After a disastrous Friday, I’ve had an enormously productive fragrance weekend.
Firstly, my oh so tolerant husband and four children spent a few hours at the prestige perfume counters in Liberty and Fenwick’s. Secondly, a selection of samples from Les Senteurs is winging its way to me sometime soon. Thirdly, I found a set of nine EdT samples for good value at Penhaligon’s.
Unfortunately, I failed to find the Virgilio room fragrance from Diptyque. Luca Turin gives Virgilio a noteworthy description in "Perfumes: The A-Z Guide ”. He comments that, 'The saline note in perfumery is elusive'. He goes on to note that he's found it in Fleurs de Sel by Miller Harris as well as Virgilio. I'm keen to try both as the idea of a salty fragrance is intriguing.
My final success this weekend was tracking down, Diptyque’s delightful Figuier candle (read a review at Now Smell This), which is wafting around our sitting room right now.
In Liberty I was absolutely spoilt for choice. I wanted to try something that I hadn’t smelt before. A lady next to me was trying Annick Goutal’s honeysuckle fragrance Le Chèvrefeuille. After I commented how nice it was she recommended that I try the perfume that she normally wears – Eau du Sud.
Eau du Sud is floral and fresh and zesty. It smells like a perfect summer’s day in the garden. It’s not a fragrance that I could wear day after day – but it’s something lovely to put a spring in your step once in a while. I’ve heard people talk about ‘sunshine’ fragrances. Eau du Sud epitomises a sunshine fragrance for me.
My other reaction to Eau du Sud is that it smells, to me, exactly the same as Clarin’s Eau Dynamisante. Eau Dynamisante was my duty free treat of choice for several years. Eau du Sud was so evocative of my memory of Eau Dynamisante that I went to the Clarins’ counter to compare the two. To my completely untrained nose, they are one and the same fragrance. Clarins sell Eau Dynamisante for £25 per 100ml. Whereas Eau du Sud EdT costs £50 for 50ml at Les Senteurs.
Choose whichever you will. Both Eau du Sud and Eau Dynaminsante are fabulous fragrances to bring the sunshine back into your life on a cold December day.