Estée Lauder - Bronze Goddess

The first day of summer

Estée Lauder's Bronze Goddess is being billed as a limited release for 2011 but it has a longer history. It was first released as a body oil under the name Azure Soleil in 2006, as part of the Tom Ford for Estée Lauder collection and re-released as a perfume in 2007 called Azure Soleil Eau Fresh. By 2008, Tom Ford had created his own perfume line and Estee Lauder changed the name of Azure Soleil to Bronze Goddess but kept the formula nearly the same.

If you would like to feel and smell like you've been to the beach, but don't have time to get away, Bronze Goddess is the perfume for you. It starts with a summery squeeze of citrus but becomes a creamy, coconutty floral with a warm salty edge.

To me it smells just like expensive french sunblock - I have a tube of 50+ Vichy at home and it has the same "creamy rich flowers and coconut" smell. Underneath, salty amber base notes mimic the smell of warm skin just out of the ocean being dried on a white sand beach.

It's gorgeous, but I admit that after wearing it a few hours, I sometimes feel the need to go shower and clean up before dinner, the way I would do on holiday at a beach resort.  But keep this one around for the cold days of winter, and it will make you feel the sand between your toes again.

A new flanker, Bronze Goddess Soleil, was released this summer. It's very different from the original. Bronze Goddess Soleil starts with a stronger citrus notes - I smelled grapefruit. As it warms up, it becomes a fresh greenish floral that's predominantly lily and jasmine to my nose. It dries down to a light musky and wood base. The only thing that ties the two perfumes together in my mind is that Bronze Goddess Soleil seems to retain a little of that warm skin character underneath its florals, the way that Bronze Goddess does.

While I liked Bronze Goddess Soleil at first, I got a little bored with it after a while. I still prefer the original for it's unique and almost perfect simulacrum of beachiness.

For other great beach perfumes, try Parfumerie Generale Bois Naufragé or Creed Virgin Island Water, both big favourites of mine.

House: Estée Lauder
Nose: ?

Bronze Goddess Notes: coconut milk, sandalwood, vanilla, vetiver, myrrh, amber, mandarin, bergamot, lemon, orange, tiare flower, jasmine, magnolia, orange blossom and lavender.

Bronze Goddess Soleil Notes: citron, bergamot, tangerine, lavender, petitgrain, pittosporum, neroli, orange blossom, jasmine sambac, grapefruit tree blossom, pink lily, blonde woods, iris, ambrette seed and crystalline musks.

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)