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Patty White launched Perfume Posse in 2005, and we've been yapping on and on about perfume endlessly since.

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Tom Ford Mandarino di Amalfi and Costa Azzurra

Jul 212014
 
 July 21, 2014  Posted by on July 21, 2014 31 Responses »
perfume posse - perfume reviews, perfume blog

So let’s talk about some new summer scents. I’m hoping playing  with Tom Ford Mandarino di Amalfi and Costa Azzurra breaks a little of my summer perfume dropsies.

Let’s start with Tom Ford Costa Azzurra.  Notes of oak, driftwood, lavender, vanilla, seaweed, agarwood, ambrette seed, celery seed, cardamom, armoise, juniper berry, myrtle, basil, lemon, yellow mandarin, lentisque, olibanum, incense and vetiver.  This has a really lovely crisp slightly herby open. It’s bright and sunny with some incense and vanilla to smooth it out.  I really like those additions, along with the lovely myrtle, lavender and celery seed.  It make is more than a refreshing summer scent and is one I’d love to wear year-round.  These kinds of scents aren’t normally the thing I love the most, but Costa Azzurra is perfection, giving both the crisp freshness summer yearns for, but with a lot of extra depth that keeps it really interesting.  Easily my favorite of the two.

Tom Ford Mandarino di Amalfi has notes of tarragon, spearmint and lemon, blackcurrant, bergamot, grapefruit, basil, black pepper, coriander, orange flower, clary sage, jasmine, shiso leaf, vetiver, amber, labdanum, musk and civet.  This one has some different angles to it, being a little more pepper-vetiver. It feels more cooling after the open. The open is pretty traditional, and I was a little worried it wouldn’t have enough something extra to it.  Eventually it did change from that not so interesting open to a much more engaging drydown – cool, dry, a wee bit incensy and kinda great.

I did wind up liking both Mandarino di Amalfi and Costa Azzura for different reasons, and they are soothing my summer perfume doldrums a little bit.  But, yeah, the Costa Azzurra is the one of the two I’d add to my perfume wardrobe.

I was hoping to have some other new scents today to review, but the mail delivery system failed me.  I hope to have them in my “needing something new” hands to review next week.

Are you in a something new phase?  Relying on old favorites?  Drop a comment to be entered in a drawing for a sample of these two new Tom Fords. I’ll be giving away 3 sample sets by random draw next week!

Branching out: Byredo

Jul 202014
 
 July 20, 2014  Posted by on July 20, 2014 8 Responses »
byredo

byredoNow this is what I call a pleasing coincidence, a happy accident (sort of), and a spot of good timing. If you all recall, we talked about rollerballs last week. Well, a day or two ago I was poking around on the Neiman Marcus Web site, when a familiar name caught my eye: Byredo. I had to look twice. Byredo, at Neiman Marcus? Well, what do you know! And they have roll-on versions (7.5 ml, $78) in La Tulipe, Gypsy Water, Rose Noir, Blanche, Bal d’Afrique and Oud Immortel. Plus it looks like the full range of sprays, body products and the candles.

Alas, it doesn’t look like my store is carrying Byredo yet. But they do have in-store pickup and free Web site shipping most of the time anyway. So if the line does well, who knows when it might show up in the flesh?

Just looking at those rollerballs had me salivating to try GW and La Tulipe in that form. I do love these scents (and several others), but find them not terribly long-lasting on my skin unless I spray like a fiend, so it would be interesting to see how these perform. And of course, if the opportunity presented itself to try the layering thing, I’d love it, especially since now I’d have to go cross-country to do it. And it would be fun to sniff the Byredo candles as well.

It might take a while, but at least it’s a start to getting a bit more niche selection in my neck of the woods. At one time, we had a Barney’s Co-Op, which started out with a nice range of beauty products and then dwindled to nothing, and finally the store closed. Early on, however, hopes were that we might one day get a real Barney’s, but in light of what happened in Dallas, I’d say that’s highly unlikely now. So Byredo at Neiman’s is welcome, and will be even more so if and when they can get it into the store.

The NM closest to me carries the Ramon Monegal line, as well as Thirdman, Armani Prive, Diptyque, Agonist, and Maison Francis Kurkdjian, so things are moving in the right direction at least. Our Saks carries the Cartier L’Heure line, By Kilian, and the limited edition Diors (New Look 1947, Grand Bal, etc.). And I know that at least one Saks (at the Houston Galleria) carries Frederic Malle and Le Labo. But no doors here carry those lines, or Serge Lutens or L’Artisan. Perhaps one day though …

Have you tried any of the Byredo rollerballs, their body products or the candles? If not, what would you most like to sample? Or what fragrance line do you wish would magically appear at a department store near you?

No Post For This Week

Jul 182014
 
 July 18, 2014  Posted by on July 18, 2014 2 Responses »
img_prd_noodle_01

img_prd_noodle_01I have an annoying summer cold- not enough that I can justify not working, but enough that my nose is stuffed and I cannot smell anything. I have a well stocked larder of soup and boxes of kleenex, so I hope to be back by next week.

Image: Shin Ramyun noodle soup, which is delicious and spicy enough to clear some sinuses. Add some peanut butter to it for protein and it’s even better.

Back next week..

Tropicana by Lorenzo Villoresi – Vintage Collection

Jul 172014
 
 July 17, 2014  Posted by on July 17, 2014 33 Responses »
tropicana Lorenzo Villoresi - First In Fragrance

Hey Hey Perfume Posse, Portia from Australian Perfume Junkies to chat with you about a fragrance house I’ve long wished to spend some time with but for some reason always gets pushed to the do it later pile. While in Venice in early 2013 I very nearly plunged on one of the lovely bottles but it was a toss up between two and I went with the Sigilli Athunis which is a great choice, no regrets. So now I have a Surrender To Chance decant of a discontinued fragrance re-release that clients have been begging to have returned to the range, they have made a small batch and you can buy Tropicana while it lasts.

Tropicana by Lorenzo Villoresi

Vintage Collection (re-issue)

tropicana Lorenzo Villoresi - First In FragrancePhoto Stolen First In Fragrance

Lorenzo Villoresi gives these featured accords:
Top: Peach, Pineapple, Magnolia, Osmanthus, tropical fruits
Heart: Rose, Passion fruit, Melon, Milk, Coconut, Jasmin
Base: Ylang Ylang, Tuberose, powdery notes, Vanilla, Chocolate, Musk

Tropicana, what a fun name for a fragrance, once you read the copy (below) you can see what a divine setting the Villoresi crew are trying to create with it.

From the  Lorenzo Villoresi, Firenze site: Opulent trees, loaded with exotic and unknown fruits, touched by the warm rays of a tropical sun. Exuberant flowers of a thousand colours, beautiful to see and touch, sensual and enveloping, overflowing with intoxicating and mysterious fragrances. Countless palm trees bending in the wind, leaning towards the sea, cold juices and ice drinks, sweet and fruity, white like coconut and milk, under the infinite stars of the Southern Seas.

WOOOO fruit and osmanthus are bursting out the  Tropicana gate and jasmine wends its way through all smelling much like the jasmine that used to grow on the fence at the side of the house, gorgeous!!! Ha Ha Ha! Fruit salad indeed and yummy. From all the fruits you would expect this to be a super sweet celebuscent-ish fragrance but it is remarkable cool and fruity with a dry back bite smoothed by lovely fat helpings of coconut and jasmine breathiness, wet melon freshly cut and a spicy rose that is more spice than rose really.

tropicana Lorenzo Villoresi Brazil Carnival FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Ylang, musk and tuberose flow in under the rest and softly assert themselves in a VERY sensual way hefted up by vanilla, an amber-ish, honeycomb vanilla. Tropicana is very interesting and quite retro and the fruits stay well into dry down territory. There are shades of a flamboyant Femme by Rochas, a hint of the Bombay Bling by Neela Vermeire Creations and a “This is how you do it” to all the fruity frags that just aren’t as exotic, friendly, flirty, fun or ferocious as Tropicana. In fact there is a little of the Party In Manhattan madness prowling around in this fabulous frag.

I am loving Tropicana sick, what a stupendous fragrance. WOW!

Further reading: Now Smell This announces the line re-appearing  Jan 2014
First In Fragrance has €100/100ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $5/ml

Did you get to try these last time, or this time. What do you think of the Villoresi line? Is it you? Are there particular frags in the line I should go and try immediately?
Portia xx

Summer. Time.

Summer. Time.

I don’t know why I’m always surprised to find myself a bit melancholy in Summer.  After all, it’s one of the few times when weather really does allow me to just …stop.  Spring and Autumn usually find me really bustling about in the garden, prepping for planting or putting away The rest, please…

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