Entries from August 2008 ↓

autumn ante portas

Autumn is around the corner here in the middle of Europe. Even if the days are still warm and bright, the sun changed its light, and the trees get ready for their autumn fashion show, featuring colors, colors and more colors.
Every year the same story: Looking back and wondering. “ok….that’s it, right? Getting ready for [...]

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Perfume Shrine 2008-09-01 06:06:00

Due to the overwhelming participation in the latest draw for full bottles of Andy Tauer’s new and as yet unreleased Vetiver Dance , I am extending the participation deadline till Thursday midnight. Winners will be announced at the end of the week.

Th…

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Optical Scentsibilities: It’s Not Just a Game!

Some things are destined to become classics:In more ways than one.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), directed by Norman Jewison and starring Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen, is memorable for its tour-de-force of cinematography, split-scenes direction infl…

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Cholitas & Lucha Libre


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The Myth of Meritocracy


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Little Pumpkins

Happy Labor Day, folks.  Hecate and Buckethead turned six this weekend.  I can’t believe it.

We’re out playing today — visiting grandpa to open more presents, then heading to the zoo.  I asked Hecate what she wanted to visit first at the zoo and she said, the pizza!   Love that kid.   They had a [...]

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Kristen Michéle Épice Orientale: A Review

Kristen Michéle is a new niche perfumer on the scene creating some lovely fragrances. I had the opportunity to try all three of her fragrances; Épice Orientale, Fleurs Blanches and Notes Fraiches, each of which are lovely and different yet carry within them a similar thread that makes them seem obviously created by the same individual. Kristen Michéle perfumes smell to me like chic timeless

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Ruth Ruane’s Rebutal to the BBB

She put it up and then took it down again.Here is my rebuttal to the BBB and at the end what the BBB really said.===”To Whom It May Concern:On New Year’s Day I received the attached response [Click the link to down load the response that Anya McCoy p…

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Hat Collecton

Today I have been wearing my cooks hat, website designer hat, and kitty mommy hat. Miss Peggy Sue, as I have mentioned was a wild pregnant female cat who came to our house to eat. Once she had the babies I captured them all and brought them inside. Now…

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Newbie member of Natural Perfumery group posts message #1000, wins rare aromatics

Natural Perfumery Group on Yahoo is very active, with over 1600 members, 15 new ones in the past week alone, and over 1000 messages this month!Lucky Linda from Iowa introduced herself as a newbie member of the Yahoo group for Natural Perfumery that I’v…

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Natural Perfumers Guild endorses teachers teaching dangerous stuff!

I would hardly believe it myself, well except for the fact that it’s TRUE. There is a perfumer listed as endorsed on the Natural Perfumers Guild website who posted these instructions to aspiring perfumers “For instance, sandalwood, labdanum, benzoin, c…

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Thanking you Ms. Crane

I want to give credit where it’s due. Justine Crane of La Parfumeur Rebelle has been a member of Nature’s Nexus private forum a while now. From the start I noticed that she was really helpful and readily shared her perfuming knowledge with aspiring per…

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Casran by Chopard: reviewing the basenotes reviews

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CB I Hate Perfume: Investigation & Reviews

At first I entirely dismissed CB I Hate Perfume without even smelling the perfumes or knowing anything about the reason behind the name. I’d read about others loving the smell of Black March, which was described as smelling like dirt, mud, chilly cold puddles in early Spring. I thought to myself, “Why would I want to smell like that?” I figured CB I Hate Perfume was a flash in the pan. I

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Perfume Academy

“A Perfume Academy founded to provide education to aspiring perfumers and the course will be focusing purely on the use of natural materials.”Read the official press release here.

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Free Tuition, year long class in perfumery, from NNAPA

Here is the official press release written by Liz Tams. Nature’s Nexus Academy of Perfuming Arts is very proud to announce our first ever first year long course in Natural Perfumery. The academy was founded to provide education to aspiring perfumers an…

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Sleeper Standout 2: Sushi Imperiale

When Florentine perfumer Enzo Galardi entered the American market last year with his line of unisex fragrances, Bois 1920, I was going through a “niche-suspicious” phase. For the space of a few months, niche after niche seemed to be filling up, lik…

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My response to Ruth Ruane - quoting her and her past actions

My Primer for my online natural perfumery course is copyrighted.Ruth Ruane aka White Witch is a former student and former member of the huge NP group I host who has been posting, without permission, and in violation of a copyright notice, excerpts of t…

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Perfumes the Guide gets supplemented!

It was with much interest that I just received news from Luca Turin that his ~co-authored with Tania Sanchez~ book Perfumes, the Guide, which Perfume Shrine had reviewed here, is getting supplemented. Apparently the questions of dr.Turin on what the f…

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Etsy Follow Up

I have had several emails about the items on the esty site. As has been the case all along, people have been requesting that items from the etsy site and our soivohle.com site be combined in one order. Over the past couple of days I have not been re li…

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Natural Perfumers Guild Founder Mandy Aftel to Participate in Slow Food Nation Event in San Francisco September 1, 2008

Mandy Aftel of Aftelier Perfumes will present the scented side of food at an event on Monday, September 1, 2008 at Coi Restaurant, along with Chef Daniel Patterson of Coi, who co-authored the book Aroma with Mandy. You can read more about the event here.

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Natural Perfumers Guild Member Cropwatch Warns of Oakmoss Being Banned in Europe

The EU Moves Closer to Banning OakmossCedarmoss growing on Cedrus atlantica in High Atlas, Morocco.Picture: T. BurfieldIs the sale and use of fragrant lichen commoditiesto become virtually illegal in Europe?From the forthcoming Cropwatch Newsletter &am…

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My (well, Our) Dinner with Chandler Burr

Reminder! September 3rd is the deadline to enter the drawing for samples of Yatagan and L’air du desert Marocain! See “Yatagan” post for details.My (well, our) Dinner with Chandler BurrLast night I attended one of Chandler Burr’s “Scent and Savor…

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Evening Edged in Gold by Ineke : Perfume Review

After having already spent almost a decade in Europe, residing and working in England, The Netherlands and France, the Canadian-born Ineke Rühland’s heart found its true calling in Versailles, where she trained at IPSICA to become a professional nose. Currently, Ineke lives and works in beautiful San Francisco, creating her Abécédaire, the alphabet of perfumes. After A, B, C and D, the

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A Party!

You’re invited to Barbie’s end-of-summer party at her Dream House. Catered barbie-cue and cocktails under the stars. Come as you are, but ‘as you are’ should be fabulous. Your favorite perfume is a must. (Barbie will be wearing Barbie Princess EDT, wit…

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Doomsday?

Paul and I are at a weird juxtaposition of life events: at a time when our business fortunes seem to be suddenly on the rise–more sessions, more Mama Love business, a wedding photography gig we wished we didn’t have to turn down–we’ve been beset wi…

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your chance

Your chance to learn more about Vetiver dance, my newest baby, to be launched October 4: Please follow this link to Elena’s Perfumeshrine blog and make sure you take your CHANCE TO WIN ONE OF THREE BOTTLES Vetiver dance there!
Have a wonderful weekend!

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Vetiver Dance by Tauer: Fragrance Review and Draw

“She is the embodiment of grace. She flows like water, she glows like fire and has the earthiness of a mortal goddess. She has flowers in her hair, jewelled hands and kohl-dark eyes. Her eyes speak a language that her hands will translate, her feet …

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Exceptionnel de Chanel: Beyond The Hype

I wasn’t impressed with the email campaign Chanel launched for the Exceptionnel mascara. I thought it was annoying and lacking in actual information. But I was in the market for another mascara since while I appreciate what I’m getting from the dramati…

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Perfume Review: Strange Invisible Perfumes Musc Botanique

By Tom

Strange Invisible Perfumes is a house that for various reasons kind of stayed off my radar. I trekked once out to Venice to their shop, where I was wholly ignored by the young man behind the counter. Being a naturally huffy person, since he wasn’t asking if I wanted to go on his trip to Palm Springs, I huffed on in a… huff. The website used to be of such aggressive unusability that I

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Dark, rich, dirty rose

Last week I tried Magie Noire for the first time (it’s great!), and yesterday I tried another dark and dirty rose, Gucci’s sadly discontinued L’Arte di Gucci.  It’s quite something, a very rich dark rose with fruity topnotes on an earthy base with patchouli, vetiver, leather, moss, woods, and musk. It has some spice from [...]

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Random Friday: Household Hints

Everyone (okay, some of you) is/are heading off for Labor Day. Here’s some random stuff:
1) Diva went fragrance shopping with me last week; I was looking for the new Lolita Lempicka L/Fleur de Corail, but it doesn’t seem to have shown up anywhere. BTW, having retried the Kenzo Peace … I dunno. [...]

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Why American Readers should read the previous post!

I realize that the previous post is very long and may appear to apply only to Europe, but it is also important to Americans for several reasons: American companies who have signed up for the safe cosmetics compact have agreed…

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Sale / use of fragrant lichen commodities to become virtually illegal in Europe?

From the forthcoming Cropwatch Newsletter & by the Cropwatch Team (with considerable help from those who have to remain anonymous). Aug 2008 Executive summary SCCP Opinion SCCP/1131/07 ‘Opinion on Oakmoss/Treemoss’ adopted at the 15th Plenary Meeting on 15th April 2008…

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Sample Giveaway, Beacon of Light

Just dropping in for a few minutes. I put the sample giveaway packages in the mail today. Congratulations to the winners. To everyone else, better luck next time. It would also help if you included your address. A couple of the winners did forget and …

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Surfing the Monster Waves

Ever been in a situation where you were so terrified you didn’t think there was any way out of the situation you were in? Helpless, too frightened to do anything but quake in your boots? We’ve all been through times like that. And in those situations w…

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Sun and fun

The sun is shining and the summer shows us what we will miss soon again. When packing the first 60 bottles this morning, the sun was shining right into the bottles when putting them into the box.
Lovely.
(Of course, they won’t be exposed for a long time).
Thus: Enjoy this picture and an interesting review on  one [...]

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Guerlain and Chanel upcoming launches: fragrance rumours

As a coda to the Guerlain news on new fragrance we had announced the other day, we were able to find a little more info that might elucidate one of our claims. It was hypothesized that the phrase Guerlain, Une Ville, Un Parfum, recently trademarked by …

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Perfume Review: Lancome Peut-Etre

Peut-Être is the 2007 interpretation of the perfume of the same name, first released by Lancôme in 1937. I have never tried the vintage version, so I cannot provide a comparison. Having said that, the delicately feminine, refined reissue does seem to belong to a different era. There is something touchingly retro in its gentle rose note and its downy orris.

Maybe I am pathetically influenced by

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Leaving a Perfume Trail

Nothing, but nothing is catching my eye enough to write anything more than a sentence or two about it, so it’s time for just a general march of the perfumes:
Profumum Neroli — This is a pretty great Neroli perfume.  Light, effervescent on the open with some interesting long-lasting depth, while not losing that bubbly, beautiful [...]

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Coversation with Neil Morris

The conversation with Neil Morris is also posted more completely at Perfumce Critic, www.perfumecritic.com

Abigail: Hello, Neil, thank you so much for allowing me to interview you for PerfumeCritic.com. After our rather, shall we say, unusual introduction, it’s so nice to be able to do this!

If you don’t mind, let’s jump right into the good stuff!

This is my typical first question, what

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The Color Of French Lingerie: OPI Ticle My France (Fall 2008)

I’m not ready for summer to be over. But there’s something about fall collections, fall fashion and September editions of all the magazines that even I find exciting. OPI took it to the max with their fall/winter La Collection De France, which (unlike …

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Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } White Beauty, originally uploaded by tropicaLiving. Private Collection Tubero…

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Don’t Fall Asleep on the Job!

One of the drawbacks in making flower essence aromatherapy products that help people relax into sleep is making the product itself. I needed to make more Restful Sleep formula just now and kept feeling like I was about to nod off! That happened the fir…

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Running a tad behind…

I need to be out for this afternoon so that’s going to put me just a bit behind, but I should still have the current orders mailed out by Friday.  If you’re ordering today it will probably go out Monday.
We’re having a hot spell again with temps over 100 each day.   We always have one [...]

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Engage a Man’s Nobility Today!

I love men. Always have. Always will. No matter how many times they try to tell me they are all just pigs (and then set out to prove it). There’s just something about them. The way their bodies are made….

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  • Real life women I came across this interesting woman, Ruth Hamilton, yesterday, and now I can't remember where. Perhaps you've looked at my various links and seen the link to the oldest blogger -- well Ruth was even older -- 109, imagine! And embracing new technology! If you want to see and listen......

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Vetiver Series 4: the Secret of Gender in Vetiver

Have you ever watched a conjurer put a volunteer from the audience into one of those contraptions that open and close via those ornamented Chinese doors? He enters as a man, next thing you see is the magician’s attractive female assistant emerge from t…

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Incense may cause cancer

Reuters (and a lot of others) report on a study that suggests that “regularly inhaling the smoke could put people at risk of cancers of the respiratory tract.” The findings are published in the medical journal Cancer for October 1,…

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Gabriel revisited

I went to bed with Gabriel yesterday; Gabriel was version 8.0 and in a sense I slept  in angel land, with dreams waking me up again. Sleeping is like being dead, except for the fact that you dream and that you will (usually, but no warranty on that!) wake up again. In a sense, this [...]

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Which Woman Are You Tonight?

Before I forget –August 30 is the cutoff date for registering online for the Chi-Cocoa Scentsation. I think we have 35ish people!!! It’s gonna be fun. I think we’re getting a bunch of swag from the stores, plus our bottle swap, plus the afterparty… I can’t wait to meet some of you.
Also, Vogue in [...]

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