Posted by Angela
on
21 November 2011
When I choose a wine, I often take one of two approaches. I’ll select a wine that complements dinner, but doesn’t match it — a spicy Gewürztraminer or honeyed Chenin Blanc for Thai food, for instance. Or, I’ll choose a wine that blends with dinner — for example, a barely oaked Chardonnay with roast chicken. I tend to do the same thing when I choose the day’s perfume. On a rainy day like today with leaf rot in the streets, I might go for the complement and choose a warm, soft fragrance. Flower by Kenzo Oriental, maybe. But if I were going to choose a scent that feels like today in all its chilled autumn magnificence, it would be L’Artisan Parfumeur Voleur de Roses.
Michel Almairac created Voleur de Roses (French for “rose thief”) in 1993. The L’Artisan Parfumeur website lists its notes simply as patchouli, rose, and plum. That sounds right to me. Voleur de Roses smells like a Syrah-soaked rose washed over with wet patchouli, moldering wood, and cold plum. The wet has an almost metallic edge, like the ocean. The fragrance’s patchouli is one of its main features, so if you don’t like patchouli, steer clear…
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Posted by Angela
on
24 October 2011
I’m used to thinking of iris as the shapeshifter of perfume, but leather fragrances can be equally squirrelly. From the sharp, dominatrix nappa of Robert Piguet Bandit and the oily, sweet saddle leather of Caron Tabac Blond, to the fresh, air-salt suede of DelRae Mythique and the floral glove leather of Lancôme Cuir de Lancôme, leather isn’t always easy to pin down. Now with Bottega Veneta Eau de Parfum, another leather joins the mix. This one is full but refined, friendly but elegant. I’m hooked.
Perfumer Michel Almairac created Bottega Veneta Eau de Parfum. Its notes include patchouli, oak moss, bergamot, jasmine, and pink pepper. Bottega Veneta classifies it as a “leathery floral chypre.” Bottega Veneta’s online advertising includes a film with quiet solo piano transitioning to strings, supplemented with the sounds of seagulls and a far-off storm. The model featured in the sepia-tinted campaign is atypically beautiful with a strong nose and brow. She’s swaddled in something fancy and silk, and she seems to be alone, focused on the horizon. It’s an unusually introspective ad…
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Posted by Robin
on
28 September 2011
Swiss luxury jewelry and watch brand Charriol has launched Imperial Ruby, a new woody fruity floral fragrance for women…
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Posted by Robin
on
13 September 2011
If Women’s Wear Daily is to be believed, Burberry has more Facebook followers than any other luxury brand.1 And I’d guess their fragrance line does quite well, thank you, despite not being the darling of perfumistas everywhere. Body, their latest fragrance and reportedly their biggest launch ever, is sure to sell like gangbusters even if only for the cool bottle design and the image of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley — reportedly the first of a proposed series of bodies— under the Burberry trench in the advertising.
So I’m sure they won’t mind if I confess that Burberry Body has not exactly bowled me over. It’s better than Burberry London, mind you — I tried to review Burberry London but couldn’t think of what to say. It’s in keeping with the spirit of Burberry Brit and Burberry The Beat (although I don’t like it as well as either, and I’m guessing it isn’t geared quite so young): it’s cheerful and clean, and it carefully avoids making any big statements. It’s supposedly inspired by Britain — eh? — and it’s meant to encompass “all the modernity and heritage of this British brand today, reflecting all the facets that make up the Burberry world”, if any of that helps you.2
It’s either a fruity chypre or a floral woody amber, take your pick…
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Posted by Robin
on
12 August 2011
Gelsomino Nobile is the latest from Italian niche line Acqua di Parma. It’s an ‘ode to jasmine’ (gelsomino being the Italian for jasmine), and it joins the two prior fragrances — Iris Nobile, Magnolia Nobile — in what is now called the Le Nobili collection. Much is made in the press materials about the particular jasmine used in Gelsomino Nobile: it’s reportedly a “Jasmine Grandi Flora from Calabria, Italy – one of the last surviving Jasmine cultivation sites, for perfume making in Italy”, and the “green and fresh aspect of this particular type of Jasmine gives a light and airy effect”.
I have not smelled that jasmine in person, but the fragrance, developed by perfumer Michel Almairac, is very light and airy indeed; in style it is so close to Magnolia Nobile that I can recycle bits and pieces from the review I wrote for that one…
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