Immediate Smile: Tokyo Spring Blossom by 4160 Tuesdays

A genuinely happy scent is rare thing for me, what is usually marketed as happy is usually an amalgam of overly sweet and canned fruit. The moment I smelled 4160 Tuesday's Tokyo Spring Blossom, my immediate thought was "This is a really happy little scent." The last scent that made me think "happy" is Bruno Fazzolari's Jimmy

The fruity herbal opening of Tokyo Spring Blossom is instantly joyous, it immediately evokes a happy spring greenery, sunshine, flowers, and a light delicate breeze.  I think meadows and parks. The use of rose geranium, violet, and raspberry leaf extract creates something happily green but also jubilantly pink. It feels rather like the joy a dog has when they get to roll around in perfectly soft bushes and their tail is wagging like crazy, luckily Tokyo Spring Blossom is the idea of that joy but nothing like the smell of when your furry companion is having the best time ever.

If Tokyo Spring Blossom starts out instant joy, it then becomes convivial happiness. The herbal beginning takes a backseat and the heart is mix of rose, raspberry, and violet all with airy green tea like note supporting it. I immediately see old friends meeting at outdoor cafe with trees blooming, they are drinking tea and gossiping. What is interesting is I smell a sesame like note at this point which I'm not sure where I am getting it but it ends up contributing to the scent having this weird wonderful nuttiness to it that reminds me just a tiny bit of Armani's Onde Extase. 

The dry down of Tokyo Spring Blossom is a melange of raspberry, violet, musk, and very airy strangely fresh balsamic notes. I continue to get the airy green tea quality of the scent, overall it ends up being a happily original dry down. This is my first 4160 Tuesdays scent and I am impressed, this is rather sunshine filled repudiation that fruity scents cannot be interesting or have depth.

Try if you like Bruno Fazzolari's Jimmy, Armani's Onde Extase, or Blocki's For Walks.

First image from basenotes.net
Second image 'Taiwan Cherry Tree' by Su-Li Hung
Third image Danilo Dungo

Therapy in a Bottle: Izu by MikMoi

I am a person who stresses easily. I am just sensitive edged. So inherently fragrance for me is usually on the peaceful side, lets be honest while I frequently admire "loud" fragrances I'm not one to usually wear them.

MikMoi earlier this year came out with a series of bath products inspired by a recent trip to Japan. The collection features three scents and the one I was most smitten with is Izu. I ended up buying a lovely little bottle of the bath and body oil. As always Mik's perfumes evoke a sense of lightness and yet have excellent tenacity and longevity.

Izu smells like neroli to me at first and yet it does not contain neroli.. Rather the combination of yuzu, ylang ylang, and green tea create the fresh plush dense tart note of neroli in the opening. Eventually the neroli quality takes a step back and what enters is the scent of ylang ylang, for lovers of ylang ylang, Izu is most definitely worth a sniff.

As I've mentioned before ylang ylang does not get enough love in my book, the scent with the most prominent note of ylang ylang that can now be easily found on the market is Chanel No.5. Unless you know what you are looking for the aldehydes of No.5 can easily cover up the ylang ylang. I'm mentioning No.5 because the ylang ylang of that scent combined with the powderiness of the other notes has always created the image for me of No.5 being the scent of the just bathed. Izu also evokes this bathing quality, yet obviously it evokes none of the formal-ness or extreme architecture of No.5. Rather Mik has highlighted the lovely sensual musky just bathed skin quality of ylang ylang in Izu.

Izu is lovely natural contemplative scent yet the sensuality of ylang ylang has not been scrubbed away. An excellent scent for those of us who have a sensitive edge

As for my tiny bottle of oil, it has excellent longevity, and plenty of sillage. I rubbed a little bit of in my palm and ran it through my hair and floated around in a lovely cloud of ylang ylang therapy all day.

Try if you if like Chanel No. 5, Smell Bent's Pepper Ylang, or the scent of Mustela.

First image from Mikmoi.com
Second image from Ctesthetic
Third image from Chen Bolan

SOTD: Five O'Clock Au Gingembre

Today is the first day of school, I was tempted to go with my now usual serene scents: Bois des Iles or Infusino d'Iris, but my yearning for Autumn and knowing the tempeture would be warm, I have instead chosen, the smoky gingery beauty of Serge Luten's Five O'Clock Au Gingembre, which is wonderful addition to the family of gourmands. I will say this now but I think this scent would be incredible as a candle. As for the actually scent, I am utterly intrigued by his use of smoky tea, I first I would say it was the Chinese Lapsang Souchong, but the smoke has a hint of electric quality to it that reminds me of the smoky blend Russian Caravan, mixed with the stem ginger opening, it provides a complete picture of a moment. I want to try this scent later on in the year with a plate of homemade pain d'epice, stem ginger preserves, possibly a chunk of good local dark chocolate, and a cup of smoky creamy Russian Caravan tea. All I need is for the weather to change and steal my dad's spice grinder.

image provided by artnet.com

image: The English tea pot by Johan de Fre

The season changes the tea changes

On the most part I am the sort of tea lover that needs a cup of malty assam in the morning with a splash of milk or the wonderfully malty and spicy mix of Masala Chai with milk. There is something luxurious in seeing the transformation of dried tea leaves unfurl and create an elixir, that I will admit I am addicted too. Still my variety of tea changes through out the year, in the dead of winter smoky Russian Caravan and exceptionally malty Irish Breakfast grab me ( I still keep my Assam through out the year). Yet with the coming of spring and summer my tea has to change, that is when I change over to green teas and my favorite is the Japanese blend Genmai Cha. This I will say is more a spring tea than a summer tea in that it features a very unique ingredient that warms a drinker up on cool spring days: roasted kernals of rice. The roastiness of this tea is exceptional, it is comforting and soothing, and on cool days of spring it warms, yet it's lovely jade green color reminds you of the new spring greenery surrounding you.

It is also a lovely broth for breakfast rice. I admit I often have leftover rice from the night before and a perfect way too use it up is to warm it up, pour Genmai Cha on top, and add a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds and a sprinkle of salt. It is a comforting and light morning breakfast that is great option for those that do not like sweet nor heavy breakfasts.

image provided by http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=487669&in_page_id=1770 meet the worldest cutest little pig and his voracious appetite for tea.

SOTD: KM Fleurs d'Osmanthus and Osmanthus Green Tea

There are three florals that I am truly attracted too: rose, orange blossom, and osmanthus. Otherwise as many know my fragrance love is more in the category of incense, gourmands, and spices with the occasional fruit. Osmanthus is a floral chameleon in the sense that it is not really a floral scent but a melange of other scents resulting in a scent that is heady, fruity, creamy, tart, and shockingly leatherly. It has been described as the combination of apricot, orange blossom, and leather. It truly holds my attention though at the apricot note. There is one fruit scent I truly love and sadly apricot is a scent few perfumes ever get right (in fact I have yet to find one, the best rendition of apricot being Burt's Bees Apricot Baby Oil). My first meeting with osmanthus came in the form of Keiko Mecheri's Fleurs d'Osmanthus, this scent is a tropical take on osmanthus, upping the creamy part of osmanthus with the addition of tuberose, still as the fragrance dries down the zing of green apricot cream comes forward, it enchants you. It still holds a place in my heart and remains one of the most easy going florals out there. Although, it does bear some resemblance to Serge Luten's Datura Noir, I would say that two migrate in different directions with the dry down, Datura Noir becoming sweeter with a rasp and Fleurs d'Osmanthus taking on a tang and gentleness. Fleurs d'Osmanthus is a lovely gentle enticing scent, that is striking but never overbearing.

Another way to enjoy the the scent of osmanthus and far more traditional way is through tea. This may be the best way of smelling the true scent of osmanthus without having to find an osmanthus bush. Today I am drinking a blend of osmanthus and green tea. The fruity apricot leather note coming out perfectly. I suggest for those of us who are not lovers of jasmine green tea but want to enjoy a scented floral that you seek out an osmanthus scented tea.

image provided by artnet.com

Spring by Irma Kusiani

Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania

To put it simply Vivienne Westwood does not release scents that are easy on the nose, then again neither is the clothing that she designs. Up front Boudoir was unwearable for me, quite frankly it smelled like a woman's sex, and putting that on, well... Being female I really don't need too. Still I couldn't help but admire the audacity of her making a scent that very much had the scent of a woman's ladyparts running through it and all of its blatant glory. As for Libertine I can't say anything on it as I have never smelled it. But then Anglomania (and yes the name leaves much to be wanted) came out and I had the chance to try it and the chance to buy it at a ridiculously low price at TJ Maxx. It is a powdery rose, old fashioned, and by old fashioned I do not mean prim and proper, but the old fashioned scent of the 40's, 30's, and 20's which designed for women usually knock out modern men's fragrance in there sexual audacity and weight. For under the lovely powdery cardamom spiced rose is a hint of leather and a definite hint of skank and a nice bit of tobacco. The image that came to my mind was the incredible lush womanly dark Dita Von Teese who plays with bygone era glamour and sexual kink with a dash of theatrics and sense of humor. The scent is modern but the attitude behind Anglomania is nostalgic kink with humor.
Official Notes to Anglomania:
Top notes: Green Tea, Cardamom, Coriander
Middle notes: Rose otto, Nutmeg, Violet
Bottom notes: Vanilla, Amber, Leather

Recommended: To those that like Fifi Chachnil, wanted to love Habanita or like Habanita, and want something that has something a little classic and dirty.

Facts: Dita Von Teese does wear a classic fragrance-Quelques Fleurs by Houbigant, a scent created in the 1800's and first to not be a soliflore.