Blomma Cult

Perfumers often have interesting biographies and it's not uncommon for them to arrive at their profession after long careers in other fields, be it science or art, architecture, music, or fashion. Former experiences in other creative corners of the world are incorporated into new brands and fragrance creations and make for a fascinating fusion of ideas.  Dr. Mike is a good example of this (relatively) new indie movement. A former pharmacist/musician, he founded his perfume brand Room 1015 in an attempt to "unite his two passions into one fashion." Inspired by music and with a decidedly rock and roll aesthetic, the house has 4 scents on offer so far. When you order the sample pack you get a little promo vinyl, something I certainly haven't seen for a while, and the website is quite a feast on the eyes as well. I really like the design of the brand -  it's fresh, modern, a bit grungy, colourful and different. The focus is on creating a multi sensual experience, incorporating smell, sound, video, photography and colour. No wonder I am intrigued.

Power Ballad, Electric Wood, Atramental and Blomma Cult. After a good trying session I  really liked Electric Wood and Atramental, really disliked Power Ballad, and loved Blomma Cult. I'm undoubtedly showing my age here by falling for a scent that was inspired by the 60's and 70's, rather then one that seems to be based on whatever young people regard as music these days .... 

My visualisation for Blomma Cult, by Room 1015

As you can see, the image is not quite as abstract as usual, but for Room 1015  I wanted to base my visuals on photographs rather than digital illustrations. A bunch of tulip petals served me just right. For the perfume's 60's vibe I opted for a few solarisation filters to bring out the pinks, purples and creamy/peachy tones I wanted to feature in the image.  

Blomma Cult is a wonderfully soft violet patchouli mix, creamy and fresh and sensual. Patchouli is of course an obvious choice for a flower power perfume, but here the note is used with balance and only hints at the hippy shops of good old times. What I enjoyed most about Blomma Cult was how it rendered the violet in a modern way without losing its delicacy. It's a sweet affair, especially at the beginning, but there is a lot of light to counter any heaviness, and in the end the patchouli dances with a vanilla musk until the party is over. 

Peace. 

How and where to wear:

Blissfully awaiting another Age of Aquarius

Puredistance, the sketchbook

It's not often that I focus on an entire collection for my coloured reviews. The last time I did, the range - Oriza LeGrand- was nicely "ueberschaubar" as we say in German. So many perfume houses launch new bottles at frightening speed these days, making it difficult to keep track, and impossible to find the brand's fragrant identity. 4, 5, 6 - these are good numbers for a small niche brand, at least  in my view.

Another reason for my reluctance to do combined posts is that the designer pedant in me doesn't feel comfortable with creating a blog post with 4 or 5 images without a common theme or feel to them. That would just look higgledy-piggledy. Thankfully some brands do believe in less is more, and when I received a lovely and generous sample set from Puredistance last Christmas I knew I wanted to find a way to cover the entire range in one post. 

There are currently 6 fragrances in the range, all in high pure perfume concentration, a luxurious  indulgence with the price point to match. Created by different perfumers, they nonetheless share a radiant elegance. I'm not attempting to write in depth reviews for all of the scents, but to give a sketchbook-like impression. Stepping away from my usual digital approach and playing around with watercolours seemed like the right way to achieve that.

Once I was satisfied that I had found the right colours for each perfume I used the cropping tool of the past - 2 L-shaped pieces of cardboard- to find the best possible details before finalising the images with the help of various digital filters. 

 

My impressions of the perfumes in order of their release dates:

I

Puredistance I

A green and fresh floral with a backbone. There is lot going on here: citrus, mimosa, rose, magnolia, but  blended to abstraction. An idealised bouquet, created to enhance whoever is wearing it. A very elegant, slightly aloof scent, that's never overpowering but strong in attitude. It's advertised as for women, but I think its a great floral for a man. The right type of men. As for myself : yes, I would happily wear it, although it's a bit out of my comfort zone.

M

Puredistance M

Hmm...this is spicy, warm and edible. Opens classically with a splash of citrus, but a hint of spice and touch of rose are coming along already. Cinnamon, coriander and cumin (not too sweaty, no fear) give way to patchouli and turn into a warm worn out leather. Unsurprisingly, I like this a lot. For a spicy oriental leather it also stays remarkably cool. I wouldn't say understated - it's pretty rich - but its opulence comes without a hint of bling and is not overpowering or cloying. Lovely.

Antonia

Puredistance Antonia

A lot of green. This, in combination with white flowers and rose, makes it a very difficult experience for me. I don't mind indolic scents, but need them to be on the warm, animalic side. Combined here with a metallic freshness from the greens it gives me an immediate headache. Sorry, Antonia, you are not made for me and I can't do you any justice, so let's move on to...

Opardu

Puredistance Opardu

Powder floral with a punch. Now that I can understand better. Lilac or hyacinth paired with white flowers. While the jasmine and tuberose are not exactly dirty here (far from it), it's nonetheless a sensual fragrance, if you give it the time to get there. Opardu has undeniably a strong old fashioned vibe in a No sex before marriage sort of way and while I admire the quality of the perfume, I'm not loving it. I'm ultimately not prim and proper enough to wear it and would feel like a fraud if I did. 

Black

Puredistance Black

I had covered Black in more depth here, but of course it will also play it's part in these colour sketches. An astonishing number of perfumes are called Black, or Black this-and-that, and more often then not they contain not even a whiff of darkness. Black by Puredistance definitely deserves its name, and like I described in my original post, the black serves as a layer of mystery to hide what's really underneath and within. I detect sour cherries and booze with a hint of bitter chocolate. A whiskey based cocktail of very adult fruitiness- indulgent and intoxicating. Love it.

White

Puredistance White

I remember when I got a sample of this about a year ago and thought:"Oh, no, a white. That's going to be either an ultra clean musk thing, or a tuberose bomb." Fortunately it is neither. What it is instead should still be, in theory, totally not up my street, and yet... it is. It seems I have found a clean rose floral that I can enjoy, certainly helped by accompanying notes of tonka bean, orris and sandalwood. Very radiant and sparkling, super feminine, white, red, gold and purple. If it was an outfit, it would be a casual silk blouse in creamy white over a pair of white Marlene Dietrich trousers. A timeless classic, whether you're barefoot, in trainers, or sporting your 10 inch stilettos. Beautiful.

So these were my sketch like impressions of the perfumes Puredistance currently has in its range. All the scents - even my dislike Antonia - are very sophisticated and of high end quality. Not necessarily pushing the boat out in terms of innovation, but if you make things that well, you can afford not to care much for the new and the trendy. My personal favourites are Black and M, with White on a surprise 3rd rank. The idea to use watercolour to illustrate the fragrances was initially based on my wish to create sketch-like first impressions, but the longer I worked on this post the more I realised that the art of watercolour and Puredistance's approach to perfumery have a few things in common: 

Lightness of touch and clarity 

Liquid wood - Odin New York's Lacha

When I started working on this blog, I initially thought about creating very simple and plain visuals. Just a few colour blocks or stripes in a Pantone colour swatch sort of way, filtering everything down to one or two colours per scent. I liked the simplicity and felt that there was conceptual strength in keeping everything clear and uncluttered. The very first blog posts still show images that had been designed with that idea in mind. But a very strong concept can have the down side of being restricting (for the creator) and ultra boring (for the reader). Limiting myself to a couple of coloured squares to describe complex olfactory creations just didn't work in the long(er) run. Yes, this blog is about colour and perfume, and I always start working with a palette, but creating the visual means thinking about shapes, composition, light and depth, structure, and, of course: texture.

I am glad that I gave up on all that probably very German desire for conceptual purity, because from time to me I discover a scent that just screams AMAZING TEXTURE, and how frustrating would it be not to use that as a base for the design. Let's have a look at Odin New York's 2015 creation Lacha:

Odin 12 Lacha

Wood notes always add some solidity to a scent, a wonderful illusion of substance, either polished or raw. In this fragrance though, the wood is anything but solid. This wood is actually liquid. When I first smelled it I had two immediate associations: wood grain and the soft ripples of silk draped languidly over it. No surprise then that I tried to merge them into my visualisation. Lacha also carries a lot of spices, namely saffron, nutmeg and pepper and on different wearings their prominence varied quite a lot, but the mix always seemed very well balanced. According to the note list it has a strong suede leather base, but for me silk and wood describe it much better. A well rounded, softly spicy perfume that nonetheless packs a bit of a punch and comforts with a twist and a wonderful example of interesting texture in a scent. 

How and where to wear:

Fallen in love with a clarinet player? Here's the scent for you.

Burn, Barbershop. Burn.

Perfume names are - at best - a subtle suggestion of what the scent inside has to offer, but in general the name is just another marketing tool. It is therefore really refreshing to find a perfume house that labels its bottles in a does exactly what it says on the tin manner with a humourous twist. 
Meet Burning Barbershop by D.S. & Durga:

My visualisation of Burning Barbershop by D.S. & Durga

If you ever wondered how it would smell if you set fire to the old school barbershop around the corner, now you have the answer. BB is a spearmint shaving cream brûlée that has been torched too long. And that is a good thing. A very good thing. Modern, unique, urban, old fashioned, clever. Verging on the masculine side, but getting softer after a few hours. Given notes are spearmint, lime, spruce and lavender followed by rose, vanilla, burnt oil and hay. Brilliant. 

How and where to wear:

This separates the men from the boys, and that goes for all genders,  make sure you have the confidence to pull it off.

Frau Tonis aus Berlin

The things we buy on holidays!!

Over the years I have collected a few weird and questionable items whilst being brainwashed by sun, beautiful beaches, vibrant colours looking good on other people and drinks that tasted really great at the time. I did read somewhere that after about 7 days of holiday your brain sort of goes into relax-mode and even the simplest task, like doing the maths and convert the currency correctly, can become too much of an effort. I am not overly guilty of buying anything really daft...

"Oh, look! A hand knitted Minion in pink!!!

Can I have it?!"

... but of course the perfume and beauty aisles and shops in far away places are difficult to resist. We are just back from a trip to Japan where I bought a few skin care products that I have still to figure out what they're for. As convenient it is to be able to buy (almost) everything online, nothing beats browsing around and finding something beautiful to take home. And if it's a bit tacky and touristy - so what? Which brings me to:

My visual for Frau Tonis Violet

Frau Tonis perfumes. Based in a shop conveniently close to the famous Checkpoint Charlie, it is mentioned in about any guide book that prises itself on being up to date with the local lifestyle. The range is pretty impressive, may be too impressive actually, and they offer mini sets with a bit of local folklore. There's an Eau de Berlin, a Linden based perfume and... the one that I ended up buying: a Violet that claims in a very wishy washy way to be Marlene Dietrich's favourite scent. 

Is it tourist tacky? Yes, it is a bit, but that doesn't prevent me from wearing it from time. It's a very sweet powdery violet with a lot of raspberry and a kick of a bit spice/pepper on a base of hairspray. It's not the world most refined scent, and very likely entirely synthetic, but it smells nice. Juicy pink, light purple and grey. Bright, but not without a hint of elegance. The violet feels, despite the sweetness, rather modern and urban. Uncomplicated, pretty, doesn't cost an arm an a leg. What's not to like? I bought it because I really wanted to bring back a bit of Berliner Luft with me, and I don't regret this souvenir purchase at all. I could have done much worse and end up with a Berlin bear in drag.

How and where to wear:

Channel your inner Barbie

Love Exposure

It's difficult to judge a perfume that's based on a movie you haven't seen. It's also difficult to ignore that backstory if the movie is labelled "notorious". A four hour tour de farce of religion, lust, teenage angst and pop culture isn't exactly Cinderella and while my knowledge just stems from a few youtube trailers, it's probably fair to say that a perfume based on that comes with a few expectations. Mark Buxton isn't the Disney type of perfumers either, so that only adds to it.

So when I did start smelling Love Exposure, I was slightly surprised. What a delicate Magnolia! Light, a bit bitter-creamy, and very, very wet. 

My visual interpretation of Love Exposure by Mark Buxton

I am pretty sure that without knowing anything about the film, my perception and the visual for the scent would be somewhat different - brighter, lighter and more innocent- but it's impossible to revert myself back to not-knowing. Yes, there is certainly an edge to the fragrance, it has an urban feel and there is this spicy incense and amber base, but how much of that impression really comes from the scent...? Having said that, I really, really like it. To the extend that I would consider a bottle. (All the fragrances in Mark Buxton's new cinema inspired La Folie a Plusiers range come in 12ml quantities) I am also very intrigued to watch the movie now, and will go and hunt for it on amazon. I had great pleasure creating the image, and wanted to capture the delicacy, wetness and urban style of the perfume in colours that evoke the wet petals of magnolia trees in dirty rain.

How and where to wear:

Rainy Sunday afternoon, watching the teardrops on the window

Salome

A few months back I declared Absolue Pour le Soir the kinkiest scent around. It still might be the kinkiest, but it's not the sexiest anymore. Not since the creation of Salome by Papillon Perfumes. This is the ultimate olfactory celebration of female sexuality. Mysterious, dangerous, bloody, sweaty and voluptuous. Daring. Addictive. Wonderful.

My visual interpretation of Salome by Papillon Artisan Perfumes

How and where to wear:

NSFW

Geste

A lovely gesture. That's exactly what it is. A pillow of violets on a bed of pine. Intimate and soft, but intriguing. Very modern in feel and gender free. Really beautifully done. 

My visual interpretation of Geste, by Humiecki & Graef

How and where to wear:

The perfect first date scent for an introvert

A comparison of colours - Shalimar, Musc Ravageur and Meharees

I have recently discovered that I do have a desert island perfume, one that I could probably wear forever if I had to make that choice. And despite the fact that this revelation is a relatively recent one I don't think it's going to be short-lived. A bit like finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. OK, not that life changing, I admit, but exciting and quite a surprise. The perfume in question is Musc Ravageur, by Edition Fredric Malle, and I hope that I never fall out of love with it. Bought on the spot after sniffing it for the first time, it gives me everything I want in perfume. It makes me feel all comforted and warm, illuminates me, gives me a posture and makes me smile. It's luxury, filth and self confidence in a bottle.

It been said, that when Maurice Roucel created it he wanted to pay homage to Guerlain's grand old dame Shalimar, and I can absolutely see that. Musc plays on the same themes without ever trying to copy. Needless to say that I love Shalimar as well and the idea to compare those two visually was very tempting. But there is another fragrance out there that will make an excellent comparison companion - L'Erbolario's Meharees. At a fraction of the price of Musc Ravageur, this offering from the Italian natural beauty company is considered as an extraordinary dupe. But is it really? I will try to compare these three by using my visual imagination. Let's start with the predominant colours. For me these are warm, golden yellow, rose, orange and earthy ochre. 

Another aspect that all three fragrances share is their softness. Don't get me wrong, they are powerful perfumes and make the statements they want to make, but they do so without too many sharp angles and coarse textures. To make it easier to compare them I chose a similar way of 'painting' for all three, with lots of layering and over lapping gradients.

They seem pretty similar so close together, don't they? But even in the scaled down versions you can see that the openings and dry downs are decidedly different. Shalimar is the only one which bursts in citruses, and it also has a stronger floral heart. Musc Ravageur is edgier, dirtier than the other two, here represented by the ochre at the top and bottom of the image. and Meharees is the most linear of the three. Let's look at them in detail:

My visualisation of Shalimar

The initial citrus already sets the tone. Fresh, but never clean, Shalimar from then on makes one of those long journeys we often associate with old school  perfumes. It goes and flows from yellow to orange to amber to pink to purple to brown. A powdery floral heart is kept from being overly pretty by strong bodied animalic side kicks and in the last stages it develops the wonderful Guerlinade mix of vanilla, resins and incense. Shalimar is a beautiful lady and I couldn't care less about her age. 

My visualisation of Musc Ravageur

Musc Ravager doesn't really bother with much of a top note. It is, basically from the start, a dirty little number. The animalic aspect is stronger than in Shalimar, and there is a slight edge to it. Instead of florals it has a handful of spice, but how they toned down by musk is similar to the effect Guerlain used on Shalimar's floral notes. It is dirtier and obviously a modern creation. Urban, if you like. To illustrate that I have used a few sharp lines and 'furry' brush strokes. I've already mentioned that I love it and I find it has just the right level of silage. Won't get unnoticed, but doesn't harm the sensitive types. 

My visualisation of Meharees

Now Meharees did really surprise me. It is, to a certain degree, a perfect dupe of Musc Ravageur. The opening is softer and much sweeter, but after half an hour it stays were it is and it stays there long. I find Meharees a bit  grating in the end. It simply doesn't do much. What is does is nice enough, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't excite me. Some reviewers find it more palatable than MR, and that is certainly the case, but it is a bit flat. If you're looking for a sweet and spicy amber that doesn't break the bank it's an excellent choice. It has far less in common with Shalimar and it wouldn't have occurred to me to put the two together in one post, but Musc Ravageur adds as the missing link here. All three are lovely orientals, I just happen to love the dirtiest of the trio. 

I hope you did enjoy this little comparison post, it was an interesting experiment for me, not least because I created the images with a new application. Anyone who needs or likes to use Photoshop and Illustrator but is frustrated by Adobe's subscription only policy, have a look at Affinity Design and Affinity Photo (currently in beta). I am well impressed by them. 

Angelique

Tomorrow is the night of the Fragrance Foundation Awards, and what better opportunity to post about one of this years' finalists: Angelique, by Papillon Artisan Perfumes. Liz Moores is not only a great perfumer, but also a really wonderful woman and I'll keep all my fingers crossed for her tomorrow. Given that she managed to get all her three creations in the final round, it would be a small miracle not to see her on the stage. Go, Liz!

My visualisation for Angelique, by Papillon Artisan Perfumes

Angelique is a sparkling, melancholic and luxurious iris. It is both elegant and modern, timeless would be the best description. What I enjoy most is the really sheer beginning, where everything is in place but waiting to play its part. It never overpowers, and more importantly, never overpowders neither, as it can happen with irises sometimes. Incredibly feminine, this is a satiny glowing ripple on slightly powdered skin. 

Absolutely beautiful and a must have if you love your iris. 

How and where to wear:

Iris and early evenings belong together. 

A cocktail dress and a cocktail glass will do nicely

Liquid Night

I love it when a fragrance house offers the choice of small bottles. My last purchase was a 10 ml travel spray of Musc Ravageur, bought on the spot after wearing it for only a few minutes. I dismiss the pea counters (German for nit pickers)  who keep on telling me that the price per ml is such a bad bargain. I'm not buying a sack of potatoes to feed an army here, I just want to own a piece of something beautiful, and if it's a small piece, so be it. If I love it enough to empty the travel sized one I'm very probably going to buy a bigger amount as a result, and I wish more companies would see the benefit of  'small is beautiful'. Another one that does, albeit  with a very limited distribution, is US based A Lab on Fire, which also adopted a similar editorial style concept to FM. (But who doesn't, these days?)

Liquid Night wasn't an instant love; I had come to the achingly hip Paris department store 

Colette to try A Lab on Fire's "What we do in Paris is secret", but that was sadly out of stock. I liked LN though, and 20 something Euros for a 15 ml bottle was a good enough offer to buy it. I thought. And then it sat on the shelf for months, unloved and collecting dust. I still liked it, in theory, but never got round to wear it. And then suddenly a few weeks ago, I just didn't know what to try...and gave it a go.

Liquid Night, my visualisation

Surprise, surprise: this time I love it. It immediately grabs me with an effortlessly chic aesthetic that is totally wearable but unique enough not to be boring. A creamy saffron note binds dry hinoki woods to aromatics and abstract floral accords and everything dries down to a subtle vanilla. Despite the name, it's actually a rather clear cut fragrance, not sharp, but not floating either. When I created its image I started with very fluid and organic shapes, but after hours working on it and not getting it right I realised what it needed was a very simple geometric structure to emphasise on the contemporary elegance. I took inspiration from neon lights glistening and sparkling on wet asphalt. My colours are very muted, but in principal it's a cold green/warm pink perfume. I find it incredibly suited for this in-between-two-seasons-weather we're having, where spring is on the cards and a few daffs are out, but the wind is still icy and biting enough to wear a big comfy scarf. 

Some reviews complain about the synthetic nature of Liquid Night. I personally couldn't care less. As long as they don't charge me Roja Dove prices for a bottle of ISOE super, I can live with a bit of chemical wizardry in my fragrances. 

How and where to wear:

Not so much a how or where, but with what this time.... my newest fashion find and love is German brand Oska and Liquid Night is a perfect match. A bit of a Japanese influence, urban and edgy, but incredibly comfortable.

Ragu

If you google the words "Ragu recipe" and read everything that comes up at least 4 pages in, you will find yourself puzzled and probably slightly frustrated. While for many of us a ragu, or Italian meat sauce, is the ultimate comfort food, the steps leading to this simple pleasure are slippery, because EVERYONE has an opinion and they all differ. What type of meat, wine, or no wine, red or white, stock or no stock, milk???, passata or puree, how much celery, and how many bloody hours does it need to simmer? 

People swear that theirs is the one and only, handed down from a long line of ancestors since the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, found in barely legible recipe books hidden away from Barbaric hordes during the siege of Rome.... you get the gist. And then there are the modern preachers of innovative cooking, like Heston Blumenthal and his molecular disciples. They ask you to use sous-vides here, and dried ice over there, to pulverise your meat and to explode your toms, just for the fun of it.

Needless to say that in this household we have our own, ultimate version. Developed over a few years, tweaked to perfection. Our perfection, that is. Because the beauty of a ragu is that it makes you feel at home, save and at ease with the world. Whatever is needed to achieve your personal meat sauce heaven is allowed. (Having said that, the idea of putting milk in it is  of course just plain weird!)

Interestingly, not many perfumes actively seek out to smell of savoury dishes. All the gourmand scents I know cater to the sweet toothed amongst us and there is a fair amount of fragrant love for alcoholic beverages, but a scent that smells of cooking is a rare thing, indeed. It therefore takes some guts to call your creation "Italian meat sauce" and Ragu by Gabriella Chieffo, certainly is an unusual scent, not just for the name.

My visual interpretation of Ragu, by Gabriella Chieffo

Ragu opens with a burst of orange and pink pepper. And quite some burst it is. Fresh, tingly and aromatic. And then the perfume seductively asks you if you want some more pepper with it, grinding the mill before you even had a chance to answer. Now it's the black variety - strong, direct, and not taking any prisoners. At this stage the fragrance feels dry, sharp and even a  bit grainy, be aware that if you don't like pepper you will not enjoy this ride. After an hour or so on my skin, other spices come to play, mainly nutmeg and cloves, and their deeper, sweeter aromas give the perfume now a gentler and more feminine touch. It mellows, presenting itself in a different texture now, far creamier, and rounder. I cannot really detect any tomato notes in the perfume, but there is  a fleshier, juicier aspect to this stage of the scent and it more and more feels like a good ragu sauce has just come together. The final phase of the perfume involves leather and woody notes and a slowly simmering solidity takes over the earlier bursts and bubbles. In terms of colour it wasn't easy to pin down, Ragu delights more in its textural aspects, but I've decided to stay with mostly red and earthy hues to emphasise the warmth the fragrance offered me. Nice. Very nice, and more than a bit more-ish. 

How and where to wear:

In the privacy and comfort of your own space.

 

An old couple on holiday: Pomegranate Noir and me

I am just back from 2 weeks in Thailand and the cold weather is really biting. Post holidays blues - here we come... But I won't bother you with Cry me a river tears about feeling the lack of light, warmth and sand, don't worry. Instead, I'm trying to concentrate on the good things about being back in London, and those are: the cats, good friends, and perfume. Not that I didn't bring decants and samples to keep me entertained, far from it, but wearing perfume when it's hot and humid didn't come very high on my daily routine list. While we stayed in the northern city of Chiang Mai with temperatures in the high 20's, pleasant enough and even cooler in the evenings, I did manage to apply perfume and even a bit make up, but over the course of 2 weeks and a location change to the island of Koh Phangan, standards did slip very quickly. When you shower 3 or 4 times a day perfume really isn't all that practical, and in the evening strong DEED overpowered any other scents.

But there is a scent that I have worn on and off during all our trips to Thailand so far and a bottle of it will never be amiss in the suitcase: Jo Malone's Pomegranate Noir. First sniffed and bought before boarding a plane to Bangkok at Heathrow airport, then worn in Chiang Mai (yes, we like the city a bit and go there almost every year) it has become my go to perfume for Thailand. There isn't anything in it that justifies that. No lemongrass, lime, hot tarmac, sticky rice, ylang ylang, fish sauce, sea salt, coconut, orchid, ginger or chili notes. PN has spice and freshness, but they're firmly rooted in the Northern hemisphere. Objectively, that is. For me, it's the fragrance of Thailand simply by association and conditioning and a spritz can transport me back there in an instant. I have never bothered to read up the notes for it, and now I couldn't possibly tell you what it smells of, which is, I suppose,  a bit weird on a blog  about perfume. 

As for the colours: They have to be taken from a holiday snap, of course. 

Thai squid boats representing Pomegranate Noir by Jo Malone

How and where to wear:

.................

Seven Veils by Byredo

Byredo, the Swedish perfume house was one of the first niche brands I encountered and sampled in full, thanks to the generosity of the Byredo staff at Liberty. I already wrote about M/Mink, which is one of the most daring scents I've ever smelled. Today's candidate is a much more wearable choice. Seven Veils. It bursts open with an abundance of colour and spice - a marvellous ouverture - and then leaves me alone with a rosy heart that's neither here nor there, and falls exhausted onto the cushions as a creamy vanilla.  The sillage is stronger and darker than the smell on skin, a dance of seven veils, indeed. But you won't lose you head over this. A floriental that pretends to be far more dangerous than it actually is. Pretty though...

Seven Veils by Byredo, the picture

How and where to wear:

Belly dance class in North London

Puredistance Black, and other colours

     First things first: Happy New Year. 

I haven't posted anything for a while, a fact for which I can partly blame an over indulgence in all things Christmas and Kuscheligkeit. But my absence from perfume and the blog was also for another, rather different and  unpleasant reason. After trying out a new scent I had developed a severe skin rash. Both arms and hands were covered in itchy little bumps. My skin is always super sensitive in winter, but this was something new and unexpected. And also worrying. Not wanting to risk a full blown perfume allergy, I decided not to try any new fragrances for a while, sprayed any old favourites only sparingly on scarves and clothes, and kept the cortisone creme nearby. I'm glad that it went away and everything seems to be fine now, but I will probably be a bit weary about new perfumes and use less delicate areas of my skin for testing. The last scent I did test (not the one which gave me the rash) and wanted to write about was Puredistance Black, of which I had won a sample from the lovely Vanessa of bonkers about perfume. 

Puredistance, a Dutch fragrance house, had released the scent in 2013 with some rather unusual marketing. "Do not try to pick out notes and dissect, just emerge and enjoy." Not their exact words, but in essence that was what they wanted us to do. Needless to say, it annoyed a few people. Nobody likes to be told how to enjoy a perfume, me included, but for two reasons this didn't bother me all that much. 1.) It was a gift, 2.) Sometimes I like to create an image for a perfume but can't find an interesting angle for writing about it. Black is one of those perfumes. The idea for the image was there right from the beginning, but I failed when I tried to put it into words. And since it's the New Year, and all things New are allowed: I have decided that image only post are fine from now on. You might see quite a few of those in the future. I also want to introduce something like the Colour of the Day, which might not actually be linked to any perfume but just an image to illustrate my mood and thoughts. This is, after all, a blog about perfume AND colour. 

Today this colour happens to be Black:

My visualisation of Black by Puredistance

The inspiration for the image came from something I learned in primary school many, many years ago: Use waxy crayons and randomly fill your entire page. Then paint a thick layer of black ink top top. Once the ink has dried, use a sharp, pointy tool to draw and scratch away the black layer. The lines will make the underlaying colours appear. Good fun. This simply technique feels like a suitable way to visualise this perfume, which is a bit mysterious, warm and deep. It stays very close to skin and lasts forever. When I scratched at the layer of Black I got sour cherry and whiskey, with a hint of chocolate. (Cheating now, I know...) What you will get might be, no, will be totally different. 

How and where to wear:

Skin scents don't get much deeper than this, surprise those who will get close enough to smell you.