Guerlain Le Bolshoi 2011 Limited edition & Les Voyages Olfactifs 04 London: new fragrances

Le Bolshoi 2011 Edition Limitee is the new limited edition perfume (set to circulate in only 400 bottles retailing for $570) to be released on October 27th, a day before the official opening of the historical Main Stage of the Bolshoi theater. As the equally historical house of Guerlain is one of sponsors in the renovating, the Le Bolshoi 2011 fragrance, accredited (surprisingly!) to Jean-Paul Guerlain, will launch to thus celebrate the event. The limited edition bottle bears a label with the front of the Bolshoi theater on it.

Le Bolshoi 2011 by Guerlain comprises the following fragrant notes:
top: bergamot, bitter orange, petitgrain, neroli
heart: jasmine, violet, orange blossom, ylang-ylang
base: musk, tonka bean, vanilla and incense

Le Bolshoi is launching exclusively in Russia (not even Paris is supposed to have bottles, though I doubt there won't be a couple for reference or display or something...) and is rumoured to be a recalibration of Les Secrets de Sophie previous fragrance according to independent sources.

Let's not forget that Guerlain has also just issued the 4th installment in their scented travelogue series: Les Voyages Olfactifs, 04 London.  The fragrance is introduced with the tag line "Guerlain reveals the atmosphere of afternoon tea with the freshness of rhubarbe" and the perfume puts the rose-rhubard-grapefruit accord within a semi-oriental composition. Fragrance notes include bergamot, grapefruit, rhubarb, violet, rose essential oil, rose absolute, and boiled sweets.
The bottles have been redesigned with a cityscape image visible on their glass front, each depicting landmarks of each respective city, as you can see below.

photo via Wim Janssens

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Anya's Garden Royal Lotus: fragrance review of a Brave New Scent & Giveaway

The lotus...floating upon river waters where ancient civilizations flourished and died. Jasmine...the pervader of the night, its piercingly sweet floral aroma the intoxicating scent of carnality.

Alcaloids contained inside the lotus produce a sedative effect, inspiring hypotheses as to its relation to the mythical fruit consumed by the Lotophagi. And the indolic aspects of natural jasmine essence are but an invitation to ponder on our life's primal instincts and how they're sublimated into the poetry of flowers. But in Royal Lotus by Anya's Garden we never quite forget we're dealing with a floral fragrance that though based on modern, cutting-edge sourced materials is always mindful of its pretty, primal nature of aromatics: to smell good!
Indeed, even if it's built on all natural essences, with lots of real jasmine, the less polite aspects of this formidable little night bloom have been smoothed into a silky, gentle canopy that floats in the evening breeze softly promising sweet nothings; thus allowing those curious about jasmine's many fascinating facets to explore into a fragrance that won't scare the horses or prompt anyone to inspect the soles of your shoes!
Royal Lotus is zesty on top with a bursting hesperidic top note that is succulent and fresh, progressing into a soft, floral heart where the sweeter, mating aspects are highlighted rather than the fetid and decaying inherent in white flowers. Lotus essences (uniting absolute and the waxier concrete) bring a light, airated, sivery thread into the mix. The fragrance is very lightly anchored by an equally soft, well-mingled base where no note protrudes above the rest. 

Royal Lotus, part of the Brave New Scents porject, therefore takes modern ingredients into creating what feels like a solid floral: classically topped by an expansive citrus bouquet that reinforces the freshness of the white and acqueous flowers, while a subtle base of woods and coumarin smooth the nectarous essences.
Anya McCoy created Royal Lotus using 21st century materials, referencing only one wildcard from the 20th century, namely clementine essence. Anya after all is no stranger to beautiful citruses and I consider them ~as well as her beautiful floral tinctures~ as the hallmark of her brand: Anyone who likes hesperidia and white flowers would surely find something to appreciate in her all naturals line.

For her inspiration the perfumer states: "My muse was ancient India, brought into the present, once again (remember Kewdra from the Mystery of Musk project)? I chose pink and blue lotus and the extrememly rare night queen absolute (aka Night-blooming jasmine, Cestrum nocturnun) for my heart. Night queen absolute is so rare, this perfume may be, due to lack of any more NQ absolute coming to market, a very limited edition."

The perfumer worked on these notes:

for the top:
wild orange from the Dominican Republic
yuzu from Korea
orange juice essential oil from Brazil
clementine from the USA

for the heart:
blue lotus absolute from Thailand
blue lotus concrete from India
pink lotus concrete from India
Queen of the Night absolute (cestrum nocturnum) from India
Queen of the Night tincture from Anya's garden in Florida
jasmine grandiflorum tincture from Anya's garden in Florida
jasmine sambac Grand Duke of Tuscany tincture from Anya's garden in Florida
orange flower tincture from Anya's garden in Florida

for the base:
sandalwood from Australia
ambergris absolute from Utah
tonka bean absolute from France

The perfumer suggests wearing this fragrance on one's hair, as this would reward the wearer with 24 hours of floral and woody pleasure. Indeed I found that skin application left the more delicate floral elements missing sooner than desired, while a generous blotter application suggests that there is no serious colour staining hazzard for non-silk clothes.

For our readers, a giveaway of a mini 3.5ml of Royal Lotus, courtesy of Anya's Garden. (Perfumer sends prize to the winner). Please state your interest in the comments. Draw is open till Sunday midnight.

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pic via flowerpicturegallery.com

Katy Perry to Introduce Meow: Second Celebrity Fragrance

According to WWD, Kate Perry with launch her second fragrance, exclusively with Nordstoms in November, a companion scent to her first celebrity scent out there, suggestively named "Purr". According to the article on WWD, "created in partnership with Perry’s fragrance licensee, Gigantic Parfums, the scent is intended to be a companion piece to the recording artist’s first fragrance, Purr, which debuted a year ago and is now available in 54 countries.

In the countdown to the launch, like Selena Gomez, Katy is trying to get her fans involved in the process urging her Twitter followers to guess the name of the perfume. Winners will win free bottles of the new perfume as well as meeting up with their idol.  Fickle glory!

EDIT TO ADD: The new name is set to be Meow by Kate Perry, continuing on the kittenish theme started by Purr. According to the singer's twitter account: “My next fragrance & bestie to Purr is MEOW! She’s very sweet & inspired by that magical place, CANDYFORNIA!”

Gustave Alphonse Fragifert: The ill-fated French Perfumer & his Wellington Fragrances

Gustave Alphonse Fragifert was a brilliant but ill-fated French perfumer who lived from 1880 to 1911 and died under mysterious circumstances in South America. He wrote his formulas for four perfumes in code, which have now resurfaced in New Zealand after 100 years.

Sounds intriguing? This is the fictitious tale of a 12-minute-long performance in Wellington, New Zealand, but the fragrances are real*, each of them representing a season and are both art-directed and composed by Francesco van Eerd. Van Erd is Dutch-born and forestry graduate New Zealender, who has also studied perfumery in Grasse and Britain, and who acts with the aid of performing arts student Robbie van Dijk, in this amusing performance. Based at the Wellington Underground Market, Fragrifert (pronounced frah-gree- fair and I'm sure I'm missing some inside linguistic joke that is perched on Dutch, which I don't know) has been delighting visitors with live performances in a theatrette beside the stall (every half hour from 10.30am until 3.30pm) since the 3rd of September. Sounds like a don't miss if you're around!

*The Fragrifert Scents are:
Ete (=summer) has notes of grapefruit, cedar, prune, white musk, oakmoss, vanilla and ambergris. Lilac (for spring) is built on flowers, one of them being lilac: broom, mimosa, heliotrope, rose and violet, laced with tobacco, patchouli and sandalwood, as well as citruses and liquorice. Automne is a soft oriental with cinnamon, tyberose, vanilla and orchirds, while Hiver (=winter) interprets the cool, yet spicy, wintersweet shrub, adding lily of the valley and cyclamen notes.
Each fragrance at 25% concentration (potent!) is 24.50$ or 80$ for the set of four.

news via the dominion post

Hermes by Lord's Jester: fragrance review of a Brave New Scent & giveaway

You might be incredulous to see the moniker referring to Aldous Huxley's novel twisted into a perfume review, but indie perfumer Adam Gottschalk of Lord's Jester participates in a blogathon of indie perfumers which we announced on these pages recently and his scent submission Hermes indeed defies classification.

For Hermes perfume, a vividly green (literally!) perfume, Gottschalk used one of the essences which I have always been fascinated by: green cognac. Produced from the wine precipitate known as "lees", from the plant vitis vinifera, cognac essence is a winey, dry, complex note.
The vividly mossy stain of the fragrance does not bely the scent itself: it's rather mossy and quite animalic all right; musty, tart, very dry and earthy, but with a floral depth opening soon, which allays some of the gloom and animalistic character of Africa stone. (Africa stone/hyraceum for those who don't know it yet is the petrified and rock-like excrement composed of both urine and feces excreted by the Cape Hyrax (Procavia capensis), commonly referred to as the Dassie. The material can be harvested by aroma material producers without harming the animal to render a note that unites some of the facets of castoreum, musk and oud. Quite intense!) Coupling the musty with the more hay-sweetish flouve absolute (rich in coumarin) produces a loaded combo that seems to hit you on the head at first, only to mellow soon after.
Lord Jester's Hermes tricks you into believing it is all about the base notes, but the lighter elements (a very perceptible and very lovely indolic jasmine note, plus citrus essences) are welcome leverage which rounds off the perfume. Too much animal can prove unwearable otherwise!
I have tested the fragrance from a spray vial and feel that it would be better suited to a dabbing from a splash bottle instead, to smoothen the initial blast; the rest of the composition blooms wonderfully without assistance even on a mouillette, usually not the perfect medium for all natural perfumes.

The perfumer used in order from greatest concentration to least these "wild" essences for his fragrance "notes":

for the base:
green cognac
linden blossom absolute in 30% fractionated coconut oil
flouve absolute
ambrette absolute
Africa stone

for the heart:
araucaria
rosa bourbonia
boronia
jasmine auriculatum
jasmine sambac

for the top:
linden blossom essential oil
orange essence
lime essence
tagetes

Pretty rare, huh? Indeed Gottschalk clarifies in a blog post how suddenly two of his chosen essences are becoming rarer and rarer; namely rosa bourbonia and jasmine auriculatum. Harvesting materials which are unavailable to the masses and the Big Boys (big aroma producing companies) however is at the heart of small artisanal perfumers, isn't it? In that regard, you won't be disappointed: There's inherent rarity factor in Hermes and I hope Adam finds a way to procure supply of these two rare aromatics. 
Hermes by Lord's Jester is an 15% concentrated Eau de Parfum and is quite decently lasting for an all naturals perfume.
We have a perfume giveaway for our readers (a 10ml/0.4oz) mini of Hermes, so please post a comment if you want to be eligible!  (NB.Perfumer sends prize directly to winner)

Sample provided by perfumer as part of the project. Photo found via AnyaMcCoy's tweets.