What would you...

“Hmmm, this is good, isn’t it?”, said the perfumer enthusiastically, nose wide open.
“Well… that’s the one you showed me yesterday”, replied the W.-factor somewhat annoyed. He was wrong. “No!”, I go, “it may be somewhat close, though. You probably get the roses. Good, ain’t it?” the perfumer again.

“Well… “, the W.-factor goes, “there is something about it, I do not get along with. It is for women.”

“It is a chypre!”, the perfumer replied , somewhat disappointed already, and continues: “You do not like chypres, that’s it! I know. You did not appreciate Chypre by Coty. The gold standard! But imagine coming across this scent somewhere on the corridor! A woman wearing it passed by. You smell her perfume. This perfume! What would you do?”

The perfumer waves the white paper soaked with his rose latest TRIAL under the W.-factor’s nose.

Hope dies slowly.

“Run away”, the W.-factor replied, and continued working on some students tests.

So you see. Life of a perfumer can be hard ;-)

Fact is: The W.-factor does not like Chypres and for all of you who want to dig deeply into the matter of Chypres: Please visit Helg’s perfumeshrine and read her posts on Chypres. Ah…and when visiting her blog: Check our her review on the Incense extrême please!

Second fact: There is rose in the incense rosé and there is rose in this chypre -rose- TRIAL that still runs under no particular name. Both roses are integrated into a big splash of citrus (Clementine for the incense rosé, Bergamot and a touch Clementine for the rose trial).
But the take on the roses are quite different. In the rose TRIAL the rose is a powerful rose, integrated into a chypre structure; and -beside the natural absolute, I use for the first time a steam distilled rose oil (damascena, Bulgaria). This one complements the absolute and its dark sweetness and goes fantastic with the touch cinnamon (cinnamon alcohol), and Bay (eugenol!). Together with Bourbon Geranium steam distilled oil, Egyptian jasmine absolute, some salicylates and other flower power enhancers, the rose accord is heaven for me.

Next: Talking dilutions of this rose trial, and some words on patchouli.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2008 and is filed under Uncategorized. Your comment is highly welcome, please join the discussion!

Perfume of the Day

Versace previous scents were very middle-of-the-road for me. I didn’t love, or hate them . All that changed with the release of Versaces Infusion. Versaces Perfume. It couldn’t be more different from the ambery richness of Versaces's original perfume. On application, there’s almost nothing. It takes about thirty seconds to warm to the skin, and start up with a clean floral/citrus topnote. It’s bright, it almost purrs, and eventually the benzoin (this note reminds me of Kenzo Flower), incense, and galbanum notes emerge. It’s more of a winter scent and I can see myself considering the fullsize at that time. It’s not a classic Iris scent, nor is it particularly similar to a recent perfume of the day, Equistrius. Available at Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. At very low prize for the smallest size, it’s not a bad investment

Happy 2008!

I would like to wish you a Happy New Year and I hope that this year will be joyous and successful in all of your endeavors. Above all, I thank you for your constant support and your email letters (I apologize if I am not able to reply to all of them individually). The thoughts you have shared with me about perfume and other matters on these pages are very precious. Thank you once again!