The winner of the draw...

...for the Mohur bottle and the Neela Vermeire Creation samples is Sara. Congratulations! Please email me with your shipping data using Contact with "Mohur winner" in the title, so I can put things into motion.

Thanks everyone for the enthusiastic participation and till the next one!

Christmas Gift Shopping part 1: Scented Candles

In the countdown to the most festive season of the year Perfume Shrine will pop shopping enabling posts to help you wade through the vast selection and steer you into the most interesting and worthwhile choices.

For part 1 I was enchanted to see that Diptyque perfumers have collaborated with the creative design duo Tse Tse to render a limited edition of 3 scented candles, each presented in either 70 gr (burn time of around 20 hours) retailing for 28 euros or 190g (burn time of 50-60 hours) retailing at 52 euros each. Personally, I'd be thrilled if a guest brought me as a housewarming gift a jar with Encens des Indes!
But here are the three scents in detail.

Écorce de Pin
The woody and Christmasy scent of snow covered pines mixes with hinoki wood, a Japanese variety of cypress used for furniture. The scent of the candle hints at camphoraceous and smoky notes, including galbanum, cedar and patchouli.

Encens des Indes
Purple like a bishop, this spicy and floral tinged candle mingles franckincense (powerful with citrus tones and pepper nuances softened by woody and balsamic notes) and myrrh, poised between incense and rosemary, a musky, smoky and slightly pungent scent. The gifts of the Magi. A lemony rose alongside spicy floral notes reminiscent of carnations complete the harmony.

Orange Chaya
This brightly hued candle envelopes the room in spices. Sweet without being thick, it evokes the warm roundness of an orange, then the freshness of cardamom, rising, an exotic tea mixture with notes of quince, ginger and cinnamon. We are projected into the flavors of winter.

Miu Miu Fragrances to Launch in Collaboration with Coty

The Italian fashion brand Prada has been active at the fragrance stakes for years now (Prada original, Prada Tendre, Prada Infusion d'Iris, Infusion d'Homme and all the other Prada Infusion editions, Luna Rossa, Prada L'Eau Ambree, Prada Candy and Candy flankers etc.) Now the diffusion line by Prada, Miu Miu, founded in 1993, is intent on launching their own eponymous fragrance line after the success of the mother company.
To accomplish that they have embarked in an exclusive collaboration with beauty giant Coty Inc., famous for their extensive fragrance portfolio and their technical and resources input in collaborating with various designers and celebrities bringing out their own fragrances. The Miu Miu collaboration will be conducted under the aegis of Coty Prestige, nevertheless, who overlook the upper echelon of their business.

Lindsay Lohan for Miu Miu via

"The agreement with Coty, an internationally recognised reference in the luxury fragrance market, marks a major step forward in Miu Miu's development plan," said Patrizio Bertelli, CEO, Prada Group, according to Cosmetics Business. "I am therefore sure that, leveraging on Coty's know-how and Miu Miu's strong identity, this partnership will be a worldwide success of mutual satisfaction to both companies."

According to Bloomberg " The 20-year-old fashion and accessories label, named after Prada Chairman Miuccia Prada, had sales of 512.8 million euros ($706 million) in the year ended Jan. 31, or 16 percent of total company revenue. The deal with Coty would allow Prada to expand its second-largest unit in the $60 billion luxury beauty industry."
Michele Scannavini, CEO, Coty, added: "Miu Miu is one of the most refined and respected luxury houses in the world and one of the fastest growing global brands in the whole fashion industry. It is an exciting opportunity for Coty to build a worldwide fragrance business for Miu Miu and also to further build our own market share in the prestige fragrance market".

The Miu Miu fragrance line is expected to be introduced in 2015, the Milan-based company said yesterday in a statement.

Neela Vermeire Talks and Offers Free Perfume Bottle Giveaway

What would Neela Vermeire of NVC do and say if she were a guest at my dinner party and we brought out the wine, the amuse-bouche and the board games for adults? I invited her over to have a Scent Game and she gracefully and playfully indulged me. So take thee over to Fragrantica to read our little game, where she describes her perfumes in dessert terms and not only (saffron kheer with bhang for Trayee for instance or rose & carrot halwa for Mohur) and post a comment here on Perfume Shrine to enter a fabulous giveaway she's offering to our European readers. The draw is open to European Union addresses and the generous (fabulous!) prize includes a classic flacon of NVC Mohur perfume with samples of Trayee and Bombay Bling as well as a glass sample vial of Ashoka. Submissions will be counted till Friday midnight and winner will be announced on Monday.

Now that we have gotten this out of the way, let me elaborate why I feel Neela Vermeire Creations is such a big deal. From the musky depths of the historically inspired Trayee to the delicate and graceful arc of Mohur right up to the fruity exuberance of Bombay Bling and the unusual Ashoka, Neela Vermeire Creations is among the best niche lines to grace the horizon in some time. Although I personally discovered it with at least one year delay, I consider it one of the brightest "a ha" moments in my course of scent writing. And those don't come often, let me tell you.

I was personally interested in finding out how and why the 4th installment, Ashoka eau de parfum, came to be, especially since it's such a multi-nuanced and unusual fragrance that seems both a little apart and at the same time very much in tune with the spirit that traverses through the Neela Vermeire Creations line. Neela obliged me: "The first trio were based on wide historic eras in India. We wanted to continue this journey and develop our India inspired collection with our fourth fragrance, Ashoka Eau de Parfum. Ashoka is a tribute to the internal/philosophical changes that occurred during the life of Emperor Ashoka (when he realized upon his conversion to Buddhism that wars were not the solution and compassion was the way forward). It is an important message for the world we live in and Emperor Ashoka has been of interest to us. After all our logo was inspired by Ashoka's chakra."
Indeed the fragrance presents a panorama of redemption and spirituality. You can read my review of it on this link.

The bottom line I suppose is that the success of the line lies not only on the deft handling of the concept by the perfumer (Bertrand Duchaufour) but first and foremost on the art direction of Neela herself; a dedicated person, an aficionado as well as a connoisseur, and an excellent communicator all around. It's been a true honor knowing her.

Le Labo Cuir 28 (Dubai exclusive): fragrance review

What took Le Labo a couple of years to go from announcing Cuir 28 to actually launching it? It's as yet undivulged. Smelling the recently launched fragrance my mind is reeling into a fantasy of Chanel's Sycomore with leather and vanilla. Looks fabulous on paper but in practice it doesn't quite work as intended. Possibly because it looks like two disjointed parts, reminiscent of those kid's toys in which two rolls with images cut in half join at the middle to give you a giraffe's neck with lion's legs or a ballerina with the head of a Hell's Angel. In fact the parable of the latter isn't far removed from the reality of the latest Le Labo Dubai exclusive, Cuir 28.

via thinkgeek.com

Le Labo presents their leather fragrance as "Easy Rider without the sweat and gasoline — blending leather, wood and animal notes to give it a very powerful, dark and memorable personality" Specifically they mention natural vanilla absolute, leather notes (a synthetic base), woods (vetiver), animal notes (ambrox), and musks (muscenone).

Although the opening is jolting for anyone who considers the modern representatives of the "cuir" genre being cuddly and purring kittens like Guerlain Cuir Beluga or other suede fragrances (indeed these lean more to oriental than true leather scents), or spoiled by the plush iris note of Chanel Cuir de Russie, Cuir 28 is an exercise in illusion, an unusual and intriguing composition. Much like Tubereuse Criminelle before it, it hides beneath the shocking prelude a sensitive ballad. In Cuir 28 that ballad is played on the wooden wind instruments: a vanilla oboe and a vetiver clarinet, filling its other's phrases with a bridge in legato. The perfume's opening, smoky, tar-like, phenolic smelling with a touch of that cult Goutal, Eau du Fier and Band Aid worthy (oudh) pungency, isn't particularly animalic smelling, nor is it especially musky scented, but it can be a bit masculine and butch all the same. Wait about 15 minutes though (applying on the skin) and the rest of the composition in Cuir 28 becomes a sweetened vetiver scent, clean and comfortable and really fetching with its very perceptible vanilla. (Possibly there are more synthetic wood notes, like sandalwood, which provide some plush after the thrash.)
The comforting part has been a recent favorite for Le Labo judging from their Moscow exclusive, the extremely hard to come by Benjoin 19. Which beckons the question: Is the East succumbing to a Western taste?

Nevertheless, as is not uncommon with fragrances in the upper echelons of the pricing range, especially when they require a concentrated effort to get hold of as well, the dedicated perfumista might find that the effect is not worth the asking price in the end. Although I have been known to deem at least two of the Le Labo city exclusives, Poivre 23 and Gaiac 10, as worth the jumping through hoops  (and have Mastercard-in-hand capitulated to one), I realize this also has to do with personal preferences, and if you're delirious about leather or vetiver, Cuir 28 is still very worth sampling and I'm glad I tested it; my sample saw good use indeed. Among the city exclusives -and the regular line as well- Cuir 28 is certainly NOT amongst the worst (Limette 27 is probably the dullest), yet it leaves me with a feeling of a missed opportunity. I'd like it turned up a notch.

Fragrance notes for Le Labo Cuir 28: leather, vanilla absolute, woody notes, vetiver and musk.
Le Labo Cuir 28 is exclusively available at Dubai as a city exclusive according to the brand, only the place that was supposed to stock it there (Paris Galley in the Dubai Mall) is closed and until something else opens (which Le Labo informs us it shall), the perfume is nowhere to be found. Fate has no doubt been harsh to Cuir 28...

Related reading on PerfumeShrine: The Leather Fragrance Series, Le Labo Fragrance Reviews & News