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 Persephone is Sali Oguri's second fragrance composition following Pink Manhattan. If the latter was evocative of spring and summer, the new perfume oil with its dark-colored deeper velvety tones seems to reveal more affinities with the fall season. The myth of Persephone or Proserpine calls to mind the ever-unfolding cycle of nature and the cold season of winter in particular. Both perfume and goddess are seen as sources of warmth and are the origins of contrasted perceptions of fertility and deathly darkness (albeit preceding rebirth), an idea that is illustrated with a dark fruit theme in the fragrance.
Despite its warmer, less sunny, more hushed-down quality that evokes the comfort and pleasure of wearing cashmere on a cold foggy day, the perfume ends up imposing more its character as an intimate sexy skin scent that could be worn all year long, depending on the sensual mood of the moment rather than on the passing of the seasons.......
Continue reading "Persephone by Sali Oguri {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfume}" »
 Estée Lauder is preparing to launch their new Azurée Soleil Tom Ford Estée Lauder Collection Summer 2007 line of fragrances and makeup which will be available in April. Following the smashing success of the Tom Ford Estée Lauder Azurée Oil last year, the company is releasing the Body Oil Spray again while adding fragrance newcomers to the line in the forms of a body lotion and an Eau Fraîche/Skinscent. The review here is for the "fresh water" alcohol-based version of their best-seller.....
Continue reading "Summer 2007 Azurée Soleil Eau Fraîche/Skinscent by Tom Ford Estée Lauder {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfume}" »
After having shared our impressions of the new line of Les Exclusifs by Chanel and reviewed 31, Rue Cambon while giving further impressions of the line, we are now completing the task of reviewing the remaining fragrances.
Bel Respiro was named after Coco Chanel's retreat in Garches, purchased in 1920 in the suburb of Paris. The designer herself preferred to dub it "Noix de Coco" (Coconut).
The fragrance starts with a soapy and green accord. It then sweetens up with light amber all the while keeping the suggestion of an armful of fresh leaves, herbs, and stems. Deeper ambergris undertones underline the now thicker forest-y accents as the mood gets slightly darker and shadowy with some discrete peppery touches to spice up the brew. It is a short ode sung to the beauty of green herbaceous notes and the presence and sensuality of a woman. If you lean in close enough you will be able to smell the balmy woods scenting the nape of her neck after the wind has brushed her hair during her walk in an abstract green scenery where there are no or little flowers. The perfume is a new, stylistically economical take on such classics as Chanel no 19 and Vent Vert by Balmain and might remind American perfume wearers in particular of the very herbal verdancy of Private Collection by Estée Lauder.....
Continue reading "Les Exclusifs: Bel Respiro, No 18, & 28 La Pausa by Chanel {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfumes}" »
The latest release by Gucci is a masculine perfume called Gucci Pour Homme II. It was created by the Proctor & Gamble team and Mane. It includes fresh and silvan top notes of bergamot and violet leaves. The heart unfolds on a spicy accord of pimento, black tea, and cinnamon. The base deepens with notes of olive wood, tobacco leaves, musks, and myrrh. The perfume is a follow-up to Gucci Pour Homme. It is reminiscent of the incensey notes of the first one only en passant while taking on a very different persona. Markus Strobel, general manager of prestige products and fine fragrances for P & G said "the formula is aimed at hitting "the sweet spot" between providing a "fresh, easy to wear' ambience, "a masculine sensuality" and a "distinct, memorable" sensation." He also added "I think we've never spent as much time on a male fragrance as we did on this one, and it really is amazing,". It took Gucci two years to design the fragrance and the result is indeed remarkable.....
Continue reading "Gucci Pour Homme II by Gucci {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfume} {Men's Cologne}" »
Futuristic Perfumes After having whetted our appetite with the announcement of the upcoming release of Azzaro Now and, especially, recently reviewed the new CK IN2U, we wanted to seek out other examples of the futuristic trend in fragrance creation. For these fragrances, the sensations that they create make one feel like one is entering an universe that has been depicted most often in science-fiction novels or movies. They aim at disorienting the perfume wearer, but it must be added, only to some extent. Taking into account the fact that olfaction is the sense of memory, these perfumes, although they make reference to a world that seems hard to place at first, are really artful combinations of familiar and novel notes that tease our senses of both the affective past and the projected future......
Continue reading "Neblina/L'Esprit de Neblina by Yves Rocher {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
L'Ombre Fauve (Tawny/Bestial Shadow) is one of the latest offerings by Parfumerie Générale. The perfume was created by Pierre Guillaume, founder of and perfumer for the house. The beauty of this fragrance to me is striking and moreover magnetic in its aura, relying principally on effects of depth and texture rather than search for unusual notes taken in isolation.....
Continue reading "L'Ombre Fauve by Parfumerie Générale {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfume}" »
Floral fragrances for men still constitute a minority group in modern Western smell culture, notwithstanding the creations of memorable perfumes such as Caron Pour Un Homme (lavender), Dior Eau Sauvage (jasmine/hedione), Dior Fahrenheit (violet), and more recently, Dior Homme (iris). Having survived from the 19th century, we can also still find perfumes like Penhaligon Hammam Bouquet (1872) and Guerlain Jicky (1889) which have marked floral characters. Jicky was originally meant to be a unisex fragrance but was adopted by men first.....
Continue reading "Fleur du Mâle by Jean-Paul Gaultier {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfume} {Men's Cologne}" »
As previously reported, the upcoming perfume launch by Calvin Klein has adopted the rapid text messaging style of the new digital generation to define its image and is called CK in2u. According to the press release, "ck one is about connecting with the group, ck be is about connecting with yourself, and ck IN2U is all about connecting with another person." Even before the perfumes have been made available to the public (but you will read a review of them first here), the advertising campaign around the duo of fragrances for her and for him is generating quite a stir in the media and in particular in the blogosphere where acerbic remarks seem to resound like shouts emanating from angry young people, precisely the ones targeted by the advertisers, i.e., the millenials or people born between 1982 and 1995......
Continue reading "CK IN2U for Her & CK IN2U for Him by Calvin Klein {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfumes}" »
 As previously reported, Angels of Florence is a perfume that was released by the historical Italian perfume brand Santa Maria Novella in the fall of 2006 to help raise funds for the restoration of the 18 000 remaining books that are still left damaged by the flood of 1966 in Florence. The Santa Maria Novella line of fragrances I feel a particular tenderness for as their perfumes are of the good artisanal sort of quality with a definite old-world and even at times quaint charm.....
Continue reading "Angels of Florence By Santa Maria Novella {Perfume Review & Musing}" »
La Fuite des Heures, also marketed under the English name Fleeting Moment, was created in 1949 by the great perfumer Germaine Cellier who also gave us Coeur-Joie by Nina Ricci, Bandit by Piguet, Elysées 64-83, Jolie Madame,Vent Vert, and Monsieur Balmain by Balmain, amongst others. Her style can be characterized as bold, forceful (Bandit, Vent Vert) yet also capable of creating infinitesimally subtle nuances (Coeur-Joie). Today, one can find traces of her more forceful, almost primitive style at times in Mona di Orio's work, while her originality can be found again in Olivia Giacobetti's creations. La Fuite des Heures contains both her primitivist and softer romantic sense of nuances. Like the picture La Danse (The Dance) by Fauvist André Derain who was a friend of Germaine Cellier and for whom she posed, it is an ensemble of bold and graceful lines and as it turns out, seems to be colored with the same color tones: the brown of the amber, the grey of ambergris, the dark brown of leather, the chartreuse green of the anise, the darker green of thyme, the yellow of the hay, the mauve of the violet or orris, the golden hues (for me) of jasmine......
Continue reading "La Fuite Des Heures by Cristobal Balenciaga {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
 Continuing our presentation of a series of fresh scents that might appeal to people who like simplicity, we now turn to Tommy Girl 10. Tommy Hilfiger launched this perfume together with Tommy 10 (for men) last summer to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their perfume business. The description of the notes is alluring and as it turns out the fragrance itself does not disappoint. It possesses a very American quality in our eye of being fresh and clean at the same time with light florals that avoid being completely pedestrian by showcasing a water lily note that smells a bit different and even singular. It resembles the lily in Crown Perfumery Alpine Lily, a scent that it is discontinued and which makes one appreciate even more its presence in Tommy Girl 10. It is also reminiscent of another hard-to-find fragrance, Message from Orchids by Shiseido......
Continue reading "Tommy Girl 10 by Tommy Hilfiger {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
 How addictive can freshness be? If you want to smell like you had just stepped out of the shower all day long and are wearing crisp freshly ironed linen, then look no further, Shower Fresh by Clean was just made for that purpose. The perfume has opening notes of lemon, mandarin, and orange. Heart notes are lily of the valley, orange blossom, and jasmine. Base notes are sheer musks and woods.....
Continue reading "Shower Fresh by Clean {Perfume Review & Musings} {Notebook: Fresh & Clean}" »
31, Rue Cambon is one of the six latest perfume creations by Chanel and part of Les Exclusifs collection comprising ten scents in all, including the re-editions (merely a change of packaging it seems) of the four classic Chanel boutique scents, namely Bois des Îles, Cuir de Russie, Gardénia, and no 22. The Style of the Collection Les Exclusifs de Chanel
The six new additions, that is, Bel Respiro, 28 La Pausa, No 18, Coromandel, Eau de Cologne, and 31, Rue Cambon one can intuitively sub-divide into three groups within the more general minimalist aesthetic orientation of the line: Coromandel and 31, Rue Cambon are voluntarily, it seems, sketchier versions of classic complex perfumes whose charm rely in part on the attractive warmth of their jus. 28 La Pausa and No 18 are more temperate scents with modernistic accents and center on the particular showcasing of one main rare ingredient, iris and ambrette seed respectively. Finally, Bel Respiro and Eau de Cologne develop the theme of fresh perfumes.....
Continue reading "Les Exclusifs: 31, Rue Cambon by Chanel {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfume}" »
 Réminiscence is a Parisian fashion jewelry and accessory line of boutiques and among their offerings one can also find a collection of perfumes (see our review of Jammin). Patchouli is the star item of the brand. Réminiscence readily calls it, its "fetish fragrance". It is part of a smaller collection of three main-note perfumes, the two other scents being called Ambre (Amber) and Musc (Musk). It was created in 1970 by perfumer Francis Camail in the era of the hippie Orientalist vogue and some would say overwhelmingly popular campus scents such as musk and, precisely, patchouli. Yet, its popularity endures and for good reason. Juliette Binoche wore this perfume when she played the role of George Sand in the movie Les Enfants Du Siècle (Children of the Century), a depiction of the writer's tumultuous love relationship with poet Alfred de Musset as the actress wanted to enter better into the character of George Sand who is well known for having had a single-minded predilection for Patchouli (see our review of Maître Gantier et Parfumeur George Sand, a patchouli scent re-created by Nicolas de Barry based in part on historical data)....
Continue reading "Patchouli by Réminiscence {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
Bryant Park is the 28th fragrance launched by Bond no 9 and will debut on March 1st 2007. The scent pays homage to yet another area of New York city after which it is named. The jus was created by perfumer Michel Almairac and includes top notes of lily of the valley, rhubarb, pink pepper; heart notes are rose and patchouli; base notes are raspberry and amber. Bryant Park is a slightly sharp aquatic floral rose-patchouli based scent that easily evokes spring and summer. It is a very fresh and refreshing scent with a thirst-quenching quality about it. Thinking of Bryant Park, one can readily imagine oneself being transported under the shadows of ample trees, feeling a cooling breeze caressing one's cheeks and even the delicate mist from the nearby Shaw Lowell Memorial Foutain vaporising into the air.....
Continue reading "Bryant Park by Bond no 9 {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfume} {Shopping Tip}" »
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Fin O'Suilleabhain on
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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}
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