Posted by Kevin
on
22 December 2010
The holidays are about simple pleasures. I recently expressed that sentiment with a straight face to a friend — after shouting with glee: “Cire Trudon makes room sprays now!” My friend read the Cire Trudon Les Parfums d’Intérieur PR announcement and said: “I get the ‘pleasure’ part, Kevin, but what’s so ‘simple’ about a $142 room spray?” Fair enough.
Cire Trudon’s new room sprays come in its most popular candle fragrances: Roi Soleil, Spiritus Sancti, Abd El Kader, Ernesto, and Nazareth. Since one of my favorite churches, Santo Spirito in Florence, is thousands of miles away, I opted for the Cire Trudon fragrance that might help me conjure its atmosphere this Christmas (provided I close my eyes, get my imagination in high gear, and queue Monteverdi, Cavalli and Albinoni on the CD player); I chose Spiritus Sancti.
Spiritus Sancti smells like “classic” church incense…
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Posted by Robin
on
10 December 2010
More gift ideas for the 2010 holidays. This round is home fragrance (you can also find some home fragrance items in the earlier editions: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5). More to come!
From Fornasetti Profumi, the L’Ape scented candle with lid (above left), 300 g for $150, and the Pistola Incense box (above right), with 40 incense sticks in a wooden box with decorated ceramic burning tray, $220. Both items are in the Otto fragrance (thyme, lavender, orris, cedar, Tolu balsam, incense, birch/styrax and labdanum) and can be found at Ron Robinson…
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Posted by Robin
on
30 November 2010
Still shopping? Here are some more gift ideas, and if you missed them, check out Holiday gifts part 1 and part 2. And of course, more to come…
From Joya & Vane, solid perfume lockets in Royal Jasmine (jasmine, tuberose, tonka bean, toasted marshmallow and sandalwood; watch chain, above center, $68), Starleaf (orange blossom, honeysuckle, jasmine, lily of the valley, honey and sweet musk; heart brooch, above left, $38) or Moro Blood Orange (blood orange, tangerine, yuzu, tiare flower, vanilla, blonde woods and musk; oval + perfume pin, above right, $38). All at Anthropologie…
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Posted by Robin
on
29 April 2010
I love incense in almost all its (perfume) guises, from gothic to boho to meditative. Sonoma Scent Studio’s new Incense Pure, in my own entirely idiosyncratic fragrance family classification system, goes neatly into the “outdoor incense” category, a group that also includes Tauer Perfumes Incense extrême and Comme des Garçons Ouarzazate. Both of those fragrances have a contemplative quality, but they’re too airy and fresh to be churchy.
Incense Pure, despite being denser than either Incense extrême or Ouarzazate, likewise smells like the outdoors, and in this case, a specific time and place: it reminds me of early fall in northern New Mexico…
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Posted by Robin
on
10 February 2010
The records show that frankincense was produced here as far back as 7,000 BCE. He produces an army knife. He used to be a member of the Sultan's Special Forces. With a practised flick, he cuts a strip of bark from the trunk of one of the Boswellia sacra trees. Pinpricks of milky-white sap appear on the wood and, very slowly, start to ooze out.
— From Frankincense: Could it be a cure for cancer? at BBC News, with many thanks to Joe for the link!
