Just got back a couple of days ago from a holiday in Europe, to the sweltering heat of Singapore and a rapturous welcome from Lola. I think her little tail would have fallen off it she had wagged it any harder. While I'm sure her enthusiasm was largely due to her being delighted to see me again after an absence of almost 3 weeks, she may also have been influenced by the fact that I was wearing perfume named after her. Yes indeed. It seems that Lola has caught the attention of Marc Jacobs the fashion designer, who has created a perfume in her honour. For those of you who have not yet smelt Lola (the Marc Jacobs version, not the real thing), here is a description for you from Perfume Lover's website:
This warm floral bouquet conveys the free spirit of today’s sexy, modern girl – she is playful, cool, and flirtatious…The long-lasting, day-and-night scent opens with pink peppercorn, pear, and ruby red grapefruit. Blooming midnotes of rose, fuschia peony, and geranium make a feminine statement. Layers of vanilla, warm tonka bean, and creamy musk create a sensous drydown.
You may have noticed the complete absence of "essence de chien" in this description, but what can I say? While the real Lola smells pretty gorgeous just after her bath, she does get distinctly doggy towards the end of the week, so I think Mr Jacobs wins this one hands down. As my regular readers will know, I aim to educate as well as amuse through this blog and if, like me, you have not previously encountered a tonka bean or the expression "drydown", then look no further.
The tonka bean is the fruit of a tropical South American tree (Dipteryx odorata for you botanists out there) with egg-shaped, one-seeded pods and fragrant seeds. It is used as a substitute for vanilla apparently, so I'm not quite sure what the difference in smell is, but Perfume Lover seems to be able to detect it. "Drydown" is a perfumery term used to describe the last stage in the evolution of a fragrance. After the top notes have faded and the middle and base notes have formed the body of the scent, what comes next is the drydown, or the end notes of the fragrance. And there you have it.
The perfume recommendation came from my niece, the lovely Claudia, sister of the equally lovely Hannah, who introduced me to the singing sensation that is Adele and to dancing around in your underwear. (You had to be there for the underwear bit). "There" was Italy - Venice, Florence and Rome to be precise - and my sister and I, along with TLH and TLC ate, shopped and photographed our way round the country, stopping only for the occasional coffee and to laugh out loud at the teeny weeny cars and buses that seem to fill the streets of Italian cities these days. Stopping for coffee also entailed a fair amount of laughing out loud, this time on the part of the waiters when we asked for a cappuccino in the middle of the afternoon - several hours after 11 am, the latest acceptable point in the day for drinking any coffee other than espresso. But hey, that's how we roll.
Venice was the favourite part of the trip. We were staying in Cannaregio, in the north of the island, in a lovely little apartment from where we walked everywhere - well, not everywhere, of course, as that would have required the ability to walk on water, but you know what I mean. The thing I love most about Venice is that it is such an improbable place; it shouldn't really exist, and yet it manages to survive and thrive year after year, century after century. We all thought that Cannaregio is probably the part of Venice that we would choose to live in if live in if we were to buy an apartment there, although we might need sell everything we have for the down payment - Venice is one expensive city! Some of the best moments had nothing to do with the history or the sights, for example our dinner in the worst run restaurant in the world - bizarrely, also one of the busiest restaurants that we came across, perhaps because they were so disorganised that most of the diners could probably have eaten for free since the sole waitress seemed never to write anything down or be able to report back to the man at the till what anyone had ordered, and in any case spent half the time moving the furniture around or sitting down for a ciggie break with her chums.
Our favourite restaurant of the trip was the strangely named Le Caveau, (strangely named for an Italian restaurant, that is) which was a mere 30 paces from our apartment. We know that it was 30 paces because my sister measured it when it became clear that this was becoming our "local" and in fact we ate there every day of the stay in Rome. The only thing that let them down was running out of milk on Sunday afternoon, a bit of an issue if you fancy a cappuccino, but not something that would bother most of their patrons I guess.
Sadly, while we loved both Venice and Florence, Rome was a disappointment. I have visited several times before and have really enjoyed it and Chris has always maintained that it is his favourite European city (personally, I think that both Barcelona and Paris kick Rome into touch, but he can't be expected to agree with me on everything - just most things :-)). So why did Rome disappoint? Well, it was really dirty, for a start. Living in Singapore, I have high standards for cleanliness, especially in public places, but the girls were equally grossed out by the rubbish on the streets, the filthy underground stations, the ever-present graffiti and the generally grubby feeling pretty much everywhere. Of course, the city that gave birth to the Colosseum, the Trevi fountain and the Sistine chapel, not to mention Penne all'Arrabbiatta, can't be all bad, and we did have fun, just not as much as in Florence and Venice. The highlights of the Florence trip were haggling for leather goods and being first in the queue to see Michelangelo's David so that our view of him was unimpeded by anything or anyone. Interesting fact coming up: Commentators have noted David's apparently uncircumcised penis, which is at odds with Judaic practice, but is considered consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.
Since I'm not sure I can follow that, I'll sign off for now, with thanks to my friend Steve for sending me this link featuring Florence, but not the usual tourist sights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfeVEAZkJqM
This warm floral bouquet conveys the free spirit of today’s sexy, modern girl – she is playful, cool, and flirtatious…The long-lasting, day-and-night scent opens with pink peppercorn, pear, and ruby red grapefruit. Blooming midnotes of rose, fuschia peony, and geranium make a feminine statement. Layers of vanilla, warm tonka bean, and creamy musk create a sensous drydown.
The tonka bean is the fruit of a tropical South American tree (Dipteryx odorata for you botanists out there) with egg-shaped, one-seeded pods and fragrant seeds. It is used as a substitute for vanilla apparently, so I'm not quite sure what the difference in smell is, but Perfume Lover seems to be able to detect it. "Drydown" is a perfumery term used to describe the last stage in the evolution of a fragrance. After the top notes have faded and the middle and base notes have formed the body of the scent, what comes next is the drydown, or the end notes of the fragrance. And there you have it.
The perfume recommendation came from my niece, the lovely Claudia, sister of the equally lovely Hannah, who introduced me to the singing sensation that is Adele and to dancing around in your underwear. (You had to be there for the underwear bit). "There" was Italy - Venice, Florence and Rome to be precise - and my sister and I, along with TLH and TLC ate, shopped and photographed our way round the country, stopping only for the occasional coffee and to laugh out loud at the teeny weeny cars and buses that seem to fill the streets of Italian cities these days. Stopping for coffee also entailed a fair amount of laughing out loud, this time on the part of the waiters when we asked for a cappuccino in the middle of the afternoon - several hours after 11 am, the latest acceptable point in the day for drinking any coffee other than espresso. But hey, that's how we roll.
Venice was the favourite part of the trip. We were staying in Cannaregio, in the north of the island, in a lovely little apartment from where we walked everywhere - well, not everywhere, of course, as that would have required the ability to walk on water, but you know what I mean. The thing I love most about Venice is that it is such an improbable place; it shouldn't really exist, and yet it manages to survive and thrive year after year, century after century. We all thought that Cannaregio is probably the part of Venice that we would choose to live in if live in if we were to buy an apartment there, although we might need sell everything we have for the down payment - Venice is one expensive city! Some of the best moments had nothing to do with the history or the sights, for example our dinner in the worst run restaurant in the world - bizarrely, also one of the busiest restaurants that we came across, perhaps because they were so disorganised that most of the diners could probably have eaten for free since the sole waitress seemed never to write anything down or be able to report back to the man at the till what anyone had ordered, and in any case spent half the time moving the furniture around or sitting down for a ciggie break with her chums.
Our favourite restaurant of the trip was the strangely named Le Caveau, (strangely named for an Italian restaurant, that is) which was a mere 30 paces from our apartment. We know that it was 30 paces because my sister measured it when it became clear that this was becoming our "local" and in fact we ate there every day of the stay in Rome. The only thing that let them down was running out of milk on Sunday afternoon, a bit of an issue if you fancy a cappuccino, but not something that would bother most of their patrons I guess.
Sadly, while we loved both Venice and Florence, Rome was a disappointment. I have visited several times before and have really enjoyed it and Chris has always maintained that it is his favourite European city (personally, I think that both Barcelona and Paris kick Rome into touch, but he can't be expected to agree with me on everything - just most things :-)). So why did Rome disappoint? Well, it was really dirty, for a start. Living in Singapore, I have high standards for cleanliness, especially in public places, but the girls were equally grossed out by the rubbish on the streets, the filthy underground stations, the ever-present graffiti and the generally grubby feeling pretty much everywhere. Of course, the city that gave birth to the Colosseum, the Trevi fountain and the Sistine chapel, not to mention Penne all'Arrabbiatta, can't be all bad, and we did have fun, just not as much as in Florence and Venice. The highlights of the Florence trip were haggling for leather goods and being first in the queue to see Michelangelo's David so that our view of him was unimpeded by anything or anyone. Interesting fact coming up: Commentators have noted David's apparently uncircumcised penis, which is at odds with Judaic practice, but is considered consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.
Since I'm not sure I can follow that, I'll sign off for now, with thanks to my friend Steve for sending me this link featuring Florence, but not the usual tourist sights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfeVEAZkJqM
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