...Personally, I don't smoke, but I like the smell of clean and also perfumed pipe tobacco. And the smell of a good cigar can evoke a homely mood.I wonder if the prohibition of smoking will lead to perfumes that make you smell as if you were a heavy smoker. One of those attempts IMHO were the perfumes of Robbie VanGogh ( a hobby perfumer who sadly discontinued his activities), especially his "Hemp & Leather".One particular, strongly overpriced smoker's perfume is "Intricate" by Boadicea. Actually, it has a very strong smell that has much in common with a cold ash tray. Sillage and longevity are far beyond compare. It is great when you smell it the first time but I find it hardly wearable. Then, I find "Jasmin & Cigarettes" by ELDO well worth trying in this context. When it was launched, I remember it was a kind of reminiscence to the Marlene Dietrich style of female smoker.

...Pipette:Look to Parfumo for the great new tool with all Perfume Notes inter-connections, I have not seen such a tool anywhere!!Thank you, Pipette.We have to be fair and admit that Fragrantica and BN had fragrance note information before us. It is a seperate section at Fragrantica with information on some notes while I remember BN had excellent informations provided by a member - buried deep down somewhere in their forum.If we see good ideas at other sites we can at least ask ourselves if that idea could be improved at Parfumo. We never just copy. In case of the fragrance notes this means:- a complete fragrance note directory with all our ~7000 notes ( we take them as we get them and make ony very cautious unifications)- a flexible hierarchy: a specific note can be found in different paths if it refers to more than one category.- cross references to all respective note categories on each note page- linking notes information close to the perfume pages: notes info text in popup if available- voting the strength of the note also on notes pyramid level. The brilliant idea of voting notes on pyramid level came from a Parfumo member. Member's input is really important for Parfumo. Any support and any idea is highly appreciated even if not every new idea can be realised.

...NaughtyKitty: Why does the owner of Fragrantica feel so threatened by Parfumo? Does somebody care to enlighten me? Because I've always wondered why Fragrantica's Dictatorship always censors the word with such passion.The difference to Parfumo is that Fragrantica is run as a commercial site. Some people make their living with it. They rely on the number of users and visitors and on the clicks for their ads. That's all.

...Recently I noticed the re-launch of perfumes, and the press releases stress the point that it is a re-issue of the same fragrance that had been discontinued years earlier. Examples are:- the Helmut Lang series- "Richard James Savile Row"We all know that once in a while houses change the formula of a perfume for various reasons and then launch it again, maybe with a different packaging. We all have experiences with reformulations and generally, we are not pleased if this happens to a fragrance. I wonder if these and any other re-releases are indeed the same as the vintage perfume. Or is this just another fad to place reformulations?It is up to us to test these and other re-issued fragrances and find out.Please share your experiences and opinions here, with the two mentioned and any other reissues.

...I don't really have an idea how Hawthorn smells.Can anybody explain please?

...Anahata:It is vulgar nowadays for two reasons:It was good and outstanding in the past, building popularity.It has lost quality with repeated reformulations.In this case I wouldn't blame it on reformulations. At least in my country it became unpopular when it started to attract rather unpopular people :)

..."Potion" is a very interesting fragrance. I find it actually more aromatic than woody. It shares a certain aromatic and hard to decribe note with few other fragrances where it is dominant: "Le Vetiver - Itasca" by Lubin, "Mister" by Jasper Conran, and "King Solomon" by Kings and Queens.In some other cases, it is combined with the well-known Terre D'Hermès note: in Micallef's "Jewel for Him", together with Patchouli. I also got the impression that it might play a very small role in the base notes of "L'Homme Ideal".This particular note is alcoholic, slightly "boozy", maybe also green-woody. But it does not smell like anything we know from daily life and so you at least have to smell it once to know what it is about.If I compare "Potion" with Lubin's Itasca, I have to say that Potion might share that slightly rough and not so pleasant amber note that we find in so many mid-priced perfumes. Lubin's Itasca is not so miuch more expensive, and you don't have to compromise on the quality. If you like Potion, try Itasca if you can find it.

...No, I haven't yet.Generally, the gent's colognes of DSquared are woody in a puristic way. All of them are recommendable.

...Musk can be nearly everything. While the chemical structure of musky ingredients seems to be similar, the fragrance is not.I am not so fond of dominating white musk notes with their powdery and creamy facets. I'd go for a more animalic musk style.If it has to be a cheaper musk fragrance, I'd recommend ordering some Musc Oil by Harry Lehmann

...Time to continue the Wine of the Day thread...Two days ago, I set off for the Mosel valley. It's a few hours to go by car, but you can enjoy a beautiful rural scenery. The weather was promising - I like the late summer sun, and that magic Indian summer mood. A very suitable perfume that brings together the freshness of summer with the earthy notes of autum is Hermès' "Eau de Pamplemousse Rose", and it was a good choice for my short holiday trip. It has a quite opulent top and heart note of pink grapefruit, and you can hardly find any other perfume where this note is celebrated so explicitly - Ellena's puristic style!Would I discover a wine just as straightforward yet pleasing as this perfume?My relation to Mosel Riesling wines is a bit complicated. In fact, Mosel Riesling was the wine of my childhood. My parents and me used to drive there on Sunday, and we never came back without a box or two of delicious Riesling. However, our passion calmed down during the 1990's. That was the time when Parker points became important to German winemakers, and they would tell you how perfect their wines would fit now to the light and modern mediterrean cuisine. As if anybody had Riesling with his pizza instead of a cheap Orvieto or Pinot Grigio from the supermarked! IMHO, Riesling and the so-called international style do not go together well. The Riesling grape contains a lot of fruit - or acidity - much more than all the Chardonnays, Pinot Blancs and Pinot Gris' have. I presume, in order to make Riesling resemble a cheap Italian Pinot Grigio the winemakers shortened the time that the mash was allowed to stay on the grapes. They diminished the fruitiness but also a lot of taste went away.The Riesling grape is known to interact with the terroir (the soil where it is growing) more intense than other wine grapes. In fact, many "Weinlagen" (terroirs) in the Mosel valley were designed to bring out different characters of Riesling according to the geological characteristics. One place that we particularly liked was the small village Ürzig. Their main terroir is named "Ürziger Würzgarten" (Ürzig's spice garden). When you walk past the vinyards, you can see that parts of the stones and rubble in the soil has a red colour. In addition to the usual weathered shale that you find in the Mosel valley, some iron is incorporated, and they call it "Rotliegendes" (red shale). If the winemaker allows all the taste to go into the wine that the grapes can provide, the "Ürziger Würzgarten" is a Riesling that can easily be discriminated from most of the surrounding terroirs.So, where to buy? I parked my car near the river and strolled through the village. Winemaking in the Mosel valley is mostly family business. The winemakers all have a little display cabinet on the outside of their houses, and if you are interested, you simply knock on the door...But I was clueless. The last thing I wanted was a yuppie winemaker who would tell me about the medals he had won in Toronto or Sydney. One cabinet displayed a press article: "... also this year the winemaker so-and-so shows that he is on a good way from a rather opulent to a finer and more elegant style" - No, not here.Finally, I finished my round and came back to my car. Just opposite, I could see the backyard of a winemaker's house. Two very old gents were sitting together and had a little chat. Well, old winemakers tend to be conservative...I was led into the cellar where the old gentleman produced one bottle after another from a fridge. Just like in a decent perfume shop: at the vitners' houses you can try before you buy. After about ten samples, my decision was made:No, this Spätlese is not dry. Traditionally made Riesling wines can be a bit tough if they are dry. Some sweetness is needed to balance the fruit. And I was lucky that some older wines were still in stock: my 2007 Riesling already has that distinct mature taste, and its "top note" is flowery, opulent, amiable with a very slight honey touch - a nice contrast to its fruit. In one aspect it is light: it contains only 8.5 % alcohol. According to our wine laws, winemakers are not allowed to add extra sugar for the higher qualities such as Spätlese. It all has to come from the grapes.I think I had a lucky day. Finding a good wine that suits your taste can sometimes be just as difficult as finding a good perfume!

...http://www.universalperfumesandcosmetics.com/index.php?route=product/product&manufacturer_id=186&product_id=686

...Pipette:NaughtyKitty:The reviews system on Fragrantica is completely skewed in all the wrong directions. I spend time and effort testing fragrances, writing descriptive reviews and giving my honest opinion on my scent perception, yet I get no balloons and someone who just wrote "OMG I love this so much. I just got it 10 minutes ago" gets a whole bunch of them.....sigh.... I think I will just post all of my reviews here on Parfumo. People seem to have a greater appreciation of them on here. I am not sure who is the owner of the reviews in English, the perfume host site, or the author. If you copy/paste your English reviews to here, just tweak, embellish or change the text, so that it becomes again an original of yourself as the author.I believe that in Germany the author of the review is the sole owner and can post the material wherever she wishes. Again, not totally sure.To be safe, I have changed my text(s) when I used copy/paste from one site to another.Quite a few people post their reviews at Parfumo and on another site as well, and some users moved in at Parfumo with their complete collection of reviews. Nobody has a problem with that here. Personally, I sometimes post my German reviews from Parfumo.de here as an English translation. But, especially if they are older, I very often find out that my perception towards a fragrance has changed. In the end, I find myself re-writing them from scratch.Just do as you like!

...NaughtyKitty:I have a Facebook, but I only use it to check up on my favorite perfumeries and online discounters. I don't have any friends on there, and I prefer it that way because I don't want to make a profile and know everybody's business. I'm an anonymous private person. I tried joining the perfume boards on Facebook and NONE of them accept my requests, presumably because I look like some sort of a spammer/troll without a proper picture and friends. It's kind of a stupid conclusion of them to jump to, but why else would they deny my requests to join their group? Kind of ridiculous that I can't join just because I don't have any friends, but whatever.I think that some facebook groups are closed circles of friends, so they would accept new people only if invited by somebody who is already in.

...Esoada, I don't know enough ladie's fragrances to vote for a fragrance from your collection or even your wish list.But for what you are up to I think you should have a high class animalic musk in store: "Musc / Muskiris"

...I have a tip for you if you should travel to the Lorraine region in France. In Rozelieures there is the Maison de la Mirabeille, a family business who mainly produce mirabelle plum eau de vie. They also offer 3 perfumes. The fragrances are produced in Grasse and focus on the mirabelle plum. Here are the opening times.The perfumes come under the brand name "Anne-Marie Grallet".

...I have also noticed that things slowed down a bit on our forum here. So, should I sit down, figure out some interesting or witty topics and post them, in order to bring more live in here?It would be great if we had this kind of moderation but maybe I am not the right person for it. At the moment, I very much enjoy doing my background work here, which is translating the new fragrance notes for you every day, then taking part in Parfumo Research and looking after new perfume proposals. Together with Don and Mia, we make sure that no new member gets away without a personal welcome message on the wall.I take part in the forum if there is something for me to say. The forum and its content is pretty much in the responsibility of the whole community. So, all of you, please feel free to make the best use of it!

...I have been invited to a few fragrance groups on FB but I found out that it is not really my cup of tea. Messages there are often very short, and it is a chaotic flow of thoughts from one specific topic to another. No real threads, only short replies to a post. I feel reduced to a very limited form of conversation.Without a forum structure, it is difficult to come back to a topic that had been discussed maybe a year ago and find out what has already been said about a topic. For me, the technical platform that FB provides is too limited and only second best.

...Micallef is a remarkable brand, their perfumer Mr. Astier is very gifted.Their style is a bit on the oriental and slightly opulent side, and many of Mr. Astier's creations contain a noticeable patchouli.From the Art Collection series, I own the No. 203. I have to admit it is a bit too opulent for me to serve as an everyday perfume. There were only few occasions that I have worn this frag.

...Nothing at the moment, but yesterday I received a bunch of perfume samples by our fellow Parfumo user E99EsAns. He has his own little brand and a shop in Nuremberg, Germany, where he creates his own perfumes. An online shop is still being planned:https://www.facebook.com/pages/E99-Esans/560466063964130?ref=ts&fref=tsWe are currently adding his perfumes to the database.His origins seems to be in an Arab country, and from the first sniff, so is his perfumery. I will write one or the other review soon.An Arab perfume shop with its own perfumer - another sight for Nuremberg!

...We have a rainy summer this year in Germany, with temperatures around 60 F. or 18 C. It is raining a lot, and in some places people had their houses flooded.I didn't know we have users as far away as Siberia! Great!