May 22, 2008

Miss Ferling Baume de Dalmatie & Herbacin Kamille + Glycerin: 2 Hand-Creams Go Mano a Mano - Beauty Review {Bath & Body} {New Product}

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Miss Ferling Baume de Dalmatie 

 

Baume de Dalmatie is the latest cute and cool hand-cream from Miss Ferling, a French brand. The packaging, a fun-looking tartan-decorated cardboard tube containing a slim and petite 15 ml metallic tube, is attractive although the cream tube looks a bit tiny and makes you think that the cream better be ultra-concentrated to justify the mini size.

Described as a "spotted hand cream for velvety paws" the Baume is cool because it indeed contains black spots on a white background although these are not as numerous as on the spotted packaging. One squirt and you get 2 dots. The black dots are licorice and lily and advertised as ultrasoftening agents.....

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Cosmétotextiles: Intelligent Beautifying Textiles {Beauty News}

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On May 15th 2008, the first meeting of the Congrès Cosmétotextiles (Cosmetotextile Congress) took place in Tours, France one of the annual conferences that are part of the activities of the competitive pole of the Cosmetic Valley. It introduces to the wider public a new generation of cosmetic products dubbed "intelligent textiles" (textiles intelligents) part of a branch of the beauty industry called "sensory cosmetics" (cosmétique sensorielle)

A slimming outfit below by Lytess, not thanks to elastic pressure but to the release of active ingredients.....

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New Marais Boutique for Diptyque {Scented Paths & Fragrant Addresses}

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Diptyque has now opened a new boutique in the Marais neighborhood on the right bank not far from the place des Vosges. The first historic standalone for the brand is located on boulevard Saint-Germain in a quiet area that is a little off the different centers of the hub on this Parisian artery.

Le Marais is slowly becoming another significant center of perfume shopping and olfactory hedonism in Paris......

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May 21, 2008

Ferragamo Tuscan Soul (2008) {New Fragrance}

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Ferragamo will launch a new perfume in September 2008 called Tuscan Soul. Its name by the way is the exact English translation of Isabel Derroisné Ame Toscane, a bestseller of the brand. 

 

...Tuscan Soul is designed to express the unique association between Tuscany and the Salvatore Ferragamo group.[...] “This is a long-term project for us, and we have put into it all our energy, creativity and commitment. It also represents a significant investment for our group. Tuscan Soul is the beginning of a lifestyle project for us…and it will be a massive brand.” ......

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May 20, 2008

Hermès Un Jardin Après La Mousson (2008): A Strange, Original Tapestry of Familiar Accords {Perfume Review}

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Un Jardin Après La Mousson is the latest and third fragrance installment in the Jardin series proposed by Hermès and created by in-house perfumer Jean Claude Ellena. Following Un Jardin en Méditerrannée and Un Jardin sur le Nil, Un Jardin Après La Mousson (A Garden After The Monsoon) aims to capture the spirit of a place and lift a stone of the vegetable world that was left unturned. Hence the concerted effort, like that of some painters' - Gauguin comes to mind but perhaps even closer to Ellena's world, Cézanne - to travel or go to the mountain (Mont Victoire), and observe the world in a different light.

Like its scent predecessors, Un Jardin Après La Mousson is based both on original empirical impressions garnered in situ by displacing the nose to a more or less distant locale and, if we are to believe Ellena, in the end, discarded in order to make room for the perfumer's own free movement of interpretation. He recently said that he does not care about reality.

Despite this pronouncement, to be clarified, usually what Ellena retains from his peregrinations is a novel, out of the ordinary smell that will anchor his composition. For Bois Farine by L'Artisan Parfumeur it was a a tree in the Reunion, a species whose red flowers diffuse a flour-like aroma.

The fragrances in the Garden Series all showcase a fleshy fruit (fig/prune, mango, cantaloupe/watermelon) that gives way to a transparent, watery impression. With the latest Un Jardin Après La Mousson, the least easy and most complex of the garden scents, one encounters a delightful realignment of well-known ideas and sensations that gives in the end an unexpected and very original fragrance. The variegated nature of the scent, yet its harmonious tonality makes you think of a kaleidoscope reshuffling white, transparent, green, and blue crystals -- the colors of Impression, Soleil Levant.

The felt plurality of the sources of its inspiration conjures up the vision of a page from the Moleskine notebook Ellena uses and in which different ideas are noted down and worked upon. The result is very idiosyncratic and full of perfumery quotes. The scent is in a Hermès bottle but could easily be poured into a Comme des Garçons one instead and touted as avant-gardiste.

Ellena has made apparently contradictory statements about his more or less essential need for nourishment coming from the real world. There is for him a need for an olfactory trigger of inspiration on the one hand - the aromas of teas at Mariage Frères (Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert), the natural licoricey facet of turmeric (he could have used it for Brin de Réglisse had he encountered it sooner), the smell of a grove of green mangoes in Egypt or fig leaves on a tray at a cocktail party in a Mediterranean garden - and his professed absolute disregard for slavish olfactory copies of the empirical world on the other hand.

 

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 Impression Soleil Levant, the painting that gave its name to Impressionism

 

One way to understand the seeming fundamental tension that Jean Claude Ellena seems to point to in his relationship to the natural world - both seeking it out and rejecting it - is to liken his approach to that of Marxists..... just kidding......the Impressionist school of painting. Like these painters who were mobile painters, the perfumer feels an urge to come in direct contact with the objects he will paint, look for them in open places, dig them out perhaps more so since olfactory objects can be unseen and are less well known and cataloged - try knocking on the door of the local tourism agency and asking them what is there to smell in the region? - and in the end filter them through his own impressions.

The watercolor-like texture of his Jardin perfumes invites this comparison further, making you think of the lilies on a pond series of Claude Monet and suddenly making you realize also that the vegetal motif on the packaging of Un Jardin sur le Nil is not unlike them. Monet was after all dubbed a poet of gardens and water. Next a composition centered around the garden of Giverny would seem appropriate and natural. However according to Le Nouvel Observateur, Un Jardin Après La Mousson "brings the water trilogy to a close.".......

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May 19, 2008

Kenzo Jungle pour Homme (1998) Advert with Satya Oblet {Perfume Adverts}

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Kenzo Jungle Homme was created by Olivier Cresp and launched in 1998. It has notes of Maté, nutmeg, musk mallow seeds, Atlas cedar, blue cedar from Lebanon.

The 1999 advert features model Satya Oblet, who is now the new face for the Airness range of masculine fragrances. He recounts that he saw his luck turn after he'd bleached his hair citing the fact that his dark skin was a problem for him to land modeling contracts. It's impossible not to notice him now!

Image: tifdb 

Airness Instinct Cool, Instinct Musk, Instinct Power & More Instincts (2008) {New Fragrances} {Men's Colognes}

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Ex-boxer Malamine Koné the founder of sportswear brand Airness, reported to be the # 1 French sportswear brand, has partnered up with L'Oréal to propose a new line of 3 Eaux de Toilette and 3 déoparfums for men.

The perfumes are called Instinct Cool, Instinct Musk, and Instinct Power while the deo-perfumes are titled Instinct Urban, Instinct Deep, and Instinct Fresh. They were developed by perfumers usually working for the prestige fragrance sector but will be marketed as masstige products.....

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Quicksilver (2008) {New Fragrance} {Men's Cologne}

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Surf and lifestyle Australian brand Quicksilver is launching their first fragrance, a masculine cologne, this summer called Quicksilver. It follows their sister brand Roxy's two women's perfumes Roxy and Roxy Love. As a "transgenerational" fragrance Quicksilver aims to reach a broad audience while reportedly leaning towards the 15-35 years old demographic.

The perfume was created by Antoine Lie and Antoine Maisondieu of Givaudan (they are known in particular for their co-signed creations for niche brand Etat Libre d'Orange)..... 

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May 18, 2008

Galerie Noémie Expeau 2 (2007) {New Fragrance}



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Somehow after reporting on the faux new Galerie Noémie White Spirit relaunched rather than launched, as it turns out, in 2007, the Expeau 2 which debuted later that same year in November flew under our radar.

So here is the belated news: Expeau 2 is indeed new and is described as a more voluptuous and gourmand version of Expeau, one of the three first fragrances of the brand introduced in 2002: Noir d'Encre, Expeau, and White Spirit......

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Do-It-Yourself Professional Beauty Care Gets High-Tech {Beauty News}



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Do you know No! No!, Zeno, Clarisonic and other such high-tech tools for the coquette or the coquet? The beauty market is now proposing new-wave sophisticated equipment to zap your hair, zits, and shrink your pores, among other things, with durable effect, they say. The beauty-gadget trend is hot and takes less room than in the past as you can see from the picture above from Popular Science dated Feb 1933, courtesy of Modern Mechanix (it looks like it's actually the same person in the middle and on the right - they ran short on extras).

Business people must have thought that for consumers used to handling cell-phones, Iphones etc. they could keep doing it but for other things as well......

 

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Bobbi Brown Almost Bare (2008): For People who Love Smells but not Perfumes {New Fragrance}

 
 
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It is by now well known that makeup artist Bobbi Brown does not like perfume per se but that on the other hand she does enjoy smells which often translates into simple fragrances unencumbered with themselves (see here for a great quote of hers on this topic). Willy nilly she is part of a current of contemporary aesthetics in perfumery which loves casual, familiar smells and is particularly thriving in the US.

Her latest offering is Almost Bare, perfectly named to describe this type of sensitivity.....

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Fahrenheit 32 Vaporisateur de Voyage {Fragrance News - Packaging}

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While on the topic of Fahrenheit, here is the new travel packaging for Fahrenheit 32 made to resist shocks during traveling.....as well as outbursts of rage where you throw a perfume bottle at your lover. It looks very armored. A beautiful design that is also innovative.

The 40 ml "vaporisateur de voyage" is priced at 45, 44 €.

Via Profession-Beauté 

Dior International Fahrenheit Photo Competition {Fragrance News}

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Dior is organizing an international contest in partnership with Leica to invite people to interpret the values and universes of fragrances Fahrenheit and Fahrenheit 32 in digital photographies following 4 distinct themes:  1) The Imaginary Voyage 2)  Wide Open Spaces  3)  The Power of Elements  4)  The Infinite Man.

The galleries of photos created will be evaluated both by a jury of specialists and submitted to the popular vote. The Judges' Special Award includes a Leica M8 camera and the 10 most popular galleries for Fahrenheit and Fahrenheit 32 will receive the Web Community Award which includes a full range of products.....

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Perfumers' Gardens {The 5th Sense in the News}

 
 
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A corner in Serge Lutens' garden in Marrakech 

 

The Guerlains, Edmond Roudnitska are famous for having drawn constant inspiration from private gardens they cultivated and spent time in daily. To follow the development of the scents of flowers at different times of the day and over the days of a season is simply fascinating as this permits to better grasp the complexity of their ever-evolving olfactory personalities. The Telegraph offers readers the possibility to step into these universes by catching glimpses of the gardens of several perfumers including Serge Lutens, Antonia Bellanca, Roudnitska and more.....

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Vintage 55 Aroma Therapy T-Shirts {Fragrant Shopping}

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Italian brand Vintage 55 has introduced a special edition Aroma Therapy collection of scented T-shirts. These are packaged in glass jars with an aromatic sachet in them that enables the tees to refresh their scents after each washing although the textiles have also been specially dyed with a natural aromatic dye.......

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May 17, 2008

A Perfumery in the Burren {The 5th Sense in the News}

 
 
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Poulnabrone Dolmen, County Clare, the Burren by elsa 11 

 

The Irish Independent has a paper on small independent perfumer Sadie Chowen-Doyle owner of the Burren Perfumery in County Clare, in the Burren. Happenstance made her fall in love with the place and later be employed in a local perfumery headed by an ex-priest. She stayed on and became a perfumer,

"Perfumers, ‘noses’ or ‘aromancers’ are akin to modern-day alchemists, combining equal parts science and magic to craft new aromas. They work surrounded by rows of bottles, sampling smells on a strip and attempting to combine them to create their desired effect. Chowen-Doyle travelled to France to train with Sylvie Jourdain, a well-known nose for Dior......

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Travelogue on Kerala & Un Jardin Après La Mousson {The 5th Sense in the News}

 
 
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Kerala Monsoon Holidays: "Showers of passion" and "Sometimes it takes water to kindle a fire" in the Sunday supplement of Times of India (Bangalore Edition) via Tamizhan

 

There is a piece in the New York Times about perfumer Jean Claude Ellena travelling in Kerala to find inspiration for his new scent Un Jardin Après La Mousson (A Garden After the Monsoon), a genre of detailed biographical perfume reporting inaugurated by journalist Chandler Burr, of the NYT too, with the same perfumer and for the same Jardin series of fragrances by Hermès. In this latest installment, this time by Phoebe Eaton,.....

 

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May 16, 2008

Paris Hilton Can Can Launched in London {Fragrance News}

 
 
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Can Can by Paris Hilton is now pursuing its career in London, UK. In pure celebrity-fragrance style, the celebrity is a key element of the composition (especially in this case). Paris works the crowd and touts her latest scent incarnation with a little help from her mother Kathy Hilton, her boyfriend Benji Madden and a hat. A celeb in a conversation-piece hat, this is probably what Can Can needs to smell its best, thanks to glamorous diverting thought-associations that make you forget it never meant to be a Guerlain......

 

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Kenzo Vintage (2008) {Perfume Review}

 
 
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Kenzo Vintage is a limited edition unisex fragrance launching this summer to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Kenzo Parfums as well as the arrival of designer Kenzo Takada on the Parisian scene in the Seventies. The perfume thus pays homage to the spirit of the "live-and-let-live" era with its psychedelic floral patterns as if seen under the influence of psychotropic mushrooms and reminds us of the message of peace that the decade wanted to deliver in the midst of the Vietnam war. The purple flacon sports the forked peace symbol drawn by Gerald Holtom in 1958 and made into a household name and symbol. Episodically, like in this summer of 2008, one witnesses the resurgence of a short hippie revival in fashion and the peace symbol is usually called upon to grace newly minted tee-shirts and accessories. This time, perfumes seem to follow a hippie trend as well with the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Mai 68 (see also Lubin).

 

A Revisit of Kenzo by Menardo 

 

The fragrance was created by perfumer Annick Menardo who has delivered a masterful, reserved composition relying on an original play on effect and texture rather than singled-out pretty notes. The composition conveys a sense of understated originality. The subtle character of the scent reminds us of the reported preference for lighter, more evanescent perfumes in the Asian market, which it seems to take into account as a Japanese brand. It fits in well also with the unisex branding of the scent......

 

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Early Hippie Group, San Francisco by Irving Penn, 1967 - Hamiltons Gallery 
 
Note the interesting filiation with the dandy archetype on the right (the man in a cape)

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Porshe Design The Essence (2008) {New Fragrance} {Men's Cologne}

 
 
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Porsche Design as the result of a joint effort between Groupe Clarins and the Porsche SE subsidiary will launch a new masculine fragrance in October of 2008 called The Essence. It is reported to have been originally inspired by a single molecule named "Artical" which has the property of conveying a sensation of extreme freshness without the usual reference to a marine atmosphere. In this case the freshness alluded to is that of the North Pole.

Historically this is very interesting as it is not a first despite the forward-sounding name of the molecule; the classic Chanel No. 5 is also said to have been partly inspired by the sensation of freshness experienced by its perfumer Ernest Beaux while in the vicinity of a lake in the Arctic region.......

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