Posted by Robin
on
12 November 2009
Remember that lovely “rice steam” note from Kenzo Amour? Poopoo Pidoo, one of the debut fragrances from French niche line Ego Facto, takes that idea and brings it into sharper focus.1 Poopoo Pidoo is a powdery floral by perfumer Dominique Ropion, and I take it it’s supposed to be sexy — the tag line is “declare that you’re not just the girl they think you are” and the brand description notes that “…just like the person wearing it, it is not that well-behaved”. I haven’t made up my mind about the sexy part, but I love Poopoo Pidoo.
It starts with a sharp, citrus-y orange blossom, and very quickly moves into the gauzy, rice powder/heliotrope heart, which smells like a dusty blend of marshmallow cream, basmati rice and crushed toasted almonds…
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Posted by Robin
on
17 December 2008
My “to review” list is now so alarmingly long that I try not to look at it at all for more than a few seconds at a time. Yesterday, in despair, I decided to cross out all of the niche fragrances I wasn't even interested in smelling again and could barely remember from the first try (scents that “fill my head with a deep, profound, Zen-like nothingness”, to quote March at Perfume Posse). All of those samples were thrown into the purgatory basket, where they may end up living out the rest of their days unless either a) I get more productive or b) the fragrance industry gets less productive.
Felanilla — and let's not even talk about the name, 'kay? — is one of the latest fragrances from Parfumerie Generale, and it did make an immediate impression. My testing notes from the first trial say simply “Shalimar“, not because it's a dupe, mind you, but because it struck me as something like a modern niche meditation on the Shalimar theme…
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Posted by Robin
on
11 November 2008
Amour Le Parfum is Kenzo's new limited edition Parfum (extrait) version of 2006's Kenzo Amour. It was inspired by the “gold of the Orient”, if that helps you in any way, and was developed by perfumer Daphne Bugey, who along with Olivier Cresp created the original Amour fragrance.
Amour Le Parfum does for Amour what Kenzo Flower Oriental did for the original Flower: it sticks with the main theme but tempers the sweetness with a darker, woodier base. Amour's pale opening of cherry blossom and rice steam (other notes in the original: white tea, frangipani, heliotrope, thanaka wood, incense, vanilla and musk) is amped up and winterized with warmer notes (amber, incense, benzoin and patchouli). It is very dusty-resinous in the early stages, later, it's flatter and more ambery-woody…
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Posted by Robin
on
17 March 2008
21 is the latest fragrance from Costume National. It is said to have 21 notes — bergamot, milk, orange blossoms, saffron, cumin, pepper, cashmere wood, royal jelly, moss, clary sage, patchouli, olibanum, amber, sandalwood, oudh wood, cedar, vetiver, labdanum, tonka bean, vanilla and musk — and is meant to honor the brand's 21st anniversary.
In some ways, 21 Costume National makes a perfect follow-up to Friday's post about fragrance notes; the “21 notes” is a nice conceit, no? Perhaps someone can make out all 21, and no more, but I'm not that someone…
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Posted by Robin
on
20 September 2007
If you have too much activity with simultaneous launches, the customer is overwhelmed and very few products will actually break through to become successful.
That’s Robert Brady of Givenchy, speaking in 1996 about his company’s decision to delay the US launch of Givenchy Organza so as “to avoid a packed playing field” (via Women’s Wear Daily, 10/25/1996). Strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with today’s fragrance, Organza Indecence, which launched in 1999 as Organza’s “vampy little sister” (Ibid, 5/28/99), I just couldn’t help cracking up when I read it. There were around 200 fragrance launches in 1996; this year, we’re expecting some 800. Enough said.
Organza Indecence was meant to attract a younger audience to the Givenchy brand, and it reportedly did very well in its early life. As it was subsequently discontinued, I can only assume that at some point it stopped doing so very well…
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