Library of Flowers Willow & Water and Eau D'Italie Au Lac. Just What The Doctor Ordered!

 

We all hoped that 2021 would be a better year, but as for myself, having had two operations since January, my good times are yet to appear. I've been in a somewhat perpetual state of feeling bad, feeling wretched, feeling sad, and then the opposite, a new found empathy for people who must deal with health issues every day. If you were to ask my husband and he was being honest, he would admit that he's had to be a happy cheerleader these past months. Just a hint that fetching me coffee for the third time this morning might not be the exact thing he wants to do at this precise moment was enough to send me into quivering lipped self pity. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that what I required from perfumes during this time was simply subtle comfort. No aldehyde divas, no chypre attention grabbers, no skanky jasmines. Just well behaved scents that waited quietly in the wings; there if I needed them, but demanding not one iota of my attention.

During this time I gained a new appreciation for two such quiet but fragrant perfumes. Both had a common aspect of trying to place the wearer near water. Water is known to be calming, therapeutic, and for the most part scentless. It was interesting to see how each of these perfumes translated the act of being near water into scent.

Margot Elena Library of Flowers Willow and Water

In all honesty I would probably have never bought this perfume if I had tried it first. I am an easy touch for the Margot Elena branding: beautiful and girly packaging housing generally inoffensive but mild fragrances. I subscribe to the Margot Elena seasonal box, the only subscription service I have in fact. It is well priced and packaged so beautifully that it is always a treat to receive. In the most recent box was this perfume and the timing was perfect. 

I thought the picture up top, which is from a vintage copy of Wind In The Willows, perfectly captures the bucolic and pastoral aspects of the English countryside, and well represents the scent of Willow & Water! The book written over one hundred years ago by British writer Kenneth Grahame, explores the misadventures of Mole, Rat, Toad, Badger, and their friends. The peaceful river is home to some of the story's characters, and the scene pictured of the boat lazily floating on the river beneath draping willow branches and buzzing insects is Willow & Water. 

Willow & Water is classified as a green aquatic floral. The note pyramid is skimpy, listing an opening of dewy green notes, a heart of lotus (the water flower), and a base of watercress. It opens smelling like greens that have been misted with gentle rain. Then I get a touch of sweetness, nothing sugary, but more like the honeyed notes of faint blossoms carried on the breeze. The lotus comes in and again emphasizes the aquatic feel, as well as a faint and musky floral note. The scent is surprisingly long lasting, which is not always the case with this brand, and I don't get any alcohol or chemical smells which I also can sometimes experience with less expensive perfumes. I prefer it to the Jo Malone special edition last year of Willow and Amber (although that bottle was divine). I'll repeat, if I had tried Willow & Water on in the store I would have walked on by, unimpressed. I'm glad I didn't get the chance to do this as it's been a very happy and easy to wear spring time scent, as well as a calming medicinal tonic!

Au Lac by Eau D'Italie

If you've ever seen travel photos of Italy then you've probably seen a picture of the luxurious Postiano hotel La Sirenuse, perched along the ultra-exclusive Amalfi Coast. Their range of scents, all of which I find very nice but soft in projection, are meant to impart various aspects of the scents of Italy. This one is meant to induce memories of time spent by one of Italy's picturesque lakes of the north. 

Photo the Lake Como waterfront from www.RivieraRiverCruises.com

Who could be stressed with this combination of gorgeous houses and pristine nature? The scent of Au Lac is meant to invoke an Italian garden in the midst of the summer, perched beside a lake. I find the fragrance gives a good interpretation of this. Perfumer Alberto Morillas uses notes of water lily, along with fig leaf and bitter orange, to give the feel of lounging lakeside. I find that the water lily note persists, giving its watery effect even when the other florals enter. Osmanthus, jasmine, and rose represent the summer garden, but they are very light and muted. This is like catching the scent of a garden on the breeze. Base notes of papyrus and amber give some grounding later in the perfume's wear. On me this is more of a skin scent, and I found it perfect during the time when I wanted to smell nice but not too strongly of scent. There are other opportunities for this kind of perfume wear, when you don't want to announce your presence, and this whole line of perfumes would work perfectly.

Thankfully I am now on the mend, and I look forward to expanding my perfume wear to a broader range of scents, but I have enjoyed becoming acquainted with these two perfumes during my time of recovery.  I will enjoy wearing them in the future, now that I have discovered their charm.

How about you? Does your perfume habit change when you are not well? What do you like to wear?

Top photo, Google image from vintage copy of The Wind In The Willows. Photo of perfume bottle from www.MargotElena.com website. The two perfumes are from my own collection.

Christèle Jacquemin: Memory Lane

Late last year I wrote about a new perfumer, Christèle Jacquemin, who was using her career as a photographer as inspiration for creating perfumes. She started with three scents: Meandering Soul, Impermanence, and Underworld, which I wrote about here. She translated photos from her travels into fragrance, and just as her photos are modern and interpretive, so are the perfumes, in which I found uncommon notes and unexpected scents. Originality and creativity, both traits found in an artist's skill set, are evident in the perfumes.

Ms.  Jacquemin has now added a fourth perfume to her collection called Memory Lane. Unlike the other perfumes, which represent her travels, Ms. Jacquemin returns home with Memory Lane. She originates from a small town in France called Valliguières, but she left at sixteen to explore the world.  Her interpretive photos were not of the town itself, but a series of cloud photographs.

When I saw the series of cloud photos on her website the word that came to my mind was "escape". But I wanted to be sure that my interpretation was correct, so I asked Ms. Jacquemin. "As a child and a teenager, I mastered escaping from this place that was too small for me, " she answered. "I first escaped through literature, then I studied foreign languages hoping to discover the world. The sky in these photos is like a metaphor of the will to escape, to go and explore the world."

After thirty years of avoiding her home, Ms. Jacquemin felt the need to, in her own words, return home and reconcile the ghosts of her past. "I flew at a very young age," she stated, "and as an adult I needed to look back and see if there was any way to cure that wound, and bring peace on this part of my life."

The opening notes of Memory Lane are meringue, myrrh, and magnolia. Heart notes are cypriol, clove, and parsley. Base notes are green vanilla and oud blanc. I asked Ms. Jacquemin if Memory Lane was based on scents of the place, or did inspiration come from the photographs she took of the clouds and sky?

"Actually it is both, like all my scents," she answered. "It is part reality and part fantasy. My ambivalence to the place is in the scent: the ingenuity of the meringue and vanilla, and the animality of cypriol and white oud. This duality to me was important, to reflect the ups and the downs." 

The opening notes of meringue, magnolia, and myrrh are an unusual combinaition, but that is not surprising to me, having experienced the other scents in the collection. The meringue may sound sweet but it is tempered by the myrrh and my mind flitted to an image of creamy burnished wood. There is a caramel feel, but it is not overly sweet. The magnolia is quite gentle to my nose. The cypriol, clove, and parsley give an earthy, slightly herbal feel to the scent. Cypriol is a weed growing in riverbeds and its oil has a woody, earthy smell. I don't smell the clove note specifically, but get more the herbal notes as the perfume begins to calm down and soften. The green vanilla and white oud enhance what I smelled in the opening, that slightly sweet, slightly woody sense. I will admit I find these scent challenging to describe. On my skin they appear as very blended, and as there are some unusual notes, they are not easy to describe, but I do my best! My overall sense of this perfume was that it had a comforting air, but not in a traditional way.

I will let Ms. Jacquemin have the closing words. "Magnolia flower as well as parsley essential oils transport me to walks in the countryside, and to gardening with my grandmother. When I smell Memory Lane I feel like my grandmother is holding me in her arms. I feel peace and balance. I feel safe and with energy to carry on ... my journey lightheartedly."

You can order sample sets at Christèle Jacquemin's website and she also offers her perfumes in a variety of sizes.

Thank you to Cristele Jacquemin for the perfume sample. My opinions are my own. Photos are from the perfumer's website.

A Walk In Giverny by La Fleur by Livvy

 It was about a year ago that airlines started canceling flights and travel came to a stand still. I for one am having a hard time restraining my travel bug as we march toward summer holidays. But when I recently tried A Walk In Giverny by La Fleur by Livvy I was mentally transported to a vacation from three years ago when I went to France with my husband to celebrate a wedding anniversary. 

This is the enchantment of perfume; that scent can magically send us back to another place and time. Olivia Larson founded La Fleur by Livvy in 2013, and since then the self trained artisan perfumer has released fragrances that are all about journeys and travels. This can mean both journeys in living life as well as travel to specific locales. Her mission is to create 100% botanical fragrances, but with A Walk In Giverny she introduced a multi-media perfume to her collection, although still keeping a high percentage of natural botanicals. This was done in recognition that some customers desired perfumes with more sillage and longevity.

Olivia for the first time has partnered with Andrej Babicky, a natural perfumer, to create A Walk In Giverny.  Together they will be producing more perfumes for the newly launched Impressions Collection. Olivia created this collection as a homage to the French impressionist painters. She says, "I admire their passion, their zest to continue to paint despite not making a living, but their art would soon become an inspiration to all."

A Walk In Giverny opens with notes of bergamot and rhododendron. It is sparkling and radiant, much like a chypre-type fragrance but in a softer form. It imparts warm fuzziness, sort of like the feeling you get when you step into the afternoon sunlight for a stroll through the garden.

On a side note, I can't remember ever seeing rhododendron listed as a perfume note. It sent me scurrying to my friend Google. Evidently the plant has suffered the same fate as many varieties of roses. As it was bred for hardiness, the magic that produces a fragrant plant was lost. But there are still old varieties that have the scent, as evidenced by this New York times article here. The rhododendron's scent, depending on plant variety, is described as anything from "a heady floral" to "a spicy clove-like fragrance". I am guessing that this may be what gives A Walk In Giverny that initial lift and fragrant frisson. 

This chypre-esque mood lasts for some time but other notes begin to float into my space. Again, this is reminiscent of a stroll through a garden, where the breeze brings various aromas but they form into a muddled bouquet. When I first applied A Walk In Giverny I messaged Olivia, "Is there lavender here? I don't see it listed?" Heart notes are listed as jasmine, tuberose, geranium, carnation, black currant bud, and hay. Not lavender.

Olivia replied, "No lavender. It could be the jasmine and geranium. Both have a floral yet herbaceous green note."

When I looked at these notes before trying the perfume I expected a lot of loud florals. What Olivia has done is capture the spirit of the garden. The beauty of nature vs perfume is that nature teases us. It gives us whispers of scent. It will send something so beautiful our way that it can stop us in our tracks to determine where is that scent coming from. Then poof, it's gone, an ephemeral fairy scent. When wearing A Walk In Giverny you truly get that experience of many scents being blended into a fragrant whole. It is as if Olivia and Andrej have harnessed the more herbaceous and green elements of all these florals to make this perfume, and the hay note certainly contributes to that effect. When I thought I sensed lavender it wasn't the floral note I imagined, but the more herbaceous aspects that lavender perfumes often portray.

Base notes are patchouli, labdanum, fir balsam, styrax, violet, orris, opopanox, benzoin, and synthetic musks. Olivia also blends a vanilla in house from Madagascar vanilla beans. These resinous notes lend structure to the soft chypre feeling, and give the feel of the encroaching forest surrounding the floral gardens. 

I look forward to seeing what other Impressionists Olivia and Andrej will memorialize with scent, but for now excuse me. I need to return to my olfactory walk through Monet's garden in France!

Top photo a Monet painting from Giverny era. Thank you to La Fleur by Livvy for providing me with this perfume sample. All opinions are my own.

Fragrant Snapshot: Maison Christian Dior Ambre Nuit

I couldn't begin to count the number of niche perfumes I've sampled over the last few years, but one area of fragrance I've neglected are the classic brands, especially their more exclusive lines. A fantastic giveaway-with-purchase at Dior tempted me to do something I almost never do, blind buy a perfume I hadn't sampled. I love amber scents, and Ambre Nuit had a lot of good reviews so I took the plunge. Although I don't recommend blind buys and almost never do it, this one was successful.

The opening of Dior Ambre Nuit features bergamot and grapefruit which blend with the amber, and I get a vision of polished wood floors, but in a lighter gold-toned honey hues. The scent is bright and slightly sharp, but as the amber increases, it buffs away the rough edges of the citrus notes. Amber has a cushioning, enveloping note and I slowly feel myself being surrounded by this protective cover of warmth. Some reviewers speak of a strong rose presence but I honestly don't smell it, other than as a grace note.

The amber is appropriately the star of the show here, and it is a beautiful. It starts out rather sparkling and transparent, but then deepens. I smell spices, smooth and warming. No spice notes are given in the description other than pepper but I smell a woody cinnamon. The amber is deep and beautiful, with characteristics that are creamy, salty, and resinous. There is a slight smokey, incense smell  that makes this feel meditative and deep. I have a few amber perfumes but what I like about this one is that it is not overwhelmingly syrupy and sticky. Amber is by its nature a heavy note, but here Dior makes it feel silky and billowy. 

As you may have heard, we had a cold snap event this past week in Texas. I found that Ambre Nuit kept me wrapped in a feeling of warm comfort and sensuous beauty.

Both the photo and the perfume are my own.

Sana Jardin Part 3: Celestial Patchouli and Nubian Musk

I come to the review of the last two perfumes from Sana Jardin in this series, Celestial Patchouli and Nubian Musk. I call these two Earth and Sky. Even though patchouli is an earthy substance, when used in perfumes it sometimes can remind me of the vast dark universe, all the unknown out there, and maybe the creators at Sana Jardin agree, having given this patchouli the name Celestial. Nubian Musk on the other hand, opens dry and dusty as the earth. But as dissimilar as these descriptions sound, I found them to be the proverbial "brothers from another mother." Although they have differences they share a strong DNA, and I have a hard time deciding which I prefer.

Celestial Patchouli opens with coriander seed but quickly the patchouli makes itself known, along with the nagarmotha, both supposedly base notes but unable to be restrained. The patchouli feels almost tobacco-like, wet and green, and the nagarmotha or cypriol oil adds both earthy and spicy notes. The dark notes are strong, but also a little fruity. Leather, another base note, is evident. It as if the perfume is turned upside down, beginning with the ending. 

If Celestial Patchouli stopped there it would be a nice patchouli forward perfume, but not that different from many others. But an hour or so into the wear, the heart notes of rose, osmanthus, orris root, and iris begin to peep through. They are subtle; there will be no big floral rush. But I sense them each in turn; a winey rose, leathery osmanthus, and dry rooty iris. The notes are elegant and slightly austere, stars twinkling in the darkness. One thing I love about the scent is that these notes keep reappearing: the earthy patchouli, the iris, the rose, and so on. It eventually fades to the base of woods, leather, and patchouli, and a dusting of warm and spicy cinnamon.

I was curious about the name Nubian Musk. I had a vague notion that this referred to Africa but there my knowledge ended. It turns out the Nubians were an older civilization that predates the ancient Egyptians, and lived along the Nile River in an area that today encompasses southern Egypt and Sudan. 

Musk perfumes are often a big yawn for me, but this is musk in the more animalic sense of the word. There is grapefruit oil in the opening, but I don't really smell it more than an instant. There is vetiver and I smell it almost immediately, very dry. There is nagarmotha in this perfume also, but here it has a medicinal smell for the first few moments. I don't see any notes listed that would account for the anamalic bent to this fragrance, but it is there, obvious but not overstated.

Later there are very faint notes of rose, sandalwood, and vanilla. They give more body to the fragrance but you won't get a strong whiff of any of these notes. Jasmine is also listed, and I don't smell any floral that could be jasmine, which makes me wonder if maybe they just harnessed the indoles and this contributes to the more musky aspect of the fragrance. What is more apparent to me is a green patchouli note, along with the musk. I really enjoyed wearing Nubian Musk as I found it to be a more interesting combination of notes than is sometimes found with musk perfumes. 

As these two scents wind down, they begin to have a somewhat similar smell to me. I like them both but if I had to choose I'd pick Celestial Patchouli as I am a patchouli lover.

I have really enjoyed trying all the scents from Sana Jardin and will be adding a couple of them to my collection in time. I'm happy that these beautiful fragrances have contributed to improving the life of the women flower harvesters in Morocco. If you would like to read more about Sana Jardin or read reviews on the other fragrances in the line, go to Sana Jardin Part 1 or Sana Jardin Part 2.

Top photo is by www.AsiaOrlando.com and can be purchased at their website. The Sana Jardin discovery set is my own.

Sana Jardin Part 2: Tiger By Her Side, Sandalwood Temple, and Jaipur Chant

 

As discussed in Sana Jardin Part 1,  Amy Christiansen Si-Ahmed founded this luxury perfume company in 2017, and part of the business plan is economically empowering the women flower harvesters in Morocco who pick the blossoms that ultimately are transformed into perfume. In Part 1, I looked at three vibrant floral perfumes. Today I'm writing about three perfumes that remind me of India, a place very special to my heart as I spent the first four years of my marriage there, and I call them The India Trio.

India is a land of contrasts, timeless beauty next to absolute squalor. A cacophony of people, crowds pushing and jostling for position. Noise, constant honking horns, a regular assault to the senses. It is a love it or hate it type place. Despite what may sound like negatives, I've never felt as alive as I did those four years I spent in Bombay (now Mumbai). These three perfumes I'm highlighting today all bring back olfactory memories of a time that now seems like such a distant memory.

Tiger By Her  Side

Rose is a pervading scent in India, paired with saffron or sandalwood, or as it is here, with patchouli. When I smell rose and patchouli it takes me back to that heady scent combination that I often encountered in India. It is a common combination, yet here, it manages to be exciting and different. The opening is bright with bergamot and spicy notes of coriander seed and cinnamon bark. The cinnamon is warm and yummy, a note I particularly like in perfume. Heart notes are rose, benzoin resin, and patchouli, and it is a sensuous and velvet smell. What makes it different for me though, is that the fragrance still holds a certain lightness, not transparency, but something akin to that. It is not as heavy and weighty as this scent combination sometime can be. 

Base notes are labdanum, olibanum, and vanilla. The scent at this point smells to me like an ambery rose, grounded with patchouli and this spicy thread of cinnamon. It is voluptuous, yet bright enough that I could see wearing this in warm weather, not true of most rose and amber combinations. It is a special scent, and even if you think you've seen this done before, you might be surprised if you try it.

As an aside, I love the name, Tiger By Her Side. It was inspired by the Ancient Egyptian High Priestess who was so powerful that she could walk unharmed alongside a tiger. And don't let the "her" in the name dissuade you guys from trying this. It is definitely unisex.

Sandalwood Temple

Sandalwood is very sacred in Hindu worship and because of that, there is now a shortage in India and Australia has taken over as chief sandalwood producer. The sandalwood can be burned as incense in the temples, and it is ground into a paste which is placed on the foreheads of devotees to calm the mind for meditation and prayers. Sandalwood has a creamy, milky aspect which does make it a calming scent.

Sandalwood Temple wears on my skin as a straight up sandalwood scent. There is bergamot, neroli, and orange flower water in the opening but for me and my skin, I go straight to the woody notes. There is cedar wood, guaiac wood, and sandalwood, and the later is enhanced with a faint vanilla note, which ups the creamy aspects of the sandalwood. The perfumer added vetiver oil to this scent, and at times I got a faint whiff of smoke which I can only attribute to the vetiver.

I find this a very pleasant and easy scent to wear but it is faint on my skin, and I prefer my perfumes to be a bit more apparent. Sandalwood lovers will find this a very nice take. I wore it to bed for a couple of nights, and it was a beautiful scent to drift off to sleep with.

Jaipur Chant

Another lovely name, and an ode to one of the most beautiful cities in India, the Pink City of Jaipur. When I went to Rajasthan Jaipur wasn't my favorite, that honor went to the mystical city of Jaisalmer. But Jaipur does "wow" one, with its Amber Palace, City Palace, and the wedding cake confectionary building, Hawa Mahal (Palace of the Winds). Ladies in vibrant pink and gold saris and elephants with elaborate painted pink trunks help create the illusion of "The Pink City" and make it a memorable stop in Rajasthan. 

One can't explore far in India without running into someone selling flowers, which are used as offerings in religious ceremonies, or simply to adorn women's hair, the white petals of the tuberose a stunning contrast against their black silky hair. In Hindi tuberose is called Rajanigandha, which means fragrant at night.

Jaipur Chant is founder Amy Christiansen Si-Ahmed's ode to a religious ceremony she took part in when visiting Jaipur. Tuberose is a flower associated with love and strong emotion due to its strong floral scent. Tuberose can be divisive, a love it or leave it type scent. I'll say from the outset that I find Jaipur Chant to be quieter on the spectrum of tuberose perfumes. The tuberose is there, of course, but I find it less sweet and pungent than many of the tuberose perfumes in my collection. The perfume added clove oil to the opening notes, and although I don't get a strong clove scent, it does give the tuberose a more spicy and almost smoky feel, like you would find if you were in the busy temples. It is a bit more contemplative than one would normally expect from a tuberose perfume.

I find it a good representation of what one would actually find if you were attending one of these ceremonies. The floral scent is there, but it doesn't blast you; it creeps its way into your presence, almost a background scent, lovely and soft. This makes this tuberose feel more unisex, and it would be a good perfume to try for those who don't like the full on tuberose smell. I actually  find it to be a very restful and contemplative take on tuberose and it is different enough from the other perfumes I have that feature that note that I could see adding this one.

For more about Sana Jardin scents go to:  Sana Jardin Part 1 and Sana Jardin Part 3. 

You can shop for the beautiul painting featured here at: https://www.asiaorlando.com/nature-illustration. Sana Jardin samples were gifted to me. All opinions are my own.

Sana Jardin Part 1: The Flowers -- Savage Jasmine, Berber Blonde, and Revolution De La Fleur

 See bottom for illustrator information to buy prints.

The idea of empowering the harvesters who pick the flowers that make the perfume that ends up in a bottle on a shelf three thousand miles away is not an untried idea. A few others have combined trying to do something good with making something beautiful. I received a  Sana Jardin discovery kit of perfumes for Christmas this year and let me state at the start, in case I lose you, I could be presented with a bottle of any of these eight perfumes I've sampled and I would be happy. More than happy! It is rare for me to like every single fragrance in a discovery kit but here we are. Are the scents totally groundbreaking? No, but they've taken high quality ingredients and made beautiful scents that rise above the standard with perfumes of similar notes, in my opinion. 

First, a short brief on Sana Jardin's history. Amy Christiansen Si-Ahmed's early career was spent as a social worker in the United States, and she came to the belief that what these women needed was a way to have economic freedom, not charity. Amy was widely traveled and had a friend that lived in Morocco, where she learned to love the country and appreciate its beauty. She eventually formed the idea to create a luxury perfume company centered around empowering the women who were the pickers of these orange blossoms and roses in Morocco, and helping them to set up a business that would sustain them after the short picking season was over.

Amy Christensen Si-Ahmed with some of the Moroccan women pickers.

She calls this business model Beyond Sustainability because even after the picking season has passed, and when the women normally were out of work, they have been trained to set up micro enterprise industries by using the waste by-product generated from the harvest, which used to be discarded. The women use the by product to produce orange water and candles, among other things. The nose for the perfumes is Carlos Benaim.

The Sana Jardin line currently has eight perfumes but I am going to discuss them in three parts which I have titled: The Flowers, The India Trio, and Earth & Sky.

Living in Asia for nearly twenty years, I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time in Bali. It is a beautiful spiritual place where no detail is too small if it brings beauty. Flowers are used abundantly to please the senses, and the these three floral perfumes took me back to that place and time that I've missed so much, especially in the past year of staying put. 

Berber Blonde

Garden in Medina www.theluxurytravelbook.com

Perhaps this scent,  Berber Blonde, could be considered the backbone of the brand. It is a flower synonymous with Morocco, and this is where Ms. Christiansen Si-Ahmed found her inspiration. I've always thought that in some ways, orange blossom is orange blossom is orange blossom. In other words, it is a beautiful, easily distinguishable scent that does not change character too much. That is true here in that the orange blossom sings, joyous and ebullient.

Orange blossom is such an uplifting, happy scent. It is impossible to smell it and not smile. But as a perfume, how does it distinguish itself? By having a scent that is pure, strong, and long lasting. It is basically neroli oil and some musk in the dry down, but the sunny aspects of this scent have a lot of longevity, and it is such a beautiful quality of oil. Even though orange flower has a strong scent that is somewhat sweet, I think it is a floral that works for men. Have those who study depression ever considered scent therapy? This would be a good place to start. Sunshine in a bottle.

Savage Jasmine

A wedding dress in Bali composed of jasmine flowers. www.oncewed.com

Jasmine is my favorite flower scent, so perhaps it is not too surprising that Savage Jasmine is my favorite of the Sana Jardin florals, although I love them all. But this jasmine! It captures the magic of sitting on a patio in Bali as dusk drops, a fountain tinkling delicate music and perhaps a gamelan toning in the background, the carved stone statues casting weird shadows in the dim light. Like a curtain drop, the smell of night blooming jasmine infuses the air like a lover's spell.

I've been saving the photo I found above to use with the right perfume, and this is it. Can you imagine being married next to a river in Bali, rice paddy plateaus framing the background, birdsong in the air, and as you walk to meet your beloved you are in a cloud of jasmine, as your dress fashioned from jasmine blossoms moves gently with your movement.

There is not a lot going on here but jasmine. There is clove in the top and some musk and tobacco in the base, but really, jasmine is the star of the show here and it is some of the most realistic to life jasmine I've ever smelled in a perfume.

Revolution De La Fleur

A young Balinese girl wears a headdress of flowers for a ceremony. www.trekearth.com

Revolution De La Fleur is as its name suggests a beautiful profusion of floral blooms. There is a very clear frangipani note in the opening, but a cascade of distinct florals follow. Interestingly, they each seem to have their moment, as if entering the stage for their curtain call curtsy. This is mostly a white flower bouquet, but a note of rose underneath seems to ground the exuberance of the other floral notes, which include ylang ylang, jasmine, and neroli.

This is an uplifting floral bouquet and the longevity is pretty tenacious. It brings me back to so many happy memories, day-tripping through Asia. Anyone who is looking for a new floral scent reminiscent of tropical beach vacations, look no further.

These three Sana Jardin floral perfumes are distinguished by having the scent of pure and strong ingredients, and I would be happy to add any to my collection. In the next post I will look at the scents that remind me of the years I spent in India. Here at The Fragrant Journey, my favorite perfumes are those that take me back to happy memories in time, often on foreign shores, and these three scents certainly do that in spades.

For more about this brand see Sana Jardin Part 2 and Sana Jardin Part 3. 

Top painting: This beautiful painting is from the website www.bodiljane.com. She is known for "illustrating detailed, colorful windows into the worlds of women everywhere." Go to her website to view beautiful paintings and rugs for sale. I'm in love with her work!

Thank you to Nick and Nina Lesiuk for the Sana Jardin perfume set.