Gwen's blog

I have a single girlfriend who has made it very clear to all her friends that she would like to meet the right man. One afternoon, when I dropped round her place to return a book I had borrowed, I noticed a sports station playing on the radio in the background as we chatted.

“Since when did you start following hockey?” I asked.

My secret garden in Venice. Photo: perfumeniche.com.

Venice is a place of secrets, a result of its geography, I think. Built on 117 small islands, linked by bridges and canals, Venice is a maze of hidden entranceways, narrow corridors and passageways, just big enough for surreptitious meetings and clandestine assignations.

^{Image - Cuban cigar and rum - agoranews.it}

When I was a young, callow perfumista, I had a bias against flankers, those siblings of successful scents that often just share a fragrance note or name or packaging of the original fragrance and I dismissed them as money grabs.

Incense - photo courtesy Wiki Commons

Vertical Garden at Pershing Hall photo courtesy of Paris 75007

In 2001 French interior designer Andrée Putman introduced her first fragrance, Préparation Parfumée and my world shifted a little. I have been an admirer of her design work for years.

^{Image - Wikipedia - "Twas the Night Before Christmas" book cover}

The one post of ours that people mention the most often as their favourite is this one. Orginally posted in December 2011, we offer it here again this year.

Tuberose blossoms - profumo.it

^{Image - Wikipedia - Vanilla Extract by Yardensachs, June 2008}

^{Image - Wikipedia - Amber Room in The Catherine Palace, St. Petersberg}

^{by jeanyfan, May 2004}

^{Image - Klaus Kinski as Paganini - from moviemorlocks.com}

I am fascinated by Geza Schoen. The Berlin-based nose is hugely talented and has created fragrances for high-profile houses like Diesel and FCUK, and for smaller niche lines like Ormonde Jayne, Anat Fritz and biehl parfumkunstwerke.