Ever since I interviewed Eleanor Laban (the aromatologist entrepreneur) I am more aware of fragrance and perfume. Nice smells are a pleasure, and walking around a perfumery is akin to walking around a candy store (unless you’re allergic to either).
So this is a post about a bunch of perfume-related topics I’ve been meaning to share…
First up a review of Stitch deodorants. These are body sprays that smell like popular perfumes (like Red Door, Chanel No.5, etc) but cost only a few dollars ($3.90 from Radius Pharmacy and the like).
Me and my friend bought one each – I chose Angel and she chose Ralf. Both of us own the real fragrance too, so we were able to compare Stitch to the original fragrance.
In the picture, we blind-tested Ralf, the Stitch version, and a ‘control’ fragrance on a few of colleagues. Most of our colleagues (4 out 6) could confidently match Ralf with Stitch. Personally, I thought they do smell very much alike, with the Stitch version being much weaker.
And the Stitch version of Angel is fairly close too.
Even though I hate referring you guys to The NZ Herald, I have read a couple of interesting articles about perfumes recently. First up is this article about perfume regulation, preferences, World Beauty stores, and more.
And second, this article about ‘the language of perfume’. I think I’m a floral/oceanic kind of gal. How about you?
Highly recommend Luca Turin’s writings for anyone interested in perfumery – some of his writing is quite scientific and some is discussion and review, all worthwhile. He has a few books out, and there’s also a PDF available of his now-defunct blog (http://lucaturin.typepad.com/) which is practically a book itself at 500+ pages!
My perfume collection may be slightly out of hand, it’s definitely my weakness in the fashion/beauty world