All You Need Is Love

*Currently Wearing: Love from By Kilian
*Currently Listening: Can't Buy Me Love by The Beatles

I openly admit that I totally am a By Kilian fan girl. I have owned several of the travel sized spray (budget y'all), I love the whole aesthetic of the brand, they use my favorite perfumer Calice Becker quite a lot. I met Kilian Hennesy and found him to be charming and completely swoon worthy, their social media content in some of the best that I've seen and I'm budgeting in time to go to a Kilian boutique during my upcoming trip to NYC to get to full Kilian experience and I'm sure give them some of my hard earned dollars.

I first become acquainted with the Kilian brand on a trip through my local SAKS enjoying looking at things I couldn't afford. L'oeurve Noire was new and I took multiple trips back collecting samples for all nine fragrances. This is when I fell in love with my dearly beloved Liaisons Dangereuses. (Upon smelling it on me one New Years day, my Mother told me I smelled just like my Great Grandmother, whom I am supposed to be a carbon copy of. Naturally that fragrance and I were bonded for all time then and there.)

I also find it important to point out that Kilian now has lingerie where the lace is scented with love. He featured photos on his Instagram with his wife modeling them. Something that I found totally sweet.

After stepping away from serious sniffing for a bout 5 years. (School, school and more school. I'm still in school but decided I needed a hobby to keep me sane. So perfume it was.)

I've started to amass samples of L'oeurve Noire again, and Love came up second. I really didn't remember it that much from before, but this time I was blown away. I tested it first on Super Bowl Sunday and liked it SO MUCH that I proclaimed if the Patriots won, I would buy a full bottle. Much to New England's disappointment and my wallet's delight, we all know how what went.

To me Love strikes a balance of sweet and sexy. In my opinions, taking intellectual prowess out of the equation, not a bad way to be. Maybe it's the Southern Belle in me. (Now after simply typing that I want to watch "Steel Magnolias".)

I think that Love smells like orange blossom and honeysuckle that have been rolled in sugar, but there is this fleshy compontant that's like this sexy little wink to me. Here is what Kilian's website had to say about Love, "Love's first innocence makes itself known with juicy honeysuckle and plush rose softly caressed by the sweetness of luscious marshmallow sugar accord, satisfying the craving pang of new love. A warm amber base lends a pulsing touch of sensuality, hinting at the possibility of soon knowing a new soul, inside and out."

O.K., so I wasn't that terribly far off.

I think the fragrance delicately balances the floral and the sweet. This is one of those fragrances that I feel very familiar with. It's almost if I knew the smell without actually smelling it. Those are few and far between.

*Photo credit: luckyscent.com
*Currently Listening: Blackbird by The Beatles

Amouage Discovery Set

Currently Listening: "La Traviata" Act 3: Prelude by Giuseppe Verdi
Currently Wearing: Lust by Lush (RIP old black bottled that I spritzed the last of this morning.)


Welcome back y'all! I'm honestly blaming my absence last week on the Olympics. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. This discovery set was a gift to me some Christmases ago from my husband. For whatever reason I spritzed a little here and there but never full bore tested the entire set. Again, life.

Amouage is not necessarily what I would be drawn toward, but many I know of in my fragrance community absolutely love it, so I figured it was worth my delving into. Here's what Fragantica.com has to say on Amouage's background: "His Highness Sayyid bin Hamoud al bu Said had a dream to restore the great Arabian art of purfumery to the region. Amouage  is a luxury perfume house established in Oman in 1983 by the Sultan of Oman. Amouage uses traditional for the middle east perfume ingredient such as agarwood, incense, musk, rose, and spices. . . . Almost all of the perfumes are in traditional Amouage bottles: bottles with the woman's scents recall the shape of the Palace Ruwi Mosque (Oman); bottles with men's scents have a shape of Khanjar, the traditional dagger of Oman."

But Kathleen, musk? I thought you tried to be cruelty free. I have asked many more knoweldgable about perfumes than me, and they said in modern perfumery is mainly all synthetic music. Using actual musk is simply not cost prohibitive. With the exception of some Middle Eastern attars, which can get next level expensive. I try to live cruelty frees, I am not perfect, but I do try. 

For me in this set, there were some hits and some misses. Let's delve deeper shall we?

Gold - Upon first spritz I thought "grown up fancy lady with some powder." I could defiantly pick out the base of woods (Sandalwood and cedar wood.) The lily of the valley was very predominant. The dry down could best be characterized as woodsy and soapy. I could see myself wearing this in maybe 20 years, but it just seamed too mature for me. Luckyscent describes Gold as,"Gold Woman is a marriage of French tradition and Omani luxury that no 1903's movie, no matter how glamorous, could top." I couldn't get the emotionality out of it. I couldn't get any real feelings associated with it. I like it technically and objectively.

Reflection - A little fruity, nothing special. When we get into this price point territory, but better knock me over with how special it is. This was my least favorite as I thought is was the least special. There was something very mass marketed about it. Almost TOO delicate for my liking. Magnolia is supposed to be the main star of this perfume. This makes sense. I love a fresh off the tree magnolia blossom any day, but that does not translate in perfumery for me. The main thing I said about it was, "it's pretty".

Jubilation - I quite like the interplay of lemon and tarragon, very grounding. This literally has everything and the kitchen sink in it. My nose is not refined enough to pick everything out. Maybe it will one day, because I'm going to teach myself how to become a perfumer as a run my roadside boiled peanut stand in North Carolina during my retirement. I found the dry down to be very complex and pleasing. In my notes I wrote, "this isn't what I look for in a fragrance." Again, I like it objectively. It hard for my to wax emotively when I don't have an emotional connection to the perfume. Luckyscent calls it, "discretely sensuous and truly compelling." We have different definitions of truly compelling.

Epic - This one I really life! As evidenced by the empty spritzer vial. My nose picks up on cinnamon, tea, rose and geranium. All notes I love. Given Amouage's heritage, this is what I thought more of the fragrances would lean towards. (Although it seam that they have something for every taste. Epic was inspired by Puccini's "Turnadot". There is not an opera composer I love more than Puccini. It's FATE that I loved this one. Interesting enough, this is one of the few fragrances that my husband has turned his nose up to in quite some time. Clearly his taste for drama and mine are not on the same level. This surprises NO ONE who knows us. Here's Luckyscent's take, "The sensuous, honeyed and dark blend of rose, tea and geranium in the heart of Epic evokes Turandot herself, the femme fatale beauty who lured love-stuck princes to their death." See, dramatic.

Honour - This perfume is inspired by "Madam Butterfly". I feel that the attempt is only half baked. I get the beauty from the jasmine, gardenia and tuberose. (I LOVE tuberose!) The drama is missing for me. The fragrance is quite pretty, but a little too "nice" for what it is trying to evoke. Master perfumer that I am, I would have kicked out the leather and added in oud to give it more depth and darkness. Luckyscent explains, "How could it not be emotional when it's based on the story of a heroine who kills herself when the American soldier she's pined for returns to her homeland to take their child?) 'Death with honour,' proclaims the heroine before dying, 'when one can no longer live in honour.'" Again, it's pretty, but it missed the mark for me with drama.

Memoir - Again, this smells a little "mature" for what I normally go for, but I really fell for it. There are certain scent combinations that I know I just like. Cardamom, rose and leather - plus a whole host of other notes - I know I like. I had fun with this on trying to pick everything out and sometimes failing miserably. Luckyscent describes memoir as a "scent of shadows". It think that is very appropriates. Certain notes lay cloaked and veiled by others. I wrote in my notes that maybe this it my perfume for when I go see "Elektra" at the Met next month. Clearly, it MUST be special and have a certain amount of refineness to be put on that short list. I image that Memoir is what a fancy tea house in the East smells like.

There are male versions for all the above mentioned scents. I would be curious to a side by side comparison and let my husband have the spoils. 

Currently listening: Overture to "Fidelio" by Ludwig van Beethoven

Honey Dipped Roses: Parfait de Roses

Current Fragrance: Love by By Kilian
Currently Watching: The Kitten Bowl

I love rose jam. Both the Lush version and the Harry Partch version. I normally wear the Lush Rose Jam body spray to work, as I consider if incredibly off brand to wear another brand's perfume to work. I quite like it. I have it in every other interaction it comes in: soap, shower gel, shampoo bar, massage bar, body conditioner, bath bomb and bubble bar. I love the interplay between Turkish roses, geranium, and lemon can evoke a beautiful rose jam. I love that the body spray can get a little boozy in excess. I have to be careful that I don't get too much of a good thing so I reached out to my Facebook fragrance group and got MANY suggestions for a jammy rose.

One of the suggestions that peaqued my interest was Maison Lancome Parfait de Roses. I didn't know that Lancome's perfume had gotten "fancy". All I really knew of Lancome was Tresor. Maison Lancome "has appointed some of the greatest contemporary perfumers to pay homage to Lancôme’s founder, Armand Petitjean. The result is Maison Lancôme, a new collection of fragrances that so exquisitely touch upon and carry on Petitjean’s dream, and the essence of the House itself." It was easily for my to go to Saks and get a sample to try. (I never trust a spritz in the store.) I LOVED it! It like taking a beautiful pink rose, rolling it in honey, then a little of good mixed berry jam, and dusting it with a kiss of powder.

Parfait de Roses is a little pricey for my right now. (I love it, but I'm not in love with it.) So a full bottle is out for right now. (Plus I want to try all of Maison Lancome before I decide on a favorite. I have a sample of Oud Ambroisie in my sample quest to try.)

I was lucky enough to find someone of my Facebook group that was selling splits of Parfait de Roses so I was able to buy a 10 ml spritzer. Soon I will write a face on how to love high end fragrance on a budget. It's doable.

Parfait de Roses and light, romantically cheerful, slightly gourmand, and the key word for me - nostalgic. It's like baking something sweet in the kitchen of your childhood home with a vase a fresh cut roses sitting on the counter, and somehow the entire memory got sprinkled with baby powder. Right in my wheelhouse.

Currently Watching: STILL the Kitten Bowl