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FEATURED ARTICLES Archive
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 Cellophane was invented in 1908 by Swiss chemist Jacques Brandenberger. The new term was coined as a contraction of "cellulose" and "diaphanous", transparency being one of its chief characteristics. If transparency is not a new effect in perfumery, the reference to the material cellophane is. Cellophane is used to keep food, but also flowers, fresh, and sometimes, women (certain rituals of beauty include the use of cellophane and olive oil, for example). It is both a functional and a beautifying material when wrapped around a bouquet of flowers, or candies, making them seem more fragile and precious, as if kept under crystal panes or ultra-shiny brittle silk. Its plasticky quality gives it a hard edge and a modernist sense of romanticism once you associate it with flower gifts. Even eroticism if you go farther into the night. There is also a sexual connotation attached to cellophane as it is an erotic inspiration for some to wrap a naked body in this thin, see-through film (the clingging kind often, but not only), which can nevertheless become more opaque as layers are added onto layers. Bondage fetishists make it one of their choice toys, together with latex or leather. But cellophane is special. Perhaps it is the most transgressive of those materials, associating in one stroke memories of cellophaned bread on the kitchen table, decent, flirtatious bouquets of flowers, and a metaphor on nudity. Precisely. Smelling the new Nuit de Cellophane by Serge Lutens one reaches a first conclusion that this work seems to be in its most characteristic aspect a work on the sensuality of floral notes, mostly jasmine, osmanthus, with a certain undercurrent of vanilla-and-magnolia softness, and narcisuss drenched in honey (as in Ozbek by Rifat Ozbek). Followers of Serge Lutens will recognize his palette of colors, his strokes, his self-referential quotes as he opens the boundaries existing between his different perfumes. But to what effect this time?...  Cellophane Show Girls, Rara Avis
Continue reading "Serge Lutens Nuit de Cellophane (2009) {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
 The Hermessence Collection in 2009 Vanille Galante: The Olfactory Report and Review As pointed out earlier in the first part of our review of Vanille Galante by Hermès, although perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena voiced his personal issues having to tackle vanillin in the past, this did not prevent him from creating a vanilla perfume in 2009. Further back in his career, in 1993, and to reveal how ineluctable the scent of vanilla is for a modern perfumer, Ellena wrote an article on vanilla entitled "Un parfum fatal de vanille" (A Fatal Perfume of Vanilla) in the book Vanilles et Orchidées (Vanillas and Orchids) edited by Marie-Christine Grasse and the Musée International de la Parfumerie which is based on an exhibition organized by the museum. In that article, the perfumer drew a contrasting historical comparison between vanillin and natural vanilla pointing to the marginalization if not downright possible disappearance of vanilla absolute from contemporary perfumery due to its astronomical cost compared to vanillin, an aromachemical synthetized by Wilhelm Haarmann and sold from 1880, as recounted by Ellena. Yet at the end of the 19th century, vanillin used to be much more expensive than natural vanilla extracted using alcohol ("vanille naturelle alcoolée"). The author gives the price of 2000 Francs per kilogram for Vanillin as opposed to 30 Francs for the alcohol extract of natural vanilla. The article of the 1993 edition concludes with the following sentence, finally explaining the title of the article,...
Continue reading "Hermes Hermessence Vanille Galante (2009) {Perfume Review & Musings} - Part 2" »
 Lyric for Man by Amouage The Skinny:
Perfumer: Daniel Visentin
Artistic Director: Christopher Chong
Gender label: masculine, but easily adopted by women
Notes: top: bergamot, lime; heart: rose, angelica, orange blossom, green galbanum, spicy ginger, nutmeg, saffron; base: pine, sandalwood, vanilla, musk, frankincense
Characteristics: a fresh and warm, dark and transparent green spicy rose oriental fragrance with a sustained aqueous facet and discreet powdery one.
Personality: subtle, elegant, offbeat
Wearability: very easy for a woman, easy for a man
Price point: $$$; worth it. Exceptional lastingness and diffusion
Bottle: an almost black-red glass (darker than on the picture) and a lighter black plastic cap than on the women's flacon but without feeling flimsy. Here the Swarovski crystal appears on the face of the cap and a crown motif appears on a metal appliqué on top of the cap.
Perfumes discussed: Penhaligon's Hammam Bouquet, Czech and Speake No. 88, Un Jardin Après La Mousson, Fabergé Brut, Yves Saint Laurent Paris, Lyric for Woman, Yohji Homme.
Lyric Rose, The Men's Version, and Gender
Amouage, as is their habit, launched at the same time a duo of fragrances for women and men which in this case turns out to be a dual homage paid to the rose. They being a perfume house shaped by the culture of the Middle East (and that of Oman in particular), it was interesting for me to anticipate how the creative team would work on a masculine version of a rose perfume that would be made, in principle, to stand a few degrees of virility apart from the feminine version while, one could surmise, taking into account the cultural heritage of the rose traditionally considered to be a popular scent in Arabic men's perfumes. By opposition, modern Western perfumery broadly defined tends to interpret the lushness and floralcy of the rose scent, whenever it is showcased prominently, to be women's appanage; it was not so in the 19th century (see for example the literally sulfurous Penhaligon's Hammam Bouquet) and even today Czech & Speake No. 88, a men's perfume showcasing a dark even sombre incensey rose belying these proclivities. It may be due perhaps both thanks to the colonial history of Great Britain and the country's traditional inclination for floral fragrances including soliflores that this cultural perception of the intensity of the rose otto was never completely forgotten. For it is a given that the rose in such cases will be masculinized.
The Western history of beauty reinforces the feminine attributes of the rose as this most desired and cultivated of flowers has been made to become in the end a stereotypical symbol of feminine beauty since the antiquity when the rose was sacred to Aphrodite. In the Islamic tradition however, the rose's aroma has been exoterically endowed with religious meaning, and if there is any gender association, it might be considered to be just as masculine as feminine through its connection with the figure of the Prophet Mohammad. It is thus said that the emanations of the rose are derived from the very sweat of the Prophet who invites "whoever" wishes to smell his person to drink it in. According to this tradition he expresses his own transfigurative mystical experience by referring to the intoxicating olfactory power of the rose, pointing at the same time possibly to a favorite perfumery accord: rose and musk,
"When I was taken up into heaven, some of my sweat fell upon the earth, and from it sprang the rose; and whoever would smell my scent, let him smell the rose."
The mystical use of the rose trope to express the exquisiteness and ineffability of the divine, further popularized by images of Sufi poetical transcendance. It carries therefore a priori an universalistic message despite the fact that Arabian feminine beauty, as in the West, is also unavoidably and classically compared to that of the rose. Of the rightly-named Rose-in-Bloom in the 1001 Nights, it is thus said that
"her name was Rose-in-Bloom; and the reason of her being so named was her excessive delicacy of beauty and her elegance."...
 October rose by Catmadogma: this picture is cool and warm like the perfume with a similar effect of watery transparency
Continue reading "Amouage Lyric for Man (2008): Unusual Rose {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Fragrance} {Rose Notebook} {Men's Cologne}" »
 Lyric for Woman by Amouage
The Skinny:
Perfumer: Daniel Maurel
Artistic Director: Christopher Chong
Gender label: feminine
Notes: top: bergamot, spicy cardamom, cinnamon, ginger; heart: rose, angelica, jasmine, ylang ylang, geranium, orris; base: oakmoss, musk, wood, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla, tonka bean, frankincense
Characteristics: a deep dark fruity and resinous rose encased in a classic oriental structure offering a nod to Shalimar and the guerlinade
Personality: opulent, rich, luxurious, classic, politely transgressive
Wearability: easy in the evening; you will get more noticed during the day
Price point: $$$; could have had more originality for that price, not just richness; sorry to haggle
Bottle: very nice; the cap is in a heavy good-quality plastic topped with a Swarovski crystal. The flacon is made of hefty dark, almost black-red (darker than on pictures). The
Perfumes discussed: Joy, Shalimar, Habit Rouge, Parure, Musc Nomade
This review is a composite picture of several impressions of the scent.
Lyric Woman by Omani niche perfume house Amouage is rich enough to support a variety of interpretations and can surprise you overtime with its different accents, although I think it is safe to try to encapsulate it as a dark wine-y rose oriental.
Although the rose is conspicuous at first, it tends to lose its centrality in the perception of the perfume as it develops further, for it is a very dressed-up rose in full regalia, bedecked with gold and carbuncles, including no doubt Burmese Pigeon Blood rubies. The rose here is less of a diva on its own than part of a general operatic atmosphere of ostentation with a decorative, ornate style although it blooms at times, especially peeking through a second layer of application.
As I said earlier (Perfumes that Sing Vs. Perfumes You Want To Eat), I am also more struck by the deep colors and tonalities of Lyric than by lyrical qualities, such as flight. The one criticism I have that stays with me with some persistence is regarding the use of a slightly juvenile, "easy" and regressive vanilla accord in the midst of rather convincing opulence and nocturnal ambiance...
Continue reading "Amouage Lyric for Woman (2008): Ornate Operatic Rose {Perfume Review} {Rose Notebook} {New Fragrance}" »
•• Interview with Serge Lutens Around El Attarine And Serge Noire ••
1) TSS: El Attarine is a reference to Arabian culture, to a well-defined place, the coranic school of Fès. It was written regarding Serge Noire that it is a perfume "without a sense of place". Are these two perfumes complementary ones for you?
- Serge Lutens: "El Attarine" is a perfume which synthetizes all the history or rather that spirit which presided over the birth of my perfumery, which has its roots in Morocco.
"Serge Noire" is not a perfume without a sense of place. It is quite the opposite in fact! It is situated on my own itinerary. I imagined and created Dior makeup and its image from 1968 to 1980. This period made me experience the last moments of what I would term "Parisian Haute Couture" (La Haute Couture parisienne): luxury (genuine, this time) rigor, mastery and respect for the feminine body image. That muffled atmosphere of the show rooms, of the fashion presentations - much more ritualistic than fashion shows are - made the perfume come to fruition in me. [It used to be] an ethereal atmosphere, an elegance that is silent on a background of black serge suit materials, pale complexions, and tight straight hairdos......
Continue reading "Interview with Serge Lutens Around El Attarine And Serge Noire {Passion for Perfume - Portrait}" »
Photo © Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido Serge Lutens s'exprime autour de la création de ses deux derniers parfums, El Attarine et Serge Noire. Nous apprenons qu' El Attarine est un condensé de son expérience d'artiste et d'esthète du cinquième sens, un hommage rendu à la parfumerie lutensienne d'inspiration arabe. Quant à Serge Noire, il est son parfum le plus personnel, son préféré aussi, mais aussi de manière plus inattendue, un hommage rendu à l'esprit de Dior filtré par le souvenir et l'imaginaire de Serge Lutens.... Interview de Serge Lutens •• Autour d’El Attarine et de Serge Noire
1) TSS - El Attarine est une référence à la culture arabe, à un lieu même bien particulier, l’école coranique de Fès. Il est dit de Serge Noire qu’il s’agit d’un parfum “sans lieu”. Sont-ce là deux parfums complémentaires pour vous?
Serge Lutens: “El attarine” est un parfum qui reprend toute l’histoire ou plutôt l’esprit de la naissance de ma parfumerie, prenant racine au Maroc.
“Serge Noire” n’est pas un parfum sans lieu. Bien au contraire ! Il se situe sur mon parcours. J’ai imaginé et crée le maquillage Dior et son image de 1968 à 1980. Cette période m’a fait connaître les derniers instants de ce que je nommerais “la Haute Couture parisienne” : luxe (réel, cette fois), rigueur, maîtrise et respect de l’aimage du corps féminin. Cette atmosphère feutrée des salons de présentation, des défilés – beaucoup plus rituels que shows – a fait naître ce parfum en moi. Une atmosphère éthérée, une élégance silencieuse sur fond de tissus tailleurs en serge noire, teints pâles et cheveux plats......
Continue reading "•• Interview de Serge Lutens •• Autour de El Attarine et de Serge Noire {Passion for Perfume - Portrait}" »
Sycomore is the latest composition by perfumers Jacques Polge and Christopher Sheldrake appearing in the collection Les Exclusifs by Chanel, which purports to offer more elaborate works of perfumery utilizing finer ingredients and proposing more delicate art-pieces for the connoisseur.
The fragrance is also a new take on an old idea for the house of Chanel, which remains tradition-bound in order to preserve the spirit of Mademoiselle Chanel since an initial Sycomore perfume was launched in 1930 that aimed to be seemingly this contradictory object: an uncluttered woody perfume for women supporting an overall baroque interpretation. In Michael Edwards, Perfume Legends, Jacques Polge is reported to have characterized both Bois des Iles (1924) and Sycomore (1930) as baroque pieces. The old perfume Sycomore then very interestingly already provided inspiration to him for the creation of Coco as one of two perfect fragrance embodiments of what he saw to be the lost style of Coco Chanel, now seen predominantly through the prism of her clothes. That lost side of Chanel was her less-well known predilection for the complicated chinoiseries and opulence of gold-leaf work as revealed by her Rue Cambon apartment to the in-house perfumer who explained that he wanted to absorb her influence by mediating in-situ about her taste. Admittedly though, Chanel's taste for baroque opulence and excess is more clearly apparent in her accessories, jewelry in particular.
It is therefore also the second attempt at least on the part of Polge to recapture some of the soul of the original Sycomore, but it seems going in a new interpretive direction, more towards the idea of showcasing pure woods, although a baroque hint is present as well.
More recently, Jacques Polge is reported to have wanted to concentrate solely on vetiver (Vetiveria Zizanoïde) and its natural facets this time. Despite the reported express intention not to see the vetiver be overtaken by other facets (see previous post), it seems that the incense-y facet in Sycomore is almost as equally important as the vetiver one, an already smoky varietal here.
Sycomore is a beautiful, even stunning wood and incense composition that manages to awaken the combined evocative powers of vetiver and whirling incense, their decidedly exotic association in this case, while offering itself at the same time as an oh!-so-French study in ideals of understated refinement and elegance. A little baroque flourish is discreetly inserted in the signature of the perfume as an homage paid to the spirit of the Grande Mademoiselle, she who instinctively knew how to embrace the contrasted purity of monastic lines and the golds of aristocratic ostentation and excesses to feel complete. You are tempted also to recognize the influence of perfumer Christopher Sheldrake in this discreet exotic touch.
The perfume conveys its, if you will, French style or Chanel world-view through its intuition for pure lines - like a French window, a French garden - in its sense of refined, controlled, balanced and clear, Cartesian elegance. At the same time there is to be found a sense of Baudelairean voyage to the perfume, but without that hint of opiate-laden, heavy voluptuousness found in the weight of velvet curtains or sensual women's manes as populate that universe. Something airy and pure traverses Sycomore, suggesting the original spiritual, meditative qualities of burning incense and smoke (smoky woods) while alluding to a quiet, reserved and polite sense of mysticism......
Continue reading "Chanel Sycomore (2008) {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
Here are some suggestions for wearing spring fragrances, in several installments. Today, I turn to the "effortlessly chic" category. By that I mean that as lighter, fresher perfumes these perfumes tend to dress down a bit but not overly so. They retain an air of elegance and sophistication about them mixed with a dose of studied nonchalance and casualness.
Why should some perfumes be considered to be particularly appropriate for spring time? Their vernal quality is suggested by their rich, yet still frail floral notes, their freshness, and their luminosity bespeaking of the spring equinox and daylight-saving time.
Green notes that are just a bit crunchy also contribute to this feeling of smelling half-open buds. These scents to me offer transparent, airy, cool nuances rather than ripe, decaying ones. When brainstorming about the topic, I had to realize that the house of Guerlain had been particularly committed to offering interpretations of springtime perfumes. Nina Ricci too, although only one of their scents is mentioned.
1- Diorissimo No list about perfume classics embodying the yearning for spring would be complete without Diorissimo by Dior. Composed by master-perfumer Edmond Roudnitska in 1956 it remains a central reference as the lily-of-the-valley fragrance as it has come to embody the very spirit of spring for generations of wearers. The scent of Diorissimo is like drinking muguet-scented champagne on the pristine empty streets of a clean and empty Paris in the wee hours of the morning listening to the distant sound of party laughters. You feel like you own the city of lights and spring, both. It too should have been called Joy......
Continue reading "11 Effortlessly Chic Spring Fragrances: The Classics " »
Photo © Communication Serge Lutens Serge Lutens possesses this uncanny ability of turning a priori the most superficial, surface objects and sensations into an oniric walk taken down the maze of a garden as if in a daydream. With Five O’ Clock Au Gingembre composed in collaboration with perfumer Christopher Sheldrake, a tea party in an English manor opens the way to the muffled, velvety footsteps of a discovery walk down the dozens of labyrinthine corridors of a mansion built with hundreds of forgotten rooms. At the same time the contained intensity of the perfume, which unfurls as if following the line of a fall suggests a drop in a well filled with dark light. The perfume is thus complex in the sense of creating both a horizontal line of imagery, by minutely shifting the sensations, and a vertical one by creating an impression of dynamic deepening. Five O'Clock is one of the most difficult perfumes I have had to write about due to the level of detail found in it and its structuring which is poorly rendered by a chronological account. I am tempted to say that it is more constructed like a faceted gem, but it is not quite that either. It is more like a combination of both structures, the linear one and the prismatic one. Or another way to put it would be to say that it is the most elusive of the Lutens despite its deceptive homey title...
Photo © Communication Serge Lutens
Continue reading "Serge Lutens Five O'Clock Au Gingembre (2008): The Black Luminous Intensity of Ginger {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
Photography by Serge Lutens, reproduced with the permission of Peter Gabor - © Reproduction is forbidden, used for pedagogical purposes. As people will see in the second part of our interview with Serge Lutens (see Part 1), he is a mind that always thinks beyond the predictable limits set by a question. Here he expresses himself regarding Baudelaire's legacy, his line of makeup, the mythical Nombre Noir fragrance, niche perfumery, and his contribution to contemporary perfumery. Marie-Helene Wagner: 16 – Do you think that speaking of perfumery, we are the heirs to Baudelaire?
Serge Lutens:
- Perfume, in and of itself, is not just an aroma. It is potentially a carrier for the imagination. Perfume is thick; it is poison and pure desire. It is Eros in prison! I think that we are first and foremost the heirs to frustration, but also to revolt, with means that the ones who have not subjected themselves still have aspirations…. "Coiffe façon Tatlin Tower" by Serge Lutens, an interpretation of the unfinished Tatlin Tower built by architect Vladimir Tatlin.
Continue reading "Q & A With Serge Lutens - Part 2 {Perfume Q & A}" »
The perfumes issued by Jovoy the newly re-established house founded by Blanche Arvoy in 1923 and now revived by François Henin, Henri de Pierrefeu, and Marie-Laure de Rodellec (see also post on the "patrimony movement" in French perfumery) pose the interesting question, to us, of the significance of the name and concept behind a perfume in their influence over the composition of the fragrance and the communication of its personality to the wearer. If a perfume is art, then it is about the attempt to establish a bridge of communication between two imaginations, two universes, those of the creator(s) and the wearer(s). Perfumes named with non-particular names, but rather with names denoting the whole group or family of perfumes might well be in danger of blunting precise images, precise sensations. It is very difficult to assess how much a name influences our perception of a perfume without doing psychological tests about olfactory creation and perception and expectations. Perfumes might very well be inevitably linked to stories and names as the other halves of themselves, which includes the shape of the bottle, another story told with different materials........ 
Continue reading "Chypre, Oriental, Poudré by Jovoy & Chypre by Coty: On Perfume Names {Perfume Shorts (Reviews)} {Scented Thoughts} {New Perfumes}" »
ESS Bouquet by The Crown Perfumery Co. as one of the oldest English fragrances to exist is one of those perfumes steeped in history and antique exotic tastes that require further investigation and elucidation to fully appreciate.
First we have to address the meaning of the name, which sounds a bit puzzling to the modern ear: "Ess Bouquet" we learn from Septimus Piesse writing in 1857 is the contraction of the word "essence of bouquet". The original recipe for the scent by an anonymous London perfumer is recorded as early as 1711. By the time Piesse writes his The Art of Perfumery in the mid-19th century this original date has been forgotten and the much imitated perfume formula is attributed to, not its rightful creators whoever they may be, but rather to its famous developers, Bayley and Co., established 1739.
Septimus Piesse thus mistakenly attributes the paternity of Ess Bouquet to its most celebrated makers at the time,
"The reputation of this perfume has given rise to numerous imitations of the original article, more particularly on the continent. In many of the shops in Germany and in France will be seen bottles labelled in close imitation of those sent out by Bayley and Co., Cockspur Street, London, who are, in truth, the original makers.".......
Continue reading "Ess Bouquet by The Crown Perfumery Co. {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
 Covet promised to reveal more freely the “vixen" side of Sarah Jessica Parker and since we know that Lovely (2005) had a toned-down musk that smacked of marketing compromise for the actress who usually loves her musk straight-up and dirty, we were expectant and holding our breath metaphorically speaking, awaiting something like a modern-day Bal à Versailles, a gift from the fragrance developers to SJP after her resounding success with Lovely in 2006. Instead what we get is yet another perfume in shackles and Covet is not even as pretty smelling as Lovely, which does not make it necessarily more interesting smelling.......
Continue reading "Covet by Sarah Jessica Parker {Perfume Short (Review)} {New Perfume} {Celebrity Fragrance}" »
Notes: Top: Green of hyacinth, bergamot, muguet; heart: rose, ylang, hawthorn, heliotrope, almond-y notes; base: cedar, sandalwood, patchouli, vetiver, tonka bean. Jacomo For Her by Jacomo is one of those fragrances that we like to call "closet-musk fragrances"(see Floris Malmaison), whose definite musky nature and erotic power lie further hidden within the folds of the perfume. They are not advertised officially as musk fragrances, but they possess the simplicity of purpose of their less subtle sisters who bear the title of a day or evening program of erotic approach on their packages. "Musk" is written in bold lettering on the box to help guide the shopping hand; it would flash and twinkle if it could. "Buy me, I will make you more desirable..." are the words whispered by practically every perfumes on earth, but musk fragrances, even more so than others, are born to seduce......
Continue reading "Jacomo For Her by Jacomo {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
FEATURED ARTICLES Archive
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