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 UK fashion label Monsoon has introduced a perfume in its image, that is, choke-full of colors and bearing an ethnic-chic signature. The perfume and the toiletries collection were developed in partnership with traditional British brand Bronnley....
Continue reading "Monsoon by Monsoon with Bronnley (2008) {New Perfume}" »
 Annika Sorenstam at the Espy Awards, July 16, 2008 © Mayer
Swedish golfer and super champion Annika Sorenstam will launch a perfume and wine bearing her name in May 2009, both called Annika. They are both developed by SA Fragrances, a company based in the Boston greater area which has also contributed to the creations of perfumes such as Calvin Klein Eternity, Obsession, Dior Poison, Chanel Coco, and more. From the press release, "SA Fragrances announced today their plan to develop a signature fragrance
inspired by legendary golfer Annika Sorenstam. Set to be released
in advance of Mother's Day 2009, the fragrance will evoke the essence
of Annika, a distinctive, casually elegant and naturally beautiful woman.
Arguably the most dominant
female golfer of all time, Annika has transcended her sport to become
a prominent mainstream athlete and celebrity. Throughout her storied
career, she has rewritten the LPGA and Ladies European Tour record books,
won countless awards and events and brought unprecedented attention
to women's golf. Along the way, she has inspired millions of young
women worldwide...
Continue reading "Annika Sorenstam Annika Fragrance (& Wine) (2009) {New Fragrance} {Celebrity Perfume}" »
 Jo Malone have launched a new scent called Pine & Eucalyptus, in a limited-edition collection of fragrances for the home and body; the Living Cologne doubles as both a home and skin perfume. Other products are a home candle, luxury candle (with 4 wicks), bath oil, and bath soaps...
Continue reading "Jo Malone Pine & Eucalyptus (2008) {New Fragrance} " »
 Who would have thought that Aquolina would one day launch a perfume extract of their original Pink Sugar, back in 2002? Its style, following the vision of Antonella Pascale, was meant to be casual and playful. It smelled of warm cookies and sugared candy floss aplenty. It completely lacked pretension. Yet, thanks to its enduring popularity, this non-slavish take on the concept of a Thierry Mugler Angel, the archetypal gourmand oriental, has now a luxurious version of itself in the person of Pink Sugar Luxury Extract...
Continue reading "Aquolina Pink Sugar Luxury Extract (2008) {New Perfume}" »
 Chanel are proposing a new two-in-one version of Coco Mademoiselle that will be attractive to beauty and perfume aficionadas. Party-goers, take note! Need a little bit of glaming-up with your décolleté? Here is Coco Mademoiselle in a shimmering gel version called Shimmering Touch and Touche Scintillante in French...
Continue reading "Chanel Coco Mademoiselle Shimmering Touch - Touche Scintillante (2008) {New Fragrance}" »
 Jeans label True Religion has introduced a new perfume for women simply called True Religion Eau de Parfum. The bottle is cute, a little bit Gothic and a little bit grunge. "Day or night, this clean scent takes you on a refreshing journey
with an opening of sparkling fruits, adding freshness andvitality. A
captivating floral heart mingles with sweet yet tart nuances of pear
blossom further enveloping your spirit. Warm woods and skin-like musks
are woven throughout the background, embracing you in deep sensuality.
It is a delicious and very addictive fragrance statement."
It is available at Nordstrom, 50 ml for $59 and $79 for 100 ml. You receive a True Religion canvas tote with your $79 purchase, while supply lasts.
  Playboy Bunnies Shannon, Lindsey and Colleen at the fragrances launch party at the Hotel on Rivington in New York City on October 30, 2008. © J. Kohen Not everyone can be Hugh Hefner and he understands that. But you can get the Word translated into perfume and spread the message around. Sex guru, eye-candy master and lifestyle coach Hefner has launched a series of four perfumes for men destined to awaken your desires and those of your elected partners while teaching a lesson on life. The latter part seems as important as the first and that is to learn to play the Hefner way, meaning living your own personal dreams and, very importantly, leaving as little as possible to chance. This venture comes as Playboy has been experiencing financial difficulties due to a drop of circulation of their magazine, but no one can deny the major impact Playboy has had on pop culture. Hollywood Playboy, Vegas Playboy, Miami Playboy and Malibu Playboy, developed by Coty Inc., are all meant to capture a different type of man, each associated with the spirit of a particular place known for its high-living style... Playboy Playmates Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt, and Kendra Wilkinson © J. Kohen
Continue reading "Quatuor Of Fragrances For Your Inner Playboy: Hollywood, Vegas, Miami, Malibu Playboys (2008) {New Perfumes} {Men's Colognes}" »
  Actress Sarah Jessica Parker is expanding further the lure of her Lovely Collection with three new perfumes meant to mark three different periods of the day: Dawn, Endless, Twilight. In other words it is an invitation to stay longer with your Lovely choice. The original Lovely was launched in 2005 and was followed by a Liquid Satin version. Coty Prestige reportedly intends to develop this franchise still further in the future. Regarding the time-of-the-day concept, Lisa Hoffman, Dustin Hoffman's wife, already had the idea not too long ago with her Variations Collection. According to WWD, Coty Prestige was inspired by their other fragrance-development venture, Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Lovers, a set of five perfumes... 
Continue reading "Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely Collection: Dawn, Endless, Twilight (2008) {New Fragrances} {Celebrity Perfumes}" »
 British perfumer Mark Buxton has launched a collection of 7 fragrances under his own independent label called Metamorphoses of Colours and Moods. The idea behind it is to enable you to find the perfume best-suited to your personality or mood by inviting you to look at a color chart and clicking on the square that is most attractive to you. The seven perfumes that you can discover are: Wood & Absinth, Black Angel, Hot Leather, English Breakfast, Around Midnight, Sounds & Visions, Nameless...
Continue reading "Mark Buxton Metamorphoses of Colours & Mood (2008) {New Fragrances}" »
 Quirky Spanish design brand Custo Barcelona, with an unending affection for bold colors and prints, has launched its first signature fragrance bearing the same name. The perfume was created by perfumer Alberto Morillas and is reported to be both " appetising and innovative"; the novel twist is immediately conveyed by the name of the family of the scent categorized as a " fruity floral cypress", with cypress being more unexpected... 
Continue reading "Custo Barcelona by Custo Barcelona (2008) {New Perfume} - Cypress Is In {Trend Alert}" »
 Etro has launched a new version of one of their harder-to-find fragrances, Via Verri, called Via Verri Vintage; it is a limited-edition. It is possible that it could be considered as a "reformulation" of the original scent but it could also just as much be a "flanker" of sorts, recycling the name in part with a new jus under a similar name. It sounds like it is the latter case...
Continue reading "Etro Via Verri Vintage Limited Edition (2008) {New Perfume}: A New Via Verri" »
 Estée Lauder Amber Ylang Ylang Eau de ParfumThe Skinny:
Perfumers: Honorine Blanc and Annie Buzantian
Artistic director: Aerin Lauder
Gender label: feminine; men could make it their own if they care to remember Macassar oil
Notes: Italian Bergamot, geranium oil, cinnamon SFE, Golden Amber, Ylang Ylang absolute, Bulgarian Rose absolute, Honey, Incense, Vanilla and Sandalwood.
Characteristics: modern soft ambery oriental with slightly old-fashioned styled florals
Personality: soft, sensual, warm, courteous, graceful
Wearability: a cinch
Price point: $$ (Eau de Parfum) and $$$ (extrait)
Bottle: "The parfum
bottle cap is adorned with semi precious stones of tiger eye, smokey quartz
and red agate. The eau de parfum bottle cap was inspired by an exquisite
hammered gold necklace and matching bracelet Aerin received as a gift from her
grandmother Estee."
Perfumes discussed: Estee Lauder Intuition, Yves Rocher Voile d'Ambre (just for pointers), Bourbon French Parfums Heliotrope
Estée Lauder Amber Ylang Ylang is the second installment in the Private Collection series inaugurated with Tuberose Gardenia last year. The Private Collection is the equivalent of the concept of the private reserve for luxury alcohols. It aims to bring an enhanced experience of refinement to customers by paying more attention to the raw materials used, letting them speak for themselves if you will. It is apparent to me now that the collection bears the personal mark of Aerin Lauder: Amber Ylang Ylang just like Tuberose Gardenia bespeaks of a certain brand of soft femininity and social grace. Exotic flowers that could be let loose as unruly, heady and erotic (tuberose; ylang ylang) come here to adorn perfect decoration-magazine pages (or silver-screen imagery) letting go of their reputation for unpredictability in exchange for a touch of gentility. Instead of using the word "polite" I want to use the term "courteous". Aerin Lauder explained the inspiration for the perfume, "To me, a perfect evening is a private one, spent at home with family
and friends. So the fragrance captures the essence of an
enjoyable evening in a warm, inviting room filled with the luxurious
textures of wood, velvet and cashmere. "Private Collection Amber Ylang
Ylang represents the relaxed intimacy and quiet comforts that we love
to come home to at the end of the day."
And again, "For me, there is nothing more inviting and warm than rich browns and gold - brown velvet
couches, gold accents in lamps, tables, vases and frames,"...
Continue reading "Estee Lauder Amber Ylang Ylang (2008): Cosy Cashmere Throw {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance} {Advert}" »
 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}" »
 Zero Otto in collaboration with Italian Gold-leaf conceptual artist Anna Carla de Leonardis just launched a new line of perfumes in Rome. The trio of scents is meant to interpret her vision of art and creativity into fragrance. The perfumes are called after three nuances of the precious metal gold: Or Blanc (White Gold), Or Rose (Pink Gold), Or Jaune (Yellow Gold) with the tag line " From golden pictures to perfumes: art is transformed into its essence." The new perfume brand is also inspired by the spirit of the Italian medieval alchemical tradition and by exotic materials brought back by travelers in past centuries... 
Continue reading "1528 Parfums Or Blanc, Or Rose, Or Jaune (2008) {New Fragrances} & Gold-Trend Alert" »
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