Twin Peaks: Hermessence and Marc Jacobs

Hermessence Poivre Samarcande isn't discontinued like some of the other scents featured in the Twin Peaks articles; it enjoys pride of place in the Hermes canon and good commercial success in Southern European countries, from what I'm told. But the price asked is rather steep.

via

In the search for something similar I came upon Bang by Marc Jacobs, surely a less deep search into the pit of one's pockets, but just as good a fresh peppery goodness. Tip for the frugal: stockpile another bottle while the running is good.

Twin Peaks: Allesandro dell'Acqua and Korres

If you're a true musk lover such as myself then surely you recall Allesandro dell' Acqua by designer Allesandro dell'Acqua, a soapy but oddly sensual musk fragrance, which came and went without much noise and made us bang our head on the wall for not stockpiling.

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Thankfully Korres has the filled the gap with Iris Lily of the Valley Cotton (admittedly a name too programmatic for its own good) which can be had for a mediocre sum of money and no great jumping through Ebay hoops to score a bottle. It smells of high count Egyptian cotton sheets somewhere posh with good company.

This is what I call a worthy discovery.

Reader's Mail: Suggest things similar to Le Labo Patchouli 24 and Chanel Coromandel

The lovely reader Denise is kindly asking: "Can you please let me know if anything is similar to Patchouli 24 (Le Labo)? I tried Bulgari Black more than once & I don’t think it’s remotely similar to Patchouli 24; also anything similar to Chanel Coromandel? These 2 are so very expensive, so that’s why I’m wondering if there’s something similar. I read Prada is similar but have no clue which Prada. I like anything smokey, incense, nothing flowery or sweet."

My initial thoughts run to Zino by Davidoff and Borneo 1834 by Serge Lutens (a comparison of both fragrance with Chanel Coromandel perfume on this link) and to La Troisieme Heure by Cartier (XIII, in their boutique circuit) though that one doesn't come cheap either, Mona di Orio Cuir and Sonoma Scent Studio Fireside Intense as alternatives to Patchouli 24. Despite the name one has to remember that the Le Labo scent smells mostly of birch tar.

The Prada referred to is the original Prada eau de parfum by Prada for women (2004). In my personal view it's not a smell alike to Coromandel (and even less so to Patchouli 24) but in the same family.

 For incense suggestions we have Incense Week, where I categorize lots of incense fragrances and review them in detail. Denise and anyone interested in that sort of fragrant vibe can also check the Woody Oriental section and Woody Chypre section of these pages.

Can you help her out? Please write your suggestions in the comments below this post.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Twin Peaks, a guide of smell alikes 

Bullshitting the Bullshitter? Chanel Damage Control Over Lidl Fragrance Smell-Alike Sounds Skewed

I'm not a usual reader of the DailyMail.co.uk, but when the title "Yes, a £4 bottle of Lidl perfume CAN smell as good as Chanel: But be warned -it could wear off in half an hour" sneaked into my inbox, I just had to look at said article. And look I did and I have a truckload of rant on the sketchy argumentation trying to manipulate the consumer yet again on the part of the industry. There's a stink raised, so your faithful bloodhound got going.

Just two days ago I too had read the Independent.co.uk article titled "Revealed: Lidl's £4 perfume smells identical to Chanel's £70 scent -but the difference is in the bottle" after all. It  reiterated what money-saving expert Martin Lewis said in an interview with Radio Times (and which I already knew myself from experience), namely that the German supermarket Lidl's own brand fragrance Suddenly Madame Glamour (which costs £4, I kid you not, for 50ml/1.7oz in a pretty decent if plain packaging) smells the same as Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle which retails for £70. 
Yup, 15 times costlier, you read this right.

Vanessa Musson has written a detailed side-by-side review ages ago on just this and myself I had included Madame Glamour in Best Inexpensive Fragrances back in 2011. So the immediate response with caveat emptor about the longevity of Lidl's perfume smells of desperate damage control and at points it sounds like people in the field are embarrassing themselves.

With apparently close to 85% of women admitting they would occasionally buy a supermarket version of a fragrance for themselves -if they really thought it smelt the same- the reason for this isn't very hard to see. In fact according to data within the Daily Mail article, the Perfumer's Guild conducted a blind test in which 90% of women actually preferred the scent of the Lidl perfume over the Chanel!

The question whether luxury items differ from much more economic products in similar vein is the packaging, advertising and marketing costs behind it has been already explained only too well in industry's whistle-blowing worthy books by Chandler Burr, the former New York Times scent critic.
If you have missed the breakdown of a cost of fragrance, I urge you to read this old eye-opening article which explains how 100gr of eau de toilette perfume costs only 1.5 dollars to produce!

The tangent then becomes "will they [cheap perfumes] last as long -or vanish, or go off- after half an hour on your skin?"

So, now, let's dissect the arguments against the Lidl fragrance and for the Chanel and see if they hold any water. I'll be quoting from the article in red and presenting my own argumentation right below it in black.

"The main ingredient of all perfume is alcohol (anything up to 90 per cent), meaning that it is the remaining ingredients, labelled ‘parfum’ on the box, which make all the difference.Traditionally, the more expensive scents are those with the highest concentration of this parfum, meaning that an eau de toilette (4-10 per cent concentration) costs significantly less than eau de parfum (8-15 per cent) or pure parfum (15-25 per cent)." 

Correct and therefore it's only fair we should be comparing two similar concentrations: since Lidl's scent comes in only eau de parfum, since Chanel's comes in all three (eau de toilette, eau de parfum and extrait de parfum), we should focus on comparing Lidl eau de parfum against Chanel eau de parfum.

‘One of the main ingredients used in Chanel perfume is natural rose essence, which is one of the most expensive ingredients in the world. It is like gold,’ says Lawrence Roullier White, who runs an artisan perfumery in London.‘Petals do not give out much oil, so you have to distill tons of petals to get any rose oil, which all adds to the cost.‘One bottle of the Chanel perfume contains 1,000 jasmine flowers.‘These flowers, which are grown especially for the brand in Grasse on the French Riviera, are picked by hand and only at night to capture their full aroma.’The cost involved in producing such luxurious essential oils is huge.For example, to make just half a kilogram (1lb) of jasmine oil, 3.6 million flowers are needed at a cost of almost £3,000. Other ingredients in Coco Mademoiselle (named after Chanel fashion house founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel) include iris flowers from Florence, Sicilian oranges, French roses and essence from the rind of the citrus fruit bergamot, grown in the Italian region of Calabria."

False on many levels. First of all, all these precious ingredients do not necessarily enter into the eau de parfum (much less eau de toilette) edition, but only (if at all) in the extrait de parfum which is not the thing you regularly see on the department store counter. Chanel does admit to using the Grasse grown jasmine, rose and tuberose only in the extrait when talking about their iconic No.5. But furthermore the ratio of those is so low, that even the allergens regulations threshold (which had raised a furore back in 2008 as threatening to damage Chanel No.5) isn't met! And we're talking about the 0.7% threshold for Jasmine grandiflorum (that's the Grasse varity) in the finished compound, which is already -as per above- only aproximately 10% of the eau de parfum!!!
Then again Chanel has always relied on expounding their "precious ingredients lore".
Besides the bergamot even in the famed Shalimar by Guerlain (nestling its allure on the bergamot top note) is synthetically produced for many years now.

 Then mr.Laurence Roullier White, who runs an artisan perfume store in London (also distributing Caron, Marc Buxton, Farmacia SS.Annunziata, Parfums d'Orsay, Slumberhouse etc.) goes on record with some rather embarrassing, even butt-clenching if I say so myself, stuff.

‘At the end of the day, you get what you pay for,’ adds Mr Roullier White. ‘You cannot expect a £4 bottle of perfume to be the same as a £70 one. 

We have already proven above that fragrance costs very little to actually produce. Visit the eye-opening link mentioned above.

‘For £4, the essential oils will be completely synthetic. ‘Perfumes which are not made from natural essential oils do not last on the skin. 'Those which are, react to the body’s individual chemistry and can transform over time, becoming more floral or musky for example. For £4, you’d be lucky if it lasts half an hour.’ 

Talk about confused. Essential oil is a very specific term and denotes "nature derived". Therefore cannot be synthetic. Surprised mr.Roullier White works in perfume and conflates the two terms. He clearly means "the aromatic ingredients will be completely synthetic".  But as a niche distributor, surely he knows synthetics are often mentioned in niche fragrances official press (!?)

He furthermore undermines himself since every hardcore perfume lover knows that most all-natural perfumes are exactly criticized for their short-lived duration on the skin, while synthetically man-made essences have giga-lasting-power. This is after all one of the main reasons they're used so much! You can read about Iso-E-Super, Ambrox/Ambroxan and synthetic musks on the respective links and enlighten yourself, if you have missed them, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Besides their longevity, synthetics are wildly used for reasons of stability and unchangeability: they ensure a steady  product that doesn't fluctuate risking to alienate its faithful customer.

For the record, Lidl's Madame Glamour eau de parfum lasts a solid 3 hours on my own skin and several more on clothes.

Mr Rouiller White adds: ‘Some of the £70 you pay for Coco Mademoiselle factors in Chanel’s packaging and marketing, but there is no comparison between natural and manufactured essential oils.’ 

He is apparently continuing with the "manufactured essential oils" [sic] confusion. I do hope it's a misquote. And I suppose it was about time he admitted the pay check paid to Keira Knightly and all the people working with her, as depicted above.

The article then states "At times, the bottle may be even worth more than the scent inside, such as with limited-edition bottles of Clive Christian’s Imperial Majesty, which comes in Baccarat crystal with solid, 18-carat gold and white diamonds and which costs £115,000."

It sorta shoots its argument on the foot. If the juice inside is, as per Chandler Burr's breakdown, less than $1.5 then ANY packaging s automatically worth more than the scent inside, I would presume!

Unsurprisingly, many perfume makers are reluctant to reveal whether their product is made from natural perfume oils or synthetic chemicals imitating the real thing. 

There we go again: Natural is good, man-made is bad. Long-time readers know this is highly more complex than that and that in my view it all depends on the context and aesthetics. What initially made an impression, based on having tested both Madame Glamour and Coco Mademoiselle extensively and relying on my life-long experience and *cough cough* knowledge, gained alarming dimensions upon seeing that Chanel is directly "threatened" by the success of the lowly Lidl chain's perfumes and others (such as M&S Autograph line). 

Obviously not because the regular Chanel client will start buying Lidl fragrances, but because the aspiring Chanel user can do just as well without anybody being the wiser.

But the mere implication that a luxury perfume is better because its ingredients cost more, being of better quality, is skewed. If fragrance is an art form, as many of the advocates of posh perfume claim, then would you criticize a painting's worth on the cost of the paints it uses? Exclude imaginative creativity and visionary ability? To do so would be to automatically reduce it to a craft.  It's demeaning and uninformed.

You needn't feel like a fool buying Chanel fragrance (or any luxury perfume) from now on. As long as your choice is informed and you know what you're paying for, which in many cases is mostly the image you're buying into (and that's an art form too), it's an indulgence you can indulge in and it's YOURS to claim. Everything else is bullshit and should be called out on. 

The thing is, anyone can commission a gas chromatograph test (a test which reveals all the ingredients & their ratio in the composition of any given fragrance) and compare the two fragrances' "blueprint" side by side. It only costs around 100$, so if you're determined, you can do it.

A parting shot: Lidl makes excellent lipsticks in beautiful colors and lovely texture and longevity. They retail at 2 euros (!) locally. They only get imported & distributed once in a blue moon. The average Maybelline or L'Oreal lipstick costs no less than 12 euros locally. I leave you to draw your own conclusions regarding why this erratic distribution pattern...

If after all this my post disappears without my desire or consent (things like that have happened in the blogosphere before) then you know what I said is the absolute truth and someone is scared for their fugitive profit margins. In any case, this is your food for thought, assuming Thanksgiving hasn't totally knocked you out (which is just as good and I hope you had a great time!)

Twin Peaks: Ormonde Jayne Champaca & Calvin Klein Truth

Usually the purpose of a Twin Peaks smell-alikes article is to highlight affinities between a higher end fragrance and one which is offered at a comparative price. However it's not solely that. A discontinued or catastrophically reformulated perfume that could be "relived" through experiencing a decent substitute, no matter its provenience, is also worth mentioning. To the latter case I present a comparison between Champaca by British niche brand Ormonde Jayne, which is currently in production, and Truth by Calvin Klein, which has been discontinued a few years already.

via lucacambiaso.deviantart.com

The reason CK Truth for women was discontinued is lost on me. It had everything going for it when it launched back in 2000; from the subtle yet lingering aroma of green bamboo shoots and comforting woody-musky notes to the sensuous advertising and the aesthetically pleasing contours of the packaging, it looked like a much better bet for the Calvin Klein brand than many others in the overpopulated line. The evocation of a woman's skin was sensuous and done with an interesting twist to eschew too obvious a musk note by Alberto Morillas, Jacques Cavallier and Thierry Wasser. It even had its own "blending kit" of 6 key essences (one of which I distinctly recall was a lilac "accord", to my confirmation of the intimacy of this innocent looking flower) to custom mix so as to produce your individual scent combination, a Truth Lush flanker in 2002 and a "sensual bedtime fragrance" flanker -smelling exactly as it name suggests- launched in 2003.

With that in mind it's safe to say CK Truth could be classified under "undeserved commercial flops" as a marketing case study that includes other honorary mentions such as Feu d'Issey and Kenzo L'Elephant. Perhaps the fault was one of timing: By 2003 the advent of "gourmands", i.e. a subcategory of oriental fragrances heavy on the vanilla which mimicked popular desserts smells, was inescapable and the clean, serene, aromatic woody bouquet of Truth was hors categorie.

Champaca by Ormonde Jayne on the other hand, coming from a niche firm, had a clear advantage. It is also "foody", but in the most unusual sense. In fact coming out in 2002 places it at that crossroads mentioned above. And yet, being "savory" rather than "sweet" (in the vanillic or ripe fruity sense), Champaca also pre-empts a trend that took wings by the end of the 2000s; the slightly salty, savory scents which do recall some dish or other, but less overtly than "cupcake" and "cake batter". The cult success of the perfume within the de iuoro limited perimeter of the niche fragrance market was due to its super comforting odor profile. The sweetly creamy, floral note of champaca, a yellow magnolia common in India, was married to the note of steamed basmati rice, itself a nurturing image, Earth Goddess and all.

The inspiration came from a couple who were neighbours to Linda Pilkington when at her first London appartment; whenever they steamed rice, the building smelled cozy and like home. I only found that info later, from Linda herself, but it justified my own impression that Champaca would work great as a room fragrance, one for a cozy restaurant in off-white colors with big sofas around to immerse oneself in like giant cocoons. As the scent progresses the floral element of Champaca is diminished and it turns somewhat "greener" and a tiny bit sour, while still very very soft and non-obtrusive with the low hum that perfumer Geza Schoen is known for.

The Ormonde Jayne seems less "skin scent" than the Klein one overall, the latter being a little tarter and with less of a foody element, but they're remarkably close. Some people notice a third simile with Fraicheur Vegetale Bamboo by Yves Rocher, but I haven't tried that one. If you have please discuss.

Notes for Calvin Klein Truth:
bamboo, wet woods, white peony, vanilla, white amber and sandalwood
Notes for Ormone Jayne Champaca:
Neroli, pink pepper, bamboo, Champaca, Basmati rice, green tea, myrrh, musk.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: More smell-alikes fragrances on this link.

Twin Peaks: Gres Cabochard, Aramis for Men and Lauder Azuree

It's been noted before that Aramis bears a distinct kinship with Cabochard (Grès) through the common perfumer behind both creations, namely the legendary Bernard Chant. But two other perfumes fall neatly somewhere between those two neighbouring meridians: Azurée by Estée Lauder and Bandit by Robert Piguet. Roughly, they can be likened to a family:

Aramis being the butch Godfather patriach, well behaved on the outside, dangerously brooding on the inside. Cabochard is the maternal force turning the neck (and therefore the head as well) in any which way she likes, while Azurée is the younger long-haired son driving fast without a licence and Bandit the rebel without a cause tomboy daughter who shuns panties in lieu of leather pants. They could have been The Sopranos, had the show been more stylish-oriented and retro glamorous. Or not. It doesn't matter, we can imagine.

Actually I'm cheating: Technically, the original sketch for Cabochard from 1959 was later deprived of its intensely opulent, romantic floral heart of India-reminiscing blossoms to serve as the core of the formula for Aramis (1965). For those who didn't know it, Azurée (1969) is also by Bernard Chant; a fresher interpretation of the Aramis idea given a luminous fruity topnote of refreshing bergamot, while still remaining resolutely herbal.

Chant was mad for chypres, skanky animalic or non; his Aromatics Elixir for Clinique is a seminal study on mossy herbal patchouli with a big rose lurking inside the bush. Azurée, albeit herbally green and chyprish, is softer than Bandit and lacks the acid green bite of the quinolines that compose the latter's leather note, thus making it more approachable of the four specimens, if largely unsung.

Comparing the two classic fragrances from Grès and Aramis, Cabochard and Aramis for Men respectively, I find myself contemplating how reformulation has changed perceptions: Cabochard has lost something of its intensely feminine mystery of floral chypre throughout the years (the ylang ylang and civet have been watered down), gaining a toughened, ballsy exterior which brings it even closer to the virile Aramis; the latter hasn't suffered major loses so far, although a reformulation in the mid-2000s altered a bit of its veneer.  
Aramis appears somewhat sweeter and mossier, underneath the male snagging quality with its pungent bitter leathery and artemisia green notes on top laced with cumin and a hint of ripeness emerging very soon ("body odour zone", "wild!", "unbelievable"). It has a more powdery-earthy vibe overall, with a sweet pleasing note in the drydown which lasts amazingly well. Cabochard is more screechy and strident nowadays with its synthetic castoreum and floral reconstitutions, yet still rather formidable compared to so many blah scents around. Both are abstract landscapes where everything is sophisticated, yet wild too; a cultural map of the sexual revolution unfolded through the span of a couple of decades.

Certainly not interchangeable, but similar enough to appeal to lovers of rough, fangly greens with mossy, leathery drydowns, this quartet of fragrances ~Aramis, Azurée, Bandit, Cabochard~ has a place in any perfume collector's arsenal. All fragrances are highly recommended as "shared" between both sexes irrespective of their advertising campaigns.

Notes for Aramis for Men:
Top: Artemisia, aldehydes, bergamot, gardenia, green note, cumin
Heart: Jasmine, patchouli, orris, vetiver, sandalwood
Base: Leather, oakmoss, castoreum, amber, musk

Notes for E.Lauder Azurée:
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, artemesia, gardenia
Heart notes: Jasmine, geranium, cyclamen, orris, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Leather, patchouli, oakmoss, musk, amber

Notes for Piguet Bandit:
Top: galbanum, artemisia, neroli, orange
Heart: ylang ylang, jasmine, rose, tuberose, carnation
Base: leather, vetiver, oakmoss, musk, patchouli.

Notes for Gres Cabochard:
Top: aldehydes, bergamot, mandarin, galbanum, spice
Heart: jasmine, rosa damscena, geranium, ylang-ylang, iris
Base: patchouli, leather, vetiver, castoreum, oakmoss, tobacco, musk, labdanum, sandalwood.

Top photo Vogue US cover March 1969. Vintage ad from the 1980s for Aramis for Men.

Twin Peaks: Musc Ravageur & L de Lolita Lempicka

Tracing kindred spirits in perfumery is occasionally as uncomplicated as finding the common mastermind behind them. In the case of Musc Ravageur and L de Lempicka that one is none other than Maurice Roucel, celebrated perfumer and creator of some of the most delectable orientals and florientals in existence (and the occasional stellar chyprish floral, such as in K de Krizia). Although the fragrances are not 100% interchangeable, as evident in my review below, they bear a keen similarity that would have lovers of one eager to discover the other and those on a budget discovering a smell-alike that isn't a travesty.

In Musc Ravageur the explosive departure of bergamot, tangerine and cinnamon is set against a backdrop of vanilla, musk and amber. No flowers, just a refined skin scent. Yet contrary to name, Musc Ravageur isn't really about musk! Though it is rather "dirty". It's more of a spicy oriental, old-school-style and raw. And the reason I am including it in a section devoted to musks is mainly due to nomenclature and readers' expectation.
If you have been fearing (or loving, like myself) the reputation of Muscs Kublai Khan and Christopher Brosius I Hate Perfume Musk Reinvented, you will be puzzled by this one, recalling as it does the base of such classic orientals as Shalimar or even less classical, like Teatro alla Scala by Krizia.

Smelling Musc Ravageur on skin one cannot but form an opinion towards the latter. Musc Ravageur, just like the big paws of its creator, is more of a naughty & voracious home cat with a furry tongue giving you a bath, rather than a wild tiger in the jungle shredding its prey in pieces. A very sensual amber -rather than musk, compare with Kiehl's Original Musk oil for instance- is hiding in the core of the fragrance. A characteristic citrus-spice top note is there (I detect clove and lavender as well), which recalls the Gallified "oriental" mould, and a silky vanilla-amber dry down which isn't really sweet, but interplaying between warm & cool, almost a bit herbal. The artistry lies in having the amber perform like a Chinese gymnast: all over the place, but with an elasticity that creates the illusion of weightlessness!

The fashion designer with the borrowed names, Lolita Lempicka, came up with a wonderful vanillic scent in L de Lempicka, that has lured even me, who am not crazy about vanilla like -apparently- most of the rest of the female population at this particular moment in perfume history. L is no ordinary childish foody vanilla because it manages to combine an ambery depth with a salty kiss, like skin baked in the Mediterranean sun, under a cloudless azure sky. Featuring immortelle flower, the infamous note in Annick Goutal’s Sables and Christian Dior Eau Noire, it has a weird sense of hot summer images (immortelle is a very usual sight around the Mediterranean coast) despite vanilla’s traditional association with winter and homely smells. A cul de sac manicurist's existence in a crammed, abandonded apartment in the suburbs of some French town during the summer perhaps? More appealing, surely.
In Sables the impression is more of a wearable maple syrup, a very warm hug, a drier beach with no fish like that near a fossilised forest at the island of Lesbos. Sables is like seeing the earth’s history in a long gaze and a moment of eternity becoming yours.
L de Lempicka comparatively is much tamer than the Goutal and for that reason, above all, it will undoubtedly be more popular. It features also orange and cinnamon notes that contribute to the likeness I detect with Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur. However the effect is not as spicy-dense in L de Lempicka, while at the same time L comes off as more calorific and rounder, more ambery. L de Lempicka also lists almond , bergamot, precious woods (sandalwood) , tonka bean (coumarin notes)and solar musks. It comes in Parfum and eau de parfum and my review is based on the latter.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: see more smell-alikes on the Twin Peaks articles link

Photos of Catherine Deneuve,top via MademoiselleB, bottom film still from Roman Polanski's thriller Repulsion

Twin Peaks: Perfect Veil, Nude Musk and Opal

Sometimes the perfume lover is jaded after being entrapped into the midst of deep and meaningful perfumes which sing the praises of king Solomon and his court. Sometimes I just want to put on something that is cuddly and soft and doesn't smell like perfume as much, more like the perfected emanation of a gorgeous body pulsating with vigour and sensuality. This is especially sympatico to the hot summer weather of a southern region, when rich harmonies might risk wilting and becoming suffocating.
For those instances, I turn to light, clean musks. I intend to devote more time to musk and musky fragrances in general soon, but today's selection highlights that imperceptible aura that I described above perfectly.

"The concept behind this scent was to recreate the smell of clean, naked skin ... only better" and this is as good a definition of a skin-scent as any. The words belong to the ad copy for the cult favourite of celebrities, Perfect Veil by Creative Scentualization, a company founded by Sarah Horowitz-Thran. {Perhaps the most interesting part is that she custom-makes fragrances for clients, with her perfumer Marlene Stang. Prices range from $350 to $1,000. Call (888) 799-2060} How fragrances become the stuff of cult celebrity fandom is a matter which is rather complicated: there has to be some effective infiltration to the celebrity's PR or some word of mouth from another celebrity (that seems to work a lot more than you'd think!) or gifts to said person which prove welcome and thus sanctioned to be publicized and so on and so forth.
For what is worth, Perfect Veil is perfectly all right, with or without the famous entourage of young desirables who favour it. Its citrus piquancy at the beginning keeps it from becoming suffocatingly powdery or too sweet and the effect is not too much like laundry, which is always a risk when working with synthetic musks in the family of Galaxolide and such. The pairing of citrus and vanilla, after all, has the illustrious ancenstry of Shalimar, an impression that is gloriously modernised in the delicately powedery muskiness of Shalimar Light. But where the Shalimar fragrances wink seductively under heavily shadowed eyes and eventually grab you by the collar, these cleaner ones merely slip the spaghetti strap of an ivory microfiber teddy letting you the initiative.

Notes of Perfect Veil according to Luckyscent: lemon, bergamot, musk, vanilla and sandalwood.

For something that is composed by ingredients that do not run too expensive I find that Perfect Veil is on a par with two excellent alternatives, in line with this feature's mission: Nude Musk by Ava Luxe and Opal by Sonoma Scent Studio.

Ava Serena Franco of Ava Luxe is another artisanal perfumer with a stellar reputation of excellent customer service who has devoted lots of her time in creating different twists on musks among a diverse portfolio that includes the wonderful leathery Madame X. Her Nude Musk manages to be just perfect, almost a deadringer for Perfect Veil and yet endearing in its own right. Nude Musk is described as: "A clean and sexy skin musk with notes of sandalwood, bergamot, light musk, and vanilla. Light and slightly powdery. Long lasting". The description is stop-on and the powderiness is especially pleasant, like the most sensual talcum powder you have applied on your skin before gliding into freshly pressed cotton sheets of high thread-count.

Another beautiful skinscent in the musks family is Opal by Sonoma Scent Studio , a company run by perfumer Laurie Erickson in California. Laurie, no stranger to these pages, has been working on lots of interesting musky twists with an edge, some of which will be soon featured on Perfume Shrine, so I am just whetting your appetite today!
Opal in Eau de Parfum has amazing lasting power that will surround you with delicate whiffs of the smell of being desired all day long. A little sweetness is induced through the vanilla touch, never too much and the whole does not become soapy-like. I find it a little less powdery than Nude Musk, very pleasant and quite sensual. I can definitely see why it is a best-seller for Sonoma Scent Studio and I can't blame anyone for liking it. Like its gem-like name, it's silky soft, illuminated as if from within, caressing and smelling like the warm skin of a loved one. Upon testing it I received the most delicious compliments on how wonderful I smelled, not how nice my perfume was. And that's the whole difference with those fragrances: they're supposed to enhance your own presence instead of standing alone as a piece of artwork. Opal never wears you, you wear it!
It also comes in a concentrated perfume oil made with a natural pure fractionated coconut oil base; no alcohol, silicones, water, emulsifiers, sunscreen additives or colorants added. The fractionated coconut oil is light and non sticky, has no odour of its own, but a long shelf life, dries quickly, and is a light moisturizer on its own.

Notes for Opal: delicate musk, vanilla, ambrette, bergamot and sandalwood.

These are all playful and uncomplicated scents for when you want to let your hair down and enjoy being who you are. Don't burden them with pretentious ambitions and you will be having a wonderful time in a cheek-to-cheek slow dance with them.

Pic of 1920s bathing suit courtesy of Wikipedia

Why do Fragrances Smell the Same?

Why do fragrances smell the same? This is a question that many people ask themselves when they're sampling fragrances spanning the spectrum from mainstream to selective distribution to niche to drugstore and of course knock-offs. Because professionals "shoot" the juice! This is industry-speak for analysing the formula (the "recipe" so to speak) of any bestseller or indeed any new perfume on the market using a gas chromatograph. The gas chromatogaph is a machine that separates the individual molecules that make up a fragrance, puts them on a sort of conveyor belt and then identifies them one by one. In tandem with a mass spectrometer they analyse what goes into a given fragrance which then allows technicians to replicate any formula, rendering it common knowledge and no longer secret.

But why are formulae secret in the first place, if it is so simple to break them down like a secret WWII code broken by the Enigma? The answer is two-fold.

First, because the perfumery world works in conservative, traditional mores, some would almost say obsolete: it was the custom of the medieval societies and guilds such as the gantiers et perfumers (those are the precursors of formal perfumers as they were scenting the leather gloves of the aristocracy to get rid of the smell of raw hide and then progressed into producing seperate fragrances for the body). They kept the formulae secret because in an age of low technological advancement it meant that their clients would have to get back to them to have their perfume replenished when they ran out, ensuring them a prosperous business.
Secondly, because in an equally anachronistic twist no one has contracts to protect themselves. It's true that the big brands, for example Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent or Givenchy, do not have possession of their own formulae for their perfumes. Those form intellectual property of the big aromachemical companies which produce the actual juice for them, such as IFF or Givaudan or Symrise etc.
But here's the catch: those perfume-making companies do not have a specific contract with the customer companies who own those brands (for instance LVMH who owns Givenchy). Therefore said company could very well take the "shot" juice to another perfume-making company and ask them to do a miniscule twist (say change a 0.1% of the formula, which will mean that the consumer will never understand the difference in smelling the finished product) and go on producing it more cheaply and make more money in the process! Should the first company ever take them to court ~which they never in a million years do because it would mean that they would lose all subsequent briefs from that gigantic customer~ they would de iuro lose the case, because of that little twist. Technically it just wouldn't be exactly the same. And legalese is very bent on the "technically" part.

Therefore the formulae theoretically are secret but in practice they circulate behind backs (no one admits it openly!) and get copied almost instantly: within days of actual release.
Of course in business terms, unless we are talking about knock-offs which by definition aim to be photocopies of the original, there wouldn't be much point in making something exactly the same as something else on the market. You could of course, in light of the above, but why would you? It would be even better to give a twist in the top-notes so as to fool the consumer into thinking they're buying something else, when in fact the core of the formula is the same. Repackage, rename, relaunch with a different image and you got yourself a hit. If not as big as the original one, then at least a very lucrative one that basks in the glow of the success of the first one.

Is there no way to get out of this mess, you'd be asking yourselves by now. It has been intimated to me that certain smart perfumers, of who I am in no liberty to reveal their names, have devised little tricks to fool the gas chromatograph by including red herrings. Those in essence are minute amounts of materials that do not actually contribute to the formula's olfactory result but act as decoys. And in order to accomplish that, those materials are naturals; because naturals contain hundreds of molecules instead of the single molecule or in any case much simpler contruction of aromachemicals. Yet, what one man constructs, another finds a way to break down. Lab technicians understand that the quantities are exceedingly small and although it slows them down, in the end with a little creative twinkering they still manage to come up with a quite plausible copy.

And this dear readers is why your new fragrance is smelling so much like the one you had in your cupboard all along and why the market is saturated with endless versions of the same recipes over and over again to the point of fatigue. In a high-tech market that worships sameness for the sake of familiarity, since psychology teaches us that the familiar creates a sense a security and comfort resulting in the desired sales, there is sadly no light at the end of the tunnel.

Pic of WWII poster via history1990s.about.com