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 The bottle is very pretty, like a feminine flask with an antique flair, one that could have almost belonged to Marie-Antoinette. It has a nice heft; the facets of the faceted glass bottle is more harmonious to my eye in the bigger size although the petite size is still very pretty and pleasant to hold in the palm of the hand.
Parisienne is the latest feminine launch by Yves Saint Laurent. We have covered the topic before by following the ad campaign with Kate Moss. I did not have any preconceived notions about the composition nor any particular expectations. What I discovered is a very particular poetical atmosphere evoked by the perfume. There is at the center of the composition an interesting work on color so as to create a fictional rose that is bluish and mauve in turns. It is a very romantic composition, more wistful than YSL Paris, very soft and feminine. The fragrance was created by Sophia Grojsman and Sophie Labbé of IFF. Grojsman is the author of Paris, a perfume that refreshed the genre of the rose soliflore for a new generation of women and the next ones to come. She is considered unofficially the queen of rose perfumes for such landmark perfumes as Paris, Trésor, Yvresse, CK Eternity, White Linen. Sophie Labbé has also tackled some rose accords of note in Cacharel Amor pour Homme or Pure White Linen. About Parisienne the perfumers said that, "It is a great floral with a woodsy structure, luminous even in its aspect of mystery (...) It is the perfume of ultra femininity, warmed by the imprint of the man who brushed against her."
"un grand floral à la structure boisée, lumineux même dans sa part de mystère (...). C'est le parfum de l'ultra-féminité, réchauffée par l'empreinte de l'homme qui l'a effleurée." ...
Continue reading "Yves Saint Laurent Parisienne (2009): Blue-Mauve Rose {Perfume Review}" »
 Hermès launched this spring and summer a set of three eaux de cologne. As the summer is heating up to the drum of the dog days, I thought that it was high time to review these descendants of Kölnisch Wasser. Eau d' Orange Verte (1979) Notes: orange, lemon, mandarin, buchu, blackcurrant bud, mint, oakmoss, patchouli. This by now iconic eau de cologne was created by perfumer Françoise Caron in 1979. It was reportedlly originally inspired by the vision of a wet undergrowth covered by morning dew. When it came out there had already been the justifiably famed Eau de Roche/Eau de Rochas authored by Nicolas Mamounas in 1970. Caron brought a decorative, furnishing spirit to this feeling of a fresh, crisp, light oakmossy eau de cologne with her orange grove motif and her insistence on the sensation of bitterness. Fresh could be slightly startling, even spectacular if one paid attention to the chiseling out of the citrus accord, and not just refreshing. The cologne opens on a bitter orange and mint leaves accord with an undercurrent of softer, fruitier citrus notes and a foresty dryness. The buchu echoes the tartness and fruitiness of the blackcurrant bud note which itself adds to the muskiness of the composition. The scent while keeping its bitter edge becomes softer and more pungent at the same time as the musky facet of blackcurrant releases its sweaty note. The scent is dual, oscillating between a clean, fresh-river like facet and a more dirty animalic one, like a shirt marked with light sweat left on the same river bank as its proprietor took a dip in the water...
Continue reading "Hermes Eau d'Orange Verte (1979), Eau de Pamplemousse Rose, Eau de Gentiane Blanche (2009) {Perfume Reviews}" »
 La partie de tennis à Deauville by Raoul Dufy
Since I was going to spend the weekend on the Normandy coast, I decided to take the recently launched Weekend à Deauville by Parfums de Nicolaï created by Patricia de Nicolaï with me to see how it would fare in the ambiance the perfume was reportedly inspired from. Taking a literalist olfactory approach while on a travel is the privilege of the perfume lover who might hope to see some spark set off by the meeting of a composed fragrance with the natural aromas of a locale, but more interestingly still perhaps hope to capture a side of a unique geographic location that one would not have been sensitive to without a distillation of its essence.
As it turns out, Weekend à Deauville is a chypre perfume and therefore it tends to smell by association to me more like a page from the social calendar than "...a lovers' getaway weekend in the famous small town on the Normandy coast." This is so because I usually do not find chypre fragrances to be particularly intimate by design. I do not know if you could devise a chypre that is minimally diffusive and behave like a second skin, but chypres normally sport a handsome sillage and in this projective quality I see an implicit awareness of the social circle. But this may be a bias -- it is almost certainly a bias -- coming from someone who has been accustomed to atmospheres created by skin scents as signaling intimacy, closeness, skin contact...
Continue reading "Parfums de Nicolai Weekend a Deauville (2009): Fresh Chypre {Perfume Review}" »
 Naked Honey Notes: freesia, honey, orange blossom, green cumin, woods.
Africanimal Notes: freesia, honey, warm floral accord, pink peppercorn, bergamot, woods. MAC just recently in June introduced a limited-edition of two honey-based fragrances called Naked Honey, the lighter one of the two and Africanimal, the deeper one. The brand does not describe them with a conventional concentration name such as eau de parfum or eau de toilette but prefers to use the terminology: "Fragrance Blend" and "Variation Parfumée". From the ad copy, "Following the example of their fabled Queen, Cleopatra, Egyptians bathed in honey and milk. Queen Anne of England used it to silken her hair; from the Ancient Greeks to the Roman Empire, honey has never lost its regal, ever-amber lustre. We love the luxury of its sensual essence...but we also know that it's a highly efficient and wholesome humectant and healer. Introducing our limited edition Naked Honey collection - three aspects of golden warmth and sun-made sweetness for the body, layered with two decidedly different honeycomb-derived fragrances - celebrating the secret lives of Queen Bees."
I casually smelled some of the MAC fragrances before but never really went any further than that. When I took my initial inhale of Naked Honey however, it was like experiencing a sudden burst of summer florals scenting the shade of a tree. What I did not expect was that honey here would be so intimately associated with linden blossoms, one of the sweetest smells, metaphorically speaking, and most capable of evoking instant summer to my nose. The warm tonalities of honey mingling with the fresher yet just as honeyed accents of linden made me immediately pay attention.... 
Continue reading "Mac Naked Honey & Africanimal (2009): The Blonde & The Brunette {Perfume Reviews}" »
 The bottle for Hypnôse Senses is beautiful in its crystalline simplicity. The name of the perfume is only readable on the top of the cap. The shape is borrowed from Magie by Lancôme (1950). This time, the shape is further elongated and looks a bit more like the bottle for l'Air du Temps by Nina Ricci.
Perfumers: Christine Nagel, Nathalie Feisthauer, Ursula Wandel
Perfume Notes: top: pink peppercorn, mandarin essence; heart: osmanthus absolute, rose leaves, honey; base: Indonesian patchouli, cistus (vegetal amber), benzoin, tonka. Hypnôse Senses is the latest flanker to the original Hypnôse by Lancôme created by perfumers Annick Ménardo and Thierry Wasser and launched in 2005. This time three women perfumers Christine Nagel, Nathalie Feisthauer and Ursual Wandel worked together to produce a fragrance that is subtly original and the olfactory equivalent to my nose of traces of lipstick and cosmetics left on a linen napkin: almost vanishing yet very sensual and present. The advertising campaign resting in part on a dedicated website puts the accent on Daria Werbowy's skin ( she modeled for the original Hypnôse), an imagery that takes on a fuller meaning upon smelling the perfume. Women will perhaps complain that the ad is particularly objectifying as Werbowy's body gets cut out in seven "sensual spots" drawing a map of desire that is only too predictable and essentially meant to satiate the male gaze even if mediated by a female one, which is curious considering that women are the prime targets of the ad (see Vivez l'expérience Senses). One can only complain that this ad is terribly and even caricaturally classic in its implicit subservience to masculine desire, unless you would be gay or post-lib. However, like lipstick and a good perfume, one can simply enjoy putting those on as gestures of self-cultivation and not care about someone looking up your thighs or down your cleavage for reassurance that this is a worthy scent. Lancôme, via Pauline Zanoni the director of fragrance creation, insisted on the chypre lineage of Hypnôse Senses advancing the idea that through this affiliation the perfume was asserting once more the core tradition of the house which has been carried out by great chypres like Magie Noire (1978) (cf. Cosmoty.de). As far as chypre-perfume labeling goes, Hypnôse Senses is very soft and as close as can be to a full-fledged skin scent while using some of the neo-classic chypre ingredients: citrus, cistus, patchouli...
Continue reading "Lancome Hypnose Senses (2009): Second Skin {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
 A King Kong poster from 1933, via All Posters
Vanillary by Lush was originally inspired by " the extraordinary desserts at Heston Blumental's amazing
restaurant, The Fat Duck at Bray", a multi award-winning temple of cutting-edge molecular cuisine. The perfume is composed of vanilla absolute, jasmine absolute and tonka absolute and was created by in-house perfumer Simon Constantine. Its first incarnation was a bath product called Vanilla Fountain Ballistic. It is now available as a spray perfume as well as a solid one. This is a review of the liquid Vanillary.  The fragrance can be seen as a dark floral vanilla scent with a salty edge. The blend opens on a salt-brushed, indolic and brown-toned accord of vanilla with a sweet wood-polish nuance found in lily. Soon an undercurrent of lush, rich, drunk-like, resinous and fruity jasmine with a dash of green surfaces. There are hints of almondy heliotropine. What I appreciate most perhaps about the meeting of flower and vanilla in this scent is how the junction is made through a fresh green sappy bridge, as if made of oozing vine...
Continue reading "Lush Vanillary (2009): King Kong Passion {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
 Patchouli anklet by Tonya Maria: "This piece was designed around my research and experience with people's
love/hate extreme reactions to patchouli. 90% lovely smooth surfaces,
with euphoric swirls vs 10% bumpy undesirable cone shape protruding out
from beneath with curling twisted tendrils creeping up like scent to a
nose." [...] and amber and orange colored droplets symbolized the colors of the oils
the plant produces when leaves are distilled to make the fragrance." Pierre Montale perfumes for me are remarkable for their ability to convey an impression of richness, that is, for the best of them. If you are dreaming of wearing a precious potion that unfolds on the skin like a rich brocade threaded with hints of precious metals, then it is a good bet to direct your steps, or fingers as it is in the digital age, to a Montale sales point. Montale fragrances to me are not into being in the vanguard of perfumery creation, but they do know on the other hand about quality and betray an uncanny ability to pick up intuitively on the untiring human quest for luxury... 
Continue reading "Montale Patchouli Leaves: Black Sun {Perfume Review}" »
 Some further news to follow up on a previous announcement about the 3 upcoming MDCI fragrances in 2009: in fact I learned that a 4th fragrance will be launched this year as I had to realize after getting four of these upcoming releases. Only the name of the perfume Péché Cardinal (Cardinal Sin) is definitive. All three others have received for now temporary, evocative names but which are not made official yet and may change. 1st teaser and advance perfume review: Péché Cardinal is a beautiful fruity leather perfume with an indolic punch worthy of a boxer. It has a very bold signature that will ravish lovers of vintage perfumes who bemoan the near-extinction of fragrances with an attitude, the ones that know how to smack a man in the face to make them behave. Imagine a sleek dame in a 40s film noir graced with a hot temperament and a lot of sass. She wears leather pants or underwear under her immaculately tailored tweed suit and she wears them well...
Continue reading "Parfums MDCI Peche Cardinal (2009) Part 2: A Beautiful Homage to Female Fire-Raiser Germaine Cellier & More News About a 4th Perfume {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
 Jo Malone is one of those perfume houses which are inspired by the concept of a fragrance-library in which new perfumes are added each time like carefully chosen tomes in a stately home library, hinting at the same time at the pleasure of the amateur botanist or entomologist meticulously collecting new specimens from the natural world (see Jo Malone Red Roses). Pomegranate Noir, a fruit and a color this time rather than two main ingredients (it was considered a departure from the rest of the collection when it debuted), was launched in 2005 and was created under the artistic directorship of Jo Malone, the original British founder of the brand now owned by Estée Lauder companies. It came around a time when the designer admitted she was obsessed with color, confessing a new liking for garish orange daisies and a recently purchased red bodice. The story of the perfume is that Malone was initially inspired by the sight of a red silk dress (see also for broader comparison Serge Lutens Rousse, a perfume similarly inspired by a red (velvet) dress). The color that this scent evokes in fine is deep burgundy red or deep garnet red as streaks of black traverse the composition. It is one of the more abstract perfumes by the brand. It reportedly took Malone two years to come up with a satisfying result, as she "... looked at thousands of submissions before solving the puzzle by adding
spice notes to create the core pomegranate aroma...". She also explained at the time of its launch " I hate fruity fruity." Officially, the scent includes notes of: raspberry, watermelon, rhubarb, plum, pink pepper, pomegranate,
patchouli, frankincense and spicy woods. Pomegranate Noir this fall and winter comes in a Tasting Kit as one of the interesting offerings of the holiday season and includes three other scents that rest on three main notes pulled out from the composition: Casablanca Lily, Raspberry and Guaiacwood (see our review in Part 2)...  Detail of the Madonna of the Pomegranate by Sandro Boticelli ca. 1487
Continue reading "Jo Malone Pomegranate Noir (2005) & Tasting Kit (2008) - Part 1 {Perfume Review}" »
 Christina Aguilera is as it turns out a veteran perfume developer only press releases and articles usually are careful not to mention this somewhat attention-diverting fact. It might also not be the best of publicities to point out that a few other fragrances by her came before, that not too many people can actually remember. Her current official perfume website only mentions her two latest, Christina Aguilera and Inspire. Nevertheless, other names appear such as Xpose Passion, Xpose Desire, Christina Aguilera (by LR World). Inspire, according to the press release, and as can be expected for a celebrity fragrance is inspired by the looks and personality of Christina Aguilera, but also the pop art movement (Aguilera mentions Warhol) and Tokyo at night (because it is a favorite time and place of the singer's). It incorporates a central note of tuberose, one of her favorite aromas, and the packaging is red because it is her signature color... 
Continue reading "Christina Aguilera Inspire (2008) {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance} {Celebrity Perfume}" »
 Caresse, the latest creation by Fragonard, is a recreation of a 1929 Fragonard fragrance, a project conducted under the artistic direction of Agnès Costa of the house of Fragonard. It follows the re-edition of another perfume from the vault, Billet Doux. This half-curator's, half-creator's work was entrusted to renowned perfumer Jean Guichard, the author of Lou Lou by Cacharel, Obsession by Calvin Klein, Deci Delà by Nina Ricci, Fifi by Fifi Chachnil and many more. He is also the director of the Givaudan school of perfumery and earned the first Coty Prize in 2000. It is of interest to note that Jean Guichard is the father of perfumer Aurélien Guichard who has also lately specialized in adapting classics from the Robert Piguet catalog into modern recreations. In the past father and son have collaborated on Les Belles series by Nina Ricci and the 2007 L'Air du Temps flanker. To some extent, the father's work on Caresse can be usefully compared to that of the son's on Visa, in the way the cured-fruit accord of Mitsouko by Guerlain has been made to serve as a bridge between the past and the present. Some perfumery accords are no doubt transmitted from father to son as I am tempted also to relate Aurélien Guichard's work on another modern adaptation, Baghari, to the vanilla and aldehydic treatment of the father for Lou Lou...  The Debutante by Alexander Oscar Levy from Michael A. Latragna Fine Paintings
Continue reading "Fragonard Caresse (1929/2008) {Perfume Review}" »
 Bond Girl 007 is the latest feminine celebrity fragrance by Avon. Fronted by British actress Gemma Aterton, it was released at the same time that the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace debuted, a film in which she plays the role of agent Strawberry Fields. The scent was created by a team of three perfumers: Olivier Cresp (see interview), Frank Volkl and Harry Fremont. While the fragrance is advertised as being a woody-floral-musk, the perfume could be seen rather as a sort of hybrid, chypre-cum-oriental composition. Fragrance families can be played with and often are as it is even considered a safe way to play to try to please the most potential customers possible with the same perfume by mixing typical attributes. In this case however, there was a creative anthropomorphizing idea behind this insistence on duality. Re-watching the interview with Olivier Cresp one realizes that he mentions that there is an attraction-and-danger duality to the composition which corresponds to the personality of Strawberry Fields, but this comes across empirically, and even if you did not know that, as a tension between a luminous chypré effect and a more opaque and vaporous oriental vanillic sensation. The technical tour de force of this perfume is that this tension never subsides... 
Continue reading "Avon Bond Girl 007 (2008) {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance} {Celebrity Fragrance}" »
 This is a fragrance
Comme des Garçons just caused some shopping commotion and tremors in Tokyo, a city as much known for its episodic natural earthquakes as for its enduring sense of fashion, but this time it was by launching their new high-low collection at the newly opening H&M on November 8, 2008. And today, November 13, 2008 was the worldwide launch of the CDG capsule collection. Fans in Tokyo had reportedly been queuing for 3 days, under protective umbrellas, to make it to the cloth rack before everyone else got there. Extatic faces lit up as the elite troop of shoppers finally reached the promised racks and started springing into action. Comme des Garçons, like Karl Lagerfeld did in 2004 with his fragrance Liquid Karl, has taken this opportunity to introduce a limited-edition fragrance, called not, mind you Liquid Rei Kawabuko, but in a more self-effacing manner, H&M. Kawabuko said regarding this mass-appeal project that, "I have always been interested in the balance between creation
and business," "It is a dilemma,
although for me creation has always been the first priority. It is a
fascinating challenge to work with H&M since it is a chance to take
the dilemma to its extreme, and try to solve it." (Vogue UK)...
Continue reading "Comme des Garçons H&M (2008): Niche To Educate The Masses {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
 Innocent Rock by Thierry Mugler is the latest version of Angel Innocent. It was released in February-March of 2008 as a limited-edition in collaboration with Le Club des Créateurs de Beauté. It is currently, several months later still, their top-selling fragrance. The ad copy is meant to whip young women into action: " Indecently sexy, the innocent rock woman is mysterious, both provocative and sensual, she injects glamor into rock and seduces in the heart of innocence." Interestingly, and as becomes apparent once you decrypt the scent, the grape note that is showcased in this perfume, which caught my interest initially, appears to be a by-product of the innovative research that Thierry Mugler conducted for the luxurious La Part des Anges, only, at one level, to make the concept of aged liqueur be more accessible to the wider and younger public. Official notes are: grape, lychee, red rose, pepper...
Continue reading "Thierry Mugler Innocent Rock (2008) {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}" »
 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}" »
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