P Frapin & Cie - Caravelle Epicée

Take a voyage on a spice ship

The Frapin family has been creating wines and cognac in France since 1270, through 20 generations. It may seem odd at first, that the company started a line of perfumes, but there are many similarities between Cognac and perfume. Both share a long, proud history in France; both rely on the skill and creativity of great craftsmen; and both represent the ideal of luxury and physical pleasure. Also, the quality of both depends on the quality of their ingredients. In the far history of perfume, those ingredients were often imported from far away by explorers and traders.

Caravelle  Epicée recalls the voyages of the spice trader ships of the 15th and 16th centuries. The caravel was a vessel of great importance at this time, developed in Iberia it was used by Portuguese and Spanish explorers along the west coast of Africa and in numerous voyages around South Africa in attempts to reach India. It was also used to cross the Atlantic - the Nina and the Pinta of Christopher Columbus's famous voyage to the new world were most probably caravels.

The perfume opens with a big blast of spices, like walking in the hold of a ship filled with barrels of precious ingredients from exotic lands. The spices are dry and hot, with a lot of cumin, nutmeg and pepper. I also smell smoky wood, which makes me imaging the barrels themselves and the planks of the ship. After the initial desert wind of spices, a boozy vanilla note can be detected - maybe a barrel of finely distilled spirits is on this voyage as well.

If Caravelle  Epicée stayed with those notes I would be ordering a bottle today, but alas, it does some other strange things on my skin. I want it to be a cozy cashmere blanket, and it insists on being a bracing day on a rough sea. There is a slightly sour, dill pickle note that pops up on me when I'm least expecting it. And it has a very salty quality in the drydown that, while perfectly appropriate for a sea-going vessel, is not so much what I'm looking for in a perfume.

I'd like to smell Caravelle  Epicée on a man, I think it might be amazing in a pirate sort of way. 

House: P Frapin & Cie
Nose: Jeanne-Marie Faugier
Notes: Coriander, nutmeg, hot pepper, pepper, thyme, Gaiac wood, patchouli, amber, tobacco, sandalwood

Video - Perfumer Honorine Blanc

Perfumer Honorine Blanc, who collaborated on Yves Saint Laurent's Belle d'Opium, talks about her inspirations and creating perfumes that will endure.

Yves Saint Laurent - Belle d'Opium

A snuffed candle

Yves Saint Laurent launched its best-selling fragrance Opium, in 1977. It was one of the big iconic perfumes of the 80s, a fragrance that signified exoticism, mystery, danger and sensuality. Its popularity and its decadent scent trail inexorably led to a backlash against heady perfumes that I think we're still recovering from. 

So, in 2010, YSL released Belle d'Opium, the latest flanker to the famous oriental. The YSL web site says that it contains an "overdose of rare and precious ingredients to take extreme femininity to the limits of indecency." Ah, no. Belle d'Opium doesn't even get near my limits of indecency, but I do like it.


Belle d'Opium opens with white pepper, a hint of peach and some sandalwood from the base showing through. The heart of the perfume revolves around what they refer to as the "Nargileh accord" and incense. Nargileh is a tobacco water pipe (hookah is basically the same thing), like I described in Fumerie Turque. But I don't smell tobacco in Belle d'Opium. Instead the idea of a lazy curling column of smoke has been created with a smoky note that smells like a just-snuffed candle, with a touch of incense weaving through it. The bottle hints at this candle aspect with a red wick running through the middle.

Although "Casablanca Lily" is the flower that the marketing focuses on, I don't really smell lily either, which is a good thing by me.  Lily is one of the new "it" notes this season but not one of my favourite flowers. Belle d'Opium has a quiet, well-blended white floral bouquet, quite demure and nondescript actually, supporting the curling smoke heart. It's almost as if the fat, waxy petals of those flowers translate into the waxiness of white candles. The base is a musky wood with patchouli - pretty much the ubiquitous "new chypre" base.


Belle d'Opium is fairly quiet, staying close to the skin (unlike the original) and fading after a few hours. I'm disappointed that Belle d'Opium, with such a delicious list of notes, and marketing that promises an "overdose" of ingredients, is so tame to me, but that seems to be the way that the big main-stream perfumes are done these days. Truly "indecent" perfumes, or perfumes that dare to have sillage, still can only be found in the smaller niche lines.

But Belle d'Opium is pretty. I like wearing it. If I could get a big bottle inexpensively, I could see spraying this on liberally in the cooler months. I like to relax in those long dark evenings with candles burning and a cashmere wrap for cuddling. Belle d'Opium would be a good comfort scent for those casual evenings, shut away from the rest of the world, lolling about on the couch. Not unlike an opium den, actually.

House: Yves Saint Laurent
Nose: Honorine Blanc and Alberto Morillas
Notes: Sample card lists: Casablanca Lily, incense and Nargileh accord. OzMoz lists: top note: Mandarin Orange, Lily, Gardenia, White Flowers middle note: Frankincense, Peach, Pepper, Tabacco, Hookah Accord, Fruity Notes base note: Patchouli, Sandalwood, Smoky Notes, Amber


Photo: One of a series of photographs by Hungarian photojournalist Brassaï taken in Paris in the early 1930s. Via stevechasmar.

DSH Perfumes: Secrets of Egypt, Part 3 of 3: 1,000 Lilies and Megaleion

The mummy returns

Perfumer and aromatherapist Dawn Spencer Hurwitz collaborated with the Denver Art Museum on a set of special perfumes to accompany their 2010-2011 King Tut exhibit, The Secrets of Egypt. The perfumes are only available from the DAM and the DHS web site.

This is the third part of my 3 part review of the Secrets of Egypt collection. Read part 1 and part 2.

1,000 Lilies (aka Susinon)

Susinon was a luxurious and strongly scented lily perfume that was made by the Egyptians as well as the Greeks, but the Egyptian version was thought to “excel most’. This fabulous fragrance was also used by Cleopatra to scent the sails of her royal barge, perfuming the air along the Nile as she sailed, proclaiming herself as Goddess and Queen.

1,000 Lilies starts with spices, cardamom and cinnamon again as in the other Secrets of Egypt perfumes, but softer than they were in Cardamom and Kyphi. They are joined by a fresh lily. DSH has created a realistic top-to-bottom lily for this perfume, I can smell the oily pollen (narcissus), the thick petaled flower (Kenya lily), and the roots (orris root). Lily is not my  favourite flower but it's well done here. Although strong at first, 1,000 Lilies doesn't have much lasting power and disappears on my skin after 3 hours.

Notes:
Top notes: Cardamom Seed, Cinnamon Bark, Fragrant Wine (accord), Galbanum
Middle notes: Kenya Lily, Narcissus Absolute, Orris Root, Pink Lotus, Saffron absolute, Turkish Rose Otto, Ylang-Ylang
Base notes: Australian Sandalwood, Honey, Myrrh Gum, Sweet Flag

Megaleion

By the time of Pliny the Elder, Megaleion had achieved a kind of celebrity due to it’s extreme cost, complexity of ingredients and the painstaking method of it’s production.

Megaleion has good sillage and lasting power. It starts with frankincense and cinnamon, then opens into a fruity rose with sweet grasses. The drydown has lots of great sandalwood and something sweet, almost anisic that I think is the sweet flag. This was one of my favourites from the set.

Notes:
Top notes: Cardamom co2 Absolute, Cassia, Cinnamon Bark, Fragrant Wine (accord), Lemongrass
Middle notes: Australian Sandalwood, Balm of Gilead (accord), Spikenard, Turkish Rose Otto
Base notes: Copaiba Balsam, Costus, Myrrh Gum, Olibanum (Frankincense), Peru Balsam, Pine Resin, Sweet Flag

I enjoyed reviewing the Secrets of Egypt perfume collection. All were pleasant, but I liked Arome d'Egypt, Cardamom and Kyphi and Megaleion the best.

I find it romantic to pretend I might be  smelling the same as Cleopatra, fresh from her milk bath, anointed with oils and cruising down the Nile on a barge with perfumed sails.

House: DSH Perfumes, Parfums des Beaux Arts CollectionNose: Dawn Spencer Hurwitz

All I am - a redhead has posted a review of Antiu, check it out!

DSH Perfumes: Secrets of Egypt, Part 2 of 3: Cardamom and Kyphi and Antiu

Smell like an Egyptian

Perfumer and aromatherapist Dawn Spencer Hurwitz collaborated with the Denver Art Museum on a set of special perfumes to accompany their 2010-2011 King Tut exhibit, The Secrets of Egypt. The perfumes are only available from the DAM and the DHS web site.

This is the second part of my 3 part review on the Secrets of Egypt collection. See part 1 here.

Cardamom and Khyphi
" probably the most famous of all early Egyptian perfumes handed down to us from antiquity"


The famous Egyptian perfume Kyphi was primarily used as an incense in temples and also as a remedy for ailments like nightmares and snake bites. The Greek physician Dioscorides wrote down one of the earliest surviving recipes for Kyphi. Piny and Plutarch also mentioned it and its various ingredients, which included: wine, honey, raisins, cinnamon and cassia bark, cedar, juniper berry, and resins such as frankincense, myrrh, benzoin, and labdanum.

Cardamom, although not native to Egypt was imported from India in ancient times. It works beautifully with the cinnamon. CaK is mostly cardamom and cinnamon to my nose, with a dry woody base. It's delicious. If you like those spices, I would definitely give it a sniff.

Notes:
Top notes: Cardamom co2 Absolute, Cardamom Seed
Middle notes: Khyphi
Base notes: Khyphi

Antiu (aka Metopian)

Antiu is the name we chose for our modern adaptation of “Metopion”, a famous Egyptian perfume that had been known some 300 years before Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides mentioned it. ... it was widely considered to be “the most exquisite fragrance imaginable, hence the ideal scent”.

Antiu starts with a strong lemongrass note but dries down to something faintly grassy, sweet and balsamic. It's very herbal and the most "natural" smelling of the group.

Notes:
Top notes: Bitter Almond, Cardamom co2 Absolute, Fragrant Wine (accord), Galbanum, Lemongrass
Middle notes: Australian Sandalwood, Gallica Rose Otto, Honey Beeswax
Base notes: Copaiba Balsam, Mastic, Myrrh Gum, Peru Balsam, Pine Resin, Sweet Flag

House: DSH Perfumes, Parfums des Beaux Arts CollectionNose: Dawn Spencer Hurwitz

DSH Perfumes: The Secrets of Egypt Collection, Part 1 of 3: Arome d'Egypte and Keni

Walk like an Egyptian

Perfumer and aromatherapist Dawn Spencer Hurwitz collaborated with the Denver Art Museum on a set of special perfumes to accompany their 2010-2011 King Tut exhibit, The Secrets of Egypt. The perfumes are only available from the DAM and the DHS web site.

This is part one of my 3 part review of the Secrets of Egypt Collection. 

From a limited palette of notes, those that would have been used in ancient Egyptian perfumes, DSH has created a amazing collection of beautiful and wearable fragrances. By using many of the same notes in each, the collection stands together, but each perfumes focuses on a different accord and has its own personality.

Arome d'Egypte (Special Edition)

Inspired by the perfumes of the Pharaohs. 

Arome d'Egypte focuses on the scent of spikenard. Oil from the root of spikenard was prized in the ancient world as a perfume fit for kings. Kept in alabaster vessels, spikenard was a luxury that had to be imported from far away Nepal. Spikenard is mentioned 3 times in the bible's Song of Songs and the New Testament tell us that Mary of Bethany used a whole pound of costly spikenard ointment to annoint Jesus's feet, causing some grumbling about the waste of money amongst the disciples. I've never smelled it, but reportedly spikenard has a sweet/spicy/musky scent and that's what I smell at the heart of Arome d'Egypt.

Arome d'Egypte also uses many other aromatic ingredients from ancient perfumerie, and these notes are equally present. At first I smell frankincense and balsam then later cedar and cinnamon surrounding the herbal spikenard note. It's a very soothing herbal and resin fragrance with a hint of spiciness. Arome d'Egypte is one of two in the collection that I would consider buying myself.

Notes:
Top notes: Cassia
Middle notes: Centifolia Rose Absolute, Egyptian Jasmine Absolute, Spikenard
Base notes: Ambrette Seed, Atlas Cedarwood, Australian Sandalwood, Benzoin, Labdanum No. 3, Myrrh Gum, Olibanum (Frankincense), Peru Balsam

Keni (aka the Medesian / the Egyptian)

Keni (which means embrace) is the name we chose for our modern adaptation of “the Medesian”. ...Especially popular during Ptolomeic period, it is said that Cleopatra scented her feet with the Mendesian

Keni has a strong cinnamon note that is the star of the show, supported by cardamom. It dries down to base of myrrh with a hint of cinnamon. I think it would be nice to have my feet smell like Keni, but it's not a perfume I would wear often.

Notes:
Top notes: Bitter Almond, Cardamom co2 Absolute, Cassia, Cinnamon Bark
Middle notes: Australian Sandalwood, Benzoin, Fragrant Wine (accord)
Base notes: Atlas Cedarwood, Myrrh Gum, Pine Resin

House: DSH Perfumes, Parfums des Beaux Arts Collection
Nose: Dawn Spencer Hurwitz

Serge Lutens - Fumerie Turque

Istanbul smoke

Here's another tobacco perfume from my collection. I love a good tobacco scent in the fall. It's a comfort scent; it makes me feel like flannel shirts and kicking through piles of golden leaves on a sunny day.

Fumerie Turque recreates the smell of a Turkish smoking salon. I've been to Turkey but unfortunately never went to any of the cafes in Instanbul where patrons smoke nargile, a water pipe. A popular fixture of Turkish culture and a place to relax and chat with friends and strangers, these shops have recently suffered from a 2009 ban on indoor smoking. As far as I can tell from reading, it seems they now mostly have patrons partake outdoors on patios.

The nargile tobacco at these shops is frequently favoured with fruit. Fumerie Turque uses Serge Lutens famous stewed fruit accord well here, combining it with a light blond tobacco note that seems to float above like smoke. The perfume is this perfectly balanced between the sweet and the bitter, the dark and the light, the heavy and the weightless. The tobacco seems both dryly herbal and sticky fresh. It reminds me of pipe tobacco and the smell of my uncle's pipe.

In the drydown, the fruit becomes honey and the patchouli in the base is an earthy chocolate with only the tinge of bitterness from the tobacco to keep it from being gourmand. I highly recommend Fumerie Turque for anyone who loves the smell of tobacco. And you can use it indoors.


House: Serge Lutens
Nose: Christopher Sheldrake
Notes: honey, juniper berries, tonka bean, chamomile, patchouli, vanilla, jasmine leaf, turkish rose, red currant, tobacco, styrax and suede

Photo: robokow