Perfume Pr0n for a Friday!!! Just two shelves of my collection.
Here’s two more. I actually filled them in more after I took the pictures… and there are many, many more shelves and drawers that are fuller. Obscene and excessive, no? I agree, but I didn’t have another picture to put up today.
Jalaine perfume oils are one of the great unbought tragedies that ramble around in my head, along with YOSH parfum. I adore almost everything in both lines, but every time I go to hit the Buy button for 7-8 ml of parfum oil for over $100, my normally extravagant shopping mind just arches its back, digs in its heels, peels my finger away from the mouse button and revolts.
One day I was dreaming at the Jalaine site, taking things in and out of my shopping cart — (I know y’all do that too!) — and looking again at their excellent sample deal, which I have ordered before — a half ml sample of all of their nine perfume oils for $18 — it struck me that if I just bought four or five of these, I would be sitting pretty on about 18 mls of perfume oil for $80. Do I have a pang of conscience over that? Um… yes and no. Yes because I know this is not what they intended from their sample program and no because I love their perfumes and may eventually buy one or two of the refill bottles for $90 at some point… maybe.
Jalaine has some incredible scents in their line, and even the ones that I’m not that fond of (Vanilla, I’m looking at YOU!), are really well done and compelling to smell. They all are very linear — what goes on initially is what it will be the next day, maybe a little softer, but when they are this pretty, I don’t really want them developing into something I like not so much. They do last a lot longer on me than the Yoshes. Vetiver is earthy, rooty goodness. This one always gives me the underpinnings of the meth-like addiction I have for Hermessence Vetiver Tonka, but with a slightly lower jones factor. Amber is rich and resinous, a great pungency that is not too much. Putting on both of these together is amazing. Gardenia is is pure, heady gardenia, but without the “ick” factor that usually sets in once Gardenia stays too long at the party. Citrus Dream is a beautiful citrus scent, but it just doesn’t last long enough for me to give it a good thumbs up, but it is great while it lasts. Ocean is a very clean, slighly aquatic scent, but I wish they had thrown some salt in there and it was less sweet. My two favoriters are Green Tea and Silk — these are the two that I keep thinking about buying. Green Tea is gorgeous and slightly sweet, but it works with the tea, even though I hate sugar in tea, it’s a nasty combination that people should NOT be doing. *looks sternly at tea sugarers* Silk is the best known in the line, and it is really the best in many respects as far as popular appeal, smooth, a little sweet and pretty gorgeous. I prefer the Green Tea over the Silk, if I had to choose. The Silk is just a little too sweetish vanilla for me, where the Green Tea is perfection.
Now that we’ve toured a few of the Jalaine oils, let’s head over here my to reality scents. March turned me into a huge fan of Christopher Brosius, who started Demeter and now owns CB I Hate Perfume. Some of my favorites I think I love every scent he does, but I very much love his earthy scents, like Black March and To See a Flower (flowers, stems, dirt, just criminal gorgeousness if you are a flower gardener). When I put on the Winter 1972 scent, My husband sniffed it and proclaimed — snow, mittens, radiators! It is that, just the snuggliest scent I can think of. BTW, March, Violet Empire? is just perfection, more leaf than violet, but the violet peeps its shy little head around and smiles from time to time.
I was pretty bowled over by some of the Demeters as well. Firefly, which is absolutely the out of doors, after a rain, in the summer… on the farm. It is the smell of my childhood summers spent outdoors, straining to see in the dark during a game of Old Mother Witch What Time is it or Mother May I or or Red Light/Green Light. Now, I will mention here that Demeter has sent us several of these to try – that’s my disclaimer – and I’m glad they skipped all the syrupy sweet ones or I would have just ignored them, like I do most stuff, but there are too many way too good to ignore, especially in this last batch. Holy Water, Holy Smoke, Greenhouse. It completely floors me over when a reality fragrance just nails something spot on, and I know it’s just molecules. It’s the same feeling I have when I think too deeply about how we can snatch something waving through the air in our ears and figure out they are words. Reading and Writing make far more sense than hearing.
So two questions today: What unbought perfume tragedy do you still obsess about? or What perfume or type of perfume floors you in that way?
What beautiful pictures! Drool… 😉
Patty, did you get my e-mail today? My computer was acting weird, so I don’t know if anything came through.
Lovely description of Firefly, I get that too.
My unbought perfume tragedies are legion. As a student living off about $700 a month I can only hope everything I love will still be available sometime in the future, like, when I’m an unemployed academic… 😉 As long as there’s juice left in my sample vials I’m happy though.
Let me just drool a little more over your shelves… I recently bought a 30x30x15cm cabinet with drawers for my entire perfume collection. ALL my bottles are in the bottom drawer: Paul Smith Story, Cdg 2, Beyond Paradise, Flower by Kenzo, Liquid Karl, Taylor of London Lily of the Valley, Karl Moran Blue Moon & Satan Instinct. Yup, that’s it. That’s all the bottles I’ve ever owned and Story is the only one costing more than $10 I’ve bought myself. I don’t even like most of them…
Of course, what I’ve spent on perfume samples surely adds upp to some really exclusive niche bottles, but I’d rather try a variety of scents! I bought Story for the bottle design, but other than that bottles don’t mean so much for me. That said, I’d probably like to go straight from sample to bottle, skipping decant. Heck, I’ve never even emptied a sample vial, so when I do I will have had time to get to know the scent properly and know a bottle is right for me.
Wow. What a glorious looking collection! (drooling a la Homer Simpson). I’m fascinated by all the shapes of the bottles together – so unbelievably enticing =p~
My collection is tiny in comparison, but I already feel like it is too much. There are some that I’m just no longer fond of, yet am not willing to swap or give away.
Biggest perfume tragedy? Not splurging for the ltd. edition of L’Artisan Orange Blossom. Shoulda just done it even though I couldn’t have afforded it!
2nd biggest: Not being able to get my hands on Apres L’Ondee. I am too scared to try e-bay or online retailers lest those nasty Canadian customs people seize my cargo!
To anyone who maligns our hobby, I say -its a harmless vice, some people collect fine wines, cigars, even cars! Why not something that can transport you and fire your imagination?
That was the best porn ever. My dresser is overflowing with boxed bottles and my drawers with the unboxed, and my biggest challenge is keeping the beasties away from it all. For some reason, they see my collection as potential cat toys.
I’m still obsessing over Yosh’s The Heart is Deceitful (which I’m probably the only one in the world who likes it), and might still get a bottle. My biggest regret is probably not discovering Chaos when it was still available.
However, I’m so very proud of buying a bottle of Orris and escaping the perfume tragedy of missing out on it. I own all of Andy’s creations which have absolutely floored me. I love, adore and cherish many fragrances, but with him it’s a religious experince. I’m never sure if it is me who gets him or him getting me, but it feels like he bottled my soul.
Patty, your photos are an inspiration. I’ll never have the educated taste you all have, but at least among you all I am learning of the difference between the fine and the mediocre, and the existence of the best. Maybe if enough women learned this, the perfume industry would be forced to create really good scents as in the past (speaking generally), instead of foisting off insipid fragrances on an ignorant perfume-buying population. Then we wouldn’t have to go through the adventures of Marco Polo to get the good stuff. But anyhow, I love your perfume cabinets, and that’s something to aspire to 🙂
I’m not digging all this talk about all these wimmin folk coming over to the homestead and having a spritz party. We mix it with a lingerie party and I’m in, otherwise I’ll take that night off and hit the bars….in Costa Rica.
I love you 2. 8-}
W — we are HOT!!! Haaawwwttt, I am tellin’ you!! I have this one backless lace-up nightie-thingy …. plus we’ll all smell sooooo good. Also I hear Lee has GREAT legs./:)
Great idea for the photos – thanks!
I’m currently obsessing & yearning passionately over the new Parfum strength Black Orchid (exCLUSIVELY at Neimans!) in that cute little numbered Lalique thingie. Will not be able to drop $650 on ONE FRAGRANCE probably EVER (for that amount I could get that Le Labe Fragrance Discovery whatever-you-call-it and still have enough to buy some A.maze!).
Yeah, I hear you on that one, Mike. It is a beauty, that bottle, and I’m *dying* to know what it smells like. I’m crazy and can justify a lot of things, especially if I can sell samples/decants to offset the cost, but I just can’t bring myself to pull the trigger on that one. I think it’s only like 1/2 ounce of that? Crazy. I wish some would show up on eBay… Hahahah, yeah, like that’s going to happen! 🙂
i definitely like the part ‘just TWO shelves’ 😉
:d Well… :”>
I almost wept when I saw your lovely cabinet, all those bottles, standing tall, proudly annoucing their names. I am staying with my parents right now, had some bad luck lately, and my snoopy father looked in my closet, where in the back, in a soft red box, I was keeping some of my scents, some are in boxes, and he told my daughter (who is 12), “your mother is sick, she has some sort of sick compulsion to buy perfumes”. My daughter told me this on our way home from the store that night and I wept, I wept because he does not understand me at all, and believe me, what he found is only the tip of the iceberg, had he seen what I truly hide (in my storage space, along with all my other belongings) he would have had me put away for being the compulsive person that I know I am. I have had some compulsions in my lifetime that were very detrimental, my perfume addiction is a way for me to express my artistic temperament, that is how I choose to view it. I don’t know whether a shrink would agree, but that is how I see it. It does not hurt me, it does not put me in jail, I do spend a lot of money on it that is true, but it is one of the few things in life that I love. Thank you for showing me that in my own space I could be proud of my stash too. I think I went on too long, but really wanted to thank you.
PanteraLily, He doesn’t understand you, but at least we do! It’s good that you kept some of your perfume with you so you can have that pleasure during your hard times, which we hope are over soon. Thank goodness for the Internet.
–Ellen
PanteraLily, my father never understood me…at all…about anything. He’d criticize me for using hand lotion so much. (My hands tend to get dry.) Now especially you need the comfort of the things that are meaningful to you. Your father is wrong, and he had no business saying such a thing to your daughter.
And you should be. Your father just doesn’t understand. People think that we collect to collect, but it is the artistry and feeling that each of those scents bring up that is at the heart of all collections. Hugs to you!
PanteraLily, I don’t see how loving and collecting perfume is some negative compulsion any more than the desire to collect beautiful valuable paintings, first edition books, or anything else (nonharmful) that makes life beautiful, is. No one would raise an eyebrow at those who collect paintings and sculpture, instead they build museums for that art! Well, the finest perfume is an art (and a science) too, no difference as far as I can see. Now if it was shoes, LOL…
ahhh… are the bell jars on display the ones i got for you? so nice to see them…er… splayed, enticing you with forbidden pleasures… hehehe
im signing up at hogwarts right now, hopefully they’ll teach me how to become an animagus so i can transform myself into a housecat and install myself in your house. I’ll promise to be good- i won’t scratch the furniture or break your bottles 😉
what’s that burburry-like bottle on the upper right hand corner of the first picture?
Not sure. Some of them are empties in here because I ran out of room in the kitchen. I’ve got cute little shelves in the soffit around the top of the kitchen that were perfect for apothecary bottles, so I’ve been lining them up there. I really need to start giving away the empties or something, it’s going to get ridiculous soon. And I hate to dust.
the Burberry looking thing is… SMN Eva!!!!! Which reminds me, it’s summer, and I”m almost out, but I do believe the Chanel EdC can fill in for it temporarily.
Patty, you, a Bandit virgin? Aw, c’mon… Mind you, I’ll go you one better: Chanel N°5 has never touched my skin…
yes, yes, I am. Can you believe that? I stayed away from 5 for years, having tried it when I was in my 20s and it was just too mature for me. Tried the parfum recently, and I adore it. I still don’t think I’m grown up enough for it, but I sure feel a little, er, taller when I have it on!
What gorgeous pictures! I am a bottle person myself. Worse than that, I am a 100 ml bottle person, not because of the lower unit price, but because… I started with a small collection of 100 ml bottles, and even now when I have more than 100 bottles, if I purchase a new fragrances in a 50 ml bottle, might that not mean that I only love it half as much?
What are the three tall, glass-stoppered bottles in the center of your Serge Lutens shelf?
Exactly! The 50 ml bottles would be hurt and alone amongst the might oaks. Weird how we anthropomorphize our perfumes, huh?
The three tall bottles are Caron bottles from the urn scents. That’s the 250 ml bottles. All of their urn bottles are the same, just different sizes. You can see some of the smaller ones on the second shelf below that, between the Rue de la Paix in the back and the Creed red atomizer. Love those bottles, but the big ones are pretty clunky to do much with except display.
Patty, perfume porn, indeed!! What an outstanding collection. We need encore photos.
One fragrance that floors me is Germaine Cellier’s Bandit. I find it truly amazing; you can read my review (MUA) to see just how floored (pun intended, LOL).
One that got away was a super cheap bottle of Apercu on the ‘bay. Another was a tester of Cristalle. And yet another was a vintage Miss Dior parfum. I regret that one, especially.
Okay. As you were.
:):)
I’ll try and get more together!
I still have not smelled Bandit, can you believe that? I need to get some and rectify that.
Patty, your perfume collection is gorgeous! When I grow up, I want one just like yours. 😡 Can you show us some more of it in another post?
Biggest perfume tragedy: I should have grabbed that bottle of Hermes Doblis when I saw it on eBay several months ago. Oh well…such is life.
My biggest perfume dream is visiting that shrine on the Champs Elysees known as Guerlain’s flagship store. Just think of it: all of that history and beauty in one location.
Hugs and love!
H & L back! Yeah, I’ll try and get more pictures together. I just need to clean off an area to arrange them, hopefully it will coincide with spring cleaning. 🙂
Yeah, the last Doblis I saw on eBay was a Brit seller, and it was $800 or so. I’m still thinking I need to go back on the hunt for another bottle, I’m nervous. :((
Oh, what lovely perfumes you have dahling, some a little closer, I’ve got some good dark chocolate….that’s right…closer still. I am having some seriously impure thoughts about dousing myself in half your collection, then rolling around… oh forget it. And on a Lenten Friday no less, shame on me :)I figure I had to throw the Lent thing in ther somewhere, right? I mean, I know half your readers are expecting it from me and I hate to let them down.
I keep wanting to buy Ambre Narguile, but I just can’t quite do it. It reminds me of MR and I keep telling myself that my bottle of MR should be enough. Then I go back to my little sample vial, cheating on my MR as it were, and love it again.
Maybe after Lent. LOL.
Yeah, we are all molesting poor Icarus, dead or alive, and today rolling around in perfume. Horrible wretches we are!
You and Lee need to hook up (figuratively, dear) and get the four 15 ml bottle Hermessence Discovery set, then you can have the AN without feeling guilty and he can have the VT without feeling guilty.
Wow, I would not even compare MR and AN together at all!
I want a 100 ml bottle, not that piddling 15 ml nonsense!:d
that photo makes me feel like a piker. I have one shelf only, and there has not been a lot that has given me an intense desire to add to it. When I smell something I consider it, but lately I just haven’t been moved to buy. 😕
If I didn’t do what I do, I would have a much smaller collection, to be sure, and tons of decants that I’d be trying to figure out how to arrange and alphabetize. 🙂
That totally slipped my mind! Doink?!?! I’ve ordered from you!
Being at work right now (ok its a quiet moment!) I can’t see the beauty of your shelves Patty but I’ll check them out at home later. I’m a fairly new scent slut so there’s not much taht has got away that I don’t think I can get some other time (Apercu for a song on ebay). However I would endorse Ann above on Doblis – it is criminal that that isn’t available to buy from Hermes, in teh same way we can buy the Nazgul for instance. I have read about a line called Gobin Daude (I think?) and they sound wonderful – I also have a bad feeling about those because for a short time I think they were available at Libs……(winces at he memory – I knew nothing then…)
The G-Ds were absolutely gorgeous. I had a hard time wearing them because they always seemed more like art, and I would give anything to go back in time and clean out the Lib instead of just getting three bottles!
Perfume porn is right! Had to mop up the drool from my keyboard…. :”> Seriously though, Patty, your collection must be a thing of heart-rending beauty.
I think my biggest non-purchase regret was not buying the LE bottle of Doblis parfum on auction when it could have been had for $400. Yes, the fact that that number was still in the mid-three-digits is why I didn’t buy. Thankfully, a generous friend shared a bit of her bottle with me. (thanks, J!)
Can we start a campaign (there seem to be lots going on these days) to get Hermes to release this in an EDP formulation? Why not part of Hermessences? After all, the re-release version *is* a JCE creation, I believe. Can folks help me out here? Please? Yes, I’m begging, just plain begging.
Oh, sorry, sorry! 🙂 I know there are a good number of people that have a more extensive collection, and I would love to get picutres of their collection!
Doblis, I’m with you on that. It’s hidden back behind the Chanels up there. The djedi and Doblis I hate to think about running out of. Tell me where to write about it! I don’t even care if they bring it back at the same ridiculous price, it just needs to be made regularly or every five years or something!
But you have to join me in my campaign to get Ellie into an EDP or EDT. It just begs to be spritzea in a lighter concentration.
Ok, it’s a deal then! I’ll lobby with you on the Ellie EDP, too. I will find out where to address our comments – unless, of course, anyone has any contacts at Hermes? (Just thought I’d throw that out there.)
I do have Shannon at the Hermes boutqiue in NYC. Maybe I will call her next week and find out what the best way to lobby would be. There’s got to be a way to get that thing back out there again, even at ridiculous prices.
About the Doblis, ladies, I’m sorry to say that I’ve already spoken in High Hermès Places (a friend who heads their com for France) and the answer was: way too niche and confidential, way too expensive to produce in small quantities, can’t happen, probably never will. There were only a few drops left in a bottle at the flagship store, she smelled them, said it was beautiful but there you go. This from company that recently showed a full-length croc trenchcoat going for the price of a car.
What a ridiculous position for them to take! We must find a way to change their minds!!!
I want to come camp at your house! Awesome collection! I love Yosh and Jalaine (but you already knew that). Jalaine Vetiver is like no other. The oils are superb quality, last a long time, and never turn on my skin. Total must-haves for your collection. 😉
Come over any time!!! I did break down and get the Ginger Caio recently when B-glowing did that 15% off. I suspect I’ll eventually pull the trigger on at least Green Tea. I do love that they last and don’t change. Sometimes I’m just not wanting development in my perfume relationships. 🙂
Wow! That’s breathtaking! Your collection – or the part of your collection that is in the pictures is beautiful! I have a question, what is that very shiny gold bottle at the far end of the second picture?
As far as scents I regret not buying, too many to list. I visit the US periodically so when I don’t get to buy everything I want it pains me greatly. I can’t get many things where I live, and if I can, they hike up the price so much that if I bought it I would end up paying 3x the price. Sad, and frustrating. So, I wait for my visits and then go crazy.
The shiny gold bottle is the Clive Christian No. 1. Pretty and gaudy, isn’t it?
That sucks. I would so hate that. Don’t most people ship internationally now reasonably? I don’t know why they wouldn’t. I’ve had about the same rate of lost packages domestic as internationally, I think two packages each, and they can get bulk insurance really reasonably to cover those occasional seizures by customs (Yes, Canada, I’m looking at you, you rats!)
I know, right? You’d think that more sites would offer a tracking number, but they don’t. The only one that did stopped shipping perfumes internationally. :(( Thus, my predicament.
Patty, I don’t see anything excessive about your collection. After all, you decant & sell from those bottles, don’t you? If you see a well-stocked supermarket, you don’t accuse the owner of gluttony, right?
Being the relative newbie I am, I don’t have any interesting “one that got away” stories, but I haven’t come close yet to finding a comfortable median between complete gluttony & reasonably stocking up on things that won’t be around forever. Perhaps the solution is to find a younger person to interest in perfume? That way, if I die before I finish them all (quite likely, unless I have a couple of decades of not buying), I’ll know on my deathbed that I’ve given someone an extraordinary present. Wonder whether I could call up Big Sisters and ask for a little girl who likes things that smell pretty? I’m only joking a little! 🙂
–Ellen
Ellen, you are always the voice of reason. 🙂
Now you’ve just stopped me in my tracks. Who in the world will I leave this all to? I don’t have any girls. My niece would definitely appreciate it if my sister were not still around. I guess my sister, and then my niece? Yikes, I never thought about this before!
Even if you don’t have daughters, you’ll some day have daughters-in-law. My son’s fiancee is a lovely young woman who is the youngest of seven (yes 7!) girls. Although her mother will split the goodies among the daughters when the time comes, there won’t be much for any of them individually. Angie is absolutely THRILLED that she will get all of my jewelry, fragrances, and art glass when the day comes.
And you know boys tend to marry women like their mothers….so those DILs, when they come along, will probably be perfumistas, too. 🙂
Good point. This could work out great. So does anyone have a grateful, lovely daughter that would marry one of my two sons and eventually inherit part or all of my collection? Must be under the age of 25. 🙂
Obscene and obsessive? Hell no! I love it and am only saddened that you didn’t post more pics Patty! I want more eye candy!:D
If you think it’s obscene and obsessive, then take comfort in knowing you’re not alone.
Thanks for the pics!
Thanks, Christina! I’d love to post pics of your collection, which is fabulouso!!! I’d just never gotten around to putting them all together. I really should one day get ambitious and put the whole thing on the table and snap one picture. Maybe if Nancy gets her calendear project ready this next year, I’ll get to it.
I actually don’t think it’s obscene or excessive, but I’m pretty sure most nonperfume people would see it that way. :d
Oh, what wonderful perfume porn pics to start the day! Glorious!!!
I adore both Yosh and Jalaine. Yes, the prices are hard to take, but they’re wonderful and I really do *not* like most oils. And, no, you shouldn’t fret about ordering all those samples. All’s fair in perfume and war. Jalaine Vetiver reminds me of oil paints and is one of my fav comfort scents of all time.
My heart aches that I didn’t get some vintage scents from Jaime *immediately* before everyone and their 18th cousin discovered him.
Oh, and I would SOOO much rather wear an interesting Demeter smoke, earth, incense or woods scent than the vast majority of insipid scents available in dept. stores (and that includes recent offerings from Guerlain and Dior). And the Demeters are brilliant for layering.
My regret is that I wasn’t free to marry Jaime when he first showed up with the Warehouse Full ‘O Perfume of My Wildest Dreams. Or that I wasn’t rich, because I think I would have offered to buy the whole thing.
So…. do you ever take pictures of your collection? I’d love to put up other people’s perfume pr0n. I’ll do it anonymously.
Totally agree on wearing an interesting Demeter over Rock ‘N Rose or the 1,345th iteration of some Escada Summer Scent that smells exactly the same as the other 1,344. It’s so boring. But Wet Rock is *never* boring! 🙂
The great unbought perfume tragedy of my life is that I don’t live in your neighborhood and have a key to your house.;)
Although, actually, given the generous amount of goodies that roll downhill my way from the Rockies, I’ll be okay.^:)^
Greatest unbought perfume tragedy: gorgeous flacon of Guerlinade on eBay for, like, $30. To me, eBay is like people’s fishing stories (the one that Got Away, the Big One I Caught). Made me so mad I still haven’t bought some. One of these days…
That second set of Demeters was the list I mused that I’d like to try on my Demeter post, which he must have read — did a pretty darn good stab in the dark, didn’t I? So I believe there is a third set of something…
Also, can I just say? Those bottles are so beautiful. I almost never see the bottles. I had no idea. No wonder there are those weirdo bottle collectors…
Yeah, that was a damn fine list. I’m loving the Demeters these days. I totally get why they are so addictive. It’s like Fragrance Beanie Babies, you just want another one to sniff. I still can’t find on their website where they are doing that special $3 sample thingie.
I swear, I’m not a bottle freak, really, until I got my new cabinets and started putting them all up, and I’m turning into one. It’s not a single bottle that gets me, it’s all of them together. I initially did it just to organize all my bottles by house/type so I could find things easier. Not it’s just obsession.
You can come play at my house too! We’ll have chocolate martinies and sniff perfumer until our noses bleed!
P — sample thingie starts May 1 (ish — you know how those website upgrades go.) May 1 — 11ml samples for $3!!!! Hmmmm …. how many scents do they have?:-?
It’s simple – I keep wishing I’d bought Sel de Vetiver and Vetiver Tonka rather than keep on deferring them.
Nice bottles, hon.
Demter’s wet garden bowls me over – it reminds me of being at my grandparents’ house, as a small child…:-<
Would you buy them already?! Lord, set it as a birthday present thing or something, but you *need* them both. How do you live without VT to huff? Next to my Xanax, it is my best calmer-downer. Both together is best, though. 😡
Patty-they’re so, so, very beautiful. I especially like the SL shelf. I want to come play at your house. I promise I won’t touch. Much.
I need to rethink my fragrance drawer now. It’s dark and cool, but so hidden and stuffed-I can only extract and fondle a bottle at a time. Then there’s my hidden-in-the-closet stash bag-with a few back-ups (I am convinced they’ll pull Black Cashmere anytime), and yet-to be worns (Bois de Paradis).
I have few perfume regrets that I have not resolved through ebay and decants. I avoided a regret this morning through an impulse buy-PG L’Ombre Fauve. I only test-drove it one day, but was quite smitten. Of course, putting “limited edition” on anything encourages me to hit the evil buy button.
You can come play at my house! Are you kidding me?! I’d love to have a smallish get-together to Play Perfume. My greatest joy is sharing perfumes with other people, it just makes me happy, and the men in my house and the dog are not amused with me bugging them about sniffing all my stuff.
Ooooooo, how IS the Fauve?! Must be great if you sprang for it. I’ve got a bottle coming, and it is taking 4e-ver!
Ooooh, a parteee!
I really got pulled in by L’Ombre Fauve-the notes seem like a regular “I’d like that one” fragrance-amber, patch, musk, woods-but the sum is much greater. It kept morphing and gets very rich, and yes, it lasts long on me. I keep getting whiffs, and wondering what smelled so wonderful. Cozy, and a little sensuous. And, mine! At least when the back order comes in.
Bois blond was also pleasant, but too fleeting, and not twisty or interesting on me.
Oh, whew! I saw a brief review of all of the new PGs on MUA yesterday that dismissed all of them with a wave of the hand as ordinary, so I’m grateful to get conflicting news! They almost never do something banal, so this makes the world tilt back to where it should be. 🙂
Beautiful pictures! Reminds me of the fact that I need to buy a new and better cabinet for my bottles. My precious must move out of the bathroom and that’s quick!
My greatest and most stupid perfume loss is that I missed a new 3.3oz bottle of DK-Chaos for $55 on the swedish version of eBay. I still wake upp sweaty at night, my heart racing over the fact that I don’t own it. Why? The auction ended a day sooner than I thought. I could have payed double the price it was sold for. *sobs*
/Julia
YOu’re killin’ me, Smalls!!! $55 for 3.4 oz? Argh! Now you can’t seem to touch that size bottle for under about $300! I know, I’ve been stalking them. I’m waiting for summer, where bidding on the Bay gets easier and the tall grass of bargains is riding higher.
yes, definitely move them out of the bathroom. I used to keep mine there forever. And I’m not sure how much it can hurt them, but the steam and things from the shower are allegedly not great for your little darlings. 🙂
Oh Patty, I love your collection. I love the beautiful way they’re presented, dark wood in the background. I’m also very happy that others share this addiction. I’m not the only one filling up my shopping cart with perfume I know I can’t buy (never pressing the complete order button, sigh), and this makes me happy. People freak at my collection, but yours is above and beyond, thank you so much for sharing those photos.
As far as being floored in perfume…Comme des Garcons floored me with Incense Avignon. I was at a shoot in some crazy expensive house I won’t ever own, and I spotted the entire Incense collection from CdG in the bathroom. They looked so great sitting on this gorgeous stone sink. For some reason the first one I picked up was Avignon, I sprayed it on my arm, and I was just floored by it. It was everything I love about incense, crushed dried leaves, autumn, a wisp of smoke. It just bowled me over, I immediately ordered it the next day. I HAD to have it, a FULL bottle, I wanted that black bottle in my hot little hands, no decant would do.
Right now I’m wearing Juozas Statkevicius and I think I love it. I’ve already ordered a decant. Must control myself. ha.
Thanks, Gina! The dark wood is for a purpose. I’m fanatical about keeping “mah babeees” ou tof the light, so everything has to be at least shielded or in drawers, etc, so the wood had to cover it. I would have loved white cabinets to match my desk, but I couldn’t find any I liked.
CdG’s Incense series really is a wonder. I was noting yesterday, after March’s post, that people were commenting on their favorites, and I like them all! For different reasons. They all conjure up something else in a contemplative way, but incense tends to always calm me down and keep me centered outside of myself. It’s just a long association with the incense at Mass and pulling yourself away from self-centeredness, which is so hard to do in daily living.
you chose well!!!
Thanks Patty. I keep mine in a the dark, too. I live in this tiny little house (Los Angeles tiny house = way too much money) so they’re in the linen closet. Sort of sucks because I’ve run out of places to put my linen. But compared to the “babies”, who gives a crap about linen?! Eventually I’ll buy some sort of cabinet to keep them in. Your SL shelf just floors me!!!
I also love Vetiver Tonka…can’t believe Lee doesn’t own it yet.
Yeah, linen goes on beds, closets are for perfume!
i didn’t take pictures of my Serge empties shelf in the kitchen. Lee should team up with someone and at least do the Discover set so he can have that 1/2 oz bottle
That’s the bottle I have of Vetiver Tonka. Ebay find. Got Osmanthe Yunnan too. Might be interested in helping Lee out with that Discovery set…there’s a few I’d like to have in there. God, I’m addicted. And…you have a whole shelf of SL empties?!!!!!!!
I checked the blog just before getting ready for bed. Oh, my goodness! Will I have amazing dreams! Patty, your shelves! I see all those large Carons lined up there in the back of the shelf, with Corso Como and Merveilles in front. Of course, in the shelf above that, all the Chanels, but that house has not yet won me over. I’m wearing Tabac Blond, OTOH. Oh, look, a large bottle of Apres l’Ondee! I wore that this morning. It’s your perfume collection that totally floors me.
I did have a more powerful than usual reaction with the first try of a fragrance recently. That was Serge’s Chene. The depth and evocative true-tree qualities of it left me speechless. I imagine I’ll have similar experiences with the CB samples I will soon try. It’s so hard to stop adding to the CB wish list.
As to expensive fragrances I have stopped myself from buying, there are many. I know I’ll regret it one day, when I find myself smitten (stay away, lemmings) and they’re unavailable for love or money. But now the fragrances are too much, and that’s the hand I have in front of me.
Oh, wait! There is a specific lost opportunity that HURTS. When Andy Tauer released a very limited run of Orris, I was new to the perfume blogs. I didn’t know his work, and so I didn’t order it. I wish I hadn’t learned later how supernally beautiful it is on me. I have a 10 ml. decant. It will have to do. I tell myself philosophical things about the evanescence of all things, and especially perfume, but I still feel like a wailing two-year-old inside.
:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((
BTW, it’s a marvelous fragrance to wear to a botanical garden on a breezy day.
There are still a few (very few) bottles of Orris to be had at the Zurich shop which sells Andy Tauer’s perfumes. I pass by there about once a week, so if it’ll make your day, I could get one for you….
Oh, my gosh, Dinazad!!! Oh, how wonderful of you! I had to go have something to eat when I read your message. Oh, my goodness gracious! I’ll ask the Posse to send you my e-mail address if they don’t mind.
The best stuff is in the drawers, which I don’t have pictures of. That’s where I put the tiny bottles of parfum, if I don’t have a box for them, and most of my bell jars and the Malls and PGs and OJs and… Some days I just spend fondling them. I kid!! I *never* do that, but I love my office so much more now that I got the big cabinets to put them in. Before that, they were all in dark plastic or other kinds of boxes. There’s only two shelves that are open all the time. The other one with the Chanels has doors that are closed. Then I’ve got my big boxes of Guerlains that won’t fit in other areas. I spread like the plague around here.
CB is just a wonder. I think we tried them all when we were there, but your nose just gets fatigued after a while, and I kept putting off ordering some, and I’m so glad I’ve got a bunch of them now. They just, without fail, make me happy. The memories he wraps up in a bottle are amazing, even if you don’t have that memory, you know that’s what it will/should smell like! CB is a genius. ^:)^