|
|
 With Magnolia Nobile, the new fragrance from Acqua di Parma to be introduced in September 2009, one is invited to take a moment of respite by lake Como and to inhale the scent of magnolias that grow in the peaceful gardens in the area. The key words to contemplate here are contained in the oft-quoted Baudelairean verse that reads like a motto: Everything is but luxury, calm and voluptuousness. The white floral trail of the composition is said to sign the presence of a woman who epitomizes femininity and refinement. The fragrance "targets" - a word that is probably too direct here - an exclusive clientele as alluded to in the ad copy,...
Continue reading "Acqua di Parma Magnolia Nobile (2009) {New Perfume} " »
 Perfume brand Sahlini founded in 2006 is continuing to expand its portfolio. After the initial La Femme and L'Homme followed by La Femme en Noir and L'Homme en Noir which were collector versions of the originals with a slightly tweaked formula of more intense jasmine and patchouli notes for the women's scent, the latest fragrance is called Fémininde...
Continue reading "Sahlini Femininde (2009) {New Perfume}" »
 Yves Rocher is preparing for its next major feminine launch called So Elixir. The woody-floral perfume is based on a white floral accord and was created with 6 hands by perfumers Marie Salamagne, Olivier Cresp and Jacques Cavallier of Firmenich. The advertising for the fragrance is uncharacteristically seductive for the brand, which seems to want combine here the allure of natural ingredients with a sophisticated imagery. Let me state from the outset how I love the fact that the Yves Rocher press release details the contributions of each perfumer. This is my idea of where perfumery ought to be headed in the future whereby people discuss the creative process in a non-infantilizing manner and credits are rolled. In this example, it sounds the way screenplay writers detail their contributions....
Continue reading "Yves Rocher So Elixir (2009): Essence of Femininity {New Perfume}" »
 The Halston brand have revived their perfume classics under the aegis of Elizabeth Arden. The original Halston for Women issued in 1975 and Halston Z-14 (1976) will be introduced after having undergone a modern adaptation work by perfumer Carlos Benaïm of IFF who collaborated with Bernard Chant on the original feminine scent....
Continue reading "Halston Woman & Halston Man (2009): Perfume Serves as Inspiration for Marios Schwab's Pure Metallic {New Fragrances} {Fashion Notes}" »
 Nina Ricci announced that they will introduce a new feminine perfume called Ricci Ricci on August the 24th 2009 in France to be followed by an international roll-out. Like the upcoming Cascade by Chopard to be launched in July 2009, it features a central accord resting on the night bloom Belle-de-Nuit (Mirabilis jalapa L.) which diffuses its scent only from 4 pm until the morn. There was a Fragonard perfume called Belle de Nuit, but it is not a common floral note in perfumes. All of a sudden and due to the Zeitgeist it seems, you will be able to compare two Belle-de-Nuit compositions within a short span of time (I am precisely on the point of publishing my review of Cascade)...
Continue reading "Nina Ricci Ricci Ricci (2009): Another Belle-de-Nuit Sillage {New Perfume}" »
 Perfumer: Romano Ricci
Perfume notes: saffron, Bulgarian rose, patchouli, musk, amber, sandalwood, oud Midnight Oud is the latest opus by perfume house Juliette Has A Gun which defines one of the aspects of its general enterprise as " Luxury, in its spicy and singular version." Juliette's gun is nothing else but her seductive perfume of course. Romano Ricci, founder of the label officially signs here his second composition after Citizen Queen, according to the 2009 press release (in 2008, the brand attributed the perfume to Francis Kurkdjian). It is intriguing a priori to see a very Parisian perfume house jump head along into an arabesque exercise, without any prior warning signals or sense of anticipation. It appears even more meaningful it seems since several brands this year are tackling oud compositions (see upcoming article). Romano Ricci, the founder and now perfumer-in-title of Juliette Has A Gun, succeeding to nose Francis Kurkdjian, said "Following Citizen Queen, Lady Vengeance, and Miss Charming, I decided to dedicate a limited edition fragrance to the Arabian soul.
Inspired by middle east's rich and sumptuous culture, «Midnight Oud» is an opulent composition. A mesmerizing blend of local ingredients, Saffron, Musk, Amber, and Sandalwood, crowned by the most evocative all, OUD. "...
Continue reading "Juliette Has A Gun Midnight Oud (2009): Adapted Opulence: Oud for Urban Chypre Tastes {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
 Crazy Libellules & The Poppies which have specialized in the creation of whimsical perfumed sticks that are easy to carry along in your bag have launched an alcoholic fragrance, an Eau de Cologne called 26 Juin, Ile d'Yeu after an island located in the south of Brittany. It is labeled as an unisex scent...
Continue reading "Crazy Libellule & The Poppies 26 Juin, Ile d'Yeu (2009): L'Eau de Crazy Cologne {New Perfume}" »
 I can literally hear cooing when I see the advert for the new Jennifer Lopez perfume My Glow, which this time is about the glow of tender mother love....
Continue reading "Jennifer Lopez My Glow (2009): Will Make Your Heart Melt {New Perfume} {Celebrity Fragrance}" »
 For this summer, Avon have released a carefree scent inspired by and dedicated to Brazilian lifestyle. It is called Brazil Beat and features notes of vivacious fruits, celebratory florals and energizing woods. This is not much to go by but you are invited to " Feel the Passion - the enticing new fragrance that pulsates with vibrant rhythm."
 Fourreau Noir is the second latest perfume by Serge Lutens to be launched on September 1, 2009. It will be an exclusive to the Salons Shiseido at the Palais Royal in Paris. Perfume lovers in the US unofficially like to dub this both maddening and highly desirable preserve the "bell-jar perfumes" in reference to the shape of the flacons and with a tone of longing for it is less than easy to procure them outside of the European Union. Like each year, a limited-edition number of decorated bell jars (pictured above) will be available for collectors.  Like Fille en Aiguilles, Fourreau Noir appears rich with allusions to a world of sartorial symbolism. And like it too, it presents a double-entendre whereby Fourreau Noir can mean both a black sheath-dress and the scabbard for a dagger in repose. In either cases and thus tying in with the thematic of Fille en Aiguilles, female archetypal seductiveness is hinted at like never before while revealing an ongoing more recent interest in developing a perfume imagery inspired by the creator's own past in the milieu of Parisian fashion. The in-house trend started with Serge Noire and, one might argue, continued with that other material, cellophane, in Nuit de Cellophane. Now we have a girl in stilettos and a woman in a black-sheath dress. The color black is also honored anew and can be seen as a resonating point with Lutens's debut scent, Nombre Noir but also more recently, Five O'Clock au Gingembre and of course Serge Noire...
Continue reading "Serge Lutens Fourreau Noir (2009) {New Perfume}" »
 Serge Lutens recently unveiled two new perfumes, both revolving around a sartorial theme. One of the two is titled Fille en Aiguilles (the other one is Fourreau Noir) which will debut the soonest on July 1, 2009 at the Salons du Palais Royal in Paris. The scent references a summery atmosphere filled with the singing of cicadas and focuses on a material, pine (needles). The name in French is a semantic play upon "aiguilles" here both designating pine needles, as in English, and the expression "Etre en talons aiguilles" meaning to wear stiletto heels. Fille en Aiguilles can thus be read both as Girl in Pine Needles and Girl in Stiletto Heels, while making use of a raw material that is traditionally considered to veer to the masculine side of the olfactory code. Gender-wise, Serge Lutens are unisex concoctions. It is left to the interpretation of the wearer to think whether this is a perfume to be worn by a man quietly ogling the Vermeer-like named silhouette of a girl in spike heels, or of the vision of a woman rolling naked in pine needles in sandy dunes (see video) or if it is on the contrary a call to the inner girly in women, etc. The ad copy, in French especially, invites one to see in the name of the perfume an allusion to a feminine archetype...
Continue reading "Serge Lutens Fille En Aiguilles (2009) {New Perfume}" »
 American rapper and actor 50 Cent, born Curtis James Jackson III, is set to launch his debut signature fragrance called Power which is scheduled for a worldwide launch in 2010. Himself a reported user of Creed Imperial, the singer wanted his creation to smell like success and guarantees us that it does...
Continue reading "50 Cent Power (2010} {New Perfume} {Men's Cologne} {Celebrity Scent}" »
  Recent newcomer and charismatic British brand Boadicea The Victorious is preparing to launch a special library of no less than nine oud or agarwood perfumes for winter 2009. If you suspected that this is the year of oud in perfumery you would not be mistaken. I will elaborate on this hot trend later on in a separate article. The Boadicea The Victorious label is not to be confused with another UK perfume brand called Boudicca (as it happened to me), both being named after the legendary Iceni warrior-queen albeit using different forms of her name...
Continue reading "Boadicea The Victorious Winter Oud Collection (2009) {New Perfumes}" »
 The extrait bottle of Terre d'Hermès is a square. It was conceived by Philippe Mouquet, the Hermès in-house designer.
As commented upon earlier today, Hermès is on a path to subtly engineering a mainstream shift in the attitudes towards perfume from men with the upcoming introduction of an extrait version of Terre d'Hermès, a masculine national bestseller in France. It is now several hours later and we received further information that stresses further how the gesture is deliberate yet understated in style. I remembered in-between posts that Guerlain has not long ago issued an extrait version of a masculine classic, Habit Rouge, also beloved by women. Terre d'Hermès in extrait will have more far-reaching consequences potentially also because it will be much more widely accessible as I learned. If Guerlain has been playing in great part the elitist card to the umptieth degree for many of its recent fragrance launches under the tutelage of LVMH, Hermès is still thinking in terms of affordable luxury and we can hope, affordable beauty ...
Continue reading "Hermes Terre d'Hermes Parfum (2009): A First Look at a Masculine Extrait {New Perfume} {Men's Cologne}" »
 As previously posted about Dutch fashion designers Viktor & Rolf had announced an upcoming feminine perfume to be unveiled this summer. The launch just took place in Paris and the perfume is called Eau Mega. The tag line is " Megafy yourself!"... 
Continue reading "Viktor & Rolf Eau Mega (2009): Eau de Superwoman: Megafy Yourself! {New Perfume}" »
 Following up on yesterday's post about an upcoming Eau de Parfum flanker to Terre d'Hermès, I received a correction from well-informed reader M saying that perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena is actually working on an extrait version of the masculine bestseller, not on an Eau de Parfum. The Hermès press office confirmed the news this morning...
Continue reading "Hermès Terre d'Hermès Parfum (2009) {New Perfume}" »
 Perfumer: Alberto Morillas of Firmenich
Perfume Notes: powdery musk, iris powder, rose petals, modern musks, benzoin balm
 Essence is the latest perfume by designer Narciso Rodriguez who worked
with perfumer Alberto Morillas to perfect the idea of a variation on
musk. The couturier has, as it turns out, such an instinctual love for
and affinity with musk that he has de facto exclusively dedicated his
collection of signature fragrances to this raw ingredient. The
masterpiece in his library so far is his debut scent, Narciso Rodriguez
for Her in Eau deToilette version which as time passes by confirms its
enduring qualities more and more. Morillas said himself that he loves Narciso
Rodriguez for Her, composed by Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian,
and that it had not been easy for him to follow up on their creation.
In fact the process for Essence was both so tortuous and simple that
after a year of tests and deliberations, both Alberto Morillas and
Narciso Rodriguez who acted as a full-fledged artistic director, went
back to the initial idea for the scent: to make a fresh, crisp and pure
musk perfume. But the interesting thing is that Essence goes beyond
that point as I was able to find out thanks in part to happenstance.
Going back over some of the explanations given by Rodriguez, I note the
term "dual" which he applies to the packaging, "It's an idea that started with For Her. I loved the idea of duality,
that you have to get close to someone to know what they are on the
inside. The packaging for For Her was that: there was this very
mysterious black bottle encased in another classic bottle. Now that
idea has been reinvented for Essence and made very modern and very
sensuous by this futuristic but very accessible and very tactile
bottle....
Continue reading "Narciso Rodriguez Essence (2009): Dual White & Black Musk {Perfume Review} {New Perfume}" »
 Perfumer: Steven DeMercado of Fragrance Resources
Perfume Notes: Top: golden Tequila accord, Italian bergamot, Mediterranean mandarin; mid notes: Baie rose, jasmine noir, cognac, Moroccan coriander; base notes: Indonesian patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla absolute, tonka absolute, Egyptian incense, sexy musk. Queen by Queen Latifah is the hip-hop singer and actress's debut perfume with a launch scheduled for August 2009. The perfume was made to reflect her love for "golden tonalities, smooth textures, and a certain fondness for exotic flavors", all of which can be felt in the final jus. In fact, the code name for the perfume while it was still in its development stages was "Pure Gold", an indication that semantics played a role in this case to help anchor the inspiration for the fragrance. About Queen the perfume, Latifah said, "For me, beauty really does start on the inside. It's like a state of mind, a state of love if you will. I see fragrance as just a natural expression of this state of love. Scent expresses a woman's confidence and sensuality; it's how she embraces her body, her mind and her strength."
Queen Latifah has recently come into the open to magazine Essence about the secret she had been withholding about her past as a sexually molested child by a teenager who had been entrusted with her care. It makes it all the more powerful a statement. Queen which comes with the tag line "Love steps out first" is a distinctive oriental gourmand with a deep skin-scent finish and a surprisingly rather expensive-smelling sillage. Parlux who developed the fragrance prefer to dub it for their part a " warm, sexy, golden oriental."... 
Continue reading "Queen Latifah Queen (2009): {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance} {Celebrity Scent}" »
 Singer Usher will release a new fragrance, a solo men's fragrance this time called VIP. Its aim? To empower, to seduce. End of story. Or rather it sounds like the beginning of an encounter.
"I consider all of my fragrances tools of engagement for seduction --
but this one demands a different type of attention," "That is part of the
reason I led with the males only with this one -- it is made for a man
but for women to enjoy." [...]...
Continue reading "Usher VIP (2009): Two Words - Empowerment, Seduction {New Perfume} {Men's Cologne} {Celebrity Scent}" »
 ICONOfly, an art magazine founded in 2006 by Olivia Bransbourg and dedicated to the showcasing of a fashion accessory in each of their issues, have partnered with three names from the perfumery world to create a signature perfume for the magazine. Their latest issue is dedicated to the bracelet. Attache-Moi, which they translate as Hold To Me, but which I understand to be able to translate as Tie Me (Up), was composed by perfumers Christine Nagel and Benoist Lapouza of Fragrance Resources. Serge Mansau designed an artwork which is a flask-bracelet in a very limited-edition for collectors... 
Continue reading "Iconofly Attache-Moi (2009): Ode To The Bracelet and Ties {New Perfume}" »
 Rose Wood/Blackcurrant/Cyclamen
Korres has introduced a series of three perfumes presenting interesting note contrasts inspired by four main fragrance facets: spice, fruit, wood and flower. They are called - the descriptive names are quite long - Rose Wood/Blackcurrant/Cyclamen, Saffron/Amber/ Agarwood/Cardamom, Pepper/Jasmine/Gaiac Wood/Passion Fruit. Special care was taken to develop eco-friendly formulae...
Continue reading "Korres Rose Wood/Blackcurrant/Cyclamen, Saffron/Amber/ Agarwood/Cardamom, Pepper/Jasmine/Gaiac Wood/Passion Fruit (2009) {New Perfumes} " »
 Clinique have come up with the cool concept of non-liquid perfume pencils. Easy to carry and to apply without staining or scenting your fingers, you are invited to layer the scents as well to concoct your own private blend, the one that works best with your natural skin scent or your mood....
Continue reading "Clinique Happy-To-Go Perfume Pencils (2008) {Shopping Tip} {New Perfumes}" »
 British perfume house Penhaligon's established in 1870 will launch a set of four perfumes next month in a new collection entitled Anthology. The purpose of the Anthology is to propose to the public remastered versions of antique, discontinued formulae from the house.... 
Continue reading "Penhaligon's Anthology L'Eau de Verveine, Extract of Limes, Gardenia, Night Scented Stock (2009): From the Scent Archives {New Perfumes}" »
 Singer Tim McGraw following McGraw in 2008 will launch a second perfume under his name in August 2009 called Southern Blend. That will be two upcoming fragrances by celebrity Southerners with Reese Witherspoon In Bloom which is inspired by the floral scents of the South. In the case of Southern Blend, it is more about being in general simple, unpretentious and virile, the Southern way. In other words and to quote the folk singer, not French,...
Continue reading "Tim McGraw Southern Blend (2009): The Essence of the Southern Man {New Perfume} {Men's Cologne} {Celebrity Scent}" »
 Burger King just introduced in the UK their meat-flavored personal perfume called Flame. They launched it last year in the US to wide popular appeal. The concept of the advertising campaign was so right-on that the vial spray perfumes sold out in 4 days. The scent was then faced by a Mr. Burger King, this time it is fronted in the same outrageously campy style by British celebrity Piers Morgan best-known internationally as the host of Britain's Got Talent and supporter and crush of singer Susan Boyle....
Continue reading "Burger King Flame (2008/2009): Overtones of a Whopper {New Fragrance} {Perfume Images} {Celebrity Scent}" »
 Parfums Frapin, a perfumery extension of the famous Cognac brand, is launching a new men's perfume called L'Humaniste (The Humanist) as an homage paid to 16th century writer François Rabelais author of Pantagruel, Gargantua and more. The writer, physician and humanist also happens to be an ancestor of the Frapin family. L'Humaniste is said to represent the essence of a modern-day humanist and to address itself to a man for whom non-material values are more important than banal consumption,...
Continue reading "Frapin L'Humaniste (2009): An Homage to Rabelais and Humanism {New Perfume} {Men's Cologne}" »
 Perfumer Ineke Rühland of San Francisco has a new, 6th perfume coming out in her alphabet series called F-Field Notes from Paris. The fragrance is inspired by autobiographical memories from her sojourn in the City of Lights when she used to study at the perfumery school ISIPCA in Versailles in the late 1990s. In particular, the perfume is nurtured by a nostalgic outlook on iconic places like Parisian cafés and more precisely " It encapsulates the nostalgic ambience of nursing a coffee at a Parisian café."...
Continue reading "Ineke F-Field Notes from Paris (2009): Naturalist's Notes in the City {New Perfume} - Update" »
|
Digg This
Stumble
Facebook
Del.icio.us
