Edited 3/1/08: I have a more recent post on daphne perfume here, comparing three daphne perfumes, including Laboissiere and Demeter's Daphne perfumes.
I am someone who is very sensitive to scents and has an incredible scent memory; a perfume, once I'm turned off to it, is no good to me anymore. So I try not to wear perfume on a regular basis because not only am I worried I'll make myself sick off my own perfume (which has happened), and because I don't want to do that to my coworkers, either.
But because I have such strong scent memory, there are certain scents that I'll never be able to really wear because I just can't find it in a perfume. For example, for some, the ultimate lily fragrance is the elusive perfect scent.
But lately, for me, it's daphne. There's something about the smell of daphne, right when the weather's turning from dismal to cold and clear. Like my love of jasmine and gardenia in the summer, daphne is the beginning of the end of the winter for me. There are several daphne bushes in bloom on the street between my office and the train station, so I walk by it at least once a day, typically. It's the clearest symbol of the changing seasons, to me -- once the daphne and the plum trees are in bloom, it's easier to imagine that spring is coming.
So what's with the lack of daphne fragrances? Is it just that hard to get right? Somewhere we have a bottle of the Demeter Daphne perfume, but, of course, it's not right. In searching through the archives of Now Smell This, there were only a few fragrances with daphne as a note, and even when searching for daphne, most results came up for the perfumer Daphne Bugey, not the flower.
In fact, Laboissiere Daphne was the only pure daphne perfume I could find. But do I really want to spend $52 on something that might not be right? Or do I track it down and try to find it in person before I plunk down that money? Apparently there's a perfume boutique (Jacqueline Perfumery, on Geary) in San Francisco that may carry it (they carry other Laboissiere perfumes, according to a forum post I found in my Googling). Do I dare go on this quest?
Or do I just enjoy the real daphne now, and know that because I only get it so briefly and so sweetly, that I'll never tire of it?
image from demeterfragrance.com
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Nymph-chasing
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Please let me know if Laboissiere Daphne smells as good as it should, I am also an avid Daphne lover and I too am having a hard time finding the "right" one. I have a super sensitive sniffer, so let me know if it's a true scent! e-mail me: nonchalant228@yahoo.com
Thank you!
My mother who is now 81 years old is a LONG time lover of Daphne perfume. In fact the ONLY place you can get it is in San Francisco. The Laboissiere Daphne is the truest, best daphne ever and my mother swears by it. In fact my father called me yesterday to see if I could track down some more Daphne perfume as my mother is down to her last few drops and he read me Laboissiere off the bottle. So YES! That is the one!!! Any helpful tips as to where I can order would be much appreciated!! Thanks, Jennifer Merry Christmas!!!
Hi Jennifer!
I would call Jacqueline Perfumery in San Francisco -- (415) 981-0858 -- and see if they will take an order over the phone. Most boutiques will! If that doesn't work, drop me an email at periodicstyle at gmail dot com and I'll go pick it up for you!
Post a Comment