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Eau de Cologne Bergamotto Marino by Ferrè was launched in 2005 as an unisex fragrance, two years before the premature death of Italian designer Gianfranco Ferrè. The composition is signed by master perfumer Pierre Bourdon, the man behind scents such as Féminité du Bois (with Christopher Sheldrake), Cool Water by Davidoff or French Lover by Frédéric Malle. One of the ideas behind this little-known perfume was to capture the scent of the fruits growing on the Ionian coast swept by the oceanic air and which thus become permeated with it, "Its fruits are imbued with scents carried by sea winds on the coast, toward the Strait of Messina." In a way, we are witnessing here the encounter of the dark woody plum of Féminité du Bois with the marine accord of Cool Water. The scent feels "niche" in its olfactory signature. The packaging, which made me mistake it at first for a confidential, very limited work by Frédéric Malle, reinforces the feeling that what is cultivated here is a certain idea of urban sleekness and suavity which is often best represented in perfumery by the so-called niche sub-culture and codes. A perfume packaging which looks like a tome - Malle was famously inspired by the typographic codes of French publishing house Gallimard - can only suggest a fragrance that knows what it's about and gets to the point. One can expect it to smell essentialist and intellectual...
Continue reading "Gianfranco Ferrè Eau de Cologne Bergamotto Marino (2005): Contemporary Cologne {Fragrance Review}" »
First (1976), the original, is remarkable to me as a re-take on the aldehydic genre (cf. Chanel No. 5) comingling with fruity and green notes. A complex tapestry of notes, it nevertheless offers a distinctive, immediately recognizable olfactory signature, a crucial element to merit the name of a fragrance composition in the fullest sense of these two terms. This is why despite the fact that perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena has expressed some reservations about this early work of his, it is still worthy of anyone's attention. Not too many perfumes can benefit from an instant recognition factor. To have done so while conjuring up the liquid ambery ghosts of classics like the No. 5 by Chanel and Arpège by Lanvin shows the uncanny gift that some perfumers have for meshing deep tradition with innovation. Un Air de First by perfumer Nathalie Gracia-Cetto prevails itself of the liberty of being an echo of First, not its faithful copy. Her perfumery work seems impeccable as the blotter can testify: the perfume smells incredibly good and tantalizing on paper days afterwards. While it made me think Un Air de First might have the substance to be more than a flanker, I am less sure when I wear it as it seems a tad too discreet. Perhaps it aimed to be an Eau Première to its Chanel No. 5 but in order to endure as such it would need perhaps a little more frontal presence in my opinion while I cannot but admire its effective enveloping sillage and its maestria...
Continue reading "Van Cleef & Arpels Un Air de First (2011) {Fragrance Review}" »
Bulgari Mon Jasmin Noir (My Black Jasmine) new this spring, is the follow-up perfume creation to Jasmin Noir which was released in 2008 and co-created by noses Sophie Labbé and Carlos Benaïm. The sequel sees Labbé back, collaborating this time with perfumer Olivier Polge. Sophie Labbé said that she wanted the new creation to convey the sense of “the glow of a diamond in golden caramel” [cf. Qantas Magazine], while the Sephora website in France states in a more diffusive manner that "Mon Jasmin Noir reveals the new facet of a mysterious and imaginary flower unveiling its dazzling charm and the innocence of its sensuality." The latter assertion anchors the scent in the recognizable abstract-flower tradition of perfumery like the original which was a stylistic licence poétique taken on jasmine, a so-called "white-floral" in perfumery. To say that a flower smells white is pure psychological association and meaningless otherwise, except for the indoles since night-blooming flowers use their heady scents to attract and are white to be better spotted in that milieu...
Continue reading "Bulgari Mon Jasmin Noir (2011): Great Ads, Elegant Scent {Fragrance Review}" »
L'Air by Nina Ricci is the latest major fragrance launch by the house. It was reportedly "...composed around the vibrant smoothness of magnolia, L'Air has a luminous, floral bouquet, with a sparkling signature and trail." It follows up in short order on the success of the younger Ricci Ricci, a perfume equally inspired by the showcasing of a floral note, that of a Belle-de-Nuit one. I find it easier a task, but also somewhat a more superficial one in this case, to give an account of the story of L'Air than of its olfactory profile, given the subtle, understated complexity of the latter. In its imagery, the perfume taps into the bygone days of Parisian youth culture of the 1960s offering a mixed message of vintage youth culture relying on icons such as actress Jean Seberg, the French New Wave cinema and of course, Paris. To summarize, the narrative message of the scent tends to be a sedate, heritage-oriented one. The perfume's own story-telling is subtler, I find. At first blush it apears to aim to smell younger than its semantic predecessor L'Air du Temps while opting to recreate well-received current olfactory cultural patterns. L'Air would seem to be a perfume of continuity in time rather than a challenge to our representations and sensations where olfactory motifs are concerned. On the other hand, its structure, its behavior as a perfume is absolutely resistant to any easy reviewing, a trait I find fascinating pointing more surely than anything else in my opinion to its unique nature as an object which is a perfume and nothing else. The scent is a discreetly multifaceted composition, chameleon-like with an incredible presence as a perfume, a fact, I think I am able to perceive in the glimpses I get into its sillage and capacity to surf on the air waves and smell different each time...
Continue reading "Nina Ricci L'Air (2011): Subtle Body - Corps Subtil {Fragrance Review}" »
Un Jardin sur le Toit (A Roof-Top Garden) is the latest opus in the Jardin collection by Hermès. It might be the last one according to perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena who has expressed qualms about the more commercial orientation the collection is taking. The penultimate "jardin-parfum", Un Jardin après la Mousson personally strikes me as a perfumer's study of accords. Perhaps then Ellena means his having had to supervise the creation of functional products derived from the collection like the All-Over Sprays. The wardrobe now comprises four perfumes including the first, Un Jardin en Méditerranée, and the second one, Un Jardin sur le Nil. Usually inspired by exotic locales or at least a change of scenery seen from the perspective of Paris being the epicenter of it all happening (I am thinking of Un Jardin en Méditerranée), the upcoming new garden scent entitled Un Jardin sur le Toit is this time about a familiar place: an urban garden, the roof-top garden of the Hermès headquarters overlooking the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, at number 24...
Continue reading "Hermès Un Jardin sur le Toit (2011): Two Manners of Jean-Claude Ellena Fuse in Vegetal Fireworks {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
 The musk-perfume collection built overtime by American fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez since the launch of his bestseller Narciso Rodriguez for Her in 2003 has redefined a portion of what our olfactory expectations for musk are in today's society. Inspired by youth memories in Cuba, but also it has been said by the predilection of late celebrity client Caroline Kennedy for Egyptian musk, Narciso Rodriguez has contributed to musk trails becoming sweeter, fruitier, more solar and cleaner.
With the latest iteration, Essence Eau de Musc, a flanker to Essence by Narciso Rodriguez (2009), the musk note has become even more the paradoxical sign of crisp and clean by being associated more unequivocally with the genre of the fresh, neo-traditional Eau de Cologne recreating the sensation of cooling in the shade of orange blossom trees in the summer...
Continue reading "Narciso Rodriguez Essence Eau de Musc (2011) {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
Shalimar Parfum Initial is part of the cultural and marketing movement at Guerlain to revamp the classics-of-the classics that the house is famous for. Its name alludes to a song by Serge Gainsbourg, Initial B. B., while evoking a first time. Other houses may have classics; Guerlain have the privilege, with Chanel, of harboring several classics-of-the-classics which are instantly recognizable. In 2007, there was Vol de Nuit Evasion, a faux flanker to Vol de Nuit and a real one to Attrape Coeur renamed Guet-Apens. In 2009 Jean-Paul Guerlain created Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus, a real flanker and a successful one at that, in my opinion, to Mitsouko. In 2010, Shalimar got ts own first new makeover since Eau de Shalimar (2008) with Shalimar Ode à la Vanille and a few months later, in 2011, Shalimar Parfum Initial. The speed is picking up as Idylle, which is not yet a classic, has already been re-invested with follow-up launch excitement with Idylle EDT and more recently Idylle Duet. The flanker policy is probably taking over that of a rethink of the classics. I would argue however that if in Shalimar Ode à la Vanille, the flanker logic was dominant - to offer a twist - with Shalimar Parfum Initial, the cultural curating that accompanies the launch of certain venerable fragrances of the house has been authentically set in motion...
Continue reading "Shalimar Parfum Initial (2011): A New Nuance of Eroticism {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
After the first few seconds trying to grapple with the orientation of the scent - something less than obvious, such is its vagueness - you just want to say that it smells good, very good. 34 Boulevard Saint Germain is the latest opus from the germanopratin perfume house which opened their first boutique in 1961 at said address. Diptyque is one of the earliest "niche" perfume houses to have opened the way to others although it started out as a decorative textile home boutique, then a general home decoration store focusing on the imports of English and Oriental curios. In 1964, Diptyque started carrying Culpeper agabartis and pot-pourris from England and soon they were proposing English perfumes from the houses of Culpeper, Floris, Trumper and Penhaligon's under the unfluence in particular of one of the three founders, Desmond Knox-Lee. The two other walker-ons were Christiane Montadre-Gautrot and Yves Coueslant. Elizabeth de Feydeau recounts in the commissioned monography Diptyque that sometimes boats from England would deliver their goods for the store right next door at the pont d'Austerlitz. The mark of the 18th century English barber perfume tradition with its accent put on freshness and lightness as well as a certain functional and aesthetic spareness, one could retrospectively point out, has left an imprint on the perfume house ever since. Seeing this thread is realizing that just like the English tailored tradition has been influential in creating a sense of minimalism in French fashion, so did its perfumery tradition born in barber shops help create the minimalist, economy-of-means orientation that is one of the characteristics of French niche perfumery albeit complexified by the French legacy of fashion and art....
Continue reading "Diptyque 34 Boulevard Saint Germain (2011): A Perfume that Just Smells of Perfume...and Adventure {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
With its tender image and slogan "One day the world will be awash in tenderness," Anaïs Anaïs by Cacharel, was launched in 1978 as the conscious anti-thesis to the musk and patchouli oils trailing off the hippie Woodstock grounds but also to their nemesis, the conquering Charlie-type woman in business straight pants and jacket. It may lure you into thinking that you will experience an innocent pastel floral scent fit for young girls only. While the main marketing aim of the project was indeed at the time to woo the young, it still remains that 50% of its wearers turned out to be older than 25 years old. To be influenced by the images of the fragrance would be to forget the dual olfactory pull of the fragrance itself which from the start was purposefully designed to convey a sense of being both "tender and sexy." Rediscovering the perfume today is to realize its little advertized yet undeniable sexual character. The reason one should retry this perfume and consider it as a seductive option for Valentine's Day, is in my opinion due to its unique brand of sexiness. If you want a date-musk which is not Kiehl's, nor The Body Shop White Musk, nor Narciso Rodriguez for Her, (the two first which are wafting harder onto the street from the stores these days prior to the 14th of February) and test a different formula of feminine scented sexuality, give Anaïs Anaïs a whirl...
Continue reading "Cacharel Anaïs Anaïs (1978): Dedicated to the Goddess of Love, Thanks to Exaltolide {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
From the bottle, still captive, the scent: Jeux de Peau, the latest Serge Lutens - and as always, eagerly awaited new creation - appears to be a very elegant, boozy, cereal-y concoction with a hint of melted butter. On subsequent tries, it strikes you how extraordinary it is that the smell wafting from an invisible pecan pie suspended in mid-air could feel so ethereal and realistic at the same time. The secret of the nose-cum-chef appears to be an immortelle-and-iris accord which bespeaks of the joys of feasting but also of the sensuality of pale skin, as pale as white flour, of death, and of immortality. The interview offered by the house alludes to the transiency of life thanks to evanescent yet precise aromas conjuring up the realm of childhood memories. Introspective Gourmand-Oriental  For starters, Jeux de Peau (Skin Games) continues to weave the gourmand-oriental thematic which is so peculiar to the author and certainly winning to someone like me as I recall that when the house opened, my very first two purchases were Arabie and Douce Amère isolating them as the two most distinctive and "different" perfumes next to the more classical yet beautiful florals like Sa Majesté la Rose (see review) or Datura Noir. An influence on the Lutensian universe which has been little explored, if at all, is its possibility to have been what it is thanks to the inspiration sourced from the iconic modern gourmand-oriental born in the 90s, Angel by Thierry Mugler. Lutens loves to parallel cedar wood with pastry for instance, an unusual synesthetic association which seems perfectly right-sounding to him. His perfumes, in a way, are like grocery stores of olfactive memorabilia, souk baskets of treats.
I am of the school that thinks that this gourmand-oriental concept was more than hinted at as early as in the 1920s with Shalimar by Guerlain. If we go back further in time, heliotrope perfumes with their cherry-pie note would be the timid groundbreakers of our olfactory nerve pathways that made it possible in the long run to admit foody perfumes on skin. What Serge Lutens has done is turn the gourmand-oriental genre into an introspective genre, going further than Angel in that childhood memory serves not only nostalgia but the contemplation of the present and interrogations about the future. Nowhere have you seen gustatory notes capable of evoking such metaphysical or oniric disquiet. Food, we learn with Lutens, can be deep...
Continue reading "Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau (2011): No Truths, Just Skin, One Truth, Death Will Make Us Part {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Fragrance}" »
Incense Oud signed By Kilian is the latest installment and part of the Arabian Nights collection. It will be introduced in March of 2011. The collection was created in 2009 to meet the demands for the new and somewhat manufactured taste for oud in Europe. More theoretically, I thought of it as the Middle Eastern genre the Orientalist family in fragrance, as I put it in a review of Annick Goutal Musc Nomade in 2008. Oud has become the key material of a new process of fragrance acculturation I dubbed Oud Aromania. It makes you think of a historical parallel, that of the arrival of patchouli in Europe from the mid 19th century.. Perhaps more importantly contributing to the durability of the phenomenon is the fact that there appears to be a dynamic of self-appropriation, a Western liberty and playfulness with revered oud which is apparent and runs parallel to the more heavily Middle Eastern atmosphere of evident oud compositions. An early, non-evident oud perfume is a contrario the little known Nina Ricci Deci-Delà. Incense Oud is an evident oud composition and a less evident incense one. It is, generally speaking, a subtle pairing of the two main materials. If you expected this new opus to be particularly smoky, in-your-face as well as the most mystical to date of the Arabian Nights perfumes, you would have soon to realize that perfumer Calice Becker working jointly with Kilian Hennessy both instinctively decided to turn to understatement and elegant restraint leaving the intensely mystical atmosphere at the door...
Continue reading "By Kilian Incense Oud (2011): Incense and Wine {Fragrance Review} {New Perfume}" »
Jimmy Choo EDP is the very debut fragrance of the luxury shoe brand. It was long in the making, in the sense of having been announced very early on in 2007 for a spring 2009 release which was pushed back to a winter 2011 one. Will it be capable of generating as much excitement as a pair of Choos? is probably the aim of the label. The bottle, inspired by Venetian Murano glass and red-carpet-ready high heels studded with crystals is pure eye candy. The pinks are delicately vintage. The rounded flacon offers the heft of a paperweight. The cap is a nice, moody blue-black and sets an angular contrast with the faded rosy glass of the honeycombed flacon. The scent creation itself was entrusted to perfumer Olivier Polge who is becoming more and more of an established signature in the fragrance industry. The composition is, beyond its image, one of those Russian-doll fragrances with several famous accords embedded in them which aim to cover all bases or nearly all of them while carrying the mission of making sense to a wider spectrum of the population. The final kicker is that there is even an unadvertised oud note in it which sparkles instead of smoldering, as is more usual. Jimmy Choo EDP was developed under the supervision of creative director Tamara Mellon who says that she loves to wear perfume and is actually posing for the advert. The scent is said to be wishing to create an "aura of strength and beauty" for the Choo woman; smelling the perfume you see how they did that. The perfume is a bit edgy, but also mucho trendy. It is lifestyle-oriented rather than a work of art. It also taps into Polge's anterior work for other brands, in particular Balenciaga and Viktor & Rolf... 
Continue reading "Jimmy Choo, The Perfume (2011): Mix and Match Like a Fashionable Cameleon {Fragrance Review}" »
 Reb'l Fleur is the debut signature perfume by R & B idol, Rihanna. Judging by the press the launch is getting, her fame is working like an opening on great top notes. You can read more about the initial hints here. First off and to satisfy curious inquiring minds, Reb'l Fleur is much more wearable than you might imagine it to be thinking about the rebelliousness theme: this is no shrinking violet, but it is not shocking either (what fragrances are shocking nowadays, anyway?). Second, despite the name, it is not so much floral as fruity although like for other stage queens who have developed sig scents lately, tuberose is the flower of choice to express the XXL feminine personality, the kind that takes up a lot of room. Reb'l Fleur was baptized after the nickname that Rihanna's grandmother calls the singer. Rihanna said,
"I believe a woman should dare to be different - willing to live her life for herself and not for other people," "This fragrance is about my passion for individuality - being expressive and empowering, yes, but also emotional and intriguing. I promise you Reb'l Fleur will not be easily forgotten." She more recently told People that she wanted a perfume that said "Rihanna was here" and that she was aiming for a subtle and lingering signature... 
Continue reading "Rihanna Reb'l Fleur (2011): Chypre on the Beach {Fragrance Review} {Celebrity Perfume}" »
John Galliano's follow-up act to John Galliano EDP (2008) and EDT is his new Parlez-Moi d'Amour skewed towards the younger segment of the consumer market. It was created with perfumer Aliénor Massenet. While the debut Galliano fragrance had personal whimsy injected into it such as the scent of hot irons, a sense of genuine nostalgia for the haute couture workshops, the Parlez-Moi d'Amour scent feels like the considerate study of marketing data. Knowing that Massenet is a visual perfumer and that Galliano loves purple, there is still an aesthetic statement of sorts to be found in the dark purple palette of the scent. The bottle reveals a good dose of fantasy having been shaped in the likenesss of a flowery stamped letter. What does "Parlez-Moi d'Amour" mean? It means something like, speak to me of love, whisper to me of love, make me think of love, make me love love. In French culture, the echoes of the song sung by Lucienne Boyer and more famously still by Edith Piaf conjure up the retro vibrations of a bastringue. Taylor Momsen is John Galliano's muse in the attempt to corner a segment of the youth market. He may have liked something about her. She has cultivated the looks of an updated absinthe drinker for the 21st century resembling more and more her own wasted and suffering ghost. The route to perdition really stops at the surface of things because the jus itself - as a perfume blogger I cannot totally ignore the contents of even the cutest bottle on earth - professes not much more but a deep love for blueberries. The conceptually feeble attempt at offering a blueberry twist on the musky-floral for young women in age to date is noteworthy for its commercialism. What can we say besides the fact that indeed here is a very nice, headspace-like blueberry accord? We'll try nevertheless...
Continue reading "John Galliano Parlez-Moi d'Amour (2010): Tell Me More about Blueberries {Fragrance Review} {Celebrity Perfume}" »
The latest Man by Bulgari might potentially suffer from a rather non-descript appellation - fortunately for perfumistos compensated by the appearance of actor Clive Owen on the advert - as the name alas echoes too many "Man" namesake clones, but it won't be, or it ought not to be, due to its innovative composition by perfumer Alberto Morillas who is here at his best inventive and intuitive self... 
Continue reading "Bulgari Man (2010): A Bud for Him, a Floral for Her {Fragrance Review} {New Perfume} {Men's Cologne}" »
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Fin O'Suilleabhain on
Les Exclusifs: Bel Respiro, No 18, & 28 La Pausa by Chanel {Perfume Review & Musings} {New Perfumes}
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Fragonard Caresse (1929/2008) {Perfume Review}
: Lovely perfume! Reminds me of the spring 2011 when I was wearing ...
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Long Lost Crabtree & Evelyn Fragrance: Help Please {Ask The Readers}
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Happy New Year 2012!
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Easy Tricks To Create Golden Globes Hairstyles! {Beauty Notes - Hair}
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Victoria's Secret Life is Pink Wish Pink, Live Pink, Hope Pink (2010) *New Fragrances*
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A Funny Post About Scented Candles {Fragrant Reading}
: Hell-scent candle, lol.
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Two Organic Oud Scents: Sama Oudh Jasmin & Undergreen Black Classic (2011) {New Perfumes}
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Top 12 Best New Department Store Fragrances of 2011 for the Holidays {Perfume List}
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Dance with Givenchy (2010) {New Perfume}
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Dance with Givenchy (2010) {New Perfume}
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Choppy Waters for Stella Cadente Miss Me {Fragrance News}
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Aftelier Perfumes Secret Garden (2011): Featuring Real Civet & Castoreum {New Fragrance}
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Mona di Orio Chamarré (2009): Perfume Review in Memoriam
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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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