Hey there A Bottled Rose, It’s a Mood Scent 4 week. WOO HOO! This month the crew are looking at Super Power Scents. Super Powers! We all want them, dream we have them, fantasise about which ones we’d get if we had a choice and use perfumes to add what we sometimes feel we lack. Here are a few of my favourite perfumes that make me feel like I have super powers.
Obviously, these choices are subject to change, daily.
Can’t wait to read about your favourite Super Power Scents in the comments too.
So excited to be blogging with these three superstars again: Esperanza L’Esperessence, Megan Megan In Sainte Maxime and Samantha I Scent You A Day. Check theirs out too.
Mood Scent 4: Super Power Scents
Boucheron Femme EdT
There are times when I’m severely lacking in Va Va Voom. I know, it’s hard to believe. This crazy assed, enormous, aldehydic big white floral extravaganza will lift my game and give me the chutzpah to carry on. Still in production and though not quite as formidable or heavily based as the original it still has the presence to announce your arrival well before you enter the room. As big hair, shoulder pads, nipped waists and bright colours make their way back to us from the 1980s so too should our love of obnoxiously fabulous fragrance.
Super power unlocked: Va Va Voom
CHANEL No 19
Ever feel the need for a little backbone, something to put some steel in your spine and eye? CHANEL No 19 is the most deliciously poised floral chypre known to humanity. Three or four spritzes of this green lady will have you ready to take on the world. An extra good thing about it is that once the hard yakka is done CHANEL No 19 lets her hair down, slips off her shoes and purrs her way into the evening.
Super power unlocked: Assertiveness
Epice Marine by Hermès
I love the dry and spicy saltiness of Epice Marine. Like a perfectly produced, refined and elitist L’eau d’Issey Pour Homme. A sharp green opening dries out quickly with the spices and herbs and darkens to humid woodsiness. Loads of people get a really sweaty cumin but it stays clean, fresh beach breeze for me or even the rolling ocean waves. This is what Ariel smells like.
Super power unlocked: Mermaid/water baby
Liberté by Cacharel
OK, I know this is Dcd and almost impossible to find. It’s a super sweet candy floss fruit-chouli with a zingy sizzling orange top and heart note. NOTHING a hard core perfumista would like here. WRONG! Weirdest thing about Liberté is that I don’t even know why it’s the one I love so much. Everything about it is hideously awful, but I freaking love it. It also gives me the feeling I can take on the world, in a really Elle Wood kinda way. Somehow this over ripe hot mess of a fragrance gives me a will of steel and ultra tight focus.
Super power unlocked: Kindest goal kicker
Samsara vintage extrait by Guerlain
ALL THE CREAMY YLANG AND SANDALWOOD! This ridiculously OTT fragrance screams 1980s TV superbitch. All those shoulderpadded, overcoiffed bad girls from all the fun TV series like Dynasty, Dallas, Knotts Landing, and so many others I’ve forgotten. Who can forget the Carringtons, Ewings and McKenzies? Their mostly self created drama, spite and awfulness. It was all I ever aspired to, until I found out it was such an incredibly tiresome way to live. The meteorites extrait case makes every spritz extra glamorous. PLUS even though it may cause toxic fume comas means you can respritz on the go.
Super power unlocked: 1980s Siren Glamour
The Aoud by Mancera
Sometimes the life of a glamorous international drag queen G level celebrity needs to be offset by a more regular, flannel shirted dude-ish masculinity. Obviously that’s not something intrinsic so I need some extra help. Best way to add layers to what you’ve got? Scent your way around them. Every time I wear this dark woodsy, medicinal and poopy oudh Jin mentions COW POO! I love the way The Aoud smells and how it makes me feel. So far removed from real life.
Super power activated: Cowpoke butchness
So what are your favourite Super Power Scents?
Portia xx
A Bottled Rose 
FM Portrait of a Lady and Le Labo Ylang 49, both in the va-va-voom and assertiveness categories for me. I get mostly the purr from Chanel No 19 and not the steeliness.
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Hi there Nose Prose,
So interesting that No 19 is mainly purr for you. Does that mean the opening isn’t a sheer, arctic blast of globalised galbanum on you?
Portia x
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FLORALISED! galbanum.
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Hi Portia,
Surprisingly, it’s a cozy, powdery green! Maybe it’s because I’ve only smelled the EDP, and that fairly recently – a few months ago. Right before smelling No 19 for the first time (that I’m aware of), I had asked to smell Cristalle, and that was much more of an arctic galbanum to me. I tried No 19 again today from my full bottle, looking for the cold greenness, but it was still all soft. Maybe the EDT is sharper?
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So interesting. Maybe it’s just the way you smell No 19. we al have different experiences, it’s part of the fun. I wonder if you pop it on someone else if that might change the outcome?
Portia xx
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Will have to find out!
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Hey Portia
Very much enjoyed ‘cowpoke butchness’ 🙂
I’ve never met a perfume that can give super strength more than Onda by Vero. It’s the Black Widow of the fragrance world.
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Hey there Tara,
HA! I thought that might get a rise out of someone. Cowpoke Butchness seems to be a hipster look that I’ve been gravitating towards my whole adult life. Those boys are often the first ones I see in a bar or event.
Oh YEAH! Onda! A black widow indeed.
Portia xx
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Cowpoke butchness is a thing I have always tried to avoid 😉
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HA! For yourself or in others Cassieflower?
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For both really. Not something I aspire to, nor find particularly attractive. But this is today. Something could happen tomorrow to make me change my mind😃
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HA! Yeah, some hay bale slinging hottie could walk in and steal your good sense! “OOOOOH! PICK ME you flannel wearing mountain of a man.”
Portia xx
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🤣🤣🤣
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Magie Noire is my own personal superhero cape. I feel super capable and invincible whenever I wear it. Arpege makes me feel all ladylike and put-together (quite a feat in itself). Vintage Fidji allows me to time-travel. Takes me back to my friend’s house where we had such fun, that summer was hot and sunny, we floated around in our new cheesecloth Gypsy skirts and we spent hours plotting how to nab whichever boy we had our eye on that week, and spent our pocket and babysitting money on mascara and flavoured lipgloss. And cigarettes. Yehiknow😉. A more recent discovery for me is Shanti Shanti, imparts a feeling of calm and centered ness, even in my scattered and busy brain when it’s firing on all cylinders.
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Cassieflower! How I wanted one of those gypsy skirts. They were the height of glamour. I bet you girls looked fabulous in them, all gussied up and ready to fall in love.
Shanti Shanti! What a fragrance. simple but oh so complex.
Portia xx
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Hi Portia. OMG that vintage bottle of Samsara looks fabulous and sounds like it would smell fantastic too. You went for gold in this one – a great selection. The Hermes sounds right up my alley. 💙✨💙
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Oh yeah, that Samsara smells unbelievably good Megan.
I still can’t get over you writing your post on an iPad. amazing.
Portia xx
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I couldn’t agree more about Chanel No 19! It’s THE scent for glacial chic and arse kicking in the boardroom. Nice to hear Liberte getting a shout out too. And as for Samsara vintage extrait? Va va voom! My jealousy knows no bounds! With love from old South Wales to New South Wales xxxx
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Heya Sam,
I can totally imagine you as a steely, suited, CHANEL No 19 wearing hard ass boss going in and taking no prisoners.
Liberté is one of my all time faves. The last thing I thought I’d love.
Love right back Princess.
Portia xx
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Hi Portia, what a wonderful collection of Super Power Babies! Loved how you linked the perfumes to unlocked powers and the Siren Glamour of Samsara! XxEsperanza
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Hey Esperanza,
thanks.
I’ve been trying to leave a message on your post but it’s just not playing ball today. My internet is kind of patchy around here with a new rubbish modem that Jin got though. It could be all our problem, not yours.
That CHANEL 31 Rue Cambon is on my list of FB to buy. If we get to Paris in November I’m tromping straight down to the Rue Cambon store and buying it.
Portia xx
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Haha superbitchness powers 😆💯🌹
love love this post so much Portia..
Leather Oud..Santal Royale..
Samsara…Coco noir…so many with so much love xx
Hope we do go November and get the Rue Cambon xxc
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Hey anna Maria,
YAY for Super Bitchness Powers! Definitely have a few of those too.
Fingers crossed for November. I wish we may, I wish we might.
This time let’s hope it isn’t the day after the fashion show. That was freaking HECTIC in 2018. Never worn so much perfume in my life! We just kept spritzing. HA HA HA
Portia xx
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That Samsara bottle is something! (Love perfume as well.)
The closest to what you’re asking about for me is, probably, SL Boxeuses: I wear this perfume whenever I have some unpleasant (or just difficult) work-related function to attend. It is my only “fighting” perfume (and, mostly, for the name). Everything else I wear to adorn myself.
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Thanks undina,
I have this flaccon with Mitsouko also. It’s so beautiful just to hold and look at.
Boxeuses! There’s one we rarely read about. I love that it’s your choice of armour. Do you dab or decant and spritz?
Portia xx
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I never use perfume directly from the bell jar. I decant it in a small spray bottle AND in a tiny roller ball bottle and use based on how it feels.
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Clever.
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Hi Portia! YES, Chanel No. 19! I tell people that’s what I wear when I have to appear as a refined professional badass. The need arises more than you might think in higher education, lol!
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HA! No, I reckon it would definitely be necessary. Dealing with students and faculty is a tricky business. CHANEL No 19 to the rescue every time.
Portia xx
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