Odin New York 01 'Nomad'

I don't know all that much about the Odin New York line. I ordered a sample of 01 sometime last year purely off the back of a review of the line by someone (can't remember who) who mentioned that 01 was most to his liking.

The notes from Luckyscent include juniper berries, Himalayan cedar, bergamot, palmarosa, black pepper, heliotrope, tonka bean, sandalwood and grey musk.

My initial notes for the opening state that I detect something quite juicy, smelling like mandarin. I suppose I was wrong there. I also noticed early on a surprising heavy dose of musk, with what I would describe as 'blonde' woods. I'm not sure what I mean by blonde, except that Nomad wears rather light. As the citrus fades, Nomad starts to smell uncannily like the wooden stick of a vanilla ice cream eaten at the beach. You know, the part of the wood that was covered with ice cream but is now just fragrantly damp from where you've licked off all the ice. At least, that is how I perceive it. Is this the heliotrope, with sandalwood and tonka? There is a creaminess to Nomad, with light woods and a vanillic undertone, definitely. This phase is the most enjoyable for me. I love this evocative smell of a childhood (and adult, come to think of it!) treat.

The rest of the development continues in much the same vein. The musk becomes more prominent, but it is a clean musk, not skanky but not totally like laundry either. The woody vanilla note diminishes, whereas I would have preferred if it had stuck around longer. What I like about Nomad is that it uses a lot of notes that could have strayed dangerously into generic men's perfume territory, yet manages to avoid the obvious cliches. The dry down is probably the phase where it smells the most generic, yet even then it retains enough of a bite and uniqueness to please me. I wouldn't say that I would rush out to buy a bottle of Nomad, but it is very well done for what it is. I think it would be a good all-round perfume for office or casual evening wear, and I don't think a woman would struggle wearing it either. It is not overtly masculine, and is on the sweet side, but balanced.


If someone could tell me what Palmarosa is, I would be grateful. I could Google it, but feel like hearing from you instead.

Image credit - http://www.ausliebezumduft.de/

The banality of Monday

Monday, Monday, Monday. Boy, am I glad you are gone for another six days. The title of this post can be summed up by the news I read today that LVMH has bought a majority stake in Bulgari. Is there anything that they don't own or have their sticky fingers in?

I woke up today with a stiff neck that has left me walking around like a robot, unable to turn my head left or right, or even forward and backward. I know I did some DIY this weekend but definitely nothing so strenuous as to result in this affliction. For now I'll blame it on a poor pillow.

I have a question to ask. Do any of you find that the longer you delay putting on perfume on a particular day the less likely it is you'll put on any at all? I definitely find this is the case for me. Of course there are exceptions, for example if I'm going out after work ( a rare occasion these days with young kids) I will wear perfume if I haven't already worn some in the day. Generally though, if I haven't sprayed something on by the end of lunchtime, I reckon seven times out of ten I won't have worn any perfume by the end of that day. I'm not even sure why. It becomes almost like a state of inertia. Subconsciously I know I want to wear something, but I just put it off. It doesn't feel quite right to me. Am I a weirdo? (No, you don't have to answer that one, thanks)

In the end, I did spray on some perfume today, as I was leaving the office. In desperation I flung my hand in one of my drawers (of my desk) and sprayed the first sample I found, which happened to be A La Nuit by our Uncle Serge. It's a good thing it was the end of the working day, as I don't think I can carry this one off particularly well. Indolic jasmine - might not go down so well, unless people think I am having an affair with one of my colleagues at lunchtime... I actually like A La Nuit though, but it just isn't me. Incidentally my wife hates it on me. She wrinkled her nose as I walked in this evening and said I smelled sweet and cloying, like Gardenia or Frangipani. She says that sort of thing a lot whenever I wear a white floral. She thinks they all smell slightly 'sub tropical', which is her way of saying they smell shit. I think if I'm going to fall for a jasmine perfume it might end up being the skanky Nuit Noire, by Mona di Orio!

Saturday, KFC and the slow-burners

So, Saturday is almost over, for me anyway. MY DIY project has commenced, albeit much slower than I anticipated. It doesn't help getting stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the industrial estate where the hardware store is based (B&Q, for those of you in the UK). At least I now have the wood I need to make the new roof and floor of the Wendy House, and various shelves for our own house. MDF, chipboard, plywood, you name it. I have it all stacked up in a corner of our dining room (I am a romantic at heart) and a grazed finger for my troubles. Oh the drama.

Tonight, continuing with the romantic theme, my wife and I ate KFC for the first time in about a year. What is it about that place? Do you enjoy KFC and junk food? I don't particularly, and it freaks me out going there. A clandestine guilt falls over me, furtive glances left and right to check that none of our neighbours spots the tell tale red and white packaging as I return home with the takeaway. Was it a guilty pleasure? Not really, it tasted ok but laced with salt and other preservatives, I think. It was cheap though, which is probably why so many people eat there.

So what does any of this have to do with perfume? Absolutely freaking nothing my friends. But hey, its Saturday and I have nothing better to talk about. I did wear some perfume today. I tried my samples of Ineke's Field Notes from Paris and Frederic Malle Noir Epices. Neither of these has worked particularly well for me in the past. I'm not really sure why. Both are very decent perfumes but just don't interest me all that much. Today went better though. I appreciated more of the tobacco in Field Notes, which goes well with all that Orange Blossom, while the pepper in Noir Epices was less severe than usual and I got the full chypre effect for a change, rather than the pepper mill in 3d technicolour. Perhaps these two are slow burners and starting to grow on me.

What are you wearing this weekend? Are there any perfumes that intellectually (or otherwise) you think ought to appeal to you, but for some reason just fall short of the mark or fail to impress? 

Friday and the weekend blues

It's meant to be the other way around, right? I should be saying this on Sunday night, with the Monday blues. But no, this weekend I have been roped into DIY duty, and that makes me feel queasy. I've developed a modicum of DIY skill over the years, out of necessity mind you, not desire. This weekend I have to put up shelves and put a new roof on the Wendy House we got from a neighbour. Her daughter is a bit old for it now, so it's found a new home at no 98. Pity that the roof and floor are half rotting and the felting has just about disintegrated. I suppose the decade of cobwebs can be dusted away easily enough...

On a more serious note, I hope our two daughters will enjoy playing in it over the summer, and perhaps more importantly, that I won't lose DIY face by screwing up the new roof installation or felting. We'll see. Roof tacks at the ready, I'm coming to get you baby.

Today I wore two of my most recent favourite perfumes, Caron's Secret Oud and Dior's Leather Oud. I know, I'm starting to sound like a stuck record. What is it about these two perfumes? I can't quite explain it, save to say that they both appeal to me very strongly, particularly Leather Oud. It has the most gloriously skanky but sexy accord that catches me every time, particularly in the dry down when it reappears with a bit of an oud reprisal as well. After a shower the oud note is surprisingly evident when some of the other notes are stripped away. Leather Oud manages to balance all these accords very nicely. There is leather, oud and skank, but not in a bad way. It's alluring and sexy and just right. For me.

Have a good weekend all.

A visit to Hoopers and thoughts on some samples

Today I felt in a much better frame of mind, and inevitably I ended up wearing perfume that I enjoyed and also managed to pay a visit to Hoopers, one of my local department stores that I have written about on a number of occasions.

True to form, Melanie, my friend in the perfume department at Hoopers, had some samples for me, including Amouage's Opus IV (which I already have, thanks to my friend Persolaise) and Jubilation 25. I'm quite chuffed with Jubilation. It's a lovely, elegant chypre, one of the best in the Amouage Ladies lineup, in my opinion. She also gave me samples of Cartier De Lune and one of the endless Daisy flankers, Eau So Fresh. I'm not so sure about the Daisy. The description on the card says: "Playfully spirited, charmingly fun. A bubbly floral fruity, that radiates a sunny and sparkling energy." Hmm. Do I need a fresh fruity floral? Not sure.

As for De Lune, one can "capture the ephemeral, taste the wonder of a bouquet of white flowers in the moonlight. A rare and delicate sensation, a floral caress suffused with freshness." I generally like Cartier's fragrances - they are usually well made - and will certainly give this one a go.

So what perfume did I wear today? Well I tried Puredistance M for the first time - see my post from yesterday. It's still early days but my initial impression is very positive. It is a leathery concoction that initially starts quite smoky and severe and then mellows into a smooth and suave amber and woods combination, with the leather never far away. Mmm, nice. Very nice and very well done. I also wore Bal a Versailles by Jean Desprez. Woah, this is very good too. And not remotely feminine to me. If you gave me an unlabeled sample I would never have made such a connection anyway. It's rich, skanky, sexy, complex. I love it.

A scentless day, and a surprise sample

Today was a day devoid of perfume, sadly. For some reason work and its myriad distractions got the better of me and before I knew it, the day was over and I went home, scentless and, possibly, senseless.

A nice surprise was waiting for me when I got home though - a sample of Puredistance M, by the luxury company Puredistance, who, if I understand correctly, are based in Vienna, Austria. I'm not going to review M now, for obvious reasons, but will say that they contacted me out of the blue, offering to send me a sample to try. This is the first time this has happened to me and I'm perfectly happy to take them up on the offer!

M is created by Roja Dove, who many of you will have heard of before. He is based in London and is famed partly for his magnificent haute parfumerie located on the top floor of Harrods in Knightsbridge. I've been there before and the place and its perfumes are just stunning. According to Puredistance, "M is an oriental, leather chypre. Sumptuous and complex, yet at the same time noble and sophisticated. M is a smooth blend of spicy and woody ingredients with the leathery part seamlessly integrated into the whole. The floral note is there, but hidden, adding richness and sensuality."

I'm looking forward to trying M, I must say. I've smelled some other chypres by Roja Dove and they were exquisitely done, so let's hope this one is too.

Watch this space... with a review to follow once I've tried M a few times.

Image credit - http://www.puredistance.com/

Hermes Terre D'Hermes

Terre D'Hermes is a perfume I own. A whole bottle. Which is a relative rarity for me. My wife gave it to me for Christmas in 2007, so it is a fragrance I am well-acquainted with, as you might imagine.

The unfortunate thing for me concerning Terre D'Hermes is that I developed a negative association with it shortly after receiving it. I've mentioned this in one of my much earlier posts last year. I associate the smell with fear. The fear of failure. By this I mean that I wore it when going through a tough time during a big career change, with a lot at stake. It might seem silly to those of you to whom this hasn't happened before, but believe me, this really can happen. I should say one thing though - I like Terre D'Hermes. It is a very good mainstream perfume, possibly one of the best offerings for men in recent years, up there with Dior Homme and Guerlain L'Instant, in my opinion anyway.

So, what about the perfume itself? Well, the notes include grapefruit, orange, flint, pepper, pink pepper, geranium, patchouli, cedar, vetiver and benzoin. One thing is not in doubt - Terre D'Hermes at one level or another is all about citrus, orange in particular. The genius though is that this is also so much more than citrus. There is a wonderful earthiness that at times really does smell flinty. I wanted to use the term minerally, but thinking about it, flinty sums it up better. As many of you probably are aware, Terre was created by Jean-Claude Ellena, and if you are familiar with his work, you will recognise his signature very clearly across this fragrance. What I find interesting about Ellena, and in particular his work for Hermes, is that despite his creations being sheer, transparent and light (or so the general label goes), they actually have extremely good lasting power, and in the case of Terre, significant sillage too. This is by no means a skin scent. On more than one occasion someone has complimented me when wearing this and it lasts a long time. Case in point - I sprayed it on at about 8 this morning and I can still smell it clearly at 9.30 tonight, as I'm typing this. I think this is partly where Ellena's genius lies, in that he has an almost freaky ability to create perfumes that create an illusion of lightness and sheerness, yet they still pack a punch, albeit a subtle one. Or maybe it's just my skin chemistry, which has never swallowed up his fragrances. 

Terre D'Hermes has been reviewed so many times by so many people that I am not going to go into a detailed review of the actual progression myself. Despite Terre's clarity and sparkliness, it is actually a very complex perfume, in my opinion, and it is temperamental. It performs variably on my skin in the sense that sometimes it turns a bit sour on me, when the orange notes intensify and become ever so slightly cloying. On other occasions the orange, flint, woods and vetiver combine wonderfully to work just right, and then I feel truly happy that I own a bottle of it.

As for gender, should I need to mention it (well I just have), I think Terre D'Hermes can definitely be worn by either sex. It is marketed as a masculine, but I don't see why a woman can't wear it with confidence.

One final thought. Despite my up-and-down relationship with Terre D'Hermes, I still find it even now to be totally distinctive. Yes, anyone who has any experience of Ellena and Hermes in particular will recognise little tell tale traits and similarities to others in the stable, but Terre is still very recognisably Terre. I can identify it from a mile away. Now, depending on your point of view, this could either be a good or a bad thing. For me its a good thing, because in an increasingly bland and banal masculine perfume world, Terre is one of the shining beacons of individuality and proof that men's perfumes can be unique and interesting.

Image credit - http://www.scentworld.co.uk/