The splitmeet (episode 25) is open for business. PLEASE read the instructions! For people who would like to chat in addition to, or instead of, splitting, there will be a poll along shortly.

Don't know what a bottle split is, or you know but you've never tried it? See here.

Please note that the intention of the splitmeet is to split newly purchased bottles of perfume, not to sell decants of fragrances already in your collection! Anyone can join a split, but only people with current, active reader accounts may host splits. Update: in other words, you cannot host a split if you have never commented here before the day the splitmeet opens...

The swapmeet (episode 28) is open for business! PLEASE read the instructions! (For those of you who refuse to read the instructions, please do not respond to anyone else's comment except to say that their email address does not work. ANYTHING else you need to say, say it in an email. If you insist on responding to a comment, I will delete your comment. If you want to know how to swap for something, see #6 below!) For people who would like to chat in addition to, or instead of, swapping, there will be a poll along shortly.

Don’t know what swapping is, or you know but you’ve never tried it? See here. You can also take a look at the feedback from episode 3, episode 4, episode 5, episode 6 and episodes 7-8, episodes 9-10, episodes 11-17.

Please, do not participate if you do not have time to mail your items within the next three weeks! Hopefully, another swapmeet will be coming up in the fall...

There's a certain pleasure to be had in following a favorite artisanal perfume brand over an extended period of time, just like following a musician or visual artist or film director whose work means a lot to you. You can see their work evolve, recognize certain recurring themes or motifs, watch them trace new paths. Lately, I’ve been regularly wearing recent releases from three artisanal perfumers whose work I’ve followed for years. All three have turned out to be mood-boosters for me, in different ways, and I'm appreciating these tiny vials of optimism at the end of a tricky and unpredictable year.

Snow Angels is Dawn Spencer Hurwitz's twenty-fifth holiday fragrance as DSH Perfumes. I'm partial to a few of her previous holiday releases (including Pomegranate Rouge, Ruby Candlelight and Winter White) so I looked forward to trying this one...

The splitmeet (episode 24) is open for business. PLEASE read the instructions! For people who would like to chat in addition to, or instead of, splitting, there will be a poll along shortly.

Don't know what a bottle split is, or you know but you've never tried it? See here.

Please note that the intention of the splitmeet is to split newly purchased bottles of perfume, not to sell decants of fragrances already in your collection! Anyone can join a split, but only people with current, active reader accounts may host splits. Update: in other words, you cannot host a split if you have never commented here before the day the splitmeet opens...

The swapmeet (episode 27) is open for business! PLEASE read the instructions! (For those of you who refuse to read the instructions, please do not respond to anyone else's comment except to say that their email address does not work. ANYTHING else you need to say, say it in an email. If you insist on responding to a comment, I will delete your comment. If you want to know how to swap for something, see #6 below!) For people who would like to chat in addition to, or instead of, swapping, there will be a poll along shortly.

Don’t know what swapping is, or you know but you’ve never tried it? See here. You can also take a look at the feedback from episode 3, episode 4, episode 5, episode 6 and episodes 7-8, episodes 9-10, episodes 11-17.

Please, do not participate if you do not have time to mail your items within the next three weeks! Hopefully, another swapmeet will be coming up in the spring...

Earlier this week I heard that MakeupAlley.com, the message board and online community founded in 1999, is shutting down at the end of September. This news brings out some really deep feelings in me. I created a MakeupAlley.com account in June 2003 hoping to learn more about a newly launched fragrance, and I ended up making so many long-lasting friendships — and, in 2006, finding out about an opening for a writer at this very blog — along the way. 

Even if I hadn't met so many special people through that site, I still would have learned more about perfume than I ever could have expected — new fragrances, vintage perfumes, everything from drugstore cheapies to cult classics to hard-to-obtain "niche" lines. I certainly learned about Ormonde Jayne on MakeupAlley, because the brand wasn't available in the United States in those days. I'm not even sure how I did my initial sampling of the "OJ" (as we abbreviated it) fragrances I still know and love, like Ta'if and Champaca. Did another MUA member send me some hand-decanted sample vials in a swap? Or did someone circulate a sample set acquired on a London shopping spree? 

In any case, I've kept up with the brand's doings ever since, and made my own visit to the Ormonde Jayne boutique in London's Royal Arcade about a year and a half ago...

I was doing some errands in midtown Manhattan on a recent weekday, and I decided to step into Saks Fifth Avenue to cool off for a few minutes and smell a few perfumes. Once I arrived on the beauty floor, however, I realized that there aren't too many things there to tempt me. One exception is the Dries Van Noten counter. This brand is still hard to find in brick-and-mortar stores, and although I'm a fan of its refillable lipsticks and several fragrances (with Raving Rose and Rosa Carnivora leading the way), I still haven't tried the full line-up. Plus, what if I somehow have some extra cash and want to buy the travel trio set someday? I need to know which three I'd pick.

So I sidled up to the counter and requested a spray of Camomille Satin, mostly just because the bottle is gorgeous, with an upper half of ombré peach glass and a gold-patterned base...

As I'm writing this review, a "heat dome" is gathering over my part of the world. What better time to test and review two summer-themed fragrance samples that have been waiting patiently on my desk for weeks? Every year, of course, I emphasize that I'm a heat-hater and sun-avoider who craves salt-air scents and suntan oil-inspired fragrances. These two seemed to fit the bill, but I had more luck with one than the other. Just like a long holiday weekend, a fragrance often lives up to expectations but can fall short in other instances.

Thomas de Monaco is what I think of as a "nouveau niche" brand — I tend to confuse it with a few other companies that have men's names, vaguely similar backstories, and/or packaging that looks like a love child of Byredo and Nasomatto. However, several people recommended this particular brand to me over the past year or two, so I finally focused on it during a visit to an indie fragrance boutique. I sniffed a few ceramic discs that had been pre-spritzed with de Monaco scents, and the one that captured my interest was Sol Salgado (developed by perfumer Maurus Bachmann, 2023). My initial reaction was, "Ooh, beach-y doll-head!" I don't recall ever thinking before that a beach-y doll-head perfume was something I needed, but inhaling the scent off that tester disc, I had to refrain from purchasing a bottle on the spot...

The splitmeet (episode 23) is open for business. PLEASE read the instructions! For people who would like to chat in addition to, or instead of, splitting, there will be a poll along shortly.

Don't know what a bottle split is, or you know but you've never tried it? See here.

Please note that the intention of the splitmeet is to split newly purchased bottles of perfume, not to sell decants of fragrances already in your collection! Anyone can join a split, but only people with current, active reader accounts may host splits. Update: in other words, you cannot host a split if you have never commented here before the day the splitmeet opens...

I fell in love with the scent of tuberose flowers in Los Angeles; every week, huge piles of tuberose stalks would be delivered to the big downtown flower market. A two-foot-long individual stalk was $3.50! (A laughable figure these days.) A work friend would go to the flower market every other Friday to pick up ten stalks — five for her home and five for the office. Weeks and weeks would pass when I’d smell fresh tuberose flowers almost every day. Heaven.

At the same time, Robert Piguet Fracas (the Pierre Negrin version) was a huge hit in Hollywood. Wherever I went — the museum, the movies, Grand Central Market, my dentist (the worst place to smell Fracas, believe me!) — I was knocked in the nostrils by the most powerful perfume version of tuberose. Hell...