Burr-y the Hatchet: part 2

We continue our interview with writer and perfume critic of The New York Times, Chandler Burr. For part 1, click here.

PART 2

PLEASE NOTE: unauthorised copying of excerpts of the book constitutes copyright infringement. Mr.Burr personally gave us express permission to reprint those for this venue only.



PS: Chandler, for your new book “The Perfect Scent” you followed two different paths: the path of the celebrity scent (for Sarah Jessica Parker for Coty) and the path of the perfumer’s vision for a high-end brand (Jean Claude Ellena for Hermès).
Which one was more fun and which was more challenging, journalistically speaking?

CB: They were as completely different experiences as they could be and still be, in both cases, spending a year inside a perfume making process. Ellena’s story I tell from the perfumer’s perspective, Sarah Jessica’s from that of the creative director, so there you have a fundamental difference. The only time I spent with Laurent and Clément, her perfumers, was when they were with her. I’m going to let the book speak on this one; decide for yourself which you think was more interesting. I’ve already heard vastly different opinions.



PS: How viable are celebrity scents in your own opinion. Most are bought by fans who want to emulate their idol and are consquently frowned upon by perfume lovers who refuse sometimes to even try them out! However in my personal opinion there is no blanket description: some are good (like Lovely), some are horrible. Why is this, in your opinion and experience getting to know the process of creating one?

CB: I agree completely. Hilary Duff is a very good perfume. So is Midnight Fantasy. The Kimora Lee Simmons Goddess is beyond-belief bad. I do think celebrity perfumes are still viable and will remain so because they’re simply such a good, effective way for famous people to monetize their pure celebrity. There simply is no better mechanism by which to do this.


PS: Jean Claude Ellena is the darling of the internet-reading perfumephile. I am a fan of his perfumes as well. However, theres is the impression that what with his numerous interviews and constant media exposure and his habit of showing his “tricks” of expertise to awe-stricken journalists that he has become a bit of the latest conjurer: to be admired for what he hides in his sleeves rather than what he genuinely reveals. Did you find that this is true, while following his work for “The Perfect Scent”?

CB: Um…no, absolutely not, but I suppose I hesitate only in that I do realize why people can have that impression of him. My year with him—and this is a categoric statement—showed me how extremely talented he is. He is not super-human. No one is. He has limits. He has an immense ego as well, which in my view is his only serious character flaw (I generally find him a delightful guy). I think Terre d'Hermès is excellent as masculines go but overpraised. I think Jean-Claude’s Achilles heel is persistence on skin. And he has said to me quite openly several times that every perfumer owns strengths, and he plays to them.

But to give you a taste of what I say in "The Perfect Scent" about this question:

"The announcement of Ellena’s appointment was made by Hermès on May 5, 2004, to go into effect June 7. Everyone in Paris had a comment (New York noted it and went back to its business lunches), though since it was Paris all the comments were off the record and many were tinged, overtly or not, with venom. “It’s excellent to take Jean-Claude,” said one young perfumer, who cleared his throat, squinted at the sky, and added primly, “I’m almost jealous.”They were openly admiring (“They couldn’t do better than Jean-Claude,” the perfumer Calice Becker said, “an excellent perfumer passionate about his métier and uncompromising on materials”). They were acid (“How nice that Jean-Claude will get to do even more of his favorite thing: talking to reporters”). They were envious (“Can you imagine the freedom?”). They were thoughtful, analytical(“Jean-Louis was very smart about this, and you watch, they’re going to start increasing market share”)….The industry discussed his putative salary in the way the French always discuss salaries: as if the KGB were listening….
Ellena? He was a star, like Jacques Cavallier (the lovely Chic, the monster hit L’Eau d’Issey, the monster miss but utterly brilliant Le Feu d’Issey). Or Kurkdjian (Armani Mania, Le Male). Or Becker (J’adore, Beyond Paradise). And he had a star’s usual partisans and critics and detractors. All this was intensified with Ellena because he was a darling of the media, with whom he was famous for having a discours de parfum. Reporters could talk to him. He could talk back. To the degree to which this was rare, in part it was the perfumers, who were not groomed for microphones, and in part the paranoid, control-freak designers, whose dogma was maintaining the official fiction that they created their own scents. They liked perfumers to be kept in cages in dark rooms. This was why some perfumers liked the fact that Ellena spoke.
Naturally there was also bitter commentary—vindictive jealousy is, like beurre blanc, a French speciality—usually punctuated, after a careful glance over the shoulder, with the stab of a hot cigarette. “I don’t think he’s the best perfumer in the world,” said a competitor, “but he’s one who has a thinking about perfumery. He presents himself as the heir of Edmond Roudnitska.”…There was derision. “I don’t have a big appreciation for him actually,” the creator of several legendary perfumes sniffed. “His behavior is not greatly appreciated by many people.” His behavior? “Ellena has a good reputation with important people but not with people in the perfume industry. He’s a version of a celebrity chef, a media whore, which everyone tries to become today because the world is now based on the media whereas autrefois the perfumer simply focused on his work and le plan creatif.” “I won’t discuss Ellena,” one dowagerof the French industry and creator of several classic perfumes sniffed. “He’s a showman.” But others took a more philosophical approach. “Grasse is a complicated tribe,” said a middle-aged perfumer. “There’s a real mafia grassoise…. Grasse is a tiny little town, and the kids leave for Paris to seek their fortunes. Jean-Claude is grassois, and so they all know him, and when you understand that, you understand everything.
Jean-Claude knows how to talk about perfume, and the press is desperate for that, and I’m sorry, but if other perfumers are jealous it’s because very few perfumers can talk about perfume. ‘I put jasmine in rose.’Well, OK, so what the fuck does that mean. Nothing! And someone comes and explains it, and suddenly he’s a media whore? Please.”

PS: Ellena also frequently talks about not having to conform to marketing briefs and target groups’ opinion. Does he really have free reign at Hermès? I have read in his self-authored books that he deems the 2-3% share he garners satisfactory. In a market in which perfume generates lots of revenue for big luxury houses as the most accessible of their products to the middle-class is that doable?

CB: I will simply say on this question that from everything I’ve seen, Ellena truly has a huge amount—not by any means complete, but a huge amount—of creative control at Hermès. He creates according to concepts sometimes (Un Jardin sur le Nil, for example), but never briefs in the sense of conceptual blueprints created by other people that he must then build with molecules. That work, for him, is finished.


PS: One criticism that has been directed at Jean Claude Ellena is that he has completely altered the scent profile of the Hermès fragrance stable: his spartan style that exudes a vibe of sparsity, although undeniably chic contradicts the image of Hermès as smelling “rich”. Contrasting previous fragrances of the house, like Rouge or 24 Faubourg -which are easily imagined on a lady wearing furs (parfums fourrure) - with his own creations like Un Jardin sur le Nil or Terre d’Hermès one notices a stark difference. The newer ones, even the Hermessences don’t smell as pampered and luxe. I realise that this is his conviction of how perfumery should be done (not catering to a bourgeois sensibility), but did he shed any other insights into this?


CB: I’m actually going to leave this one for the book as well, not only to make you read the book but, frankly, because he never gave me a specific answer to this, but I think you’ll find that my year with him, taken as a whole, absolutely provides, in the end, an answer. I know the criticisms of course; part of my response is Ambre Narguilé, simply enough, which to my mind (and Jean-Claude’s) is the way rich luxury must evolve in the 21st century, an absolutely stunning piece of perfumery on every level. But I think Kelly Calèche is a masterpiece because it is 100% Ellena’s contemporary, forward-edge, intellectual presentation, 100% Hermès, and 100% luxury. Not Louis Vuitton purse luxury—beautiful, refined, purified luxury.


PS: I have been saying this last bit ever since it launched! LOL
On that note of luxury: I was reading a very intriguing article in Fortune lately, which focused on the new McLuxury scenario. Namely that upscale houses and designers are experiencing a democratization of their product both in terms of aimed audience and in their brand becoming more accessible. We have the examples of Stella Mc Cartney and Karl Lagerfeld designing for H&M for example or the case study of Coach who aimed at a lower price point from the start.

CB: Yes, Dana Thomas just wrote an entire book about this, "Deluxe".


PS: Right! In perfume, there are two distinct paths: that of masstige (perfumes circulating on the mainstream circuit posing as something more upscale than they are) and that of high-browed exclusivity trying to reposition a brand into higher planes in an effort to ante up the cachet which will perversely help boost sales of their lower end products! (Case of Les Exclusifs at Chanel, Hermessences, Armani Privé, Dior Collection etc.) What’s your take on this issue?


CB: I’m not sure if I’m more or less cynical than Dana. It is just so obvious to me that “luxury goods” are 90% image and 10% substance. Jacques Polge’s Chanel No 18 is an astonishing perfume, but you’re paying a huge premium for the word “Chanel”—compare it to Juicy Couture, which is a similar approach by Harry Frémont. Chanel No 18 and Juicy Couture have an identical aesthetic approach: both are machines built of glass and meant to be filled with light. They have different scents, but stylistically they are in the same category.

OK, so we have to pay a premium for luxury—big surprise. So I think you perfectly characterize the commercial purpose of Les Exclusifs and the others you mention. And at the same time, they just are, generally speaking, superior perfumes. Would I pay that premium? Yes, for some of them, not for others. But the fact that they have a commercial purpose as well as an aesthetic purpose—a dirty and a pure both—bothers me not in the slightest. This is the way the game is played. Art and commerce have never been separate. And when they have, the art has often been crap. I suppose the trick is simply in knowing what’s going on in front of you—then taking what you like.


PS: Thank you Chandler for what has been a trully fascinating perspective.


CB: And thank you for allowing me to answer these questions.



Pics of Lovely and Hermes ads from okadi. Pic of Jean Claude Ellena courtesy of the LA Times.

Burr-y the Hatchet: Chandler Burr Interview

Perfume Shrine always aims to bring our readers the highlights of fragrance appreciation with objectivity and a level-headed analytical approach.
So, in the pursuit of those goals, we present you today with an interview with one of the controversial players in fragrance writing: the journalist and writer Chandler Burr.

Mr.Burr perused our site, confessed being impressed with the quality (we humbly blushed) and honoured us with an in-depth interview on certain sensitive points that were rather tough, per his estimate: about his current position as perfume critic in The New York Times, a position for which he has been criticized a lot by internet readering perfumephiles; his acquintance with Luca Turin for "The Emperor of Scent"; his stance on the matters of perfume composition; his newest book "The Perfect Scent" which follows the creation of two fragrances from scratch: one for a celebrity, Sarah Jessica Parker, and the other by esteemed perfumer Jean Claude Ellena for Hermès; and his views on the new luxe tendencies in the industry.
Perfume Shrine appreciates the thought and effort that went into answering those questions; we found him agreeable and we sincerely thank him.

Let's follow him.....

PLEASE NOTE: unauthorised copying of excerpts of the book constitutes copyright infringement. Mr.Burr personally gave us express permission to reprint those for this venue only.

PART 1

PS: Chandler, you had been a journalist for a long time and had written a book on sexuality. How did you decide after writing “The Emperor of Scent” to devote more of your time into writing about perfume? Was it a new interest, a new field for journalistic exploration that culminated in your New York Times appointment or something that turned into a genuine and profound love for fragrance?



CB: I actually had no intention of writing on perfume again. In fact, I didn’t really consider “The Emperor of Scent” a book related to perfume as a subject per se, although I of course now realize that was obtuse on my part. I’d loved writing about perfume in the context of “Emperor,” discovering scent criticism via Luca Turin’s writing, hearing his astonishing stories about perfume and his opinions—learning the basics of what “good” and “bad” meant in this brand new (to me) artistic field.



“The Perfect Scent” and my position as The New York Times perfume critic were entirely a surprise and entirely the result of an idea pitched to me by my editor at The New Yorker magazine. He took me to lunch, and I proposed ten—I remember the number; I’d prepared a list—detailed pieces that interested me, basically economics stories in Asia. That’s my field, at least officially; I studied international relations in Paris, Chinese history in Beijing, and I started as a stringer at the Christian Science Monitor's Southeast Asia bureau in Manila. My Masters is Japanese political economy. But he said to me, well, I read “Emperor,“ and what really interested me are these people, these perfumers, who make perfume. He’d had no idea the profession existed. He proposed that I do a behind-the-scenes account of the creation of a perfume. I absolutely didn’t want to do it. I didn’t tell him that, of course. Well, I think I cringed a little. The reason is that I really, really wanted to start reporting from Asia and I really, really didn’t want to have anything to do with fashion. It’s a world I dislike, one I feel quite uncomfortable in. Or felt. I’m a bit more used to it, but the point is, it’s just not my thing—I knew how to write about the automotive industry in Japan, but I had no idea how to write about perfume and fashion, I’d never done it before, “Emperor” sure as hell wasn’t about that—and because of that discomfort I actually wound up turning in a first draft to The New Yorker that they hated, which I didn’t know until after the piece was published. We edited it down, found the narrative, and I discovered that I loved writing about perfume as perfume. Writing “Emperor” I smelled almost nothing. Writing the New Yorker piece and then “The Perfect Scent” I smelled raw materials and perfumes constantly, every day, spent weeks and weeks in laboratories, visited raw materials plants, fields that grew orange blossoms and roses and jasmine. Amazing.


When the New Yorker piece came out, I was at a party at Hermès on Madison Avenue, and Francesca Leoni introduced me to Stefano Tonchi, the head of T Style, the New York Times style magazine. He said, “Come see me Friday at 10!” I showed up at The Times—I hadn’t confirmed, I just showed up at 10—and he was surprised to see me—“But you didn’t confirm!” (Sorry)—but we sat down, and he said, “We want you to write for us! What would you like to do?” I said, “I’d like to be your perfume critic.” He stared at me for a moment and then said, “I love it! We’ll do it!”



PS: Most people involved in perfume know you from “The Emperor of Scent” and its unraveling of the Luca Turin saga. How was it meeting him and knowing him as a man? There are some hints in the book, but fans are interested in more.

CB: I had never spent time with an actual genius before, and it is a profoundly strange sensation. Here is a mind that is simply running at such a high processor speed, with such a large memory and a vastness of information available to it, and I just reveled in it. What’s interesting to me is the range of reaction to Luca as I presented him in “Emperor.” Some people hated the character as they interpreted him in my book, found him arrogant, egotistical—which in my opinion he is not at all; having opinions is not the same thing as being egotistical. Others loved him. “He’s touchy, he’s fun, he’s grouchy, he’s brilliant, he’s self-destructive”—I’ve heard everything from readers of the book.

It seems obvious to me that we exist, as people, in the number of parallel universes that there are people who know us; if five people know you, you are five different people. Luca is certainly touchy, fun—to me, wildly fun, I’ve never been able to have the conversations with people that I have with him—self-destructive, brilliant, entertaining, enlightening. He is also absolutely imperfect; being a genius doesn’t remove flaws, in fact it amplifies them. He can be solipsistic—the breakdown of intelligence—petulant, violent. I’ve been furious at things he’s said and done and vice versa. He’s stopped speaking to me numerous times. In the periods in which we’re on good terms I never, ever have better political conversations, more interesting talks, or a better time with anyone. He is eminently practical (there is no higher word of praise in my vocabulary, just so you know), concise, and, as Luca loves to say, bullshit-free. He can be more reactive and juvenile, more clear minded and perceptive—astonishingly, effortlessly so—than anyone I’ve ever met. He is extra ordinary {sic}. And there it is.


PS: You have been the perfume critic of the New York Times for quite some time now. There has been some criticism about your columns from people who are interested in perfume, especially on internet fora. This is a good thing, because it means that so many read you and pay attention, by the way! The main complaint however has been that you became a perfume critic by association: because you had met someone who had been a perfume critic himself. Other complaints focus on your prose or your attention to the chemical structure of things which they might deem as unromantic. How would you reply to them, if at all?


CB: OK, so let’s take them one by one. Obviously I became a perfume critic by association: I met Luca, I learned from him that perfume criticism existed, I wrote about him doing it, then I started doing it. And? How do they think people become anything? David Geffen started working in the William Morris mailroom. Amy Pascal started as some producer’s assistant; now she’s Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group. In fact, throughout history a vast number of the men and women who’ve made it to the top of their professions started on the lowliest levels in places they got to by pure chance—life is like that—and rose. Joseph Volpe began as a carpenter's apprentice at New York's Metropolitan Opera and four decades later became its general manager. And on and on and on. This is an idiotic observation to make about me on its face.


But if they are actually arguing, elliptically, that my criticism is qualitatively inferior, that’s a completely different and unrelated argument. And they can make that argument. But they should make that argument directly. The other is an observation, not an argument, and it is prima facia moronic. So is my criticism qualitatively inferior? I hope not. I certainly spend an immense amount of time and effort trying to insure it isn’t.


Complaints about my prose and my attention to the chemical structure of things: These are of course perfectly legitimate points. My response is, first, that nobody bats a thousand, and I sure as hell am no exception. I make mistakes (in retrospect, obviously; one only has retrospect to make that call) all the time in choice of adjectives and so on. If you write for a year, you have a year’s worth of writing to find things that you regret. If you write for 30 years, you’ve got 30 years’ worth. Somebody once asked Frank Bruni how often he read what was on the blogs about him, and he said, emphatically, “Never!” My answer is: “Almost never.” First, I’m not a board guy, either technically (I lose my way on them) or temperamentally. Second, the ratio of serious, intelligent criticism of my own writing, both positive and negative, that I’ve seen is relatively small. When it’s there, I love it. A friend sent me to look at something on Perfume of Life recently, and I found an entire thread in which people had not only posed several smart criticisms of me but asked several pertinent questions, and I wound up making the first board entry I think I’ve ever made. I really enjoyed it. I have no time or interest in comments like “Burr is such an asshole,” “What a jerk,” “Yeah, anyone else who can’t stand him?” There is simply zero content here. When the comments are intelligent and thoughtful, then I’m interested.



For example, there’s the criticism of my writing about the molecules and synthetics and the opinion that that makes perfume “unromantic.” I could not possibly disagree more strongly with this point of view, but it’s an entirely legitimate point of view, so to give an answer: For me—not for others, I realize; I’m speaking from my perspective—good criticism decorticates and reverse engineers the art it is examining on a mechanical level as well as a conceptual/ aesthetic one. I used the example once of Alex Ross, the New Yorker’s classical music critic, who will, rarely but sometimes, give specifics about the keys, modalities, and technical details of the music he is criticizing. I wish he did it more. I love it. I’ve read critics who talk about the technical aspects of perspective in painting and the electronics and physics of the machines that reproduce the Ravel that we listen to. I love that. (Luca is actually an expert in this.) So I start from that perspective.

Now, to bring that specifically to perfume: In "The Perfect Scent", this is part of what I say.

"I was at breakfast in Paris at one of the stupidly expensive Alain Ducasse places with the creative director of a prominent French house. I told her about a piece I was writing about synthetics for The Times, explaining the role that synthetics had in perfume and that most perfumes are made of synthetics today. She looked at me with honest horror. She said, “Mais Chandler, tu casses le rêve!” But, Chandler, you’re destroying the dream! The dream being some information-free version of perfume where the stuff presumably flows purely outof a tiny magic spigot attached to a rosebush or something else and is bottled by fairies with LVMH employment contracts. I like this woman. She’s serious and smart, but she shares this viewpoint with the overwhelming majority of French perfume industry people (and basically the same number of their New York counterparts), and I couldn’t disagree with them more. When I repeated the comment to Frédéric Malle, he rolled his eyes and said, “They’re killing themselves with this rêve, which in my opinion is more of a cauchmare.” A nightmare.
For example: Not only are synthetics fascinating; they’re basically completely misunderstood by everyone. Including some of the pros, by the way…..Perfume is a parade of emperor’s new clothes. In the “dream” version of perfume, marketers tell the public that perfumes have “notes of caramel and blueberry,” which simply means, since there are no natural caramel or blueberry perfumery raw materials (it’s neither technically possible nor financially viable to distill them), that the perfumers have just created these scents (perfumers call them accords, not notes, which is a term for public consumption).
You can create the scent of caramel with 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-2(5H)-furanone. If you take that molecule and add a small amount of ethyl butyrate, ethyl valerate, and phenethyl acetate, you get a nice fresh garden berry that would work great in an Escada launch. God forbid the public knew it.
Explaining a jet engine or the wing of a 787 doesn’t destroy the awesome beauty of flight. It doesn’t break the dream. It does the opposite. The more you understand of science, the more you marvel at the magic of reality, and creating the dream is not the same as perpetuating ignorance. It is the opposite: taking people inside, letting them see behind the scenes, showing them how it all works. To the degree to which its public discourse aligns with the truth about the construction of its perfumes, Estée Lauder is always on surer, safer, more solid ground. This is, pretty much, the fundamental political observation of the twentieth century; it is one of the more obvious economic lessons drawn from ideological, antimarket socialist economies where both economic forces and the public relations surrounding them were divorced from the reality of consumer instincts. Lauder’s old public relations policy, in which the perfumer was never to be mentioned and Mrs. Lauder was presented in some vague, inchoate way as sitting in her kitchen pouring raspberry ketone into dihydrojasmonate, is from a different era.

The paradigm is antiquated. I would suggest that it is also commercially ineffective. In fact, probably counterproductive…. Millions are fascinated by the process by which designers like Todd Oldham cut, sew, design, and agonize their fall collections into existence, but the great creative minds at Yves Saint Laurent and Jean Paul Gaultier and Dior, with the collective brilliance of a single mollusk at low tide, have intuited that with perfume? No. Here is an industry suffocating itself on the most immense pile of public relations human civilization has ever produced, a literal mountain of verbiage about “the noble materials, symbol of eternal feminine beauty, addictive notes of Cocoa Puffs, she can’t wait to taste him like a Hershey’s kiss, Cleopatra wore this, it has notes of distilled wild all-natural Martian fungus harvested by French virgins on the third moon of Pluto.” The lies pile up on other lies, they generate a poisoned river of vapid crap the marketers try to pass off as “information,” and the brands have no clue that their public relations approach is about fifty years out of date. Reading anything they put out on their perfumes is like reading a combination of Kafka, only less creative, and Pravda circa 1985. Zero interest. There is almost no recognition that the enforced lack of knowledge, this gaping void of nothingness about what their products actually are, who makes them, and what’s in the things, is creating boredom and disinterest. The perfume industry is choking itself to death on its vacuum."

~The Perfect Scent

PS: On the matter of synthetics, there has been polemics of sorts between people who defend naturals (scents made out of naturally-derived raw materials, that is) and those who prefer synthetics (scents with a preponderance of man-made aroma chemicals). Your own stance so far shows a very distinct tendency towards the latter. Would you mind explaining how and why this came about? Some might say that you are not all that familiar with all-naturals scents anyway.


CB: “Some might say that you are not all that familiar with all-naturals scents anyway.” I may of course be wrong, but I believe I’m more than familiar enough with all-natural scents. I have smelled many of them, in several different collections, over the years. Most lately a new batch, two weeks ago, in a restaurant in Soho. They are natural perfumes, which is to say they have an extremely limited palette, range, and technical performance. They are boring, and my position—which is that synthetics are absolutely just as integral to and legitimate in perfumery as natural materials; not that they are better but simply that they are equal—comes from the simple empirical observation that all raw materials are made up of chemicals. It is utterly illogical to argue that a chemical made in a plant is superior (or inferior for that matter) to the same chemical made in a factory. It’s simply illogical. It is illogical to argue that natural molecules are all good and synthetics all bad when arsenic is natural and it is a poison (as are so many other naturals). It is simply illogical. But religious people are not logical, and the all-natural people are deeply, fervently religious, and I have no more to say to them than I do to any other theocratic fundamentalists. If naturals are simply spiritually better, then my empirical position is worthless and I am wrong by definition. That’s the way religious truth works. In my view, however, religious fanaticism sucks, and it is no more logical to build a perfume today only of natural materials than it is to build a building today only out of mud, wood, and thatch.



PS: Today’s mainstream perfumery has been “cheapened” by popular agreement. Is this due in part to fragrance houses briefing the big companies that produce scents to use the cheapest ingredients, some of which are indeed aroma chemicals that mimic natural essences that have a prohibitive cost or is it merely the ugly head of unrestrained capitalism raising itself?



CB: Yes.



PS: Additionally, today’s mainstream perfumery lacks originality: everyone is copying each other and the latest blockbuster in this tsunami of perfume releases. How did it come to that? Is there a way out? Many perfumers have admittedly become jaded, like Pierre Bourdon for instance.



CB: It came to that in exactly the same way that it came to the exact same thing in Hollywood: I once heard an MBA say to me, rather wearily, “The fundamental principle in business is: reduce risk.” Olivier Cresp did Light Blue for Dolce & Gabbana, and it is just wonderful and delightful, an innovative way of doing clarity as an aesthetic. Then he did Black XS, which was the same theme, and it was slightly less interesting, though still good. Then he did Ange ou Démon, and it was what it was: a copy of a copy. But what is Olivier to do? He’s done this hugely successful thing (that also happens to be very good), they ask him, “Hey, can you make us a Light Blue too?” They mean, usually, in sales figures, but sometimes they just say it: “Copy that!” What is he to do?


YOU CAN READ THE 2nd PART CLICKING HERE




Pic of firing men from the film The wind that shakes the barley courtesy of athinorama. Pic of tryptophan structure from linkinghub.elsevier

Incense Extrême by Tauer: fragrance review

I breathe in the cool incense smoke from the metal brazier,
While thinking about a poem for my dear friend Lu Wa.

My sandalwood-hearted companion spits out plum blossoms of smoke,
Looking like the cloudy fog of the other world.


Perhaps it's the soul of my friend the old mountain man
in the smoke's dense patterns?

- Kan Po, in memoriam (undated)


Incense extrême is the new fragrance by swiss niche perfumer Andy Tauer, that reminds me of the smoke's dense patterns that go up in clouds like the souls of dead men.
Based on a natural CO2 extract of Boswellia serrata (this is Indian frankincense, for those who didn't know) it is only one of a duo of incense scents that Andy is launching in 2008. It is to be accompanied by yet another incense fragrance later on in early spring, March 30, this time named Incense Rosé.


According to Andy Tauer (from Tauerperfumes):

"This natural incense scent inspired me to create different perfumes, with "Incense extreme" being the most abstract, almost cubist and uncompromising interpretation.
It captures the roughness of the climate of the semi desert where Boswellia trees thrive. It is translucent like the first whiff of incense smoke from frankincense resin on red gleaming coal. Yet, it is crisp like a night in the desert.
The Boswellia serrata extract is the central cornerstone of the fragrance, at a concentration of 25%, rounded off with dry woods and ambergris in the background. Soft iris balances the incense in the heart of the fragrance. And coriander and the freshness of petitgrain set the accents in the opening. The richness of the natural incense enchants with an array of impressions, playing differently as it develops, a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes."

As I spray on my skin a somber and cool smoky incense hits the nostrils with all the gusto of an open air fire on which aromatic woods and resins are slowly being burnt. The overall impression is of a fragrance that uses a high percentage of natural ingredients. Elemental, austere and slightly bitter, it calls the wild expanse of dry lands by which it has been inspired. All the while the soft underpinning of a piquant, peppery and tangy note adds its own sharp, short and cool touch. There is no floral impression, no powder that I can discern, as the incense dries off in waxy dropelts, leaving in its wake the lingering impression of trails of smoke through steely skies with the merest hint of sweetness left caressing the skin, like the memento of pleasures abandoned. Myself I admire its cold, clear character that defies pleasanties.

If you were searching for a warm, sensuous, ambery incense you are going to be somewhat disappointed. And although those latter are not my style really, I have to admit that it is less complex or indeed sensual than most of Andy's other creations. Still, there is a sparseness of style that appeals to an intellectualised sensibility, asceticism of both body and mind and the depravasion of earthy delights or the vanity of spirit. This might appeal to our inner sinner longing to repent of self spending in taste, play and song by a stint in the desert. Or our inner Spartan who longs for the black broth of his homeland instead of a feast fit for Lucullus on a borrowed table.
Whether this warrants the extrême qualitative adjective is food for thought: I think not as much. It lacks the weirdness and pungency that one would expect from something tagged so.
But this is not to detract from its value or its worthiness of trying out for yourself.


Notes: coriander, petitgrain, spices, orris, frankincense, cedarwood and ambergris.

Tauer Perfumes Incense extrême comes in 50ml of Eau de Parfum concentration and will be available on 23rd of January.



Tomorrow a juicy post from an insider, a controversial player, that will instigate lots of discussion.
Please check again for it!

Poem found through scents of earth. Pic of incense cones courtesy of L'artisan site.

Twin peaks: Lauder Pleasures Delight & Mugler Innocent

In the realm of sweet scents, the consumer is spoiled for choice. There are literally hundreds of releases that focus in treating our taste buds, rather than our olfactory centers, luring us in with the promise of a pampering, homely and seductive aroma. Estee Lauder, after the very successful launch of Pure White Linen, uses Gwyneth Paltrow again as their face for a spin on their Pleasures scent: one of many spins, if we count Pleasures Intense and Pleasure Exotic and the limited editions that roll out every season.


According to the Pleasures Delight press release by Estee Lauder:

"Life is sweet. Treat yourself to something delicious... a playful side of pleasures that's simply irresistible. This floral confection blends notes of juicy pomegranate, whipped strawberry meringue and tempting caramel with a sprinkling of sugared rose petals, dewy freesia, white peony and fresh greens. How can you resist?"

The fragrance is a

"floral gourmand confection blending juicy fruits, tangy citrus and irresistible desserts and sweets".

The fragrance is indeed quite pleasing: creamy, rich, sweet predictably, but not nauseating, with a tangy bite, with very good staying power. However it is not distinctive enough in a market that is saturated with similar offerings. Still it is a decent example of this genre of gourmand perfumery and the clean, sweetish patchouli in the base makes for a sensual perfume. I can sense the caramely sweetness that has a tinge of powdery vanillic softness, but no floral elements per se. It leaves a velvety trail behind which accounts for much of its pleasant effect. Although the official notes are not that close to Innocent by Thierry Mugler, upon smelling it this is the impression I got, me being a long time fan of the latter.

The notes of Pleasures Delight encompass:
pomegranate, fresh greens, freesia, whipped strawberry meringue, peony, lily, muguet, heliotrope, sugared rose petals, caramel, marshmallow, vanilla, patchouli.
Pleasures Delight comes in 50 and 100 ml Eau de Parfum and a complimentary body lotion and shower gel, available at major department stores.


Innocent by Thierry Migler came out in 1998, as their first "variation" on Angel. It first came in an canister like that of deodorant sprays, but the company soon realised it did the scent a disservice and they opted for the bluish column with the star cap you see for their eau de parfum.
According to Amazon, it is a "Mystic, Flowery and Fresh Fragrance". I think it's neither, but anyway. To me it is a comfort scent with a potent vibe of slightly burnt meringues laced with glazed, tart fruits oozing caramely goodness. If you are familiar with those sugared almond-shaped chocolates coated with pastel colours of hardened glaze that people put into the wedding and christening little pouches for the guests, this is quite close and very delectable with a slightly bitter edge.
Innocent also has a sparkly quality right ahead that makes an impression to anyone in proximity and retains its message for hours. It's especially good on clothes and stays true for days. In fact it is one of the scents that has consistently earned me compliments from men, belying its name of cherubic nuances. It turns heads in a good way and it is a bit less ubiquitous than Angel, which has become a very recognisable smell due to its huge popularity.

If I were pondering on which of the two scents to choose, Pleasures Delight or Innocent, I would go with my firm favourite: not because of any fault of the former, but rather because since something has already been done, it's worth perservering to one's first choice. It stands for character. Or so I tell myself...

Notes for Innocent:
Top notes: bergamot, mandarin, helional.
Heart notes: honey, dewberry, black currant, passion fruit.
Base notes: sugar almonds, meringue, amber, musk

Pic of twins by Diane Arbus via Transidex. Pic of Innocent bottle from aromatic, pic from Lauder campaign from the official site

How much more gorgeous can you go?

Seek and you shall find: it is these biblical words that come to mind upon seeing the gorgeous advertisements of the year 1972 by Guerlain.
I was seeking an ad that would depict a red-haired beauty for Mitsouko in a futile search for the entertaining although completely frivolous concept of perfumes for certain haircolours,; a concept that had been in practice however at the start of the 20th century when houses would produce indeed fragrances aimed at different types of women, as classified per haircolour. Patou was one of them. Guerlain also had created Mitsouko for darker women and L'heure bleue for blondes, as I had read in a perfumer's confession to a journalist acquaintance.
And then I stumbled upon these. And a vista of beautiful possibilities opened up...

Shalimar for a raven-haired seductress


Mitsouko for a redhead introspect

L'heure bleue for a wistful, enigmatic dark blonde

Jicky for a dynamic, sizzling blonde



and finally, the pièce de resistance:
Vol de Nuit for a regal auburn-shaded brunette




Never mind that it looks like it's the same model on all the above ads. Ah...the perfume lover can dream, can't she?




all pics courtesy of okadi