vendredi 14 décembre 2012

Night Blossom Vs Mousse de chêne/Oak moss

Le mois dernier, il m'a été offert un petit échantillon de teinture de mousse de chêne.
Après avoir passé un moment avec un peu de cette mousse de chêne sur mon poignet, elle a fini par me rappeler Night Blossom, d'AbdesSalaam Attar (La Via Del Profumo).

Night Blossom est sensé être un parfum très "tubéreuse".
J'ai toujours échoué à y trouver la tubéreuse, du moins telle que je me l'imaginais. Je me souviens avoir lu quelques commentaires sur des blogs ou forums disant qu'on n'y sentait qu'un parfum chypré, voir uniquement de la mousse de chêne. A l'époque, ne connaissant pas la mousse de chêne, il m'était bien impossible de vérifier.

A présent, je sens la mousse de chêne et je la trouve, certes, verte mais surtout boisée, terreuse, voir légèrement fumée, tant qu'elle me rappelle le vétiver.
Night Blossom lui ressemble effectivement, en un peu plus verte et nettement animale, alors que les tons boisés et terreux sont atténués.

Cela me ramène à une dilution de tubéreuse qu'on m'avait offerte l'année dernière, à mille lieu des Fracas et autres Jardin de Bagatelle, qui à la première bouffée m'avait évoquée, non une fleur capiteuse mais bien d'avantage un cellier à jambon fumé.

Bref, je ne "comprends" toujours rien à la tubéreuse.

- - - - - - - -

Night Blossom, by AbdesSalaam Attar smells clearly of oak moss (which I now have a tincture sample of), just a bit greener maybe, more "animal", less woody.
Yet it's supposed to be mostly about tuberose.
But I have a tuberose dillution that quite makes me think of smoked ham.
So go wonder...



dimanche 2 décembre 2012

Dal' Italia



En septembre dernier, après qu'Andy Tauer ait gentiment posté sur son facebook un lien vers ma revue de sa Rose Chyprée, un gentleman italien - Giovanni Sammarco, entra en contact avec moi après avoir lu la dite revue.
Il m'apprit qu'il fabriquait ses propres parfums naturels et qu'il aurait plaisir à m'en envoyer quelques échantillons, si je le voulais bien.
Vous aussi, n'hésitez pas à nous rejoindre sur facebook! :)
C'est ainsi qu'un lot de plusieurs échantillons de parfums, de teintures de matières animales et de petits morceaux de ces matières animales, arriva bientôt dans ma boîte à lettre.
S'en suivit un échange de messages au fur et à mesure que j'ouvrais et essayais chaque petit flacon, échange que je vais reconstituer et poster ici. C'est en anglais et c'est beaucoup trop long pour que je traduise tout!
Je vais juste hyper résumer:
Vitrum: joli vétiver, sobre et élégant, tenace, avec une touche de rose et d'encens...
Tiferet: création extrêment étrange (qui devrait pouvoir plaire aux amateurs de Jeu de Peau de Lutens), qui m'évoqua un ylang ylang en fleur, par un après-midi d'été, sur le bord d'une route dont l'asphalte serait en train de fondre, avec un côté, disons, "pneu brûlé vanillé". Alors qu'il ne contient pas d'ylang mais de la fleur d'oranger et du castoreum, de la rose, de la vanille (jai un peu honte, oui)...
Alter: très fleur blanche, "propre", un jasmin sambac et opoponax qui lui me rappèle un autre Lutens: A la nuit.
Bondt: j'aurais juré qu'il s'agissait là d'un parfum basé sur le nard, mais non. Patchouli, vanille, cacao, osmanthus... Et, depuis, je me suis procuré une huile essentielle de nard jatamansi et la ressemblance est vraiment là, je m'y perds! En tout cas, Bondt figure désormais sur ma liste de favoris/wishlist!

Le créateur de ces parfums travaille actuellement sur un site web et un "eshop"... To be continued!

- - - - - - - - -
Here are exerpts of an email exchange I've had with a very nice italian gentleman - Giovanni Sammarco, who sent me some of his personal all natural perfumes, about 2 months ago.
He got in touch with me via facebook and more precisely via Andy Tauer's profile, when Mr Tauer kindly put a link on his profile to the Une Rose Chyprée's review I wrote last September.
Let's all be and keep in touch via facebook, it's all so much fun!
Giovanni's curently working on his perfume website and eshop... To be continued!

Vitru - M (this is how the name appears on the label) :
- Caroline : "I put on just a tiny bit of it on one wrist and yesterday I was surprised to have it swirl about me for several hours (maybe not all day but almost!). It's got an excellent staying power and a nice decent sillage! As for the scent itself, it's very vetiver to me. Woody, smoky, slightly leathery, with a touch of greeness/mossyness, and after a few hours I get more salty/watery/sea side notes. It makes me think of a solid yet light, fine construction. Of course it reminds me of Sea Wood by AbdesSalaam, but M is much more vetiver, much more "straight forward". It makes me wonder if there's some flower in there, because there seem to be something that makes me think of a spicy rose (maybe the vetiver own spiciness?)"
- Giovanni :  "The name of perfume is Vitrum, and it was made for a woman, an italian journalist who loves vetiver.
But I know, it can seems the more masculine of the fragrances.
In vitrum there is a little bit of damask rose, yes, you are right.
thank you again for your words.
And also incense and secret ingredients :D:D"

Hyraceum :
Caroline: "I put on a bit of hyraceum yesterday and all I can say so far is that it felt warm and nutty, a bit like rosted nuts I guess, and a bit leathery, besides the rather fecal note (more fecal to me than urinary), fecal but not overpowering, I mean I noticed the nutty thing first and more than the dirty one! And it stayed quite close to the skin, so all in all, I didn't get bothered by it in anyway!"

Tifere - T & Alte- R:
- Caroline :  "... Tifere. You're going to have to tell me what's in there that is so wicked (and what does Tifere means?!)!! It's certainly the weirdest perfume I've ever smelled! :D There's a strong something that makes me think of burnt tires and melting asphalt! This is very disturbing to me, especially in contrast to the lovely ylang ylang (it's ylang, right?!) that stands strong and tall by its side! To me, this stuff is like a big ylang tree in full bloom in the middle of a very hot summer afternoon, growing by the side of an asphalt road melting in the blazing sun! That's weird! When I wore it for the second time, as it was settling down, getting, well, settled down, I noticed it was getting sweeter, so I guess there could be some vanilla in there? It's weird... It started to get friendly to my nose the second time I wore it, smelling more and more like half of a gourmand almost... oah, that's still weird though!
And Alte, which I've tried yesterday and that I'm wearing again now, feels like a lovely spicy clean white flower... Jasmine? I'm not totally familiar with jasmine yet, sorry (I've been into perfumes for only a year and a half), so I get confused sometimes, but sure it's some lovely white flower, with a clean feel and strong spices such as pepper or clove or something really warmly spicy. Or and could there be something minty in there? I perceived something of the kind in the drydown yesterday, but I'm not sure anymore now...
Tifere and Alte both make me think of some Lutens perfumes I've tried, such as Jeu de Peau (Tifere) or A la nuit (Alte) maybe... But I don't like the Lutens because they all quickly feel very synthetic and annoying to me while yours have a very natural feel.
From my humble point of view, it seems your perfumes have some serious chance to get noticed and attract a good audience!!
- Giovanni : "The name of perfumes are Tiferet and Alter, the letter in the centre of label is the last letter of the name.
Tiferet is a name from Ebraism, in Khabbala, Tiferet is the central Sephiroth in Sephirah's tree, and is linked to the Hearh Chackra. Tiferet is the Sephirah of the beauty.
The perfume is composed for a girl, who is absolute beauty.
In Tiferet there is castoreum, I think the wicked note.
It is based on orange blossom absolute and indian sandalwood oil. No ylang ylang :D
In Tiferet are also rose, incense, myrrh and yes vanilla and more
Alter is sambac jasmine and opoponax based.
No mint, it can be one side of the sambac.
The comparison to Lutens, wow!
Mine are all natural, you know.
I hope, and I believe, your point of view is right!!!

[Yeah, I smell ylang ylang when there's none, and I let you know all, gee, I'm shameless!]

 Bond - T :
- Caroline : I've tried the last sample perfume you sent me, Bond, yes, several times, and to put it simply: could I have more of that one? :D
I hope that selling mini sprays are an option you're seriously considering! For I'm not sure i'd be able to afford a large amount of that Bondt, and anyway I find that mini sprays are a good option especially for people like me who enjoy wearing many different kinds of perfumes, and not just the same one each and every day! Besides, mini sprays are so practical when travelling! Mini sprays, pleeease!!
 So now i'm wondering what could there be in this Bond... the first time I tried it I thought I caught some patchouli for a moment, and it seems to have something sweet and round again like vanilla, and could it be nard standing big in the middle of the picture? i'm not so sure anymore since I've smelled nard on its own only once... I'm not so sure (especially since Tiferet got me so lost!), except that I like it much and that it feels to me like a great scent to wear when going to the meditation group that I've started to attend!"
- Giovanni : "thank you for your words on Bond-t. I'm happy you enjoy it.
patchouli and vanilla yes but also cocoa and a little bit of osmanthus. not nard, I'm sorry ;)
and great to read you think it's good for meditation.
about little size yes, I'll sell it [later]: 5 ml and 7 ml spray.
i found two beautiful bottle of 5 and 7ml in Austria and I will buy it for small sizes."

[I do wish to mention that, now that I do own a little bit of Nard Jatamansi essential oil, this nard and this Bondt do still smell extremely close to my nose, I was not making this similarity up, I'm glad! Nard's got a slightly herbal twist while Bondt is more on the sweet soft warm comfy side of sacred scents - It makes me think that if you enjoy Sharif, by Abdes Salaam Attar/Profumo.it, you'll very likey enjoy Bondt!]

Civet & Castoreum :
- Caroline : "Now, the castoreum and civet tinctures. Castoreum is the one that felt like the most interesting, so to speak: not a really disturbing scent, just strong to me. It made me think of a cellar, maybe slightly damp, wooden barrels, and maybe smoke, or smoked meat. Then, civet on skin allowed me to know what it feels like to "smell" :D It was awful during about an hour or two, had to keep my wrist away from my face as much as possible, then it calmed down a bit and i was able to kind of see how it fits into jicky (eventhough I've only smelled nowdays version of Jicky), may I say. To me civet stands somewhere in between faecies and dirty stagnant water..."
- Giovanni :  "civet Is terrible at first sniff but if you become in the civet club you will be' a civet addicted."

[now I still wonder how there can be such people as civet fans, really, honnestly! ^^
I still do feel like giving a sniff at Jicky again though, I admit, from time to time, when I pass by a perfumery store... Maybe I should order a sample of it, vintage version maybe. Oh, wait, no. I've just resiggned from my job. It wouldn't be very reasonable... Or maybe, just a little bit you know... or maybe I shouldn't... Gahhhh!]