Where I live, it is the first day of autumn, and this year, September is the new August: after a wet and confusingly mild vacation season1, we look likely to celebrate a glorious Indian Summer. I have always loved the early fall, so I’m tempted, each time I select the autumnal Top 10 at Now Smell This, to stack it with all my favorite chypres, floral ambers and woody orientals. This time, to avoid boring you with repetition, I’ve chosen fragrances released in the last two to three years. I can’t promise there will be any less oakmoss than usual, but I do think I’m fruitier and more craft distilled today…
We humans get better with practice
I’ve spent 20 years learning to recognise different aromas; I make perfume for a living, and I run workshops to guide people around the world of fragrance. Apart from those whose sense of smell is irreparably damaged, we humans get better with practice pretty quickly. Even people who believe they have a terrible sense of smell are often good at it.
— Sarah McCartney of 4160Tuesdays for The Guardian. Read more at The nose has it: it’s no surprise humans’ sense of smell can be as good as dogs’.
4160Tuesdays Tart’s Knicker Drawer ~ fragrance review
I’m still happily working my way through a handful of sample vials from the independent perfumery 4160Tuesdays, and my latest crush from this house is Tart’s Knicker Drawer, a “floriental amber” with top notes of bergamot, orange, grapefruit and pink peppercorn; heart notes of raspberry, rose, jasmine, sandalwood, cedarwood, violet, tuberose and guiacwood; and basenotes of amber, musk, vanilla, benzoin and tobacco.
“Tart’s knicker drawer” is the phrase that 4160Tuesdays founder and perfumer Sarah McCartney’s grandmother used to describe women who wore too much perfume (and whose behavior was therefore questionable); McCartney created this fragrance after she’d spent a long day in her lab and was scented with the traces of six different perfumes-in-progress. When she tweeted, “I’m about to get in the E3 bus smelling like a tart’s boudoir,” she got so many enthusiastic responses (“Can I buy some?!”) that she decided to concoct a proper perfume inspired by the experience…
Up for grabs: Imaginary Authors + 4160Tuesdays
What is it: a 50 ml bottle of Imaginary Authors Slow Explosions (used lightly for testing) + a 9 ml travel spray of 4160Tuesdays Centrepiece (unused).
How do I get it: For a chance to win, leave a comment on the website telling me that you live in the US (or that you can provide a US mailing address). Then tell me either a) your favorite indie niche fragrance, or b) the best fragrance you’ve smelled in all of 2016 (so far), or c) something else you’ve been dying to post in a comment.
Be sure to use the “Post a comment” box; do not reply to another comment…
4160Tuesdays New York 1955 ~ fragrance review
When I was deciding which fragrance samples to order from 4160Tuesdays, I knew that New York 1955 was one I couldn’t omit. After all, I grew up listening to my grandparents’ and parents’ tales of the New York City in the 1950s, and this fragrance is a tribute to that era. It belongs to 4160Tuesdays’ “Vintage Tuesdays” series, described as “new scents, made the traditional way with authentic materials.”
4160Tuesdays creator and perfumer Sarah McCartney writes, “One of my favorite vintage 1950s scents was Coty’s Chantilly, named after the French town famous for its whipped cream and intricate lace. [New York 1955 is] a soft strawberry and cream perfume, decorated with crystalized rose.” The list of notes for New York 1955 includes candy floss (or cotton candy, as we call it in the United States), raspberry, rose, violet, vanilla, ambergris and musk. I’ve never tried Chantilly, but I’m partial to nearly anything with violet and rose, and I have a weakness for sweet (yet sophisticated) perfumes…