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Browsing by tag: olympic orchids

Olympic Orchids Tropic of Capricorn ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 23 April 2018 27 Comments

Occasionally reviews describe a fragrance as smelling “vintage.” To me, it signals that the fragrance follows the conventions of a classic perfume style, like a floral aldehyde with a musk-sandalwood-vetiver base, or a mossy chypre. Besides that, it often means that a perfume simply isn’t fashionable.

Olympic Orchids Tropic of Capricorn smells vintage, in the animalic, leathery way of Caron Narcisse Noir Extrait. It’s definitely not fashionable, but it has a lot of style. This is a perfume for Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard…

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Olympic Orchids Mardi Gras ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 19 October 2016 14 Comments

The Carnival King

Every year in late winter New Orleans puts on a grand party like no other. It’s a rainbow-hued, glittering, skanky, riotous celebration of everything there is to celebrate, flowing in and out like a shiny snake amidst the flower-strewn, humidity-drenched, decaying streets of the French Quarter. Mardi Gras may present a polite, rich veneer of real orange blossom and vanilla, like a southern belle delicately munching on a beignet dusted with powdered sugar, but behind the pretty, festive costume are dark undercurrents of voodoo and hoodoo, midnight rituals and outrageous secrets that can only be unleashed under the protective camouflage of the innocent-looking mask.

Olympic Orchids’ description of Mardi Gras1 is pretty apt; this perfume throws open the curtain on a sullied orange blossom — half dressed, distressed and a bit sweaty…

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Top 10 Summer Fragrances 2016

Posted by Kevin on 15 July 2016 45 Comments

I didn’t realize how much I missed summer bugs (animals, not diseases) till I left Virginia as a teenager. Living on Manhattan, then Los Angeles and now Seattle doesn’t compare to the South when it comes to insect life. My childhood summers were filled with the sounds of crickets and cicadas. Butterflies put on a non-stop show in the flower gardens. Nighttime was when my grandmother and I would sit on the front porch (swatting mosquitoes, one bug I do NOT love) and watch the fireflies as we took in the heady scent of gardenias — whose white blossoms also lit up the darkness. I’d love to see a grasshopper or praying mantis, a big black-and-yellow garden spider shimmering in the sun, or a dragonfly flitting about my yard.

Here in Seattle I do get to see some beautiful moths, living their brief moments on earth holding fast to my deck screens or circling a light bulb. Tiny spiders are everywhere, inside and out, and I would never think to kill one — they work so long and hard to live and make a living. Right now in Seattle it’s the season for ten-lined June beetles (a type of scarab beetle); my cats (to my chagrin) love to chase, torment and kill June beetles, who, as they fight for their lives, raise up their antlers (yes, antlers) and make puffing sounds to ward off attacks. Here’s to bugs! (AND summer perfumes!)

Coqui Coqui Rosas Secas ~ This wonderful rose perfume smells of dried rosebuds mixing with a fresh rose bouquet; there’s also a pinch of tobacco leaf. Rosas Secas is a great rose perfume for men…

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Olympic Orchids White Cattleya ~ new perfume

Posted by Robin on 16 December 2015 5 Comments

Olympic Orchids White Cattleya

Seattle-based Olympic Orchids has launched White Cattleya, the newest addition to their orchid collection…

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