Mary Greenwell Plum

I feel pretty, oh so pretty!

Take a look at the Bouguereau painting, The Rapture of Psyche – the lemon yellow and pink-tinged dawn, the floaty plum chiffon, the angel and butterfly wings – it's a perfect depiction of true love overcoming reason. That's what Mary Greenwell's Plum smells like.

More prosaically, Plum starts off with sweet-tart fruits, like peach, plum and lemon. The heart is a bouquet of feminine flowers. I smell mostly tuberose and gardenia but very smoothly blended and with none of the cheesy, mushroom or menthol-petrol notes. The base notes are subtle and woody with maybe a hint of moss, but not really enough to make it a vintage-style chypre. The next day the ghosts of sandalwood and amber still haunt my skin.

Plum is the debut perfume for Mary Greenwell, a make-up artist to the stars. The nose, Francois Robert has done a few perfumes, mostly for the niche line Les Parfums de Rosine, but seems to be known mainly for re-working Lanvin's Arpege. For a while, Plum was carried exclusively by House of Fraser in the UK, but you can get it online now from Luckyscent in the U.S.

I called Plum beautiful in my New Year's eve post, but I was wrong. Real beauty contains tragedy or a hint of something dark. Beauty needs a flaw which highlights its (otherwise) perfection. Beauty is often difficult and unapproachable. There is nothing dark or unapproachable about Plum. It is sheer delight. Plum is a shower of white and pink petals on the breeze.

Oh dear, I'm back to being poetic, but I just can't help myself. I shouldn't love Plum this much. It's basically a fruity floral, right? That's nothing unusual. Have I outgrown the need for my perfumes to be, how should I say it... difficult? Like a lot of perfumistas, I started my perfume obsession with over-the-top spicy, incensey, woody, mossy, or green perfumes. Anything but pretty florals. Have I come back around to loving what everyone else already loves?

Yes, my collection has a need for something like Plum, something charming and easy to wear. I think Plum would make a perfect first perfume for my niece, too. I've been looking for something that would suit a girl, but still be high quality.

When I put on Plum, I take a deep sniff and grin. It is just so pretty! Enough rationalizing. I am beyond reason. I'm in love.

House: Mary Greenwell
Nose: Francois Robert
Notes:
Top: English plum, blackcurrant, peach, bergamot and lemon
Heart: gardenia, tuberose absolute, orange flower absolute, rose absolute and jasmine absolute
Base: precious woods, sandalwood, oakmoss, patchouli, amber and white musk

Painting: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Le ravissement de Psyché (The Rapture of Psyche) (1895)

I might never have heard of Plum if it wasn't for my lovely fellow perfume bloggers. Check out the reviews of Plum by The Scent Critic, Muse in Wooden Shoes, This Blog Really Stinks, and Waft... What A Fragrancefanatic Thinks.

Sisley - Soir de Lune

A bodice ripper chypre

In honour of Valentines Day, I bring you Sisley Soir de Lune, a good old-fashioned bodice ripper.

Dark and magnetic, like the eyes of My Wicked Earl over there, Soir de Lune really pops my pearl buttons.

Starting with smoldering spices, Soir de Lune unfolds its red rose petals dripping with honey and a touch of soft peach. Deep in the woods, it lays me down on a soft bed of earthy patchouli and moss. In the darkness is a hint of the bitterness to come in the morning when my love leaves.

House: Sisley
Nose: Dominique Ropion
Notes: lemon, bergamot, orange, mandarine, coriander, nutmeg, pimento, May rose absolute, mimosa absolute, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, peach, moss, musk, patchouli, honey, sandalwood
Where to buy: in Toronto at Holt Renfrew

Thank you to Victoria at Bois de Jasmin for giving me her extra sample!!!

Yves Saint Laurent - Belle d'Opium

A snuffed candle

Yves Saint Laurent launched its best-selling fragrance Opium, in 1977. It was one of the big iconic perfumes of the 80s, a fragrance that signified exoticism, mystery, danger and sensuality. Its popularity and its decadent scent trail inexorably led to a backlash against heady perfumes that I think we're still recovering from. 

So, in 2010, YSL released Belle d'Opium, the latest flanker to the famous oriental. The YSL web site says that it contains an "overdose of rare and precious ingredients to take extreme femininity to the limits of indecency." Ah, no. Belle d'Opium doesn't even get near my limits of indecency, but I do like it.


Belle d'Opium opens with white pepper, a hint of peach and some sandalwood from the base showing through. The heart of the perfume revolves around what they refer to as the "Nargileh accord" and incense. Nargileh is a tobacco water pipe (hookah is basically the same thing), like I described in Fumerie Turque. But I don't smell tobacco in Belle d'Opium. Instead the idea of a lazy curling column of smoke has been created with a smoky note that smells like a just-snuffed candle, with a touch of incense weaving through it. The bottle hints at this candle aspect with a red wick running through the middle.

Although "Casablanca Lily" is the flower that the marketing focuses on, I don't really smell lily either, which is a good thing by me.  Lily is one of the new "it" notes this season but not one of my favourite flowers. Belle d'Opium has a quiet, well-blended white floral bouquet, quite demure and nondescript actually, supporting the curling smoke heart. It's almost as if the fat, waxy petals of those flowers translate into the waxiness of white candles. The base is a musky wood with patchouli - pretty much the ubiquitous "new chypre" base.


Belle d'Opium is fairly quiet, staying close to the skin (unlike the original) and fading after a few hours. I'm disappointed that Belle d'Opium, with such a delicious list of notes, and marketing that promises an "overdose" of ingredients, is so tame to me, but that seems to be the way that the big main-stream perfumes are done these days. Truly "indecent" perfumes, or perfumes that dare to have sillage, still can only be found in the smaller niche lines.

But Belle d'Opium is pretty. I like wearing it. If I could get a big bottle inexpensively, I could see spraying this on liberally in the cooler months. I like to relax in those long dark evenings with candles burning and a cashmere wrap for cuddling. Belle d'Opium would be a good comfort scent for those casual evenings, shut away from the rest of the world, lolling about on the couch. Not unlike an opium den, actually.

House: Yves Saint Laurent
Nose: Honorine Blanc and Alberto Morillas
Notes: Sample card lists: Casablanca Lily, incense and Nargileh accord. OzMoz lists: top note: Mandarin Orange, Lily, Gardenia, White Flowers middle note: Frankincense, Peach, Pepper, Tabacco, Hookah Accord, Fruity Notes base note: Patchouli, Sandalwood, Smoky Notes, Amber


Photo: One of a series of photographs by Hungarian photojournalist Brassaï taken in Paris in the early 1930s. Via stevechasmar.

Rochas - Femme Rochas

Too much of a good thing... can be wonderful

According to the Rochas web site, Marcel Rochas was inspired in his bottle selection for Femme Rochas by the hips of Mae West. The perfume itself resembles the famous hollywood actress – over-the-top, sensual, sassy, spicy and very womanly.

Femme Rochas was created in 1944 by the young perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, one of the 20th century's most famous perfumers, who went on to create the best lily of the valley perfume ever, Diorissimo.  Rochas wanted a perfume that exuded sensuality and was unforgettable. Rounditska proposed a new direction from the popular leather-tobacco, green chypres of the day – a fruity-chypre with spices.

My sample of Femme Rochas EDP opens with a sharp sour fruit note, while still wet, that passes quickly. It could be the bergamot, which I'm having a problem with lately. But after that, the peach and plum fruits take over. They're wonderful and covered in spices. I smell the cumin and a tiny bit of cinnamon and I thought maybe cardamon as well, but that might be me associating cumin with Indian spices. The reformulation in 1989, by Oliver Cresp, apparently added the cumin note. Cumin in perfume can be divisive, but I guess I'm on the "love it" side. In Femme Rochas, it adds a sensual, personal skin note that's very sexy. It makes the luscious fruit warm, but never sticky sweet.

Under the stone fruit and spices is a chypre base. It's earthy and dry and woody with a touch of smooth sweetness. Fragrantica lists leather in the base notes,  but I don't smell it. Maybe leather was part of the original formula, which would make sense if Roudnitska was playing with the leather chypre ideas of perfumes like Tabac Blond or Bandit, released the same year.

Some may find Femme Rochas to be too much; it certainly isn't as light as many of today's releases, but I think it's divine. Femme Rochas is all woman and maybe you'd like to come up and see her sometime.

House: Rochas
Nose: Edmond Roudnitska (original) Oliver Cresp (reformulation)
Notes: Top: Bergamot oil, Peach notes, Plum notes Heart: Jasmine absolute, Bulgarian rose oil, cumin oil Base: Oakmoss absolute, Patchouli oil, Vanilla extract

Photo: Mae West

Parfums MDCI - Peche Cardinal

Sticky peach, creamy coconut, fleshy tuberose

Peche Cardinal is a fruity floral with a southern drawl. She comes on quite strong, not a girl who can easily be ignored. The main notes are peach, coconut, tuberose and some sandalwood – all notes that evoke the south and warmer climes.

The peach in Peche Cardinal is thick and syrupy, with a tiny bit of tart blackberry/blackcurrant. It reminds me of peach schnapps, the sweet liqueur that was my gateway to alcohol as a young flower myself.  The peach is paired with coconut, making everything creamy and tropical.

Of course, peach makes me think "Georgia peach" which makes me think of the ultimate southern belle, Scarlett O'Hara. But it's sensual tuberose, not peach, that's real star of Peche Cardinal. Sweet, fleshy and humid – tuberose is a good match for Scarlett. Unfortunately, this tuberose also has a touch of that bubblegum note that plagues most tuberose perfumes for me (see Vamp à NY and Fracas).

Peche Cardinal well done and, if you like peach, coconut and tuberose, you should give it a whirl. I admire it for being a fruity floral that stays away from melon and berries and peonies.  But Peche Cardinal is not to my taste. This must be what a venus flytrap smells like to a fly. It's sweet, sexy, too much, I drown.

House: Parfums MDCI
Nose: Amandine Marie
Notes: peach, blackberry, blackcurrant, Davana, coconut, lily, tuberose, plum, sandalwood, cedar and musk

Picture: Gone With The Wind (1939)