Another visit to London

I was in London again this past Monday. Its weird in a way, because 3 months went by without a visit to the Capital, and all of a sudden I've been there 3 times in almost as many weeks.

I had a client meeting in the City of London, in a room overlooking the massive domed roof of St Paul's Cathedral. If that isn't inspiring, then I don't know what is. Less inspiring is what has been going on outside St Paul's (and inside, but that's another matter). My American colleagues are probably not up to speed on this, but for the last few weeks, protestors have been camping outside the Portico of the church, ostensibly under the banner of Occupy London, a group/organisation/whatever that is against capitalism, primarily bankers and banking institutions. Presumably this extends to the clergy and officials of the Church of England. I don't know - I'm total apolitical, so generally don't get into this sort of thing. I only mention it because I've seen it all over the news the past couple of weeks and it was strange to then walk past the scene myself.

On my way to a training course in the afternoon, I passed Liberty and had to pop in for a while to see what was on offer. I saw some interesting perfumes. I sampled Le Labo's Poivre 23 and Santal 33, both of which are very interesting, but I preferred Santal 33. Poivre 23 reminds me, mainly in the dry down, of a more peppery Patchouli 24. Santal 33 is compelling. I can't say why, but it just grabbed me for some reason. I'm not even sure that it smells so much of Sandalwood, but it smells good anyway.

I also sprayed numerous perfumes on scent strips, including the new Blood Concepts (O, A, B and AB). I don't know what it is about these, but they strike me as being very much like something Comme de Garcons would try release. They have that sort of vibe, in my opinion.

I also looked at some of the Prada exclusive collection, such as Cuir Amber, Oppoponax and Benzoin. They smell decent, but I'm not sure I would pay those prices for what are essentially quite straightforward single-note perfumes, no matter what the quality. Not easy to test on a strip either once the bottles are quite empty, as there is no applicator; the bottles look like  apothecary  bottles.

I ended the day having dinner with two old friends and it was good to catch up, but they are going through quite a tough time in their lives, not relationship wise though. I hope they come out well the other end in time...

Sandalwood, and pickles?

This is not a very original post, since it is based primarily on what I have recently read on a number of other blogs. The perfume in question is Le Labo's Santal 33. Something that people have mentioned when writing about this perfume is a dill pickle note in the opening and this note seems to manifest itself in sandalwood prominent perfumes. Well, I read this and sort of dismissed it out of hand as being rather an odd thing to notice. I have tried numerous sandalwood perfumes and products over the years and have never noticed this note.

Today I wore Sandalo Inspiritu by DSH, which incidentally is a lovely perfume, but I have written about it before and don't intend to go into detail here. Suffice to say that this time, as I applied it, I was immediately struck by a dill pickle note, which amazed me. Now, I am certain that having read quite a lot about Santal 33 recently my mind must have been opened to the possibility of this accord and perhaps I was therefore more receptive to identifying it, even if only subliminally. Actually, the smell of dill and pickles are both very pleasant to me, so I was slightly amused to identify this and actually liked the fact that I experienced a slightly different take on a perfume that I am already quite familiar with.

Have any of you made this association with any sandalwood perfumes?