Posted by Angela
on
2 August 2010
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…
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Posted by Kevin
on
5 March 2009
Dear Gentlemen Readers: How many of you employ a mouchoir* during the course of a customary day? Are your mouchoirs made of fine Egyptian cotton? Linen? Silk? If you espy a lady, or gentleman, on the verge of collapse, overheated or overwhelmed, about to cry…do you rush to proffer your mouchoir? Is said mouchoir scented? Please advise your query-full Reviewer posthaste!
Okay, that’s enough stilted prose for now. The name ‘Mouchoir de Monsieur’ (Gentleman’s Handkerchief) sounds dated too, doesn’t it? While reading reviews and opinions on Guerlain's Mouchoir de Monsieur Eau de Toilette, the words “dandy” “of another era” and “old fashioned” are used repeatedly. (For the record — maybe I’m old fashioned myself — I always have a fresh linen handkerchief either in my bag or on my person and I use it exclusively to wipe my damp brow. I’ve never been in a position to offer a hankie to someone in need, and my mouchoir is unscented.)
Mouchoir de Monsieur, a Jacques Guerlain creation, was released in 1904; it contains lavender, bergamot, verbena, rose, jasmine, neroli, fern harmony, civet, patchouli, vanilla and iris…
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Posted by Robin
on
31 March 2008
What follows is not, properly speaking, a review of Guerlain’s Shalimar. Shalimar is so iconic that there isn’t much to be said on the subject that hasn’t already been said, and the only reason I’m writing about it today is that I’m planning to talk about the newest member of the Shalimar family, Eau de Shalimar, tomorrow, and my inner perfume geek insists that I can’t talk about Eau de Shalimar without at least mentioning its parent first.
The oft-told story about Shalimar is that perfumer Jacques Guerlain was messing around with ethyl vanillin, a then-new synthetic vanilla, and he poured some into a bottle of Jicky to see what would happen. Apocryphal or not, the anecdote neatly connects the dots between the dawn of modern perfumery with Jicky in 1889 and the classic fragrances of the 1920s and 1930s…
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Posted by Kevin
on
28 June 2007
Whenever I have a bout of insomnia on terra firma, I do not count sheep or backwards from 1000, nor do I imagine myself on a deserted beach in a comfy hammock; I imagine myself on an airplane, high in the sky, at night. Put me in a window seat with my neck-rest, pillow, eye mask, blanket and earplugs and you will behold a man who can sleep from Seattle to Bangkok. I do love “flying,” especially at night; on an airplane, the engine’s hum and vibration, the isolation, and the suspension of physical activity all induce drowsiness and serenity.
Guerlain’s Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) was (supposedly) inspired by the 1931 novel of the same name by aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry…
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Posted by Kevin
on
18 May 2007
During spring and summer, the Northwest has some of the most beautiful and dramatic “blue hours” I’ve ever experienced — the lustrous sky turns every shade of blue, from chalk blue to blue-black. While wearing Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleue fragrance for the first time, I went outside with my cat (who is blue himself) and experienced a blue hour; I sat under my second-story porch, behind a curtain of blossoming clematis vines that swayed in the cool breeze, their pink and blue, vanilla-scented flowers glowed like stars against the dark shiny leaves of the laurel hedge. The ornery blue jays had gone to nest and refused to participate in my blue reverie, but a robin “trio” sang soothing avian folk songs till dark.
The “blue hour” is the time between sunset and nightfall when everything seems tinged with blue. I’m a lover of the blue hour; in fact, I like the world best between twilight and dawn. I could easily keep vampires’ hours, since bright sunny days wear me out, wear me down and make everything seem too focused, exposed and raw.
I’ll spare you the oft-told tale of the creation of L’Heure Bleue (easily read on Guerlain’s website) but I will say that people who have reviewed this perfume often find it “sad” and “melancholy.” I bet many of those people love the daytime, the sun, brightness and heat. To me, L’Heure Bleue is “quiet,” not sad, but I do find it “chilly” and a bit harsh, especially in its extreme dry-down phase…
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