The sky is blue, the blight coloured bee-eaters are glistering in the sky as they fly, orange is in full blossom and filling the air with its sweet scent, and the countryside is filled with wildflowers. Now it’s late spring, heading rapidly towards summer here in Spain.
One of the delights in the area where I live is the vast varieties of wildflowers in spring. To make the most of the great weather, I’ve been busy taking photos of them around the village for the last few weeks and I thought I’d share some of them with you lovely people. 🙂
Now the Mini Review on Shalimar Initial L’Eau by Guerlain…
Poppy Field: Photo by me
Why Shalimar Initial L’Eau? What’s the connection between this fragrance and wildflowers & country walk? Not a thing, really. It’s only because I happened to try it at the mall in the morning before I headed for a walk. 😀
It’s been in my mind to try for a few weeks. Guerlain is one of my favourite perfume houses so I was quite looking forward to having a sniff of this one.
As usual, ducking my hubby’s ‘trying-another-bloody-perfume-again?’ look, I hopped into a cosmetic shop and sprayed a generous amount of Shalimar Initial L’Eau on my arm.
The opening was a really sharp blast of bitter-ish citruses; bergamot & grapefruit, I presumed. 5 minutes on, out of blue, gorgeous neroli showed up and danced around for about 20 minutes. It wasn’t a Shalimar I expected, but I quite liked it at this stage. But, sadly, it didn’t last long. Almost immediately after that, it brought out orris & tonka bean dominant powdery sweet note with a hint of floral, and anything else had disappeared. Around this time, we came home from our morning shopping and I went out again for a walk in the gleaming Spanish sun. It was a hot day; no sane people were out and about. As I prodded through the olive groves, I gave my arm a little sniff…
What happened!? All I could smell was baby powder!!Not only that, the baby powder odor was mixed with dust and my own sweat and my arm smelt like a toddler!
I might have taken my testing to an extreme and I probably need to sample this again in more “normal” situation, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed about Initial L’Eau. Was I expecting too much because it was from Guerlain? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad fragrance. Just, it wasn’t Guerlain nor Shalimar…
The Perfume Magpie 
What beautiful pictures! Spring has barely sprung here. I’ve got one, just one daffodil so far and the grass is only starting to turn green.
I had a similar testing of that perfume. It went all powdery on me too and didn’t last long. I also want to try it again just to be fair to it. I was expecting something much different I think.
Hello Poodle 🙂 We had very short winter here and not much rain. Normally the countryside would be filled with more flowers but the numbers are much less this year.
I was expecting something different from this perfume as well. At least, not a juvenile kind of smell… I wonder if they are running out of steam with the Shalimar line.
Hi, I forwarded this to Trish as I know she will love your photo’s !Paul is back late this afternoon , he asked is quiz on tonight but I told him I don’t think so as most people away. i think that is right !Gordon OK and taking his time (so he says) going through France.See you soon X
Thank you Karen! Hope Paul had a great time (and I’m VERY sure he did) and Trish enjoys the photos 🙂 We’ll probably see you on Friday morning, Gordon would have rested a bit by then. x
Heya Perfume Magpie, You need to make sure there is a title in your landing because that is what you get as yiour email send out. Today’s was 150 Portia xx
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Hi Potia. I know!! It seems WordPress is playing silly with me over the last couple of weeks. When I visit other blogs and leave comments, they just disappear or leave invisible messages; when people leave comments on mine, their email address get included; and now the missing title! I often have weird electrical problems at home but WHY??
Oh that’s an easy answer. You are so vital and alive your electricity tries to encapsulate everything within its sphere, to join with it and make it part of you. It feels like sharing but you are making the electronic impulses of lesser creations glitch.
Portia xx
That’s kinda cool! Thanks Portia. 😀 I’ve never connected it before but when I’m feeling more sensitive, intuitive or receptive more than usual, these things seem to happen more often. (Now I can’t get rid of the image of Pac-Man…) x
What a beautiful set of photos!! It’s only just about spring here. Some violets are popping out in my garden. I too tried Initial L’Eau but I wasn’t impressed. I thought it smelled like Johnson’s baby powder.
Thanks Paula. 🙂 Violets are one of my favourite flowers! I used to be a member of Violet Societies for years. They are long gone here.
I loved the pictures – thank you for sharing!
I liked the original (if you can call a flanker that) PI when I tried it – but not enough to want to wear it. And I didn’t even know about the L’eau version… I’m hopelessly behind everything.
Thank you Undina! (BTW, I’m still craving to see Rusty on your new post…)
Clearly, L’Eau is a kind of flanker of a flanker… Can’t help wondering if it was intended for people who never knew the original Shalimar… Ha, saying that, makes me feel kinda old. 😀