Many thanks to all for your patience....It's taken me a bit after my father (Who at 92 is still a bit of a sprite himself!) to get my magic back after he landed in the hospital for more then an extended stay last week! But perfume is my favorite potion of choice and with these incredible fragrances I'm coming back to life rather quickly after such an extended faint.....One of the things that's so interesting to me about natural and botanical fragrances is that upon first sniff they all seem so similar. I realized within seconds that what I was missing was the piercing shrieks of the synthetics, the aldehydes etc... the crazy library of faux fragrances that we've come to look upon as normal. What becomes quickly apparent are the nuances, the subtleties of energy that are provoked when you begin to enter the very original world of the naturals.I've never met one that wasn't absolutely and sensationally beautiful.
I've fallen quite in love with Robin Goodfellow, or as I've come to know him because we are on rather intimate terms "Puck"! Robin is the extraordinarily lovely creation of perfumer Anne Walsh . To comment that Robin is bewitching would be an understatement and I'm immediately whisked away to a place I've never been with a most devastatingly handsome companion. Masculine it is upon first sniff, but in the most androgynous of ways. Many wonderful accords and tinctures bust most notably Kaffir lime and bergamot give this instantly the feeling of a very sexy eau de cologne but suddenly the jasmine and night queen arrive, creating a sensual juicy almost fleshy feeling. Suddenly I can't help imagining that I'm bathing under the blissful canape of a warm waterfall , surrounded by steamy clouds of fragrant jasmine flowers. My husband sniffed this on on my neck and murmured "Hmmm...sweet.." By the time the Pitanga and Vetiver arrived I was blissfully satisfied, but not satiated. Robin is a beautiful perfume, sultry and sweet and I imagine that he'll be able to weave his magic spell with me for quite a long while......
I begin to tingle happily whenever I see anything arrive in my mailbox from Joanne Bassett who lives blissfully near the ocean in my beloved Southern California. Her fragrance for this Midsummers event "Night Queen" was no exception. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil immediately sprang to mind....I love the south and all of it's wonderful contradictions, but most especially I adore the fragrance that hangs in the air anywhere near Savannah. "Night Queen" is wonderful....a sort of sticky (in the nicest way) sweet yet very fresh fragrance that makes me want to wander languidly through a beautiful old southern cemetery with my husband contemplating the fleeting nature of the the flesh...."Reine de Nuit" is a perfume for that moment when dusk moves into night...a time when anything is possible. There are 17 wonderful oils used here, far to many to name but all simply wonderful. Beginning with the fragrant night queen, damask rose, tuberose and moving through vintage jasmine, clove and violet this is a spellbinding fragrance that is impossible to resist. This isn't a sweet little daytime perfume so let yourself be swept away and enchanted...but beware ...once you've been carried away by the charms of the Night Queen, absolutely no other will do.
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk roses and with englantine....."
Shelley Waddington's absolutely exquisite Titania is my favorite sort of perfume , a luscious, fruity herb and spice filled fougere that just makes my heart song every time I smell it. Shelley described her delicious Titania as peacefully playful and I agree....this lovely fragrance is simply happiness in a bottle. All of my favorite friends are there , Fresh basil, mint and Hidcote lavender.....mosses, ferns, wild rose and heliotope ,all these and so many more. There is a base of honey, exotic woods and nuts that grounds this intoxicating brew. I'm left remembering one of my most treasured moments; a walk through the Cloisters in New York City with my beloved husband. As we wandered hand and hand through the beautifully scented Medieval gardens there was no other place in the world that I could have wanted to be. When we got to the room with the incredible French Unicorn tapestries I was in absolute heaven. Shelley's Titania provoked that memory for me as soon as I smelled it....Love at first site just like it was with my husband so many centuries ago......
I can't resist a perfume that claims...."If you don't want to get laid, don't wear it". Pan by Ambrosia is a perfume that I think could definitely live up to that challenge. It's very masculine, like the horned God himself and the muskiness mixed into the delicious blend of rosemary, thyme, marjoram and Indian Patchouli is delightful and exquisitely sexy in a sort of "roll around naked and sweaty in the tall grass sort of way" and it smells incredible on my husband, better than it does on me and I think that this one takes a man to unleash it's potency. Pan is quite herbaceous but there's also something in it that reminds me of my horse Henry when we've been galloping around in the dense woods for a bit and he's fairly sweaty and so am I. It's that fine line between animal passion and human playfulness that I think that she's captured here and she's done it very well. At first sniff Pan seems simple and then suddenly you're enslaved by his lovely flutes. Follow him anywhere but at your own risk.....unplanned risky delightful sex in a bottle this one is:)
Peaseblossom - The Scented Djinn
Immediately upon sniffing Peaseblossom I began to blush. Justine at The Scented Djinn has created a wonderful perfume that took me back immediately to long summer afternoons at the barn, warm straw and sweet oats, ponies and sweet corn and of course..boys. Peaseblossom is a quiet perfume that warms up as soon as it touches your skin, melting into something very sweet , familiar and relaxing. The tinctured wheatgrass is fascinating and delightfully green and I love perfumes with vanilla, oakmoss and tonka and honey; Peaseblossom has plenty of that softly resinous quality to make me happy. This is a bottle full of sweet meadow grasses and windfall apples on a warm autumn day and there's also a bit of something delightful and leathery although I'm not sure what that is. There's something a a sweetly stolen kiss here...fleeting yet delicate, a touch wicked but innocent and definitely the stuff that more than a few young girls fantasies are made of.
More sweetly scented stories to come...... For more impressions of all the incredible perfumes in this project, please visit these participating blogs: Bloody Frida WAFTbyCarol EauMG Feminine Things All I am – a Redhead Perfume Pharmer Le Parfumeur Rebelle Scent Hive Fragrance Belles-Lettres: The Magazine Esscentual Alchemy's Blog Perfume Smellin Things All photos by me....please don't use without my written consent!
