Thierry Mugler will launch Womanity Eau Pour Elles in May. The new fragrance for women is a flanker to 2010's Womanity, and is said to be a sparkling, fruity and playful version of the original...

Thierry Mugler will launch Angel Aqua Chic and Alien Aqua Chic in March...

If you missed them, here are links to part 1 (scented body products), part 2 (travel sizes & coffrets), part 3 (more travel sizes & coffrets), part 4 (home fragrance), part 5 (men's fragrance) and part 6 (solid perfumes).

From Thierry Mugler, the Angel by Thierry Mugler Extrait de Parfum Signature Brooch: "The art of refined perfume meets the delights of feminine indulgences when the Angel Extrait de Parfum comes to life, adorned with a signature couture brooch designed by Thierry Mugler to adorn your décolleté! Made of zamak, the brooch is punctuated by a dramatic spike and embossed with the Thierry Mugler signature. The heavenly and delicious notes of Angel are concentrated into a rare and exclusive formula: the extrait de parfum, dedicated to fulfill extreme desires. Produced in a small quantity by Brosse in France, each Angel Extrait de Parfum bottle is engraved with a unique number, showcased in a luxurious box and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity." A bargain at $198 for 10 ml at Nordstrom...

From Atelier Cologne, a "discovery set" in the Orange Sanguine fragrance: "Enclosed in an elegant Venetian blue gift box and tied with our signature aubergine leather ribbon" with Orange Sanguine Petite Cologne ( 30 ml) plus an Orange Sanguine Soap, a leather case, a miniature funnel and a sample pack. $65 at Neiman Marcus...

I know, I know, we're all sick of flankers, right? The worst case scenario — maybe, the most common scenario — is a trite variation on a fragrance that wasn't all that imaginative or important to begin with, followed by two or three or eleven more, evenly spaced over the coming months and years, whether the world needs them or not. Eventually, inevitably, we get the flankers of flankers, with their vaguely ridiculous names as though they just could not stop themselves — Victoria's Secret Sexy Little Things Noir Tease Temptation, seriously?

But then there are those rare cases where we get creative and just-plain-fun twists on iconic fragrances. Props to Thierry Mugler on that score; they've done a great job over the years. The "Pure" series of A*Men flankers (Pure Coffee, Pure Malt, Pure Havane) have been highly enjoyable, and have accomplished exactly what flankers ought to accomplish: they've made me appreciate the original A*Men all the more. The Angel Garden of Stars series (Peony Angel, Lily Angel, Violet Angel and Rose Angel) did the same for many people, but did not manage to break through my long-standing dislike of the original Angel. Then lo and behold, they got me too, first with Angel La Part des Anges and then with the similar (and more affordable) Angel Liqueur de Parfum. If you had told me five years ago that they'd ever make an Angel I wanted to own, I'd have shaken my head in disbelief.

Now they've done it again...

Several years ago, the Bond no. 9 van skidded off the road and all perfumers onboard suffered minor head traumas that affected their sense of smell.* After the accident, Bond no. 9 perfumes started to smell alike, as if the same perfumes were being released over and over again, but in different bottles. Recent Bond no. 9 perfumes smell like middling-mainstream fragrances (Bond no. 9 pricing has not been affected, mind you). It’s been years since the debut of a Bond no. 9 fragrance excited me. (Of course, the Bond no. 9 “New York” idea is running out of steam. Pretty soon we’ll be getting “Fire Hydrant, South Corner of Central Park W. and W. 81^st St.” in bright yellow bottles.)

Bond no. 9 is not the only perfume company that’s gotten lazy and complacent and pumps out the same type of “stuff” over and over again. When was the last launch that made you mad with desire…after you smelled the scent? At the same time I sniffed Bond no. 9’s new I Love New York for All, I received Thierry Mugler A*Men Taste of Fragrance and Jean Paul Gaultier Kokorico.

Today, I have three short and (cocoa) sweet perfume reviews. These perfumes have a lot in common; they are gourmands with coffee, cocoa, pepper, vanilla, patchouli, indistinct “woods” and sheer musk. I could almost write one review that would cover them all...

From Nina Ricci, their popular Nina fragrance in the Snow Princess edition: "Winter is her favourite season. As the air is filled with snow flakes, trees sprinkled with golden dust and leaves...it's a magical moment." £52 for 80 ml Eau de Toilette at John Lewis in the UK...

Thierry Mugler will launch a new limited edition collection of food-inspired flankers, Taste of Fragrance / Le Goût du Parfum, next month. The series includes Angel, Alien, Womanity and A*Men, each with an added "flavor"...

Twice, recently, I have walked past a rack of discount CDs that includes a "Best of the 90s" compilation. The cover features a pair of pouting Material Girls with tousled two-tone hair, red lipstick, neon off-the-shoulder shirts and black vests and leggings. I did not look at the track list, because I was so put out by the photo. I was a teenager in those pre-Y2K times and I think the producers of this album might have missed the last nine years of the decade. When I graduated high school in 1997, that look had already made at least two rounds as a retro Halloween costume. Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam were no longer touring and Kurt Cobain had been dead for three years, but my yearbook confirms we were still wearing plenty of jeans and plaid flannel,¹ though people had mercifully stopped requesting Nirvana's Heart-shaped Box, possibly the world's least danceable song, at every party. Girls wore straight hair, pixie-cut or long and center-parted. I had a programming geek boyfriend, and after a few years of BBS posting using my family's agonizingly slow dial-up connection, I had decided my future was at a school nicknamed "M.I.T. North". There, my friends traded their jeans for Microserf khakis. Britpop groups and Radiohead were popular, as was genial stoner music of the Dave Matthews Band variety. Everybody seemed to be reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, watching animated shows on TV and going to a lot of violent, angry movies starring Kevin Spacey or Brad Pitt.² In North America, the Starr report was out and events like Columbine happened, and it felt then like we were living through a very sad, cynical, disaffected era. Looking back after 9/11 and the global recession, however, and a few horrific natural disasters and inconvenient truths later, the nineties seem to me today like oddly sincere, hopeful years. I never expected to be a nostalgic old fool so soon.

I wasn't obsessed with perfume then. I vaguely recall tropical fruity or citrus-clean skin scents like Calvin Klein ck One and Clinique Happy being very popular...