Frequent Questions: How to Determine How Much Perfume is Left in my Opaque Bottle?

You all know the pain...Your otherwise beautiful opaque perfume bottle, often in inky shades of black or purple which spell danger or just in a material inpenetrable by the light (such as opaline, Cloisonné metal or china or reverse painted from inside glass, such as in Chinese snuff bottles), is refusing to let you gauge how much of the beautiful fragrance you so enjoy is left in it.


Consider some examples for a minute: Classics, like the architectural and oblong flacons in black glass for all the reissued Robert Piguet fragrances (Fracas, Bandit, Visa, Cravache, Baghari). The art-deco vintage bottle of Nuit de Noel by Caron with its beautiful 1920s "head band". The black boule of the original Arpège by Lanvin. The delicate, calligraphy-flowers-embossed original bottle of Shiseido's Zen. The cinnabar/orange-red of Opium parfum with its tassel.
Maybe modern or niche ones ones, such as Jasmin Noir by Bulgari. The square black of appropriately named Encre Noire by Lalique. The painted from inside glass bottles of Narciso Rodriguez Narciso For Her in the Eau de Toilette and the completely opaque black of Musk for Her. The elegant and hefty Natori Eau de parfum (all right, this one has a "window" in the centre which helps a bit till you're halfway through the juice) or the "opus noir" black ones By Kilian.
Several art-deco retro ones by parfums Ybry, Myon or Gabilla. The opaque gold Cardinal by Molinard with its nude bodies in relief.
Even things like Laroche's Drakkar Noir! And if you're extra lucky to own them, the black polygon of Nombre Noir by Shiseido and the flacon tabatière from 1927 for Liù by Guerlain.

Or it could be any perfume receptable which is intended for you to fill with the scent of your choice, such as ones made by Renaud, Lalique, and other reputable firms. The matter is always the same: how to see when is the time to replenish your perfume? Or just how much fragrance is there in your bottle you intend to sell as filled or to swap? No, tapping to see where the bottle is hollow pr not won't help much. Here are some easy tips to help you.


Method 1: Let the light shine bright!

By now, you probably know that light is the archenemy of perfume and you store yours away from it in a dark cupboard. Good, except for one occasion: When you want to see just how much juice is left in your beautiful bottle. Make an exception and bring out your flacon in the sun on a bright day.
1. Hold the bottle high against the rays of the sun. Even the most resistant bottles provide some clue as to the "line" where the full ends and the empty space begins.
2. If you're short of a handy window sill and the bright sun of the Med, repeat the experiment with a very bright lightbulb (60W or above). Hold the bottle carefully against it. Chances are you will be able to discern adequately.


Method 2: Sinking, sinking...

If the light method above fails, water might come to the rescue. How, you ask? Simple. According to basic physics, immersing any object in water will produce a substitution of the volume of water with the volume of the object (The principle by which throwing a whale in a swimming pool will more than sprinkle spectators three rows of seats away). How do we put this into practice with perfume bottles? First of all, don't try this with anything vintage with a paper label: it will be soaked by the water and the paper will crack when drying. But for modern bottles or bottles that can withstand this, it's unbeatable.

1. Take a receptable that can hold your bottle in question. Preferably use one that is big enough to hold it, but is also shaped in a way that the bottle cannot capsize (i.e. it follows the contours, usually that means an oblong vase or a jug or something along those lines.)
2. Fill it with water.
3. Now slowly immerse your bottle in it and slowly let it go. The power of hydraulics will have your bottle float to the line where it's still full.
4. Mark that line with a small adhesive label which you have at the ready or an indelible felt pen. 5. Get your bottle out of the water, let it stand and see where your marking points: 50% full, 2/3 full or less? You should have a pretty good idea.

These are more or less more accurate methods than just judging by weight, both because one can be fooled by the weight of the flacon itself (especially if it came into your hands in a non full state to begin with) or by the appreciation of liquid itself (the swooshing sound indicates there is liquid inside but it rarely gives a clue as to how much).

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: How to Open Stuck Perfume Bottles

pics via assorted perfume fora, flickr.com/photos/eivinds and 123rf.com

Annick Goutal Mimosa: new fragrance

Annick Goutal’s ‘Le Mimosa’ is the newest entry in the world of the esteemed brand's soliflores line, which included Le Jasmin, La Violette, Des Lys, La Muguet, Neroli, Rose Absolue and Le Chèvrefeuille (Soliflores are fragrances based around the scent of a single flower; technically mixed with other essences, but aiming to highlight the blossom's character).

Mimosa stands as the first mocking of spring into the face of winter, as the branches start to yellow as early as February. In Grasse and the Riviera, the Mimosa Trail is a supremely memorable drive, scattered with local festivals and picturesque events.
The many perfumery's takes on mimosa include such classics as the warmly honeyed Mimosaique by Patricia de Nicolai, the milky-kittenish Mimosa pour Moi by L'Artisan Parfumeur, the intensely euphoric Farnesiana by Caron, as well as the reissued Hermès Calèche Fleurs de Méditerranée with its unusual violet leaf or the extreme of the laundred clean musks of Czech & Speake's Mimosa.
The yellow pom-pom blossom isn't a stranger in the Annick Goutal line, as Eau de Charlotte puts it to good effect against a constrast of cocoa and blackcurrant jam.
Goutal's new Le Mimosa nevertheless will include greener, sweet notes of mimosa flanked by the soft fruity satin of peach, the milky warmth of sandalwood and the powdered notes of iris.
Le Mimosa comes in the house’s emblematic fluted “gadroon” bottle, this time adorned with a bow of black polka dots on a yellow ribbon.
The fragrance will make its debut in the market in March 2011.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Travel Memoirs Grasse-hopers part 1 and part 2

pic via osmoz

Susannah York: 1939-2011

Susannah York embodied the sizzling sensuality and sharp wit of the 1960s respendid with uninhibited talent in a pleiad of intelligent films ranging from Tom Jones to A Man for All Seasons all the way up to... A Dark Blue Perfume in the Ruth Rendell Mysteries series and of course The Maids, Christopher Miles's infamous play adaptation of Jean Genet's Les Bonnes. (Interesting perfume scene and bonus points if you identify any of the bottles on the vanity in the clip below)
May she rest in peace, we will always remember her fondly!

L'Artisan Parfumeur Traversee du Bosphore: fragrance review & draw

Wheelbarrow, lay off the whip and don't rush the horses,
you don't need to hurry when you've got your love so close by.
When he smiles, the world smiles at me,
so let the wheel run where it might,
and wherever it goes, it's fine by me.

~from the song "Wheelbarrow" by Manos Hadjidakis from the 1963 Greek film Χτυποκάρδια στα θρανία/
(hence the top clip)

Any mention of Bosphorus, the strait between East and West, uniting and at the same time dividing Constantinople (Istanbul), which lays on both its banks, never fails to ignite a very palpable nostalgia laced with a smattering of pain for any Greek. We're automatically thinking of the failing grandeur of the Paleologi dynasty and lamenting for the times when Greeks and Turks co-existed in peace for centuries in this most cosmopolitan of Eastern cities. Traversée du Bosphore (Crossing the Bosphorus) by L'Artisan Parfumeur, like its namesake strait, was the straw that broke the ~proverbial~ camel's back, as anything referencing the city of Constantine will make me reminiscence yet again of my forebearers and the sweet camaraderie they had to abandond due to political turmoil. But The City, Istanbul, is in reality neither Greek, nor Turkish. It's neither christian nor muslim. It's a cultural border, a place where everything meets and unites, a cauldron of cultures and men; the place which millions of different people, of different nationalities and religions, loved madly through the centuries. A city so beautiful that there was no other way to call it than The City, η Πόλη!

Traversée du Bosphore comes now from Bertrand Duchaufour and L'Artisan Parfumeur as the symbolic strait between modern French perfumery and its oriental heritage. The unisex fragrance was fittingly inspired by a journey to Istanbul, when at the crack of dawn the cobblestone streets still retain their sleepy languor, like heavy-boned odalisques stealing gazes through the lacework wooden panel of the musharabieh, and when the many fishermen set out to catch their day's worth, packing nets, salty sardines and pita bread. You can easily lose yourself promenading unhurriedly through the small alleys towards the seraglio and Kahrié djami with its blue-peacock mosaics, gazing at the narthex's domes for hours or the many fountains where pilgrims ritualistically wash their head and hands before proceeding. It's a slow world, filled with beautiful wistfulness.



The strange thing about Traversée du Bosphore, part of the Travel series in the niche brand's subplot, is how a -by now- cliché concept (i.e.eastern exoticism) that should be a foregone conclusion (loukhoum, tanneries, saffron, milky salep drink, tobacco in hookahs, opulent roses, strange white flowers......hasn't Lutens exhausted that genre?) smells interesting and contemporary; nothing like a heavy odalisque looking through the parapets or Alladin rolled into plies and plies of plush carpets. Instead it's a gouache of a scent: a transparent suede floriental with soft musky notes, a marriage of rosewater and suede.

Indeed, the list of official notes for Traversée du Bosphore reads like a shopping list of things to find in a Turkish souk or at the very least smells encountered around a Turkish souk. The apple-laced çay (tea) is very popular and no one makes it more delicious than Piyer Loti Kahvesi at Eyup (the European side of the city), a stone's throw away from Sultan Ahmet Mosque and the Byzantine apotheosis that is the temple of Aghia Sophia. Loti is the writer of Aziyadé (see the perfume inspired by it) and knew a thing or two about sensual abandon...Tobacco is still smoked in hookahs; not only by old men in derelict coffee-shops, heavy in political talk, but from younger ones as well, when they finally sit down to have an aimless break. Men and women alike buy fresh phyllo pastry, almonds and pistachios to make baklava, and Turkish delight by the pound to bring back at home. The market is filled with golden and red heaps of spices, precious saffron and dried Turkish roses for using as pot-pourri. Tanneries do work merrily (Turkish leathers have competitive prices), although the effluvium isn't anything one would associate with perfume.

But the summation of the notes or the panoramic vol plané shot does not really tell the whole tale: Duchaufour was no stranger to Byzantine formulae, including everything but the kitchen sink before, and the results are diverse: from the baroque patina gold of Jubilation XXV for Amouage to the carnal tryst of Amaranthine for Penhaligon's, all the way to the deceptively diaphanous muddy-incense of Timbuktu for L'Artisan. His compositions include many pathways that lead to a gauze of orientalia.
For Traversée du Bosphore Duchaufour eschewed clichés to come up with a composition that marries on the one hand Anatolian leather (you will only smell grey suede, really, not harsh quinolines; it's comparable to the note in Sonia Rykiel Woman-Not for Men! and Barbara Bui Le Parfum) and on the other hand Turkish Delight (loukhoum), into a unique interpretation of the leather genre; velvety and whispery soft, opening upside down: After the brief apple çay top (blink and you'll miss it!), you sense the suede and only later the powdery loukhoum accord.
The strangely greyish powderiness of iris dusts the notes like white copra dust enrobes the small rose-laced loukhoum cubes, while saffron with its leathery bitterish facets reinforces the impression and balances the sweeter notes, much like it kept vanilla in check in Saffran Troublant. The iris-leather accord in Traversée du Bosphore weaves a whispery path together with a hint of almond giving a light gourmand nod. The whole smells like rosewater sweets wrapped in a suede pouch, never surupy and very skin-scent like (incorporating that Havana Vanille base), although a tad more flowery feminine than most men would feel comfortable with. It's a fragrance which smells nice and simple like a nostalgic song from an old movie which dies down to a murmur, and might demand your attention to catch the smaller nuances.

As for me I know well that the past is inextricably tied to the future, and revel in thinking of Istanbul as the pathway where cultures and people will eternally meet...and part.

For our readers a draw: one sample to a lucky commenter. Draw is now closed, thank you!
Tell us where you would envision the next travel series by L'Artisan should take us.

L’Artisan Parfumeur Traversée du Bosphore is available in 50 ($115) and 100 ml ($155) of Eau de Parfum wherever L'Artisan is sold (voutiques, Perfume Shoppe, Luckyscent, Aedes, First in Fragrance etc).

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Travel memoirs Instanbul part 1, part 2, part 3,Leather scents



The bottom music clip and the film stills come from the Greek 2003 film Πολίτικη Κουζίνα/A Touch of Spice by Tasos Boulmetis, starring George Corraface and exploring the culinary philosophy that maps the course of modern Istanbul and the fateful, doomed romance between a Greek boy and a Turkish girl before the deportation of Greeks in 1964. It's uploaded in its entirety with English subtitles on Youtube: the first part is on this link and you can take it from there. Happy watching!

Diptyque Rose/Eros: gifts for St.Valentine's Day

Diptyque and Kuntzel & Deygas continue their collaboration after the Belle & Bête duo of candles with a new duet in specially designed labels. Two perfumes unite their voices in one delightful song, creating new accords: Rose & Eros.

Rose : Rose Piaget marries to the essence Basil Grand Vert Egypte, with cassis, violet and soft and sensuous musks.
Eros : Rose Rugosa is coupled with essences of myrrhe, benjoin from Laos, Péru balsam, cedar and sandalwood. Limited edition collector's item.
140gr for 60 euros.

There is also a limited edition of the famous Roses candle in mini and rose-tinted glass, soon to be a collector's item.

70gr for 28 euros.