L'Artisan Parfumeur Dzing!: fragrance review

Which scent is capable of bringing out your inner Cat People? Have you ever wondered? This old specimen from the time when L'Artisan Parfumeur was a niche perfumes pioneer , Dzing!, is a strange amalgalm of animal hide and animal waste plus the compelling smell of old paper.

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Smelling old books and that particular feeling of abstract fluff that is industrial cardboard used for moving boxes have some things in common: they have a starchy, almost vanillic nuance to them, but flat and non sweet, like a cake that lacks sugar but still retains the sweetish tinge of a comforting spice.

Dzing! by L'Artisan Parfumeur was inspired by the zoo, by the sawdust and the animals, the fun and festive air that surrounds a performance, but also the comforting feel of a childhood memory. It's probably not a surprise that vanilla is so closely tied to childhood memories. Dzing! does not immediately recall vanilla, it actually smells like a cross between moving boxes, sawdust and old books, all of this sprinkled with the slightly unsettling hint of animal musk in the distance; this thing is heaving. The light leather tinge is sexy and intimate, musky soft-smelling; a synergy between a saffron note with something birch-derived or musky-suede, rather than the rough isoquinolines in butch scent variations of leather fragrances. The overall impression is not sweet as the given notes might suggest, only in that register that skin and fur smells a tad sweetish and lightly salty.

But that's probably what a person who appreciates smells odder than the standard cake vanilla would find themselves peering into, with an upturned eyebrow and a keen interest in their eye; count me among them. Dzing! isn't very easy to wear but the experience is rewarding. Just imagine what people with keen noses might think and be too embarrassed to mention. Priceless.

Fragrance notes for L'Artisan Parfumeur Dzing!: leather, ginger, tonka bean, musk, white woods, caramel, saffron, toffee, candy apple and cotton candy.

Related reading on PerfumeShrine:

Modern Leather Fragrances short reviews
Perfumes and Fur, les perfumes fourrure and the intimacy of furry stuff
Animalic Notes: the skanky scent of sexy

Comme des Garçons Incense Series Avignon: fragrance review

Using as fine fragrance the equivalent of ecclesiastic incense of the Catholic variety, marvelously assimilated in Avignon by Comme de Garçons (2002), is an acquired taste for many and probably a bit of a sacrilege for some. But for perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour it must have felt relieving to drive out the ghosts of the past by appropriating them a dissimilar role.

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Comme des Garçons Avignon fragrance, named after the French seat of the Papal court during the conflict with Rome in the 14th century, evokes grim cathedrals and catacombs with centuries of humidity and tangy frankincense smoke attached to their stony walls. To give the background of the name a short historical perspective, it all arose from a conflict of power.

Following the strife between Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII, and the death of his successor Benedict XI after eight months in office, a rupture was evident between the French crown and the Pope seat in Rome. The conclave elected Clement V, in 1305. Clement, who was a Frenchman, declined to move to Rome, and in 1309, he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years enjoying a succession of no less than 7 French popes.

via wikimedia commons

Incense reigns in Bertrand's work,  accounted for in reverse psychology by his strict Catholic upbringing. When church duties collide with corporal punishment, guilt and internal suffering, it might become rather discomfitting. The realm of the senses, smell in particular, retains nevertheless a visceral appeal, enhanced via the perverted pleasure nascent from that which is denied of: ambrette and labdanum in the scent of CDG Avignon recall the sinful body...

For someone like me, raised in the Christian Orthodox faith, I find that the fragrance of Avignon, due to its smoky and denser background with patchouli and moss, bears kinship with my Mediterranean memories of church incense wafting off Byzantine abodes. I may have been spared the rod, but I can identify with the odd sensuality of an austere type of scent which I shouldn't really like, yet which I end up loving all the same.

Related reading on PerfumeShrine: 

The Incense Series: a Holy Week through Incense Scents
Incense fragrance reviews 

Twin Peaks: Korres Pure Cotton & Prada Infusion d'Iris

Do you associate iris the fragrance note with pure cotton? You should. Today's comparison involves two fragrances which share the same olfactory core in a language that has become Morse code for comfort, effortless elegance and sophisticated grooming.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s the scent of "groomed female" involved some floral aldehydic fragrance with the powerful blanched aspect of something termed White Linen (and we will revert to that) or First by Van Cleef & Arpels (or even Chanel No.5 for the purists), while still topping everything with the garland of sweet ladylike flowers. It probably involved matching ensembles, genuine supple kid skin leather goods and a 18K gold trinity ring by Cartier.
Our Millenial rotation has dispensed with the niceties and the romantic semiotics of flowers (especially since the metrosexual male partook in female ritual) and appreciates the "clean" "dry" feel minus the glamour and the hard cash. Enter the iris and white musk brigade that has been hammering down our collective nose door for a full on decade as the new code for "groomed".

via Korres Instagram

The "cotton" mention is thus explained; the former hot iron on a starched linen shirt coming from aldehydes is now smothered into the downy soft fabric softener feel of irones on freshly laundered cotton sheets (irones form the main constituent in the scent of iris/orris). You can casually stroll any super-market aisle and pick up any product in the body products range or even the laundry detergents/fabric softeners; "cotton" is code for lots of irones and white musks. Case in point? Carrefour's Cotton shower gel, for one.

Infusion d'Iris doesn't smell particularly iris-y. truth be told. That is, it's not the starchy pasta-and-sourdough feel one gets from orris, the dried rhizome "resinous" extraction coming after macerating the roots, even though the perfume's whole marketing standpoint stresses that technique ("infusion" etc. though if you notice, in the "list" of "ingredients" on the packaging iris/orris isn't mentioned). It's a powerfully woody resinous "clean" smelling entity with formidable attributes that do not proclaim their presence.  Benzoin, cedar notes and a hint of incense resin give warmth-coolness contrasts and copious tenacity and I suspect musk does too. This is also what I smell from the Korres Pure Cotton fragrance and the scratchy (but in a good way) lily of the valley aromachemical that signifies "I feel pretty, oh so pretty".

Beyond perfumery tropes, nevertheless, there is a very practical, tangible reason why Perfume Shrine's smell-alike perfumes articles, Twin Peaks, are so popular and this post is one such case. The full effect of the well-established best-seller by Prada comes at the fraction of the price in the newer incarnation by Korres! In fact Korres is probably playing on one of their older eaux de toilette, Iris Lily of the Valley Cotton. 

If you have been following our blog for years, you surely recall our dinosaur-worthy article of how much perfume actually costs. The internet has since erupted on similar breakdowns of cost vs. retail price, but beyond the pure logistics, any dedicated fan will tell you you're paying not for the raw materials but for the expertise, the know how, the tradition, the beautiful aesthetics...in the end for the sheer experience. (And that's why if you haven't read The Aesthetic Principle you really should). Price is irrelevant if you truly love what you get.

from the Wallpaper "Clean Slate" editorial featuring Korres products, via Korres Instagram

And yet, how do you explain two perfumes that are so close in scent that opting for one when having your eyes closed wouldn't produce a micro-grimace (lips falling down on one side, eyes rolling up) of distrustful apprehension?  Of course lots of other brands and companies have cottoned on (can't help the pun) to the success of the Prada Infusion d'Iris, not least Prada itself (mainly with their Infusion d'Homme). Chanel for one seems to have revitalized the No.19 perfume stable with Chanel No.19 Poudre, a scent which smells more like something from Prada (a soap devised by Prada) than traditional Chanel (a soap referencing Chanel)...and feel free to call me reductionist if you like, since I'm sorta sacrilegiously "reducing" both to soap. (Though soap is hard business to get right). And I'm coming round to the beginning of my parsing treatise; it's probably Dove and their classic soap scent which has inspired this whole genre. Something fluffy, soft, powdery and full of irones, lily of the valley, orange flower and white musks.

Fragrantica categorizes Korres Pure Cotton (part of the newly launched Eau de Cologne range) into the "aromatic spicy" fragrances and gives (the official) notes of mandarin orange (on top), iris (in the heart) and amber (in the base). It is an eau de cologne edition in a biggish bottle in the familiar elegant Korres aesthetics with a matte black rubber spraying mechanism. It smells and performs exactly the same as Prada's original Infusion d'Iris eau de parfum. Perfumephiles on a budget, rejoice!

Gucci Premiere: fragrance review

Gucci Première represents the culmination of perfumery catering to those, on the one hand, sick of too candy-like creations, but, on the other hand, not yet ready to step into more challenging stuff. At all times pleasant, bon chic bon genre, and discreet like the perfect secretary, it adds itself to the category of woody musky fragrances with citrus overtones. The latter might tempt men sharing the bottle as well despite the feminine focus of the images accompanying it. Without being dated, Première isn't ground-breaking new, but I bet that might prompt it being picked for gift giving; it's hard to beat something that offends no one! This of course can be a serious drawback too: One can end up pleasing no one enough.

The official description stresses the glamorous element, but Gucci Première seems to me the kind of fragrance that gets one through every day, a sort of "I don't think about it too much" perfume layer that becomes part of you rather than pronouncing its presence via a complicated, intellectualized plot. To cut a long story short, it's the sort of thing that doesn't make any demands on you, take it or leave it, it's rather expected and -dare I say it- a bit boring. The dominating notes are bergamot and clean musks, clean like the ambassadress who represents it in the 40s-glamorous advertising photos, Blake Lively.
Woods and warm ambery musks coat-tail the crystalline floral chord (with a hint of white petal lily) under the first impression of fresh citrus and settle down on the skin with a softness that is surprising for such a composition. After all, the genre begat by Narciso Rodriguez For Her isn't known for its low sillage! Gucci Première however, for better or for worse, depending on your particular viewpoint, remains at all times subtle, even fleeting (it has the lasting power of an eau de toilette rather than what it is presented as, which is eau de parfum). No harshness in the leather note at all either, to the point where it shouldn't raise a brow by the cuir-o-phobics, i.e. those with a problematic relationship with the pungent leather fragrances. More's the pity for us leather fiends!

Beautiful bottle in gold with the familiar charms by Gucci.

According to the official blurb on Escentual, where the new Gucci fragrance is available: "Inspired by the Gucci Première Couture collection that debuted at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, Creative Director Frida Giannini conceived a new fragrance legend in the iconic and sophisticated form of Gucci Première. Première is the scent of a woman who is accustomed to coming first, whether in her career or in her love life. She makes the same exceptional demands of her perfume, wanting only the very best for every occasion. Just as a leading lady graces the red carpet with her couture Gucci gown, so every woman deserves her Gucci Première moment".

Notes for Gucci Première eau de parfum:
Top Notes: Bergamot, Orange Blossom
Heart Notes: White Flowers, Musk
Base Notes: Leather, Wood

Aqua di Parma Gelsomino Nobile: fragrance review & bottle giveaway

First things first: I have a brand new bottle of the to-be-launched Gelsomino Nobile for a lucky reader, from which only a 5ml decant is missing for reviewing purposes. To be eligible, all you have to do is answer to these questions: 1)What do you find pleasurable/helpful in a frag review? 2)What are the subjects on our pages you would like to read more of? Now on to reviewing this upcoming Aqua di Parma fragrance focused on jasmine...

Gelsomino Nobile (Noble Jasmine) by Aqua di Parma belongs to the Le Nobili sub-collection: 3 women’s fragrances, all in eau de parfum concentration, with a secondary Eau de Toilette for Iris Nobile. The “Nobili” are therefore Iris Nobile, Magnolia Nobile, and the new Gelsomino Nobile. Much in tune with its sister scents, Gelsomino Nobile is also an ethereal, refined, greenish rhapsody in melodious Italian, which could be worn by lovers of all things airy and romantic who want to remain chic and effortless at all times.

The scent of Gelsomino Nobile starts on exhilarating citrusy accents with a peppery bite, much like natural bergamot and the more green neroli distillation from the orange blossom (although neither is listed in the notes), soon accompanied by sweeter elements. The vista opens into a grove of fragrant white vines, dewy jasmine (non indolic), a smidge of the greener parts of tuberose (and none of the danger), and what seems like a clean freesia accord. Although freesia accords can project as screechy and sterile sometimes, the rendering here is subdued: One gets the (illusory) waft of a budding flower, rather than the intense pong of profuse aromachemicals. It's elegant, if predictable.
This stage remains poised for the rest of the duration on the skin, gaining polished nuances of clean, skin-compatible, expensive-feeling musks from one angle; a tad more austere green woodiness from another. I had written on Magnolia Nobile that "the woody musky base is also echoing in my ears like speakers in the car left on some news-relating channel in a sub-human frequency that can be felt more than heard" and I can sense the continuation here as well. Lovers of the Nobili line by Aqua di Parma should be pleased. It's not exactly my speed, but then you know I'm a die-hard indolic jasmine lover, don't you.
The overall effect is recognisably a jasmine fragrance without, at the same time, appearing as suffocating floral or intensely projecting even though Gelsomino Nobile possesses both good lasting power and pleasurable sillage. For that reason jasminophobes or those who do not want to offend may have just found their perfect green floral for all occasions where intermingling might make a more voluptuous, more combustible white floral a bit de trop.

According to the ad copy, as announced on Perfume Shrine a while ago: "Centered around an exclusive and highly unique species of Jasmine grown only in the Calabria region of Italy, this new Floral Green-Musk style of eau de parfum creates the sensation of walking through lush Italian gardens, in bloom with Jasmine, while the breeze brings in the soft, salty air from the Mediterranean.

Notes for Aqua di Parma Gelsomino Nobile: mandarin, pink pepper, orange blossom, tuberose, Calabrian jasmine, cedar wood, and musk.

The fragrance has just debuted at Neiman Marcus and will be available worlwide in September. Available in Eau de Parfum 50ml ($108) and 100ml ($170) ml and matching body cream ($80 for 150 g).

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Jasmine Series

Painting: Eugene de Blaas, Young Italian Beauty

In the interests of full disclosure, the perfume was sampled through a promotion.

Aqua di Parma Magnolia Nobile: fragrance review

After Eau d'Italie and their watercolour rendering of the magnolia flower, Magnolia Romana, a formula that takes magnolias into a gouache approximation without their true oilier features visible, Magnolia Nobile by Aqua di Parma is another fresh take on the magnolia flower; like an unmade bed in black and white it fuses the contrapunto of cool and warm into sciaphobia, questioning our own gaze into seeing things that might not be there.

Magnolia as a note is proving to be very popular lately, if we consider recent launches: a new Helena Rubinsten fragrance fronted by Demi More, Wanted, the lovely Eau de Fleur de Magnolia by Kenzo (which we reviewed here), the "cologne florale" J'Adore L'Eau by Dior and Cristalle Eau Verte by Chanel.
In the last few years there seem to be big trends on certain perfume notes which take over and almost dominate the market: the year of iris flummoxed us with allusions to the Florentine rhizomes when the (respectable and often lovely) substitues concocted in a lab were playing hide-and-seek in the bottle; the from-top-to-bottom craziness for oud left many with the impression that the pathological secretion of the Aquillaria tree was indeed the source of the complex and medicinal smell in their fragrance (at those price points, not so!); the dominance of cleaned-up, de-moleculed patchouli has been harbouring a progeny of the hundreds into almost every new release to hit the market for some time now. It seemed magnolia couldn't escape for long...
Acqua di Parma was inspired by the ephemeral flower that can be smelled ‘in the gardens of elegant villas at Lake Como’ (in northern Italy).’ After the powdery-orange trail of Iris Nobile, Magnolia Nobile is woodsier, fresher and greener. A perfume of ‘elegant femininity intended for women who don’t need to attract attention.’

The natural magnolia blossom is a big waxy embrace of ginormous petals that seem to exude both a crystalline, lemony facet and more intimate, creamy jasmine-like effusions that can take a slightly tinfoil-like odour under some weather conditions to my nose. The treatment in Magnolia Nobile is following ~just like the bottle~ the one of iris in Iris Nobile of the same line, where the hesperidic top (especially in the lighter, more upbeat Eau de Toilette as opposed to the more chypre Eau de Parfum) is tieing the composition in style with the cologne genre that Aqua di Parma so effortlessly encapsulated in their classic Cologne. In Magnolia Nobile the lemony-green facets are pronounced at first, making it a zesty refreshing mix that cannot but provide an euphoric feeling, slightly sweet due to the floral essences, but there is also a familiar plummy-apricoty nuance which brings to mind popular mainstream releases which have been haunting the aisles of malls, restaurants and cinemas for a few years now. The woody musky base is also echoing in my ears like speakers in the car left on some news-relating channel in a sub-human frequency that can be felt more than heard.
In that regard the point of the construction of a "niche" fragrance along those lines (if a LVMH-owned company can be considered that) is eluding me. Magnolia Nobile is quite pleasant and does not become grandiloquent at any point which is a plus, but I cannot deny my disappointment with the familiarity with which it greets me when I expected a novel path that would bring me some Tarkovskian dream sequence. Maybe my expectations were too high. I am holding out for the next Nobile flower in the line before adding a companion to my Aqua di Parma Iris bottle.

Notes for Magnolia Nobile by Aqua di Parma:
Top: bergamot, lemon, citron, green notes
Heart: magnolia, jasmine, rose, tuberose
Base: sandalwood, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla

Available as Eau de Parfum in 100ml/3.4oz and 150ml/5oz at Neiman Marcus and select doors internationally.

One large sample will be offered to a lucky reader. State your interest!

Photograph The Unmade Bed by Imogen Cunningham via personal.pblogs.gr. Ad pic via fashionindie.com