Narcisse Noir by Caron

The Lady Is Still A Little Strange

I purchased Narcisse Noir this spring on a whim. I was attracted to the name! I had never smelled it and I knew very well that it had middling reviews. Narcisse Noir is one of those perfumes that has been said to have been drastically reformulated since it's original release in 1911. Tania Sanchez in "Perfumes, The Guide" says it's a shadow of its former self; that it's lost all its drama and strangeness.

Well, I don't think so. It may not be what it was, but having never smelled the original, I can't miss it. What Narcisse Noir is now, is a pretty orange blossom perfume that manages to be both ladylike and a little odd at the same time.

Narcisse Noir isn't about narcissus. A fresh orange blossom dominates the perfume. The orange blossom has a soapy quality like very expensive, fine-milled French soaps.  It makes me feel graceful. But somewhere underneath the sweet flowers and soap is the smell of dry dirt. Can dirt be elegant? Imagine the smell of very expensive, fine-milled French dirt.  The combination of clean and dirty makes Narcisse Noir fun to wear.

Narcisse Noir may be a pretty, clean orange blossom on top, but she still hides a strange side.

House: Caron
Nose: Ernest Daltroff
Notes: african orange flower, narcissus, jasmine, orange, rose, vetyver, musk and sandalwood.

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

Marie Saint Pierre B and C

Decisions, decisions

Marie Saint Pierre, the doyenne of the Canadian fashion scene, is based in Montreal. Her avant garde designs use a minimalist palette of mostly black with shots of orange, red and gold. The lines are clean, strong and angular.

In 2010 Marie launched two perfumes to complement her collection. They were created by Evelyn El Koubi of Luxe Alternative in Paris. The enigmatically-named B and C are said to be inspired by Montreal, personal travel and garden aromas.

They are both outstanding. I ordered the samples with a purchase from Luckyscent on a whim, because they were Canadian and I'd never heard of them. I wasn't expecting to love them, but I do. They are both beautiful, multi-faceted, sexy and yet comforting. Like her clothing, both are high quality and wearable. I've been wearing them alternately all week and I can't even decide which is my favourite, it seems to depend on which one I'm wearing at the time.

B could stand for 'baisser" (kiss) or "bois" (wood). It's rich and sensual. It starts with a thick caramel and burnt sugar note but it's not cloying or childish. Nutty spices warm it up and a thrum of sexy cedar and sandalwood keep it grounded and mature. The heart has a fruity rose/violet combination that together with the  cedar reminds me a lot of Serge Lutens Bois de Violette.  I see this perfume in colours of cinnamon and gold, melting over wine-dark purple and red. B is a sweet perfume for grown-ups. It's the more outgoing of the twins with more sillage.

C could stand for "caresse" (caress) or "cuir" (leather). C is a soft musk and leather scent with floral and spice facets. The first thing you smell is the green floral combination of petitgrain and orange blossom. Then iris and the softest suede take over. Orange blossom continues to weave in and out through most of the perfume. It dries down to a warm musk and saffron skin scent.  I may have found a new musk perfume to replace the Annick Goutal Musc Nomade that I can no longer wear.

The black lacquered bottles echo Marie Saint Pierre designs. Continuing the Canadian fashion theme, each bottle is sealed with a ceramic bijou of fused glass and ribbon, created by Canadian artist Melanie Laplante, that can be worn multiple way as a necklace or bracelet.


Can I afford two more bottles of perfume? No. Do I have room for two more bottles? Hell no. But can I stop huffing my wrists? Nope. Maybe one now and one for the wish list, but how to decide?

Marie Saint Pierre B and C are available in Canada at several stores in Quebec, one retailer in Kleinburg Ontario, and online from Luckyscent.com. See the link below for more details.


House: Marie Saint Pierre
Nose: Evelyn El Koubi
Notes:

B Notes
bergamot, Turkish rose, Atlas cedar, violet, caramel, beeswax, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, sandalwood, musk, maple sap, vanilla

C Notes
bergamot, petit grain, saffron, buckskin, iris, orange blossom, freesia, leather, cedar, musk

Parfums Grès - Cabaret and thoughts on perfumista twins

What good is sitting alone in your room?

Grès Cabaret was released in 2002 and was inspired by a French cabaret with it's gorgeous women, beautiful costumes, and sexy-decadent atmosphere.

I find it very sexy. Cabaret is a sheer-woody rose and I'm a sucker for this style of perfume. It's very dry and has a huge hit of musks in the base that lift it and give it excellent sillage.

Unlike most of the perfumes I've been falling for lately, Cabaret is widely available and at very reasonable prices, although in Toronto you may have to order it online as I haven't seen it on counters.

I got my adorable mini bottle in a swap with a perfume pal, which brings me to my next topic: Perfumista Twins.

A Perfumista Twin is what I call another perfume fan who shares your tastes. The best thing about writing this blog has been meeting (in person and virtually) other perfume people around the world. It's given me the opportunity to chat about perfume (join us for #fumechat on Thursdays), do joint blogging projects like the We Three Kings posts last Christmas, and, most importantly for my wallet, swap samples and decants with other collectors. There are just too many perfumes to keep up with; thousands of new releases every year and thousands of excellent vintage perfumes I've never tried. Having Perfumista pals send me samples helps tremendously.@JoannElaine from Redolent of Spices was my first fumie friend. We share a love of vintage, dry-as-bone chypres and I always know I'm going to love her samples even before I open them.

But maybe even better than a Perfumista Twin is a Perfumista EVIL Twin (PET). A PET is one who has exactly the opposite tastes as you. Why is this great? Because a PET will trade with you for decants of things s/he doesn't like, but that you love! Ines from All I am - a redhead may be a PET. She sent me decant of Lorenzo Villoresi Sandalo that she didn't like but that I fell in love with.

Now I may have found a new PET, Bryna, who traded with me this adorable mini bottle of Cabaret, as well as a healthy decant of Fleur de Narcisse that I had been lusting after. They may not have tickled her fancy, but I adore them. I hope this is the beginning a a beautiful friendship.

House: Grès
Nose: Michael Almairac
Notes: Top: rose, lily-of-the-valley and peony; Middle: violet, blue orchid and incense; Base: patchouli, oleander, Indian sandalwood, amber and musk

Eau d'Italie - Jardin du Poete

Refreshing, Modern and Masculine

Eau d'Italie released its 8th perfume this spring Jardin du Poete. Like most of their other fragrances, Jardin du Poete was created by the seemingly tireless Betrand Duchaufour. Hurray! because I am a huge fan of Duchaufour. Eau d'Italie has been hit or miss with me, but of the perfumes that I have tried from the line, the ones I have liked, Baume du Doge, Paestum Rose and Magnolia Romana, were by Duchaufour.  I can add Jardin du Poete to that list.

Duchaufour is a master of what I think of as the "modernist" style of perfume. In "classical" perfumes, it's often not easy to pick out individual notes; you smell them as a whole, a complete picture, like a painting in which the brush stokes are hidden. Chanel No. 5 is what I would call a classical perfume. It doesn't really smell like jasmine and roses and ylang-ylang; it smells like Chanel No. 5; itself, a complete thing. Some perfumes may be chronologically modern, but still of this "classical" style, like Roja Dove's Diaghilev or The Party in Manhattan.

But a modernist perfume lays out it's notes like visible brush stokes or like a play, in which the characters enter the stage sequentially. A modernist perfume introduces us to a series of recognizable notes whose individual personalities can be appreciated even as they work together to create the whole story.

In Jardin du Poete, the opening notes of bitter orange and grapefruit are refreshing, clear and bright, like a stained glass window in shades of orange, yellow and pink. Then I smell the basil, green and peppery and a little grassy.  If summer freshness could have a smell, it would be basil.

Next I smell the angelica and musk, an herbal and comforting combination that seems to float above my skin. It's a sort of masculine vibe, that reminds me of Angeliques sous la pluie. but when I sniff closer to the skin the green grass is still there. Cypress and vetiver complete the poet's garden with dark green trees and earthiness.

Wearing Jarden du Poete is like sitting in a summer garden, eating fresh citrus and sipping Pimm's. It's more English countryside than Italy to me, but it's a beautiful and refreshing summer getaway in a bottle.

House: Eau d'Italie
Nose: Bertrand Duchaufour
Notes: Top: bitter orange, grapefruit, basil Middle: angelica, helicrysum (immortelle), pink pepper Base: cypress, vetiver, musk

Photo of the Palatine Hill, Rome: mine.

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

Frederic Malle - Angéliques sous la pluie

The perfect tonic

I think I'm starting to become a big fan of Jean-Claude Ellena. His style is minimalist, sheer, and luminescent. He takes a limited palette of notes and  finds just the right way to combine them to compliment each other.

When I received a sample of Angéliques sous la pluie, I was expecting a floral perfume, the name made me think of Apres l'Ondee. The story accompanying the perfume is that Ellena created it to pay tribute to the smell of a bouquet of angelica gathered after the rain.

I forgot that angelica is an herb, sometimes used to flavour drinks like absinthe and gin. It has a bitter, slightly spicy and green smell. Ellena has elevated the spicy character by adding coriander, and played with the gin connotations of angelica by adding juniper.

The result is wonderful.  Angéliques sous la pluie sparkles like a cool green tonic and wakes me up when I'm feeling tired. I smell the juniper first, like Bombay Sapphire in a crystal tumbler, then the spicy, green angelica. The smell is effervescent yet creamy. The base notes of sheer musk and wood, are like adding a comfortable chair and a soft grey blanket to your garden. This perfume makes me happy and content.

Men, please wear this! I would love to smell this on more men. So much sexier than the usual masculines.

House: Frederic Malle
Nose: Jean-Claude Ellena
Notes: angelica, juniper, coriander, musk, cedar

Opus Oils - Afraid of the Dark Collection

Lady Death, two vampires and a fiend for Halloween

It's that time of year, when glowing jack-o'-lanterns leer on porches, cobwebs and skulls become decorating staples and scary wee beasties creep in the shadows ready to pounce on candy. Don't you love Halloween? In honour of the delightfully dark day, I'm reviewing the Afraid of the Dark collection by Opus Oils.

The Afraid of the Dark collection has four perfume oils, Vamp, Ode de Vampyre, Lady Death and Charlie No. 5. The collection was released in 2009. 

Vamp

Vamp is meant to be a lush animalic floral in a vintage style, with "smoky" gardenia, orange blossom and tobacco. But Marilyn Monroe vampire never appears. Vamp starts with an interesting smoky note, but I don't really smell the promised gardenia and orange blossom. Instead I get a quiet and, generic white floral for an hour and then nothing. I don't smell the tobacco or vanilla at all. Unfortunately, I do smell coconut quite clearly, which I'm guessing is the coconut oil the perfume is based on. I don't think that it's meant to be a noticeable note.

Notes: Smokey Gardenia, Blond Tobacco, Orange Blossom & Vanilla

Ode de Vampyre

Now this is more like it. I'll admit it, I'm a vampire junkie. Name the movie, TV show or book, I've seen/read them all. So what could be better than a perfume named for my favourite dark and brooding fantasy?

Surprisingly, Ode de Vampyre is a cheerful rosy wood perfume. Loads of cedar and sandalwood combine with a fruity rose in the heart.  I can smell a smidge of honey on the wood in the drydown. This one has good sillage and lasting power.


Notes:  Blood Cedarwood, Saffron, Dark Rose, Orris Root, Sandalwood, Black Agar, Vetiver, Honey & Temple Incense.

Lady Death

Moss covered stones, ethereal night blooming flora, midnight air, sweet anticipation of the last kiss from a ghostly apparition.


I think this is the most unique and interesting of the four perfumes, even if it is the hardest for me to wear. Lady Death features lily, a note I associate with death. But that's perfectly appropriate here. There is also datura, a night-blooming flower with poisonous and hallucinogenic properties. The datura flower attracts ghostly moths at night and is supposed to smell sweet, like jasmine. Lady Death combines lily with this sweet floral and a slightly salty oakmoss. The result is exactly the feeling of funeral bouquets and deadly flowers growing around damp cold stones.

Notes: of Datura, White Musk, Black Lily & Oak Moss

Charlie No. 5

The most controversial of the lot, Charlie No. 5 has apparently been banned from eBay. It must have something to do with its inspiration, the killer Charles Manson. When I originally ordered my oils, the image on the left was a picture of his creepiness.

Do you like amber? If you do, you'll love Charlie No. 5. This perfume is all warm, delicious base notes. The labdanum is woody and balsamic, like a walk through a pine forest, and the patchouli adds a hint of dark earth. The vanilla and amber are smooth and sweet. This is my favourite of the four perfume oils. Despite its infamous inspiration, it's a cuddly comforting scent and  perfect for those chilly dark October nights.

Notes: of Dark Amber, Aged Labdanum, Vanilla, Musk, Vintage Patchouli & Soft Amber

Happy Halloween my fragrant friends!

House: Opus Oils
Nose: Kendra Hart

Opus Oils - Dirty, Sexy, Wilde

I can resist everything except temptation.

Opus Oils created Dirty, Sexy, Wilde to mark the one year anniversary of the opening of their Jitterbug Perfume Parlour. According to them, it was inspired by turn of the century perfume formulas for handkerchiefs.

To go with that turn of the century inspiration, they chose the image and name of the famous wit, the Irish writer, Oscar Wilde.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Dirty, Sexy, Wilde is, in fact, dirty and sexy. The green galbanum has an almost pine-like smell in the beginning. It's tarted-up with a little mandarin, then eases into a heart of dirty jasmine. It's also very animalic, right from the start; if you don't like civet be forewarned. It dries down to a lovely warm, floral, musky leather and salty skin. Dirty, Sexy, Wilde is like a warm and very rumpled bed, or the skin on your lover's neck the next morning. It's wonderfully indecent and charming at the same time. Pure sex.

House: Opus Oils
Nose: Kendra Hart
Notes: Galbanum, Red Mandarin, Violet, Rose, Night Jasmine, Blond Tobacco, Oakmoss, Coumarin, Musk, Civet and Ambergris

Gorilla Perfumes- Exhale

Your dad, or an old boyfriend

Gorilla Perfumes is a line carried by Lush. Here in Canada, the Lush stores are only offering Tuca Tuca (a candy violet, from my sniff in the store), but a Twitter pal was nice enough to send me a sample of Exhale from the UK.

Gorilla Perfumes has a cool feature to their website: they list the ingredients of their perfumes, the real ingredients. Exhale contains:

DRF Alcohol, Perfume, Cedarwood Oil (Juniperus virginiana), Vetivert Oil (Vetiveria zizanoides), Lemon Oil (Citrus limonum), Grapefruit Oil (Citrus paradisi), Cade Oil (Juniperus oxycedrus), *Citral, Coumarin, *Geraniol, *Benzyl Benzoate, *Farnesol, *Limonene, *Linalool

According to the website, the creator, Simon Constantine, created this accord as the base for another Gorilla perfume, Breath of God, but apparently liked it so much they released it as a separate fragrance. Created after a trip to Tibet, it is supposed to "induce reverence" as smelling incense would.


Exhale starts with a big blast of ashy wood smoke, like starting a fire in a fireplace without remembering to open the chimney flue. After a few minutes that gives way to a strong and persistent woody-amber and musk. It's very linear, and it lasts a loooong time.

On me, it induces nostalgia. The smoke-wood-amber-musk accord reminds me of men. I find it instantly recognizable, unoriginal, and yet I respond to it like Pavlov's dog. Exhale is every manly fragrance from my past. It's the smell of fathers and boyfriends, of stubble rasping my cheek and strong arms and smoke clinging to a sweater.

House: Gorilla Perfumes
Nose: Simon Constantine
Notes: Vetivert, sandalwood, cedarwood, amber, musk.

Photo: Gregory Bastien

Annick Goutal - Musc Nomade

Sweet, warm, tan skin

I received a package in the mail recently, covered in Hellas stamps, all the way from Greece! I'd forgotten the thrill of presents from far-away. I won a sample of Annick Goutal's Musc Nomade from the Perfume Shrine. Elena has an excellent review of MN, you should go read it.

Musc Nomade smells like sweet, warm suntanned skin. It's honey and hay and slightly woody and cuddly musks. It's sexy but not animalic. It's nuzzling the freshly-washed neck of your lover.

House: Annick Goutal
Nose: Isabelle Doyen
Notes: Muscone, white musk stemming from angelica root and ambrette seed, tonka beans, labdanum, Bombay wood (a papyrus variety)

Thank you to Elena and the Perfume Shrine for my sample!
Photo: jessicarabbit

Ego Facto - Prends Guard à Toi

Who's afraid of the big bad... melon?

Never, have I seen such a disconnect between the press material for a perfume and what it actually smells like. The name  Prends guard à toi means "Beware." The Ego Facto web site describes this fragrance as:

Its motto: Gather thistles, expect prickles !
Its emblem: A stinging nettle leaf
Its heartfelt cry: Declare yourself defiant
Egoistic Profile: A woman but it could be a man for that matter, with an independent, free and consciously provocative character.

Really, Ego Facto? Really? Ok, here's what it smells like: watery green melon, metallic ozone, faint jasmine, clean musk.

Does that sound "defiant" or "provocative" to you? There's an infamous synthetic molecule called Calone, that is used frequently to provide an aquatic, slightly melony, metallic note - like sea breeze, in perfume. Chandler Burr calls it the "olfactory equivalent of corn syrup" because of its ubiquity. Prends guard à toi smells like Calone and jasmine and some clean musks. Nothing to beware of here. 

House: Ego Facto
Nose: Jean Guichard and Aurelien Guichard
Notes: Green and jasmine

Photo: Turtlemom4bacon

Serge Lutens - L'Eau Serge Lutens

Perfume: L'Eau Serge Lutens
House: Serge Lutens
Nose: Christopher Sheldrake
Notes: aldehydes, citrus, magnolia, white mint, clary sage, ozonic notes and musk

The scent of clean skin, ironing a white cotton shirt, linen hung on a line in the sun.

Serge Lutens is famous for his, shall we say, more aggressive perfumes. I have a few that I will review later, but his style is known to include spices, stewed fruits and animalic notes. This is the opposite of all that. This is Serge's "anti-perfume."

It’s like stepping out of the bath. Like putting on a freshly ironed shirt, or slipping into a bed with clean sheets…
- Serge Lutens

And, of course, he's exactly right. L'Eau starts very "clean," and it smells like ironing. There's a light, sparkling citrus, slightly dry and bitter. After the top notes fade it becomes a lovely magnolia, that creamy white and pink flower, and clean musk.

The musk in L'Eau lasts and lasts. I can smell it clearly 10 hours later. As a perfume it lifted my mood and was perfect for the office and yoga class. L'Eau is also a great unisex scent, and I'd love to smell it on a man. I didn't expect to like this "anti-perfume" but it's excellent, as I should have expected from Serge Lutens.


Photo: thecityofjess