Perfumer Hiram Green met me in Amsterdam for an interview about his work and forthcoming perfume Voyage. He says it is inspired by a trip to India, and I get that – but it isn’t necessarily that specific. Wearing it all day, I realized that it doesn’t “smell like a natural.” That isn’t meant to be a dis, but I’ve found that many naturals have a distinct smell. Voyage is full-bodied, robust, and long-lasting – three things not normally associated with natural perfumes. I will be rushing to get the interview posted asap… I thought the rest of my Euro trip might delay it. Hiram was extremely honest in the interview and shared a lot of great information that most of us probably don’t realize about perfume creation.
After the interview, we were walking around and he mentioned that there was a store in Amsterdam that carried his line – Annindriya Perfume Lounge – (website http://www.perfumelounge.nl/). I said, “let’s go” and we hopped into an Uber.
This may sound incredibly snobby but I judge a perfume store based on what they have that I have not seen before. When I am in a European niche perfume shop, I want to see new stuff, different lines – rather than the expected international niche scents that every shop like this has. Annindriya was exceptional with its curated collection.
First let me give a shout out to Sales Associate – Phine, who was beyond friendly and kept the store open late to show us around. She was incredibly knowledgable, sweet, informative, and helpful. There were several lines that were new to me. Frazer is a South African natural line which was nice but didn’t blow me away. The smelled like natural perfumes… see above.
There was a smartly priced line called Baruti (I call anything under 100 Euro – well priced). The scents I sniffed were unique and smelled high quality. It is interesting the “No-oud” smells like a typical oud but has no oud in it. Standing out to me was Chai – a delicious gourmand with cloves, pepper, black tea, milk, and vanilla – basically what a chai tea would smell like. I almost bought this.Also interesting was Eau D’Amsterdam which is a scent recreating the Elm Trees that populate the city. It smelled photo-realistic – if that makes sense. It is not something I would wear but it definitely could find an audience.Another line I really liked was Papillon – strong scents that are edp but have the intensity of extraits. Anubis was really special but I fell for the new one – Salome, which had hints of flowers, tobacco, and patchouli. It was a dirty floral scent that was quite sexy.One odd thing was the bottle of Metal Hurlant that was on display. It smelled NOTHING like the motor oil, rubber, smoke monster that I smelled yesterday at Cherry in Rome.
Now, for what y’all are going to go crazy for. Le Bienaime is an upcycled perfume house from Geurengoeroe blogger Erik Zwaga. This is pure madness and absolute brilliance all rolled into one. He takes perfumes from the same family of scents or from the same house – mixes them together – and makes a brand new scent. For example, Guerlainisimo is a mix of 20 Guerlain scents and forms a more perfect Guerlinade concoction that is more pure Guerlain than you can imagine. Cha-cha-chanel mixes 10 Chanel scents for a new kind of magic. S.T.I.N.K. is a musk/incense/oud bomb with a mix of scents from these lines: Von Euserdorff, Histoire de Parfums, Comme des Garcons, Parfum D’Empire, Obsessive Oudh, and Song for a Queen. Wow, it took sheer will power not to buy all six scents that were on display – I ended up buying three. I am hoping to catch up with Erik while I am in Amsterdam this week… this guy sounds like a brilliant madman.
After the wonderful trip to Annindriya, I had to go into dance music mode. I had invited Hiram to dinner and he agreed to play along before catching a train back to his hometown of Gouda. About two hours later, we ended up at a Thai restaurant with Crystal Waters, Vassy (“Bad” with David Guetta, “Secrets” with Tiesto), and Eric Lumiere (Filo & Peri “Anthem”). It was great to see my different worlds – music and perfume – merge together so seamlessly.
All in all, an amazing start to my week in Amsterdam.
