parfum | The Scented Hound

March 22, 2014
by The Scented Hound 4 Comments

VOHINA by HUITIEME ARTS PARFUMS

WHAT I SMELL: Vohina opens as a rich, smooth honey laden floral. It’s warm and slightly “bathtastic” as it feels like it’s suited for bath oil beads rather than perfume. I think I am smelling the lavender at the base, but it’s very muted which is nice as lavender can often times dominate a fragrance. As the fragrance develops the honey becomes deeper and the fragrance warms and it loses the bath oil characteristics. Around the 30 minute mark a woodiness comes out that seems to dry the fragrance without losing the lovely florals. After another twenty minutes or so, the honey get’s a bit sharper and that creates an almost hairspray kind of edge to the fragrance, but it doesn’t detract from the overall fragrance. I find Vohina to be very soothing, peaceful and relaxing and a fragrance that could easily take the tension out of the day.

From the Huitieme Art Parfums website:

A sunny afternoon in the fields, velvety and floral with peach tree blossom and lavender honey resting on golden hay.

WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME: A beautiful early summer day in a bygone era.

THREE ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE VOHINA: comforting, peaceful, unassuming

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT VOHINA: Scent for Thought, Olfactoria’s Travels, CaFleureBon

BOTTOM LINE: This was my first foray into Huitieme Arts and it was a pleasant surprise. Vohina is not earth shattering, but you don’t always need an earth shattering fragrance. To me, it’s perfect for just knocking around on a spring or summer day.

Bone Rating: 3.5 out of 5 possible bones
Scent: Floral
Nose: Pierre Guillaume
Classification: Feminine
Expense: $125 for 50ml EdP

March 19, 2014
by The Scented Hound 22 Comments

NARCISSE NOIR by CARON

WHAT I SMELL: Narcisse Noir opens with a dark and deep narcissus, like it comes from the depths of a country field that is moistened with a warm undercurrent that runs through it. It’s sharp like the flower, but not so much that it’s all bite. After around five minutes the orange blossom comes to the surface. It’s not bright and it’s not juicy, but rather mixed with the narcissus it retains this darker, more mysterious edge. The jasmine adds a bit of rubberiness to the mix almost like its tuberose. I like it at this stage because it fills your lungs with weighted beefy florals. But soon enough, the darker veil lifts a bit to reveal a lighter side which unfortunately reminds me of expensive hair spray. If only the fragrance could have stayed in that early stage! The drydown….well, see below…

Top notes are african orange flower and narcissus; middle notes are jasmine, orange and tincture of rose; base notes are vetyver, musk and sandalwood.

WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME: Years ago, the first home I ever purchased was in a suburb outside of Atlanta, GA called College Park. I lived in a neighborhood where we all had historic plaques on our homes and it was very homey, pretty and was a great place to live. Unfortunately, historic College Park is surrounded by some not so nice areas and quality grocery shopping was hard to come by. In East Point, the town next to us there was the Kroger Citi Center. I don’t know if they were trying to recreate a neighborhood concept, but whatever it was, it failed. Instead of walking directly into the grocery store, you had to walk by a series of mom and pop small businesses in addition to a Popeyes chicken restaurant. One of the business was a nasty looking beauty salon. I don’t know what kind of chemicals were used in that shop, but that horrid burnt hair, chemical smell combined with the smell of Popeye’s Fried Chicken always gave me a headache and made me nauseous. Unfortunately, the drydown in Narcisse Noir reminds me of the Kroger Citi Center. OK, this is better than that, but it still reminds me of the gauntlet that I used to have to walk through to get my groceries.

As I was having a hard time getting past this association, I asked my husband what he thought it smelled like. He said it smells kind of powdery like a girls bedroom and said it reminded him of his sister. Go figure…maybe she ate a lot of fried chicken while she was under the hairdryer!

THREE ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE NARCISSE NOIR: sour, strange, pungent

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT NARCISSE NOIR: Bois de Jasmin, The Perfumed Dandy, Perfume Posse

BOTTOM LINE: You would think that I would give this a great big “1 Bone”, but for some reason I am repulsed, yet attracted to this Caron classic and every once in a while will wear it. So even though it’s not for me there is a reason that it has been around since 1911. Besides, who couldn’t love that perfume bottle?

Bone Rating: 3 out of 5 possible bones
Scent: Oriental Floral
Nose: Ernest Daltroff
Classification: Feminine, with masculine leanings
Expense: $180 for 15ml Parfum Extrait which this review was based on.

March 15, 2014
by The Scented Hound 26 Comments

Yes Virginia, there ARE plenty of vintage perfume lovers out there!

Once again, I found an estate sale up in Maryland where there was going to be some upscale perfumes for sale. As the sale was to start on Saturday morning at 8am and they were taking numbers for first in the door starting at 7am, I made sure that I was up early to head 30 miles away to stand out in the dark to get one of the first numbers. To my surprise, my hubby wanted to come with me (getting up at 5:30am…I think my crazed madness for this all provides some amusement to him) and we were standing at the door at 6:45. You think that I would have been number 1, but instead my number was 9. The people in front of me seemed to be pretty innocuous and I was hoping that they were. My hubby for the past week was asking why we needed to be there early because who want to buy old perfume? He probably was right, no one but me.

So 8am sharp the door opens and who wants to buy perfume? Everyone wants to buy perfume. There was a mad dash by 4 people in front of me and they were hogging the space getting first grabs (OK, they were first so they got first dibs, but from my vantage point…well, you know). In any case, I ended up getting some sweet items, but what I really wanted was the unopened vintage Magie Noire’s, which there were 2 parfum extraits. I had to settle for the 7.5ml used version with the missing top. But for $5, who cares.

So what else did I get? A 7.5ml bottle of vintage Molinard de Molinard parfum extrait in a Lalique bottle that was still in its cellophane. It is a beautiful gem of a bottle and I love the juice, all smokey and leathery in the beginning, only to turn into a light fruity breeze in the end. I am more of a Habinita fan, but I love this little jewel.

I also got a 7.5ml bottle of vintage Lagerfeld, KL parfum extrait. Again, still in the cellophane. Deep rich and rather manly, I have the feeling that I’ll be wearing this alot.

And then there’s the 30ml bottle and 7.5ml bottle of Guerlain Samsara parfum extrait. I only had a tiny bottle of vintage Samsara EdP as part of my collection, so this was a real treat. And to be honest, I don’t need the 7.5ml bottle, so if anyone in the US is interested, I may be willing to part with it. Just drop me a line. Funny, I was able to check the codes to see what year they are from and both are from 1989. However, the large box has no bar code and the small box does, so it’s right in that period where bar codes started coming into existence.

Overall, I’m glad I got up early to get to the sale. But since I now know that there are other vintage perfume hunters out there, I’ll make sure that I get there at 6:30 next time rather than 6:45!

And I need your help on naming some perfumes. The following photos are for a sale coming up right around the corner in a couple of weeks. I believe the yellow box is L’Air du Temps but can anyone identify what else is on the table?