Conversations and Ideologies

January 26, 2016 by Lavanya

This is not exactly a perfume post in a ‘sort of perfume blog’, so I hope you will forgive me and allow me to pull you into a discussion of a different sort. I’ve never written about beauty products on this blog before. Somehow I’ve never felt comfortable doing so. Until now. You could point out that perfume is a beauty product. However, I have to admit, that for me perfume kind of transcends that category and worms its way into art. […]

Categories: Green Beauty, Science • Tags: beauty, conversations, Green Beauty, non-toxic, smell

Music and Perfume

August 21, 2015 by Lavanya

Sometimes when I smell a perfume and there is music playing in the background, something happens. A magical synergy, that ties both the perfume and the song into a tight knot, so I can’t think of one without the other. And listening to the song while re-smelling the  perfume often brings back the intensity of the first experience of smelling it. This happened to me when I first smelled Mona di Orio’s Oud *. The song that was playing on my […]

Categories: Art, Memories, Music, Scent, writing • Tags: By Killian, Mona di Orio, multisensory, music, perfume, Scent

Neela Vermiere’s Ashoka : Another Iris epiphany

August 7, 2015 by Lavanya

Iris is one of those strange notes that announces its presence by smelling like absence. I am not sure if that makes sense, but most of the time (like I detailed in this post), when I smell Iris- I smell ‘nothing’ and the smelling of that nothing, makes me aware of iris as a note. After some time, the smell of that nothing can get quite addicting. Like a magic trick you really want to figure out. Like most people, […]

Categories: History, Perfume Notes, Perfume Review, Scent • Tags: art, Ashoka Perfume, beauty, Bertrand Duchafour, fig leaf, Iris, Mimosa, Neela Vermiere

More New Things

July 31, 2015 by Lavanya

So I have some news to share… Just before the birth of my daughter. I decided I would take a break from work after she was born. The fellowship I had then was ending and I decided not to look for a new job till I was ready. I was feeling a bit jaded and out of sorts at the time. The thought of two babies under two years old was overwhelming. I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to achieve […]

Categories: Uncategorized

Bookish Sundays : Lines from a poem

January 18, 2015 by Lavanya

Emptiness, my bride who whistles, who listens? Last week, I came across a couple of lines by Slovene poet Tomaz Salamun in a talk by another poet. Something about these lines requires no context. I haven’t read the poem it belongs to; don’t even know which poem it belongs to. Yet, I thrill to these words suspended in internet ether. What are some of your favorite lines from a poem? Picture Credit: Not sure of the exact source; found it via […]

Categories: Art, Books, writing • Tags: beauty, Bookish Sundays, poem, poetry, Tomaz Salamun

New Toes and Other Loves

November 24, 2014 by Lavanya

We have some new toes in our home!! Our daughter Sitara arrived a few weeks ago. It has been a crazy month and, with two babies under two, I anticipate crazier days ahead but I am trying to slow down and savor all the delicious babyness around me (which is easier said than done). I thought I’d crawl my way back into blogging with a list of a few things that I have been enjoying lately (other than tiny fingers and […]

Categories: Food/Drink, Memories, Picture Memories, Scent, writing • Tags: Aftelier, argan oil, baby, body oil, Farmer's Market, mandy aftel, natural perfume, persimmon

perfume as texture : a tale of mostly chypres

May 16, 2014 by Lavanya

It has been a really long while since I posted. I had sort of promised myself that I wouldn’t post or comment about perfume until I finished a certain piece of work that needed to be finished more than a year ago. I’m still not close to being done with that, but I found this post of mine in the drafts. It was written a while ago (so it doesn’t count as breaking my promise, does it?). But first I […]

Categories: Art, Memories, Perfume Notes, Scent, Science, writing • Tags: crossmodal, perfume, sensory

Snapshots of Bombay : Marine Drive

December 25, 2013 by Lavanya

As we were driving around Bombay, my father quoted economist Joan Robinson who said, ” whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true”. Having grown up in India, I am still struck and alarmed by how true this is: where contrasts lie in close proximity with each other, heartbreaking poverty shares roads with opulence. And I am not yet immune to this juxtaposition of contrasts as they bounce off one another every single day. And the thing […]

Categories: Memories, Picture Memories, Travel • Tags: bombay, marine drive, mumbai, picture postcard

Viktoria Minya Hedonist

November 30, 2013 by Lavanya

I had been drooling at the various accounts of Viktoria Minya’s Hedonist but Victoria’s review at Eaumg made me long to try it, to see if it really was all that. How could a perfume that was supposed to smell of peaches and honey smell that good? Thankfully my longing did not reach epic proportions because the generous and darling Suzanne offered to send me a sample. And like Victoria said, I inhaled it, smiled and wanted the rest of […]

Categories: Art, Memories, Perfume Review, Scent, writing • Tags: Hedonist, Perfume Review, Victoria Minya