Where I am fabulastically tagged....

The lovely K from Rose beyond the Thames (a wonderful blog, btw) tagged me and awarded me this fabulous award. So I have to play and expose myself yet again and again, haven't I? OK, I'll try and in the meantime award 5 more blogs with the "You're fabulous" tag.

The rules are:
1. You have to pass it (the award) on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.
2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.
3. You must copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.
Instructions: Include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. And don't forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.

So what about my ~euphemistically called fabulous~ addictions?

1.Cinematic Fixation: You all expected me to say perfume, huh? Well, no; that's a given! I am hereby confessing to visual pleasures (you might have guessed if you're following this blog). It especially focuses on David Cronenberg (ever since Videodrome and The Dead Zone; please watch that Poe recital again), David Lynch (ever since Eraserhead, The Elephant Man and Twin Peaks), Vincent Pryce (a fellow historian! how kewl!!) and Charlotte Rampling (can anyone resist the sexiest actress alive?)
Last night History of Violence was on. Guess what I was watching for the 5th time with one sleepy eye open.

2.Jewellery. No, I'm not a material girl and I don't need sugar daddies, I can get my own thank you very much (although S.O. has been quite generous). But the flutter of a decent jewel does make my heart skip a beat from time to time. This is only a part of my collection(click pic to enlarge; if interested I shall post more later), but they're current favourites. I want a Gavello ring with a skull in pink gold and small brilliants next!

3.Air-conditionning. This is even costlier than the above ultimately (darn electricity company!), but I simply can't envision summer or summer sleep without the trusted humming of my A/C unit. Please dear God, don't let failures happen.

4.Sour cherry drink by Epsa (a traditional Greek brand). My cheap indulgence, a summer staple and simply a-m-a-z-i-n-g!. Less than a euro a bottle and it has the most refreshing sour-sweet taste evah! I could drink it by the galon which is what I often do.

5.Reading. I can't help it and it sounds nerdy or pretentious, but everything within access must be devoured be it high art or lowly pulp-fiction pamphletes (I like those for balcony reading along with crosswords puzzles!). Books are friends. And we don't choose them, they choose us!

I am passing the baton to 5 more blogs (the choice was very difficult!), not strictly perfume, which fully deserve the "you're fabulous" award:

Les Tuilleries by AlbertCan: A dear friend on ethernet, but most importantly a sensitive and talented individual who writes on the arts and scents with gusto and genuine sophistication. His clips of classical music have me sorting out for the headphones, even when I should be frantically answering my mails before class.

Tea, sympathy and perfume by M: Her beautifully eclectic blog is dedicated to all flights of fancy possible through common themes in art, as well as notes of her self-smithed poetry which is elegant and thoughtful. And joy of joys, the occasional Barbie sighting brings it full circle!

Under the Cupola by L: Studying in Florence would have been my second choice, had I not succeeded into entering the preciously-difficult-to-accept-you and precariously mine-strewn National & Kapodistrian University of Athens. L is following that Florence course, finishing up her PhD while perusing rosette windows, drinking Chianti (I assume) and making discoveries in the wake of scent along the way including Calvados-inspired essences. If blogs can also present a slice of life, hers is a full-plate.

Perfume de Rosa Negra by Chris: Chris does the impossible; she tries to inject visibility to the unknown Brasil and South American perfume scene and she does it bilingually and with great skill. Reading her venue opens the vista to different cultural associations.

Fashion Tribes: Because a historian needs to dress well too and because getting inspired by Minoan wasp-waists is all very well (wish I had a wasp waist too!) I follow a couple of fashion and design blogs. Fashion tribes is compact, aesthetically easy on the eye and sweetly to the point.

Photos © by Perfume Shrine

Chanel news...yet again

It's final and official! What we have been discussing on Perfume Shrine for quite some time is finally a fact: All 12 of Les Exclusifs will be on Chanel.com (the US site) very soon! And for a limited time only (May 16th-May 24th), you can receive a deluxe sample of either Bois des Iles (code 0509BOIS ) or Cuir de Russie (code 0509CUIR) with your 85$ purchase on Chanel.com!

For all you Guerlainomaniacs and some fact-checking

There is a tribute to Guerlain vis their 180 years of history (we talked about Chanel's 100th anniversary the other day), posted in Vanity Fair, in which Naomi Kaplan takes us through the history of the house with beautiful photos to illustrate the heritage.
You can read the article on Vanity Fair online.

Myself I was a little critical upon reading, catching a bit of dubious detail here and there: Mitsouko "a pleasantly simple fragrance, with woody base notes and a peachy top note" really doesn't begin to describe it, for me at least. Do you find Mitsouko pleasantly simple, regardless of whether you hate it or love it? On top of that the Tortue re-issue bottle pictured was actually holding Parfum des Champs Elysées, an old start-of-20th-century violet-ionone leathery fragrance, and not Mitsouko. I do like the inclusion of this tidbit from Jean Paul Guerlain on Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus: “Mitsouko is really a masterpiece,” says Jean-Paul. “I did not want to betray my grandfather’s, so I added a freshness to the scent with spices and white musk to give a modernity to it without changing the original scent.”

Also if I am not too mistaken, Eau de Shalimar is not this spring's launch (after all we had reviewed it back in September 2008!), but this spring it was merely granted a special limited edition bottle as we discussed here. The bottle design of L'Heure Bleue is only reminiscent in shape to La Petite Robe Noire and one might be confused by the phraseology used which suggests the design and hue were crossovers, especially since everything seems to be perpetuated on the Net and gains credence through repetition. Not to sound too harsh or anything...

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: the Guerlain series.

Miss Dior Cherie L'Eau by Christian Dior: fragrance review

It's not often that I am caught completely off-guard and totally surprised by something. Usually my instincts and my (hard-paid for) experience guide me through most eventualities with assured steps. Yet the latest Miss Dior Chérie L'Eau managed to make me do a 180 degree turn! Not because it is a masterpiece. Far from it. But because I was fully prepared to absolutely hate it, just because I have been alienated by the sugary, patchouli, fruity spin of Miss Dior Chérie, a scent that is completely different than the classic chypre Miss Dior from 1947 (Dior's first scent) of which you can read a review here. The shared name makes one think hard on how much travesty one can stomach.

Furthermore, the developments at Christian Dior for some years now have been quite unsettling as the whole image has been cheapened and ultimately vulgarised. Not to mention that the very latest observations I made regarding reformulations afoot to all their classics, from Diorissimo and Diorella onwards ~signaled by cunningly new-old looking packaging only~ has left a bitter taste in my mouth... So a testing at Sephora just because it was the latest thing provided a rather pleasant jolt out of the doldrums of contemplating on "what Dior had been"...
According to its creator François Demachy, "Miss Dior Chérie L'Eau is not a complicated fragrance". Imagine a freshly scrubbed young lass, put a headband on her bouffant long hair, a mock pout with no depths of murky sexuality à la Catholic girls and you're basically got your sanitized BB.9
(ie. Bardot version 2009) ~a product of bourgeois paternalism and market satiation! Yet, didn't Bardot herself began her career posing for bourgeois magazines and studying ballent under Boris Knyazev?

Demachy has been instrumental in the creation of Aqua di Parma Colonia Assoluta, the re-issue of Pucci Vivara, Fendi Palazzo and a pleiad of scents for parfums Christian Dior (he almost seems like in-house perfumer at this rate, which I m not sure how to interpret!): the newest Dior Escale à Pontichery which we recently reviewed, as well as last summer's Escale à Portofino, Farenheit 32, the masculine Eau Sauvage Fraicheur Cuir and Dior Homme Sport, the Dior numbered Passages special collection of scents Collection Particuliere, Midnight Poison, Dior J'adore L'absolu...

Vogue.co.uk describes Miss Dior Chérie L'Eau as "a sparkling and distinctive floral scent blended with notes of tangy yet spicy bitter orange, Gardenia and white musks that aims to sum up the certain 'je ne sais quoi' of the ultimate French girl. Pretty in every detail - down to the bottle's iconic bow - this lighter, François Demachy-designed adaptation of the original perfectly fits a long-standing perfume brief from Christian Dior himself, "Faites-moi un parfum qui sente l'amour" (make me a fragrance which smells of love)."

I don't think Miss Dior Cherie L'Eau quite captures all that (especially the amour part), but it's not typical of the myriads of fruity florals on the market: First of all, the scent is decidedly floral for a change, but with a certain modern translucence and a lightl dewy feeling that makes for a refreshing take on green florals. The direction is "muguet"/lily of the valley "clean" (the lucky charm of Christian Dior himself) but done via a green, budding gardenia accord; which might be replicated by jasmolactones, if the eerie feeling of familiarity with Pur Desir de Gardenia by Yves Rocher is anything to go by, although the Rocher one is much more gardenia-oriented than this one. A small facet of the pleasantly bitter citrusy touches of Escale à Portofino and Mugler Cologne is also hiding in there with a very soft powdery drydown, fluffy like an air-spun macaroon with green filling and a little laundry-day feel. The girl wearing the John Galliano dress in the shade of candies, model Maryna Linchuk shot by Tim Walker, is perky, and innocently upbeat in a 60s kind-of-way (hold the orgasmic cries of the original Bardot song that accompanies the commercials shot by Sofia Coppola,; this one is a pouting Bardot seen through unknowing ten-year-old eyes!). The blotter beckons me from the depths of my old, ivory LV Monogram Vernis handbag: should I give it one more chance?

Notes for Miss Dior Chérie L'Eau:
bitter orange, gardenia accord, white musks

Miss Dior Chérie L'Eau has just launched widely, in amounts of 50 and 100 ml (1.7 and 3.4 oz) for 59€ and 85€ respectively.
If you have a few moments to kill, the Dior website for the fragrance is fun!

The rather confusing Miss Dior Chérie line comprises so far:
Miss Dior Chérie Eau de Parfum 2005,
Miss Dior Chérie Eau de Toilette 2007,
Miss Dior Chérie Eau de Printemps 2008(limited edition),
Miss Dior Chérie Blooming Bouquet2008(exclusive aimed at the Asian market),
Miss Dior Cherie L'Eau 2009.

Last but not least: For those of you who might as well get a dose of the old standby classic gardenia chypre of Miss Dior, there are some bottles over at Fragrancenet.com as well as the standard Miss Dior Chérie. Using code SHRINE saves you a further 10%!(offer good throughout May).


Related reading on Perfumeshrine: the Dior series

Pics via punmiris.com and imachildofthemoon.blogspot.com

Free Agent Provocateur Scent

From now until next Wednesday, if you spend $150 on beauty products at the boutique of Agent Provocateur online, you'll receive an Agent Provocateur Signature Fragrance Purse Spray ($55) for free! Sound nifty, huh?

News via Bella Sugar