Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, August 30, and I’m looking forward to an upcoming trip to London. As usual, I’m tagging along on one of my husband’s work trips, which I’m always happy to do! I haven’t made up my mind yet about all the things I want to do, but one option is Portobello Road’s markets, which I’ve never visited and have always found intriguing. If you have suggestions, please share! I do have a friend who has lived in London for many years; maybe I’ll see if she’s interested in going with me.
Also on my list is Fortnum & Mason, which I’ve never visited, and maybe a return visit to Jovoy Paris. And of course, if I’m at Jovoy, why wouldn’t I stop by my favorite store in London, Liberty? I’m hoping to see some theater and art exhibits too, but I’m not buying any tickets in advance after last September’s cancellation (which I don’t regret doing at all, given our son’s situation, but we weren’t able to use some tickets I had bought. Luckily, my nice friend could!). If the weather is nice, I’m always up for a visit to a garden. Maybe Syon Park this time?
I might see if I can stop by the new digs of 4160 Tuesdays, a favorite brand of mine. I was able to visit their former location and meet Sarah McCartney, who is just as fun, nice, and creative as one might hope from sniffing her fragrances and reading her website. Speaking of Sarah, she was just featured in a great article in The Financial Times, by Hannah Nepilova, which is well worth reading. It’s about her work scenting performance arts, such as a new opera that will open next month.
Is there a possibility that, between all the visual and musical stimuli, such subtleties of aroma might go unnoticed? McCartney believes that “even when we don’t positively register it, smell contributes to the atmosphere of a room.” Besides, “smell activates a part of the brain that wouldn’t otherwise be used . . . I’m not hoping to add something extra to the opera, but rather to fill in the missing part that everybody has forgotten about.”
Do you have any suggestions for my London trip, fragrance-related or otherwise?
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, August 23, and the weather is finally cooling off a bit. My poor roses, which have been gasping for breath and water for weeks now, seem to be sighing in relief and gearing up for a fall flush of blossoms. I planted several new-to-me varieties in large pots this spring, and it has been interesting to learn their growth habits and needs. The one characteristic all my roses have in common is that they must be fragrant. I just don’t see the point in growing roses that aren’t fragrant; I know many people do, because they are more focused on color and shape, but I’ve found I can have all three: lovely color, shape, AND fragrance.
I’m still wearing light, summery fragrances, as it still gets pretty hot during the day though we get some relief overnight. A recent favorite has been Patricia de Nicloai’s Rose Pivoine, which one of my lovely regular readers here sent me. You know who you are — thank you so much! I’ve been loving it! Top notes are ambrette, raspberry, red currant, and bergamot. The heart is rose oil and absolute, mixed with violet, iris, peony, and pepper; the base is sandalwood and musk. It is meant to evoke a bouquet of fresh roses and peonies, with green leaves as companions. It is lovely. I think I still prefer Nicolai’sRose Royale, but Rose Pivoine is excellent, especially in hot, humid weather.
Parfums de Nicolai is launching a new set of gourmand fragrances next month, “Les Gourmandises.” I don’t often gravitate to courmand fragrances, but these do sound intriguing. I’ll be in London after their launch date, so maybe I’ll see if I can sample them at one of my favorite London fragrance boutiques.
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, June 7, and we’re back from our trip to France! It was an amazing trip through Normandy and Brittany, where we visited D-Day sites, prehistoric standing stones, landscapes of great natural beauty, and several museums along the way. We also enjoyed many outstanding meals, including our first ever dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant. All in all, it was a wonderful, though delayed, celebration of major birthdays, wedding anniversary, and graduations; this was the trip we had planned for the summer of 2020, which of course we had to cancel. It is also likely to be our last big trip to Europe with the whole family, as our three young adult children now all have full-time jobs, significant others, and more scheduling challenges. So we pulled out all the stops!
I did not come home with any fragrances, but I was able to try some really nice ones in the duty-free area of Charles de Gaulle airport. The Guerlain extraits were so luxurious! I sampled Iris Pallida and Rose Centifolia. Just gorgeous! I also tried Chanel’s Comète and was unimpressed. Quite pretty, but it may have suffered by comparison with Guerlain’s Iris Pallida extrait, which was simply stunning. If I were longing for a powdery Chanel iris eau de parfum, I’d probably be satisfied with No. 19 Poudré, at a much lower price.
We also visited the garden at Christian Dior’s childhood home in Granville, which inspired many of his designs and fragrances. It was absolutely beautiful, and all the roses were in full bloom, including a lovely, fragrant one named “Jardin de Granville.” I wish it were available in the US, to add to my own garden!
Jardin de Granville rose
A big thank-you to rickyrebarco, whose package with Nicolai’s Une Fleur En Mai and another lovely goodie arrived while we were away! They’re both beautiful, and I love them. I’m wearing Une Fleur En Mai today!
We won’t be traveling overseas for the rest of the summer, though London is a possibility this fall, and we may go visit family in New Hampshire in July. Do you have any summer travel plans? Any planned acquisitions of new fragrances? Do tell!
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Saturday, May 18, and we’re in final preparations for our trip to Normandy and Brittany, the one we were planning to take in 2020. This will likely be our last big all-family trip abroad for the foreseeable future. Since our youngest was 5 years old and able to pull his own rollaboard bag, we’ve taken our kids to Europe or another international destination almost annually, riding the coattails of my dear husband’s travel for work. Usually he flies to Europe, works for a week or more, then we have joined him using some of his millions of frequent flyer miles. It costs less take to take our family of five to Europe for a week than it would to take them to Disneyworld! (I know that because one of my sisters used to take her three kids every year to Disneyworld).
1789 map of the provinces of Brittany, Normandy, and others; image by Ty’s Commons.
Now that the kids have all finished college and launched into jobs (the youngest will start his on July 1), it will be more challenging to coordinate schedules. And now that I’ve retired, and my husband will likely follow in a year or two, we need to spend a bit less on travel, lol. But for 17 years, minus pandemic time, we’ve been able to share some favorite countries and discover new ones with our three children, which has been a privilege and a blessing. I hope we’ve shown them enough that they continue to explore Europe and other continents on their own.
Green hot air balloon; image from vistivictoria.com
Thanks to rickyrebarco, I no longer have to try to figure out how to get my hands and nose on Patricia de Nicolai’s limited release muguet scent. Thank you so much! Since we are bypassing Paris, it would have been challenging to find it even in France and even if it hadn’t sold out so quickly. With that itch scratched, I don’t have any particular fragrance in mind to bring home as a perfume souvenir, which is good because I truly have so, so many. I. packed most of them away to make room for the stuff we had to move out of the basement so our oldest could move into that as an apartment, and I plan to sort, organize and catalogue them this summer after we get back. I think my upcoming olfactory adventures this month will focus mostly on food and drink, which are excellent in both regions we will visit!
Have you planned any upcoming olfactory adventures of any kind? Do tell!
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, March 15, and we’re back from Paris! What a wonderful trip we had. It was our first visit back to Paris since our honeymoon, decades ago. Although we’ve been lucky enough to visit other parts of France since then, we hadn’t yet been back to Paris. Early March isn’t the ideal time of year, just because the weather in Paris at that time can be cold and rainy, and we got a bit of both, but less than we had expected during the daytime. We revisited several of Paris’ “greatest hits”, like the Louvre and the Sainte Chapelle, but we also just walked around a lot — and yes, we visited some perfume stores! I had to adjust my list but was more than satisfied with the places we reached, some of which hadn’t been on my list!
View from a boat on the Seine
Some of you probably knew this, but I hadn’t realized that the Marais district now has so many perfumeries! Some are brand-specific, and one lovely stop was an independent perfumery called “Sens Unique”, which one of you had suggested. We stumbled across several that I hadn’t known would be in that area, and couldn’t possibly visit them all.
Sens Unique perfumery
We also visited the Palais Royal, home to both Serge Lutens and Parfums de Rosine. I got a warm welcome at both boutiques — in fact, contrary to Paris’ reputation (which I think is very outdated), we received a warm welcome everywhere we went.
Parfums de Rosine Boutique
As hoped, a few of the Palais Royal’s pink magnolias were starting to bloom, and we saw many daffodils in bloom all over Paris (and at Versailles, where we spent a happy, sunny day). Although we didn’t make it to the Fragonard perfume museum, I did buy a bottle of Fragonard’s Narcisse as a souvenir of our trip. I was very good, though — I bought one travel spray at Parfums de Rosine (Bulle de Rose) and a few discovery sets elsewhere. TBH, I probably would have bought more than one travel spray at Parfums de Rosine, but very few of their fragrances come in that size. I didn’t buy anything at Serge Lutens because 1) I was a bit overwhelmed by the range and variety; and 2) the one that most interested me, De Profundis, was being sold in the “gratte-ciel” bottle, which I don’t like, not in the famous bell jar. They might have been able to find one for me if I had asked, I suppose, but I was also deterred by the high price.
The Palais Royal
The Bon Marché department store currently has an installation throughout its Left Bank store called “Mise en Page”, with displays around the theme of books and reading. This included the ground floor fragrance area, and the display was very charming. I had hoped there might be a special fragrance for the event, but what was on offer were current fragrances from houses like Diptyque, Frederic Malle, and Byredo. Still fun, though!
Mise en Page at Bon Marche
Believe it or not, Paris is about to have its first ever “Paris Perfume Week“, organized by Nez, starting March 21! If this becomes an annual event, which I hope it will, I’ll have to time future visits to Paris accordingly. It is a combination trade show for the industry and showcase for the public, with various programs and lectures that non-professionals can attend. I love the whole idea!
Some of you asked me to comment on food, so here goes! Three of our favorite spots were: La Fontaine de Mars; Les Petits Pois; and Le Quartier Latin. La Fontaine de Mars is a classic French brasserie near the Eiffel Tower, with dishes like duck confit and cassoulet. A signature appetizer of theirs is eggs baked in red wine — OMG, so yummy! Now I want the recipe. Les Petits Pois is a tiny, French modern restaurant near the Jardin des Plantes. Very reasonably priced with very original, high quality food. The dessert I had was hands-down the best I’ve eaten in years: it was basically a stack of chocolate sable cookies, slathered with cream, meringue, and chocolate sauce. Absolutely divine! Le Quartier Latin is actually an Italian restaurant that was a short walk from our hotel on the Left Bank. We went twice, because the food was so good and the host so welcoming. We enjoyed both their pasta and their pizza. Reservations are recommended for all three, and are easier to get if you want to eat when they open at 7 pm. We also had the legendary hot chocolate and Mont Blanc pastry at a branch of Angelina, as a break during our LONG visit to the Louvre. The hot chocolate was truly amazing, and the perfect museum pick-me-up. The Mont Blanc pastry was delicious but oh so sweet and rich! I’m grateful to our server, who told us that we should share one instead of having one each, because of the hefty overload of sugar.
So there you have it — and now I’m back home, working hard in my garden to get everything organized for peak spring bloom time, which is upon us. What fragrant adventures have you enjoyed recently?
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, March 1 — rabbit rabbit! We are on our way to Paris — thank you to all who sent suggestions for perfume tourism and restaurants. So far my list (which combines well with regular sightseeing) includes Serge Lutens and Parfums de Rosine at Palais Royal, Dior, Hermès and Caron’s flagship stores, Fragonard’s museum, maybe Jovoy Paris (I love their London store).
Since I met up with my husband in Barcelona, I’ve taken advantage of the excellent duty-free store to spritz a couple of nice scents: Hermès Un Jardin Sur le Toit, and Chanel’s Paris-Paris. I’m enjoying them both! I have with me travel sprays of Dior’s New Look 1947 and La Colle Noire, and Guerlain’s Chant d’Aromes. All in on French perfumes! I’m enjoying the roses in Paris-Paris.
These were some of my roses that were still blooming in December:
I’ll be excited when they and all the new ones start blooming again. Do you have any fragrance-related plans for this weekend? Do share!
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, February 23, and I am late! It has been a bit crazy for the past week, culminating in my son spraining his knee yesterday and spending almost 4 hours in the emergency room. Thankfully, it isn’t dislocated, as he first feared. These are the times when we’re so glad he goes to university in the same city where we live, which makes it very simple to take him medication, supplies, snacks. etc.
I’m getting ready for our upcoming trip to Paris — thank you to all who sent suggestions for perfume tourism! Now, who can recommend some restaurants?
Right now is also the perfect time to plant and prune roses, so I’ve been doing some of that too. I’m very pleased that I succeeded in moving a big climbing Eden rose from a large pot to a sunny spot in the ground where I hope it will flourish. It has the most divine flowers of pink and white.
I know March will be chilly and not very spring-like in Paris, but I hope to find some blooms to enjoy. Palais Royal is on my list to visit, and apparently it has many pink magnolias, one of my favorite trees, that could be blooming in March. They are also very fragrant. I’ve never found a perfume that captures their particular scent. If you know of any, please share!
What are your plans, fragrant or not, for this weekend?
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, February 9, and Valentine’s Day is next week! Happy Valentine’s Day in advance! Do you have any fragrant gifts in mind, for yourself or anyone else? I am saving up all my fragrance wishes for an upcoming trip to Paris — all suggestions of perfume sites to visit are welcome, especially places that don’t have branches in the US. Palais Royal is on the list for sure, for Lutens and Rosine; probably also Jovoy Paris, since I’ve loved their store in London.
Most of my fragrance interest right now is in roses — real rose bushes, that is. I have some on order that should come in March; and I’ve bought some bare root roses of varieties that are highly fragrant and have the old-fashioned blooms I love, when I found them at a ridiculously low price at a big-box store. So those have kept me busy. My spring bulbs are starting to come up now, and most of those are very fragrant also — narcissus, hyacinths, starflowers. I’m delighted to see that my lavender plants seem to have survived the temperatures in the teens we had a few weeks ago.
Please share any fragrant plans you have for Valentine’s Day, and do suggest any favorite spots in Paris, perfume-related or otherwise! We’ll be there for a week, which offers plenty of time for tourism.
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, November 10, and tomorrow is Armistice/Veterans Day. As the granddaughter, daughter, and wife of veterans (both British and American), I honor their service.
Earlier this week, Portia of Australian Perfume Junkies and I published our monthly “Notes on Notes”, this time on oud (or oudh). Please add your thoughts in the comments, on those posts or here!
My retired life has become something of a social whirl this month, starting with the family christening that just took place last weekend. It was such fun, the baby was perfect (of course!), and I loved spending the weekend with both of my sisters (the baby’s grandmother is my older sister). I stayed with my other sister, who sings in three (3!) rock bands, and she took me to see the Taylor Swift concert movie on Saturday. It was SO MUCH FUN! She and I and her friend were among the few adults there, surrounded by a sea of little girls aged about 8-11, and a handful of saintly mothers who had shepherded groups of children there. Some of them were even game enough to wear sequined tops, which is apparently a thing. My sister and I wore sequined scarves, just for the spirit of the thing. Honestly, the movie was great fun, even if you’re not a Swiftie (which I’m not). The stagecraft alone was spectacular to see, and I was surprised at how many of her songs I actually knew from the radio. My favorite video of that song, though, is the YouTube video of a Dover, Delaware patrol officer lip-syncing to it:
Cracks me up every time!
What fragrance did I wear to the concert movie? Diptyque’s Eau Rose! Going all in on pink. I really enjoy that fragrance.
NST’s Community Project this week is to mark author Neil Gaiman’s birthday today by wearing a fragrance that refers to one of his books or characters, or evokes other fantasy fiction. So my SOTD is the new eau de parfum release of Fath’s L’Iris de Fath, since it is a fragrance unicorn and a unicorn is featured in his book “Stardust” (later made into a delightful movie). I had the joy of trying the extrait de parfum a few years ago, at Jovoy Paris‘ boutique in London, so I was eager to try the eau de parfum, which is more affordable (not actually affordable, I hasten to say). I was able to buy a decant in the recent NST splitmeet, and it arrived about a week ago. I’ve finally worn it — if you like iris fragrances, this is a stunner! Perfumer Patrice Revillard discusses his creation here:
Do you have any favorite fragrances that include iris as a note?
Stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany; Magnolias and Irises, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, September 8, and I’m not going to London after all. Nothing major, but one of our kids has suffered a big blow (break-up) and is taking it very hard, so I decided not to tag along with my husband on his work trip and stay home this week, as said kid is at university a few miles away. Not a big deal to cancel, as I get to London most years, and it’s not going anywhere! I wouldn’t enjoy myself much anyway if I was worrying about our son the whole time. Silver lining: the friend who lives there and was going to go with me to a couple of things can use the theater tickets I had bought, which I’ve happily given to her and her husband, and one art exhibit I had planned to see is coming to the US after it closes at the Tate Britain. And there’s probably an October business trip to Barcelona on the agenda, which I’ve asked to extend to include — Paris! We got engaged in Paris, lo these many years ago, then spent part of our honeymoon there and haven’t been back since. It was supposed to be part of a big celebratory family trip in the summer of 2020, which went up in smoke like so many other COVID-era plans.
So now I need everyone’s suggestions on where to sniff perfume in Paris! Please share in the comments!
Serenity Now Scents and Sensibilities 
