Apologies for being somewhat MIA. I found I had taken a natural digital break. Other than doing my daily puzzles, checking in with Instamates & eBay for any sales I found myself rereading Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles series. Bloody brilliant! Much maligned in the 80s & 90s as bonkbusters, reading them again now, they are exceptionally well characterised & the research to enable her to create such detailed atmospheres of diverse situations must have been incredible fun. More on that in a future post.
An Instamate posted about a medicinal fragrance that shouldn’t work but does. This made me think of what one of the scents I would ask to be created just for me if money was no barrier. There would be a classic, astringent chypre, a perfectly balanced citrus cologne & a springtime floral. The one I am currently craving though would be the weird one.
St Barts Hospital’s North Wing’s Great Hall by Matthew Andrews
In my head & imaginary olfactive nose I yearn for the smell of the parquet flooring from a century old hospital. It would open with citrus & pine from the Zoflora or Dettol used in the sluice. Then comes the phenolic disinfectant used daily to mop the parquet. This would be aged not fresh, the residue of decades until the smell of the oak panels & the phenolic cannot be separated. Underneath there would be the veneer of beeswax, animalic & rich, but also the greasy iris, rose & violet of the vintage lipstick & powder worn by the nurses.
The apples have already started falling from our dwarfish mixed apple tree gone feral. They are a mix of Discovery (eaters, pink fleshed, don’t keep) James Greive (hybrid of Cox Orange Pippins x Potts seedling cooker or eater, don’t keep, matures September) & Charles Ross (another cooker/eater ready late August).
Our feral apples are huge, sweet enough to eat unless you only like super sweet fruit but happily go in pies, tarts, Tarte Tatin, cakes, crisps or make apple sauce, stewed apples, or apple butter.
This is a pie/tart made from the windfalls. I keep the skin on to maximise its nutritional value.
Peach forward fragrances don’t always get good press. They can be a jammy peach nectar, childishly pretty or luscious in the manner of juice running down the chin. Using peach as the star note isn’t easy to do.
Amongst the samples of designer haute perfumery I recently got was Guerlain Peche Mirage.
Peche Mirage by Guerlain
Notes from Fragrantica:- Top – peach, blackcurrant & saffron. Mid:- osmanthus. Base:- suede, amber, sandalwood.
How does it smell? As per the name & notes it opens distinctly peachy. Not sweet nectar or lusciously juicy but erring on the pretty, slightly childish side. Peche Mirage has a smiley opening with great teeth. I’d been cooking this year’s blackcurrant crop before spritzing & wasn’t sure if the distinct sweet/sour/bitter blackcurrant I could smell was from the cooled pans. Turned out Peche Mirage counteracts the potential over sweet juiciness with blackcurrant.
As I am writing the notes for this piece, I’m also watching the England v DC Congo World Cup game. As Kane’s second goal went in, when I threw my arm in the air I caught the scent of a supple, slouchy, creamy suede. The unripe peach still hangs in there & this suede gives the texture of velvety peach skin. The child has grown into a self contained young woman, less smiley but still with excellent teeth.
As time passes the creaminess of the suede peach skin blooms. Warm skin & movement give it lift & a peachy glow. The young woman is now at the zenith of her beauty. Still self contained but now wise with sensuality. That smile is now brings a knowing sparkle to her eyes, no one notices those excellent teeth anymore!
My first impression of Peche Mirage wasn’t favourable. My notes include childish, almost Avonesque & disappointed. The Kane scored & everything changed. My heart pitter pattered, could this be a love? In the end, much as the sueded peach skin bloom is beautiful & engaged my imagination that opening is just too twee with its memory of childhood Avon bubble bath.
Part of the L’Art & La Matiere range, Peche Mirage is £215 for 50ml
*I bought my sample through a preloved site & have no links to the site or to Guerlain
Why is it when a heatwave strikes the UK goes to hell in a handcart?
So far this week our Prime Minister resigned. Honourable man but sees every side of an argument & the optics of doing U turns & not delivering on promises made, did not look good. I mean not as bad as Agent Orange sitting on a cream sofa with a black towel under him bad. Just lacking in political nous.
Whilst the PM made his speech, the new MP for Makerfield, elected last Thursday, was saying goodbye to his staff then travelling to London. By the time he arrived, he had been de facto crowned PM by the hysterical media. He hadn’t even been sworn in as an MP! At his swearing in ceremony the next day some wag in the Commons heckled “Are you the Messiah?” Life imitating art he threw back “No, just a very naughty boy”. It may go down as retort of the year.
Then Farage, pronounced garidge, friend of Agent Orange pops up to be interviewed. Now he’s been very quiet since April, when it was revealed he’d accepted a gift of £5 million from a crypto billionaire who is resident in Thailand. Initially he claimed it was for security, after an incident when an unknown liquid was thrown at him. The liquid was cold coffee it came out in court. Since then journalists have been searching for evidence of this security. The question from Nick Ferrari enquired about the gift to be told by Farage “ It’s an unconditional loan, I can spend it on Ferraris if I want”. This from the man who wants an immediate General Election with the expectation he would be PM. He makes Boris Johnson look like an upright citizen & Truss a genius economist!
For the rest of us we’re being told not to travel, schools & offices are closed, there are shortages of fans, dehumidifiers, ice creams & ice lollies.People who have carried their dogs to a patch of grass for toilet purposes are being abused, yet kids are playing out in their swimmers & bare feet.
All that & the worst game of the World Cup so far was the England vs Ghana bore draw. Talking about the World Cup, when did Olivier Giroud turn into a hottie? Check out BBC coverage, he’s one of the pundits.
Perfume this week? EA Green Tea & O de Lancôme. Oldies but perfection in this oppressive humid heat.
As Dior Prive Perfumery is not available in any of the large cities within shopping distance, I haven’t ever really explored them. Plus, their pricing, new scents & discontinuation turnover are too high & too fast.
Two things happened recently. 1. I was laid up with a flare of a chronic illness & bored. 2. When I took my car for its annual check, the woman who greeted me smelled wonderful. It was Dioriviera.
I searched the preloved sites & found a few almost full samples for good prices. Amongst them the latest release, Dior Paradise.
Dior Paradise
From the Dior website the notes are:- Top – mandarin. Mid – bitter almond & orgeat syrup. Base – tonka bean.
“How does it smell?” I hear you ask. I was eager to try this as orange & bitter almond are notes I really enjoy. However, the opening lacks the zestiness & lift I expect from citruses in perfumery. Dior Paradise’s citrus is more towards the flavouring of an orange ice-pop or a highly concentrated fruit squash. This flavoured phase lasts longer than I expected.
It then slowly morphed into a caramelic confection. Think powdered almond brittle made into a paste then heated until it toasts.
Both top & mid have a dusty, closed room quality to them. A touch of Grey Gardens or Miss Haversham. In the top it could be the smell of Persian dried lime powder. In the mid section possibly rose water.
The base arrives after around 90 minutes & Dior Paradise settles into a tonka bean, vanilla & caramel butter frosting.
What is orgeat syrup? It’s a combination of almonds, orange flower or rose water & around 80-90% sugar. Not all brands of almond syrup have the added rose or orange flower water. It appears that without these it is merely almond syrup rather than orgeat. It’s frequently used in cocktails & to flavour & sweeten coffee. Whilst I wasn’t familiar with the name orgeat, I recognise bottles from behind bars & coffee shops. As someone who doesn’t drink much alcohol or coffee I can’t say what it tastes like.
Dior Paradise is all about the gourmand sweetness rather than anything refreshing. It swerves the well trodden marzipan trap that Dior pioneered so successfully with Hypnotic Poison. It also avoids the Amaretto/amaretti bitter almond association. The Dior website states orgeat syrup was a favourite beverage of Monsieur Dior who liked to make cocktails with it.
Will I buy a bottle? No. Will I sample it again? Possibly, on a very cold day. The base of a sweetly simple creamy tonka/vanilla butter frosting is less burnt sugar sweet than the top & mid & all the better for it.
*I bought my sample from a preloved site. It is genuine. I am not affiliated with Dior or the preloved site
As has been mentioned before in this blog my unscented hobby is cooking & baking, especially sourdough bread. Being a type 2 diabetic with a gut that is very sensitive to commercial bread, long fermented homemade sourdough is what I tolerate best. If there was a local artisan bakery their’s would be fine, but there isn’t. I can tolerate M&S sourdough loaves but they are huge & go stale before they get finished.
How is this anything to do with fragrance I hear you ask. That fresh bread smell that supermarkets pump out to make you hungry has nothing on the real thing baking at home.
My starter had been kept in the fridge for around 6 months. I’m eyerolling myself here. It hadn’t been fed, had half an inch of grey liquid hooch on top & had a pongy vinegar smell. No mould so it just needed a good refresh. Sourdough starter is so very forgiving & after 3 days I had a vigorous bubbly started that doubled in volume in 8 hours. Ready to go.
Made my usual recipe, did all the steps to strengthen & then shape the dough. It felt right, looked right, wasn’t sticky & it bounced back at just the right speed. It went into the banneton & into the fridge overnight. Heated the oven next day with my Dutch oven in it, got the dough out to score and… it collapsed. Over proofed? Under proofed? Not shaped well enough.? Who knows but I got it in a loaf tin & baked. Came out like a badly shaped house brick. I could have smashed toughened glass with it!
Like Robert the Bruce’s spider I refused to give in. Refreshed the starter again & tried a tweaked recipe with slightly less hydration & decided to go straight into the loaf tin for its overnight slow ferment in the fridge. It came out better, it was good toasted or dipping in soup but not for sandwiches.
Again spider like I’m trying again today. This time experimenting using half strong wholemeal bread flour & half white. Using the slowest method as the wholemeal speeds up fermentation. I’ll also be doing a standard white using the slow method too. Will report back on the bread lab below.
Results – I only made the wholewheat loaf in the end. Wrote out all the steps, timings, feel of the loaf & now having bought a dough/meat thermometer, checked the internal temp of the dough when I thought it had completed bulk proofing & when I thought it was fully baked. It hit both suggested temps.
Result!
It’s cooling now & I will show the crumb when I cut it.
Crumb, probably needed just a few more minutes in the oven
Yes this mountain of bubbles is real & smells delicious
I so adore a bubble bath, especially if it smells gorgeous & gives a mountain of bubbles. Extra points if it’s cheap as chips. I’ve used Madonna Truth & Dare Bath goo since it was released. I buy in bulk. I don’t always want something so femme & sometimes my current alternative, EA Green Tea is just a bit too chilly.
I follow Sali Hughes & in one of her recent Q&A stories she recommended Jil Sander Sun as a summer perfume. Of course I knew about Sun but to be truthful I had always turned my nose up at it, written it off as a sun lotion fragrance & never even sniffed it. My summer scent profile being citrus/green tea/tart fruities. However, Sali recommending it sent me down a rabbit hole.
Down that rabbit hole I found tubes of 200ml of bath goo for £2.99 ($3.99). I scooped up four & got free postage as well.
How does it smell? Like the late 80s. Mixed yellow floral & ambery/vanilla. It smell like the yellow of the sun on a fiercely hot day rather than a summer fragrance. If the fragrance smells this way I’m not sure it would be a summer or holiday fragrance more a warmer up on a cold grey summer day.
These mountainous bubbles are from just 3 little squeezes and are still there as I finish writing this.
*I bought this from Direct Cosmetics. I have no affiliation to either Jil Sander or Direct Cosmetics.
I was gifted a fragrance advent calendar before Xmas last year. Within it were some travel sizes from Vyrao. I like to do a bit of background reading about new to me houses to get a feel for them.
The Vyrao website states. “We are Vyrao. We believe energy is everything. Our fragrances are designed to elevate your mood and enhance your wellbeing, combining neuroscience and master perfumery.” The first 5 Vyrao fragrances were launched in 2021 & authored by Lyn Harris. Of these 4 have been discontinued and reworked by Meabh McCurtin. The reworked versions of 4 of these were released in 2026. Full size bottles contain a Herkimer diamond crystals for purity & positive vibrations, energised by the brands own healer. I will review those I own here.
SunRae Released in 2023, perfumer Meabh McCurtin. Notes from Fragrantica :- Top: turmeric, bergamot, ginger, lemon. Mid: Black pepper, cardamom. Base: Musk, vetiver, sandalwood, amber. SunRae is claimed to induce feelings of joy & happiness. It opens with the citruses & zingy ginger alongside something that grounds what are usually sparkly top notes. I’m guessing it’s the turmeric. This not only gives the opening an earthy touch but extends their longevity. As things move along the black pepper gives a pleasant nose tickle & that earthy turmeric still hums along. Sadly, I cannot taste or smell cardamom in cooking or in fragrance. Hence can’t really comment about it here. Fairly rapidly onto the base which again is grounding & earthy. The sandalwood is milky, vetiver dry grassy & the amber & musks fix these for an hour or two. DH described it as between sherbet lemons & Parma violets.
As a lover of astringent citrus scents in summer, this is up my street on first spray. Then I can’t appreciate it as a whole as I can’t ever smell cardamom. It’s a bit like having great tv connection then getting static interference in the middle of what you’re watching. After a couple of hours I can appreciate the warm dryness that is indeed calmly grounding.
Ludatrix Released in 2025. Perfumer Meabh McCurtin. Notes from Fragrantica :- Top: Sichuan pepper, lipstick, ambrette. Mid: rose, latex, concrete, frankincense, orris. Base: cedar wood, musk, sandalwood & ambroxan. Ludatrix is claimed to induce confidence, energy, happiness & sensuality. This opens with the heliotrope smell of rose coloured vintage stage lipsticks. It is here I find the orris in combination with that almondine heliotrope. I very much enjoy lipstick fragrances & Ludatrix shows great promise on first spritz. Then in comes the helium filled, life size blow up Divine doll giving off rubberised plastic vibes, wearing the greasepaint on every lip, along with the latex ball gag & shiny gimp mask. The lipstick vibe is now bright scarlet & badly applied. This uberfemme doll wears concrete thigh boots to keep her from blowing into the neighbours airspace & scaring the children. On skin the helium escapes by around 3 hours but double that on paper or clothing. What’s left is the feeling of the morning after, waking up to find you’ve slept on the varnished laminate flooring with the doomed feeling of all is not what it seemed. Ludatrix gave me my very own John Waters movie hallucination! Ludatrix reminded me of The Zoo Dangerous Curves, a tribute to the OTT glamour of Amanda Lepore. However, Lady Ludatrix has no warm blood & curves, she is all synthetic. On second wearing I avoided clothing & Ludatrix was much improved. She brought a smile to my face. More a knowing smile with a wink now I’m in on the joke. Skin keeps the Divine doll down to Barbie size & works wonders!
Witchy Woo (old formula). Released in 2021. Perfumer is Lyn Harris. Notes from Fragrantica:- Incense, patchouli, orris, sandalwood, black pepper, cinnamon, white musk, carrot seed & rose. These early releases don’t appear to have any claims about mood enhancement. I understand this formula of Witchy Woo has been a big hit with fashionable young Londoners. On first spray I smell 70s head shop. Someone has just applied a dirty patchouli oil, incense burns by the till & the person there is chewing red Dentyne chewing gum. This is sweetened by a carrotiness. Longevity isn’t huge at around 5 hours before becoming a very discrete skin scent of patchouli. Witchy Woo remains completely linear throughout & is indeed witchy in the fashion of a 70s hippie. My favourite of the bunch & it’s no longer available. Typical!
Ludeaux. Released in 2025. Perfumer is Meabh McCurtin. Notes from Fragrantica:- Top: Peach, Osmanthus, ambrette, skin. Mid: Latex, jasmine, amyris, magnolia. Base:- Musk, ambroxen, tonka & sandalwood. Ludeaux is said to induce sensuality & increase self esteem. On opening Ludeaux is a very gentle fuzzy peach skin which the latex peeps through after around 40 minutes. This keeps very close to the skin, no blimps today, thankfully. After 3 hours, despite snuffling, I cannot find any trace of Ludeaux. It could be my anosmia to large musks although I don’t sense the “hole” where I sense the missing musk is.
The Sixth. Released in 2022. Perfumer Meabh McCurtin. Notes from Fragrantica:- Top: Juniper berry oil, Angelica root oil, Gentian absolute, Wormwood oil. Mid:- Fennel oil, Apple, Rosemary oil, Peppermint oil, Basil oil, Cypress. Base: Oakwood extract, Oakmoss absolute, Patchouli oil, Fir Balsam absolute, Cedarwood oil. The Sixth is claim to open up the wearers sixth sense, intensifying the joy of life. After spraying a single spritz on my forearm I made a cuppa before settling down to read & make notes. Once I’d settled I thought my DH had come home & I hadn’t heard him come in. Then I sniffed my arm. It was The Sixth. It isn’t unpleasant at all but has a very “men’s clean smelling aftershave circa 1979-1985” vibe. Paco Rabanne Pour Homme, Pino Sylvestre, Quarum & Aqua Brava. These were the aftershaves worn by young men in my formative years. The Sixth captures that aromatic green over patchouli of those times perfectly. It is nicely done but personally I can’t separate the smell from my fixed olfactory memories. I’m off to get it off before I’m overtaken by raging testosterone & acne.
After perfume my other hobby is cooking & sourdough bread making.
Today has been tropically hot & so bright it has been dizzying! Friday is usually Chinese or Indian takeaway night. It’s my “night off” when in the past DH has gone drinking with his friends.
This weekend is the Whitsuntide bank holiday in the UK & I fancied something a little different. A fakeaway. Horrible word but we’re stuck with it.
I opted for a thai som tum, green papaya salad, spatchcock chicken & protein noodle plain chow mein. Couldn’t find an unripe papaya so found the hardest unripe mango I could. The butcher spatchcocked the chuck & put it in a tray to roast. The noodles are egg noodles with added pea & lentil flour. Better for diabetics than standard noodles.
It was delicious, if time consuming. I did get to play with my new toy. A manual mandolin & chopper. Thankfully no injuries today & it made the salad far less of a faff!
The salad was highly fragrant. Capsaicin heat, watery cucumber, soapy coriander, anisic Thai basil, the freshness of peppermint & citrus from lime leaves & lemon grass. A perfect hot weather fragrance if ever a salad could be.
alitykescents 