Posted by Kevin
on
1 February 2012
Olivier Durbano’s Citrine fragrance has been on my mind since I first smelled it last fall, and it’s in the running as a candidate for my first full-bottle purchase of 2012 (that is, if treating myself to a Frederic Malle candle, $95!, does not win out).
Citrine is in the Durbano “Parfum de Pierre Poèmes” line, and it includes fragrance notes of lemon, orange, mimosa “buds”, ginger, pink pepper, incense, myrrh, carrot seeds (“sprouting” in many scents lately), musk, rosewood, gaiac wood, beeswax and amber.
Citrine opens with pungent, “hot” citrus, as if the heat of ginger root and peppercorns has been added to lemon juice (don’t wear this if you have a sore throat!) There is a floral sweetness in the opening…
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Posted by Robin
on
26 October 2011
Olivier Durbano has launched Citrine, the latest fragrance in the “Stone Poem Jewels” series…
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Posted by Robin
on
14 October 2010
Pink Quartz / Quartz Rose1 is the latest from niche line Olivier Durbano, and joins the other fragrances in his Bijoux de Pierres Poèmes series. Like the others, it’s named for a semi-precious stone that Durbano uses in his jewelry. So far none of the stone-fragrance pairings in the collection have really resonated with me in any way, but this one is obvious enough (pink = rose) that even I get it.2
Pink Quartz is supposed to be a spicy chypre, and who knows, perhaps it is, although it does not smell like either a classic or a modern chypre to me. Under my own idiosyncratic (and somewhat random) classification system, it goes in the “rose + saffron” drawer, where it is far from lonely, rose + saffron combinations being rather thick on the ground lately. The opening is briefly sparkle and light, then it’s jammy-rich and spicy, and leans towards the Washington Tremlett Black Tie / The People of the Labyrinths A.Maze school rather than more transparent efforts like L’Artisan Safran Troublant…
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Posted by Kevin
on
30 September 2009
Ask me what a diamond ‘smells’ like, and I’ll have to think about it (and probably spout some easy associations most people wouldn’t challenge — a diamond smells like icy champagne, silk, red roses, ‘gold’…). Ask me what turquoise smells like and I immediately have an idea, not based on the scent of the gemstone but on a place I associate with turquoise: Tibet. Tibetan Buddhist jewelry and religious implements are encrusted with blue turquoise — which can symbolize the sky (infinity), bodies of water, or spiritual transcendence. I’ve not been to Tibet but my imagined Tibet smells ‘cold’ and fresh, with mineral/salt, incense, and floral (think: devotional offerings) aromas thrown in for some heft. Olivier Durbano Turquoise Eau de Parfum* fits into my Tibet-turquoise fantasies.
Years ago at the Seattle International Film Festival, I watched The Salt Men of Tibet and was amazed at the dramatic landscape shown in the film, and the high-altitude lakes of Tibet (Lake Namtso is the highest salt water lake in the world). To my nose, Turquoise, the perfume, is a “salty” marine fragrance…
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Posted by Robin
on
14 June 2009
Olivier Durbano has launched Turquoise, the latest fragrance in the “Stone Poem Jewels” series:
Treasured by the ancients as a stone celebrating the spirits of both the sea and the sky, the otherworldly appeal of Turquoise has endured the ages. Striking a delicate balance between the earthbound and the atmospheric…
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