Shooting from the Lip
My rip-snortin’ jaunt from ballet girl to punkette to pop singer to TV host & all the messy stuff in between
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Perfumes: The A-Z Guide
Witty and provocative reviews of 1,800+ perfumes
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What the Nose Knows
A fun and quirky romp through everyday smells
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Aroma
A cultural history of smell
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The Emperor of Scent
Maverick Luca Turin's entertaining tussles with perfume and science
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The Perfect Scent
An insider's look at the creation of two bestselling fragrances
A Natural History of the Senses
An aphrodisiac for all five senses
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The Secret of Scent
Luca Turin's scientific look at perfume -
Essence and Alchemy
The voluptuous history of natural perfume.
Fumes in the News: "Vamp in the Veil" Spends $166K a Day on Perfume
It was the headline that snagged me -- an irresistible combination of peekaboo seduction and the porn of mad-money extravagance: “Vamp in the Veil Spends £100K a Day on Perfume”. (That's about $166,000 a day to us Yanks.)
The veiled vamp in question is Sara Al Amoudi, a Middle Eastern heiress living in London who recently won a $23m property dispute. After the British High Court ruled on March 7th that the bulk of her legal costs be covered by the prosecution, a triumphant Al Amoudi let her hair down -- metaphorically -- in an interview with Charlotte Edwardes in the London Evening Standard.
The heiress, whose age is a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey number somewhere between 28 and 43, let rip with glorified girl talk of binge shopping, binge eating, binge bad life choices. My kind of glorified girl. In a masterful understatement, she admitted that her life has been “colorful”. And how.
First there's the matter of the tussle over six Knightsbridge properties. Property developers Ian Paton, 45, and Amanda Clutterbuck, 56, alleged that Al Amoudi had posed as a Saudi princess to trick them into transferring property into her name.
She counterclaimed that she (Al Amoudi) and Paton had been enjoying a secret affair, and the property was in payment for the millions she had given him that went to underwriting his enthusiasm for drink and drugs. Oh -- and to cover school fees for his child with Clutterbuck. Oops.
The judge bought Al Amoudi's side of the story, but that was just the tip of the glistening iceberg of juiciness. Other tidbits truffled out include Al Amoudi's freewheeling ways with cash: her diamond-bedazzled mobile phone, the Ferrari she'd gifted an ex-boyfriend, a racehorse, and her London runaround -- a Rolls Royce Phantom. Oh, and that £100K a day perfume habit.
Any vague tsk-tsk condemnation floating around in my head (what about the starving children in Africa...the Pacific trash vortex...the drowning polar bears in the North Pole?) was quickly drummed out by sheer admiring envy. A kind of Homer-Simpson-fantasizing-about-doughnuts reverie. £100K a day on perfume? That's a fancy new bottle of the good stuff every hour or so! Mmmmmmmmm....
The way Al Amoudi tells it, her rough early life propelled her into her sister-doin'-it-for-herself style. She was raised in a “closed religious society” in Jeddah, and was married at 13 to a man in his 70s. He beat her when she started her periods -- both were ignorant of that obscure phenomenon known as a menstrual cycle, and he accused her of doing something wrong.
On a family trip to London a few years later, she became pregnant by an Englishman. She sought asylum, fearing honor killing if she returned to Saudi Arabia. Her cites her daughter Marni, now 13, as giving her the will to live, and the impetus to start afresh in a strange new land.
But what of Al Amoudi's future? Referring to her gleefully spendthrift ways, she told the Evening Standard, “In my house I have a wall of perfumes. I know it's a problem.” Putting her hand on her heart, she continued, “I have a vacuum here.”
Ah, “feeding the hungry heart” -- the self-soothing binge strategy with which every woman under siege is familiar. Ratcheting up the poignancy on the rich lady's poverty-stricken soul, her lawyer observed, “guidance has been lacking”.
Well, Sara Al Adoubi -- have I got guidance for you. Call me. We've got some perfume shopping to do.
Fumies -- any suggestions for how you'd spend over $150K a day on perfume? What would you buy?
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I'd probably spend it on a house where to keep my collection. ;)
ReplyDeleteGood strategy!
DeleteAmouage on tap I think !
ReplyDeleteGold-plated taps, of course.
DeleteI had a roommate like that once, also with a hole in her heart and parents who spoiled her rotten. She'd buy stuff all the time, then bring back shopping bags that went unopened.
ReplyDeleteFancy hoarder.
DeleteEhhh, if i saved those money for a couple of weeks i WOULD BUY THE WHOLE HOUSE OF GUERLAIN!! :) :) ;)
ReplyDeleteMakes perfect sense - lock down your own supply.
DeleteBuying my whole PK Perfumes line would help feed my family... :-)
ReplyDeleteHear that, V in the V? Smell good and do good!
DeleteNo more Ebay fragrance roulette! Did it "fall off the truck" or is it simply fake? Guess we'll know when I break out in hives!
ReplyDeleteHa!
DeleteEh, props to her for escaping what must've been an oppressive environment for her... and if she has the money, who is to tell her how to spend it -- that's my opinion, anyway. Let's not pretend we wouldn't be dropping loads of cash on frivolities if we had the money!
ReplyDeleteIf I were only permitted to spend that money on perfume, I'd probably attempt to buy up the world's remaining supply of scents with real Mysore sandalwood.
Agree with you on everything you said, Julia. And you've given me an idea with what I'd do if I were a perfume-loving billionaire: I'd sponsor sustainable cultivation of sandalwood and oud. And go to battle with IFRA/EU over their restrictive ingredient regulations and the resulting destruction of our cultural heritage.
DeleteI'd start with Petite Mort by Marc Atlan, always been curious about this one. Then I'd continue with Jardenia, Jarling and Ferme tes jeux, all by JAR and then I'd buy loads of exquisite perfumes for friends and family.
ReplyDeleteAfter a few days, I'd be exhausted though! After a short rest, I would try to contact several noses for bespoke perfumes, like Jean-Claude Ellena, Mathilde Laurent and Dominique Ropion, to name a few. ;o)
Cheers
Safran
I had that thought about commissioning a whole passel o' bespoke, too.
DeleteTo be quite honest, I already feel as if I had my millions - since I started getting seriously interested in parfumes only weeks ago, I have accumulated so many fascinating SAMPLES that I assume I will spend the rest of the year testing them and loving them! And more keep coming in! ;o)
ReplyDeleteI guess when the time comes that I decide to actually buy the real thing, I WILL want those millions; so I'll just keep on practising the FEELING of having them! ;o))
Oh, and once I DO have my millions I will travel to Paris and have my very own special fragrance designed just for me! :o))))
Ah, that's the key: mastering the FEELING of having limitless dough!
DeleteI love the idea of having my own fragrance created for me.. one day! However anonymous i'm interested to know how did you come by all these samples?? Trying to get a sample vial of even a newly launched fragrance is incredibly hard these days ( at least from my experience here in ireland) it's like i asked for the last drop of water in the middle of a drought!!
Delete"And go to battle with IFRA/EU over their restrictive ingredient regulations and the resulting destruction of our cultural heritage."
ReplyDeleteThat's a smart idea, Katie. It got me to thinking, why doesn't the perfume industry employ more Prohibition-era tactics for selling stuff that is banned? For example, we have a huge Amish community where I live. Selling unpasteurized milk is illegal, but they have so many ways to get around it. I was at a grocery store once that was selling it by the gallon, but the label said "Not for human consumption."
Chanel No. 5 as a room spray?
Gosh, you're onto something, there, NB. I'm taken with the notion of Prohibition tactics. Could lead to some swell-smellin' speakeasies.
DeleteI would get every Amouage attar and use it in the bath. I would get all their candles too and use them in the garden to add fragrance while waiting on my roses and lavender to bloom. I would get every Roja Dove extrait, every SL bell jar ( I would want the fancy engraved ones). I would definitely need a cool room with customised optimal climatic conditions. That would mean a bigger house too. Infact I would like to open a fragrance museum with contemporary shows showcasing the most exciting work in perfumery today as well as themed shows celebrating the greats in history. I would also have a fragrance library offering free access and education for all..it's so important to educate and share the beauty of art. I would also offer grants and support artists who are talented in tbe field, including the craft of bottle making.
ReplyDeleteMary, I love how your vision became grander and more elaborate and far-reaching with each sentence. It started off with you in the bath, and ended up with enriching the world through the glory of perfume!
DeleteBrilliant. Just Brilliant! We need more people such as yourself Mary, we do!
DeleteI would buy simply everything, darling. And I'd have a wine cellar/humidor-type room for optimal preservation, and there would be a perfume shrine, of course. Actually, though, I only have about 20 bottles, but I have hundreds of decants and samples I've ordered, and very few perfumes blow my skirt up to the degree that I'd want to try them more than once or twice. To me, that would be like having a stable of hundreds of horses you'd only ride once, and that would be a pitiful waste of horseflesh. It's just hard to wrap one's brain around the concept of spending hundreds or thousands DAILY on perfumes, let alone 100,000+!
ReplyDeleteThat said, I've noticed on the collection show-off boards there's more than one person who shows off frequent huge hauls of daily arrivals of a dozen or so bottles of high-end/niche fragrances in the $300-500 range-- they are obviously working with a perfume budget which vastly outpaces my entire annual income.
Plus, I can't imagine anything supplanting my beloved Coromandel, Portrait Of A Lady or PHI une rose du Kandahar in my affections, so it seems a waste to overbuy when you can only reach for one at a time. I'll probably have a collection that does number over 100 bottles one day, but not much beyond that.
phlegmfatale - I know what you mean, after the initial kid-in-a-candy-shop frenzy subsides, there are really only so many true loves that one returns to, to actually wear. But that said, it'd be nice to have an unlimited budget for tracking down pre-reformulated heritage perfumes. Oooh - or to do an Osmotheque and have new batches whipped up using original formulas.
DeleteOh - but yeah, I'd want a whole bank of those gorgeous Baccarat dispensers from Caron. Empty or full would matter not at all-- just think they are exquisite!
ReplyDeleteI'd want my shrine to probably look like that high-toned perfume boutique in Harrod's. Opulent, gorgeous and seductive!
I started wearing Mille by Patou, and when i googled it to find out more, I learned there was supposed to be a Saudi princess who used bottles of Mille to scent the waves she swam in. I dunno-sounds like a bit of wasted resource, to me.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note-i was given Patou by Patou and while it's relly nice-I don't understand why it goes for big bucks on fleabay.
And if i was that rich-I would like to give some money to some bloggers, so they could buy more and I could enjoy their writing. For real- every day I read a couple of blogs and get limitless enjoyment from them. So some of my ill gotten gains would be poured back into the community.
Carole
I looove the "Putting her hand on her heart - I have a vacuum here"!
ReplyDeleteI already feel like I am spending money on fragrances like a Middle Eastern heiress...
Me to! Everytime i think 'ah now this is going to be my signature fragrance'! and i'll never need to buy perfume again, i end up falling for the next one and the next one and so on.. there is such an infinite supply and choice of perfume out there i don't think i'd ever stop buying. If i had that kinda money to spend i'd thoroughly enjoy a no holds barred perfume shopping experience!XX
DeleteAnonymous, come sit by me for awhile.
ReplyDeleteSorry for late answer Nora, I just got back from a PA meeting (Perfumistas Anonymous). Thank you - and I need a hug too...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure many people would love to hug you. You must smell fantastic!
ReplyDeleteIn all modesty - I do. It is one of the side effects.
ReplyDeleteI know Anonymous, every time I find and buy a new lovely fragrance I tell my self it is the last one. Time and time again...
ReplyDelete