Posted by Angela
on
14 February 2011
It’s Valentine’s Day. Time to choose a perfume about love. It’s easy to grab a bottle of Jean Patou Joy or a pretty soliflore, but we’re real perfume enthusiasts here. There are at least a hundred kinds of love — shouldn’t there be more than one type of Valentine’s Day fragrance?
First, let’s consider the love that launched a thousand Harlequin romances: Grand Love. Grand Love is that delirious ardor that seems inevitable yet impossible. You can’t believe he actually loves you, yet aren’t you fated to be together? — you both adore the same John Lennon song and neither of you likes meat on the bone. You both guffaw at the Naked Gun movies and you both detest gin. The world gushes with joy (look at the flowers that sprout in the pavement! kitties, babies everywhere! why have you never noticed how beautiful the grocery store logo is!) and you mysteriously drop five pounds. Without even trying.
If this is you, enjoy the ride. You need a perfume as crazily hyperbolic as your emotional state…
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Posted by Jessica
on
12 February 2011
Since we’re closing in on Valentine’s Day, it seems like an appropriate moment to review Penhaligon’s LP No. 9 for Women, which is characterized as “a truly intoxicating love potion…a sorcerer’s recipe for irresistible female sensuality.” This fragrance, and its counterpart LP No. 9 for Men, were originally released in 1998; they were discontinued in 2006 and made a re-appearance in late 2008. LP No. 9 for Women, which was reportedly brought back in its original formulation, was created by Christian Provenzano. Its composition is listed as having top notes of lemon, mandarin, lavender, bergamot, geranium, and tarragon; heart notes of rose, jasmine, and carnation; and base notes of cinnamon, cedar, patchouli, amber, musk, and vanilla.
LP No. 9′s name, of course, is a nod to the classic pop song “Love Potion Number Nine,” first recorded in 1959 by The Clovers and later covered by The Searchers (among others). Penhaligon’s traditional bottle is trimmed with a twist of black velvet ribbon for LP No. 9, and the liquid within is a fascinating magenta hue. This appearance sets LP No. 9 apart from some of Penhaligon’s earlier releases for women, which tend to have Edwardian-style labels and a garden-party aesthetic. But does LP No. 9 smell so very different from those more traditional fragrances? Yes and no. Its opening notes, which last for the better part of an hour, confused me at first. This dry, herbaceous accord, with lots of lavender and greenish notes — and, wait, is that oakmoss? — feels like a lighter interpretation of a traditional fougère, and it would not be out of place in Penhaligon’s masculine fragrance range…
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Posted by Erin
on
8 February 2008
I have always been struck by one passage about love in the critic and teacher John Bayley's memoir of his forty-year marriage to the novelist Iris Murdoch, Elegy for Iris. The two are on their honeymoon and people-watching. Bayley notes:
Iris seemed to be in a reverie, too. I took her hand and it pressed mine. What was she thinking? I had no idea… I knew very well there was no way to find out. But this realization reassured me deeply… Such ignorance, such solitude! They suddenly seemed the best part of love and marriage. We were together because we were comforted and reassured by the solitariness each saw and was aware of in the other.
This is, of course, not the sort of all-consuming passion one normally yearns for as a young person…
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