Posted by Kevin
on
2 December 2009
My first niche perfume purchase was a bottle of Etro Vetiver Eau de Cologne way back in 1990. I bought Vetiver, along with some wonderful Etro soaps, at Etro’s Beverly Hills boutique, and I became an instant Etro fragrance fan. Over the years, I’ve owned several bottles of Etro Vetiver, Sandalo and Magot; I’ve also enjoyed bottles of Messe de Minuit (the fragrance that helped launch the Incense Revolution in perfumery) and Patchouly. In the early Nineties, Etro’s perfumes smelled exciting, rich and different to my baby “department store-trained” nose and a new, expensive, niche perfume passion was born. Etro led to Comptoir Sud Pacifique, which led to Jean-François Laporte (L’Artisan Parfumeur), which led to Creed, which led to Czech & Speake, which led to Penhaligon’s…on and on to this day.
Etro Vetiver, by perfumer Jacques Flori, was released in 1989 and lists notes of artemisia, clary sage, cypress, cedar, tobacco and Bourbon vetiver. Etro Vetiver opens with green artemisia and sage; the herbal, forest-y notes are strong and clear — invigorating…
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Posted by Erin
on
23 October 2009
As it is for many people, fall is my favorite time of year. Perhaps this is because around here it is the most fragrant season: the cool, damp leaves send up a sweet, cidery rot, I could swear there is always a tinge of woodsmoke in the air, and the evergreens seem sharper and straighter as the deciduous competition flames out. Early every morning, after bumping around and out of my pitch-dark apartment, I take a deep draw of cool air and wonder if this smell is a regular olfactory hallucination, since I live in an urban neighborhood with bylaws against bonfires and no apple orchards for miles. Whether I am susceptible to seasonal scent suggestion disorder or not, I love the colors and skies of autumn, and the weather is often invigorating enough for me to look fondly upon the hooting, rowdy herds of schoolkids that suddenly appear on every sidewalk. Even if fall doesn’t make you feel this disgustingly cheerful, you can still spend your season of mists and mellow fruitfulness in gorgeous perfumes. Please comment with your own fall favorites and let me know if you’ve sampled the new Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles. I haven’t tried it yet, and am wondering whether it will be added to my current autumn Lutens rotation of Chêne, Santal Blanc and El Attarine.
Etro Shaal Nur: Rather like a more contemplative, citrus-tinged Habanita, this is an airy, incense-smoke version of Molinard’s classic vetiver-vanilla. While not being particularly strong — it’s better sprayed than dabbed — Shaal Nur has impressive projection…
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Posted by Erin
on
14 August 2009
The first and only time I went to Italy I was sixteen, and on a six-week trip of Europe with a large group of girls who had fundraised for the trip through Girl Guides (Scouts). Using the blitzkrieg method of Old World sightseeing favored by many generations of North American young people, we “did” Italy by spending a day-and-a-half in Venice. It was high summer and with the callousness of youth, I wrote Venice off with a few lines in my travel diary: “It’s like a museum covered in pigeon poop. The canals smell of sewage, and there is a haze hanging over the water. No oilies as of yet.” This last bit was because our uniforms apparently made us look like an enormous gaggle of young stewardesses and so we attracted camps of hopeful, slick fellows most places we went. Despite their absence in Venice, I came away with an impression of the place that might have turned me into the sort of traveler who discouraged Kevin. The recent garbage strike in my hometown of Toronto has made me realize you can catch a city on a bad day (or month) — but even in 1993, years before my perfume obsession began, I was hypersensitive to smells, good and bad. As far as I was concerned, Italy stunk.
It was puzzling, though, that my parents kept returning there. “Table wines are cheaper than Coke,” my father explained, when I asked why they kept going back. (Perhaps this brief, thrift-related response helps clarify that my parents are not of Italian descent and therefore returning to visit the mother country; Scotland is the land of our fathers.) Since my parents are not enthusiastic photographers, I tried to determine the attraction of this region listening to stories of their travels…
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Posted by Robin
on
18 February 2009
Etro has redesigned the packaging for their entire fragrance line, adopting a black and white paisley pattern for the outer packaging, and is gearing up to launch their 22nd fragrance, Pegaso.
Pegaso is named for the line's symbol, the mythical winged horse known as the pegasus. The fragrance is meant to be an olfactory evocation of the villages of Tuscany…
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Posted by Robin
on
1 May 2007
It's May Day, and everyone ought to be wearing lily of the valley (Diorissimo!), but I'm soldiering on with carnation nevertheless. Today's subject: Dianthus, the latest fragrance from the Italian line Etro. It launched last year, and was the first scent from Etro specifically designated for women (although it certainly isn't their first “feminine” fragrance). Dianthus, for you non-gardeners, is the botanical name for the plant genus that includes carnations, and the notes include orange, bourbon geranium, centifolia rose, pink pepper, ginger, carnation, woods, musk, cedar and vanilla.
Like yesterday's Garofano, Dianthus centers on carnation without qualifying as a soliflore…
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