Katie Puckrik Smells

Viewer Mail: A Perfume to Inspire Lustful Regret

2013-05-19T15:48:00.000-07:00

Hi, Katie, I just turned 60, and for the past 40 years my perfume habit has been one dab of No. 5 on my neck for special occasions. Yeah, I know -- boring. I am ready for a change. I have a big reunion coming up this summer and with it comes a perfume goal. I will be seeing the only guy who ever dumped me and when I hug him hello, I want him to think: what was I thinking? I can take

Yves Saint Laurent Oriental Collection

2013-05-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

Answering the call and response in the European fragrance world for elaborate, Arab-styled perfumes, Yves Saint Laurent have launched their Oriental Collection. Following on from Armani Privé La Collection des Mille et une Nuits, Christian Dior La Collection Privée, Guerlain Les Deserts d'Orient, and way after By Kilian's gorgeous and comprehensive variations on an oudy theme, the Arabian

Decennial Santal Sacre

2013-05-12T17:25:00.002-07:00

Santal Sacré is one of four perfumes in the new Decennial line, launched by perfume e-tailer Lucky Scent to celebrate their tenth birthday -- and their home in Los Angeles. Baby Lucky Scent grew up to encompass Scent Bar, the Hollywood smell spot where celebrity fumeheads include Morrissey (Comme des Garçons Avignon), Tilda Swinton (Etat Libre d'Orange Like This) and Debra Messing (Bruno

Katie's Perfume Collection Update: Part 4

2013-04-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

This is the final installment of my stream-of-consciousness ramble through recent additions to my perfume collection. Fragrances discussed in Part 4 are: 1. Black Orchid Voile de Fleur by Tom Ford I've rekindled my interest in Voile de Fleur due to the recent ylang-ylang kick I've been on. VdF has fun-fun with ylang-ylang. 2. L'Agent by Agent Provocateur This is the one based on a perfume

Katie's Perfume Collection Update: Part 3

2013-04-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

Here is Part 3 of my perfume collection update. Topics discussed: 1. Eating beans while surrounded by goats on a Mediterranean hillside. 2. The state of Maria Callas's dressing room after opening night at the opera. 3. Tricking friends into thinking you're a tree. 4. Various things that might happen in bed. Perfumes discussed: 1. Diptyque L'Eau Trois 2. Guerlain Nahema 3. Clinique

Viewer Mail: A Mother's Fragrant Legacy

2013-04-08T17:08:00.000-07:00

Dear Katie, My name is Emily, I’m 26 years old and I'm from Baltimore. I wanted to share a story with you that I hope you'll appreciate. My incredible mother, Robyn, passed away on January 10th of this year after an over thirty year battle with multiple sclerosis. She was a beautiful woman inside and out, and while my heart aches that she's gone, I know she's no longer in pain. For as long

Fumes in the News: Google Nose

2013-04-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

Imagine my wonder and amazement when I turned on my computer today and read on Google's front page: "New! What’s that smell? Find out with Google Nose." Clicking through, I learn that Google Nose features include: Your internet sommelier: Expertly curated Knowledge Panels pair images, descriptions and aromas. Take a wiff: The Google Aromabase - 15 M+ scentibytes. Don't ask, don't smell: For

Katie's Perfume Collection Update: Part 2

2013-03-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

Ready for another nose around my perfume collection? (Remember, pinky out when handling Amouage attars -- if you're fancy!) In Part 2 of my perfume collection update, verbal sketches are scribbled of the following olfactory paintings: 1. Prada Myrrhe No. 10 2. Amouage Ayoon al Maha (Fawn's Eyes) 3. L'Artisan Parfumeur Safran Troublant 4. L'Artisan Parfumeur Mon Numéro 8 Please click on

Perfume Pen Pals: Allergic to Axe?

2013-03-21T12:03:00.001-07:00

Katie, Here's something fun in the New York Times: Freedom High School in Bethlehem says one of its students was recently taken to a hospital after being exposed to Axe Body Spray. Now, officials are asking students to stop using it as a cologne or fragrance while attending the school. The perfume people will joke about it being Axe, but I'm telling you, these "allergies" are psychological,

Katie's Perfume Collection Update: Part 1

2013-03-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

The time has come, my frisky fumies, for me to fess up to my recent perfume promiscuity. But in current company (that's you guys), it's less a shame-faced confessional and more like plain ol' bragging (notch on the bedpost style). Notice in the video how I attempt to reframe my obviously rampant hunting and gathering as "the perfumes that I allowed past the Puckrik velvet rope." That's one

Fumes in the News: 8 Chairs -- a Perfumed Art Installation

2013-03-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

Albert Einstein once said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about perfume, but he might as well have been. A compelling smell is nothing if not mysterious: a chance encounter with a scent commandeers our head and heart, frogmarching us into unforeseen territories. Perfume designer Azzi Glasser has orchestrated her own brand of

L'Antichambre

2013-03-08T00:51:00.000-08:00

I hang around at Los Angeles' premier perfume shop Scent Bar so much that the owners decided to put me to work. "Smell some stuff!" they exclaimed, "Then tell some people!" Done and done. What I'm smelling here is a line from Brussels called L'Antichambre. Scent Bar (and their online store, Lucky Scent) is the only joint outside of Belgium offering the brand. The perfumes are elegant and

Estee Lauder Sensuous Noir

2013-03-04T17:36:00.001-08:00

Some perfume lovers have synaesthesia, wherein they experience scents as colors, music, numbers. I have a lesser-known neurological condition known as sweaterthesia. I smell a fragrances and immediately visualize a sweater. Here's what I "smelled" while wearing Estée Lauder Sensuous Noir: With a touch of this: Sensuous Noir. The wooly perfume with modified dolman sleeves and a

Chanel Chance

2013-02-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Over the winter holidays, I put in a handful of days at Scent Bar in Los Angeles in what they billed as a "residency", a fancy way to say "Saturday girl". Whatever, this Saturday girl was in her happy place: playing with all the perfume and confabulating with the customers. (By and large, fumeheads are an intriguing bunch whose inquiring minds and multidisciplinary backgrounds turn Scent Bar

A Dozen Roses

2013-02-11T16:54:00.000-08:00

The rose is an astonishingly sensual flower. Its deep and vivid hue enraptures, the velvety, eerily skin-like feel of its petals titillates. Not only is its aroma a twitterpating syrup of wine and lemon and earth and honey, but depending on the preparation of the rose, you can also eat it, drink it, or schmear it. I'm a long-time devotee of the cult of the rose, and years of pursuing its

Bruno Acampora Musc

2013-01-23T14:05:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I was talking to my friend Steve Gontarski, artist and Scent Bar manager, about an upcoming trip to London for a reunion of the first TV show I ever worked on, The Word. "What's your scent concept for the party?" he asked, as if "scent concept" was automatically the first consideration in any important circumstance. "Scent concept" immediately entered my vocabulary, as did

Penhaligon's Sartorial

2013-01-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

Penhaligon's Sartorial is inspired by the smells of a Savile Row tailor: vanilla-scented pattern paper, beeswax-coated thread, leather, steam from an iron -- along with traditional cologne ingredients of lavender and balsams. Norton and Sons is the classic London tailor featured in this frolicsome Penhaligon's video, alongside frolicsome Sartorial perfumer Bertrand Duchoufour: Sartorial

Are You Too Young or Old for a Fragrance?

2013-01-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

I am asked "Am I too young/old for this perfume/cologne?" all the time. This is where fragrance shifts from being just a good smell into a deceptively complex psychological statement. In this video chat, I discuss what affects our (and others') response to the scents we choose to wear. Long story short: wearing fragrance is a chance to express different sides of our multifaceted selves. Why

Pizza Hut Eau de Pizza Hut

2012-12-22T14:52:00.002-08:00

Just how much do Pizza Hut's devotees love the smell of a freshly-opened box of pizza? Enough for Pizza Hut Canada to commission a fragrance so disconcertingly weird that it crosses the bridge from kitschy merch to conceptual art. And I didn't even know there was a bridge at that location! Eau de Pizza Hut is billed as containing top notes of freshly baked, hand-tossed dough. Not exactly

Elie Saab Le Parfum

2012-12-15T15:38:00.000-08:00

For the longest time, Elie Saab Le Parfum was invisible to me in the ever-burgeoning clutter of self-named designer perfumes. I have my YouTube fumies to thank for the discovery of this kitten-in-springtime delight. After repeated requests to review it, I dutifully trudged to Elie Saab's spot at the perfume counter, and wearily took a sniff. Blah turned to "ah!" as the parade float of orange

Cacharel Loulou

2012-12-09T16:47:00.000-08:00

I missed Loulou by Cacharel the first time around. When it came out in 1987, I was a Clarins Eau Dynamisante girl. (I can't sniff Eau Dynamisante without remembering where I was the first time I smelled it: dancing onstage with the Michael Clark Company at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.) But even if I never wore Loulou, I always remember its tacky-fab blue genie bottle with the dark

Perfume Pen Pals: Byredo M/Mink and Steidl Paper Passion

2012-12-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

Dan, Finally I'm wearing Paper Passion. I prised the bottle out of the red pages of its book box and dabbed some on my wrist. I'd never read any of the patter about what was supposed to be in it, so I had no expectations. And when the whiff wafted into my nose, I thought, "It's Byredo M/Mink!" M/Mink is the perfume I've been circling since it launched two years ago. It's a smell that

Perfume Pen Pals: Steidl Paper Passion

2012-12-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

Katie, I just bought Paper Passion by Steidl. [Pause for sigh, head shaking.] If Chandler Burr separated this perfume from its context, I wonder if it would still exist? Dan Dan, You just can't resist these conceptual things, can you? I enjoyed these statements from the Paper Passion website: "Gerhard Steidl was first alerted to the importance of the smell of a book by Karl Lagerfeld."

Jean Paul Gaultier Fleur du Male

2012-11-24T23:32:00.000-08:00

Fleur du Mâle by Jean Paul Gaultier is my favorite honey perfume these days. It's the sharp, intimate smell of decaying orange blossoms: beautifully oppressive, with something of the personal humidity of YLS Kouros about it. Like Kouros, the honey is perspiring and it seeks to restore decorum with a sprinkling of powder. When I first wore L'Artisan Parfumeur Séville à l'Aube, I smelled it as

Annick Goutal Musc Nomade

2012-11-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

Musc Nomade is one of Annick Goutal's "Les Orientalistes" fab four, along with Ambre Fétiche, Myrrhe Ardente and Encens Flamboyante. Musc Nomade is one of my two very favorite musk perfumes (Bruno Acampora Musc is the other) and Isabelle Doyen, who created it, tells me that it's her personal favorite of the Goutal line. Musc Nomade is a floral whisper of stone-washed musk, amber and