MAC - Naked Honey

Linden and clover, over and over

The linden trees out back are in bloom, and as I sat under them yesterday evening, I remembered MAC Naked Honey.

MAC released this perfume in 2009, a limited edition that quickly sold out. Luckily, I was reading perfume blogs like Bois de Jasmine and Perfume Posse at the time and their reviews had me hustling over to grab a bottle.

MAC Naked Honey is a honey-floral perfume that smells like linden blossoms. It's a sheer, green-tinged sweet smell, like standing beneath those waving boughs and breathing deeply the smell of gold and green dappled sunshine. Some people say is also smells like honeysuckle.

I smell clover. When I was a kid, we would spend the summer wandering the fallow fields and woodlots around my subdivision, playing in the tall grass, eating wild strawberries and raspberries and sucking the honey-sap out of clover blossoms. Naked Honey smells like summer memories to me.

MAC no longer sells Naked Honey, but if they ever decide to release it again, I highly recommend picking up a bottle. At about $25, it was some of the best perfume money I've spent.

House: MAC Creations Hue
Nose: Harry Fremont
Notes: white honey, floral notes, woodsy notes

Photo of linden: redteam
Photo of clover: Dendroica cerulea

Atelier Cologne - Trèfle Pur

The luck of the Irish all day long

To celebrate March, the green month, and the upcoming hootenanny that is St. Patrick's day, I am wearing Atelier Cologne's Trèfle Pur today. I feel the need for green to get me through what is usually a not-so green month in Ontario. And a little four-leaf clover luck wouldn't hurt either.

A burst of freshness perked me up right away when I dabbed on Trèfle Pur. A "cologne absolute," Trèfle Pur contains 18% essential oils, which makes is much longer lasting than traditional colognes and it has better sillage. It was love at first sniff. Trèfle Pur is amazing and I only wish that I hadn't waited almost a year to try my sample.

Atelier Cologne only just started in 2010. Trèfle Pur is one of 6 perfumes they offer. To me, Trèfle Pur is an example of the best of modern perfumery. High quality, an interesting composition, and a sheer touch that lets all the notes shine individually yet also combine into a harmonious whole, are some of the hallmarks of the great modern perfume. I love being able to pick out the individual smells of bitter orange, violet leaf, and  neroli, even as they work together like voices in a choir.

Trèfle Pur starts like a sunrise over green fields and winds up in the soft grey dusk, The opening notes combine a bright bitter orange with a green grassy note. The gorgeous green of the cologne comes from clover absolute, and the spicy greeness of violet leaves and basil. As it warms on the skin, wafts of aromatic cardamom and and a lovely floral neroli lift the green off my skin and swirl around me, like an afternoon in a garden. In the dry down, a cuddly musk and a grey mossy feeling comfort me.

Trèfle Pur is almost a combination of two of my favourite Frederic Malle perfumes, Bigarade Concentrée and Angéliques sous le pluie. It has the beautiful bitter orange opening of Bigarade and the spicy, musky, greeness of Angéliques. It is perfect for men and women who are looking for something fresh and green.

I also appreciate the way Trèfle Pur seems to tell a story and set a mood. It creates an olfactory image, a character, that each person can make their own. The marketing images created for each cologne in the collection reflect this story-telling aspect of the perfume. You can see the example for Trèfle Pur, above. I love them; I think they are some of the best perfume ads I've ever seen.

House: Atelier Cologne
Nose: Jerome Epinette
Notes: Top notes: Bitter orange, cardamon, basil
Heart notes: Clover absolute, violet leaves, Tunisian neroli
Base notes: Patchouli, moss, musk