The winner of the draw...

...for the Acqua di Parma rose fragrance Acqua Nobile Rosa is MargOn1980. 
Congratulations! Please email me using Contact with your shipping info, with ADP draw in the title of the mail, so I can this in the mail for you soon.

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

Animal Ingredients in Perfumes: More Than a Growl

Among perfumery materials few are so loaded with meaning and associations than animal-derived ones. The glamor of yore feels immersed in the cheetah print of those tailored coats that Hollywood stars wore to get the trash out and one can almost smell the Bal a Versailles parfum off their YSL Le Smoking lapels. Ah...the times when false lashes came out for a night on the town and fire-engine red lipstick was a necessary accessory rather than a summer brights trend...

Animal rights activism has (justifiably) put a lid on that. Additionally, the historical changes brought about by analytical chemistry and the since illegal poaching of some of the critters responsible for some of these elusive, magical essences have created new realities. Fragrances (and cosmetics too) use sophisticated synthetics which replicate the warm, intimate touch of something that used to come from furry behinds.

This has necessitated some detailed information on all the various aspect unto which the critical matter of animal-derived and animal-smelling raw materials touches.

For starters and for a short answer I have written an essay on Fragrance.About.com answering the simple question "Do perfumes contain animal ingredients?"
I also wrote a Musk specific article there called "Musk: Erotic Smell of Warmth & Cleanliness". You can read those hitting the highlighted links.

In the archives of Perfume Shrine over the years I have often belabored the subject as well.
You can reference for instance the following articles:

Animalic & "Skanky" Perfumes
Ambergris (natural) and its comparison with the amber "chord"
Ambroxan: synthetics amber-wood
Musk: natural Tonquin musk and synthetics
The historic Animalis base
Of Bees: Honeyed Scents of Myth (referencing both honey and beeswax, an animal product)
Parfums Fourrure (so called "fur perfumes")

Enjoy the posts!

Acqua di Parma Acqua Nobile Rosa: fragrance review & giveaway

It's pink! 

This exclamation can be taken two distinct ways. It either beckons lovers of all stuff girly

or it scares hardcore perfumephiles with their anticipated suspicion hardened through years of insipid fruity florals that would be better used as shampoo. Thankfully Acqua Nobile Rosa isn't either too fluff, nor a fruity floral. It's a pure, crystalline, airy wisp of a scent, as ethereal as wind chimes heard through an early morning breeze.

With Acqua di Parma issuing a newer interpretation of their previous Rosa Nobile in their Acqua Nobile line of scents one might expect a rehashing of the same formula, only turned lighter. But in fact Acqua Nobile Rosa is a new composition, certainly more ethereal, yet managing to differentiate itself enough to warrant testing both.

Rosa Nobile is a cool and straight-up rose petals fragrance, a ballet slipper of a smell rather than an exuberant Nahema (Guerlain) red Jimmy Choo pump or a moiré slingback in the fruity green style of Sa Majeste la Rose (Serge Lutens). It's not retro, but it's not bastardized either, the way some of my favorite rose fragrances are, i.e. sprinkled with loukhoum rosewater (Mohur extrait), dense with spice and patchouli (Aromatics Elixir, Voleur de Roses) or plain resinous goddess-like (Caron's Parfum Sacre). It's never easy making a true rose scent, so Rosa Nobile is not unworthy of mentioning as a relative success, especially given how jammy the pure absolute of rose can smell.

Acqua Nobile Rosa on the other hand is more like the air floating above a rose bush, with a perceptible citrus and blackcurrant tinge, tart and a little bit tangy. Blackcurrant buds have an illustrious and infamous history in perfumery, what with them being used to great aplomb in First by Van Cleef & Arpels (where they open the scene to the animalic smelling background beneath the posh French style perfume) and their ammoniac feel reminiscent of a kitty cat. 

But do not fear. It's pink. How wrong could it go? 

The airy, electrical buzzing (i.e. freesia) but prolonged -thanks to large musk molecules- drydown is very soft, lightly powdery (a hint of makeup aroma), lightly sweet and the rose is retained throughout; it's as if one is catching the whiff of a rose garden next door rather than hiding one's nose amidst the bushes. I'm OK with that.

Capturing the serene beauty of a stroll in an Italian rose garden, Acqua Nobile Rosa Eau de Toilette is a radiant fragrance for women. This sparkling Eau de Toilette focuses on the lighter, brighter aspects of the rose garden with notes of mandarin, blackcurrant, rose and ambergris. A veritable symphony of enchanting accords capturing both the vibrant and ethereal facets of the Italian Centifolia Rose, famed for its incomparable beauty. 

Fragrance notes for Acqua Nobile Rosa by Acqua di Parma:

Top: Bergamot, Mandarin, Blackcurrant

Heart: Damask rose, Centifolia rose, Cyclamen, Freesia

Base: Ambergris, Musk

Related reading on Perfume Shrine:

Top Rose Scented Fragrances & Products

Everything's coming up roses: how rose is on trend again

My Troubles with Rose & Overcoming Them One Step at a Time

I have a full bottle of this from which a 5ml decant has been taken for a lucky reader. 
Please enter a comment below this post to enter. Draw is open internationally and closes on Sunday 5th midnight. 

In the interests of full disclosure I got this through a PR promo. 

Perceptions of Sweetness: Is it Only in Your Sugar-Bowl?

It seems like sweetness is indeed de riguer in modern perfumery, the sine qua non of commercial success as endless sales of La vie Est Belle, Flowerbomb and Prada Candy, say. I dare you to find something as bitter as—say—Piguet's Bandit eau de parfum or Chanel No.19 eau de toilette in the production of the last 15 years.

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Even forms of perfume which do not lend themselves to the culinary, such as the powdery softness of contemporary "lipstick smelling perfumes" built on "makeup-like" accords (enter Lipstick Rose, Chloe Love, Flower by Kenzo with their abundance of ionones) or the soapy aldehydic glow of the lathered soapy fragrances, such as Narciso Rodriguez Essence, exhibit a sweet tooth. Which serves as the springboard of another thought.

What if sweet notes were always popular, merely set in a different context?

This is the core of my article on Fragrantica, Perceptions of Sweetness: Facets & Surprises, where I investigate the many nuances of "sweet" in fragrances, both vintages such as Chanel No.5 or No.22 and modern ones such as the ones named above. I also pose a question as to what you perceive as sweet and whether it has anything to do with flavor preferences or hard-wiring in the brain. 

You're welcome to comment either there or here. 

Related reading on Perfume Shrine:

Perceptions of Freshness

Gourmand Fragrances for Beginners and Beyond

Americans Complaining of Perfume Overload: Cultural Divide or Other?

It seems like I get almost every single one of the mails complaining of perfume overload from people living on US soil. The matter had been discussed in a previous post, Americans vs French, the Culture Wars, but here are some more thoughts stemming from past discourse with interested parties.

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1. The frivolity of perfume seems ingrained in a sort of WASP mentality, the glorification of soap & water of religious significance through the "cleanliness next to godliness" axiom. Interestingly, although the phrase is similarly coined in other languages to extol the value of cleaning up, the connection is not made with the divine but rather with other values, such as social status (In Greek it's "cleanliness is half nobility" ). To further the syllogism one might say that eschewing the god-preferred clean smell of soap & water, covering it up with perfume "reeks" of suspicious motives, of emulating women of low reputation who used perfume in order to either hide the smell of other men on them or to seduce men through perfume. In a certain milieu, the use of perfume might be considered thus immoral.

2. The cubicle farm culture is most prevalent in the US rather than in other countries (although I'm not going by any solid statistic, just what I see on first "reading") which might explain why there are so many people who have complaints. It's not entirely their fault (or their co-workers'), you know, the environment induces discomfort, conflict and ennui! Someone has to be blamed and perfume is so easy. Especially so since smells invade our space and trigger emotional responses.

3. The following might not be relevant nowadays in all cases, but I distinctly recall a perfumer mentioning that American perfumes are made with a higher concentration within the established eau de toilette, eau de parfum concentrations so as to satisfy the taste to have your perfume announcing you, a form of "olfactory shoulder pads". It's also a historical fact that some of the most potent, powerful fragrances first met with success in the US, such as Narcisse Noir by Caron, due to this preference for stronger fragrances. (And we all recall Calvin Klein's Obsession and Giorgio Beverly Hills, don't we). So it' wasn't always like that. Additionally several of the modern "clean" scents of American name are so harsh that they do pierce sinuses.

 So in view of the above is it any wonder that lots of Americans are complaining? I don't think it's entirely their fault.
What's YOUR take?