Hey Posse! Welcome to the future. We are now fully in 2025 but let’s please look back at some Happy Surprises of 2024. Most years I try and get to a Best Of but last year found me overwhelmed by other stuff and it kept falling off my To Do Lists until, well here we are. This post needs to prefaced by my lack of trying many new things in 2024. I did get my sniff on some new things and mostly they were fairly snooze worthy. I’m not sure if it’s me being a tired old jag or if the products are genuinely lackluster anymore. Considering how fulsomely others wrote or Insta spruked them…
I’m also a bit worried because my weird meter has dialed back considerably. While I love boundary pushing and new fragrant insights suddenly I feel no need to endure a ferocious attack on my sinuses to get to a beautiful base. Maybe I’m as jaded as I fear. Oh well, you are forewarned.
Happy Surprises of 2024
Happy Surprises Perfume
Aftelier Perfumes: Sacré Bleu
“Mandy brings together sacred, healing ingredients used for millennia around the world to create a perfume so intensely, viscerally profound that I found myself smiling with joy.” don’t think I can write a more apt sentence for this amazing perfume. Do yourself a favour go to Atelier Perfumes and grab a ample, Mandy sent me mine.
Calvin Klein: Eternity Aromatic Essence for Women
“Tropical and fougere. Yeah, I know. It sounds ghastly but they have made it work here. Salted coconut water is seasoned with a shiver of lime and berry over a softly vanilla sandalwood. The effect is like a salted ice cream and it is so more-ish.” I bought a bottle at retail.
Celine: Zouzou
A cool gourmand, cool as in temperature not stylistically (though it does hit that too). Like a caramel centered chocolate straight from the fridge. Imagine if Eau d’Italie Morn to Dusk had all the heat removed. A very similar crunchy caramel but dialed down and with that funky plastic patchouli so popular in the 2010s. Not groundbreaking but good. I sampled mine from Surrender To Chance
Creed: Delphinus
Jin tried this while we were in Taiwan late last year. It smelled SO GOOD on him. Almost good enough that I’d pay retail but my money just didn’t stretch that far last year. Maybe this year. Almond, powdery iris/heliotrope, vanilla, leather. Reads like a Guerlain and wears like a beast.
Diptyque: Bois Corse
A sandalwood gourmand. Beautifully balanced, not so sweet it’s a confectionary. Bois Corsé maintains its woodiness with a coffee, chocolate, vanilla cream overlay. It’s clever and beautiful. For all this super sweet lovers on the 2000s that are all grown up and sophisticated I think it will hit the spot. I also love the bottle, very cool. I sampled mine from Surrender To Chance
Initio: Oud for Greatness NEO
“If you are not particularly an oudh fan but like the woodsy saffron perfumes of the 21st century then you will probably go into paroxysms of delight. I did. Less huge than its antecedent and much more nuanced (to my nose). It fits into the traditional paradigm for masculines but anyone and everyone can and could wear it.”
Nicolai Parfumeur Createur: Saint Honoré
Happy Surprises Things
Guerlain: Le Flacon Sac
O M G! Cannot tell you how much I want some of these. So gorgeous and glam. Perfect travel size and I can finally use up my bee bottles. Win, Win!
Happy Surprises Books
Luke Evans: Boy From the Valleys
While I’ve adored Luke Evans in film there was never an inkling about what a life he has lived. From being a Jehovas Witness, coming out to himself and family, being in a felonious relationship and his unbelievable good fortune in the industry that has generally treated gays poorly makes for a page turning read.
Daniel Barros: 1001 Perfumes
I may be biased about this book because I did a very small amount of proof reading for it but seriously, it’s a bloody good tome for old and new perfumistas. Everyone will find something interesting to learn and I also love seeing what made the cut and what has been ignored.
So, did you get any happy surprises in 2024?
Portia xx
Once again my iPad is spam..
I feel like I am so out of the loop. I haven’t tried any of these.
Oooof, it’s posts like this that really make me wish I were closer to a major city where sampling is easy, although hey I could order from StC…. also that book sounds so interesting, I’ve added it to my list! I hope your 2025 has started off nicely! In 2024 I added some friendship and stability to my living situation which I really appreciate. Shopping surprises will be in an upcoming post 😀
Nice choices. My discoveries were learning I can get extra discount by joining Club Avolta, ordering online & picking up duty free before my flights & getting extra discount & access to brands not usually available at that site
OOOHHHH! I don’t think we have them here but going to look, just in case Alityke.
Portia xx
It’s worldwide. Have a look https://www.clubavolta.com/
Once you download the app it’s easy to shop & there are discounts on airport food & lounges. Definately worth it if you’re flying outside Oz this year
Ooooh, I love lists. Here are my entries. Perfume-wise, I can’t recall fully if this was a 2024 discovery but I got a bottle last year: Lutens La Dompteuse Encagee. Irritating name but gorgeous, more-ish buttery floral. Other major discovery was Victoria Beckham 21:50 Reverie. Vanilla but with a weird twist. There is a bottle in my future.
On other things, at the very end of last year I bought Nigel Slater’s sort of memoir A Thousand Feasts. I operate a strict one in/one out on books now (clearly I also read books on the iPad) and this one is a keeper, to be reread in bits. Lush Sticky Dates shower gel. Yum. Just yum. Lastly, a pair of Sorel winter boots. Only available in a sort of odd fern green but are standing up well to our winter weather of damp and cold — feet still stay dry and warm even when I have to tramp through puddles.
Heya Cinnamon,
I’ve bought a decant of Lutens La Dompteuse Encagee but am yet to try it.
Fern Green is one of my all time fave colours so YAY for that.
You know I walked to LUSH and could not make myself walk in. It was TOO smelly. Seriously, it hurt me.
Portia xx