My Favourites of 2011

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!

Parfumerie Generale - Papyrus de Ciane

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

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

Parfumerie Generale - L'Oiseau de Nuit

A warm, sweet and smoky fall

L'Oiseau de Nuit is supposed to be a leather scent, but I don't smell leather. What I do smell is a complicated, warm and sweet, almost gourmand, oriental.

Different notes, dark and light, swirl up from my skin. Sometimes sugary, sometimes herbal, sometimes smoky and woody, OdN keeps me coming back to my wrist to smell more. The resin labdanum is honeyed wood and earth. The davana is a peach syrup floral note. Benzoin, another resin, smells like sweet vanilla.

When I first put OdN on, I thought I smelled cotton candy and beer nuts. In my mind I was back at the old fair grounds, where I've gone every October for around 30 years to the Markham Fair. The fall, for me, is that fair with it's smells of burning leaves and sawdust mixed with the sweeter smells of the foodstands. I'll go again this year, and of course there will be a midway, the rides lighting up the sky like the electric plumage of giant night birds.

House: Parfumerie Generale
Nose: Pierre Guillaume
Notes: cistus labdanum, liqueur of davana, benzoin, leather

Photo: DOS82

Parfumerie Generale - Gardenia Grand Soir

Tonight won't be just any night

The "big night." Gardenia Grand Soir would go well with a bias cut silk dress and champagne. But the "grand soir" is also a revolutionary concept meaning the destruction of the previous regime and the establishment of a new society – a break after which anything is possible. Was M. Guillaume hinting at a brand new way to construct a gardenia perfume?

I love the smell of live gardenias but it's a difficult smell to replicate in perfumery. Gardenia Grand Soir hits a lot of the right notes and, after a slightly discordant beginning, resolves into a very pretty floral.

GGS captures all the buttery, creamy and green facets of gardenia but not the stinky, blue cheese or animal/indolic, notes. Gardenias have some weirdness to them; GGS tones that down. GGS starts with a strong, grassy green note with a hint of mushroom. Yes, mushroom is a part of the real gardenia smell! Don't worry if that sounds strange to you, it's only there for a few seconds but the green grass note lasts. For the first hour I wasn't sure about GGS, the green and the creamy seemed to be battling for dominance but they calmed down and unified to a gardenia, hovering above sweet sandalwood.

GGS is a duet between the two notes, gardenia and sandalwood. Sandalwood is not only used as a base in GGS, but aspects of threee different types of sandalwood are used to enhance and create the gardenia. According to Ca Fleure Bon, M. Guillaume used Australian sandalwood for a creamy effect, synthetic sandalore in the base for warmth, sweetness and better diffusion, and mysore sandalwood because it “is more dark with light cypress and violet like notes.”

That comment set off the light bulb for me, because I had been detecting a fruity, sweet/tart purple note in the heart of GGS. It must be the violet aspect of the mysore sandalwood that M. Guillaume mentioned. And the cypress is present too in the green angles of the gardenia.

I like GGS quite a bit, maybe even enough to add the the FB Wish List. It's a very pretty, even sexy, gardenia. It's a "grand soir" in the romantic way. Wear it on a night when you feel things are about to change and everything and anything is possible.

P.S. What are your favourite gardenia perfumes? Do you prefer more cheesy mushroom and indoles in your gardenia?

House: Parfumerie Generale
Nose: Pierre Guillaume
Notes: gardenia, sandalwood

Photo: Ivan Plata

Parfumerie Generale - Bois Naufragé

Summer lovers in a bottle

Bois Naufragé was inspired by the gorgeous photograph "Nu au bois flotté" by Lucien Clergue (1971). Sexy skin, sun-bleached wood and a sea breeze would be what you'd expect from this image.

There's been some disagreement on the perfumes blogs about whether Bois Naufragé fulfills expectations. Now Smell This didn't find it oceanic or sexy. Confessions of  a Perfume Nerd smelled pina colada.

But I'm one of those for whom Bois Naufragé works perfectly. To me, it smells like the beach. It starts with a very green note combined with coconut and the milky sweetness that together makes fig to my nose. The figs are salted with that fleur de sel note, but it's light, not over bearing the way I found Côte d'Amour to be too salty. In the middle there's a light, tart note, like a trace of lime. The dry down is slightly woody and musky.

Ok, that's not sounding beachy is it? But if I stop concentrating on the individual notes and just smell, Bois Naufragé resolves into the smell of the beach. There's a light sea breeze, the warm, lactonic (milky-sweet) and salty skin of someone nearby – sun tan oil washed off by the ocean – sand dunes and grasses all around.

Bois Naufragé reminds me of the movie Summer Lovers. The fig and the sea salt seem perfect for Greece. It gives me that relaxed, endless summer by the beach feel.

House: Parfumerie Generale
Nose: Pierre Guillaume
Notes: carob tree, also called "fig of Egypt", treated as driftwood, fleur de sel, ambergris


Photo: Le Nu au bois flotté, by Lucien Clergue
Image: Summer Lovers (1982) 

Parfumerie Generale - Drama Nuii

Dry jasmine and herbs morphs into a pale green lily of the valley

Pierre Guillaume likes bitter green. I've only tried two Parfumerie General perfumes, Drama Nuii and Papyrus de Ciane, and both star a bitter green accord.

Drama Nuii starts with a lemony jasmine, and a green rose. The rose is soapy. As it develops a herbalness with a spicy edge comes out, that made me think of clary sage maybe. It's a little like hay, or dry grasses,  not sweet, but bitter and a little tannic like tea. The notes say absinthe, a story for the herbal green bitterness of the perfume.

The green floral smell becomes a light lily of the valley. After a while that's all I can smell, green lily, a little bitter and a little soapy. Then after a while, a little musky.

The whole is a dry, light green take on jasmine and lily. Not too sweet, it would suit a man or woman.

House: Parfumerie Generale
Nose: Pierre Guillaume
Notes: petitgrain, absinthe, jasmine, spices, guaiac wood, sandalwood, musk

Photo: sektordua