Summer Scents

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

Eau d'Italie - Jardin du Poete

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.

We Three Kings: Eau d'Italie - Paestum Rose

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:

• Redolent of Spices
• EauMG 
• Parfumieren 
• All I Am - A Redhead
• Chicken Freak's Obssession 
• Notes from Josephine
• The Perfume Chronicles
• Bonkers About Perfume 
• My Perfume Life

Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch 

Eau d'Italie - Au Lac

Watery floral

The PR material from Eau d'Italie tells me that Au Lac was inspired by the early 20th century love affair between Italian Princess Vittoria Colonna and Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni. Part of this affair took place on an island in Lake Maggiore in an Italian garden near the shore. Au Lac is supposed to smell like "A gorgeous Italian garden at the height of summer, the air filled with the scent of flowers and the fresh waters of a lake...", you get the picture.

What does Au Lac smell like? Watery lotus, a hint of palest green, some airy, barely there osmanthus, mineral water and laundry-clean musk.

When I smell Au Lac the country that comes to mind isn't Italy, it's Japan. Specifically, the famous aversion the Japanese have to wearing perfumes that you can actually smell. Chandler Burr has written about this, Display It, don't Spray It,  and a recent article in the Japan Times says the same thing:

The Japanese can tell if someone is wearing perfume from three train cars away, and are quick to wrinkle their noses. It just puts them into a funk. They will likely swear the smell has clung to their nose hairs or taken up residence in their nasal membranes where they will have to inhale the offensive perfume for the rest of the day.

The Japanese cosmetics market is huge, but perfume sales are low - nothing compared to the European and North American markets. So, how does a perfume house make it big in Japan? Make more perfumes that don't smell of very much at all.  Many perfumes bloggers have alluded to this phenomenon, remarking that this or that new sheer, "clean" perfume or "anti-perfume" like L'Eau Serge Lutens, must be for the "japanese market."

I guess there's enough perfume in the world to suit everybody's tastes but, as for me, I'd like a little more "there" there. A little funk for my trunk. Even (horrors) a waft in my wake. I don't want to cause a stampede on the subway but, when I huff my wrist, I want to smell something more than water with petals floating on top.

House: Eau d'Italie
Nose: Alberto Morillas
Notes: Water Lily, Bitter Orange Leaves, Panarea Fig Leaves, Osmanthus, Italic Rose Bud, Sambac Jasmine Petals, Papyrus, Mineral Amber

Photo: Nganguyen

Eau d'Italie - Magnolia Romana

Walk beneath the magnolia trees outside the Villa Borghese in Rome

The original Eau d'Italie perfume was created for the Hotel Le Sirenuse in Italy. Subsequent Eau d'Italie fragrances explore the idea of travelling through Italy, the essence of the country, its beautiful locations, art and history.

Magnolia Romana was  inspired by the magnolia-lined avenues outside the Villa Borghese in Rome. The Villa was built by Scipione Borghese in the 17th century as his party palace, a place to get away from the city and enjoy his lush gardens and to house his impressive art collection.

Magnolia Romana starts with a blast of peppery green basil. For me, this note doesn't last long enough. I love the smell of basil, it evokes summer and great, fresh meals eaten outside. It's the perfect note to evoke Italy. Very lightly, there is the green cypress, like a distant breeze through a pine tree.

The middle notes are magnolia and fresh "water notes." I could have used less of the watery notes, but it does make this perfume very summery. I can imagine sitting beside a fountain in Rome, underneath a magnolia tree in bloom.

In the end it's a lovely musky wood. All in all, Magnolia Romana is a nice, sheer, pale pink and refreshing fragrance.

House: Eau d'Italie
Nose: Bertrand Duchaufour
Notes:
Top: purple basil, lemon leaves, cypress
Middle: magnolia flower, lotus, waternotes
Base: cedar, hay, white musk

Photo: bass_nroll