Chloé will launch Love, Chloé Eau Intense, a new stronger variation on last year's Love, Chloé fragrance for women...

Chloé, as many of you already know, rejoined the land of the living, perfume-wise, in 2008 with the launch of their eponymous perfume, Chloé Eau de Parfum. I still remember smelling it for the first time and laughing to myself, thinking: ha, that'll never sell... Of course I was wrong, it sold just fine and then some, and it swept the 2009 fragrance awards. I have nothing to say in my own defense except that even I don't think I know the first thing about what will sell. I am wrong more often than not on that score (and on countless other scores as well). At any rate, I did not review Chloé Eau de Parfum then and I am not going to review it now; let's just say that I thought the conclusion in Perfumes: The Guide ("a dilute, dishearteningly synthetic muguet-rose good enough to grace a non-abrasive bathtub cleanser") was just about right.

So anyway, Chloé followed that up with the Eau de Fleurs trio, which I liked marginally better than Angie did, but not so much as to consider paying actual money for any of them. And now we have Love, Chloé.

Love, Chloé is meant to be about "radiant, generous, spontaneous femininity", and more specifically about "the olfactory vocabulary of cosmetics".¹ In other words, it's meant to smell like cosmetic powder — or as they put it, "a lingering powder halo nestles into the skin like a feminine aura..." — and that is precisely what it smells like...

The Six Scents Fragrance Initiative has launched Six Scents Series Three. As with the prior two sets, the project teams six designers with six perfumers to create a series of limited edition fragrances. This year, the fragrances are "an exploration into the nature of childhood memories and the influence of adolescence on identity". A portion of the proceeds will be donated to War Child International...

Burberry will launch new limited edition versions of Burberry Brit for men and women in October. The new duo "captures the atmosphere of the British winter season"...

Chloé will launch Love, Chloé this fall. The new fragrance for women is "a celebration of radiant, generous, spontaneous femininity":

This fragrance is the «accomplice» inspired by the intimacy of the beauty ritual...

Ah, sport fragrances — (almost) universally hated by PerfumeFanatics© and apparently adored by, and selling like hotcakes to, the rest of society. For perfumers, being asked to formulate a sport fragrance for the mainstream market must be like Martha Argerich being asked to play the C major scale (right hand only) — easy work! And with sport perfumes, the ease smells; these fragrances are, for the most part, interchangeable and have no interesting facets (only the bottles and designer names are unique). This spring, Burberry and Gucci are but two companies involved in major sport fragrance launches.

Burberry Sport for Men

Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative officer, said: “I wanted it (Burberry Sport for Men) to feel like there was movement in the scent. I kept saying I wanted it zingy; I wanted to feel alive; I wanted to feel like it’s jumping.” ¹ Burberry Sport for Men was developed by perfumers Sonia Constant, Nathalie Gracia-Cetto and Antoine Maisondieu and contains notes of “frosted ginger,” grapefruit, wheatgrass, marine notes, juniper berry, red ginger, white musks, cedar, woods and “dry amber.”

Burberry Sport for Men starts off soapy, sweet and gingery, with a clean grapefruit note. The gingers in Burberry Sport are more spicy-candied (think preserved ginger or strong ginger ale) than fresh and rooty. There is also a light and indistinct floral character in the soapy opening. As the scent goes into its mid-phase of development it becomes a bit “astringent” (bracing and “cool” but not strident); the dry-down returns to the sweetness of the opening notes with hints of pale wood, light musk and soft ambergris. Though Burberry Sport follows the sport scent trajectory, it’s mellower than most sport fragrances on the market...

Burberry will launch Burberry Sport fragrances for women and men in February (look for a prestige makeup line to follow in July). The new scents "are meant to pack a high-octane punch"...

The Six Scents Fragrance Initiative will launch Six Scents Series Two next month. As was the case with Series One, the project will team six designers with six perfumers to create a series of limited edition fragrances:

Fragrance 1: Collage ~ by 3.1 Phillip Lim in collaboration with perfumer Nathalie Gracia-Cetto...

Maybe more than any other flower used in perfumery, iris is a chameleon. In Chanel No. 19 or Hermès Hiris, iris is as elegant as a beautifully dressed woman in a Mercedes sedan you admire from your seat in the bus. In Le Labo Iris 39, iris is as earthy and inviting as a rundown house with a wild garden and The Decemberists playing in the background. In Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist or Prada Infusion d'Iris, iris is intellectual and absorbing. Annick Goutal Heure Exquise and Guerlain L'Heure Bleue feature moody iris, and Frédéric Malle Iris Poudre and Gianfranco Ferré Ferré are infused with iris that oozes dressing room glamour. Yves Rocher Iris Noir is Party Girl iris.

With so many perfume lines to explore, I never spent much time with Yves Rocher. Yves Rocher fell between the cracks of the high-end niche lines and fêted perfume houses that are so alluring and the drugstore fragrances with their bargain prices and reverse snob appeal...

Van Cleef & Arpels plans to launch Collection Extraordinaire in September. It will be the brand's first foray into high-end niche perfume, and will debut at around the same time as Cartier's upcoming collection, Les Heures du Parfum.

The Collection Extraordinaire fragrances, meant to pay homage to nature, are Gardénia Pétale, Orchidée Vanille, Lys Carmin, Muguet Blanc, Bois d'Iris and Cologne Noire...