News Taffy

When I was in Venice, California this summer shopping along Abbott Kinney Boulevard, I found a great shop called Flannel. The Australian based company has a fantastic selection of beautiful clothes in gorgeous fabrics in an array of yummy looking colors. I picked up a few thing including a seriously simple yet fierce looking red leather dress that you’ll most likely be seeing me wear all season. As I was checking out, I noticed some very simple tiny bottles of fragrance on the counter.

The brand was Lurk which is made right here in SoHo in New York City. I smelled each one and liked them all. Trying to keep my focus on the clothes shopping, I decided to pass on the fragrance for another time. Little did I know that I would soon be meeting the woman behind the Lurk brand two weeks later in New York City at James Corbett Salon.

As you all know, I’ve been working on using natural and organic skin care products and cosmetics. I also want to update my fragrance to a more natural product. I’m a huge fan of Chanel Mademoiselle and Quelque Fleurs but natural based they are not! So Lurk fragrances have made their debut into my fragrance arsenal.

Lurk creator, Anne Sanford explained to me that she uses only pure essential oils in a base of organic jojoba. The perfumes are free of water, alcohol, chemical preservatives, stabilizers and additives. Lurk employs a range of old school methodologies like enfleurage to create a perfume concentration of 30-40%, so the petite bottles are highly concentrated and last up to 8 months depending on how often they are applied.

Check out the line at www.lurkmade.com My favorite scent is AS01 which sounds very technical and complicated, but is actually simple. It has notes of cedar wood, tuberose and sweet rose with a dash of spice which produces a slightly vicious yet subtle scent. Vicious and subtle? I think that’s a great combination...kinda like that red leather dress I bought!

Keep up with DJ’s adventures by following her on Twitter @mrsdjduckworth and on Facebook at D.J. Cunningham Duckworth. She posts some fun and then some off the wall photos on Instagram, too. Check out www.iamdjduckworth.com for more! DJ lives in Manhattan with her two boys and the world’s most amazing wiener dog, Leo - woof, woof!