Posted by Kevin
on
16 January 2013
Parfum d’Empire is one of my favorite perfume houses, but on occasion, its references to warmongering dictators,1 brutal tiger hunts, and, now, a celebrated raw material from an endangered species, annoy me. I’ve written about musk and the musk deer before so I won’t repeat myself, but creating a perfume called Musc Tonkin, and taking that a step further and making the perfume a limited edition (which gives it the air of a “rare” commodity) strikes me as insensitive, especially right now as many wild animals around the world are in danger of being wiped out for their body parts: the elephants of Africa come to mind (please Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, don’t develop an “Ivory Tusk” perfume inspired by the Kingdom of Benin).
Rant over, I will say I’m always interested in smelling a Parfum d’Empire creation. Musc Tonkin2 goes on strong, with a fragrance reminiscent of leather scented with aromas that remind me of carnation-cloves/cinnamon and “hairy” musks (or should I say well-aged manure?) I grew up in a family of gardeners and I associate gardening with the scent of — chicken manure. Every February or March, my father and grandmother arranged to have a large quantity of fresh chicken manure delivered to the edge of a woods they owned. This manure was allowed to age before it was used in our garden. After a year spent in the sun, the rain, the heat and cold, the manure was ready to use around plants or to enrich the soil of flower and vegetable beds. The cured manure smelled sweet, not at all unpleasant…
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Posted by Robin
on
26 November 2012
French niche line Parfum d’Empire has launched Musc Tonkin, a new limited edition fragrance…
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Posted by Robin
on
6 July 2012
I am a summer person. My favorite thing about spring is that it’s almost summer, and my favorite thing about fall is that sometimes, the summer days linger on longer than expected. I have nothing good at all to say about winter. But we take turns writing the seasonal Top 10 posts for Now Smell This, and somehow it has worked out that I’ve only done the summer list twice, in 2005 and 2007. Either one of those lists1 would take me happily through a summer even now, all these years later, and truth be told, summer is when I wear the least perfume anyway.2 Many days, a light layer of scented lotion is enough fragrance for me, and there are many more days when (horrors!) I wear no fragrance at all.
For this year’s list, I’ve avoided repeats by emphasizing post-2007 fragrances. Most, but not all, of my choices are unisex, and I’ve included niche and mainstream and indie, cheap and not so cheap…
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Posted by Robin
on
8 December 2011
Azemour Les Orangers is the latest from French niche line Parfum d’Empire. It’s meant as a tribute to the city of Azemmour in Morocco and the surrounding region, where founder Marc-Antoine Corticchiato reportedly spent time at his family’s orange groves as a child. As a back-story, that’s relatively tame for a brand that has already brought us scents inspired by the Ottoman empire and Napoléon Bonaparte, among others, but with the never-ending onslaught of new niche brands with ever more obscure (and pretentious) inspirations, I’m tired of back-story anyway.
Azemour Les Orangers is a fresh chypre, a real, honest-to-goodness fresh chypre, with plenty of citrus and that mossy, nearly-musty undertone that you either adore or detest.1 If, like me, you adore it, then Azemour will be like greeting an old friend that you haven’t seen in some time and feared you might never meet again…
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Posted by Robin
on
11 July 2011
French niche line Parfum d’Empire will launch Azemour Les Orangers, a new fragrance for women, in September. Azemour Les Orangers is a tribute to the city of Azemmour in Morocco…
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