Jour Ensoleillé by Sonoma Scent Studio

My last couple of weeks have been turbulent. Some, pretty fundamental, things that I've been taking for granted proved to be, well, not to be. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Change is an inevitable part of life and it's only when old beliefs are lost that you get room for new ones hat are better suited for you - but it still feels disorienting and confusing. One part of me wanted to clench my wrists and scream like a teenager not getting her way and another wanted to cuddle up with kids and husband under a blanket in the sofa, trying to forget all about the outside world.

But, in the midst of all this I had a very nice surprise. A while ago, lovely Nathalie of anotherPerfumeBlog sent me some samples from Sonoma Scent Studios (Champagne de Bois and Incense Pure) and I liked them so much I  decided to order more. And, yes, now my parcel showed up in the mail! Great, I thought, lets do an all-weekend-Sonoma-marathon. As I'd just read Birgits review of Jour Ensoleillé I figuered, well, that one sounds like a good one to start with, lets go!

Right away, at first sniff of JE there are several, very easily recognizable, notes. There is orange blossom, flanked by it's pals indolic jasmine and waxy tuberose. My very first thought was, this is one of those simple, cheery little things, perfect for simple-minded, cheery people, good for them (=I hate them) (yes, this is a horrible thing to say, but you must to consider the drama-queen state of mind I was in at the time). On next inhale I thought, hey, there is more! And there IS more, that bright and happy side is flanked by another side, dark, cool and just plain beautiful. I can't pick out the exact notes for it myself but according to the list of official notes there are beeswax, labdanum, myrrh, sandalwood, ambergris, vetiver, green leaves and oakmoss.

For these last few days, JE has proved to be my perfect scent. It's happy side has cheered me up and helped me keep focus on that silver lining that is supposed to come with the clouds. The dark side has simultaneously calmed me while mirroring and acknowledging my confusion, like it's saying, it's ok, it's just the way things are right now, they're not perfect but we're all ok.

And that all-weekend-marathon never happened cause after trying on JE, it was all I wanted to wear for several days - and that's very unusual for me as I like to change scents as often as it's practically possible. In other words, a very good mark.





Notes: orange blossom, neroli, tuberose, jasmine, beeswax absolute, labdanum absolute , myrrh, sandalwood, ambergris, vetiver, green leaves, oakmoss absolute.


Picture from Sonoma Scent Studios website

Cucumbers and horses - "Celadon, a Velvet Green" from DSH Perfumes

It's nothing new that I've been seriously into vegetable notes this summer and the first time I saw DSHs website I was in awe. So many perfumes, so many with vegetable notes in them. Where to start? What do I want? I went for cucumber.

Now, most people that have perfumes as a hobby know that what you get is not always what you had expected. With "Celadon, a Velvet Green" I had zoomed in on the cucumber note and somehow managed to ignore all the others. I was expecting something light, aquatic, green and fresh but what I got was completely different. Look at the picture below, I got that! Well, everything except the horse, that is.

Celadon took me back in time to when I was maybe 8 years old. All my friends went to riding school and the conversation topics that mattered was gossip from the stable; what horse was the cutest one, who would get to ride what horse during the next couple of lessons, that type of stuff. I badly wanted to attend riding school, but no. My dad is a plastic surgeon and he had met more horseback riders than you'd like to know - on the operating table trying to reconstruct various parts of their bodies after being kicked or fallen off. So this was a very "No Discussion"-type of no. But a girl can dream... I read books about horses, read magazines about horses and watched horseback riding shows on tv, thinking, one day, I'd wear one of those stylish riding outfits, have a horse of my horse and we'd be best friends forever.

Celadon is the scent representation of my childhood dream of a horse. There are two sides of this scent, one is green, containing clover, grass and lots of hay, complete with that slightly sour note that it tends to get by laying around in damp environments. All the stuff I'd be happily feeding my little horsie, the two of us hanging out in the barnyard. The other side is soft vanilla/tonka. Sometimes it's a dreamy marshmallow cloud to dwell in. Sometimes I get fabric softener, like riding outfits smell in fantasy land where no one ever has to clean out the stables or get horse sweat all over you.

Now, me and vanilla "are in a relationship and it's complicated", as you see on Facebook sometimes. There are some scents in which I like it, but in this one it's brushing me the wrong way. The green side of Celadon I like though. And I admire how it brings up memories that I thought I'd forgotten all about. Who needs a shrink when you have a perfume blog?

And, did I ever get that horse? No, it was not meant to be. Some years later my parents actually encouraged me to try horseback riding. At that time they probably had realised that one of the most likely pastime I'd chose would involve beer and boys with motorcycles. By then, horses had lost their appeal.


For other reviews of "Celadon - a Velvet Green", see:
Olfactorias Travels
I Smell Therefore I am 


Composition:
Top notes: Clover Leaf, Cucumber, Lime Peel
Middle notes: Green Grass, Liatrix, Orris Root
Base notes:Balsam Fir, Hay absolute, Narcissus Absolute, Tonka Bean, Violet Leaf Absolute



Pic: pennydreadfulvintage.blogspot.com

This sample was sent to me.