Scent of The Day

Roses for Valentine's Day

2012-02-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

Who Doesn't Like Roses?

The rose is the queen of flowers. Rose can be combined with fruity, spicy, woody, or green notes. Rose perfumes can be sheer and light, rich and hypnotic or dark and dirty. There's something for everyone in a rose. This Valentine's Day, give your sweetie (or yourself) a new rose perfume. Here are some unusual and excellent roses to try.

For the Traditionalist: Czech and Speake, Rose Cologne

Czech and Speake is a luxury English line of bath products and perfumes, They do a gorgeous rose soliflore. Nothing fancy, just a real English rose, with some green leaves up top and a hint of earthy patchouli in the base. Lovely.
Nose: ?
Notes: bourbon rose, geranium, ylang ylang, mimosa mingle, patchouli

For the Sexpot: Frederic Malle, Une Rose

Une Rose is a "master's rose." This is the whole rose bush, from green leaves, to full blooms. Even the dirt still clinging to the roots is represented by the soft and earthy "truffle accord." The heart is is rich red rose drizzled with animalic honey. The honey note is pure sex for some, but can smell a bit "pissy" to others. Not for the faint of heart.
Nose: Edouard Fléchier
Notes: Turkish rose absolute, fruit, honey, geranium, wine dregs, truffle accord, dark woods, animal notes

For the Dangerous Sweetie Pie: By Kilian, Liaisons Dangereuses

The full name for this lolita is Liaisons Dangereuses typical me. Like Britney Spears in "Oops, I Did It Again" he or she will fool you with the face of an angel but underneath, something smells not that innocent. Dangerous Liaisons starts very green with a huge hit of green leaves and grape-y fruit. As the rose note opens up, the fruit deepens into a plum pie. Underneath is all is a soft, recently slept-in bed of musk, vanilla, woods and moss.
Nose: Calice Becker
Notes: blackcurrent buds, plum, peach, cinnamon, ambrette, rose damascus, geranium, sandalwood, oakmoss, vetiver, woods, vanilla, white musks

For the Exotic Pussy Cat: By Kilian, Rose Oud

Another gorgeous rose by Calice Becker. Rose Oud is rose petals scattered on the rich woody oud. The oud feels light and airy, not heavy. It's like smoke. As the perfumes sits on your skin it gets warmer and sweeter. The spices, mostly cardamom, become noticeable. It has an almost gourmand quality, like some kind of middle eastern toasted pastry. The rose beomes fruity like a fine red wine. Rose Oud wears close to the skin but has remarkable staying power. The next day my skin smells like candied roses and incense.
Nose: Calice Becker
Notes: rose, oud, saffron, cardamom, cinnamon

For the Sourpuss: Hermes, Eau de Pamplemousse Rose

There's always the one who says "I Hate Valentine's." Give him or her a great citrus perfume with subtle rose note. I fell in love with Pamplemousse Rose on first sniff. It smells like a sparkling, mineral grapefruit, like Pink Grapefruit Perrier. It's only after the first 15 minutes that you start to smell sheer pink roses under the dry and tart citrus. Pamplemousse Rose would be a perfect summer scent, but it also brightens up a dreary winter day.
Nose: Jean-Claude Ellena
Notes: pink grapefruit, rose

Parfum d'Empire Azemour les Orangers

2012-02-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

The New Vintage

As 2011 drew to a close, I was in a perfume funk. I had started to believe that there was nothing new in perfume that would interest me. Stunt perfumes, such as those supposed to smell like blood or semen or industrial factories, bore me. It takes more skill to make a perfume that is novel and smells great. Also on my pet peeve list are high concept perfumes like those that limit themselves to a small number of accords. Nothing is more annoying to me than art that comes with a manifesto.

I've also become disenchanted with vintage perfumes. While I love the boldness of some older perfumes, the oakmoss heavy chypres and dry green chypres, the leather and tobacco, most of the old beauties are gone forever. There were a couple of gems I found last year, like my bottles of Bandit and Vacances, but most vintage I tried isn't the same. I've come to know well the smell of perfume "gone off."

But when I smelled Azemour les Orangers, I realized there is a new category of perfume for me to love: the New Vintage. Azemour is a perfume that is perfectly modern; it has distinct, recognizable notes and sheer layers that feel as if light is shining through them. But it combines the modern style with the vintage feel of a really mossy base. It's the best of both worlds.

Azemour was created to recall the Morroco of the perfumer's childhood: the spices, the orange groves, the dry desert winds and grasses. It smells of bright young oranges and ancient places.

There is a lot going on in Azemour. Every time I sniff my wrist I smell a new facet of the perfume. Azemour has a juicy citrus burst, with spices in the opening. The bright orange and hay notes are like my favourite Bigarade Concentree. After that, the smell of green leaves is created with galbanum and blackcurrant, reminding me fleetingly of L'Ombre dand l'Eau. The heart notes are mostly neroli and orange blossom. But it's the base notes that make Azamour special. A huge amount of moss is present right from the beginning. It's almost musty, and I think that might put some people off, but if you love mossy chypres, you'll probably like Azemour. The moss is grounded with cypress and a very detectable caraway note that I think makes this a more unisex perfume.

If you have ever grieved the loss of oakmoss-heavy vintage perfumes, give Azemour a try. There are still some perfumers out there making really mossy perfumes.

House: Parfum d'Empire
Nose: Marc-Antoine Corticchiato
Notes: orange, clementine, tangerine, grapefruit, coriander, cumin, black pepper, pink pepper, blackcurrant, galbanum, neroli, geranium, orange blossom, rose, hay, moss, henna and cypress

Laura Biagiotti Venezia

2012-01-27T09:29:00.000-08:00

Dislikes and Blind Buys

I haven't written in a while, mea culpa. The same old excuses apply: life, work, new commitment to the gym, yadda, yadda.

In my last post, the lovely JoanElaine complained that I was giving too many glowing reviews (making her lust after more perfume) and could I please review something bad for a change. She was joking but it's a fair criticism. Most of my reviews are positive because positive reviews are the most fun to write. Who wants to wear a terrible perfume for 6 hours or more just to see how it develops? I also have the natural reluctance of an amateur to criticize professionals. Someone, somewhere worked hard on this perfume and who am I to say that it is crap. Maybe it's just me?

But, by not giving any bad reviews, I make it hard for you, dear readers, to decide if my tastes match yours and it makes me seem a little lightweight, I suppose. So, I will try to post negative reviews more often and I encourage you all to keep in mind my motto: "You might be different, so go forth and sniff."

The Blind Buy

A little while ago, I was contacted by a friend, who was ordering the newly re-released Venezia, by Italian fashion designer Laura Biagiotti. This friend has been raving about Venezia for years to me. She was ecstatic that it was being re-released and wanted to know if I wanted a bottle too. I said yes, even though I had never smelled the original. The notes sounded nice and the original had very good reviews from people I respect, like The Non-Blonde.

The original Venezia (1992) had notes of: black currant, mango, plum, peach, bergamot, osmanthus, geranium, carnation, iris, amber, cinnamon, jasmine, cedar, rose, sandalwood, tonka, musk, benzoin, civet and vanilla. It was, by all accounts, a sexy, fruity-floral oriental. From blog comments I know that there were many people like my friend, who had been desperately missing Venezia since it was discontinued.

Then, in 2011, the word was spread that Venezia was coming back! The perfume was being reorchestrated by Lucas Sieuzac and the original nose Michel Almairac. The new notes were: plum, jasmine and vanilla. Maybe the drastically shortened note list should have been my first clue.

How It Smells

When my bottle arrived, I eagerly opened the box, and gamely ignoring the cheap-feeling, red plastic cap, I spritzed on a generous amount. I was hit with the smell of nail polish remover and hairspray. Well, ok, top notes can be deceiving. I waited and sniffed again. Sweet jam, fake vanilla and a heavy synthetic cedar note. Oh dear. Synthetic cedar I don't mind; I actually love the way it's overdosed in Omnia. But in Venezia, the whole thing is a mess and it smells cheap. I couldn't wear it.

Luckily, my friend was more than happy to have the bottle back. She loves it. I'm glad and I hope she doesn't read this, so that I don't spoil it for her.

House: Laura Biagiotti
Nose: Lucas Sieuzac, Michel Almairac
Notes: Plum, jasmine, vanilla

Mary Greenwell Plum

2012-01-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

I feel pretty, oh so pretty!

Take a look at the Bouguereau painting, The Rapture of Psyche – the lemon yellow and pink-tinged dawn, the floaty plum chiffon, the angel and butterfly wings – it's a perfect depiction of true love overcoming reason. That's what Mary Greenwell's Plum smells like.

More prosaically, Plum starts off with sweet-tart fruits, like peach, plum and lemon. The heart is a bouquet of feminine flowers. I smell mostly tuberose and gardenia but very smoothly blended and with none of the cheesy, mushroom or menthol-petrol notes. The base notes are subtle and woody with maybe a hint of moss, but not really enough to make it a vintage-style chypre. The next day the ghosts of sandalwood and amber still haunt my skin.

Plum is the debut perfume for Mary Greenwell, a make-up artist to the stars. The nose, Francois Robert has done a few perfumes, mostly for the niche line Les Parfums de Rosine, but seems to be known mainly for re-working Lanvin's Arpege. For a while, Plum was carried exclusively by House of Fraser in the UK, but you can get it online now from Luckyscent in the U.S.

I called Plum beautiful in my New Year's eve post, but I was wrong. Real beauty contains tragedy or a hint of something dark. Beauty needs a flaw which highlights its (otherwise) perfection. Beauty is often difficult and unapproachable. There is nothing dark or unapproachable about Plum. It is sheer delight. Plum is a shower of white and pink petals on the breeze.

Oh dear, I'm back to being poetic, but I just can't help myself. I shouldn't love Plum this much. It's basically a fruity floral, right? That's nothing unusual. Have I outgrown the need for my perfumes to be, how should I say it... difficult? Like a lot of perfumistas, I started my perfume obsession with over-the-top spicy, incensey, woody, mossy, or green perfumes. Anything but pretty florals. Have I come back around to loving what everyone else already loves?

Yes, my collection has a need for something like Plum, something charming and easy to wear. I think Plum would make a perfect first perfume for my niece, too. I've been looking for something that would suit a girl, but still be high quality.

When I put on Plum, I take a deep sniff and grin. It is just so pretty! Enough rationalizing. I am beyond reason. I'm in love.

House: Mary Greenwell
Nose: Francois Robert
Notes:
Top: English plum, blackcurrant, peach, bergamot and lemon
Heart: gardenia, tuberose absolute, orange flower absolute, rose absolute and jasmine absolute
Base: precious woods, sandalwood, oakmoss, patchouli, amber and white musk

Painting: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Le ravissement de Psyché (The Rapture of Psyche) (1895)

I might never have heard of Plum if it wasn't for my lovely fellow perfume bloggers. Check out the reviews of Plum by The Scent Critic, Muse in Wooden Shoes, This Blog Really Stinks, and Waft... What A Fragrancefanatic Thinks.

My Favourites of 2011

2011-12-30T14:18:00.000-08:00

Another year, and dozen bottles

Well, another year is almost past and my perfume cabinet is getting pretty full. One of my New Year's resolutions will be to go through it and take out bottles I never wear. They can be boxed up and moved to a dresser drawer or perhaps traded. Dan, who organizes the wonderful meet-up events at Noor, tells me he's planning a bottle/decant swap event for 2012. Perfect timing, because if I can't make more room in my closet, how will I buy the new perfumes on my wish list?

I sniffed a lot of perfume in 2011, most of it OK, some of it astoundingly beautiful. In December, as I contemplated my Christmas list, I began to feel that there was nothing left for me to buy or ask for. I have so many great perfumes. As you can see from the photo above, I could wear what I have for the rest of my life and probably never run out.

So, here are my top 10 favourite perfumes of 2011.

1. Parfumerie Generale Papyrus de Ciane

Number 1 on my list and my biggest surprise of 2011 is Papyrus de Ciane. Dry, dark, mossy and green, this tribute to the famous Mousse de Saxe base is perfect. I was passionately obsessed with PdC for most of the fall; it was all I wanted to wear. It seriously interfered with me testing anything else, which was a surprise to me because I had originally tested the sample in 2010 and found it too bitter. How much difference a year can make! In 2011, I had to have a full bottle. My nose is definitely still changing.

2. Jean Patou Vacances

The early part of 2011 was all about vintage perfume for me. The wonderful Mr. Fritch at Fritch's Pharmacy in Kitchener introduced me to many old beauties and I was flattered to be interviewed for an article about vintage perfume in Maclean's magazine. My best purchase from Fritch's was Jean Patou Vacances. Not only is the bottle with it's green glass stopper beautiful, the perfume is a gorgeous green lilac that lifts my mood every time I wear it. It's a heart breaker too, because it's been discontinued and is notoriously hard to find. This is the only bottle I will probably ever have, so I treasure it.

3. Serge Lutens Five O'Clock au Gingembre

Fresh ginger and early grey tea. Spicy, warm, dry and yummy - Five O'clock au Gingembre was the perfume I wore while baking Christmas cookies this year with a good friend. I expect to continue to wear it often this winter.

4. L'Artisan Parfumeur Fleur de Narcisse (Exceptional Harvests Collection 2006)

At a perfume meetup at Noor this year, I met Bryna, who may be my perfume evil twin. What I mean is, she doesn't love what I love and lucky for me, she likes to trade! For a few samples from my collection she gave me a generous decant of Fleur de Narcisse. I had been coveting this limited release for a while. The daffodil smells like the volcanic soil it was grown in, as well as hay and leather. It's a day in the country in a bottle.

5. Chanel Bois des Iles

Chanel finally released its Exclusifs line in smaller bottles! I snapped up Bois des Iles which I had been dreaming of since 2008 but just couldn't justify the huge 200ml bottle. The new, smaller 75ml size is perfect. Now I can wrap myself in its creamy sandalwood and gingerbread cashmere scent anytime I need some comfort.

6. Lorenzo Villoresi Sandalo

My Dear Husband took me to Rome in the spring of 2011, and it inspired me to buy him a bottle of Lorenzo Villoresi Sandalo. I don't think this niche Italian perfumer gets enough love in the perfume blogs; he is very talented. Sandalo is a smooth and spicy sandalwood of high quality which is getting harder to find these days. I can hardly keep my hands off my DH when he wears it.

7. Frederic Malle En Passant

2011 was the year I met the charming Frederic Malle! He gave a fascinating lecture on perfume and the industry at Holt Renfrew. His niche line of perfumes really started the trend of celebrating perfumers, the artists who create the scents, instead of hiding their names like most mass market perfumes do. I purchased a bottle of En Passant by one of my favourite perfumers Olivia Giacobetti. En passant is a story told with transparent drops of water on lilacs and a soft dusting of flour.

8. L'Artisan Parfumeur Ananas Fizz

My first successful eBay purchase was a box of samples of Ananas Fizz. I think this perfume was discontinued because it's a love it or hate it scent. I didn't expect to love it, but the first sniff of fizzy pineapple from a sample received in a trade made me grin. It was one of my favourite hot weather perfumes in the summer of 2011. I had to have more, but when I went to buy it I realized it had long been discontinued. Luckily, I found the box of samples on eBay and with the help on a funnel and an empty decant bottle, I now have one of the few remaining bottles of Ananas Fizz in existence.

9. Parfums de Nicolai Vie de Château Intense

If you haven't tried any of Patricia Nicolai's perfumes yet, make it a New Year's resolution. She is a genius. Vie de Chateau is la dolce vita in a bottle. Sugared grapefruit, fresh-mown hay and soft suede gloves.

10. Jean Patou Joy

Let's end the list with Joy. Joy was a lucky find at Winners, where you can sometimes stumble on excellent older names in perfume that may have fallen out of fashion but are still of great quality and beauty. Besides Joy, I've bought Rochas Femme, Bvlgari Black and Estee Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia at my favourite Winners. Joy is a classic and beautiful sparkling jasmine bouquet with a smoldering sexy base.

Coming in 2012

Just as I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Samples showed up in the mail and in my stocking that surprised me with their beauty and I am once again covetous. Huzzah sayeth the retailers. Right now I am wearing the heck out of these samples and will be reviewing them soon:

Mary Greenwell Plum - Maybe the most beautiful thing I have ever smelled.
Hermes Eau des Merveilles - Sexy perfect unisex skin scent
By Kilian Liaisons Dangereuses - Green plum, cassis, rose, cinnamon and musk. Yum.
Parfums d'Empire Azemour les Orangers - If you love old-fashioned oakmoss heavy chypres, run, buy this now.

Happy New Year!

O Tannenbaum - 3 Wood Perfumes for Christmas

2011-12-20T12:10:00.000-08:00

A Joint Blogging Project for A Merry Christmas!

Another year has flown by and it's time to do our annual (2 years now!) Christmas group blogging project. This year Redolent of Spices has kindly organized a huge group of perfume bloggers to participate in celebrating the season by posting reviews of perfumes that feature wood notes.

Woody perfumes are some of my favourites. Whether it's bracing cedar, creamy sandalwood, peppy pine, or moody black hemlock, wood is indispensable in perfume as a base note in many perfumes but many gorgeous perfumes feature wood as the main note. This year, I am reviewing three wood perfumes I haven't reviewed before, and also listing some of my favourite wood perfumes from my personal collection.

Russian Orthodox Christmas: Comme des Garcons Zagorsk

Zagorsk (now Sergiyev Posad) is a city in Russia, the home of the great Russian monastery Trinity Lavra, the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox church.

Zagorsk is also a perfume, one of the Series 3: Incense perfumes from Commes des Garcons. The series was devoted to incenses of 5 major religions. Zagorsk represents orthodox Christianity. I previously reviewed another from the series, Avignon. Nobody does wood and incense like CdG.

Zagorsk is dark and calm and meditative, like a church deep in the woods, covered in snow. Incense and wood are the main notes. The incense swirls around inside the wood like smoke in a log cabin. The opening is has pine and a very spicy note, almost like cloves. After the opening notes have calmed down, a fruity violet note is noticeable but Zagorsk remains mostly about the trees.

House: Comme des Garcons
Nose: Evelyne Boulanger
Notes: white incense, pine, pimento berries, violet, cedar, iris, hinoki wood, birch wood

Ottoman Empire Christmas: Caron Yatagan

Meant to evoke a romantic vision of mystery and adventure in the Orient of the past, Yatagan is named after the curved turkish sabre.

Caron launched Yatagan in 1976 as a men's perfume. But I adore it. It was no surprise to read that is was created by Vincent Marcello, who also created Private Collection for Estee Lauder. It shares the same gorgeous green and mossy notes.

Yatagan smells like pine trees, green leaves, wood smoke and a touch of leather. Now that I've read the notes, I can smell the celery, more like celery salt, but it's not overwhelming. The chypre base has darker notes of patchouli, moss and musk. It starts fresh green and woody and but ends with moss and leathery.

When I was 14 years old, I had a crush on an older boy from my church's youth group. On a winter retreat, we snuck off and took long walks in the snowy woods where we would sit quietly together for what seemed like hours to me, while he smoked, and maybe held my hand. I was in heaven.

All I want for Christmas is for all men to smell like Yatagan, but if I can't have that, I will dab it on my own wrists, and surround myself with the smell of walking into the snow-hushed woods in a borrowed leather jacket.

House: Caron
Nose: Vincent Marcello

Notes: celery, patchouli, musk (From the Caron website)

Moroccan Christmas: Atelier Cologne Bois Blonds

Atelier Cologne calls Bois Blonds a "cologne absolue" because it has the feeling of a light refreshing cologne but, at 20% perfume concentration, it has the oomph of a stronger perfume. Simple yet powerful, clean yet spicy, sweetly feminine and masculine notes notes combine to make Bois Blonds a perfume for everyone.

Bois Blonds' notes ring clear as a bell. Sweet orange flowers are accented with nose-tingling pink pepper from the bazaar. Around this floral heart dances a touch of incense and sheer woody notes. Vetiver and clean musk provide a base.

One thing not mentioned in the notes is juniper, but I get the distinct impression of juniper berries in the opening notes, like a crisp gin and tonic. The juniper note makes Bois Blonds like an icy cold morning with bright sunshine. I break an icicle off the bush, and I can taste the tree in it. In the afternoon, the sun melts the snow and the sweet smell of spring is just around the corner.

House: Atelier Cologne
Nose: Jérome Epinette
Notes:
Top notes: Tunisian neroli, pink pepper
Heart notes: Moroccan orange flower, incense
Base notes: Blond woods, musks, vetiver from Haiti

Some of my other favourite wood perfumes are:

Chanel Bois des Iles - creamy sandalwood
Commes des Garcons Hinoki - a forest of cedar and incense.
By Kilian Incense Oud - frankincense and sweet sandalwood bliss
Lorenzo Villoresi Sandalo - spicy and smooth sandalwood
Bulgari Omnia - gingery cedar and white chocolate
Ormonde Jayne Woman - the woods are lovely, dark, and deep with Canadian black hemlock

More O Tannenbaum

Please visit all the other lovely blogs participating in O Tannenbaum to read their choices of woody perfumes:

Frederic Malle L'eau d'hiver

2011-12-09T10:01:00.001-08:00

In the lane, snow is glistening

Gentle and powdery as fresh fallen snow, L'eau d'hiver is both fresh and cuddly.

L'eau d'hiver was created for the Frederic Malle line by the famous perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena. Ellena's style is minimalist and sheer and L'eau d'hiver is a good example of that style. It's a light and easy to wear veil of scent. But simple doesn't mean boring.

With l'eau d'hiver, Ellena was trying to create a new concept in perfume, the "eau chaude." When I smell L'eau d'hiver, I smell a perfume that feels like a sheer cologne, but instead of the traditional crisp and cool experience a cologne can provide, Ellena added warm, comforting notes as well. L'eau d'hiver is a combination of these cool and warm elements.

Powdery iris and musk and an ozone-like note create a impression of snow in the opening. Soft and sweet floral notes of heliotrope and clover-honey float in and change the cool grey iris into something warmer. L'eau d'hiver smells like pristine powdery snow and baby skin.When I wear it I imagine an early morning walk though an untouched snowy world, with the sunrise just turning the sky rosy. Around my neck is a cashmere scarf and on my head is my pink bunny-fur hat.

House: Frederic Malle
Nose Jean-Claude Ellena
Notes: iris, heliotrope, honey, musk

Cartier L'Heure Fougueuse IV

2011-12-02T08:56:00.001-08:00

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

L'Heure Fougueuse (HF) is the fourth perfume in Cartier's "Les Heures de Parfum" collection of eight fragrances. The collection is meant to evoke moments of "pure emotion" and HF is the feeling of freedom in "the wild gallop of life."

Gallop is the key word here. In-house perfumer Mathilde Laurent has created something unique and beautiful but so shocking to me that I couldn't believe it when I first dabbed on my sample. On first sniff all I could think was "Holy cow...horse!"

I must have said it out loud, because my husband asked from the next room if everything was ok. I'm a little late to testing this perfume, and from what I've read I know that many other perfume bloggers smell tea and jasmine etc. in HF and not really horse. But I absolutely smell horse. Or a very clean, recently vacated, horse barn, with hay on the floor and leather tack on the walls.

After a few minutes a pungent green magnolia/lily note dominates the perfume, but the ghost of the horse remains, like a horse blanket and saddle in the background.

Mathilde Laurent calls it a "magnificent combination of animalistic notes recalling the history of luxury perfumery and humanity." Humanity has certainly been close to the horse for much of our history. The smell of HF reminds me of a time when the fragrance of animals was a part of daily life. It's a homey, comforting sort of smell if you've ever liked barns or horses.

Unfortunately the other side of the HF coin, that super green magnolia/lily note is not my favourite. I've smelled this green lily before, in Tauer Carillon pour un Ange (where it is also combined with leather) and recently in Jo Malone Bluebell (a lot cleaner and lighter.) I really have a problem with it. Maybe it's something I will grow out of in time, but for now it's a shame I can't wear it, because the horsey part of HF is really amazing.

House: Cartier
Nose: Mathilde Laurent
Notes: Magnolia, "thoroughbred refinement" and "oak barrel" (from the Cartier website)

Chanel - Bois des Iles

2011-11-30T13:50:00.000-08:00

The Cashmere Wrap Scent

Do you have a cashmere wrap scent? It's a perfume that makes you feel like you are wrapped up in a soft, luxurious blanket. For me that perfume is Chanel Bois des Iles.

Bois des Iles pushed boundaries in its time. Ernest Beaux created it in 1926 as twist on a traditional woody masculine fragrance, but for women. Bois des Iles opens with a hint of citrus and the champagne sparkle of aldehydes. Soon, it becomes all about the creamiest sandalwood you have ever smelled. Flowers are used to add shimmer and highlights, but they are also seamlessly blended with the wood. I get hints of lily of the valley and jasmine if I inhale deeply. There is also a touch of soft peach skin and fruity rose.

The wood beneath these flowers glows and surrounds you in a close cocoon of comfort. It has a slightly spicy and sweet warmth to it, which many have called the "gingerbread" note. It's gourmand without being foody because the creaminess is dry. If Bois des Iles were a colour, it would be chocolate brown with champagne highlights or the colour of silk by candlelight.

Bois des Iles is my comfort scent, but it's also very rich smelling. Rich as in decadent. When I want to smell like a million bucks, I reach for my Bois des Iles. Luckily, smelling like million bucks is more affordable, now that Chanel is offering its Les Exclusifs line in smaller, 75ml, bottles and not just the enormous 200ml ones. If you'd like to give Bois des Iles a sniff, head on over to a Chanel Boutique, or Holt Renfrew in Toronto.

House: Chanel
Nose: Ernest Beaux
Notes: aldehydes, and "Sandalwood and Ylang-Ylang spirals in a base of Tonka Bean and Bourbon Vanilla, with heady, enchanting notes of Sicilian Mandarin and Calabrian Bergamot." [from the Chanel website]

Maison Francis Kurkdjian - Absolue Pour le Soir

2011-11-15T09:16:00.001-08:00

Dirty Dirty Rich

Some perfumes are demure, innocent and cheerful - and then there's Absolue Pour le Soir. This is pure sex. Francis Kurkdjian has created a perfume that I wouldn't even consider for my young niece and I'd be embarrassed to wear in front of my mother. But, oh baby.

Absolue Pour le Soir is the dirtiest thing I've smelled in a long time. It's gorgeously filthy. It's interesting too. It has a sort of backwards progression that keeps you guessing all day as you take furtive sniffs of your illicit smelling wrists. It starts off with a brief fruity twist of candied orange peel and a bang of smoke and amber. The smoke is thick - was there a fire in here? The amber is pure sex, like the amber in Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan. In fact, every note that could conjure up the illusion of animalic relations has been used: sweaty cumin, sticky, slightly urinous honey, and civet, tons of civet, that ultra-sexy bottom note.

Gradually a cool, creamy floral, like soapy rose and ylang ylang pudding, becomes noticeable underneath the smoky amber. The sensation is like burying your nose in warm fur and coming across a hidden vein of cold cream. Incense smoke and honey continue to swirl around the cooler notes and a lovely sandalwood becomes more noticeable in the later hours.

Wearing Absolue Pour le Soir is like waking up in bed the morning after, in tangled and fragrant silk sheets, and having your naughty escapades from the night before return to you gradually in blurred images.

House: Maison Francis Kurkdjian
Nose: Francis Kurkdjian
Notes: Benzoin from Syam - Rose honey - Incense Absolute - Ylang Ylang - Cumin - Atlas Cedar and Sandalwood

(Apologies to Lady Gaga for the unauthorized use of your image. I'm a big fan. Don't sue me.)

Olly The Smelly Robot

2011-11-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

Smell-O-Vision is finally a reality. Mint Foundry has developed a "smelly robot" they call "Olly." This computer peripheral can be customized to puff out fragrance for any Internet action, like a tweet or a Facebook message or a calendar alarm. Olly has a removeable section in the back that can be filled with perfume, essential oil, even alcohol.

The possibilities for perfumistas are tantalizing. Imagine if all your incoming tweets were announced by the sillage of Fracas? Or every time you received a Facebook Like, you smelled a waft of Joy? Or a calendar reminder pops-up to tell you you're late to meet friends for drinks, and it smells like Juniper Sling?

via Core77

Bottega Veneta

2011-10-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

A Signature Scent

The luxury Italian leather goods house Bottega Veneta has released its first perfume, a floral leather chypre that fits perfectly with the image of "craftsmanship, understatement, and refinement" that Bottega Veneta represents.

Bettega Veneta is a beautiful, well-blended chypre. It opens with bergamot and light jasmine. The heart has a slightly fruity quality underscored with a softly spiced suede. If there is patchouli, it's the very "clean" kind that adds just a little earthiness to the suede base notes. Bottega Veneta is a very pretty, classy, scent that I could wear any day.

I'm the type of person that has a perfume wardrobe. I choose my daily perfume based on mood and weather and activity. But most of the people I know are "signature scent" people. They like to buy one bottle at a time and wear it until it is empty. I usually have trouble selecting a perfume from my collection that would work for people like this. Most of the perfumes I own I collected because of their uniqueness, but they might not be the type of scents one could wear every day. Bottega Veneta however, could easily be a signature scent if you're so inclined and I would have no problem recommending it to anyone who would like a beautiful refined fragrance. If you're in Toronto, head over to Holt Renfrew to give Bottega Veneta a sniff.

As a bonus, the bottle is gorgeous and would look great on any dresser. It's made of heavy Murano glass that feels good in the hand and it has a woven imprint on the bottom like the leather that is the company's signature. A soft suede ribbon is wrapped around the top.

House: Bottega Veneta
Nose: Michel Almairac
Notes: Italian bergamot, Brazilian pink pepper, Indian Sambac jasmine, oak moss, patchouli and Indian patchouli.

Jean Patou - Joy

2011-10-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Affordable Luxury

Jean Patou released Joy during the Great Depression in the 1930's with an advertising campaign that billed it as "the costliest perfume in the world." Does that seem odd? It was actually a very clever marketing move. After the Wall Street stock market crash in 1929, the Parisienne fashion house lost many of its American clients who could no longer afford haute couture clothing. So, Jean Patou offered instead a luxury perfume that, while expensive for perfume, was still more affordable than the clothes. Joy offered a taste of uncompromising quality and luxury that still fit his clients' budgets.

To create Joy, perfumer Henri Almeras famously sourced that most precious ingredients in huge amounts. Ten thousand jasmine flowers and twenty-eight dozen roses are required to make each bottle of Joy parfum. Jean Patou has its own dedicated fields of jasmine and roses in Grasse, France.

I have a bottle of the EDT. Joy opens with sparkly, waxy aldehydes and green lily of the valley. After a few minutes you begin to appreciate the fragrant jasmine and rich rose bouquet. It's lush and very well blended. The dry down has a dark, slightly bitter note behind the flowers and a touch of warm muskiness.

According to the Jean Patou website, the formula for Joy is unchanged; I find that hard to believe, but the quality of Joy is undeniable. It is gorgeous and I highly recommend it to any fans of plush florals or jasmine. Joy may no longer be the quintessential luxury perfume (I found my bottle at Winners), but it's an everlasting beauty.

House: Jean Patou
Nose: Henri Almeras
Notes: (From Jean Patou website)
Top: Bulgarian rose oil, Ylang Ylang, Tuberose
Heart: Rose de May, Jasmine de May
Base: Musk

p.s The top photo is Greta Garbo in Mata Hari, 1931. Here are some more photos of her. Delicious, isn't she? I believe that's a bottle of Joy on her dressing table, on the left, in the last photo.

Parfums de Nicolai - Vie de Château Intense

2011-10-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Life In A Castle

The French expression "la Vie de château" translates literally as "life in a castle" and means living a life of luxury. Rough equivalents would be the Italian "la dolce vita" (the sweet life, a life of pleasures and indulgence) and the Irish "the life of Riley" (an easy and pleasant life).

Vie de Château Intense is a sweet, pretty perfume. For the first few minutes, it smells like surgared pink grapefruit and wildflowers. It's breakfast on the patio in the county. As opens up on your skin, it takes on more of the smell of hay, freshly mown and drying in the nearby fields as you peddle your bike past on a summer afternoon. It's warm and sunny. The base is smooth and soft and has a texture and smell to me like pale grey suede.

I've been wearing Vie de Château Intense a lot this fall. It's a favourite of my husband's; he likes its sweet simplicity. A co-worker commented that it reminds him of childhood memories. It doesn't smell like luxury, not the way that Chanel Cuir de Russie or Bois des Iles does, but it has the air of a sweet life, of carefree and untroubled pastoral memories.

House: Parfums de Nicolai
Nose: Patricia de Nicolai
Notes: Tobaco, hay, oakmoss

Chandler Burr TEDx: Perfume as Olfactory Art

2011-10-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

This talk by Chandler Burr at the TEDxDanubia 2011 has completely blown my mind.

I have a degree in Art History and studied the architecture of Mies van de Rohe and the part where he compares the Seagram building in New York to Chanel No. 5... it's perfect.

I can't catch my breath. I feel like there's literally a giant light bulb over my head. I want to move to New York and throw myself at Chandler's feet and beg for a chance to work with him. For free.

Thank you to The Perfume Shrine for posting this video first and making my world brighter!

Prada Candy plus Perfume and Food Combos

2011-10-07T11:08:00.000-07:00

Trick or Treat

This is so not my usual thing. I thought I would hate Prada Candy but it's actually pretty yummy.

Prada Candy opens with a big sweet caramel note and lots of fluffy musks. When I first sniffed it I thought "Oh, this is going to be very popular." It has decent sillage and smells like a perfume that is sure to "pull" in crowded club. Sure enough, all the girls in the store raved about it; it's their new favourite.

But Prada Candy is more than a simple sweetie. The middle notes of the perfume are all about benzoin, an ancient resin that smells of soft honey and vanilla. The benzoin saves Prada Candy from being a cloying kiddie perfume by adding complexity. It has a dry almost herbal facet that reminds me of chamomile.

After a few hours, Prada Candy is back to being delicate caramel and musks clinging to my skin. With its powdery, musky skin note and its milky-sweet candy note, Prada Candy walks the line between comforting and sensual. Think of it as both a warm, caramel-coloured cashmere sweater coat, and as silky sweet lingerie.

Perfume and Food

The cooler weather is the perfect time to wear a gourmand perfume. It's even more fun to wear perfume and eat some complimentary food. Here are some yummy perfume/food combos for fall:

Prada Candy and Kraft caramels
Ormonde Jayne Ta'if and medjool dates
Etat Libre d'Orange Like This and pumpkin spice lattes
Serge Lutens Five O'clock au Gingembre and gingerbread cookies with earl grey tea
L'Artisan Parfumeur Havana Vanille and rum raisin ice-cream
Lolita Lempicka and black licorice
Bvlgari Omnia and apple pie
Frederic Malle Bigarade Concentree and cognac (What do you mean that's not a food?)

If you've tried Prada Candy, let me know what you think or tell me your favourite perfume/food combos.

House: Prada

Nose: Daniela Andrier

Notes: white musks, benzoin, caramel

Lubin - Idole

2011-09-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

Bon Voyage

Pierre Francois Lubin founded his perfume house 1798, just after the French revolution. His first products were scented ribbons and powders and and Eau de Lubin which made him popular with Empress Josephine of the Imperial court, which led to other commissions for kings and tsars.

The perfumes sold by the house of Lubin today are not the same venerable formulas, but the company strives to create an atmosphere of history, and precious materials around its new perfumes. Lubin Idole was created in 2005 by Olivia Giacobetti. Idole tells us a story of romantic travel over the Indian Ocean to Madagascar, on a ship full of ebony and spices. There you meet natives who offer you rum and sugar cane, rub you with precious balms and invite you to dance with them around the smoke from their fires. Afterwards you lie back on the deck of your ship and gaze up at the brilliant stars in an ebony sky, with your leather bag as a pillow.

Idole is very boozy. It opens with a spicy rum that is joined by fruity woods in the heart and a smoky leather note in the base. It's unisex and would be great on a man but don't be afraid of the pirate-themed notes if you're a girly girl. Giacobetti keeps everything transparent with light shining through the layers as she is famous for doing. It stays close to the skin. My only complaint is that it fades too soon. I would love to try it in a spray instead of the little dabs from my sample.

I have a thing for bucanneer perfumes. I've tried Caravelle Epicee and L'Eau de Navigateur, but Idole is the first one I think I could run away with. I also love the bottle.

House: Lubin
Nose: Olivia Giacobetti
Notes:
Top: Rum absolute, saffron, bitter orange peel, black cumin
Middle: Doum palm, smoked ebony, sugar cane
Base: Leather, red sandalwood

p.s. The Lubin website is another one of those flash sites I hate. Please stop. It's not fun, it's a hassle. Look into HTML5 and stylesheets.

By Kilian - Incense Oud

2011-09-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

Hurray For Fall

I love the fall. I love the sunny but cooler days that give me a brief window of opportunity in Canadian weather to wear suede. I love the gorgeous Ontario leaves and the crisp apples and cheerful pumpkins. I love the smells of fall: woodsmoke and hay and apples and turned earth. But most of all I love my annual return to woody/spicy incense perfumes. These types of fragrances just seem so right in the Fall.

This fall I've been wearing the heck out of my sample of By Kilian Incense Oud.Incense Oud was released as part of the Arabian Nights collection earlier this year. It was created to highlight the two ancient middle-eastern materials from it's name, incense and oud. The Kilian website lists the notes as incense, oud, rose, cardamon and labdanum.

Oud is the new black of perfumery ingredients. There have been many niche releases in the past year or so focused on oud. I'm not sure I'm on the oud bandwagon. The few times I've really identified it in perfume, it has been as a sort of "band-aid" note. I'm sure now that I've dismissed oud, it will inevitably become my new favourite note given a little time; it's happened before.

Anyway, I don't smell the dreaded band-aid in Incense Oud. It opens with a faintly sour, medicinal woody note but as it warms up on my skin it becomes a sweet incense and sandalwood perfume. There are fruity-woody notes that I assume come from the rose, smooth sandalwood and a gorgeous curl of frankincense smoke. Now Smell This is right, the first thing that came into my head when Incense Oud reached this stage was 10 Corso Como. It's similar but Incense Oud puts the emphasis more on the incense and 10 Corso Como is more about the sandalwood. When worn side by side, there is no comparison on sillage: By Kilian Incense Oud knocks it out of the park. Just a little goes a long way and my little spray tester has been doing me fine for a week now.

The drydown of Insense Oud is warm and a little spicy and reminds me a bit of Penhaligon's Elixer. It has a similar calming, meditative effect on me. If you're a fan of incense perfumes I highly recommend trying it.

House: By Kilian
Nose: Sidonie Lancesseur
Notes: Incense, Oud, Rose, Cardamom, Labdanum

Penhaligon's - Juniper Sling - New Perfume

2011-09-15T06:05:00.000-07:00

Cute video for the new Penhaligon's perfume Juniper Sling. I love the 20's.

I haven't gotten my hands on a sample of this yet, but considering how much I love G&Ts, I'm eager to try it.

House: Penhaligons's
Nose: Olivier Cresp
Notes:
HEAD NOTES
Cinnamon, Orange Brandy, Angelica, Juniper Berry

HEART NOTES
Cardamom, Leather, Black Pepper, Orris Wood

BASE NOTES
Brown Sugar, Black Cherry, Vetiver, Ambrox

Colour me Jasmine

2011-09-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

A recent post by The Non-Blonde on the strange habits of perfumes lovers got me thinking about one of my habits - wearing perfume by colour.

Most of the time I match my perfume to the weather, or my mood or the occasion. For instance, Diptyque L'Ombre dans l'Eau or Frederic Malle Angelique Sous le Pluie I like for rainy weather. Penhaligon's Orange Blossom calms me down. Roja Dove Diaghilev and The Party in Manhattan go well with dressy evenings out.

But I have another criteria I use to choose perfume in the morning, that I only just realized I do mostly unconsciously. I choose perfume to match the colours I'm wearing.

Some notes have distinct colours or textures and I like to match them to the outfit I choose in the morning. Today I wore a silk blouse with an orange print and I chose Frederic Malle Birgarade Concentree to match.

Bitter-orange with orange, that one's easy. Also easy matches are rose with pink or red and velvet and galbanum with green. Here are some more:

Jasmine: mauve or purple
Frankincense: black and fur
Myrrh: grey
Oakmoss: khaki and leather or wool
Iris: blue or dark grey
Cedar: black-brown and denim or flannel
Aldehydes: the colour of champagne and silk
Tobacco: rust or maroon and corduroy
Sandalwood: reddish-brown and cashmere
Frangipani: yellow-peach
musk: light grey and cotton or angora
Ambergris: tan
Lime: navy
Vetiver: dark green and rough cloth like burlap

Most of them make sense, except maybe jasmine; I have no idea why jasmine seems really purple to me. Diptyque Olene is a brilliant purple.

Do you have any colour associations with perfume or any other fun synesthesias? Or do you have any other strange perfume habits you want to share?

Painting: The Museum of Modern Art in New York - The Dance by Henri Matisse

Nasomatto - Black Afgano

2011-09-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

Hard To Get

What is it about something that's hard to get that makes you want it more?

Nasomatto has a line of perfumes some of which are cheekily built around the idea of narcotics. Perfumes in the line have names like Hindu Grass, China White and Absinth. Black Afgano "aims to evoke the best qualities of hashish" and "arouse the effects of temporary bliss."

If you're afraid that you're going to attract dogs in the airport, don't worry. It's not the smell of hashish that Nasomatto is trying for, but the idea of it.

Black Afgano smells dry, dark and herbal and a little sweet. It's very strong when first sprayed, with big sillage for a little while, but there's some interesting development close to the skin. The main notes are dry grasses, earth and dark wood with some incense smoke and a hint of spice. As I wear it I keep thinking I smell something sweet around me but when I check my wrist it's still that strong wood, herbs and smoke. It's not until much later, when the strong top notes have faded enough, that I can detect the sweetness on my skin, a little sticky and slightly vanilla, like smelling vanilla cake.

A bit of a mystique has grown up around Black Afgano. It is notoriously hard to get. The rumour is that because of the difficulty of acquiring its main ingredient, that only a few bottles are made at a time. This may be true, but it's also possible that the restriction on availability is deliberate. If it is a marketing ploy to make Black Afgano unattainable and therefore more attractive, it's totally working. My local shop, Noor, was able to get 6 bottles and they were all sold immediately. They may be ordering more. I'm thinking about it.

I'm not even blown away by the perfume, but I find myself wanting a bottle because it's rare. I also like the Nasomatto line in general; they are all high quality scents and they're perfume extrait strength. I previously reviewed* Nuda, which is a very good jasmine. And I covet the bottles. They are so pretty.

So what do you think? Have you ever purchased a perfume just because it was rare or hard to get?

House: Nasomatto
Nose: Alessandro Gualtieri
Notes: hashish

*BTW: In my Nuda review, I complained about the Nasomatto website. It's much improved.

DSH Perfumes - The Roses

2011-09-04T14:46:00.000-07:00

Eight Long Stem Roses For A Birthday

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz is an indie perfumer from Boulder, Colorado. She sells her perfume from the Essense Studio in Boulder and from her online shop. I previously reviewed her Secrets of Egypt collection which sought to recreate the perfumes of ancient Egypt.

I think she's a genius. Her perfumes all smell so true; you can smell the high quality materials and the love she has for each note she uses. Every one I have tried has been beautiful in some way. The Parfums des Beaux Arts are from her "ready-to-wear" collection. The Essense Oils are from the Essense Studio, perfume and essential oils aromatherapy collection. The perfumes labelled Natural are made with 100% botonical materials.

A while ago I left a comment on Dawn's blog and won a set of samples from her perfume collection. The samples were all rose perfumes. Today Facebook told me that this week Dawn Spencer Hurwitz has a birthday, so I thought it was an excellent occasion to finally tell you about the roses.

American Beauty (Rose No. 1)

Parfum des Beaux Arts
American Beauty has the feel of deep, blood-red roses. There is a little tart-berry fruitiness from the cassis up top, a soft velvety rose heart and a smooth dark woody base with lots of patchouli and a touch of balsam.

Notes:
Top notes: Bergamot, Cassis Bud, Palma Rosa, Rosewood (bois de rose)
Middle notes: Bulgarian Rose Absolute, Bulgarian Rose Otto, Centifolia Rose Absolute, Egyptian Rose Geranium, Moroccan Rose Absolute, Orris
Base notes: Ciste Absolute, East Indian Patchouli, Mysore Sandalwood, Peru Balsam

Beach Roses (Rose No. 3)

Parfum des Beaux Arts
I can smell the ocean breeze and the waterlily in the top notes of Beach Roses, giving it that salty, aquatic feel. The rose note is soft, sort of lemony and creamy. The base notes are lightly earthy and musky.

Notes:
Top notes: Lemon, Neroli, Ocean, Palma Rosa, Violet, Waterlily
Middle notes: Carnation Absolute, Centifolia Rose Absolute, Chinese Geranium, Demine Rose Otto, Moroccan Rose Absolute, Rugosa Rose
Base notes: East Indian Patchouli, East Indian Sandalwood, Musk

Tea Rose

Essense Oils
Tea Rose is a true rose fragrance that's almost hyper-realistic, like a bunch of fresh cut roses transformed into a neon sunset. It's intensely sweet and green and somewhat sharp up top, with hints of lemon and tea cutting the sweetness. It smells exactly like tea roses and much like The Perfumer's Workshop Tea Rose but it calms down to something softer and fruitier, like rose hips tea and roses.

Notes:
Top notes: Tea Rose
Middle notes: Tea Rose
Base notes: Tea Rose

Dirty Rose

Parfum des Beaux Arts. Natural
Dirty Rose smells like rose petals tossed on a fire. It opens with a curl of wood smoke up my nose Followed by a leather note underneath. There's also a lot of wood and moss in there and some tobacco. The rose isn't apparent at first, but it grows in the heart of the perfume subtly, a twisting pink and red ribbon in the darker hues of black and brown. I am not usually a fan of natural perfumes, but this one might change my mind.

Notes:
Top notes: Bergamot, Egyptian Rose Geranium, Mastic, Pimento Berry, Pink Peppercorn, Rosewood (bois de rose)
Middle notes: Buddahwood, Centifolia Rose Absolute, Gallica Rose Otto, Labdanum, Olibanum (Frankincense), Orris, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Virginia Cedar
Base notes: Ambergris, Brazilian Vetiver, Cassis Bud, Guiacwood, Hiba Cedarwood, Leather, Myrrh Gum, Oude (Agarwood), Styrax, Tobacco Absolute, Treemoss

Umber: Bois de Rose

Parfum des Beaux Arts
Bois de Rose smells like sweet curried roses to me. Spicy curry, sweet rose and fresh green leaves are balanced with a bitter woody note in the heart and a dark mossy base.

Notes:
Top notes: Bergamot, Eglantine Leaf, Thorn Apple (accord), Violet
Middle notes: Gallica Rose Otto, Nutmeg, Orris, Patchouli, Rosewood (bois de rose)
Base notes: Ambergris, Brazilian Vetiver, Brown Oakmoss, Ciste Absolute, Vanilla Absolute

Le Rose Fleurette (Rose No. 2)

Parfum des Beaux Arts
The only rose perfume that I can't find listed on the DSH site, Rose Fleurette must have been discontinued. The sample card describes it as "Delightful. Blushing. Flirtatious."

Although Rose Fleurette is pretty, it's the only one that I'm note sure I could wear. The opening has a magic marker note, high sweet and sharp, (maybe the apple blossom?) that wrinkles my nose. But after that, it's a fresh, pale pink rose bouquet. It seems sort of fluffy like those giant peony-style cabbage roses. There's a touch of sweet and pollen-y yellow heliotrope in the base with light honey and musk.

Notes:
Top notes: Apple Blossom, Bergamot, Violet
Middle notes: Centifolia Rose Absolute, Damask Rose Absolute, Egyptian Rose Geranium, Moroccan Rose Absolute, Sweetbriar
Base notes: Heliotrope, Honey, Honey Musk

Arabian Rose

Essense Oils
Like the Tea Rose, this is a "single note" oil. Arabian Rose is an accord meant to re-create the smell of a particular flower, the indigenous rose of Arabia. It's a big, lush, full, real rose, but more velvety in feeling than the tea rose. It's very strong at first but it softens and gets greener in the drydown.

Notes:
Top notes: Cyclamen, Damask Rose Absolute, Egyptian Rose Geranium
Middle notes: Bulgarian Rose Absolute
Base notes: Moroccan Rose Absolute, Sultry Rose, Tea Rose

Rose Vert

Parfum des Beaux Arts. Natural
Rose Vert is one of the "Perfection Connoisseur Fragrances" - four natural perfumes that form an ultra luxury line within DSH Perfumes. Each one is created with fine natural essences, rarely used in commercial perfumes because of the difficulty in sourcing them and the cost.

Rose Vert opens with lemony citrus. The roses in the heart smell somehow vintage to me, like I have rediscovered a lost Victorian perfume. Rose Vert is like something precious that was kept in a tiny crystal flacon and dabbed on the bosom of a corseted and bustled lady. It's the condensed essence of rich roses and moss.

Notes:
Top notes: Citrus Oils
Middle notes: Bulgarian Rose Absolute, Centifolia Rose Absolute, Damask Rose Absolute, Moroccan Rose Absolute, Turkish Rose Otto
Base notes: Treemoss

Wrap-Up:

My favourites of the bunch are:

Beach Roses, which I think I would wear all the time, it's easy and care-free.
American Beauty for it's lush rose-red bouquet with dark patchouli.
Dirty Rose for all the smoke and leather and moss and the ambergris skin note. It's like a gorgeous and slightly rough man bringing me roses.

House: DSH Perfumes
Nose: Dawn Spencer Hurwitz

Window Sniffing: Jo Malone Wild Bluebell and Diptyque 34 boulevard saint germain

2011-09-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

A Quick Sniff-Off

I stopped by Holts on the way home tonight and spritzed on a little of two new perfumes: Jo Malone Wild Bluebell Cologne and Diptyque 34 boulevard saint germain. Both are exclusive to Holt Renfrew in Canada and I coudn't get samples for either one. So, while I still have them on my wrists, here are my first thoughts.

Wild Bluebell Cologne

House: Jo Malone
Nose: Christine Nagel
Notes: Bluebell, Persimmon, Lily of the Valley, Eglantine, White Musk

A celebration of the wild English bluebell, Wild Bluebell Cologne does smell like fresh wild flowers. The top notes are sweeter with a hint of clove. The heart smells like a combination of aquatic and melon notes (is that calone?), violet leaves and lily of the valley. It smells like I just pulled a handful of wet lilies up by the roots. Did you like Tauer Carillon pour un Ange? There's something of that in it, but no leather, The base is very musky.

34 boulevard saint germain

House: Diptyque
Nose: Olivier Pescheux
Notes: Top notes: blackcurrant, green leaves, fir leaf, citruses, pink pepper, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. Heart: rose, geranium, tuberose, iris and violet. Base: woods, resins, balsams and eucalyptus.

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, Diptyque released a perfume that is supposed to re-create the smell inside their flagship store - a combination of all their perfumes. An interesting idea but I don't think the perfume really works. It's a lightly spicy and woody with a strong leafy green top note and a hint of eucalyptus. But I get an off-putting sourness somewhere in the middle that keeps me from liking it.
*Update*
The base of 34 is a nice amber.

Bottom Line: Neither one is rocking my boat but I'd recommend Wild Bluebell if you like fresh lily and musk.

Parfumerie Generale - Papyrus de Ciane

2011-08-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

Falling Hard

I first tried Papyrus de Ciane in 2010 and was unimpressed. Oh what a difference a year makes. Papyrus de Ciane is my new obsession. It is everything. It is all I am wearing and all I want to smell. It is perfect on men and women; the anti-pink perfume.

The Ciane

The Ciane is a river in southern Sicily where the only wild papyrus flourishes. The area is the largest wild growth of papyrus in EuropeNo one knows who brought the plants there. Were they presents from Ptolemy II to King Hiero of Syracuse or were they brought later by Greeks, Romans or Arabs?

Mythology has it that it was on this spot that Pluto opened a passage to Hades and kidnapped poor Persephone down into the underworld. Her bereft playmate, the nymph Cyane, mourned her so much that she literally cried herself a river. In the 19th century, it was as de rigueur for young Europeans to take a boat to the source of the Ciane on their Grand Tour as it was to visit Il Duomo or any Roman ruin. They would float in wooden rowboats among the reeds that rose six feet tall, just like on the Nile, and contemplate romantic stories of the Greek gods.

Pierre Guillaume has created an intense green perfume to celebrate these intense green plumes. He also create it to be a modern interpretation of the legendary perfume base "Mousse de Saxe."

Mousse de Saxe

Mousse de Saxe is a dark, sweet mossy-woody accord with green freshness and a deep powdery drydown. According to Octavian Coifan, the original was created by Marie Thérèse de Laire in the early 20th century. It was meant to provide a moss or chypre base note to perfumes. On Bois de Jasmine I learn that Ernest Daltroff of Caron used a dark mossy base accord of geranium, licorice, leather, iodine, and vanillin that was called Mousse de Saxe. Whatever it's origin, Mousse de Saxe was used in or referenced by such great perfumes as Nuit de Noel, Habanita, Bois des Iles and Chanel No. 19. And now the name Mousse de Saxe belongs to Pierre Guillaume, because it lapsed into the public domain and was bought by Parfumerie Generale.

So What's It Smell Like?

In Papyrus de Ciane, Pierre Guillame has taken out the sweetness and turned up the green. It opens with a bright, bitter green note. Gods, it is so bitter; I adore it. If you love the biting galbanum of vintage Bandit or Chanel No. 19, wait till you get a load of this.

With the green, sinking down to dark depths like the pool surrounding the reeds, are grassy vetiver-like notes, sheer woody notes and smoky incense-like notes. A soft mossy base cushions your landing.

Like the vintage perfumes, Papyrus de Ciane has personality and real depth but it contemplates the historic base but from a thoroughly modern perspective. They layers are sheer, the colours distinct. It's close to the skin and very wearable.

According to a Grain de musc interview, Pierre Guillaume composes his perfumes to be loved. Baby, it's working.

House: Parfumerie Generale
Nose: Pierre Guillaume
Notes: Galbanum, Broom, Mild Plant Note, Creamy Wood, Mousse de Saxe

Vessel Parfums - Occult

2011-08-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

Good Juice

I was approached recently by Hollis Schwanz, founder of the new indie perfume company, Vessel Parfums, and asked if I would like a sample of her debut perfume, Occult.

A disclaimer first: I don't make any money from this blog (really, really the opposite as it encourages the growth of my perfume collection) and everything I write here is my honest opinion. This perfume stuff is just for fun. I don't promise to review anything I'm offered, never mind positively. But I've been wearing Occult a lot and I like it, so here we go.

The marketing material tells me the notes for Occult were chosen to reflect the sensuality of the west coast "back-to-nature" movement in the 1960s. I'm not sure how that's supposed to fit with the name and bottle design (see below) but more on that later.

What I smell is a warm, mysterious ceremony in the woods. Occult opens with a note like mulled wine, fruity and with hints of cinnamon. There's also something rich about it, like creamed honey. There's vanilla but it's not too sweet. The focus of the perfume is on the smooth woods in heart. Sandalwood and cedar notes rub up against amber and civet, like a big, dark cat with gold eyes.

I have only a couple of criticisms. The first is that this rich, dark smell doesn't seem to fit with the idea of sunny 1960's California hippies to me. I could be wrong, I wasn't there. Maybe northern California, deep in the redwoods at night... But it's not the earnestness of the "back-to-nature" movement. Occult is a good name. Hmmm, "Rasputin" might be better actually.

The second thing is the bottles themselves. Occult is available in two sizes, the 2oz bottle and a small 0.5ml vial necklace, called "the talisman." The talisman feels cheap and young, whereas the perfume definitely does not. The string, the charm, it's like something my 11-year old niece would wear. I don't like the full bottle design either: the Manson font and the vampire eyes. I think this juice smells better than that.

I've been carrying the little talisman around with me in my purse and re-applying often. Just a little dab goes a long way, so I think this is an eau de parfum concentration. Occult smells like quality materials, well put together, and the opposite of the insipid girly-vanilla perfumes out there. It has presence and weight, and is definitely unisex. Give it a try if you like rich orientals with sandalwood and cedar.

House: Vessel Parfums
Perfumer: Natasha Cote, Givaudan
Notes:
Top: Laotian beeswax, black plum, Somalian olibanum
Heart: Texan cedarwwod, Haitian vetiver, leather, amber, Indonesian patchouli, sandalwood
Base: Benzoin (Laos), vanilla bean (Madagasscar), civet, opulent musks

Summer Scents

2011-08-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

What I wore on my summer vacation, 2011

Summer is its own perfume category. Hot humid days cry out for cooling colognes; languid summer evenings beg for pretty florals; garden-fresh green notes just seem so right and if you can't get to the beach, you can always smell like one. On my staycation this summer, I hung around the city during some of its hottest days. Away from the restrictions of the office, I was free to spray on whatever and as much as I wanted. So here is list of what I wore to beat the heat.

Cologne

Santa Maria Novella Acqua di Colonia
I first tried this in the spring on a trip to Rome. I was looking for a perfume that was quintessentially "Italian" and that would help me cope with the heat while we traversed the hills of Rome by foot. Acqua di Colonia fits the bill. It was originally created in 1533 by Dominican friars for Catherine de Medici. Its cooling combination of citrus, herbs and flowers feel as good as stepping into the Trevi Fountain on a hot day.

Floral

Penhaligon's Orange Blossom
A favourite of mine for sleeping in year round, this light, airy take on orange blossom starts with a pink pepper and end with a whisper of vanilla and wood.

Bvlgari Bvlgari Pour Femme
The perfect pretty floral perfume for a casual summer evening in a barely-there dress and sandals, Bvlgari Pour Femme is a carefree violet, rose and jasmine with a warm amber base.

Beach

Parfumerie Generale - Bois Naufragé
My beach in a bottle. This simple combination of wood, salt and ambergris makes my skin smell like I just went swimming in the ocean. The driftwood note and the salty-sweet skin note of ambergris combine with a pale "green plus coconut" fig-like note to make it seem like just the barest trace of suntan lotion is left on my skin under the salt.

l'Artisan Parfumeur - Ananas Fizz
Grapefruit and pineapple make this perfume a fizzy but not too sweet refresher. I find it somewhat balsamic and floral. When I wear it people say I smell like the beach.

Creed - Virgin Island Water
Virgin Island Water always makes me smile. Coconut, rum, lime and creamy ylang ylang smell like a tropical cocktail in paradise.

Green

Eau d'Italie - Jardin du Poete
The smell of fresh basil is one of the best things in summer. In Jardin du Poete, refreshing bitter orange and grapefruit shine down on the bright green of basil and cypress like a garden at high noon. Moody green angelica, musk and vetiver bring you down to earth in that same garden at dusk.

Parfumerie Generale - Papyrus de Ciane
This is a good example of how perfume tastes can change over time. When I first tried this scent last year, I wasn't really into it. Now I adore it. The main notes are galbanum, neroli, incense, labdanum, vetiver and a gorgeous dark, mossy Mousse de Saxe base. Not really a "fresh" green scent, but more of a dry, smoky, resinous green, I know Papyrus de Ciane will continue to be one of my favourites right into fall.

So what are you wearing this summer to beat the heat?

Photo: Chasing Water I by andreaffm

Marie Saint Pierre B and C

2011-08-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

Decisions, decisions

Marie Saint Pierre, the doyenne of the Canadian fashion scene, is based in Montreal. Her avant garde designs use a minimalist palette of mostly black with shots of orange, red and gold. The lines are clean, strong and angular.

In 2010 Marie launched two perfumes to complement her collection. They were created by Evelyn El Koubi of Luxe Alternative in Paris. The enigmatically-named B and C are said to be inspired by Montreal, personal travel and garden aromas.

They are both outstanding. I ordered the samples with a purchase from Luckyscent on a whim, because they were Canadian and I'd never heard of them. I wasn't expecting to love them, but I do. They are both beautiful, multi-faceted, sexy and yet comforting. Like her clothing, both are high quality and wearable. I've been wearing them alternately all week and I can't even decide which is my favourite, it seems to depend on which one I'm wearing at the time.

B could stand for 'baisser" (kiss) or "bois" (wood). It's rich and sensual. It starts with a thick caramel and burnt sugar note but it's not cloying or childish. Nutty spices warm it up and a thrum of sexy cedar and sandalwood keep it grounded and mature. The heart has a fruity rose/violet combination that together with the cedar reminds me a lot of Serge Lutens Bois de Violette. I see this perfume in colours of cinnamon and gold, melting over wine-dark purple and red. B is a sweet perfume for grown-ups. It's the more outgoing of the twins with more sillage.

C could stand for "caresse" (caress) or "cuir" (leather). C is a soft musk and leather scent with floral and spice facets. The first thing you smell is the green floral combination of petitgrain and orange blossom. Then iris and the softest suede take over. Orange blossom continues to weave in and out through most of the perfume. It dries down to a warm musk and saffron skin scent. I may have found a new musk perfume to replace the Annick Goutal Musc Nomade that I can no longer wear.

The black lacquered bottles echo Marie Saint Pierre designs. Continuing the Canadian fashion theme, each bottle is sealed with a ceramic bijou of fused glass and ribbon, created by Canadian artist Melanie Laplante, that can be worn multiple way as a necklace or bracelet.

Can I afford two more bottles of perfume? No. Do I have room for two more bottles? Hell no. But can I stop huffing my wrists? Nope. Maybe one now and one for the wish list, but how to decide?

Marie Saint Pierre B and C are available in Canada at several stores in Quebec, one retailer in Kleinburg Ontario, and online from Luckyscent.com. See the link below for more details.

House: Marie Saint Pierre
Nose: Evelyn El Koubi
Notes:

B Notes
bergamot, Turkish rose, Atlas cedar, violet, caramel, beeswax, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, sandalwood, musk, maple sap, vanilla

C Notes
bergamot, petit grain, saffron, buckskin, iris, orange blossom, freesia, leather, cedar, musk

By Kilian - Sweet Redemption, The End

2011-08-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

Alpha and Omega

Sweet Redemption, The End is the 10th and last perfume in By Kilian's L'Oeuvre Noire series, that has explored themes of love and temptation. I previously reviewed Love and Tears, Surrender which is one of the best jasmines I've ever tried.

In this final perfume, Kilian has created a complex balance of opposites. Sweet and bitter, light and dark, innocence and death, or is it rebirth?

Sweet Redemption, The End starts with creamy orange blossom, a flower often associated with innocence. The pale creaminess melts into a heart of darker, sticky resins. The sweet smell of vanilla and cinnamon comes from benzoin but the perfume stays away from gourmand territory by the addition of bitter, medicinal myrrh.

Myrrh is an incense often associated with death and funeral preparations. It has a fragrance that takes time to love. I find that myrrh adds an almost plastic note to Sweet Redemption, as if the perfume is actually a sweet but synthetic amber, melting on my skin. Like vanilla ice-cream and dark honey frozen into bakelite.

At one point the light layer of orange blossom hovering over the incense base notes, created an illusion of lilies, Like a stereogram image created from two separate photos. Lily isn't mentioned in the notes, and maybe it was all in my head, but it fits with the theme of endings and redemption, death and rebirth. Lilies are the flowers of both funerals and Easter.

So in one fragrance, By Kilian leads us on an olfactory journey from beginning to end. Innocent fresh orange blossoms mixed with evocative ancient resinsto offer redemption as the ultimate temptation.

Sometimes I find the By Kilian ad copy a little florid, their packaging a little pretentious and their prices steep, but I have to admit the juice is outstanding quality. By Kilian will be offering the L'Oeuvre Noire series as a complete set of travel-sized atomizers this fall and I am tempted.

House: By Kilian
Nose: Kilian Hennessy
Notes: Orange blossom, bitter orange leaf¹ vanilla, myrrh, opopanax, benzoin², incense

¹ Bitter orange leaf is mentioned only on the By Kilian website.
² Benzoin is mentioned only on the Luckyscent website.

Parfums Grès - Cabaret and thoughts on perfumista twins

2011-07-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

What good is sitting alone in your room?

Grès Cabaret was released in 2002 and was inspired by a French cabaret with it's gorgeous women, beautiful costumes, and sexy-decadent atmosphere.

I find it very sexy. Cabaret is a sheer-woody rose and I'm a sucker for this style of perfume. It's very dry and has a huge hit of musks in the base that lift it and give it excellent sillage.

Unlike most of the perfumes I've been falling for lately, Cabaret is widely available and at very reasonable prices, although in Toronto you may have to order it online as I haven't seen it on counters.

I got my adorable mini bottle in a swap with a perfume pal, which brings me to my next topic: Perfumista Twins.

A Perfumista Twin is what I call another perfume fan who shares your tastes. The best thing about writing this blog has been meeting (in person and virtually) other perfume people around the world. It's given me the opportunity to chat about perfume (join us for #fumechat on Thursdays), do joint blogging projects like the We Three Kings posts last Christmas, and, most importantly for my wallet, swap samples and decants with other collectors. There are just too many perfumes to keep up with; thousands of new releases every year and thousands of excellent vintage perfumes I've never tried. Having Perfumista pals send me samples helps tremendously.@JoannElaine from Redolent of Spices was my first fumie friend. We share a love of vintage, dry-as-bone chypres and I always know I'm going to love her samples even before I open them.

But maybe even better than a Perfumista Twin is a Perfumista EVIL Twin (PET). A PET is one who has exactly the opposite tastes as you. Why is this great? Because a PET will trade with you for decants of things s/he doesn't like, but that you love! Ines from All I am - a redhead may be a PET. She sent me decant of Lorenzo Villoresi Sandalo that she didn't like but that I fell in love with.

Now I may have found a new PET, Bryna, who traded with me this adorable mini bottle of Cabaret, as well as a healthy decant of Fleur de Narcisse that I had been lusting after. They may not have tickled her fancy, but I adore them. I hope this is the beginning a a beautiful friendship.

House: Grès
Nose: Michael Almairac
Notes: Top: rose, lily-of-the-valley and peony; Middle: violet, blue orchid and incense; Base: patchouli, oleander, Indian sandalwood, amber and musk

Perfume Meetup Recap

2011-07-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

With a little help from my friends

Sunday was the perfume meetup at Noor, and it was fun. Fred and Nahla, the owners, were lovely hosts as usual. There were tons of people there, and lots of samples and new perfumes to sniff.

I was struck by the beauty of Stephen Jones from Comme des Garcons. Jones describes it as a "violet that's been hit by a meteorite." Odd description but a pretty perfume. Fred made me a sample and I'll probably review it later.

Kay from Perfumeniche let me smell her samples of Andy Tauer's new Pentachords, Auburn, Verdant and White. My first thoughts were: I like Auburn and recognize the orange topnotes and Taueresque basenotes; I did not like the opening of Verdant at all, too much like lettuces and I hate lettuces, but the drydown was better; and White struck me as the greatest departure for Tauer from his usual, but now I can't remember what it smelled like at all.

Ann from www.thespatravellersdiary.com was there and told me all about the Sniffapalooza in New York and let me smell some of the samples she got there. I'm jealous; maybe someday I'll get to go.

Kim Pittaway, another vintage fan like me, brought me a sample pack of some of her new vintage finds! I can't wait to try them.

There were many more people there, I hope I'm not snubbing anyone, but too many to list. I didn't buy any perfume this round, but who knows... That Stephen Jones sample is calling me and I can't get those new Nasomatto perfumes Noor has out of my head, especially the Narcotic Venus, a spicy tuberose and jasmine with real Va-Voom.

Thanks to MasterClasster from Basenotes for organizing!

L'Artisan Parfumeur - Ananas Fizz

2011-07-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Welcoming the Heat

It's summertime in Toronto and that means humidity. Some days it's like walking through warm, wet wool. The funny thing is, I really don't mind; I love it hot. We have 8 months of winter here so I appreciate every moment of the summer.

Hot weather does, however, affect my choice of perfumes. On a sticky day in the city, I want to wear something sheer and refreshing. Ananas Fizz fits the bill. It's a cheerful, fruity floral that avoids cloying sugary-sweetness.

Ananas Fizz does start fizzy! The opening is a mixture of grapefruit peel and pineapple. It seems green to me, like the pineapple is still green, not yet syrupy and ripe. It's also much drier than you'd think it would be, an almost acidic edge and the fizz of soda. Later, it becomes softer with creamy floral notes. It dries to a sheer woody veil with hints of pineapple. Unfortunately it only lasts about 3 hours on my skin, but I would happily re-spray this on all day long.

Created in 2004 by Anne Flipo as a limited edition summer scent, it was added to the regular collection the next year. Flipo created another perfume for l'Artisan that I love as well: Fleur de Narcisse as well as the very pretty La Chasse aux Papillons and Verte Violette. I like her work; it feels minimalist and transparent and as if all her notes shine through with their own light.

And here comes the pain, because Ananas Fizz seems to have been discontinued. I DMed L'Artisan for confirmation but haven't heard back. Isn't that just my luck? Why do we always fall for the ones that play hard to get? I only received my sample in a swap recently but I think I'm in love. So Ananas Fizz has been added to my growing "I wish I could find..." list.

Have a bottle of Ananas Fizz to trade? Let me know below.

House: L'Artisan Parfumeur
Nose: Anne Flipo
Notes: grapefruit, bitter orange, bergamot, pineapple, coconut milk, cedar, vetiver, woody notes

*************************
Update - July 25, 2011
*************************

L'Artisan Parfumeur did get back to me, but unfortunately they confirmed that Ananas Fizz is not on their "programme." They suggested I try their Invitation Créole candles, that the scent is similar. If I find some to sniff I'll let you know.

I did however, manage to find a great deal on eBay for a bunch of Ananas Fizz samples. When they arrive, I'll be decanting them all into one bottle. So I'm set.

Perfume Meetup in Toronto

2011-07-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, head over to Noor in Yorkville if you're in the mood for a little nosing around and chatting with other fumeheads. It's always a good time. People usually bring along their own samples for sniffing and swapping.

Date: Sunday July 24th, 2011
Location: Noor Boutique, 176 Cumberland St (Yorkville), 416-928-0700 (http://noorboutique.com/]). Nahla and Fred are the friendly owners
Time: Around 12pm/Noon to about 3:30 or so, but drop by any time. We may move around the area to some other locations at some point. Let’s see how things go and decide at the time.
To Bring: yourself & significant others / friends, any industry books or magazines, business cards, samples/decants/bottles to share/trade, etc.

From Basenotes: http://www.basenotes.net/threads/280392-4-Toronto-GTA-Fragrance-meetup-SUNDAY-July-24th-12pm-noon-at-Noor-Be-There!

Lorenzo Villoresi - Sandalo

2011-07-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Sweet Smooth Sandalwood

Lovely sandalwood is a classic perfume base note, but you can also find soliflore sandalwood perfumes, ie. perfumes that explore the facets of that one note. I have sniffed many, but one of my favourites is Lorenzo Villoresi Sandalo.

Lorenzo Villoresi is a niche perfumer from Italy. In his family palazzo in Florence, he is building a Perfume Academy where, through courses, seminars and events, people can explore perfume. I'd love to go someday.

His website says that the main ingredient in Sandalo is Mysore sandalwood. If it's true, that would make Sandalo a rare perfume these days. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the fragrant heart of the sandalwood tree and the best has always been considered to be from Mysore India. But for a while now, India has controlled and protected the tree as an endangered species, making Mysore sandalwood oil a scarce and expensive ingredient. Most perfumes with real sandalwood use other sources now, like Australian sandalwood.

If the quality of this perfume is any indication, then it may well be Mysore, because this stuff smells smooooth. Sandalo starts a little brighter with citrus and balsamic flecks of lavender but it quickly rounds out and stays a linear sandalwood for the rest of its skin-life. It's sweet, woody and slightly spicy like gingerbread. Sandalo smells like running your hand over soft, freshly-sanded, sun-warmed wood. I adore it and it's one of the few scents I like to wear in both hot and cold weather. On me it's very meditative, but I love it even more on my husband; on him it's a classic masculine and drop-dead sexy. I've included a photo of my Dear Husband, in Italy, with the masculine perfection of The Dying Gaul. He was wearing Sandalo on that trip. DH that is, not the Gaul.

I have to thank Ines from All I am - a redhead for my original sample and Noor for ordering my full bottle, and my husband, who thinks it's his bottle.

House: Lorenzo Villoresi
Nose: Lorenzo Villoresi
Notes:
Top
Rosewood, Lavender, Petitgrain, Orange, Lemon
Middle
Labdanum, Bulgarian rose, Neroli, Sandalwood
Base
Sandalwood, Vetiver, Amber, Opoponax, Oakmoss

Photo, DH and The Dying Gaul: mine

** July 18, 2011 Update **
I just read Clayton at What men Should Smell Like and he actually visited Lorenzo Villoresi in Florence in June. According to him, they do use sandalwood oil sourced from India.

Eau d'Italie - Jardin du Poete

2011-07-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

Refreshing, Modern and Masculine

Eau d'Italie released its 8th perfume this spring Jardin du Poete. Like most of their other fragrances, Jardin du Poete was created by the seemingly tireless Betrand Duchaufour. Hurray! because I am a huge fan of Duchaufour. Eau d'Italie has been hit or miss with me, but of the perfumes that I have tried from the line, the ones I have liked, Baume du Doge, Paestum Rose and Magnolia Romana, were by Duchaufour. I can add Jardin du Poete to that list.

Duchaufour is a master of what I think of as the "modernist" style of perfume. In "classical" perfumes, it's often not easy to pick out individual notes; you smell them as a whole, a complete picture, like a painting in which the brush stokes are hidden. Chanel No. 5 is what I would call a classical perfume. It doesn't really smell like jasmine and roses and ylang-ylang; it smells like Chanel No. 5; itself, a complete thing. Some perfumes may be chronologically modern, but still of this "classical" style, like Roja Dove's Diaghilev or The Party in Manhattan.

But a modernist perfume lays out it's notes like visible brush stokes or like a play, in which the characters enter the stage sequentially. A modernist perfume introduces us to a series of recognizable notes whose individual personalities can be appreciated even as they work together to create the whole story.

In Jardin du Poete, the opening notes of bitter orange and grapefruit are refreshing, clear and bright, like a stained glass window in shades of orange, yellow and pink. Then I smell the basil, green and peppery and a little grassy. If summer freshness could have a smell, it would be basil.

Next I smell the angelica and musk, an herbal and comforting combination that seems to float above my skin. It's a sort of masculine vibe, that reminds me of Angeliques sous la pluie. but when I sniff closer to the skin the green grass is still there. Cypress and vetiver complete the poet's garden with dark green trees and earthiness.

Wearing Jarden du Poete is like sitting in a summer garden, eating fresh citrus and sipping Pimm's. It's more English countryside than Italy to me, but it's a beautiful and refreshing summer getaway in a bottle.

House: Eau d'Italie
Nose: Bertrand Duchaufour
Notes: Top: bitter orange, grapefruit, basil Middle: angelica, helicrysum (immortelle), pink pepper Base: cypress, vetiver, musk

Photo of the Palatine Hill, Rome: mine.

Frederic Malle Portrait of A Lady and Heeley Hippy Rose

2011-07-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

Patchouli roses for for bare feet or black tie

Patchouli and rose is a classic combination. Something about the rich perfume of roses compliments the dark, earthy-sweet, smell of patchouli.

Recently two excellent niche lines released patch-rose perfumes: Frederic Malle, Portrait of A Lady and Heeley, Hippy Rose. Both are beautiful and excellent quality. They share similar notes but they execute the classic combo in a different ways.

Portrait of A Lady

When I heard Frederic Malle speak in Toronto earlier this year, he reminisced about the creation of Portrait of A Lady. He told us that he worked quite closely with Dominique Ropion on this scent, which was born out of a shared love for their earlier perfume Geranium Pour Monsieur and a desire to re-use the base they loved from that perfume, but turn it into a perfume for women.

And so they took the oriental base of benzoin, musk, incense, sandalwood, clove and cinnamon, and changed it: making the musk more feminine, reducing the sandalwood and adding in some "heart" of patchouli. As M. Malle explained it, real patchouli has a complicated fragrance with many different facets. Before now, perfumers had often wished that they could isolate just the "heart" of patchouli, the part the smells the best, and leave out all the less attractive aspects. New technology available to modern perfumers has allowed them to do just that in Portrait of A Lady. Malle and Ropion loved it so much they put in as much of it as they could.

They balanced this overdose of patchouli, with a huge amount of turkish rose oil. Malle said he had the opportunity to question someone once on how the famous Guerlain rose perfume, Nahema achieved such beauty, and was told that it used an unusually high percentage of rose oil. Emboldened, Malle and Ropion decided to use what they call a "daring", even "excessive" amount of rose essence for Portrait of A Lady.

According to the Frederic Malle website,"Portrait of a Lady is undoubtedly the perfume containing the strongest dosage of rose essence and patchouli heart." They call it a "baroque perfume" and it certainly is. Like baroque art, it cannot be called conventionally pretty, but it's over-the-top usage of beautiful materials makes it like a Baroque church, full of movement, and life and grandeur.

Hippy Rose

Heeley's Hippy Rose has many of the same notes as Portrait of a Lady, and when I initially sprayed it on, it reminded me quite a bit of the Frederic Malle perfume, but after wearing them side by side for a while, I see how they are quite different.

The rose in Hippy Rose is a fresh, velvety petaled pink blossom, as apposed to the dark red of Portrait. Hippy Rose smells like a just-picked rose; it's soft and dewy. The opening is a little peppery and tart. The patchouli and incense give it a nice dry-woody base and the amber and musk make it a little softer and warmer, smoothing out any edges.

So the question I was asked on Twitter was: which one do I prefer? That's a hard one. If you asked me which one I enjoyed wearing the most it would be Hippy Rose. It's a soft, pretty, mellow, patch-rose that feels really comfortable. Hippy Rose feels natural for day or evening or just hanging out in bare feet in the backyard.

But, ask me which perfume I think is the most important. As a perfume fanatic, I am always looking for the best, the most beautiful, and sometimes the most shocking. Many times I have moaned about how a classic perfume has been reformulated into banal nothingness. I believe that fifty years from now, perfumistas will be hoarding original bottles of Portrait of A Lady. I may find it a little intimidating to wear, like when I was twenty and my aunt offered me a loan of her mink coat. I don't always feel like I can pull off Portrait of A Lady; it's an evening gown scent. But the next day, traces of it linger on my clothes and on my pillow and they smell divine. Portrait of A Lady is going to be a classic; if you care about that sort of thing, buy a bottle now.

House: Heeley
Nose: James Heeley
Notes: Bergamot, green moss, Bulgarian rose, patchouli, incense, Haitian vetiver, amber, musk

House: Frederic Malle
Nose: Dominique Ropion
Notes: turkish rose, red berries, spice, patchouli, benzoin, cinnamon white musk, sandalwood, frankincense

Photo dark rose: mrgarris0n
Photo Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, Rome: mine
Photo pink rose: ~Dezz~

MAC - Naked Honey

2011-06-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

Linden and clover, over and over

The linden trees out back are in bloom, and as I sat under them yesterday evening, I remembered MAC Naked Honey.

MAC released this perfume in 2009, a limited edition that quickly sold out. Luckily, I was reading perfume blogs like Bois de Jasmine and Perfume Posse at the time and their reviews had me hustling over to grab a bottle.

MAC Naked Honey is a honey-floral perfume that smells like linden blossoms. It's a sheer, green-tinged sweet smell, like standing beneath those waving boughs and breathing deeply the smell of gold and green dappled sunshine. Some people say is also smells like honeysuckle.

I smell clover. When I was a kid, we would spend the summer wandering the fallow fields and woodlots around my subdivision, playing in the tall grass, eating wild strawberries and raspberries and sucking the honey-sap out of clover blossoms. Naked Honey smells like summer memories to me.

MAC no longer sells Naked Honey, but if they ever decide to release it again, I highly recommend picking up a bottle. At about $25, it was some of the best perfume money I've spent.

House: MAC Creations Hue
Nose: Harry Fremont
Notes: white honey, floral notes, woodsy notes

Photo of linden: redteam
Photo of clover: Dendroica cerulea

Estée Lauder - Bronze Goddess

2011-06-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

The first day of summer

Estée Lauder's Bronze Goddess is being billed as a limited release for 2011 but it has a longer history. It was first released as a body oil under the name Azure Soleil in 2006, as part of the Tom Ford for Estée Lauder collection and re-released as a perfume in 2007 called Azure Soleil Eau Fresh. By 2008, Tom Ford had created his own perfume line and Estee Lauder changed the name of Azure Soleil to Bronze Goddess but kept the formula nearly the same.

If you would like to feel and smell like you've been to the beach, but don't have time to get away, Bronze Goddess is the perfume for you. It starts with a summery squeeze of citrus but becomes a creamy, coconutty floral with a warm salty edge.

To me it smells just like expensive french sunblock - I have a tube of 50+ Vichy at home and it has the same "creamy rich flowers and coconut" smell. Underneath, salty amber base notes mimic the smell of warm skin just out of the ocean being dried on a white sand beach.

It's gorgeous, but I admit that after wearing it a few hours, I sometimes feel the need to go shower and clean up before dinner, the way I would do on holiday at a beach resort. But keep this one around for the cold days of winter, and it will make you feel the sand between your toes again.

A new flanker, Bronze Goddess Soleil, was released this summer. It's very different from the original. Bronze Goddess Soleil starts with a stronger citrus notes - I smelled grapefruit. As it warms up, it becomes a fresh greenish floral that's predominantly lily and jasmine to my nose. It dries down to a light musky and wood base. The only thing that ties the two perfumes together in my mind is that Bronze Goddess Soleil seems to retain a little of that warm skin character underneath its florals, the way that Bronze Goddess does.

While I liked Bronze Goddess Soleil at first, I got a little bored with it after a while. I still prefer the original for it's unique and almost perfect simulacrum of beachiness.

For other great beach perfumes, try Parfumerie Generale Bois Naufragé or Creed Virgin Island Water, both big favourites of mine.

House: Estée Lauder
Nose: ?

Bronze Goddess Notes: coconut milk, sandalwood, vanilla, vetiver, myrrh, amber, mandarin, bergamot, lemon, orange, tiare flower, jasmine, magnolia, orange blossom and lavender.

Bronze Goddess Soleil Notes: citron, bergamot, tangerine, lavender, petitgrain, pittosporum, neroli, orange blossom, jasmine sambac, grapefruit tree blossom, pink lily, blonde woods, iris, ambrette seed and crystalline musks.

Chanel No. 19 - EdT and EdP

2011-06-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

Shining Iris

The iris just finished blooming around Toronto as I write this. Beautiful and regal flowers, in shades of purple fill the gardens. But the iris in perfume doesn't come from the flower; it's a precious natural material extracted from the roots of the iris plant. The irises used to create No. 19 are gown in Chanel's own fields in Grasse. They take three years to reach maturity and the roots must be dried for two years before they can be processed. It takes 10 tonnes of dried iris roots to produce one pound of iris butter, from which the the absolute is extracted for the perfume, making iris one of the most costly natural materials in perfume.

The resulting absolute doesn't smell purple. To me it smells cool and silvery grey shading to earthy, depending on the perfume. It's a sophisticated, haunting and very unisex smell. Indeed, Chanel No. 19 is beautiful on a woman but would also make an excellent masculine.

According to an interview with Christopher Sheldrake in The Australian, "The original No.19 was created in the 70s. This was an era of the emancipation of women and for me this is the epitome of the spirit of Gabrielle Chanel. She was the ultimate rebel who refused to be categorised as the girly, pink flower type of girl. Chanel No.19 is a little bit like wearing trousers for a woman. It enhances the femininity."

No. 19 combines iris with a top note of bitter green galbanum, and earthy vetiver with smooth leather in the base. Together they are smooth as a grey silk blouse under a tailored jacket. In shades of green grey and brown No. 19 reminds me of a walk on a cool, cloudy spring day. It's both urban and outdoorsy, masculine and feminine.

The EdT version of No. 19 is a sheer, silvery veil of iris and cool green galbanum on my skin.

The EdP version of No. 19 wasn't released until the 1980's and it has a slightly different take on the same notes. To me, it smells more brown or ochre in colour and is warmer. The EdP lasts longer and the dry down is a stronger woody/earthy smell.

I haven't tried the perfume "extrait" version yet, but I would like to before the new No. 19: Poudre flanker is released later this year. According to what I've read, the original 1970's version of No. 19 was created using a very high quality galbanum, from a source in Iran. After the Iran hostage crisis, that source was no longer available and Chanel had to reformulate. What I wouldn't give to try the 1970's vintage!

House: Chanel
Nose:
Notes: galbanum, neroli, bergamot, hyancinth, jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, iris, vetiver, sandalwood, leather and musk.

New Perfume Release: Penhaligon's Anthology Collection Esprit du Roi and Eau Sans Pareil

2011-06-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

Penhaligons's is releasing the final two perfumes for its anthology collection: Esprit du Roi, by Bertrand Duchaufour and Eau Sans Pareil by Beverley Bayne.

From the press release:

Eau Sans Pareil
Originally created in 1988, Eau Sans Pareil has been transformed into a shimmering chypre.
Opening with a giddy rush of sparkling fruits and sensual white flowers, Eau Sans Pareil is
softened with sweet woods, elegant oakmoss and musks. Powdery, wistful and romantic.

Head: Aldehydes, Neroli, Mandarin, Bergamot, Kumquat, Raspberry, Pineapple, Cypress, Pink
Pepper, Tagetes
Heart: Jasmine, Damascus Rose, Muguet, Orris, Ylang, Orange Blossom, Liquorice, Clove
Base: Patchouli, Vetiver, Cedarwood, Oakmoss, Musk, Vanilla, Cistus-Labdanum, Benzoin, Amber Crystals

Esprit du Roi
Originally created in 1983, Esprit du Roi returns as a lush woody citrus, heady with swirling
scented foliage. Fresh tomato leaf, mint and raspberry leaf are combined with rich florals, warm
woods and potent musks to create this masterpiece of contrasts.

Head: Citrus Accord, Bergamot, Mandarin, Cedrat, Mint, Tomato Leaf, Davana Essence,
Aldehydes, Cardamom Absolute
Heart: Clove, Egyptian Geranium, Madagascan Ylang Ylang, Jasmine, Honeysuckle
Base: Vetiver, Cedar, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Raspberry Absolute, White Musk, Ambergris,
Oakmoss, Africa Stone.

I'm very fond of a few of the Penhaligon's perfumes, including Orange Blossom from the Anthology Collection, Elixer and Amaranthine. Both these new ones sound interesting. I'm not sure about raspberry and pineapple, but the rest of the notes in Eau Sans Pareil have me drooling.

Both fragrances launch in the UK and Europe on Monday 11th July in Penhaligon’s boutiques, selected department stores and online at www.penhaligons.com. They are priced at £98. No word on when they will be available in Canada or the U.S yet.

Anything by Betrand Duchaufour peaks my interest, and Esprit du Roi sounds like a complicated masculine feminine crossover. The Mint and Geranium like Geranium pour Mousieur, but with more florals. It also seems to have a chypre base but with raspberry, an odd note for a base note. I'm looking forward to trying them both.

Penhaligon's is an English company with a long history. It's first perfume, Hammam Bouquet was released in 1872. The Anthology Collection was started in 2009 and showcases some of Penhaligon's older perfume formulas, dating back to the 19th century as well as some from the 1970's and new perfumes.

Perfume in the News: Interview with Christopher Sheldrake of Chanel

2011-06-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

A nose ahead of the rest

An interview in the Sydney Morning Herald today with Christopher Sheldrake had a lot of interesting information about Mr. Sheldrake and Chanel's latest flanker, Chanel No. 19 Poudre. But it also got me thinking about perfume trends, flankers and reformulations.

Chanel has updated several of its classic perfumes recently. In 2007, Chanel released No. 5 Eau Premiere, an update to the iconic No. 5. In 2009 it released Cristalle Eau Verte, an update to Cristalle. This year Chanel is releasing No. 19 Poudre, an update to No. 19.

Why do new versions of classic perfumes? Mr. Sheldrake mentions in the article that Chanel No. 5 was created 90 years ago, when our every day lives were generally more smelly and smoky. He says that perfumes that were appropriate back then may seem too "animal or dry or opaque, heavy" to consumers today.

New technology has given perfumers the ability to pull apart a complicated smelling natural ingredient and take from it just the aspects they desire, leaving behind the rest. It think this technology is pretty popular among perfumers these days. In the seminar I attended, Frederic Malle mentioned that a new technology allowed him and Dominique Ropion to extract just the "heart" of the patchouli note they wished to use for Portrait of a Lady. In No. 19 Poudre, it sounds like Sheldrake has used this technology to give better definition to the iris note.

Giving cleaner, clearer notes was only one of the things changed in the new No. 19 Poudre. Sheldrake has also given it some more "synthetic" musks. (I find it odd that he has to mention synthetic, but I suppose that there are still some people out there who don't know that almost all musk in today's perfumes is synthetic.) The musks are to create a comforting feeling that he thinks will be popular in these insecure times. I wonder if it will be anything like the musks in Balenciaga Paris, which I found very fluffy and soft to wear, like a grey angora sweater.

In general, Chanel seems to be saying that today's perfume buyers want cleaner, more defined notes, and comforting scents. There may be other reasons for creating the flankers, such as to entice a new, younger consumer, one who wants a quality perfume, but who doesn't want to smell exactly like her mother. Or to increase sales in the infamous "asian" market, where common wisdom says that they don't like heavy scents.

I however, love dense, animalic and dry perfumes. I'm happy that Chanel is creating flankers instead of just reformulating their classic perfumes.

Coming soon, I think I'll do some comparing of flankers to their beloved progenitors and see if I still prefer the originals. Chanel No. 5 vs Eau Premiere, Cristalle vs Cristalle Eau Verte and Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess vs Bronze Goddess Soleil. When No. 19 Poudre shows up in my local shop I'll give that a whirl too.

Jean Patou - Vacances

2011-06-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Garden of Eden

Oh, you're going to be mad at me for this one. This perfume is gorgeous, sublime and very much discontinued. If you can find a bottle, grab it. I have the bottle below, with the green glass stopper, and my only regret is that I can't spray it on myself to cover me from head to toe.

Jean Patou first released Vacances in 1936. It was created by Henri Almeras, the same nose who created the famous Joy. It's a shame that they aren't making this anymore because it's a really beautiful, fresh green floral.

Vacances starts with a big wash of green galbanum and the spicy-green scent of hyacinths. There is also something floating and sweeter, which may be the hawthorn. It reminds me of trees in bloom in the spring. The heart is more green with a touch of lilac and sweet mimosa.

Vacances blends grassy greeness with light sweet flowers that sometimes seem tart and sometimes powdery. Wearing feels like springtime in the Garden of Eden, when everything was new and innocent and pretty. Lie on your back while the grass tickles your toes and watch the gently waving blossoms and leaves in a cloudless blue sky.

House: Jean Patou
Nose: Henri Almeras
Notes: Top notes: hyacinth and hawthorn. Heart: lilac, mimosa, and galbanum. Base: musk.

My 15 vintage minutes in Maclean's

2011-06-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Kim Pittaway and dishing about vintage perfume. Kim is a perfume lover too and I told her all about my favourite store, Fritsch Pharmacy in Kitchener, where I have spent many happy hours smelling vintage perfumes.

Kim wrote a great article on vintage perfume and Fritch's and little old me was quoted! I am thrilled.

Frederic Malle - En Passant and a long overdue post

2011-06-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

The Time of Lilacs

First my apologies for such a long absence. If I have any readers left, you've been waiting for me to complete the post on my seminar with Frederic Malle. That was almost a month ago. Time flies and there were vacations and lunches at my desk and plain old procrastination. I'm sorry.

So... long ago, when I had the pleasure of hearing Frederic Malle speak on perfume and the perfume industry, I asked him how he felt about the IFRA regulations. For those of you who don't know, IFRA is The International Fragrance Association, a body that effectively regulates the perfume industry by creating rules about what ingredients can be used and in what concentrations in perfumes and all perfumed products. It has a great deal of power because, although following their rules is voluntary, all the big perfume companies do.

M. Malle told us that he, as a perfumer, finds the IFRA restrictions extremely frustrating but that he follows them to the letter. Unlike food, a perfume product containing a known allergen can't just label the box with "Caution, may cause allergic reaction" or "May contain..." Instead perfumes that follow IFRA must cut some materials altogether or reduce them to minute amounts. This cause a great deal of sorrow for perfume lovers when old favourites are changed beyond recognition. It'sone of the reasons why we buy and love vintage perfumes.

M. Malle also mentioned that some updates to the rules were coming from IFRA this summer and that he believes there are many perfumes out there that haven't yet reformulated to the IFRA standards and will have to immediately. This will no doubt change many beloved perfumes. Unfortunately, I can't tell you which ones he thinks will be most affected because just as he was about to continue, he was interrupted by his assistant and had to leave in a hurry to catch his plane. If you have an old favourite, it may be time to stock up now, or find some vintage online.

Before I left I purchased a bottle I had been wanting for a long time: En Passant. Olivia Giacobetti created this for Frederic Malle in 2000. M. Malle told us that Ms. Giacobetti came to him with the idea already fully formed for the perfume she wished to create.

En Passant captures a moment of happiness. It's a walk on a spring day that passes by lilacs, wet from a rain shower, and a bakery, with the gentle smell of flour wafting out the door. It's light and fresh but also comforting. The lilacs have just finished blooming in Toronto, and I can confirm that En Passant captures the smell of wet lilacs perfectly. It's a linear scent and wears very quietly, close to the skin. I use triple my normal number of sprays with En Passant, but I never feel like I'm wearing too much.

I've moved out of my early spring obsession with dry green chypres, to a more gentle floral phase. Next post I'll write about Vacances, a discontinued beauty.

House: Frederic Malle
Nose: Olivia Giacobetti
Notes: lilac, green notes, cucumber, wheat

Painting: Sophie Gengembre Anderson The Time of Lilacs

Meeting Malle

2011-05-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

Il était charmant

Yesterday evening I attended a talk given by Frederic Malle at Holt Renfew. If you don't know already, M. Malle is the genius behind Federic Malle, Editions de Parfums, a luxury line of perfumes by master perfumers.

It was an intimate setting with were just about 10 of us in the room but there were some familiar faces: Kay and Gwen from Perfume Niche were there as well. We sat in a close circle of tables, decorated with peony centre pieces, in a room scented by one of the candles from Malle's collection, Un Gardenia, la nuit, by Dominique Ropion, which was lovely.

I don't know if you remember, but a little while ago M. Malle made a comment to the press about the perfume world being filled with hysterical "nerds." It rubbed a few of us perfumistas the wrong way. Probably because it's close to the truth. I am totally a perfume nerd. Anyway, I was half expected M. Malle to be somewhat pompous, or distantly elite at this seminar, but I was pleasantly surprised. He was completely charming. He comes across as a cultured Parisien certainly, he has a pedigreed heritage (his grandfather worked with Dior). But he was also friendly, approachable and utterly generous with his time. He spoke for more than an hour and a half and answered all questions enthusiastically, and this after a full day of speaking while suffering from a cold. He talked to us so long that we had to stop him because we were afraid he would miss his flight, and yet still he took two more questions. (I hope he made it.)

He began by speaking about how he started the company and why it was special. The idea came out of a dissatisfaction with the state of the perfume industry 11 years ago. All the perfume was being manufactured by large firms and mass marketed to the public by celebrity faces. The real artists behind perfume, the perfumers who worked for the labs, were being kept anonymous and were constrained by having to design perfumes to the specifications of marketers, who only wanted to please the largest number of people. M. Malle found that all the people he knew in Paris were not even wearing perfume anymore, so bored had they become with the current perfumes for sale.

He had the idea of making and selling perfumes like fine art prints. Each perfume would be a unique work of art and it would be signed by the artist, the actual perfumer (or "nose") who created the perfume.

I'll write more about M. Malle's talk, and some of the questions he answered for me, (like how he feels about the IFRA restrictions!) in another post. For now, you can watch the video below where he tells the story of the creation of Editions de Parfums.

Puredistance - Antonia

2011-05-03T19:11:00.000-07:00

Green lady

The Puredistance company prefers not to release lists of notes for its perfumes, preferring that we experience the scents as a whole rather than focusing on the individual pieces. This was a challenge for me.

Normally, part of my enjoyment of a perfume is the aromatic sleuthing I do - the teasing out of individual notes of a perfume, so that I understand the story it is trying to tell me. I love the "aha" moment when I recognize a particular note and appreciate how it's been used in this perfumes as compared to others that I've smelled. But that's just the "perfume nerd" in me.

Most people enjoy a perfume as a complete experience, not as an analytical exercise. And maybe they're right. Perfume as art isn't about the brush strokes, it's about the personality of the perfume and if it speaks to you or not. Here's what Antonia had to say to me:

Antonia is a green floral of great beauty. Wearing Antonia is like walking through an orchard in bloom on a warm afternoon. The trees are buzzing with bees and the sun turns the leaves and flowers into a dance of green and gold.

This green floral is not dry, like the chypres I've reviewed lately, but warm and sweet. It more like a seamless blend of green and floral and oriental. It's soft, never loud, but it's also quite strong with good sillage. The perfume contains 25% perfume oils. It's expensive and difficult to find in Canada, but if you fall in love you can order it online.

If Antonia was a season, she would be late spring becoming early summer. If she was a person, she would be a young woman. Antonia is kind and pretty. That's how I experienced it. (But, nerd that I am, I couldn't resist trying to list out some notes below.)

House: Puredistance
Perfumer: Annie Buzantian.
Notes: green notes, galbanum, flowers, vetiver, vanilla

Image: detail from Botticelli, Spring 1482, via Bob Swain

Weil - Weil de Weil (Vintage)

2011-04-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

How green was my valley

This Easter I did a little shopping for vintage perfume at Fritsch Pharmacy. I focused on green perfumes and chypres, which is all I want to wear these days. They are perfect for the weather, and, although they are beloved by perfumistas, green chypres are a neglected category in contemporary perfumes. It may be that one of the essential ingredients, oak moss, is restricted by EU rules. Maybe the bracing, bitter and dry, green category doesn't sell well, I would put two current perfumes, Estée Lauder Private Collection and Chanel No.19 as two of the best still available; heck, I think they are two of the best ever made. And Weil de Weil ranks right up with those two as one of the best green chypres I have ever smelled. It is an under-appreciated beauty.

Weil de Weil was released in 1971 and is now discontinued, which is a shame because it's lovely and the very soul of spring. It starts with a bracing green note, then a lightly floral and spicy breeze bows in, carrying the fresh scent of spring flowers like hyacinth and daffodil. The heart is grassy and green with some honey sweet flowers and is slightly powdery. Throughout the whole progression of the perfume I can smell the base notes: bitter, dry oakmoss, earth and wood. I don't smell the civet, but I'm not very sensitive to it. Maybe it's in the background, making the perfume more personal, melding it to my skin, instead of being too distant and abstract as something dry and green can be.

Green chypres can be like a beautiful but cold woman with an acerbic wit. She seems like a real bitch but once you get to know her, she's fascinating and one of your favourite people, all the more so because she wasn't easy, if you know what I mean.

I took a couple of days to warm up to it, but now Weil de Weil is on my desert island list: the limited list of bottles I would take with me if I had to be stranded. Yes, it's that good. If you love the green chypre category of perfume, you must try Weil de Weil someday.

House: Weil
Nose: ?
Notes: Top: tangerine, neroli, greens, galbanum and hyacinth. Middle: lily of the valley, honeysuckle, ylang-ylang, mimosa, rose and daffodil. Base: sandalwood, vetiver, civets, musk and oak moss.

Photo by wuu.

Perfume Event at Saltridges - Meet Ineke Rühland

2011-04-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

Saltridges in Burlington is the only store in Canada carrying Ineke perfumes. On Thursday April 28, from 6-8 pm they will be hosting an event with the perfumer herself, Ineke Rühland.

Diptyque - Olène

2011-04-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

Pretty please!

I used to be quite the snob about pretty perfume. Not for me, I said, the simple floral bouquets. Give me spices and woods and leather! If I wore florals, they were complicated with bitter moss or animalic bases to make them darker, bitchier femme fatales. I didn't do girly. Boy, was I missing out.

Olène is girly and sweet, but without being stawberry/carmel/cotton candy dreck. It's a simple, romantic floral based on three notes: wisteria, jasmine and narcissus.

I've never smelled wisteria, but they must smell like lilac, because the first few minutes of Olène smell exactly like burying your nose in a big bunch of fresh lilacs. It's intoxicating. Then, a short while later, it switches to rich jasmine, wafting it's gorgeous, gasoline-edged and narcotic prettiness everywhere. The narcissus in the base is barely there but it adds a slightly waxy, earthy strength.

And that's it. Simple but lovely. And what's wrong with a little prettiness? In the spring, who can say no to a little romance? Olène makes me feel like mushy love songs and cartoon hearts and bunnies and flowers.

House: Diptyque
Nose:Serge Kalouguine
Notes: wisteria, jasmine, narcissus

L'Artisan Parfumeur - Fleur de Narcisse (Exceptional Harvests Collection 2006)

2011-04-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Falling hard for a sunny beauty

Fleur de Narcisse, 2006 was created by L'Artisan Parfumeur as one of their "Exception Harvests" perfumes. These special-edition perfumes were created in limited quantity from a particular natural harvest and are meant to showcase the material and also the region, the way that certain vintages of wine reflect in their aroma and flavour the soil they came from. Fleur de Narcisse features a heady absolute made from narcissus, hand picked on June 6th and 7th, 2005, from the volcanic soil of Lozère, France. Only 3,000 bottles were made.

Luckily, my local perfume shop has a bottle of this gem. I first took a sniff of Fleur de Narcisse about two years ago but I was unimpressed. I don't know what I was thinking, because I tried a few sprays on my arm again this weekend and I am gone, baby gone. Fleur de Narcisse is marvelous.

It starts with the tart green smell of black currants and leaves, then blooms into big, sunny daffodils. Narcissus is one of my favourite notes in perfume. It has a honey-sweet side but also a waxy, thick smell and an earthiness. The narcissus in Fleur de Narcisse does seem to have an ashy quality, like the volcanic soil they grew in, thanks to the use of a gorgeous smoky leather note.

But as soon as I have recognized leather and smoke a gorgeous sweet, herbaceous hay note takes over. For an few minutes it's as if I am standing in a shaft of sunlight in a warm barn. I can smell hay all around me and a leather saddle nearby. Then, the honeyed daffodils come back and leave me smiling. It's a cheerful perfume.

The next day the scent left on my sweater is almost gourmand. Maybe it's the honey-sweet narcissus and the spicy hyacinth lingering? But, although they aren't listed, it smells to me like the cinnamon sweetness of tolu or the sweet nuttiness of tonka.

In any case, Fleur de Narcisse is big hit with both me and my husband. It might have taken me a couple of years to appreciate it, but now I'm hooked and saving for a full bottle.

House: L'Artisan Parfumeur
Nose: Anne Flipo
Notes: narcissus, hay, hyacinth, violet leaf, blond tobacco, iris, blackcurrant bud, moss and leather

Painting: J.W. Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus, 1903

Worth - Je Reviens (vintage)

2011-04-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Spring will return

As I write this, I can look out my window and see bleak, grey Toronto. The whole city seems to be just persevering, grimly soldiering on, fighting forecasts of snow flurries like the last remnants of a bad cold and hoping for the relief of spring.

So I continue to wear perfumes that remind me of spring. Narcissus and hyacinths are my favourite flowers for early spring. Cheerful and vibrant, but not sweet, these flowers are earthy and pungent and demanding. They may be gorgeous in a pot, but they take some work to love in a perfume.

Je Reviens is one of the rare perfumes to focus on narcissus. Although it seems old-fashioned today, when Worth released its perfume Je Reviens in 1932, it was a very modern fragrance. The dark blue bottle was designed by René Lalique to resemble a one of the new skyscrapers of New York. It became very popular in the 40's as a gift from soldiers to their sweethearts. Je Reviens was actually the fourth of five perfumes released by the house of Worth. Their names put together create a love poem: Dans La Nuit (1924) Vers le Jours (1925) Sans Adieu (1929) Je Reviens (1932) Vers Toi (1934).

In Je Reviens, the oily, earthy smell of narcissus is combined with aldehydes to make it sparkle. The heart of the perfume is an interesting combination of fresh non-sweet notes like narcissus and hyacinth and the warm, round, sweeter notes like hay and tolu. Tolu is a balsam with a sweet, mellow smell that has a touch of cinnamon to it. The spiciness of cinnamon and the slightly clove-like smell of hyacinth balance a powdery heart. I tested both the parfum and the EdT, and in the parfum you can smell the jasmine and lilac more clearly, but both formulations are pretty. The far drydown adds a musky wood.

Worth re-released Je Reviens in 2010 and I assume it was re-formulated, but I have vintage samples (from Fritsch's, of course.)

I want to thank my favourite Aunt for introducing me to Je Reviens. As a girl in the 50's, it was her first "grown-up" perfume. I'm wearing it a lot lately, thinking of her, and waiting for spring to return.

House: Worth
Nose: Maurice Blanchet
Notes: Top: aldehydes, narcissus Middle: hyacinth, jasmine, violet, lilac Base: vetiver, tolu, oakmoss, sandalwood, musk

Estée Lauder - Private Collection

2011-03-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

A lady for spring

In her private office, Mrs. Lauder kept a collection of the rarest, best and most expensive fragrance oils, extracts and essences from every corner of the globe. Over several years, she created a parfum from these precious ingredients that was deeply personal and for herself alone. It was a vision come true of her belief that she, like every woman, deserved the best. One drop and you'll know why Estée Lauder kept it for herself. - From the Estée Lauder web site

In 1973 Estée Lauder finally released Private Collection to the public. It was a hit and Grace Kelly reportedly wore it.

Private Collection is a gorgeous green/floral chypre and perfect for the spring. It opens with a duet of sweet blossoms and bitter moss. I immediately get the impression of the first flowers of spring struggling to break through the ground. In the heart, I smell green grass and spicy-sharp hyacinths when I sniff closely, but from far away the dominant notes are powdery, earthy and tinged with a dark green pine note. It's a walk in the park in early spring scent. The whole thing is well-blended, smooth and lady like.

I adore Private Collection and when my mini runs out I think I'll buy a full bottle. Unlike some of my other green chypre loves, you can still get this gem today and at a reasonable price.

House: Estée Lauder
Nose: Vincent Marcello
Notes: Top: honeysuckle, jasmine, citrus, Middle: orange flower ylang-ylang, coriander Bottom: sandalwood, pachouli

Coty - Émeraude

2011-03-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Sláinte

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone! Being of Irish descent on my mother's side, we always wore green on March 17 and went to the parade. No one is more sentimental about Ireland than an Irish-Canadian on St Patrick's Day, and we're not even Catholic. I love St Patrick's day even more now that it's been almost universally adopted as a spring celebration. I go to the Parade in Toronto and see so many people of different colours and nationalities cheerfully wearing green clovers.

A few days ago, planning this St. Patrick's Day post, I chose to review Émeraude. I've been focusing on green perfumes this month, and I hadn't even tried my vintage bottle yet. Full of anticipation, I took off the cap, sprayed and thought... "Huh, Émeraude isn't green at all." Surprise! It's an oriental.

That's what I get for not reading other reviews first. Created by Francois Coty, the founder of Coty, Émeraude was released in 1921. Its citrus top and creamy vanilla plus wood base predates the much more famous Shalimar. Although Shalimar is the critical darling of the perfume world, I'm still not comfortable with it. I prefer my Émeraude.

My bottle is vintage edc. I'm not sure of the date, but I would guess that this was a drug store tester bottle from the 60's or 70's. It opens with a hint of citrus, but nothing like the strong lemon I get from Shalimar. the heart of the perfume opens quickly, within a few minutes I am smelling a powdery, creamy rose and jasmine blend over a vanilla amber and wood base. It's very smooth and, because it's only an edc, not very strong, but it's lovely. The base notes are slightly musky and leathery. In the far dry down, the wood notes reveal sweet violet tones.

I find Émeraude pretty and comforting, if the teensiest bit "old lady." I've never smelled the current formulation but I can recommend the vintage. I'll have a photo of my bottle up later today.

House: Coty
Nose: Francois Coty
Notes: Top notes are orange, bergamot and lemon; middle notes are jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose and brazilian rosewood; base notes are amber, sandalwood, patchouli, opoponax, benzoin and vanilla.
Where to buy: I got my vintage bottle at Fritsch's Pharmacy

Carven - Ma Griffe

2011-03-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

1946 sexy and The Big Sleep

The couture house of Carven was founded in 1945 by Madame Carven. She was a novice in the industry, but soon became much sought after for her clean, fresh designs that epitomized French chic. Ma Griffe, which roughly translates as my signature, was released in 1946 and was named for Carven's signature green and white striped dress. The box design is still patterned in green and white.

Ma Griffe is a green chypre, but one that leans more towards a floral than the dry greeness of Givenchy III or Silences. It opens with aldehydes and citrus and blooms into a sheer, light gardenia with green notes. An interesting hint of cinnamon accents the gardenia and the whole thing dries down to a cinnamon and wood, resiny base.

I have the modern bottle, and I have a vintage sample, but unfortunately the top notes in the vintage have gone sour. The base notes are still there however, and it seems to me that the labdanum and styrax were much stronger notes once. There is an almost incense quality to the vintage.

I think Madame Carven wanted something that combined freshness with self-confidence, like her dress design. It was a perfume to appeal to the new working girls, making their own money and their own way in the world after the war.

Something else was released in 1946 that put a spotlight on the new post-war, independent woman. The Big Sleep, by Howard Hawkes is as dark, rainy and complicated as Ma Griffe is light and playful, but its beautiful, sexually-confident young women remind me of Ma Griffe.

First is the troubled Carmen Sternwood, the sexually-agressive opium addict, victim of a pornography ring and possible murderer. She uses sex automatically with men, to get her way. After her first meeting with Marlowe, he observes drily "She tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up."

Then there's the star, Lauren Bacall as the sultry sister Vivian Sternwood Rutledge. A young widow, presumably from the war, Vivian is sexy, mysterious and, though Bacall was only 20 at the time, she always seems in control. Humphrey Bogart fell for her hard, both in real life and in the movie. Vivian plays a dangerous game trying to keep her sister and herself out of trouble from black mailers, pornographers, gamblers and thugs while keeping it all a secret from private investigator Marlowe (Bogart). Their sexually suggestive "racehorse" scene in the movie was just about as racy as dialogue between a man and a woman could get at that time. And just look at that gorgeous lamé jacket.

Besides those two leading ladies, the movie is full of strong, sexy women. There's my favourite supporting role ever, the bookstore proprietress, played by Dorothy Malone. Bogart steps into her shop to watch the store across the street, but quickly charms her. As a heavy rain begins to fall, he proposes that they have a drink of rye (from a bottle in his pocket) while he waits - with a suggestive line: "I'd rather get wet in here." The independent bookseller pulls the shade and closes an hour early, removes her eyeglasses and lets her hair down coyly: "It looks like we're closed for the rest of the afternoon." There are many femme fatales in film noir, but this sexy-geek librarian is priceless.

Even the taxi cab driver in The Big Sleep is a little randy.

Anyway, sorry for the long non-perfume-related post. If you've never seen The Big Sleep, I highly recommend you run out and get it right away. And maybe spritz on a little Ma Griffe while watching, to get the real authentic experience.

House: Carven
Nose: Jean Carles
Notes: Top notes are aldehydes, gardenia, green notes, asafoetida, clary sage and citruses; middle notes are orris, orange blossom, orris root, jasmine, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley and rose; base notes are labdanum, sandalwood, cinnamon, musk, benzoin, oakmoss, vetiver and styrax.

Givenchy - Givenchy III (Vintage)

2011-03-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

Dry green elegance

Do you believe in practical magic? Can we bring about the warmer weather by wearing perfume that is evocative of spring? Continuing my one woman protest against the snow still on the ground, I have another green perfume to recommend: Givenchy III.

Released in 1970, Givenchy III is a dry and elegant green chypre. It starts with sparkling aldehydes and leafy green galbanum. A sunny hint of peach balances the galbanum's bitterness. The heart is a slightly powdery, white bouquet with a green lily of the valley. The florals are kept dry, not sweet, by the addition of hyacinth and iris. The base notes are lovely smooth woods; slightly earthy and mossy.

Givenchy III feels like finding a patch of snowdrops on the mossy floor of the woods in Spring. It's a ray of sunshine and hope in the winter gloom.

Note: My bottle is a vintage tester I bought from Fritsch's Pharmacy. I'm not sure what year it is, but it looks like the photo below. It has the best spray of any bottle I own. A nice, fine mist.

House: Givenchy
Nose: Jean-François Latty, Raymond Chaillan, Y. Jerrold
Notes:
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, mandarin, galbanum, peach, gardenia
Heart notes: lily of the valley, hyacinth, rose, jasmine, iris root
Base notes: Patchouli, oakmoss, amber, sandalwood

Photo of snowdrops by R~P~M

Atelier Cologne - Trèfle Pur

2011-03-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

The luck of the Irish all day long

To celebrate March, the green month, and the upcoming hootenanny that is St. Patrick's day, I am wearing Atelier Cologne's Trèfle Pur today. I feel the need for green to get me through what is usually a not-so green month in Ontario. And a little four-leaf clover luck wouldn't hurt either.

A burst of freshness perked me up right away when I dabbed on Trèfle Pur. A "cologne absolute," Trèfle Pur contains 18% essential oils, which makes is much longer lasting than traditional colognes and it has better sillage. It was love at first sniff. Trèfle Pur is amazing and I only wish that I hadn't waited almost a year to try my sample.

Atelier Cologne only just started in 2010. Trèfle Pur is one of 6 perfumes they offer. To me, Trèfle Pur is an example of the best of modern perfumery. High quality, an interesting composition, and a sheer touch that lets all the notes shine individually yet also combine into a harmonious whole, are some of the hallmarks of the great modern perfume. I love being able to pick out the individual smells of bitter orange, violet leaf, and neroli, even as they work together like voices in a choir.

Trèfle Pur starts like a sunrise over green fields and winds up in the soft grey dusk, The opening notes combine a bright bitter orange with a green grassy note. The gorgeous green of the cologne comes from clover absolute, and the spicy greeness of violet leaves and basil. As it warms on the skin, wafts of aromatic cardamom and and a lovely floral neroli lift the green off my skin and swirl around me, like an afternoon in a garden. In the dry down, a cuddly musk and a grey mossy feeling comfort me.

Trèfle Pur is almost a combination of two of my favourite Frederic Malle perfumes, Bigarade Concentrée and Angéliques sous le pluie. It has the beautiful bitter orange opening of Bigarade and the spicy, musky, greeness of Angéliques. It is perfect for men and women who are looking for something fresh and green.

I also appreciate the way Trèfle Pur seems to tell a story and set a mood. It creates an olfactory image, a character, that each person can make their own. The marketing images created for each cologne in the collection reflect this story-telling aspect of the perfume. You can see the example for Trèfle Pur, above. I love them; I think they are some of the best perfume ads I've ever seen.

House: Atelier Cologne
Nose: Jerome Epinette
Notes: Top notes: Bitter orange, cardamon, basil
Heart notes: Clover absolute, violet leaves, Tunisian neroli
Base notes: Patchouli, moss, musk

Lancome - Magie Noir (Vintage)

2011-02-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

Beautiful Witch

Magie Noir was launched in 1978. The generous JoanElaine at Redolent of Spices recently sent me a vintage sample of it that has me bewitched.

Although it's classified at an oriental floral by Fragrantica, to me Magie Noir smells like a chypre. Its opening notes are those of a traditional chypre base. Dark, mossy and bitter, the opening of Magie Noir slaps you in the face with its "chypre-ness" and a healthy animal note of civet. She growls.

The earthy darkness of the opening stays throughout, but Magie Noir's gorgeous bitchiness softens after a few minutes. It has a sort of backwards progression from that of most perfumes. After opening with traditional base notes, honey, fruit, and flowers join Magie Noir and seem to smooth out her mood. Nevertheless, it still feels like the fruit and flowers are under the base notes, not the other way around. The red and black fruit, cassis and raspberry, are present but only if you smell closely. From arms length, I still smell mostly the patchouli and oakmoss.

The florals of Magie Noir are subtle but wonderfully complicated. I think I can smell hints of narcissus and a spicy greeness from hyacinth and galbanum. These notes make it a spring time perfume for me. Magie Noir reminds me of early spring, when the everything is still chilly and dark, but the daffodils and hyacinths are just beginning to sprout out of the black earth.

In the end, Magie Noir reverses direction and goes back to base notes of amber, and wood. Like an unpredictable woman, she keeps you guessing.

Unfortunately, Magie Noir has been reformulated and it has suffered. The current formula is harsh and chemical in the opening notes. I can see how the basic structure of dark notes over fruit and florals has been imitated, but the magic is gone. There is something sour about the fruit, and the dark base notes are not as rich, missing the oakmoss and civet. Only after the dry down does the new version become a tolerable, if slightly powdery, facsimile of the original. It's a loss.

House: Lancome
Nose: Gérard Coupy
Notes: cassis, raspberry, galbanum, hyacinth, bergamot, bulgarian rose, honey, tuberose, jasmine, ylang ylang, lily of the valley, orris, cedar, narcissus, spices, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, musk, civet, oakmoss, vetiver.
Where to buy: skip the new stuff and try to find the vintage online.

Serge Lutens - Five O'Clock au Gingembre

2011-02-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

Cozy comfort on a cold day

It's a numbingly cold February day, and I'm wearing the warmest perfume I could find: Five O'clock au Gingembre. Sweet, spicy and cuddly, FOaG is the perfect antidote to winter.

FOaG starts with a chewy, sweet ginger. The ginger is gradually surrounded by hot cinnamon and pepper and sweetened with honey, turning it into gingerbread cookies. FOaG drifts back and forth between this ginger-spice aspect and a bergamot-tea aspect, making it seem like the gingerbread cookies are served with a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea. The slightly astringent smell of black tea balances the sweet ginger. The perfume dries down to a nice woody amber.

I don't know how I missed FOaG when it was released in 2008. Its woody, spicy comfort is exactly my cup of tea.

If you like Five O'Clock au Gingembre, you might also like Like This and Omnia.

House: Serge Lutens
Nose: Christopher Sheldrake
Notes: Top notes are tea and bergamot; middle notes are ginger, cinnamon and woodsy notes; base notes are cacao, honey, amber, patchouli and pepper.
Where to buy: In Toronto, you can find Serge Lutens at Andrews, or online from The Perfume Shoppe

Photo: Tea Party by Charlyn W

Dior - Miss Dior (vintage)

2011-02-18T14:10:00.000-08:00

I thought she was a Veronica and she turned out to be a Betty

I have a vintage mini of Miss Dior, I think it's from the 80s, that I've never tried but a recent review by Normand at The Perfume Chronicles made me want to pull it out and give it a sniff.

The opening of my Miss Dior is sharp and green. I can smell a lemony bergamot and some old-fashioned aldehydes and the oak moss from the base. My first impression was that it is a bitter green chypre; if Miss Dior was person, I would say she was a cool blond and a bit of a bitch. She's beautiful , but cold.

And then she changed. The bitter green was replaced by pretty florals. Miss Dior became cheerful, maybe even a little flirty. Amazing. I like it when a perfume does the unexpected. But she still wasn't finished evolving. In the base notes, a smooth, soft leather with a little smoke joined the flowers. The flirty girl now had some sex appeal. She winked at me as she pulled on a pair of leather gloves.

House: Dior
Nose: Jean Carles and Paul Vacher
Notes: Top notes are aldehydes, gardenia, galbanum, clary sage and bergamot; middle notes are carnation, orris, orris root, jasmine, neroli, lily-of-the-valley, rose and narcissus; base notes are labdanum, leather, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, oakmoss and vetiver.

Sisley - Soir de Lune

2011-02-14T09:57:00.000-08:00

A bodice ripper chypre

In honour of Valentines Day, I bring you Sisley Soir de Lune, a good old-fashioned bodice ripper.

Dark and magnetic, like the eyes of My Wicked Earl over there, Soir de Lune really pops my pearl buttons.

Starting with smoldering spices, Soir de Lune unfolds its red rose petals dripping with honey and a touch of soft peach. Deep in the woods, it lays me down on a soft bed of earthy patchouli and moss. In the darkness is a hint of the bitterness to come in the morning when my love leaves.

House: Sisley
Nose: Dominique Ropion
Notes: lemon, bergamot, orange, mandarine, coriander, nutmeg, pimento, May rose absolute, mimosa absolute, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, peach, moss, musk, patchouli, honey, sandalwood
Where to buy: in Toronto at Holt Renfrew

Thank you to Victoria at Bois de Jasmin for giving me her extra sample!!!

Frederic Malle - Lipstick Rose

2011-02-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

Glamour Puss

Lipstick Rose is a perfume that grew on me. In 2008, while I was visiting England, I took the opportunity to do some perfume shopping. Being a budding perfumista, I wanted to smell perfumes that I had read about, but didn't have access to in Toronto. The friendly SA at Liberty pulled out the entire Frederic Malle line for me and I spent a long time sniffing through each perfume. I was determined to make a purchase of something that I couldn't get back home, and I wanted it to be an "important" perfume, something that would be remembered. I settled on Lipstick Rose. It was so different that anything else. It was unique and strong-willed and very glamourous.

Later, back in my hotel room, I was already having second thoughts. At the time, my favourite perfume notes were amber, spices and woods, but definitely not flowers like roses and violets. Also, unique and strong-willed I may be, but glamourous? No. I felt somehow unable to live up to Lipstick Rose. Now, years later, I've come back around to loving flowers, especially roses, and Lipstick Rose has moved back to the front of the cabinet.

Lipstick Rose is deceptively simple and linear. It's a combination of rich red roses and fruity purple violets, with a base of vanilla-amber and musk. But it has hidden depths. I find interesting dualities in Lipstick Rose. Roses are luscious, grown-up and romantic flowers, while violets are sweet, girly and demure.

The rose-violet combination in Lipstick Rose smells uncannily like thick, creamy lipstick, maybe something from Chanel and there is a powdery quality to it, like fine face powders. But although makeup is definitely inedible, Lipstick Rose also has an edible, gourmand side to it. The fruity violet ionones are berry-like, and the vanilla in the base makes me think of cookies and marzipan.

Lipstick Rose is also simultaneously old-fashioned and aggressively modern. Roses and violets may be "old-lady" notes, but the perfume is modern in the way it's composed. Spray on Lipstick Rose and you won't picture an old lady. It's a perfume for Dita Von Teese, putting on makeup at her dressing table and lacing up a corset. Maybe I don't have to live up to that. Maybe it's enough that I get to live in it for a while.

House: Frederic Malle
Nose: Ralf Schwieger
Notes: rose, violet, vanilla, vetiver, amber, musk
Where to buy in Toronto: at Holt Renfrew

Judith Muller - Bat-Sheba Bath Oil (vintage)

2011-02-06T18:08:00.000-08:00

A bathing beauty

In the Bible, Bat-Sheba was a beautiful woman who King David saw bathing and was so smitten that he lured her into adultery. The tale does not end well for Bat-Sheba's husband, but the perfume, Bat-Sheba, Exotic Oriental, created by Israeli perfumer Judith Muller in 1966, is still a beauty.

To escape the sounds of football, I ran a bath and poured in my small, vintage vial of Bat-Sheba bath oil. Warm, hints of fruit and rose rose up in the steam and a rich woody base of powdery-sweet balsamic notes enveloped me. I did feel exotic.

After the bath, I dabbed the last of the oil on my wrists and enjoyed the deep woody base notes with a hint of leather. I'm doubtful it will be enough to lure my husband away from the game but I can dream.

I think Bat-Sheba was discontinued in the 80's, but if you find a bottle anywhere, I highly recommend picking it up. And if any of my readers know Hebrew, can you translate the back of my sample box from the photo below?

House: Judith Muller
Nose: ( Rumour is that it was Sophia Grosjman ?)
Notes: I founds many different notes listed on different sites. Octavian at 1000 Fragrances says "green-rose notes (cactus-rosewood) over a vanilla/cocoa/ balsamic/chypre-woody base." Scentzilla says "aldehydes, jasmine, rose, iris (orris), vetiver, incense, and leather." Yesterday's Perfume lists "Top notes: Aldehydes, cardamom, bergamot, fruit note, rosewood
Heart notes: Jasmine, rose, orris, ylang-ylang, carnation
Base notes: Patchouli, vetiver, castoreum, amber, leather, oakmoss"

Painting: Rembrandt, Bathsheba at Her Bath 1654
Photos: Bat-Sheba bath oil sample, mine.

Raphael - Réplique (Vintage)

2011-01-30T11:29:00.000-08:00

A vintage sample is a little thin but has great bone structure

My recent haul of vintage perfume from Fritsch's Pharmacy came with two, very old, carded samples of Raphael Réplique. The juice inside the vials has reduced about half-way, through evaporation, but there's enough left to tell that this was something special.

The top notes are all gone, except for a brief sparkle of aldehydes that must have been stronger once. Then I smell spices, the cardamom still comes through well, and a fruity wood that reminds me of Serge Lutens Bois de Violet.

In the middle of Réplique's life on my wrist, the clary sage takes over and smells like green leather, with the fruity wood and spices still underneath.

In the later stages, the leather fades and the base notes shine on their own. Wood, vetiver, amber, musk, patchouli and oakmoss, make a dry/sweet darkly rich tapestry that is wonderful, even in this attenuated form.

Réplique must have been stunning once. What's left in my vial has become a little too thin over time. There's no sillage left and it doesn't last long. But I can tell the perfume was once a great beauty, and maybe unique. Was it an aldehydic floral? A chypre? An oriental? It seems like a combination of all three. Complicated and grown-up, Réplique was a perfume with style and grace.

House: Raphael
Nose: ?
Notes [According to irmashorell.net, a site that re-creates lost perfumes, this is the original formula]: top notes of Italian bergamot, Sicilian lemon, cardamom, neroli, coriander, clary sage and fresh aldehydes. Mid-notes of ylang ylang, lily of the valley, Egyptian jasmine, mimosa, tuberose, heliotrope and coumarin. Base notes of oakmoss, olibanum, powdery amber, musk, vetiver, patchouli

Photo: Lisa Fonssagrives by Irving Penn

And the Winner of the Tea Rose sample giveaway is...

2011-01-29T09:09:00.000-08:00

taffynfontana!

Taffynfontana, please contact me with your mailing information. You can find my email address in my Blogger user profile; just look under About Me in the bottom right corner of this page.

Thank you to everyone who left a comment for me. I loved all of your suggestions for rose perfumes.

This draw was done using List Randomizer at RANDOM.ORG

Giveaway - The Perfumer's Workshop Tea Rose

2011-01-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

Try the Godzilla rose

If you read my post yesterday, I think The Perfumer's Workshop Tea Rose is amazing. Would you like to try it yourself? I have a vintage carded sample to give away.

Please leave a comment below, on this blog post. Let me know, do you like rose in perfume? and if so, what are your favourite rose perfumes?

The winner will be chosen at random and announced here on Saturday. Please check back to see if you won. You will have to contact me with your mailing address if you are the winner. Yes, I will mail it anywhere, but I can't guarantee what the postal systems will do or how long it will take.

And I have opened comments to everyone. We'll see how that works out. If I get a lot of spam, I'm going back to the "you must have an id" system.

THE DRAW IS NOW CLOSED Thank you to all who left me a comment, I love getting suggestions of new things to try.

The Perfumer's Workshop - Tea Rose

2011-01-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

3D Rose

The Perfumer's Workshop released Tea Rose in either 1972 or 1975, depending on what sources you read. According to Sephora, in 1971, Perfumers Workshop International asked Jack Mowen of Firmenich to create a long-lasting rose fragrance that captured the scent of an entire rose garden, including the leaf and stem. The result was Tea Rose.

I can look at the notes of Tea Rose and suppose that the bergamot is providing brightness and lily of the valley is lending its greenness to the perfume, but really, the notes of Tea Rose are irrelevant. Tea rose is quite simply the most hyper-realistic rose you will ever smell in a perfume. Close you eyes and sniff this, and you are standing in front of a huge bouquet of fresh cut roses. The kind with real rose smell, not the gorgeous but odourless ones they sell now in florist shops. In Tea Rose, you can smell the soft creaminess of the petals, the green of the cut stems, and the woodiness of the thorns. It is amazing.

A word of caution, Tea Rose could just as easily be called Godzilla Rose - it has monster sillage and tenacity. Just the tiniest dab on my wrist was enough to have office neighbours inquire what the lovely smell was. And it lasts! After 48 hours, two showers and one bath, and the generous application of two other perfumes, I could still smell rose on my wrist. The other perfumes didn't stand a chance; eventually Tea Rose conquered them all.

Although my sample is vintage Eau de Parfum, Tea Rose still widely available online in EdT, and at very reasonable prices. If the EdT has any of the tenacity of the EdP, a bottle will last you for a long time.

Not everyone these days wants to smell like fresh roses. Many label rose as the dreaded "old lady perfume." I have to admit that I think of my grandmother, with her rose milk hand cream and sachets of dried petals in her drawers, when I smell Tea Rose. But I think we should take back the rose. This Valentines Day, wear Tea Rose, or give it to your beloved, instead of those soulless, smell-less, long-stem roses they sell at the shops. What could be more romantic than smelling like a real rose?

House: Perfumer's Workshop
Nose: Jack Mowen
Notes: bergamot, rose, lily, tuberose, sandalwood and amber

Photo: rose, Drew Avery
Photo: perfume bottle, mine.

My cup runneth over - and Jacomo Rare Winner

2011-01-23T14:12:00.000-08:00

You can't fight fate

This weekend, I saw my parents for brunch and was given an early birthday gift. My mother, knowing how much I love Fritsch Pharmacy, stopped in and picked up a gift for me from Mike Fritsch. It's another box, just like the one I received at Christmas, full to over-flowing with samples of vintage perfumes. Mike had been combing through his collection and gathering them together just for me.

I am so grateful for his and my mother's thoughtfulness, but it does create an interesting dilemma for the future of this blog. I now have enough perfume to review for maybe 2-3 years, based on my past frequency of posting. It seems silly to order more samples. But that means that this blog will become mostly one about vintage perfume, at least for a while.

It's so strange, the twists in the path of life. I never expected this to be a vintage perfume blog. I guess I never expected perfume to have such an presence in my life at all. When I started being interested in perfume, I was not a big fan of vintage, or of bloggers who wrote about these wonderful things that I would probably never be able to smell. I even complained about them. Hello, Irony, please come in - sit down.

But I won't turn away from this opportunity. I have access to things that not many people do; I feel like I have to share them.

I'm too flighty to say that this will be a vintage-perfume-only blog. I still have samples of new releases I ordered in 2010 that I haven't had a chance to write about, and I still occasionally swap with other bloggers for new things. I guess that there will always be new releases (or new to me) that I will want to review. But these wonderful treasures have fallen in my lap,and you can't fight fate. So there will be many vintage perfume reviews coming on this blog. I hope you find some of them interesting.

I also want to mention that the winner of the extra sample of Jacomo Rare is... INES!

Frederic Malle - Angéliques sous la pluie

2011-01-21T09:58:00.000-08:00

The perfect tonic

I think I'm starting to become a big fan of Jean-Claude Ellena. His style is minimalist, sheer, and luminescent. He takes a limited palette of notes and finds just the right way to combine them to compliment each other.

When I received a sample of Angéliques sous la pluie, I was expecting a floral perfume, the name made me think of Apres l'Ondee. The story accompanying the perfume is that Ellena created it to pay tribute to the smell of a bouquet of angelica gathered after the rain.

I forgot that angelica is an herb, sometimes used to flavour drinks like absinthe and gin. It has a bitter, slightly spicy and green smell. Ellena has elevated the spicy character by adding coriander, and played with the gin connotations of angelica by adding juniper.

The result is wonderful. Angéliques sous la pluie sparkles like a cool green tonic and wakes me up when I'm feeling tired. I smell the juniper first, like Bombay Sapphire in a crystal tumbler, then the spicy, green angelica. The smell is effervescent yet creamy. The base notes of sheer musk and wood, are like adding a comfortable chair and a soft grey blanket to your garden. This perfume makes me happy and content.

Men, please wear this! I would love to smell this on more men. So much sexier than the usual masculines.

House: Frederic Malle
Nose: Jean-Claude Ellena
Notes: angelica, juniper, coriander, musk, cedar

Jacomo - Parfum Rare and a Giveaway!

2011-01-18T14:39:00.000-08:00

Mysterious beauty

Parfum Rare is the first perfume I'll review from the box of samples I received at Christmas from the vintage treasure trove at Fritsch Pharmacy. Everything in the box is a mystery to me and I'm looking forward to discovering new gems. The more I smell vintage perfume, the more I wish I had started my hobby twenty years ago.

In the late 60’s, an American named James Kaplan and a Frenchman, Gerard Courtin, a former pianist, came together to open a boutique on 5th Avenue in New York. They called it Jacomo. In 1970, they expanded their business to perfume. They released Silences in 1978. Parfum Rare was released in 1985 and re-released in 1987 as Coeur de Pafum.

Parfum Rare is a rich floral chypre, with some spice and a deliciously dark bitter base. The top notes start with a bright, tart fruit that could be could be bergamot, or black currant and warm, aromatic spices. The heart is a beautiful full rose and dry, not sweet, florals, possibly the iris and marigold mentioned in the notes, or carnation. The base is also dry with bitter oakmoss, as well as some dark patchouli and earthy vetiver.

It's very well blended and has excellent sillage. It seems to take up a three-dimensional physical space when I wear it, as if I can smell dark and light, high and low, at the same time. It's very "perfumey" in an old-fashioned way that I love and it smells like money. I want to wear it with an inky black mink coat and two dozen blood-red, long-stem roses. Pafum Rare is a portrait of a beautiful but mysterious woman. The painting is a contrast of deep dark depths and reflected light, and the woman is young but with an old soul.

A Giveaway!

Appropriately, Parfum Rare seems to have been discontinued, but I'm happy to say I have an extra sample to give away.

Please leave a comment below and tell me about a rare or discontinued perfume you love, or if you can't think of anything, just tell me what you're wearing today. The winner will be selected randomly and announced on the blog on Saturday. Be sure to check back.

Update Saturday, January 22, 2011: THE DRAW IS CLOSED. MY THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED.

House: Jacomo
Nose: ?
Notes: bois de rose, cardomome de Ceylan, jasmin d'Egypte, iris de Florence, rose de Mai, vetiver, oeillet d'Inde (marigold), coriandre, immortelle, mousses de chene (oakmoss), santal, patchouli

Photo: Isabelle Pascoe, the Autumn Collections, British Vogue, 1985

Serge Lutens - Ambre Sultan

2011-01-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

How a perfume changed my life

In 2008, I became a perfumista. I had worn perfume since I was a girl, but I wore it in the way my mother did, one bottle at a time; usually the same scent for five years or more. In the fall of 2008, I started to grow restless again with my signature scent and began to look for a new one. While doing some research, I discovered perfume blogs and niche fragrances. The name Serge Lutens was used often, and reverentially on these blogs, so I sought out the line, which at the time was carried by The Bay. Just one small spritz of Ambre Sultan changed everything.

I remember thinking "Oh, this is so spicy, and too masculine for me" but all the way home I kept sneaking whiffs of my wrist. Ambre Sultan was so interesting; it was layered and complicated. It smelled like a mysterious and exotic landscape. It was sweet but had something herbal or medicinal in it too. And later, I thought "Whoa, this stuff smells like pure sex." It was addictive.

Ambre Sultan opened a whole new world of scent for me. For the first time I started to appreciate perfume, not just as something pretty to attract the opposite sex, but as a personal pleasure. And I was free of the idea that I had to choose one "signature" fragrance - I could have more, one for every mood, as many as I wanted. Perfume was more than an accessory; it was an accessible art form. It inspired and entertained me. It created visions in my mind of places, people, moods and emotions.

Through perfume, I rediscovered my love of art history. Like paintings, perfumes could be abstract or realistic representations. There were styles, modern and classic schools, new stars and old masters, commercial mass products and exclusive hard to find items. Unlike painting, the price range for most of these fragrant art pieces was exactly what I could afford. Although I know it's a stretch to call perfume practical, something in my basic nature liked that the art I was buying was usable. I would rather buy something that will walk around with me all day, than something that will hang on a wall.

It was all over for me from there. Soon, I bought a full bottle of Ambre Sultan, then more bottles, from Frederic Malle, Ormonde Jayne, L'Artisan Parfumeur, Eau d'Italie and more. I went through phases, first addicted to heavy ambers and spices, then woods, incenses, then later discovering I could love flowers too, like roses, gardenias, jasmine, and orange blossoms. Chypres rocked my world. I disdained vintage, I loved vintage. I continue to change and grow in my perfume choices, and I hope I always do.

Enough about you, what does it smell like?

To those of you who scanned everything above to get to this part, Hello! (I do that too.)

Ambre Sultan is linear but multi-layered. It has a sweet, heavy, amber base, like thick, dark vanilla-scented syrup. Floating over this resiny amber is an aromatic smoke of warm spice. There's a medicinal note, which comes from the angelica root, also used in herbal cough remedies like Ricola pastilles. A warm woodiness lies underneath, and a personal smell, like a lover, that may be the myrhh*.

Ambre Sultan is a must try for all perfume lovers. And if you do try it, let me know if it blew your mind.

House: Serge Lutens
Nose: Christopher Sheldrake
Notes: coriander, sandalwood, bay leaf, patchouli, angelica, resins and myrrh

Photo: Amber Fort, Jaipur, Wikimedia

* A recent post by Katie Puckrik called myrrh "scalpy." Maybe that contributes to the afterglow, cuddling in bed, feeling I get from Ambre Sultan. What do you think?

My 15 Minutes

2011-01-08T07:42:00.000-08:00

There's an article in today's Globe and Mail about a recent perfumista meet-up I attended at Noor and Scent of the Day is mentioned! I'm even quoted.

Scent geeks of the world, unite! - Globe and Mail, Saturday January 8, 2011

I feel delusions of grandeur coming on; I should go lie down until they pass.

Jacomo - Silences

2011-01-07T09:51:00.000-08:00

A meditation garden

I received a bottle of vintage Jacomo Silences for Christmas this year from my brother-in-law, bless him. He picked it up at the magic Fritsch Pharmacy which I mentioned in my last post. I suppose I should call it Fritsch Fragrances, which is the name on the sign, but it says Pharmacy on the business card and that's the way I always think of it.

Anyway, back to Silences. Silences is a holy grail for green chypres. It is so lovely, I highly recommend it to both men and women.

Perfectly unisex, Silences has a calm, meditative quality that makes me think of Japanese gardens. It starts with a very green, bitter galbanum note, only lightly touched by citrus. As it warms up on my skin, spring flowers join the green, but Silences remains composed and serene, never sweet or romantic. A soapy rose, a green lily of the valley and a touch of spicy hyacinth drift in, smooth as silk. As a whole, the colour of Silences in my mind is the cool grey-green of sage. Even the texture of sage leaves, like soft, little green bunny ears, seems appropriate for Silences, with it's cool, grey, pussy willow feeling. The base (at least in my vintage) is wonderfully dry, mossy woods.

Like all green chypres, Silences makes me feel effortlessly chic and elegant; poised, adult. As a green chypre, it treads a middle ground for me between the headstrong Bandit and the cold-hearted Chanel N^o19. Although it reminds me of spring, I can't get enough of it right now; in the heart of winter, I've found a peaceful green oasis.

House: Jacomo
Nose: Gerard Coupy and Jean-Claude Niel
Notes: Top notes: orange blossom, galbanum, bergamot and lemon; middle notes: hiacynth, lily-of-the-valley and rose; base notes: sandalwood, musk, oakmoss and cedar.

P.S. For all those interested in Fritsch Pharmacy:
Fritsch Fragrances Inc.
201 King Street West
Kitchener, Ontario
519 742-1895

Photo: Nitobe Memorial Garden at UBC by A Hermida
Photo: My bottle of Silences, by me, all rights reserved.
Photo: Frisch Pharmacy, by me, all rights reserved.

Window Sniffing: Fritsch Pharmacy

2011-01-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

The Magic Shop

Hello 2011! I took a break from blogging over the Christmas/New year's holidays but it was definitely not a fragrance-free vacation. I was lucky enough to receive perfume from my secret store.

You may recall I mentioned my "secret store" in a previous post, well, I want to start the new year by sharing it with you. Fritsch Pharmacy, in Kitchener, Ontario, has been owned and operated by Michael Fritsch for decades. Although he once ran it as a full-service pharmacy, Mr. Fritsch followed his heart and turned his love of perfume into a business. The shop now sells only perfume and perfume bottles from his extensive collection. And what collection it is! From floor to ceiling, the little shop has a big exclusive collection of fine, imported perfumes from classic houses like Caron, Coty, Carven, Guerlain, Jean Patou, Lubin, Molinard, Givenchy, Dior, and more. He even stocks the hard-to-find Teo Cabanel, although the last time I was in he only had Julia.

Many of the bottles at Fritsch Pharmacy are vintage, and there are some pre-reformulation gems in there. The photo on the left shows some of the perfume I have bought there, including my Christmas gift, a bottle of Jacomo Silences, and a whole box full of samples put together just for me by Mr. Fritsch. Some of the samples are for classics, like Carven Ma Griffe, and Rochas Femme, but many are perfumes I've never heard of. If you recognize any of the bottles on the left, you'll see that I've been focusing on green chypres lately, but who knows, I may discover a new love somewhere in that box of sample goodies.

So in 2011, I'll be writing about my discoveries from Fritsch, as well as some of the samples I've received in swaps with online friends, and a few new releases here and there, as they take my fancy. And if you're ever in Kitchener, stop by Fritsch Pharmacy and say hello to Michael Fritsch for me. Just don't buy it all before I can.

Photos: Mine, all rights reserved.

We Three Kings: Eau d'Italie - Paestum Rose

2010-12-24T06:42:00.000-08:00

A rose among the ruins

Myrrh is mine: Its bitter perfume
Breaths a life of gathering gloom.
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding dying,
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

This is my final post in the We Three Kings series. Many thanks, first to Joanne at Redolent of Spices for starting this project with me and also to all the other amazing bloggers who joined us. Their posts have all been awesome and I'm so happy to have made so many new perfume-fanatic friends. Check them all out from the links at the bottom of this post.

Myrrh

After gold and frankincense, the Magi gave myrrh to the baby Jesus. Like frankincense, myrrh is another resinous incense, collected as tears from the damaged bark of trees.

Myrrh was the gift that symbolized death. Way to ruin the festive mood there, Magi. Myrrh was an essential ingredient in ancient Egyptian funeral rites and was also commonly used in ancient times as a medicine to treat wounds and pain. Jesus was offered a cup of wine with myrrh in it before he was nailed to the cross. The taste of this medicine was apparently not so good - the word myrrh derives from the Aramaic word for "bitter."

What does it smell like?

Myrrh is a difficult note for me, I find it sometimes hard to isolate in perfumes, but, despite the origins of its name, I don't think it's a bitter smell. Myrrh to me is lightly sweet and woody, as you would expect a tree sap to be, It's not the intense, nose-tickling warmth of frankincense. Instead I think of myrrh as being a "cool" incense, if that makes any sense. Like smooth grey stones.

Myrrh works well in Paestum Rose, which is a perfume created to reflect the beauty of Paestum, Italy, a city famous for its ancient Greek temple ruins and its roses. Myrrh combines with a sheer rose to create a perfume that's light and cool on floral on top but also resinous and woody and comforting underneath. The rose is pale pink in my mind, and with a lightness like peony. A pink pepper spices it up and bridges the gap between the rose and the wood. The far drydown has something more piquant, maybe some black-currant, making it end sweeter than it began.

Paestum Rose is the smell of melancholy but also happy memories. Maybe I'll save Paestum Rose for the day after Christmas, a day for cleaning up wrapping paper and relaxing with a new book.

Merry Christmas everyone, and a fragrant New Year!

House: Eau d'Italie
Nose: Bertrand Duchaufour
Notes: davana, pink and black pepper, coriander, osmanthus,Turkish, incense, myrrh, opopanax, papyrus, Wenge wood

Please visit all these other blogs during We Three Kings week:

We Three Kings: Comme des Garçons Incense Series - Avignon

2010-12-21T17:22:00.000-08:00

Does heaven smell of frankincense?

Frankincense to offer have I.
Incense owns a Deity nigh.
Prayer and praising all men raising,
Worship Him, God on high.

Welcome to my second post of We Three Kings week. The first perfume I reviewed was for gold, and this post is dedicated to the second gift of the Magi: frankincense. Frankincense is the gift that represents prayer.

Incense

Incense has been associated with communication with the divine since ancient times. It's mentioned in Indian Vedic scriptures from 5,000 B.C., and in ancient Egyptian tablets. Burning incense was serious business to the Jews during the time of Christ's birth; "holy" incense was burned only on special alters, by priests. It seems we humans have always found the fragrance of burning incense special and uplifting.

The Comme des Garçons Series 3 Incense is devoted to the five main spiritual teachings of the humanity; each one associated with a particular type of incense. Avignon represents Christianity and is focused on frankincense.

Frankincense did not start to be used in Catholic churches until the 4th century. Also called Olibanum, frankincense was introduced to Europe by Frankish raiders, hence the name. It's an aromatic resin harvested from trees native to the Arabian peninsula and north Africa. When the bark of tone of these trees is damaged, sap extrudes that hardens into lumps called "tears." The best frankincense comes from trees that grow in the harshest of locations, sometimes attaching themselves to barren rock.

What does Avignon smell like?

It smells like a Gothic cathedral. I've never been to a catholic mass where they swing the censors of incense, sending fragrant smoke over the congregation, but I've read from other reviewers that Avignon is pretty close to the actual experience. The frankincense is desert dry and woody in a way that brings polished wooden pews to mind.

Avignon is dark and contemplative; it smells of huge open spaces and dim lights. It's sheer, as if looking through smoke, but long-lasting and has significant sillage. In the drydown, an herbal chamomile and a gentle hint of vanilla soften the austere Gothic outlines of the perfume.

I find Avignon very meditative and comforting to wear. It clings to the fur collar of my coat, and when I smell it I imagine flickering candles in stone cathedrals and the sound of prayer. This is my scent for Christmas eve.

House: Comme des Garçons
Nose: Mark Buxton
Notes: Chamomile, Cistus, elemi, Myrrhe, Incense, Patchouli, Vanilla, patchouli, palisander, ambrette seeds

Please visit all these other blogs during We Three Kings week:

We Three Kings: Frederic Malle - Bigarade Concentreé

2010-12-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

Gold I bring to Crown Him again

Born a king on Bethlehem's plain,
Gold I bring to crown Him again,
King forever, ceasing never
Over us all to reign.

Welcome to We Three Kings week. This week, I and nine other bloggers (see list below) will each be reviewing three perfumes, to represent the three gifts of the magi: gold, frankincense and myrrh. The first up for me is gold, the gift that symbolized kingship on earth.

Gold is the colour of Christmas for me. Gold decorations are on my tree, gold paper and bows wrap my gifts, and golden candlelight fills the apartment in the evenings. When I was a child, my sister and I would always receive a golden navel orange in the toe of our stockings. The smell of orange peel brings back memories for me of Christmas mornings.

Nothing captures the glorious, bright golden smell of orange peel better than Frederic Malle's Bigarade Concentrée. Based on a bitter orange essence developed specially for Jean-Claude Ellena, Bigarade Concentrée reminds me most of the smell of clementines. Every year I like to get a little wooden box of these Moroccan delicacies in December and the opening of Bigarade Concentrée smells exactly like peeling one of these little jewels.

As it warms up on the skin the intense bitter orange of Bigarade Concentrée becomes more sheer and floral with just a touch of rose, like a rose, orange and gold sunrise. Then another type of gold becomes noticeable, a beautiful sweet, golden hay note. Hay is like liquid summer sunshine; it's sweet and grassy and works really well with the orange and rose. A light dry cedar provides a base that compliments but never overpowers the other notes.

Bigarade Concentrée was a pleasant surprise for me. I wasn't expecting to fall in love with a bitter orange perfume, especially in winter, when I usually drift towards spices, incenses or warm ambers. Orange seems to me like it would be a summer scent. But after trying Bigarade Concentrée on a window-sniffing lunch break, I knew by the end of the day that I had to own a full bottle. From a deceptively simple list of notes, Jean-Claude Ellena created a golden treasure that I will wear year round.

House: Frederic Malle
Nose: Jean-Claude Ellena
Notes: bitter orange, rose, hay, cedar

Photo: Paul.Carroll
Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch

Please visit all these other blogs during We Three Kings week:

Coming Next Week- We Three Kings

2010-12-15T06:44:00.000-08:00

We Three Kings

This Christmas I'm doing a special blogging project with nine other bloggers. We're calling it "We Three Kings." Next week, from December 19 to 25, each of us will be reviewing three perfumes, one for Gold, one for Frankincense and one for Myrrh.

I love Christmas time, and I've always loved the story of the three wise men. It intrigues me that the gifts they brought to the baby Jesus contained two incenses. I love the idea that these gifts from the orient, considered precious enough to be fit for a King, can still be enjoyed today, 2010 years later, in perfume. It gives us a connection to the past and to Christmas that we can smell. I'm happy that so many of the wonderful "perfume nerds" that I've met during my short time blogging agreed to join us in this celebration. Merry Christmas to all.

Please visit all these other blogs during We Three Kings week:

Caron - Nuit de Noel

2010-12-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

Christmas in a bottle

Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling pokers. - A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

It's the time of year when I get nostalgic. I play all the traditional carols on a continuous loop and sing all the words. I pull out the neglected cookie sheets and bake shortbread from the old family recipe. I long for snow. This year, I think I've added a new tradition to my list, wearing Nuit de Noel.

Legend has it that Nuit de Noel was created by Ernest Daltroff for his lover, who loved Christmas Eve. I love an old-fashioned Christmas too. My Christmas must have candles, wine, family, and the smell of rich food cooking. Nuts and oranges and crackers and chocolate should be on the table. There must be a fresh tree with every decoration saved from my childhood miraculously finding a branch to cling to. Children and dogs should run a little wild. A real fire should be poked occasionally and new logs added. It's better if it snows, even if I have to drive to and from two sets of parents homes through the storm. Everything should sparkle, or glow or shine.

A woody floral with gentle spices and a warm amber finish, Nuit de Noel has everything I want; it's old-fashioned in the best way. It opens a little fruity and a little powdery, like Sheherazade. Then, it warms up with gentle spices. There is a classic, floral heart with rose, jasmine, and ylang-ylang, that seems dry somehow, maybe because of the oak moss. (I'm testing a vintage sample, so yay for oak moss!) The heart also has a beautiful smoky sandalwood. Under everything is a buttery, cozy, amber.

Nuit de Noel is like a beautifully set Christmas table. Everything in it is complex but well-blended and the notes are warm and jewel-toned. Nuit de Noel is to Christmas what Like This is to the fall. It's not a perfume of cold snow and pine trees, but one of soft blankets, candles, gingerbread houses, fireplaces and Christmas puddings.

House: Caron
Nose: Ernest Daltroff
Notes: Top notes are ylang-ylang, tincture of rose and jasmine; middle notes are sandalwood and oak moss; base notes are musk and amber.

Photo: Laenulfean

Jean Desprez - Sheherazade

2010-12-10T04:59:00.000-08:00

Secret treasure

I have a secret. It's a store, a wonderful, impossible store. A hidden gem like something right out of a fairy tale, where treasures you've only read about sit on shelves in glorious disarray, higglety-pigglety, the rare, the mundane, the outright discontinued, vintage and reformulated, all the perfume of my dreams. I'll share the address with you some day, but for now, I'll tell you about one of the samples I found there: the discontinued Sheherazade, by Jean Desprez.

Sheherazade, the woman, was a clever Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. Sheherazade, the perfume, is a sweet, powdery oriental with a woody, base. It reminds me a bit of Caron's Bain de Champagne, but darker and more complicated. The opening is like powdered sugar with a dark bitter note that I think might be the rosewood? I could have sworn there was leather in there, but the only notes I could find, at The Perfumed Court, don't mention any.

The powdery opening warms into a spiced fruit in the heart, with some rosy carnation and dry, rooty orris. The base notes continue the sweet, woody theme of the opening with vanilla, sandalwood and resins. Sheherazade is an interesting contrast of light and dark, sweet and bitter, floral and woods. There's enough here to keep me interested, maybe even for 1,001 nights.

Sheherazade is now on my list of perfumes to buy when I get back to my secret store. It's a bit sweeter than my normal, but I like that it's deep, resiny and woody, complicated, and just different from the modern perfumes I own. Hopefully my magical store will still be there when I have a chance to return, and won't have vanished like a mirage in the desert.

House: Jean Desprez
Nose: ?
Notes: (From The Perfumed Court) Top notes of Aldehydic, Bergamont, and Rosewood Middle notes of Rose, Carnation, Jasmin, Ylang Ylang, Orris, and Cassia. Base notes of with notes of.... Vanilla, Sandalwood, Benzoin and Opoponax .

Sisley - Eau de Campagne

2010-12-07T09:59:00.000-08:00

A day in the garden

I've recently fallen in love with green notes in perfume, and Eau de Campagne is a verdant wonder. Created by the famous Jean-Claude Ellena, Eau de Campagne has his sheer, luminous style. It seems lit from within by a green light.

After a bright citrus opening, Eau de Campagne smells of tomato stems, grass, and fresh cut herbs, like basil. The florals serve to lift the green notes and make them sing. The patchouli and vetiver add a hint of earth to the drydown. Even though there is oakmoss in the base notes, this isn't a dry green chypre. It's too leafy and alive for that.

Eau de Campagne is an afternoon spent in your garden on a sunny day. It would make an excellent gift for any gardener, or outdoorsy man or woman. The shower gel and body lotion are great as well.

House: Sisley
Nose: Jean-Claude Ellena
Notes: bergamot, lemon, galbanum, tomato leaves, jasmine, lily of the valley, pelargonium, musk, patchouli, vetiver, oakmoss, plum and basil

Photo: quinn.anya

Amouage - Memoir Woman

2010-12-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

A balance of masculine and feminine

In my limited, pop-culture understanding, the concept of Yin and Yang is about the balance of male and female aspects. In perfume marketing, that's usually a no-no. Perfumes are divided between those for men and those for women and SA's will die of shock if you wander between the two counters. But perfume lovers know that, just as pink looks great on men and women look hot in tuxedos, perfume notes may seem masculine or feminine, but really, who cares? Crossing that line is not only fun, it should be encouraged.

That's why I find it odd when perfume houses release "Man" and "Woman" perfumes. Maybe they think that people will feel more comfortable buying a gender specific perfume. Maybe they're right. But, although I haven't smelled Amouage Memoir Man, I can tell you that Memoir Woman is not a feminine scent. In fact, it's a blend of masculine and feminine notes. It's an intricate dance of a perfume.

Memoir woman starts with a rather bracing wormwood note, combined with cardamom and pepper and clove. It's sort of medicinal and spicy and this is the point at which it seems most masculine to me and reminds me a bit of Mechant Loup by L'Artisan Parfumeur. Then it softens and becomes more of a comforting, spicy scent, like Like This by Etat Libre d'Orange. At this point it's perfectly unisex.

In the heart, jasmine and rose bloom underneath a trellis of wood. This is the most feminine part of Memoir Woman. The transition is a little surprising, just when I thought I had a spicy masculine scent, now I have a woody floral. But the story isn't over yet.

My favourite part happens about 12 hours after application, in the dry down, when Memoir woman becomes an old-fashioned leather chypre. Smooth, musky leather and lovely oakmoss are wrapped in a creamy, resiny labdanum. This part is either old-school feminine or unisex, depending on how you feel about perfumes like Bandit. I can't keep my nose away from my wrist once it gets to this point.

Memoir woman is a complicated, changeable perfume and one of the best Amouage scents I have tried.

House: Amouage
Nose: Daniel Maurel and Dorothée Piot
Notes: Top notes: cardamom, mandarin orange, pink pepper and wormwood; middle notes: clove, incense, pepper, woodsy notes, jasmine, rose and white flowers; base notes: musk, french labdanum, oak moss, styrax and leather.

Photo: innpictime

Perfume Casualties

2010-12-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

When bad things happen to good perfume

Last summer I was in a car accident. No one was hurt, thank goodness. But I did lose something.

It was a chilly, rainy day, and I was driving north on my way to spend the last weekend of the summer at a friend's cottage. I chose Annick Goutal Musc Nomade as my perfume for the weekend. It has a comforting, cuddly feel to it, that I knew would go well with sweaters and flannel shirts. Plus it's light, and wouldn't overpower my hosts in a small cabin. I remember, I was even thinking about it as I packed for the trip, loving the way it was wafting discretely from my décolletage. And then, boom.

In the aftermath of standing in the downpour, exchanging information and the sick feeling of adrenaline, I forgot entirely about the perfume, of course. But now, when I pull it out to wear and I sniff, I just... can't. I can't wear it anymore.

I have always avoided wearing perfume when I am sick, or when something upsetting is happening, like visiting a sick relative, because I feared just this sort of association. But I couldn't foresee the accident. I'm still hoping that the bad feelings will wear off with time and I'll be able to wear this perfume again.

How about you? Have you ever had a perfume you loved become associated with bad things, and had trouble wearing it again?

Photo: Gabriela Camerotti

Comme des Garçons - 2 Man

2010-11-29T10:17:00.000-08:00

A warm winter fantasy.

Two line perfume review: Comme des Garçons 2 Man smells like a man building a fire, in his log cabin, in a pine forest, in the winter. It's deeply sexy.

House: Comme des Garçons
Nose: Mark Buxton
Notes: Top notes are aldehydes, nutmeg and caraway; middle notes are orris, vetiver and saffron; base notes are leather, incense, note dima and mahogany.

Photo: Espen Clem

Estee Lauder - Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia

2010-11-26T10:15:00.000-08:00

Glorious gardenia

On a whim the other day, I bought a bottle of Estee Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia. It was on sale at Winners. Sometimes I think this means that the old stock is being dumped because a reformulation is coming out. Or it could just be old gift boxes (it was packaged in a gold box with the body creme) are being cleared out to make way for the new Christmas stock. I bought it unsniffed because I remembered reading that it is one of the great gardenias perfumes, and a true gardenia is hard to find. They weren't wrong; Tuberose Gardenia is an astounding, rich, and life-like gardenia.

Gardenias are the smell of fantasy. White, creamy and thick as birthday cake frosting, the opulent smell of gardenia makes me imagine shimmering pale silk and midnight trysts in southern gardens. Tuberose Gardenia smells the most like real gardenia of anything I've ever smelled that's not on an actual bush.

It starts with green notes like leaves and a little wood to add to the illusion of a living flower. The heady gardenia is paired with tuberose - there is a touch of wintergreen in the opening notes and I can just taste a hint of bubblegum sweetness later. As the perfume drys down, I smell much more jasmine, with its distinctive gasoline tang. There's also a little indolic orange blossom and some cool lily in the white floral bouquet, but gardenia is the star.

Tuberose Gardenia is a compliment getter. It has significant sillage - just 1 little spray on my wrist and men passing me in the hall turned to tell me I smelled great. It also lasts straight through to the next morning. It's a perfume for a woman, not a little girl. I wouldn't wear this to hide in a crowd, or go to the pub, but I will wear it when I want to feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

House: Estee Lauder
Nose: Aerin Lauder
Notes: neroli, lilac, rosewood, tuberose, gardenia, orange flower, jasmine, white lily, carnation and vanilla

Photo: vigilant20