Hermes Equipage: fragrance review

If Calèche encapsulates perfumer Guy Robert's idea of a great taste feminine perfume, then Équipage is his idea of the perfect masculine; sober, handsome, restrained, graceful. These two Hermès fragrances embody both the house's easy, effortless elegance aesthetic (you can imagine them as "old money" contrasted with nouveau rich) and Guy Robert's idea that only a "lived-in" ambience about a scent makes it truly romantic; if you need more proof you can just test out Madame Rochas and his other marvels (Amouage Gold, Dioressence etc).

Scent Description 
Aromatic, spicy and woody, the brief for Équipage was based on the success of Monsieur Rochas, composed by the same perfumer (Guy Robert) just one year prior, demanding the scent of a "cold pipe".  Word has it that Jean Louis Sieuzac also worked on this one. The smokiness is there all right (I'm hypothesizing birch tar to give a smoked leather note, reminiscent of the Cuir de Russie type of scents), but there's pungent dryness instead of the usual rum casket fantasies of honeyed milky tobacco; such as the ones evoking languorous Turkish escapades that Lutens brings to his Fumerie Turque, to cite but one example.  Liatris is an interesting note: it possesses both a herbaceous facet on one end and a hay & tobacco facet with only a subtly vanillic undercurrent on the other end, so it balances off nicely the bitter, pungent top notes of Équipage, reinforcing the concept of a smoking pipe.

Équipage is resolutely old-school and conservative smelling ~therefore probably anathema to anyone under 40, unless they have a perfume obsession~ and like an experienced acrobat balances between strength and finery, between the rustic herbs, the bitterness of the clary sage opening and the bite of cloves, on a base of smooth wood notes and a little sweet floral touch, a combination as dependable as a gentleman of the old guard. The florals cited in official notes description give only half the truth: the lily of the valley gives but crispness, the rosewood a profusion of linalool (that ingredient familiar from classic lavender), the carnation adds a clovey tint, as carnation composing was done by utilizing clove essence.
The true character of the fragrance evolves from the evolution of the aromatic, rustic and bitter herbal essences into rich woody, earthy notes in the drydown with a tinge of leather notes. In this it is in the same league as the equally magnificent Derby by Guerlain, which epitomizes the smooky woody fragrance genre; perhaps the Guerlain is a bit more balsamic and greener than the Hermès.

Who is it for?
I can vividly picture Équipage on a tweed-clad man out in the woods, lithe, supply riding his horse with his gun between horse bridles and saddle, leather lapels & patches on the jacket, having a good time only to return home when the sun is beginning to set. Perhaps it's so old-school that such a picture doesn't really seem ridiculous or overblown. Hermès at any rate likes to emphasize its "team player" name, showing the bottle over the photo of a rowing team. Cool, I get it. That's got to be some posh British college we're talking about, where the idea of a team spells dedication and loyalty and doesn't mess with anyone's individuality. Équipage smells perfectly individual nowadays, sticking like a diamond ring among graphite pencils, so perhaps my modern take is skewed. I suppose more men smelled in some variation of this liquid nectar back then....and oh boy, weren't those the times.

Équipage seems perfectly at ease on a smoker too, a heavy one at that, fusing with the remnants of the ashtray scent on the clothes into producing something delightful rather than repelling. No wonder in this age of cigarette demonisation Équipage looks like an outcast. Most interestingly this masculine eau de toilette works well in both the hot and cold season and lasts equally impressively, as it seems to morph to suit the weather. Winter brings out its crispness of sweet earth and woods. Summer heat highlights its cooling herbal, almost mentholated effect and its spicy kick.

I am a bit at a loss on how it would be possible to recommend it be worn by women, evocative as it is of virile-looking men like Sean Connery, however I have to share that I indulge myself in my vintage bottle more often than I'd care to admit. Perhaps there's something to be said about women embracing the idea of wearing a virile scent from time to time...

Vintage vs Modern Équipage 
The vintage versions of Équipage bear a light brown cap with a screw top design; the modern is sparse, black, architectural. The modernised version, available at  Hermès boutiques and department stores with a big selection of Hermès fragrances where you will have to ask for it by name, has attenuated some of the pungency and projection of this fragrance, without messing too much with its bouquet garni of herbs. If anything it's more citrusy and terpenic now than leathery, but not by much.

Notes for Hermès Équipage: 
Top: bergamot, rosewood, lily of the valley, clary sage, tarragon, marjoram
Middle: jasmine, carnation, pine, hyssop, liatris (a herbaceous perennial)
Base: Vetiver, patchouli, tonka bea, amber

Christian Dior Dioressence: fragrance review

The advertisements read: "Exuberant. Smouldering.Uninhibited".  It was all that and more. Mink coats, cigarette-holders, lightly smeared eyeliner after a hard night. Dioressence launched as "le parfum barbare" (a barbaric perfume); the ready-to-wear fur collection by Dior in 1970 was orchestrated to give a powerful image of women as Venus in Furs. Commanding, aloof, demanding, even a dominatrix. The fragrance first launched as a bath oil product, reinforcing the name, i.e. Dior's Essence, the house's nucleus in liquid form; Dior wanted to write history. It later came as a stand alone alcoholic perfume, the first composed by perfumer Guy Robert for Dior and history it wrote indeed. A new breed of parfum fourrure was born!

Dioressence: A Wild, Untamed Fragrance
The fragrance of Dioressence itself, in part the brief being a depart from Guy Robert's refined style, was the love affair of ambergris (a 100% natural essence at the time) with the original 1947 Miss Dior, a chypre animalic perfume, itself laced with the animal notes of leathery castoreum in the base, so the two elements fused into each other most compatibly. Ambergris is lightly salty and nutty-smelling, creating a lived-in aura, while leather notes are sharper and harsher, especially when coming from castoreum, an animal essence from beavers with an intense almost death-like stink. The two give a pungent note.
In Miss Dior this is politely glossed over by a powdery gardenia on top. The animalicistic eroticism is only perceptible in the drydown. In Dioressence the sexiness is felt from the very start, only briefly mocked by a fruity lemony touch, and it only gains from further exposure to notes that lend themeslves to it: rich spices, dirty grasses, opulent resins, sensuous musk. In a way if Cinnabar and Opium (roughly contemporaries) modernised the message of the balsamic oriental classic Youth Dew, Dioressence gave both a run for their money, being bolder like the Lauder predecessor, yet in a rather greener scale. 

The intensity of the animalistic accord in Dioressence was boosted even further by the copious carnation-patchouli chord (much like in Jean Carles sexy Tabu), spiced even further with cinnamics (cinnamon notes) and given a glossy glamour with lots of natural jasmine. The greenery over the oriental-chypre basenotes is like the veneer of manners over the killer instinct. Still the Guy Robert treatment produced something that was totally French in style. You can't help but feel it's more tailored, more formal than any modern fragrance, perhaps what a power-woman of the early 1980s would wear to power-lunch, even indulging in some footie work under the table if she feels like it, but its wild undercurrent is almost foreshadowing the contemporary taste for niche.

Why Dioressence Changed...to the Worse
Alas the perfume after a brief career fell into the rabbit-hole of a teethering house (The Marcel Boussac Group bankrupted in 1978 and it was purchased by the Willot house, which also bankrupted in 1981). Not only had the vogue for big orientals been swung in a "cleaner", starchier direction in the meantime (Opium, Cinnabar, Giorgio), but the management hadn't really pushed the glam factor of Dior as much as Karl Lagerfeld had revolutionized, nay re-animated the house of Chanel (the effect in the mid-80s of that latter move was analogous to the miraculous push Tom Ford gave to Gucci in the late 90s; nothing sort of spectacular). Dior would need almost a whole decade to get its act together, bring out Poison (1985) and find its financial compass under the LVMH aegis. By then it was down to familiar LVMH accounting bean-counting and therefore marvels like Dior-Dior perfume and Dioressence were either axed (former) or given catastrophical face-lifts (latter). Same happened with the ill-fated, yet brilliant Dior masculine Jules, which had launched in those limbo years (1980 in fact).

Comparing Vintage vs.Modern Dioressence
I well recall the old formula of Dioressence, back when it was a mighty animalic-smelling oriental with moss in the base because it was alongside (vintage) Cabochard my mother's favorite perfume. She was neither particularly exuberant, not knowingly smouldering and rather inhibited, come to think of it. She was a real lady, through and through, and yet she loved Dioressence, le parfum barbare! (and her other choice isn't particularly blinkered either, is it?) There's really a dark id that is coming throuh perfume and allows us to role-play; what's more fun than that? The Non Blonde calls this Dior "Miss Dior's Casual Friday outfit" and I can see her point; it's letting your hair down, preferably for acts of passion to follow.

The modern version of Dioressence (at least since the early 2000s) has been thinned beyond recognition, the naturals completely substituted with synthetic replications, till my mother 's soul departed from the bottle, never to return. The new Dioressence on counters is a somewhat better chypre than recent memory, with a harsher mossy profile, a bit like a "cougar" on the prowl not noticing she's a bit too thin for her own good, all bones, no flesh. Still, an improvement over the catastrophic post-2005 and pre-2009 versions.
Dioressence first came out as a bath oil in 1969 (advertisements from 1973 bear testament to that) and then as a "real" perfume in the same year. Perfumer credited is Guy Robert, although Max Gavarry is also mentioned by Turin as implicated in the process. The newest version (introduced in 2010, reworked by Francois Demachy) is in the uniform Creations de Monsieur Dior bottles with the silver mock-string around the neck in white packaging, just like Diorissimo, Forever and Ever, Diorella and Dior's Eau Fraiche.

The Full Story of the Creation of Dioressence

In Emperor of Scent, author and scent critic Chandler Burr quotes Luca Turin: "The best Guy Robert story is this. The House of Dior started making perfumes in the 1940s. Very small scale. The first two, of which Diorama was one and Miss Dior the other, were made by Edmond Roudnitska, a Ukrainian émigré who'd studied with Ernest Beaux in Saint Petersburg because Beaux was the perfumer to the czars. So Dior approached Guy Robert-they invite him to dinner, they're talking over the cheese course, no sterile meeting rooms, this is a brief among gentlemen-and they said, 'We're doing a new perfume we want to call Dioressence, for women, but we want it very animalic. The slogan will be le parfum barbare, so propose something to us.' Oh boy. Guy can hardly wait. Of course he wants a Dior commission. And the challenge of mixing the florals of the traditional Dior fragrances into an animal scent (because this isn't just any animalic, this is a Dior animalic, if you can imagine such a bizarre thing) is just a bewitching challenge, who else would have the guts to attempt joining those two. So he gets right to work, plunges in, and he tries all sorts of things. And he's getting nowhere. Nothing's working. He's frustrated, he doesn't like anything he's doing.

"In the middle of this, someone in the industry calls him, and they say, 'There's a guy with a huge lump of ambergris for sale in London-get up here and check it out for us.' Ambergris is the whale equivalent of a fur ball, all the undigested crap they have in their stomachs. The whale eats indigestible stuff, and every once in a while it belches a pack of it back up[1]. It's mostly oily stuff, so it floats, and ambergris isn't considered any good unless it's floated around on the ocean for ten years or so. It starts out white and the sun creates the odorant properties by photochemistry, which means that it's become rancid, the molecules are breaking up, and you get an incredibly complex olfactory result. So Guy gets on a plane and flies up to see the dealer, and they bring out the chunk of ambergris. It looks like black butter. This chunk was about two feet square, thirty kilos or something. Huge. A brick like that can power Chanel's ambergris needs for twenty years. This chunk is worth a half million pounds.

"The way you test ambergris is to rub it with both hands and then rub your hands together and smell them. It's a very peculiar smell, marine, sealike, slightly sweet, and ultrasmooth. So there he is, he rubs his hands in this black oily mess and smells them, and it's terrific ambergris. He says, Great, sold. He goes to the bathroom to wash his hands 'cause he's got to get on an airplane. He picks up some little sliver of dirty soap that's lying around there and washes his hands. He leaves. He gets on the plane, and he's sitting there, and that's when he happens to smell his hands. The combination of the soap and ambergris has somehow created exactly the animalic Dior he's been desperately looking for. But what the hell does that soap smell like? He's got to have that goddamn piece of soap. The second he lands in France, he sprints to a phone, his heart pounding, and calls the dealer in England and says, 'Do exactly as I say: go to your bathroom, take the piece of soap that's in there, put it in an envelope, and mail it to me.' And the guy says, 'No problem.' And then he adds, 'By the way, that soap? You know, it was perfumed with some Miss Dior knockoff.'

"So Guy put them together, and got the commission, and made, literally, an animalic Dior. Dioressence was created from a cheap Miss Dior soap knockoff base, chypric, fruity aldehydic, plus a giant cube of rancid whale vomit[2]. And it is one of the greatest perfumes ever made."

[1] [2]Actually that's not quite true. Ambergris comes out the other end of the whale, not the mouth. Read Christopher Kemp's Floating Gold.

Notes for Dior Dioressence:
Aldehydes, Bergamot, Orange, Jasmine, Violet, Rosebud, Ylang ylang, Geranium, Cinnamon, Patchouli, Orris Root, Ambergris, Oakmoss, Benzoin, Musk, Styrax.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: The Dior fragrance reviews Series

ad collage via jeanette-soartfulchallenges.blogspot.com, Dior fur via coutureallure.com

Estee Lauder Azuree (original): fragrance review

There is a family of perfumes composed by the same brilliant perfumer: Aramis being the butch Godfather patriach, well behaved on the outside, dangerously brooding on the inside. Cabochard is the maternal force turning the neck (and therefore the head as well) in any which way she likes, while Azurée is the younger long-haired son or daughter driving fast without a licence. They could have been The Sopranos, had the show been more stylish-oriented and retro glamorous. Or not. It doesn't matter, we can imagine. For those who didn't know it, Azurée (1969) is by the great Bernard Chant, the guy behind both Cabochard and Aramis; a fresher interpretation of the Aramis idea given a luminous fruity topnote of refreshing bergamot, while still remaining resolutely herbal.

Chant was mad for chypres, skanky animalic or non; his Aromatics Elixir for Clinique is a seminal study on mossy herbal patchouli with a big rose lurking inside the bush. Azurée, albeit herbally green and chyprish, is softer than leathery Bandit and lacks the acid green bite of the quinolines that compose the latter's leather note, thus making it more approachable, if largely unsung.

The zeitgeist and the image 

Azurée is unsung because it's an atypical Lauder fragrance. Usually big, expansive and highly floral femme in a very American way, Lauder fragrances are of a routinely high standard, yet of a somewhat "mainstream" image that belies their quality. It's all down to advertising and positioning; the repeat customer of Lauder (in makeup and cosmetics as well as fragrances) is the middle-aged, middle-class woman of predictably good taste, which tends to (unfortunately) brand the house as "unexciting". Azurée however could pass as a niche offering for the customers of -say- Beautiful or Pleasures. If it were embottled in a dark squarish flacon in the Tom Ford Privée line I bet it would be hailed as the new best thing. And it would cost the stars too, while I hear Azurée will only set you back about 40$.


We tend to forget that what passes as niche today was actually mainstream all right in 1969, when Azurée launched. We also tend to forget that the Mediterranean ideal that niche perfumes today advertise with the accompanying imagery/concept (from Aqua di Parma Blu Mediterraneo fragrances to Ninfeo Mio and Philosykos) was incorporated into perfume releases then without any visual or conceptual stimulus. It's odd to think Azurée as a perfume for Chicago wearing; it's just so darn South of France (or Capri-like) in its ambience! After all that's where its name derives from. I can almost see Romy Schneider in La Piscine putting some on casually before embarking in that fateful romance. Or think the swagger of Lauren Hutton when she was in her prime.
But then again, 1969 was the time of the sexual revolution and the fragrances matched the spirit of the times. To quote Queen, these "fat bottomed girls [were] gonna let it all hang out [and] make the rocking world go round"; out for good fun and expected to be worn indiscriminately, without pretence. Azurée is one such gal.

Scent description

The citrusy introduction of Azurée is wonderfully clean, bitterish and STRONG, providing the ouverture to an aria of leather, tar-like notes fanned on flowers and herbs. But the flowers don't register as especially feminine or romantic, rendering Azurée perfect for sharing between the sexes. A peppery twist is running throughout the fragrance, stemming from the herbal and basil notes and the more the scent dries down on skin the more the herbal and mossy character is surfacing. The perfume straddles several families in fact, from aldehydic, green/herbal, woody & leather without trying to please everyone and ending up pleasing nobody; and that's a great thing!
 The herbal and pungent character makes it very detached from today's sweet sensibilities, unless we're talking about niche perfume wearers joining you, so it's advisable to limit its use to smart company and minute application (it's POTENT stuff!). Amazingly, it's also not ruined through various reformulations, so great value for money all around.

Please note: The classic Azurée is NOT to be confused with Azurée Soleil (also very good but in a completely different game) or any of similarly named "beachy scent" summer variant to be launched in the future perhaps. You will know you got the classic, if you had to ask the sales assistant at the Lauder counter to get this out of the back of her drawer, like it were illegal contraband.

Notes for E.Lauder Azurée:
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, artemesia, gardenia
Heart notes: Jasmine, geranium, cyclamen, orris, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Leather, patchouli, oakmoss, musk, amber

And another set of notes, via Basenotes:
top: basil, jasmine, and citrus
heart: armoise, sage, spearmint, vetiver, and rose
base: patchouli, moss, and amber

pics of Romy Schneider & Alain Delon in La Piscine via europeanbreakfast.tumblr and habituallychic.blogspot.com

Chloe L'Eau de Chloe: fragrance review

Cast your eye back to the days when you were a kid in a floral print sundress, pig-tails hanging down the sides of your face, flowers pinned carefully on the hair by an older sister or attentive mother, and selling lemonade off a kiosk outside your school or terraced porch to amass money for summer camp (or something along those lines). I hear this gets done a lot in America. I can only tell you that I hadn't had any of those experiences, but lemonade drinking I did as a kid. A lot. It was the official drink of summer (along with sour cherry juice which is just as delicious, if not more) and gulping it down, all thirsty after a run in the fields cutting off wild roses & poppies or a swim in the sea, was one of the major joys of careless late spring and summer days. Perhaps there's something of that ~childhood-reminiscent, innocent and eager about it all~ that is so very refreshing and uplifting when we encounter a citrusy smell. Perhaps that's also why perfume companies are sure to bring forth a slew of citrusy colognes and fragrances into the market with the regularity of a Swiss clock, each spring as soon as the caterpillars turn into butterflies. There's just something optimistic, open and joyous about them, isn't there. Which is where L’Eau de Chloé comes in; from its frozen lemonade top note into its rosewater heart and down to its cooling, mossy base, it's an improvement on the previous Chloe edition* and a scent which instantly puts a smile on my face, even if it doesn't really mesh with my style, having no dark nor serious intentions.

Nikiforos Lytras, The Kiss

The recent "madness" for Eaux
Perfumer Michel Almairac was commissioned with a citrusy built on "clean" rose with a dewy character. Eaux are big as a variant in existing fragrance lines lately, rather than just a rehash of the citrus-herbal Eau de Cologne recipe, with predictably good results; especially at Dior (who had it all with their classic Eau Fraîche) with their Miss Dior Chérie L'Eau and J'Adore L'Eau Florale. Other contestants in this revamped "eau" game include Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte, Chanel Chance Eau Tendre and Chance Eau Fraîche, the three Ô de Lancôme, Eau de Shalimar by Guerlain (a different attitude as this is a complex citrusy oriental rather than just a citrusy, fresh, uncomplicated splash on), Hermes Eau de Gentiane Blanche and Eau de Pamplemousse Rose, even Serge Lutens with his L'Eau Froide and the previous L'Eau de Serge Lutens. It's a good alternative for warm weather wearing when you live in a hot climate.

Perfume impressions and formula structuring
Almairac used the transparent, luminous and at the same time lightly sweet and delectable natural note of rosewater (a distillate from rose petals) in L’Eau de Chloé to counterpoint and at the same time accent, via the common elements, the tart lemonade opening and the lemony magnolia blossom in the core. What was less easy to accomplish was how to stabilize it into a formula that would retain structure. The perfumer opted thus for a mossy-musky base accord which simmers with the angular, lightly bitter beauty of chypre via patchouli and woody ambers (ambrox). The fragrance belongs in the genre of Versace Versence or a modernised/watered down Coriandre by Jean Couturier.
The effect is that of a fizzy, sparkling, tingling the nose grapefruit and citron opening, vivid, spicy and refreshing at the same time with the gusto of carbonated fizz drinks bursting on your face which is prolonged into the proceedings. The peppery, crisp freshness evolves into the bold rosy heart of L’Eau de Chloé, balanced between powdery-minty and retro; non obtrusive for casual day wear, but with enough presence to uphold itself throughout a romantic afternoon. It's because of this that the fragrance projects more as a feminine than a citrusy unisex, which might create its own little problems (i.e. usually unisex citruses are the best). The mossy, patchouli-trailing with a warm, inviting "clean musk" vibe about it is discreet and rather short-lived (as is natural for the genre) and I would definitely prefer it to be darker and more sinister, but the fragrance overall serves as a reminder that small miracles are what we're  thankful for these days.

Advertising images
L’Eau de Chloé utilizes the familiar girl in a field of grass imagery in its advertising, first used by Balmain's classic Vent Vert (which did have something very meadow-like about it!) and perpetuated into recent releases; I'm reminding of Daisy Eau So Fresh by Marc Jacobs for instance. The young sprite is mythologically loaded, reminiscent of nubile teenagers in Greek classical myth deflowered by philandering gods, and it remains a feminist concern thanks to its sheer helplessness (who will hear your cries in the distance?). But perhaps we're injecting too much into it. Perhaps just rolling on a field on a warm, sunny day is a joy into itself and in this land of perfume fantasy all the big bad wolves are programmatically kept at bay or exitinguished with a squirt of a well chosen perfume sprayer. It's a thought...

Notes for L'Eau de Chloé: lemon, peach, violet, natural rosewater, patchouli, cedar.
Available from major department stores.

*NB: I'm hereby referring to the screechy laundry-detergent like Chloé Eau de Parfum by Chloé (2008) and not the excellent, violet-tinged nostalgic powdery fragrance Love, Chloé.

Model: Camille Rowe-Pourcheresse. Shot by Mario Sorenti, Music: Lissy Trullie / Ready for the floor.
More at www.chloe.com/eau

Painting by Greek painter Nikiforos Lytras, The Kiss.

Etat Libre d'Orange Bijou Romantique: fragrance review

~You let yourself be impressed by that sailor with the pierced ear?

~But no...

Caïn to Pandora Groosvenore (nicknamed "bijou romantique" by said sailor) in Hugo Pratt's La ballata del mare salato/ La ballade de la mer salee comics book starring Corto Maltese

The French have a saying "le parfum bijou" denoting both the literal sense (a perfume carried in a jewel receptible) and the metaphorical (a fragrance that adorns and highlights the beauty of its wearer). Bijou Romantique by Etat Libre d'Orange comes with little of the irreverence that the French brand exhibits and plenty of the beautyfying factor. I'd call it féérique myself (fairy-like, fairy-made). It's delicate, lovely, and oddly savoury, breaking the impression we have of oriental gourmand (i.e. dessert-like) perfumes into tiny slivers, much as it was done with Etat Libre d'Orange Fils de Dieu, their other new release for 2012. Bijou Romantique stops just short of being "skanky" or "dirty" (in a good way) -see Amaranthine by Penhaligon's- offering a deceptive "bombshell" fragrance for those women (and the adventurous men sharing it) who demand that their perfume acts as morale boosting for those approaching them. An appeal as timeless as the beauty whose virtue has a "price far above rubies", a Scriptures phrase that serves as the motto for the company.

Composed by perfumer Mathilde Bijaoui it's no wonder; it was Mathilde who signed the critically acclaimed Tilda Swinton Like This, you see, and she's also the composer of that controversial ~but eminently interesting~ accord of fig and caviar in Thierry Mugler's Womanity.

With Bijou Romantique Bijaoui offers a nuanced composition that hovers on the precipice between savory and sweet, rich and satisfying, exploiting the subtle chocolate-like facets of iris and vetiver and contrasting them with the natural creaminess of vanilla and benzoin resin with a fresh lemony top note. Laboratoire Mane’s captive Evee ® molecule bridges the gap between the sweet elements and the soft rosy spices. As Bijaoui explains herself in an interview on French TV: "My luck at Mane is to have an important team of researchers constantly developing new molecules and finalizing new extraction techniques. Thanks to their extraction technique called "Jungle Essence" we perfumers at Mane, were able to create a new olfactory family, the sweet/savory family. The Jungle Essence technology allowed us to extract scents never extracted before: fig and caviar. Jungle Essence offers new possibilities, new scents, using ingredients non extractable through conventional methods. (nuts, coconut…) The Jungle Essence process produces a natural extract. This extract can be directly used in perfumed or flavoured compositions."
In Bijou Romantique the proceedings take on a darker, more complex character in the main plot, thanks to the inclusion of a musky-woody background where the sweet-liquorice note of patchouli is clearly detectable. Patchouli is of course a beloved niche fragrances element, coming back from the hippie 1960s with a vengeance, but in contrast to Nobril Immense by the same company where it's too potent, too sweet, here it's nuanced with the protagonist: the ripe fruity note of tropical ylang ylang and the soft rosy nuance of pink pepper.

Tender, inviting and multi-facetted, Bijou Romantique is like a nostalgic cameo pinned on the edge of a low neckline. Farewell Pandora!

The transparency and cozy gourmand factor of Bijou Romantique is sure to entice those who liked The Different Company's Oriental Lounge or Fendi's discontinued (but marvellous) Theorema and might be of interest for anyone exploring niche gourmand perfumes (such as the Micallef line Les Notes Gourmandes or those by Les Néréides)

Notes for Etat Libre d'Orange Bijou Romantique:

Bergamot, Italian lemon, pink pepper essence, ylang-ylang, clary sage, Tuscan iris, Jungle Essence coconut, Haitian vetiver, patchouli, benzoin, vanilla.

Bijour Romantique is available as Eau de Parfum 50ml at the official site, Henri Bendels, MiN New York and online from Luckyscent and Les Santeurs.

pic via http://ilmioblog-lu.blogspot.com and http://avozportalegrense.blogspot.com

Tableau de Parfums Snapshots "Dark Passage" by A.Tauer: fragrance review & draw

"It was a hot afternoon, and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along that street. How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?"
~Double Indemnity, 1944


Dark Passage is a limited edition, g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s perfume by Swiss genius Andy Tauer which doesn't smell of honeysuckle. It does smell of film noirs and danger though like there's no tomorrow. Last time Tauer issued a limited edition it was the legendary Orris. If this hasn't had your ears perked up, I don't know what will. Perhaps that Dark Passage is a dark alleyway of a scent, full of spilled booze, contraband and dangerous women with luring tentacles the size of Barbara Stanwyck's evil quota in classics of the genre. I can only say I was very honoured to be among the extremely few people who got to try this amazing perfume.

Dark Passage is also rebellious; as Tauer says about the creation: "For me this first SNAPSHOT fragrance comes as a relief. Finally, I can do a fragrance that does not need to go through any distribution and sales machinery and EU registration and other investments. It is just here. If you are interested in it: Get it."

Dark Passage is perched on the darkness of natural, dirty, raw patchouli, a note poised between the woody and the camphorous. "Patchouli coeur which means”heart of Patchouli” is basically a patchouli that is rich in patchoulol. I am using a quality that is 66% patchoulol. I use it together with “standard” patchouli.[...]Patchouli coeur is even a bit more on the light, airy, musky side. Yes, there is a musky aspect that is stronger and underlined in Patchouli Coeur. I got mine from Ventos, but the description on Robertet‘s internet site is wonderful. It is in French and thus even more mysterious: “Odeur : le cœur de patchouli présente un aspect olfactif très propre, ambré, terreux, patchoulol, oriental.” Thus, it smells clean, of ambergris, earth, patchoulol, and oriental", clarifies Tauer.

But that's not all, nor is it the whole truth: Dark Passage is a perfume full of patchouli and you can't but like that material to fully enjoy it, but there are other elements to entice and to sway the character. Labdanum I believe, coupled with [no, I was wrong] beeswax musky-animalic notes, giving a sweet, intimate, almost suede aspect; a very prominent cocoa note from natural cocoa absolute, not wrapped in gourmand wiles but rendered bitter, noir, dirty, tobacco-rich...There's also a bit of birch tar, which aids both the bitterness of the chocolate facet and the leathery note, as well as a snippet of vetiver, rendered musty and as black as the night on the swamp where someone is dumping bodies on the hush.


Most importantly: Dark Passage is not bound by IFRA rules!

If you want to compare with something you might have tested already, I can only think of Ayala Moriel's Film Noir, which is another dirty, deeply dark heartless patchouli; that one isn't as cocoa-rich, though as this one.

Packaged in 7ml enamel atomizers and available in limited edition quanities, the Tableau Snapshots are smaller in scale and with a different scope. You can find all about the inspiration, the project (part of Kickstarter to promote the new Brian Pera film "Only Child") and where to buy on this post.

HURRY!! Dark Passage is only available till March 29th!

One small sample available for one lucky reader!
Draw is now closed, winner announced on Home page.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: The power of "noir" in perfumes (with a film noir titles game included!)

In the interests of disclosure, I was sent a sample by the perfumer. 

Chanel Antaeus & Antaeus Sport Cologne: fragrance reviews & comparison

Should anyone were to purchase a masculine Chanel fragrance off the mainstream, department store circuit, Antaeus would top the list. Beyond the easy-to-like-factor of  Égoïste, Antaeus is at once satisfyingly full-bodied and perversely challenging to pin down, like a porcupine run amok. It both feels as ambitious as Gordon Gecko and is sexy as hell at the same time. In fact "shexy" is more accurate of a description; it was the first, purring exclamation my girl friend blurted out when presented with a blotter sprayed with it. Her eyes all sprakled up, I swear! And she's a gal to wear floral musks and light woodies herself, no potent stuff by any stretch of the imagination.

As to Antaeus Sport Cologne, such an outfit not only exists, it's totally hawt itself! Contrary to what might be expected of the name, it's neither new, nor shy, sporty-smelling cologne. Instead Antaeus Sport was conceived just 4 years after the original as a rather less chest-thumping version; in contemporary terms, that's as polite as Gordon Ramsay and as meek as Simon Cowell and I just love it. I've  made myself crystal clear, I hope? Good! On to the more analytical description.

Chanel Antaeus Scent Description & Contradictions
Antaeus hails from Greek mythology, though it was Jacques Wartheimer who decided to name his company's new masculine thus after the shop name of one of his friends (don't ask!). The handsome hero with the hostile name (the Greek "Antaios" means opposing, it survived as Änti in the Berber tradition, since the hero was supposedly born in Libya) was a giant (the son of Greek Goddess of the Earth, Gaeia, and of Poseidon, the god of the sea) and the fragrance would be just as powerful. His advantage, in true Dracula-style millenia before the Stoker hero, was touching the sacred earth-mother for regaining his strength, and classical sculpture presents him in wrestling poses with Hercules lifting him in the air in a crushing bearhug. No wonder Chanel Antaeus soon became a cult gay favourite! As would have been expected, Antaeus is a beautiful, classically handsome earthy chypre scent, woody-baritone in timbre with glorious animalic, leathery and herbal accents. Not only that, but it's classically built into an arc of progressing accords which keeps one engrossed till the very end.

Composed in 1981 by in-house Chanel perfumer Jacques Polge, in-house Chanel perfumer after Henri Robert and Ernest Beaux before him, it brings back the 80s as surely as Doc Martins, suspenders on men, and jackets with shoulderpads. The fragrance is so complex, nuanced and well-blended, I seem to sometimes pick up notes that aren't even listed in the official notes given by the company, such as chamomille, smooth amber, some subdued rose beneath the patchouli, even a hint of fruit...then I can't quite catch them again, and on and on. It's also funny that it gives the impression of being oakmoss-rich, while in fact neither of the boxes are stating even as small a percentage as 0,1% as allowed by IFRA directions. Not only that, but its perfumer, Jacques Polge, has been put on record in French paper Le Figaro, a propos the launch of "nouveau chypre" 31 Rue Cambon as not a great fan of oakmoss anyway, because he" finds the smell too bitter". A self-proclaimed oriental lover, mr.Polge "had to search for exotic varieties of patchouli growth to substitute the moss element that is needed in a chypre composition". Yet surely such reasons had no resonance back in 1981 and Polge has used oakmoss before (even in keepsaking the other Chanel fragrances he didn't author). But smelling Antaeus besides similarly veined leathery woody-oriental Yatagan by Caron, one sees how it might just be possible.

The opening blast of Antaeus is arid and very memorable; sharp citrusy notes (clary sage, bergamot and lime with its sharp yet lightly sweet profile) meet the unique aroma of myrtle, but at the very same moment we're buoyed by the deathly pungency of castoreum flowing from the depths. This gives a leather note of impossing character, smoothed thanks to woodier nuances and herbs (thyme mostly). Perhaps this is why Antaeus can justifiably stand as the masculine version of Chanel No.19 and thus finds its lineage in the Chanel portfolio. But whereas No.19 is powdery with a glimpse of flowers, Antaeus is manly as a "French key" and bitter-dark with a somewhat soapy note (which reminds me of chamomille, rose, patchouli and vetiver combined). The woody fusion of patchouli and sandalwood reminds of formidable virile masculines of the same era such as Cartier Santos and Givenchy Gentleman..and yes, Kouros by YSL! What asserts the Chanel's irresistible charm, stopping it from appearing desolate and bone-dry, is the delectable, sweet and decidedly "animalic" (aka animalistically sexy) labdanum and beeswax absolute base; the two materials are pheromone-like, erotically full of vibrancy, full of hushed gropping in the dark. The contradicting enigma of total id in a total class package.

Notes for Chanel Antaeus: Clary Sage, myrtle, bergamot, patchouli, sandalwood, labdanum, beeswax absolute.

Antaeus seems to have passed through two reformulating periods, as far as my memory serves. The first deducted some of the opening pungency and upped a somewhat aldehydic character in the opening. The second lightened the potency and lasting power, but seems to have re-established some of the arid and distrurbing top note which makes it what it is. It's perfectly good as it is, for now.

Chanel Antaeus Sport Cologne Scent Description, History & Comparison with Original Antaeus
Antaeus Sport Cologne (1985) came on the heels of the original, making it a "sport vintage" which is an oxymoron to write history with. It's now discontinued for no good reason other than it might have given convulsions to the type of guy who is seeking fragrances tagged as "sporty" because in reality he wants a limp-wristed thing to not offend other guys at the office. Exactly contemporary to Guerlain's exquisite Derby, this old-school fragrance shares some of the latter's facets imbuing the heart with an irresistible pull. Namely the green bitterness of the artemisia, some of the spice (the nutmeg and pepper in Derby become pimento, mace -from which nutmeg is extracted- and pepper in Antaeus Sport), and certainly the woody and leather core. This is an aromatic woody chypre like the original and it packs a punch. While Derby is firmly poised on Perfumed Olympus, Antaeus Sport languishes in limbo due to its unknown status. It's true that Derby is plusher in typical Guerlain style and rather more polished (the way Diorling is super-polished in the feminine leathers stakes), while the Chanel is a bit rough at the edges, but by no means an unworthy contestant.

The two Antaeus verions are clearly related, yet they do persent their differences. The Sport variant is smoother and less herbal than the original Antaeus, with a less dissonant harmony and a more luminous -rather than darkish- trail. It's totally lasting and rich, however, belying its perception as a "lighter" edition. This is seriously good stuff and if you happen upon a bottle someplace (auction, estate sale, back of moving out apothecary) grab it and hold on to it for dear life. On the plus point, since it faced the fate of discontinuation, it profited from having its depths non disfigured and its potency preserved intact.

Notes for Chanel Antaeus Sport: Bergamot, lemon, artemisia, peppermint, pimento, rose, pepper, mace, jasmine, leather, vetiver, sandalwood, patchouli, oakmoss.

Diane by Diane von Furstenberg: fragrance review

The masstige in mainstream fragrances by famous designers these days is such that expectations have hit an all-time rock bottom: Rarely does a perfume enthusiast come upon a fragrance that defies both the lowered budget and the detrimental focus group admonishments for the lowest common denominator invariably resulting in dull, lackluster compositions with as much excitement as watching paint dry  (See Chanel's No.19 Eau Poudré; or even worse Chance Eau Tendre, which might be shampoo for all you know. Also Yves Saint Laurent's technically-challenged Belle d'Opium).

My friend Gaia, the Non Blonde summed it up well: "the perfume, Diane, is a mass-market/designer perfume. It's created to appeal to first and foremost to the non fragonerd crowd, to sell by the bucket and end up heavily discounted on every online retailer website. Rarely the stuff dreams are made of."
Nevertheless, on some occasions perfumers working in the mainstream do manage to create something quite good (see Elie Saab Le Parfum, Baiser Volé by Cartier, Prada Candy perfume or Love,Chloé) or even go above and beyond the call of duty (see the stupendously wonderful Bottega Veneta Eau de Parfum, though to be fair this one had probably as much attention to detail given to as an art restoration on a Vermeer); to mention only 2011 releases.

Diane by Diane von Furstenberg is rather in the former category; it lacks that above and beyond element to make it into the great ones, but this shouldn't deter you from sampling or receiving as a Christmas gift with relative pleasure. It's easy to expect something as intensely feminine in a devil-may-care attitude that maps its own trajectory as its famous designer stood for: the von Furstenberg wrap dresses especially are the epitome of "smart woman on the go who hasn't forgotten her pudenda at home".  This is not quite it, but it's not totally traitorous either.

For Diane the fragrance perfumer Aurelien Guichard created an old-school feminine violet composition that goes for a very long-lasting clean and woody ambience, reminiscent of retro bath products; not quite as spectacular as Furstenberg's fashions, you might say. But brownie points for not going for the easy route of too sweet, too fruity (thankfully Diane doesn't like fruity fragrances), too air-headed, too fleeting... Diane is a real fragrance, ladylike, to be best appreciated probably by the high-street consumer who has not totally lost the concept of what perfume is: a manufactured, non photorealistic impression of something in the artist's mind (that something usually is your dessert spilled on your favourite dress these days, so hallelujah for this small favour in Diane).

Additionally, violet scents are becoming trendy again, after their first resurgence when niche perfumery first erupted into the scene a decade ago. It probably signals a mini comeback of class and restraint, after the atrocities of bosom-spilling & visible thongs over one's jeans fashions. Witness Tom Ford's Violet Blonde (chosen to be distributed in the mainstream line rather than the Tom Ford Privé one), or Love, Chloé, both this very season's releases. Hardly tramp stuff.
In Diane Eau de Parfum especially the treatment of ionones (these are the molecules that give that violet, retro scent) via a clean incense note of great dryness deducts the usually candied take that the note takes and thus, instead of intense "powdery", the formula is twisted on its axis to go for a "soapy scent".  The woodiness, provided by that fractionalized patchouli that makes the rounds in hundreds of modern releases, is well tempered, pleasant, even with a hint to chypré coolness. I also detect clean musks radiating from the blotter and sticking on the skin with their tenacious tentacles.
Likable and very wearable, just not remarkable enough. Decent, non air-headed bottle.

Notes for Diane by Diane von Furstenberg: frangipani, violet, patchouli, myrrh, and musk.

Diane by Diane von Furstenberg ($85 for 50ml/1.7 oz of eau de parfum, there is also an eau de toilette version which is lighter & "simpler" in texture) is available at Sephora (online too)

Pic: Princess Diane von Furstenberg and writter Alain Elkann photographed by Helmut Newton

Elie Saab Le Parfum: fragrance review

It's hard to pronounce judgement on something that intrisically draws you in, yet you find that it repeats motifs known from a previous incarnation losing points for originality in the process.  
Elie Saab Le Parfum, though no match for the glorious haute-couture gowns that are the stuff of dreams, is nevertheless a very alluring, beautiful floral with honeyed notes, standing proudly in the mainstream market, intending not to leave anyone displeased. The fact that acclaimed perfumer Francis Kurkdjian pulls another well-known trick from his elegant sleeve is of secondary importance for our purposes, questioning structure and innovation vs appeal and end result as we are; consumers go for the latter, critics for the former.

Francis Kurkdjian places a small facet of his beloved zafting, retro roses (Rose Barbare, Lady Vengeance, Enlevement au Serail, Ferre Rose) in a composition that is all about the white flowers: jasmine and in a more abstract, fleeting way orange blossom (similar to that reserved for Fleur du Mâle, Narciso for Her ). Smelling Elie Saab Le Parfum in the middle of winter is like a ray of longed for sunshine, summer evening romance and late afternoon trysts spent on white linen sheets on the hush in rooms bursting with flower bouquets.
It's elegant, lush, quite sweet after the initial orange blossom/neroli "cologne" top note dissipates (and sweeter on skin than on clothes or blotter) with a posh impression that radiates for miles with the discernible headiness of jasmine; a not really indolic jasmine, nor particularly candied, but lush, creamy and sensual all the same. Elie Saab is a fragrance to be noticed and to be noticed in, smelling expensive, especially for a mainstream release, which also lasts quite well. The woodiness is mingled as an austere, cleaned up layer that lingers on skin similarly to woody floral musks fragrances (Narciso and its ilk; the clean patchouli, non powdery rose & honeyed warmth accord is repeated down pat).
Kurkdjian takes segments out of his collective opus and re-arranges it like a talented maestro playing a biz potpouri of his greatest hits. Can't blame him; it works.

The first fragrance from the Lebanese haute couture designer is simply called Le Parfum and the composition allegedly took 279 trial versions, resulting in a very femme fragrance, very floral, lightly woody. Those who like Marc Jacobs Blush in theory for the modern take on white flowers, but always wanted more oomph out of it, might find here their ideal rendition. Those who love the lushness yet contemporary feel of Kurkdjian's own label Absolue pour le Soir but wince at the price tag, could find in Elie Saab a more budget-friendly choice. Last but not least, those who lamented the demise of perhaps the single worthwhile Armani perfume, Sensi, are advised to seek out Le Parfum as something in the same ballpark; immediately appealing, non fussy, instant prettifier.

Men are almost certain to find this too feminine for their tastes, though the adventurous can always try.

Notes for Elie Saab Le Parfum: orange blossom, jasmine (including Grandiflorum and Sambac), cedar, patchouli and rose honey accord.

The simple glass bottle, heavy and pleasingly solid, was designed by Syvie de France. The campaign features the famous model Anja Rubik. Le Parfum is available in 30ml/1oz, 50ml/1.7oz and 90ml/3oz of  Eau de Parfum concentration with ancilary products to match (perfumed deodorant, body lotion, body cream and shower gel). Available at major department stores.

Painting Spring by Greek painter Georgios Jacobidis.

Dior Patchouli Imperial: fragrance review & a Story on Perfume Sleuthing

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
(The more things change the more they remain the same.)
French proverb


~by AlbertCAN

For the majority of the summer Perfume Shrine has been investigating a grand perfumery mystery. The million dollar question: Finding the name of the next fragrance to be launched by Christian Dior. For two months, though living in separate continents (Elena in Europe, me in North America), we have been busy searching and researching high and low, busy forming hypothesis on what will happen within the up-coming months.

Now the keen readers might have deduced that we were only interested in the name and not anything else—for yours truly have sampled it way back on the second week of July and lived with it for a whole day, silently and carefully observing its sillage and diffusion. In fact when the Russian Elle made the announcement two weeks ago it was merely a confirmation of what we have secretly known for months.

The intrigue started on an unassuming Saturday, July 9 to be exact. Elena received a short message from me (for privacy reasons details of day have been modified):

"I just came back home feeling very intrigued because a very chic young lady I know was wearing a fragrance I simply couldn't identify. For hours it was driving me insane: It smelled fantastic on her, but I just couldn't name it! My first guess was 31 rue Cambon, but I know the Chanel has more ‘gras’ and a bit more pronounced black pepper. After 2 hours I finally had the courage to ask her what she was wearing. Turned out she was wearing the latest Christian Dior, yet to be on the market—she got it as a gift. Now, she was too elegant to name drop..."

Surely we all have moments which a story is at the tip of the tongue, knowing how frustrating it is to name that fragrance, the music we’ve just heard or that book we have just enjoyed. But to name a fragrance that is not out on the market? I now know why the antagonists in Russian folklores often ask their subjects to find the thing I do not know as one of their cruel tasks!

The fragrance itself was not hard to figure out on the other hand. As I communicated to Elena within the same message:

"I can tell you that the new Dior fragrance, if the news can be verified, is a modern chypre and a kissing cousin (and I do mean kissing cousin) of Chanel 31 rue Cambon with pronounced patchouli, orris, incense (my money is on frankincense), musks (I sensed ambrette and modern musk effects), and spices (definitely black pepper, but more complex as well) with a stable and sustained development and a very work-appropriate sillage. Not a lot of citrus, but neither is Rue Cambon. The only thing that I consider an improvement is the patchouli and the black pepper facets are slightly more nuanced than 31, which is sharper. The orris used in this Dior is not as obvious. I observed the fragrance for hours and the smell is an engineered marvel, as it did not waiver a bit throughout the duration".

Even until now, months after sampling it, the scent of Patchouli Impérial still floats comfortably on my mind, steady as a diver’s back, delicately forceful as the gaze of a Nubian woman. Its structure concise, its proportions disciplined. Looking at the official notes I now can recognize how the Sicilian mandarin modifies the Calabrian bergamot, almost hidden with the piquant smoothness of Russian coriander seeds—all could have easily gone unnoticed but they are there, interesting second glances. Now of course the patchouli is decidedly present—the Indonesian variety, mind you, having a slight pungent, crisp green characteristic—but hardly a solifolia at all. Rather the patchouli used here is a context, straddled between the bergamot and the musk, creating a modern chypre effect, and, when paired with the sharp cedarwood (Atlas, not the Virginia variety, would be my vote) and sandalwood (most definitely a convincing replica for costs and conservation purposes)...the effect isn’t too far from, again, Chanel 31 rue Cambon in my humble opinion.

I am in no means to suggest or to imply that the juice of the venerable, contemporary Chanel classic somehow accidently slipped into the analytical lab of Parfums Dior, nor I am in any position to suggest François Demachy, who authored Patchouli Impérial, of imitating the work of Jacques Polge and Christopher Sheldrake. Yet Monsieur Demachy’s tenure at Chanel is fairly evident with the latest Dior composition, injecting an abstract richness into the realm of Dior fragrances while carefully editing the existing Dior archive. All this cannot be coincidental.

Still, here's another million dollar question: What’s with the lateral lineage when Dior and Chanel are originally supposed to stand for almost opposite views on luxury?

Many avid readers of Perfume Shrine will no doubt have read Elena’s less than optimistic review of the latest Dior commercial, how stars of the bygone era like Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe—the last being forever linked to Chanel No. 5, no less—have been used to advertise J’Adore. Interesting to note that Dior did not hire anyone to play dress up: All of the bygone stars are brought back using CGI technology. Dior, in short, is re-editing its history much like what Coco Chanel did throughout her life.

Let’s consider that facts here: In order to raise its competitive advantage LVMH, the mother ship of Dior, needs to grow by making commercial acquisitions. (LVMH's latest acquisition of Bulgari is yet another stern reminder.) Yet in the current economic environment the few remaining worthy brands are, in the case of Hermès, rarely available aside from a minority stake. And in the case of Chanel the shares are 100% unavailable, having owned by only the Wertheimers. All of which in private equity.

So what would you do if you were Bernard Arnault, the chairman and CEO of the French conglomerate LVMH if owning a stake in Chanel is not very possible within the immediate future? Given the choices I would have done exactly what he did: hiring the former Chanel deputy perfumer, imitating its legacy. It’s nothing personal, just business.

(On the flip side why is Chanel being content on being commercially competent when Dior is nipping at its heels, especially given the recent releases such as N°19 Poudré? That’s honestly not for me to answer at this space—but certainly begs the question, no?)

What strikes me as interesting with the latest l’offre is the dialogue between Polge and Demachy, almost a perfumery development process ~Jacques creates an essai olfactif while Demanchy suggests the possibilities of the theme. To comment, to reflect. I think if one approaches from this perspective this fragrance will be interesting.

But all that aside the bottom line to me, of course, is that now I cannot smell this fragrance without thinking of the lovely young girl who introduced me to this scent. She was wearing a navy print flouncing chiffon mini-skirt on that day, cut to perfection just right above the knees. Fantastic legs and just a great pair of strappy leather sandals. A beautifully cut solid black top, with impeccable silken shoulder-length hair and almost perfect manicure. Funny how I remember people when they have a way with fragrance.

Christian Dior Patchouli Impérial is created by perfumer François Demachy and contains notes of: Sicilian mandarin, Calabrian bergamot, Russian coriander, Indonesian patchouli, cedarwood and sandalwood essence. It’s the latest addition to the upscale La Collection Couturier Parfumeur Christian Dior line and is available for order at Dior boutiques worldwide and the official website. Patchouli Impérial is marketed for women, although as a patchouli fragrance it can be used as unisex under the appropriate context.

Availability & official info on the Dior site.


Ofra Haza singing Elo Hi (Canto Nero) by Goran Bregovic (who mixed for the occasion Serbian band Bijelo Dugme's original song "Te Noci Kad Umrem Kad Odem Kad Me Ne Bude")
Arabian Eyes 2 by GayfruitBonB on deviantART

Annick Goutal Mon Parfum Cheri: new fragrance

The upcoming Mon Parfum Chéri par Camille, by Camille Goutal, marks the 30th anniversary of the house of Annick Goutal. The company was founded by Camille's pianist mother Annick and continued after the latter's demise by her daughter Camille to this day. Collaborating for long with perfumer Isabelle Doyen, the style of Annick Goutal fragrances is very French, feminine pretty and yet witty too.

This time, inspired by Colette novels, specifically the Claudine novels, the fragrance promises to encapsulate the mischievous, sensuous and adventurous spirit of the heroine herself. It's odd that Claudine features so highly in the concept, as the mere mention of Chéri in the name (literally "beloved" in French) reminds Colette readers of the cocksure, young and inwardly insecure hero by the same nickname.
Still, the creators reference a throwback to the golden age of Hollywood as well, instilling the creation with a retro glamour, dark red liquid in the classic gold gaudron-capped ribbed bottle in shades of violet, this time the ornamentary tag ribbon taking on a stripped pattern in anthracite.
The new Annick Goutal fragrance Mon Parfum Chéri (i.e. My Beloved Perfume) belongs to the floral woody musky fragrance family and features notes of Indonesian patchouli, powdery notes, violet, iris, heliotrope and sweet prunes. It will be available in Eau de Toilette concentration in 50ml and 100ml and in Eau de Parfum concentration in 100ml. The launch is set to be exclusively at Harrods, London on the 1st of July and world-wide distribution is set for September 2011.

Guerlain Idylle Duet: fragrance review

Perfumer Thierry Wasser was allegedly inspired by the work of classical composer Hector Berlioz (he of Symphonie Fantastique fame), specifically from his 1841 opus Les Nuits d'Été, towards evoking a certain feeling in Idylle Duet, Guerlain's latest fragrance and a flanker to their release from 2009, Idylle. Whether he succedded in that task or not, you will be able to judge by listening to the piece below (Op.7, Villanelle). As regards the fragrance, it's an entry that could stand in any other mainstream brand. Which, for Guerlain, is a let down, I'm afraid.

Patchouli, a sweet & sour mix of "special harvest" origin (allegedly), non heady-shop-y variety can be sensed from the very beginning of the composition of Guerlain Idylle Duet, imparting a "modern" feel, flanked by floral notes. Technically a floral woody, although presented as a floral, Idylle Duet is not wildly different from the original, although it differs in a couple of points that would make a difference to a trained nose. The core of florals beneath the always-on-the-front-of-the-vortex patchouli is that ever popular screechy floral accord of sanitisied jasmine, peony, freesia, and lily of the valley. In short, a commercially successful "base" of best-selling aromachemicals that are bound to stir the strings of familiarity in most (and irritate the hell of me); in fact this was especially present in the original Idylle, which clearly aimed to catch the Narciso Rodriguez type fans. To pursue the comparison with the original, Idylle Duet further lacks the raspberry top notes of the original Idylle, as well as the perceptible muskiness in its base, although the well documented staying power of white musk is summoned to make it stay the course.On the blotter it's imperceptible, but it grows in strenght as time passes.
Bypassing that, the rose here is a little liquerish, a little darkish, good traits, but something is missing. Rose and patchouli are such a popular combination that either tilting the scales towards the woody leafy constituent (as in Voleur de Roses by L'Artisan) or towards the multi-petalled wonder of nature (as in Portrait of a Lady or the rather better Une Rose in the F.Malle line), one is bound to come up with something at least memorable. Instead the new release, despite its limited edition nature, is passable but ultimately forgetable, like a catchy jingle you heard in passing.

Fragrance notes for Guerlain Idylle Duet:
Bulgarian Rose, Indonesian Patchouli, Jasmine, Peony, Freesia, Lily-of-the-Valley, Lilac, White Musk

Idylle Duet comes as the latest feminine mainstream distribution for the house of Guerlain,(apart from the two new Aqua Allegorias, Jasminora and Rosa Blanca, announced here and more on which shortly) but it's a limited edition ~apparently due to its ingredients, but don't hold your breath. The new Guerlain fragrance is available in Eau de Parfum concentration in a 35ml flacon shaped like its antecedent. The box presentation is the same as the one for Ode a la Vanille but this time in rosy gold.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Guerlain fragrance reviews, Guerlain news, Floral fragrances.



Soprano Jessye Norman sings Villanelle from Hector Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Été Op.7 on poems by Théophile Gautier. London Symphony Orchestra, 1979, conducted by Sir Colin Davies accompanies.