Welcome to the Friday 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 24, and Spring has sprung! We’ve gone in just a couple of days from temps below freezing at night, back to sunny and in the 70s. The pollen is flying everywhere leaving yellow dust in its wake and all over cars. All over everything, actually. Thank goodness for non-drowsy antihistamines!
I still have daffodils, azaleas, and dogwoods in bloom, and one rose bush that has started blooming its head off. In honor of William Morris’ birthday today, NST’s community project is to wear a scent that can be matched with anything to do with him — his art, his designs, his books and poems — whatever. I love William Morris designs, so I matched one of my favorites (actually designed for him by J.H. Dearle) called “Daffodil” with my beloved Ostara, by Penhaligon.
Design for “Daffodil” by JH Dearle for William Morris & Co.; image from the William Morris Gallery.
All the spring scents are jumbled together outside in a charming melange that includes grass, flowers, trees, dirt, and rain. My poor vegetable garden froze solid back in December. I didn’t bother replanting winter vegetables, I just spread more compost so it could “season” until the weather is warm enough to plant again, and the compost is adding to the mix of smells.
Portia and I have decided we will just wait until April to resume our “Notes on Notes” and “Counterpoint” collaborations, since we were both traveling a lot in March. We’ve got some great material to discuss! If you want to suggest 1) fragrance notes; or 2) specific fragrances that you’d like us to tackle, please let us know in the comments!
And for those in the Northern Hemisphere, happy Spring!
I’ve been wanting a bottle of Penhaligon’s fragrance Juniper Sling for a long time, since I got a tiny mini bottle of it in a Penhaligon’s gift coffret and sampled it in place of 4160 Tuesdays’ Scenthusiasm, which hadn’t been available to me in 2018 when I read a review of it on the blog “I Scent You A Day.” Happily, since 2018, I’ve been able to snag a full bottle of Scenthusiasm and, now, one of Juniper Sling, in Penhaligons’s summer sale. So I’m fully stocked with gin-inspired fragrances, thank you, to go with a gin cocktail (click the link for a recipe for one made with Fentiman’s Rose Lemonade).
Revisiting my former thoughts on Juniper Sling, I still find that the juniper berries dominate the opening, and that note persists for a while. It lends the fragrance an aromatic aura and adds to the sense that this scent is truly unisex. It’s also an ideal scent for hot, humid, summer weather — herbal and cool. Created by Olivier Cresp, its notes are listed as follows: Top notes are angelica, cinnamon, orange brandy, and juniper berries; middle notes are cardamom, orris root, leather and pepper; base notes are vetiver, cherry, sugar and amber. I like that I can clearly smell the cardamom, and now that I have a full bottle and can really spritz, I can also smell the angelica. Not much cinnamon, thank goodness — I can only take cinnamon in very small quantities in fragrance, much as I like to cook with it. Orris root softens the edges of the herbs and spices. Vetiver is detectable in the base, but I can’t say that I smell cherry or sugar. An amber accord may be there, and there is definitely something warm that balances the vetiver. Juniper Sling is a transparent sort of fragrance, like a limpid pool on a hot summer day — clear and sparkling. It doesn’t last more than a few hours on my skin, but I’ll be more than happy to reapply as needed.
Scenthusiasm, on the other hand, is more floral, though it is also very summery, cool, aromatic, and refreshing. It was created for a Hendrick’s Gin event — not to smell like the gin itself, but to complement the floral and herbal notes in Hendrick’s.
Hendrick’s Gin Cucumber Lemonade
If you like the sound of Gin Cucumber Lemonade, try the recipe and let us know how it is in the comments (or try my recipe linked above, or try both)!
In Sarah McCartney’s own words:
Scenthusiasm is made with natural orris (iris) butter, rose absolute, lemon and orange essential oils, cucumber extract, juniper absolute (of course) and coriander essential oil. To make it last, boost the scents of the naturals and too smooth them out, we blended it with our favourite simple musk, fresh air and white wood note synthetics. It’s inspired by gin, and has gin notes but mostly it’s a floral at heart: rose and iris, with the herbs dancing around it.
I think Scenthusiasm is also quite unisex, though it may lean a bit more traditionally feminine. Sam at “I Scent You A Day” wrote that the orange and lemon notes risk making it go “a bit Pimms”, but I’m not qualified to judge that! My lack of familiarity with Pimms several years ago resulted in my allowing two of my three children (all under the age of 12, as I recall) choose it as a canned drink to go with their lunches at Kew Gardens, on a day-trip from London. As all the food and drinks were together, I’m sure the checkout cashier thought I was planning to drink the lot myself!
Luckily the older of the two would-be Pimms drinkers took one sip, realized it was alcoholic, and alerted me before her (much younger) brother drank any. Not that it would have killed either of them, of course, but one doesn’t like to render a five year-old tipsy. So having sensibly got for myself a simple lemonade, I switched with the children and drank one of the Pimms, pouring out the other surreptitiously on the ground as both had been opened. It was fine as a summer drink, but on a later trip to London I was introduced to Aperol spritzes, and that is now a favorite (nor does it raise embarrassing memories).
I really love Scenthusiasm. One might say, I am scenthusiastic about it, lol. It’s a delightful summer floral with the unexpected references to gin botanicals, more aromatic than sweet. Definitely not fruity, nor green. The cucumber note is noticeable, and it’s an unusual note to find in perfume. One of the few I’ve been able to find with a prominent cucumber note is a 2020 launch from By Kilian, called Roses On Ice. Lo and behold, it is supposed to smell like Hendrick’s Gin, the original inspiration for Scenthusiasm. I may have to try it some day, but for now, I’m very happy with my purchase from a favorite independent small perfumer.
Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays
I could see a couple wearing Juniper Sling and Scenthusiasm to complement each other’s fragrance. But which would each one choose? Which would you choose? Or would you, like me, say “Both, please!”?
A brand whose fragrances I tend to enjoy is Penhaligon’s. As befits a venerable English brand, with warrants from the late Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales, they have a very English sensibility and they make both lovely floral scents and elegant men’s fragrances. Ellenisia aligns with their other floral fragrances in being soft, pretty, feminine. The brand website says:
Full-bodied, feminine, and oh so seductive. Vanilla and violet show Ellenesia’s sweet side, but there’s more to discover in this eau de parfum. After all, tuberose only blooms at night…
Ellenisia‘s top notes are Violet Leaf and Mandarin Orange; middle notes are Gardenia, Tuberose, Jasmine and Rose; base notes are Plum and Vanilla. I love the opening — the combination of green violet leaf with juicy mandarin orange is lively and appealing. The white flowers at the heart of Ellenisia quickly step forward: to my nose, the strongest one are gardenia and tuberose, followed by jasmine. I can’t say that I smell any rose.
I’m not a huge lover of tuberose; I have to be in the mood for it, and even then, there are several other floral notes, classics in perfumery, that I prefer. But this is a soft, sweet-but-not-too-sweet tuberose, and it’s very appealing. Be warned, though — if you just don’t like white flower fragrances, you probably won’t like Ellenisia. It reminds me a bit of Dior’s 1985 blockbuster Poison, with a lighter touch. As it dries down, the tuberose and gardenia are still going strong, with an undertone of plums. Some commenters find it “soapy”, and I can understand that. It’s not very soapy to my nose, but there are certainly many soaps that smell of white flowers, and that creates a strong impression.
I think the opening few minutes of Ellenisia are different and special, but they fade quickly, in favor of the tuberose and gardenia. I have one 50 ml bottle of Ellenisia, and that’s plenty for me.
How do you get along with tuberose in fragrances? Do you have any favorites? Or any favorite Penhaligon’s fragrances?
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, October 9, and it has been a wet and gloomy day here. However, that inspired me to pull out a favorite fragrance I haven’t worn in a while: Penhaligon’s Blasted Bloom. Although I often think of a sunlit day when I wear it, today it just suited the somewhat British weather.
In other news, I got my absentee ballot this week, filled it out, dropped it off in an official ballot drop box at the entrance to my local public library, and was just able to confirm online that it has been received and “accepted”! It was very easy and very safe.
How was your week? Any new or rediscovered favorites?
Two years ago, I received Penhaligon’s Elisabethan Rose 2018 for Mother’s Day. I’ve mentioned it before, as a rose scent I like to wear around Christmas, but I haven’t given it a review of its own. And this year happens to be Penhaligon’s 150th anniversary, which will be celebrated in various ways throughout 2020, so here we go! Continue reading →
Some of my favorite bloggers are posting about favorite holiday fragrances, and several have created their own fragrance Advent calendars, so clearly ’tis the season! I love Advent, but I was too slow off the mark to organize my own Advent calendar in time, and this is a very busy time of year for me at work, so I’ll just enjoy reading about theirs — although I might get my act together for a few “scents of Advent” or even a fragrance Twelve Days of Christmas, so stay tuned!
As some of you know, I’m an enthusiastic amateur gardener. One of the plants I love most is the hellebore, sometimes called the “Christmas Rose” or “Lenten Rose” because it blooms in the winter. I love it so much that the special china we bring out for the holidays from now through February has hellebores on it.
So for my “scents of Advent” post today, I’m going to write about a few of the rose scents that I especially enjoy in the fall and winter, although real hellebores have little fragrance. Actual roses can emphasize so many different facets of their natural fragrance, and then perfumers focus on a few of those, and choose companion notes to heighten that emphasis; this is undoubtedly why there are hundreds, if not thousands, of rose-centric fragrances. I know some perfume-lovers dislike rose, but I’m inclined to think that may be because they haven’t found the right rose for them, or because they have unhappy associations with bad rose scents like poorly made soap.
I love fresh, citrusy, green roses in the spring and summer, but I’m just not drawn to them when the weather turns colder. Luckily, many perfume houses have created scents that emphasize the spicier, darker, warmer aspects of rose, and those are the ones I enjoy at this time of year. I’ve written before about some of them: Aramis’ Calligraphy Rose, Montale’s Intense Cafe, Gres’ Cabaret. Here are a few more:
Tauerville’s Rose Flash: this is one of the best fragrance buys on the market, imho. It is the first of Andy Tauer’s “Tauerville” line, fragrances that are deliberately more experimental (and more affordable) than his main line but still artfully crafted and multi-faceted. Rose Flash comes in a 20% concentration; in other words, parfum extrait strength. At $63 for a 30 ml bottle, and given its high quality, it’s at the top of my list. Here is the description from the website: “A shamelessly diffusive, tenacious, extrait-strength creation, overflowing with the greens, spices, citruses, woods and creamy intimacies which enter your very soul when you stick your nose into a bona fide, scented, living rose.” Be still, my heart! Yes, it really is that good.
Penhaligon’s Elisabethan Rose 2018: an update of a former Penhaligon’s classic, Elisabethan Rose, its notes are: Hazelnut Leaf, Almond Oil, Cinnamon, Red Lily, Rose Centifolia Oil, Rose Absolute, Vetyver, Musk, Wood. The unusual opening is just spicy enough to make it clear that this is a deep red rose, nothing pale. The cinnamon note makes it right for this season, but it isn’t strong. The rose notes, which appear right away, are fruity and deep, with wonderful undertones of spices and light wood. This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite rose fragrances — and what’s not to love about a bottle with a white ruff around its neck?
Jo Malone’s Tudor Rose & Amber: one of the limited edition “Rock the Ages” set of 2015, Tudor Rose & Amber is meant to embody one of the most notable periods of English history. From Fragrantica: “Tudor Rose & Amber evokes the bloody and turbulent Tudor era. The fragrance contains Damask and Tudor rose as well as ginger in the heart, spicy beginning of pink pepper and clove and the base of golden amber, patchouli and white musk.” The ginger and clove make this a warm, dark rose for winter. Many commenters talk about a boozy or winelike impression; if so, it’s a mulled wine. Even Luca Turin likes this; in “Perfumes: The Guide 2018”, he gave it four stars and wrote:
The distinguished Grasse house of Mane must have been gutted to see Christine Nagel move to Hermes, because she was a priceless treasure. It’s not as if the rose-amber accord hadn’t occurred to anyone before, but Nagel inserts her trademark slug of biblical spices and woods smack in the center, as she did in Theorema (Fendi, 1998) and rescues it from heaviness and banality. Very fine work.
As some may recall, I went to Ireland in August with part of my family, on our first extended trip there (we had previously visited Northern Ireland and Dublin, briefly). We just loved it and can’t wait to go back! One of the things we discovered while there was Irish artisanal GIN. We aren’t much for cocktails in our house; we don’t go out very often, and our usual tipples are wine and an occasional beer. Part of this trip included a few days of a work retreat for my husband, and his colleague who organizes these had a different “tasting” dinner of one kind or another every night. One night, the tasting included small-batch gin, made into different summery cocktails. These included Shortcross gin, and Jawbox gin, both made in Northern Ireland. They were combined with different Fever-Tree tonics, and different garnishes, which brought out their different herbal notes. After we left Northern Ireland and during our stay at Powerscourt in County Wicklow, we sampled cocktails made with Glendalough Wild Botanical Gin, and the Scottish gin Hendrick’s, which we had previously discovered. (And which we used to invent our own gin cocktail two summers ago, combined with Fentiman’s Rose Lemonade). Ireland is producing dozens of terrific small-batch gins, which you can read about here and in other publications.
Why am I carrying on about gin in a perfume blog, you may ask? It’s all Sam’s fault. The author of the I Scent You A Day blog wrote a wonderful post this past week about the limited edition 4160 Tuesdays fragrance Scenthusiasm, which was created for a Hendrick’s event, and can now be bought from the 4160 Tuesdays website.
It sounds marvelous, with many of the floral and herbal notes I adore. Here is Sarah McCartney’s description:
It’s ever so slightly gorgeous. It isn’t the same as our first ever gin fragrance but this one is made with natural orris (iris) butter, rose absolute, lemon and orange essential oils, cucumber extract, juniper absolute (of course) and coriander essential oil.
To make it last, boost the scents of the naturals and too smooth them out, we blended it with our special musk, fresh air and white woods accord.
It’s inspired by gin, and has gin notes but mostly it’s a floral at heart: rose and iris, with the herbs dancing around it.
Want!! But the price is a bit steep, even before UK shipping costs, and I haven’t found it being sold in the US by the brand’s regular stockists, so I’ve had to cast about for other options. Enter Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling, which I have in a mini size from a gift set.
Named after an old mixed drink called a “gin sling”, this fragrance’s strongest note is juniper berries, which give the beverage gin its distinctive odor and taste. Created in 2011, it is a woody aromatic fragrance, unisex, created by Olivier Cresp. Top notes are angelica, cinnamon, orange brandy, and juniper berries; middle notes are cardamom, orris root, leather and pepper; base notes are vetiver, cherry, sugar and amber. Penhaligon’s has even kindly shared its own recipe for an actual “Juniper Sling” cocktail, made with Hendrick’s gin! When the scent was launched, they also released an entertaining fictional short film about its supposed origins, linked to on Now Smell This.
The opening smells a lot like one of the gin cocktails we recently sampled, with a burst of juniper berries, the most characteristic odor of real gin. The opening is herbal and slightly spicy too — definitely aromatic, but not green. In the middle, I can clearly smell the cardamom, which I appreciate; cardamom is one of my favorite smells, but often I find that even fragrances that list it as a note don’t really smell like cardamom. It doesn’t last very long in the progression of Juniper Sling, but it is definitely there. The orris root and leather are less discernible but there is a smoothness and woodiness in the middle stage that I think they add. I can’t say that I detect the separate notes listed among the base notes, but I also haven’t applied a decent-sized spray to my skin, as the mini splash bottle is so small.
All in all, while I still yearn to try Scenthusiasm, I was happy to scratch that itch with a gin-evoking fragrance I already own. Have you tried Juniper Sling, or Scenthusiasm, or any other gin-related fragrances? What did you think? Do you have any favorites?
Easter is my favorite holiday. Yes, I love Christmas too, but Christmas involves more work over a longer period of time than Easter, and it has been so commercialized that it’s hard to hear the church’s messages over the din of jingle bells and cash registers. We seem to have managed to keep the focus on the religious meaning of Easter; the secular hasn’t taken over as it has with Christmas. After all, as our minister said on Sunday, no one even likes the song “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” (Although one small boy piped up from the congregation, “I do!”).
I know one of the reasons I love Easter so much is that it comes with the start of spring, a particularly beautiful season in my part of the world which calls to my gardener’s soul. Flowers and trees blooming everywhere, days getting longer, sunnier and warmer — plus there is chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Especially in my house. The scents of Easter and spring are my favorite ones: hyacinths, daffodils, lilies of the valley, Japanese magnolias, even an early rose or two. Lots of fresh greenness bursting from the earth. We always have a pot of Easter lilies in the house for the holiday, and pots of forced spring bulbs. Our church’s floral guild goes a little crazy and blankets the entire church in garlands of roses, lilies, and other fragrant flowers.
It should come as no surprise, then, that this is the season when I happily break out my favorite floral fragrances: Penhaligon’s Ostara, for instance, named for the pagan goddess whose name is also the root for the word “Easter.” I’ve also been wearing Chanel No. 22, a heady concoction of white roses and other flower notes, Jo Loves‘ White Rose and Lemon Leaves, Berdoues’ Somei Yoshino (cherry blossoms), Jo Malone’s Lily of the Valley and Ivy, Lili Bermuda’sLily, and others. I’m hoping to make our annual spring visit this weekend to an amazing private garden that is home to tens of millions of daffodil bulbs planted up and down hillsides:
Daffodils at Gibbs Gardens, March 2016
I love the sheer over-the-top exuberance of these floral outpourings, and that is what the whole season of spring is like here, all over our city: flamboyant azaleas in Easter egg hues layered under the floating white and pale pink blossoms of dogwoods and Japanese magnolias, underplanted with all shades of yellow and white narcissus or extravagantly bright tulips, combined with swaths of the light blue starflowers that spread here like weeds. Welcome, Spring!
Penhaligon’s always seems to me to be the ultimate British perfumery, although it is now owned by Spanish parent company Puig, with many other fragrance lines. Penhaligon’s long history since its founding in England in 1870, its Royal Warrants from the Duke of Edinburgh and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, its Cornish name, and its whole aesthetic just feel very British to this non-Brit. I own a few of their fragrances, and have visited their charming shop in the Burlington Arcade in London (where there are several other fragrance boutiques, such as By Kilian and Editions Frederic Malle).
I own their Bluebell, said to be Diana’s favorite, Lily of the Valley (because I love all things muguet), Blasted Bloom, Ostara, and a new bottle of Equinox Bloom, which I am waiting to open until the weather is warmer. Perfumer Olivier Cresp says this about his creation Equinox Bloom:
During one of my recent visits to London, I enjoyed an incredible brunch in a smart, refined place, where the magnificent atmosphere of the rooms, furnished with opulent floral compositions, ensnared my senses almost at once. While admiring the floral scenery, my brunch included delightful toasts topped with honey and marmalade and these gourmand facets inspired me to bring to Equinox Bloom a trendy, modern inflexion to the generous floral bouquet.
I had a similar tea with my daughters in London last year, on the grounds of Kensington Palace, at The Orangery.
I also have one of their gift coffrets which they issue yearly at Christmastime; the five tiny miniature bottles are adorable. My set includes Empressa, Iris Prima, Vaara, Juniper Sling, and Artemisia.
Another UK fragrance house I like very much is Miller Harris. British perfumer Lyn Harris founded Miller Harris in 2000. Before that she spent 5 years training in France at one of the highly prestigious schools of the perfume in Paris and then Robertet in Grasse. After selling her eponymous company, which still produces fragrances under the brand name Miller Harris, she started a new line, Perfumer H. The Perfume Society has a lovely summary of the founding of the Miller Harris line and its ongoing work: Miller Harris. I was able to visit the boutique in Covent Garden some time ago, which was a rainbow of color from various packages.
Miller Harris
I am the happy owner of two Miller Harris “travel sets”: Fragrance Friday: La Collection Voyage. I especially liked Terre d’Iris and La Pluie, but honestly, I haven’t yet tried a Miller Harris scent I disliked. I liked Tangerine Vert very much, but found it did not last well on my dry skin. Applying a “filter” like Maison Martin Margiela’s Replica Filter Glow was helpful, as was the application of a rich, fragrance-free cream. All in all, I’m delighted to have made the acquaintance of Miller Harris. If you enjoy fragrance lines like Penhaligon’s or Jo Malone, you’ll probably like Miller Harris.
Serenity Now Scents and Sensibilities 