The five beautiful new Extrait de Colognes by Roger & Gallet, reviewed on Escentual this week. Click here to read.
What happens when you give two perfumers the same passage of text and ask them to make a fragrance with no olfactive brief? The answer is two fragrances that are as different as day and night and it’s an experiment undertaken by a surprising house: Miller Harris. Now, if you’ve not been sniffing the recent launches from Miller Harris you have been missing out. They’ve been very quietly doing some phenomenal work (I point your noses in the direction of Rose Silence and Le Cèdre, to name just two, but trust me when I say that there are many more exciting things to sniff) and it really seems that they are forging an identity for themselves, after years of muddled direction. Miller Harris now has a personality and a character, and I’m here for it.
For their latest project (launching in January 2018), Miller Harris is releasing two fragrances inspired by a passage of text from F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night. The idea is that the brand handed this passage to two perfumers, Mathieu Nardin (the creator of lots of their recent works such as the aforementioned Rose Silence and Le Cèdre – check him out, you must) and Bertrand Duchaufour (y’all know who he is) and asked them to make a fragrance each inspired by the text. That’s it. No olfactive direction, no concept, just simple literary inspiration. The result is Scherzo (Mathieu) and Tender (Bertrand) and they really are quite surprising.
I’m always crushing on something scented or other. My nose knows no limits. Candy Crush is where I showcase the beautifully scented things I’m crushing on right now so you can hopefully develop a crush too.
Serge Lutens is a man of aesthetics, both visual and olfactive. In his career he has not only worked as an olfactory architect, he has also been a photographer and a make-up artist too. Each of the things that he lends his hand to has an incredibly distinct style, whether it be the sharp, elfin style of his photography and make-up work, or the hedonistic orientalism and deadly botany of his fragrances. Everything he does looks, feels and smells like it comes from Serge Lutens, especially the bottles for his perfumes, which in a strange way are a visual interpretation of his muse in glass.
There are so many fragrance launches each year it’s difficult to write about them all. Speed Sniffs is a way to bring you to the point reviews fragrances that are quick and easy to digest. After all, sometimes all one needs is a few lines to capture the essence of a scent. Speed Sniffs are perfume reviews without all of the faff.
Oud Wood by TOM FORD is a fragrant tour de force. A cult classic that is one of the brand’s most popular fragrances, Oud Wood may not have started the oud trend, but it certainly cemented it as a prominent part of the olfactory zeitgeist. I find it to be a soft, comforting take on oud with an unusually rubbery texture that makes it stand out from the crowd – and even now I’d say that it’s an absolute must-sniff for anyone exploring the world of oud. Oud Wood is sexy and alluring, smart but casual – a complex perfume with a bold signature. Well, fans of Oud Wood can now rejoice because TOM FORD has just launched Oud Wood Intense, which promises Oud Wood but more!
Highlights from the Narciso Rodriguez fragrance collection. On Escentual this week. Clicky here to read.
When I heard that historic candlemaker Cire Trudon was to launch its very own line of perfumes I actually let out a small squeal of excitement. I’ve been obsessed with their scented candles for ages, mainly because they not only smell tremendously beautiful, but also because they take inspiration from unusual and historic places. A Cire Trudon candle is no ordinary candle and if the brand’s approach to home fragrance is anything to go by, one knows that their perfumes are going to be something really extraordinary.
Trudon (the perfume line drops the ‘Cire’ from the name) launched their perfume collection this autumn with five fragrances that reference “religion, royalty and revolution”. The brand worked with perfumers Antoine Lie (Etat Libre d’Orange Sécrétions Magnifiques & Comme des Garçons Wonderwood), Lyn Harris (of Perfumer H and formerly Miller Harris) and Yann Vasnier (Jo Malone The English Oak & Marc Jacobs Bang) to create their debut collection and the whole thing feels finely curated, from the clarity of the scents to their flacons, which boast simplicity in shape but also luxury with their stunning, ribbed glass caps.
By now we all know my thoughts on the House of MUGLER. I am and always will be, a lifelong MUGLER fanboy. I am indoctrinated in their ideology. I am a card-carrying member of the Muglerati. If you ask me where I’m from, I will tell you that I was born from a star in the far reaches of the Muglerverse. The brand is my favourite and their fragrances are some of my most-beloved. I am MUGLER, smell me roar.
So it’s always exciting for me when MUGLER launch a new fragrance and this year hasn’t been short in terms of output from my favourite brand. So far we’ve had two Alien flankers (Musc Mysterieux and Eau Sublime), some delicious Angel-flavoured chocolates, oh we can’t forget the entirely brand new feminine pillar fragrance in the form of Aura. It’s been a busy year on Planet Mugler, for sure, and there’s no let up yet, because the brand has just added the ninth fragrance to their exclusive Les Exceptions range: the intriguingly named Wonder Bouquet.
I’m always crushing on something scented or other. My nose knows no limits. Candy Crush is where I showcase the beautifully scented things I’m crushing on right now so you can hopefully develop a crush too.
Halloween is very much now a thing in the UK, more so than it ever was and I for one, am for it. I mean, what’s not to love? Sweets?! DRESSING UP?! It literally combines my favourite things and it’s a wonderfully scented occasion too, with candied apples and pumpkin flesh providing a rather intense scent to the season. Not to mention the fact that Halloween is set during the most fragrant time of the year. So yes, I’m here for Halloween and do you know who else is? The Body Shop, that’s who.
Doesn’t time fly? French niche brand By Kilian is celebrating their 10th anniversary already! It only feels like yesterday when they launched L’Oeuvre Noire, their debut collection of fragrances that contained such beauties as Love (Don’t be Shy) and Beyond Love (Prohibited), and many more. By Kilian has been on a massive journey since then, launching a veritable feast of fragrances, candles and even jewellery, not to mention the fact that the brand was acquired by Estée Lauder in 2016. It’s been an incredibly fragrant odyssey and to celebrate, Kilian has just launched two golden perfumes for their tenth anniversary in a new collection entitled ‘From Dusk Till dawn’.
Those two perfumes are Gold Knight and Woman in Gold, and they take inspiration from Gustav Klimt, coming housed within a (rather substantial) golden clutch that reinterprets the artist’s famous work ‘The Kiss’. The focus of this review is Gold Knight, the masculine scent in the pair and easily the stand out of the two. Gold Knight is inspired “the dashing, golden-armored chevalier in Klimt’s 1902 Beethoven Frieze” and is described by Kilian as being a woody oriental. It’s a perfume that lives up to its golden name, presenting something dazzling, bold, muscular, and undeniably ‘by Kilian’ in every way, shape and form.
The Candy Perfume Boy 