Goodbye Kay!

Kay and I have been dedicated to our perfume passions since 2011, when we began writing about our favourite fragrances and sharing them with you. We wanted you to experience the magic of niche and luxury fragrances right along with us.

Ten years is a long time, and a lot has happened in the past decade. New interests emerge, grandkids and puppies come along and so Kay has reached a decision to leave perfumeniche.com to focus on the next phase of her life.

Kay’s elegant writing style and unique voice have made her one of the top perfume reviewers out there. I know she will be missed by everyone who has read and enjoyed her writing over the years, but I will miss her most of all as I carry on perfumeniche without her. We’ve had a lot of fun this past decade, meeting perfumers, discovering scents and sharing our stories with you.

Kay is leaving but not until December 12th, so, if you’ve been thinking about ordering some special decants, especially from Kay’s stash, be sure to get your orders in to us by this date.

Gwen

 
Missoni Uomo - An elegant, gentle leather

Knowing my interest in perfume and vintage scents, a friend recently brought me a bottle of Missoni Uomo eau de toilette that she'd unearthed in her husband's wardrobe while packing for a move from house to condo. It was in the original box printed with the distinctive wavy Missoni knitwear pattern, and was half full. 

"Is it a good one?" she asked. I wasn't familiar with this 1980's men's scent so I told her to leave it with me to test and I'd let her know the next day. "Oh, that's okay, I want you to have it. Maybe it's good enough to write about." I was skeptical, because often vintage scents are past their prime or I just don't like them, but it turns out her instinct was right. Missoni Uomo is a good one, a very good one. 

Uomo was described by Missoni simply as a leather fragrance for men, but in truth it is an aromatic chypre with subtle leather notes that simmer through the dry-down. It is fresh, green, herbal, spicy, warm, floral, earthy, mossy, leathery, ambery, woody - a full-bodied and elegant fragrance that dries down in the masterful classic Italian style. 

It opens with a deliciously bitter accord of herbs and citrus and greens - basil, bergamot, lemon, galbanum, juniper berries - which deepens for about five minutes before starting to sweeten as the heart opens. Jasmine, carnation and rose are lightly sprinkled with cinnamon and coriander, cedarwood and green vetiver and patchouli add an earthy depth to the spicy florals, and Uomo becomes darker with the addition of oakmoss and soft leather notes as the base accord emerges slowly. 

A wonderful smoky powdery warmth builds in the dry-down as notes of amber, musk and tonka bean deepen, releasing subtle hints of dark vanilla and animalic skin scents that merge sensuously with the leather and oakmoss. The long dry-down is dense and complex, masterfully blended to waft elegantly for hours, never becoming intrusive or overwhelming, unlike many high-octane masculine scents from the 1980's.  

Missoni Uomo reflects the unique Missoni design aesthetic - quality materials create understated casual elegant clothing and home decorations.  A leather fragrance for men? Yes, but Uomo is a uniquely sophisticated gentle leather, easily worn by men and women. Better than many of today's overpriced niche fragrances, it's definitely "a good one", and it's a huge shame it was discontinued by Missoni.

Missoni Uomo (Vintage) is listed in our Decant Store. Decants are $6.00 for 1 ml.

 

 

Welcome to perfumeniche.com

"She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight."

                                                                       Raymond Chandler

We are Gwen and Kay, two perfumistas making our scent journey in the cool, clear North.  We are also BFFs - we hang out together a lot, travel together - so we try, buy and share fragrances.

What started out as a shared interest grew into a hobby, and has now become our obsession.

We’ve spent many evenings with a glass of prosecco, a little cool jazz playing in the background, spritzing, sniffing - “How does this smell on you?” and, sadly, sometimes scrubbing.

We’ve tested and tried hundreds of samples over the years, and when we deemed a fragrance ”full bottle worthy” (FBW), one of us has tracked it down and bought it. We now own a lot of really great perfumes, and we continue to buy bottles of what we think is the best of "niche" as new scents are launched.

Also, we include many perfume "classics" that are the foundations of modern perfumery - like Shalimar, Chanel No.5, Eau Sauvage - plus other perfume "gems" that have been discontinued, or were ahead of their time when launched but now fit perfectly in the Niche category. 

With so many exciting discoveries, we can’t help but talk about our passion with other friends. Wherever we go, people ask “What is that perfume you’re wearing? Where can I get that?” So we end up sharing a bit of our “juice” with friends. But the circle has grown, so we've started this website to let others buy and try samples from our collections and experience the fragrant beauty we write about.

WHAT WE DO

We blog

We blog once a week and post a story about a scent from our collections, and add it to our Decant Store. We're not scent critics, so these aren't negative reviews. We love all our fragrances  - that’s why we bought them! But we describe how we think they smell, and share our stories about why we love them - maybe you’ll rediscover an old flame, or fall in love with a new scent.

Or we post conversations about whatever has grabbed our attention recently. Or we write about a specific perfume note,  and offer a Decant Pack, which allows you to explore new territory by trying 3 or 4 fragrances in a special pack at a special discount price.

We sell

We sell 1 ml. decants - .7 ml volume once you allow for the stopper in the vial - filled from our own bottles in our collection because the only way to experience a fragrance is to try it on your own skin. We take the fragrance from its original bottle and decant it into a smaller brand-new, 1 ml sterilized glass vials so that you can try it on your skin to see if you like it.

Through our Decant Store you'll have access to some of the world’s greatest niche scents, hard-to-find fragrances, and classic favourites. 

When you click on the Decant Store tab you’ll find our personal descriptions of each of the fragrances we currently offer from our collection, then you can add them to your Shopping Cart.

Let's be clear (this is a disclaimer!!)

  • We don’t sell full bottles of any fragrance - just .7ml decants. We only sell decants  from the perfumes we've bought.... because we love them.
  • We don't re-sell manufacturers samples.
  • We don’t represent any perfumers or distributors, so we don’t have every scent from a whole line of perfume.
  • We aren’t being paid to promote any product or scent.

If, after sampling a fragrance, you decide that you must have it, i.e. it is FBW (full bottle worthy), and you can’t find it, e-mail us and we will direct you to the best source we know – retail store or online source.

We provide

A place for you to learn about scent, and to share your fragrance experience with others. Click on the section called Resources, under My Perfume Notes (see top right), where  you'll find a Glossary, and fragrance FAQs. You'll also find two great tools we've created - Handmaps and My Sample Perfume Notes - so you can keep track of, and record your own scent experiences.
 
We hope you enjoy perfumeniche.com, and visit us often. Leave your preconceptions behind, look around, see what’s on offer, read the Blog, share your experiences and discoveries, and join the circle.

It’s just us.