Posted by Erin
on
10 December 2010
The certified organic We Love New York collection from Honoré des Prés is one of the best surprises of 2010. Like many others, I had issues with the line’s debut scents, launched in 2008 and developed by perfumer Olivia Giacobetti.1 My favorite of the first five was Sexy Angelic, a tribute to the calisson, specialty of Aix-en-Provence and possibly the world’s most divine confection. Sexy Angelic opens with a fresh, mouthwatering cloud of marzipan and crystallized melon… and then, swiftly, nothing. Within a minute or two, the top notes have completely dissipated, leaving behind a very faintly minty, showered-skin smell that lasts for approximately six more minutes. Even for all-natural eaux and in the context of Giacobetti’s ethereal Iunx waters, four of the original Honoré scents set new records for brevity. Unfortunately, the sole enduring scent, Chaman’s Party, seems to feature enough tulsi (aka holy basil) to remind me of those ayurvedic teas served at spas where you are instructed to always apply facial moisturizer with a counter clockwise motion. (Don’t let me discourage you from sampling it, though. It was a winner for Robin.) The experience seemed too mixed for 100 ml at $145, so with mild disappointment, I mentally filed the line away as one not likely to inspire a purchase.
But then, with the announcement of the We Love New York trio in March, I had to consider re-filing. From the note lists, which seemed to promise bolder, longer-lasting fragrances, to the painfully cute, coffee-themed packaging: everything about I Love Les Carottes, Love Coco and Vamp à NY caught the attention of wired perfumanity…
Read the rest of this article »
Posted by Erin
on
21 October 2010
With age and experience comes the temptation of despairing prophecy. The landscape of perfumery is so ephemeral that is hard for even the most optimistic fragrance follower to not sometimes feel like Cassandra, plagued by futile visions of flaming, fallen monuments of smell. In truth, the internet has made possible the niche scent industry and new marvels are being created every month. Meanwhile, auction and fragrance decanting sites have ensured that, unlike the Library at Alexandria or the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the lost are not necessarily gone forever. There has never been a better or easier time to be a perfume lover. But the abundance and range of fragrances available to us, as well as the wealth of online information about those fragrances, has created an age of anxiety. What should we smell now, we wonder, before it’s gone?
For at least the past year, I have been campaigning for the best perfume boutique in my area to start stocking the Heeley fragrances. When the owners thought the samples I brought to the store last autumn were merely nice, I warned them: Heeleys are sneaky…
Read the rest of this article »
Posted by Erin
on
16 September 2010
Few things in life inspire loyalty in me like the Parfums de Nicolaï line. No doubt the packaging is plain — but surely this can be overlooked when the contents are so beautiful and yet so affordable? Many of the newer niche brands charge a lot more for an equally ugly bottle. Yes, the products seem to be more expensive in North America than in Europe — but it feels churlish to complain when even the inflated USD or CAD price is a bargain. Besides, the dysfunctional website for the line urges you to “Buy Now” without giving the cost of anything in Euros or any other currency — I’m serious, go check it out: the price column reads zero for all products in every size — so North Americans are never going to know what deals they’re missing anyway.¹ Furthermore, the sight of each squat 30 ml bottle of Maharadjah or Sacrebleu warms my heart: may every other perfume company see the light and start providing smaller, reasonably priced packaging across the board!
True, it is often difficult to determine when or whether a Nicolaï fragrance has been discontinued, renamed or reformulated under the same name, and there are clearly some problems with the North American distribution, as many products seem to be on perpetual “backorder” — but even this commercial ineptitude sparks a foolish fondness in me. In this age of the hard sell, it is heartening — if nerve-wracking! — to see fragrances survive simply because they smell darn good…
Read the rest of this article »
Posted by Erin
on
19 August 2010
Most of perfumanity has experienced a variation of the same nightmare. You find a fragrance that unlocks something in you, a scent that speaks a language that is personal and saturated with feeling. A sample is included in a package from a friend or in the sizable and random order that somehow made it from an online shopping cart to your mailbox. Sniffing the vial or a patch of skin carelessly lavished with the liquid, you are pierced to the heart… and you laugh, cry or do whatever you do when overcome with emotion. (My reaction is apparently to blush furiously.) The fragrance has been discontinued, of course. Inevitably, too, it had a niche distribution and has never been reliably available through internet discounters or it was the most weirdly confidential scent in an otherwise mainstream line.
Frantic, late-night searches of the web reveal that you have more soul mates than you ever could have guessed and each of them has already purchased a 1.7 or 3.3 oz bottle of your juice, leaving the online retailers out of stock. The auction sites are merely offering the layering products, flacons or candles. Perhaps you put in the winning bid on bubble soak, even though you don’t own a tub. Over several months, you cobble together a collection of precious millilitres: a mini from seller in Singapore, rare and hideously expensive decants, and the original sample, preserved in museum-quality condition. Haunting the blogs and dead forum threads, you search for smell alike suggestions or rumors about well-stocked stores run by strangely unwitting owners. The Gobin Daudé scents, Comptoir Sud Pacifique Thé, Hermès Doblis… The horror! The horror!
My nightmare has been about Slatkin Persian Lime (Blossom) & Mimosa…
Read the rest of this article »
Posted by Erin
on
17 June 2010
One of the people who made the biggest impact on my early life was my maternal grandfather. After a hardscrabble childhood in Glasgow, he immigrated to Canada as a young man with his parents and sister to train as a draftsman and parts engineer. An aptitude for the work and for study in general made him a success within a few years and he was soon able to provide his family with the sort of respectable, cozy comforts that they had always aspired to in their homeland.
People of his generation and background approvingly described him as “a careful man” — a certain sort of sober fussiness being viewed at that time as one of the proudest and most patriotic of Scottish virtues — and he was as meticulous and discerning about his pleasures as he was about everything else. Our own, less kind era might hang the label of “OCD” on his morning hygiene and dressing routines, his fastidious care of such household objects as clocks, vinyl records or decorative biscuit tins, or his use of a level to straighten all the picture frames in the house once a week.
Despite his enjoyment of many small, bourgeois luxuries, I am proud to say he was an optimistic, open-minded and politically progressive man for his day and one of the most enduring, if frivolous, symptoms of his faith in the goodness and intelligence of all human beings was his insistence on ordering a very specific gin martini (very dry, one olive, glass frozen) wherever we went…
Read the rest of this article »
