tester sheet.

You don’t have to decide whether you like the perfume or not right after trying them out. The scent is always very strong when applied; it usually wears out after more than 10 minutes and then you can feel the real smell. This period of time is also needed for fragrance to react with your skin. Give yourself a little time to decide!

If you’re not sure what perfume you really want to have, it’s ok to try several types and brands. However, you should avoid spraying more than three different perfumes at a time. If you try out too many scents they will confuse your smell and you won’t be able to recognize the difference between

Try on some new scents. It won’t hurt and you can make some great discoveries! If you’re an attached person and you’ve been loyal to lily of the valley scent since early teen days, you can find a whole new world inside local perfume shop. Just don’t be afraid to experiment! If you’re looking for perfumes for a daytime, remember that the smell shouldn’t disturb you or people around you. If perfume smells great, but it attracts your attention all the time, there’s a great possibility that the smell will irritate you after several hours. Perfumes for evening and special occasions are meant to be heavier and stronger, but they usually don’t irritate because they are supposed to be worn for a shorter period of time.

Keep an eye on discounts. Many perfume shops offer ‘perfume of the day’ or ‘perfume of the week’ with a considerable rebate. Don’t miss out on discount coupons in local press or mall; they can help you to save a little or even afford the fragrance you’ve dreamt about for years. Also, don’t be shy to ask shop assistant about additional discounts: many shops apply some extra rebates to loyal clients. Maybe all you have to do is sign up for shop’s loyalty program. If you’re faithful to one and only perfume, buying bigger phial is always an option that pays off.

Have You Ever Wanted to Know What Perfume Really Is

leily — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:45:00 +0000

Perfume is simply alcohol with a fixative combined with essential oils or chemically produced scents. Whilst cologne is basically perfume watered down. Perfume typically contains 30% essential oils and colognes only 1-2%

Perfumes you find available to buy may consist of just one scent whilst others contain a blend of a high note (the first scent that reaches you), middle notes (sometimes called heart notes, which is the personality of the perfume) and finally the base note which lingers on.

Always bear in mind that perfumes react differently with each person's body scent. This is why you should always try before you buy otherwise you could be disappointed. What perfume or cologne smells nice on your friend may not smell as pleasant on you. A good rule of thumb is to never test more than three perfumes at a time.

Fragrance falls into six basic groups:

Spice: cinnamon, ginger, cloves
Wood: pine, sandalwood, cedar
Fruit: lemon, orange, peach
Florals: jasmine, lilac, gardenia, rose
Herbal: lavender, bay, sage
Exotic: musk, ylang-ylang, vanilla

The perfume can have top, heart, and base notes all from one category or mix the notes from different categories.

Home made perfume can be fixed with glycerin or castor oil. Commercially perfume was often fixed with for a longer shelf life with civet oil, or musk. Today chemical replacements have been found.

The most internationally recognized of all perfumes has got to be Channel No. 5. Have you ever wondered why the number is 5? It's because during the testing period, a bottle was labelled "5". The fragrance consists of top notes: Aldehydes, Grasse jasmine Heart Notes: Rose, ylang-ylang, iris Base Notes: Amber, patchouli.

Modern perfume making has been taken over by Classic Designer houses such as Christian Dior which offers several perfumes including : J'adore, Diorella, Diorissimo, Dolce Vita fragrance and Miss Dior. While celebrities have always endorsed perfumes, they're now lending their name to perfumes like "Lovely," by Sara Jessica Parker.

To keep your perfume smelling beautiful for years to come make sure you keep the bottle away from heat and light as this will help prevent it from turning sour. The best bottles to keep perfume in are small ones and you should always apply it with a spray or stopper. This will prevent oil from your fingers contaminating the perfume.

The cost of perfume ranges from the least expensive colognes around $25 a bottle to $215,000 a bottle for Imperial Majesty, a Clive Christian signature scent. The fragrance is $2,150 per ounce. To warrant a price tag of $215,000, a Baccarat crystal bottle was filled with 16.9 ounces of perfume and a five carat diamond and gold collar.
Beauty Supplements

The Language of Perfume

leily — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:01:00 +0000

I continue to ponder this thing, writing about perfume, so I thought I would share with you something I read that really got me thinking. Helg over at The Perfume Shrine was lucky enough to interview Chandler Burr ( Part One and Part Two ), and he was kind enough to respond to comments readers left regarding his interview. Simply, one commenter noted the difficulty of writing about perfumes without using words like "aldehydic." Mr. Burr responds (in part):

"Brands hate aldehydic only because people don’t know what it means; if the public was familiar with it, there’d be no problem, and they’re going to have to be, sooner or later. Perfume should be taught in classes just like painting and literature. As Luca points out, what’s lacking is simply the vocabulary."

Now, as many of you know, Chandler Burr is the perfume critic for The New York Times, as well of the author of two books about perfume, The Emporer of Scent about the master Luca Turin, and The Perfect Scent about the creation of two scents, Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely and Hermes's Un Jardin Sur Le Nil. And, as many of you know, I am...uh, me, amateur perfume fan and author of this blog. Clearly, if we met in a dark alley for a perfume-off, Chandler Burr would win.

And still, I'm going to do this. I'm going to disagree. Yes. I. Dare. And now I shall explain why.

*Cue sound of soapbox being dragged across the floor.*

Ahem. On the one hand, I agree completely that perfumery is an art and should be treated as such. How wonderful it would be to take classes in the history of perfume, or to take classes to learn how to compose a scent the way one takes a class to learn to compose music. Where I part ways with Mr. Burr--or really, I guess, with Mr. Turin (oh yes)--is in the area of vocabulary.

Perfume is about experience, not about language. Consider this line: "If the public was familiar with [aldehydes], there'd be no problem..." Okay. Aldehydes are specific types of organic compounds. Now you know what they are. According to Wikipedia , they contain a terminal carbonyl group. Oh, even better! But you have a definition now. You have a vocabulary.

Now talk to me about perfume. You can't.

But if I told you, "Chanel No. 5 is aldehydic," and you smelled Chanel No. 5, you might say "Ah!" And then if I let you smell Clinique Wrappings, you might have an even better understanding of aldehydic. The more you experience it, the more you understand it--not the more you talk about it. The problem is, of course, that to be able to talk about it, you have to say "aldehydic." You can't say, "a sort of metallic herbal or green quality." Or can you? Which has more meaning? I would argue for the "metallic green quality," but I realize that one cannot classify perfumes in such a manner. In this case, aldehydic enables us to classify, and we can say definitively, "Aldehydic perfumes contain aldehydes." That one is pretty clear cut.

Now take the term chypre, common to the perfume vernacular. A chypre is a perfume with citrus top notes and woody base notes. I've defined it for you, right? I could also say to you, "A chypre includes bergamot, oakmoss, and patchouli in its composition." The problem there, of course, is that lots of perfumes contain these notes, and they are not chypres.

All chypres are not created equal. Guerlain Mitsuoko, a chypre, is nothing like Chanel Chance, which is also a chypre. Of the accords that make up a chypre (remember, we have the definition), Mitsuoko has two, bergamot and oakmoss, and Chance has only one, patchouli. Mitsuoko is a fruity chypre, while Chance is a floral chypre. Each of these have little in common with Chypre de Coty, for which this family of perfumes is named. There are also green chypres, aromatic chypres, and leather chypres.

You know what a chypre is now, right? I've explained it to you, and you now have the language--the vocabulary--to describe it yourself.

Now, if I spray some perfume on your wrist, can you tell me definitively whether or not it's a chypre? My guess is no. My guess is, maybe if you've smelled hundreds, even thousands of perfumes, you could pick out what might be classified as a chypre. But that is experiential. If you read the notes, too, and saw that it had the possible composition of a chypre, you might pin it down. But unless chypre means following a specific formula--x amount of bergamot, y amount of oakmoss, and z amount of patchouli--every time, for every composition to which other ingredients are added, no one can say definitively what is and is not a chypre. In other words, there really is no meta-chypre, no ur chypre.

Which means, ultimately, that the term chypre has no meaning unless we somehow make it have meaning. We, the masses, don't get to make these things have meaning. So who does? Well, perfumers do. And critics do. And, I suppose, marketers, although maybe they have to check with the perfumers first. You and I, we know a chypre is a chypre because somebody tells us it is so. I suppose once we're told, we can discuss it. The problem is, though, that if it only comes down to a matter of vocabulary, then what we're saying is that all that matters is the discourse. If we know how to talk about perfume, how to write about perfume, then we know perfume.

And I suppose that's what it comes down to for me: the difference between the discourse about perfume and the experience of it. The discourse is easier. It's akin to reading literary or film criticism without reading the book or seeing the film, and then trying to have a serious discussion about said book or film. You might be convinced you're talking about the book, but really, you're talking about someone else talking about the book. (Remember Mr. Burr's comment about how perfume should be taught like art or literature? Hang around with a couple of graduate students in literature for a few days, and see if they discuss books, or criticism of books. Literary criticism gave them a vocabulary!) It seems a lot of the time the discussion is about what we think about perfume, not about how we experience perfume. Sure, we discuss the development of notes on our skin, but that's often akin to a plot synopsis. I certainly don't have the answer about how to get outside that loop, but I don't think a vocabulary is it.

All this is a roundabout way of saying, I think people need more experience with perfume, not more language. As much as I love writing about perfume, I encourage people not to take my word for it. Go on a smelling adventure, figure out what you like, and do not worry about the fact that you can't talk about it the way you think you should be able to. The language of perfume is as artificial a construct as one can imagine. Own your nose, and say anything you like.