A Love Affair Began...

I'm relatively new to the indie perfume culture having stumbled across the bottle which started it all (Arcana's Eleanor of Aquitaine) quite by accident, a couple of years ago.  I was doing some ancestral research and adding images to my family tree and looking for a less barbie-inspired image of Eleanor, my 22nd Great Grandmother, to add to my tree and this little amber bottle popped up in image search. Naturally my curiosity peaked and I followed the link, read the ingredients and reviews and purchased it immediately - along with a few others - Avalon, Tess, Three Bears and Last Hours of Empires.  As soon as they arrived, an addict was born.  I've always loved perfume, and scent-memory has always been the most important time-machine of the senses for me.  I also have an extensive number of bottles of high-end perfumes (albeit many have become dust gathering, light refractors mostly). Niche perfumes speak to me. I find they can express my moods, my sense of place and standing in the world, they can take me away, cocoon me and feel less like a cloak of celebrity-endorsed fragrance make-believe and more like an expression of the primeval Goddess within.  Fast forward to now and I have countless bottles with packages arriving far too regularly (who am I kidding? I did say I was an addict! No such thing as too regularly). My plan for this blog is to hopefully lure friends and strangers alike, away from the money-snatching, celebrity obsessed fragrance culture to the Indie and niche perfumeries and let them experience the beauty of hand-blended, authentic perfumery.  I am also about to embark on the creation of my own perfumes, so stay tuned on my olfactory journey...

~ Jojo