Kate Beckinsale Shops for Scents at Frederic Malle

The fickle world of celebrities sustains its course into having us breakdown their fragrant choices. This time courtesy of Angela Buttolph at Grazia Daily who snaps Kate Beckinsale on a shopping romp for Christmas gifts at the F.Malle counter at Barneys, Los Angeles, decked in her black leggings, her pensive gaze captured for eternity as she sniffs candles in the characteristic red shade canisters of the Home Collection. (Might I also add that it's refreshing to see normal-size thighs on a celebrity instead of sticks?) But much more important in my opinion is the enthusiasm that Angela instils in the piece, as she recounts her own exploration of the Malle line instead, in what transpires as a rite of passage for a fumehead: "Beauty insiders will have been nodding approvingly knowing that Beckinsale has exquisite taste, because those candles aren’t just any candles; they’re candles from the sexiest perfume label on the planet – Frédéric Malle. So look away now if you are a perfume obsessive or have any kind of addiction issues, or have access to a credit card…because I can tell you from personal experience that Malle’s fragrances are more addictive than crack cocaine (and just as pricey a habit)."
With poetic references to her favourites, Une Rose (the classic earthy rose in the collection before Portrait of a Lady busted into the scene this season) and En Passant, it's worth a read for anyone who identifies with discovering fragrances that speak to one's soul. What did Kate buy in the end? Who cares...

photo of Kate Beckinsale shopping at Barneys via OhhLaLook

Free Aromatherapy Course

Abdes Salaam of La Via del Profumo (Profumo.it) announced some wonderful news: a free aromatherapy course which is available online at www.profumo.it/aromacourse.doc
The scope is meant for the benefit of people and not for commercial reasons while Abdes describes some of the stunning effects that aromatherapy can have, with reports and pictures from my Timbuktu experiences. You can reach those on the following link. http://www.profumo.it/Blog/index.php (scroll down a few texts)


More info on La Via de Profumo and Abdes Salaam: http://www.profumo.it/
Check our reviews of his scents on the widgets below.

Penhaligon's Olfactory Owl

Now here's something to get all aflutter for. Harry potter fans as well as fumeheads now have something in common, something as unthinkable as an...owl. Penhaligon’s, the fine English fragrance house founded in 1870, is delighted to announce that an Olfactory Owl will be touring London during December.

The Owl, created in homage to their illustrated Christmas Gift Boxes, will be popping up in various locations around London to spread some festive fragrant joy and offer exclusive discount vouchers and perfume samples. Dressed in Victorian finery, the Olfactory Owl will be journeying across London on foot and by tube and bus, taking in some of London’s iconic landmarks and shopping hotspots.
The Owl will be promoted via the Penhaligon’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and customers will be invited to submit pictures of the Olfactory Owl to win Christmas prizes. Customers can keep up to date with the Owl’s progress by checking his schedule on Facebook and Twitter and by following the Owl’s tweets during his journeys.

The schedule for Penhaligon's Olfactory Owl:
Thursday 16th December – Oxford Street, Bond Street, Savile Row, Burlington Arcade, Fortnum & Mason
Saturday 18th December – Regent Street and Trafalgar Square
Sunday 19th December – Knightsbridge, Sloane Square, Green Park, Piccadilly
Tues 21st December – Covent Garden, Somerset House, British Museum

Get more information/updates:
Penhaligons on Twitter: @Penhaligonsltd #OlfactoryOwl
Penhaligons on Facebook

info/pics via press release

Esxence 2011 Niche Perfumery Exhibition

ESXENCE 2011, the exhibition for the appreciation of Artistic Perfumery will take place at Le Palazzo della Permanente, Via F. Turati 34, in Milan, Italy from 31 March to 3 April 2011.
Opening Hours:
Thursday 31 March and Friday 1 April, for professional and press visitors only: 10.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 April, open to the public: 10.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
For further information, please contact: I.C.E. Organising Secretariat: tel. +39.02.34538354 or visit the official Esxence link.

Esxence The Scent of Excellence, now on its third installation, is once again the must-attend benchmark and rendezvous for brand owners, creators, producers, distributors, buyers and retailers from all over the world, an ideal event for developing a constantly growing market that can offer competitive advantages to those who produce fragrances that are not intended to appeal to everybody, but to express olfactory creativity and communication. This is a sector that the statistics show to be maturing coherently, guaranteeing that its dealers achieve results comparable to those of conventional perfumery. After achieving an increase of 54% in brands represented in 2010 compared to the previous year and thousands of visitors from more than 24 different countries, the main aim of the 2011 edition is to pursue its activity of contributing to developing Artistic Perfumery as a creative art that springs from human talent, so as to spread knowledge about it and encourage its diffusion as a unique, fascinating artistic heritage. In Italy alone, this sector has reached a turnover estimated at 120 million Euros and has a total potential of more than 850 million Euros at European level.
The Promoting Committee – which has confirmed I.C.E. International Club Exhibitions, a company specialising in niche events, as organiser of Esxence for the third year running – has already chosen the new International Technical Committee of experts in the sector, whose task is to apply predetermined shared parameters to filter the numerous applications to participate, so as to keep access selective and highly qualified.

Esxence The Scent of Excellence 2011 will feature perfume products that make a distinctive mark for their expressive capacity, quality, authenticity and finesse, created to give olfactory form to metals, to stones, to seas, to oceans and to deserts, adopting combinations previously considered impossible. These refined creations convey a sense of strength and vigour, narrating unique, magical stories, acting out dramas and comedies and telling fables from different eras, always plucking the chords of the emotions with their undeniable power to evoke.

info via press release

Between Work and Play...

The end of the road for 2010 finds me juggling a million things on my admittedly less than perfectly agile hands, trying to reconcile the business side of things of being a fragrance writer and historian with the aesthetic hedonism for which you have come to know me. An intermezzo which will promenade my shadow alongside the Elysian Fields is called for, that might keep me from too much technological access. There are a couple of scheduled posts however, so you might peek for a few surprises and many tasty nuggets as soon as the machine gets re-oiled and back at full swing again. À très bientôt!