Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style

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My Favorite Médoc

2010-01-20T10:29:00.001-08:00

I’ve got Bordeaux on the brain and, lo and behold, I’m not the only one. A few things are afoot: the 2009 futures tasting approaches fast and furious (much anticipation) and Eric Asimov’s recent Wines of the Times tasting of the lower-priced crus bourgeoises was well-timed and broad in its reach. Unlike most Burgundy, Bordeaux – the masculine wine of France, adored by Brit and German alike since the eighteenth century – historically has represented a better value and a better bet on cellaring. And this has held true particularly in less-fêted vintages. In fact, some of the very first full cases I ever purchased were from the 1998 and 2001 vintages, Chateau Cantemerle and Chateau Pontet-Canet. At the time, right under the nose of my oblivious landlord, I’d strung off a part of our building’s stone cellar and constructed makeshift wine racks. The bottles were indeed values back then, and I cherished going downstairs with my cup of coffee on Sunday mornings and inspecting my holdings. (Heck, even at the cheap end of the spectrum, a Bordeaux label says, albeit groggily, “Laisse-moi, I need my beauty sleep.”)

Now more than ever, I seek out values wherever and whenever I can. The designer names of the First-Growths and the Napa cult cabernets mean less and less. (Don’t get me wrong: Bring me a bottle of 1987 Spring Mountain Cabernet, and we will talk.) Since the 2005 vintage, I have to agree with Eric Asimov that Bordeaux prices have skyrocketed to such an extent that exploring the better values and, quite frankly, interesting wines from, say, southern Italy and the Beaujolais, seems a wiser move. There is little need anymore to scrounge around the lesser crus on the Gironde estuary. All that said (!!) I confess an old-fashioned affinity for Médoc, especially 2005 Chateau Greysac ($13). I love its dark aromas of pencil lead, cherries, blackcurrant and plums, underpinned by austere, but never unappealing, notes of cedar, herbs, tobacco and bell pepper. Here is a wine where the Cabernet Franc does what it was always supposed to do: to etch complexity and nuance onto the folds of velvet fruit that represent a headline vintage like ’05.

While this wine would lend itself well to meaty dishes, you already know my penchant for lighter fare. I’d just as easily retire with it to a comfortable chair and nurse it with a good novel, film or diverting after-dinner conversation. If I had to label it, I’d call it my “library” wine.

No wonder the British also loved Port.

Mr. Pinot

2010-01-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. Big, bold mouth-staining wines don’t do it for me. So rarely do I eat the food that complements them well: the aged cuts of beef, the savory fatty pork dishes and all that pan-seared caramelized goodness. But give me a lithe and lean pinot noir or a spicy elegant cabernet franc and I’m in heaven. On Friday night, I took a friend for dinner at Momofuku. I hadn’t been there in at least a year, and the food was just as good—or better—than I remember it. And, given their dirt cheap corkage fee, I had a good bottle in tow: a 2001 Fougeray de Beauclair Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru ($105). I figured that a classic year like 2001 would provide an object lesson in what well-made pinot noir can be. Much to my dismay, though, Momofuku does not have stemware. I’ve certainly heard arguments to the contrary, but a good glass does help Burgundy and older Bordeaux. Tumblers are too narrow and deep to allow the wine the proper space to recline, stretch itself out, breathe and warm up. With the door at Noodle Bar opening every thirty seconds, the room was quite cool and our Bonnes-Mares remained chilled throughout the meal. But it showed very nicely next to the steamed pork buns and roasted Hudson Valley foie gras. Deep garnet-purple and medium-bodied and perfectly pleasant to quaff, it all but lacked that iron-fist-in-velvet-glove appeal that should characterize grand cru Burgundy. Noodle Bar is hardly the sort of room where you can relax with your food. It’s more about people-watching and chatting with your tablemates, interspersed with the requisite swoons of “OMG, most delicious thing ever!” Afterward we retired to the hipster-swank Hotel Delmano in Williamsburg for a flight of artisanal rums, while a trio next to us embarked on a most dangerous game of tequila, Tecate and spicy tomato juice.

Last night, a wine colleague and I opened a bottle of Michel Gaunoux’s 1999 Beaune ($48). Two steps down the scale from Grand Cru status, this village-level wine was absolutely stunning. Granted, ’99 was a better vintage than ’01, but this wine showed such poise and restraint. It didn’t advertise its superior vintage with fruit-driven oeno-shenanigans. Britons like to refer to “breed” in wine, and I think that term is apropos. Pinot snobs often thumb their noses at Beaune as an appellation that is better known for its whites, but I’ll take its reds any day. The Gaunoux was pure and mineral-driven with silken tannins surrounding a ruby core of crushed red berries, leather, game and a hint of Asian spice (the ground white pepper called prik thai that you’ll find in a Thai specialty store). A little online research revealed that, while this is a village-level wine, it contains grapes from two Premier Cru parcels. I will definitely be snapping up a few more bottles of this at PJ’s for the cellar.

Vetivresse presents The Holiday Wine and Scent Seminar

2009-10-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Love the thrill of a robust, earthy Burgundy?
Have dreams about vintage Champagne?
Own a small fortune in fragrance?
Think you have an acute sense of smell?
(Considering insuring your nose?)
Or just starting out?

Christopher Voigt, writer and Editor of Vetivresse.com, a WSET^®-certified sommelier will lead one 2-hour seminar exploring the shared seduction of wine and perfume on December 15. The seminar will take place in Manhattan and will be limited to 15 participants.

We will explore 6 vintage wines from my personal cellar and 6 fragrances, with light hors d’oeuvres and cheese. From the hazelnut splendors of Meursault “Perrières” to the delicate spice of Chinon “Picasses” and the gunflint and fruit of a 1989 Mosel Auslese ... all the way to the pinnacle of honeyed French dessert wines – it is sure to be an evening ripe with revelations for the beginner and seasoned wine lover alike.

Two additional seminars will be offered in January. A perfect holiday gift for that busy spouse, friend or loved one who wants to learn more about the world of wine and scent.

The cost of the seminar is $150. Reservations can be made at vetivresse@gmail.com. Please reply by December 5.

Cherry Ripe: Sicilian Vespers & The Perfect Supper Wine

2009-10-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend a friend and I had a late post-concert supper at the Time Warner location of Landmarc, the pleasantly bustling eatery overlooking Columbus Circle. Neither of us was particularly in the mood for a huge meal, making this the perfect spot to sample some excellent wine and some small portions. One of the things I love about Landmark is that practically every plate is offered as a half-portion. We ordered the pasta of the day––a spaghetti Bolognese––and some boudin noir with pommes frites. As for wine, the 2005 Gaunoux Bourgogne ($46) would compliment both dishes and provide enjoyment throughout the entire meal; except they had just opened their last bottle about a half-hour before we sat down. So I consulted the list again and almost immediately zeroed in on a 2006 Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico from Azienda Agricola Cos ($48).

“Cerasuolo” means “cherry-red” in Sicilian, and indeed it was, with pristine clarity and hue. Even before bringing the glass to my nose, I could assess the weight and rusticity––all those qualities that the rest of the evening would allow it to bring out. The wine had a gorgeous cherry nose and palate, a nice dose of spices and, most importantly, the terroir that I was looking for in my first bottle selection. Still quite youthful and full of luscious berry fruit, its lighter weight appealed and didn’t overpower the casual, simply prepared food.

Made from a blend of Nero d’Avola and Frapato grapes (60/40) grown in sandy, tufa-rich soil and fermented in stainless steel, Cerasuolo usually doesn’t see new wood. That said, if deep, rich, high-alcohol oaky reds are your thing, this won’t do the trick. But for me it’s got just the right dose of old world charm. While some vintages can be cellared for a decade or more, the vast majority of bottles are intended for enjoyment in the short term.

If you are a Burgundy-lover but want something for everyday quaffing at a recession-proof price, Cerasuolo is where it’s at. As the Sicilians say, Quannu amuri tuppulìa, 'un lu lassari 'nmenzu la via. (Roughly translated as,“When love knocks, be sure to answer.”)

After the Fire: Fahrenheit Absolute

2009-09-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

I love all three iterations of Dior’s Fahrenheit. It is one of those pitch-perfect mainstream fragrances (like Grey Flannel) that never bores this nose. Violet leaf here achieves its most aromatic accord with a host of floral notes that run the gamut from gravelly hawthorn to a green almost-sugary honeysuckle. In its latest flanker, Fahrenheit Absolute, the florals are subdued while the base is amped up. As Octavian Coifan notes on 1000Fragrances, “Not the top notes and the freshness of Fahrenheit were accentuated, but the deepest dark notes.” If the original Fahrenheit were all the petrol-laden flint and florals of a fine Mosel Riesling, the Absolute version is that idea translated to the inside of a toasted barrel and left there for a long, long time.

Fahrenheit Absolute has the sweetness of spirits--sweetness that gets you in the back of your throat right after the burn subsides. Think Armagnac-Ténarèze, a newish Hine Cognac, a sherry-cask single-malt Scotch whisky or a very unabashed Reposado.

My only gripe: I wish the leather note lasted longer. An hour-and-a-half is all it takes before the incense and guaiac are more apparent. Ah, give me the pencil shavings-and-leather of Montale Aoud Leather. All that said, this is one kitchen that’s too hot for the likes of me. A great winter ’09/10 men’s offering. I hope it comes to the States soon.

Image credit: Francois Truffaut, Fahrenheit 451, 35mm film still.

Into the Woods: Men’s Fragrance Fall ’09

2009-09-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

Looking back over the F/W 2009 menswear collections on Men.Style.com occasioned some thoughts on which fragrances guys should consider exploring in the months to come. It is, after all, so true that most men just wear what they’ve been wearing – but how to reconcile that with the new direction that their styling of themselves is taking them? Up until now, I saw three main camps: the thrifts (guys who basically won’t consider spending over $45 on fragrance or whose idea of fragrance is their deodorant stick); the jocks (for whom everything in cool blue glass was acceptable, as long as it didn’t clash with the free gel at the gym); and, finally, the traditionalists (Dad wore it, so I wear it). I’m leaving out the hipsters and the stylist types, as their impact on the overall market has been negligible. Each of these camps was a microcosm, insular and often impenetrable. That has all changed.

Guys are taking stock of their lives and making an honest assessment of who they are and who they aren’t – they’re choosing to wear things in a new way, one that blends innovation with the things they’ve always felt comfortable in. It’s ultimately about individuality. It’s about taking that old, time-softened flannel shirt and mashing it up with a chunky cardigan and a black silk tie, classic Levi’s and suede moccasins. It’s about grabbing a leather duffel or Filson instead of a clunky black laptop bag. It seems very much like a dressed-up rusticity. It reminds me of what colognes like Polo used to represent.

Woods, resins and green-leathers are the rising stars of men’s fragrance notes in Fall 2009 – woods that remind us of the casks used for aging deep, full-bodied red wines and spirits like bourbon and rye. The oud craze will impact this a little, with perfumers looking back at ahead-of-their-time creations, like Yves Saint Laurent’s M7 (from the louche Tom Ford years) and Zirh Ikon. The difference will be that the really successful new scents will ally rusticity with cleanliness. (Aside here: I abhor the fragrance connoisseurs who see gameyness as the sign of profundity. Skatol does not a great fragrance make.) Tom Ford’s Private Blend scents such as Oud Wood, Bois Rouge, Tuscan Leather and Arabian Wood, get this down pat. The truly successful scents will also last on the skin and, while their linear nature may not win them the critics, their drydowns will beguile.

What will I be wearing this fall? First off, Creed’s Epicea (whose pine and spice makes me feel like I’ve returned to the original world of Polo, without the teenage prep school angst), Nasomatto’s Black Afgano (which will be splashed on scarves and bulky woolens), Montale’s Aoud Leather (pared-down perfection, so different than everything else in that behemoth collection) and Amouage Epic for Men (I’ve died and either woken up on the set of Lawrence of Arabia or the trapeze in Lola Montès).

What’s definitely out? Flowers for men (that’s so 2007). Big ostentatious incenses (God is dead). One-note aquatics (if you want water, book some tickets to the Bahamas).

So fill your flasks, guys, grab your copy of Walden, Schott’s Miscellany and a Moleskin or two and start marching to your own beat. I assure you, you won’t be alone.

Image credit: Anthony Goicolea, Treedwellers (2004). Courtesy of Torch Gallery, Artworld Online.

Best Magnolia Ever: Reflection Woman

2009-08-27T18:47:00.000-07:00

For some odd reason, imminent showers (of the meteorological sort) send me reaching for the more classically feminine scents. Of late, I’ve been taken with Maurice Roucel’s Reflection Woman for Amouage, which contains arguably one of the most perfectly executed magnolia notes in all of fine perfumery. I guess it apropos before my reviews of the new heavy-hitters, Epic Man and Epic Woman, to contemplate a fragrance drawn with a lighter hand.

Reflection Woman, true to its name, has a wateriness that endears it to me almost immediately. Like the scent of my mother’s skin after her morning swim in the pond. Except that the pond was northeastern, and I never once got to smell the magnolia – a real Southern thing – until I was bigger.

After all, magnolia is one of the hardest scents to recreate in the laboratory. It is at once delicate and sensual, fragile and carnal. In some instances, it can be cloying and almost cheap. But, sharing molecules with jasmine and muguet, its sweetness marries the skin in a demure, human (never showy) fashion. In Reflection Woman, the jasmine is linked to ylang ylang, lending the scent tenacity and a better-than-decent sillage. Roucel’s trademark note, michelia alba (a tropical magnolia) is shown off better here than in any other fragrance carrying his signature.

Reflection Woman is the epitome of a wearable, polite fragrance – but never pedestrian. It has the pedigree of a Hepburn crossed with a Vanderbilt. It doesn’t need to button itself up when the clouds gather. It is alive. It sings in the rain.

Behold the Oud: Bond No. 9 Harrods Special Edition

2009-08-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

I recently had the opportunity to experience the fruit of Bond No. 9’s collaboration with the venerable Harrods Knightsbridge department store — what is being called Harrods Special Edition. For those of you who haven’t been following these developments, it’s one of three scents that Harrods commissioned and, notably, it’s the oud among them. The catch is that it’s a limited-edition scent and its bottle is crystallized with over a thousand Swarovski crystals that I thought we’d already had quite enough of. It’s also pricey. But it’s oud, silly.

Joy Land, the intrepid doyenne of Sherry-Lehmann Wine and Spirits, once confided to me that, here in New York, the moneyed families often would buy up all the imperfect labels (the ripped and wine-splashed, etc) — after all, they were just going to drink the stuff, not genuflect in front of it. And, of late, I wish that the same could be done for perfume. Especially, um, Special Edition. A few missing crystals aren’t going to shake what is now bordering on outright adoration.

That said, of late my love affair with oud has taken a new turn. Or, let me rephrase: My love affair with oud’s influence on a select set of Western perfumers — including Christopher Chong’s latest incarnation of Amouage — has just kicked into warp. Seriously, mes amis, last spring I went out on a limb praising the various mukhullats and attars that utilized this strange and precious substance, and lo and behold, here in August 2009, everything’s coming up “oud.” I’m surprised Axe hasn’t come out with an Abu Dhabi-exclusive yet.

Apparently, having tested Special Edition and its high-end stablemate By Kilian Pure Oud, I’m struck by the similarity in the base material. It’s been rumored that both employ a new natural ingredient developed by Givaudan called Oud Orpur — and I’d wager that Tom Ford’s Private Blend Oud Wood employs the same, albeit at a greater dilution. It is sheer perfection in a material, and I envy the perfumer who gets the creative brief to use it.

Harrods Special Edition opens with cumin and black pepper before exploding on the skin in typical oud fashion and, again, like the By Kilian Pure Oud, tempering it with vetiver. Being much smoother and refined, it’s worlds — galaxies, universes — apart from the rapidly multiplying and (still-affordable-on-a-living-wage) ouds from Montale in Paris. An hour after I sprayed it in the crook of my right elbow, people were asking me what I was wearing and telling me how amazing I smelled. It was one of those “yesss” moments for a perfume connoisseur — as these were normal on-the-go New Yorkers who love to smell good but who don’t particularly fetishisize scent the way that I do.

So... I am seriously in love with this juice, just sans those Swarovskis. This side of the Emirates, lavish most certainly does not have to be garish.

Musty-Have: Le Labo Oud 27

2009-07-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

“He became aware that he was uncomfortable; but then like so many times before, his uncomfortableness started to feel like pleasure. Then revulsion. Then guilt. Then pity. Then love.” – Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

I detest pretense in perfume. It clouds the judgment. By Kilian, for instance, makes beautiful juice but the creative and marketing pain me. Le Labo has a handful of things I admire and wear, but the tone of the brand is so bloody holier-than-thou. The former is like an interior decoration job that is filled with things that serve no purpose other than ornament; the latter reminds me, in my less ingenuous moments, of a trendy bar washroom that’s been made to look like it dates from 1950; when, in truth, it dates from last Tuesday.

Revulsion is a great marketing tool. Aside from sensation and intrigue, we really do secretly become fascinated with the things that turn us off. With bad taste, ugliness and vice. After all, a pinch of one of these or other is what turns run-of-the-mill beauty into something addictive.

When I first smelled Oud 27, perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and I looked at each other and mouthed “laundry bag.” (In all fairness, it was a warm May day; I’d smelled at least 40 different fragrances in the four hours preceding.) But something happened over the next ten days -- call it a strong Scent Memory -- that sent me back to Elizabeth Street holding my wallet in hand. It was like tasting black licorice as a child for the very first time, or those nasty black pellets sold in gas stations along the Autostrada that blend anise with Pirelli tire rubber. Unwittingly, a taste had been acquired. I was in love with an oud I could afford.

Oud 27 is all about that place between the sweet-savoury and the medicinal. In that sense, it occupies ground held by things like saffron and myrrh. But, allied to this dichotomy, is a hefty dose of castoreum and synthetic civet as well as a sappy woody note (birch oil). The oud used is most likely Oud Synthetic 10760 E by Firmenich. The drydown is Atlas cedar and musk. As with many natural ouds the sweetness can stray into the putrefactory, but the nose here is diverted from that path by a beautiful succession of ancillary notes: including honey, rose, labdanum, and gaiac wood.

While many will want to call this unisex, I safely can aver that this belongs on the male of the species, preferably dried on a favorite t-shirt. There is nothing pretentious about it. But, then again, on a humid summer day it’s not exactly courtly love that we’re after.

Never Change: Chanel Cristalle

2009-07-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

In the world of perfume there are two poles – nostalgia on the one hand, and on the other a kind of reckless novelty. Nostalgia says “It Was and Ever Shall Be.” Reckless Novelty pipes “We’ll Add New Accord and They Will Grow Addicted.” Being a firm believer that you can have too much of a good thing, I try to not to side with either. A conversation that at forty-five minutes long was going to be put into your short book of Greatest Conversations became insufferable at one-hour thirty minutes. It is the same way with great perfumes. Nahéma parfum on a special evening out at the opera was divine; Nahéma Eau de Toilette sprayed on before the school pageant (and reapplied at intermission) is diabolical. On the other end of the spectrum, there is the sometimes-goodhearted attempt to improve on something deemed “old-ladyish,” viz. Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus, Shalimar Eau Légère and other latter-day flankers of Great Perfumes of Days Long Gone. I see nothing morally reprehensible about wanting to contemporize. Well .... with one exception.

Chanel Cristalle Eau de Toilette is, for me, one of the top 8 fragrances still in production. It is hard as heck to find – not to toot my horn, but Bloomingdale’s still carries it – and recently was flanked by something insipid and green called Eau Verte. It’s been around since 1974, one of the handful of masterpieces of Henri Robert. (No 19 and Pour Monsieur are its stable mates.) It straddles that shaded path between chypre and green floral, and is the quintessential warm-weather scent. Hyacinth, jasmine and melon are fronted by crisp, light citrus and green galbanum. It is youthful and full of irrepressible exuberance without (thanks to oakmoss) ever coming across as cheap or giggly. I grow worried that I don’t see testers out for it anymore – one has to ask for it, and even then the sales associates push the newer Eau de Parfum version (yes, version, not concentration - totally different fragrances). Why? Is Chanel embarassed by some of the scents in its stable? Will No. 19 fall victim to this sort of treatment soon?

Each day, my desk fills with three or four new scents for which there is nothing really new to say (or smell) except a shuffling of a few popular aroma chemicals. The vast majority strike me as old before they’re even released onto the market; a few stand out. This isn’t snobbery, it’s just a humbling reminder that precious few things are new under the sun (ever). In a sea of the static, the dynamic must swim against the tide. Cristalle did that. Thirty-five years ago, to be exact.

May it never tire.

Not-So-Square-Roots: Irises for Men

2009-06-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

Summer is the playground of mediocre scents. Right now, I’m loving a tube of Versace L’Eau Fraîche shower gel for after the gym. My boyfriend is using Hugo Man. We both have tons of niche to choose from on a daily basis, but much of niche doesn’t have that fresh zip that summer in Manhattan requires (especially, if you’re wearing a suit and tie). But before we go completely off the deep end and start spritzing ourselves with something like I Am King, I’d like to recommend three clean and refreshing iris fragrances that can make it into any man’s routine.

First off, getting the equivalent of four stars in my book, is Heeley Iris de Nuit. Iris by its very nature gives the illusion of coolness. Orris -- the official name of the rhizome that iris flowers grow out of -- comes from under the ground, out of the sun. James Heeley’s interpretation is done with a cedar and angelica root accord that, for some unknown reason, reminds me of licorice. Me suspects some vetiver, but I may be wrong. Despite its name, its the perfect daytime scent: limpid enough to refresh but tenacious enough to not have you spraying yourself as the clock strikes each hour. This is how Prada should have done their iris, but they put their pennies into the packaging instead.

Tied for second are two other irises for the boys: Divine L’Homme de Coeur and The Different Company’s Bois d’Iris. The former, created by Yann Vasnier, puts its iris in a cocktail shaker with some juniper and cypress tinctures for a markedly sexy man effect; the latter, brainchild of Jean-Claude Ellena employs bergamot and narcissus, making it the most perfumey of the three.

If I were to choose the runner-up, it would be Acqua di Parma’s Iris Nobile Eau de Parfum. Sweet, fruity and floral -- and perfectly wearable -- though it leaves me asking: when did you lose touch with your roots, man?

Babylonics: Chaldée by Jean Patou

2009-06-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

Here’s some food for thought: In 1930, the House of Jean Patou released “Joy” – right smack at the beginning of the Great Depression. “Joy” was an expensive perfume before the age of perfumes that needed to announce their expense. People were broke and dejected, and there was Patou himself – suffering due to the loss of precious American business – directing perfumer Henri Alméras to create an extravagant blend of 28 dozen roses and over 10,000 jasmine flowers. To this day, it stands as one of the great marketing coups of the last century.

Alméras himself had weathered hardship in 1925, the year his illustrious employer Paul Poiret went bankrupt (along with his beloved Parfums de Rosine label). Patou represented a new start for him. One of his memorable early creations was a complete succès de folie. Patou was banking on the newfangled vogue for sunbathing and tennis, and in 1927 had Alméras create a suntan oil called Huile de Chaldée for the jaunty young flappers who were laying themselves out on yachts and plages across the Mediterranean. The scent of the oil caught on, and later that same year the parfum version was released.

Chaldée was inspired by the ancient Babylonian empire which, I guess, stood out in Patou’s mind as a mythic dream of sun-drenched ruins and cerulean seas. Like Shalimar, which preceded it by two years, Chaldée leveraged the popular opopanax-amber accord in its base. Its formula was deceptively short, with notes of orange flower, hyacinth, jasmine, narcissus, lilac, the aforementioned accord and a warm nuzzle of what can only be (now-illegal) nitromusks.
Unlike other scents that share its birth year – Lanvin Arpège, Caron Bellodgia, Guerlain Djedi and Weil Chinchilla Royal – Chaldée lacks the ubiquitous geranium and rose in its base.

I love it for its jasmine and its long-lived amber core. It is casual for Patou, worlds apart from the opulence of “Joy” – but, then, who needs joy when the party is still in full swing, before the walls of Babylon have tumbled?

Djedi today?

2009-05-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

First there was Cuir de Russie (Chanel, 1924), then Shalimar (Guerlain, 1925) and finally Djedi, Jacques Guerlain’s creation of 1926, launched in 1928 to commemorate the house’s centenary. A beautiful dry damask rose couched in civet and vetiver. It has the warm, soapy resinous quality of Shalimar and the smoky leather of Cuir de Russie minus the Grasse jasmine and ylang ylang. For me, it is the epitome of Art Deco like a John Hughes set from Night and Day or Rhapsody in Blue, though the woman who wore it probably wouldn’t have been caught dead in such crass glitz.

Would Djedi sell today? Considering the surprisingly endless appeal of Shalimar, I don’t see why not. Simply market it as Shalimar d’Automne d’Hokaïdo and watch it fly off the shelves.

Jasmine Too Girly for a Guy?

2009-05-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

This morning I did something out of the ordinary: I pulled a volume of Cavafy from the bookshelf and read his 1915 poem “Orophernes,” while I sipped my cup of Assam (Golden Tips, for those theaphiles among you). I guess a poem about “delicious Ionian nights” was a good side to my northern Indian indulgence. What struck me most about the poem were the lines describing the royal Cappadocian ephebe “among the strangers” of Ionia:

In his heart was he ever the Asiatic,
but in his conduct and discourse a Greek:
arrayed in precious stones, in Hellenic garb,
scented all over with jasmine perfume.
Among the beautiful young Ionians
he was the most beautiful (ὡραῖος), the most ideal.

The Koine Greek adjective ὡραῖος comes from the word ὥρα which means “hour.” Beauty comes from ripeness, literally “of the hour” or -moment. Interesting, then, that the young Orophernes scents his body with jasmine, certainly the most indolic of smells (read “animalic”) – ripeness, indeed!

Jasmine eroticizes the youth, drawing attention to his fleeting hour of beauty “among the strangers.” I love how scent here makes quick work of the gender divide. It makes me wonder how, when a man or woman wears a scent at that appointed hour, regardless of all external limitations, it transforms him or her into an object of instant desire. This is the magic of perfume, the thing which has always made us view it as an elixir of love.

Good jasmines for men nowadays are hard to find. Caron’s 3-ème Homme comes to mind, along with Annick Goutal’s Le Jasmin (smoky and woody). Fougère accords traditionally used jasmine notes, but many shed them on account of added expense. I wonder what Orophernes would wear today, faced with a night out at the clubs. Any suggestions?

So.... I am raffling a sample of The Perfume House Private Reserve Yasminale, which IMHO is - along with vintage Joy - one of the most beautiful jasmine-lily of the valley perfumes available. The winner will be drawn from the pool of comments on this entry on Saturday, May 23.

Colonial Coffeehouse: Eau des Îles

2009-05-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

For some time, coffee fragrances have enjoyed a certain vogue among the perfume cognoscenti. Maurice Roucel’s Riverside Drive, Jacques Huclier’s flanker for Thierry Mugler, A*Men Pure Coffee, Jo Malone Black Vetyver Cafe and the coffee granddaddy, L’Artisan Parfumeur’s L’Eau du Navigateur – each has showcased this ultimate comfort note, which, along with chocolate and tobacco, forms a triad of vanillin-packed scents. To smell a cigar humidor, a dark chocolate wrapper or, as is the case here in New York City, to walk past a branch of Porto Rico Importing Co., is to fall under the smell of the bean (coffee, tonka, cocoa or otherwise).

As some of you may know, I recently completed a move to a new space, and in the process many samples and bottles were jostled about ... which is to say that quite a few things, which previously languished in the dark, got their proverbial moment in the sun. Maître Parfumeur et Gantier’s L’Eau des Îles was among them, and now I am kicking myself for not having recognized (or better appreciated) its strong features years ago. Jean Leporte, who also was responsible for L’Eau du Navigateur, created it in the pre-gourmand days of the mid-Eighties. Taking a spicy, musky coffee note and allying it to the weedy note of galbanum, Laporte created something beautiful in its hardness – for lack of a better analogy, a sort of tropical flanker to Germaine Cellier’s galbanum-bombshell, Bandit (as recreated, of course, by the Guichard duo at Givaudan).

It is an unsung wonder, and if you like Bandit and, albeit for a very different reason, Patou’s Colony, this cup’s for you.

Getting Blade: Creed Acier Aluminium

2009-04-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

A new love has come my way. Well, not exactly new ... but let’s just say, my eyes have been opened to his oh-so-clear-and-present charms. But his name is the daffiest thing this side of Greenwich Avenue. That said, Creed’s Acier Aluminium is no stranger to the high-end men’s fragrance scene. Released back, prenatus Vetrivressum, in 1973, he’s recently begun something of a resurgence in popularity among the sartorial set.

Lovers of Guerlain Habit Rouge will appreciate Acier Aluminium’s exploration of the cool-warm divide, its near-perfect navigation of a sort of Northwest passage of bracing citrus tropical fruit and plush––rather than furry––civet. If the latest Yves Saint Laurent men’s launch were a nighttime prowl, this is love in the afternoon. (But not al fresco. More like, on a king-size bed in a Richard Meier condo.)

And, what I love so much about Acier Aluminium (try saying that three-times-fast) is that it moves at its own very leisurely pace through a full-dress olfactory pyramid. The drydown alone, with its spices, ambergris and drop-dead-gorgeous vanilla absolute, is worth the price of admission.

Orientals are in sore need of reevaluation by men’s fragrance wearers, and like Le Labo Patchouli 24, Shalimar extrait, Habit Rouge and Opium pour Homme and the new La Nuit de l’Homme, Acier Aluminium should constitute a must-try for Summer 2009 and beyond.

Gilding the Lily: Amouage Ubar

2009-03-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

Jasmine perfumes of the Islamic school can be notoriously ill-bred. Throughout the Middle East deft but cloying synthetics have inundated the non-alcohol-based perfume oil tradition. Each day, erstwhile scent merchants pawn off synthetics on a well-heeled unsuspecting clientele. And no one is the poorer for it. We’ve all been taught that synthetics are good, and indeed they are. But Hedione discussions aside, for me jasmine is the one big glaring exception. Some Middle Eastern jasmine perfumes are so roughly constructed that they only express one facet of this extraordinary blossom: a sweetness so sweet and unpleasant that it makes my teeth ache. In Mumbai, I ask myself, is there a toilet bowl cleaner that smells like this? And there very well may be.

All of which brings me to the reorchestration of Amouage Ubar, a fragrance for which words battle in my head for precedence: balance, authenticity, mystery, splendor, and spirit. And yet I want to dismiss them all, because, being so overdetermined, they push the concept above the experience. Simply, Ubar is a superlatively pretty perfume. And very well-done. It was blessed with another one of those pre-recession, spare-no-expense-like creative briefs that many perfumers would die to be able to execute, if only for the sheer rise that must come with ordering a kilo of top-grade jasmine absolute. Ubar is not revolutionary, unless in 2009 one still were to view the cuisine of, say, a Marc-Antoine Carème as pushing the envelope. I, for one, cannot accommodate very often, if in fact at all, an entire brace (a flock! people, a flock!) of roasted duck à la Brétonne, let alone a purée of hummingbirds’ tongues.

But, let’s face it, we only have so much patience for revolutionary fervor in our times. Look at all those Comme de Garçons scents of the nineties that people who “didn’t wear perfume” wore. Many were hideous. (If we’d stopped at the fashions, we’d have been great. But, lightbulb dust burning smells and carrion ... spare us, O Lord.) Luxury that masquerades as nothing but itself is perfectly OK by me. And a well-constructed perfume is hardly luxury; it should be a requirement of the industry. Strike one, strike two, you’re out. Better to have sold a few million bottles of Febreze or that Indian jasmine Toilet Duck I mentioned than to author some abominable pink bugspray.

Ubar continues that marvelous rounded approach to a dominant floral note that we found with Lyric Woman and Lyric Man. Creative director Christopher Chong and his perfumers know what they’re doing with the lily-of-the-valley note and those lovely basso registers of Bulgarian rose, sandalwood and civet. But here the aria is from a Massenet opera like Esclarmonde, instead of Verdi. And it’s not Callas at La Scala I’m hearing, but Sutherland at the Dallas Opera.

Chypres by the (Half-) Dozen

2009-03-04T20:43:00.000-08:00

Some perfumes are haiku (and often not very good ones); some are chapters (longish in style––they make you crazily anxious for plot twist that, alas, seldom comes); and a choice few are what I’d call prose poems. These late winter days, this last is the category piques that my interest the most––and, within it, the great chypres: Coty’s eponymous creation, Guerlain’s Mitsouko and Sous le Vent, Carven’s Ma Griffe, Aqua di Parma’s Profumo (both iterations), and Amouage Jubilation 25.

Looking at them in front of me on the table is like regarding a group of siblings, their ages spanning nearly an entire century. A few brunettes, a redhead, one jet black, a blonde––but, boy, they’ve all got that nose. I won’t use a word like aristocratic, but Mitsouko, Profumo and Jubilation 25 strike me as the real achievers of this family. They take a vital lesson from their father: follow your heart but keep your feet on the ground.

The nucleus of each is a triad of florals that veer toward the complex: rose, ylang ylang and jasmine. (If you added some carbon rings, you’d have the architecture of Chanel No 5.) And while this floral heart is important to the overall caress of the perfume, it’s those feet that make the real difference. Fine patchouli, frankincense, labdanum, oakmoss and vetiver. The flowers still sing but the rhythm is quickened, and there’s just this wondrous sonorous depth when everything comes together that reminds me of one of the segments of Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

There’s nothing old-fashioned about them, except maybe the connotation of a studied blue-stocking elegance. More of us should get to know them and their makers better, and should encourage and support their survival in a world of cotton-candy-air and soulless haiku.

Image: Mitsouko advertisement, c. 1976.

Hope through Carnations

2009-02-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

If Shepard Fairey would like to donate his talents toward providing better PR for carnations, I would put him in touch immediately with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, perhaps America’s most visually minded perfumer. Because it seems that they share an aesthetic. Her Oeillets Rouges are as high-contrast red as Red Square – all red cheeks, lips and hair flaming against a blue-black sky.

Let’s face it, despite being assigned a high place in Islamic art and culture, carnations aren’t exactly top-shelf in the West. In some societies, they’re even considered bad luck. (No surprise that when Coty released Oeillet de France in 1923, it was solely for export to the U.S.A.) Be that as it may, carnation soliflores are experiencing something of a mini-renaissance in Western perfumery. Witness two spectacular JAR perfumes, Golconda and Diamond Water and a Prada exclusive, not to mention Comme des Garçons Series 2 Red: Carnation. Hurwitz’s eau de parfum rests with some very fine company, indeed.

Hurwitz, whose Parfums des Beaux Art label hails from none other than Boulder, CO, is a perfumer whose tastes run to the classical but not the unadventurous. As Chandler Burr noted in a recent review, “It is, oddly, in the abstracts [Viridian, Quinacridone Violet, Celadon] that Spencer Hurwitz goes from good to much better.” Having tested several other of her soliflores, I would have to agree; but Oeillets Rouges, not a new scent of hers by any means, approaches abstraction in its stunning approximation of red. She should have named it Technicolor Red. It pops and sputters and sparks with pepper and spice and myrrh, then pirouettes to a rest like Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes.

Contra the maximalist approach of niche perfumer Neil Morris, whose recent perfume for the Japanese department store Takashimaya could stun a New York subway car into submission, the perfumes of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz betray a quiet American charm, and occasion in this reviewer the realization that, west of the Mississippi, still waters still do run deep.

Image credit: Josef Albers, Homage to the Square (Red), 1968. Norton-Simon Collection, Pasadena

Just Right

2009-02-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

A perfume can be very good but, with few exceptions, the drydown – a fragrance’s second skin – is what assigns it its place in history or consigns it to oblivion. Tacky sports car-driving fortysomethings notwithstanding, very few of us splash on fragrance seconds before meeting a special someone for dinner. (In fact, for me, the very presence of a bottle of cologne in the beverage-holder of a car is a burning sign to cut my losses and clear out immediately.) A good perfume or cologne introduces itself as a living memory, not a mask placed frantically over a less presentable facade.

Of late, I have been admiring two truly stellar, lighter-bodied unisex fragrances: perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain’s Coriolan (1998; now re-christened and reformulated as L’Ame d’un Héros, 2008) and perfumer Françoise Caron’s Eau Fugace for Astier de Villatte (2008), each is an exemplar of perfection in the drydown.

Unlike the “head” and “heart” of a fragrance, the drydown is that phase of its evolution which best shows off its pedigree. A great drydown can never come from using shoddy, third-rate materials. For Coriolan, the drydown is a brief poème chypré of oakmoss, patchouli and helichrysum (otherwise known as everlasting flower); for Eau Fugace, its a takeoff on traditional eau de cologne but with written for Romantic strings, mainly petitgrain, basil, thyme and patchouli. One is cool, one warm.

Neither Coriolan nor Eau Fugace is reinventing the wheel. These certainly aren’t scents for the treasury, but there is a quiet, limpid, just-right sort of elegance about them that should land them a place in any man’s (or woman’s) life.

In this Light of Mars: Noir Epices (2000)

2009-01-27T19:54:00.000-08:00

At some point early in this decade, before oriental became subsumed under oriental-woody – before, that is, the middle-finger of perfumery was lopped off – Michel Roudnitska created Noir Epices for Frédéric Malle’s Edition de Parfums. It was one of the series’ inaugural perfumes, and remains sans doute one of its best. While it is neither the shoulder-pad-clad career-bitch perfume that Opium and Cinnabar are, nor the opoponax and vanilla confection that Shalimar is, nor even the date-lipped arabesque of Serge Lutens’ Arabie, it is oriental through and through.

Luca Turin speaks to its medicinal character, a view which, on account of clove, I won’t discount; but Noir Epices is something more than a clove-studded pomander of orange and rose. For me, it is an abstraction of cinnamon – and a non-Lutens’style abstraction at that. It grows, I believe, from a moody cinnamon that eschews all that happy-homemaker/pie-in-the-oven suburban bunkum. It is the sort of cinnamon that would feel at home (indeed!) in a scene from Buñuel’s Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie or a Genet television play. Sad, but with an abiding sense of the nourishing absurd.

It is a disorienting scent, one that leads you out into a barren desert place and then confronts you, like a woman approaching out of nowhere with a book which, when opened, cannot be read. You turn the page and hear a child’s voice (orange blossom), next the voice of its mother (geranium absolute). It seems then that the sun has been replaced behind your back. Instead of slanting light, there is a strange neon intensity (nutmeg) and the nagging feeling that (that) nothing (sandalwood) that ever pleases you is just nice.

Infini de Caron (1970)

2009-01-13T20:31:00.000-08:00

For the past four months I have grappled with writing a review of Caron Infini. Not that I’m turned off by this once-venerable house, like most are. (Yes, like everything, things have changed; thus, I keep my expectations low.) Probably it has more to do with coming to terms with a perfume of my mother’s generation – one that represents not revolutionary fervor but upper-middle-class entrenchment – and finding its restraint unexpectedly beguiling.

Back in pre-World War I Paris, Ernest Daltroff had created a perfume called [L’]Infini [Souvenance], which few have ever smelled, but the version known today was created in 1970 by Gerard Lefort, the perfumer responsible for Caron’s swansong Nocturnes in 1981. According to Richard Fraysse, Caron’s current nose, “[Infini] needed a lot of research to reach the perfect harmony between the “green” start, the aldehyde floral heart, and the wooded base.” Making matters even more complicated, the Caron website makes a distinction between Infini “the perfume,” apparently only available now in EDT concentration (1.7 ounce atomizer bottle) and L’Infini (note the definite article), “an extremely concentrated version of this perfume” in the original Serge Mansau assymetrical geometric flacon (∞), which was released in 2000 in order to “give women the pleasure of needing only a touch of perfume to create an infinite vapor trail.” (If you like Sir Denys Lasdun’s Royal National Theatre complex and Stanley Kubrick set design, you’ll like the parfum bottle. It’s super cool in a super-wonky sort of way.)

Despite its being a skin-scent after about 20 minutes, Infini in the EDT concentration is perhaps a better representation of the 1970 formula, which I have only been able to confirm was made in extrait, EDC, PDT and EDT. According to Jean-Yves Gaborit in his book Parfum: Prestige et Haute Couture (Fribourg, 1985), the formula contains Grasse and Bulgarian rose, jonquil, lily of the valley, iris, peach, plum, vetiver, sandalwood and civet. (No doubt, minus the civet since Alès Group took over Caron in 1988.) The Caron Web site mentions only tuberose, jonquil, sandalwood, vetiver and lily of the valley.

To my nose, there isn’t a tuberose to be found for miles. Instead, what I get is a very pleasant – and short-lived – rose accord followed by a sustained white floral aldehydic of the squeaky clean, soapy variety which would reach its full realization in Sofja Grosjman’s White Linen for Estée Lauder in 1978. On those attributes alone, I’d take White Linen any day, but Lafort’s skill here is apparent in a space-age green metallic note that half-reminds me of the smell that Reynold’s Wrap tin foil gave off when I was a kid and, more recently, a herbal metallic facet of the green opening notes of Creed Original Chèvrefeuille.

With a genealogy so long and confusing, I begin to wonder whether Infini weren’t some elaborate pun for a fragrance that will be reinvented for ∞.

A Certain Slant of Light

2009-01-06T17:35:00.000-08:00

For Mark

This past summer I had occasion to write a short description of Dominique Ropion’s Une Fleur de Cassie. It’s short enough to reproduce here:

“Une Fleur de Cassie is as beautiful a perfume as they come. It’s like the feeling that comes when you’ve finished a chapter of Colette; a feeling, that is, wagered on the piling up of pastel adjectives – the prose equivalent of a Renoir oil sketch. Mimosas and almond milk and pearls held up in the light. It’s a floral that doesn’t project the aura of flowers. It’s a meal and a kiss and a brush stroke all in one.”

With the exception of his Amarige, I am an unabashed fan of Ropion. I adore Aimez-Moi on others; I love Vetiver Extraordinaire on myself and pretty much anyone in my immediate vicinity; and Carnal Flower, while not my cuppa tea, is very Something. Ropion is one of a dying - or rather, dead - breed of perfumers: a Classicist who’s initial capital is hard-won. He is one of those perfumers, not unlike Roudnitska père, who build a perfume from the bottom up; who see the idea of a perfume as less its gimmick than its inchoate form.

Une Fleur de Cassie is a trophy fragrance, a perfume that stands out from the rest of the pack like a Vionnet gown stands out in a starlet-of-yore’s closet. It isn’t about glitz or post-Eighties’ sex-appeal. It’s about Eleganz. It’s about a Bugatti Type 41 “Royale” crunching the gravel on its 5mph procession up a long driveway somewhere in Cove Neck. It’s about a cool April night when you’ve left all the windows open in hopes that spring (and love) have come to stay. Your nose is greeted with the most marvelous scents wafting in from the garden, but you must admit, as you reach for the box of tissues, that you’re a tad cold.

Sure, he used some very pricey ingredients - mimosa absolute, jasmine absolute, cassie absolute, rose absolute - but the parts do not justify the whole, which is much more complex than any ingredient list. It’s as if Ropion let a certain slant of light enter in between each layer of the finished product, and what’s more, he used sandalwood and vanillin in his base with such mastery as to create something on par with vintage Guerlain but worlds - galaxies - apart in style.

Just thinking about Une Fleur de Cassie makes me happy, and there are few perfumes that do that these days.

Image credit: Dale Chihuly, “Macchia” blown-glass bowl (1982), courtesy of ArtNet.

2008: The Year of the Perfumista

2009-01-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

What did the marketer learn in 2008?

That the consumer she’s pitching to is 3 times more likely to be a man than in 2007

That assigning the tag “niche” to a perfume house doesn’t make it better or higher in quality; likewise, that niche does not right off the bat spell luxury or the justification of an astronomical SRP

That “wardrobing” in fragrances is a good idea, even within a brand

That flankers have begun to wobble
That markdowns at high-end retailers may be on the horizon, if not very generous incentives to help the sale along

That natural perfumery, fraught with a lot of its own self-taught marketing bunkum, is a greater adversary than previously thought

That there’s an art to marketing a fragrance beyond two-word tag lines and cleavage shots

What did the consumer learn in 2008?

To be more honest about his or her likes and dislikes

To reconsider the past. To reconsider the smell of the past

That, in some cases, the mighty (houses) have fallen

That a fragrance can be as much about a place (or memory) as about desired personae or objects of desire

That it’s OK to put on enough that people actually can smell it

To like a well-designed bottle as much as the good stuff inside

To enjoy reading and bitching about perfume

To appreciate complexity

To identify notes

To own more than two

Some highlights I’m proud of are my January–February 2008 series on Middle Eastern perfumery, my Roses for Men posting, my Search for the Perfect Vetiver, and my rebuttal to New York Times critic Chandler Burr. Here’s to a happy and healthy 2009!

Image credit: Gourielli Fourth Dimension advertisement, c.1953

The Two Andies

2008-12-16T16:04:00.000-08:00

Traditionally, the Third Sunday of Advent is seen as a respite from preparatory austerity of the season. Also known as Gaudete – its Lenten counterpart being Laetare – this Sunday is a fleeting glimmer of the celebration of Christmas. Statues can be displayed, High Altar candles can be lit, flowers – usually roses – can adorn the sanctuary, and – surprise! – pink vestments and altar clothes can be used. (I seem to remember one priest of my youth referring to Gaudete as “Gay-day-té.”) And then, particularly in Catholic and Anglo-Catholic congregrations, there’s incense. I’ve written about incense before, the “odor of sanctity” and all that.

I can’t say that, outside of church services, I’m a huge fan of the more ecclesiastical incenses. Unlike the more Eastern incense blends, I prefer to have this smell on my clothing rather than on my person. Comme des Garçons Incense Series and Diptyque L’Eau Trois are my benchmarks, though Heeley Cardinal and Etro Messe de Minuit are also among my choices. For whatever reason, I’ve given scant attention to Creed Angelique Encens (even if the Creed family presented a special version of the scent to the Holy Father last year in New York).

Two exceptions that I will make to the not-on-my-person, or N.O.M.P., rule are the two Andies: Andy Tauer Incense Extrême and Andy Warhol Silver Factory. The former is cool as ice and dark as darkest moonless Northern night, with starlight piercing the pitchblack scrim in the form of cedar and iris; the latter is incensey but in that I’m-a-woman-who-wears-incense-yes-incense sort of way. If you’ll allow my poetic license, it’s incense with blue mascara. The cardinal rule of incense notes being, They Must Last, both fragrances have excellent sillage and tenacity.

Bitter, Bitte: Bandit

2008-12-10T17:20:00.000-08:00

Germaine Cellier (1909–1976), unarguably the bitch goddess of modern perfumery, was beautiful, smart, indomitable and unapologetically direct in her approach to the olfactive experience. She sired (yes, sired) a quartet of masterpieces (Vent Vert, Fracas, Bandit and Jolie Madame) and a host of other perfumes which, while carrying the names of her collaborators, bore her smudge and smell. According to critic Chandler Burr, Cellier’s final result often flaunts the impassioned, unabashed features of, say, a de Kooning’s Woman. According to Victoria Frolova of Bois de Jasmin, she was “a creator ahead of her time, relying on short formulas to paint dazzling abstractions.” To me, a Cellier creation can range in resemblance from an early Schönberg like Verklarte Nacht to a late concerto by Lutoslawski, from moon-kissed verdure to picaresque in retrograde.

If Chanel No. 5 is Jazz Age modern, all star-upon-the-forehead coyness, Bandit is Modern Art, High Art, Difficult Art – the olfactive equivalent of Ayn Rand or Nathalie Sarraute. It does not show or flaunt; instead, it taunts and tempts and plays its quarry until coming within an inch of an edge, but an edge which only resembles an edge. In a strange reversal of roles – it was created in 1944 – it is, for me, a very Fascist perfume. (But, there again, we say such paradoxes live on. Wasn’t post-war Germany the best market for Dior’s New Look?)

Bandit is a perfume ripe for psychoanalysis or, better yet, shock therapy. It retires, like a rich person retiring to a “health farm” or like a Lowell retiring to MacDowell Colony, to write a book or carry on a type of tender, tortured affair with a younger woman deemed too beautiful for books and barbiturates. It understands that feelings, even potentially destructive ones, are to be heeded and that the drink you take before you fall may be the very best one of all.

I, for one, love its glove-compartment aura. Cracked leather gloves, a set of keys, a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes. It makes me think of a housewife turned into an accomplice, like Joan Bennett opposite James Mason in The Reckless Moment or Janet Leigh tormented by reefer-crazed dykes in Touch of Evil.

It’s a famously short formula with about 1% of isobutyl quinoline (or IBQ, as my friends call it) amped up with the very same galbanum that, three years later, Cellier would transform into her pastoral masterpiece Vent Vert. The middle notes are, at turns, indolic and spicy (jasmine, carnation absolute) and single-handedly responsible for the concept of some great later masculines like Dior Jules and Patou pour Homme. At this writing, it is still among the most astonishing, disturbing perfumes on the market and to miss it would be like going to Vegas to study the postmodern “architecture of spectacle” and missing the pirates at Treasure Island.

Image credit: 35mm color still from The Image (1975) by Radley Metzger

Violets Smell Funny

2008-12-04T19:29:00.000-08:00

Possessed as I am with a sort of talent for parsing phrases, all I can come up with is ... Violets smell funny. They just do. Not that I’ve ever smelled a living violet. I’ll leave that to Audrey Hepburn peddling them for Rex Harrison on the back lot at Warner Brothers. Aside from their purpled character, I’d never, say, find them joyous or regal; nor are they particularly sad. Rather, they are demure ... and sort of funny in their demureness. Demure the way that Rei Kawakubo is demure. (Or, is she just quiet?)

Anyway, there are days when I am positively to addicted to perfumes with violet; like, for instance, the other night after a workout. I simply gave no mind to all the hairy pecs and post-shower masculine preening, and splashed some Annick Goutal La Violette on my wrists and neck. It’s one of the best violets out there (and it’s by Isabelle Doyen, a perfumer for whom I have nothing but praise) and it does the trick. It gives me a fine dose of that pastel-brushed petrol (Oeno-olfactospeak for gasoline, guys) note that octin esters (the chemicals responsible for green-violet leaf smells) produce, reminding me of a muscle-hunk wrapped in yards of silk tulle.

Another favorite isn’t even billed as a violet per se: The Different Company Bois d’Iris by Jean-Claude Ellena. Aside from having one of the most divine dry-downs of anything I’d put on man or woman alike, it plays those frosty ostrich-feather-grey irones (the chemicals responsible for iris/orris root notes) against cedar and vetiver (both top-notch materials), overlaid by a holographic veil of moody, pouting violets. The only downside is tenacity in warmer weather – to which I say, Spray it like you were a Rockefeller.

Lots of good things in life can smell funny. Use your imaginations and just think of the last time you drank a really fine Mosel Riesling. Jawohl!

9th Annual Basenotes Awards

2008-12-04T07:01:00.000-08:00

Voting has begun for the 9th Annual Basenotes Fragrance Awards. The awards are sponsored by FragranceNet.com, and one lucky voter will win a $250 FragranceNet.com Gift Card.

Categories include Best New Fragrance, Best Overall Fragrance, Best Designer Fragrance, Best Niche Fragrance, Best Celebrity Fragrance, Best Home Fragrance, Best Fragrance Blog and more. Register at Basenotes to vote; the polls will remain open until January 21.

Orange Aid: Bigarade Concentrée

2008-11-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

The chill has arrived. Commuters march like penguins down Lexington Avenue. New Yorkers actually walk closer to one another when it gets cold like this. Human nature, I suppose, even affects the most stolid of urbanites. And with the cold snap, my thoughts turn to ...

Oranges. Yes, oranges. In particular, the bitter oranges of Jean-Claude Ellena’s Bigarade Concentrée (Frederic Malle Edition de Parfums). Essentially, Bigarade Concentrée is a cousin of Ellena’s Déclaration for Cartier, but executed with more recherché ingredients. Here I contend, though, that Ellena has tried really hard to create a virtual bigarade to fly in the face of ‘citrus’-classified fragrances. Apparent here is his trademark process of adding and leaving out – adding the rose behind the orange, adding hay and cedar absolutes, but leaving out the glass-cleaner mimicry of high-toned hespiridic materials.

Concentrée indeed is the apt word. There is nothing light about this scent (despite what many of its critics identify as its too-fleeting character). Rather, it reminds me of Gozzi’s hapless Prince, immortalized in Prokofiev’s opera The Love for Three Oranges, encountering those eponymous citrus for the first time. An almost-paralyzing euphoria. This version of the scent (which Ellena originally created as Cologne Bigarade) is more complete, more human. Like the slightly inferior Déclaration, it is less a study in quenching with loads of liquid refreshment – or covering up – than in reveling in its bodily nature. It’s a citrus that is not citrus-simple, a fruit that is not fruity. It reminds me more of naked body posed with tangerine... or Susan Sarandon in Louis Malle’s Atlantic City (1980), just this once preferring oranges over lemons. I’d like to smell this close to a body, after removing all the wintertime armor ... Truly “a blaze of summer straw in winter’s nick.”

Hold that Tiger

2008-11-09T18:27:00.000-08:00

Der süße Duft der Blümen ist verflogen. So begins the German translation of the second strophe of the Tang Dynasty Zhang-Ji poem, “The Lonely Man in Autumn,” which Mahler set as one of the orchestral songs in Das Lied von der Erde. (Rough translation: “The flowers’ sweet perfume has gone.”) It was a propos, then, that on the day I took farewell-till-spring sniffs in a local rose garden, I received a package of samples from Paris-based English designer cum perfumer James Heeley – among them the brilliantly anti-floral Esprit du Tigre (2006).

Much has been made of this fragrance being inspired by the camphorous Eastern cure-all known as Tiger Balm, and I can’t say I rushed to test it on that account. But among the many pleasant things in the sample box, this stood out. Could it just have been the juxtaposition of crisp autumn air and the yellow glow of the gingko trees outside my window? Well, I’d wager this wouldn’t have been high on my list a few weeks ago. Spice, camphor and menthol tend to turn off my nose in warm weather. The eugenol (clove) singing at the heart of Esprit du Tigre is beautiful now, whereas in September it would have dominated the other notes and anesthetized the better part of my olfactory receptors. Wintergreen is used judiciously in Esprit’s upper registers, sweetening and soothing, if ever so slightly, the medicine-man character of the whole.

All in all, I find Esprit du Tigre to be a unique, deep, cool weather masculine. It conjures up for me a funky downtown loft hung with Buddhist thangkas, animal skins and the spoils of long trips abroad. It reminds me of a time when men’s colognes were made for men - and the women who wanted daily mementos of their scent.

This is one tiger I’d like to have by the tail.

L’Heure Brun: Estée Lauder Amber Ylang Ylang

2008-11-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

Aerin Lauder’s latest addition to her Private Collection, Amber Ylang Ylang, is as close to a calculated risk as you can get. After last summer’s star-studded launch of Sensuous, a perfume more notable for its signaling of Lauder’s volte-face than for its compositional merits, Private Collection Amber Ylang Ylang betrays a realization, on the part of Lauder and creative captain Karen Khoury, that a new Estée Lauder customer is waiting to be wooed.

Amber Ylang Ylang is more self-consciously femme than Sensuous, a scent whose ‘Molten Woods’ caught many women off-guard. Where Sensuous was woody and peppery, Amber Ylang Ylang adopts a similar palette of tones but for a vastly different effect. Instead of an interior by Pottery Barn, we have a brown vélour salon by Ruhlmann, in which musicians can be heard tuning up for a pièce de chambre by the likes of a Mompou or Poulenc.

In extrait de parfum, the only concentration I’ve really taken my time with, the first thing that strikes me is sweetness - honey, vanilla, labdanum and something equating maple-syrup (for once, not immortelle flower) - a sweetness that reminds me more of high-end pâtisserie than the bins at Dylan’s Candy Bar. As it progresses on the skin, the florals come through. Ylang ylang, a note that I adore in No 5 extrait but which can be terribly off-key, is reigned in, not once caught trying to outplay the other members of the quintet. The real star solo, though, is played by heliotropin, that almond-marzipan-morphing-into-Play-Doh note so expertly handled in classics such as Après l’Ondée and L’Heure Bleue and, more recently, Jarling and Dans Tes Bras.

Despite the golden amber used in abundance here, even in the extrait concentration don’t expect something equating a Lutens’ or Tom Ford amber. Even the sandalwood is shot with Vaseline on the lens, never reminding one of a souk or savouries. Rather, everything is bathed in a soft, golden glow, and I for one find it very becoming.

On the Road: Musc Nomade

2008-11-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

Isabelle Doyen’s Musc Nomade, the fourth fragrance in the Annick Goutal Les Orientalistes collection, states the case for exceptionalism in the oft-maligned “white musk” category. It is at once soothing and clean, rich and surprisingly deep. By no means is it a difficult or furrily animalic scent, but if there is merit in subtlety this is it.

Musc Nomade is all about Muscone, ambrette absolute, rose absolute, angelica root and - an elegant Middle Eastern touch - oud wood. It’s as if Doyen took many of the same materials which Polge and Sheldrake used to craft Chanel No 18 and did something warmer, more lactonic, more casual and a tad less elegant. The rose and ambrette seed lend a sweet fruitiness where even the best of the rest (those white musks) simply give a fresh laundry smell. In fact, the genius of Musc Nomade is that, my nose at least, it comes off smelling partly of really high-quality ambergris and at a fraction of the price.

I first wore this from a sample in the mid-July heat. Its relatively light touch made it elusive to my nose in ninety degrees, but a friend commented that every so often a beautiful smell would fill the air in my vicinity. As much as I’d like to affect the odor of sanctity, I’d wager that what he was smelling was the blending of the ambrette and the rose. In the lower temperatures of late October and early November, my nose settles on the Muscone, the ambrette and the woody facets. Infinitely adaptable, I’d call this one a winner.

Velvet Mushrooms in Honey

2008-10-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

A downright cold day in New York and a taste of seasonal affective disorder occasioned some thoughts on pain in fragrance and, by extension, ugliness. Not to come off as waspish but, as in the evaluation of a fine cellared wine approaching maturity and its tertiary aromas, the “complexity” of certain fine perfumes may be too much for some people. In fact, a good many people would object to having to think too much about a perfume. (I don’t exactly blame them; they want to smell good and attract.) But the paradox of ugliness in perfume is that often the smeller (as opposed to the smellee) finds something more alluring in a difficult accord than in the umpteenth strawberry daiquiri accord. He or she darts in and out for maximum exposure, at first keeping their questions to themselves, until finally asking what the smellee is wearing. Certainly some quotidian floral may be there, but something unknown inheres as well, precipitating the rare attractiveness of the nameless. A perfume can become like the tomb in a bucolique by Poussin, on which are engraved the words “Et in Arcadia Ego.”

Of late, two gems of perfumery come to mind, both of them less than two years old: Onda (Vero Profumo) and Velvet Gardenia (Tom Ford Private Blend). Each intrigues the nose with an off-putting note or accord of notes. Onda’s funk (and its charm) comes from animalic touches; Velvet Gardenia’s from the fungal note so true to living gardenia blossoms. Both have a common bedfellow in phenylacetic acid, hero of the soon-to-be-discontinued Miel de Bois (Serge Lutens), a honeyed note that “if pushed up a notch,” as Grain de Musc notes, “would smell like piss.”

In Velvet Gardenia, David Apel of Givaudan grappled with the age-old problem of the white floral bouquet, a perfume genre capable of genius or utter cretinage. He left the unsavory facets of tuberose in the composition, the sweet mustiness of a flower blown and beginning along the arc of decomposition. He painted his backgrounds in dark shades of incense and labdanum. The overall effect is unsettling but stunning.

Happy All Hallows

Fuzz Factor

2008-10-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Mathilde Laurent’s Guet-Apens (1999), rechristened Attrape-Coeur (2005) in Guerlain’s Les Parisiennes collection, occupies a high place among the hundreds of bottles in my private collection. More Renoir than Moreau, it is a pastel sketch done in shades of cream, mauve, blue and gold, a sketch that appears to radiate a soft light from within. A quintessential Guerlain fragrance of the contemporary school, it nods back at the house’s historic penchant for confiserie-style creations, without sacrificing any sophistication (viz. Les Élixirs Charnels). When I put it on the blotter, suddenly all the angles in the room seem to go fuzzy. And I think, Ah, no one but a French could have created such a little marvel.

But this is not to say that it is a chic scent. Rather, this a French channeling a much-earlier perfumer – perchance a court perfumer – and modernizing, abstracting the lessons learned in the past. Much the way Renoir channeled the early 19th century boudoir school - retaining his very French frivolité - while remaining firmly in the camp of post-Impressionism. Some may say that this detracts from the finished product, much the way an insipid chorus can emasculate an opera by Gounod; but I would argue that the French have an abiding fidelity to established forms (e.g., the rocaille becoming the slender curve of a Louis Quinze arm chair, in turn, becoming the silhouette of a Dior “New Look” dress). In Attrape-Coeur, the classical rose-violet-iris triad is played at higher and higher frequency until everything is bathed in an almost raucous amber-vanilla glow.

It doesn’t hurt to want to see the world through French eyes every so often, does it?

Tag! You’re It

2008-10-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was tagged by Lucy at Indie Perfumes. (Incidentally, Lucy and I ran into each other at the Sniffapalooza Fall Ball this past weekend.) This fragrant online village is so important, more important than we sometimes think. So, here’s the protocol:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. I am a lover of organ music (Bach, Widor, Franck, Dupré and Messiaen, especially).
2. I speak French and German, in addition to my native English.
3. I, too, am a compulsive reader. I like subways for that reason. For some reason, I can never read in cabs or town cars.
4. A couple of times a year, I fetishize the ritual of consuming of a very good dry-aged steak with an excellent bottle of wine. Otherwise, I keep a near-abstemious monastic regime.
5. I have never eaten an ortolan and consider myself the poorer for it.
6. I am planning a trek along the Silk Road in 2010, provided my country re-educates itself in the art of diplomacy just a wee, teensy bit.

Now for some favorite blogs:

1000fragrances
Grain de Musc
The Moment
Fragrance Bouquet
Perfume Shrine
The Sartorialist

Enjoy being It!

Romance of the Rose

2008-10-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve long been a fan of Amouage fragrances, especially the über-opulent Gold. (The crystal flacons outfitted by Asprey aren’t a bad touch either.) But times change and, with them, landscapes and peoples. Not thirty years ago the various sheikdoms which skirted the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula were sleepy if, in some cases pretty, backwaters; now, with few exceptions, they are boomtown economies fueled by unfathomable petroleum wealth. Those of the Romantic inclination lament this, preferring the rusticity of the past and Frankincense Route associations to proliferate. But modernity is a mixed bag. The camel has been replaced by the Rover, the souk with shopping trips to Europe and America. But a tradition of perfumery remains.

Many have heard the story of Amouage’s founder, HH Sayyid Hamad bin Hamoud al bu Said, creating a perfume house at the request of his sovereign – a perfume house that would reflect the fragrance heritage of Oman and its prized materials, silver frankincense from Dhofar and cistus from the Jebel Akhdar, the “Green Mountain” towering above Muscat. Not long after, Guy Robert, titan of French perfumery, was commissioned to create the perfume which became Gold (1982).

Fast forward twenty-five years. Creative Director Christopher Chong worked with perfumer Daniel Maurel to create a men’s and women’s complement to the masterpieces of the brand’s inception: Lyric Woman and Lyric Man. Both take rose as their point of departure. Both are expertly constructed. One takes my breath away.

The press release tells me that Lyric Woman takes its inspiration from the lyric-spinto voice (e.g., Callas), but when its scent wafts up into my mind what I hear is a boy soprano. And he’s not singing a Mozart mass – he’s singing 15th century polyphony in the ars subtilior style. Lyric Woman isn’t jubilant but, rather, dark, poignant, even fragile. It warms its wearer, but not to titillate or amuse. It invites her or him into mysterium. A precious rose blooms in its heart but, as in religious iconography, that heart is pierced and magnified by an accord of geranium, cinnamon, jasmine, orris and ginger. Lyric Woman does not move in the traditional progression from head note to base. Rather, the silver frankincense, patchouli, musk and vanilla are present like a continuous progression of bass chords against which the voice rises into a crepuscular au-délà.

I can’t help but think that moving from the Eighties superfluity of Gold, Amouage has enacted an unconscious pilgrimage from the Land of Robert to the Land of Lutens circa 2000. Given the latter’s back-pedaling of late, one can only hope that the Chong-Maurel collaboration yields long and plentifully.

Ancient Mystery: La Myrrhe

2008-10-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

Before such storied scents as Muscs Kublai Khan and Cuir Mauresque, Christopher Sheldrake fashioned an “oriental” that clearly was an impostor in the seraglio. La Myrrhe, released in the mid-90’s, has all the markings of a foreign-born harem girl who won’t give in easily to eastern customs. She’s the opulent amber-eyed one who prefers French poésie over dates and pomegranate juice. The other girls think she’s too sophisticated for her age and development, not realizing her deep education abroad ... before her abduction.

Fast-forward to the present. I’m having a quick morning café latte at the local espresso bar. An auburn-haired student, a Penguin classic tumbling from her hand, orders a latte e miele. She leans toward me for the sugar and, in that moment, it hits me. This thing of beauty she is emanating. I lean close and point at the air; she smiles. Myrrh, she purrs, the oil.

Contrary to popular belief, myrrh is not always nose-singeingly dry and bitter. It certainly can be, but more often it exudes sweetness with a hint of the medicinal, reminiscent of pine overlaid with ripe, pulpy fruit. It is this aspect of myrrh that Sheldrake sets, dark and jewel-like, at the center of his creation. As a kid, I sometimes fantasized about putting gemstones in my mouth to see how they’d taste. This is how I’d imagine a ruby to taste. The aldehydes and bitter almond, which mark La Myrrhe’s Western provenance, form an ornate setting, ensuring that this rock indeed is one for the ages.

The girl is reading Rimbaud.

Amber Assoluta

2008-10-08T19:03:00.000-07:00

Amber Absolute (2007) is one of those scents that just can’t be appreciated in warm weather. (How the Indians wear it in the extreme humidity, one can only guess.) Perfumer Christophe Laudemiel’s creation for Tom Ford Private Blend betrays more than a couple of backward glances at Youth Dew Amber Nude but comes out the better constructed of the two. Deep but not terribly dark or cloyingly sweet, and with a truly memorable incense drydown, I place it alongside Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan (1993) and Annick Goutal’s Ambre scented candle.

This is perfume as if it were created by a chef at Jean Georges. Just the right blend of spice and dried herbs and a cool, salty, metallic tang that strangely reminds me of the inside of a copper kettle. My nose doesn’t hone in on the vanilla, which, previous to testing it, I’d have imagined in the fore. Instead, the spice comes in waves, tickling my nose, as if someone wearing Egoïste kept entering the room and then, seconds later, departing.

All I can think is, this would be divine on a guy.

The Memory of Smoke

2008-10-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

A few year back, in a class I audited on Robert Motherwell, the lecturer went on and on about white space, the blank canvas, etc. Likewise, Christopher Brosius’s olfactory creations, for better or worse, have always struck me as studies in what isn’t there. But I fear I must strain the painting analogy a bit further: his fragrances remind me of paint. Or to be more exact still: they remind me of paint’s smell. Some are like tempera, others oil, yet others the smell of an old oil on canvas. (When the guards aren’t looking, I sometimes get frighteningly close.) This is not said by way of disparagement. Fire from Heaven, the third of his “primal smells” series, is breathtakingly beautiful. As beautiful indeed as an Orientalist scene of Damascus from the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Brosius, who made his name at companies like Kiehl’s and Demeter, isn’t known for the opulence his perfumes. His affectation, rather, tends to melancholy, backward glances and a certain brand of North Brooklyn nostalgie. Names like Snowed In 1973, Poor Leaf I Trod and Grandmother’s Brace populate the shelves of his humble Wythe Avenue studio; beneath them, a wealth of absolutes labeled everything from Dandelion to – my favorite – Ocean (Mediterranean). A behemoth dog of indeterminate breed patrols.

Fire from Heaven takes its cue from literary fag hag Mary Renault’s eponymous novel about Alexander the Great. Apparently, the book is filled with incense. To my nose in the perfume absolute concentration, Brosius succeeds at wedding the sweetness of opopanax to the brisk sting of cedarwood, rounding off the edges with sandalwood, styrax and labdanum. As he himself is wont to admit, this is a scent about subtlety. At first, the elements seem all scrunched together, but with time the air clears a bit. And what is left is, at intervals, dark and light, sparkling and opaque.

Fire from Heaven may not inspire divine retribution, but it will invite warm nuzzles on cool autumn nights. Some may call it an incense for the incense-neophyte or, even perhaps, the incense-lite type. This is hardly tepid praise. Some of the big perfume houses could learn something here for when the hordes tire of flamboyant frankincense and just want someone (or -thing) to keep home fires burning.

Sleeper Standout 4: Bombay

2008-10-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I received a selection of fragrances by Montreal perfumer Claude André Hébert. Hébert has created 12 fragrances for men and women, inspired by the continents. Among them, I managed to find two very pleasing masculines, Dundee and Bombay. Of these two, I precipitated to the latter. It was dry and spicy and sexy. Manly but not dirty, elegant but not dressed up. What appealed immediately was Hébert’s apparent restraint in not over-improvising as so many industry noses do. He knew where and when to stop in this gorgeous quartet of vetiver, Indian sandalwood, cardamom and cinnamon. Each element played its part but, taken together, there was a clarity and expansiveness I found myself quietly admiring. Again, as with the others in my Sleeper Standout series, there was something here worth noticing; in this case, a micro-perfumer who is turning out scents which, by rights, deserve a much wider audience. Wearing Bombay on a cool autumn afternoon renewed my confidence in a generation of noses who, despite the trend to unisex fragrances, extract minimalist odes from classic masculines, as if scrubbing the dust from the gold-leaved escutcheons of Guerlain and Givenchy to rehabilitate some past splendor.

Square Root: Le Labo Iris 39

2008-09-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Frank Voelkl’s Iris 39 for Le Labo came out a couple of years ago. Before someone told me that the number referred to the number of ingredients used, I was thinking it referred to a female character out of dystopian science fiction. You know, Iris 39, the brunette in the Mylar dirndl, the one who replaced Iris 38.

But first the back-story. Since 2006, the mass-market has been flooded with iris scents, many of them soliflores of the chilly, dove-grey, powdered variety. Chanel’s 28 La Pausa comes to mind, along with Hermès Hiris, Dior Homme, The Different Company Bois d’Iris and Prada Infusion d’Iris––each of which shows a distant, if common, progenitor: Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist. The most respectable iterations show off the woody character of the iris note––in perfume-speak, orris––that originates in the rhizome, not the blossom, of the iris.

In Iris 39, Voelkl (Firmenich) goes a different route, blending orris root with patchouli, ginger, green spices and a woody, forest-violet accord. The fragrance opens screechingly loud, as if the floral base (the uterine nerve center of any perfume) were being showcased with little elaboration. I get rain-splashed flowers after a few balmy overcast days. Mind you, kitchen-garden flowers, not rarities in the Jardins de Bagatelles.

If the photographer who comes most readily to mind when I think of iris soliflores in Edgar de Evia, Iris 39 is a Wolfgang Tillmans’ still life, by contrast. It succeeds at the semblance of a studied paring-down, a premeditated slice of life. It revels in its of-the-moment digitality.

A certain botanical soapiness lingers in the drydown where I’d rather have smelled the green-muskiness of ambrette seed. For all its fresh-from-the-garden-with-mud-on-her-hands character, I find this lass a bit too cleaned-up.

Japanese Peacock

2008-09-21T17:55:00.000-07:00

Cinematically speaking, Oyédo by the Parisian fragrance house, Diptyque, is a Technicolor citrus, all chartreuse greens and warm chrome yellows. Ostensibly Japanese in flavor, it succeeds more in a vein of sheer Oriental weirdness – as if Rei Kawakubo had commissioned it, not Desmond Knox-Leet and Yves Coueslant.

To my nose, it doesn’t scream fruit as much as something artificial, like a new plastic shower curtain liner, a grape-flavored Jolly Rancher sans the high-fructose corn syrup, or - and, for most people, this is the monkey wrench in the gears - something that approximates analgesic rub. (But if James Heeley can do it in Esprit du Tigre, then I guess the folks at Diptyque can too.)

Which is not to say that Oyédo won’t appeal to people – Quite the contrary, I think it fills a very real need for wintertime citruses that don’t evaporate in twenty seconds time and that parry notes other than bergamot and lemon zest. It embodies the paradox of something cool-smelling succeeding in a world of ice and snow, as if its notes mimicked the chilled air.

Heard a peacock lately?

JAR

2008-09-14T19:02:00.001-07:00

Not much has been written about Joel Arthur Rosenthal’s bejeweled perfume creations. In 2005 Luca Turin remarked on his Duftnote blog: “When jewellers make perfume (Boucheron, Van Cleef et Arpels, Bulgari), it is usually because they have a big name and want to generate some cash flow. But that can't be JAR’s reason since his entire customer base can (and probably does) fit in the Ritz, and the perfumes are if anything even more confidential than the jewels.” Indeed they are, only available at an address in the 1er and at Bergdorf Goodman.

Having circumvented the JAR boutique in the past, I was surprised three weeks ago when Karen Dubin (founder of Sniffapalooza) and I expressed simultaneous urges to penetrate the inner sanctum and put the perfumes to the test. Nary a bottle in sight, the boutique is painted in a dark purple hue with a trompe-l’oeil ceiling bisected by an ominous bolt of lightning. It reminds one of a back-room at Harry Winston, where Audrey Hepburn or Empress Farah would sit waiting for the tiara to be presented. Six lidded glass jars holding pieces of perfume-imbued purple suede sit atop a small table complemented by two purple velvet-upholstered side chairs. I can’t say that we were treated with any of the fanfare or “Spanish court rigmarole” that others have noted. The attendant produced the perfumes one by one – some enchanting, some off-putting, all singular.

My first impressions, coming from Shadow and Diamond Water, were marked by the recognition of high-quality natural materials (mint, oakmoss absolute, sandalwood, carnation absolute, to name a few), but unlike the plethora of mass-market scents that owe their power to the genius of chemistry, they were able to amplify on the skin without the (at least recognizable) presence of fancy man-made molecules. There were chemicals for sure, to bind and bolster ... but not chemicals for the sake of chemicals. Somehow all the while, with each opened jar, the perfumes themselves were proving that the truest novelty, the strangest strangeness if you will, was right there in nature itself. Whether this (and the prices, which run upwards of $380 an ounce) will appeal to the better part of niche perfume shoppers, I haven’t the foggiest. Certainly, if you take the materials into account, the price is not inflated terribly much. After all, that hundred-buck eau de toilette you bought last week is worth less than the price of the bottle it came in. And what’s more, if JAR’s creations don’t feel quite like you, they at least feel like they were made only for you – despite the fact that they didn’t quite get it the way you wanted it. But, there again, the better part of luxury is growing into an understanding of the difficult thing. I’ve always felt that luxury without some difficulty is just blasé. To be continued...

Image credit: Bangle Bracelet, c. 1987 JAR, diamonds, colored stones, titanium, private collection, New York. Reproduced with permission.

My Fall Scents

2008-09-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

A day of cool weather and I’m already thinking of raking leaves, baking pies, dressing for the woods – I don’t get to them that often – chopping firewood, going to the opera (you weren’t expecting that gear shift), sipping coffees on the bench outside of Doma in the West Village, and wearing lots of the scents that I don’t dare in the dog days of summer. So here they are:

The (Chic) Old Guard

Caron Tabac Blond. Smoky, floral, sultry and not nearly as strong as I’d like
Caron Poivre. Spicy, clove-studded (and studly) in femme sort of way
Acqua di Parma Profumo (1930 formula). The quintessential chypre. A big blonde
Chanel Cuir de Russie. Birch tar to bring them home
Coty Oeillet de France. Dirty carnations

The Lost Generation

Creed Tabarôme (original). The Armagnac of men’s cologne. Luca can kiss my...
Guerlain Derby. You can tie up your horse here any day
Chanel Bois des Îles. Give me wood, lots of wood ... don’t fence me in.
Patou pour Homme. I like a little hot pepper on my pizza

The Young Turks

Heeley Cuir Pleine Fleur (Fine Leather). One of the best things out there
Miller Harris Feuilles de Tabac. A sillage monster. But it smokes quality s***
Prada Cuir Ambre. Amber plus leather. Little bottle. Lots of personality
Vero Profumo Onda. Dark and fiery. Ouch!
JAR Diamond Water. Peppery, sweetly spiced carnation kaleidoscope

Strange that I left off the vetivers. Or maybe not. Of late, I find them so pan-seasonal. Tropical grasses seem appropriate at nearly any time. Anxious here to hear your autumn picks.

Sleeper Standout 3: Sutra Ylang

2008-09-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

The name alone conjures up golden temples at dawn, concubines and opium pipes. But this self-professed oriental by perfumer Enzo Galardi would be better described as a hesperidic chypre dressed up like the Empress Dowager of China. It’s a gutsy perfume, fueled by a top-note powerhouse (read: paradise) of half-parts bitter citrus and bay leaf, and it doesn’t go in for histrionics of any sort. Instead of wimping out, like so many orientals, with a screaming synthetic sandalwood base, it progresses slowly and methodically down an endless corridor of rose and violet tones. While the SA’s will market this to women, I think it would serve perfectly for formal wear on a man. Where the current formula of Caron’s (now discontinued) Alpona strayed into expensive furniture polish, this keeps to the path. Materials are deftly handled throughout. And I’m left thinking: It rules!

Wieke Somers “Amber”

2008-09-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

Doing some research today on Dutch designer Wieke Somers, I ran across this beautiful image of a bottle she did for IFF Hilversum. In the past, Somers has collaborated with Droog. About six years ago, I bought a pair of barnacle glasses she created at a studio in The Hague. Apparently, the “Amber” perfume applicator is a feather. If anyone knows more about this scent – most likely, a one-off – please let me know.

Autumn Paraphrase: Brûme d’Automne

2008-09-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

Jean Paul Guerlain’s Brûme d’Automne (2008) brings to mind those lines of Wallace Stevens’: “The wind of Iceland and / The wind of Ceylon, / Meeting, gripped my mind.” (I had the good fortune to obtain a small decant from Guerlain, extremely rare in part because, at present, it is only available in the limited edition coffret, Les Quatres Saisons, which is mega-expensive.)

If a scent could represent the meeting of two currents, or two jet streams, from vastly different worlds it would be this. From one direction we have cooling green notes of rosemary, coriander and slightly savory pink peppercorn; from the other warm, sensual notes of ylang-ylang, rose, patchouli and vetiver. The composition literally does what its name means, as le brûme denotes “mist,” the phenomenon precipitated by cool air moving above warmer land or water. Of course, ever since types like Wordsworth, Shelley (Mary, too) and Caspar David Friedrich began playing with impressionable minds, mist has become a mood-building device and a metaphor for the numinous, the barely grasped.

It supposedly was inspired by the memory of a long-lost love and a journey to Piascassier, a hilltop village near Grasse. Such histoires sentimentales are nothing new for the house of Guerlain. But who can balk when the product of sentimental reverie is so unbelievably pleasant...and different from everything else on the market? If it ever gets released in the Les Parisiennes line, it will be taking its place alongside such other magisterially moody scents as Jicky and Derby.

Sleeper Standout 2: Sushi Imperiale

2008-08-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

When Florentine perfumer Enzo Galardi entered the American market last year with his line of unisex fragrances, Bois 1920, I was going through a “niche-suspicious” phase. For the space of a few months, niche after niche seemed to be filling up, like the Brooklyn skyline, with new construction: mediocre, on-the-face-of-it modern, and expensive. So much of the market seemed not to take into account the glorious (modern) forebears that, in some cases, were being ripped off, if not completely ignored, as tried-and-true formulas were unveiled as new. But what was important here wasn’t the product, it was the creation of a customer – a person of early middle age with a modest income, with a taste for finer things and an allergy to the luxurious trappings of the previous generation. Among the new lines, two stood out immediately: Bois 1920 and By Kilian. Of the former, I was immediately impressed with Real Patchouly. For whatever reason, I didn’t give the others much attention. Jump ahead one year. Sushi Imperiale and Sutra Ylang stand out, too. They’re from two different ends of the universe: one a spiced gourmand, the other a sultry oriental.

Sushi Imperiale, whose name put me off initially, seems cut from a similar cloth as Alexis Dadier’s Miroir des Vanités for Thierry Mugler. It has a sparkling, unusually pleasurable accord that brings to mind Italian bitters, the quinine edge of tonic-water cocktails, and the sweet spices of traditional eau de cologne formulas amped up to maximum decibelage. For the duration of its evolution on the skin, it straddles the bitter-sweet divide like a Russian gymnast on the pommel horse. The middle notes are drawn out impressively, while the base notes (mainly sandalwood and tonka bean) only become apparent after a few hours. Sushi Imperiale, as with Sutra Ylang, proves that the heart is where the home is: rose, star-anise (appealing to the wine lover in me), nutmeg, pepper and just a hint of jasmine absolute. Itadakimasu!

Sleeper Standout 1: Chanel Allure Edition Blanche

2008-08-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

I had a hankering for lemon today. I’d consumed quite a few of them, Meyer and otherwise, at the cabin last week. Each day, after hiking somewhere in Alpine County or the Desolation Wilderness, I would squeeze a couple into a tall drinking glass, fill it up with ice and water and top off with a few tablespoons of simple syrup.

And so today, not having the time or the inclination to make my homemade limonata, I reached for my bottle of Allure Edition Blanche whose lemony heart and peppery top notes I knew would bring a smile to my lips. There isn’t, in recent memory at least, a mainstream men’s cologne that delights me as much as this one. It’s not a bergamot bomb. It doesn’t spray its machismo like the towel-clad “dudes” at my midtown gym. Nor does it try to do the niche thing. It just does what cologne is supposed to do: make you smell clean and potentially, haply, approachable.

And it gives a really great drydown – Bourbon vetiver, tonka bean, white musk and cedarwood – for less than a hundred bucks a bottle. Sadly, it’s a limited edition and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Would that my friends at Chanel took Olivier Polge’s improvements here to heart and allied sophistication to the clean-fest of the other Allure pour Homme colognes.

Quartiers d'Été

2008-08-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

Vacation time. Hikes, morning- and late afternoon swims, birds, chipmunks, books and hopefully some good wine. See you all back on August 26 for more musings on the stuff in the bottle. Bon août!

Splash Down: Chanel Cologne

2008-07-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

Having recently become a New Yorker-with-a-bike, I’ve taken to zipping around parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan I’d never had the chance to terrorize before. (An old friend once told me that Raymond Roussel took to doing similarly in a white Rolls-Royce he’d had outfitted with a harpsichord.) I love the feeling of liberation such meandering rides produce in me ... but, alas, not the smells. Hot, muggy summer-in-the-city means almost guaranteed inundation with stagnant water, sunbaked trash and something that I can only liken to the putrifaction of our piscine friends.

These are not the days for perfumes of profundity. A good bar of soap, clean water, absorbent towels and a large bottle of eau-de-Cologne will do ... all of which brings me to my supreme joy that someone with common sense was in the room when Chanel decided to include a cologne among its Les Exclusifs offerings. No matter how low the Dow Jones goes, no matter how high the price of milk or gasoline rises, each household should stock a 400ml bottle of the stuff.

A masterfully rounded Cologne, it manages to weave its very traditional components into something modern, “Coco” would have warmed to, or, at least, indulged in between her trysts with all those Grand Dukes and whatnot. Of course, the bergamot and néroli are there, but also some rose and vetiver, and a fresh-linen-smelling musk that makes me want to pour half the bottle over me. Very few drydowns transform my mood (Eau d’Hiver, Eau de Guerlain, Cologne Blanche) and this one does. It reminds me of childhood, post-bath, pre-pajama moments – moments which, sadly, are not revisited in the countless spa situations we endure in the city.

If I were you, I’d keep a large bottle on hand – which isn’t to say that you shouldn’t have another bottle stored away for safe keeping.

After the Storm

2008-07-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess we can all do a long exhale, as the inevitable has occurred. Chandler Burr, esteemed critic of the olfactory has passed into bafflement. Like Frank Bruni stomping out of Vong, steam billowing from his ears or a claque of Michelin Guide Rouge critics casting a Tour d’Argent duck-press into the Seine, Typhoon Burr ripped through Kerala yesterday with as much violence as Kathleen Byron in the climax scene of Black Narcissus. Jean-Claude Ellena managed to escape the 145kmh winds, while saris whipped about palm trees and servants fled to high land. Hermès Un Jardin Après La Mousson was panned.

It is, he writes, “a failure on every level, and its failure is so strangely complete, so weirdly disorienting, that after I had repeatedly smelled the bottle delivered to my office — put it on colleagues, offered my arm to strangers — I came to distrust that what I was smelling was the intended perfume.” Ellena, who Burr shadowed throughout the lead-up to the writing of The Perfect Scent, has his fair share of admirers, and in retrospect it would appear that Burr was one of them. The tone of the review remains one of grudging respect, despite disappointment. Burr would be the first to admit that even the greatest noses are capable of colossal failures. No less than Jacques Cavallier, Michel Almairac and a host of others have been dealt one-star reviews in the past. But my beef is not with the rating––it is with the review itself.

Burr’s assessment begins with a rather convoluted discussion of Hedione (the chemical responsible for the success of Edmond Roudnitska’s Eau Sauvage and Diorella) and a denigration (no fault there) of the much-overused aquatic Calone. He initially allies the rain-soaked facets of Un Jardin Après La Mousson with the latter, but later reveals that, with the help of a gas chromatograph, he realized it contained none. He then gallantly throws his mistaken assumption into striking relief by revealing that it is chock full of Hedione. Traditionally Hedione, also known as methyl dihydrojasmonate, has the effect of reanimating floral notes, making them positively shimmer. Ellena first used it in an über-opulent success of his youth, First by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Calone? Hedione? Chromatographs? By this point, any reader is straining for a description … for any form of subjectivity that transcends the mere sticking of said star to waterlogged page. Perhaps Burr assumes that the reader knows the score (in every sense) and has read his books. (From the consistent weirdness of most of the comments on the T-magazine blog, I have to assume not.) Ellena is the master of minimalism. Each of his Hermès compositions, the hard-to-find Hermessences included, is a take-it-or-leave-it study in doing without. For better or worse, these are crystalline compositions exhibiting in each iteration a trademark clarity. They are eminently wearable, if just a bit steep in price. But this is Hermès, after all. Realistic pricing would dull some of the appeal.

Whether you like it or not, Un Jardin Après La Mousson fits the mold. Perhaps (perhaps) its weak point is a dull consistency. I, for one, think the natural vetiver is handled very well. I’d reach for this. It doesn’t bother me, but neither does it bewitch. That said, Chandler Burr’s review bewilders me –– Or does it baffle? –– Oh, I forget.

Alexis (Dadier) in Wonderland

2008-07-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Things simply aren’t as they would appear –– not this side of the looking glass, at least!

But Alexis Dadier, the young talent behind Thierry Mugler’s À Travers le Miroir (from the Miroir, Miroir Collection), was thinking more of Jean Cocteau’s 1930 film Le Sang d’un Poète than Alice in Wonderland. One of the picture’s seminal sequences involves a man passing through a mirror, and while I will leave the psychosexual critiques to those better qualified for that sort of thing, I will say that androgyny clearly was on the perfumer’s mind when he set out to create his own version of Through the Looking Glass. The TM Perfumes website sums it up as: “a fragrance that accentuates feminine strengths and masculine fragility.” In layman’s terms, À Travers le Miroir has set out to accomplish something that niche houses the world over would like to do –– mainly, create something that men and women will want to wear, regardless of the previously “gendered” materials found inside.

Let’s face it: the world has seen dozens of tuberose accords. To name the principals: Robert Piguet Fracas, Givenchy Amarige, Guerlain Mayotte/Mahora and Jardins de Bagatelle, L’Artisan Parfumeur La Chasse aux Papillons, and, most recently, Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle and Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower. Fracas is the undisputed queen of tuberoses, big, sweet, buttery and unmistakable in a closed room. With its coconut shavings, Carnal Flower is the gourmand of the pack. Tubéreuse Criminelle is the bad girl, her flower steeped in gasoline, like a Molotov cocktail.

À Travers le Miroir is the boy-girl, with its heady white florals emerging initially but quickly overtaken by herbaceous, bitter, absinthe-like notes (nod to Lolita Lempicka for Men and Giacobetti’s Fou d’Absinthe). Here, liquor meets ice but forgoes the gourmand temptations of black licorice. Instead, Dadier overlays the whole production with a camphorous, mentholated note (wintergreen, I think), acknowledging a late-great tuberose from Le Galion, c. 1936.

I love the coolness of it all, as if we were relaxing on the other side of mirror with a tuberose Italian ice. Great work.

A Few Faves du Jour

2008-07-14T20:08:00.000-07:00

This is one of those superlatively subjective posts that I’m doing just because it feels good. For a great many perfumophiles, fragrance is a form of therapy. Like a person who finds in a glass of wine a problem to be worked out (“what am I smelling in here?”) or the amateur pianist who plays an étude to experience the composer’s tonal dilemma (“what was he grappling with, sonically?”), the person with olfactory sensitivities turns to the ... bottle – No, I mean the flacon.

This evening, after the gym, I spread out on my desk about fifteen perfumes. There were some Parfumerie Générales, some Profumums, some Tauers, some Frédéric Malles and some Serge Lutens. For the most part, I knew them. So I begin sifting through. First cut, second cut and, finally, the remaining three bottles: Une Fleur de Cassie (Frédéric Malle), Incense Rosé (Tauer Perfumes) and Bois de Violette (Serge Lutens).

There were a great many very good scents there before me, but these were the masterpieces. Or to be more precise, the masterpieces of Blending. (I guess, then, you’re thinking that this is my response to the Top 25 Fragrances postings on many of my sister blogs. Honestly, it is. I just can’t bring myself, however, to sum up great things in four words or less.)

Une Fleur de Cassie is as beautiful a perfume as they come. It’s like the feeling that comes when you’ve finished a chapter of Colette; a feeling, that is, wagered on the piling up of pastel adjectives – the prose equivalent of a Renoir oil sketch. Mimosas and almond milk and pearls held up in the light. It’s a floral that doesn’t project the aura of flowers. It’s a meal and a kiss and a brush stroke all in one.

Incense Rosé took me months to comprehend. It’s one of the very few incense perfumes that does the “incense thing” with boldness. If Chaim Soutine and Philip Guston got together to create a perfume, this would be it. To me, it’s not rosé – it’s as “rouge” as it comes. All I get here – and if that were all, I’d be ecstatic – is a canvas caked with red paint; caked, and then overlaid and glazed with wonderful things, like vetiver and myrrh. And then, comes the rose. Big and red and bit blown.

Bois de Violette is the type of perfume that, as a boy, I’d have associated with a very rich and elegant woman on a cold night. That said, it’s gorgeous even on summer evening in New York City. (Caveat: I’m indoors with the a/c running.) Wood, violets and something like purple silk cravat. God, I love alpha-methyl ionone ... especially, with the dark touch of Messrs. Lutens et Sheldrake. Warm, sweet and delicious.

Prada No. 5 Narciso

2008-07-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

Narcissus is one of those brand of soliflores that people either love or hate. I have yet to encounter a happy middle ground.

On the face of it, it would seem that any floral accord which strays into the province of the indolic runs the risk of alienating certain people who “think” they like white florals when what they truly like are scrubbed-up florals done in cosmetics labs. Real flowers aren’t hygienic-smelling at all. They grow in the dirt: they co-exist with decaying plants, animals, and minerals. They have “complexity” in their blood, or roots, or phylum or whatever you call it.

Prada’s No. 5 Narciso, one of the quietly released perfumes available exclusively in select Prada boutiques and Liberty of London, is, like its bedfellows Oeillet, Fleur d’Oranger and Cuir Ambre, a vintage-styled gem. This is narcissus in the late morning, when you take a few steps in the kitchen yard and run your hand through the green stalks. The perfumer manages here to imbue the green-sweet-polleny solvent-extracted narcissus poeticus note with a certain sunniness, owing to the inclusion of orange blossom absolute, beeswax absolute and narcissus tazzeta.

If that isn’t special enough, after about fifteen minutes on my skin the vetiver peeks through the flowers, dry and spicy, mimicking human perspiration. All in all, this is a very human scent, neither vaunting prettiness or brute strength. (Personally, I’d have gone with some oakmoss in the base for a chypre effect.) It speaks clearly and, on a warm summer morning, you find yourself listening.

Prattling Violet

2008-06-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, to prattle is “to talk or chatter idly or meaninglessly; babble or prate.” (And you, dear reader, already are thinking that this is going to be a bad review. Patience, s’il te plaît.) Annick Goutal’s singularly impressive Duel, conceived by Isabel Doyen in collaboration with Annick’s daughter Camille, constellates its elements –– birch tar, green maté leaf absolute, Paraguay seed, orris, and musk –– around a dusky violet heart. It is a strange effect, to say the least; strange but not unwelcome. Indeed, Duel is a misnomer of sorts; for the fragrance transports me not to a scene of drawn pistols at dawn, but, rather, to the slapping of gloves that preceded it. Duel reeks of the libertine and his illicit “freedoms,” the panoply of liberties he’s taken with his rivals’ sweethearts. His britches make the ladies (and a few of the footmen) swoon, while gentlemen of his rank and station affect quizzical expressions at the violet spray in his lapel. Rumor has it, he’s no shrinking violet.

Parfum d’Empire Cuir Ottoman

2008-06-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

Leather in summer. Sounds like the title of a German mountain film or an avant-garde poem from the Weimar Republic. Inevitably, these are the words that come to mind when I think of Parfums d’Empire Cuir Ottoman.

For some reason, here I am reminded of Etat Libre d’Orange Jasmin et Cigarette. It inhabits an olfactory space where delicacy vies with debauchery. While one is a leather scent and the other a tobacco scent, they allow us a casement-view into their twinned identities. And, often, I have found them appealing to the same noses. The genius of Jasmin et Cigarette is the amped-up, fruity jasmine. Bananas and Beaujolais. The genius of Cuir Ottoman is the double-caress of Indian and Egyptian jasmine absolute and cool, powdery orris in its disjointed-yet-instantly-appealing heart. Like Jasmin et Cigarette, Cuir Ottoman eschews the indolic, sweaty-body aspect of jasmine for something pretty but not prettified.

After a while, Cuir Ottoman sticks close to its leather base. It never strays into the bejeweled Orientalist realm but, rather, remains Parisian through and through. For those who would find themselves seduced merely by the name, a caveat: this is not Serge Lutens territory. The Ottoman Empire minus the hair and the ointments and the camel dust. Think of Proust’s “petite bande” on the boardwalk at Balbec transformed into a band of enchanted lederhosen-clad Bavarian youth—Hedi Slimane-thin––beholding the Golden Horn and the minarets of Sultanahmet for the very first time.

Vétiver Véritable

2008-06-09T18:17:00.000-07:00

Vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides) is a material of aristocratic mien but humble means. Used to stanch water erosion in the tropics, vetiver traditionally has been utilized in everything from window shades to grass mats. The dried roots resemble a tangle of vermicelli and possess a intoxicating sweet-smoky-woody-earthy aroma touched with a nose-tingling bitterness and a bit of licorice. Vetiver has been the subject of many a post on Vetivresse, and understandably so. The market seems to have reached vetiver saturation, with more than a handful of very pleasant renditions available. The venerable house of Chanel has recently entered the fray with Sycomore, a Sheldrake-Polge collaboration, which, if I were to give vetiver advice to a fragrance neophyte, would fall high on my short list of benchmark vetivers. While it bears little resemblance to its forebear, Chanel’s 1930 version, it is dark and smoky and sophisticated: a welcome anodyne to the present surfeit of bland men’s colognes. Sycomore is a dashing sports car of scents, tuxedo black with touches of glinting eighteen-karat gold and a little splash of mud on the fender. It possesses better-than-average sillage and tenacity, and, in its behemoth atomizer, is vetiver enough to sustain you for a couple of years.

Image: courtesy of Chanel

Parfums 06130: Lierre Rose

2008-06-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

For a second there, I thought I would subtitle this review “When Natural Just Isn’t Enough.” (Well, I guess I just did.) Lierre Rose (the name means “Ivy-Rose”) was created in 2007 by Jacques Chabert, uncle of Nicolas Chabert the founder of Grasse-based Parfums 06130. Chabert worked with Jacques Polge on the EDP update of Chanel Cristalle and with Jean-Paul Guerlain on Samsara (1989). His Lierre Rose for 06130 is a pretty enough rose, which in no exaggeration reminds me of the smell of a newish bathroom in a Cote d’Azur luxury high-rise. It succeeds in making high-quality natural materials smell mundane, even cheap. This is disconcerting for a brand that seemingly prides itself on remaining outside the beck and call of the vast mass-market middle ground; for that same middle ground is what enabled Chabert to make a name for himself in the first place.

Lierre Rose starts out with something interesting: a slightly camphorous cardamom note playing counterpoint to an intoxicating tuberose-rose-violet triad. But all too quickly it gets muddled, where one or more of the elements should stand out. I wish it would have been the greener, earthier aspect of the Grasse violet absolute, but instead it’s just a sort of creamy floral fuzzfest dusted with jasmine. Where there could have been boldness, sultriness even, there’s scented-candle insufferableness. Lierre Rose had my hopes up, but ultimately she just turned out to be a pretty girl who wouldn’t leave the bathroom.

$145 for a peck on the cheek? She should have been chypre.

Uriental

2008-06-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

Yves Saint Laurent lived his life as in a dream. And for forty years he succeeded in giving the world a privileged glimpse of what he saw each day in that lush and, often, dangerous place.

He represented la belle France’s uneasy relationship with her colonial past, even as he lusted for the charms of an even earlier colonial era (that of his decadent forebears, Flaubert and Pierre Loti). Likewise, he craved the very things that a provincial upbringing kept at arm’s length: exceptionalism and cultural subversion.

He embodied both Schéhérazade and her Sultan – the sentence of death commuted, then reinstated by his whim: the sentence becoming, like the sentence of YSL’s beloved Proust, a golden thread sewn onto our living hearts.

So what shall it be to acknowledge the master’s leave-taking? Champagne or a little Opium?
(I shall let you choose, but I’m pushing the latter.)

Here’s to you, M. Laurent.

Dame of the Rose

2008-05-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

Jean-Paul Guerlain’s Nahéma parfum (1979) was unarguably one of the biggest, sexiest, most luxurious rose fragrances ever created. And one of the most terribly timed releases in perfume history. Its muse, the actress Catherine Deneuve, strangely was endorsing a competitor at the time of its release. Over the years, though, it has garnered its admirers.

Years before Sophia Grojsman’s Paris and Trésor, Nahéma redeemed roses from a boudoir dripping in frillies. Much of this has to do with the amplification that JPG was able to effect in the execution of his idea. Other commentators – Luca Turin among them – have honed in on the painterly quality of this scent, and they aren’t unjustified in this. Damascones, the molecules isolated from rose oil by Firmenich in the late 70s, lent a golden, autumnal complexity to something that could quite easily have been frou frou. Alpha-damascones lent a ripe, bursting peachiness while beta-damascones bolstered the sandalwood in the base with a warm, dusky quality.

All this, blended with Bulgarian rose otto and ylang ylang, succeeded in conjuring up the Arabian Nights sort of woman that Guerlain envisioned. Sadly, women at this time had their sights on the Far East and were more enamored of Opium-dreams than roseate visions.

Nahéma deserves more serious reappraisal than it’s getting. The materials and craft of this fragrance are sans égal, and it doesn’t suffer from the additions and detractions of pervasive reformulation. It would be marvelous on a younger woman and is a shoe-in for the Insolence crowd.

Making Hay

2008-05-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

A few things come to mind:
Cutting it.
Summer of ’02.
Dornach, Switzerland.
The onerous task of running in front of the bailer.
Raking the stray blades into clean rows.
Blazing sun beating down on me in farm clothing.
Running behind the bailer straightening the bails.
Taking refuge under shady cherry trees.
Thinking of lunch.
Sneezing.

A few years later, I ventured into Santa Maria Novella’s Soho boutique and sampled their eau de cologne, Fieno (Hay), hoping to rekindle fond memories of simpler times. I can’t say it embodied what I thought it would. Rather, its clean, powdery and slightly green character captured an aspect of hay as, say, I’d imagine a hay-scented soap to smell. There was even a sweetness to it. Why does hay automatically get associated with a dry-ish summer barnyard? Come to think of it, there were many days – this being Switzerland and all – when the sun wouldn’t come out and there I’d be with these marvelous respiring dairy cows (Holsteins for the most part), watching them eat as I threw the beautiful green blades into their manger. Something in Fieno (as I wear it today in the triple extract concentrate) brings back that moment, the cooling breeze coming in through an open barn door and wafting over the freshly cut hay. Its sweet herbaceous character, accented by myrtle, is the essence of such days and the respite they gave from the sun’s rays. A summer must-have, for sure. I wish it came in soap and shower gel, too.

“1000”

2008-05-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

Now, here’s a fragrance that Luca Turin really did a disservice to. He didn’t pan it. Rather, as with too many perfumes in his (and Tania’s) guide, he awarded it four stars, threw off some gnomic wit, and basically told us nothing. Yes, to his point, perhaps it is a little “dated,” but to call it tired would be like calling Garbo tired instead of retired. And, happily for us, 1000 is far from either. Created in 1972 by the great Jean Kerléo (incidentally, founder of the Osmothéque in Versailles), 1000 was one of those scents for which the brief must simply have read, “Mind not the cost.”

For me, it is a most-welcome stop on the road to the perfect floral chypre. Elegant, subtle and understated (compared, say, with the exuberance of Joy), it invites us into a bright, burnished environment of apricot-ey osmanthus, jasmine absolute de Grasse (as opulent here as in vintage No 5 extrait de parfum), rosa centifolia, rosa damascena, violet leaf absolute, patchouli, oak moss and sandalwood. On my skin, the heart notes seem to go on for decades.

Certainly not a bargain to procure, be assured that the quality of the naturals here is unimpeachable. If you like Mitsouko, a bottle of this shouldn’t far off in your future. And it’s still available in the extrait de parfum. Who can guess for how long?

A Glass of Milk

2008-05-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

And a piece of toast. (Be not afraid, I shan’t channel Gertrude Stein.) I’m just trying to wrap my mind around two genre-bending gourmands which use milk-and-toast accords in novel ways: Serge Lutens Douce Amère (2000) and Thierry Mugler Miroir des Envies (2007). Neither is on my usual bill of fare, being neither vintage nor terribly atmospheric. My tastes run to moody perfumes, perfumes that evoke paintings, landscapes, a longed-for past, even music. Douce Amère and Miroir des Envies are un-nostalgic scents which speak to me, rather, as a mother to her child in what, for lack of a more apt term, I will call “kitchen tones.” They invite us to a table. But not just any table.

Christopher Sheldrake’s Douce Amère owes much of its intrigue to wormwood, which, by sheer dint of the name, could not be farther from such a comforting place as the kitchen table. But dried fruits and spices conspire there to make artemisia absinthium a companionable bedfellow. Far indeed are we from the artemisic opening of, say, Yatagan. Rather, we are presented with something resembling a blanc-mange in which almonds have been replaced with licorice and the top has been lightly dusted with jasmine and some type of sharp, dark chocolate. After a few minutes on the skin Douce Amère settles down to light cedar and slightly sweet spiced milk. It is creamy and lovable and addictive – a pleasant alternative to scents with powdery drydowns, like Lorenzo Villoresi’s Teint de Neige.

As for the toast (what wine geeks call pain-grillé), perfumers Louise Turner and Christine Nagel of Givaudan succeed in serving it up in their brilliant, otherworldly tour de force for Thierry Mugler: Miroir des Envies (Mirror of Desires). Given a Givaudan lab with all the great naturals and premium synthetics I don’t know what would possess me to do bread, but these gals obviously knew what they were doing. Toast is one of those things that I like to taste in a good glass of Meursault or Champagne, but on the skin I’d never have imagined how well it works with a jasmine-dominated floral accord. And what’s more, it’s surprisingly unisex. Put this on the list with L’Artisan Parfumeur’s bready iris Bois Farine and reacquaint yourself with the aroma. Clearly, those envies wanted something crunchy (knackig as the Germans say) to sink their teeth into.

Jeepers Chypres!

2008-04-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

It takes a lot to excite me. Chalk that up to New York jadedness or whatnot. In a world of perfume junkies (bless their hearts) who constantly talk up the next new “masterpiece” and who throw the word “lemming” around with such abandon as to give the animal-rights folks a fright, it takes a real shiver-me-timbers scent to make an outstanding impression.

It was, then, with a great sense of fear and loathing that I ordered some samples of the super-exclusive line of “vintage-ey” extraits de parfums from Auguste, an unknown French perfumer who purports to have used les anciennes grimoires to concoct a chypre, an oriental, and a cuir de Russie. Grimoire, I love it. (Cut to a gallic Gargamel in front of some bubbling Turk’s head.)

What does it mean, this chic for vintage? Is it a cry for an authenticity (of the emotional sort) so lacking in the development of today’s perfumes? I dare say it isn’t some rummage-sale sort of mentality. Face it, people want designer clothing; they want labels, names if you may, not quaintness; but they want authenticity in the foods they prepare and the scents they wear.

Auguste, despite the sanctimoniousness of its venture (its almost audible straining at Preservation), has done something very, very right in the genre of the vintage chypre. Esprit de Chypre is like a miniature stumbled upon in some provincial museum. It communicates the chypre concept in an appealing and very wearable way. It isn’t an academic exercise, a caprice of the genius-mind gone amok. From the start, with its sucker-punch of lemon, bergamot, through the floral heart (lovely ylang ylang), down to the leathery labdanum and oakmoss (yes, oakmoss) base, Esprit de Chypre is a Twenties flapper who wants to get behind the wheel and drive straight through the night to Vienne. Lovers of vintage Tabac Blond, Sycomore and En Avion, not to mention the cut of an old Chanel original, will swoon over this. It’s like smelling back into time while perched (firmly) on the precipice of the future.

Ahem, lemmings, if you buy one thing this year, let it be this. Who knows how long it will be around for. Such a pity, then, they didn’t get the bottle quite right.

The Search for...

2008-04-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

My search for the perfect fragrance was a search for authenticity. Raised in the Eighties and Nineties in an affluent suburb about fifty miles from the city, I had learned about fragrances at an early age on trips with my mother to the local Saks and Bloomingdale’s. I had learned that they were about how you looked, how you made your money and how you attracted the opposite sex. By and large, they seemed to be about fulfilling the expectations created by magazine advertisements. The formula was something like that dress, that car, that house and that man. And the formula was a work of genius. Everybody wanted evidence of it in their daily lives.

It wasn’t until much later, in graduate school, that I began to think about fragrance as something that expressed the individual or that gave its wearer pleasure before anyone else. I had smelled a very fine patchouli fragrance on another guest at an East Village dinner party. Earthy, dark and pungent, it complemented her little black dress, her silver jewelry and her foreign accent. The next weekend I made a point of visiting the women’s fragrance counter at Barneys and asked the salesperson to guide me through the various renditions of patchouli. After about an hour-and-a-half I put my finger on Etro’s Patchouli, a complex patchouli with citrus and floral notes. It became my winter scent. Friends would pull me close for a kiss and then linger over my overcoat collar or cashmere scarf. Some would comment on the strangeness of it, the singularity of it. After all, it was 2001. The era of innocuous aquatic men’s scents was in full swing. If something didn’t reek of Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme, it was exemplary.

That spring, as the weather changed I realized that the patchouli wasn’t working. This time, instead of going to Barneys I went to the Etro boutique. I tried about five more of their fragrances and this time bought a bottle of Vetiver. Little did I know how important that bottle would prove to be. Vetiver, I learned, was a root much prized in India, Southeast Asia and Indonesia for staving off erosion. In many of those same places, it was used to make floor mats and shades, which incidentally worked well against mosquitoes. On me, it was austere and manly but in an introverted sort of way. I decided it would be my fragrance signature. I still knew relatively little about its importance in perfumery.

As the years went by and I came closer to finishing my doctorate, I acquired a number of different styles and “arrangements” of vetiver. There were the classical ones, like Givenchy and Carven; the wildly popular tobacco-inflected ones, like Guerlain; the dirty, sweaty ones like Maître Parfumeur et Gantier Route du Vétiver; and the seaside ones, briny and brisk, like Annick Goutal Vétiver and The Different Company Sel du Vétiver; and even the seductive Oriental ones, like Montale Vétiver Sables and Serge Lutens Vétiver Oriental. At each step of the way, I yearned for a vetiver to call my very own. Earthiness here appealed more to me than high polish. Somehow a touch of dirt brought nature back into my life in the concrete jungle and didn’t toy with my own body’s scent. But this dirt––this root system, rather, with the dirt still clinging––was maddeningly elusive.

And then, this past summer, I found it. After sniffing hundreds of different vetivers, I came upon a new one right back where I had started ten years before: Nasomatto Absinth. It was an unexpected surprise. Rooty, nutty and mushroomy, it captured my attention immediately. Finally, I thought, here’s what the French call sous-bois (“undergrowth,” “forest floor”). But the real surprise came when I realized that the unadulterated vetiver for which I’d yearned all those years was unattainable without the help of things like patchouli, bergamot and wild fennel. Where Paradise was lost, the art of perfumery had begun.

The Lime Flower

2008-04-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

Tilleul (tee-LOO).
Tilia vulgaris, etc.
The lime- or linden blossom.
The tisane savored by Proust’s (namesake) narrator.
Remedy for hysteria.
A spoonful of honey.
A hotel soap.

How to describe it? Fragrant. Sweet. Old-fashioned. The sort of thing I’d imagine in one of those bottles on Clarissa Dalloway’s vanity. Complicit with orange blossom, rosemary, lavender, and bergamot (and about 10 other ingredients) in Guerlain’s Eau de Cologne Impériale, created in 1853 for the Empress Eugénie. While hats go off to the much later Eau de Guerlain (1974; I would come along about a year later) for its high-octane lemony zing, there’s something about EdCI which refuses to get all worked up. It’s a cool house in the Ile-de-France on a hot summer day; a bed on which the white linens have been pulled tight; afternoon naps; the chequered shade of the garden where, in a few hours, the family will gather for lemonade and cookies.

Eau de Cologne Impériale is one of my few personal extravagances. It gets its own pocket in my summer tote, and frankly I don’t care if a person on the subway stares me down for spritzing myself. The way I look at it, he’s the one making good on his 2-buck Metrocard swipe.

Vero Profumo

2008-04-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you who attended this weekend’s Sniffa Spring Fling, I would like to follow up my presentation of Vero Kern’s extraits de parfums. Many of you already know the admiration with which I hold this Swiss master perfumer and student of the esteemed Guy Robert. Her three extraits de parfums (Onda, Kiki and Rubj) provide for endless olfactory fascination. But unlike many niche perfumes, Kern’s actually work as “statement scents” not mere curiosities for me and my wrist. Having lived in that country of milk and mountains, I can say that her creations are most definitely not Swiss in conception or execution. They are very French but without the million-dollar advertising hype we associate with the great maisons de parfums.

Vero Kern’s creations are currently unavailable in the States. They can be purchased directly over her Web site, veroprofumo.com.

Lads in Lavender

2008-04-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Amid the dearth of scents which try – unsuccessfully – to turn men into boys, there are a few fragrances which turn boys into men. Caron Pour Un Homme is one of them. Created by the legendary Ernest Daltroff in 1934, it resides on a plane far removed from that of most classic splash “colognes.” It feels manly but not dandy, masculine but not hirsute, refined but not stuck up. Wearing it at thirty is the olfactory equivalent of buying one’s first really good suit ... or finally confessing (silently to oneself) that, after all, Dad did know something about getting dressed.

For those who write it off as as a mere lavender, bah I say. We’d do well to come to know lavender outside of the precincts of the apothecary aisle of the local “healthy” supermarket or of the sachets which used to lingers in our mother’s linen drawer. Pour Un Homme is lavender that conjures up the sunny South of France, the minimalism of modern menswear and a sort of stylish conservatism that – in light of recent menswear collections by Thom Browne, Michael Bastian and Band of Outsiders – is likely to stick around for the next few seasons. (And a large enough bottle will ensure that it sticks around long after that. Perhaps long enough to give you a chance to give Junior a spritz behind the ears.)

A sharp jolt of lavender is an instant appeal for me. In either the classic or Impact EDP concentration, it’s strikingly apparent, though Impact draws it out a bit longer. Both concentrations progress through the woody middle notes rather quickly and leave us with a supple, sensuous drydown which mingles amber with tonka bean.

Pour Un Homme (still reasonably priced and in a variety of luxurious formats) is available at the Caron Boutique at Phyto Universe in New York City. To order, contact Diane Haska at 212 308 0270.

Etro Royal Pavillon

2008-03-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

“White flowers” often are invoked in the descriptions of a good many white wines. Rheingau Rieslings come to mind, as do better chardonnays from Chablis and a great many Alsatian wines, particularly Pinot Blancs and Gewürztraminers. As the weather warms up, these wines begin again to adorn my dining table and, likewise, do the white florals in my fragrance wardrobe (the gardenia, paperwhite narcissus, sweet orange blossom and their voluptuous consorts, rose, iris and tuberose).

Yesterday at the Etro boutique on Madison Avenue, I was reminded of Royal Pavillon, a lovely white floral which debuted back when I was in junior high. “Elegant” and “refreshing” are the words that immediately come to mind. The perfumer (anonymous) melds floral and green notes to fine effect, conjuring up an olfactory glass house filled with blossoming plants amid respiring verdure. Gardenia assumes pride of place, but is tempered all along by a green accord. Tuberose kicks in after a few minutes on my skin, providing ample replacement for a missing bottom range. Royal Pavillon dries down to something just un peu soapy and freshly bathed, with a hint of vetiver and sheer musk.

Like a good white wine, the floral notes here are balanced by the crispness which lingers. It is not a profound fragrance by any means, but a very fine scent in eau de toilette concentration and worth seeking out in the shower gel, too. And while it bills itself for women, I think this is as safe a bet as ever for the jocks in the room.

Rubj by Vero Profumo

2008-03-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

Many of you already know the admiration with which I hold Swiss perfumer Vero Kern. Her three extraits de parfums (Onda, Kiki and Rubj) provide for endless olfactory fascination. But unlike many niche perfumes, Kern’s actually work as “statement scents” not mere curiosities for me and my wrist. Having lived in that country of milk and mountains, I can say that her creations are most definitely not Swiss in conception or execution. They are very French but without the million-dollar advertising hype we associate with the great maisons de parfums.

Strangely enough, Rubj has been the hardest nut of the three for me to crack. Perhaps because it makes me feel so good when I wear it. No wonder, then, that Kern is an aromatherapist by trade. With Rubj she manages to attune the innocuous white floral with a deep, musk- and jasmine-laden heart. Orange blossom absolute from Morocco (nectar bursting into sunlight) coats the outside of this olfactory objet, and then layered behind it are Egyptian jasmine and tuberose (indolic and sweaty-sweet) and very fine (read: not dirty) musk notes. At first approach, one’s nose might characterize this as borderline fruity, but there’s enough complexity lurking underneath to turn your eyes off the dessert platter and into the candlelit bedroom. If you own and love Fleurissimo, this is the next step.

Kern’s extraits come in gorgeous, vintage-inspired crystal flacons with ground glass stoppers, but there’s nothing old-fashioned about them. 7.5 ml will run you around $165, 15ml around $260. They are available online at veroprofumo.com, and will soon have limited distribution in the United States.

Etro Sandalo

2008-03-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

Etro fragrances are among the most pleasant of the fragrance market’s unsung heroes. A bottle of Vetiver has graced my bathroom vanity for the last seven years, and when I go anywhere on extended vacation a bottle accompanies me. Etro Patchouli was my first official “adult” perfume purchase, and it goes down as one of the benchmark interpretations of that most mercurial of notes. Etro fragrances are such a perfect evocation of their brand, as, like the scarves for which Etro is known, you can never have enough of them – and, quite pleasantly, they complement each other. And what’s more, they are among the best (and most affordable) scents to buy en masse for daily layering combinations. (I won’t lie. I also find the bottles possess a plain perfection.)

These days, I’m reaching for Sandalo (1989). I admire its dry, well-bred aspect: Mysore sandalwood, myrrh gum, amber and some subtle florals lurking in the background. It has greater tenacity than Floris’ classic sandalwood scent and, owing to the myrrh gum, a touch more of the exotic. Picking up the bottle is like discovering some careworn old accessory that works perfectly with today’s look. A great daytime scent, Sandalo can be worn easily after a shower or with a loose-fitting weekend shirt. Or with nothing at all.

It begs contemplation.

L’Heure Bleue

2008-03-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

Is there a better example in modern perfumery of how inextricably a name can be linked to the experience of the juice it introduces than Guerlain L’Heure Bleue? No one can argue with the place of Mitsouko (which, seven year later in 1919, marked the defeat of Germany and the end of World War I) in perfume history, but L’Heure Bleue is another story entirely. Somewhere along the way, it got lost in the annals. It was, and still is, produced but people forgot about it. Or, alas, people never got to know it. It was too quaint, perhaps, in its art nouveau bottle. And with the dawn of the sexual revolution, it didn’t sound the bacchanalian call-to-arms. But, like Chanel No. 5, it contained in part the very DNA of the Guerlain brand; for, at day’s end, people would remember its contemporaneous bedfellows – brainchildren of Jacques Guerlain – Shalimar and Vol de Nuit among them.

L’Heure Bleue is not a statement about feminity. It is a form a feminity, if a slightly angular one. It is a poem. It coheres. It communicates an emotion. It holds a secret in its fragile hands – the fragile hands of the evening. When I look at it closely, I see its parts, but like the branches of the trees reaching up into the crépuscule it becomes a unitary thing: the moment frozen and fleeting that we have all experienced and tried to grasp and couldn’t.

Beautiful, easeful melancholy in a bottle. It is the Poet’s and his alone.

Here Comes the Rain Again

2008-03-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

Imagine yourself waking in an attic room, a light rain falling outside the rickety old window and lilac bushes swaying gently in the breeze. Olivia Giacobetti’s En Passant, created in 2000 for Frédéric Malle’s Editions de Parfums, was conceived, je pense, with such a scene in mind. Giacobetti, creator of such perfumes as Diptyque’s cult-classic Philosykos, L’Artisan’s Safran Troublant, Hermès Hiris, and, most recently, Lubin’s Idole de Lubin, is a perfumer of two minds. On the one hand, she succeeds at yummy scents which blend intriguing spice components with a certain gourmand appeal. On the other hand, she has an attraction toward rawness in nature. Hiris and Philosykos prove her the mistress of the uncooked. It’s “raw perfumery,” if you will. Figs torn from the branch before they’ve even plumped to ripeness, an iris rhizome yanked from the dew-soaked earth. En Passant contains notes of white lilac, rain, orange tree leaves, cucumber and wheat. On my skin it registers moisture and early morning freshness. It is clean and comforting, and takes pride of place on a man’s or woman’s vanity.

Chanel Fragrance Master Class

2008-03-04T18:02:00.000-08:00

I nearly entitled this posting, In Which I Am Invited, as I didn’t see much “infiltration” going on at the Chanel Fragrance Master Class hosted by Sniffapalooza on Saturday, March 1. Trajecting the inner sanctum of Monsieur Karl?––now, that would be infiltrating! After all, I paid my admission just like everyone else. The morning session, which I attended in its entirety, was one of the best-organized events of its kind. After a harrying cab ride from the FDR Drive, I was relieved to be warmly welcomed into a cool, clean, orderly space finished in Chanel’s inimitable white-outlined-in-black. A delicious breakfast was laid out for us, including a near-perfect yogurt parfait from Brasserie 8-1/2. From the outset, this day was going to be as much about the stimulation of the senses as the pampering of them.

Eden McCracken, who conducted the class with a team of five assistants, was a tall, striking presence in a black dress adorned at the waist by a stunning feather rosette, covered in a flowing silk wrap that went all the way to her black leather bottines. She did Karl proud. The session lasted about 3 hours and covered the signature scents, not surprisingly placing the utmost attention on the the rose de mai/jasmin de Grasse accord in No 5. Interesting, indeed, it was to learn that the eau de toilette concentration (engineered by Ernest Beaux in 1924) has a Tunisian néroli top note which is quite conspicuously accentuated by sandalwood in the base. Likewise, the eau de parfum concentration done by Jacques Polge in 1986 accentuates the vanillin.

Eden used a video presentation to explain the oft-used musical metaphor applied to scent, stressing how the higher-toned notes correlate with the highly volatile citrus accords, middle tones with florals, and bass tones with fixatives. She then gave a full-dress presentation on the Les Exclusifs , including a sneak-peek at Sycomore, a lovely vetiver eau de toilette rendition due out in the next couple of months. What continues to amaze me about the Les Exclusifs collection is how pure the scents smell. Minor masterpieces of perfumery (though some would differ with me and push 31 Rue Cambon higher on the scale), they nevertheless betray an innocence-joined-to-sophistication that Gabriele “Coco” Chanel would have applauded. I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to own the entire collection.

And in typical Chanel fashion, the day would not have been complete without a complimentary No 5 EDP, which now adorns my nightstand. Karen Dubin and Karen Adams clearly outdid themselves in making this grand affair take place. If anybody did the infiltrating, it was that duo. Bravi, tutti.

Image credit: Andy Warhol, Chanel No. 5. Courtesy of the Andy Warhol Foundation.

A Cereus Cocktail

2008-03-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

The recently launched Cereus pour Homme line of men’s fragrances sets its sights on the plus-35 crowd who crave Italian suiting and other of the finer things. I must say, then, that it was with much trepidation that I made the initial approach to Cereus No. 11, which billed itself as “pure luxury.” I had heard such claims before and, while I understood the urge to trade up, I was skeptical as to what they exactly meant. As an erstwhile connoisseur, I prefer “pure luxury” to remain inaccessible to the commonplace consumer. But in the case of No. 11 (as with certain of the Nasomatto perfumes, recently reviewed), I was elated to find a foil to the hollow marketing rhetoric: a pleasant, well-constructed riff on the gin gimlet (a gin cocktail consisting of dry gin, Rose’s lime juice, simple syrup and a splash of soda). Cereus, a brand development firm based in southern California, approached Fragrance Resources in 2005 with a brief that demanded juice which would evoke “modern masculinity,” as well as one that would strike a balance between sex appeal and crisp self-presentation. Smelling it for the first time, the image it conjured for me was that of a Canali suit worn with an open-collared shirt in some shade of seafoam or menta. While I don’t exactly get the effervescence or the sweat-beaded martini glass, I do get the nose-arresting coolness of fennel (seemingly a very conscious nod to the wild fennel note in Duchaufour’s Méchant Loup) but sans the stickiness. This is sprinkled with black peppercorn, and the lime plays second-fiddle to a sharp juniper berry note. (Clearly, this bartender sees gin as the star, not the lime juice.) Bourbon vetiver and light musk round out the bottom along with an assortment of woody notes. All in all, I find myself admiring the contrasts in No. 11 and look forward to testing its bedfellows, Nos. 4, 5 and 7.

Cereus No. 11 is currently sold at high-end specialty stores, including Luckyscent and Barneys New York.

Taffy Ta’ifi: Ormonde Jayne’s English Take

2008-02-26T21:14:00.000-08:00

After a day of luxuriating in Etat Libre d’Orange Jasmin et Cigarette, I decided to follow the floral path that stretched before me to a willing sample of Linda Pilkington’s Ta’if parfum (2004) for London-based house, Ormonde Jayne. My first thought was of roses spread on apricot silk, sugary delicacies strewn about in preparation for afternoon tea. Pilkington manages to cook, or otherwise transmute, some very potent notes (saffron, pink pepper, Ta’if rose oil) into a sweet and subtle pudding of sorts. I can’t quite decide whether I’d like this on the lawn at Ascott or served to me in bed, maudlin expression, covers pulled up to my nose. But, like recently reviewed Cologne du 68, there’s something soothing in its un-effaced femininity and use of premium-quality ingredients, blended like a rose water blancmange in the back kitchen at Alain Ducasse. Unlike some of the Middle Eastern mukhallat which employ Ta’if rose oil (damask rose from Arabia), there’s nothing even remotely dirty about this scent (even the musk in the drydown is sweet and oddly presentable). In fact, if ever there were a perfume that you’d like to wear to an award ceremony, this would be it: sexy enough to have the men greeting you with more than a peck, but clean and breezy enough to make sure you’ll get seated well the next time you’re nominated. And, as you’re a Brit, that’s a very good thing. Just worry yourself about the dress, Dame So-and-So ....

Precious Ore

2008-02-21T18:48:00.000-08:00

Michael Morsetti’s Or et Noir (1949) is a rose scent to be reckoned with. After weeks of admiring Edouard Fléchier’s incomparable Une Rose (2003), I detect a marked family resemblance between the two. Both are cool, luscious and dark, with sweet-oily rose layered over woods and spices. Both stretch their wearer’s expectation of how roses smell. Sad, isn’t it, that roses are so often relegated to the corsage- or nursing-home schools of fragrance? Something in Or et Noir triggers faraway memories of my next-door neighbor pruning her rose bushes while I looked on holding a tall, perspiring glass of iced tea. Rosebud, cold wet glass, green thorny stem and dirty gardening glove become one in my mind, projected back onto the scrim of lost time where so many faces are now assembled. That’s the thing about Caron perfumes: they kindle a nostalgia in us, like a Grès gown or a Verdura cuff. Never “museum,” always chic in that eternal sort of way, with just a tinge of pathos, so that what so often remain glittering surfaces become limpid pools waiting to be sounded. Notes: Bulgarian damask rose, centifolia rose and geranium; Turkish rose, lilac and carnation, oakmoss and woody amber.

To order, contact Diane Haska at the New York Caron boutique/Phyto Universe, 212 308 0270.

Close to the Skin

2008-02-20T20:04:00.000-08:00

These last few weeks of experimenting with various perfume oils from North Africa, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, India and Southeast Asia, have been something of an education in a different school of perfumery. The word that comes to mind when I apply so many of them is, each time, “private.” Especially among the more classical school of Middle- and Far Eastern perfumes, the natural substances used do not announce themselves. Rather, they invite the senses (smell and taste) which have been granted permission to experience them. They are profound vehicles of sensuality. For a New Yorker who is always on the go, they aren’t the first scents I reach for in the morning. Beneath a jacket, shirt and tie, they would be hidden, wasted. But like a fine wine, they ask to be contemplated in private. Like a lover. Or like a good book cradled in the palms before sleep. They engage our passions, our imagination, our deepest dreams.

In the regions these scents come from they are regarded as remedies with extraordinary powers. Aromatherapy, as we know it, has derived much of its practice from these previously unsystematized ideas. Most important among the effects is a sense of equilibrium and balance in our lives. There is little sense here of a second-skin or shell or mask or protective layer. Instead, there is a mimicry of sorts. The odor of the human body itself is worked up and considered part of the “blend” created when a few drops of the oil are applied to the pulse points. The body is mimicked by the scent, the scent is mimicked by the body.

A quartet of notes come to mind. There are variations but fundamentally they are: rose, jasmine, musk and amber. The middle two are sweet-sensual-animalic; the first and last, warm-cool, herbaceous- fruity, and savoury-spicy. In regions where the cuisine can be notoriously hot (spiced) for reasons of food-spoilage, the body’s natural scent is simply and subtly enhanced. Short of some of the ouds from India, Laos and Cambodia, there is no Asian equivalent of Old Spice or, for that matter, any quality-scent that is so spicy and strong that it obscures its wearer.

Interesting, too, were the many fragrances which were comprised of substances bordering on contraband in the United States, like Tonkin musk and ambergris. While I could be awed by the etherealness of their qualities, I was happy that modern chemistry had done a better-than-decent job of recreating them.

But the greatest lesson of all was that good things come in small packages; for, by and large, perfume oils come in quantities of 3–12mL, reminding us all that luxury comes not with pomp and circumstance but in a still, small whisper across the skin.

Eaux Là Là

2008-02-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

A recent exchange with a fellow Sniffapalooza member occasioned some thoughts about the coming (not fast enough) change of seasons, and indeed my eye has been wandering to the lighter end of my fragrance spectrum: scents like Fréderic Malle Cologne Bigarade, Creed Citrus Bigarrade, Annick Goutale Eau de Sud, Bois 1920 Classic 1920, Parfums d’Empire Iskander and Lubin L’Eau Neuve, not to mention the classics-in-our-midst, like Roudnitska’s Eau Sauvage and Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale, granddaddy of the lot, at almost two-hundred years old.

Unfairly perhaps, I dub many of these as my “bathroom” scents. The qualifier has nothing to do with their quality – only, rather, with the comfort they provide when easily grabbed while toweling off from a shower or bath. None tries to make a particularly bold statement, except maybe to tell us that everything is going to be just fine. In warmer climes, the application of such scents is cooling. Their predominant néroli, citrus and wood notes, combined with a high level of alcohol, refresh nose and skin alike. These are the sorts of scents I’d love to find on the locker-room counters at my gym in spanking new atomizer bottles. (Instead, all I get is a gush of eucalyptus steam from behind some clouded door, rank towel hamper odors and the almost ubiquitous smell of styling gel.) Heck, I’d be happy with an oversized bottle of 4711 Echt Kölnisch Wasser.

Eaux de colognes are the ultimate accessory to basic personal hygiene, like mouth wash for the skin. In the days before deodorant, these scents separated the sheep from the goats. And in some parts of the world – the Mediterranean comes to mind – they still do. One jaunt on a packed Roman bus in the late June is all you need to learn this vital lesson.

Of late, Guerlain has released an eau de cologne that should earn its place alongside the greats: Cologne du 68, inspired by the street address of their Champs-Elysées flagship. Created by nose Sophie Labbé, it contains 68 notes, including green tangerine, lemon petitgrain, limette, jasmine, rose, tuberose, peach, orange tree wood, petitgrain, musk, patchouli, oakmoss, amber, star anise, coriandre, cardamom, pepper, immortelle, opoponax, and cedar. It has a ravishing pink-tending-to-apricot hue and is as beautiful on the skin as on fresh linens or dispersed into the air. Not as overtly masculine (or implicitly genderless) as Impériale or Eau du Coq, Cologne du 68 is a light, refreshing floriental which clearly takes a nod from the compositions of Guerlain’s Mathilde Laurent (creator of Guet-Apens/L’Attrape-Coeur and Shalimar Eau Légère). It goes on cool and citrusy and ends up just short of lightly confectionary in the floral notes. It is the essence of Guerlain, a perfect evocation of the heights to which the brand aspired in the midcentury and an auspicious sign of where they can still go when all engines are pushed to throttle.

Cologne du 68 is available exclusively at 68, Champs-Elysées and the Guerlain boutique at Bergdorf Goodman. Contact Jason Beers to order, 212-872-2734.

Wood Rose: Montale Attar

2008-02-15T19:21:00.000-08:00

Imagine a Bulgarian rose carved out of Mysore sandalwood, drizzled with oud, resting on a frond of some sort, decorated with little mounds of savory spices. Pierre Montale’s blending of these elements in Attar is hardly revolutionary in the Arabic-speaking world. For centuries, precious rose oils have been hydrodistilled and then distilled again into sandalwood. Variously named ittars, itrs and attars, these mixtures must always involve a base oil of sandalwood. Here, the oud lends a sharp medicinal character, which is overtaken almost immediately by a dark velvety rose, but which makes the blend eminently unisex. Saffron and Indian herbs (fenugreek among them) provide backup support, warming the entire composition. Attar is sexy rather than alluring, dark and pleasantly furry rather than smooth, appetite-forming rather than overtly gourmand: a sort of amuse-nez, if you will. I think it is the perfect conversation-starter... perhaps for starting a conversation with a Maharadja or the beauty on the next barstool. And with its extraordinary – though never indiscreet – sillage, it’s guaranteed to start quite a few.

Big Bottles

2008-02-11T17:27:00.000-08:00

That nagging question rears its hoary head yet again: Is bigger necessarily better? I don’t know about you folks, but size does make a statement ... even when it’s aw-shucks goofy. Honestly now, given the opportunity to explore the immensities of space, to climb an alpine peak or be dwarfed by the magnificent height of a skyscraper over, say, idling away a day in some Wunderkammer or hunched over a microscope, I’d choose the former. I guess it speaks to my desire for something different, some experience that will rouse me from cyber-myopia or the minutiae of workaday life. I cast my demitasse spoon, gaily, into the volcano’s fiery sublimities.

Over the last week or two, I realize that I’ve been lusting over the larger formats in which one can find some of the best of wine and perfume. Typically, in wine-speak, these are the magnums and the double-magnums; in perfume-speak, they are referred to as “splash” bottles. When it comes to buying wine in larger formats, the concern is generally a lower surface-air ratio. For a very precious cuvée, a larger format grants some insurance of the wine’s development and viability over time. (Hmm.. Shouldn’t that 1928 Romanée Conti be ready about now?) Many bottlers inflate the prices of larger formats because they are harder to come by.

When it comes to perfume, larger formats speak to thrift, the ability to decant into smaller bottlers and, let’s face it, the basic human desire to show off. Yesterday, at Barneys New York, I know I saw the perky thirtysomething’s face light up when she saw the Frederic Malle L’Eau d’Hiver in a 250mL splash. But her look was less about thrift than about a beautiful big bottle sparkling under the halogen minis in her Waterworks master bath. And I don’t blame her. After all, didn’t women of my great-grandmother’s generation use an entire bottle of eau de Cologne for each ablution at Baden Baden or Bad Ragaz. For the valets, it must’ve been like carrying milk bottles to the spa, if not as commonplace.

With the mass-market release of Prada Infusion d’Iris in an unheard-of size – 600mL or thereabouts – there seems to a micro-trend developing for larger bottles of lighter formulations. Chanel caught on to this when they wisely released Les Exclusifs in large, unassuming splash-like bottles. Who knows, maybe Guerlain will release Eau de Shalimar in a sailboat-sized splash. When I was done soaking my guests with it, I could reuse it for pennies or, better yet, goldfish. Perhaps when the chips are down, size is a comfort to us, a means of saving face despite recessionary woes and the morbid morality of penny-pinchers.

My only gripe in all this – bottle designers, hear me out – please include an atomizer!

Dreaming Scents

2008-02-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

If you are like me, no matter how tired you are on a weeknight you put on a little something before bed. (Weekends are a different story entirely. This is New York City.) A brushed cotton v-neck tee, my flannel boxers from Uniqlo and, of course, something that smells good. It has struck me of late that fragrance may trigger and/or influence dream activity or, as may be more the case, a “thinking over” the problem of a particular scent. Not the problem in the sense of defect, but problem as in arithmetic –– the unraveling of a Gordian (or not-so-Gordian) knot. Sometimes, as in “what cigarettes are my neighbors smoking and why is it coming through the wall?” But often it’s a problem I’ve set for myself.

For the past week, I’ve been working through my repertoire of rose soliflores. Is it some premonition of Cupid Day? Or is it the balmy weather beckoning an early spring? In any case, my dreams have had a close, affectionate quality: strait, as opposed to wide-open, spaces; faces of childhood sweethearts; a phalanx of sad, tender salad-day crushes; duvets thrown over futons in student rooms, wine glasses and brandy snifters found the morning after whatever wild party ... In the past, I’ve found that animalics upset my sleep. Some of the sweeter musks are innocuous, but civet and castoreum act our their feral tendencies. I awake at two o’clock, as if visited nocturnally by some succubus. Or, more commonly, I scratch myself. Feline grooming behavior of a past life? Would somebody get Shirley on the phone ... please. The ouds I was sampling are, by far, the most stimulating. Even before falling asleep, my mental state would be keyed up. I would catch myself in waking daydreams, opening some door, traipsing down some mile-long corridor, or visiting places that I’d never been before: jungle, palace, temple. And then there are the scents that I sleep through: the hesperidics, the citruses, the L’Eau Imperiales of the fragrance world. They must get absorbed into the sheets or just -- poof! -- into the air.

But my favorite -- enjoyed with a friend after a sumptuous little feast last night at Cookshop on Tenth Avenue -- was a balloon-shaped glass of Calvados, which seduced my nose, caressed my palate and transported me back to an old apartment after a dinner party, the candles’ glow caught in my neighbors’ windows, a lover asleep on a pillow next to me. If only someone could make it into a perfume ... The premium I would pay is, itself, the stuff of dreams.

Image credit: Picasso, La Rève, oil on canvas, 1932. Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society NY

Rose and Cavalier About It

2008-02-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

Boys, as you recover from a day spent in front of your 52-inch LCD watching instant replay and the consumption of much beer and questionable snack foods, hear me loud and clear: come the warmer days of late April and May, stand out and blend in. “Stand out” as in, I’m not taking 45-minutes to get dressed but I’m not ashamed to wear some color. Hopefully by now, if you have a decent-paying job and a social life, you know that you need a personal shopper at one of the better stores or, at least, a salesperson who can set things aside for you. Too many guys rely on their girlfriends or boyfriends to do this work for them, and quite honestly it just isn’t fair to either party. There’s too much invested. (In fact, industry-secret here, so listen up: if you show a salesperson you’re serious about looking good and you have a budget, they’ll take care of you. Truly, they will.)

Despite the fact that there is tremendous variety in Spring ’08 menswear, there are three things every man should have in his wardrobe for spring: a light grey or umber suit, a faded rose shirt and a scent with some rose in it. A crisp pink shirt under a navy blazer is classic, undying style; but, this season, a man can relax with the lighter colors and doesn’t have to run the risk of looking like a fop. That faded pink shirt can work with jeans, with shorts, with a khaki linen vest, and it doesn’t need to be discreetly hidden under a blazer... but the key to the look is not to iron it. You want it to absorb the light not reflect it. You want to say something like, I dress this way all the time. It’s easy.

I’m a firm believer that sex appeal derives from self-assurance. Think back to your sophomore English class and the character of Phineas in A Separate Peace. Neither a pink shirt nor a tie belt –– for all their RL-coöpted status nowadays –– was going to make anyone rethink this guy’s masculinity. Which brings me to the rose note in fragrances... Like carnation, rose is one of those notes which people might think old-fashioned, but, truth be told, most people don’t know that there are rose scents beyond grandma’s mystery fragrance or the little soaps that people put out in the guest bathroom. Rose has a plethora of expressions, and in many part of the world it is considered a masculine note. There are green-herbal-smelling roses, animalic roses and spicy roses. One of my favorite spicy renditions is Le Labo Rose 31 (reviewed here) by perfumer Daphne Bugey. But there are also: Rose Poivrée by The Different Company (rose with black pepper and the slight dirtiness of civet), L'Artisan Parfumeur Voleur des Roses (with sandalwood and patchouli), Le Sirenuse Eau d’Italie Paestum Rose (with incense and rare woods), Parfums 06130 Lierre Rose (v. green with ivy and cardamom), Etat Libre d’Orange Eau de Protection (a new rose chypré), Frédéric Malle Editions de Parfum Une Rose (geraniol at off-the-charts intensity, truffle and woods), Arabian Oud Prestige Arabia (Tai’fi rose with Laotian oud, saffron and honey) and Ajmal Aquhawan (reviewed here).

By and large, the rose note in the Middle Eastern scents is more subtle than what we are accustomed to smelling. In the West, rose absolute is blended with ylang ylang, jasmine and peony and billed as rose soliflore, and, while the effect can turn heads, it does a disservice to people’s scent memory. Distilled roses are much more complex and green. They capture the terroir and give us a multifaceted picture of the place from which they came.

A guy’s personal style isn’t that different. Proud of his roots, complex, and fearless of putting the shirt on or revealing what he’s got underneath it. Hopefully, the scent of self-assurance and a heart of gold (though I’ll settle for silver any day...)

Image credit: Bottega Veneta S/S 08 Menswear Collection. Courtesy of Men.Style.com (Marcio Madiera)

Secret Life of Scent

2008-01-30T19:55:00.000-08:00

Today I waited around for the better part of the day for furniture deliveries. I rose an hour later than usual and prepped two rooms for their new additions. This sort of thing always throws me out of whack: I leave the tea diffuser in for too long (this morning was Mariage Frères French Breakfast), I don’t shower at a respectable time, I root around for cereal I never eat on a school day, and I pray a little prayer that the milk fairy is on my side and the milk hasn’t gone sour. Since I was shuffling around in house slippers and sweatclothes, I wasn’t reaching for fragrance. A touch of some Arabian rose-white musk oil from last night was detectable on my left wrist, but a trifle too faint. Near my computer were some samples from Caron and the Perfume House Private Reserve, but I wasn’t reaching for them. Later, later, I told myself. Instead, I did some writing for an advertising campaign, listened to a C.P.E. Bach keyboard concerto and updated my Facebook page. Then, the first of the deliveries came, and the gusty morning air whipped around the first floor of the apartment. By the time I’d tipped the two deliverymen, late morning sun was coming through the skylight above my desk. Rare indeed is the day that I even see this sun and where it chooses to focus: a Tibetan throne rug, my Netflix selections (Louis Malle’s Phantom India, Antonioni’s L’Eclisse), a Message Bean plant I was given at Laura’s wedding, a volume of Cavafy. In the bathroom, I burned Voluspa’s Crisp Champagne candle but kept the door closed. Because I like bathroom scents to stay in the bathroom. Before the next set of deliverymen showed up, I rooted around in thirty boxes of books and prioritized which ones would be given shelf space. Books have such funny smells: sulphury, woodsy, mushroomy and gluey. I even managed to discover volumes I hadn’t seen since the move last year. And then there were the ugly stepchildren consigned to a box on which I scrawled M. Likely Strand. (Though there’s a part of me that would like to put them out in the hall for my neighbors.) By the time the bookcases arrived, it was evening. I filled the shelves and then rushed to organize the packing trash. I needed to hightail it to another part of Williamsburg for dinner. Decided to wear Caron Alpona, a true favorite, which I applied liberally. Never too much, I thought, of this good thing. Now, home, and thinking of my first night on my new bed. Wearing a little of Andy Tauer’s Incense Extrême, which reminds me of Armani Privé Bois d’Encens, but with more complexity and a bit more warmth (love the orris and the ambergris, Andy). I saw that Helg at PerfumeShrine reviewed his other new scent, Incense Rosé. With eyelids beginning to droop, goodnight mes amis.

Ajmal Aqhawan

2008-01-27T16:49:00.000-08:00

Branding 101. Doesn’t the value of a good name come from its mystique? “Aqhawan” is a variant spelling of the Arabic جامعة الأخوي, meaning “two brothers.” And it couldn’t be a more appropriate name for a fragrance which aligns two of the most unmistakable scents of the Middle East.

The main story here comes from Ta’if rose, the thirty-petal Rosa damascena that grows in the mountainous region near Mecca. For nearly 300 years, rose oil has been distilled here for purchase by the hajji on their way to the Holy City. It is considered one of the most precious gifts in the Arab world, and thus the oil is found in a great number of better Arab perfume oils.

Ajmal’s Aqhawan blends Ta’if rose with Istanbul rose and Cambodian oud. The rose accord initially lurks behind the unmistakable oud; then, after thirty or so minutes, it enacts a subtle victory. In fact, subtle is the key word here. Oud is a tough contender, and it is not won over by force; rather, it is handled, much as one would handle a beast in the jungle. When not––yikes, advertising-speak––“heroing” the oud, a competent perfumer can work with qualities of the oud itself. Arabian Oud does this in a traditional manner, Montale in a contemporary manner. Ajmal is hardly in the middle-ground, but its scents do seem to take cues from both generations of perfumery. (Again, so little has been written in English about modern Arabian perfumery, that it is hard to speak to a tradition or school. I hope that my series can make some headway in spurring this.)

Aqhawan is a unisex eau de parfum marketed to men. Having said that, I can assure you that the rose accord here is not flowery or flirtatious. It is quite masculine, owing to the wood and, again, the surprising complexity of rose petals distilled instead of extracted with hexane or CO2. In a word, beautiful.

Image credit: Ta’if rosewater and aspergelum, compliments of Saudi Aramco World.

Ajmal Dahn Al Oudh Al Shams

2008-01-23T20:24:00.000-08:00

A mouthful, to say the least, I acquired a small decant of this fragrance about a week ago and stared it down every evening. What lurks inside, I wondered to myself. It had been quite expensive and touted itself as an eau de parfum expression of aged Indian oud. Spraying timidly the tiniest, most pitiful, downright sclerotic, little amount imaginable, my nose was immediately struck––the metaphor most apt––by the incredible, unbridgeable gap between Indian oud and Southeast Asian oud, particularly those from Cambodia and Laos. All of the dark, earthy sweetness had been replaced by something which an untrained nose might deep acrid and skanky.

Indian oud, most of which harks from Assam, is feral to begin with––age only makes it more so. In Ajmal’s Al Shams, the only eau de parfum offering in its Dahn Al Oud collection, something akin to castoreum links arms with barnyard (read: fecal) notes. The layman would characterize this as “musky” but, in this case, his musky would point more to smell of unbathed skin than the powdery animalic that most of us know from synthetic musks. Adding to the challenge is the absence of any bolstering by modern perfumery’s usual chemical bedfellows nor the addition of amber, patchouli or aromatic floral oils.

Al Shams is a fragrance that points to itself and then points backwards in time. I imagine a sheikh’s tent, the incense impregnating the various rugs and fabric panels, and then the sheikh himself under his robes. And then, suddenly, the tent gives way to an old paneled Airstream trailer and an old couple sitting down to breakfast on an overcast day. The link is the wood––how it has been marvelously transmuted over the decades into something strange and new. Al Shams, which in Arabic means “sunbeam,” commands attention but never in a run-of-the-mill way. Not so strangely, as I write this, I entertain a scent memory of the first time I smelled the very rare Guerlain perfume, Djedi and its superb accord of grass and animal. I would place this in the same category of first reactions. Perhaps, I think, this is not something for everyday wear but, oh, does it make a statement when liberated from the category of mere olfactory curiosities. It arrests the nose, striking in us a pleasant sort of awe ... alas, all too rare in white-picket Gardenia Land.

Ajmal perfumes are manufactured in Dubai and are currently available in the United States through IslamicStore.

Arabian Oud Siraj

2008-01-21T19:15:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, I come across a fragrance for which the only corresponding feeling is a “religious” one, as if the act of applying it were ritual. Certainly I don’t mean to cheapen the experience of other fragrances but, assembled there on the vanity, the differences in breed and station become strikingly apparent: there are dance-hall tarts and roaring boys, lords of finance and flower children. Then, there are the quiet ones that keep to themselves ... out of discretion, or otherwise. (I call these my parfums au bibliothèque.) And, finally, there are the religeuses, usually the least austere of the lot and often downright superficial. Like fervid youth, they require a modicum of patience. You’d invite them to afternoon tea, but oh how you’d tire of their prostrations and proselytizing, their eternal clarities. Part of them is ancient: you respect that. And the other part is terribly postmodern: you’d rather not respect that, what with its flouting of convention and any shred of rational analysis such as you were raised on. They remind me of the Evelyn Waughs of this world: the-love-and-do-what-you-will type. Even, that is, as they dine at the Savoy and drink only vintage Malmsey or something like that.

The Arabic world has them, too. Siraj (Arab. meaning “lamp”), has quite pronounced religious connections. The phrase Siraj um Munirah describes the Prophet (May Allah bless him and give him peace!) as a bright light, or lamp, by which his followers can be led through the darkness. Arabian Oud’s Siraj perfume oil is held inside a miniature oil lamp, housed inside a bamboo-slatted basket. It is such a wonder of a scent that I can’t help but declare that “this little light of mine” shines indeed. And brightly, as if through the gloaming in a Southeast Asian grove. It is a warm scent that draws you into a special inner space, a space of assurance and trust. Rich, deep Cambodian oud comes forth in the top notes beside the intense and complex Turkish rose (rosa damascena). Emanating from below is a glowing heart of amber, supported in the depths below by Mysore sandalwood and delicate, fresh tobacco flower. I get a touch of patchouli, as well. As with the previously reviewed scents, this is a blended oil and thus not the best example of how classically composed scents evolve within the olfactory pyramid. Everything is held, seemingly as it were, in marvelous suspension. I can only conceive of it as moving, conversely, through the stages of prayer, as who wouldn’t utter some form of thanksgiving after smelling what the good earth has, herself, produced?

Vetivresse’s Top 10 d’Hiver

2008-01-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

That’s winter, folks. Grey skies. A bright absence where the sun is supposed to be. The breeze somehow insinuating itself into even the skinniest pair of skinny jeans. And to cope with all that, 10 scents (thanks for the cue, Patty and March over at Perfume Posse). I hope not to betray too masculine a bent here, but florals in wintertime have never been my thing anyway. And, importantly, these are all available for sale in, or easy shipment to, America. So, without more ado, here they are:

Lalique Encre Noire
L’Artisan Parfumeur Timbuktu
Miller Harris Feuilles de Tabac
Annick Goutal Sables
Creed Vintage Tabarôme
Vero Kern Onda
Caron Yatagan
Le Labo Patchouli 24
Comme des Garçons Series 2: Sequoia
Montale Aoud Cuir d’Arabie

Now for some hot tea. Which would you select? Signed “Curious in Williamsburg.”

Comme des Garçons Series 3: Ouarzazate

2008-01-18T21:07:00.000-08:00

Incense is of supreme importance in Middle Eastern culture. For millennia incense made with oud, sandalwood, frankincense, myrrh and other of the important commodities of spice route trade, has been traded in souqs throughout the Arab world. The practice of burning incense, known as bahkour, transcends religious differences entirely. At its heart is a palpable symbol of hospitality, either to various gods, the God of monotheism or to visitors in one’s home. Incense is burned in a type of brazier, known as a mabkhara, which to my eye looks like a cross between a pedestal vase and arms raised in thanksgiving. Some are quite ornately decorated, and one can find them in a full range of sizes, from those that sit atop a table to those that mark intersections in large Arab cities during religious observances.

Commes des Garçons Series 3: Ouarzazate was created by incense-perfume master, Mark Buxton, in 2002. Three years previous Buxton had created the well-received Comme des Garçons 2, and two years after he would go on to complete the trifecta with Comme des Garçons 2 Man. Most recently, he has created another incense-spiked scent, Vetiver 46 for Le Labo, which one of these days when I get off the fence I will review in detail.

Ouarzazate is released in both eau de toilette and scented candle formats. It combines resinous glowing labdanum with the warm, comforting aroma of Clary sage, pepper, nutmeg and just the slightest touch of vanilla –– all in a white, billowing cloud of beautifully blended traditional incense. While it is the tamest of the Incense series, I find it refreshing and profound at the same time. It is a scent which I do not have think about. It whispers to me in some unknown language: Come in, you’re welcome.

Arabian Oud Diyafa

2008-01-16T20:43:00.000-08:00

These days, oud notes are rapidly infiltrating luxury perfumes. But few people who buy them really know what oud is. They assume that it is just another exotic wood, their reactions hardly differing from those they would have if you told them they were smelling ebony or, as one friend joked, “branche marocaine.” Oud, the resin produced in self-defense by trees in the Aquilaria family, is one of the most prized––if not the most prized––precious oils in the Middle- and Far East. The “aloes” referred to in the Song of Songs are derived from aloeswood, the alternate name for the agarwood tree. The provenance of its oil, combined with age, contribute to a price tag that ranges anywhere from affordable to astronomical.

As any aromatherapist will tell you, this stuff is powerful. The Malaysian oud operative in Arabian Oud’s Diyafa (Arabic for “hospitality”) has a deep, sweet smokiness, which initially hits the nose with a sucker punch sans égal. Conspiring with the loamy muskiness of the Indian oud as well as black amber, and tempered in the heart by a saffron-rose-sandalwood accord, the Malaysian oud is projected in three different dimensions: this perfume emanates from the skin. Longevity is impressive, with any rough edges softening after the first forty minutes. Depending on how much is applied––and I don’t recommend overzealous application unless you are incredibly solvent––the scent can be intoxicating or sexily discreet. That said, Diyafa is an experience not to be taken lightly. Applying some after dinner, the movie I was watching quickly lost my interest. It is the rare scent indeed that has such an effect on me.

Diyafa and Asala are both available as pictured, at Arabian Oud stores in Paris, London and Dubai. Image credit: Diyafa oil blend in handcrafted flacon, courtesy of Arabian Oud.

Vetivresse Looks East

2008-01-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

No perfume tradition has exerted as strong an influence on the things we love to wear––and smell others wearing––as that of the Middle- and Far East. Whether this has to do with a latent Orientalism (a term so packed as to warrant scant analysis on this humble blog) spawned during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or the simple fact that the better share of perfumery’s more precious ingredients (resins, spices, precious woods, lush floral oils like rose and jasmine) came, and continue to come, from those storied regions, is rich fodder for academic debate. But there was a time, not too long ago, when our mother’s and grandmother’s vanities proudly displayed scents with names like Shalimar and Nahéma in charming little bottles, sporting dangerously small amounts of perfume or simply left empty for occasional furtive sniffs. Then came the time of Opium, and love à l'orientale was replaced by torpid dreams of narcotic excess.

But these were mere fantasias, caprices if you will. They followed a presupposition, and a quite romanticized one at that. Most often, they ignored the actual perfume tradition from which they were drawing inspiration. Instead of The Thousand Nights and a Night, they were adaptations, bowdlerizations, Disneyfications of masterful originals. Nowadays, however, with thriving immigrant communities and improving (though far from perfect) lines of communication between countries and cultures, we are offered a rare opportunity to explore and study the customs surrounding, in particular, Middle Eastern scents.

First off, it is important to realize the climate of a better part of the Middle East: arid, hot and desert. For anyone who has read the Bible, dry and dusty are words that come to mind. Just witness all that foot-washing and anointing. For the nomadic tribes of the Arabian desert, tent dwellings were shelters which offered a respite from the harsh elements as well as spatial analogues to a type of paradisal place. As such they were a treat for the eye as well as the nose. Likewise, mosques were perfumed; in some, the mortar itself imbued with musk. And, more so than in Christianity where self-abnegation and mortification play a central role, for Muslims the cleanliness (i.e., purification) and smell of the body were important factors in the proper adoration of Allah (God).

Last month, I had the good fortune to come into possession of fragrance samples from Arabian Oud, a franchise founded in 1982 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and now operating storefronts throughout the Middle East and Europe. In the days to come I will be reviewing each of these scents, but for now I would like to concentrate on their masterful rose composition, Asala (from the Arabic, meaning “origins” or “roots”). As with the Montale Aoud scents (which have been widely reviewed on other fragrance blogs), the first impression is that the shape of the fragrance (i.e., how we envision it in our mind’s eye) is completely different from anything we know. Instead of something overt, there is something modest and veiled. Instead of something layered, there is something fairly linear. The notes: Damascus rose (from Syria), saffron (sweet and savory), Turkish rose (from Isparta), super-dry sandalwood and, underneath it all, a silky whisper of musk. What eludes me is how the perfumer managed to make this dusky to make the veil a black one. I’m assuming that the elusive, slightly medicinal note is oud (the resin from the Aquilaria family of trees). The fragrance is unique and without peer, and reinforces for me the sense of mystery that good scent is supposed to evoke ... the sense that, no matter how much is said, something has been left unsaid. If this is the golden fruit of “tradition,” why must there be novelty?

For my perceptive reader (and I hope he or she is legion), that is the question to keep in mind as we commence our journey eastward. Salam.

Image credit: Asala oil blend in handcrafted flacon, courtesy of Arabian Oud.

The Accidental Critic

2008-01-10T18:26:00.000-08:00

New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr renews my hope in the value of happenstance. As he recounted in his 2003 study of Luca Turin, The Emperor of Scent, perfume writing was the last thing he thought he would be doing way back when he was an aspiring journalist with a penchant for genetics. Now, with the incipient release of The Perfect Scent, his newest foray into fragrance journalism, Burr has been cast once more into the spotlight, and perfumista and fragrance marketer alike are paying attention.

Henry Holt and Burr himself were gracious to host me and eight other bloggers (from Perfume Posse, Sniffapalooza and Style.com) at a special luncheon this past Monday in the “prow” of the landmark Flatiron building in Manhattan. Presiding at the boardroom table, Burr explained the idea behind, as well as the genesis of, this newest venture. A tallish fellow with a short haircut and a pressed Italian dress shirt worn raffishly (or shall I say preppily) open-collared and a little billowy at the waist, Burr speaks in measured Mid-Atlantic tones, inflected with a seriousness only occasionally interrupted by fits of self-amusement. He’s not for mincing words, and he peppers his remarks with all kinds of “off the record” innuendo. He knows how to stir trust in his listeners, rapt or otherwise. And, sitting there, politely trying to eat my lunch and take notes, I realized that he was the very sort of phenomenon that perfumers and perfume houses alike would grow to depend on ... because, take it or leave it, he embodies the spirit of blogs (an ephemeral, opinionated, casually researched, eminently sociable, expertly insinuating, and sometimes incestuous, approach to the people, processes and juicy gossip surrounding something that is, at base, as light as popcorn and as heavy as hundred-dollar bills).

Marketing aside, I thought, this guy sells perfumes. He sells, for the most part, the perfumes that most bloggers and perfumistas, have written off as pandering to the vast mass market and, what is most surprising about the whole Burr phenomenon, is that he doesn’t sell caché, he sells facts and opinions, his opinions. For better or worse, Chandler Burr has become the Robert Parker, Jr. of the perfume world. Yes, he’s more cosmopolitan than Bob Parker; he can namedrop a blue streak that doesn’t include a blue blood or a Rothschild scion. His chemistry is better, even. And, man, he can write incredibly clear, astute descriptions of scents. (Most often, they remind me of Ada Louise Huxtable’s critiques of architecture.) But where Parker is doing the job of a sadly shrinking generation of knowledgeable shopkeepers –– the firm handshake, the recommendation of something singing for just under fifty –– Burr is doing the job of a popularizing critic in an industry already rife with pop. Beyond his ability (impressive, I must say) to rattle off the chemicals responsible for the olfactory confidence-game the big names are playing, he merely confirms what in many cases we already know. My beef with both Burr and Parker is the arbitrary assignment of scores and stars to things which, in most cases, defy that sort of evaluation. Isn’t there some other way to let the noses and the marketers know whether, through mere sloppiness or lack of art, they’ve angered the olfactory Grand Inquisitor? Rue the day, mes amis, when young women (and young men) enter department stores armed with their list of three- and four-star scents and kiss their sense of themselves goodbye.

As he finished with us, after an impromptu evaluation of Juicy Couture, Chloé and Elle Yves Saint Laurent, I thought to myself whether he himself ever tired of the big brands and the Siren-call of the publicity offices. I wondered whether I’d ever find in a hidden vein somewhere in his book an admission that even the five-star marvels were somehow toxic beside the rich yet fragile search (of people like ourselves) for something to remind us of home, of a lost paradise or love, or the thrill of waking up in a different bed under a different sky, or of just being in the right place at the right time, no matter what the smell.

I guess I’ll just have to wait for Chandler Burr the Perfume.

Caspar’s Gift: Myrrh

2008-01-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

Myrrh, the gift traditionally held as being that of the magus Caspar, is most often found blended with its rich, resinous cousin, frankincense. By itself, myrrh invokes images of wound-dressing and the embalming of dead bodies. In Matthew’s account it foreshadows the death and burial of Jesus. Myrrh is bitter and astringent (hence it coagulative properties); it emits an cool, earthy, balsamic scent which, at least to me, stings the nose in a pleasantly appealing way, making me think of the historical antecedent to a modern-day nurse’s office, albeit with fewer tongue-depressors and more mortals and pestles. Like frankincense, myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) also harks from short gnarled shrubs which thrive on the semi-arid desert plateau, though it should not be confused with the so-called “sweet myrrh,” more commonly referred to as opoponax. If frankincense is opulent and otherworldly, there is something tenderly human in the austerity of myrrh. It reminds me of the cell of an octogenarian monk I once lived with, of his habit, the box in which he rested his careworn chaplet. The only popularly available single-note myrrh I have come across lately is from Diptyque and it comes in both candle and roomspray formats. I must admit I like to use the roomspray on coats and scarves –– that is, when I’m not spraying it liberally in the basement or near my books. As for the blends where it plays the top note, I would point to the same house and their L'Eau Trois eau de parfum (1975), which manages with the help of body heat to pleasantly sweeten the myrrh without resorting to the usual churchy accords more recently found in Heeley’s Cardinal and Comme des Garçons’ Incense: Avignon.

Image credit: Caspar detail from The Adoration of the Magi, mosaic, Basilica of St. Apollinarius, Ravenna.

Balthasar’s Gift: Frankincense

2008-01-07T15:06:00.000-08:00

Frankincense to offer have I; / Incense owns a Deity nigh; / ... Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume / Breathes a life of gathering gloom. (Rev. Henry Hopkins, 1957). Short of gold, which each day performs by leaps and bounds and which I will leave to the folks at Comme des Garçons, frankincense and myrrh traditionally represent the olfactory antipodes of the Semitic peoples. For centuries Jews, Christians, Muslims, Zoroastrians (i.e., the Magi, or at least, symbolically as the author of Matthew, intended them, and not Semitic) prized these substances for their medicinal value. In Matthew at least, they are held to represent kingship and death, respectively. Both substances, in their most notable forms, were (and still are) harvested in Southern Arabia (modern-day Yemen and Oman), “green Arabia” if you will, along the Arabian Sea, on what is known as the Frankincense Route. Travelers to New York City will know the smell of frankincense well, as it is common to find East Africans near Union Square selling the cheaper grades on the street. And, honestly, on a frigid winter afternoon, it’s a welcome scent. Apple pie, à l’Arabie. But in its quality versions this rich, heady-smelling gum (Boswellia sacra) will bring to mind something more exalted –– say, Handel’s coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest. And what’s more, it exalts the mind of its wearer in a way that reminds him or her of its ritual-medicinal status. Let’s face it, we’re not exactly in the land of petitgrain anymore. It’s no wonder, then, that frankincense almost always has played a role in the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and High Church Anglican liturgies —— it was intended to remind the believers that they were part of the “priesthood of the faithful” and thus called to train the mind on higher things. While I love church incense as much as, say, Talullah Bankhead –– indeed, who can live down that campy quip to Spellman holding the censer: “Your purse is on fire”? –– I do love it more as an essential oil (olibanum) or, even better, blended expertly in an Amouage fragrance. The opulent Gold and Dia for Men, both created by master perfumer Guy Robert, employ what could very well be considered Oman’s most valuable resource: silver frankincense from the Dhofar desert. The genius of the Amouage scents, which deserve separate review, is their mastery of what is essentially a smoke-generated aroma and their translation of such for the human skin. I do not consider a spray of Amouage a mere spray, rather, an anointing. Next up: myrrh.

Image: The Adoration of Balthasar, Russian icon, unattributed, 16th century.

Salut 2008!

2008-01-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

In the next few days Vetivresse.com will begin an exploration of Middle- and Far Eastern scents. I have enjoyed a pleasant three-week hiatus, preparing my fragrance and wine writing scheme for January and February. Looking forward to the continuation of our cyber-olfactory discussions. Very best wishes to you all for a happy Epiphany and New Year!

My Christmas Wish

2007-12-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

Or at least my olfactory Christmas wish: a fragrance that would conjure up the inner world of French painter realist painter Gustave Courbet (1819–1877). At turns dreary and drunk with the establishment grandiosity of the Salon painters, Courbet embodied a revolutionary spirit which wrestled, albeit painfully, with subject-matter and technique. Dark landscapes, the hunter and hunted, dusky foliage, a conflicted relationship with the realm of woman – each of his themes hints at a deep, perhaps unconscious, wish to plumb previously hidden depths through what was essentially a bourgeois medium, the oil canvas. Courbet has appealed to me since my parents first took me on a day trip to the Metropolitan Museum in the early Eighties. On seeing his work that day I was frightened but intrigued, the way I felt when taken to a wake and beheld the familiar macabre tableau, the maquillage, the clutched cross. Unlike the other Gustave (Moreau), whose nacreous seductions gave instantaneous pleasures, Courbet’s subjects haunted my dreams, spurred my own meditations on sex and death, even when I lacked the vocabulary to discuss such things. His ideas, his women, his blackened abysms became the playthings of the angular, intellectual, if hardly sheltered, child I was. Nowadays I lack the key to many of the sensations his paintings gave rise to then. But it occurred to me today, ill in bed, that scent may be one way back into that shadowed loge of memories. I’m sure there are are many scents which would purport to offer such passage backward, but too often they are merely superficial attempts at forest undergrowth and musty libraries. Courbet’s would be a scent of flesh and blood and disappointment, the silent moldering ashes, the lamp oil spilled next to the open locket.

Image: G. Courbet, Grotto of Sarrazine near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne, oil on canvas, 1864. Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Miller Harris Cuir d’Oranger

2007-12-13T20:29:00.000-08:00

As reported in last Friday’s WWD (Women’s Wear Daily, for those of you outside the ken of retail fashion), one-fifth of fragrance sales occur in the two weeks before Christmas. Funny, I thought, how something as personal as fragrance has become associated with aspirational gift-giving, i.e, if you can’t afford to buy her that Chanel clutch you can always buy her the newest variation of No. 5. Will she honestly like it or will she wear it just to please you? And, ladies, vice versa, will that bottle of Ralph Lauren Double Black turn him into some sexy beast or just turn him off from cologne altogether? Even gift cards are problematic, owing to the fact that most perfume-counter salespeople intimidate the heck out of potential customers, guys especially. At which point, we are left with giftable “classics” which may or may not be everyone’s cup of tea, fragrances like L’Air du Temps and Paris for her, Acqua di Parma and Green Irish Tweed for him. Sure, these might be nice gifts if you’re leaving for a stay at a pretentious hotel somewhere trendy and beautiful – nothing wrong there – but do they really express a personality or, for that matter, encourage the development of one? I think not. They are the old standbys.

A very pleasant surprise for holiday gift-giving comes in the form of Lyn Harris’ indubitably masculine, terribly subtle Cuir d'Oranger. An initial blast of orange oil gives way to petitgrain, labdanum, wild thyme, birch tar (just a tad) and cassie (mimosa blossom) which lends a dry, restrained leather note to the whole. It reminds me of an old panelled dining room, on whose table are stacked dozens of oranges (ye olde WASP Christmas gift). Nothing about this scent is predictable, which makes it a welcome addition to the usual cologne-y holiday picks. The man who wears will know its worth, not through a fancy box or bottle or advertising hype, but through the odyssey it takes on his skin – one which, I hope, grants its rara avis to the office or the club. While this is not a leather scent to end all leathers, it has a complexity which deserves notice and which rewards daily use. I think it would be smashingly sexy, worn under evening attire, Hendrick’s gin martini in hand.

Amber Flowers

2007-12-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

As noted time and again over the last few weeks, next to incense amber is the quintessential cold-weather scent. It can be warm and fuzzy, smooth and chic, rich and unctuous ... but always worthy of a repeat sniff. From the fresh-baked gourmand yumminess of Jean-Claude Ellena’s Hermessence Ambre Narguile to the Baroque embellishments of MPG Ambre Précieux, this is a note that runs the gamut. One of my favorite new ambers has been Fiori d’Ambra by Profumum. Very subtly spiced, owing to what the perfumers are calling “opium,” and complex due to the choice of ambergris, Fiori d’Ambra is clean without being hygienic or artificial. It is what I imagine the scent of a noblewoman’s skin to have been in, say, Cinquecento Florence. Some would pigeonhole this as “sweet” scent, whereas I find it manipulates the ambergris (indeed, pushes it to its limits) and just a touch of vanilla in such a way that, over time, these “flowers of amber” blossom on the skin. Like other scents in Profumum’s collection, Fiori d’Ambra has light sillage but excellent longevity. It lives close to the skin, thus encouraging pleasurable olfactory explorations. Quite unisex in its appeal, I think it deserves inclusion on many a holiday wish list.

Fiori d’Ambra is available from Luckyscent.com in a 100mL atomizer spray for $205.