Have you ever smelled something pleasant and unforgettable and immediately wished you could capture that smell in a bottle for re-smelling later on?

Every time I enter a shopping mall in Singapore the first thing that greets me (or in this case, my nose) is a fresh chilling flood of fragrance unique to the place itself that is instantly recognisable. There’s the Esplanade scent, Marina Square scent, Raffles City Shopping Centre scent, etc. Can you tell them apart?

A recent trip down to The Asylum at 22 Ann Siang Road has exposed me to the Real Art of fragrance.

These perfumes, created by Christopher Brosius, contain no alcohol and are what I’ve always been looking for ­— favourite scents and experiences stored in a bottle. It was as if I have finally found a like-minded soul mate who has achieved what I’ve dreamt of for years.

These scents are not merely fragrances that make you go ‘Ah! This smells exactly like what the label say!’, but they also tell stories — stories of people, places, objects, relationships or just a day of someone’s life.

I have never felt so intimate with bottles of perfumes before.

I didn’t know this is possible until I smelled them myself. And Smelling is Believing.

Here’s an excerpt from the CB I Hate Perfume website:

We live because we breathe and with each breath, we smell. This is inevitable. The Sense of Smell is our first and most immediate link to the world around us. It reminds us of what (and who) we love. Smell is perhaps the most complex sense we possess and possibly this is why it is the least understood and most often taken for granted… Scent is the record of your own special life – it’s your experience. My mission is to capture that experience. I bottle it so you can have it, use it and love it whenever you wish. I can give you scent experiences you never dreamed possible. I create perfumes as unique & individual as those who wear them. And I use a great many scents never before thought of as “perfume”. But I know these are just the scents that really hit us where we live – they’re the ones we remember and love. These scents are life.

I highly recommend you to give your nose a treat at The Asylum. (I’m not so sure if other places in Singapore have these perfumes for sale.. =/)

Some of my favourites are Winter, In The Library and I am a Dandelion.

Come to think of it, maybe I should begin a similar project to bottle my own experiences too.

.

Introducing bottled Desmond’s Gas.

Star Trek

I enjoyed this movie.

Mind you, I have never watched any of the Star Trek movies or TV series and I knew nothing about Star Trek prior to catching this movie, not even the trailer. The closest sci-fi movie that I’ve watched and highly enjoyed is the spoof comedy Galaxy Quest (which was released nearly 10 years ago).

A tragic scene in the earlier part of the movie of a doomed crew member made me tear a bit, and I must applaud Michael Giacchino’s efforts for composing such an emotional soundtrack that brings out the sense of wonder, optimism and adventure of Star Trek.

I like how they captured the lens flares, giving the movie a very polished and positive look throughout.

Combining strong story, decent humour, out-of-this-world action and stunning visuals, if you declined to watch this movie just because it’s sci-fi, you’ve missed out a lot.

9 / 10

***

Angels & Demons

The previous movie, Da Vinci Code, was so forgettable I can’t remember what the story was about. Perhaps the production team has learnt their lessons and decided to try another movie with Tom Hanks coming back as Robert Langdon in Angels & Demons.

I can’t review this movie properly because I didn’t really watch the whole thing — I fell asleep a few times (due to sleepiness).

What puzzles me is, if an assassin wants to kill a few people, why does he have to deliberately follow a pattern and leave behind clues for a professor to solve? Is he hoping to get caught?

5 / 10

RSS 2.0 Feed | Leave a comment | Trackback URL