Smelling more, smelling better.

Luigi Russolo, "Profumo", year 1910

We are used to smelling paper strips for convenience, reliability, and practical purposes.
Unfortunately, paper is NOT the best material to smell. There is something better. It's the heavy, complex, "winter-season" fabric. Your heavy coat, for example. Or a "furry" synthetic coat.
Why? for a simple reason: complexity in structure. It's not "flat", but almost three-dimensional.
Fabric is not flat as paper is, but it's thick and with complicate structure. When you spray perfumes all over fabric, a bigger amount of perfume will be trapped. Perfume molecules will adhere on every point of the fabric 3D surface.

How to smell a perfume?

This discussion can make you smile: "How to smell a perfume?"
In facts, the discussion is not so weird. Just walk into a perfume shop and look at the "horror show". 

Pinterest button finally available.

NEW: Pinterest Hover Button added

After so many requests... now you can add any picture on your Pinterest board simply "hovering" and clicking with your mouse on the desired picture. Enjoy!

Vintage (books)

A couple of vintage italian books about perfumes. A must-have for all die-hard fragrance lovers..
Long-time discontinued, but still available online at decent prices.

How to determine the amount of a perfume (part 2)

(The first part about 'How to determine the amount of a perfume' , was published here  ) 

If you can not see through a bottle to estimate the amount, well, it's a big problem.
But in some cases it is possible to estimate the amount of a perfume with other methods.

One of these methods is by weighing.

Guerlain LIDGE: the First and the Last (2005-2013)

Since there are so many rumors about possible discontinuation / reformulation / watering down, I got three different L'Instant De Guerlain Extreme pour Homme (LIDGE) bottles, from three different ages. The beginning (batch 5H01 = year 2005), the last one before "discontinuation" rumors came out (2T01 = year 2012) and the last on shelves (batch 3X01, late 2013): I made a blind test, confronting these three samples (see pictures).

How to recognize CHANEL perfumes.

** UPDATE March 2022 ** 

all Chanel batchcodes decrypted 

(including the "american", and rare letters-and-numbers codes)

READ HERE

below: how to decode the main ("French") 4-number batchcode

Chanel is one of the most difficult perfume houses to understand when dating a perfume.

This is due to the fact that the batch code is based on 4 numbers which apparently have no reference point.

Actually, Chanel adopts a method that is based on the passing of the months, without any reference to the year.

You start with 00, get to 99, and then start all over again, so in these 99 months, just over 8 years have passed.

KOUROS: The Scent of Gods (1/2)

This article is divided in two parts: this is the first one.

Here you will find:

- Introduction.

- YSL and Kouros: a brief overview.

- Kouros (1981-2017).

- Ratings.

- Pictures.

In the part nr. 2 you will find:

-Kouros Launch Party in Paris (February 20th, 1981)
-Flankers (1986-2014).
-Body Line.
-Special Bottles.
-Gift Sets
-Accessories.
-Miniatures.
-Advertising.
-Miscellaneous.
you can find the part nr.2 HERE

------------------------------

INTRODUCTION

Actually, Kouros has no need of introduction: put simply, it's the most famous "love it, or hate it" perfume.

Nothing as Kouros - and I mean absolutely nothing - has been able since its apparition to to split the audience so radically: on a side there are the fanatic lovers, exalting it beyond any description ("The scent of Gods," it's the usual definition of Kouros ). 

On the other side,  people fiercely hating it: "Kouros smells like sweat plus other disgusting body odors", it's commonly said.

But what causes this heating discussion? It's the fact that Kouros tries to imitate the natural scent of human skin, "fresh and clean". As supporters say, it is an extraordinary perfume of  "a pure Man". 

On the contrary, detractors change it in: "a dirty Man".

Anyway, Kouros is certainly one of the scents that made ​​the History of Perfumery.

1914-2014

Artificial Fragrances Handbook, year 1914.

Dedicated to all people thinking 

that "artificial, synthetic  perfumery"

 is a recent phenomenon.

DIOR HOMME INTENSE 2007-2013 : 9 BATCHES BlindTest.

(UPDATE: in this article you will read the "years 2007-2013" review: if you are interested in the "year 2014" updated review, then go HERE )

Dior Homme Intense is not a perfume, it's a rollercoaster ride. After the mid-year 2011 reformulation, we saw a U-turn back to origins, during year 2013. A pleasant news, since in 2013 it appeared exactly as in 2007. That's all right? Unfortunately not.
Suddenly, during last months of 2013, the scent appeared to be reformulated again, with a change in color, less intense, less "ambery", and almost "transparent". Another change in formula?
Let's go and see what happened.