Riding high on the success of Black Opium, their modern interpretation of the iconic Opium, YSL have extended the same treatment to another of their legends – the pastel, yet atomic floral ‘Paris‘. This new flanker is called Mon Paris and to call it a flanker is perhaps misleading. Much like Black Opium this is an entirely new fragrance that takes the spirit of the original and approaches it from a modern point of view. The Paris of 1983 and the Mon Paris 2016 are entirely different animals, with the latter being an on trend fruity floral with sparkling transparency. Click here to check out my full review over at Escentual.
I’m often asking people to sniff things and when I do, a common response is “it’s a bit musky”. This always strikes me as an unusual answer, mainly because many of these fragrances would not be classified as musks in the typical sense. Perhaps people see ‘musky’ as anything that is slightly funky, or perhaps it’s just anything that is difficult to describe and where musk seems like the safe descriptor. Whatever it is, this got me to thinking seriously about what musk really smells like and what it brings to a fragrance.
What I do know however, is that musk is a spectrum, one that ranges from laundry-like purity to animalic pornography. It’s a wide scope for sure and one that traverses a huge range of fragrances. In this post, which is the start of a new series entitled ‘Six Scents’, I take a look at six fragrances on the musk spectrum, moving from the cleanliness of a spin cycle to the shocking sin of a scent between the thighs. Buckle up, fragrance nerds, because this is going to be quite a ride!
One could quite easily look at Amouroud, a new niche brand that celebrates oud, perfumery’s note du jour, and feel a little bit skeptical. One might even be inspired to exclaim “oh for the love of oud” in a loud, exasperated tone. But that would be a bit OTT, admittedly. Just ask yourself this question, how many niche houuses out there are offering exclusive oud fragrances, not to mention exclusive oud fragrances in black and gold bottles? Well the answer is many, but Amouroud isn’t just another cynical brand trying to make a quick buck, they are in fact, passionate about perfume.
Amouroud comes from The Perfumer’s Workshop, who have been creating perfume since the 1970s and are most famous for their Tea Rose fragrance. They launch this month in Harrods with an initial collection of six fragrances, each of which showcases or contains oud. Speaking of oud, my good friends Nick and Pia made a valid point in a recent episode of their Vlog Love to Smell (subscribe, goddamit), when they said that oud is now its very own olfactive family, in the way that orientals and chypres are, rather than just an ongoing trend. Anyway, I digress. Amouroud are not the brand that one may think they are and what they have done is really quite intriguing.
I’ll do a bit of a topsy-turvy review here and provide my overall verdict of the collection before I do a scent-by-scent rundown. Amouroud is a very nicely pieced together brand. One can see that years of experience have been poured into each and every single detail. The bottles are heavy and luxurious, the box has a metal plaque appliquéd onto it and the fragrances themselves are well thought out, and exciting. But the best thing about Amouroud is the price. Where other brands think that £300+ is acceptable for any old scent in a blingy bottle, this one is content with marketing 100ml of interesting and enjoyable Eau de Parfum for £145. That’s practically free in this post-niche day and age! One other nice touch is the fact that the brand will give you a generous spray sample of your second favourite scent in the collection, alongside your purchase. How nice is that?
One of the brands Escentual turned me on to was Van Cleef & Arpels and more specifically, their more exclusive line of ‘Collection Extraordinaire’ fragrances. The scents within the collection are often modern takes on classic themes. I wouldn’t say that they are particularly innovative or weird, but many of them are beautiful and Moonlight Patchouli, the latest addition to the series, is no exception. Click here to read my full review of this gorgeous take on perfumery’s timeless lovers, rose and patchouli.
As you may know, Nick Gilbert, my scented partner in crime and I run a perfumed Twitter project called ‘@Fragrantreviews’, in which we review fragrances in 140 characters or less. Well, if you didn’t you do now and you’re in luck because it’s that time of the month where we round up all of the reviews from the last 30 days. Without further ado, I bring you all of our reviews posted in June 2016! They range from the sublime to the disappointing, and all that’s in between!
Super Scent is back, again! As you may or may not know, the idea of this series is for Basenotes, Persolaise and I to pick a perfume house and list our top five (or a few more if the house has an extensive catalogue). We are not allowed to discuss or show each other our lists before we publish and we must pick fragrances currently available and in their most recent formulations. We encourage you to share your top fives too and it’s always fascinating to see both the similarities and differences in our lists. So please do join in!
So far we’ve super scented Estée Lauder, Dior, Etat Libre d’Orange, Chanel and today, we’re taking a good old look (or should that be ‘sniff’) at the house of Hermès. No other brand says luxury quite like the big H and they have arguably created some of the most beautiful fragrances on the market, with a current collection that boasts a veritable cornucopia of styles. In recent years, the house has worked with legendary perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, an irreverent and cerebral craftsman, who has built an entirely unique style, one of watercolours and transparency, that has now become undeniably ‘Hermès’. As Jean-Claude steps down and hands the Hermès baton over to Christine Nagel, let’s take a look at some of my personal favourites from this most iconic of French houses.
If last year’s Misia was anything to go by, perfumer Olivier Polge is definitely finding his feet at CHANEL, having taken over the position of perfumer-in-residence from his father, Jacques Polge, the man behind the likes of Antaeus, Coco, Coco Mademoiselle, Égoïste – need I go on? Big boots to fill, most certainly, but M. Polge Jnr certainly has a fair few hits under his own belt, scents such as Dior Homme, which, lets face it is already a modern classic, so perhaps those shoes aren’t quite so big after all?
For his second outing in CHANEL’s niche line, ‘Les Exclusifs’, Olivier Polge pays homage to Arthur Capel, Gabrielle Chanel’s patron and lover. ‘Boy’, as he was called, lends his name to the fragrance, which is a feminine take on the typically masculine fougère inspired by Chanel’s clothing, couture that borrowed heavily from the codes of menswear and tailoring. BOY the fragrance has been created to capture Capel’s “irresistible elegance” and “virile strength” and is a gender-bending scent that borrows from the olfactory codes of men and women. As CHANEL describe it, BOY is the “mark of a man on the skin of a woman”.
You may know Abercrombie & Fitch for the muscled men that dominate their adverts and stores. You may also know them for their ‘Fierce’ fragrance which, for many years, has been pumped into their shops and has since become that familiar smell one encounters when shopping at A&F. This year they’ve opened up their fragrant offerings with a new masculine fragrance, the energetic ‘First Instinct, and I’ve reviewed it in my Escentual column this week. Click here to check it out.
The eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted this handsome chap lurking in yesterday’s post. His name is Avery and he’s a handsome little ceramic French Bulldog that recently joined the family. He was a gift in fact, from my lovely husband, who had taken note of the many subtle hints I have been dropping over the last few weeks, hints such as; “I’d quite like one of those Avery ceramic bulldogs for my birthday”, “can I send you the link to those Avery ceramics?” and “have you bought me that ceramic bulldog I wanted yet?”. It’s a wonder he managed to pick up my artful subtlety…
The Candy Perfume Boy 