Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Sleeper Standout 1: Chanel Allure Edition Blanche


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.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

the smell of clean...
we were discussing this aspect of perfumes the other day and seems to me that all colognes for men are supposed to express this cleaness...
what happened to the dirty sweaty muscular bodies...maybe we will find them in your gym?
I rather have my men wearing the new trendy flowery perfumes than lemonade cocktails...
always clean is no good for fantasies are they????

August 28, 2008 at 5:37 PM  
Blogger Vetivresse said...

Thanks for the comment. After the fact, I realized that perhaps I was not using the word "clean" in the right way, viz. the posts on Denyse's and Octavian's websites. "Clean" in men's fragrances means aquatic, soapy, algae-ey. I think what I was getting at was "well-groomed." Allure Homme Edition Blanche is quite peppery, with wonderful vetiver in the drydown. In no way is it a "lemon cocktail." It blends lemon with notes that mimic the scent of bodies.

As for those fantasies, I agree with you but am always surprised by the the unlikely smells that trigger people's fantasies. Animalic doesn't necessarily get every man or woman hot and bothered.

August 29, 2008 at 7:06 AM  

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