Rena (some of you know her as thegoddessrena) is back for her third Monday Mail (see 2012 and 2013). She's heading to Brussels at the end of the month, and hopes to do some perfume shopping while her husband attends a conference. She wants to buy 2 or 3 fragrances, and her total budget tops out at $600.
Her criteria:
She like to hear about fragrances she can't easily smell in Boston, and if you know where she can smell them in Brussels that would be helpful too.
She prefers rich, full scents over sheer ones and tends not to go for citrus based colognes.
Her favorite notes are gardenia, carnation, tuberose, jasmine, honey, cardamom, light animalics, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, grains and oakmoss.
Her least favorite notes are lily of the valley, lily and white musks.
Rena's all time favorite perfumes include Parfums de Nicolaï Sacrebleu, Guerlain Iris Ganache, White Shoulders, Hermès L'Ambre des Merveilles, L'Artisan Parfumeur La Haie Fleurie & Safran Troublant, Geo F Trumper Milk of Flowers, Lostmarch Lann-Ael, EnVoyage Indigo Vanille and Soivohle Amun Re:The Tears of Ra.
Her recent purchases include Angela Ciampagna Fauni, Cognoscenti No 17 Civet Chypre, Bogue Profumo I Love YY, Sixteen92 Mercy Lewis, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Sharkskin, Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia and vintage Tuvache Jungle Gardenia Parfum.
What say you?
Note: image is post_te [cropped] by fedewild at flickr; some rights reserved.
Senteurs d’Ailleurs is a good shop with a large collection of mostly niche scents and it has nice staff. Close to Senteurs is a Guerlain shop.
Beauty by Kroonen and Brown carries Neela Vermeire. I’ve never visited there myself but it might be worth checking out.
Senteurs and Guerlain are both in the Louiza area and Kroonen is close to the Beaux Arts museum.
Also the Planet Parfum shops in Brussels carry quite a large selection of fragrances so you might want to hop into one of those as well.
That’s already most recommendations for Brussels. I’ll add two; Parfum D’Ambre in Ixelles (not that far from senteurs d’ailleurs) carries a lot of niche brands. Also worth checking out is the new player in town, Smell Stories, right at the heart of the city centre, and carries a lot of brands not elsewhere to be found in Brussels (e.g. Gallivant, Timothy Han, Schwarzlose, etc. Good luck!!
Isn’t Parfum d’Ambre on Rue de Bailli?
It sure is. Definitely worth a visit. I don’t know if the owner still has his own line of ylang scents, but if he does, they’re absolutely worth checking out, especially Anjouan.
I’ve often walked past it as one of ‘my’ tea shops is on Bailli. I’ll be sure to make a visit to Parfum d’Ambre next time I’m in Brussels.
What is the owner’s brand? A line devoted to ylang ylang sounds fun
It’s called Indices. He has been to the actual islands where the three varieties of ylang are grown, and worked with the growers and a perfumer to make three scents that highlighted the specific qualities of each variety and call to mind the islands themselves.
Definitely sniff Guerlain Embruns d’Ylang. Great scent and I am not even huge on ylang ylang but it’s great.
Definitely go to Senteurs d’Ailleurs. They do have some lines you can’t find in Boston, for example, they carry Ormonde Jayne. They speak English there so you can get some help from a knowledgable SA to guide you to something you might like.
Since Ormond Jayne was suggested, I recommend you to try Nawab of Oudh and Tsarina!
and you could look out for trying Dusita perfumes