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Fragrant Readings Archive
Page 8 of 11 • 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
As we already said before in our review of Paco Rabanne pour Homme, Cyprès de Rigaud is one of the most popular candles in France. Its scent is very forest-y, balsamic. An article in the Times relates its history and how Jackie Kennedy used to love to use it to scent the White House.......
Continue reading "Cyprès by Rigaud: The Nec Plus Ultra of Scented Candles {Holiday Shopping Ideas & Tips - $75 or Less} {Fragrant Reading}" »
There is a fascinating interview with author Katherine Ashenburg on the history and practices of cleanliness in Salon. Judging by the exchange she seems to retain the theses of classic works of previous researchers on these questions such as Alain Corbin, Georges Vigarello, or Françoise de Bonneville but she also introduces comparative American material for example on the turning point that the Civil War was in the United-States for the discovery of the advantages of cleanliness and its decidedly democratic flavor. She also brings her own personal reflections which are very interesting. The interview and excerpt form her book were so compelling, we immediately went to order a copy of it........
Continue reading "Interview with Katherine Ashenburg: Do You Prefer to Scrape, Change Shirts or Soap? {Fragrant Reading} {Holiday Shopping Ideas - $20 or Less} {Notebook: Fresh & Clean}" »
 Highly recommended read. It is especially illuminating on the kind of balance a great (and successful) creative perfumer attempts to strike between (needed) commercialism and his reflection on art. After discovering Maurice Roucel's perfumes such as Tocade, 24 Faubourg, L'Instant, Insolence, Musc Ravageur and many more you can also discover his sense of humor, earthiness, and intelligence in this interview given to Symrise, "Monsieur Roucel,
Perfumes classically consist of smells from meadows and forests, fruits and flowers, water and wood. But traditional perfumery has moved into the 21st century. What new challenges does this bring to perfumers?That’s not at all true! Since aldehydes were first used in perfumery in the 1920s in Chanel No. 5, perfumes have become much more abstract and are full of ingredients that cannot be found in nature......
Continue reading "Interview with Perfumer Maurice Roucel {Fragrant Reading}" »
German fashion designer Steffen Schraut launched a new, eponymous fragrance for women called Steffen Schraut Eau de Parfum. It was developed by the M M Fragrance group based in Düsseldorf and in particular by nose Frank Rittler. You can read an interview of his here. The perfume boasts a rich floral composition incorporating "about 120 natural essences".......
Continue reading "Steffen Schraut Eau de Parfum by Steffen Schraut {New Perfume} {Fragrant Reading}" »
Three young perfumers from Drom, Pierre Constantin-Guéros, Valérie Garnuch-Mentzel, and Dephine Jelk offer liberal advice on dos and donts to perfume afcionados and attempt to debunk a few myths in passing. Guéros for example advises to overlook the shape of the perfume bottle and says, “You’d be surprised to know that a lot of drugstore perfume companies spend more on the juice,”. He does not believe in the alleged all-transforming power of each individual's body chemistry either, “Unless you eat very spicy food all the time, your body chemistry won’t change a fragrance,” explains Guéros. “That’s a bit of a myth—you’d have to have a trained nose to be able to distinguish how a scent smells differently on two people.”........
Continue reading "Perfume Advice From The Noses: Yay for Drugstore Fragrances & Nay for Body Chemistry {Fragrant Reading} {Scented Thoughts}" »
Michele Hanson abhors the new high-profile doggie perfume trend (see previous post) as well as the kind of art best described by her as "Bleak Art Events I Have Known - the bare stone walls, installations, statements, the odd mattress, pair of tights, penis-nosed mannequins. The chaps who deliberately hadn't explained their works, wanting to be enigmatic - a clever trick if one has created a load of old cobblers." What do they have in common? Apparently they are totally irrelevant....... (Cartoon from humour.com)
Continue reading "Dog Perfumes & Cool Art are So Uncool: A Rant {Fragrant Reading}" »
 No, this is not a Bond No. 9. A neurologist is fascinated by the impact scent has on memory and a family-based enterprise delivers the essence(s) of Brooklyn in a creation called Eau de Brooklyn. People tell how it reminds them of places they have visited, of smaller areas within the neighborhood......
Continue reading "It Smells Like Brooklyn {Fragrant Reading}" »
Photo: Ling Fei/Salons du Palais Royal
"A quoi sert le parfum ? Nous sommes tous fragiles. Le parfum est une arme contre notre fragilité, notre timidité.
Il sert à s'exprimer, à se donner l'image la plus cohérente qu'on aimerait que les autres aient de soi. Séduire, c'est être soi-même et rencontrer les autres.
Sinon, cela peut être utile pour un comportement social. On porte un sac à initiales et un parfum qu'on reconnaît partout. Ainsi, on ne risque pas d'être aimé pour soi-même." Translation & interview after the jump..........
Continue reading "Scented Quote of the Day, from Serge Lutens: - {Fragrant Reading}" »
Mademoiselle de Camargo by Nicolas Lancret (1730) "Le parfum c'est le complément indispensable de la personnalité féminine, c'est le finishing touch d'une robe, c'est la rose dont Lancret signait ses toiles". ~ "Perfume is the indispensable complement to the feminine personality; it is the finishing touch of a dress; it is like the rose that Lancret used to sign his paintings."........
Continue reading "Scented Quote of the Day, from Christian Dior: - 60th Anniversary of Miss Dior {Fragrant Reading}" »
 Need a little relaxation? Here is a *spoof* article about the latest perfume by Britney Spears and the difficulties experienced by the marketing team when attempting to match the image of the perfume with that of the celebrity it is inspired by, "Lars Mitchell, Director of Product Management for Elizabeth Arden, remarked on the difficulty on finding an appropriate name for the perfume. (Perfume bottle is made from recycled prison bars)........
Continue reading "Britney Spears Inspires a Spoof Perfume {Fragrant Reading} {Celebrity Fragrance}" »
Perfumers sometimes set aside their flacons and notebooks full of formulas and quickly jotted-down notes and instead pick up a more literary or theoretical pen deciding to write a book. Writings by seasoned perfumers are amongst some of the most interesting texts to read on perfume. Edmond Roudnitska, Jean Kerléo, Maurice Maurin, and Jean-Claude Ellena are some of the ones in the contemporary period that have felt the need to express themselves on paper as well as in perfumes.......
Continue reading "New Book: Le Parfum by Jean-Claude Ellena, Master Perfumer {Fragrant Reading} {Fragrant Shopping}" »
We owe the Romans the very word of "perfume". To learn more about the classical roots of our perfume heritage we can now read a work by specialist of classical antiquity Susan Stewart who released a book entitled Cosmetics and Perfumes in The Roman World, Tempus, 2007 in February in the UK, and which will soon be available in the US, in principle sometime in September. It is now available for pre-order on Amazon for $23.10.
There is a very interesting interview of Alan Stuart, co-founder of Headonism, a line of organic scented hair care on newconsumer.com, "The UK's hottest ethical lifestyle magazine." The fragrances are so good a French perfumer could not believe his nose when he caught the aroma of Scent 2 and was told it was coming from a shampoo and not from a fragrance.....
Continue reading "Scent 1, 2 & 3 by Headonism - Organic Hair Care Shampoo {Fragrance News} {Hair} {Fragrant Reading}" »
Beauty Interviews has a piece with Lyn Harris, the founder and perfumer of Miller Harris. How do you source the ingredients for Miller Harris perfumes?
I only use the finest quality raw ingredients. I take pride in carefully selecting my materials from different regions and with my chemicals, again, I have my favourites, which I obtain through certain suppliers whom I favour. As I defined and refined my style, I have found that I am far more selective of the chemicals I work with. I have now got to a stage in my creativity where I am happy to limit myself to around 300 out of thousands and thousands available in perfumery. This is important in defining my style as a perfumer. I am confident about limiting my vocabulary in terms of these materials. However, the opposite is true of natural ingredients. I try and discover new naturals – I don’t like to be limited in that respect.
Read more..... You can read our reviews of Miller Harris Fleurs de Sel and Coeur d'Eté
Thanks to a member of Basenotes, we came across a wonderful humorous text by perfumer Guy Robert, which had us in stitches. His reflections are excerpted from the newsletter of the British Society of Perfumers of August 1998: The serious part: My most important quest was to define which are the essential "building blocks" giving its character to the most important perfumes, and which are the numerous and useless components we usually "pile up" in a formula.
Being humorous about the difficult work of the perfumer: "There are also several other ways to work:
- the lazy way : you take a classical "accord" : to work around it is easy. But the result may not be as original as the hundreds of recent creations lately appearing on the market ...
- Another way (unfortunately!) is to take the idea of a friend (preferably a dead friend).
You are there, facing two different cases :
If you are a well known and very successful perfumer, everybody will find your creation "so" original. And if somebody with too good a nose or a too precise memory complains, you could always quote our French poet Alfred de Musset who, accused to have imitated your poet Byron said
"even growing cauliflowers is imitating somebody!".......
Continue reading "Guy Robert's Thoughts On Perfumery {Fragrant Reading}" »
Fragrant Readings Archive
Page 8 of 11 • 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
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Fin O'Suilleabhain on
Les Exclusifs: Bel Respiro, No 18, & 28 La Pausa by Chanel {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfumes}
: Hi ... can I ask about the Stravinsky / Chanel image. Is ...
Thalestris Dupont on
Fragonard Caresse (1929/2008) {Perfume Review}
: Lovely perfume! Reminds me of the spring 2011 when I was wearing ...
Karen Lindsey on
Long Lost Crabtree & Evelyn Fragrance: Help Please {Ask The Readers}
: I just found this site and I so need to find someone ...
Regina on
Happy New Year 2012!
: Valentine's Day will soon be here. Any recommendations?
C Sasich on
Easy Tricks To Create Golden Globes Hairstyles! {Beauty Notes - Hair}
: My fave was Michelle Williams - modern , effortless not overdone . ...
kelvin neo on
Victoria's Secret Life is Pink Wish Pink, Live Pink, Hope Pink (2010) *New Fragrances*
: Hi good day, Can i know where can purchase or order Pink ...
Alan on
A Funny Post About Scented Candles {Fragrant Reading}
: Hell-scent candle, lol.
Gina on
Two Organic Oud Scents: Sama Oudh Jasmin & Undergreen Black Classic (2011) {New Perfumes}
: I want to try Sama Oudh Jasmin but checked the websites. I ...
Tammy on
Top 12 Best New Department Store Fragrances of 2011 for the Holidays {Perfume List}
: Wish this came with a little print out sheet for my next ...
Toñi on
Dance with Givenchy (2010) {New Perfume}
: Where can I get Dance with Givenchy? It's impossible to find it ...
Toñi on
Dance with Givenchy (2010) {New Perfume}
: Where can I get Dance with Givenchy? It's impossible to find it ...
evageli karounzou on
Choppy Waters for Stella Cadente Miss Me {Fragrance News}
: at 2007 i was in paris an i bought this perfume.Since then ...
Mandy Aftel on
Aftelier Perfumes Secret Garden (2011): Featuring Real Civet & Castoreum {New Fragrance}
: Thank you so much Marie-Helene for your lovely review! You are great ...
Kay on
Mona di Orio Chamarré (2009): Perfume Review in Memoriam
: This is very interesting. First thing that came to my mind when ...
Maddy on
Bint el Sudan, The Other, African Chanel No.5: Interview with Nick Evans of International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc. {Perfume Q & A - The Scents of Africa}
: Interesting post. I've lived in Ghana but I don't remember encountering anyone ...
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