Prada Candy plus Perfume and Food Combos

Trick or Treat

This is so not my usual thing. I thought I would hate Prada Candy but it's actually pretty yummy.

Prada Candy opens with a big sweet caramel note and lots of fluffy musks. When I first sniffed it I thought "Oh, this is going to be very popular." It has decent sillage and smells like a perfume that is sure to "pull" in crowded club. Sure enough, all the girls in the store raved about it; it's their new favourite.

But Prada Candy is more than a simple sweetie. The middle notes of the perfume are all about benzoin, an ancient resin that smells of soft honey and vanilla. The benzoin saves Prada Candy from being a cloying kiddie perfume by adding complexity. It has a dry almost herbal facet that reminds me of chamomile.

After a few hours, Prada Candy is back to being delicate caramel and musks clinging to my skin. With its powdery, musky skin note and its milky-sweet candy note, Prada Candy walks the line between comforting and sensual. Think of it as both a warm, caramel-coloured cashmere sweater coat, and as silky sweet lingerie.

Perfume and Food

The cooler weather is the perfect time to wear a gourmand perfume. It's even more fun to wear perfume and eat some complimentary food. Here are some yummy perfume/food combos for fall:

• Prada Candy and Kraft caramels
• Ormonde Jayne Ta'if and medjool dates
• Etat Libre d'Orange Like This and pumpkin spice lattes
• Serge Lutens Five O'clock au Gingembre and gingerbread cookies with earl grey tea
• L'Artisan Parfumeur Havana Vanille and rum raisin ice-cream
• Lolita Lempicka and black licorice
• Bvlgari Omnia and apple pie
• Frederic Malle Bigarade Concentree and cognac (What do you mean that's not a food?)

If you've tried Prada Candy, let me know what you think or tell me your favourite perfume/food combos.

House: Prada

Nose: Daniela Andrier

Notes: white musks, benzoin, caramel

Vessel Parfums - Occult

Good Juice

I was approached recently by Hollis Schwanz, founder of the new indie perfume company, Vessel Parfums, and asked if I would like a sample of her debut perfume, Occult.

A disclaimer first: I don't make any money from this blog (really, really the opposite as it encourages the growth of my perfume collection) and everything I write here is my honest opinion. This perfume stuff is just for fun. I don't promise to review anything I'm offered, never mind positively. But I've been wearing Occult a lot and I like it, so here we go.

The marketing material tells me the notes for Occult were chosen to reflect the sensuality of the west coast "back-to-nature" movement in the 1960s. I'm not sure how that's supposed to fit with the name and bottle design (see below) but more on that later.

What I smell is a warm, mysterious ceremony in the woods. Occult opens with a note like mulled wine, fruity and with hints of cinnamon. There's also something rich about it, like creamed honey. There's vanilla but it's not too sweet. The focus of the perfume is on the smooth woods in heart. Sandalwood and cedar notes rub up against amber and civet, like a big, dark cat with gold eyes.

I have only a couple of criticisms. The first is that this rich, dark smell doesn't seem to fit with the idea of sunny 1960's California hippies to me. I could be wrong, I wasn't there. Maybe northern California, deep in the redwoods at night... But it's not the earnestness of the "back-to-nature" movement. Occult is a good name. Hmmm, "Rasputin" might be better actually.


The second thing is the bottles themselves. Occult is available in two sizes, the 2oz bottle and a small 0.5ml vial necklace, called "the talisman." The talisman feels cheap and young,  whereas the perfume definitely does not. The string, the charm, it's like something my 11-year old niece would wear. I don't like the full bottle design either: the Manson font and the vampire eyes. I think this juice smells better than that.

I've been carrying the little talisman around with me in my purse and re-applying often. Just a little dab goes a long way, so I think this is an eau de parfum concentration. Occult smells like quality materials, well put together, and the opposite of the insipid girly-vanilla perfumes out there. It has presence and weight, and is definitely unisex. Give it a try if you like rich orientals with sandalwood and cedar.

House: Vessel Parfums
Perfumer: Natasha Cote, Givaudan
Notes:
Top: Laotian beeswax, black plum, Somalian olibanum
Heart: Texan cedarwwod, Haitian vetiver, leather, amber, Indonesian patchouli, sandalwood
Base: Benzoin (Laos), vanilla bean (Madagasscar), civet, opulent musks

By Kilian - Sweet Redemption, The End

Alpha and Omega

Sweet Redemption, The End is the 10th and last perfume in By Kilian's L'Oeuvre Noire series, that has explored themes of love and temptation. I previously reviewed Love and Tears, Surrender which is one of the best jasmines I've ever tried.

In this final perfume, Kilian has created a complex balance of opposites. Sweet and bitter, light and dark, innocence and death, or is it rebirth? 

Sweet Redemption, The End starts with creamy orange blossom, a flower often associated with innocence. The pale creaminess melts into a heart of darker, sticky resins. The sweet smell of vanilla and cinnamon comes from benzoin but the perfume stays away from gourmand territory by the addition of bitter, medicinal myrrh.

Myrrh is an incense often associated with death and funeral preparations. It has a fragrance that takes time to love. I find that myrrh adds an almost plastic note to Sweet Redemption, as if the perfume is actually a sweet but synthetic amber, melting on my skin. Like vanilla ice-cream and dark honey frozen into bakelite.

At one point the light layer of orange blossom hovering over the incense base notes, created an illusion of lilies, Like a stereogram image created from two separate photos. Lily isn't mentioned in the notes, and maybe it was all in my head, but it fits with the theme of endings and redemption, death and rebirth. Lilies are the flowers of both funerals and Easter.

So in one fragrance, By Kilian leads us on an olfactory journey from beginning to end. Innocent fresh orange blossoms mixed with evocative ancient resinsto offer redemption as the ultimate temptation.

Sometimes I find the By Kilian ad copy a little florid, their packaging a little pretentious and their prices steep, but I have to admit the juice is outstanding quality. By Kilian will be offering the L'Oeuvre Noire series as a complete set of travel-sized atomizers this fall and I am tempted.

House: By Kilian
Nose: Kilian Hennessy
Notes: Orange blossom, bitter orange leaf¹ vanilla, myrrh, opopanax, benzoin², incense

¹ Bitter orange leaf is mentioned only on the By Kilian website.
² Benzoin is mentioned only on the Luckyscent website.

Jean Desprez - Sheherazade

Secret treasure

I have a secret. It's a store, a wonderful, impossible store. A hidden gem like something right out of  a fairy tale, where treasures you've only read about sit on shelves in glorious disarray, higglety-pigglety, the rare, the mundane, the outright discontinued, vintage and reformulated, all the perfume of my dreams. I'll share the address with you some day, but for now, I'll tell you about one of the samples I found there: the discontinued Sheherazade, by Jean Desprez.

Sheherazade, the woman, was a clever Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. Sheherazade, the perfume, is a sweet, powdery oriental with a woody, base. It reminds me a bit of Caron's Bain de Champagne, but darker and more complicated. The opening is like powdered sugar with a dark bitter note that I think might be the rosewood? I could have sworn there was leather in there, but the only notes I could find, at The Perfumed Court, don't mention any.

The powdery opening warms into a spiced fruit in the heart, with some rosy carnation and dry, rooty orris. The base notes continue the sweet, woody theme of the opening with vanilla, sandalwood and resins.  Sheherazade is an interesting contrast of light and dark, sweet and bitter, floral and woods. There's enough here to keep me interested, maybe even for 1,001 nights.

Sheherazade is now on my list of perfumes to buy when I get back to my secret store. It's a bit sweeter than my normal, but I like that it's deep, resiny and woody, complicated, and just different from the modern perfumes I own.  Hopefully my magical store will still be there when I have a chance to return, and won't have vanished like a mirage in the desert.

House: Jean Desprez
Nose: ?
Notes: (From The Perfumed Court) Top notes of Aldehydic, Bergamont, and Rosewood Middle notes of Rose, Carnation, Jasmin, Ylang Ylang, Orris, and Cassia. Base notes of with notes of.... Vanilla, Sandalwood, Benzoin and Opoponax .

Amouage - The Library Collection Opus I, II and III

I'd like to return these books, please

A new trio of fragrances from Amouage, The Library Collection, is built around the concepts of a library, including a "tome of memories," "hidden treasures," discovery and learning. Amouage is a niche, luxury perfume house, based in Grasse in the South of France but inspired by the Sultanate of Oman. Amouage has released perfumes before that I've liked, but The Library Collection volumes are not going to be added to the full bottle list.

Opus I
Cardamom,
lily of the valley,
sour milk,
baby powder,
charcoal,
burning plastic,
vanilla pudding,
sandalwood.

Why do they call this a chypre? I can't bear to wear this again, so my review will have to be the notes I wrote down above. There was a sour, burnt note in the top, but the drydown is a cloying vanilla pudding with sandalwood that lasts forever.

Nose: Daniel Maurel
Notes:
Top: Birgarade, Plum, Cardamom.
Heart: Ylang-ylang, Rose, Jasmine, Tuberose, Lily of the Valley.
Base: Papyrus, Cedarwood, Guaiacwood, Frankincense, Tonka Beans, Sandalwood, Vetiver

Opus II

Amouage is calling  Opus II a fougère. There is a little lavender at the top, but it's very light, thank goodness; lavender is not my favourite note. There is also a little pepper. But the top notes disappear quickly and the perfume dries down to a rosy cedar with a hint of cinnamon. I'm a big fan of cedar so I'm quite happy about this development. Unfortunately it doesn't last for very long.

Nose: Michele Saramito
Notes:
Top: Lavender, Absinth, Pepper, Pink Bay.
Heart: Jasmine, Rose, Cinnamon, Cardamom.
Base: Cedarwood, Patchouli, Amber, Musk, Frankincense.

Opus III

The third volume in this collection is a floral. Opus III is a sweet and powdery violet with mimosa. The violet is slightly tart, reminding me of  little candies. The base of benzoin and vanilla adds to the candy vibe. It's the most linear of the three perfumes and also the least surprising. It does last a decent amount of time though, and the next morning, I have a nice musk still on my wrist.

Nose: Karine Vinchon-Spehn
Notes:
Top: Mimosa, Broom, Carnation, Nutmeg, Thyme.
Heart: Violet, Jasmine, Ylang-ylang, Orange Blossom.
Base: Musk, Papyrus, Cedarwood, Sandalwood, Guaiacwood, Benzoin, Vanilla, Frankincense.

In Conclusion

Frankincense is traditionally from Oman, and all Amouage fragrances contain frankincense, as part of a common base accord that links the whole line. If I actually smelled frankincense in The Library Collection trio of perfumes, I might have liked them better. As it is, although I know this is an accomplished house and the prices must indicate fine materials, I don't like any of The Library Collection perfumes enough to purchase.

For other (better) reviews of The Library Collection, try Perfume Shrine, who calls Opus I "truly surprising" and peredepierre who says it's "top-notch." See also Il Modo di Odore who says it's "very good" and also likes Opus II. So, it could just be me.

House: Amouage

Photo: The private library of William Randolph Hearst, by stuck in customs
Photo: vanilla pudding by bochalla
Photo: violet candies by davescunningplan

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