Etat Libre d'Orange Bijou Romantique: fragrance review

~You let yourself be impressed by that sailor with the pierced ear?

~But no...

Caïn to Pandora Groosvenore (nicknamed "bijou romantique" by said sailor) in Hugo Pratt's La ballata del mare salato/ La ballade de la mer salee comics book starring Corto Maltese

The French have a saying "le parfum bijou" denoting both the literal sense (a perfume carried in a jewel receptible) and the metaphorical (a fragrance that adorns and highlights the beauty of its wearer). Bijou Romantique by Etat Libre d'Orange comes with little of the irreverence that the French brand exhibits and plenty of the beautyfying factor. I'd call it féérique myself (fairy-like, fairy-made). It's delicate, lovely, and oddly savoury, breaking the impression we have of oriental gourmand (i.e. dessert-like) perfumes into tiny slivers, much as it was done with Etat Libre d'Orange Fils de Dieu, their other new release for 2012. Bijou Romantique stops just short of being "skanky" or "dirty" (in a good way) -see Amaranthine by Penhaligon's- offering a deceptive "bombshell" fragrance for those women (and the adventurous men sharing it) who demand that their perfume acts as morale boosting for those approaching them. An appeal as timeless as the beauty whose virtue has a "price far above rubies", a Scriptures phrase that serves as the motto for the company.

Composed by perfumer Mathilde Bijaoui it's no wonder; it was Mathilde who signed the critically acclaimed Tilda Swinton Like This, you see, and she's also the composer of that controversial ~but eminently interesting~ accord of fig and caviar in Thierry Mugler's Womanity.

With Bijou Romantique Bijaoui offers a nuanced composition that hovers on the precipice between savory and sweet, rich and satisfying, exploiting the subtle chocolate-like facets of iris and vetiver and contrasting them with the natural creaminess of vanilla and benzoin resin with a fresh lemony top note. Laboratoire Mane’s captive Evee ® molecule bridges the gap between the sweet elements and the soft rosy spices. As Bijaoui explains herself in an interview on French TV: "My luck at Mane is to have an important team of researchers constantly developing new molecules and finalizing new extraction techniques. Thanks to their extraction technique called "Jungle Essence" we perfumers at Mane, were able to create a new olfactory family, the sweet/savory family. The Jungle Essence technology allowed us to extract scents never extracted before: fig and caviar. Jungle Essence offers new possibilities, new scents, using ingredients non extractable through conventional methods. (nuts, coconut…) The Jungle Essence process produces a natural extract. This extract can be directly used in perfumed or flavoured compositions."
In Bijou Romantique the proceedings take on a darker, more complex character in the main plot, thanks to the inclusion of a musky-woody background where the sweet-liquorice note of patchouli is clearly detectable. Patchouli is of course a beloved niche fragrances element, coming back from the hippie 1960s with a vengeance, but in contrast to Nobril Immense by the same company where it's too potent, too sweet, here it's nuanced with the protagonist: the ripe fruity note of tropical ylang ylang and the soft rosy nuance of pink pepper.

Tender, inviting and multi-facetted, Bijou Romantique is like a nostalgic cameo pinned on the edge of a low neckline. Farewell Pandora!

The transparency and cozy gourmand factor of Bijou Romantique is sure to entice those who liked The Different Company's Oriental Lounge or Fendi's discontinued (but marvellous) Theorema and might be of interest for anyone exploring niche gourmand perfumes (such as the Micallef line Les Notes Gourmandes or those by Les Néréides)

Notes for Etat Libre d'Orange Bijou Romantique:

Bergamot, Italian lemon, pink pepper essence, ylang-ylang, clary sage, Tuscan iris, Jungle Essence coconut, Haitian vetiver, patchouli, benzoin, vanilla.

Bijour Romantique is available as Eau de Parfum 50ml at the official site, Henri Bendels, MiN New York and online from Luckyscent and Les Santeurs.

pic via http://ilmioblog-lu.blogspot.com and http://avozportalegrense.blogspot.com

Burberry Body: fragrance review

A shame the appearence is betraying a fragrance so much. The gorgeous electric-car charger looking bottle (or a crystal baton, if you prefer) encased in a leather pouch in beige tones is far sleeker and classier than the soapy, synthetic and rather dull floral musk hiding inside the container. The name and commercial hinted at some tryst conducted in the aftermath of a spring shower that necessitated the wearing of a Burberry trenchcoat. The fragrance however is akin to sprikling yourself in sudsy water rather than bodily fluids...

Burberry Body is rather potent, warm and woody, taking in mind the constraints of both the soapy and musky floral genre (which usually tend to lean towards coolish), but doesn't really ever become a true "skin scent" in the sense of mimicking anyone's warm, living skin -or the scent equivalent of invoking the aftermath of intimate action between lovers. It's death by a hundred little guest soaps with rosy wrapping!The chunk of Cashmeran in the base doesn't aid much.

Nor is the composition a gorgeous true floral musk the way Narciso Rodriguez Narciso For Her and its many different fragrance versions are or Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker. The effect in Body remains at all times a bit aloof, without much of the promised absinthe or the powderiness of iris compositions, the soap a little detached from the nooks and cranes it's supposed to lather up to. The sudsy floral part of Penhaligon's Castile is there, but whereas in Castile this aided the radiance of what is essentially a programmatically "clean" fragrance with lots of orange blossom, in Burberry Body we have a similar phenomenon as in the newer version of Chloé; the aliphatic aldehydes project sharp, loud and fatty, laundry-detergent reminiscent, with a hint of lactonic peach and vanilla under the rosiness, and tend to remind you of a chemical soup rather than the ouverture to some floral symphony of yore. Furthermore Body is absolutely linear and guaranteed not to offend anyone; usually that's a seal of lack of character.

I realise that "clean" and "shower fresh" are loaded and important terms in fragrance marketing, that one has to pick an unobtrusive scent for the office at times and there is a huge segment of the population who is after the perfect "just out of the shower" fragrance anyway, but I'm afraid that this is not it; their worthy goal is better served elsewhere. [Explore our Soapy Fragrances and Musky Fragrances articles linked, if you like].

Notes for Burberry Body: absinthe, peach, freesia, rose absolute, iris, sandalwood, woody cashmeran, musk, vanilla, amber.

Photo: Andrian Wilson, I need you more than you need me. 

The winner of the draw...

...for the Hedera Helix green chypre by Roxana is KKinDK. Congratulations and please email me using Contact with your shipping data so I can have this out in the mail for you soon!

Thanks everyone for the enthusiastic participation and till the next one (very soon!).

Etat Libre d'Orange Malaise of the 1970s fragrance: Change of Name, Change of Pace

Etat Libre d'Orange changes the name of their Sex Pistols fragrance (a 2010 release for French Sephora) into a more encompassing name and concept ~and please note this might be one of many to follow. The official site of the niche French brand even declares: The Sex Pistols are dead, long live Malaise (hope not, in the literal sense of the word!). "We thought it was hilarious to name a juice after a band whose stars were called Rotten and Vicious so we could sell it in a cosmetics emporium. But that’s not necessarily the whole story. In fact, we have many more in stock.
Because what is perfume, when you think of it? A potion we use to reinvent our memories. The matrix of as many stories as there are ways of getting into the scent. So what if we drew the consequence of this story-generating mechanism by dressing up the same perfume with as many names, characters and plotlines as it inspires? What if we gave it avatars? So we’re taking ‘Sex Pistols’ and giving it a new name that fits these troubled times…"

But let's see how the presentation changed:

Relive the anarchy of Britain in the punk age with the Etat Libre d'Orange Malaise of the 1970s Eau de Parfum.
Inspired by a wealth of seventies pop culture references, from Star Wars to The Stranglers, Malaise of the 1970s captures the resistant and tumultuous spirit of the times. A metallic juice that resonates like the twang of a guitar string, its sharpness reminiscent of safety pins fastened to tartan. A distillation of rebellion, music and raw emotion.
This scent from Etat Libre d'Orange blends the piquancy of black pepper and electric aldehydes with the headiness of patchouli and leather. Like an act of resistance, you cannot keep it out of your body any more than you can stop breathing. Blast off the last wafts of patchouli tailing after the Summer of Love. Growl out "No More Heroes". Take off to a galaxy far, far away. and indulge in the unique malaise of the 1970s.

Notes for Malaise of the 1970s: Citrus, Black Pepper, Amber, Prune, Electric Aldehydes, Heliotrope, Patchouli, Orcanox, Leather.

One note: Trainspotting came out in 1996. (Even if McGregor became Obi-Wan later on). Just so you know. 

Watch a clip on the brand and its manifesto/aims by president Etienne de Swardt.

Scents of Time to Close Down in April

"In the perfume game we were up against some huge businesses such as Dior. It was like David versus Goliath except this time Goliath won. The stone in my slingshot wasn't big enough. We started strongly and it seemed to be going well but people don't have a lot of spare money for a luxury like us."

Thus says David Pybus, of Scents of Time, a historian gone the way of perfume recreation. The info and quotes come from an article on This is Kent.

After collaborating with Dragon's Den, Pybus has created five scents including Nenufar which was Cleopatra's perfume of choice, and Ankh which was inspired by the incense found in the tomb of Tutankhamen. He currently has 500 bottles left of Night Star, the Titanic scent which we had reported on these very pages, now reduced from £40 to £6.[NB. This is a local-only valid offer, as there can be no international orders arrangements at this point]

For more details please visit http://www.scentsoftime.co.uk

If you want to try out the Scents of Time fragrances there are samples (and bottles) circulating from UK locations on Ebay.