Posted by Angela
on
13 May 2013
In searching for something to review this week, I dropped by Nordstrom for a sample of Valentino Valentina Assoluto. I’d peeled open its scent strip in Vogue and read its notes, and it sounded alluring — warm, earthy, and sultry with a truffle note. But the real thing? Valentina Assoluto was the epitome of a bad mall fragrance, shrill and off-putting, exactly what I fear encountering in elevators. I left my sample in the garbage at work.
But it spurred me to think, what makes a sultry perfume? Has our definition of seductive scent changed so much over time? I reached for some Weil Zibeline and spritzed. Now that’s what I call a comfortable yet sexy fragrance: a diffuse top, complex warm and spicy heart, and sweet, animalic drydown. Valentino et al, take notes…
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Posted by Robin
on
2 May 2013
Mother’s Day is coming up on Sunday, 12 May — here is our final set of gift ideas in case you’re still shopping. If you missed it, check out part 1 and part 2.
From Charlotte Olympia, hinged perfume-bottle-shaped clutch purses made from colored perspex. $1295 (gulp!) each at Neiman Marcus…
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Posted by Robin
on
23 April 2013
La Collection de Grasse is a new quartet of fragrances from L’Occitane, and something of an introduction, perhaps, to the house’s newly announced in-house perfumer Karine Dubreuil (although she has developed fragrances for L’Occitane in the past, including Eau des Baux, L’Eau des 4 Reines and Myrte from the Notre Flore collection).
Today, reviews of Jasmin & Bergamote and Magnolia & Mûre; coming up on Thursday, Vanille & Narcisse and Thé Vert & Bigarade.
Jasmin & Bergamote
mandarin, bergamot, jasmine, lemon leaves, sandalwood and cedar
This is the one of the four I was most looking forward to, and it is in a fact a pretty enough, very wearable summer-weight floral. It’s a bit citrusy and a bit green (almost grassy), with a pale woody dry down. It’s not indolic, nor even a jasmine bomb…
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I don’t think I’ve ever reviewed a deodorant here before, but there’s a first time for everything. This happens to be a brand of deodorant that I particularly like — and, before I begin, you’ll want to note the basic difference between an anti-perspirant, which prevents perspiration by plugging up the sweat ducts, and deodorant, which allows perspiration but neutralizes it with odor-absorbing ingredients and a (hopefully) pleasant scent.
Of course, everyone’s body chemistry is unique, and what works for one person may not for another, but I’ve been using Lavanila for over a year and it’s my favorite deodorant. It works for me on all but the very hottest days of the year, and it happens to be available in a range of appealing fragrances. The newest fragrance is Fresh Vanilla Lemon, which features notes of “crisp lemon, pure bamboo and powdery vanilla.” Its ingredients do include actual lemon peel oil, as well as a mysterious “botanical fragrance blend.”
Don’t let this product’s namesake vanilla scare you off…
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Posted by Erin
on
11 April 2013
Before I collected fragrance, my “hobby” (read: single-minded fixation) was used books. When I first started buying perfume, my husband rather encouraged the interest, because he thought it might distract me from my bibliophilia: he was tired of hauling dozens of very heavy boxes full of my dusty, smelly, fragile purchases each time we moved, and besides, how much perfume could one bluestocking wife buy?1 HA!
We still have many, many books about the apartment, including the out-of-print literary fiction and back issues of The Paris Review of those times. Reading the acknowledgements and writer interviews, I’ve noticed there are some authors so frequently mentioned as “underrated” that it’s a wonder how anyone manages to overlook them. Occasionally one will reach a critical mass of “underratedness” and then a clever publisher will reissue a handsome series of books from his or her back catalog, hopefully while the writer can still enjoy the attention and royalties. Just as I was starting this post2, I found out one of my favorite authors, Evan S. Connell, died in January, in Santa Fe, New Mexico; if you know his work, you’ll join me in a moment of silence for a great literary stylist who long toiled in relative obscurity. Luckily, in recent years Connell had his revival and much of his fiction and non-fiction has been reissued, including a book I think would find an appreciative audience here, The Connoisseur. While I was delighted to see Connell recognized with glossy new editions, there are some books best encountered among the overflowing shelves and random piles of a good used bookstore, and The Connoisseur is one of them. Any fragrance nut will recognize the path to obsession charted by Connell’s recurring protagonist Karl Muhlbach: the chance find of a fascinating thingy, the curious way time and space collapse as the new interest is researched and money is spent, and the hungry and vaguely alarming welcome one is given by more experienced collectors…
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