Traveling Perfume Box : Continental Europe

Our European perfume box has ran into trouble leaving the UK, so we are starting a new collection of samples in France. The UK box will be announced separately. If you are in Europe (any country but the UK) and would like to participate, here is how you can do it. And whether you’re participating or not, please read Jack Sullivan’s perfume descriptions below. She has been kind enough to volunteer her samples.

How does it work: To enter, please post a comment answer these questions: 1) are you in Europe (any country but the UK), and if you’re a winner, can I share your email address with Jack? ; 2) do you agree to pass the box onto someone else within two weeks or so (add a couple of your own samples and share your sampling notes with the rest of us)? and 3) what perfume are you wearing today? I will pick the next person to receive the box via a random number generator. I will announce that person in this spot and contact them via email. The next recipient: Kayliz.

When a winner is ready to pass the box onto someone else, they should get in touch with me. Please include the full list of samples and your sampling notes (what you’ve discovered, what you’ve liked/disliked, any observations you care to include). To check the progress of our boxes, please click on the Traveling Sample Box tag.

Smelling Notes

Parfum d’Empire Ambre Russe: if you have already smelled Ambre Sultan, chances are that Ambre Russe will smell familiar with its aromatic herbs and spices. But as austere as her bigger sister may feel, this one is made more playful and expansive by the addition of boozy notes, which feel almost fruity against the darkest background of black tea and incense, like a brightly embroidered blouse against an officer’s coat from the Czars’ era. The sillage is enormous, and one spray more can be one too many.

EnVoyage Parfums Zelda: while the name is a reference to Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s tragic spouse, I picture the young Joan Crawford (my flapper of choice!) whenever I wear this perfume: she’s high on champagne, her beaded dress reeks of spilled drinks and cigar smoke from the men’s room, she is exhausted from having spent hours dancing on tables and she has crushed the wilting magnolias in her hair by resting her head on her suitor’s tuxedo jacket. It doesn’t matter that you’re wearing sweatpants and that your hair is a mess, this perfume will make you feel like a queen.

Vero Profumo Rozy (Voile d’Extrait concentration): this one is a bit of a puzzle, but that’s probably what is so good about it. I don’t like honey in perfumes, my skin amplifies it as it does for every sweet note and soon I feel smothered in a sugary pillow I can’t get away from. Rozy has a huge honey note, but not the “usual” honey note: think heather honey, the slightly medicinal taste it leaves in your throat; then send it head first against tuberose and watch it morph into a flower bush under the Mediterranean sun, vibrating and humming with insect life. The result is odd, fantastic and so far up the “sexiness” scale that you might feel uncomfortable wearing it.

Aedes de Venustas Œillet Bengale: fireworks of a scent where rose masquerades as a carnation behind a thick cloud of spices – nevermind what the list of note says, I mostly get saffron and pepper, dry as a desert wind. The first minutes of the first spraying nearly made me panic because it feels huge and impossible to wear safely in the office, but it soon settles down and wraps around you like the warmest scarf.

Pierre Guillaume Collection Croisière – Jangala: a breath of fresh air between an overheated tropical canopy and the rich, rain-soaked soil. Intensely vegetal yet sweet thanks to a carefully balanced coconut-sandalwood accord, when most “green” scents would rather go the “tangy” way. Not much evolution on skin but I don’t mind, it could go on forever like this – the scent of a suspended time in the summer heat.

Samples in the box

Parfum d’Empire Ambre Russe
EnVoyage Parfums Zelda
Vero Profumo Rozy (Voile d’Extrait concentration)
Aedes de Venustas Œillet Bengale
Pierre Guillaume Collection Croisière – Jangala
Annick Goutal – Heure exquise (eau de parfum)
Annick Goutal – Nuit étoilée (eau de parfum)
Parfumerie Générale – Cozé
Naomi Goodsir – Bois d’Ascèse
Naomi Goodsir – Cuir Velours
Thierry Mugler Les Exceptions – Oriental Express

Photography by Bois de Jasmin, Cabris, Provence