And I don't mean buying a new perfume to take with you on holiday.
Of course I take perfume with me when I go on holiday, but I also look for new and/or unknown perfumes or perfume houses. Often you have those old perfumeries abroad where you can find all sorts of things you don't know or where they still sell very old brands.
For example, once I came across the brand Amélie et Mélanie in France. I found out that it belongs to the Lothantique group, a perfume company from Haute Provence. My daughter is crazy about the sea and also about things that remind her of the sea. We bought her the eau de toilette and the pillow mist from the J'entends La Mer line. A wonderful scent that really reminds you of a sea breeze on the beach.
Niche perfume brands are also so much fun. Not the niche of today, because that you can hardly call niche any longer. I mean the real niche. Brands that almost nobody has heard of or brands that only produce locally. I visited the Cinque Terre in Italy and came across a very small local perfume house in the town of Porto Venere, called Gocce di Byron. I bought several perfumes there, also for family members, but I also kept one for myself.
Then there was Acqua dell Elba, of course from Elba. That's where I bought my teenage niece her first perfume. Acqua dell Elba Classica Women, a very fresh aquatic scent very reminiscent of the scent of the sea. Acqua dell Elba has become a lot more popular in the meantime and is now a bit easier to find.
It doesn't always have to be special or niche though. It's actually more about the idea of buying local and also about connecting my memories of that particular place to a scent. For example, during our last holiday on the Belgian coast I came across a Parfums Grès scent in a very simple drugstore, it was the Cabotine Rose. I'm a big fan of Parfums Grès, but the Cabotine line has never really appealed to me. The original Cabotine is loved by many, but I don't find the green tuberose carnation combination very appealing. However, the bottle of Cabotine Rose looked so lovely that I decided to try it. To my surprise, the scent was so fitting for the moment. Cabotine Rose is a very fruity cherry blossom perfume. There are a lot of notes in it, but what immediately struck me was the combination of fruit, pear and mandarin, with cherry blossom and frangipani. The sun was shining brightly on the coast in Belgium and this scent made everything somehow even sunnier and more lively. So a very successful find and I have created some beautiful memories with it again.
This just goes to show that a (holiday) purchase doesn't have to be niche, expensive or special. Sometimes happiness is just on the shelf of a drugstore chain...
Judith,
Founder