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It Never Smelled So Good
By Kelsey Poyer, Contributor
Monday, 20th July 2009
I love weddings. I have always loved them, so you can imagine my glee when a girlfriend recently invited me to be a “front row girl” in her wedding party. The guest count is rapidly climbing into the 400+ category, and they are running out of options for a reception hall big enough to hold them (it’s Pennsylvania darlings, not Dallas). The bride envisions a spectacular haute couture celebration of a dizzying magnitude that leaves me breathless. Bemoaning my great distance from the actual celebration and said bride in Pennsylvania, how could I possibly contribute? And then, I had an idea.
In an August 2008 New York Times article by Natalie Angier, our nose is an emotional time machine. Our connections to memories of smell transport us through a vortex of emotions, tying us to people, places and events with a singular sniff. The perfect wedding gift for my friend would be a perfume of such magnificent beauty that its smell would forever be connected to this wonderful day in her history. If there is one subject I might count myself as an expert on, it is beautiful perfume. I have sniffed my way through an impressive array of perfume houses over the last seven years, as my over 350 product reviews on Makeupalley can attest to.
After all these years of collecting, I can promise you that there is something spectacular for every bride, no matter what price range she is looking for. After a few weeks of sampling a carefully selected set of fragrances, my bride chose the one she dropped on the bathroom floor and promptly shattered. The fragrance, Ormonde Jayne Osmanthus, is a stunning bright composition with accenting citrus, jasmine and herbal notes.
Ormonde Jayne perfumery makes its home at 28 Old Bond Street in London, so you can be sure you’ll be the only bride displaying this beauty on your special day. Ormonde Jayne also has a program where you can purchase your fragrance with an engraved stopper for the price of 130 pounds, roughly equivalent to $210. You can purchase an 11 piece sample set through their web site for a price of 35 pounds to see if any of her fragrances make your heart sing. My favorites include Ormonde Woman, Ta’if and Champaca!
If your budget cries out for a beautiful fragrance at an affordable price, head to the web site of talented perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz.
Under Parfums des Beaux Arts, you can find the “Your Perfect Day: Wedding Fragrances” which includes scents for the bride, groom and wedding party. The Limited Edition Collection includes some truly beautiful rose scents, and has recently added some all-natural compositions to its range. For a treat, pick up the phone and call the store in Boulder, Colo. at 720-563-0344! Dawn is a delight to speak with, and make recommendations based upon your likes and dislikes. They also offer a sample program. You can view through the “sampler packs” link on the web site.
For a truly unique fragrance, you can request the services of Yosh Han, a San Francisco perfumer whose gorgeous perfume Ginger Ciao utterly bewitched me from the first moment. It’s an exotic combo of black coconut, ginger and ylang-ylang. These “Signature Scents” are blended together with the perfumer in her studio, and are only available by appointment. With over 100 ingredients to choose from, she will help guide you through determining what fragrances will resonate with you, and develop a fragrance that will be unique to you alone. Contact Yosh at 415-626-5385 to get more information on price and availability, but you may need plenty of advance notice – she’s frequently freelancing on projects for local companies, or working on her own line YOSH.
But don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, my pretty gothic beauties! Let me direct your attention to a site especially for you, blackphoenixalchemylab.com - but don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s a spectacular achievement for a web site, with ornate artwork and detailed descriptions, and they’ve developed quite the cult following. They have an astounding number of collections, which is where the problems begin. The hand created small batches run as a part-time business by people with real day jobs. My first order with them arrived almost seven weeks later, and this is apparently the norm.
And as a final note, if you’ve never visited Makeupalley, now is the time to start. Their website houses hoards of topics covering everything from hair to makeup, and a product review database that houses over a million reviews. This web site has literally saved me from thousands of wasted dollars in Sephora-induced binges.
If you’re wondering what I would wear to my wedding, I’ll never tell you my first choice… but my second choice, hands down, would be Chanel’s 31 Rue Cambon, part of their Exclusifs line. Get a snout full of this beautiful creature at the Chanel Boutique in Highland Park Village.
Kelsey Poyer lives by the bridal philosophy of go big or go home. You can contact her on twitter at http://twitter.com/KPoyer.
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