L'Artisan Extrait de Songe/L'Ete en Douce: fragrance review

Essence of a dream, that is Extrait de songe, was the very poetic name of a limited edition “clean”perfume for summer 2005 by L’artisan Parfumeur. The latter lost a legal battle over the coveted name with Annick Goutal who had the name Songes (=dreams) copyrighted for her own, completely different, floriental composition. Hence the lovely Extrait de Songe became extinct... Later it was rechristened as L'Eté en Douce (playing on a French idiom, meaning "summer is sneaking up on you") and entered the L'Artisan portfolio as a re-issue.
However many perfume fans say the fragrance in either name smells quite close to another older L’artisan offering, one of the Moodswings coffret, Lazy Mood, developed by the same perfumer, Olivia Giacobetti. This got me thinking.

Laziness, boredom, dullness….all of these words bring to mind the languorous days of a really hot summer, when one isn’t energized enough to actively do anything except sleep. We had a long bout of this in the summer and am afraid we will get it again soon enough.
When I am talking hot, I am not talking Canada “hot”. Nor Germany “hot”. These are euphemisms. These are mere bleeps on the radar of hotness, never managing to register with me. (It’s actually my preferred weather: if only we had 28 degree Celsius half the year long...)
I am talking 39-40 degrees hell hot, all red and fiery; when your own skin is becoming revolting to you and you want to tear it apart with one swift gesture like an overzealous Russian waxer with steroid-enhanced arms; when hair sticks on your forehead inviting you to turn into a travesty of a skinhead; when sticky liquid oozes off your pores just by sitting around doing nothing. Yes, you’ve guessed it: I hate those moments with a passion.
The “noon devil” of the hermits of Egypt, which draws out every speck of physical and mental vitality, is my personal nemesis.

However it is a small comfort that Extrait de songe/L'Eté en Douce exists for providing the illusion of a clean, cool, white cotton sheet that can be wrapped all around one and provide some solace from the scorching sun. Sloth according to Kirkegaard is the source of all evil. Wordsworth described it as “wild dullness”. It is considered one of the seven deadly sins by the Catholic church. Hamlet refers to the world as “tiresome, plain and dull” which probably explains why he never lifts a hand to actually do anything except talk for the better part of the play.
Samuel Butler says that boredom is a kind of spiritual failure, since the person who lets himself to emote it is more despicable than boredom itself.
But is it so bad, really? I wonder…

Billy Collins, the poet, calls boredom paradise itself. “It’s the blessed absence of things that the world offers as interesting such as fashion, media, and other people, whom Sartre –let’s not forget- characterized as hell.”
Anton Chekhov also idealized boredom in many of his plays, like in Uncle Vania and Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” remains without a doubt the manifesto of dullness, featuring characters that await for that bastard Godot who never makes an appearance and which proves boredom can be pro-active after all, because many had stood up and left the theatre from what I recall :-)) The New York author Richard Greenburg even wrote a book (titled “Take me out”) after a bout of boredom during one especially dull summer, during which he watched baseball matches on TV. Luckily I am not that desperate. Brenda Way, choreographer, likes to sit and think when stuck in a jammed highway: She believes it aids her involuntary voyage to creativity by using her unconscious powers at those precise moments.

Made by nose Olivia Giacobetti, who is famous for her light compositions that are like Winslow Homer paintings, Extrait de Songe/L'Eté en Douce is typically her style and seems very fit for such moments. It's an interpretation of freshness without acidulated, fusing or sparkling notes and it reminds me of the style that Jean Claude Ellena later explored in one of his "cologne" duo, called Eau de Gentiane Blanche. The two fragrances do not smell the same, but they share a similar sensibility and a generous smothering of ambrette seed.
Featuring an airy and totally linear formula, Extrait de Songe/L'Eté en Douce begins with linden and lots of "clean" orange blossom water, like the flower water used to sprinkle Mediterranean cookies with, segueing on to hay- like (coumarin?) and woody notes, it finishes off with a kiss of white musk and the bitterish ambrette like newly washed bed-clothes envelopping your showered body. It's all purity, all light! Uncomplicated, easy, soft, lastingly diaphanous, evoking the dew caressing grass in a field and on wild rose bushes, the freshness of lime trees and the warm scent of freshly cut hay; a fragrance that has no aspirations of creating discussion, but only of making you feel good about yourself! The whole projects at a white radiant frequency which must be as close to seraphic cool places as possible without actually hitting the bucket.

Whatever your camp is (and I suppose you still run a pulse if you're reading right now), Extrait de Songe/L'Eté en Douce manages to smell like it is the best thing to exonerate the bad and amplify the good aspects of boredom.

The original bottle of Extrait de Songe is a beautiful lavender blue degrade cylinder (the colour becomes more saturated on the bottom) with plain, silver sprayer, now a collector's item. The newer bottle under L'Eté en Douce follows the typical L'Artisan packaging with label in lavender blue.

Notes for L'Artisan Extrait de Songe/L'Eté en Douce:mint, rose, orange blossom and white musk

Please note: another fragrance by L'Artisan has just recently changed name, namely Vanille Absolument which used to be Havana Vanille (2009).

Inspired by a euro2day comment. Pic of kitten got sent to me by email, unaccredited. L'Ete en Douce bottle pic via duftarchiv.de

L'Artisan Parfumeur Fleur d'Oranger 2011: It's Back!

One of the most elusive and revered orange blossom scents is the two-time wonder by L'Artisan Parfumeur called Fleur d'Oranger: the last 2007 edition was a tad different than the original from 2005, but hope died entirely when reserves even of that one dried up. But L'Artisan has had other plans it seems: Fleur d'Oranger (part of the Harvest Series, alongside the spectacular Iris Pallida and the hay-like Fleur de Narcisse) is back in 2011: This time in a normal bottle of 50ml/1.7oz instead of the big ones in the wooden crates like precious millesime wines. Information wants the re-issue a limited edition, although there is no specific mention on the actual bottle to indicate this is so. According to a sampler friend: "The composition is very similar to the previous two, maybe slightly less sweet comparing to the 2007 version". The current edition is much more sanely priced at 75€ .

It remains the subject of hypothesis whether the use of the typical bottle hints at an abandoning of the Harvest Series by the brand entirely. At any rate, the official L'Artisan site doesn't mention the series any more...

thanks to Elysium for bringing it to my attention

Cacharel Loulou: fragrance review

When Cacharel Loulou first came out in 1987, there was a wonderful TV ad set to the romantic Pavane, Opus 50 by Gabriel Fauré and veiled in the mysterious bluish tones of the print ad. It featured a slip of a girl in a classic 20’s bob haircut dressed in a dark stretch dress (so Parisian at the time, very Azzedine Alaia!), swaying hurriedly through space on what seemed a film set, and when a voice called out “Loulou”, she turned to us –the viewers- replying “Oui, c’est moi” (i.e.yes, that’s me). It transported the Cacharel-trademark hazy contours and grainy shots of photographer Sarah Moon to the next level: a Lolitesque seduction. It has haunted me ever since...

The inspiration of Loulou by Cacharel: Loulou was meant to evoke the great film actress Louise Brooks and her Lulu role in the silent 1928 Pabst film Pandora’s Box (tamer than its title would hint at, but not by much considering). Louise Brooks has captured the imagination of discerning cinephiles ever since. Her trademark haircut (that actually recalls Cleopatra herself) has inspired many women and men alike. In fact Guido Crepax, the Italian sketch artist of “Valentina”, fashioned his notorious heroine of a vivid imagination and lush posterior attributes on her. The comic book had been turned into a RAI miniseries back in the late 80’s starring Demetra Hampton. The erotic TV-series was heavy in cultural referencing; indeed one episode was called ..."Lulu", reprising the Brooks character.

Loulou the Cacharel fragrance is almost forgotten today, although slightly less than those episodes, although it hasn’t been discontinued. In an age that pushes celebrity scents to an apotheosis, the natural urge of the perfume fanatic would be to turn to niche scents and/or classics from the distant past. Indeed this has been the case with many, as current literature on the subject indicates. That leaves many lovely perfumes of a more recent crop to the shade. Pity if you think about it. I had used the perfume for a while back, enjoying the wink in the eye it provided, the naiveté, the pure élan. It was perfection for those times!

The formula was composed by perfumer Jean Guichard, who is also responsible for Obsession (another 80’s hit), Eden (another forgotten Cacharel), and Deci Dela ( the delectable light chypre by Nina Ricci). Loulou bears the mark of the decade’s excess : lush and rich, it would seem completely out of place up until ten years ago when gourmands entered the scene. Somewhere between floral and oriental and with a similar feel to both Oscar de la Renta and Poison, Cacharel Loulou can also be viewed as a distant cousin of Guerlain's L’Heure Bleue. The sweet and a little melancholic heliotrope plus anise ties them together. The Cacharel fragrance opens on the characteristic note of cassis, a synthetically recreated berry base, quite sweet. This may become overwhelming on some, but the assistance of bergamot and aniseed manage to soften the blow of the top notes. Violet, mace and plum add their smooth nuances along with an armful of ylang-ylang, jasmine, marigold and a smidgen of tiare (that tropical flower of Tahiti), although one would be hard pressed to locate any of those individually, except for heliotrope perhaps which has a soft almondy scent, imparting a powdery aura along with the earthy orris: The feeling is almost retro, much like the whole ambience of the scent is after all. The fragrance lasts and lasts on the skin, suffused with musks and woods, with the insistence of tonka bean, a hay-like vanillic seed of a West African tree.

The bottle of Loulou looks best in the parfum or splash version (as depicted in the ad): a turquoise polygonal opaline that continues the house’s love affair with opaline (later to be reprised in green for Eden) topped with a dark red pointy stopper and garlanded with a burgundy red tassel : the contrast of colours is daring and unique, the concept vaguely inspired by Poison according to Michael Edwards. The Eau de parfum sprayer is sadly not as pretty.
To me Loulou will always remain the smell to match the young girl that had first caught my eye in the TV ads and myself back then : insouciant , oblivious to her own seductiveness. A wonderful fragrance, if rather sweet for everyday.



The commercial still produces a sigh of delightful and wistful reminiscence in me, like a dog who is sighing, her paws tucked in and her ears down at the completion of a tender, sad patting as if to part forever.

Photo of Demetra Hampton as Valentina via facebook. Loulou ad via Parfum de Pub. Louis Brooks in Pandora's Box via seraphicpress.com

Perfumery Materials: Neroli, Petit Grain, Orange Blossom, Bigarade

The Mediterranean basin could be described as one giant orangery during spring: the green trees, called bigaradiers, with their dense foliage of shiny leaves are seen sprouting small white blossoms; first, closed like Q-tips and then bursting into an orgy of fragrant flowers, emitting a sweet, yet delicate and fresh fragrance that travels long and far. These individual orangey trees belong in a unique order, bearing fruit still while at the same time blossoming! But you'd be hard-pressed to cut and eat that fruit; the orange-toned rind hides a very bitter flesh which is perfect however for proper marmelade or "spoon sweets". And they only turn their characteristic bright colour in the temperate Mediterranean climate: Spain, Greece, and also...California. Those growing in tropical climates, such as Florida or India or Ghana retain a yellow-greenish tinge.



The amazing tree which produces those wonders of nature is citrus aurantium var. amara (or bigaradia), commonly referred to as "bitter orange tree" (Also known as "Seville orange tree" due to the fact that the romantic city by the river is choke-full of them and because it was the centre of Moorish culture when the trees were first brought into the region from Arabia in the 9th century AD). Perfumers call it by another name, grosser but more accurate in terms of "giving": the pig of perfumery. Every part of this tree gives a lovely material.

The methods which produce different materials: neroli, orange blossom absolute, biagarade, petit-grain

David Seth Moltz, the nose behind D.S. & Durga, the Brooklyn-based perfume company, explains it well: Cold-pressing the fruit peel yields bigarade, the essential oil of the bitter orange; distilling the twigs gives you petitgrain (keep in mind that the same method gives petit-grain from other citrus trees such as lemon petit-grain, lime petit-grain etc); and the orange blossoms provide you with neroli (neroli comes from steam distillation of the flowers) while the same flowers can yield orange blossom absolute when treated with solvents to extract their essence. Distillation is usually carried out in such a way that 1 liter(1 kg) of distillation water (orange flower water) is obtained per 1 kilogram of charged orange flowers. This method incidentally, yields on the average about 1 gram of neroli oil.
That's not all, though: Distill the leaves, twigs and flowers together and you have "petitgrain sur le fleur." But it's still not over yet: Petitgrain water absolute or eau de brouts is the equivalent of orange flower water absolute and is obtained as a by-product from petitgrain bigarade oil. It enhances the 'naturalness' of several other fragrances, e.g. jasmine, neroli, ylang-ylang and gardenia.

"This one tree," Mr. Moltz explains, "gives you a range of citrus, wood, flower and all that lies in between—clean, fresh, dark, spicy." It is, in other words, a tree worthy of obsession! [1]


The differences in scent between the materials
Neroli has a sharper, more delicate aroma with a pleasantly bitter top note, a floral, herbal, green body and a floral, orange flower dry-out. It's lighter than the more overtly feminine orange blossom absolute which is more indolic and lusher, heavy and rich, warm, but also delicate and fresh, long-lasting odour, closely resembling the fragrance of fresh bitter orange blossoms. Its fragrance is not unlike that of jasmine, less intensely floral, but with a greater freshness. Petit grain is more bitter and has a masculine edge. And of course bigarade is the very flavour of morning marmelade.

List of fragrances to guide your nose through the raw materials

To experience bigarade the simplest means is to grab a jar of Bonne Maman marmelade and dip your nose and inhale: the sweetness cannot cut too much on the bitterness which leaves an almost sour aftertaste, resulting into an experience far removed from the more prosaic sweet orange or strawberry jam. Another, more perfume-oriented means would be to grab a bottle of Cologne Bigarade by Frederic Malle (composed by Jean Claude Ellena who excels into that sort of Mediterranean compositions) or his more concentrated and rubbery version with touches of cumin, Bigarade Concentree. Another alternative would be Creed's Citrus Bigarrade [sic].

Neroli has a romantic tale attached to its name: "In the 17th century, the princess of Nerola, Italy, used orange blossom to perfume her stationary, baths and, most famously, her gloves. As she gestured to her courtiers and lovers, a gentle wake of blossom must have trailed her hands. Now, neroli can be found in any number of perfumes, soaps and, according to myth, the secret recipe for Coca-Cola! It is the very essence of spring—that first bloom that promises sun and romance. And like romance, in the hands of a master perfumer, it can be heady or hesitating, sophisticated or innocent, sweet or dangerous. Mr. Moltz describes pure neroli as being "prim and proper." He likes to "dirty it up" with flowers that bring out neroli's wet and sexy vibe. [1] The major chemical components of neroli bigarade oil are: linalool, limonene, linalyl acetate, nerolidol, geraniol, and methyl anthranilate. Extraction of flowers with supercritical CO2 yields a neroli bigarade oil much richer in linalyl acetate (23%) than neroli oil obtained by water distillation. The content of methyl anthranilate (1%) is also significantly higher [2].
If you want to experience a soliflore neroli fragrance, try Annick Goutal's Néroli, a Parisian take on the Med idea . "The idea for Néroli was a warm wind blowing through a blooming orange grove," says Camille Goutal, the creative director after Annick's passing. "It was also inspired by a childhood memory: my uncle spent his holidays in Tunisia and would bring me back bouquets of orange flowers. Of course the main ingredient is the neroli, freshened by the petitgrain Paraguay (which is also tender and green) and petitgrain citronnier. The cypress and the galbanum bring a subtle woody note."
Chloé offers Eau de Fleurs Neroli for spring and summer, a fragrance which mixes an aromatic top with rosemary and clary sage with "clean" upbeat, contemporary notes of peony and white musk.

To get a good dosage of petit-grain, look no further than Miller Harris and Le Petit Grain. A unisex fragrance which brings on a garland of aromatics to boost the angular facets of the material, such as angelica root, tarragon, thyme and lavender. Refreshing due to its briskness, but not without its own depths thanks to patchouli and moss.


For orange blossom the choices are endless. You can check out several on our "Orange Blossom series" classified according to mood. But to recap some of the more characteristic:

Perhaps the loveliest and truest soliflore orange blossom rendition is L'Artisan's original Fleur d'Oranger harvest edition. Fresh, crystalline, projecting with needle-point precision but never too sharp, its melodious song is like a kiss on the lips from someone one had long longed for. The major drawback is it cost an arm & a leg and it was a one-time wonder, as the subsequent reissue from a few seasons ago is a little bit different.

Jo Malone's Orange Blossom cologne takes on a crisp but feminine interpretation of the flowers of the bitter orange tree: the composition is flanked by lemongrass and clementine oils on top (so that the fragrance retains a live-like freshness) and by lily and lilac notes on the bottom to soften and feminise it.

On the contrary Prada's Infusion de Fleurs d'Oranger [full review here] apart from a brief departure of orange flowers and neroli segues on into soapier arpegios with Serenolide (a synthetic musk), therefore being a less representative candidate.

Le Labo is one brand which features orange blossom at the heart of three of their fragrances: Fleur D'Oranger 27, (feminine with jasmine and sunny bergamot); Neroli 36, a playful mix of watermelon, salt, rose, mandarin and musk; and in Tubereuse 40, vibrating with the dynamism of tuberose, cedar, mimosa and petitgrain.

But perhaps the most majestic orange blossom absolute of them all is Fleurs D'Oranger by Serge Lutens. Far from being an orange blossom soliflore as its name suggests, this is a fragrance as beguiling as Salome dancing the dance of the seven veils. Upon each revelation, the anticipation heightens till the next one. The initial stage is one of soft orange blossom, in the words of Serge, the "strengthening of a breeze", hidding the more mysterious, invested interests in the background, emerging slowly like shadows from an orchard which suns itself somewhere off the Mediterranean coast. The accomplice in this is tuberose and its strange, wicked angularity creeps in beneath the shadows. But despite the fragrance's lushness and drama, it dries down to a delicate sweetness that resembles honeyed woman's skin; discreet and very, very sensual.

Last but not least the etymology is also interesting and quite mixed-up: The word orange (EN and FR), naranja (ES), arancia (IT) are all derived from the Persian naranj which in the contrary means bitter orange ("νεράτζι" i.e. nerantzi, in Greek), the place where the bitter variety of the tree comes from. The Iranians call oranges 'portoghal' which resembles the Greek word for sweet oranges, πορτοκάλι; to my knowledge, only in Greek among European languages has the Persian distinction been maintained. But how come the Greek call orange the ...Portugeuse fruit? (That's what the name means) It's because the Portugeuse traders brought sweet oranges into the Mediterranean basin from China centuries after the bitter oranges were brought to these shores...



[1] Ref. Wall Street Journal
[2]Ref. White Lotus Aromatics


Collage photo via beauty maverick. Photo of bitter orange tree by CorinthianGulf/flickr

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Flora Nerolia: fragrance review

There is nothing more early April-like than the smell of bitter orange trees blossoming, their waxy white petals infiltrating the glossy green of the leaves and some fruit still hanging from the branches, like a reminder of what has been already accomplished.


Guerlain captured the ethereal vapors of steam off these delicate, ravishing blossoms and married them to a pre-emptying summer jasmine (middle-ground indolic) and the faint whiff of cool frankincense burning inside a Greek Orthodox church preparing for the country's most devout celebration: Easter. The citrusy aspects of frankincense compliment the fruitier aspects of neroli. Musk in the form of synthetic Cashmeran is anchoring the effect on skin. Guerlain's Flora Nerolia (a part of the original line up in the Aqua Allegoria line in 2000 composed by perfumer Mathilde Laurent) is like a snapshot of late Lent in Greece and for that reason is absolutely precious to me.

Notes for Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Flora Nerolia:
neroli and petitgrain (citrus leaves & twigs) in the top, and jasmine and orange blossom in the heart. Frankincense for the base.

Lamentably discontinued (much like the rest of the original line-up composed by Mathilde Laurent) with the exception of Herba Fresca and Pamplune, Flora Nerolia can be sometimes found on Ebay.
The history, notes and short reviews of all the Guerlain Aqua Allegoria scents can be found on this link. 

Background on the Photo (by anomieus/flickr):
As far back as the time of the dowager empress Wilhelmine Amalie an orangery garden was laid out at Schönbrunn which included a hothouse for overwintering bitter orange trees. In 1754 Franz I Stephan instigated the building of the Orangery by Nicola Pacassi, probably to designs by Nicolas Jadot. One hundred and eighty-nine metres long and ten metres wide, the Schönbrunn Orangery is one of the two largest Baroque orangeries in the world, the other being at Versailles. The south façade is articulated by an alternating series of large and smaller apertures with rusticated pilasters decorated with masks. The interior has a rhythmic sequence of shallow vaults and is heated by a hypocaust system. The Orangery served not only as the winter quarters for citrus trees and other potted plants but was also a winter garden used for imperial court festivities. Joseph II was especially fond of holding celebrations in the Orangery with festively-decorated banqueting tables, ranks of flowering plants and illuminations in the citrus trees. During a winter festivity in 1786 Mozart conducted his Singspiel "The Impresario" here.
The rear part of the Orangery is still used in its original function, while the front section, which has been renovated, is used for events such as the Schönbrunn Palace Concert series.