Posted by Angela
on
5 May 2008
Miss Marple, where were you when I needed you? Late last summer I stalked department stores in search of Cuir de Lancôme, a then-recent addition to Lancôme's La Collection range of vintage reissues. The word on the street was that it was supposed to be released in the United States sometime in early fall 2007. A sales associate at Saks Fifth Avenue rifled through some Lancôme sales packages and found something claiming that Cuir should have been released in spring 2007. Another sales associate, this one at Nordstrom, looked at me like he believed I was making it all up and proffered a bottle of Lancôme Sikkim with a busted atomizer. A lukewarm review over at Perfume Smellin' Things did little to chill my ardor, and news that Lancôme eventually decided not to release Cuir in the United States only made me crazier for it. I had to have a bottle of Cuir de Lancôme.
Finally, last month Cuir testers showed up at discounters in the United States, and within a few days I had a bottle in my hands…
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Posted by Robin
on
15 April 2008
We’ve taken the rich leather scent from our Premium Economy cabin and created an unparalleled luxury fragrance for an intense posh sensation that will evoke the blissful travel experience of Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy.
— Virgin Atlantic spokesperson Nick Larkworthy on the airline's new fragrance, Le Cuir. Read more (and watch the video) at Virgin release new fragrance: Le Cuir - The Essence of Leather (link no longer working, sorry!) at LiveNews.
Posted by Angela
on
12 March 2008
Last night before I went out for a drink with a friend, I sprayed one Eau de Toilette on my left wrist and another on my right wrist. I went into the living room, held out my arms wrists up, and said to my friend, “What do you think of these perfumes?”
She sniffed each wrist and said, “This one smells kind of light and alcohol-y. That one is a diva. It's really strong and reminds me of something…”
“Leather?” I asked. “Yes!” she said, “Like shoes.”
“Well,” I told her, “They're the same perfume: Diorling by Christian Dior. This one —” Here I pointed with some disgust at the wrist with the light, fizzy scent, “Is the new version. The other one is the old one.”
Paul Vacher, the nose behind the sublime Miss Dior, created Diorling in 1963. Diorling is a leather chypre with its leather front-loaded…
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Posted by Kevin
on
30 August 2007
Has my sense of smell become less acute (or more jaded)? Have my perfume tastes changed? Or has Bel Ami’s formula been altered? Something strange has happened since 1990 when I smelled Bel Ami for the first time on a too-bright, scalding day in Tijuana, Mexico.
Tijuana is beloved by college students who cross the Mexican border from San Diego to visit its raunchy nightclubs. Older folks travel to Tijuana by tour bus on daytrips to load up on huaraches, serapes, colorful blankets, and Day of the Dead-themed refrigerator magnets. Most people I knew in 1990 considered Tijuana a “joke” — a cheesy town full of cheap souvenir shops and hucksters.
Tijuana was the first Mexican city I visited and I loved its cluttered old-fashioned folk art shops stocked with brightly painted wooden carvings of saints and animals, black pottery, tinwork and jewelry from all over Mexico…
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Posted by Kevin
on
9 August 2007
Years ago, while perusing Larousse Gastronomique, I saw a beautiful photo of a cherry clafoutis. The clafoutis had been baked in an emerald-green provençale dish and had been placed on a black-and-cream-colored toile de Jouy cloth that covered a shady spot beneath an ancient olive tree; an antique tin bucket, full of sparkling ice and a bottle of wine, had been set on the ground next to the clafoutis. It all looked so delightful! I had to eat clafoutis! So I made clafoutis (several times) and each time I wondered: how can fresh eggs, butter, milk, sugar and sweet cherries turn into THIS mess, this eggy, soggy pile that becomes inedible just minutes out of the oven? Being tempted to buy a perfume you have not smelled is a lot like finding a new recipe: you read the ingredients, look at a gorgeous illustration, and think “I love everything in this! It sounds and looks delicious!” Acting on a hunch that everything will work out fine, you prepare the recipe (or, as the case may be, buy the perfume). Sometimes you relish the result. Sometimes you become nauseous.
I’ve had decades to learn my perfume lessons. I know I shouldn’t buy a fragrance without sampling it beforehand; I know I shouldn’t commit money and perfume-shelf space to a fragrance before wearing that fragrance all day…
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