Thierry Mugler Angel: fragrance review

It's hard to bypass Angel by Thierry Mugler in the greater scheme of perfumery's historical progress, as it is truly seminal, a footprint on the path of perfumery as large as the Yeti's.
Olivier Cresp, its perfumer, is as much to credit with its innovation, as is its artistic director at Clarins (the Group that holds the licence for parfums Mugler) Vera Strubi, who envisioned the fragrance as a cult modern classic, and Jacques Courtin, president at Clarins, who insisted on developing the product first and only then seeing to its marketing plan; clearly an anomaly in contemporary perfume launching.

For Angel, Olivier Cresp and Vera Strubi sought into the identity of Thierry Mugler as a fashion brand and they came up with a fusion of childlike playfulness and iconic, haute couture boldness. On the one hand, the cotton candy and sawdust of the fun fair. On the other, the patchouli darkness of a handsome man in drag. The note of ethylmaltol which makes the cotton candy note in Angel, and which spawned like crazy, to the effect of saturating contemporary best-sellers with bucketfuls of it, was until 1992 fairly unused. Historically speaking it had been introduced in Vanilia by L'Artisan Parfumeur back when Jean Laporte directed the niche brand he founded in 1978, but its ice-cream cone girlishness was deemed too cute for proper perfumes; this was the time when perfumes roared with the bombastic spiciness of things like YSL Opium perfume and Estee Lauder Cinnabar.

Olivier Cresp took this discarded idea and flanked it with red berries, a dubious whiff of blackcurrant on top (recalling the success of The Body Shop's Dewberry) and the caramel softness of vanilla bringing out a sort of praline in the facets of natural patchouli oil.

The effect was stunning; warm and cuddly but also chocolate-y and dark, and the formula was painted blue, in mocking defiance of every possible evocation of feminine perfume, which until then was always some shade of hay or gold. Angel became le monstre sacré to dethrone Chanel No.5 in France and the rest is, as they say, history.

Monsieur Cresp, your place in the Pantheon is reserved, thank you very much.

Dior Poison Girl (2016): fragrance review

One can blame LVMH for many things, but not for not knowing how to milk a thing on their hands. The Poison fragrance brand is a huge success for Parfums Christian Dior and not without good reason. Distinctive, aggressively noticeable, innovative at their time, the Poison perfume series has provided us with memorable fragrances. The new Poison Girl, out in February 2016 in my country, may fall short on the memorability stakes, but there's a clever twist inside to reflect one of the cleverest (and most enduringly popular) in the canon, the almond-powder feel of Hypnotic Poison inside a "youthful" sweet fruits and caramel medley.

collage made by Le Coeur Gothique (on parfumo.net)

It has been said that pop songs consist of recycling the same handful of chords, as one smart reader reminded me the other day, and the universe is well aware of my belief in fragrances' intertextuality (there's no parthenogenesis in art), so it comes as little surprise that I don't deem that bad in itself if the resulting collage is eye-grabbing. On the contrary it's a smart move by perfumer Francois Demachy, who oversees the creation process at Dior (no stranger to artistic influence themselves). Hypnotic Poison has created its own history and legend, and like Mugler's Angel basic chord before it, serves as a pop reference that pops up everywhere. Why not in the mother of all Poisons, aka Dior?

Poison Girl starts with a sweet, toffee like fruitiness of orange hard candy which vaguely recalls half the current market (La vie est Belle, Tresor La Nuit, Black Opium, Loverdose, Flowerbomb...), with a cherry cough syrup hint, that predisposes an avid Poison lover for toothache, but thankfully cedes to a powdery almond within the hour where it stays for the duration. Seeing as Hypnotic Poison Eau Sensuelle got to the good part straight away, I can only surmise that the intent is to grab a specific demographic interested in the rather tacky gourmand top note and who might come to love the development regardless.

LVMH needed something to spar with L'Oreal and they got it. Not bad.

A footnote on the ad campaign:
Rather lost on the advertising and naming of Dior's Poison Girl, personally speaking.
"Girl" sounds demeaning (would they have called a masculine fragrance "boy" if it would appeal to young men? Edit to add: Apparently they would, but there's a reason). The night club pictures with model and actress Camille Rowen holding a cigarette in her nubile hands under the No Smoking signs and her defiant (try stoned) look under her $200-posing-for-bed-head haircut looks as rebellious as a straight A's pupil going for an Anthropology major instead of the prescribed Law School.  Is "no bras" the fighting field of young girls today? I very much doubt it.
At least the previous Poison editions had bold, imaginative, suggestive advertising. This is lame.

From Sweaty Stink to Sweet Goodness: The Magic of Browning

It never ceases to strike me as nothing short of magical how turning chopped onions in a pan over a hot stove fills the kitchen with the aroma of sweet caramel, succulent and penetrating to the very core of things. Usually the pleasantly invasive aroma, sneaking like Santa Claus down the chimney to offer gifts, complements the rich savory scent of meat or the naturally sweet and sour aroma of fresh tomatoes. It was for a vegetable & meat dish involving roasted eggplants and pork for which I stood over the stove the other day, browning onions slowly and thinking about the complexity of scent which man has added to the already rich palette of the natural world. By simply introducing the element of fire (simmering, browning, roasting over an open flame or over charcoals) man multiplied the pleasure of the olfactory sense exponentially. The reason is less romantic than my introduction, but fascinating to follow nonetheless.

via pinterest

Onions specifically offer a great glimpse into the mechanism of this aroma giving process. Their sulfurous "bouquet" has been likened to the scent of female sweat (as has grapefruit, another sulfurous material), but no matter what your view on that is (Flaubert and Baudelaire notwithstanding), most people classify volatile sulfurous components as unpleasant, more on which later. The organosulfur compounds called thiols present in onions (allyl mercaptan is the compound released upon slicing an onion) form a group,  also called mercaptans in the older days; a portmanteau deriving from the Latin mercurium captans  thanks to their superior bonding ability to mercury compounds. Thiols/Mercaptans are compounds with the -SH group bonded to a carbon atom.

Now you might be forgiven to think that mercaptans remind you of decay and stench; they're produced by animal and plant decay, are found in beer that has been exposed to ultraviolet light or in faulty wines (sulfur and yeast reacting in wild patterns) and are infamously contained in skunk secretions and in flatus. One form of mercaptan, T-butyl mercaptan, is routinely added to otherwise odorless natural gas to render a leak more likely to be detected. But they're not a damning thing per se: specific forms of thiols are responsible for the characteristic and coveted scent profile of grapefruit or ~interestingly!~ released upon roasting coffee beans, surely my idea of heaven this side of heaven.

The good part involving cooks and onions is that thiols can be easily oxidized to disulfides and higher oxidation products such as sulfonic acids, free from the associations had with their predecessor. Furthermore onions are comprised of 75%  water and they contain complex sugars. By browning a sliced onion in the pan the increased temperature makes water evaporate and break the bonds that hold chemical compounds contained and we see the plant matter shrink in front of our eyes and become soft and miserable. Yet those complex sugars are thus broken into monosacharides, i.e. glycose and fructose, resulting in caramelization and a more intense, sweet flavor than previously.

The so called Maillard reactions, a non-enzymatic type of chemical reaction that happens a lot in the kitchen, even at room temperature, also accounts for the breakdown of a reducing sugar with an amino acid, rendering things brown (This is the chemical process responsible for the nicely brow appearance of baked goods). The larger the sugar, the slower it'd react with the amino acids. Last but not least, the cysteine in the stewed pork (another sulfur containing ingredient) reacts with the sugars in the onions in another Maillard reaction to render the umami of meat that fills the mouth with rich satisfaction and the kitchen with the sweet caramel goodness of a deceptively wholesome dish. How far the mind can wander while making dinner…

Prada Candy: fragrance review

It's been called "Werther's Original in a bottle". It's been called "Infusion de benjoin". It's been called "a vat of Polish fudge made of condensed milk" or "cajeta". To my mind, it's neither, though I can see where the assessments are coming from. Prada Candy is simply the most unexpected launch of this autumn coming from the most blasé designer brand. I defy anyone to smell it and come up with a definitive verdict in less than a week's testing. It just keeps you guessing, is this for real? 

There's something inherently sophisticated about the Prada fragrance line (the apotheosis being L'Eau Ambrée; in contrast some of the Infusions are limp-wristed to me) and though at first glance ~or rather, sniff~ that's not apparent in Candy, in the end you realize that it could have been Pink Sugar, but it's not. It resembles the best-selling Aquolina scent in some respects; the strawberry-flavoured caramel being melted in a hot plastic cup, at some intergalaxial fun fair where waitresses are clad in A-line skirts embossed with lip prints in pastel hues. That doesn't mean that Candy is not a departure for the brand; something by  that name in a pop canister resembling a pink-edged coffee press is meant to be sweet and teeny-bopper and not coming out of the mind of Miuccia with her Communism background, right? Is catering to lower instincts like hunger and lust an opium for the people?

But there's thankfully a certain comfort factor about the new Prada fragrance instead of just dessert sweet, thanks to the deft of hand of perfumer Daniela Andrier; it's a complex gourmand oriental with a balsamic, drizzling, sexy background that holds it from becoming a total "teenagers-don't-know-any-better" mess. I'm not entirely convinced it's the best fit the brand could come up with (and it's not "me", which might be influencing me), but it's got a certain pull-in factor despite the identity crisis (Watching the commercial with Léa Seydoux I don't know if I'm supposed to laugh or hide my eyes out of shame on the protagonists' behalf). In short, Prada Candy is that confusing phenomenon: a fragrance that doesn't fit with Prada's image (much like L'Artisan's original Vanilia with its "simplistic" ice-cream cone scent was incongruous with the hippy, boho style of the rest of the brand), but somehow manages to appeal all the same.Of course one could argue that Prada might slap their label over a bottle of water and it would still sell like hot bread. True.

The composition features elegant musks up top with the intense flavour of milky, creamy caramel mixed in, some of the caramelic accents reminding me of the upper edges of lavender's spectrum. That caramelic note takes almost licorice & tonka facets, complex, abstract, like a passing kinship with the original Lolita Lempicka perfume. There is benzoin resin in the lower range of notes (much like in their best-selling Infusion d'Iris scent), purported to be as much as 12% of the formula -which I find hard to totally believe as benzoin is a known sensitizer- that creates a moiré effect between cozy and powdery. Benzoin naturally possesses facets like copal, a smell between medicinal and sweet, with earthier components (Smell Guerlain Bois d'Arménie which is full of it) . This characterises the drydown (i.e.the final phase of persistence) of Prada Candy on the skin after the first half hour following spritzing. The musky "dirty diapers" note, like baby urine, creates a background of soft suede and darkness reminiscent of a lot of vintage fragrances (it's the sexy note in Shalimar). A sneaky wink. And this is exactly why Candy is not dumping the brand or just aiming at a younger demographic, as one would be quick to cauterize at first "reading" of this launch.
The sillage is nice and cozy and the lasting power very satisfactory, after a while it becomes a skin scent.
I don't think I will be buying a full bottle, but I will tuck in  many samples in my bag for when I want to (contendedly) get down and silly. Nothing wrong with that!

Prada Candy is available at Eau de Parfum concentration at major department stores, starting from £40 for 30ml/1oz. and online (check the selection of discount fragrances for even better deals)
ETA: A new flanker, Candy L'Eau, a lighter interpretation, is introduced in spring 2013. 





Photo of dulce de leche via pinterest.com

Annick Goutal Sables: fragrance review

Sables flies under the radar amidst the masculine selection chez Annick Goutal, despite the fact that Harrison Ford is supposedly an ardent fan. I guess he's considered "old man" by now and not as hip for a celebrity endorsement. But Sables shouldn't suffer from malrecognition; this is an especially brilliant composition and a unique one at the time of its launch, in 1985. The burnt sugar aspect of helichrysum ~known also as immortelle or everlasting flower~ with its shades of curry, maple syrup and fenugreek aromata make this fragrance one of the most distinctive not only in the Goutal canon, but in general. The onle fragrance more daringly infused with this spicy-caramelic note is Eau Noire in the private line of Dior colognes, composed by Francis Kurkdjian (A scent for which designer Karl Lagerfeld is crazy about!). Asmar by So Oud (launched in 2010) is closer to Sables, although not exactly the same.

Immortelle is an aquired taste for sure. Not everyone feels comfortable smelling like Indian food and helichrysum italicum is called "the curry plant" by some. Still, the initially spicy fenugreek nuances (somewhat mentholated and bitter inky, like in good old Fernet-Branca digestif) in Goutal's Sables are mollified towards the caramelised smoky spectrum; a whiff of pyrazines and malt, for those who appreciate Jeux de Peau by Serge Lutens for instance. The curry note is joined by its conspirator in crime: cumin, with its perceived sweaty aspect, and by a little pepper. Yet one cannot exactly categorise Sables as "dirty", "skanky" or spicy, but rather as smoky sweet and cozy in either winter or summer. In my own personal experience, Sables is a child of the sun and the warmth, and performs best in minute amounts put on the belly or behind the knees in the heat.
Contrary to the standard perception of Goutal scents being ethereal and fleeting, this one is particularly projecting, leaving a memorable trail and lasts very long, so beware of overdosing. It's definitely not intended to be used solely a masculine, although the saltier quota of male skin brings out the herbal and more ambery facets to the fore (much like in Ambre Sultan), while it's sweeter on women. The longer the fragrance stays on warm skin, the more it manifests those burnt sugar notes allied with milky, woody facets of sandalwood without ever becoming cloying. On the whole, Sables's kinship is more with a Lutensian oriental oeuvre, or a more powerful version of Cuir Béluga by Guerlain, than with the Indian dish intensity of Dior's Eau Noire where immortelle contrasts with the medicinal-caramelic ends of spectrum of natural lavender essence projecting a more rustic, rugged edge. 

Sables saw the light of day after a journey in Corsica, imbued with the warm and spicy scent of wild immortelle. This fragrance is dedicated to men and women whose originality and subtlety make them just as they are–-that is, authentic. Annick Goutal created it especially for her husband, Alain, who played the violoncello, as a memento from a trip to the so-called Island of Beauty, where the scent of immortelle-sprinkled sand dunes had captured her mind.

To me Sables will always stand as the olfactory equivalent of a particular beach in Lesbos Island in Greece. It is a volcanic place, all hot springs and absolutely no fish in the water, a deserted sugar-like fine sandy beach near a fossiled forest. The warmth of the sun schorches the tree trunks laying in the background. A moment of eternity has just been mine and I can see the history of the earth in a long gaze...

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Annick Goutal news & reviews, Immortelle: perfumery material, Pyrazines; maple & caramel notes, interview with perfumer Isabelle Doyen

helichrysum flowers pic via stopthatcat

Prada Candy: new fragrance

A new mainstream perfume by Prada is always reason to perk up one's ears. The Prada line, masterminded by perfumer Daniela Andrier is full of elegant, sleek compositions that meld with the wearer's skin; modern, but not out there; restrained but not insipid; in fact some of the best no brainers for people with brains.

The latest seems incongruent going by the name only, being named Prada Candy (Odd decision! Imagine the Google searches!).

But the composition sounds rather promising all the same: elegant musks up top, benzoin resin in the lower range of notes (much like in their best-selling Infusion d'Iris scent) and a caramel drydown which probably is the reference point for the name. I hypothesize it will be meant as a skin scent, much like most in the line-up is (especially the lovely Prada L'Eau Ambrée) and not a tooth-aching gourmand.

The bottle reminds me of a coffee press pot for filtered coffee. Very Bodum!
Prada Candy will hit stores in August 2011.

Thierry Mugler Angel: fragrance review of a modern classic & the most polarising scent

The French have an adorable phrase for girls who are a little naughty and like to pose like grown-ups: elle fait la coquine! Angel by Thierry Mugler is the olfactory equivalent of the most gorgeous “coquine”, weaving a web of the most appetising scent of them all: Chocolate, vanilla and caramel ~the three prime components of Mugler’s mischievous fragrance~ have been scientifically proven to treat depression and inject a sense of euphoric uplift.