Gwen's blog

Image - Duomo di Milano - perfumeniche.com

Image - perfumeniche.com

^{Palais des papes, Avignon, France, Sept. 2008 by Jean-Marc Rosiers - Wikipedia.com}

^{perfumeniche.com}

Just on the northern edge of Place Vendome in Paris is Parfums MONTALE, where Pierre Montale sells his juice. Montale is interesting because he has two distinct perfume lines: a line of regular perfumes and one based on ouds; the latter is what he is most known for. When I last visited the shop, I asked the SA what was their best seller. She told me it was Black Aoud, so naturally, I bought Aoud Cuir d’Arabie.

Last week I met a good friend for lunch. She loves amber jewellery and she has many great pieces. At lunch she flashed her latest acquisition in front of me and said, “Isn’t it to die for?” Actually, it was gorgeous, and I told her so.  But truth be told, I don’t get the whole amber jewellery thing. It’s old sap (NOTE: technically, it’s a resin not sap, but I remain unswayed) with bits of dead bugs and plants in it.

 ^{Image-wikipedia.com - A small fire in a backyard pit by John Sullivan}

I was sniffiin’ around Sephora on a Saturday afternoon, as is my wont, when I came across Elixir Patchouli by Réminiscence. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure I have to say I’m not a big patchouli fan. It’s an awesome ingredient, and I love it as part of the mix (like in Orange Star by Andy Tauer), but as the star of the show it can be overwhelming, so for me, it needs some taming. I’m just putting that out there. I mean, you can’t love everything right?

^{Photo: perfumeniche.com. Comme des Garçons store ( I kid you not) in Chelsea, NYC}

I was talking to someone about perfume the other day (natch) and we were talking about a particular scent when they said “Eeeewww! It has synthetics in it!” Her reaction isn’t that surprising given the prejudice towards anything synthetic, especially in perfumes.