Monday in Blue and Other Melancholic Stories

The blues, "but I still got the blues for you", Rhapsody in Blue and Blue Monday, the bleakest day in the year, as I discovered just today upon opening my online subscriptions. Little did I know that the third Monday of January is officially termed "blue", supposedly because the weather is at its dullest, the festive spirit has worn on, the resolutions for the New Year have had their chance of proving how futile (or impossible to keep) they are and everyone is just waiting for the nascent buds of spring to formally and univocally feel better.

Blue seems a loaded term in Anglo context, whereas where I come from it's all blue skies and azure seas and a feeling of contentment; or alternatively the eye of God (this is why the protective "evil eye" amulets routinely display a blue eye). There is no S.A.D at my place, as far as I know, and mid-January is usually halcyon days with plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the 15-17s Celsius. Greeks, however, with their inherent sense of drama, do black better, close as it is to true funereal colors; once upon a time there were whole villages with people perennially dressed in black in mourning for someone or other lost in war. Melancholia literally means "black bile" in Greek.
It might also have to do with blue just performing more joyfully in these southern latitudes: a beautiful piece of lapis lazuli edged in 18K gold had lost most of its vibrancy and intensity when brought to the grey skies of the UK when I was a student. Lackluster, it just wasn't the same. But two weeks back home and I started to wear it again, an amulet of Pharaonic resonance, no doubt because the country of the Nile exploited its natural sunshine the same way to enhance the beauty of gems.

The French word glauque although directly inspired by the Latin (and the Greek glaykos/γλαυκός which means "light blue") has come to denote a qualitative awfulness or vacuousness as in lifeless and listless. Blue doesn't really do well in French either (at least in that respect) it seems…

Nevertheless blue is a beautiful concept for fragrances, both in shade and in nuance: from the wistful L'Heure Bleue (denoting the hour that the French call entre chien et loup) to the bright cerulean of its modern Guerlain "rendition" L'Heure de Nuit (whose shade one of my wittiest readers compared to Toilet Duck's to the burning of my mind's "eye" ever since), blue makes an honorable appearance in fine fragrance. Just think of the gorgeous "lantern" design by Guerlain, famously utilized in Guet apens, or the majestic blue of Shalimar or even of the pentagon of Tauer perfumes. Blue "sports" fragrances for men have somehow blurred the positive associations of blue (well, at least the escapist ones, if the bleak ones remain, given how awfully bad many of those fragrances smell) yet there are some examples of blue perfumes (or flacons!) which eschew the rule that "blue=marine", such as the infamous case of Angel by Thierry Mugler, Armani's La Femme Bleue or Cacharel's Loulou in its memorable turquoise.

So tell me, which are your "blue perfumes"? Are they wistful and nostalgic, filled with saudade, or are they colored blue and evoking seascapes and fresh ocean spray?

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How Does Scent Marketing Works? ScentAir on BBC1

An interesting video, highlighting a specific company, nevertheless providing some insights into this popular form of marketing.

Boucheron Boucheron Femme eau de parfum & extait de parfum: fragrance review

Direct kin off Narcisse Noir (Caron's venerable classic built on orange blossom and Sunset Boulevard notoriety) Boucheron Femme is at once a queenly narcotic perfume that recalls retro beauties and a fragrance that breathes contemporary air; if by contemporary we refer to the still living, still breathing women who first discovered it in the 1980s when it erupted Venus like from the sea foam "sprayed" by the creative sperm of perfumers Francis Deleamont and Jean-Pierre Bethouart in 1988. Obviously this is the result of palinoia rather than divine intervention, but it feels like the latter, such is the awe it inspires in me. Boucheron Femme feels the way Venus de Milo looks: eudaimonia (ευδαιμονία), in Greek literally  denoting "of benevolent spirit", a balance of prosperous good living, of contended human flourishing.

I suppose what I'm trying to convey in my Greek-inflected English is that Boucheron Femme possesses the sort of timeless charm that makes for idols such as Greta Garbo or goddesses such as Venus; intelligence built in the glamor package, a healthy dosage of wit and self-deprecation (or self-insouciance), the distance necessary to feel special and never "me too". The only reason I can discern for this perfume being less well known or lauded than some others (and thus forming part of the Underrated Perfume Day feature today) is that audiences have been so conditioned not to understand quality, even when it slaps them in the face, that the likes of Boucheron Femme can remain a code for the secret handshake societies of perfumistadom such as this one.

The formula of Boucheron Femme fragrance remains a beautifully balanced textbook definition of the floriental genre: an oriental perfume skeleton onto which lush flower notes have been etched with the precision of a skilled calligrapher on thick moire paper. Orange blossom absolute with its candied and indolic facets is contributing the main floral theme, blooming as the succession of two different but equally "fresh" directions in the introduction: one is the citrusy fruity theme of hesperides (elegant bergamot, juicy and sweet mandarin) plus fleshy lactonic apricot; the other is the emerald accent of galbanum grass resin rising atop with a couple of complimentary notes in bright minty basil and bluish, celadon narcissus.

Although tuberose and jasmine are among the cluster of flowers contributing to the rich radiant bouquet, Boucheron Femme is that kind of fragrance where one would be hard pressed to say where one floral essence begins and one ends. The orange blossom is dominant, sure, but the rest are supporting players with important lines to deliver all the same.
The plush of the base isn't just downy soft, it can only be described as the finest, whitest ermine, the smoothest marble, the deepest shimmer of smoky cognac diamonds. Constructed out of amber, vanilla, olibanum (frankincense), sandalwood and the vanillic, caramelic benzoin resin, it is everything a grand oriental should accomplish, but without losing the plot into too vampish. Boucheron Femme is always the lady and a very knowing and smart lady at that.

The bottle of Boucheron Femme is famously inspired by cabochon sapphires set on a ring. In fact the glorious parfum concentration (which smooths out the marmoreal qualities of the resins even further without losing the inherent radiance) is shaped like a giant ring for une femme aux gros doigts, sitting in its own leather-cased box lined with felt like a real jewel would. But what am I saying…it IS a jewel, what the French so aptly call un parfum bijou. 

Wear it with your very best, naked skin!

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Surreal Mums and Old Spice Rejuvenated for the 21st Century: The Mom Song Commercial is Brilliant

"Now he smells like a man and they treat him like one.". There in a nutshell you have everything you ever wanted to know about the appeal of the Old Spice products. Old Spice is manly and it makes women treat you like a man. A man, not a boy. Yes, dear reader, we're putting the scalpel on the newest goofy Old Spice commercial which has surreal, frumpy and constantly hovering mums lamenting -in song!- how their little boys have changed gears and are on the way to hell on a handbasket because they changed into Old Spice which draws feminine attention in a way not yet dreamed of. "I didn't see it coming, but it came in a can". Indeed!

Affectionately referred to as "the mom song" the new Old Spice commercial is in my opinion doing everything it sets out to do (which makes it a success): namely drawing the attention span of young males into seeing an old standby with fresh eyes. And it has such a weird, goofy, upping the ante factor cleverly built in that it can't help becoming viral.

As my perceptive reader who sent me the clip, Cacio, puts it: "Old spice was, quintessentially, grampa, certainly not something that could appeal to teens. In recent years they've been trying to reposition themselves to capture the vast male teen bodyspray market (where Axe seems to dominate). Hence a series of funny, zingy, parodistic ads, like the cult machoman ad* of a few years back which managed to be both ironic and convince males that it was after all ok to wear scents. Now this one in an even more surreal type of humor, explicitly directed at teens."

 It's unfortunate that the commercial has generated such grumpiness at dedicated fragrance groups (such as on Basenotes) who worked themselves up because -really- the target audience isn't the repeat buyers of the Old Spice in the familiar white bottle with the little ship on it and the tiny conical stopper, but the teenagers and college frat boys who buy the big spray cans sitting next to Axe/Lynx at the drugstore and the supermarket shelves. Where I'm disagreeing, sorta, with Cacio above is that Old Spice is not repositioning themselves. They have already repositioned. The commercials are the optical affirmation and seal on this repositioning. The old grampas are, alas, dying away and a new market is emerging. Instead of lamenting the "loss" of one, let's rejoice in the harvesting of another. Old Spice still smells quite good. In fact much much better than the various variants of Axe do and many, many boys' mothers online and in real life are thankful for this. Aren't you?

*Those have become modern classics and deservedly so.

Patricia de Nicolai Rose Oud: fragrance review

Couple two of the most objectionable (to me) materials, the tired by now oud perfumery base and the often stuffy, stifled rose note, and you can bet you have me checking my watch every 2 seconds like I last did when dragged to watch Star Wars episode 2 (I finally zonked out). Yet there are certain roses and certain ouds that manage to hold my interest (and there are many fragrances combing the two, so it's a demanding exercise!). Without being ecstatic, I can vouchsafe that Rose Oud  by Patricia de Nicolai is among the better ouds and simultaneously among the better roses in the market today and if you like any of those materials or the woody floral genre in general you should check it out for yourself: it's perfectly pretty with a side of fog for interest.

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Rose Oud does not differ in approach from the other  winter 2013-2014 "oud" release by the niche French brand, Amber Oud, in taking into stride the oudh trend and mastering it in a way that it becomes putty in dear Patricia's tender paws. The rose is woodied-up, boxed, polished, with the familiar backdrop of two standbys: patchouli and sandalwood (an Indian dream), like a beautiful blossom in a waxy sealed wooden cigar box in a land where tigers lurk and monkeys leap from beneath Bangalore ancient temples.

Delicate fruity aspects emerge out of this rose, with the underpinning of nagarmotha providing a smoky, oily facet the way oil paintings put a thick consistency even to baby pink. Nagarmotha/Cypriol is an interesting material in itself, at once earthy, grassy and smoky, with its own deep aspect that can put dusk on the daintiest girly girl stuff. Rose capitulates; what else can she do? And it's all for the better. There is no retro or potpourri vibe anywhere.

Perfectly able to be shared between the sexes, Rose Oud is another faceted briolette in the jewelry box of de Nicolai's vault, a notch less interesting than Amber Oud (which surprises with its herbal lavender character). Without breaking waves Rose Oud is perfectly nice and attractive and one can't knock that.

Notes for Patricia de Nicolai's Rose Oud:
Top: raspberry, artemisia, osmanthus
Heart: rose, lily of the valley
Base: patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla, musk, castoreum, amber, oud.