Parfum Sacré (Caron) October 18, 2007

I don’t know how to begin with this review… because it’s not going to be a review, to say the truth, it’s going to be an eulogy Parfum Sacré is one of my favorites, but the way I found it is totally boring. I read many praising comments on Basenotes, MUA and perfume blogs; I bought it; it’s a wonderful fragrance. Period. I didn’t have a precious mililiter in a sample vial, I didn’t have to hunt the perfume down dramatically, I didn’t meet a woman scented with Sacré in the street and followed her across the whole town. Nothing like that. I was buying something for my friend on eBay and just added this to “fill the box” (“ah, she’s got a slightly used Parfum Sacré for a good price, let’s buy it blind and if it’s a mistake, I’ll pass it on to someone else”). The package came, I sniffed it and kept it. It almost makes one angry to get such a treasure so easily

I own the older version of EdP – angular bottle with black lid, in a black and golden box. The current bottle looks different and the box is white with golden dots. I think black suits this fragrance much better… black and gold, the colors of Parfum Sacré.

The perfume was created in the year 1990 and it’s both classic and modern. I smell in it a slight reverberation of the square shouldered eighties, when women learned to be powerful and independen. Jean-Pierre Béthouard, the creator of Parfum Sacré, made a timeless composition, and I hope Caron is aware of that and won’t discontinue it too soon. (Béthouard is a fertile perfumeur, he had created dozens of well-known scents, even though mostly various more or less forgettable mainstreams – Adidas, Beckham, Dali’s Rubylips, Versace Red Jeans, Escada En Fleurs, Belle En Rykiel, Boucheron, Ange ou Demon or Trussardi Donna Fresh.)

Parfum Sacré is one of those honey-like, darkly sweet oriental underpainted by human skin. It stays close to it’s wearer, doesn’t scream all around, just drifts gently to your nose here and there, so you have to go and take a closer smell; and if you’re a male, maybe you’ll end up like the proverbial moth, unable to unstuck from the light, because Parfum Sacré is very seductive. It’s a dark depth you’ll fall in and never want to come out again, and it’s a sweet golden glow. Breath in and you’ll smell a temple with high, high ceiling fading into gloom, you’ll smell thick, wavy, honey colored locks of a hollywood star and black fishnet stockings of a lady who knows how to wear them with taste. Dark frankincense is very prominent in this fragrance, giving it a sweetly smoky undertone – both solemn and seductive.

Those who don’t like heavy and rich fragrances probably already guessed this won’t be their cup of tea. If you don’t like ambery orientals with myrrh and frankincense, you should surely avoid Parfum Sacré. I think I wouldn’t recommend this perfume for all ages, it needs maturity most teens won’t have; it would suit a woman who likes to look a bit mysterious and instead of talking animatedly about the last tour de party with friends just smiles and waves her long black lashes. Dress? Something feminine, elegant, chic, no sportswear and nothing innocently romantic, and surely no boring shapeless grey jackets; and if you have the courage, put on a combo of Parfum Sacré and something opulent in royal colors and as much gold as you can get

If you like Parfum Sacré, you might also like these perfumes: Bal à Versailles (Jean Desprez), the drydown of Ralph Lauren’s Safari, Rouge Hermès with a shovelful of candlewax and myrrh, Molinard’s Habanita, the decadent Hypnotic Poison from Dior, legendary Shalimar full of sweet vanilla and frankincense.

The notes according to Parfums Caron website are: myrrh, musk, vanilla, rose, jasmine, pepper, cinnamon and coriander.

Body care: Logona Oriental Body Butter September 24, 2007

About a month ago, I decided I cannot live anymore without a body butter. I have a lotion (Alverde Rose & Sea Buckthorn – fresh rosey scent). I have body oils (a lavender one, a lemon-melissa-cypress one – very fresh, orange-sandalwood one – a sweet orange candy, and an Alverde Rose & Sea Buckthorn body oil, which smells incredibly yummy). I have body powders. But I suddenly felt an irresistible urge to have a body butter, something thick, creamy, preferably with a sweet, foody or oriental scent.

Because I’m a natural cosmetics person, there weren’t so many products to choose from. I decided to try Logona Oriental and Tropic body butters. Most shops selling Logona have plethora of samples and I was leaving with an armful, including facial care samples I wasn’t planning, but couldn’t resist to try.

The Tropic Body Butter is Pineapple and Papaya scented, and therefore I got the sample out of sheer curiosity, because I don’t like fruity scents, especially those with tropical fruit. But even if you are a tropical fruit lover, don’t buy this unsniffed, get a sample first. It smelled very unpleasant, I was getting burning rubber and clay instead of fruit. And a very, very little bit of pineapple. Of course, there’s always a possibility the sample was old or spent too much time in the sun, but I don’t think so.

The Oriental Body Butter says Pomegranate & Sesame, but it doesn’t smell of pomegranates and sesame oil. It smells of vanilla and cinnamon, and of crunchy edges of a freshly baked cake. And yes, a bit of pomegranate. The scent is unusual, different from common vanilla and cinnamon scented creams and lotions. I fell in love and immediately bought a full jar.

The Logona Oriental range: deo roll-on, body wash and body butter.

The texture is moderately thick, you don’t have to apply pressure to scoop it out. It contains shea butter, cocoa butter, beeswax and various oil. It absorbs quickly and doesn’t leave your skin greasy or sticky. As an owner of a very dry skin I use it as a body cream, foot cream and hand cream whenever needed.

Logona Naturkosmetik makes natural cosmetics – almost all their products are made up to the strict standard of BDIH – German certificate ensuring the product is really natural. (In short: no petroleum products, no dimethicone, no synthetic coloring agents and fragrances, no animal testing (outsourcing to another company, very popular amongst some “non-testing” companies, is also forbidden). The cosmetics cannot contain products from dead animals like gelatine or collagen. If you’re interested in details and want to know which companies do have the certificate, visit the BDIH site.)

Logona is available in Europe; if you’re living in USA and don’t want to order from overseas, try Natural Europe.

Vista Vaio – downgrading to XP/2000, what Sony wanted Vista only September 23, 2007

My brother bought himself a new toy – Sony Vaio VGN-N320E. He bought it cheap when working in USA, on Labor Day savings for some $550, which is a great price, even if the design is in my opinion a bit poor (that big silver field with small simple keyboard and rectangular touchpad looks like designed by a 5 year old) – but who cares? He didn’t buy it to impress girls.
I didn’t have the time nor desire to do any thorough testing, so just a few observations: the display is great (wide glossy screen with fine resolution – I don’t recommend for outdoor use, of course), the keyboard is OK – the keys move smoothly and aren’t too noisy. Touchpad OK, touchpad keys very tough and making loud click when pressed. Construction looks OK.
So here’s my bro eyeing the colourful Vistas and deciding after a few moments he wants his Win 2000 back. You see, my brother is pretty conservative, he never migrated to XP and never wants to, arguing XP is just Win 2000 in a nice dress. I’m not here to judge my brother’s sanity, I’m here merely to serve him, as is the law in our country… So I found the installation CD, run it and meanwhile went to www.sony.com to collect the necessary drivers.
As you very well know, because you googled this article and are reading it, Sony doesn’t have any XP/2000 drivers for this notebook, or any new notebook sold with Vista. Wow. I’m not a Vista fan, I have nothing against it (I will just stick with XP for some time and upgrade to Vista when I will feel the time has come) – but this, dear Sony, is really annoying. Did you sign a pact with the devil? Shame on you.
I also found a petition demanding Sony to be friendlier to it’s customers and making the XP drivers available, so far signed by some four hundreds angry users, which, I’m afraid, is too pathetic. But maybe it will grow fast.
Of course I didn’t give right up; and in the end, I almost succeeded, and now I’m writing this article hoping it may save some desperate Vaio owners some hours of searching.
This guide applies to the VGN-N320E, but if you have another Vista only model (many have similar configuration), you may find it useful too. Also I write about Win 2000, but because almost all the 2000 drivers come as XP/2000, I suppose everything can be applied to XP.

After installing Windows 2000, I had many yellow question marks in the Device Manager. I was also looking at them in 640×480 – stretched wide – and in 16 colors. When I stopped laughing, I immediately began looking for the graphic chipset driver. 320E has the Mobile Intel® 945GM Express Chipset, and drivers for this – and for nearly all OSes you can imagine – can be easily found on Intel website. Download, install, restart, and the screen will probably automaticaly switch to its native resolution in truecolor (mine did).
Direct link to 945GM drivers page (links can change in the future – in this case just use Intel website’s search): http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2301

How do I know the specs? If you go to www.sony.cz and find the driver download page for your model, there’s a list of the devices and drivers. Plus I used the HWiNFO program; HWiNFO analyzes your PC and gives you a detailed description of virtually everything that’s under the hood. Another useful tool can be found on Intel website – the Chipset Identification Utility that tells about the chipset in your PC have and also provides the link to the driver.

Don’t close the Intel website, the motherboard has an Intel chipset too – in case of 320E it is the 940/943GML. I installed the 943GML and it worked; this solves many yellow question marks, including the USB Host Controller.
Direct link to the chipset drivers: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-022034.htm

Next is the sound card driver. 320E has the Realtek High Definition Audio. I didn’t know it yet, but in the end I learned this: the audio card (chip, I know, but I’m used to cards) lives in symbiosis with the modem – if you’re more hardware educated than me, you surely know what I’m talking about. After you install the sound driver, Windows immediately find new hardware – the modem – and try to find a driver, but cannot. If you download a driver for generic HDA modem from Conexant driver page, Windows tell you it’s not the right thing. I tried many drivers, but Windows refused each one of them. Finally, I found this on a message board: prior to installing sound and modem drivers, you have to install Microsoft UAA (Universal Audio Architecture) driver; then comes the audio driver and Sony modem driver. I tried again the Conexant generic drivers, but to no avail. I installed the UAA after installing the audio driver and nothing happened, so I suppose you can go audio – UAA – modem, but you’ll never suceed with the modem without UAA.
Link to the audio driver on Realtek website: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#High Definition Audio Codecs
or google it, its everywhere.
Link to the modem driver: http://www.pcglitches.com/helpdesk/sonyhdmodem.zip (found on the Driverzone forum)

I didn’t look for the touchpad driver, because it worked after the system downgrade. There seems to be a driver (probably generic) in W2k that works.

The network card in 320E is Marvell Yukon 88E8036 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller Driver; this was not hard to find on Marvell website. Wifi took some time, I was looking for the LAN-Express driver and couldn’d find any that would be working; finally, I came upon the Czech Atheros WLAN driver page and downloaded the AR5001X – I must admit Google just took me to the AR5001X subpage and I downloaded and tried, and it worked. The HWiNFO should tell you the numbers needed to find your driver.
Link to the Yukon driver installer (XP/2000/Vista 32 and 64 multilang): http://www.marvell.com/drivers/driverDisplay.do?dId=175&pId=6
Link to the Atheros AR5001X drivers: http://www.atheros.cz/download.php?atheros=AR5001X&system=1

Thats all I managed so far (one evening of work). At this time, there are two yellow question marks left in the device manager – an Unknown Device and a Mass Storage Device. The Mass Storage Device is the SD card reader. This should be a Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller Driver, and I found some drivers and installed them, but it doesn’t work. The Unknown Device says something about Intel LCP, which, I believe, has something to do with the processor or chipset or bridge. So, the downgrade is not yet complete, but the notebook is already usable. If you have a solution of the remaining question marks, please share.

Also there’s a little problem – every time I try to shut the system down, Windows go to BSOD and then the notebook fires up right again. I’m sure this has to do something with a wrong driver hanging in there somewhere – in my quest for device manager without question marks, I tried many various drivers, some of them surely not too compatible with the hardware. A clean installation of Windows with the right set of drivers should solve this.

And lastly, a very useful link: www.sony-asia.com. In the Support, in Downloads, there’s you can download a downgrade packet of drivers (about 100 MB) and Sony applications. Not for all notebooks – the VGN-N320E is missing – but try to find the most similar model and pick the drivers and applications you need.