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These are the most French perfumes you can possibly imagine: niche and completely over-the-top in terms of scent, price, and packaging (sorry, flacons). They have a collection of perfumes inspired by paintings, which are printed on the bottle. For other scents, you can replace the cap—which I think must always come with a tassel around the neck—with a small classical bust, which I believe is also theoretically aligned with the perfume’s notes. This costs an additional 100+ euros or something, so I did not do it on my bottle of Invasion Barbare, which I bought only partly for the name. It makes you smell like George Clooney and stays on for about 20 hours.
Jun 6, 2024
Related Recs
Although I have a pretty extensive perfume collection — around 200 bottles, plus hundreds of samples and decants — for the last several years I've only worn a handful of them on a regular basis. Lately I've found myself gravitating to older and vintage scents, particularly classic Guerlains (Jicky, Mitsouko, Shalimar) and Caron (Yatagan, Caron pour Homme). Often dismissed as "old lady perfumes" (which is both ageist and misogynist!) they're the best examples of perfumery as high art I know. There are decades-old vintage samples out there if you know where to look or get lucky at an estate sale, but even the contemporary reformulated versions are more interesting and intricate than 99% of what you'll find at Sephora or even a niche shop like Luckyscent. I'd much rather smell of something that would have been familiar to Proust (that would be Jicky, a spiced lavender-vanilla considered to be the first "modern" perfume and one that has been in continuous production since it was released in 1889) than Santal 33 or whatever Maison Francis Kurkdjian everyone else is wearing.
Apr 6, 2024
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Obsessed with perfume. For a while I was searching for a signature scent, but then the hunt just became too much fun, and now I’ve ended up with a full on vanity tray in my bathroom piled with a different smell for every mood. I used to wear only China Rain, a rollerball scent my mom got me in high school from a perfumery in LA called Spiritbody. I still have a bottle of that, but when I wear it I’m transported to a more insecure time lol. Right now I love Shadow in the Water from Diptyque for when I want to smell clean and romantic. I wear Smudge by Heretic almost every day because it’s colder out and it makes me feel so warm and cozy, like i’ve been sitting by a fire all day, and like I give good advice and paint landscapes. Perfume is definitely a splurge, but it lasts for so long, and I think it’s really special to have a beautiful scent that people can recognize you by. I am going to gatekeep my secret combination of Byredo perfumes that I wear constantly, and I’m sorry about that. It’s just too good and too me.
Dec 20, 2022
I was strolling around the city 5 days ago when I fell upon this wonderfully scented perfume. It had notes of olive tree🫒and rose and a woody underlying theme. It is floral but not the typical kind of floral but rather a more mature floral scent resembling Rose 31 from le Labo. The best part is that is was not that expensive only 55CAD for the mini version(okay pretty expensive.)
Apr 17, 2024
Top Recs from @lauren-oyler
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Made from “immature pine cones”—great phrase—this is just what it sounds like. I encountered it for the first time in Tbilisi, and it seems like it’s sort of hard to find outside the region (as far as I’ve tried), but it’s worth it. I’d never thought about immature pine cones before, but they’re delightful in texture and size.
Jun 6, 2024
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Even if you’re not a huge fan of lap swimming, indoor pools are often really special examples of national architecture—my favorites are from the first half of the twentieth century—and it’s surprisingly interesting to observe the pool etiquette of different cultures. Italians, while somewhat impatient and in-your-face on land, are incredibly courteous and respectful of relative speed in the water; they’re gracious and accommodating if you need to pass them. In Milan I always make a point to go to Piscina Cozzi, which had a huge Maurizio Cattelan mural on the back wall featuring a tacky Ophelia in red lipstick. It was there in October of last year, but I think they’ve since taken it down, which is a shame, but apparently he swims there, too.
Jun 6, 2024
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This is a West German ensemble film about a loosely connected group of travelers who are stranded at West Berlin’s Tempelhof airport one night in 1962 due to fog. While obviously an allegory for the city’s experience of being suddenly surrounded by East Germany—which, if we pursue the analogy, here is presented as professional and personal annoyance that allows our characters to indulge in industry-specific narcissisms—the movie can also be enjoyed on the level of script and character. What happens when you suddenly have a stretch of free time? You often squander it. There’s a great talking-past-each-other adultery scene, and the musical numbers at the end are joyous and lightly surreal. When I saw it in the theater everyone was smiling and laughing, which is not typical of Germans. I’m able to access it on YouTube with English subtitles from Germany (for now).
Jun 6, 2024