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Browsing by tag: musk

Chanel 1957 ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 26 August 2019 50 Comments

Yesterday afternoon, I walked a stretch of Paris’s gritty 19th arrondissement with a friend who lives here. “Every neighborhood has its own personality,” he said. “Yet it’s all Paris.” That’s a good way to describe the fragrances in Chanel’s Les Exclusifs line, including the latest, Chanel 1957. Each of the fragrances has its own personality, but each is Chanel. The difference is that 1957’s personality is enough like an aura to complement your own personality, too.

Olivier Polge composed 1957, and its notes include white musk, bergamot, iris, neroli, cedar, powdery accents and honey. In short, 1957 is all about layers of cloud-like musk…

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Love Potion Magical Perfumery Love Potion & Honeyed Love Potion ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 27 May 2019 12 Comments

Remember the post I did a month ago on the comic book ad for Trulove perfume? The perfumes that drive men to distraction? I just discovered its modern equivalent: the Love Potion Magickal Perfumerie.

The Love Potion Magickal Perfumerie is in downtown Vancouver, Washington, on a block that used to hum with business but is now quiet but for a bar and passersby on their way to the pawn shop on the next block. Once you’ve entered the shop, walk past the impressive collection of tarot card decks, a Star Wars teapot set, and the rack of magic wands, including reproductions of wands used in the Harry Potter movies. Tear your gaze from the glass-topped counter full of crystals and jewelry, and head to the shop’s rear.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be helped by Jennifer, a soft-voiced woman who, when I arrived, was designing perfume labels for the summer fragrance collection and who also offers psychic readings. She showed me the shelf of Love Potion fragrances created by Mara Fox, the shop’s owner (and guitarist for the 1980s rock band Precious Metal). Mara Fox’s first fragrance, created in 1986 and sold at crafts fairs, was called Love Potion. She trademarked the name…

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Aedes de Venustas Musc Encense ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 10 July 2018 14 Comments

With Aedes de Venustas Musc Encensé, it’s all about texture. A musk-centered fragrance — especially one that puts incense on the billing — could easily be stifling and itchy, a fur stole of a perfume. Musc Encensé, however, is a vapor that hangs as sheer as the waft off of a cup of tea. It’s the sort of fragrance you spray on, forget about, then later catch a whiff of something nice and realize it’s you.

Ralf Schwieger composed Musc Encensé. Its notes include clary sage, cashmeran, tonka, musk, incense and leather. The musk-savvy perfume lover will want to know what kind of musk this fragrance embraces…

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Friday scent of the day 5/11

Posted by Robin on 11 May 2018 236 Comments

Musk Friday is here! Our community project for today: wear a fragrance that fits the musk theme.

What fragrance did you pick? As always, do chime in with your scent of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.

My Parfumerie Générale Musc Maori (an idea I stole from reader BookishCook) is making me hungry.

Reminder: on 5/18 we’re celebrating Museum Day…

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Diptyque Fleur de Peau ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 21 March 2018 18 Comments

In ancient Greece, one myth stood out as the most passionate and sensual: the love between Psyche and Eros, the beauty’s quest to meet with her lover and the happy outcome of their union which led to the birth of their daughter, Hedone. Only one scent can convey this legend as a fragrance, that of musks. Equally legendary, they have the unique ability to enhance the skin with their arousing carnal accents. They are at the very heart of Fleur de Peau, as cottony and light as they are soft and moist. — Diptyque

With the launch of Fleur de Peau1, Diptyque celebrates the 50th anniversary of its first perfume — L’Eau. I’ve gotten so many suggestions on the translation of the phrase à fleur de peau (“on edge”) that I will use my own instinct regarding Eros and Psyche. Fleur de Peau = horny. So there. After wearing Fleur de Peau, I believe the agitated lovers are, in spirit, millennials.

In a recent New York Times article, The New Softies, Rachel Syme noted the types of minimalist perfumes (the ‘softies’) that appeal to millennials…

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