Kings & Queens

Perfume Shrine likes to look at new things and when a favourite brand branches out, here we are following the trail like a scenthound. Korres, the Greek skincare and makeup line that has taken the world by storm has launched a separate new body care line, named "For Kings and Queens".The idea behind it is to link specific royal persons with scents associated with their life and beliefs. Naturally, Perfume Shrine's interest was piqued!

Perusing the line there is a wealth of famous people inspiring shower gels and body creams. Beginning back in antiquity, Caspar is associated with Myrrh (it smells somptuous!), the fragrant gift of the Magi to baby Jesus, while Nefertiti takes her bath in Honey. Her name means "beautiful woman who has arrived" and it is inferred that her beauty rituals were complimentary to her loveliness.
Queen of Sheba inspired Pistachio (an unusual choice, don't you agree!) because she was so mad about its taste and aroma that she ordered the country's crops to be solely distributed to her Court.
King Solomon gave the inspiration for Cedar (a very smooth, austere yet sensual smell). The king of Israel, responsible for building the first Temple of Jerusalem used almost only cedar for its amazing properties of resisting decay and smelling fragrantly pious.

The exotics are well taken care of: King of Ceylon has a penchant for Cinnamon, a product accountable for the antagonism of the Dutch, British and Portuguese fighting over control of the island.
Indian Maharajas opt for Mahogany, a woody fragrance inspired by the reddish timber. The King of Sumatra is tied to Pepper and Bergamot : pepper was the most highly prized spice till well into the Middle Ages due to its admirable hot aroma that helped fight bacteria and repel insects which might tamper with food. In Sumatra black pepper has become the stuff of legend with pirates and colonialists fighting over loads of the black gem in merchant ships. The composition is complimented with a classical Mediterranean citrusy tang of bergamot.
Pre-Colombian Aztek Kings are catered for by a spicy Vanilla Pear blend which derives its popularity from its purpoted aphrodisiac properties, accounting for its extensive use among the kings and their wives (along with cocoa). The composition is complimented with a tinge of fresh pear.

Some unidentified Princess of China goes for Jasmine: that one predictably did have me sniffing and resniffing and the association is a particularly dreamy one: since jasmine is such a potent love potion for the mind that awakens feelings of love and passion, she had ordered her gardens to be solely planted with jasmine so that her lover would never forget his vows. A wonderful choice for spring and summer!

Reverting to Europe, I really liked the aroma of Tobacco, associated with Tsar Peter the Great, who actually did favour the habit of smoking himself and encouraged it during his reign, despite the laws against it, since its introduction to Western Europe. The scent is deep with a hint of sweetness and a very subtle citrusy top. I bought this one on the spot, to layer with my leathery scents.
George the III, another European king is associated with Lime: the obscure reason is not tied to his particular preference for the fruit, but rather to his orders for sailors of the Royal Navy to consume lime juice along with their booze to help fight the most dangerous disease of sailors of the past: scurvy, a deficiency in vitamin C due to shortage of fresh produce in ships.
Orange quickly became the fruit of the aristocracy when it was brought back to Europe by Portuguese colonialists travelling to Southeast Asia, but there was no tester for me to get an idea how successful the rendition was.
Queen Isabella of Spain inspired the Cinnamon Orange shower gel and lotion, which marries the spicy taste of cinnamon to fresh orange blossom.
I really liked the Lemon Flower of the Sultans Nasrid of Granada: it reminded me of a warm summer walking in the city full of lemon trees and the cool evening breeze bringing the heavenly smell while passing by the Mauritanic Palace walls. This is my next buy, to layer with Fleurs de Citronnier by Serge Lutens!

The texture of Tobacco is more like liquid caramel and quite dark blackish brown (which is interesting!), somehow coming out in diaphanous big blobs out of the bottle. I don't know if this is characteristic of each and everyone of them though. Nevertheless, to their credit, they are all manufactured without mineral oil nor parabens.
The body butters and lotions come in 9 scents so far, with plans to include more. Some of them are shimmering lotions, such as Caspar Murrh and Chinese Princess Jasmine. While others are thicker, in a texture of body butter, such as Nefertiti Honey; or more runny like a body milk, such as George III Lime. All the products are enriched with Pomegranate, Blue Egyptian Lotus and Malachite (!) extracts.
The bottles are all enrobed in swirly pattenrs of contrasting colours with a different font for each one complimenting the historical trivia.
The prices are more than reasonable, making the line an everyday indulgence.


The official site is really well made with lots of wonderful trivia, a breakdown of the psychological types of everyday royalty (like the Scene Stealer, the Natural Performer or the City Nomad), cult personalities making a cameo appearence and everyday people asnwering questions about their personal kingdoms.

For our friends in the UK, some of them are available at Asos.com

You can email them with querries at: Atyourservice@forkingsandqueens.com

NEXT: a fun feature!! Check back shortly to see ;-)

Pics from Beautycom.gr

Who are we Wearing Perfume for, really?

The above question often crops on perfume discussion fora, on which lovers of fragrances often give the resounding answer "for myself". While I can very well understand and embrace this achillean confidence which aficionados display, I have come to think of it in depth and postulate that there is a grain of self-persuasion in this. How much does perception -both quantitative and qualitative- of a fragrance by our entourage affects our decisions really?

First of all there is the easier factor of the two: quantity. No one wants to go overboard and overapply fragrance. The effect is generally considered repulsive instead of attractive and lately in cubicle-space environments it has started taking a very tangible turn for a perfume anti-mania. Reading on Bella Sugar, I came across this post in which the writer contemplates how her own habit of wearing Angel might be perceived after a smelly incident of another passenger on the commute.
What was most interesting was reading the comments of readers. One of them states:

"I wear what I like, the only person I may sometimes try to please is my boyfriend".

In a way this is almost the nullification of the usual statement that we only wear something for ourselves! Because only too often our other half might not agree with our perfume choices. There is also the desire to please that significant other, thus opting to wear something for their sake or shunning something due to their dislike towards it.
Another declares:

"I wear what I like...I don't think I ever overdo it either".

This is also loaded of the consiousness that applying a little more liberally might offend, which is to be avoided. How far that is from shunning an odour as well as the amount of odour we choose to emit?
This statement is also quite revealing:

"Everyone seems to get offended or in an uproar about something these days. So I just wear what I like and do not care. I would rather smell a nice perfume on a person than their own scent after a day's work."

The persecution mania after perfume wearers has piqued the interest of Perfume Shrine before, when a real incident in Canada gave us food for thought. In a streak of rebellion against too much political correctness one might be tempted to purposely do their own thing regardless.
Additionally:

"When I wear scents its purely for the thought of making me feel good and clean and feminine. If it depended on anybody else I wouldn't wear it. I could care less about luring someone in with womanly wiles, scents, whatever."

Please note the semiotics of "good", "clean", "feminine": perfume has a very demanding task to perform! Besides, although "clean" is a more or less objective term and "feel good" is perceived by the wearer -somewhat dependent on the other attributes, one feels- the term "feminine" is filled with nuance. By its nature it is defined through comparison and juxtaposition. It's not "female", but "feminine" ~who defines what is and what is not feminine?


On Beaut.ie blog, I came across another question: whether one influences one's partner in beauty and scent choice decisions. It is another very valid consideration! One does shape the preferences of one's significant other to some degree at least. Or the old adage if one didn't click with another, the two wouldn't be together applies.

Last but not least on the list of references, on Makeupalley member Winterwheat posted a fascinating quote about whether or not to wear perfume on a job interview:

"Female applicants fared best when wearing no perfume, next best when wearing typically masculine perfume. Both male and female applicants who wore typically feminine perfume did the worst. There's a second study in the same article that looks at the moderating role of sex of interviewer, and it turns out that female interviewers will be more forgiving of female applicants with typically feminine perfume, but male interviewers will not".

~Cczesny, S., & Stahlberg, D. (2002). The influence of gender-stereotyped perfumes on leadership attribution. (European Journal of Social Psychology, 32, 815-828).

Perception and stereotypes are everything, it seems!

The matter of perfume acting as a powerful attraction amulet is rampant in folklore as well as modern pop culture. It is the most common question in discussion fora and emails. Whether there is any truth to it or not is matter for another article and it merits a lengthy discussion at that. The fact that it is accepted and thought upon by so many, however, indicates that there is a prevalent desire to subtly manipulate one’s milieu or sexual prey through the power of olfaction.
Every time we reach for something that has a perceived vibe of “old money” or being artsy we are responding to a need to assert our pedigree and good taste. When we reach for something warm, soft and cuddly we are transmitting our deeper need to be treated with tenderness and care. On those occassions when we pick the dynamo that will get us noticed across a room, we are not only secretly admitting a weakness to ourselves but tough it out through a means that is known only to us but perceptible to all. When we choose to wear something “hip”, we are secretly reverting to our high school uniform becoming a “me too” entity that is accepted for its integration capability. And last but not least, at those instants when we go for the weird and the antisocial we are marking our individual territory much like a feline who is segregating his area of dominance.

On another plane, we are also influenced by choices made for us through osmosis. There is something about peer pressue as well as its complete antithesis: differentiation among peers. They are both sides of the same coin, really: the axis is that in both cases the point of departure is the Other ~compliance or rebellion in relation to someone else.

So what is my point? That true, completely self-taken, insular decision on anything that has to do with taste is a rare thing. Almost like snow in August; even rarer, like a miracle by the Madonna of Lourdes.
The opinions we have heard, the compliments we received or the detractors we have endured, the memories we have of certain smells (and most importantly the sensory/sentimental value we have put upon them depending on the latter being pleasant or unpleasant), our eco-awareness or lack thereof, even our political decisions having to do with who we would like to give our money to, they all shape us. They all contribute in what we choose in the end.

So my theory goes than even if we love the smell of something as non-perfume-related as woodfire, this is not a pre-shaped gene that was passed on to us, nor a spontaneous decision that arose out of the blue, but a formative experience that has resulted in the manifestation of a specific sensibility.
In the words of John Donne: "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main" (Meditation XVII). And no woman either, says Perfume Shrine.

Pic Ball Park Jebusite/Flickr. Pic of Clive Christian perfume courtesy of Living Scotsman.

The Making of a Perfume

The newest Yves Saint Laurent perfume, Elle, got a sweeping advertising campaign replete with a little clip of the Making Of. Perfume Shrine brings it to you for your witty commentary.
Jacques Cavallier (the one in the dark clothing) and Olivier Cresp talk about the creation of their latest feminine fragrance by Yves Saint Laurent. Please note that this seems to be an official demonstration clip!


(uploaded by elleYSL)

It is rather interesting that those two esteemed noses go on and on about femininity with a masculine touch (emblematic of Yves Saint Laurent modes), originality and vision: to me Elle had none of those aspects to any great degree, I confess.
It is also rather odd that they hold the jars of different raw materials (plants and flowers) for the camera, demonstrating their inclusion in the composition. There is a subtle illusion here, as if the materials are actually ingrained in the juice, which is not always the case as we well know. Of course the official formula never makes it out to the public and so any insider info I might be divulging to you from time to time is just that: insider info.
But holding up tubes of aromachemicals detracts from the "dream" of fragrance being all about exoticism and naturalness, I gather. (Even if Cavallier and Cresp would wanted to, I doubt the marketing executives would let them do that!)

For some reason the patchouli used in the majority of recent feminine releases does not smell especially natural to me: it lacks the mellowness and dirtiness of natural, aged, good quality patchouli which I have in my little inventory at home and Elle is no exception. Instead it is clean, hinting at shadowy, but not quite. Pleasant no doubt, but has overcome its welcome becoming ubiquitous.

Here is the accompanying commercial for Elle, with canadian supermodel Coco Rocha.(Now there's a name!) She's much younger than appearing to be in this, but the styling of Le Smoking eternel is smashing I have to admit.


(uploaded by laurentCM)

But to tell you the truth, I had the most fun while reading this story by blogger Kristopher Dukes. It's a classic!! Seriously, go read it!

Please check back later for another surprise post on perception.

Spring Anticipation-a Joint Project from Two Sides of the World

Where I live spring has already come and it’s raining sunray upon sunray on us to the delight of the inner child that wants to come out and play. So in an anthem to spring, these are the things I anticipate to enjoy in these next few months, arbitralily noted down in varied categories. The Non Blonde joined me in this list, so you might want to check it.
I hope you find them inspiring!

Art

I am eager to see the exhibition of one of the artists I follow, John Psychopedis, founder of the New Realists group using ready-made elements from advertising, cinema and press in combination with concepts inspired by History of Art and Marxist doctrine.
It opens today and will run through the end of April.(pic:"rereading Odyssey")

Books

1.The retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" is a book with watercolors by Angela Barrett. It’s filled with ethereal pictures, of which the two-page spreads in particular are trully beautiful! And while we're at it, the illustrations on this version, are also gorgeous.

2.Sometimes spring can be lenient with a little light reading, for which I look forward to French Trysts: Secrets of a Courtesan by Kirsten Lobe. It doesn’t pretend to be too serious and I deem this a virtue.

3.Les Amants Papillons (aka The Butterfly Lovers) is a French book by the children's book illustrator, Benjamin Lacombe. The visual aspect of it with its glowing colours and shadowy little corners had captured my eye the moment I stumbled upon it on French Amazon. I plan on reading it spraying Mitsouko on my clothes first.

4.Under the smart recommendation of Vidabo/Lou from Perfume of Life, I am anticipating reading a book by Carl Wilson, who explores both his dislike of Celine Dion and the wider socio-cultural phenomenon of 'taste': aptly called "Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste". Sounds like my kind of thing.

Fashion
Wearing bright, happy colours again!



{dress by Diane Von Furstenberg, from New York magazine Spring Fashion 08}

Films

1.The Other Boleyn Girl: predictably I will be annoyed by historical innacuracies, but I am sure I will love the sumptuous costumes created by awe-inspiring Sandy Powell.
The line "Our daughters are being traded like cattle for the advancement of men" gives the gist of the story. But you knew that.

Watch the trailer here:


2.Lust, Caution by Ang Lee: I managed to miss it when it aired, it’s by Ang Lee, it’s a love tale cum espionage thriller in times of peril, the actors are sooo pretty, I just want to see it…Enough with the excuses!
Watch the clip here.


Food

Good, fresh strawberries with thick, unsweetened cream on top. Yum!
Ladurée macaroons in cassis-violet flavour: someone is sending me some! I love how the fruity tang compliments the sweeter aspect and the colour appeals to me.



Fragrances to wear and enjoy

I have missed my florals...So these come out to the front of the rotation.

~Czech & Speake Mimosa: the true essence of “clean” ~trully lovely!
~Christian Dior Diorissimo: innocence and fraility of style never goes out of fashion and this is one extrait de parfum worth seeking out
~L'artisan La chasse aux papillons: another study in innocence, a watercolour of spring snapshots
~Stella Rose Absolue: for the sultrier moments, a great bridge scent from winter to spring
~Guerlain Flora Nerolia: the sentiment of walking under bitter orange trees and jasmine vines
~Carthusia Fiori di Capri: a chypre floral that emits woody hues of carnation
~Serge Lutens Tubéreuse Criminelle: a twist in the nubile hand of spring, a masterpiece of evil composition
~Serge Lutens Sarrasins: because I reserve A la Nuit for warm summer nights...
~Chanel No.22: its crepuscular tonality suits cool evening breezes when the sun melts into the horizon
~Chanel No.19: because a little je m'en fou in the mornings , donning crisp white shirts and lots of silver bangles, never hurt anyone. "L'audace a son numéro!"
~DelRae Debut: because I am smitten with its green rush
~DelRae Amoureuse: because I am smitten fullstop. I would, wouldn’t I?

Fragrances to sniff:

~Serge Lutens Five O'Clock au Gingembre: the new fresh oriental with bergamot, vetiver, ginger, beeswax, cistus labdanum and vanilla. I don’t know if it will deliver, but it’s got its own little appointment.
~Chanel Sycomore: the latest member in Les Exclusifs, reportedly a vetiver interpretation that bears no relation with the original from the start of the 20th century. Still….

Home
Fresh flowers in the house, preferably lilacs and violets: they remind me of Easter.
Diptyque Mimosa room spray: the closest to the real smell of mimosa!

Jewels

1. I love the bold look of this season: my chance to get out the trully striking pieces.
The pics shows a Dries Van Noten Tiger Eye necklace, $1,060, an amber layered necklace, $1,210, and a jade necklace on yellow ribbon, price upon request; Go to driesvannoten.be for more information. From New York magazine


2. I just knew perfume lovers would appreciate this!
Perfume tray story box by Sweet Romance

3.And this one as well….the perfect amulet against day to day evil, n’est-ce pas?
Florentina Perfume Flask Necklace by Sweet Romance

4.I am getting my Van Cleef & Arpels bracelets with the butterflies out for a stroll...


Makeup

Guerlain Parure Powder: Because I want to see just why they decided to discontinue the homonymous fragrance for this!

Nature
Butterflies flying around (caterpillars are everywhere now!)
Cats having kittens
Bitter orange (citrus aurantia) trees blossoming
Lilacs happily blooming in April (despite T.S Elliot's famous verse)
People having a spring in their step due to spring's magic
Babies squinting in the sun

Project to be undertaken next for my own enjoyment
Movies that reproduce art paintings. I got the idea and got started from this page.

Skincare

Goutal Crème Splendide with rose extracts. Smells divine!

Soap

I just bought a travel case of Roger & Gallet Magnolia soap and I am admiring it in its box, secretly opening and taking a whiff every now and then. I am already dreaming of the pink suds.

Stationery

I had never paid enough attention to my stationary and I decided I should remedy that. These hand-pierced cards look dreamily elegant and I already imagine them scented in serene Extrait de Songe.

Travel
Tuscany...hopefully soon!



For more things to anticipate this spring, please click over to The Non Blonde.


What are you anticipating this spring? I'd love to hear!

Pics personal and courtesy of Photolife, eikastikon, New York magazine, amazon.fr, garden.co.uk, Ladurée.

A Pat on the Back

Perfume Shrine is usually not polishing its own laurels. Well, at least not if we can help it! However sometimes a little tidbit surfacing out of the most unexpected sources is heart-warming.
I came across this lovely congratulating quote by Dain on the Lipstic Page:

"While we're at it, I think Perfume Shrine is perhaps the most marvelous perfume blog out there"

{seen here}

Dain, I don't know you, I don't know how you came to this -perhaps erroneous- conclusion, but thank you for your wonderful compliment from my heart.

Funny Tshirt courtesy of engrish.com