The Patchouli Pigment

I have neglected the blog for a long time... and I don' even know why. Yes, there are other things on my mind, and may be I just needed a break, but more importantly, I didn't find the inspiration to write. After a while this inspiration hurdle becomes higher and higher and somewhat impossible to overcome. A bit like having missed going to the gym for months and finding it harder and harder to overcome the guilty laziness. I'm therefore quite relieved to have discovered something exciting that sparked that all important interest again. And true to the blog, but with a reversed direction, it's all about colour. 

Patchouli is one of my favourite perfume ingredients. The hippy association doesn't bother me in the slightest, and is anyway not really justified. The unassuming bushy plant is not as precious as, let's say, jasmine or roses, but equally potent. Rich, deep, earthy, fresh, herbal, mossy, damp, smoky, rank, green, soft, balmy, medicinal, dirty, woody, glowy. The attributes for patchouli span over a wide range. Like so many natural ingredients, the actual quality of the scent varies, depending on batch, origin, cultivation and age. So how to describe all this in just one single colour, or pigment? I don't even try. Or, I normally wouldn't, and approach the note via a perfume composition, making it easier to be specific. In one fragrance the patchouli is a mossy green, or a woody brown, and in the next one it  pops up as a minty nile green. As I said, I normally wouldn't...

But then, suddenly, a new colour appears in my watercolour palette, and I realise: 

I have found the Patchouli Pigment! 

 Colour swatch of Daniel Smith "Rich Green Gold" watercolour on paper

Pigment PY 129. Even its name points towards the patchouly (the PY actually stands for Pigment Yellow). According to the Art Pigment Database  it's a copper derived, metallic complex. A rich deep greenish gold, equally dark and bright, it blends wonderfully with either earthy and bright tones. In this case the pigment comes in a tube of Daniel Smith watercolours, an American fine art paints brand, and my newest art supply obsession. Just squeezing the paint out of the tube is a delight. Like most watercolour paints, it's transparent, allowing for a multiple of layers. If applied thinly in a wet wash, it is beautifully translucent gold while thicker application produces a very muddy, yellowish green. For me it's a perfect visual representation of patchouli's qualities.

While writing this blog I'm wearing the truest patchouli in my collection: Les Nereides, Patchouli Antiques. A retro style perfume, in which the patchouli has centre stage and is rendered in a balmy, and ever so slightly dirty way. I thought about creating a separate image for it, but decided against. Let the patchouli note and colour speak for itself this time. 

Gorilla Gallery, or why I smelled a shop dummy's crotch

It's not going to surprise anyone that I enjoy a bit of media cross over. Visual art, cinema, patterns, performance art, design and architecture, food, music... all these things can play a role in perfume, not only as inspirations for their initial creation, but also in the way perfume houses use them as tools to introduce -and teach about- new releases. A bit of pomp and circumstance goes a long way and we all love to be entertained. That this is by no means a one way street was recently demonstrated by the collaboration between Mark Buxton and Wes Anderson for the "Grand Budapest Hotel" movie and the use of perfume for the "Cheapside Hoard" exhibition in the Museum of London. Multi-sensory experiences go a bit deeper...

Curtain up the for the Gorilla perfume gallery, on show in London's Soho in an underground space beneath the city's coolest record shop:

Perfumes put on show via playful and often interactive installations from a garden shed to a disco environment, a corn circle simulated by a sand picture, a wall comic or headless cardboard dummies. While it is certainly possible to just amble about and read the explanations on display, the whole experience is much better if you take the guided tour offered by one of the lovely and enthusiastic staff. Not only will you learn more about the Death, Decay and Renewal idea behind the show and the perfumes, you will definitely sniff more, because he or she will spray the fragrances in the relevant pages of the little comic booklet you get on entrance. 

This is not really meant for in depth perfume testing (the ink of the print has a strong smell itself and after 4 or 5 different scents your booklet will have acquired something of a bouquet...) but to give a first impression. The fragrances can also be smelled directly on installation objects, including the crotch of a shop dummy which is not only a personal first but also pretty weird. Nice perfume though... 

 

Not all the fragrances were made for production, but will just be there to complement the concept of the show and some are not even meant for using on skin. 

This  is  a not a review post, but my favourites perfumes were Kerbside Violet (clue is in the name), Stayin' Alive, a surprising frankincense and Death &Decay, a powerful lily. Honourable mention to Dear John, a manly but soft cologne.

Altogether a lovely experience. Playful, charming, open to everyone, not taking itself too seriously but meaningful, while showing some impressive perfumery. That it all took place underground came as an added bonus on the hottest day of the year and the booklet with all its accumulated scents made for the most intriguing fan on my 1 1/2 hour unairconditioned bus trip home. 

How and where to go or buy:

The gallery will only be open until the 24th of July and is usually calm during the day, busy in the evenings when there is music, talks and booze. It's on 51 Poland St. in Soho. 

The new scents will be released over the coming months, but can be  bought exclusively either  at the gallery or the new Gorilla perfume shop in Islington. 

P.S. No, I'm not getting paid by them I just really, really  enjoyed myself.

The Win, the Surprise, his colours and the Lovers

It has been an interesting week in perfume terms. On Tuesday I won my first ever sample from a fellow bloggers perfume draw, thank you Elena. Then I managed to get totally star struck when I met Frederic Malle at the stall in Liberty. I had come to have a look at the new packaging, based on Liberty designs chosen by the man himself, and there he was, being all charming and pleasant. After I had regained my wit I did ask him about his synethesia and he very humbly played it down with the words:" Yes, I do see perfume in colour but its not a big deal." It certainly helps when you go through Liberty's vast textile and pattern archive to find the right designs for your creations. The designs are lovely, all completely different in terms of style, colour and period, ranging from 18th century to modern day patterns. My favourites are probably the floral ones for Lipstick Rose and Lys Mediterranee and the bold and graphic interpretations for French lover, Angelique sous la Pluie and L'Eau d'Hiver.  Basenotes shows them in all their glory:

For someone who creates surface pattern designs AND loves perfume it cannot get much better than that. Those will be Liberty exclusive (obviously). 

And then there was the London Perfume Lovers meet up. My very first. It's always a bit nerve wracking to go and meet a bunch of strangers on your own, but I needn't have worried. The bunch was a lovely one, the host Lila super welcoming and the whole feel of the evening was a bit like children left alone in a candy shop. I mean, how often can you sit around with 30 people and sniff perfumes? In this case quite regularly once a month and I plan to go back. The theme of this evening was Orientals and a summary will be written by Tara of Olfactoria's travels, but my personal highlights/surprises were:

1. Oud smells of cowshed

2. I don't like Ambre Sultan anymore

3. But I love Tom Ford Shanghai Lily

The evening ended with Portrait of a Lady, this most wonderful Frederic Malle creation. 

The design he chose for it is this elegant and slightly mysterious 18th century fabric that manages to be entire timeless and wouldn't look out of place as a modern day wallpaper: 

And here comes the weekend. Have a good one.

Frederic Malle limited edition for Liberty images via basenotes.com

Souvenir from Paris

This morning I opened the little plastic bag in which I had kept all the smelling strips from my Paris trip. Quite an aroma and a nice little souvenir. I will leave them out for a few months until the scents have disappeared and then re-use some of them for perfume testing. 

Which brings me to the question? What do you use for smelling strips? Do you make your own from cardboard, go the recycling route, or do you nick them from the shops? 

Les Grandes Dames

One of the things I was most excited about when I planned this trip to Paris was a visit to Guerlain's boutique on the Champs Elysees.  I had seen the photos and had no difficulty to imagine spending a lot of time there, smelling and trying all of their wonderful creations. I had also set aside a bit of my spending money in order to purchase whatever scent I would fall in love with. So on this wonderful sunny autumn day I stepped out of the Metro and walked along the Champs Elysees, which has lost about 110% of the charm it most probably had before the arrival of the Multinationals. And there it was, the lovely, inspiring, closed due to refurbishment until the end of November Guerlain store:

Yeah, that was a bit shit. 

While I perfectly understand that a grand dame has some work done from time to time I was 

really unhappy with her timing. To overcome that shock I went into the gigantic Sephora next door and sniffed all the Guerlains they had (quite a few, actually). So instead of being surrounded by style and timeless elegance I found myself perched between gift boxes, sweaty teenagers from all over the world and remarkably calm and friendly sales assistants. 

When I came out I was a bit at a loss, but decided to make the best of the lovely day and just walk. A lot. In fact I walked all the way down to Rue Faubourg St. Honore. My new goal was the Hermes store on Rue FStH. I wanted to try Jean Claude Ellena's creations for Hermes and hoped to profit from the brand's well known generosity when it comes to samples. The shop was  busy, but no one was manning the perfume section so I helped myself with the testers. I tried  Iris Ukiyoe, Paprika Brasil, Vetiver Tonka, Rose Ikebana, Poivre Samarcande and Osmanthe Yunnan. The Iris didn't work on me at all and neither did the rose and the Osmanthe. But the more 'manly' ones I really liked a lot, namely the Vetiver and the Poivre. When the SA arrived to offer some help I managed to ask for a sample in proper French and with my biggest smile. It worked. Most chuffed I decided to walk along further and make it the afternoon of the big names. Chanel was next, and although I have already tried all the Exclusives I tried my favourites again : La Pausa (Irises are my new obsession) and the wonderful 31 Rue Cambon which would be my all time favourite perfume ever if it stayed longer than half an hour.  

Then there was the Dior, and although I love some of the men's scents I don't have Dior on my radar much. I had a go at heir newest Exclusive offering , Gris Montaigne. I It's an elegant, understated scent. But it's not a 250 Euro per bottle kind of scent, sorry. 

I know it is impossible to put a realistic price tag on perfumes or any luxury item, because the highest price you can get away with is seems like the right one, but sometimes I just find it all a bit silly.

And last, but not least there is the Jean Patou boutique. They don't have many scents on display, and have to take on the ones which also have been bought by the Watford based owners. There is a new Joy. Joy Forever, and its a  chypre and I think it was nice, but my nose and me were tired by that time. The lovely lady in the shop complemented me on my French which is a total winner for me and my subjonctif meddled up mind, and  I think she was honestly sorry that she had run out of samples for the Forever. Thus ended my big names afternoon. After a disappointing  start it had actually turned into a lovely experience and a good French lesson. 

It's not just black and white...

...at least not in equal amounts.

It's probably not very difficult to guess who would win in a battle of black vs. white in fragrance names. If you go on basenotes and search for black (in English and French) you get 1054 hits in the product category, whereas white only brings up a meagre 296. 

I just have to look at my admittedly not very big perfume collection (getting there...) to confirm this. Apart from a sample of Lalique's White, I don't own any other scent with this colour in its name, and the only other one I ever tried was White Linen, by Estee Lauder. It smelled exactly like I imagined, of white, innocent bedsheets. Terribly uninteresting but reassuring. Blacks on the other hand I have quite a few as I'm sure so have most perfumistas and my findings (you can probably tell I was a bit bored this afternoon) are not at all unexpected.

But, what about the ever entertaining competition game between the Anglo Saxons and the French?

                       

Black 921 versus Noir 133. That did come as a surprise, at least to me. 

Sorry, the French. 

                                                 

Man in black beret image via flickr from Bob Jagendorf, some rights reserved

Scentertainment event in East Dulwich

Not a perfume review, but an announcement to an event I am very much looking forward to at the lovely Roullier White perfume shop on Lordship Lane, East Dulwich: