Old niche favorites in new packaging: Isabey Gardenia (shown above left, $165 at Beautyhabit, Your Cosmetics or Luckyscent in the US, Les Senteurs in the UK, First in Fragrance in Germany) and Amouage Ubar (shown above right, $250 at Aedes, Four Seasons, Luckyscent or Parfums Raffy in the US, Harrods or Les Senteurs in the UK)…
The big Tom Ford gift for 2008: the Tom Ford Private Blend coffret, with 2 ml rollerballs in each of the 12 original Tom Ford Private Blend fragrances. Says Tom, “Private Blend is my own scent laboratory; it's where I have the ability to create very special, original fragrances that are unconstrained by the conventions of mainstream scent-making. Private Blend is designed with the true fragrance connoisseur in mind.” Ok? $225 at Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus…
Agraria is a San Francisco-based company founded over 30 years ago. Its most famous fragrance is Bitter Orange (a best-selling potpourri, and now available in many home fragrance and body products). Bitter Orange is a favorite of mine: a nose-tickling, slightly powdery fragrance containing clove, bitter orange and cypress.
I thought it was time to sample another Agraria scent.
Most home fragrance fiends have probably succumbed by now and tried a perfume-oil-with-diffuser-reeds product. Agraria’s Balsam AirEssence comes in a beautiful, hand-blown heavy crystal perfume bottle with glass stopper. The bottle (almost six inches tall) contains 9.4 ounces of scented oil into which one places 20 nine-inch diffuser reeds. The reeds absorb the fragrant oil and diffuse it into the air; when you want more concentrated scent — flip the reeds.
The Balsam fragrance (as described on the Agraria website) contains: sweet balsam (no particular plant/tree is specified), California redwood, French sage, and white flowers (again, no specifics). Diffuser perfume oils are blended in a way that provides a steady stream of unvarying fragrance…
