unisex fragrance

Perfume Chat Room, October 25
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Perfume Chat Room, October 25

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 25, and we’re back from our short beach trip, which was lovely! I’m enjoying another sample I got from the Jo Loves boutique in London in September: Jo by Jo Loves. Fragrantica classifies it as a “citrus aromatic”, which seems about right. Notes include grapefruit, lime, bitter orange, black pepper, vetiver, mint, guiac wood, cedar, and hedione. I happen to like a grapefruit note, though I know some do not, which is good because that is the strong opening accord. I like the way the citrus notes engage with each other, with lime and bitter orange playing hide and seek with the grapefruit. As it dries down, I smell more of the vetiver and mint, which bring an attractive green tinge to the composition. Basically, Jo by Jo Loves smells to me like a spicy, woody grapefruit! It is wholly unisex, in my view, and I think many men would enjoy it as a fresh cologne that doesn’t smell like everyone else’s. I’ll have to ask my son what he thinks!

Next week is Halloween in the US, but many of the parties celebrating Halloween will take place this weekend, when all the young adults can costume themselves, drink, and generally shed their inhibitions. I’ll be staying home, thank you! I do love the actual night of Halloween when the children come trick-or-treating. Our neighborhood goes all out for Halloween; we block off a couple of streets to cars, and it’s a very safe locale, so families from other parts of the city often come to walk around and ring doorbells.

Do you have any scents you associate with Halloween? I’ve enjoyed some of the offerings of Solstice Scents, which can be very spooky, such as their Riverside Hayride. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Perfume Chat Room, July 19
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Perfume Chat Room, July 19

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, July 19, and I had so much fun at a gathering this week with Gérald Ghislain of Histoires de Parfums, at a local independent perfume boutique!

Gérald Ghislain, Histoires de Parfums

He discussed how he started in perfume, the backstory of Histoires de Parfums, his life in fragrance, and his newer fragrance line, Olibanum, which launched in 2021.

Histoires de Parfums and Olibanum testers

In Gérald’s words: “While Histoires de Parfums tells stories and spins dreams, Olibanum is all about the scent. If these creations are void of storytelling, it’s simply to return to and focus on the purity of the raw materials. And for an added personalized touch, each perfume has been designed around olibanum, [my] favorite scent.” Gérald now lives in Dubai but he continues to travel widely. His description of renting an apartment in Flatbush, New York, was hilarious. In fact, generally he was very funny and charming. I enjoyed sniffing some of the newer HdP fragrances (2020 and later); my favorite was This Is Not a Blue Bottle 1.6, which is ironic because it features a strong note of yuzu. I have long thought I disliked yuzu because of an unpleasant encounter with it in a Burberry fragrance, but I may have to revisit that opinion. I really liked 1.6 and found it very refreshing in the current heat and humidity. John Biebel wrote a terrific review of it in Fragrantica. As he wrote, it is all about citrus in the opening, then it moves to a fresh flower bouquet, and finally towrd a warmer base of white musk, vanilla and vetiver. It is totally unisex and very winning. Have any of you tried it?

Just some of the fragrance lines at Indiehouse

The boutique’s intown location is quite small, so attendance was limited and about 12 people were there; it was great fun. A wide range of ages and backgrounds, and a very diverse, convivial group. It was a nice reminder of how much fun this hobby can be. This location is focused on niche and independent perfumers more than the original location in the suburbs, so there were lots of interesting products to sniff.

Also this week, WordPress sent me a note that yesterday was the 9th anniversary of my beginning to blog on WordPress (or blog at all, lol). I can’t believe it has been 9 years since I started this blog, but here we are. As some of you know, I started it at a time when my work life was very, very stressful and I was also recovering from a broken shoulder. Fragrance had become a passionate interest of mine, and I had loved reading fragrance blogs (by writers much more expert than I) so I learned how to blog about it as a distraction. I’ve loved “meeting” fellow fragrance lovers here and on other blog sites! Thank you for joining me and the rest of the community.

Any big events in your fragrant life recently?

Perfume Chat Room, June 11
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Perfume Chat Room, June 11

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 11, and we are still processing a very enjoyable wedding weekend just past! It was the wedding of our nephew (also our godson), in Baltimore, and we had such a wonderful time! I was able to see my two sisters for the first time in a year and a half (last visit was October 2019), as well as some cousins. My kids spent the whole weekend with all their first cousins on my side of the family, and it was a joy to see how much fun they have together. We spent part of Saturday poking around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, which has grown so much in the thirty years since my husband and I were last there, and we ate wonderful crabcakes. The wedding itself was beautiful, as were the bride and groom.

I wore Sonoma Scent Studio‘s Champagne de Bois, from a travel spray that was a kind gift from Undina, and it was just right — thank you, Undina! I am so glad that Sonoma Scent Studio has been revived by a new owner with the original fragrance lines. Support the independent artisan perfumers! They’ve had a tough year. Last weekend was a tonic for the spirit. I’m an introvert and quite a homebody, so I haven’t minded most of the past year in terms of working from home, not going out, etc., but it was lovely to be able to gather, and socialize, and even dance.

Have you been on an airplane recently, or a large gathering?

Scent Sample Sunday: Dioressence
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Scent Sample Sunday: Dioressence

I recently obtained a mini of vintage Dioressence eau de toilette, in a blue-marbled box with a small, squarish splash bottle that resembles the vintage houndstooth bottles of other Dior fragrances from the 1980s. It is so well-suited to the current fickle weather we’re having in mid-February! I love all my spring floral fragrances but I don’t yet feel ready to pull them out again, other than an occasional spritz of Ostara to remind me that the daffodils are on their way. We’ve had weeks of cold and rain, though I’m thankful to have missed the deep freeze and unexpected snowstorms that hit other parts of the country this month. But Dioressence feels right today, as the sun shines brightly over a still-chilly landscape and my garden, where I have new raised beds that are full of soil but not yet planted.

The version I have dates from the 1980s, and it is a 1979 rework of the original, done by Max Gavarry, who worked with Guy Robert to create the original in the 1960s. I love the story of its origins, as told by Luca Turin to Chandler Burr and described in Burr’s book “The Emperor of Scent.” Apparently Guy Robert had been tasked with creating a new scent for Christian Dior that would launch with a new collection of Christian Dior ready-to-wear furs, and the brief was to create something very animalic but related to earlier Dior fragrances like Miss Dior while also contrasting with them. He was wrestling with this problem when he went to a broker’s office in London to assess some real ambergris for potential purchase. Turin’s recounting, via Burr:

Continue reading →
Perfume Chat Room, January 8
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Perfume Chat Room, January 8

Happy New Year again, and 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, January 8, and it’s been quite a week. I know some of you don’t live in the US and are wondering what on earth is going on here. So are many Americans, except that many of us have feared exactly what we saw on Wednesday. This isn’t a political blog, so I won’t say much more, except that most of America is NOT rioting and I believe people of good will from both parties and all points of view will unite to oppose the violence the world saw in our capital this week. I have little or no such confidence in the media, social and traditional, that thrive on conspiracy theories and make money from them as clickbait.

Getting back to fragrance, but with a dose of dark humor — I believe I will pull out my discovery set from BeauFort London, which includes fragrances with notes of gunpowder and smoke. The first launches, the collection “Come Hell or High Water”, is named for aspects of British history. According to the US Capitol historian, the last time the Capitol was breached by a large hostile force was in the British invasion of DC in 1814, during the War of 1812. I first tried the BeauFort London fragrances at a favorite independent perfumery in London, Bloom, where I bought the discovery set. They are unisex, possibly leaning masculine; I especially liked Fathom V. Have you tried any of BeauFort London’s scents? Do you know of others that include a note of gunpowder? Or, in the other direction, any favorite perfumes that incorporate the word “Peace”?

Roses de Mai Marathon: Rose Anonyme
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Roses de Mai Marathon: Rose Anonyme

Another truly unisex rose is Atelier Cologne’s Rose Anonyme. When it was first released in 2012, at least one reviewer (the marvelous Jessica at Now Smell This)  thought it was more feminine than many of Atelier Cologne’s fragrances. As I don’t know many of those, I can’t really say for sure, but compared to most of the florals I own, Rose Anonyme smells very gender-fluid to me. Continue reading →

Roses de Mai Marathon: Elisabethan Rose 2018
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Roses de Mai Marathon: Elisabethan Rose 2018

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 →

Roses de Mai Marathon: White Rose & Lemon Leaves
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Roses de Mai Marathon: White Rose & Lemon Leaves

White Rose & Lemon Leaves is one of the fragrances released by Jo Loves, the brand launched by Jo Malone in 2011 when she was able to do so following the sale of the “Jo Malone” brand to Estee Lauder. Continue reading →

Roses de Mai Marathon: Killer Rose
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Roses de Mai Marathon: Killer Rose

For our next “Rose de Mai” (not really, as that is the name of a particular rose, Rosa centifolia — I’m just using the term because it is May!), let’s try 4160 Tuesdays’ Killer Rose. Continue reading →

Scent Sample Sunday: Sylvaine Delacourte Dovana
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Scent Sample Sunday: Sylvaine Delacourte Dovana

Sylvaine Delacourte is the former perfume creative director of Guerlain and current owner/founder of her own eponymous perfume brand and line. She has issued three themed collections of fragrances: the Vanilla Collection, the Musks Collection, and the Orange Blossom Collection. Dovana is one of the Musks Collection, and it is described as a “tender musk.” All of the Musks Collection are at 20% concentration, i.e. eau de parfum strength, and all are unisex.

The brand’s website says that Ms. Delacourte wanted this collection to feel like “olfactive pashiminas”, with a signature softness. Continue reading →