weekend distraction: Sali’s perfume tour

I’ve mentioned before how much I like and am willing to listen to Sali Hughes, the beauty editor for The Guardian. She’s sensible (with a kind of dry, intelligent humor I like), well-researched, well-spoken, and we share a soft spot for perfume and tarty makeup. Her recommendations are solid across the board and she has this great In the Bathroom series of interviews I enjoy, where she interviews friends of hers (about their beauty routines and favorite products) in their bathrooms. I don’t know her really, of course, but I like her. One gets the sense, reading and watching her, that she smokes and swears and makes excellent observations, and you’d want her at your party.

She’s made a video walking through her favorite perfumes and it is just the kind of mini-introduction to excellent perfumery I wish I’d had ages ago and still find useful and interesting now. She has great taste, with stress on high quality ingredients and complexity of scent. Her favorites include a mix of masculine and feminine, intellectual and fun, and she moves through quickly enough to keep interest, peppering the tour with great bits of data for the perfume-curious.

[I want to do a tour along these lines myself. Still working on video over here but it’s only a matter of time.]

I’m definitely going to seek out samples of a few of the unfamiliar scents she highlights here (esPECIALLY that Roja Dove vetiver, but I’ve been meaning to look into Atelier Cologne and more of the Frederic Malle line as well), and, though it’s no coincidence, am pleased to note that a number of her favorite brands are favorites of mine as well. Take note of the brands she highlights, as they are great ones to look at (I mean, look into getting samples of – get samples! Try fragrances on your skin before you buy!). Even if your favorite scents are not her favorites (and why should they be?), these are brands producing beautiful fragrances worthy of being called perfume. They are, in many cases, not inexpensive, and this is no coincidence, either.