Last month I tried all three fragrances from Neela Vermeire Créations in one sitting, one after the other. Trayee made me think, and Bombay Bling made me smile, but Mohur made me swoon a bit. Kevin has already written an excellent review of Trayee and Bombay Bling, in which he mentioned that Mohur wasn’t quite his type; however, it is exactly my type, so I’m happy to follow up with a review of this fragrance, which is described as “a combination of opulent moghul rose perfumes and a distinguished spicy leather bouquet.”
Mohur’s notes are listed as cardamom, coriander, ambrette, carrot, black pepper, elemi, rose, jasmine, orris, aubepin flower, almond milk, violet, orris, leather, sandalwood, amber, white woods, patchouli, oudh, benzoin, vanilla and tonka bean. Its background “story” includes references to the British Raj era, to the mohur coin that was used under British rule in India, and to the Mughal empress (and perfumer) Noor Jahan. (You can read more about the fragrance’s historical allusions on the richly annotated and illustrated Neela Vermeire Créations website.)
My knowledge of Indian history is woefully limited…
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Lancôme has released a few limited edition flankers to Trésor over the years, but it didn’t really court a new generation of perfume-wearers until 2010, when it offered Trésor In Love as a “fresher” interpretation of the 1990s classic. Trésor In Love has just been joined by a second flanker, Trésor Midnight Rose, which is billed as “Charming. Mischievous. Desirable” and seems to be directed at a similarly young audience.
Lancôme names Trésor Midnight Rose’s notes as raspberry, black currant bud absolute, rose absolute, jasmine, vanilla, and musk. (An earlier list also included pink pepper, peony, and cedar.) The fragrance was developed by perfumer Anne Flipo and it is packaged in a purple ombré version of the Trésor In Love bottle. The actress Emma Watson is the “face” of Midnight Rose, and I found the commercial in which she strides along the streets of Paris and beguiles a young bookshop clerk to be charming, indeed. (Two asides: the bookstore appears to be Shakespeare & Company; and, I once saw Emma Watson stepping into a boutique on New York’s Madison Avenue. She was quite petite and pretty, and still very young-looking!)
Trésor Midnight Rose bears little similarity to the well-groomed peachy rose of the original Trésor…
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Posted by Jessica
on
24 February 2012
I remember meeting my freshman-year roommate on the very first day of college. When our parents had departed and we stood alone in the room, her first full sentence to me was, “Do you have a boyfriend?” What a strange way to begin a conversation and a potential friendship, I thought. I had just finished painstakingly arranging my half of the room. Why didn’t she ask me about my books, my posters, my music collection? Why didn’t she ask me, better yet, about myself?
My initial reaction to Kate Walsh Boyfriend was similar. Boyfriend, whose tagline is “Wear Him,” is intended “to capture the scent of a guy on a girl: a man’s cologne mixed with perfume, the smell that lingers on the skin.” But why would I want a perfume that makes me smell like some imaginary male companion, particularly in a scenario written like a romance novel? (“She inhales his shirt, taking in the scent of the man she loves. It lingers on her clothes, her sheets, her hair—all over. Imprinted on her body and in her mind, it radiates within her, filling her with feelings of warmth and desire.”) And why would I want to own and display a perfume bottle marked with various masculine first names? Are they meant to signify past boyfriends? Or am I supposed to find my real-life companion’s name on the list? (My husband’s name is there, for the record. But what if it weren’t?)
Boyfriend’s notes are listed as dark plum, myrrh, night blooming jasmine, benzoin tears, skin musk, golden amber and vanilla woods. That list didn’t really raise my expectations — those “ingredients” have all appeared many times before, even in combination — but the fragrance itself did make me sit up and take notice…
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Posted by Jessica
on
14 February 2012
This winter has been an unpredictable one, so far, in the Mid-Atlantic region: no snow, mild temperatures, weirdly fluctuating humidity. It happens to suit my current state of mind: for me, the year opened on several notes of personal and professional disappointment, when nothing turned out quite as I expected it to.
However, wearing (and writing about!) perfume is always a reassurance to me. And over the past week or two, the temperature has finally dropped (and stayed low); we even received a light (if fleeting) layer of snow one night. Maybe something, even if it’s just the weather, will get back on track. Here, then, is my highly subjective list of ten fragrances that have been keeping me company during this season.
In the past I’ve thought of Guerlain Après l’Ondée as a springtime fragrance, but this year I realized that it’s also a good fit for where-is-winter days that alternate between chilly rain and pale sunlight…
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Posted by Jessica
on
10 February 2012
I’ll confess: I had little interest in trying the Arquiste line when it was first announced. Another day, another high-priced niche line with exclusive distribution, historical-geographical references, and minimalist bottles; right? But my curiosity was piqued by Kevin’s review of Flor y Canto and Anima Dulcis, so I sniffed one or two selections during a visit to Barneys; and then I noticed that the newest addition to the line, Aleksandr, was a tribute to the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. I have fond memories of reading and re-reading Pushkin’s verse-novel Eugene Onegin at one point in my overly prolonged years of education, so I needed to give this fragrance a closer look.
Aleksandr was developed with perfumer Yann Vasnier and includes notes of neroli, violet leaf, fir balsam, Russian leather, and ambrette. It is designed to tell the story of the last day of Pushkin’s life, when the famed writer was mortally wounded in a duel in 1837. The neroli and violet are meant to evoke the hero’s morning toilette, the leather to refer to his gloves and boots, and the fir balsam to evoke the winter landscape around St. Petersburg. I occasionally get irritable when I see literary or cultural references haphazardly grafted onto a fragrance that doesn’t deliver on its promise (can you recall any recent example?), but in Aleksandr’s case, the story is seamlessly joined to the scent…
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