Perfumer Mandy Aftel of indie natural line Aftelier calls her new Candide “a bright, uplifting floral, expressing its theme of optimism through sublime jasmine and age-old frankincense”. I’ll second the description. This is a resolutely happy scent — just the sort of thing to add some cheer to a dreary winter day — with a simply lovely citrus opening (blood orange and grapefruit) that lingers far longer than you’d expect from an all-natural fragrance, and then some. It’s juicy and bright, and sweetish in that citrus jam sort of way that doesn’t give you a toothache. The jasmine is slightly indolic but not too dirty,1 and the incense is light and airy.
Candide has knocked Aftelier’s Cepes and Tuberose into second-favorite status, although I tried Cepes again this week, and in a perfect world I’d have piles of money and own bottles of both. It’s Candide in particular I’d like to bathe in, though: it’s that happy…
David Lynch directed four commercials for Calvin Klein Obsession and Obsession for Men in 1990. One of them featured Lara Flynn Boyle (of Twin Peaks!), but that one doesn’t appear to be on YouTube, unfortunately. Here are the other 3:
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So, Le Labo has done a collection for Anthropologie.1 On the surface, it makes a lot of sense. Le Labo’s aesthetic, shown in its heavy bottles mimicking apothecary jars and labeled with a font reminiscent of an old typewriter, dovetails nicely with Anthropologie’s tidy-bohemian image. A bottle of Le Labo Iris 39 would be right at home on a bureau adorned with Anthropologie’s “antique” drawer knobs. Plus, a high-end designer working with a mall-type store can be a raging success. Look at all the fashion designers who put together sell-out collections for H&M.
But in the case of Le Labo’s venture with Anthropologie, I have to wonder if Le Labo merely phoned this one in. Even the line’s packaging is a little shoddy. Sniffing my way through the Le Labo + Anthropologie collection, I miss Le Labo’s usual offbeat take on a fragrance. Sure, Bouquet Blanc is a heady white floral, but so are a dozen others — most notably Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower. Poudre d’Orient is an easy and warm powdery amber, but I’d recommend Kenzo Flower Oriental instead. Orange Discrète? A pretty orange more aldehydic than juicy. Go get Fendi Theorama. Chant de Bois? A fine wood in the two-by-four mold, but not so fine or interesting as too many others to list. Belle du Soir, on the other hand, is the one Le Labo + Anthropologie fragrance that hints at the who-cares-what-you-think attitude I love from Le Labo…
