Madonna Truth or Dare: fragrance review

To extrapolate that Madonna's Truth or Dare celebrity fragrance is a Fracas-inspired vehicle is a given unless you had been living under a rock for the past 20 years. Not only had the reference been clearly made when the classic Fracas by Robert Piguet was re-issued under new directorship sometimes in the mid-1990s (along with the equally classic and controversial Bandit perfume) ~and Madonna was letting the world know she wore Fracas because it reminded her of her mother~ the famous quinquagenarian has been known to love tuberose and gardenia anyway. True to form, though not daringly enough, her fragrance Truth or Dare, late on the bandwagon of celebrity fumes, is indeed a sharp, loud tuberose with added side notes of waxy gardenia, coconut for a tropical feel to the white flowers and amber-musks in the base. It's the right thing to wear if you're decked in a conservative tailleur and fishnet veil with black eyeliner and red lipstick and horny after a handsome toreador just like Madonna herself was in "Take a Bow". (The image says it all, really; lady and tramp in equal measure).

via hollywoodreporter.com

Because Truth or Dare is a true celebrity perfume (the face behind it infinitely more important than the juice), but at the same time coming from a celebrity who is well known for her genuine interest in fragrances and her vast collection, I decided to evaluate the fragrance in a "game" of plus and cons. After all, Madonna has played the Madonna-Whore duality herself for decades.

The minus points
By now tuberose and gardenia have been tackled beyond the iconic Fracas in a pleiad of guises by niche perfume companies, sometimes to incredible results: The natural green and tropical vibrancy of Carnal Flower by Frédéric Malle is hard to beat. The silkiness of the initially mentholated Tubéreuse Criminelle by Serge Lutens is unsurpassable. The refinement of Beyond Love by Kilian, very close to Fracas, but a bit more natural feeling, is a wonder of artistry and nature: Calica Becker used the fresh flowers as a reference to narrow the gap between the oil and the real blossom and the injection of coconut gives a sensuous mantle of real human skin. For real gardenia we have Estée Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia which smells as real as the living thing, green buds, browning petals and all.

Madonna's effort therefore seems too little, too late. If Truth or Dare had been issued 15 or even 10 years ago (why wasn't it? that is the question) we would have been more responsive to its white flowers message. By now, it's almost a cliché. (And inspires its own caricature, please open with caution) Even Kim Kardashian has issued her very own version in her first fragrance; with an added dose of sugarcane, of course...And if rock-babe Courtney Love issues a celebrity perfume in the future, I'm sure she will get endless propositions on the same model of tuberose-gardenia given her self-proclaimed love of Fracas as well. (Whether she will capitulate though, that's another matter)

The plus points
Presenting a waxy tuberose-gardenia combo ~and a loud, unashamed one at that~ to the audience of teeny-bopper consumers who are used to sugar-laced sanitised white florals or fruity swirls with a ton of ethylmaltol & patchouli in there is commendable. Obviously not only teenagers have a right to a celebrity perfume and fans of Madge have reason to celebrate, I guess. It's not going to garner you "youthful" comments though, be prepared (Not a bad thing in itself) and if you live in a subdued environment that only tolerates "clean" non-perfumey perfumes and winces at anything else, you will have to wear this at home alone with the windows taped.

As to the perfume composition, the duality of the name Truth or Dare is cleverly built into the formula overseen by Coty. There is on the one hand the tropical, sweet, nail polish acrid, very indolic (with jasmine and jasmolactones), loud white floral tentacle with a hint of lily; lethal and femme fatale. On the other hand there is the more subdued belly of resinous ingredients, benzoin, emitting a hint of vanilla, amber and the blank canvas of synthetic musks, giving an almost monastic feel due to their subdued effect and low projection. This schizoid personality of Madonna's Truth or Dare seems totally intentional and for that reason I can't but admire the smarts (and dare I say, the guts).

Bottom Line: Madonna wouldn't be shamed to death to be caught wearing her celebrity perfume, which is more than I can say for many other celebrity scents out there. If you are a lover of Fracas, tuberose-gardenia compositions and loud, a tad vulgar-but-out-for-a-good-time perfumes, it's worth a try.

Note: The ad campaign has been deemed too racy for prime-time. Was this really unexpected? Nope...  

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Tuberose perfumes reviews, Gardenia perfumes reviews, Celebrity Scents

Troubles in the Kingdom of The Perfumed Court?

The sensationalist title is perhaps a bit outre. I can't know for sure what exactly passed between the three ladies at the Perfumed Court, the online decanters who have made a reputation as a credible perfume venue ~if expensive~ for perfume addicts everywhere. But something's changed for sure. In short, the outfit as we knew it is no more.

the old times TPC team (from left to right): Lisa, Patty & Diane with Shirl via parishotelboutique.blogspot.com

Instead my information tells me that Patty and Lisa have departed in order to open a NEW decanting business site, while Diane is left to run the previous site as per her sole mention on the "About" page as of this minute  ["For over four years Diane offered a huge selection of scents on eBay under her seller name Dragonfly00. Diane distinguished herself by her ability to acquire vintage and rare fragrances. She is also quite an expert on ouds. Diane is located near Atlanta, Georgia."]

The split is official as evidenced by the following email which has reached the inbox of several subscribers to their list:

"Lisa Lawler and Patty White are opening a new perfume sample and decant website - surrendertochance.com - this week! It is under construction as we finish up all the details to make this a wonderful resource for you.
Like us on Facebook to get the latest news on the grand opening.
We have loved bringing perfume to you for all these years at The Perfumed Court and hope very much that we will have the joy of seeing you at our new home."

There was a previous "split" with Fishbone, another collector who used to sell on Ebay, a few years ago. The reasons for that, I'm sure, were of a different nature.

I wish them (all of them) all the best in their new endeavours and I join my prayer with those of hundreds out there that the change of scenery might mean a change in price policies too!
The loss of one member does potentially signal a problem though: As the three among them possessed a vast collection of different bottles each, the convenience of TPC meant covering all bases for almost everything in one place. It will be harder to corner that now.
Just one thing, I can't resist: "Surrender to chance"? Is purchasing decants & vintage samples a game of chance now or a risk like online gambling? I know they didn't ask me,  it's none of my business and the name is a registered domain by now, but...

What do you think?  What does this piece of news signal for you?

Questions about commenting on the Perfume Shrine

One of the constants I receive in emails is from people who sometimes have difficulty commenting on PerfumeShrine.

It would be practical for all if there were a "sticky" post up, so here we are.

First of all, Perfume Shrine has always been (and will continue to be) an online platform where anyone can comment. You don't need to be in any specific Group or Community, you don't need to have a Blogger account or Facebook or anything, you don't need to be "knowledgeable" about perfume (there are no silly questions or comments in my books) and you don't need to publicize your name or ANY other identifying data about yourself; your privacy is respected at all times.

Comments are non moderated for current posts which are a couple of days "old". Anywhere beyond that time limit however and I need to moderate them,  as I try to answer them all.

Any comment is acceptable, be it negative or positive. But obvious spam is pruned. Sorry, if you want to advertise your business or affiliated content, do it openly; it's very annoying for both readers and myself to read pretenses of a comment.
Insults to our readers are also pruned. This is a civilized community and we can agree to disagree with dignity & respect.


So ....what do you need in order to comment successfully? If you want the official Google help, hit this link and read for yourself (with pics). Otherwise read on.

IN ORDER TO COMMENT click on the "Comments" link AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST you want to answer/comment to. The Comments link is right besides the "Posted by PerfumeShrine at so & so day" (which serves as the Permalink of any given post) and just over the Labels/Tags.
Clicking the Comments link opens a box space BELOW the post (so scroll), integrated through the Blogger platform which controls it.

Sometimes Blogger acts funny. It's not my fault, I swear. Give it a couple of minutes and try again, please. Good things come to those who wait.

When you have the Comment window in front of you, there's a box to write in:

an older box window actual screenshot and here is a borrowed image

You see a box where you can type your comment. Under it there is a word verification code to type to prove you're not a robot spammer. (I had resisted this -annoying to some- function for very long, until one day I got about 46 spam comments which I had to manually delete one by one...).
If you have trouble "getting" the words, try again or click on the "soundbox" icon to hear them instead.

Under this word verification there is a "Choose an Identity" menu. The menu has as first option a "Google account" which takes you into a Blogger signing in page. This function allows your comment to have your own Blogger identity and link, which is useful if -say- you want to make people aware of your own blog! HOWEVER this is where most people trying to comment stumble: they just don't know what happened and they got redirected to what looks like this! They think they're comment is lost forever and resign (Shame on Blogger for not explaining in detail). Or perhaps they don't desire to sign in as a Blogger user this time or don't want to register on Blogger at all!

This is where the OTHER options (apart from option 1 "Google Account") come in.

Option 2:
"Open ID" which allows Livejournal, Wordpress, Typepad and AIM users to comment linking their own data/pages/blogs from these other, non-Blogger platforms. Cool!

Option 3:
You choose a Name/Alias. This may include an external URL to your site (a blog, a Facebook account, your Twitter handle, whatever you want). Again, hit Publish after you're done; you should see your comment published right away.

Last but not least...
Option 4: the Anonymous option at the very bottom. Just click that Anon option, type your vitriol (just kidding!) and hit Publish. Again, you will see your comment published right away, unless it's for an older post in which case I need to moderate it first.

You can Preview you comment at all times and edit yourself to your heart's content.

With the Nest/Threaded format, you can also REPLY under anyone's comment and pursue the conversation. It should look a bit like this.

borrowed from Google search

I hope I have answered that pesky question that crops up so frequently and have enlightened you satisfactorily. If you have any further problems, please don't hesitate to let me know by email using CONTACT (perfumeshrine AT yahoo dot com)

Chloe L'Eau de Chloe: fragrance review

Cast your eye back to the days when you were a kid in a floral print sundress, pig-tails hanging down the sides of your face, flowers pinned carefully on the hair by an older sister or attentive mother, and selling lemonade off a kiosk outside your school or terraced porch to amass money for summer camp (or something along those lines). I hear this gets done a lot in America. I can only tell you that I hadn't had any of those experiences, but lemonade drinking I did as a kid. A lot. It was the official drink of summer (along with sour cherry juice which is just as delicious, if not more) and gulping it down, all thirsty after a run in the fields cutting off wild roses & poppies or a swim in the sea, was one of the major joys of careless late spring and summer days. Perhaps there's something of that ~childhood-reminiscent, innocent and eager about it all~ that is so very refreshing and uplifting when we encounter a citrusy smell. Perhaps that's also why perfume companies are sure to bring forth a slew of citrusy colognes and fragrances into the market with the regularity of a Swiss clock, each spring as soon as the caterpillars turn into butterflies. There's just something optimistic, open and joyous about them, isn't there. Which is where L’Eau de Chloé comes in; from its frozen lemonade top note into its rosewater heart and down to its cooling, mossy base, it's an improvement on the previous Chloe edition* and a scent which instantly puts a smile on my face, even if it doesn't really mesh with my style, having no dark nor serious intentions.

Nikiforos Lytras, The Kiss

The recent "madness" for Eaux
Perfumer Michel Almairac was commissioned with a citrusy built on "clean" rose with a dewy character. Eaux are big as a variant in existing fragrance lines lately, rather than just a rehash of the citrus-herbal Eau de Cologne recipe, with predictably good results; especially at Dior (who had it all with their classic Eau Fraîche) with their Miss Dior Chérie L'Eau and J'Adore L'Eau Florale. Other contestants in this revamped "eau" game include Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte, Chanel Chance Eau Tendre and Chance Eau Fraîche, the three Ô de Lancôme, Eau de Shalimar by Guerlain (a different attitude as this is a complex citrusy oriental rather than just a citrusy, fresh, uncomplicated splash on), Hermes Eau de Gentiane Blanche and Eau de Pamplemousse Rose, even Serge Lutens with his L'Eau Froide and the previous L'Eau de Serge Lutens. It's a good alternative for warm weather wearing when you live in a hot climate.

Perfume impressions and formula structuring
Almairac used the transparent, luminous and at the same time lightly sweet and delectable natural note of rosewater (a distillate from rose petals) in L’Eau de Chloé to counterpoint and at the same time accent, via the common elements, the tart lemonade opening and the lemony magnolia blossom in the core. What was less easy to accomplish was how to stabilize it into a formula that would retain structure. The perfumer opted thus for a mossy-musky base accord which simmers with the angular, lightly bitter beauty of chypre via patchouli and woody ambers (ambrox). The fragrance belongs in the genre of Versace Versence or a modernised/watered down Coriandre by Jean Couturier.
The effect is that of a fizzy, sparkling, tingling the nose grapefruit and citron opening, vivid, spicy and refreshing at the same time with the gusto of carbonated fizz drinks bursting on your face which is prolonged into the proceedings. The peppery, crisp freshness evolves into the bold rosy heart of L’Eau de Chloé, balanced between powdery-minty and retro; non obtrusive for casual day wear, but with enough presence to uphold itself throughout a romantic afternoon. It's because of this that the fragrance projects more as a feminine than a citrusy unisex, which might create its own little problems (i.e. usually unisex citruses are the best). The mossy, patchouli-trailing with a warm, inviting "clean musk" vibe about it is discreet and rather short-lived (as is natural for the genre) and I would definitely prefer it to be darker and more sinister, but the fragrance overall serves as a reminder that small miracles are what we're  thankful for these days.

Advertising images
L’Eau de Chloé utilizes the familiar girl in a field of grass imagery in its advertising, first used by Balmain's classic Vent Vert (which did have something very meadow-like about it!) and perpetuated into recent releases; I'm reminding of Daisy Eau So Fresh by Marc Jacobs for instance. The young sprite is mythologically loaded, reminiscent of nubile teenagers in Greek classical myth deflowered by philandering gods, and it remains a feminist concern thanks to its sheer helplessness (who will hear your cries in the distance?). But perhaps we're injecting too much into it. Perhaps just rolling on a field on a warm, sunny day is a joy into itself and in this land of perfume fantasy all the big bad wolves are programmatically kept at bay or exitinguished with a squirt of a well chosen perfume sprayer. It's a thought...

Notes for L'Eau de Chloé: lemon, peach, violet, natural rosewater, patchouli, cedar.
Available from major department stores.

*NB: I'm hereby referring to the screechy laundry-detergent like Chloé Eau de Parfum by Chloé (2008) and not the excellent, violet-tinged nostalgic powdery fragrance Love, Chloé.

Model: Camille Rowe-Pourcheresse. Shot by Mario Sorenti, Music: Lissy Trullie / Ready for the floor.
More at www.chloe.com/eau

Painting by Greek painter Nikiforos Lytras, The Kiss.

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