Perfume Review

Speed Sniff: L’Envol de Cartier Eau de Toilette by Cartier

L'Envol de Cartier Eau de Toilette
L’Envol de Cartier Eau de Toilette

There are so many fragrance launches each year it’s difficult to write about them all. Speed Sniffs is a way to bring you to the point reviews fragrances that are quick and easy to digest. After all, sometimes all one needs is a few lines to capture the essence of a scent. Speed Sniffs are perfume reviews without all of the faff and tell you whether the subject is something you want to sniff or not. So hurry up and read, because we don’t have much time…

I reviewed L’Envol de Cartier in its original Eau de Parfum concentration last year so I am designating this Eau de Toilette as a speed sniff, mainly because the differences between the concentrations are not huge – but they are notable, which is why L’Envol Eau de Toilette is worthy of a review. The first flanker to L’Envol presents a fresher signature, taking the honey, mead and iris notes of the original and making them weightless with citrus and gaiac wood. The result is a fresh oriental that gives wings to the complex richness of the original.

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Perfume Review: Sunny Side Up by Juliette Has a Gun

Sunny Side Up
Sunny Side Up

How do you like your eggs in the morning?

Personally I’m a ‘poached atop a slice of avocado toast’ kind-of-a-guy, but then again I am a millennial so what else would you expect? It seems that Juliette Has a Gun likes their eggs served with a generous helping of sandalwood and a side of sass, because that’s exactly what the brand’s exciting new fragrance ‘Sunny Side Up‘ offers up. Juliette Has a Gun has always been a cheeky house, but they’ve really outdone themselves with this latest launch, creating a fragrance bottle that gives a birds eye view of a fried egg, sunny side up. Genius.

Positioning Sunny Side Up as a “happy therapy”, Juliette Has a Gun’s nose and founder Romano Ricci has set out to create something that “inspires happy and positive feelings”. The scent and its visuals take on a pop art feel, with the sunny theme of bright yellow running throughout. It plays on the idea of hot days on the beach where the sun is blazing so much it’s possible to fry eggs on the skin and the playfulness of the visuals (where the sun and model’s breasts are replaced with fried eggs) alludes to the care free spirit of this happy little perfume. To create the fragrance, Ricci started with the star material of sandalwood, which he paired with musks, jasmine and a coconut milk to accentuate the sandalwood’s “unctuous tonalities”. Intrigued yet?

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Perfume Review: The Cora by Thameen

2017-08-12 15.24.32 (1)
The Cora by Thameen

I’ll be perfectly honest and say that I’ve found the fragrances from the house of Thameen to be a bit hit or miss. I fell head over heels for the dry dusty rose of Noorolain Taif, but others in the collection left me cold.  I think that the concept of fragrances inspired by famous jewels is really evocative and the presentation has this cool clash where royal blue bottles in a classic shape clash against the modernism of their black, spiked caps. What’s more, the bottles really glow when they hit the light. I just felt that some of the fragrances weren’t as dynamic as perhaps the presentation suggested they might be.

Fast forward to Thameen’s latest launch and a pleasant surprise. This launch takes its inspiration (and its name) from the Cora sun-drop diamond – the largest, yellow, pear-shaped diamond in the world (racking up an impressive 110.3 carats and forming between 1 and 3 billion years ago – no biggie), so it’s no surprise that the fragrance itself is a rather large and showy scent. Described by Thameen as a fragrance “suffused with phosphorescence”, The Cora takes the traditional white floral and injects it with an entire sun’s worth of light.

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Candy Crush: Blenheim Bouquet Classic Candle by Penhaligon’s

Candy Crush: Blenheim Bouquet Classic Candle by Penhaligon's
Candy Crush: Blenheim Bouquet Classic Candle by Penhaligon’s

I’m always crushing on something scented or other. My nose knows no limits. Candy Crush is where I showcase the beautifully scented things I’m crushing on right now so you can hopefully develop a crush too.

Scented candles are much loved at Candy Perfume Towers. We like to have them in every room to ensure that each wing, turret and chamber is appropriately scented. Apparently we also have delusions of grandeur and for the sake of honesty I really should inform you that Candy Perfume Towers is actually an end of terraced abode (a rather lovely one it must be said) and not a castle. It’s not even officially called Candy Perfume Towers. Boo to reality, we say. Boo to it!

Anyway back to scented candles. These lovely objects are great because they can really set the mood in a room and they feel like a true indulgence, making for the perfect gift or even the ultimate treat. Good candles are those that have a strong presence but don’t overwhelm and I think I may have just found one that strikes that balance perfectly. That candle is the Blenheim Bouquet Classic Candle from Penhaligon’s, which boasts a timeless scent worn by all sorts of gents, from the gentry of the early 1900s to the hipsters of today. Oh and Winston Churchill too. That’s quite the endorsement now, isn’t it?

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Speed Sniff: Splendida Iris d’Or by Bvlgari

Speed Sniff: Iris d'Or
Speed Sniff: Iris d’Or

There are so many fragrance launches each year it’s difficult to write about them all. Speed Sniffs is a way to bring you to the point reviews fragrances that are quick and easy to digest. After all, sometimes all one needs is a few lines to capture the essence of a scent. Speed Sniffs are perfume reviews without all of the faff and tell you whether the subject is something you want to sniff or not. So hurry up and read, because we don’t have much time…

Do you ever sniff a fragrance and it stops you dead in your tracks? Sometimes you really have to spend time with a fragrance to really work out its nuances, but with others you have an instant reaction to it. When this reaction is positive it makes for a magical moment where one knows that they’ve found a scent that speaks to them in an entirely new way. This is exactly how I felt when I smelled Iris d’Or from Bvlgari’s new Splendida collection.

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Five Reasons Why I’m Obsessed With Prada Candy

Candy!
Candy

I talk a lot about new stuff on the blog, mainly because there is so much new stuff out there!  I do like to keep you up to date with all the wonderfully smelly fragrances out there that are in need of sniffing, so what I bring to you is often new.  Sometimes though, I like to talk about the classics or simply those important fragrances that have done something different or have changed the face of perfumery in some unusual way.

So today I want to talk about a fragrance that isn’t new – one that I’ve had a strange relationship with.  It’s a fragrance that shares my name (well my pseudonym anyway) and it’s one that I’ve liked but I’ve never bitten the bullet and bought.  That fragrance is Prada Candy and in this post I want to share five reasons why it’s my latest obsession, despite the fact that it is far from new.  But first some history.

I was recently contacted by Fragrance Direct the online fragrance retailer who asked me to pick a scent from their extensive selection to write about.  Now I can handle most things, Dear Reader, but choice is not one of them.  Present me with a range of options and I am completely stumped.  Do I go for something new and a blind buy of something that I’ve never tried?  Or do I top up on a beloved fragrance that is running low?  Hmmm, no I know what to do, I’ll go for something I’ve always been unsure of wearing – and that’s what I did.

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