She may be known for her keen eye for style and sharp photographer’s instincts, but Shaira Luna’s got quite the nose, too, in case you didn’t know. Behind the photographer, artist, and vintage style savant’s works are memories and moments punctuated and celebrated by scents she’s acquired, been given, found, discovered, and kept through the years.
What got you started with collecting fragrances?
As far as I can remember, I’ve always gotten perfume for my birthday or whenever my great-aunt would come home. The ones I remember the most were the ones from college. I had D&G Light Blue. I had Clinique Happy. I had Cool Water. I have always been drawn to scents. I think I have a very strong sense of smell, and it’s also very strongly connected to my memory wherein a fragrance can really make me remember details. I’ve always appreciated perfume; I think it runs in the family. My dad was a very strong perfume sprayer. He always had no less than ten bottles on his shelf. My great aunt on my grandfather’s side actually had a storage, like a glass pillar display in their room, and the shelves were lined with perfumes.
What are the stories behind 5 of your favorite perfumes?
I’ll go with the ones I use the most. First, the most used perfume in my collection–and it’s a very clean one–Bulgari Omnia Crystalline. I first tried it back in 2013. I was smelling the Omnia Amethyste version a lot everywhere so I think I bought Omnia Amethyste, and then the seller had Omnia Crystalline, and I was just intrigued. So I got that and I ended up liking it even more than the Amethyste because it is a less popular version and it really lasts very long on me even during shoots outdoors. I love the dry down. And for a very clean-smelling perfume, you’d think it’d go away quickly like a cologne, but it really does stay on the entire day.
Okay, second favorite–it would have to be Mon Guerlain by Guerlain. It also lasts very long on me; the dry down is very sweet and warm. And it’s also what I call my airport fragrance, because every time we have to wait in the airport, I spend time at the perfume shops. I’ll always come back smelling like Mon Guerlain, no matter how many times I’ve sprayed it, or even if I already have it at home, it just reminds me of traveling a lot. It’s a very cool-smelling, cool-feeling fragrance. It’s not too floral, not too clean. It’s just there.
Third, Maison Francis Kirkdjian’s Gentle Fluidity. I used to be more obsessed with Baccarat Rouge 540, but I feel like it has been copied quite a bit, so I prefer Gentle Fluidity nowadays or it could just be a phase. It’s long-lasting and has a distinct smell that’s sweet and warm.
My fourth is also from MFK, its Aqua Universalis Forte. So this is another unisex fragrance that’s very clean. The entire day has a great dry down, and I feel like it smells different every time I wear it. It depends on what I’m doing for the day. If it’s in hot weather, if it’s in cold weather, I feel like it changes with my skin chemistry, but I really like how it is on me.
My fourth favorite, is probably Christian Dior Escale A Portofino. Very light, with almost the smell of baby cologne, it reminds me a lot of being very young. It’s like a more lasting version of baby cologne that’s inoffensive, fresh, refreshing, and easy to wear whether in cold weather or on a hot summer day.
Fifth, I love the smell of Alchimie by Rochas, but it’s been discontinued so I haven’t been using this a lot. I really like how it smells, and I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anyone wearing it. Obviously, it is an older fragrance, but, yeah, I’m just going to preserve the contents of this bottle, which I smell from time to time.
Tell us about your longest-kept perfume bottle.
I still have my D&G Light Blue from college, and I have my partner’s Acqua Di Gio. Those are our perfume bottles from when we first met. That was back in 2003. Those are the two bottles I’ve kept, and they’re different now, of course, the oils and the components have changed over the last decades, but they bring back such great memories, memories of youth. They just put a smile on my face. I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of them. Even though the bottles and the glass have yellowed, they’re just great keepsakes. And I actually keep them with other memorable things from 20 years ago.
You have a lot of vintage bottles. Can you tell us about your vintage fragrance collection?
I didn’t really mean to start a vintage perfume bottle collection. It was really more of trying to understand what some of the fragrance writers or some of the perfume writers would reference in the reviews. They would say this has the DNA of so and so fragrance or that this reminds me of the YSL perfume or the original Chanel formulation. So I’d always try to figure out what it was. In order to understand a little bit more about the notes and the formulation they were talking about, I would look for those vintage bottles on Ebay. Half of the time they were way cheaper than buying newer perfumes because they would be used, and I really only needed to smell it. So it was really just for reference. So I have a couple of, like, really old Chanel, old Guerlains. It’s not a big collection. I’d say I have a miniature collection of vintage bottles, and honestly, I can’t wear the perfumes because no one appreciates them, especially at home. So I tend to just wear them or sniff them when no one’s around me. Perfumes back then were really just powerful. You would be engulfed in a cloud of really strong notes. So they’re just there for reference. I don’t think I’ve purchased a vintage bottle in a couple of years, but part of my collection also came from a former magazine editor, and she had so much PR from years and years ago, and she gave me a lot of her old perfumes that also happen to have vintage bottles in them.
What is your top blind buying tip?
So when I still had a lot of time in between shoots, I’d have time to really browse perfume websites. My top blind buying tip is to research and really watch YouTube videos, and read forums. I was on Fragrantica.com a lot and I am subscribed to a handful of perfume vloggers so I would religiously watch YouTube videos. Fragrantica is a great site because you can check the notes that you like, and then it’s going to try to summarize which perfumes have those notes and I would just read all of them before buying a fragrance. I really read through all the comments, too, because those are personal experiences and I can compare notes. I really do my research before I buy fragrance. Most of the time, I like what I buy. There have been only a few times, really, just a few times where I didn’t like what I bought because reading that much and researching that much, you kind of know what to expect, and your only hope is that it lasts on your skin for a long time.
What would you consider safe blind buys?
I’d actually go with three of the perfumes that I mentioned earlier, the Bulgari Omnia Crystalline. The Christian Dior Escale A Portofino. MFK Aqua Universalis. I would also recommend Issey Miyake Reflection in a drop. That’s a rather milky scent. It leans on the floral side a little bit, but I don’t think guys would have any problem wearing it. It also lasts the whole day. If you can tell, I really like perfumes that have great lasting power. I just like to smell nice throughout the day.
One of your most recent perfume purchases?
Montale Roses Musk. I actually don’t have a lot of rose fragrances. My very first rose fragrance, I think, was Stella McCartney from 2011. So I kind of surprised myself when I really kind of fell in love with Roses Musk. I actually had ordered a sample of it, and then the three times I wore it, I kept getting asked what I was wearing because they said it smelled really good. So I got it. It’s a nice, softer, more rounded rose smell. It’s not as sharp as some of the more commercial rose scents out there, and the longevity is really good. I guess it projects well for people to come up to me and actually ask what I’m wearing. I’m very happy with that purchase, and I’m going through it very fast.
