What perfume does Michelle Obama wear?

In an article by Roxana Sarmiento on Stylelist.com the elusive answer to many people's question as to what the current First Lady in the White House, Michelle Obama, chooses to wear as a personal fragrance is answered. The reporter credits The Financial Times with the info scoop and goes on to say:

"What's interesting is that she bought the fragrances based on scent alone (the bottles are identical) yet the names of the fragrances say a lot about her. Which did she choose? Noble, Divine, and Delicate (which is currently sold out). Sounds perfect for a First Lady, don't you think?"

The scents are created under the brand Boedicea the Victorious, a name which is a throwback to epic-making Celtic figures in the UK's history of fight against the Romans.
Noble ("en exotic calling card") is encompassing bergamot, rose, vanilla and patchouli. Divine takes jasmine as the core and calls us to "breathe in the ripeness of this fecund and sweet flower" garlanded with aldehydes, mandarin, styrax and sandalwood. Delicate is considered "a delightfull old fashioned quintessential British scent that is destined to be a cult classic" and is exploring the olfactory landscapes of fields of bluebells, hyacinths, rose, lily and jasmine underscored by galbanum and the spicy caravan of clove and cinnamon.

All in all, mrs Obama has chosen a true fragrance wardrobe, something for every mood!

According to Harrod's who carries the UK-exclusive brand (along with Selfridge's): "Prepare to be seduced by Boadicea The Victorious. Historically inspired, this brand takes its name from its muse, Queen Boadicea of the Iceni, who led her people to a glorious war against the Romans. The result? A range of scents which evoke and celebrate feminine strength with an urban edge - ideal for the modern warrioress. Renowned stylist Michael Boadi, in partnership with a royal English perfumer, using only the purest scents". [sic]

You can see the whole line on the Boadicea the Victorious site.

What is Chandler Burr up to with his new book?

Most of you know Chandler Burr from his regular columns on scent, Scent Notes, in the New York Times, as well as his articles on the Style magazine supplement to the Times, and his two books, "The Emperor of Scent" and "The Perfect Scent" (both quite educational and enjoyable reading by the way and highly recommended). We had conducted a two-part interview with Chandler Burr on Perfume Shrine too, which you can read here and here. But as rumours to the precarious position faced by The New York Times, were fueled by comments on a unrelated Thinking Digital convention in the UK in which he was a speaker, some of you might have been wondering what he will do next. Or rather what he has been doing lately regardless of that eventuality!

The time is ripe for me to announce to you what has transpired by some private conversations which we had with Chandler Burr, namely that he has his first novel out: "You or Someone Like You". Yup, a piece of fiction unrelated to perfume and something that is inspired by his own esoteric path in life, having to do with his struggle between his conflicting background: Judaism on the side of his father (his mother is Protestant) and his personal choices. Feeling like an outcast within that frame, left him with the desire to give voice to what it feels like to belong or not, the idea of "group-ness" itself. "It's not only restricted to Judaism, but this is my experience", he had intimated to me.

The plot is nicely delineated in the book jacket, which bears a blonde sketch not unlike Gwyneth Paltrow (intentional or not?), herself a product of mixed background, and I quote:

"Anne Rosenbaum leads a life of quiet Los Angeles privilege, the wife of Hollywood executive Howard Rosenbaum and mother of their seventeen-year-old son, Sam. Years ago Anne and Howard met studying literature at Columbia-she the daughter of a British diplomat from London, he a boy from an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. Now on sleek blue California evenings Anne attends halogen-lit movie premieres on the arm of her powerful husband. But her private life is lived in the world of her garden, reading books.
When one of Howard's friends, the head of a studio, asks Anne to make a reading list, she casually agrees- though, "Anne," a director reminds her, "no one reads in Hollywood." To her surprise, they begin calling: screenwriters, producers from their bungalows, and agents from their plush offices on Wilshire and Beverly. Soon Anne finds herself leading an exclusive book club for the industry elite. Emerging gradually from her seclusion, she guides her readers into the ideas and beauties of Donne, Yeats, Auden, and Mamet with her brilliant and increasingly bold opinions. But when a crisis of identity unexpectedly turns an anguished Howard back toward the orthodoxy he left behind as a young man, Anne must set out to save what she values above all else: her husband's love."

Things are peppered with small sub-stories, and with lots of caustic wit, judging by the previews, thankfully it seems bypassing the kitschy stuff inherent in cliché twists (we had elaborated on how art can pose the risk of Kitsch in detail here) but at some point the two heroes draw apart, as you can read in this small excerpt:

"He wraps some black shoes in felt. There is a suit bag. He is leaving our home.

Who will you be staying with? I ask.

He is struggling with the suitcase. "I'll be in touch," he says through gritted teeth, working on the lock. He snaps shut the case, hefts the suit bag. Glances heavily at the dresser to check that he hasn't forgotten anything.

Who will you be staying with?

It takes an instant for his feet to begin to move.

I hear his footsteps going down the hall. The kitchen door opening, a moment of auditory void, then the sound of it closing. An eternal period, and the car's powerful German engine wakes again, calm mechanical equanimity. I listen to the recessional down our driveway. The faint sound of gravel crunching under tire comes through the open window, then the engine, the car leaps forward, and Howard vanishes into what is left of the night.

The movie cliché is the woman reaching out her hand, touching his pillow, and only then remembering. But I, when I wake again, find by contrast that my brief sleep has been entirely drenched in a blue distillate of his departure, such that even awake I confuse waking with sleeping and believe dreams to have become merely mundane. Unlike in the movies, there is never a single instant I don't know that he's gone".

When I asked Chandler whether he feels like he might chaff some butts with his comments, even though I was sure he must had considered it already, he told me the most memorable line: "And maybe some will think 'Isn't this completely obvious? Why don't we deal with this clear problem of not being able to reconcile Jewish tribalism and racialism with democratic, contemporary universalism and anti-racialism?'"

The book is officially launching on Tuesday June 9th in hardcover from Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; you can read reviews on this and yet on another link; you can pre-order the book at Amazon clicking here.

Chandler will make personal appearences with free readings (no admission tickets!) as follows:
June 10, 7:00 PM at McNally Jackson,52 Prince St.New York, NY,
June 16, 7:30 PM at Borders 11301 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD
June 18, 7:00 PM at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
June 22, 7:00 PM at Book Soup 8818 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA and on the 23rd, same time, at Vroman's Bookstore 695 E. Colorado Blvd. LA
June 24, 7:30 PM at Elliot Bay Book Company Town Hall 1119,8th Avenue Seattle,WA
June 25, 7:00 PM at Book Passage 51 Tamal Vista Blvd.Corte Madera, CA
June 26, 12:00 PM at Rakestraw Books 522 Hartz Ave. Danville, CA
and at 7:00 PM at A Great Good Place for Books 6120 LaSalle Avenue Oakland, CA
June 30, 7:00 PM at Barnes and Noble 2289 Broadway @ 82nd St.New York, NY

How much love kills?

I'm a little rushed today so there's no review, but in the spirit of keeping you on your toes and allowing you more airtime with your comments I included a clip of one of my favourite films, "Romeo is bleeing" (1993) with Gary Oldman, Annabella Sciorra, Lena Olin, Roy Schneider and Juliette Lewis. It's much darker than it looks from the following clip with the romantic "Too Much Love Will Kill You" song by the Queen, be warned.
So please be my guest and free-associate: Have you ever been in a comparable situation? Were you wearing something scented in particular? Would you have thought of something in particular as fitting? Or simply state what you think the characters should wear. The ball is in your park!



The draw for the Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus is still open and I will accept all comments till midnight. Hope to announce the winner by Monday.

Clip originally uploaded by GOFoxy on Youtube

Neil Morris new Vault fragrances: fragrance reviews

It's not customary for me to review several fragrances in one go, but seeing as I was sent some new Vault samples from the trismegista Ida/Chayaruchama and some others from a representative of Neil Morris, the temptation to group my thoughts on these was immense and I couldn't resist. Days of consecutive testing left me with the impression that people who are very much attuned to the richer, ambery and woody end of the spectrum in fragrance preferences should have no trouble at all finding something in the extensive Neil Morris portfolio to fall in love with. I found some surprising hits and some misses myself where I didn't expect to, so sampling is the only way to go (as if this needed further insisting upon). This last May they were celebrating their one year anniversary of the introduction of Vault fragrances and I am at a loss on how they could manage to have so many there already! (For what is worth I always loved the wondrously leathery Gotham from his Signature Collection)

But who is this ultraniche artisanal perfumer, Neil Morris? According to Where Magazine, he "takes the cake as Boston’s resident fragrance artiste” and I admit I can't think of anyone else hailing from this untraditional locale (which evokes universities and the rare urban deliquent or two to my mind). Can you? It might sound superficial, but knowing the good, trusty relationship that Ida has had with self-taught Neil over the years has feeling sympathetic to the man through reflection of Ida's wonderful warm personality, even though I don't even know him! I also appreciate the fact that in times of recession he's trying to accomodate perfumistos and reduces the size and accordingly the price of his creations. He's on top of a trend obviously and more people in the business should pay attention to their audience! And I love that I have been twice given the chance to sample compositions that were custom-made for a friend: first Le Parfum d'Ida which has entered the mainstay collection at the Vault (and it's highly recommended to sample this!) and then Rêve Foncé, translating as "dark dream", a leathery smooth potion containing no aldehydes to her specification.

The newest 2009 Vault fragrances have something for everyone it seems.
Rumi, inspired by the Persian mystic, poet and philosopher, literally took me by surprise with its warm rosiness and incandescent resinoids. I had decided not to read any notes before sampling so as to have my mind free of associations, but if the ouris in Muslim heaven wear this, the promised rivers of milk are guaranteed to run forever. It's so delectably ambery, with a powdery veil of golden warmth, its core vibrating with good rose absolutes that I stand corrected in not usually liking roses. I love this one! Considering I have been impressed by Andy Tauer's Une Rose Chyprée lately, it looks like I need to devote some airtime to rose fragrances in general.
In that vein Vanille Rosé was a posteriori another surprise: This one is taking the other road of rose, the traditional rose of yore, a Tudor rose so to speak. It reminded me of something my mother wore beautifully in the past, which I couldn't place, until I realised it was a simple but pretty rose essence she had received from South of France from a poet friend residing in Marseilles. There is a beautiful vanilla tonality that lasts well in the perfume and I detect a citrusy touch which highlights the more crystalline, fruity facets of the rose. While I am usually leery of roses which never quit, I satisfyingly wore this the whole day and with the leaping realisation we get when we catch ourselves in a mirrored door in the background: "Hey, stranger, who is this? Oh gosh, it's me!!"

Maria in her laconic Midnight Forest review stresses its "touch of magic, but no monsters" and I can't but agree. The initial blast of galbanum, bowlder-like bitter, has an intensely bell- pepper green aroma which took a couple of prisoners along the way and I admit I was hesitant, but the drydown is resinous woody with a delectable myrrh trail that provides a mystical touch of vielle église.

Red Sky begins with an intense, piquant lemongrass note that petters out to a resinous background, meant to evoke the Southewestern sky at sunset. Mystic Dragon on the other hand, inspired by a Chinatown walk during the Chinese New Year's celebration, utilizes a mixture of cocoa absolute ~which smells uncanningly like real melted chocolate (and will give you ideas, but sois sage!)~ and warm patchouli, its natural chocolate-y facets complimenting the absolute. Both fuse into an amalgamation of beckoning sweetness on the skin. A little too sweet for my personal tastes, but I can see it becoming popular with folks.
Mariner is a standard masculine around citrusy, rosey and woody notes, which is pleasant if not too distinctive and I would have liked it to be more wistful, like it fits those who go down the sea in ships.
In Vapor Neil Morris took a risk: The fragrance feels like a ball of almondy pastry suspended into an invisible veil of pincushions all around, its sharp opening tingling with frost, giving way to the resinous-ambery base that Neil Morris so loves.

I was more impressed overall by City Rain, the first tentative drops on the hot pavement and the creosote slowly becoming an enveloping sensation when you think you're in a viridian whirlwind travelling at God-speed towards a hidden cool colliery where the sun only tentatively shines. And if that whirlwind accidentally gushes you in a terrain where exotic blossoms raise their heads from enchanted pits that whisper to you to lean and see the darkness up close, then you're face to face with Prowl which is as prowl-worthy as its name. The soiled white-floral ache is meowing through the tall grasses.

Regarding Neil Morris for Takashimaya, Chandler Burr described it as "luxury retro with power and a high-gloss, premodernist effect. The scent is purplish fruit, big pinot noir and dark ripe plum, plus the scent of a 1930s boudoir: the fragrances of the old-fashioned creams and makeup and the scarlet velvet drapes thrown in". The fragrance is full of dark fruits drenched in pear eau de vie and is intended for the hedonists among you.

Notes for Neil Morris Vanille Rose: Orange blossom, heliotrope, green tea, red rose, dark vanilla, musk.
Notes for Neil Morris Rumi: Ylang ylang, rose, benzoin, patchouli, amber.
Notes for Neil Morris Midnight Forest: Galbanum, redwood, dark musk, nagarmotha, oak, myrrh, and myrtlewood.
Notes for Neil Morris Mystic Dragon: Jasmine, amber, patchouli, smoke, cedar, chocolate.
Notes for Neil Morris Mariner: Italian bergamot, Damask rose, geranium, white musk, cedar, sandalwood. Notes for Neil Morris Red Sky: Lemongrass, lavender, narcissus, delphinium, oakmoss, amber, black musk.
Notes for Neil Morris Vapor: Aldehydes, water lily, tonka bean, heliotrope, frankincense, amber, musk.
Notes for Neil Morris City Rain: Green tea, ozone, heliotrope, honeysuckle, blue musk, green patchouli, earth note, golden musk.
Notes for Neil Morris Prowl: Black pepper, honeysuckle, jasmine sambac, tuberose, patchouli, oakmoss, amber, civet.

The Neil Morris Vault fragrances can be purchased directly on the official site , 70$ for 1oz/30ml and they ship internationally. They also offer generous samples for 5$ each.
More info: Neil Morris Fragrances, 221 massachusetts avenue, suite 501, boston, ma 02115 tel 617.267.2315

Joseph Mallord William Turner painting Peace via funeralatsea.com. Illustration Voyager by Chris Moore via angelart.com. Pic of Neil Morris and client via his site

Yves Saint Laurent Parisienne: new fragrance

The newest feminine fragrance by Yves Saint Laurent is officially corroborated as Parisienne and will be fronted by Kate Moss. There had been a photoshoot with Craig McDean by the Eiffel Tower a while ago and Kate seemed so in love with the couturier's smoking jacket she refused to let it go for days later. Right when she's ready to launch her own celebrity fragrance, Vintage, after the commercial success of her first eponymous scent Kate Moss, there rolls this new contract!

Parisienne will launch next autumn and will be encased in a bottle that is eerily reminiscent of the diamond-cut one of the original Paris. [click for a review]
Judging by the roses that accompanied the photo-shoot (and which perhaps not coincidentally perfectly match the shade of the bottle and juice) and by the optical resemblance of design to Paris fragrance, it's safe to assume that rose as a note or perhaps a central diva will be featured in the newest feminine fragrance by Yves Saint Laurent, composed by perfumers Sophia Grojsman (the nose behind the original Paris) and Sophie Labbé. Also the name, a variant denoting the citizen of Paris, the city, alludes to some relevance with the classic rose-violet perfume by the master couturier. The alleged vinyl top note comes with all the modern clin d'oeil to a younger generation who might have grown up with Paris being worn by their mothers, so it's natural they want to strut their own way in pleather slim-pants much like their idol, fashion-plate Kate Moss.

Parisienne will be available in 30ml/1oz, 50ml/1.7oz and 90ml/3oz of Eau de Parfum for prices between 51 and 90 euros and it will be accompanied by ancillary products, such as body lotion, shower gel and deodorant spray.

A perceptive reader of mine notified me at last Monday that the new fragrance is already featured slightly discounted on an online store in the Netherlands, from which comes the pic of the bottle, but the articles are not yet available for sale.

Update:
Official notes for Yves Saint Laurent Parisienne:

Top: “vinyl accord (evoking metal gloss and varnish)”, cranberry, blackberry
Heart: Damask rose, violet, peony
Base: patchouli, vetiver, musk, sandalwood.

The teaser ads, tagged "Qui est Parisienne?" (Who is Parisienne?) are playful, to the accompaniment of bass riffs.
Qui est Parisienne ?

Watch more on www.ysl-parisienne.com/fr and take the fun test to win a week being Parisienne! (take the test clicking here)

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Yves Saint Laurent series.
Pics thanks to Modelinia.com and parfumerie.nl, video Dailymotion.