At the Moment: October 2026

 

photo borrowed via pinterest

It seems like it's been ages since I last compiled an AT THE MOMENT post. Indeed it has. Wow how time flies. Without further ado my current list of things occupying my everyday these past few days and weeks. Share your current obsessions, hobbies and tricks in the comments section below the post. 

[This post contains a few select Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through these links I might make a tiny commission to upkeep this blog.]

READING

I started Labyrinth, The Art of Decision Making by Pawel Motyl, a modern classic which takes a seemingly self-help title and addresses historical moments when the decision making made or ruined major sociopolitical events. Motyl digs into the series of decisions that led to some of the modern world’s most dramatic events: from the Cuban missile crisis to the 1996 Mount Everest climbing disaster; from the Apollo 13 rescue mission to the ill-fated Daimler–Chrysler merger. Along the way, he reveals 16 rules for effective decision-making that will challenge pre-existing beliefs, and change one's outlook forever.

 

It is a fascinating read, and I admit I picked it up knowing I am inept at decision making, so it is essentially eye-opening to see history in the making AND grasp how too much hesitation is just as bad a decision as any.  which you can find HERE for Kindle and tablets. 

WEARING

It's been rather hot in Athens these past few weeks, nothing really bad, but not quite autumnal either, minus the occasional rain. Therefore I have again resorted to my very light windbreaker jackets for rain deterance mostly; generally more flimsy than a trench coat, easier to carry in arm if bothersome. This style by SaphiRose is especially becoming, and the light color gives a visual jolt, instead of the dreary greiges. It also doesn't contain harmful chemicals, as per the requirements of the maker. 

borrowed via 

PLAYING WITH

I have long held the view that makeup is playthings for grown girls and I'm sure lots of women the world over agree with me. The influx of happily faced women painting their faces a million ways possible and having fun starting anew every day on a gazillion of channels and reels proves that I'm right. And of course that's nothing new I'm saying. Therefore, recognizing that in difficult time we play with war paint -see what I did there- I'm currently enthused with the KIKO MILANO long-lasting eyeshadow sticks. Back when I was way younger I used to snub eyeshadow sticks and shadows-built-into-pencils; maybe because I have witnessed many middle-aged women using them. Who knows. Now that I'm a middle-aged women myself I found a newly minted appreciation for them. These are beautiful, softly shimmery when you need it and provided your eyelids are not crepey -thankfully mine are not- and in tenacious shades of a 24-hour duration. Not that you'd keep them on your eyes that long, but you know what I mean. I especially like Slate Grey which makes a contrast with my cool-shaded brown eyes. The next shade to try is Golden Taupe 38 which, judging by the Pinterest photos, looks really a-ma-zing...

RESEARCHING

Deep into the archives of antiquity the plethora of information on perfuming and scenting objects are fascinating to follow. Hopefully this will become the subject of an article with practical purposes. More to come and my lips are sealed. 

In the interim I'm writing a dedicated article for Fragrantica on Colombian perfumery. Not the historical period as in pre-Colombian, but of the country. Exciting things to come. 

Santa Maria Novella Alba di Seoul- fragrance review

 

Smoky is a loaded concept, because so often it falls into one of either styles: the incense-y smoke that recalls woody and resinous scents of piety and zen like Avignon, or the dense feel of the campfire like Lonestar Memories or the fragrances by Beaufort. These both lend themselves to autumn, of course, but we aim to provide a middle-ground between seasons, for which Alba di Seoul feels exceptionally well-matched. 

via

 There is something undeniably familiar to me in Alba di Seoul and I managed to track it in the vintage version of Tsar by Van Cleef & Arpels, a wonderful fragrance in the old-school-mold of masculines, with a mossy background. I remember the days I adored it on my beloved and recall the days I borrowed it in the desire to extend those memories. In Alba di Seoul the citrusy, botanical and mossy elements manage to project light, bright and unfazed by the warmth, still lending a soupçon of darkness for the days to come, just like in Tsar, though they do not smell identical by any stretch of the imagination (if only...). It is the melding of light spice (nutmeg) with the tightly woven elements of wood, leathery tones, green violet leaves with their acrid, sharp and jolting feel, and plush patchouli with just a warm tinge of musk which bring on the ambience which I love. Despite the word Alba meaning dawn in Italian, the feel in Alba in Seoul is that of a cloudy afternoon when the sun is there but hidden behind the trees and you savour the warmth on the skin but also feel a light chill to come. 

It's a complex feeling of tactile sensations which I personally enjoy very much any time of the year, but especially in the first days of autumn when I'm feeling particularly energized. Criminally unsung, delightfully unique if you like things no one else has discovered...yet.

Etat Libre d' Orange Soul of My Soul-fragrance review

 Soul of My Soul by Etat Libre d' Orange was originally a Selfridges exclusive coming out in 2020, but I smelled it a couple of years later, after the quarantine of the pandemic, which limited my traveling severely.

It was a sampling in passing; it seemed nice enough, but in that lackluster quality that "nice things" often display. Damned with faint praise, in short. The fact that it was in "the expensive line" by Etat Libre d' Orange made me crinkle my nose (and my mind too!). Why is it that companies need to introduce a more expensive collection within their existing perfume brand? As if to alienate their older customers through snubbing, and to attract a new kind of customer that is not very knowledgeable about fragrance—the kind of customer who thinks "it's expensive, it must be very good indeed." For anyone seasoned in perfume collecting and appraising, this is surely reason to turn up one's nose and leave empty-handed. And this is exactly what I did. Though in hindsight, it wasn't too expensive. In the span of a mere six years, we have seen exorbitant prices asked.

A few years passed by. This past summer, in a perfume swap with a lovely lady, she sent me a decant of Soul of My Soul, and the fragrance ended up in my lap again. Lap, almost literally, as I tend to sample fragrances not only on wrists but lower on the body, observing how they rise and flow in the air, noting down their development and sillage. It was nice but not perfect. But quite nice indeed. There was an oddly familiar tonality about it. For a couple of days, I struggled to recall what it reminded me of. Hell, that's a difficult situation for any perfume lover, when you almost have it at the tip of one's tongue, but the actual name of the scent eludes you. If you have sampled, worn, and owned too many fragrances, this is a plight you must have found yourself in more than once.

"Soul Of My Soul draws inspiration from the refined butter and milk offered in honor of the gods of Mesopotamia, the god of fire in Persia, and the gods of India. The scent is described as a creamy explosion in which the scent of musk mixes with iris butter and conveys a strong vanilla balm, followed by a combination of tonka and benzoin for a sweet but strong trail."

What can you expect from that? A lactonic fragrance, right? A warm scent, fit for wintertime.

Wrong. 

And then one day it dawned on me: Soul of My Soul had something in common with the discontinued Ginepro di Sardegna. It opened differently, with a bit of lightly smoky, masculine, woody elements, but yes, it dried down after a few minutes into the well-known dry, powdery freshness I had loved in the Acqua di Parma scent.

I scavenged my old blue bottle to compare, with remnants only remaining at the bottom. Yes, I was right. Though it's not actually as powdery as a vat of talc. Most people do tend to wax on about Mediterranean forests, which is odd, because juniper is not exactly the kind of tree one finds in Mediterranean landscapes in abundance; one would sooner find maritime pines, olive trees, fig trees, cypresses, and a vast array of bushes with dry, dusty-smelling branches that read scorched and botanical under the sun. The power of naming and imagery is eternal, I suppose.

Karmacoma by Anomalia Paris- Bittersweet Suede Embracing Vanilla Pods

 Karmacoma by Anomalia Paris: A divorce from everything you used to call “normal” — from habits, permission, and the version of you that learned to behave seems like the perfect motto for entering autumn and the new academic year with flair. Karmacoma is inspired by the aesthetic of a blank canvas, where we boldly script our dazzling and magnificent future. This is also the autumn I'm researching vanilla, it seems, and although I tried this during the warmer months, as the weather cools down, it translates as the perfect cozy fragrance to warm my way into the rainy season. 

The delightful element is its leathery top note, composed by Sidonie Lancesseur as a bittersweet element to enhance the saffron note. A Greek saffron note, no less, among the top quality ingredients in the world, small production extracted by hand. The powdery effect of vanilla and musk is further enhanced by a peppery, spicy garland that ebbs and flows. Its effect on the wearer is what the French call "troublant," which means "intriguing" in the best possible sense. Who could have thought a vanilla would be so nuanced?

On Vanilla; Colombian and Otherwise

 Colombia, Vanilla’s New Production Hub in the World

A speech given during the Barcelona Perfumery Congress last year by Ricardo Ramos, Independent Perfumer of Colombian Origin based in Granada/Spain.

"With an estimation of more than 4300 species of orchids, Colombia is a country with a major diversity of this beautiful botanical species in the world, having more than its 35% native from Colombian territory. The existence of Vanilla in Colombian territory has been ancestrally known among farmers and indigenous communities, being used by a few expert coffee farmers in their coffee plantations, adding it to the coffee beans as an aromatic, sophisticated twist. And among indigenous communities as well, as a tool for seduction, for scenting their clothing, and for making fragrant necklaces (Otapa) and garlands to attract lovers, as mentioned by the Jesuit monks in the 17th Century.

"Some of the very first well-documented vanilla species in Colombia date from The Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada headed by José Celestino Mutis between 1783 and 1816, and years after that, the British Colonel J.P. Hamilton documented in his “Travels through the interior provinces of Colombia” published in 1827, the existence of abundant fragrant Vanilla species along the
Magdalena and the Cauca River basins. Later, during the nineteenth century, Colombian, North American, and Spaniard botanists recorded the existence of vanilla species in the provinces of Valle, Cauca, Cundinamarca, Tolima, and Huila.
During the XX Century, with the development and commercialization of synthetic Vanilla, the interest in natural Vanilla progressively disappeared, allowing the vanilla plants to be destroyed, becoming a product for very local use in countless communities.
Recently, in the current XXI Century, due to the high demand for vanilla in the world and the difficulty of its production and exploitation, interest in wild vanilla has been reborn in Colombia, with recent studies on the species surviving in the Pacific and Amazonian areas.

"The Universidad Nacional of Colombia (UNAL) started a project in 2015, doing research about the spices in the Pacific area,
starting from the shore coast of the Cauca province up to the coast shores in the Choco province, documenting the existence of nine native vanilla species, including the most commercial in the world: Vanilla Planifolia, initially known exclusively from Mexican territory. The study highlighted the existence of hybrid species with outstanding and rare olfactory profiles, which could be highly valued in the global food and cosmetics industries. In the Colombian Pacific, factors like natural pollination, the abundance of water, and the humid climate encourage its growth, resulting in the first flowers after a year and eight months, which means 2.5 years in total for having fruits. This is a shorter period compared to productions in Mexico, Madagascar, and China, because in those regions they must wait up to three years to have the first blooming and nine more months for the first fruits.

In recent years, in the Cauca Valley region, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Palmira and Medellín Campuses, have increased the study of the vanilla orchid across biodiversity, agroecology, conservation, and sustainable use. Currently, thanks to the agreement signed with SWISSAID ( Swiss Foundation for Development Cooperation) Colombia, the UNAL Medellín Headquarters began research to study the insects associated with vanilla cultivation in Bahía Solano, where SWISSAID started a project to stimulate vanilla as a local development product that generates income for indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, through training on effective crop management. The project, which began in 2016 with 18 producers in the area, today has more than 200 farmers and has materialized in the community company Aromas y Sabores, which carries out the entire process of purchasing, collecting, curing, and marketing vanilla."

Inkera, the latest creation by Colombian perfumer Ricardo Ramos, is therefore an ode to the relationship between vanilla and the Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities of the Colombian Pacific, as well as a vehicle for introducing Colombian vanilla to the world.

Inkera is the first perfume to feature Colombian vanilla in its formulation, specifically from the Chocó region, home to *Vanilla planifolia* agroforestry crops tended by ancestral Emberá communities and Afro-descendant families.

In addition to vanilla, the fragrance features a *Viche* liquor accord, a traditional artisanal spirit from Colombian Pacific communities made from fermented green sugarcane juice. Historically used as a medicinal tonic for stomach ailments and snakebites, *Viche* lends the fragrance green, jungle-like tones, the sweetness of cane honey, and mineral and subtle marine nuances. Another ingredient making its perfumery debut in Inkera is Pipilongo (*Piper tuberculatum*), an ancestral long pepper also native to the Colombian Pacific; it offers sparkling nuances reminiscent of petitgrain with woody depth, alongside a warm, zesty, spicy heat.