All posts tagged: fragrance

Friday Beauty

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Also known as back to basics. Some days you just wake up, jumping for joy at the idea of doing a three or four shadow look, foundation, concealer, eyeliner, the whole shebang. Today is not that kind of day! Today, less is more rules the roost! My skin is in tip top shape, my under eye area is neither blue nor baggy for the first time in God knows when, and I am just loving that ‘no make up’ make up freshness at the moment. Today I took that even further, and took Casual Friday to another level, and streamlined my beauty essentials to the bare minimum. Not pictured, but a firm fixture is my favourites in the Givenchy Teint Couture Balm. I’ve raved and raved and ravved about this one before, so I won’t go into details, but I’m on tube nr 3 (tube nr 4 has already been bought…), and it’s been used so much the lettering has faded from the packaging…. Givenchy and my daily make up stash have found each oher …

Goldfield & Banks Pacific Rock Moss

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Raving about the most summer-y looking, sounding and evoking fragrance in the freezing dead of winter, quite the contradiction, right? And no, I see no issue whatsoever with that… I’ve never been the type to match my perfumes to the season and do that switch up twice a year, I just go with my mood each morning, and see my fragrance as the extension of my day ahead. Goldfield & Banks and I met by chance, a late night Instagram inspiration session (‘cause all modern-day couples meet like that nowadays…), a splash of blue, a ray of sunlight, an image that stoopped my heart, and I was sold in an instant! Never having held the bottle, never having experienced the scent, and still, the atmosphere and story of that image was so beguiling that I wanted to know more, smell more, experience more! Dimitri Weber was one of Belgium’s perfume PR exec’s par excellence. After a thriving career that saw him represent the best of the olifactory best, create the signature fragrance for an interior …

Atelier Cologne

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To be honest, a lot of foot-dragging took place before I finally decided to write this post. First up, I’ve been in this weird mood lately where I want to create a structure and post with a fixed regularity, but at the same time I just can’t bring myself to write long reviews out of fear that they would become plain boring. Second of all, my perfume collection currently houses more scents than you can shake a stick at, so I feel like a spoiled brat for adding even more fragrances in, even when they are as cute and alluring as the two mini’s laying before me at the moment, namely the Atelier Cologne Figuier Ardent and the Atelier Cologne Clementine California. Atelier Cologne’s answer to Diptique’s Philosikos, and their take on the green succulence and wild richness of figs, Figuier Ardent seems to have a more natural and green  approach. Instead of burying it amongst sweetness, the fig is being placed centre stage amongst a sirocco of spices placing a spotlight on that that central note. …

Carven Coup De Coeur

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The titel says it all…. A blue Monday, late 2014. I saundered into a beauty hall near my then office building, crossed over to the ‘Niche perfumes’ section, and a soft, green bottle caught my eye. Soft yet invigorating like a field covered in fresh morning dew, the gentle green curves of Carven L’Eau de Toilette beckoned me over. I raised the bottle, lifted the top, got a whiff of the scent and that was it, I was hooked. Almost three years later, this perfume made it’s way back to me… 60 years after the heydays of their legendary fragrances ‘Ma Griffe’ and ‘Vétiver’, Carven wrote a new chapter with the 2013 launch of Carven Le Parfum. As with all success-stories, it wasn’t before long that the house launched a “younger sister” of the scent, and in 2014, Carven L’Eau de Toilette saw the light, ready to take over. Another composition  created by Francis Kurkdjian, it was described “like a lightweight piece of clothing…as easy to wear as Le Parfum but made of a different fabric, probably …

The Cool Blue Classic

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There are classics and then there are The Classics! All the Gisele Bündchens of this world, I am really sorry, but you still got nothing on Marilyn Monroe! Being the Caste Blanchett of perfumes (sorry Mr Armani), Davidoff’s Cool Water has always been on the fragrance block. Sometimes more on the forefront, sometimes silently waiting it’s turn, always cool, understated, elegant, fresh and demure but never dull and never twice the same. It’s latest incarnation is the Davidoff Cool Water Pacific Summer Edition For Her, a limted edition to help you suf through the Summer of 2017 (#yespunintended). Inspired by the ethereal aqua and floral fragrances of the ocean and exotic faraway beaches with coral reefs enticing you to explore them, it’s the fragrantic translation of summer casual cool. But how do you embody that scent of the sea, both fresh and lingering on your skin, like the morning dew of what promises to be a tropical day. Fruity notes such as mandarine, pineapple, pear, melon and a hint of mint open up the scent, before …

La Parfumerie Moderne – Années Folles

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“The crazy years” – now there’s a way to tickle my fancy! Scent has always been the strongest sense emotionally. Sight can be visually pleasing, and a silky soft touch can soothe any temper, but a scent, oh the perfect scent, can take you home and around the world in one go. One whiff of 4711 Eau de Cologne and I am a little girl going for Saturday afternoon ice creams with my Nan. A hint of Ralph Lauren Glamourous, and I am that giddy, insecure college girl falling in love with Mr B. La Parfumerie Moderne finds it’s origin in that exact emotion. Enchanted by his family’s old hotel, La Royal Picardie in Le Touquet, Philippe Neirinck roamed the halls and rooms of the hotel after it had closed for business. Guests may have disappeared, but their memories still lingered here. A forgotten perfume flask glistening in a hidden corner triggers a young boy’s imagination, imagination evolved into fasciation, and a few decades later, this one fragrantic moment led to the creation of La Parfumerie Moderne. …

The Bloomsbury Set – Jo Malone

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Every beauty season comes and goes, and with it a set of new launches, like ebb and flow. Normally I go through all of the press releases, make a little note here and there when there’s something that interests me and file them away. Only rarely does a new launch or limited edition series make my heart jump, my pulses race or my eyes light up in an instant. Case in point, the Jo Malone Bloomsbury Collection, her limited edition Spring collection. Inspired by the enchanting free spirited The Bloomsbury set depicting the gorgeous English countryside and the elegance of it’s daily life. “It’s a collection of scents capturing the intoxicating essence of an unconventional life. The lily pond at dawn, bold blue hyacinths, blossoming fruit trees, absinthe afternoons and golden linseed on paint-stained hands. Warming whisky and sweet pipe tobacco. The secrets of waxed floors burnished by footsteps in the night.” – Jo Malone Nose behind this olifactory impression of the English countryside is Yann Vasier, also known for his work on Tom Ford’s Velvet Orchid and other …

A Tale of My Fig Fascination

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Trifecta’s are for skincare routines, beauty talks with friends and Acqua Di Parma fragrances. Colonia Ambra and Rosa Nobile have tempted me before, but no perfume (of any brand for that matter) has enchanted me as much as my all-time favourite, Acqua di Parma Blu Mediterraneo – Fico di Amalfi. A strong claim, I know, but hear me out. I first sniffed this fragrance at Parfuma over 5 years ago, and have been religiously loving it ever since. Yes, from to time I stray, so much to try, so much to discover, but like the faithful fan I am, I always return to my one (but not always only) fig fascination. Figs have always been an obsession of mine. The deep reds and purples of the ripe, lush fruit, their softness and form, a taste so elegant it caresses your taste buds, and the scent, oh the scent. Diptiqye Phylosykos and Hermès Un Jardin en Méditerranée might be the more well known fig scents, but when I’m writing, it’s Fico Di Amalfi that get’s a love letter! Like a …

Dior Sauvage – Not Just For Men

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Unisex perfumes have always been my thing. If it is displayed in the male section, I’ll sneakily head over for a little whiff. Constantly turned off by most of the sweet and girly offerings known as female perfumes, I love it when a fragrance is headier, with a bit more body, and a less outspoken gender personality. Gotta keep everyone guessing, you know. Dior Fahrenheit 32 has been a favourite of mine for yonks (we go waaaaay back, Fahrie and me), and the Acqua Di Parma Colonia Ambra has been heating my skin up these last few months as well. Neither one can be pigeonholed as a clear male of female fragrance, and where my dress sense can only be described as decidedly feminine, my taste in scents is quite the opposite. Cue the new Dior male fragrance! Released with big fanfare earlier this year, Dior Sauvage is not only making a play to be the house’s next big male fragrance, but also to find it’s place in my carefully curated daily perfume collection. Not to …

Acqua Di Parma Colonia Ambra

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When talking about iconic perfumes, most people immediately have these images of Chanel No 5 and Shalimar spring to mind, or can’t help but think about Thierry Mugler’s Angel or Jean Paul Gaultier’s Classique perfectly curved bottle. My thoughts however turn to one image only, that breathtakingly classy (and classic) statuesque packaging of the original Acqua Di Parma Colonia. Intense, bright yellow like the afternoon sun in the Italian skies, black, sturdy yet refined lettering and a bottle exuding the same impeccable elegance as the scent itself. A true classic! No classic would be complete without having inspired a family of related fragrances, a kinship of sorts, and the Colonia was followed in it’s footsteps by the other fragrances of the Colonia Ingredients family, ie Colonia Intensa, Colonia Oud, Colonia Essenza and Colonia Leather. Latest addition is the Acqua Di Parma Colonia Ambra, a fragrantic embodiment of the leather roots of the brands setting off y from Venice to discover the scents of The Silk Road. Stepping away from the leather-y notes that support the freshness of …