I can’t believe it’s been five years since my last Top Ten Spring Fragrances list, but yes, a look back confirms that fact. My tastes haven’t shifted much since then, yet I can somehow come up with plenty of new favorites. Of course, there are the fragrances that I consider part of my springtime “hall of fame”: Guerlain Apres l’Ondée and Chamade, Frederic Malle En Passant. These come into rotation every March or April, come rain or come shine (and lately, it’s been mostly rain). But, beyond these classics, I’m easily able to compile a list of other fragrances I’ve been wearing or will be wearing over the next month or two.
What to wear when the calendar says Spring, but the weather is still chilly and damp and dreary? I love to don Frederic Malle L’Eau d’Hiver during that indecisive kind of weather, perhaps because it walks a fine line between warm and cool, soft and crisp…
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I’ve been a Lush customer for over a decade, and I’ve followed the various permutations of the company’s fragrance line with interest, from B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful to Gorilla Perfume and everything in between. Lush’s latest fragrance line has delighted me so far; as Robin has said, Mark and Simon Constantine continue to produce “unusual, well-crafted and reasonably priced perfumes whilst seemingly paying no mind to the conventions that rule the rest of the fragrance industry.”
Sikkim Girls is described as “subtle, seductive, heady, exotic, floral…frangipani, jasmine, vanilla and tuberose conjure up exotic climes and heady possibilities.” Its name comes from an anecdote related by the musician Sheema Mukherjee: Mukherjee met a café owner in Darjeeling who claimed that his son-in-law had been lured away by two “Sikkim girls,” unlikely sirens who entranced him with their feminine wiles despite being fully, even modestly, dressed. Its white floral notes, appropriately enough, are traditional but surprisingly heady, not to mention quite long-lasting on the skin…
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Olive & Oud is a small but very satisfying line of handmade, botanically fragranced soaps. I tend to be very particular about soap — its texture, its scent, its appearance — and very few brands inspire me to repurchase their wares. However, I tried and enjoyed two bars from Olive & Oud so much that I’ll be going back for more.
These soaps are made using the cold process method; they are crafted from a base of olive oil, organic and sustainably grown palm oil, coconut oil, shea butter, cocoa butter and castor oil. They’re lather-y yet moisturizing, they’re cleverly tinted with natural pigments, and they have sophisticated, subtly blended fragrances.
Bonfire in the Snow soap (above left), which is off-white with a stripe of indigo and charcoal, combines cool and warm sensations in its ingredients…
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I can rarely resist a New York reference in a fragrance or a beauty product. Charenton Macerations is a new independent fragrance line created by Douglas Bender, a New York resident who has worked in various aspects of the fragrance industry, and its first scent is inspired by an old and storied New York location: Christopher Street, one of the best-known by-ways of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Christopher Street was developed in collaboration with perfumer Ralf Schwieger. Its composition includes top notes of alcoholic lime, bergamot, bitter orange, leather and tobacco; mid-notes of cinnamon, clove bud, “Dance on Skin,” orange blossom and Poet Carnation; and a dry down of incense, moss, musk, myrrh and patchouli.
As the Charenton Macerations website mentions, Christopher Street has been “home to merchants and misfits, Beatniks and Bohemians, dissidents and protesters” over its three centuries of existence. It evolved from colonial farmland into a site of shipping and trade, a crucible of modern art and literature, an epicenter of the sexual revolution, and a key location in the gay liberation movement. Although many of its long-loved bookstores and cafés are now closed, a few reminders of its history still stand, all with their own distinct olfactory profiles…
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When acquaintances who want to know more about perfume ask me for recommendations, I often suggest a visit to a L’Artisan Parfumeur counter. L’Artisan was the first “niche” fragrance house I ever experienced, back in the 1990s, and it’s still one of my favorites. Lately I’ve been watching with interest as L’Artisan has been highlighting certain long-standing aspects of its brand identity, perhaps re-asserting its rightful place in an increasingly crowded market. Since late 2012, for example, the company has been “telling the story of French perfumery” with its “Grasse Collection” of candles, scented gloves, and — starting now, with Caligna — fragrances.
Caligna “draws inspiration from the spiritual home of fragrance” — the countryside around Grasse — and its name reportedly comes from the word meaning “to court” or “to flirt” in the Provençal dialect. L’Artisan describes Caligna as “a woody, aromatic fragrance” with notes of clary sage, fig, jasmine marmalade accord, lentisc (the shrub that produces mastic resin) and pine needles; it was developed by perfumer Dora Baghriche-Arnaud.
All of Caligna’s notes are inspired by the landscape and vegetation of Provence, and it’s a refreshing take on the region, free of any clichéd lavender-sachet associations…
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