A shout out

Some of the US winners of the Tauer new launch sample opportunity haven't contacted me yet with their shipping address.
The winners I haven't head from are: Holly F., Haider Lakhani, Fmc and Phyllis Iervelo. Please email me using Contact with your shipping data, your username and full name, so I can have these out to you soon. Thanks!

The winner of the draw…

…for the Lauder bottle of WL is KatieVonDiesel. Congratulations and please email me with your shipping data, using Contact, so I can have this sent to you soon.

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

Free Perfume Draw

Many people wrote to me, in addition to the comments section of the blog, to comment and add their own take on what proved to be a not so underrated perfume, White Linen by Estee Lauder which I reviewed the other day. I realized that there are some who are better disposed to actually wearing it, instead of just admiring it from the bottle and rarely on skin. as well as there are those who want to complement their aldehydics collection with one of the brightest and sparkliest in the genre. There are also newbies who would like to own some to conduct their own learning experiments.

For all these reasons I decided to giveaway my own White Linen fragrance bottle (withholding a small quantity for my reference and wearing, about 10ml) to one eager reader who is interested.

To be eligible, please share with us in the comments section how you feel about "difficult" fragrances or fragrances you admire very much on others but rarely wear yourself. Draw is open internationally till Friday midnight. Winner to be announced sometime in the weekend. So, fire away!

Estee Lauder White Linen: fragrance review & history

Would you appreciate a fragrance that projected around the way knitting needles would stick inside your nostrils, the equivalent of a scent porcupine? The "needles up the nose" characterization has never found a more apt bond than the one spontaneously created in the mind of one perfume lover on the board of Perfume of Life years ago regarding White Linen. The phrase has since entered the online perfume lingo as a casual but evocative definition for the painfully sharp, supremely stinging feeling that certain perfumes heavy in aldehydes (i.e. synthesized molecules with a "bright", soapy and fizzy aspect), such as this particular Lauder perfume, produce in those who smell them.

White Linen is possibly among the most distinctly aldehydic floral fragrances of all time, an honor it shares with Chanel No.22, but whereas No.22 goes for the snuffed out candle waxiness and smokiness (which recalls incense if you glint your head just this way), White Linen, its American counterpart and about 50 years its junior, goes for the steam of an iron pressing on a crisp, starched shirt which has been washed with the harshest lye soap on earth. In short, memorable! (You'd never mistake it for "white noise fragrance")

White Linen was launched alongside Lauder's Celadon and Pavilion in 1978 as part of the makeup and scents collection "New Romantics" (in itself influenced by the music trend that was just emerging). Composed by Sophia Grojsman, White Linen bears her signature style of impressive cleanness projected via loudspeakers fit for a Guns n'Roses concert. For a Russian emigre Grojsman has acquired throughout her career a particularly American ideal of femininity, no doubt thanks to the exigencies of the American giant of aromatics who employs her, International Flavors and Fragrances; well scrubbed, athletic, spick & span, Athenian rather than Venereal.

1993 print ad

Coming on the heels of the sporty leathery Azuree, the bitterish chypre perfume Private Collection and the bright and soapy-smelling aldehydic Estee, it's not difficult to see how White Linen also fits in the canon of Lauder and in the zeitgeist of the late 70s, when women began to make a career of executive positions and started in earnest to 'bring home the bacon, fry it in a pan' as one commercial* of the times claimed.

Although ubiquitous and always in production since its launch, without any detectable changes in its formula, it's one of those fragrances that fly under the radar, so I am archiving White Linen in my Underrated Perfume Day feature. Its monolithic structure (built on huge single blocks of materials, much like later Grojsman oeuvres such as Tresor by Lancome) White Linen packs a punch.
But the aldehydic knock-out comes with an astounding discovery: the aldehydes contribute just 1% to the formula, with equal parts of Galaxolide (synthetic clean musk, garlanded by at least 3 other synth musks) and Vertofix (giving a cedar wood note) accounting for almost half of the ingredients! The secret is that unlike most other aldehydic floral fragrances it lacks the modifying, mollifying caress of bergamot and ylang ylang.

late 1990s print ad

1986 print ad

A fresh rose core, so fresh that it borders on cleaned-up orange blossom, bring a kinship of White Linen to Calandre, while the overall genealogy brings it as a modern classic that derives from Madame Rochas and Chanel No.5. The sheen of squeaky green lily of the valley boosts the sharp cleanness, the sparkle of hedione brings luminosity and vetiver gives its own freshness and subtle woodiness alongside a powerful amber note. The latter two elements give White Linen a touch of sophistication which could tilt it into unisex territory.

White Linen is a powerful, titanic Aurora and although it is removed from what I (and many other people) find comfortable, I can't fail but to admire its guts and its blinding brightness, white-washed like a house directly carved out of white volcanic rock in the Aegean.

*that's actually the slogan for Enjoli. 

The advertising photos are all so charmingly appealing that I decided to include them all. 

1978 print ad

New fragrance editions from Ramon Monegal and Acqua di Parma

Spanish perfumer Ramon Monegal has been commissioned to produce an exclusive fragrance for Bloomingdale's Dubai, called Dubai Next to Me, a special edition of 50ml eau de parfum in a specially decorated box. The fragrance aims to marry the magic of the traditional Arabic perfumery with some Spanish flair, via its Spanish leather touch. The top of Dubai Next to Me contains notes of fruits (coconut, peach, melon) alongside spices (Spanish saffron, nutmeg and black pepper), while the heart is floral and resinous with jasmine, rose (oil and absolute), frankincense and labdanum. The base is resting on woody notes (oud, sandalwood) with a leather touch as well as musk, tonka bean and ambraceme absolute.

Acqua di Parma on the other hand is issuing a 75ml bottle of their Acqua Nobili across the range of the female fragrances: Gelsomino, Magnolia and Iris.

There is also a Special Edition of Gelsomino Nobile, the fragrance in an exquisite refillable bottle (above) with hand-drawn features, fine engraving and 24K gold silk-screen-print. You can watch a video of the production process on this link.  The fragrance formula remains the same.

info via respective press releases, rephrased by me.