Amouage has launched Honour, a new fragrance duo:

‘Honour’, the latest set of fragrances from the house of Amouage unfold the tale of love and betrayal...

Amouage describes Opus V Eau de Parfum as a "woody and floral neoclassical masterpiece." Sure, Opus V stars a beautiful iris and has wood, but how you feel about Amouage Opus V will likely depend on how much you like oud.

Perfumer Jacques Cavallier created Opus V. It has notes of orris, agarwood, rum, rose, jasmine, civet, and dry wood accord. According to Amouage's PR machine, "the vision and inspiration for this fragrance is the internet and how knowledge and the art of living are shared amongst the glabal community digitally. This fragrance takes inspirations from the exploration of the tradition and classical art of sharing knowledge to how knowledge becomes fragmented in the world of artificial intelligence, and which has become an acceptable way of living nowadays." (Whew! I bet Jean Claude Ellena is thanking his lucky stars his thematic fragrances for Hermès have to do with gardens.)

When I ponder classical art, the internet, and fragmented knowledge, I come up with the smell of fried transistors...

Amouage has launched Opus V, a new woody floral fragrance and the latest fragrance in the brand's Library collection...

Christopher Chong, creative director of Amouage, will be at MiN New York to introduce Opus IV, the latest addition to the Amouage Library Collection...

Earlier this year, Amouage released its Library Collection, a trio of fragrances designed as a "poetic homage to the art of living." Opus III is a floral oriental developed by perfumer Karine Vinchon; according to Amouage, this fragrance "was inspired by the art and science of the creative process, from the darkest moments of frustration, to the brightness of enlightenment and discovery." It includes top notes of mimosa, broom, carnation, nutmeg, and thyme; a heart of violet, jasmine, ylang-ylang, and orange blossom; and base notes of ambrette, musk, papyrus, cedarwood, sandalwood, guaiac wood, benzoin, and vanilla.

Opus III opens with a distinctive note of broom flowers. If you've ever tried Santa Maria Novella Ginestra, a broom soliflore, you'll recognize this scent, something like cut hay and long grass warmed by the sun. If Opus III were visible as color, the dominant shades of its opening and its heart would be the bright, almost sharp yellow of broom blossoms and the buttery shade of mimosa flowers...

Next month, Amouage launches Opus IV, the fourth fragrance in the Library Collection (see Opus I, II and III):

The latest inspiring creation was especially crafted to instill knowledge and empowerment in efforts to promote HIV / AIDS awareness by Creative Director Christopher Chong, who worked assiduously with renowned perfumers in Grasse...

Few notes in fragrance are as polarizing as cumin. Some people associate cumin with sweat or food, and even the tiniest hint of it will cause them to double-bag a perfume sample and take it to the garbage can in the backyard. Other people, including me, like the carnal edge cumin adds to a fragrance.

For people who want to experiment with cumin-laced fragrances, I've put together this cheat sheet of a few perfumes and their ratings on the cumin-o-meter. I hope you'll chime in with your favorite fragrances, too.

Cumin-o-meter rating 1: Serge Lutens Chêne. Have you ever leaned your head toward a four-log fire in a fireplace that draws well and breathed deeply? Riding the heat is a touch of cumin...

To spin an old maxim, there are two kinds of people in the world: minimalists and maximalists. (You also might say the two types of people in the world are those who think there are two types of people and those who don't.) Minimalists cleave to the simple and pure. Minimalists keep a tidy house, have matching coffee mugs, and tend closets with white, button-down shirts hanging in the same direction. This doesn't mean a minimalist is boring. Beautiful things stem from a few, synergistic ingredients. Think of a green apple on a white plate. Or Jean-Claude Ellena.

Maximalists, on the other hand, walk around with pet hair adhered to their hind ends. They sing with Maria Callas on the stereo while pushing away wine glasses on the counter from two nights ago to make room for the mango they are massacring for a recipe they jotted down from a seafood vendor they met on the bus. Maximalists hang taxidermied trout on the wall next to a tiny 19th-century oil painting they bought at auction, all looking down on a collection of swirling Murano glass ashtrays blown in Elvis's heyday.

Amouage traditionally appeals to the maximalist...

Amouage creative director Christopher Chong aimed for something truly great with his two latest fragrances — Memoir Man and Memoir Woman: “to unlock the unfathomable mysteries that reside within human nature.” Well! It’s certainly not the usual perfume goal of “we aim to move 2 million units during the first twelve months of our launch.” In the Amouage “Memoir” PR brew, there’s mention of Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal, a “Black Swan” (Memoir Woman), and absinth (perhaps quaffed as much as used as an ingredient during the Memoir creative process?)

Memoir Man, described as a leather-woody-fougère fragrance, contains notes of wormwood/absinth, basil, mint, frankincense, rose, lavender, vetiver, sandalwood, guaiac wood, amber, vanilla, musk, oakmoss, leather and tobacco; it was developed by perfumer Karine Vinchon who I “met” a few weeks ago as I sampled her L'Artisan Coeur de Vétiver Sacré .

Memoir Man begins with a slightly musty, yet creamy, wormwood scent mixed with ‘cool’ mint. As the herbal opening develops...