What do you bring back from your travels? What are your favorite souvenirs to pick up on your vacations? If you’re planning a vacation this summer, what perfume are you packing along?

Since I’ve just moved, I haven’t accrued any vacation time, but I’m making up for it by setting aside time to explore my new country. And while I still get bouts of intense homesickness, I’m slowly finding things to enjoy here. The ease of travel is one of them, and in the past couple of month we’ve taken lots of car trips. Every time we visit some new place, I try to bring something back.

My favorite souvenir is anything that can give me sensory enjoyment long after I return from the trip–perfume, food, books, beautiful fabrics, and of course, photos. I have a growing collection of honeys from different places. My spice collection can almost rival my perfume wardrobe. Each morning as I take out a jar of orange blossom honey I bought in California (yes, I actually packed my Californian honey with me!) or reach for a whiff of sandalwood oil I found in India, it’s like a little memento of my adventures.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

Justin Bieber is a young and very pretty singer, songwriter, and actor who has had a double platinum album, three singles in the Billboard Hot 100, and who has gotten involved in the fragrance industry.  Taylor Swift is a young and very pretty singer, songwriter, and actor who has won a Grammy for Country Album of the Year, for Best Country Song, and for Best Country Solo Performance. Ms. Swift has also gotten involved in the fragrance industry.

What is striking about their fragrances, Justin Bieber Someday and Taylor Swift Wonderstruck, is the similarity of the ad copy and the resemblance to Britney Spears Fantasy, a fruity, frothy thing that, as much as it might seem impossible, broke ground in this category.

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I just discovered another reason to like Belgium, and it’s a modest looking place called Place Vendôme Haute Parfumerie. Modest applies only to the exterior of this perfumery located on a quiet street in the town of Wevelgem, one hour south-west of Brussels. Inside, it’s an Ali Baba’s cave of the most exclusive niche lines and fragrance classics. The store is owned by David Depuydt, who along with his team has been in business for the past 21 years.

I found out about Place Vendôme by chance via a friend who raved about the customer service and the jewelbox ambiance of the store.  Similar praises were lavished upon the boutique by both the perfume historian Elisabeth de Feydeau and Guerlain’s creative director Sylvaine Delacourte. Although Brussels lags behind New York and Paris in terms of perfume shopping, fragrance isn’t hard to find in Belgium, where even the cosmetic shops like Ici Paris XL and Planet Parfum carry Serge Lutens and small lines like Kenzo, Rochas, and Tom Ford. A couple of weeks ago my husband proposed to visit the trappist abbey at Westvleteren that brews a particularly sought after beer. Since the abbey’s limited distribution of their beer rivals that of Serge Lutens bell jars, we decided to combine our interests in one trip. We’re a family of geeks, what can I say.
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Tom Ford introduces Jardin Noir, a collection of Private Blend fragrances that reinterprets 4 classical flowers: narcissus, hyacinth, rose and lily. “When you showcase their darker and less innocent aspects,” he says in an interview with New York Times, “flowers can become so thrilling and beautiful, they could almost ruin you. That was the sensation I was after.” There will be four fragrances: Jonquille de Nuit, Ombre de Hyacinth, Café Rose and Lys Fume.

Jonquille de Nuit–“Unusual top notes of wild Alpine cyclamen, acacia and angelica seeds, balanced with Egyptian violet leaf and bitter orange leaf absolute, provide a contrasting structure which allows the heady narcissus heart to spill into the senses. This powerful floral vibration is pushed, heightened, and teased to the brink—until a sensual, hypnotic base of orris and warm amber arrest this frenetic blossoming.”

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‘Please see my review of Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb‘ — this is how I originally started my post on the newest Lancôme perfume La Vie Est Belle. This big Lancôme launch takes a lesson from its flop Magnifique and does everything by the book: a fetching package (check), something pink (check) and a safe, easy to like perfume (check). It’s even better if you tag on a well-known spokesperson (check, Julia Roberts looks gorgeous in the ads).

While my initial reaction was to dismiss La Vie Est Belle as another copycat, after wearing it for the past couple of weeks I’m not so sure what I think. The citrusy top notes laced with tangy raspberries were facile, but addictive, while the gourmand drydown tempered by earthy iris was surprisingly mellow.  I readied myself for another cheap fruit compote, but I discovered a trendy and likable perfume. I would have had an easier time making up my mind if it smelled cheap, but it doesn’t.

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