American perfumery is as varied as its landscape. One of its most notable traits is the fact that in spite of the presence of giant corporations like Coty or Estée Lauder, there exists a strong breed, I am tempted to say, of independent perfumers who appear by contrast even more like the necessary missing pieces of a vast puzzle. And without them, one could argue, American perfumery would be forgetting the flip side of anonymous efficiency, large-scale organization and big business, that is, originality, primitivism, naïveté, a sense of community, intimacy, individualism and let us not forget, the can-do attitude. If we only had the big labels, we would still have rivers of perfume, but we would have less of a certain moral spirit, the individualist one. And I don't know really what is America without the individual.
She or he is like the flavor of home-grown local herbs added to a standard national recipe...
Barbara Orbison, the widow of singer and composer Roy Orbison, has launched a fragrance inspired by the song Pretty Woman composed by her husband.
Elvis Presley said about the musician that "Roy Orbison is the greatest singer in the world," and Paul McCartney thought along the same lines "He was and always will be one of the greats of rock 'n' roll."...
Two Versions of the Ricci Ricci by Nina Ricci Commercial + The Behind-the-Scenes {Perfume Images & Adverts}
There is apparently a cute, girly and mischievous version of the TV commercial for Ricci Ricci by Nina Ricci featuring model Jessica Stam. It plays either in English or French. Here is the French version,
hen there is an alternate version which is sultrier in style thanks to just the change of music and suddenly you start noticing the character's leather gloves much more (they are also more the focus of attention of the camera). It feels a bit more rock n' roll too..
Design Thierry Bogaert Voile de Beton (2009) {New Perfume}
If you love architecture and deplore our loss of connectedness to our sense of touch not just to smell, you will have to check out this new perfume whose core concept was created by architect Thierry Bogaert. The idea for him was to propose a "...synthesis of his love for matter, form and the sensuality of perfume."
Voile de Béton (Veil of Concrete) is an artisan-made concrete structure designed by Bogaert who is passionate about the material and has used it in urban design. Each unique concrete veil resembling that of a boat shelters a bottle of the perfume going by the same name. The scent is described as a unisex fragrance...
Apparently, the Germans love their calendars to be more than visually appealing, they also appreciate a little scratch-and-sniff action.
You can find a series of such scented calendars called Duftkalendar on the Germany site of Amazon, Amazon.de. They either revolve around a theme, Spices and Herbs or Fruits or are more generalist. Each page offers a picture of the ingredient or bouquet of the month as well as a rubbing spot for you to release the aromatic molecules...
Lubin Parfumeur Has a New Website {Fragrance News}
Lubin, perfumer since 1798, have completely relooked their website. Entering it now is like walking through different rooms, galleries, or atmospheres also created by varied musics and animations. The text clarifies some sources of inspiration like the medieval one for Le Vetiver. History is used to legitimize the brand...
Nature et Decouvertes Nectar de Sajara, Bulle de Yuzu, Seve de Wenge (2009) {New Perfumes}
Nature et Découvertes (Nature and Discoveries), the chain of stores specializing in natural lifestyle founded in 1990 by François and Françoise Lemarchand is in the process of developing their beauty corners. They have just released a debut trio of perfumes that are eco-certified 100% natural and even more, they are made out of a proportion of 83% to 85% organic ingredients.
The fragrances are called Nectar de Sajara (Sajara Nectar), Bulle de Yuzu (Yuzu Bubble) and Sève de Wenge (Wenge Sap) and are part of a collection entitled Esquisses de Nature (Sketches of Nature)....
Scented Quote of the Day, from Celine Lheritier: Why Functional Perfumery is Cool
Ten years after having graduated from the school of perfumery ISIPCA, young perfumer Céline Lhéritier now at Colgate remembers how she fell in love with her chosen specialty:
"A l'époque la parfumerie fonctionnelle était peu mise en avant, pourtant elle m'attirait davantage que la parfumerie fine. Il y a plus de défis à relever, techniques, réglementaires, budgétaires. Et puis on participe au réveil de quelqu'un dans sa salle de bains, alors que la parfumerie fine est plus élitiste. [...] Au Mexique par exemple, les détergents pour les sols sont très parfumés, car ils servent aussi de désodorisants d'intérieur."
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LL Bean Personalized Ice-Cream Bowls for Red Heads, Blonds, Dark & Light Complexions Etc. {Beauty & Society}
I was browsing the LL Bean catalog when, lo and behold, my eye caught sight of a pair of bowls that initially attracted my attention because they look like an American adaptation of the personalized bowls found in Brittany, France in the Quimper region. Kids love those and especially to see their first names on them. They look like the picture below which is the traditional model for the "bol à prénom breton."
The LL Bean ice-cream bowls reveal the lineage in the color pattern and especially the way the rim is decorated with sponged blue color, and of course the idea of having your name painted on the ceramic...
Coiffeur to both celebrities and grateful Sephora-goers Frederic Fekkai has launched his first personal fragrance called Femme Fekkai Sensuelle Eau de Parfum. It is part of the brand's Femme Fekkai Sensuelle Collection which wishes to weave together functionality and olfactory hedonism, pairing beauty and olfaction.
To spice up things, the tag line in the form of a message of affirmation is printed on the bottle in Fekkai's handwriting and with his autograph, "The spirit of a woman -- revealed."
Next time, I suggest selling an erasable pen that can be used on a specially studied surface on the perfume bottle so that one could add one's favorite quote of the moment and absorb it while spritzing...
The Comeback of J. Grossmith Son & Co Perfumes {Fragrance News}
A 19th century British perfume brand that few remember today, Grossmith, has been re-established by a descendant, Simon Brooke, with the help of perfume expert Roja Dove.
J. Grossmith Son & Co which has had slightly differing company names since 1835 the year of its original establishment was a contemporary of familiar-sounding fragrance brands to the contemporary ear like Eugene Rimmel, Yardley, Jean-Marie Farina or more obscure ones like George Payne from the Isle of Wright and T. W. Fisher & Co.
One of their bestsellers seems to have been Shem-El-Nessim the Scent of Araby. When looking at advertisements for Grossmith perfumes, one cannot but be struck by how they carried the prejudices of its time offering some of the most colonialist imagery I have seen, and certainly as appearing behind the name of a fragrance.
For Wana-Ranee the Perfume of Ceylon and in 1918 it won't do if the perfume is not presented as a quasi devotional offering by a deferential Indian woman who is either on her knees or hunched and extending her arms from afar (in terms of social distance hinted at by her gesture) towards a group of Blond, European maharanis as if all English women ought to be ideally blond as cherubs. It is unsettling to the modern eye and we see that Grossmith was a great supporter of the British imperial crown...
MAC Cosmetics Suntints SPF 20 Liquid Lip Balm in Lilt of Lily (2009) {Beauty Review} Reviewing Lip Balms {Beauty Notes}
My method for reviewing lip balms is simple: buy, try, stash, live with it, conclude. What this means is that it is very easy to impulse-buy lip balms at every turn of your busy life because you forget them at home, because the weather is suddenly really, really dry and you need a super-powered balm, or simply because there is a new one with a cute packaging that you just spotted at the cashier's register; those little nothings are always placed at strategic locations to make you realize about their existence at the last minute of your shopping spree.
There are so many of them, in your basket and in the world at large, that it seems futile to try to keep track of them. But what is very helpful is that the gesture of applying lip balm is actually quite instinctual, a little bit like licking your lips to hydrate them momentarily (don't do that of course, it will make matters worse!). So what I do is I allow things to settle. The ones that really matter have a way of floating back up to the surface and you have
to conclude after some time has elapsed that the settling is done and
that this lip balm has something to say for itself because you did not forget about it at the bottom of your stash and it is actually useful. You tend to have a grateful thought for it. You actually enjoy using it. And you know it has a clear defined goal and a repeatable effect you look forward to recreating...
Winter Skin On My Mind: Caudalie Moisturizing Cream-Mask Face & Eyes {Beauty Review} {Beauty & Olfaction}
In this series, Winter Skin on My Mind, I will look at hydrating products that are hopefully efficacious for women, men or children. They are not necessarily the same, but looking at a jar of cream from a family perspective can yield unsuspected results like when I discovered that my tyke's German diaper cream could officially double as a face mask.
I have had winter skin on my mind since the end of the summer holidays what with the dehydration due to the sun and greater outdoor exposure. So, as soon as I was able to study the shelves of my local pharmacies I decided to give a product by Caudalie called Moisturizing Cream-Mask Face & Eyes/Masque Crème Hydratante Visage et Yeux a go.
The brand is well-known by now for its use of the antioxydant power of Bordeaux winemaking by-products such as grape rape or seeds. What is now termed vinotherapy has become a sort of sub-field of beauty treatments including spa ones.
Caudalie (koh-da-lee) is a lovely musical word in French that has an even lovelier meaning: it refers to the vintner's unit used to measure the span of time in which a flavor is felt in the mouth until it fades away. A caudalie or cdl lasts for 1 second. The longer the lingering aromatic sensation, that is the number of caudalies, the better, the more flavorful...
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