Czech & Speake Neroli
Czech & Speake is an English company that specializes in plumbing supplies. Except they call them “luxury” “fittings.” Okay, so they’re fancy plumbing supplies. They also just happen to sell fragrances and shaving toiletries.
Their Neroli strikes me as a bright, particularly focused scent, and wears as a linear (without a tiered development) cologne on me. It’s juicy, almost like that syrupy liqueur Triple Sec, and flowered with orange blossoms that float in the air. Buried deep inside is what seems to me like a wee dab of a very nice sandalwood. And that’s about it. I think if anything, this fragrance conveys to me a sense of simple folksy joy and bouncy energy.
It’s much like the same feeling I get from Johnny Cash’s Orange Blossom Special. (It’s an ode to riding the rails, not to orange trees, but it’s a nice coincidence of title, I think.) Click here to listen to Amazon.com’s sample clip of the song, or on the title hyperlink to hear clips from the whole album.
To my husband, who rarely offers up a perfume opinion unbidden, Czech & Speake Neroli “smells like something you’d plug into the wall.” And… GAH! I so wanted to deny him his truth, but, *looooooooong sigh*, I couldn’t. It does kind of smell like something you’d plug into the wall. Crud. Silly man went and ruined it for me.
Glade Plug-Ins notwithstanding, this is worth checking out if you are an ardent neroli/orange blossom fan. This scent does not warrant purchase of a full bottle for me, given the price for such a simple affair. But I am glad to have picked up a small decant from a reputable eBay vendor, and I would suggest to others that they may wish to start there before committing to a whole bottle.
The image used is entitled “Gettin’ Down,” by artist and Oregon resident Mary Bertoli. Her collages reflect her experiences in Mississippi, where she devoted a significant portion of her time and energy in education centers bringing art to students with extremely limited monetary resources. Each piece is created with tissue paper. They are all shaped by hand - scissors never touch a single piece. With each new image, she tries to capture the life and spirit of all the people she met and still knows in the Delta. I enjoy her work, but more importantly, I think she’s a really neat lady. It appears the best source for purchasing prints and cards of her work online is through this site.