HMan
Doften Savant
We went to Tallinn, Estonia this weekend, to see the National Ballet's performance of Corsair. Oh my it was outstanding, the best ballet I've seen to date.
Helsinki is a notorious wasteland when it comes to fragrance shops, shockingly bad for a capital European city in fact. But Tallinn has some excellent shops as I discovered.
We hit up four on the Friday we arrived.
The first one was an obscure nice paradise, I had never heard of at least half of the brands. Being the only customer in the shop, the sales lady was having me sample practically everything in the shop, I have a huge stack of sample strips, and didn't even take the majority of them with me. Sadly, my nose was totally blown out by the end of the 45 minute session there, and everything really just started to smell the same. It was an absolutely fascinating experience, and I smelled a whole new world of scents that did really pique my interest.
The lady didn't speak English very well so it was tough to communicate as well. At the end, I knew I just needed to process, and also that I had two more shops on the list (the third we accidentally ran into, which was a department store, with another insane collection.) I told here we'd be back on Saturday to get something.
The next place was just three doors down, and couldn't have been a more different experience. It only had a few brands, but one that I was particularly interested in, so we stepped in. I saw the brand, and was about the give it a smell when the owner swatted my hand. I told her I was interested in that brand as I'd heard good things about it, but she didn't listen, just said she has a highly curated selection and recommends fragrance based on a customer's skin type. She did have a cool way of sampling, she sprayed into a various wine glasses. But she only let me smell one of the house I was interested in, and the one I didn't really care about before decided I'd like something different. After a few glass smelling she decided to put a couple of fragrances on skin, a vetiver, and a wild herbal thing. They were both interesting, but my nose was already blown, and in anycase, I like to see how a scent develops before buying, so I said thanks and we'd be back tomorrow after I see how it develops. That's when it got really weird, though tbh the whole thing was already. She said she only had two bottles left, I said I'll chance it, I want to see how I like it over time. Then she said her customers immediately know they like it because her fragrances open up very quickly. That's when I said OK and left, with no intention of returning.
Both these shops were located in the Old Town, which is a beautiful medieval fortress, Tallinn was actually a very wealthy and important trade center, founded by the Vikings.
The next place was in the main mall of the city, and was another niche paradise, only this time with brands I actually heard of!
We accidentally came in the wrong door, and were in the fragrance department of another department store, and I thought it was the niche shop at first, it was that good. A stand out there was Francesca Bianchi's Sticky Fingers, a really rough and wild patchouli that I actually could smell!
Of course my nose was really shot, but my strategy was spray as many test strips as I could to check out later when I could smell, and very often on strips, I get the scent more a few hours after spraying anyway. I actually have a hard time with strips in the store I've noticed, like they blunt half of the fragrance, and you only get the aroma chemicals.
Being in a mall, it was again a very different, and mall like experience, but still super cool, and the staff were actually really nice.
At the end of it all, after having a nice meal out in a wild gourmet anarchist restaurant, we returned to the hotel, and I went through the sample strips. I For sure I was overwhelmed by everything I'd seen and the room was full of the smell of all the tester strips, Helena, understandably, wanted me to put them in a cupboard or something so they wouldn't gas her out!
Still I found a couple that I know I'd enjoy with the plan of returning to the first and last place.
The first place I settled on one getting one of two options from Pantheon Roma, and then Botafumero from Carner Barcelona, as a perfect cozy home scent for the cold dark season we're in now. It's just a lovely take on amber, spice and incense.
Sadly, it turns out the first shop was closed, even though it says they are open Saturday on the door and website, and I told the sales lady at least 3 times, I wasn't going to buy anything then, but we were in town for a few days, and I'd come back Saturday.
The mall shop was open though. However I was a bit worried they didn't actually have the perfume, since their website said it was out of stock. I didn't have any smelling energy left to choose anything else, though there were literally hundreds of great choices there. so when I go there I just made a beeline to the one I wanted, and started rifling through the boxes under the display to see if I could find it. Thankfully there was one hidden behind some others, so I snatched it up, and tuned for the cashier. On the way I was intercepted and told I shouldn't take the boxes. I guess she thought I was going to try and open it or something, but I just said I want to buy it, and then all was good.
Whew, a really fun weekend and a real education in sniffing for me. Seriously I found a whole new world of smells.
Oddly even the ship we took to Tallinn had a great perfume shop, and on the way home I saw they had the new Gucci Parfum Elixir pour Homme. I sprayed that and it made me think of the first shop, and all the crazy smells. I took most of the trip back to Helsinki for me to realize it was perfect, and I was too beat to go back downstairs to get it, but as it turns out our local dept. store had a card member sale on it this week, so Helena Brough me home a bottle today, but more on that later
Helsinki is a notorious wasteland when it comes to fragrance shops, shockingly bad for a capital European city in fact. But Tallinn has some excellent shops as I discovered.
We hit up four on the Friday we arrived.
The first one was an obscure nice paradise, I had never heard of at least half of the brands. Being the only customer in the shop, the sales lady was having me sample practically everything in the shop, I have a huge stack of sample strips, and didn't even take the majority of them with me. Sadly, my nose was totally blown out by the end of the 45 minute session there, and everything really just started to smell the same. It was an absolutely fascinating experience, and I smelled a whole new world of scents that did really pique my interest.
The lady didn't speak English very well so it was tough to communicate as well. At the end, I knew I just needed to process, and also that I had two more shops on the list (the third we accidentally ran into, which was a department store, with another insane collection.) I told here we'd be back on Saturday to get something.
The next place was just three doors down, and couldn't have been a more different experience. It only had a few brands, but one that I was particularly interested in, so we stepped in. I saw the brand, and was about the give it a smell when the owner swatted my hand. I told her I was interested in that brand as I'd heard good things about it, but she didn't listen, just said she has a highly curated selection and recommends fragrance based on a customer's skin type. She did have a cool way of sampling, she sprayed into a various wine glasses. But she only let me smell one of the house I was interested in, and the one I didn't really care about before decided I'd like something different. After a few glass smelling she decided to put a couple of fragrances on skin, a vetiver, and a wild herbal thing. They were both interesting, but my nose was already blown, and in anycase, I like to see how a scent develops before buying, so I said thanks and we'd be back tomorrow after I see how it develops. That's when it got really weird, though tbh the whole thing was already. She said she only had two bottles left, I said I'll chance it, I want to see how I like it over time. Then she said her customers immediately know they like it because her fragrances open up very quickly. That's when I said OK and left, with no intention of returning.
Both these shops were located in the Old Town, which is a beautiful medieval fortress, Tallinn was actually a very wealthy and important trade center, founded by the Vikings.
The next place was in the main mall of the city, and was another niche paradise, only this time with brands I actually heard of!
We accidentally came in the wrong door, and were in the fragrance department of another department store, and I thought it was the niche shop at first, it was that good. A stand out there was Francesca Bianchi's Sticky Fingers, a really rough and wild patchouli that I actually could smell!
Of course my nose was really shot, but my strategy was spray as many test strips as I could to check out later when I could smell, and very often on strips, I get the scent more a few hours after spraying anyway. I actually have a hard time with strips in the store I've noticed, like they blunt half of the fragrance, and you only get the aroma chemicals.
Being in a mall, it was again a very different, and mall like experience, but still super cool, and the staff were actually really nice.
At the end of it all, after having a nice meal out in a wild gourmet anarchist restaurant, we returned to the hotel, and I went through the sample strips. I For sure I was overwhelmed by everything I'd seen and the room was full of the smell of all the tester strips, Helena, understandably, wanted me to put them in a cupboard or something so they wouldn't gas her out!
Still I found a couple that I know I'd enjoy with the plan of returning to the first and last place.
The first place I settled on one getting one of two options from Pantheon Roma, and then Botafumero from Carner Barcelona, as a perfect cozy home scent for the cold dark season we're in now. It's just a lovely take on amber, spice and incense.
Sadly, it turns out the first shop was closed, even though it says they are open Saturday on the door and website, and I told the sales lady at least 3 times, I wasn't going to buy anything then, but we were in town for a few days, and I'd come back Saturday.
The mall shop was open though. However I was a bit worried they didn't actually have the perfume, since their website said it was out of stock. I didn't have any smelling energy left to choose anything else, though there were literally hundreds of great choices there. so when I go there I just made a beeline to the one I wanted, and started rifling through the boxes under the display to see if I could find it. Thankfully there was one hidden behind some others, so I snatched it up, and tuned for the cashier. On the way I was intercepted and told I shouldn't take the boxes. I guess she thought I was going to try and open it or something, but I just said I want to buy it, and then all was good.
Whew, a really fun weekend and a real education in sniffing for me. Seriously I found a whole new world of smells.
Oddly even the ship we took to Tallinn had a great perfume shop, and on the way home I saw they had the new Gucci Parfum Elixir pour Homme. I sprayed that and it made me think of the first shop, and all the crazy smells. I took most of the trip back to Helsinki for me to realize it was perfect, and I was too beat to go back downstairs to get it, but as it turns out our local dept. store had a card member sale on it this week, so Helena Brough me home a bottle today, but more on that later
