10 days ago I put out a call for help to aid me in choosing a suitable gift for my grandma for her 80th birthday. It’s safe to say that I was completely blown away by the many wonderful and thoughtful responses that the post received, it was great to see the plethora of well wishes for Big G (which I passed on to her and she was very touched) as well as the number of interesting and befitting suggestions for her birthday perfume.

The suggestions ranged across all genres and included perfumes from Mona di Orio, Frederic Malle, Guerlain, Amouage, Puredistance, Chanel, Dior and Ormonde Jayne, and that’s just to name a few. Classy names for a classy broad!

I do have to say a massive thank you for all of the suggestions that you all so kindly put forward, we may not have picked a perfume that was put forward in the post BUT we did consider all of the suggestions very carefully and we definitely have a wealth of choice for future perfume presents for grandma in the future!

So which perfume did we get?

Nigel and I definitely wanted to buy grandma a perfume that was special, something that was appropriate for such a momentous occasion, but was also something that she would know was special. It was clear from a lot of the suggestions I received that a bottle of Insolence Extrait by Guerlain would fit the bill perfectly, seeing as grandma had picked it as her ‘Desert Island Perfume’ in her instalment of the Scented Lives series. Insolence would have been perfect had we not discovered the wondrous golden liquid that is Idylle Extrait.

When visiting our local department store to seek out Insolence in Extrait form (would you believe that there are NO testers in any of the three big named department stores here, tut tut) we came across the tester of Idylle in its purest form. Now, I like Idylle but it definitely isn’t my favourite Guerlain and I definitely wouldn’t have considered it as a gift until I tried the Extrait. Idylle, in Extrait concentration is a beautiful rose/patchouli chypre that is is much richer and darker than the Eau de Parfum, yet it still retains the beautiful ‘mist of flowers’ that made the original so wonderful. A golden chypre for a golden gal on a golden day.

Today is grandma’s 80th birthday, but we celebrated on Saturday. We had a wonderful day with great food and all the family came together, including grandma’s first great grandchild and my nephew Franio who is only two weeks old. Grandma loved her present and she was spoiled rotten, which is just the way it should be!

Disclaimer

Image 1 my own
Image 2 beautyscene.nl