Tom Ford Grey Vetiver: fragrance review

~by Mike Perez

Has it really been 18 months since the last Tom Ford masculine scent (Tom Ford Extreme) was released? In the rapid-fire release schedule for fragrances, it seems like Mr. Ford took his time releasing a new masculine (unlike the 4 unisex Private Blends he launched in less than a year and his new feminine, White Patchouli).

Our patience has been rewarded: his newest masculine, Grey Vetiver, is slated for a fall 2009 release and Perfume Shrine was able to obtain an exclusive pre-release sample.

It is easy to love the fougère-oriented top notes – reminiscent of violet leaf, angelica and something slightly watery and pungent. Imagine holding your breath in an outdoor pool, under the surface, and then once reaching the surface to fill your lungs the air smells of grasses, plants and leaves…mixing with the scent of dripping water. Not an aquatic fragrance (thank goodness, the men’s fragrance counter has more than its share of this kind of scent), yet the smell of wet and thriving plant life clearly define the beginning notes of Grey Vetiver.

The vetiver note seems as if it has been genetically spliced – all of the dirty and soiled bits have been removed leaving a shiny, metallic and distinct vetiver accord that increasingly gets richer, smoother and softer as it dries on skin. Grey Vetiver belongs to the clean vetiver family, of which Encre Noire by Lalique and Series 3: Cologne Vettiveru by Comme des Garcons belong – yet it also leans a bit towards the theme that Frédéric Malle and Dominique Ropion strove for in Vetiver Extraordinaire (loads of vetiver, crisp, no sweetness). Ever so often, I got a whiff of acidic lemon.
My first thought, after I enjoyed wearing this scent was: do I need another new vetiver scent? The answer is, no! Yet, there’s something entirely unique about this one.

It’s barbershop-oriented top notes will make it easy for men to love this on first sniff (my hunch is, this will be a big hit for Tom Ford Beauty), but the modern salty vetiver and spiced woods should appeal to those who like to mix it up a bit (think KenzoAir, minus the anise-headspace radiance). Even though Ford is releasing this as a masculine fragrance, it has a delightful fresh-as-a-summer-breeze manner which defies being categorized as only for men.

The only official notes we were able to get from Tom Ford Beauty are: vetiver blended w/ sun drenched citrus, refined spices and rich woods. The 1.7 oz bottle (a frosted glass version of the iconic TF men’s fluted bottle) will be $85.00 and is set to be released September 2009.

Tom Ford will be in person, at Selfridges (Oxford Street) UK department store on Wednesday, June 10th 2009 from 5:30pm to 6:30pm to sign bottles from his Private Blend collection and to introduce the newest in the line up, Bois Marocain. {click for review}

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Tom Ford scents, Vetiver Series

Pic of a bunch of vetiver roots that are reinforcing a wall in Australia, from Vetiver World Wide. Pic of Tom Ford found by Mike Perez

Zoa Night Perfume by Parfums Regine: new fragrance

For those of you who are not familiar with Régine, a Parisian constant in the nightclubs scene, suffice to say that she was involved in launching eponymous perfumes for 20 years now (After all, we've already discussed how the celebrity scent phenomenon is not that recent here).

Now comes Zoa, Night Perfume, a new launch inspired by a 1966 song, encased in a striking black bottle meant to represent a dancing figure of the night. The audacious floriental powdery-ambery composition was developed by Emilie Coppermann encompassing notes of peony, spicy rose and orchid.
Zoa by parfums Régine is exclusively available at the French concept store Colette this June and will launch widely in autumn.
Bottles of 30ml, 50ml, 100ml, from 27 to 60 euros.



Pic via fashionmag

How to Smell of the Cricket Lawn while Stuck behind your Mac

The smell of cricket (and I mean the game, not the little critter) is apparently more appealing than you might have thought, according to two articles that occupy themselves with efforts of perfumers and scientists to find fragrances that mimic the outdoors so that people (men in particular) stuck behind their desks all day in the corporate environment can smell of the great outdoors. And oh, in case we forget about the aspirational airs of fragrance, not just any outdoors, but the frightfully British (and considered posh) sport of cricket: "In Britain, we have a national therapy, we call it cricket. Unlike other sports, it doesn't involve anxieties or pressures. It's leisurely and lyrical. It's the song of willow on leather". (if you're wondering click to find out the quote source) What's next, I wonder? Ersatz "I'm working my ass off and deserve a raise" spray? Don't knock it, it might not be far behind!

The first article announces the introduction of outdoors replicating odours

"Perfume makers have now captured scents from cricket grounds, including the changing rooms, cricket bats and kit, as well as from the cabins of ocean-going yachts"

and is clearly taking its cue from the longer and more detailed second article which highlights the whys and hows.

“We are looking for modern smells that have never been used in fragrances before but which have strong associations with activities that people enjoy or respect,” said Will Andrews, a fragrance scientist at Procter & Gamble (P&G), which makes perfumes by Hugo Boss, Dolce & Gabbana and Lacoste. His aim is not to recreate the sweaty smell of a cricket pavilion or yacht cabin but to find “notes” within the odours found in such places that evoke positive emotions associated with sporty activities.[...] Harvey Prince, an American manufacturer, recently claimed that its Ageless Fantasy scent had captured the smell of youth, so that women wearing it would be perceived as around eight years younger than they were. Independent tests suggested, however, that the benefits were unclear.[...]P&G’s research has shown that there are many smells that have acquired a modern appeal. Even the “electronic” smell of a warm computer is attractive to some people – and P&G is trying to bottle that too".

Read the whole article here which makes also some interesting points about how some scents become obsolete through association and the passage of time.

Now you know why your new perfume is having notes named "waterfall accord" and "deck sea spray" accord!

Pic via oldthorntoniansclapham.org.uk

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