Jo Malone launches new line, English Pear & Freesia new fragrance

Some years after being sold to the Lauder Group, Jo Malone, the doyenne of prim British elegance in skincare and fragrancing, is set to launch a new line of fragrances, seemingly under the creative aegis of perfumer Christine Nagel. Jo, now 46, sold her company to Estée Lauder in 1999 in what can only be described as the “deal of a lifetime” (figure is rumoured to be £5 million) for the high-school drop-out who is self-professedly "seriously dyslexic". She stayed on in a creative capacity, but in 2003 Jo was diagnosed with breast cancer which necessitated chemotherapy and some serious focusing on her own life. Now, healthy and strong again, she's back in business! Her next venture, another foray into the fragrance market that remains tightly under wraps for now ~well, not anymore~ will start as the first one did at the dining-room table: "“I gave my clients little bottles of home-made nutmeg and ginger bath oil as a thank you” says Malone recounting her first attempts at fragrance creation for her facials clients who were clamouring for setting an appointment with her and her magic fingers.

The first installment in this new fragrance collection, which will be spanning the next two years, will be English Pear & Freesia, for which Christine Nagel describes the note that she wanted to capture, as "the fragrance of a King William pear just before it becomes over-ripe. The intention was to capture the smell of the fruit when it was sweet but still crisp, not too green and sharp but not sugary and soft". To boost the effect there are also notes of freesia, quince and a subtle hint of patchouli. Pear too timid to take center stage? More like a technical issue, really, taking in mind pear notes usually come from the flavouring side of the industry.

"It's unusual for a pear to take centre stage in a fragrance*, but the essence of English Pear & Freesia is a complex and quintessentially autumnal pear note. My challenge was in recreating the scent of a pear at that moment of perfect ripeness" says Nagel. Apparently, the September launch isn't random. It is John Keats and his immortal "To Autumn" ode that has served as an inspiration behind the new fragrance. No wonder the launch took place to Hampstead and Keats' house. [source]
Alexis Wolfer already characterises English Pear & Freesia as "delicious and mixes well with many other Jo scents!"

More info soon at Jo Malone online.

*Two that do are Lamb by G.Stefani and Petite Cherie by Annick Goutal.

C.Nagel quotes via Basenotes
Photos via luirig.altervista.org and deliciousmagazine.co.uk

Ferre Rose Princesse: fragrance review

Like Bryce Dallas Howard's milky skin and diaphanous eyes there are fragrances which are delicate yet at the same time forceful: You just can't deny their presence. Gianfranco Ferré's Ferré Rose Princesse for women is one such fragrance. It was composed by perfumer Karine Dubreuil and is a fruity floral inspired by the Princesse de Monaco hybrid tea rose, standing as a flanker besides the older Ferré Rose (you won't confuse the two as this one is brightly pink-looking).

Brightly pink, I said? Well...let's see. Officially, the perfume opens with sweet-sourish notes of Sicilian bergamot, Spanish sweet orange, Mexican lemon, wild blackberries and green apple. The heart encompasses notes of wood lilac [sic], pear flowers, rose princesse, damascena rose, white magnolia and violet leaves, while the base is composed of soft musks and woody aromas – sandalwood and palissander wood. Going over the notes however doesn't beging to give the impression that the fragrance conveys: The introduction of obvious berry notes is tart, fused with a strong salicylate "solar" effect comparable to the one in Si Lolita by Lolita Lempicka.

Usually the salicylate "solar" accord reads as a sandy, warm, brightly expansive feeling with a hint of mentholated floral note in the breeze. Now a perfumer is at ease to work with this in two directions: Tilt it at one angle and work around an ambery and ylang ylang or orange blossom theme (or more contemporarily tiare) and you have an excellent almost tropical-smelling sun worshipping composition that recalls bodies sprawled on the beach with no care in the world; baking under an evil sun scorching one's limbs as if it's a pre-Colombian sacrifice. Witness Patou Chaldée, Aquasun by Lancaster, the more refined of them all Vanille Galante in the Hermessence series or more prosaicaly Miami Glow by J.Lo.
Tilt it at another angle with wintergreen methyl salicylate alongside either naturally camphoraceous flowers (tuberose) or alternatively cooler blossoms (rose, peony) which would naturally bind well with undergrowth smells, and you have quite a different effect: A hint of mothball, but also a staggeringly modern expansive effect when paired with tart notes. See Carnal Flower by F.Malle. Indeed the two fragrances mentioned above, Ferré Rose Princesse and Si Lolita, share this characteristic rather prominently amongst the newer mainstream releases.

In Rose Princesse, although very fruity in the opening, I hardly detect any citrus presence. It's there but it's not what you're getting. Very girlish, very berry-rich, the scent slowly loses the piquant camphoraceous character and becomes extremely soft and gentle with a strong musky powdery feeling. Among the excellent and sophisticated Ferré range (see Ferré eau de parfum from 2005 or Ferré Essence d'Eau from 2003), it is an anomaly, but an interesting anomaly nonetheless. Not something I would personally wear a lot, due to the sweet berry-ish character, but not an air-headed girly fruity floral either. Girls could do much worse, I guess.

Ferré Rose Princesse is available in 30ml, 50ml and 100ml of Eau de Toilette as well as in a 200 ml body lotion at major department stores.

Fifi 2010 nominee Giveaway 6

As we announced previously, the Fragrance Foundation is giving away bottles of the nominees of the 2010 Fifi Awards every day starting Monday 17th.

Today's fragrance giveaway is Tom Ford Private Blend White Suede. A rush of Bulgarian rose opens the fragrance, mingled with the first hint of musk. This romantic gesture is beautifully restrained by a trace of golden saffron—a precious spice known for its own duality of bittersweet warmth—with a pinch of pungent thyme. Then the suede center reveals itself. Leather in its softest iteration, this suede is given shape by smoky notes of mate tea and olibanum, the resin from frankincense trees. A sweet note of lily of the valley brings transparency to the center and ensures the masculine character of deep suede doesn’t dominate. The addictive pull of musk is enhanced by amber and sandalwood, creating the scent’s lingering dry down. WHITE SUEDE stays endlessly intriguing as its twin facets of floral-musk and leather-suede evolve in tandem.

All you have to do is connect to the FIFI Facebook page and leave a comment until 5pm (the sooner the better obviously) for a chance to win one of the free bottles.

Certain terms and conditions apply.

Disclosure: We are not affiliated with either the Fragrance Foundation or the companies which provide the fragrances for the giveaway. This is a public service announcement.

L’Oreal Trademark Victory: End of Fragrance Dupes?

According to Business Week, the Court of Appeal’s judgment in London today "follows a decision last year from the European Court of Justice setting out how far L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics maker, can go under EU law to block marketing of copied scents. The U.K. court said it had a “duty” to apply the European ruling. “The ECJ’s decision in this case means that poor consumers are the losers,” Judge Robin Jacob said in the ruling. “Only the poor would dream of buying the defendants’ products. The real thing is beyond their wildest dreams.” " Hmmm...maybe they haven't heard of obsessive compulsive collectors who amass everything! But I digress.
“There is a bit of a message that the price of the real thing may be excessive and that the ‘luxury image’ may be a bit of a delusion,” Jacob said in the ruling. Naturally as the dupe costing 4.30$ for the 100ml bottle is abysmally low compared to the 100 pounds or so for the real thing! L'Oreal however insists that we're talking of 120million in loss revenue.
According to Hamish Porter the judgement has been an "an “indictment” of the European court’s approach to protecting well-known brands".
You can read the whole case following the link at the top.

Photos from the Moroccan Abode of Serge Lutens

W magazine goes inside perfumer Serge Lutens's secret Moroccan hideout in the heart of the Marrakesh medina, asks questions (via Christopher Bagley) and posts a pleiad of gorgeous photos (by Patric Nagel) in their June issue. Curiously, the hideout of the grand master of artistic direction is just that ~a secret hideout. It's been constructed for the last 35 years, yet it hasn't been lived in yet! Lutens has trouble coming up with a clear explanation, attributing it to filling the “awful, horrible emptiness that we all have.” He says, “There are times where you just have to be completely occupied; otherwise you fall apart".
The house is respendid with orientalised motifs, Berber jewellery and fibulae, Syrian chairs and paneled coloured windows alongside an impressive memento mori desk. All around a big walled garden full of exotic blooms like daturas, tuberoses and brigmansias. Anyone who knows the admiration Perfume Shrine holds for the Lutensian universe knows we're thrilled...


The interview includes such Lutensian gems as “I felt like the director of the pyramid at Cheops” (on the 500 people working on it), “You could call it obsession. But obsession is a necessary part of creation” (on getting carried away on the building process) and “It’s happened very quickly, like a hysteria. Everything’s a hysteria with me” (on his amassing moody Orientalist art-pieces from the middle of the 1980s onwards).


But maybe the most interesting of them all (and the most romantic) concerns smells: The greatest perfumers of them all aren't perfumers, but rather the bees, the winds, the rivers, carrying and mixing scents in space...In a home like this one, this is tangible reality more than poetic fantasy.

Visit this link to read and see the Serge Lutens slideshow.

And might we remind you that two new fragrances by Serge Lutens are coming up soon: Boxeuses and Bas de Soie. You can read about them here.

Photographs by Patric Nagel for W Magazine.