Serge Lutens Arabie: fragrance review

Arabie is a virtual stroll amidst the exotic Al Halili bazaar at noon, rows and rows of succulent dried fruits and colorful, piquant, pungent spices; a kaleidoscopic vision seen in vermilion and saffron red. Women and men could get entangled in its nectarous, densely woven web, especially when the weather is cool and the mood is festive.

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Temperamentally sweet, luminous, golden, reminiscent of fruit & spice compotes and as mysterious as the East itself, Arabie is a sinfully rich fragrance for those who are not afraid to get their fingers inside the cookie jar!

Created in 2000.
Fragrance Family: Oriental Spicy

Top notes: candied mandarin, dried fig, dates.
Heart: cardamom, nutmeg, cumin, bay leaf, clove.
Base: Tonka bean, Siamese benzoin, myrrh.

The Body Shop Red Musk: fragrance review

When I first discovered The Body Shop I was a teenager. This also happened to be a time when the company was run by its founder, Anita Roddick, and not by the conglomerate that is L'Oreal. It gave a wholesomeness to the concept which I sorely miss.

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I also miss (sorely!) some of those fabulous, early perfume oils with imaginative and totally incongruent names: Japanese Musk, Azmaria, Ananya and Woody Sandalwood (the latter was a huge hit on my crush!). These are no more... Thankfully, in an array of mainstream and much more forgettable scents that get discontinued at seemingly lighting speed, there are still a couple The Body Shop fragrances that manage to capture my interest. The latest has been Red Musk.

I discovered Red Musk on the recommendation of a friend from a fragrance board and I thank her for it. I bought the perfume oil on the spot and didn't regret it. The advertising copy insists this is a spicy and unconventional fragrance for fiery situations, but what I get is the cozy core of the original White Musk powdery scent drydown, ornamented with the lushest tobacco and dried fruits overlay. In a way it's like a lighter, subtler Burberry London for Men, a very fetching scent in its own right. Red Musk is like a fluffy terry robe that a handsome man who smokes pipe tobacco with apricot flavor has worn for a few days; it has that soft, enveloping lived-in feeling that is both a consolation and a longing, and I happen to be a total sucker for this kind of scents. Maybe you are, too?

Valentina de Valentino: Fragrance Review & Bottle Giveaway

Valentina de Valentino is not a hard name to come up with when you're the famous Italian designer who's dressed everyone from Jackie O to Courtney Love; the feminine counterpart is a sexy name, meant for It Girls who like to pique people's fancy. But first things first: The new perfume by Valentino won't launch internationally until September 23rd 2011, but I have a full bottle to give away in the meantime to a lucky reader! [draw is now closed, thank you!]. It came through a promotion (an amazing-looking one that included a giga book with pics which inspired me to take the photographs of Valentina you see myself) and has been only sprayed a few times to test it. Please state your interest in the comments for a chance to win the fragrance. Now on to the dissecting stuff...

Perfumers Olivier Cresp and Alberto Morillas, masters in the game of producing scentful crowd-pleasers, joined forces in the new Valentino fragrance which is presented as a floriental, but is really a tart, quite fun "fruitchouli" (perfume community slang for the fruits & patchouli genre of fragrances). In Valentina the tanginess of the top notes (citrus and strawberries) cuts through the sweeter elements in the composition, before the soft, clean woody backdrop takes reign for the duration of the scent on the skin. It's essentially linear, projecting with a direct flirtatious message, in the mould of Flowerbomb, Coco Mademoiselle, Parisienne, Miss Dior Cherie or La Petite Robe Noire (it references the berries notes of the two latter, possibly through Frambinone). Valentino is known for his couture, but this is no "couture scent", it's rather mainstream, though well composed. It also includes 7% of the realtively new molecule Paradisone (also used in 2006 Perles de Lalique, Kapsule Woody by Lagerfeld from 2008 and Cheap & Chic I Love Love by Moschino from 2005).

Valentina flirts like an Italian at an opera opening night, kicking the heels underneath and pinching their cute boyfriend's bottom naughtily but -bottom line!- harmlessly. Valentina de Valentino is bright, with sunnier, citrusier elements, a small subfacet of spice (anise and clove-cinnamon?). You feel the floral bouquet (orange blossom, jasmine and tuberose) in the Valentino fragrance most when comparing wrist-to-wrist with another perfume in the genre: Compared to Coco Mademoiselle, for instance, the patchouli in the Chanel is positively camphoraceous side-to-side and the whole seems less floral. Even so, lovers of the latter would probably like the former, sweet tooth and its hint of castoreum & earth in the "white truffle" accord. This latter element is a hint that they might have been inspired by the seminal Une Rose in the F.Malle line, but of course the Valentino perfume is tamer; there's only a wink of "earthiness".

 
Valentino focuses on how the creative team has envisioned the new fragrance for the modern audacious woman. I suspect they sat down and saw the void of a fragrance for youngish women on the prowl in their portfolio; and who can blame them?

The photographic campaign by David Sims sees Freja Beha Erichsen shot in a deserted Rome at night-time, after escaping a boring soiree (it's a cute commercial!). 
The packaging revisits the ideas of Valentino couture, especially the pastel colours of the past three collections; femininity, audacity and sobriety. All these translate into a bottle that is delicate and surpemely pretty to look at on your vanity with its gorgeous flowers embossed on it, like a small corsage.

Notes for Valentina de Valentino: 
Calabrian bergamot, white truffles from Alba, jasmine, orange blossom from Amalfi, tuberose, strawberry, wood notes, cedar, and  amber.

 

All photographs (except for official ad) © by Elena Vosnaki. Click to enlarge.

Parfum d'Empire Wazamba: fragrance review

In the words of Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura "most human behaviour is learned observationally through modeling". And nowhere is this more cognitively apparent than in the beauty and sensual business in which perfumery holds an esteemed place. Wazamba by Parfum d'Empire is a prime example of the developmental incline which the niche house established by Corsican Marc-Antoine Corticchiato~assisted to by Elisabeth de Feydeau~ has been for a while now, influenced and influencing through modeling.

The resounding success of Ambre Russe, Cuir Ottoman and Osmanthus Interdite are a small testament to the power of quality materials, conceptual storylines (the recreation of the atmosphere of great empires of the past, influencing the Romea d'Ameor line as well) and an aesthetic focus which diverts from the torpid patcho-syrupy jingles of so many new releases to produce baroque, complex and refined sonatas.

In Wazamba, the name doesn't evoke a peruqued era with fake beauty marks travelling the rosy cheeks of decadent and unwahsed aristocrats, nor Tsardoms of fierce despotism drenched in samovars' inky liquid and potato grain liquor. Instead it is inspired by “a sistrum used in the rituals of West Africa” possessing a “heavy sound, full and deep” which one could imagine played by the regal silhouettes of Modigliani-like figures in the savanna evening bonfires. Perhaps a little imaginatively conceived, as the mysterious instrument is nowhere to be found (there is wazimbo though!), yet the merit of the composition more than surpasses the want of accuracy in the press release. A Lutensian web is weaved around almost every niche release, his pioneer work being the instigator in large part (excluding L'Artisan, Goutal and Diptyque who always travelled their own path). Parfum d'Empire is no exception, yet the familiarity is not contrite nor bellicose, but proud in itself.

Parfum d'Empire Wazamba travels the new route of conifers, surely pre-empting along with Fille en Aiguilles, a revisited appreciation for balsamic notes which I predict we will be seeing more of in the future: fir balsam, pine needles, cypress sap...Lubin's Idole and Black Cashmere by Donna Karan were incorporating some warmth and fir notes with their incense a few years ago and Zagorsk from the Incense series by Comme des Garcons was the first to marry pine with incense. But in Wazamba the synergy is more complicated, very interesting and sweeter. The burning, pyrocaustic frankincense of Serge Noire and Essence de John Galliano appears softly pettering out to ashy-powdery, slightly sweet notes (opoponax and the sensuality of labdanum). Yet the initial impression and one of the predominent notes on my skin is ~surprisingly enough but pleasurably so~ apple; a red, juicy and ripe variety that is miles away from the sanitary, upbeat, acid green and detergent-like apple in shampoos and fine fragrance alike in later years! The combination of this apple note along with long-lasting, delectable myrrh is joined at the hip via the cinnamon nuance that both materials evoke; one through allusion, the other through illusion. Yet Wazamba isn't spicy, nor is it gourmand despite its sweetness. Neither is it fancy, sophisticated, elegant or conventionally sexy and that's perfectly all right. The feeling it evokes is one of unadulterated, raw beauty: It relies on a forest of aromatic pine needles, laid out in an African sunset, when climbing the nearby knoll your hands are almost touching the copper clouds.



Notes for Parfum d'Empire Wazamba: Somalian incense, Kenyan myrrh, Ethiopian opoponax, Indian sandalwood, Moroccan cypress, labdanum, apple, fir balsam

Parfum d'Empire Wazamba is available in Eau de Parfum in 50ml/1.7 and 100ml/3.4oz spray bottles at Luckyscent and Aus Liebe zum Duft, as well as in the men's department of Le Printemps and the Old England store (corner of the rue Scribe and boulevard des Capucines) in Paris.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Incense Series, Pine scents

Pics from the postcard book African Ceremonies by Beckwith and Fisher via cas1.elis.ugent.be and salon.com.
Photo of Parfum d'Empire Wazamba bottle © by Elena Vosnaki.

The One (or another one?) by Dolce & Gabbana ~fragrance review

I really don’t know if U2, the band, is involved in the olfactory business at all and I doubt they would be (they seem like “serious people”, for Pete’s sake, and I say that almost straight-faced).
Their lyrics for their song "One" however seem very a propos to our subject today, Dolce & Gabbana’s The One.

“Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you,
now you got someone to blame?”

No, no, I don’t blame anyone. It’s all good anyway.

Dolce & Gabbana have just come out with The One. A floral-oriental that they told us aimed to appeal to  a “real diva, an object of desire, like the woman represented by Brazilian top model Gisèle Bündchen as seen through the lens of photographer Jean Baptiste Mondino”. In that regard the perfume is going for sensuality, presence, passion. As Osmoz bombastically states quoting the press release: “Every woman is The Woman: (…) You want her to be unique, ‘the one’: spectacular, joyful, ironic, strong and passionate, and always – indubitably – herself’.
Taking into account that D&G’s leitmotif  is of a romantic inclination with interjections of “mama Italia” in Anna Magnani neorealistic style, it doesn’t surprise me that they have been quite successful. Their rich, mature and quite old-fashioned opulence that met with great success was named Pour Femme (codenamed “red cap”; reminds me of a Russian spy code or something in a bad B-movie about the Iron Curtain- practical though). Their smashing best-seller, especially in mediterranean countries, Light Blue turned my own personal lights blue from the ubiquity with which I encounter it on every single female of reproductive age come spring and summer. Sicily, their aldehydic soapiness of a sheer veil is getting discontinued I hear and it’s a pity, if only –as I never “got it”- because I won’t get to watch any longer the [[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YkgNbYb9g]]glorious b/w TV commercials of Giuseppe Tornatore [[/url]] (click to watch)featuring the succulent tormented beauty of widow Monica Belucci weeping for her dead husband; her old-fashioned slip laced with Sicily taken secretly away by a young admirer.
The rest of the Italian duo’s line includes the dependable virility of Pour Homme, the playfull By permutations (surely not with a sexually charged undercurrent, I hope) and the lighter, younger D&G line with feminine and masculine versions.

A new launch was needed and The One it was. Featuring the long maned Gisèle Bündchen, poster girl of picture-perfect sensuality in   westernised standards, it promised to be diva-like. I can front out vouch for its un-diva, completely wearable and friendly character, nevertheless. Maybe the male dominating photographer [[url=http://grrrlcott.wordpress.com/2006/10/18/dolce-gabbana-the-one/]]in the ads [[/url]] is a pre-taste of its submissive character.

“Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?”
Assuredly not, honey. Just a taste of a déjà -vu. Just that.

Its great flaw, especially for something bearing such a moniker, is a lack of individuality, of uniqueness.
Oh, how I wish it were a case of
“Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head…”
But it wasn’t meant to be The One to end all others. After all I have found my personal One long, long time ago and I fervently believe that perfumes, like books, like art, like love, choose us and not the other way around.

The bottle is a designing success: very austere and contemporary, a spare squatty affair with a gold geometrical cap to accompany the light gold of the jus inside. Substantial and no nonsense. Luxury without ostentatiousness. The official notes are: Mandarin, bergamot, litchi, peach, jasmine, lily, lily of the valley, plum, vetiver, amber, musk

The opening stage of The One emits tangy sweet fruitness of discernible bergamot and mandarin, accompanied by lactonic interlays of peach, rendering the top very fruity indeed. Lily is the dominating floral force during the middle phase of the journey on skin, with its sweetness balanced by the tartness of the fruits. Jasmine also makes an appearence, but interwoven with the other notes. No vetiver discernible to me in the base however, which is redolent of the nuzzling warmth of a sweet vanillic amber coupled to the softness of a clean slightly powdery musk of average lasting power.
The whole has an uncanny way of reminding me of the very pleasant but not earth-shattering quality of the thankfully slightly drier Cinema by Yves Saint Laurent, launched just 2 years prior to The One. Has short-term memory loss become so prevalent in everyday life that designers and noses are inspired not by legends of the past but by products of such a recent crop?
The One is tarter in the first stages and lacks the almondy flower note, but they then segue on to comparable pathways, a sort of “Elective Affinities” for those who are too fluffy to study Goethe in the first place.
And come to think of it, I prefer Cinema by an inch.

Perhaps as U2 would have said:
“I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
this burning desire.
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”.

Nice try though, Dolce & Gabbana. And I mean this?

You can see the whole range [[url=http://www.mistrys.co.uk/dolce-gabbana-the-one-for-women-eau-de-parfum-natural-spray-p-1625.html]]here[[/url]]. Bottles of Eau de parfum come in 50 and 75ml versions, there is also a shower gel, deodorant spray and body lotion.

Pic comes from osmoz.com