MiriamHa

I was so hoping not to like him. I can not afford him, but he is the most beautiful in a long time. Quite gentle freshness, cozy blanket with a view of rough greenery. The mix of peat and warmth, uncomplicated romance and bold clarity, familiarity, reliability, buttery firewood and black tea with milk...I could slap myself for testing it, and then again, I couldn't have chosen better.

Someday, I'll get me a bottle.

I often get upset, and if I didn't have a low blood pressure by nature, the whole perfume hobby would get on my pump. What do I get upset about? About prejudices, horrendous prices, arrogance and co. I am sometimes against it on principle when I have to read for the hundredth time praise for 4€/ml fragrances and completely prejudiced negative tirades for 0.4€/ml fragrances. It annoys me because I am still convinced that we should all test blindly much more often, if not always, and only then find out the brand and price. Amouage, Xerjoff, Roja have already received a lot of criticism from me, I stand by that. I am - like all of us here - not a trained perfumer and just because I can distinguish rose and geranium better over the years, that does not make me an expert. That's why I think it never hurts to always look at the whole thing with a little humility and not to be carried away by the opinion of the masses. Nevertheless, there are always interfaces from time to time and Memoir is definitely one of them, for me. The scent reminds me of (also in advertising) Harry Potteresque dark arts, and fantastic literary settings of the fight of good against evil. Incense in dark form, little sweetness but a certain warmth. A grey coat, around my shoulders on a cool night, in the alleys of the old town, passing a lonely old man, in front of the bar with his last cigar, the rain of the last days seeping in the trees, it's time to go home, light another candle, write a few pages, then read, I turn off the light, until dawn

Like the softness of underwear and the scent of freshly washed hair, Soleil Neige lays itself on the skin. The silage is strong, this becomes clear with the first sprayer. I am on a summer holiday, not a winter holiday. Apricots and peaches are sprouting, the sun is shining strongly, the hair is wet and the skin is warm. No trace of roses, nor do I smell the other fragrances separately, except bergamot squared, of course. Fresh and in the base still soft as wool it comes along, there is no winter smell. Perhaps Tom Ford and Micallef have joined forces in their winter impressions. In any case, even if no one wants to hear this, after a few hours this perfume smells exactly like Helene Fischer's "That's Me! Exactly, softer and less pungent, but in the end you get Soleil Neige for 1/5 of the price, if you can do without the small plus of warmth. I think that's not bad, because I have nothing against Helene Fischer and nothing against Tom Ford, and yes, because of me this is the higher quality luxury version. But it remains to be considered whether the wheel was reinvented or just refined.
For me a pleasant fragrance, with strong radiation and moderate durability. For Helene a first pungent, then pleasant scent with strong radiation and moderate durability. Do you fall victim to marketing or do you trust your nose? One thing is for sure, a good feeling can be bought with pleasure, but whether it must be this fragrance here for it, be put there

I've noticed over the last eight years on Parfumo and beyond that there's so much more you can test, at some point you get to the point where you focus on the essentials. I have tested hundreds of fragrances over the years, far more than I have written down here. Some I found so insignificant that it was not worth writing them down, others so convincing that I didn't need to write them down. At the moment my collection consists of 11 fragrances and 14 bottlings, I didn't update that here either, I know that sometimes bottlings disappear quite fast. So every day I have the choice between 25 fragrances and I have to say that even that is too much for me. Why? Because I think I could do with just five fragrances to cover what is essentially the essence. Sure, one day you move in with someone you've missed for a long time, but another one leaves with someone you're not in the mood for anymore. But the essence remains, in my eyes at least, that less is clearly more. For me there are four important categories: Christmas scents, incense, forest, amber. Of course there are several beauties within the categories, for example, I recently replaced "Ambre Précieux" with "Peau d'Ambre". Not forever, but simply because I don't think it needs several amber scents next to each other. Just like it basically needs only one from each of my categories. It can be changed at will, sure. But this madness with 30, 40, 100 scents I won't go along with anymore. I'm slowly using up my scents, not replacing them. There are few who can stay. One of them is Soul of the Forest. Why? Because it smells of the forest as I know and love it. In my student days I got up at 6 a.m. every morning to go for a walk in the forest. I loved it, especially in winter. When the trees smell frosty cool and sublime, when nature is able to stop time in picturesque dignity. When fir trees shine in all their glory and squirrels bury their last supplies, when robins sing on snowy branches, when you decorate your home with mistletoe. A few sprayers and I'm right where I like to be. In the soul of the forest

I'm quite skeptical about expensive niche fragrances, especially since I've been blindly testing and reading praise here for absolutely bad perfumes that are offered at outrageous prices in special perfumeries. The captain of Köpenick would be complacent about some things here, rightly so ! Gabrielle was such a fragrance, which I was rather moderately looking forward to, because in most cases Channel seems to me far too flowery boring. Bright, quiet, even elegant, but far away from the gourmands I like so much.
Repeated testing has confirmed me, Gabrielle is just like the rest, a variation of the old familiar; bright flowers, blooming freshness, a little effervescence, ready. Wouldn't have knocked me off my feet, but it wouldn't have repulsed me either. Hold such a fragrance, which is already good and elegant, but not my prey scheme. However, I had another fragrance parallel to Gabrielle, which was wonderfully softly ambered, warmly spicy and deep, exactly my thing. My sweaters smelled of amber and a hint of saffron or cinnamon, at least warm winter spices, I was blown away. Unfortunately I couldn't assign where it came from and I thought for three days what it could have been. At first I thought of my scented paperboards in the wardrobe, but admittedly, even with the greatest imagination, they didn't even smell like paperboard anymore. At some point it suddenly opened up to me and I found out what was smelling so good: it was boring Gabrielle, about 12 hours after spraying on the paper she developed a warmth that I would never have believed her to have and which is also not to be inferred from the listed notes. I made a clear test again with a handkerchief, which I sprayed in and checked again and again. Indeed, in Drydown Gabrielle is a wonderfully ambered cuddly lady, with spice and depth.

A similar drydown miracle happened to me with "Black Weed"; from medicated leathery woody light to warm spicy and wonderful in about 8 hours. The question is of course, do you want to wait that long? Can one wait that long? Is it still worth it then? I honestly do not know. I find both fragrances fantastic on the finish, but do I want to have to wait that long? On the other hand, I have rarely experienced such a strong 180 degree change and it fascinates me. I'm gonna take a moment and think about it. It shows, however, that extensive blind testing without the influences and manipulations of brand, other perfumes or specified fragrances is definitely worth it!