Penhaligon's - Elixer

A day at the spa

Created in 2008 by the talented Olivia Giacobetti, Elixer is a modern interpretation of the Penhaligon's classic Hammam Bouquet which was composed by William Penhaligon in 1872. While Hammam Bouquet was inspired by the smell of Turkish baths, the modern Elixer reminds me of a particular spa.

Near where I live is a water spa. Finished in warm wood and low, ochre-coloured lighting, it's a wonderful relaxing place to spend a couple of hours, sitting under waterfalls, meditating in the sauna, breathing the eucalyptus steam in the steam room, and generally wallowing in sybaritic pleasure. While lounging on poolside couches to catch your breath, kind women will bring you steaming cups of chai tea.

Elixer captures the experience of going to that spa perfectly. A warm, dry combination of woods, particularly cedar, and incense remind me of a sauna in much the same way as Hinoki does. A touch of eucalyptus is like inhaling the vapour in the steam room. The spices, cinnamon, mace and cardamom, along with a touch of vanilla, remind me of the chai tea. Although it's unlikely that Giacobetti has been to my spa, Elixer is an uncanny recreation of that place. Brava.

House: Penhaligon's
Nose: Olivia Giacobetti
Notes:
Head Notes: Eucalyptus, Cardamom, Orange Blossom Absolute and White Cedar
Heart Notes: Red Turkish Rose Absolute, Egyptian Jasmine Absolute, Cinnamon Leaves, Mace and Rosewood
Base Notes: Benzoin, Tonka beans, Vanilla, Incense, Red Sandalwood and Guaicum Wood

Photo: Body Blitz

Full disclosure: I won my bottle of Elixer in a contest on Penhaligon's Facebook page.

Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day occurs in Canada each November 11. It is a day of national commemoration for the more than 100,000 Canadians who have died in military service.

In Flanders Fields

John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders Fields.

Window Sniffing: Holt Renfew, Frederic Malle Counter

OMG, they have the booth!

So I spent my lunch hour monopolizing the time of the very helpful SA, Yonge, at the Frederic Malle counter in Holt's. What a fantastic substitute for food! My nose is full.

I was so excited to see that they have "the booth." It looks like a cross between an English red telephone booth and a space-age teleport tube. Perfume is sprayed into the booth, then you can enter or just stick your head in to experience the scent more fully than you can on a card. It's very effective and it saved me from covering my arms in tests and suffocating my coworkers later.

I also left with a couple of samples for more in-depth sniffing. I will do full reviews of the fragrances later, but I thought I would jot down my first impressions of some of these gems, before the memory fades.

Geranium Pour Monsieur: The first spritz made me laugh; mint and geranium! But I kept coming back to the card again and again. It is so interesting and strangely addictive. I don't know how I would wear it but I like it. Maybe the new Portrait of a Lady (which was not available yet) will give me a version I could love.

Carnal Flower: A wedding scent; this is a big white bouquet. It's more wearable than I thought it would be, though. I'm somewhat tuberose shy, but I liked this combination with lily, jasmine and orange blossoms. It's heady and thick and waxy white petals and completely gorgeous. Yonge tells me that women tell him they get tons of compliments in this one. I can believe it.


Le Parfum de Therese: This one I could see buying for myself. It's a rich progression from fruit and spices to flowers to an earthy leather base. Complicated and full-bodied. And the creator, Edmond Roudnitska, also did one of my favourites, Rochas Femme.


Cologne Bigarade: Lovely oranges! If it was summertime I would be dousing myself in this.

I sniffed everything at the counter, but those are the ones that stood out for me.

Video: Shower Products for Men

Clean with violence!



Thanks to Hyperbole and a Half.

Violet week: CB I Hate Perfume - Violet Empire

It's all about the leaves


It's Violet Week! This is my last post in a little joint blogging with two other perfumistas. Check out the violet perfume reviews at Muse in Wooden Shoes and Redolent of Spices.

The Violet

What are we really smelling when we smell violets? The sweet scent is due to molecules called ionones, which were first separated from the violet flower in 1863. Since then, almost all violet perfume are created with synthetic ionones, making their manufacture much less expensive than using a natural oil, if you could even find one. Christopher Brosius couldn't find that natural oil, so he created an accord for Violet Empire that he called Violet Empress, to mimic the smell of live violets, and the way their shy perfume seems to fade and reappear over time.

The Inspiration

Brosius was inspired to create Violet Empire by the book A Natural History of The Senses, and its description of violets as being the favourite scent of Empress Josephine de Beauharnais, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. But recently Brosius blogged that he changed his mind about the proper time period for Violet Empire. He now feels that it's not so much an early 19th century smell as an ancient Minoan one. He was reading a book about Crete and the Minotaur when he created it.

What does it smell like?


The inspiration makes sense to me, because Violet Empire isn't really about the violets, it's all about the leaves. While violet flowers may not be used in perfumery anymore, violet leaves most certainly are. They have a spicy green smell that is very popular, especially in masculines

Violet Empire starts with a brilliant green. It smells like mint and grass and pine needles. This green veil is created with the spicy violet leaves and elemi, a tree resin with a minty-pine scent. After a few minutes the green is joined by soft, smooth woods. It's a beautiful, evocative scent - both fresh and comforting. It's also very unisex. The violets peep out now and again around the green woods, but they are never overly sweet or fruity, as in other violet perfumes. I smell them most after a few hours, when they are just a definite "purple" presence after the greens have faded.

I still wonder what Brosius was getting at when he said that Violet empire was about ancient Crete. Was the Minotaur misunderstood? Was he really a poor creature, trapped in a labyrinth by a king, dreaming of green grass, shady trees and tiny flowers?

House: CB I Hate Perfume
Nose: Christopher Brosius
Notes: Violet, Elemi, Violet Leaf Absolute, Rosewood, Mahogany, and Russian Leather.

Photo: violets, AC'63
Photo: Crouching Minotaur, Nicola Hicks

P.S. For all you Torontonians, you can find Violet Empire and other cool CB I Hate Perfume scents like I Am A Dandelion and Winter of 1972 at the darling Ewanika. Nope, they're not paying me anything to mention them, I just think the store is really cool and Trish Ewanika was a doll when I went in there and spent an hour sniffing the perfumes.

Violet Week: Creed - Love in Black

A Spring walk in the wet woods

It's Violet Week! This week I'm doing a little joint blogging with two other perfumistas. We will each be reviewing three violet perfumes: a "high-end" expensive violet, a less expensive, medium-range violet, and a "low-end" violet perfume. Check out Muse in Wooden Shoes and Redolent of Spices this week for their reviews.

I chose Creed Love in Black as my "high end" violet perfume for the Violet Week reviews.

About Creed

Creed is a family-owned luxury brand, founded in 1760. The head perfumers are Oliver Creed and his son Erwin Creed. Historically, Creed has had many famous clients. Fleurissimo was commissioned by Prince Rainer III as a wedding present for Grace Kelly and Green Irish Tweed has reportedly been worn by Robert Redford and Richard Gere. Creed perfumes are expensive and use high quality natural materials and traditional infusion techniques. They are generally very linear, meaning they don't change much from first spray to far dry down.

About Love in Black

Released on the 40th anniversary of her marriage to a Greek shipping tycoon, Love in Black is a tribute to the most famous former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The colour black was chosen to represent her dark hair, black sunglasses, and chic black dresses. The bottle is created with black sand from Greece. The notes include cedar from Virginia, where she rode horses, and Greek wildflowers.

It takes a bigger stretch of the imagination to associate some of the other notes in Love in Black with Mrs. Onassis. Violet from Italy is noted only because she "visited" there, and iris from Florence because it was a "favorite city." Blackcurrent from France is used because that's where "her ancestors were born."

What does it smell like?


Love in Black is a binary fragrance for me. I smell two very different things at the same time: a sweet, bright violet note and dark woody cedar note. It's a bit like a a high note and a low note played at simultaneously and loudly. From arms length, throughout the day, I mostly smell the cedar and a rooty iris. If I smell my wrist up close, I can smell the violets and roses and other florals.

It's as if I am walking in a dark wet forest on a rainy spring day. I take a break to sit down on an old cedar stump and in the black earth beneath my feet I notice there are tiny purple violets beginning to bloom.

However, what other people smell on me is different. From the comments I have gotten, my sillage is apparently all sweet and fruity violets. The black current must be combining with the florals to leave a sweet wake behind me.

As I mentioned above, Love in Black is linear - what you smell when you first spray it on is what you'll smell hours later. It has good sillage and lasting power. It's a bit weird and not subtle, but I like Love in Black, especially on a rainy day.

House: Creed
Nose: Olivier Creed and Erwin Creed
Notes: violet, jasmine, cedar from Virginia, iris, cloves, musk, black currant and rose.

Violet Week: Balmain - Jolie Madame

Why Grandma, what big violets you have!

"Jolie Madame is a homage to woman in all the splendour of her charm, her experience, her appetite for life. I created Jolie Madame for a woman whose sense of adventure allowed her to follow her desires to their ultimate conclusion; to accede, in all her sensuality, to freedom of choice and a sense of being in control of every situation. For women whose uncompromising nature and taste for discovery and risk-taking gives them a love of adventure. Jolie Madame is the fragrance of adventure."  - Pierre Balmain

Jolie Madame was created in 1953 by the famous perfumer Germaine Cellier, who also created my beloved Bandit. Like Bandit, Jolie madame is a bold leather chypre, but where Bandit is green galbanum, leather and naughtiness, Jolie Madame is green violets, leather and smooth sophistication.

Jolie Madame is one of those classic perfumes that perfumistas rave about in vintage formula and grieve the recent re-formulations. Well, I've never smelled the vintage, but however wonderful it may have been, I think the current formulation is terrific. Violet perfumes aren't as popular now as they once were, and leather chypres are rare as well.  I bought my bottle of EdT this year at a discount, which I fervently hope is not a sign that Balmain is planning to discontinue it or change it too much.

On first spray, I smell a combination of aldehydes, violets and a sachet of dried rose petals, that has me thinking "Hello, Grandma." The opening of Jolie Madame has that old-fashioned perfumey smell that no doubt will make many think "old lady perfume." But hang on, because Grandma has a few surprises up her perfectly tailored sleeve.

The heart of Jolie Madame is the smoothest, buttery suede like the inside of a leather pocketbook that held makeup and violet pastilles. The leather creeps in like a shadow over the violets. Around the edges of the leather I can still smell the grassy, green violets, but I also smell a bouquet of rose, jasmine, iris and tuberose. The leather is slightly smoky, maybe Grandma had some cigarettes in that pocketbook as well.

The far dry down is just as lovely, the cedar, moss, vetiver and violet leaf leave a woody, earthy, mossy, slightly grassy smell like the best fairytale forest, dotted with violets. To me, Jolie Madame is anything but "old lady." It makes me feel sophisticated, powerful and slightly wicked, as leather perfumes do. Jolie Madame isn't actually Grandma at all, she's the Big Bad Wolf.

House: Balmain
Nose: Germaine Cellier
Notes:
Head notes: Petitgrain, Cloves, Neroli
Heart notes: Jasmine absolute, Orange blossom, Violet leaves, Tuberose absolute, Lilac
Base notes: Oakmoss, Patchouli essence, Tobacco, Cedarwood

It's Violet Week! Check out the violet reviews at Muse In Wooden Shoes and Redolent of Spices.