Sean John is releasing a new limited Collector's Edition of a duo of fragrances in April of 2008 called Unforgivable Woman Black and Unforgivable Black. The news have not just to do with the packaging which is now all lacquered black but with the more luxurious renditions of the perfumes themselves for which "...only the most premium and luxurious ingredients were used..."
The new fragrances are "extracted and re-created from the original Unforgivable" using top grade quality ingredients labeled "Orpur". As stated by the press officer, "Orpur ingredients are naturally grown and harvested to the strictest standards, causing the fragrance to have a concentrated and intense scent.".......
Dirty English has been identified by Nash-Taylor of Juicy Couture as a cross between the influences of her own Anglomania (she is married to John Taylor of Duran Duran), Skaist-Levys’ “CZ Guest Style”, a dash of punk (Sex Pistols) while its style (the bottle's?) borrows from their flagship store located on Rodeo Drive. She also promised that, "Any self-respecting bad boy will want to wear it." (Women’s Wear Daily)
The name of the perfume is immediately catchy and if we were to start drawing a list of The Best of 2008, it would have to be nominated under the category "Best Fragrance Name". It actually makes you want to create the category. The first whiff from the bottle promises the scent to be less than pale. It is sweeter and more heavily resinous than average.
The perfume turns out to be a noteworthy twist on a traditional woody-leathery-tobacco scent for men with fresh fougere accents. It demonstrates how you can play with the idea of excess without being excessive in reality. Its most traditional facet suggests the suave after-shave of a gentleman frequenting the requisite club with all the necessary trappings of leather furniture, books and polished woods with beeswax that one would expect. This is deemed an ideal by many and it is a comfortable one. Its more adventurous facet is a humorous and sensual play on the notion of human foulness and extreme bodily exhalations as it plays with the notion of dirtiness but ultimately and paradoxically in a clean and allusive way. This Englishman is indeed a bit dirty and it is not just a play on words but really a play on olfactory sensations......
After having mostly focused on aromatic fougères, Hugo Boss will launch a new cologne for men called Boss Pure, which is inspired by the abstract smell of water and classified as a fresh scent. Reportedly, fresh perfumes are popular enough to constitute 45% of the men's market....
Tonino Lamborghni, the prestigious Italian car brand, has signed a deal with Coty to release three new colognes for men in April of 2008 titled Mitico, Feroce, Forza. Each will illustrate a different fragrance family....
Amor Pour Homme by Cacharel was composed by perfumer Sophie Labbé together with Pierre Wargnye in 2006. Thanks to 22 Perfumers in Creation by Clara Molloy, we learn that just like for her other fragrances, the perfumer used a code name to inspire her efforts and in this case it was "Men's rose", in English, that she repeated to herself from time to time to keep her eyes on the prize.
Labbé also further explains that when the idea came to her (date unspecified), it was difficult to impose this concept of a floral for men, which literally obsessed her, but that after Dior Pour Homme, which was released in 2005, this concept of a paradoxical fragrance for men based on a flower - a note commonly perceived as being feminine in Western perfumery culture - became much more established. We have to understand that this remark applies essentially to the mainstream market.
Thus in 2005, there was an iris for men, in 2006 a rose for men, and in 2007, an orange blossom for men with Fleur du Mâle by Jean-Paul Gaultier.......
Voleur de Roses (lit. Rose Thief or "Stolen Rose" per L'Artisan's translation) was created by perfumer Michel Almairac in 1993 for L'Artisan Parfumeur. In the recently published 22 parfumeurs en création by Clara Molloy, the book opens on his interview, one of the most interesting, humane ones in it, and the one leaving one of the more lasting impressions despite the fact that you read it before all the others, as they are organized alphabetically. What makes him stand apart from the rest of the perfumers is that he reveals somewhat of an unexpected rebel's personality, not easily satisfied with his corporate lot. He acknowledges the fact that he stands firmly on the side of the raw materials themselves rather than the concepts presiding over them. This position is commonly seen to be that of the Grassois school of perfumery, which is perhaps usually less publicly articulate about its preferences than the more intellectualist one working with ideas or stories as points of departure. Hence, a sense of difference that is more marked in the current media context. Last but not least, he is the only one who confesses publicly and candidly to having been "hurt by a perfume", Minotaure by Paloma Picasso, which was not successful commercially, for reasons that are hard to decipher.
His creations are wonderful and we can particularly call attention to Gucci Pour Homme, Burberry London/Classic, Rush, and Saks For Her. He himself says that of his own perfumes two that he can say he "adores" are Burberry London/Classic and Rush. He likes Casmir a lot and he likes Zino by Davidoff.......
Thierry Mugler will release a limited edition of AngelMEN sub-titled Pure Coffee in mid-April of 2008. The original AngelMEN or A* Men was introduced in 1996 followed by B* Men in 2004.
This new version takes as a point of departure a coffee note that was already present in A*Men, but which thanks to "new CO2 technology allowed the company to extract a natural note directly from Columbian coffee beans,".....
Versace is going to introduce a new cologne called Versace Pour Homme, inspired by a return to Mediterranean roots and Donatella Versace's father. He loved to wear neroli and the scent features this note. Interestingly, Versace is promoting this time a minimalist approach to perfume composition thinking that too many fragrances in the market are too ornamented and made with too many notes. Versace wanted its scent to smell simple and strong....
Etat Libre d'Orange is on the verge of launching its new fragrance, Tom of Finland. WWD reports that the Tom of Finland foundation, which commissioned it, requested that it, "does not disturb the odor of men,".
The perfumer-composer for the fragrance is Antoine Lie and to him it had to smell like "a guy coming out of a shower. He's clean, but not fragranced. And he puts on leather pants.". There is also an outdoorsy aspect to the scent and themes of "metal, leather, sensuality, beauty and radiance" inspired by Tom of Finland's drawings. Perfume wearers will be carded -- that's right -- as a suggestive sketch is part of the outer packaging. You will have to be 21 in the US and 18 elsewhere (how will you be able to buy it over the phone?)
Well, it looks like it will be the first non-liberated Etat Libre d'Orange and will serve to underline all the straight-laced Victorian values surviving from the era of our great-great-let me add one more-great grand-fathers .....
The Beckhams moved to the United States before their new duo of fragrances, Intimately Beckham Night for Men and Intimately Beckham Night Women will cross the Atlantic. The perfumes were launched in September of 2007 in Asia and Europe and will be rolled out to the US market in 2008. Another "signature fragrance" by Victoria Beckham is said to be planned for the fall of 2008.
Since 2005 and the success of Instinct, the Beckham franchise has developed to include both the day-time and night-time versions of the couple's perfumes meant to embody their marital bliss and sexy image. The Intimately Beckham Night duo is the sexiest to date. The men's version was created by perfumer Jean-Pierre Bethouart of Firmenich, the women's by Andrea Lugo of Takasago........
Continuing to add portraits to our gallery of celebrities that lend their name and fame to perfumes, we can now report that actor Henry Cavill who plays Charles Brandon the 1st Duke of Suffolk in the popular series, The Tudors (2007), has become a spokesperson for Dunhill fragrances......
In the collection of Guerlain re-editions called Les Parisiennes, the new addition is called L'Âme d'Un Héros (The Soul of a Hero) in reference to "the legendary Roman general Coriolanus, who inspired Shakespeare and Beethoven, as well as Plutarch." It is a re-take on a former fragrance by Guerlain, Coriolan; as can be expected it will be probably inspired significantly by it but modified somewhat too and made more upscale thanks to more luxurious ingredients (see Mayotte and Mahora)........
Man by Calvin Klein was launched in October of 2007 and proposed as a new classic for the modern Calvin Klein man, aged from 25 to 40. The name itself is programmatic and unambiguous, like an English translation of L'Homme by Yves Saint Laurent. Simple, brief, to the point. You are going to smell the essence of masculinity if you are to take your cue from the name of the fragrance. Admittedly most people are a little more jaded than that and will probably just barely register that it is a cologne (in the American sense of a perfume for men) as opposed to a feminine fragrance. The packaging is sleek, modernist, with an architectural sense of proportions and looks good. It is unusually large and slim at the same time, built like a wall more than a bottle. The surfaces are extremely shiny, mirror-like making you think of high-shine paint, black lacquer, or patent leather shoes. Another contrast intervenes with the white edges of the bottle..........
This review of Skarb by Humiecki & Graef is continued from Part 1. I would like to pick up where I started last time to describe the scent proper,
"...Skarb is romantic in a forgotten sense; the word "eruptive" chosen by the authors to describe this sensation is completely apt. The perfume opens with a hitherto unknown sense of aggression and dynamism, literally jumps at you like a surge of violent emotions breaking one's sense of tranquility and resounding of a diffuse noise that seems to emanate from a crowd. One is reminded of the tears streaming down on the faces of Czechoslovakian men standing on the streets when the German Nazis invaded Prague in 1938."
The smell-personality of the scent is immediately complex: leathery, fougère/fresh, peppery, a trace of semen-like impression (see Sécrétions Magnifiques), metal, a deepening spicy brew. There is a refined undertone of orris adding a sense of melancholia, tenderness, and femininity to the scent. It smells of, or perhaps abstractly suggests dusty history books whose leather covers would have kept, somehow, the faint traces of men's sweat and layered experiences; the sweat is refined and exquisite. The herbs are almost violent in their expression at times, like the scent and properties of natural plants can be. There is also a more systematic peppery and salty impression which makes one think of pepper gas and tears running down on one's face.
A resinous quality emerges that conjures up a witch's hut in a forest whose door sill is announced by bunches of tied up herbs drying upside-down. The area feels vaguely magic and enchanted but also dangerous. The forest motif here suggests also a place of liminal danger in reference to it having been a locus of traumatic experiences during WWII. It signals hidden executions and refuge places for escapees from concentration camps or Nazi raids (perfumer Christopher Laudamiel worked with historical photographies we are told, but I do not know if this type of reference was included)........
Burt's Bees has launched a reportedly 100% natural oils cologne for men in its Natural Skin Care for Men collection, simply called Burt's Bees Cologne. From the ad copy,
"Exude confidence and appeal with this all-natural blend of essential oils. Fresh citrus oils of lemon and orange and energizing bergamot are blended in the warm, spicy depth of cypress and fir oils for a crisp, woodsy scent." .......
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