HS3

Rose Chyprée – it’s incredible. Rose Chyprée is from Andy’s new Mémorables line – and it evokes memories. There’s something about it that’s comforting and familiar. It’s something that once you smell it, you want to keep smelling it, nose glued to it. The GF can’t get enough of it… for her, it makes her think of her horses back home in Arizona. It brings her memories of the desert, hay, flowers, and the scent of a horse, glistening with sweat, along with its worn leather saddle.

It truly is something special… all of Andy’s perfumes are hand made and packaged by him. He is really quite the talented perfumer. (Andy, quit the day job already!) This one has a pound of rose petals steam distilled in each bottle. That’s incredible. It is a small 15ml bottle, but it’s potent and a couple shots are all you need. Andy’s description from his website:

I stuck a regular 1ml sample vial here just to show scale… it’s a tiny little thing.

I used to have my collection neatly in a row on a dresser, neatly tucked in a closet. It grew to the point of needing one of those three tiered risers for cans that you can get at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. It started busting at the seams, so I got a great cabinet at IKEA that seemed to fit my needs perfectly.

I bought a set of diode spotlights, and a set of diode strip lights (that even had multiple colors… fancy!) and wired the top half of the cabinet to be the new display. The middle drawer was perfect for samples, so I installed a little diode light in it as well that automatically turned on when the drawer opened, and also lined it with high density foam, covered in black velvet.

Well, the hobby grew, and it grew tight in the cabinet. The bottom half had up til then only held the boxes and a few spare bottles. I made a trip back to IKEA and grabbed another set of diode strip lights (no fancy colors for the bottom… yet) to convert the bottom to more display space and make the top less crammed. I left the very bottom shelf empty to toss all the extra samples and miscellany that wouldn’t fit in the middle drawer. I got it all put together and I have to say – I’m pretty pleased with the whole thing, though it makes it easy to be late for work. It’ll need a tripod to get a sharp picture without using strobes which I haven’t gotten around to doing yet, but this turned out better than I thought it would handheld with just those diode lights. I took the photo of the top half and the top two shelves from the photo of the bottom half and just photoshopped them together… so you’ll have to use your imagination that the drawer splits them.

Here’s the middle drawer with samples. I left out the very bottom shelf, since it’s far from organized and looks more like a big mess of vials, cards, boxes, and such.

So there’s my collection. How do you store your smelly treasures? What types of cool ways of organizing samples have you come up with?

I realize that might be a bit over the top, but the way I see it – if you enjoy it, then it’s worth the effort!

As seen on their site and a post on fragrantica, it looks like Histoires de Parfums is releasing a 14ml mini sprayer set of all their fragrances. I’m not sure what the pricing is (hopefully not as steep as the Tom Ford mini set of rollers), but I would be pretty interested if it’s not too bad. There are a number of their scents I really like, but in the “wear it once a year” type of way. They would also be perfect for taking a couple on trips.  It looks like it comes with a great little case to take a few traveling as well.

I’ve done a 180 – Back to Black is now well on my wish list. The things I didn’t like about it the first time are gone – I think I just didn’t apply enough. It’s earned its spot on my wishlist and I wish it hadn’t. It’s darned expensive.

Orange Blossom scents are some of my favorites. I finally bit the bullet and ordered the wonderful Fleur d’Oranger 2007 by L’Artisan Parfumeur from their Exceptional Harvest series. The $295 pricetag is a bit offputting, but it really is one of the most incredible, full orange blossom scents, and I’m a sucker for limited edition, blah, blah. I asked my Barney’s SA (who is also the L’Artisan mgr) and the 2005 is nigh impossible to find, even from the source…. so 2007 it was.

It arrived and it’s gorgeous – even more so than what I’d experienced from the sample that I’d worn a couple times. It’s not just the orange blossom – it’s the whole experience. The leaves, the blossoms, the wood, and the roots. It’s made entirely of orange blossoms from Nabeul in Tunisia. It’s wonderfully unisex and it sticks around, I think, longer than most think it does (a bit of anosmia after a few hours seems to be common with this type of scent). Others notice just a few sprays on me many hours after applying. I’ve even gotten an “Mmmm, you smell like spring in Florida.” That works for me!

Here’s what you can expect if you snag a bottle. They made much more of this one (6000 bottles) than the two thousand something they did for the ‘05 version, no doubt because of its popularity. Mine is 499/6000, so unless they ship them out in a really odd order, there’s not an immediate chance of them selling out.

According to LuckyScent, the paper it’s wrapped in is a silk paper, but from what I can tell, it might as well just be (really nice, of course) tissue paper. It’s presented really well though – and the box is really gorgeous wood in person.

No question – best orange blossom I’ve tried. I think I might even be able to park my quest for orange blossom. On to the next scent!