Mona Lisa by Profumo.it: fragrance review

If Mona Lisa were Parisian and one hell of a sexy lady she would have worn Mona Lisa, the all natural perfume by Abdes Salaam/ Dominique Dubrana. Mona Lisa is a bespoke fragrance composed for a certain lady in the all too real life of Aspen, Colorado and Dubrana interacted with Laura Donna on mapping out the preferences of the lady in question.

She settled on a trio of natural civet, tuberose absolute and mandarin which Dubrana garlanded with other precious essences. The client, an entrepreneur and owner of Main Street Reprographics, a digital graphics company, named Mona, had asked for something "subtle but killer" - because for her, wearing fragrance is a social act as well as a personal pleasure.

The result? An Ava Gardner of a scent with the feel of Sarah-Moon-does-Seurat, laden with mystery and mock innocence. The real Mona was elated! "“I got it!! I just got my perfume. It is like nothing I have ever smelled before. It is a little bit musky, powdery. It is very light, like a feather. It is not an old scent, it is not a young scent, it seems very natural. As soon as I can I would like to create another. What fun having my own scent. I feel sooo special.” (through the Laura Donna blog)

Mona Lisa by La Via del Profumo doesn't really segregate into billows and notes, but has an amalgamated feel about it, very smooth, very soft, very feminine; the civet-animalic feel is so powdery velvet it gives a soft-focus effect to all the other notes and the florals especially. You can't pinpoint it as a tuberose scent for sure and that's a plus sometimes as too often tuberose scents are so focused on the glorious tuberose they become like a stage performance where only the central diva is noteworthy and all the others are in attendance. Here one has trouble seeing it predominate and it blends seamlessly and delicately. I would think that there was actually a tinctured alcohol with tuberose and civet in use for the composition and the rest of the ingredients are married to it through osmosis. Hardly recognisable as the intense floral of other compositions, it emits a slight hint of coconut. The animalic civet is giving such a powdery, plush feel, I am immediately seduced by my own arm! Mandarin remains succulent and juicy, especially lingering on clothes, a surprising effect given that after the initial outlay Mona Lisa stays very close to the skin. The background has an almondy, tonka bean ambience about it with the individual muskiness of ambrette seeds.

Mona Lisa smells enticing, like a proper French perfume of old instead of a random mix of natural essences and yet retains a vibrancy that instantly makes you feel good, reassuring, leaning to smell the scent on your arms again and again and again in all stages...
How does Dubrana do it? He doesn't say. It should remain thus: the enigmatic, sphinx-like smile of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

You can buy a batch of Mona Lisa on the Profumo.it/Via del Profumo site. (The incensy Persona and the heavenly neroli-ladden Morning Blossom are also highly recommended while you're at it!)

Photo Metro by Kees Terberg via les-leves.com, Photo by Sarah Moon via jessnewyork.blogspot.com

Jean-Paul Guerlain in conversation with Thierry Wasser on Wallpaper

"When Wasser studied perfumery he was made to deconstruct and copy Guerlain’s iconic fragrances. Now he is the envy of the profession, learning from the master not only the creative signature of the company, but also those bits of the profession that are wiped from the duties of the modern perfumer - the inspirational travel and first hand sourcing of materials which has always been the job of the Guerlain perfumer.".

Read the interview with Thierry Wasser, in-house perfumer at Guerlain, paying his respects to his mentors and Jean Paul Guerlain here on Wallpaper.

Alerted through Basenotes forum.

A Chanel Exclusive Now Widely Available

As we had discussed the other day while focusing on changes on the Chanel USA site, the latest Les Exclusifs addition (2008), Beige by Jacques Polge, is joining the line-up of fragrances available online. It's my pleasure to be the first to announce that the information is now official, sent to me by the good people at Chanel, and in view of Beige making the FiFi 2009 finalists there is an exclusive pre-launch offering on Chanel.com.

Beige is described as "An intense powdery floral of natural elegance and grace - eponymous for Mademoiselle’s Chanel’s favorite colour. New white petals and yellow gold flowers blend are highlighted by hints of honey that reveal its discreet sensuality."
Click this link to view the page and order. (NB: this is the only link that will land you on the Exclusifs page, as the site is not yet officially carrying them for those who are not in the know)

200ml of Eau de Toilette for 200$.


Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Chanel news and articles, Les Exclusifs reviews

More Hermes and Jean Claude Ellena

For those who can read Italian there is an interview in Italian Marie Claire Belleza no.7 (May 2009 issue) of Jean Claude Ellena ~whom we also interviewed on this venue~ to journalist Cristina Torlaschi. The interview is focusing on the latest Hermès Colognes and is to be found on pages 38-39.

There is also an article on the National Post called "Jean Claude Ellena: Return to Scenter" by Nathalie Atkinson. The article is witty, elegantly written and highlighting the respect with which Ellena is treated for his vision. "In a world where our senses are under attack all the time," says Sadd, "Ellena creates this quiet little exercise that sneaks up on you, and hides the mechanics of it and makes you feel something, for a split second." And "When a man waiting for his latte at Starbucks walks across the room to smell you, it's probably Jean-Claude Ellena. [...]it was the dry, dusty Bois d'Iris from Ellena's own former perfume brand The Different Company that stopped the man at Starbucks in his tracks. "

Alerted on Italian article through Extrait.it

Mothers and Kids and the Scents that Bind Us Together

“And how should a baby smell in your opinion?”
“A baby should smell good!” the nurse {Jeanne Bussie} replied.
“What does good mean?” father Terrier’s voice sounded booming. “Lots of things smell good: A nosegay of lavender smells good. Chicken soup smells good. The gardens of Arabia smell good. How does a baby smell?” […]
“It’s not that easy…” the nurse began “because…they don’t smell everyplace the same, although they smell everyplace wonderful, father, you understand…on their feet for instance, they smell like a smooth, warm pebble ~no, make that clay…or like butter, like fresh butter. And on their torso they smell like …biscuit soaked in warm milk. But on the top of the their head, right there on the crown, right here where you don’t have anything anymore” and with that she touched the centre of the bald spot on father Terrier’s head, who, affronted with this stream of detailed nonsense had remained speechless and had submissively bowed his head, “here, they smell exquisite! Here, they smell like butterscotch, so sweet and wonderful, father, that you can’t really imagine! If you smell a baby there, you will love it, whether it is your own or someone else’s”. [*]

When I first read those memorable lines in Patrick Süskind’s classic novel Das Parfum, the story of a man with an extraordinary sense of smell but no personal odor of his own, I was but a mere teenager. The thought of having a baby of my own was not even a spermatic idea at the back of my mind; it was simply an indefinite non-entity! I was never one to coo in maternal mode upon seeing babies ~although I always had a fondness for small children and their intelligent way of interpreting the world~ and one who never heard her biological clock going ding dang dong “time to have a baby”. Love for a man took care of it. And I never had a sick day or perfume-free day all the while.
We often hear “you can’t judge unless you’re in someone’s shoes” and that goes doubly so for parenthood. But upon smelling my own, I remembered how those lines from the novel took their own life, their own truth, and the miracle was happening right under my own… nose! It’s indecipherable for anyone who isn’t a mother and it’s the special bond which forms between two beings at their most primal level. Like we choose a mate that their natural odor pleases us, so our offspring bear in their genetic makeup the scented fingerprint which ties them to us, making us able to differentiate our own among many. I often linger over my sleeping child inhaling deeply the yummy smell with eyes closed...And I can imagine that an adoptive mother grows to learn ~and eventually love~ their children’s smell, just like they learn to recognize their tastes and their idiosyncrasies. Because that personal scent is a constant reminder and a symbol for nurture and love.

But babies very quickly show off how they are able to smell their mother out as well! This is why I forwent the beloved Mitsouko and my emblematic Opium fumes for a while to give a chance for this special bond to form and for fenugreek tea to make me all maple-y smelling. It’s enough to breastfeed once to see how the baby turns its small nose and mouth to the sweet scent of milk like a hungry little puppy; that nectar of nature meant to help it grow, to help it become the man or the woman who will be in later life is naturally scented with a vanillic aroma which is perpetuated through baby food later on for a reason. Reminiscences of those tender moments are never far off, read like a language of smiles and smells.

The pleasant is never coming without the less enjoyable and changing nappies soon gets you intimate with the urinous muskiness of baby pee (which has an eerily animalic quality like that of real deer musk and the background of Guerlain's Shalimar) and the sulphurous odor of poop as soon as a mixed diet is introduced. Perhaps the baby’s own reluctance to get disgusted by the excrement however is the most interesting observation and one which you have to see with your own eyes to attest that although nature has guided us through smell into making the healthiest choices, our aversion to poop is not hard-wired genetically but is a product of cultural integration.

An olfactory inquisitive mind can have a field day while adventuring into the Land of Baby Smells: A whole industry is making changing a nappy its focus and every little thing has an odor of its own ~from the paper-mill cedar scent of nappies themselves which remind me of L'artisan's Dzing! to the heliotropin and linalool of scented toilettes/wet-wipes with their nod to Après L’Ondée ; and on to the rosy-almond scent of the nappy cream and the vanilla, geranium and citrus of Johnson's & Johnson's baby powder. The sweet smelling hesperidia and lavender colognes for kids like Tartine et Chocolat Ptitsebon by Givenchy or Petit Guerlain , put on clothes, are not an act of sexing the baby up or hiding their glorious olfactory fingerprint, but a gesture of bien-être dans sa peau, a very European traditional gesture of propriety. My mother did it to me, I do it to my kid!

Yet what I am most interested in is how the child gets to get guided through life from the olfactory point of view. The eyes light up at the smell of food cooking, giggles erupt when warm milk fills the kitchen with its comforting scent, inquisitiveness starts when presented with a new flavor such as sour pineapple, garlicked meat with okra or the earthy aroma of lentils’ soup. How nostrils quiver when out at play and a small flower gets under the nose. How animals, places and people are identified and often compared by smell: “This is the bakery where we’re greeted by the scent of fresh bread- circles with sesame”; “That’s Freddy the tabby who smells like cassie” and “Where is my sweet-smelling papa?” I intend to give that kind of education to my kid and let it form its own olfactory landscape where no smell is bad and no flavor is not to be tasted; and thus hopefully create a sensuous human being who will enrich others.

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Please visit also Smelly Blog for Ayala Sender's piece, Illuminated Journal for Roxana Villa's piece and Scent Hive for Trish's piece, for more scented thoughts on motherhood!

*translation from the Greek edition by Perfume Shrine.
Art Photography by Spyros Panayotopoulos/eiakstiko.gr and istockphotography.com