L'Occitane Vetyver

 I went to the local L'Occitane shop to take a whiff of their Vetyver fragrance after having read it's praised so much. This is a fresh-dry woody smell. I liked it so much I bought this last week. Some fragrance bottles are pure works of art, this one isn't. Far from it, it looks like an old medicine bottle, an observation that's enhanced by its brown colour. Not a lot of money went into its design and manufacture by the looks of it. Likewise no money went into marketing the fragrance: no famous face and/or glossy ads seducing you to buy it. The quality of the fragrance is its main selling point. A 100 ml bottle sells for only €39.50. An excellent scent for little money. 

Update. I now own the Vetyver shower gel too... Great stuff.

Perfume related books

I just finished reading The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr.

I discovered that the public library actually had two copies of it, in English and the Dutch translation. I took home the Dutch translation.  Interesting stuff. For good measure I also took home Perfumes, the Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. Great books, both of them.

Interesting bit of Canel No.5 info from the Guide: the perfume, eau de parfum and eau de toilette are all of different composition, rather than the eau de parfum and eau de toilette being just diluted perfume as one would expect.

Luca Turin didn't think highly of Floris' Santal, two stars: "cheap and boring".