The traditional, hand-made soaps of the Middle East are rustic (often brown and wrapped simply in wax paper), heavy (drop a full-size bar on your toes in the shower and you may be headed to the ER) and pungent with the aromas of plant oils and seeds — cumin, nigella, olive, bay laurel. The famous soaps of Aleppo, Syria, are olive oil based and fragranced with bay laurel (laurus nobilis), and they are one of the inspirations, along with the Lebanese landscape, for Comme des Garçons + Monocle Scent Two: Laurel — henceforth referred to as “Laurel.”

Laurel was developed by perfumer Antoine Maisondieu and contains bay laurel, incense, cedar, pepper, patchouli and amber. Laurel starts off smelling green and herbal — like a bruised or crushed fresh bay laurel leaf. Quickly, Laurel’s bracing green aroma is joined by “coarse” black pepper and smoky frankincense. In Laurel’s base, the original bay laurel scent (a perfume in and of itself) darkens and is joined by musty-sweet cedar. Then, something wonderful happens: Laurel’s notes combine to produce an accord that smells like one of my favorite flowers — marigold...

Next month, Comme des Garçons will launch their second fragrance in collaboration with Monocle magazine, Scent Two: Laurel. Scent One: Hinoki, launched in 2008.

Inspired by a trip to the Bekaa Valley...

One of the interesting discussions that came out of my recent post about perfume snobbery was the inevitability of brand influence. We most of us have our favorite perfume brands, and we get excited when they launch something new (and, of course, we are disappointed if the something new turns out to be dull and unexciting). It is nice to be surprised once in awhile, but then, life is just easier and simpler when Burberry's The Beat turns out to be appropriately Burberry-ish, and so on and so forth. It might be interesting if you picked up Ralph Wild and found a weird little milky wood pudding with incense and Costume National 21 turned out to be a strawberry soda, but it certainly wouldn't help you navigate the overcrowded fragrance market, would it?

So I expect certain things from certain brands, and if I'm disappointed, I grumble...