Perfumes cling closely to your flesh
As incense to a censer; bright
And dusky nymph, you are all Night,
Secret and passionate and fresh!

— Charles Baudelaire (trans. Jacques LeClercq)

This is the end / beautiful friend

— Jim Morrison

I'm sorry, but I couldn't stop myself from using those images and quotations. What else can one do, when faced with promotional copy stating that a fragrance is "inspired on one hand by Baudelaire's homage to sweet and deep fragrances, yet on the other hand by the dark and mysterious poetry of Jim Morrison as he seemingly forebode his own demise"? The fragrance in question is Sweet Redemption (The End), the tenth and final release in By Kilian's L'Oeuvre Noire series. It was developed by perfumer Calice Becker and the notes for this sweet powdery woods fragrance include orange blossom, vanilla, myrrh, opopanax, benzoin and incense.

Overwrought prose aside, what do we have here? Sweet Redemption opens with a top note of orange blossom cocooned in spun sugar. It's feminine and quite pretty, and I thought for a moment that this would turn out to be one of the simpler By Kilian compositions...

Marc Jacobs' new Oh, Lola! flanker launched fairly recently, and has already ended its brief exclusive-to-Bloomingdales period and is available nearly everywhere. The original Lola fragrance (2009), if you remember, was meant to be Daisy's (2007) older sister. Oh, Lola! is supposed to be "lively and playful", and sweeter than Lola, so I'm assuming it's the middle sister, perhaps? It's fronted by Dakota Fanning (see above), who is around 17, if that helps you place Oh, Lola! on the target market time line.

Oh, Lola! is exactly as advertised. They've toned down the floral notes in the heart and amped up the fruit notes in the opening; the base is a slightly paler version of Lola's woody-musky trail...

Marc Jacobs will launch Oh, Lola!, a new flanker to 2009's Lola fragrance for women, in July. Oh, Lola! is described as lively and playful...

It is a testament to the ongoing deluge of new perfumes, niche and not niche, that Love and Tears (Surrender) launched last year and I promptly forgot all about it, even though it's a jasmine soliflore, a category of perfumes that I have some interest in, and even though I apparently got a sample shortly after it launched. Love and Tears is by perfumer Calice Becker, an obvious bonus, and it's from By Kilian, which might or might not be a bonus depending on your point of view (By Kilian makes me a little cranky, as I've mentioned before).¹

The back story, according to Mr. Kilian Hennessy:

Only the jasmine flower, with its endless spectrum of facets -- citrus, green, floral and animalistic -- was able to express the profusion of emotions that I wanted to communicate with this scent: the beginning of love marked with excitement, the fear of the unknown, and, ultimately, the surrender to love!

Mostly, though, they left out the animalistic part, and arguably even the "surrender to love", and certainly the tears. Love and Tears is, perhaps, too richly floral to be the early, innocent days of love, but it's too easygoing to be anything like surrender...

Ed Hardy Born Wild

Ed Hardy's fourth fragrance for women, Born Wild, is just what you'd expect — a sweet-ish, middle-of-the-road fruity floral in their signature tattoo-inspired packaging. The fruit du jour: peach. Born Wild is light (think spring/summer rather than winter/fall), clean and inoffensive, and the lasting power is reasonable enough...

Ed Hardy will launch Born Wild, a new duo of fragrances for men and women, in November.

Ed Hardy Born Wild For Women (shown above) ~ "Let this daring fragrance take you on an adventure...

Avon will launch two new fragrances in collaboration with designer Hervé Léger.

Hervé Léger Femme (shown above left) ~ a woody floral..."

By Kilian will launch Rose Oud, the second fragrance in the Arabian Nights collection. The first was Pure Oud; reportedly Rose Oud will be followed by three more fragrances based on incense, amber and musk respectively...

Last week, I read an interesting article in the New York Times¹ regarding the falling prices of “premium” blue jeans; reporter Eric Wilson wrote: “The $300 pair of designer jeans is now, courtesy of the recession, the $200 pair of designer jeans.” And what does “premium” mean exactly — “…you had to pay a premium to wear them (the jeans) …. Designers found they could charge a lot for the perception of prestige.”

Niche perfume prices have increased dramatically over the last several years, but the higher prices don't guarantee outstanding, strikingly original perfumes. Expensive fragrance lines justify their prices and lure consumers with: “rare” and “precious” ingredients; deluxe packaging; restricted availability; flattery (Connoisseurs of fine fragrance will recognize the brilliance of this perfume!); and prices so steep only the “Elite” (YOU!) can afford to buy them.

The NYT article concludes: “Like any commodity that becomes overpriced, there eventually comes a market correction.” While we’re waiting for that correction in the perfume realm, I’ll review two expensive By Kilian scents.

Pure Oud

Pure Oud is the first perfume in By Kilian’s “Arabian Nights” fragrance collection; it was developed by perfumer Calice Becker and lists notes of oud, saffron, copahu balm, amber, gaiac wood, cypriol, cistus labdanum, myrrh and animalic notes...

By Kilian has launched Pure Oud, the first fragrance in the Arabian Nights series.

Pure Oud was developed by perfumer Calice Becker, and features notes of saffron, oud, copahu balm, cypriol, labdanum, myrrh and animalic notes...