hortus conclusus

Hotlanta Linda , please contact me so I can send you your discovery set of Tauer perfumes! Yours, la Bonne Vivante CREDITS: Triton Blowing on a Conch Shell . [1] Etching. 198 × 165 mm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (Inventory number RP-P-1878-A-925).

Well, today’s the day I announce the winner of the giveaway. I have the names all lined up and ready to draw! But first, what have I learned about Tauer’s line? That I adore it! That I think Andy Tauer might be a genius. That I admire his integrity, hard work, and inspiration. That I am pumped that he has some new fragrances coming out soon—I’m now officially a Tauer addict! That I need to buy myself some full bottles. The question is only, which to choose? SO I have ripped up the names into little strips now. I’m putting them in a bowl…. Bringing them out for my husband to draw…. WHO WILL IT BE? DRUMROLL PLEASE….. HOTLANTA LINDA! Congratulations! Please contact me with your info, and I’ll have your lovely discovery set out to you posthaste! Finally I want to thank Andy for his generous donation of samples and the discovery set-I really appreciate your support of Hortus Conclusus. And thank you all for following!  

  The countdown continues for my Tauer perfumes discovery set giveaway. If you are interested, I encourage you to enter the draw here . As its name suggests, Incense Extreme is a dry and pleasantly intense incense perfume, straightforward in its intentions, with a brace of bitter herbs at the opening. It then morphs into a very well-composed resinous frankincense and myrrh rounded out with what smell to me like cedar and roses—the immediately recognizable Tauer ones, which are distinct, as far as my nose can tell, from all other roses I have smelled. It takes on an almost tarry, leathery resonance in the drydown—at one point I was asking myself: is this more of  a leather fragrance than an incense one?  Like all of Tauer’s creation, this is well-crafted, interesting, and long-lasting, with a distinct roundedness I get from all Tauer’s scents—and I lo ve it very much. It is resinous and woody, but never loses a certain sweet floral note that keeps it approachable. I...

  First, a reminder to enter in the drawing for a Tauer Perfumes Discovery set HERE Enjoying a G & T on our pack patio last nig ht while my husband barbecued, I saw a hilarious thing. This little chipmunk was sitting, as still as can be, on my terracotta statuette of St. Francis of Assisi. Now, as you all probably know, St Francis is the patron saint of animals. The first real Western environmentalist, so to speak. So I thought it was pretty funny that this little creature chose to perch on the saint’s head as sanctuary from my cat Oliver, who was regarding the little chipmunk with, shall we say, an interested eye. Saint Francis must have been doing his job, for no great bloody drama ensued. I have been enjoying my little garden lately. It’s nothing special, but it’s mine, and things have been blooming like the dickens lately. The herbs—lavender, thyme, oregano, chives, tarragon, basil, dill, smell fabulous, as do the geranium leaves, the little roses, and the dirt i...

  The generous and talented Swiss perfumer Andy Tauer was kind enough to send me samples of all his fragrances to review over the coming week or so—and an adorable sample set to give away to YOU ! Yay!  I am very excited to announce this new giveaway drawing! Tauer got his PhD in chemistry, and went on to start a small perfumery, which has gone on to win many awards and even more praise. For more about Andy, and to get  a real sense of what a cool dude he is, I highly recommend this fragrantica article. Details about my giveaway below : What is it? A very sweet glide-cover metal tin, embossed with the Tauer logo, with 5 1.5. ml samples of Tauer fragrances inside. when will the winner be announced ? There’s no fixed end date; when I have written something about all ten of the fragrances, the winning name will be drawn. how do I enter? post a comment expressing interest below, then keep checking in at Hortus Conclusus ;-) I will post links ...

“A rose is the visible result of an infinitude of complicated goings on in the bosom of the earth and in the air above, and similarly a work of art is the product of strange activities in the human mind.”— Clive Bell , Since Cezanne , p. 32. Strange and wonderful is the perfumer’s art. I am thankful for it every day, since it brightens my life and gives me great joy. Like any other high art form, it can be cheapened, or made obtusely complex just for the sake of obfuscation. Not so with Swiss perfumer Andy Tauer’s Une rose chyprée , which is just as artistic as it needs to be, just as complex, as unique, as it should be, nothing more, nothing less. A real work of artistic maturity, in my opinion. Tauer’s Une Rose Chyprée boasts an intriguing  cinnamon nose-tingle, peachy depths, soft ambergris, salty shimmer, green labdanum, and a large dose of quality rose that doesn’t behave like a rose at all. The base is, as the official notes describe it –as ‘dark and resinous...

The time has come to declare the winner of the book and fragrance giveaway! I wrote down all your names, cut them into strips, put them in a bowl, went over and bothered my husband, who was busy composing, and a good sport, but obviously slightly irritated at being bothered, had him blindfolded and made him draw out one strip… SO…. The winner is:    Congratulations Gypsy! Email me your address, and I’ll send out the goods posthaste!

A drawing for samples of a brand new scent is going on at the Oh True Apothecary blog. Go check it out . And don’t forget my giveaway , if you haven’t entered your name yet. CREDITS: King Charles II, receiving gift of a pineapple from the Royal Gardener, John Rose. Painting, 1675, attributed to Hendrick Danckerts. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Many authors use pe rfume as a novelistic shorthand for memories awakened in complete recall. A character smells something and it awakens deep memories, or takes him back in time. In Daphne du Maurier’s neo-gothic romance Rebecca , this motif takes a sinister turn. A youung girl marries a widower with an obscure, tragic past and moves to his ancestral estate . She soon discovers that the place is haunted by the presence of the memory of the previous wife, Rebecca.  This ‘haunting’ is mostly expressed through smell and fragrance. Azaleas, overpowering, overfeminine, unnaturally-abundant blooms which choke the manor of Manderley, become a symbol of the dead wife’s overpowering femininity. Rebecca even wore a perfume which smelled of azaleas. The hapless new wife discovers traces of perfume on Rebecca’s clothes, which have turned musty with age, she experiences the oppression of the obscure yet present past in the form  a choking fog that blights the landscape a...

I have odd religious beliefs. Although I am certainly agnostic bordering on atheistic when it comes to God, I do find myself believing in /paying close attention to other ‘supernatural’ occurrences. For example, I am a strong believer in luck, bad luck, the evil eye, ghosts (under certain circumstances), and fate. How I reconcile this belief with my lack of faith in the afterlife or in a higher divine power is unknown to me… : ) that’s just the way I’ve always been. Sometimes I think I would have made a good animist—I totally think the world is filled with different life-forces that inhabit it and exert their influence over us humans… I am getting all mystical right now because I think FATE, for some odd reason, decided the winner of this draw for samples of rosy fragrances. Here’s what happened. I typed out all entrants’ names, and then cut each out on a little strip. At this point, one fell out of my hands—Fox and Squirrel. I wondered if that meant that I should consider the win...