Posts filed under 'Guest Blogger'
By Donna Hathaway
When Inès Marie Laetitia Eglantine Isabelle de Seignard de la Fressange, known to us mere mortals as simply Inès de la Fressange, burst onto the European fashion scene in the mid-to-late 1970s, she was noticed right away, and within a few short years she was famous just about everywhere as the face of Chanel and the style muse of Karl Lagerfeld. Her face was on every high fashion magazine, and she was quite the runway diva as well. Lanky yet elegant, she seemed more like a “real” woman to me than most of the supermodels of the day – for one thing she was not a blonde and never became one, and I admired her for that – we brunettes have to stick together, because we know we are stunning just the way we are in a world that worships blondes, whether they are real, manufactured or imagined. I say “we” with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, as she was just about everything I am not; chic, fashionable, tall, gorgeous, graceful, and the list goes on. I had quite the girl-crush on her for years, as we were close in age and she had a sparkling intelligence about her that shone through all the glamour and glitter of her profession. I just wanted to be her more than any famous person since Sophia Loren. (You can’t say I don’t aim high!) I was somewhat disappointed that she also became the face for Chanel’s Coco fragrance, as I never did care for it all that much – it’s nice but nothing very special to my nose, and just not my style at all. However, I always enjoyed seeing her in the ads for it.
In 1989 Inès and Karl Lagerfeld had a falling-out and she left Chanel. This was at least in part because she was chosen to pose as the next “Marianne,” the iconic female symbol of France; it is reported that Karl did not want her to do it. This symbolic title has been accorded to a number of beautiful French women including Catherine Deneuve, so it was quite an honor. She did not model much more after that, and soon started her own company, designing luxury goods and home items such as bedding, and was considered to be a very astute businesswoman. She also designed her own clothing line, and I bemoaned the fact that I would never be able to afford or even wear her designs. They reflected her unerring sense of style, sleek and elegant. In 1990 she married Italian businessman Luigi d’Ursi, who also happened to make regular appearances on the International Best-Dressed List, and they later had two daughters. (He tragically died, suddenly and unexpectedly, in 2006.) I have followed her career as much as I can, considering that she is no longer a recognizable celebrity in America for the younger generations, though she still gets plenty of press in France.
A couple of years ago I discovered that I could fit into one of her creations after all – she had released a fragrance! More than one, as it turned out; the eponymous one available today is from 1999; there was another one in 2004 called simply “Inès” that seems to have disappeared, and I have been unable to learn much of anything about it. Online perfume merchants sometimes show both bottle styles, but the description of the fragrance is virtually always for the 1999 perfume’s notes. The latter one sounds even better from the description on OsMoz.com (it has peony in it, which is her favorite flower, and was created by Alberto Morillas), so I hope I find it someday. As a matter of fact, the site I got mine from had a picture of the wrong bottle, so obviously there is confusion all around. Anyway, I stumbled over it on an online discount site, and after seeing the description I thought it sounded very promising. I do not like to buy perfume unsniffed, but I figured hey, we’re talking about Inès here, she would never put her name on something cheap and trashy, right? So after some deliberation I ordered the smaller 50 ml bottle of the Eau de Parfum of Inès de la Fressange.
When it arrived I was immediately struck by the quality of the simple packaging and the spare elegance of the heavy frosted bottle. Eagerly I opened it, and took a sniff – wonderful! It was fresh and lovely, with notes of bergamot, aldehydes, and peach to start with, followed by rosewood, ylang-ylang, carnation, and lily of the valley, and eventually drying down to a light sandalwood, accompanied by tonka bean, civet, and benzoin. There is quote a lot of rose in it, as a matter of fact, but it’s a cool, understated rose, ethereal, soft and pastoral, like the wild Eglantine rose in Inès’ long list of middle names. The resulting juice cannot be said to be a “rose perfume” by any means. There is a bit of sparkling sharpness from the carnation that keeps it lively. There is not a whole lot of complexity going on, which is fine in this case, and once the heart notes make their appearance it stays much the same. I am a benzoin fan, and the civet is also welcome, making for a relatively long-lasting composition for its type. I am a peach fan as well, when it’s done right. Those who fear fruity-floral perfumes will not find the usual sugary mess that quickly turns into a wan, watery clone that smells like everything else – this is a quality fragrance. It cannot be called great or masterful, but it is very pleasing indeed.
It is only made in an eau de parfum, which is fine, since an eau de toilette of this formulation would probably be quite fleeting, but I like it enough to wish there were a parfum or even a perfumed body cream in the line. I am unable to determine for sure if it still in production, as I only see it at discount outlets, but some perfumes hang around for years once they leave the department store displays, so that does not necessarily mean it’s gone for good. Just in case, I bought the 100 ml bottle the last time. It has become one of my default hot weather fragrances, jostling for position with my other standby, Mariella Burani’s Amuleti, as it is always fresh and never intrusive, standing up to heat and humidity like a diva under the lights, which is only fitting. Her namesake should be very proud.
As a matter of curiosity, I would like to know if anyone out there has tried the other one, from 2004, just called Inès, and recalls where they it was obtained - it comes in a gold and crystal bottle overlaid with an oak leaf pattern on the glass, and has notes of bergamot, neroli, mandarin, rose, peony, iris, patchouli and musk, among other things. I have seen pictures of the bottle in a few places, but not nearly so many as for the one I have. Basenotes.net has it listed, but not the earlier one, which I found odd since they have some very obscure stuff in their database. Also, there is another discrepancy; Basenotes says that black currant is the fruit note in the opening, while OsMoz.com says it’s blackberry. I have no idea which one is correct, but since I love them both it matters not to me. I am starting to wonder if it another phantom perfume, but I would like to try it someday if it still exists. Perhaps there is a story behind its elusiveness. I just have the funny feeling that if I take the plunge and order it, I may just receive another bottle of the one I have and I will have to start over. But if it’s anywhere near as good as its predecessor, I will need a bottle of it in my life someday.
Image source: imaginationperfumery.com, divasthesite.com
August 14th, 2007
By Tove Solander
Today’s theme is tar. I’ve compared three tar scents – in fact the only tar scents I know of: Comme des Garcons Synthetic Tar, Tauer Perfumes Lonestar Memories and Le Labo Paychouli 24. Only Lonestar Memories has tar listed as a note, although the Comme des Garcons scent has it in the very name. Patchouli 24 is composed of patchouli, styrax, birch and vanilla, along with twenty secret ingredients I assume. Lonestar Memories is known as a leathery scent, but the notes are geranium, carrot seed, clary sage, birchtar, cistus, jasmine, cedar wood, myrrh, tonka, vetiver and sandalwood. Tar, finally, takes a more urban approach with town gas, vapours of bitumen, bergamot, earth, opoponax, styrax, grilled cigarettes and pyrogenic notes.
What they all have in common, apart from smelling like tar, is that they’re on the sweet side. I guess tar has a rather sweet aroma naturally, but I could easily imagine a more butch take on it. In fact, there might be one – Comme des Garcons Synthetic Garage has hints of tar along with gasoline, chrome and faux leather car interior, without the sweetness. Tar, on the other hand, has hints of gasoline and asphalt so they’re really sister scents. Compared to Lonestar Memories and Patchouli 24 it comes off as very urban, very minimalist, very cool. The sweetness in it is almost the sweetness of anise or liquorice, as opposed to the more syrupy and vanillic sweetness of the other two. However, it’s mostly compared to them it comes off as so very urban and modern. Compared to the rest of the Synthetic series it feels rural, nostalgic, even cosy. Occasionally, I get a feeling of walking in a sunny pine forest rather than a metropolis.
Lonestar Memories is even more rural and nostalgic in feeling. It’s simultaneously sweet, thick and dry. I get a feeling of cracked, grey wood, so old it hardly has a wood scent anymore, and of dirt floors too dry and worn to smell other than dusty. It’s like being in an old boathouse or workshop – there’s the sweetish smell of hemp rope, perhaps some hardened leather gear oiled long ago, and dust speckles in the sunlight that shines in between the boards. The rich, musty sweetness makes it more of a summery childhood scent than a macho cowboy scent for me.
Patchouli 24 is, I think, my least favourite. It’s smokier than the other two, and I usually like smoky, but it’s also the sweetest of them all, and sugared smoke tends to get a bit nauseating. Rather than asphalt or boats, I’m thinking of barbecue. Barbecue with lots of crème brulée for dessert. Maybe even a steak drenched in custard, at its worst. It’s a viscous scent, like syrup so thick and dark it’s almost black. With less vanilla, it could have been the pleasant scent of a wood pile burning, but with the vanilla it’s just too much. I like it best when it’s a faded smoky-sweet trace on my skin.
Image source: luckyscent.com, barneys.com
August 1st, 2007
By Donna Hathaway
This is a story about one special place, which was made possible by some very special people. It is an unassuming little shop to the untrained eye, housed in a whimsical older building on a busy street, easy to pass on the way to bigger and brighter things. But if one takes the time to linger for a moment and peer inside, a world unto itself will be revealed, a magical kingdom evoking the Old World of charm and elegance, of beauty appreciated and great care taken. It is the world of The Perfume House and its owners, the delightful gentleman Chris Tsefalas and his lovely wife Christina. Others have told their story in many different ways, but this is my personal tribute to what this place has meant to me over the years.
When I say that Mr. Tsefalas is a Gentleman I mean that in the truest sense of the word. He is courtly, charming, warm, gregarious, and the most civilized human being I have ever met in my life. He spent a lifetime learning from the great perfumers of the world before deciding to open his own perfume shop so he could share his love for perfume with others. He was trained by the finest masters and is himself a Nose with a capital “N”, a title bestowed only upon those few who must pass a rigorous test to acquire it. (Can you recite all the major notes of any perfume, even one you have never smelled before, before the droplets sprayed in the air hit the floor? He can.)
The Perfume House in Portland, Oregon opened its doors in the early 1980s. I luckily discovered it very quickly due to the chance reading of a story in the newspaper. My sister and I were curious, so we went down there to see what all the excitement was about, as the story had made it sound quite intriguing, and we both liked fragrance anyway. Well, the upshot of it was that we spent about five hours there the first day, and received a head-spinning education in fine perfumery. I have returned there often over the years, and I never leave without learning something new about the art and history of perfume. (Chris is also a master storyteller, and he can weave a romantic perfume tale like no one else.) I learned of great houses and obscure essences, of near-mythical rare perfumes and great standards of the perfumer’s art. Knowing virtually nothing about perfume except that I adored it, I allowed myself to be guided toward that which would suit me best. I remember that one of my very first purchases was a lovely Fragonard. (Who knows much about this house in the U.S.? It is one of the great French houses of the highest quality, but they do not spend their capital on advertising.)
Sometimes it is best to simply place yourself in the hands of an expert who knows much more than you ever will, and in this case I was glad to do it. I discovered Quartz by Molyneux and Annick Goutal Gardenia Passion, and the Jean LaPorte line; I found that the Caron Muguet de Bonheur was exponentially better than any other Muguet fragrance I had ever smelled, and that the fragrances from the House of Caron and I got along very well indeed. (The Perfume House is the only West Coast source of the unsurpassed Caron face powders; famous Hollywood makeup artists order it from the shop when nothing else will do.) There is a Caron “shrine” in the store that includes several of the crystal urns like the ones in the Paris Caron boutique. Almost any Caron perfume in commerce today can be had here, either from stock or by special order. All things Caron are cherished here, as the house represents quality at the very highest level. On a recent visit there was a small tester vial of 2003’s Tubèreuse, which is one of the exclusive urn perfumes available only in the Caron boutiques. I thought I would faint with sheer pleasure when I smelled it. It is sublimely radiant yet quiet, the conceptual opposite of the better-known Fracas by Piguet, and lacking the stemmy greenness of Frederic Malle’s wonderful Carnal Flower with that one’s chilly opening notes. It is the tuberose equivalent my other favorite Caron soliflore, Muguet de Bonheur; refined, serene and opulent without being overly lush. If the store does not start carrying this one soon I will need a ticket to Paris.
Most of all I found the perfume house I loved the best: Jean Patou. When the store first opened, one of the big introductions was the release of the Jean Patou Ma Collection, a reissue of twelve Patou perfumes from the past as a celebration of the house. Not only was the twelve-bottle miniature coffret with a story booklet available, but all twelve were also sold in large single bottles. Of course everyone knows about Joy and 1000, the twin flagships of Patou and deservedly so; what they do not know is how many fine perfumes came out of the house and have been discontinued. I fell in love with most of them right away; the deep, woody Normandie, named after an ocean liner, the bright and effervescent Cocktail, the saucy Caline, the languorous Colony with its pineapple decadence, the heartbreakingly lovely Momênt Suprème, and the stunningly romantic floral Amour Amour. But for me, one stood apart from all the others, and does so to this day; Vacances from 1936, brought back to life once more in all its breathtaking green beauty. Just a short time ago Chris told me it is considered by many to be the finest Green Floral of all time, and I cannot agree more. This ethereal fantasy of hyacinth, lilac and mimosa with fresh grassy notes is the epitome of simplicity yet is sophisticated as well, and it is a memory perfume that can evoke a deep emotional response for many. Alas, this is gone now, as are the others that briefly reappeared in that perfume Brigadoon and soon went away again. I can only console myself with the knowledge that newer Patou masterpieces such as the wonderfully intense Sublime are also of the very best quality available today.
Over the years I have experienced some very special fragrances that I never bought, but I was glad for the experience. Some were out of the range of my budget, such as JAR Golconda in one of its very few appearances outside a JAR boutique. I will never forget its stunning clove-carnation power. Then there is the amazing floral Amouage Gold for women, the first release of the House of Amouage. My sister fell hopelessly in love with this one, a truly great fragrance imbued with rare and precious Silver Frankincense, and she wants no other. I have to agree that it is one of the best things I have ever smelled though my favorite of the line was the sadly discontinued chypre Ubar, which is no longer made due to the difficulty in procuring the best ingredients for it; the house’s standards are very high. Other perfumes were too rare and not for sale, such as vintage Rochas Femme, or wonderful but not really my style, such as Schiaparelli Shocking, but at least I got to smell them at the time. I cannot remember everything about the hundreds I have tried, except that I loved them all. Even those I would not wear myself I was taught to appreciate for their own qualities, as works of highest achievement by the perfumers who made them.
There is a secret treasure trove as well – the Private Reserve, a collection of alcohol-free pure perfumes made by the finest noses in France, and available only by appointment. Once you have bought one of them you may order any of the line directly from France as long as you do it within one year of the first purchase. I have tried only two of these and I cannot even begin to tell you how good they are. There are five soliflores (rose, jasmine, muguet, gardenia and tuberose) and the rest are masterful blends. I have experienced the rose and tuberose, and if I could go without food or rent to buy these I would gladly do so. (I am almost afraid to try the others!) Because there is no alcohol, they are very stable and do not change like more diluted formulations do. I recently brought home some cotton soaked with the Private Reserve tuberose essence and put it on my bedside table to scent my room. Two weeks later, it still smelled exactly the same as it did straight out of the bottle. I will leave it there until it fades, which should take a long time.
Of all the rarities, one of the most memorable was the release of several perfumes once exclusive to the Czars of Russia; manufactured in France, they were of the highest quality and could not be bought by ordinary Russians. The original formulas were not lost in the Russian Revolution, as they were in France, and they were briefly re-created in a limited edition some years ago. I do not recall the names of all of them, but two have stayed with me to this day. Anna Karenina was an indescribably romantic floral, unique in that it was composed of dried flowers instead of fresh. That sounds odd I know, but it was rich and powerful and made me think of a heavy silk brocade curtain at an opera house. The other one was a name I could not spell or pronounce but translated as something like “Russian Fantasy.” As soon as I smelled it, I was transported to a verdant forest surrounded by songbirds and murmuring waters. It was an out-of-body experience. This was the one I bought, but of course it is no longer available. If I close my eyes I can still remember how it made me feel. This was truly perfume as Art, and I owe it all to one man’s dream.
COMING SOON: Part Two: The Stories, to be published over at the Perfume-Smellin’ Things blog next week, so please visit!
Image source: adclassix.com, vintageads4u.com, ebay.com, amouage.com
July 31st, 2007
By Donna Hathaway
I have a confession to make; I am not a big fan of change for its own sake. Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. Any changes should be clear improvements and not just because someone had a half-baked idea and wanted to foist it on the rest of us. I can’t stand it when my favorite stores get what is called a re-set – they move everything around so I can’t just go in and grab something because I know exactly where it is. Large chain stores are infamous for this, and there seems to be no clear reason for it. Some big national stores require it every couple of years, which of course goes over like a lead balloon with their employees, who must devote many extra hours to relocate everything in the store to “freshen it up” for the supposedly jaded shoppers. This tactic is guaranteed to drive me nuts - and sometimes, to drive me entirely away from shopping there.
I guess this is one reason why I love classic fragrances so much, since they have stood the test of time and need no improvements. That is, until someone decides they need to be “updated” for a new generation of perfume customers. In most cases this is a bad misstep on the part of the manufacturer. Guerlain, Chanel, and others have been caving in to this pressure lately, and I hope it stops before too much damage is done to the originals. (There are other threats to the integrity of the classics as well; along with every other fragrance aficionado I know of, I abhor the new European Union commerce rules requiring complete ingredient labels on perfume and limiting the use of such wonderful natural materials as oakmoss and bergamot in favor of synthetics or cheaper substitutes. I will not go into greater detail here, as many others have rendered their far more expert opinions on this subject.)
One perfume house that has not done a whole lot of this is Caron, one of my top two favorite classic houses. (The other is Jean Patou.) Yes, they have come out with new fragrances, as all houses do, but for the most part they have resisted the idea of bringing out “versions” or “special editions” of their longstanding favorites. For this I am most grateful, as I am sure many perfume lovers are.
I have in front of me two Caron fragrances, classic and modern. Fleurs de Rocaille is a floral creation from 1933. The bottle is instantly recognizable as a vintage Caron flacon, elegant yet sturdy and an excellent indicator of the quality inside. Caron bottles are always classy; the idea of putting one of its products in a vulgar or cheap-looking container is simply unthinkable. The name means “flowers in a rock garden”, and it has a fresh, charming spring-like quality, combining a number of floral notes including rose, violet, jonquil, jasmine and mimosa with cedar, musk and rosewood. I would not say it is a youthful or ingénue fragrance despite this quality; rather it is a perfume meant to be worn by a true Lady. It is not really simple, it is simply free of anything resembling vulgarity.
I located several versions of the original formulation for this perfume and I suspect that it has possibly been redone at some point, or that the notes given by OsMoz.com are incomplete, but it does not smell like a recent introduction at all. There is a cool restfulness to it, due to the violet, mimosa and jonquil, yet there is also a spicy note of carnation, a round richness from the rose, and sharpness from the cedar. Some of the notes seem somewhat disparate, and one wonders how they all work together to create such a fine effect. Since it is a a Caron, of course it works splendidly. This one of those wonderfully seamless floral blends that is greater than the sum of its parts, a quality I admire very much in a fragrance. There is a greenness that somehow bears a resemblance to the cool airiness that stephanotis would lend to a fragrance. There is rose in the opening as well, but it’s hard to isolate, as is the subtle carnation note. The whole thing is subtly brightened by ylang-ylang, and the lively character persists into the dry down due to the presence of cedar. It is highly wearable yet distinctive, and would be appropriate for almost any occasion that I would wish to be a part of.
I recently became reacquainted with this one due to receiving a generously sized sample with a purchase, and I found myself wondering why I did not own a full bottle of this. Of course I want to try all the new things; who doesn’t? I get distracted by the sheer numbers of new releases every year just like everyone else. However, I have learned enough by now to understand that 90% of these will be entirely forgotten in five years (if not sooner), and only a tiny fraction of the surviving ones will ever become enduring classics. Exceptions would be new lines like Frederic Malle and Serge Lutens, whose standards of quality rival the great older houses. If Fleurs de Rocaille were introduced today, it would probably receive positive attention from those who understand perfume, but to the world at large it would most likely be lost in the shuffle of too many new products and not enough marketing. Caron does not purchase flashy ads starring stick figure, six-figure actresses to promote its perfumes. It does not have to. For those to whom these things matter, Caron stands for high quality and tradition, and it does not skimp on either one.
(That being said, Caron did release Miss Rocaille in 2004, in a similar-looking (though bright red) bottle, but it is an entirely different fragrance and should not really be construed as a “version” of the original.)
This brings us to the Caron I wear most often – the modern classic Lady Caron. The flacon has a typical Caron look, elegantly rounded with a sharply faceted stopper, but the design on the glass is a bas-relief image of the head of our own great gift from France, the Statue of Liberty. Ernest Daltroff, master perfumer and the founder of the House of Caron in 1903, had vowed to one day create a fragrance as a tribute to America, as he was a refugee who arrived in Canada in 1939 and then came to the United States, a Russian Jew fleeing the horrors of wartime Europe. He never did make such a perfume, since he never returned to Europe to run the business and died two years after coming to America, but Patrick Alès, the current head of Caron, paid tribute to this vow by unveiling Lady Caron for the first time at the opening of the New York City Caron boutique in 2000. (The creator of this lovely scent was Caron’s in-house perfumer Richard Fraysse, who also brought us the lovely Tubereuse in 2003.)
Lady Caron is recognized by French perfume industry experts as the softest fragrance ever to be introduced to the world by a French house. It has absolutely no sharp edges to it anywhere – wearing it is like being enveloped in cashmere while floating on a cloud. It is not in the least powdery, however, as that would render it too sweet and smothering. It glides serenely in a mist of magnolia, jasmine, neroli and orange blossom. The heart notes are of rose, raspberry and peach, but no, it is most emphatically not a “fruity-floral” either. When I say peach or raspberry, do not think for even a moment that these are the usual notes found in the department store celebrity scents. They are so well integrated into the composition that they are almost invisible, serving only to add a soft shimmer of gentle freshness, and they do not resemble food in any way. The rose is almost certainly Rose de Mai and not damask, as its damp, soft character is only a mere breath, and a perfect complement to round out the other notes. Oakmoss and sandalwood complete this harmonious picture, and they are highly refined and subtle renditions of those essences. Again, this fragrance is a masterpiece of design that transcends its individual ingredients. I cannot imagine not having this wonderful perfume in my life. It is the very essence of femininity, in the best possible sense of the term.
Now, the Lady Caron in my possession was purchased well before the new EU rules were handed down, so I fervently hope that it will not need to be reformulated. It would take a true master to do so successfully, as it is ideally balanced just the way it is. The oakmoss is a great part of what keeps it from being overly sweet, and I really like oakmoss anyway. I can smell that in this fragrance more than I can the sandalwood, and it gives it a good deal of its character. It would be a terrible shame to alter this in the name of conformity. As much as I dislike change for its own sake, I have an even greater aversion to conformity. The EU’s arbitrary “because we said so” rules are destroying some things of great beauty, and that in itself in unforgivable. Let us all hope that these wonderful perfumes can endure well into the future without unnecessary interference.
Image source: The Perfume House, parfumdepub.net
July 24th, 2007
By Tove Solander
When I first tried Diptyque Tam Dao I came to think of Wickle Chestnut & Vetiver, so I thought I’d do a side-by-side test for a smell-alikes post. They scents have no notes in common – for Chestnut & Vetiver I know of no other notes than the two mentioned in the title, and for Tam Dao I’ve seen rosewood, cypress, ambergris, and sandalwood listed.
Closely compared, the two scents have more differences than they have things in common. What made me think of Chestnut & Vetiver when I smelled Tam Dao is a certain boozy, buttery, smooth and somewhat “perfumey” quality. In Tam Dao I suppose it’s the sandalwood, with a little help from the muskiness of ambergris, while in Chestnut & Vetiver it’s the nutty aspect of the scent.
Chestnut & Vetiver is the stronger of the two scents, easily overpowering Tam Dao when smelling them side by side. The boozy and buttery quality is more pronounced in it, strengthened by a toasted or roasted note and perhaps even hints of coffee. It would be entirely gourmandy if it wasn’t for the vetiver, showing its darkest and most earthy and rooty side. The overall effect is perhaps one of wool: soft, warm and cozy but distinct smelling and even a little repulsive in its lack of freshness.
Tam Dao does have a similar warm, smooth feeling, but it’s also much lighter and more transparent. The cypress gives it a hint of green in the top note but not anywhere near the strong, dark vetiver of the other scent. The “perfumey” quality shared by both scents is more pronounced in Tam Dao, mostly due to the sweet, aromatic, vaguely floral rosewood note. It’s also ever so slightly soapy, which I presume is from the ambergris, commonly used to scent soaps. Overall, it’s a more sophisticated take on a boozy, buttery comfort scent, and if Chestnut & Vetiver makes you nauseous in its intensity, Tam Dao might do the trick.
Image source: luxois.com, ticklemywickle.com
July 17th, 2007
By Donna Hathaway
Lately I have been pining after perfumes that are no longer made, or are exclusive to some boutique across an ocean, or are otherwise unobtainable. I thought I would take time off from my longings to appreciate something that is freely available without having to jump through any flaming hoops on eBay or learn a new language just so I can order it.
It is time think about real summer perfumes, the ones you put on when the days slow down and the ceiling fans whir and you can’t even stand to look at the fall fashions that start hitting the stores right about now because they have wool in them. There are two basic ways to go, as I see it – wear light, fresh, ethereal, green fragrances to cut through the heat and humidity, or just wallow in it with big white florals and indolic blends that give off their own brand of heat as the temperature rises. I do a little of both, but the latter does not work in an office setting most of the time. (If you try it, use a light hand and choose wisely.)
In the former category I have some favorites, of course. My current standby for summer is Ines de la Fressange, a lovely composition featuring mandarin, neroli, bergamot, white rose, lily-of-the-valley, peony and vetiver, among other things. It is steadfast in the heat and never turns sticky. Then there is my bargain-basement discovery of Le Couvent des Minimes Orange Blossom from Bath & Body Works. It seems to have disappeared from their web site at the moment. I hope it is still around, because it is just delicious, and unbeatable for the money – I have the body cream, the EDT, and the shower gel. The clean soapiness of the orange flowers is warmed by a hint of vanilla, but it never fails in the warm weather. Max Mara is a delightful concoction with an unusual cool, fresh birch sap note that I find irresistible.
Moving on to the more sophisticated summer scents, Annick Goutal Gardenia Passion is great in any season, but it just loves summer, and it blooms on my skin like nothing else. Serge Lutens Un Lys, about which I have written before, needs no introduction except to say that its chilly perfection comes into its own it hot weather, revealing a warmer heart than you ever thought possible. Then there is Jean Patou Colony, that oddest of birds, a pineapple chypre, and pure sensuality when the mercury rises. Of course there are such classic white florals as Fracas and Joy that are best kept for romantic situations in the summer. I define a “romantic situation” as: anytime I feel daring enough to wear one of them when the temperature is over 80° F.
The one I really want to talk about, however, is another Serge Lutens – the delirium-inducing hothouse flower called Datura Noir, released in 2001. I only heard of it less than two years ago, and when I went looking for the Lutens line I discovered that my local boutique had just started carrying the SL Export line. (This was back in the day when Un Lys was part of that. Sigh.) I went to the store and tried every single one, and every one was a revelation – I had not been so stunned and amazed by an entire fragrance collection since the original and dear-departed Jean LaPorte line. Now, Datura Noir was already on my list of things to try, but I had no idea I would be so utterly captivated. If anyone had told me that I would fall in love with a perfume that had a distinct powdery note in it, I would have scoffed at the idea. I am not a powdery sort of girl at all. Yet here it was – and I was enthralled.
With one whiff of this essence, I was whisked back to my early years and the lake where we spent our summers trying to escape the punishing heat and humidity of New England. There were three beaches on “our” lake. The one we visited most often was the free public beach, which was okay but the water was deep and cold and the shore was rocky. (In northern New England the lakes don’t really warm up all that much in summer.) Another beach was also free but it was where all the boats launched, so we had to watch out for speeding outboards all the time, and it smelled of marine fuel.
Beach number three was by far our favorite, but there was a catch – in order to gain access to it you had to pay to get into the drive-in movie that was playing. We did see many a movie there, but we always tried to get there early so we could swim first. Sometimes we missed part of the show because we did not want to leave the water, which was like a warm bath on very hot nights. The footing was soft and sandy, and the water was shallow so it was never cold like the rest of the lake My memories of that beach are bound up with the drive-in experience as well – the excitement of the previews, the chill of the night air after the last movie ended (those were the days of double features!), the thunderstorms flickering in the distance, the foil-wrapped hot dogs, and drinking Tahitian Treat soda, which was like carbonated Hawaiian punch. The water smelled different too – it was sweet and a little swampy, filled with little spidery waterweeds, but never dank, just a bit on the tropical side. It was this aroma that caught me by surprise when I smelled Datura Noir. It was the smell of a hot summer night and the relief of water on sunburned skin, of a body-temperature lake and feeling like you’re getting away with something. (It could have been called “Nightswimming” after the R.E.M. song.) It is a scent of memory and of transgression, of barely understood longings and sexual awakenings, of feeling like something is about to happen but you’re just not sure what, you just want it to happen, and soon.
The stated notes, which are very likely not complete due to the aura of mystery surrounding the Lutens line, are as follows: Datura flower, mandarin peel, apricot, lemon flower, tuberose, osmanthus, bitter almond, coconut, heliotrope, myrrh, vanilla, tonka bean, and musk. It sounds like it could be a bit sticky-sweet by reading that, but no – its sweetness is damp and muted, hushed by the powder and the bitter almond, and there is absolutely nothing gourmand about it despite the presence of apricot and coconut. On me that does not come out too much, but the Datura and heliotrope (hence the powder) do. I adore all of these notes in other perfumes and by themselves as well, but the Datura is what makes it a standout. This night-blooming and poisonous beauty lends coolness to the composition that both keeps a lid on the sweetness and adds a hint of danger. I can imagine that I am some overwrought Tennessee Williams femme fatale when I put this on. It’s a white-flower fragrance that no one will mistake for ladylike, and its fans like that just fine.
(If you want a Datura fragrance that is just a little more proper, try Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier’s Secrete Datura. She is Blanche Du Bois to Datura Noir’s Maggie the Cat.)
Image sources: neimanmarcus.com, “Swamp Thing” poster by Eric Powell, cover art to Swamp Thing comic book #23.
July 9th, 2007
By Tove Solander
This smell-alikes post is a little different since I don’t own one of the fragrances and hence can’t do a side by side skin test as usual. Thanks to Chayaruchama, I have a decant of Chanel Coromandel, and upon trying it I was surprised to find the top notes smell just like a soft drink in the vein of Sprite or 7-Up! I hadn’t expected something sweet and sparkling and charmingly childish like that from an exclusive oriental. The rest of the scent is all dry patchouli and, yeah, it works. I get what people are saying about Chanel: they manage to make even a patchouli scent sheer and never heavy like most orientals. Even the sweet top note has the watery and transparent quality of a soft drink and is not rich and syrupy at all. In the drydown, another kind of sweetness appears, a more traditional ambery/vanillic sweetness, and on the whole the scent is a bit on the sweet side for me. I do however love the dry, earthy, evocatively musty patchouli note.
A while after I first tried Coromandel, I finally found a working tester of Prada. All I can say is it’s a perfectly decent replacement. And released before Coromandel, too, which doesn’t reflect too well upon Chanel. Prada has the same combination of dry patchouli and Sprite-like top notes. Perhaps the soft drink in Prada has lost more of its bubbles – it’s more like the soft, synthetic sweetness of apple and pear flavouring that made me not like D’Orsay Le Dandy. Here the fruitiness is more subdued and balanced by the patchouli, however, while in the pale Le Dandy there were nothing there to balance it. I’m amazed something so patchouli-heavy and dry can survive among the fruity-florals, and that alone makes Prada a greater achievement than Coromandel. Sure, Prada might not smell quite as expensive. The patchouli is not as exquisite, and I get more vaguely fruity sweetness than I’d like, especially in the almost gourmandy drydown. But I still think Prada is a better value if patchouli with soft drinks is what you’re going for.
Image source: thestar.com.my, nordstrom.com
July 3rd, 2007
By Donna Hathaway
This is about two fragrances I wish I could review and then tell you where to get them – but they are nowhere to be found, or are impossible to obtain even if they are technically still available, or are otherwise out of reach for mere mortals like me.
I have in my possession a tiny sample, nearly gone, of a limited edition perfume, Ghost Deepest Night, originally released in 2002. This is not to be confused with Ghost Deep Night, which can still be bought on discounter sites. I ran across a description of it a couple of years ago in my ramblings through the various online merchants’ sites, and I knew when I read about it that I had to have it. It seemed to be the closest thing yet to my long-departed Holy Grail, Jean LaPorte’s L’Eau des Merveilleuses, truly a marvel of composition, a symphony of mango and vanilla. (Before you who fear fruit and vanilla together wonder why that would be a good thing, please remember that Jean LaPorte discontinued his eponymous line to create L’Artisan, and then moved on to found Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier. Jean LaPorte does not create cheap fruity-florals. Ever. Sadly, the original LaPorte scents did not continue on when this happened, a great loss in my opinion.) When I first smelled this in a boutique, I thought it was the sexiest fragrance I had ever smelled. The vanilla was dark and complex, dangerous even, and not in the least foody. The mango was not the watery, fleeting top note found in so many fragrances today, from drugstore body wash to mainstream designer perfume. No, it was the buttery, seductive, perfumed living fruit, fleshy and seductive. I wanted to wear it, roll around in it and devour it, all at the same time. I felt like a different person when I wore this perfume. For a while it was my signature scent, back when I believed in such things. Then it was just…gone.
Anyway, since I could no longer find it, some years later I was delighted to discover that Ghost had come up with a mango and vanilla fragrance, with the addition of “jungle” notes, hence the name. I had not known much about Ghost, a fashion and fragrance line that has never really caught on in the U.S. in a big way. (Their Deep Night from 2001 also has vanilla, but the fruit notes are apricot and peach – nice, but no match for mango in my opinion).
Many people in the U.S. don’t know this, but the most popular fruit in the world is the mango. Grown in the tropics and warmest sub-tropics, it comes in hundreds of varieties, and the ones we have been accustomed to in the stores, good as they may be, are mere shadows (ghosts, if you will), of what they can be, as the very best ones are never sent out of their countries of origin due to various factors, including trade restrictions and the fact that they simply cannot be shipped, being too fragile and soft. A perfect mango, fragrant and silky, is the finest fruit I can imagine eating. The difference between a stringy, fibrous ‘Tommy Atkins’ supermarket mango and the real thing is like the difference between freshly squeezed orange juice and Tang®. Another thing many people are unaware of is that they are related to cashew nuts, and also poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac, source of the hellishly irritating volatile oil urushiol, and some sensitive people cannot eat them due to allergic reactions. Usually this is only a burning around the lips, like when you eat too much raw pineapple, but it can be more serious. (Things that have a little bit of “sinister” in them always intrigue me, and fortunately I can eat all the mangoes I want with no trouble.) The fact that mangoes contain tiny amounts of the irritant may explain why they are so addictive.
So what is Deepest Night like? At first, it seems to be a simple mango and vanilla scent, with the vanilla just a bit sweeter at first than the L’Eau des Merveilleuses vanilla note. The mango is plump and juicy, though not quite as prominent. Thankfully, it is definitely not the watery travesty I was dreading. It is not as “big” a fragrance as the other, which could be a good thing under some circumstances. The Jean LaPorte stuff could take over the whole room; it was exhilarating and expansive, almost dizzyingly heady. Deepest Night is quieter, more secretive, and aptly named. As it develops the vanilla becomes darker and less sweet and more like what I remember of the old LaPorte perfume, or like the much-lamented older Comptoir Sud Pacifique vanilla was. (I bought the original version of CSP Tiare several times, and loved every minute of wearing it.) There is a leafy greenness to this fragrance as well, just peeking out from the lushness. A hint of spice – my favorite cardamom as far as I can tell, due to an almost complete lack of available information on this perfume – rounds out the sumptuous feel of this scent as it dries down. It does not have the sillage of the LaPorte but stays close to the skin, like your own seductive secret, waiting for someone to come closer…
Ghost has come out with a whole haunted house full of “special editions” like Summer Dream, Sheer Summer, Summer Flirt, Anticipation, Serenity, et cetera, and I am sure they are all very nice, but I want to go back to the jungle. When I smell Deepest Night, I can hear the rustling of unseen things in the undergrowth and feel the sultry air of a tropical night. Take me away!
Image source: “Mango II” by Jeanne-Marie Derrick, West Indian Art Studio, jeanne-marie.com; escentual.co.uk
June 26th, 2007
By Tove Solander
I’m cheating today (I’m afraid I’m running out of ideas for proper smellalikes…) and reviewing two versions of the same perfume. Thanks to the generosity of a fellow swapper, I got to try Schiaparelli Shocking in both vintage and contemporary formulations. I have found the following notes for either or both: bergamot, aldehydes, tarragon, honey, rose, narcissus, clove, civet, chypre.
Vintage: The vintage formulation starts out with the sort of flat and plasticky feel the top notes (especially citrus top notes) often acquire as a scent ages. Then it morphs into the bitter powderiness of oakmoss, tons of it. There may be a whiff of old-fashioned, perhaps even dried, roses in between but not a lot. Vintage Shocking is dry, warm and slightly musty like vintage scents often are. The chypre accord gives it a foresty feeling of wood, tree bark, pine needles and pine cones but the face powder version of forest, mind you. I might get a hint of spice, and a hint of the soapy sharpness of aldehydes but that’s about it. There’s nothing shocking as in, well, civet, here, which I find a tad disappointing.
New: The reformulation is even less shocking. It’s roses like your granny wore them: powdery, soapy, sharp and sweetened with honey. Now I don’t like rose scents, hardly even in nature (they tend to smell potpourri-like straight from the rose bush) so of course I’m biased but I don’t think this is a very good rose scent. I think you have to be an avid fan or roses to really appreciate it, someone who can’t get enough of the note. What it has in common with the vintage version is the amount of classic powder, with some soapy aldehydes on top. But while the vintage version is all oakmoss powder, this is all rose powder, and I don’t think I have to tell you which powder I prefer.
Image source: parfumdepub.net
June 12th, 2007
By Donna Hathaway
My favorite time of day is late afternoon to early evening – more specifically, twilight, dusk, the “Blue Hour”, the gloaming, whatever you prefer to call it. It is the magic hour when everything feels suspended in time, though it passes far too quickly anyway. When I was a child I though it would be wonderful to live in the tropics, with warm breezes and palm trees. I thought the sunsets there would be even more wonderful than they are in New England in the summertime, where I grew up. Then I found out that he closer you are to the equator, the faster the sun goes down – night falls quickly like a curtain coming down, and it’s all over, and then it’s just dark. I was very disappointed, but also a bit sorry for people who lived there. “What are you saying – they don’t have dusk?” After that I felt better about being “stuck” in a temperate zone, even one that got far too cold in the winter.
One wonderful thing about dusk is that it is the witching hour for many fragrant plants. My first memory of this phenomenon was of a New England native plant that is commonly call Sweet Fern, though it in fact not a fern at all but a small, nondescript shrub named Comptonia peregrina with somewhat fern-like leaves that lives in poor, sandy soil, often near pine trees, and would attract no attention to itself at all but for one thing: its leaves are imbued with a fragrant volatile oil that is released on warm summer evenings. If you find a plant, the sweet odor can be obtained by crushing the leaves, but only on warm summer nights does it give the scent to the air. My family would be out for a drive to cool off after a hot, humid day, and as we passed certain areas near the woods there would the most wonderful aroma, hay-like and sweet, profoundly refreshing and even bracing, yet not minty at all, just extremely, intensely herbal. I would stick my head out of the car window like a little dog on these drives, drinking it all in. Of course, there were other summer scents in my childhood too, but the memory of this is very strong.
As an adult with my own garden, I became fascinated with night-blooming flowers. I was always working during the day, and when I was home in the evening I had my only chance to enjoy the garden. By then, the most colorful reds, purples and oranges disappear into the shadows, and the sun-loving roses begin to shut down their scent factories. I started out with night-scented stock (Matthiola bicornis), a tiny, fragile-looking relative of the fat, double florist’s variety. This little gem is in the cress family, a relative of cabbage and broccoli. Like its edible cousins, it has small flowers arranged on slender spikes. During the day, its pale, washy mauve blossoms droop and look listless in the bright light. Then a most marvelous transformation occurs when the sun starts to set. The plant seems to draw itself up, the little flowers straighten out and open wide, and an intoxicating fragrance fills the night. It is extremely sweet and candy-like, like a heliotrope on steroids. It lasts a good long time until full darkness, when the show is over. Plant it under a window on the shady side of the house that stays open at night and it will fill the house with its perfume.
After this discovery, I searched for fragrant plants that would grow in my zone, which is now the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. (It is at about the same latitude as New England, so the summer evenings are just as long.) Ornamental tobaccos caught my attention. The most photogenic one is Nicotiana sylvestris, the woodland tobacco, with its huge lyre-shaped leaves and long white tubular flowers giving off a cool scent in the evening. Much more powerfully fragrant, however, is Nicotiana alata, the aptly named Jasmine Tobacco, with bigger flowers and a more lax growth habit. It needs support, unlike the freestanding Nicotiana sylvestris, but its perfume is stupefyingly rich and sweet. It blooms from May to November here, and can even live over winter when protected from heavy freezes. Like the little stock flowers, these droop all day and come alive at night.
My favorite flowers of all are lilies, and though not all are fragrant, the ones that are become markedly more so at night. This is the time of year for the Madonna lilies to send their alabaster spikes up, and the sight of these in bright moonlight is unforgettable. A little later comes Lilium regale with its jasmine-and-spice aroma, then in July comes the heavy, honeyed perfume of the later trumpet lilies. In late July and August the Oriental lilies put on a similar show. Then there are other delights such as fragrant African gladiolus, four-o-clocks, night phlox (actually Zaluzianskya), tuberose, gardenia, and petunias. If you take the time to look for them, there are many very fragrant petunias. My favorite is Supertunia Priscilla, a violet and white veined double that exudes a strong fragrance even during the day; at night it’s simply superb. What we call night-blooming jasmine is not a true jasmine at all (Cestrum nocturnum), and the flowers carry a hint of poisonous danger in their intoxicating perfume, so heady that it is unbearable indoors. ( I adore it, of course.) Then there are the moonflower vines, unfurling milky white saucers before your eyes as darkness falls, and giving off a soft, sweet aroma as light as the air itself.
This brings me to why this is so, and the title of the article; many plants are pollinated by creatures that fly at night. No bees or butterflies for these nocturnal blooms, but moths and other little winged things visit them. Most night-scented blooms are white or pale in color in order to be seen more easily, but they must have other ways of being found. So they send forth the perfume that attracts the beasties that will spread their pollen around, offering them sweet nectar as even more enticement. In the case of moths, the females of some species give off a sweet odor to attract the males. Since they can’t be seen at night either, they are basically putting on sexy perfume! The plants are just mimicking that for their own needs, adapting and evolving over the millions of years since flowering plants first appeared; hence the insects, and us, are merely their servants, as we encourage them to grow in our gardens and they quietly but effectively ensure their survival by pleasing humans with something that furthers their own agendas. Our olfactory pleasure is just a sideshow to the main event.
Image source: Night Blooming Jasmine from almostedenplants.com
June 5th, 2007
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