Wandering around on a recent rainy Sunday, a friend and I stepped into Una, a tiny shop on the working class side of town. The clothing was tremendously chic, all Italian fabrics and clever design. In a different life, when my womanly figure turns gamine and my penchant for nipped waists and rhinestones fades, I’ll have one of each on the rack. The jewelry was fabulous, too, and I’m saving up for a bronze Monica Castiglioni ring. But what really pleased me, was that in this shop — this little shop that could fit inside my living room —was a row of Etat Libre d’Orange perfumes.

Forget the rain, I was ecstatic. They didn’t have my two favorites, Jasmin et Cigarette (“We could never sell that here, people wouldn’t get it,” the owner told me later) and Like This, but Vraie Blonde sat in front, and several fragrances I wanted to get to know better lined up behind it. One of them was Fat Electrician Eau de Parfum. I took home a sample...

Etat Libre d'Orange, as a brand, doesn't really suit me, which is a shame because it's one of the few niche lines that still sells a bottle for less than $100 (and as many of you will remember, $100 is the new free). I haven't tried quite all of them — they've made a whopping 22 fragrances since they debuted in 2006 — but by now I've tried most of them. The one that impressed me the most (although it isn't really "me") was the brilliant Like This for Tilda Swinton; after that, I'd list Putain des Palaces and Vierges et Toreros as close calls, and I'd probably want a bottle of Fat Electrician if I didn't already own a bazillionty-and-one vetiver fragrances, modern or otherwise.

But so far, I've never been tempted to buy, and only one Etat Libre scent has been sitting in my purgatory basket¹ and that's Jasmin et Cigarette. Since Kevin reviewed Sécrétions Magnifiques yesterday and Jessica is going to review Archives 69 tomorrow, it seemed like a good time to pull it out and decide one way or another...

When I first heard about Noël au Balcon from Etat Libre d'Orange, it was being offered as a limited edition fragrance for the 2007 holiday season. I was disappointed that I wouldn't have a chance to try it, since it was only available at Sephora in France. Fortunately, Noël au Balcon joined the permanent Etat Libre line-up about a year ago, and now that I've had a chance to wear it, the season seems right for a review. Noël au Balcon's composition includes notes of tangerine, vanilla, honey, orange blossom, apricot, red pepper, patchouli, musk, cistus, cinnamon, nigella, and amber, and it was created by the perfumer Antoine Maisondieu (who has produced a number of fragrances for Etat Libre, including another of my favorites, the aldehydic peachy-floral Vraie Blonde).

Since we're dealing with Etat Libre d'Orange, there is the requisite punning in the fragrance's title and some racy imagery in its logo and its descriptive "story"; allusions to cleavage abound. The proverb "Noël au balcon, Pâques au tison" means that a warm Christmas — warm enough to spend on the balcony — will be followed by an unseasonably cool Easter (requiring "firebrands"). And the expression "avoir du monde au balcon," or "the balcony is crowded," is a reference to a shapely bosom...

Burberry will launch new limited edition versions of Burberry Brit for men and women in October. The new duo "captures the atmosphere of the British winter season"...

A statuesque blonde draped in bias-cut, ivory silk charmeuse is a classic image of glamour. She drinks champagne, has breakfast in bed on a tray, takes bubble baths, and breaks hearts. A puff of maribou trims the toe of each of her slippers. Now that this image is firmly in mind, let's tweak it. Give our blonde a few years in a Swiss finishing school, a lusty appetite for lobster at midnight, and a laugh a little too loud for her patrician mother, and you have Guerlain Vega. Substitute wine coolers for the champagne, a facility for Pig Latin rather than French, and an addiction to patent leather heels from Payless, and you have Etat Libre d'Orange Vraie Blonde. They're sisters from opposite sides of the tracks.

Jacques Guerlain created Vega, a blowsy floral aldehyde, in 1936...

Lanvin will launch Marry Me, a new fragrance for women, in August. The scent is meant to reflect a moment of intense happiness — whether or not that moment is taken seriously...

Ah, sport fragrances — (almost) universally hated by PerfumeFanatics© and apparently adored by, and selling like hotcakes to, the rest of society. For perfumers, being asked to formulate a sport fragrance for the mainstream market must be like Martha Argerich being asked to play the C major scale (right hand only) — easy work! And with sport perfumes, the ease smells; these fragrances are, for the most part, interchangeable and have no interesting facets (only the bottles and designer names are unique). This spring, Burberry and Gucci are but two companies involved in major sport fragrance launches.

Burberry Sport for Men

Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative officer, said: “I wanted it (Burberry Sport for Men) to feel like there was movement in the scent. I kept saying I wanted it zingy; I wanted to feel alive; I wanted to feel like it’s jumping.” ¹ Burberry Sport for Men was developed by perfumers Sonia Constant, Nathalie Gracia-Cetto and Antoine Maisondieu and contains notes of “frosted ginger,” grapefruit, wheatgrass, marine notes, juniper berry, red ginger, white musks, cedar, woods and “dry amber.”

Burberry Sport for Men starts off soapy, sweet and gingery, with a clean grapefruit note. The gingers in Burberry Sport are more spicy-candied (think preserved ginger or strong ginger ale) than fresh and rooty. There is also a light and indistinct floral character in the soapy opening. As the scent goes into its mid-phase of development it becomes a bit “astringent” (bracing and “cool” but not strident); the dry-down returns to the sweetness of the opening notes with hints of pale wood, light musk and soft ambergris. Though Burberry Sport follows the sport scent trajectory, it’s mellower than most sport fragrances on the market...

The traditional, hand-made soaps of the Middle East are rustic (often brown and wrapped simply in wax paper), heavy (drop a full-size bar on your toes in the shower and you may be headed to the ER) and pungent with the aromas of plant oils and seeds — cumin, nigella, olive, bay laurel. The famous soaps of Aleppo, Syria, are olive oil based and fragranced with bay laurel (laurus nobilis), and they are one of the inspirations, along with the Lebanese landscape, for Comme des Garçons + Monocle Scent Two: Laurel — henceforth referred to as “Laurel.”

Laurel was developed by perfumer Antoine Maisondieu and contains bay laurel, incense, cedar, pepper, patchouli and amber. Laurel starts off smelling green and herbal — like a bruised or crushed fresh bay laurel leaf. Quickly, Laurel’s bracing green aroma is joined by “coarse” black pepper and smoky frankincense. In Laurel’s base, the original bay laurel scent (a perfume in and of itself) darkens and is joined by musty-sweet cedar. Then, something wonderful happens: Laurel’s notes combine to produce an accord that smells like one of my favorite flowers — marigold...

Burberry will launch Burberry Sport fragrances for women and men in February (look for a prestige makeup line to follow in July). The new scents "are meant to pack a high-octane punch"...

Paul Smith will launch Rose Summer Edition, a new limited edition fragrance for women, in January.

As with the original Paul Smith Rose and the 2009 Summer Edition, the new fragrance was developed by perfumer Antoine Maisondieu...