Five perfumers, one from each of the major fragrance and flavor companies, were named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres last week by the French Minister of Culture...

Later this month, Prada will launch No. 11 Cuir Styrax, a new addition to the Prada Exclusives line. Cuir Styrax was developed by perfumer Daniela Andrier; the notes include leather, styrax (benzoin), orange blossom, white musk, vanilla and incense...

This scent is more feminine and more excessive than past launches. It has an explosion of joie de vivre that is quite unique for us, and uses a lot more color...

Up until now, we have explored the more traditional and classic side of Prada, but the brand is much more than that.¹

Prada Candy incarnates the new Prada woman: she's daring, sensual, full of life and implosive. The perfume is named after this seductive and joyful girl who is running wild.

The first two statements about the new Prada Candy were made by representatives from Puig, the company that holds the fragrance license for Prada. The third is from the scent's description at Neiman Marcus, which has exclusive rights on the fragrance (for the US, anyway) until October. If a seductive and joyful girl running wild — and flashing her hot pink undies, no less — doesn't sound like the Prada that perfumistas know and love, hey, the times they are a-'changin, and you probably already guessed that from the name and the packaging and the advertising, all of which is a departure from the muted elegance the perfume house has long been known for.

So I figured I'd detest Prada Candy, but I was pleasantly surprised. They stuck with perfumer Daniela Andrier, who developed most of the Prada fragrance line, and she's done something that might reasonably be called Candy without being a complete pander-to-the-masses sellout. In fact, while I don't adore Candy, and it isn't going straight onto my buy list, I enjoyed wearing it considerably more than the last two feminine efforts from Prada...

Untitled, the debut fragrance from the Diesel-owned fashion house Maison Martin Margiela, launched last year. It took its own sweet time getting to the US, and when it finally got here, it was (and so far as I know, still is) exclusive to Saks, which means it has taken me very nearly forever to try it. And now that I have, well, it's quite nice but I am not weeping inconsolably over the lost time. (There, now you needn't read the rest of the review).

The original newsletter from Colette announcing the fragrance noted that it "includes of course the codes of the brand, while cultivating its personality". I know little enough about the codes of the Maison Martin Margiela brand, other than the obvious: they're too hip to pander to the sort of consumers who want things like, say, names on their fragrances; they're fashionably arty; and they do a darned nice minimalist bottle. Vogue helpfully informs me that the "biggest insult to a Maison Martin Margiela runway collection is that it’s wearable."

The perfume, sorry to say, or perhaps, not sorry to say, isn't really much of a fit with all that...

Maison Martin Margiela is launching Untitled L'Eau, a fresher follow-up to last year's Maison Martin Margiela Untitled...

I want to love the Ephemeral Infusions series from Prada.¹ Infusion d'Iris, the fragrance that inspired the series, is one of my favorite scents, and the packaging, as always from Prada, is picture-perfect. You could almost get me to buy them just for the gorgeous outer boxes (see below), and the perfectly-aligned, dyed-to-match fabric covering the caps.

So I do try to love them. But the "veil of scent" / watercolor concept that worked so well in Infusion d'Iris (and in Prada L'Eau Ambrée, although it is not part of this series) has just seemed, well, wimpy, and dull, in the scents that followed (Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger, Infusion de Tubéreuse & Infusion de Vétiver). It is not just a case of oh-this-is-really-nice-just-not-me, as it was with yesterday's Jardin Sur Le Toit, but more wow-this-could-have-been-awesome-but-somehow-it's-just-not.

Still. I like Infusion d'Iris, and I like Prada, and I like the work of the perfumer, Daniela Andrier. So I was happy to hear that rose was up next...

Prada will launch a Eau de Toilette version of Infusion d'Iris in August. The new fragrance for women focuses on the iris flower — or “a memory of iris”, since most iris flowers are not scented — instead of the more traditionally used iris root...

My vetiver cup runneth over. You’d laugh if I told you how many vetiver fragrances I own. It’s rare for me to come across a vetiver perfume I hate, but after disliking Prada’s take on another perfume note I love, orange blossom (Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger), I wondered if its interpretation of vetiver would also be a disappointment.

Infusion de Vétiver is a limited edition Eau de Toilette developed by perfumer Daniela Andrier. Apart from vetiver, the listed fragrance notes include tarragon, pepper and purple ginger. The first time I smelled Infusion de Vétiver was on paper, and it smelled like watery, slightly peppery vetiver: plain. When I wore the fragrance, I detected other notes but the composition remained aqueous and simple.

On my skin, Infusion de Vétiver starts with the scents of powerful, acidic "citrus" (just a second or two) followed by fresh tarragon....

I like Prada. Not because of the fashion — regular readers here know I don't know a thing about fashion — but because of the perfumes, which for the most part (I'm ignoring Prada Tendré) have eschewed the aim-for-the-lowest-common-denominator approach of your average mainstream designer perfume brand. The Prada perfumes aren't wacky or outré, and they're not necessarily the sort of thing that will please your jaded, niche-snob perfumista, but they're well-crafted, and they strike me as perfumes made by people who care about the product as much as they care about making money. I'm as jaded as anybody, but I'm entirely willing to believe perfumer Daniela Andrier when she says Prada gives her more money to work with than other brands.¹

It is precisely because I like Prada so much that last year's Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger was such a disappointment. It was the first in a new series of limited editions, the Ephemeral Infusions.² According to Andrier, the "idea of Infusion is almost as an imprint of the chosen material in water, a kind of watercolor fragrance reworked with colorful pastel crayon"³ — doesn't that sound delightful? And it worked out perfectly, for me anyway, in the original that preceded the series, Prada Infusion d'Iris, and also in Prada's recent L'Eau Ambrée, which was not part of the series but which took a very similar approach...

Next up from the Ephemeral Infusions line at Prada: Infusion de Tubéreuse (shown above left) and Infusion de Vétiver (above right). Both are limited edition, and both were developed by perfumer Daniela Andrier, who also created Infusion d'Iris, Infusion d'Homme and Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger...