With a baby on the way, I’ll have a nice studio setup for staged photos, but I obviously need a great flash for other situations. All this leads me to my question – should I buy a Nikon SB-700 or another brand, such as one of the Sigma offerings for a bit less money? I’m leaning towards just getting the Nikon because it seems like the amount I’d save with a Sigma or another wouldn’t offset the benefits from things like CLS or other Nikon benefits.

I was recently able to get my hands on some great sample from Yosh, including her new, reformulated Sombre Negra. She came up with one of the coolest ways of providing a sample too – along with the vial of Sombre Negra, she includes a stick with paper mustache attached that’s been sprayed. When you hold the mustache up to your face, you smell the gorgeous fragrance. It’s about the most clever way of making a sample and perfectly fitting.

I’ll leave the actual reviewing to those in better practice and reputation, but I will say that I enjoyed SN from first encounter and decided I had to get a bottle. It’s extremely masculine in the traditional sense of actual notes, but not necessary in actual wear – I’m sure I’d love it on my wife as well. After I got the sample and wore it a couple times, I had to head to CES in Las Vegas for work. It only dawned on me after I was on the plane that the Barney’s I have purchased so much from (and photographed on this blog) was across the street from the Mirage, where I was staying. One of the days I had a couple free hours, I headed over for some sniffing. After sampling some underwhelming Byredo scents (but one I did like – Accord Oud) and Arquiste Parfumeur (which I really loved and got a few samples of – I’m sure to add some of those soon), I liberally sprayed myself with Sombre Negra and continued poking around the store for a bit. It came down to the Yosh and one of the Arquiste scents I was wearing, but the Yosh ended up being the one I came away with.

I’d call my trip to Vegas a success – I came back $40 in the black, thoroughly tired, and with an incredible new scent. Here are a few shots of my unpacking it when I got home.

My wife and I went there as part of a Sunday trip to the Galleria – I almost certainly would have purchased something, as I had done many times before. We were looking at the Amouage and ELdO fragrances and I mentioned to my wife that I would love to have the perfume coffee table book they had on the shelf for Christmas. She pulled out her phone to snap a picture of it so she’d be able to come back and get the right book. The brunette lady behind the counter boldly shouted at her “EXCUSE ME, what do you think you’re doing?” When my wife tried to explain, she snapped back that she couldn’t take a picture of anything without their expressed permission. When I tried to stop the lady from getting nastier to my wife, she condescendingly snapped at me that people like THEM don’t do such rude things. Really? Taking a picture so she could buy me a Christmas gift? How rude, huh? I understand that they might not want people taking pictures of their display (the lady tried to say that we could be competitors looking at display ideas), but a simple polite question would go miles further than angrily shouting across the store.

I told her that they had lost long-time customers and a considerable amount of money (I’d spent hundreds of dollars there before and certainly would have continued), then the owner chimed in with “Well, now you’ll have a picture to remember us by.” He had the chance to rectify the situation and apologize, but he just continued down the hostile road the other lady had taken and we left the store.

I am still blown away at how rude they were and how they treated us. There are plenty of other places to get the same items, but with much less hostility and pretentiousness. I’ve never encountered such nastiness from a small retail shop employee, much less the owner himself.

I’ll certainly let the owners of the small niche fragrance companies they stock know about the caliber of this shop selling their products, as it reflects poorly on their brands as well.

Sorry all! Be back before too long!

You can find a really great, in-depth narrative around the creation and background of the scent here [Behind the Scene - The Smell of the Landscape].

This is from the accompanying papers:

This perfume is the product of a search to find the essence of the Mastenbroek polder – the essential elements that Mastenbroek what it is.

Situated between Zwolle, Hasselt and Genemuiden, Mastenbroek stems from the late Middle Ages and is an archetypal Dutch polder. Straight, narrow roads dissect the low-lying countryside; irrigation ditches reflect the perpetually fluctuating sky; farms sitting atop elevated knolls unfold into the horizon.

Mastenbroek’s residents, primarily cattle farmers who have lived and worked in this polder for generations, actively partook in the Essence club and eventually determined the aromas and scents that make up L’Essence de Mastenbroek.

Located on the polder’s periphery, near the old steam pumping station, is the Essence source. It is here where the bottles are filled, and packaged and where you can refill your empty bottle.

It goes on to tell more about the steam pumping station and directions, etc. One thing I got a kick out of was the additional blurb and “ingredients” listed on a stuck-on amendment at the back of the paper:

This perfume is part of the art project L’Essence de Mastenbroek and has not been dermatologically tested.

Ingredients: Scent extracts, clouds, water, cattle, grass and earth.

Gee, I hope I’m not allergic to real bits of cattle.

Get comfortable – there are bunch of shots here.

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I’ve been trying to tidy up my collection over the past couple weeks and I realized that there were still whole boxes of samples that still hadn’t even been opened since I moved. As I’m filing things away to where they need to be, I thought I’d give away some samples, rather than just letting them sit. Nearly all of these are fragrances I loved and ended up purchasing bottles (I’ve topped them back off so you can enjoy fully), with the exception of a couple carded samples that have been tossed into purchases before.

Leave a comment before June 8th, and I’ll use random.org to pick the winner. Be sure to include your email to contact (only visible to me).

Here’s what we’ve got in the little grab bag.
Amouage – Epic Man
Amouage – Lyric Man
L’Artisan Parfumeur – Voleur de Roses
Bois 1920 – 1920 Extreme
Bond No. 9 – H.O.T. Always
Bond No. 9 – Saks Fifth Avenue for Her
By Kilian – Back to Black
Comme des Garcons – Vettiveru
Dior – Ambre Nuit
Estee Lauder – Sensuous
Etro – Raving
Floris – Santal
Jo Malone – Black Vetiver Café
Jo Malone – Orange Blossom Cologne
Kiehl’s – Original Musk
Montale – Red Aoud
Montale – Red Vetyver
Il Profumo – Chocolat
Nasomatto – Black Afghano
Versace – Bright Crystal
Versace – Versense