The sexual ambiguity that surrounds Japon Noir , part of the exclusive & rather expensive Tom Ford Private Blend line, is reminiscent of Helmut Newton's photographs of androgyne figures, as if shot in midnight purple hues. There is an element of danger in it, like in the best of woody orientals or darkest leathery chypres; iron fists left out in the rain to rust slowly and booze & smoke smelt on the breath of muscle-for-hire. Unique and polarizingly perplexing, Japon Noir's enigmatic impression on me was palpable from the moment I first put it on my skin and brought its air of inkiness home to my significant other.
The inclusion of inky notes in Japon Noir points to a purposeful refinement, akin to the meticulous care of Japanese calligraphy on thick scrolls; much like the name would suggest. But that is not all, and this is its success: The ambery-patchouli mix suggests a sleek sensuality that hints at more carnal past-times. Indeed Japon Noir starts with a suave introduction that reminds one of sweeter ambery orientals while the fusion of spice and candied fruit notes is instant Lutensiana: the inspiration couldn't be far behind, surely. The inclusion of cumin, ginger, nutmeg and thyme is especially simpatico to those of a Moorish-loving sensibility. Although cumin isn't particularly "sweaty" in this one, body-odour-phobics are still advised to test it further before investing in a bottle; we all perceive levels of "dirtiness" differently and your threshold might be higher or lower than mine.
What makes Japon Noir unique is that those sweeter elements with the rather feminized jasmine heart, instead of petering out into a milky sandalwood impression, like in the best oriental tradition (Samsara, Obsession, Amouage Dia), raise themselves a notch into a wilder arpeggio, with the pungent warmth of leather and smoky-powdery incense (Incense in the eastern temple style like in Kyoto and possibly Ouazarzate, although in Japon Noir the combustion happening has a gasoline-like, synthetic impression). The base notes are not completely unlike the common leitmotif in many of the Private Blend fragrances, but Japon Noir stands alone in the combination and textural treatment of notes. In many ways a fragrance for connoisseurs, its individualistic streak makes it one to at least admire, if not outright love.
Japon Noir is advertised as a shared fragrance, pegged as a mossy-woods composition (according to the Michael Edwards taxonomy, corresponding roughly to the traditional chypre category). Yet my own classification would be someplace between woody oriental and leather chypre; a renegade in search of solace.
Notes for Tom Ford Private Blend Japon Noir
Patchouli, Vetiver, Amber, Jasmine, Porto, Leather, Spicy Note
The Tom Ford Private Blend line is available at select doors, such as Neiman Marcus and Harrods, but Japon Noir is reportedly discontinued as of January 2011 (like Moss Breches, Velvet Gardenia and Bois Rouge, other unique fragrances in the line-up, before it); which is an abject shame, but there you have it! (According to Tom Ford's interview on WWD in 2007, that was the plan all along: chop off a couple to make room for more every few seasons). If you're a fan, grab the last remaining bottles now.
Photo by Helmut Newton of women kissin, via colamonstrosity.tumblr.com
Gaiac 10, Le Labo's Tokyo city exclusive perfume, will exceptionally be available in the Le Labo boutiques in NY, LA, London, and internet stores until May 15th, 2011. All profits will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society to support their earthquake disaster efforts.
Gaïac is a very hard greenish wood that isn’t as dry as cedar and that is subtle, profound, and stable. Le Labo’s GAIAC 10, a perfume extract that has been developed in partnership with perfumer Annick Menardo, is a tense formula built on gaïac wood and surrounded by muscs (4 different types in all), with hints of cedar and olibanum (incense). Don’t expect this woody musc to leave a perfuming trail from where you are to Hokkaido (unless you already are in Hokkaido), but it will stick on you and with you, despite your mood, for days and days. Gaïac 10 is your ideal partner.
I happen to like Gaiac 10 and will review it in full in the next few days, so stay tuned!
"Fit for nuns and virgins"is as enticing a description of fragrance [1] for some of us as talking of a scent weaving a web of seduction the way a femme fatale would. Clearly, it's not because we belong to either category, but rather that its programmatic unconventionality of what feminine fragrance should stand for makes it ripe for personal exploration. It's so easy to underestimate a fragrance just because it's widely available and comes from a brand that doesn't have haute or luxe pretentions such as Cacharel and Noa. I bet good money that were Noa issued by a niche company into some fancy-named contraption and fronted by a du jour perfumer it would elicit more enthusiastic response. Despite Cacharel's fashion presence and their rather large input in fragrance history (a pre-emptying floral in Anais Anais, a magical retro heliotrope in Loulou, the first aquatic fruit-oriental in Eden, a good effort at tobacco-laced feminine in discontinued Gloria) they fly under the radar on what concerns hard-core perfume lovers. Which is why we're here and have been reviewing the Cacharel canon for a little while now on Perfume Shrine.
Noa is an underappreciated little gem that didn't deserve the lack of attention it receives and which spawned somewhat less noteworthy flankers, called Noa Fleur (2003) and Noa Perle (2006). But let's see the strong and weak points of each and compare them.
The original Noa by Cacharel (1998) was composed by perfumer Olivier Cresp, the fragrance encased in a diaphanous bubble of a bottle, a zen approach to the spiritual 1990s (hence the tag line "the gifted fragrance", one would almost expect a Messiah in a bottle), designed by Annegret Beier. The passage of a few minutes results in a slight recalibration of one's original view of Noa, which would have been of an aquatic floral: it's really a floral musk with a hint of powder and soapiness and a delightfully unexpected smoky wood top note. The initially detectable ylang-ylang blends into the background, while the soapy aspect of the musk intensifies as the minutes pass by, boosted perhaps by some aldehyde. This produces both a smooth, clean scent, but also a reduction in volume, making Noa appear "light" and "fresh", although don't let that fool you into thinking it doesn't last; it does.The musks are fuzzy, cozy, warmish and comfortable, accented by a small note of spice like coffee laced with cardamom. Tania Sanchez identifies the spice as cilantro.
Noa Fleur by Cacharel came next in 2003 and its take is more unisex than its rosy character would suggest. Essentially a clean, rather screechy floral, flanked by musky notes like hibiscus and white musks, plus pale balsam and indeterminate notes that project with a faint powderiness, it's predictable and pliable. The inclusion of black currants gives a rather fruity facet to the proceedings, but there is no denying this is a rose fragrance with more woodiness than a typical soli-rose. This would make it fit for those occasions when you just don't know what to wear; rushing out of the door to get the kids on the school bus, going shopping impromptu, having a last-minute "wanna pick you up?" date when you're uncertain of your date's tastes...But you could do better than that: Grab Gucci Eau de Parfum II or Miracle So Magic.
Cacharel's Noa Perle (2006) was co-authored by perfumer Domitille Bertier and Olivier Polge. The formula was reprised, resulting in a more fruity floral mold, in which however the distinctive note of hazelnut swifts things to a slightly more interesting direction than the average fruity floral. The opening is lightly sweet citrus reminiscent of clementines with that standard "clean" floral that companies peg as peony nowadays; the drydown is an inoffensive powdery musk plus milky woods. Noa Perle is a nice enough if completely inadventurous scent, but for the price and the lack of pretence, it's still a better option than many out there. Points taken for the glaringly fake "pearl" inside, made from 100% plastic. With a name like that...
I always wonder whether appearances correspond to the reality, the essence of a personality and vice versa, as I am sure you do too. The duality of a person is always fascinating to unravel. And an inconsistency often contributes to a greater fascination! Whether one will tolerate one in favor of another is entirely a personal matter. Nina, the modern perfume by Nina Ricci is such a case in point. It's hard to pass her by, because she's so popular ~even the bottle design was snatched by the producers of Twilight saga films, but courts decided in favour of Ricci in the end and it's now missing in action~ but the reality is less than convincing; at least for a purist such as myself, because it delivers and it delivers satisfactorily to its intended audience which is teenage girls if sales are any indication. Created as a perfume to evoke in ladies' minds a modern fairy tale for “all young women searching for surprise and fantasy… in a wonderland where dreams dress reality”, as the advertising tells us, it promises to be magical and enchanting, full of charm and seductiveness. Fairy tales are the escapism valves of modern hectic lifestyles and if one is so easily within one's grasp, it seems like a much healthier idea than downing a couple of pills, don't you agree?
The store when the scent launched devoted their windows: a huge silver tree was posing, with factice bottles resembling glorious red apples hanging from its branches like magical instruments of witchcraft and pieces of ivory organza interlaid on a silvery snowy ground in the middle of summer. It was beautiful…. The bottle, designed by French agency LOVE, is indeed one of the most gorgeous of recent years, paying homage to Hypnotic Poison, Lolita Lempicka and Be delicious, but managing to be more friendly that any of those and less heavy than the former two. It is also reminiscent of another great bottle that has launched a few seasons ago, Delices de Cartier. Made of transparent glass and silver metal it becomes raspberry red by the inclusion of the bright-hued juice. On the top, silver leaves crown an ergonomic sprayer that sprays a fine mist.
The fragrance itself is touted as the brand's single most important release in 10 years, after several trials that didn’t take off as expected: Premier Jour and its variations – let’s face it- never took off (the same goes for Les Bellesde Ricci, 3 interesting variations in similar bottles, long discontinued) although it’s a likeable perfume and the name of Nina Ricci has remained in its dove garlanded laurels for too long.
The modern Nina was composed by noses Olivier Cresp (the nose behind Angel, revamped Femme by Rochas and Noa) and Jacques Cavallier (of Eau d’Issey, Feu d’Issey, Ferragamo woman and Poeme fame) of Firmenich "with the Asian consumer in mind". I am not sure if by Asian they mean Chinese, Japanese, Thai people etc. (i.e. Far East) or they mean Middle-East and India, but the perfume could accommodate both tastes being tied with neither tradition or culture. The brand was simply hoping to strengthen their appeal in the international fragrance market and in particular in Asia, which is the emerging giant of consumerism.
Nina has a hard act to follow: Nina Ricci was one of the most popular couturiers in the mid-20th century fashion scene. Born in Turin in January 1883 she started as a highly talented apprentice, before devoting herself entirely to design. She formed a partnership with her only son Robert in order to open her own Haute Couture house at 20, Rue des Capucines, in Paris. Her effort paid off well in quick success and just before the war the NINA RICCI firm occupied 11 floors and its workshops were filled with 450 workers. Madame Ricci had a flair for highlighting the personality of her clients, resulting in very becoming dresses. She always favoured femininity over trends and elegance over dare. Ricci tried her hand in perfume making with the iconic spicy floralL’air du Temps, a fantasia of delicate undertones and tender warmth encased in the gorgeous Lalique bottle with the pair of doves on the stopper, that has been worn by our dearest and nearest for years. It managed to inspire numerous mysterious florals, Fijdi and Anais Anais being two of those and it became a bestseller in many countries, managing to sell one bottle every 3 minutes somewhere around the world! Alas, it has been so tampered with in its present version, as to render whiffs of it disappointing, failing to bring back the images of those loving female figures in our lives. A pity… Farouche and Coeur Joieare another two legendary Nina Ricci perfumes that remain in the confines of the vast vault of on-line auction shopping...
Robert Ricci , however, Nina’s son, created or rather art-directed the original NINA perfume, a powdery floral with fruits and woodsy, green notes in homage to his late mother in 1987. Very recent in perfume terms... The experiment was very successful artistically, however the business end was not met satisfactorily, resulting in a semi-retirement of the old version, which is not available anymore.
The new Nina bears absolutely no resemblance to the older one, but the identical name surely causes trouble to the consumer and confuses those who like to order things on the phone or on-line. To compare modern and vintage Nina, whereas the old version was an affair of traditional elegance with a rich sparkle of aldehydes in the opening and a green chypre accord that was quite popular in the 1980’s ( if one considers the success of Diva by Ungaro), the new one is very different: The overall effect of the older version was delicately powdery and it smelled the way all perfumes smell in a young child’s mind: sophisticated, fabricated, not found in nature. It used costly ingredients that managed to evolve and mingle with one another in trails of white light. The modern Nina is predictably a fruity floral with a gourmand touch. It opens on a very pleasing initial note of hesperidic crisp fruits that cascade off the bottle in rapid succession: lemon, bergamot, mandarin and especially lime"Caipirinha" (its approximation in non alcoholic form at least). The effect is sharp and surprisingly uplifting, like that of another pleasing fruity floral: Gucci Eau de parfum II(the lilac-pink juice in the heavy crystal lid square bottle), minus the berries. The heart accord of red toffee apple with moonflower (an abnormality of nature, a new breed after a tornado at the Mohave desert, from what I recall from The Body Shop version) and peony is nicely balanced, quite sweet for comfort though, with a little vanillic veil that heralds the base of white cedar and cotton musk. That last ingredient alludes to lab work that produces the bulk of synthetic musks today. It manages to smell soft and enveloping, with an average tenacity on the skin, although on the blotter the candy and cedarwood effect are what remains mostly after the more effervescent notes have vanished. The drydown is vaguely reminiscent of the base of Mugler’s Innocent , a perfume variant on the Angel recipe without the patchouli, more orientalised/gourmand than Nina, surely, but with the same praline afterthought; of the two I vastly prefer the Mugler iteration.
Overall, it will disappoint those who expected something similar to the older version, and get the spirits up of those who love the fruity floral semi-gourmand recipe, although I can’t bring myself to say I love it and the genre has overstayed its welcome for faaaaar too long. The bottle however is another story…
The modern Nina is available in eau de parfum at major department stores. The advertising commercial includes the late Russian model Ruslana Korshunova.
L’Artisan Parfumeur’s new collection Mon Numéro created by Bertrand Duchaufour features 8 moods, 8 numbers, 8 destinations and I was intrigued by one detail: . The collection will be on the market around the world in June, with specific numbers launched exclusively in different markets. Do I see Le Labo shades or am I delusional? It seems that L'Artisan Parfumeur is in some sort of creative orgasm with many launches recently, but they're also bent on retaining their exclusivity cachet that "made" them as one of the original niche brands. And in order to do that, now that the house is much better known to much more people, the practice of city-exclusives. It remains to be seen if the denied offer will drive up the demand.
L'Artisan promises that each scent features the highest quality raw materials that would evolve into a certain richness on the skin. The descriptions of the fragrances in the Mon Numéro collection are enticing enough all right, if cryptic, but I fail to see the novelty factor: they already sport a zingy cologne (Eau de l'Artisan), an iris (Iris Pallida), a vetiver (Coeur de Vetiver Sacre) in their regular line... So what's so special this time around? What's even odder is that the collection was announced in 2009, but it's only now that wider distribution is set to materialise. The fragrances are also repackaged: the new bottles follow the classic, typical L'Artisan style with the hexagonal caps and identical labels in deep chocolate. So why the belated release and why the repackaging? I'm jotting down guesses.
N°1 is a bold seductive fragrance fresh and fruity with pear and mimosa. Delightful !
N°3 recalls the intoxicating notes of an alcoholic drink, with sober, elegant notes of vetiver. Elegant and virile.
N°4 is a fog of memories, in the barber’s shop… Lavender… So familiar !
N°6 celebrates the rebirth of planet earth, a travel after moosoon, with green, floral, fruity aquatic notes
N°7 evokes a day in India, with Chai Tea, Jasmin and Tuberose softened by Sandalwood. With a whiff of spices.
N°8 powder, iris… Paying tribute to a great classic of perfumery…Classic and chic.
N°9 awakes the senses. A subtle cologne, zesty, crispy, with tangerine and citrus on a musky elegance on the background…
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The inclusion of inky notes in Japon Noir points to a purposeful refinement, akin to the meticulous care of Japanese calligraphy on thick scrolls; much like the name would suggest. But that is not all, and this is its success: The ambery-patchouli mix suggests a sleek sensuality that hints at more carnal past-times. Indeed Japon Noir starts with a suave introduction that reminds one of sweeter ambery orientals while the fusion of spice and candied fruit notes is instant Lutensiana: the inspiration couldn't be far behind, surely. The inclusion of cumin, ginger, nutmeg and thyme is especially simpatico to those of a Moorish-loving sensibility. Although cumin isn't particularly "sweaty" in this one, body-odour-phobics are still advised to test it further before investing in a bottle; we all perceive levels of "dirtiness" differently and your threshold might be higher or lower than mine.
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