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
Hiya, I did buy Le Flacon Sac this fall. Just to let you know, though, that the Flacon…was empty! No refillable bottle was included: instead, the second step was to buy a two travel spray set of one scent. And they are not refillable either. Sac and sprays cost about the same as a 50 ml of a fancy Guerlain btw, e.g. Angelique Noire.
While I am still happy to have made the purchase, this additional info might dissuade some who, I don’t know, already has the vintage flacon sac…?
OMG! I had no idea AnnieA, bloody money grabbing A-holes. That is a lot of money for no refillable glass.
Thanks for the heads up and sorry I gave wrong information.
Portia xx
We don’t have a Lush store here, just a section in Macy’s, and it’s overwhelming.
In 2024 I tried out coffee scents, and Montale Intense Cafe was the winner. I also “discovered” Serge Lutens L’orpheline – didn’t in try it years ago? – and love it. I bought a lot of decants and a few partial bottles.
Other stuff? I’ve pretty much finished my weight loss journey and bought a lot of clothes last year, which was very fun. A pair of tall boots from Amazon has been worn the most.
Woo Hoo! I love both Montale Intense Cafe and Serge Lutens L’orpheline Rosarita, lovely fragrances. You’ll get lotsa of wear from them.
Portia x
The perfume trends of nowadays: gourmands, ouds, saffrons, are not for me, so I didn’t discover any new releases. However, I happily found some vintage things that I’m loving (Le Dix, Detchema, My Sin). The trend wheel is sure to keep on spinning, and someday it will hopefully revisit the things I like. I’ve been wearing a lot of samples in 2025 so far. The dry down is usually a letdown.
We can only hope that either the fragrance gods let oakmoss back into our lives or a perfect synthetic reproduction is made DinaC.
Le Dix = gorgeous.
Portia xx
That’s a great list, Portia! My ‘finds’ for 2024 were more ‘note’ than actual perfume, though.. I dunno.
Okay – the note/notes: Coconut and vanilla. Yeah.. I know.. I’ve been doing this HOW LONG? But seriously, those were two notes I deliberately avoided! Now I’m kinda in lurrrve.
I did brave LUSH – and was rewarded with See & Be Seen, which has a permanent place in my shower. I’ve found that LUSH bath stuff is experiential and doesn’t really hang around, but that’s okay – my shower time is about the shower, not whether it stays on my skin for eons. S&BS is a glorious, jammy rose – reminds me of the Amouage attars (yesh!)
Mandy’s work is always so spectacular – and this sounds very spectacular. hmmm…
Hey Musette,
YAY for new discoveries and love. One of the things I most like about this hobby is how our tastes change.
LUSH! I keep filling a basket and then emptying it. There is SO MUCH body wash in this house, I’d like to use some up.
LOVE Mandy’s work, this is a really good one.
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.
Tom,
We now have to make dedicated time to test new because we already have everything we need. I’m late to the party so often that this year I decided to try a few.
Portia xx
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 😀
WOO HOO for happy shopping surprises March. I’m excited to read what you got.
Yeah, STC has saved my bacon from stagnating in 2024, and probably will again in 2025.
Portia xx
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
I’m too scared to download it right now. When I’m more flush it will definitely happen.
It only lets you buy within four weeks of a flight that is already booked. You pay on collection.
Though when I collected my order at Palma airport in November, the picker had put in 100mls of JM Velvet Rose & Oud rather than the 50ml I had ordered. The assistant on the desk then told me that everything was paid for. I’m far too honest & insisted on the smaller bottle & that I still needed to pay! A manager was called by the assistant who was adamant I’d already paid & the order was correct.
The manager was very kind when dealing with the assistant but agreed with me on both the order & payment!
OK, good to know
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
Fern Green is one of my favorites too. I like to think it brings out my eyes..
I think the Century City Lush must have some very good exhaust fans- I do remember the one on Beverly Drive had a miasma that made me want to cross the street, not just not enter.
I think the ones I smell also pump huge amounts of scent into the surrounding area Tom. Walked past one today that was closed but with a mesh roller door and it was a very mild scent.
Like Tom, my local Lush seems to have a good exhaust system and so visiting is reasonably pleasant. I like green but more in nature than on me. I have this memory — and I don’t get why it has stuck — of trying on summer linen dresses in Bloomingdales NYC decades ago. A black one and a pale green one in the same style. I really wanted to buy the green one because it was a change from black. But it looked hideous. So, I left the shop with the black one …
BUMMER about the green, glad they had one that suited though.