Lubin - Idole

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.

Frederic Malle - En Passant and a long overdue post

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

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.

L'Artisan Parfumeur - Thé Pour Un Été

Jasmine tea with lemon

Thé Pour Un Été has a short list of notes and a simple concept that's been done before (see Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert), but the result is a very beautiful and satisfying perfume. 

TPUE was created by Olivia Giacobetti, the nose behind some of my favourite perfumes (like Philosykos.) I find that I'm starting to gravitate to her work and that of a couple others.  In her perfumes, the notes shine as naturally as they do in real life but also melt into perfect harmonies with each other.

TPUE starts with a realistic sweet tea note with lemon. I immediately thought of iced-tea. I don't really smell the mint, but there is a certain leafy greeness to the opening.

After the tart lemon fades the jasmine comes out and the tea morphs into the smell of jasmine tea, exactly as I remember it from university when I drank gallons of it. The jasmine and tea notes weave in and out - sometime I smell one and then the other. TPUE stays with these two notes - there aren't any real bottom notes - until they gradually fade away.

Or do they? At first, I thought this wasn't a long-lasting perfume - I believed it was gone by lunch. But TPUE is one of those tricky perfumes, the kind you can't smell if stick your nose right up to your skin but you keep catching whiffs of it floating in the air, hours after you thought it was gone. Stray notes of jasmine in the air like far off music and the tannic smell of tea.

House: L'Artisan Parfumeur
Nose: Olivia Giacobetti
Notes: tea, jasmine, bergamot, amalfi lemon and mint (Fragrantica)

Photo: Fenchurch

Diptyque - Philosykos

Perfume: Philosykos
House: Diptyque
Nose: Olivia Giacobetti
Notes: fig leaf, fig, cedar

Cool sappy green twigs, ripe, sweet fig with a hint of creamy coconut milk and smooth dry wood.

Spray this on your arm on a hot day and rest in the shade of a fig tree on a Greek hillside. Philosykos gives me the feeling I've been there. The opening is crisp and green and smells like sticky sap from broken twigs. Then comes the ripe fig, smooth and fresh. Many people smell a hint of coconut in fig, and I smell coconut milk, creamy and sweet in Philosykos. This adds to the summertime feel of the perfume, and the fantasy that I am sitting under a fig tree in Greece, the sun bright as diamonds on the blue water of a faraway bay but where I am everything is shady and cool. The base note is cedar, a dry woody smell, like a smooth pale trunk behind my back.

Luca Turin, in his Perfumes The Guide, calls Philosykos "the first proper fig in perfumery" and gives it 4 stars. Olivia Giacobetti, who did Philosykos, also did Premier Figuier for L'Artisan Parfumeur. I'll write about Premier Figuier another time, it has a lovely floral character and a sandalwood drydown, but Philosykos is my favourite fig perfume.

Photo by Sean Wallis.

Honoré des Près - Vamp à NY

Perfume: Vamp à NY
House: Honoré des Près
Nose: Olivia Giacobetti
Notes: tuberose, rum, resins

Lolita chews bubblegum and steals her mother's menthols. More NY jailbait than vamp.

Ok, this perfume made me laugh right away. The first thing I smell is a big blast of bubble gum, with some menthol smoke and a touch of gasoline. Later, as the scent settles down and opens up, the menthol disappears and the tuberose comes out, buttery and rich, but the bubblegum never really goes away.

It made me think of a sixteen year old girl in New York. She knows Manhattan inside out, wears black eyeliner, steals her mother's menthol cigarettes, and chews bubble gum. She wears a diva scent like tuberose because she wants you to think she's older than she is. If I was going to make a perfume called Lolita, this is what it would smell like.

I still like it and I may be the only one who smells it this way. If you've smelled it, tell me what you think.

Vamp à NY is part of a set of 3 fragrances called We Love NY*, the other two are I Love Les Carottes and Love Coco.

Honoré des Près is a niche organic perfume house in France. Olivia Giacobetti a famous nose who has created perfumes for this designer and many others. I will definitely be reviewing some of her other perfumes in the future.


Photo: drivenbyboredom
Sample: I won one of 50 samples of Vamp à NY donated by Honoré des Près to Grain de musc.