Fume Chat Episode 08: The Serge Lutens Battle of the Bottles
We’re back with another Battle of the Bottles and this time we’re battling one of the greats: Serge Lutens. Uncle Serge, as he is often affectionally referred to, is a pioneer of the niche fragrance industry and boasts a range of perfumes that can only be described as phenomenal, which certainly made picking our scented weapons for this battle rather tricky.
Luckily for us, we’re joined by the wonderful Perfumer Liz Moores of Papillon Artisan Perfumes to help us navigate the exotic and beautiful world of Serge Lutens as our guest judge. What ensues is a wonderful discussion of dastardly florals, butt cracks, fragrant fireworks and animal poop. Yup, it’s a good one.
Here we are! The first review of 2017! I’ve spent a lot of time trying to work out what to write for my first post of the year (hence why I’ve been on an extended hiatus – lucky me) and I must admit that I was reluctant to start with a review simply because I wanted to kick off with something a little bit different . That said, a review feels like a good place to kick off the year because it’s a good opportunity to see where we will go scent-wise, so that’s exactly what I’m doing. Luckily for me 2017 has already seen a number of launches so I wasn’t short of something to pick for review number one. Even luckier was the fact that the latest launch from my favourite brand appeared on my doorstep just a few days ago!
My love of all things MUGLER has been documented many times. So many times, in fact, that I’ve probably bored you all to tears by banging on about my adoration for Angel et al. So I will spare you the hyperbole this time and instead will say that I very much appreciated the brand’s launch of their exclusive line Les Exceptions last year. With Les Exceptions, MUGLER took on the classics, creating fragrances based on the major olfactory families, serving each with a MUGLER twist. Every one of the Les Exceptions scents felt decidedly un-MUGLER, in the sense that they weren’t overtly daring or challenging, yet at the same time they really did add something innovative to classic French perfumery. In short, Les Exceptions is a phenomenally good collection and one that MUGLER seem to want to explore further.
The latest scent to launch within Les Exceptions is Hot Cologne which, if you haven’t guessed by the name, plays with the themes found within the classic Eau de Cologne. Now, this is MUGLER we’re talking about here so to expect a typical cologne is to underestimate the nature of the brand. MUGLER already have Cologne (launched in 2001), which is highly odd with its notes of steam and ‘S’ (rumoured to be a sperm accord), so Hot Cologne, the eight instalment in the collection, was never going to be a simple cologne in the manner of say 4711 and instead, this cologne, says MUGLER, “breathes fire and ice…and eau de cologne turns torrid”. Intriguing!
I’m still on my extended Christmas break (how lovely, I know) so usual Candy Perfume Boy programming will resume on Monday. Until then, I’m sharing my latest Escentual column with you, which is all about odd notes. We’re used to talking about top notes, heart notes and base notes, but what do we mean by odd notes? Well odd notes are those novel accords that evoke things that we don’t usually associate with perfume, the likes of; popcorn, absinth and wasabi, to name just a view. Check out a few of my favourites in this week’s Escentual post by clicking here.
Here we are, in the last few weeks of 2016 – I cannot believe that this year has gone so quickly! This will be my last post before I take my Christmas break (don’t worry, I’ll be back soon enough with The Candies 2016 – my best-of-the-best round-up of the year), during which I will gorge on just about anything edible I can get my hands on. But before the festivities kick off, I wanted to share my final review of 2016 with you and I’ve deliberately left this fragrance to last for the very simple reason that it’s really bloody good, which makes it the perfect perfume to end a year of fragrant discover on. So let’s do exactly that.
Fathom V is the latest scent from Beaufort London, a daring niche brand created by musician and writer Leo Crabtree who offers a collection of fragrances inspired by the sea. I’ve not written about Beaufort London yet because I’ve found their fragrances quite challenging, if I’m being entirely honest. There’s a darkness to this collection, yes, but also an incredibly unique take on familiar themes that really does push the limits as to what is acceptable and palatable in modern perfumery. But when a brand names their first collection of fragrances ‘Come Hell or High Water’ one knows that they mean business and Beaufort London certainly takes the art of perfumery seriously. These scents aren’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, in fact they can be downright difficult, but that’s exactly what makes them thoroughly intriguing sniffs.
This newest addition to Come Hell or High Water is inspired by the imagery of “violent weather, shipwrecks and magical islands” within Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, taking its name from the nautical measure that represents six feet of depth, essentially referring to a body of water that is five fathoms deep. The fragrance is an olfactory clash between the green and the aquatic, creating something that is as contrasting, ever-changing and as powerful as the ocean. Fathom V is not your typical green fragrance nor is it your typical aquatic, in fact there is nothing ‘typical’ about this scent at all – it is wholly and entirely unexpected at every level, depth and fathom.
Fume Chat Episode 05 is here and it’s a good ‘un! In our latest episode Nick and I battle some of our favourite celebrity fragrances in a duel that travels from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again. Perfumer Pia Long joins the discussion as the guest judge and brings her very own celebuscent weapon of choice. So find your blonde ambition and get ready to hit me baby one more time, because we’re going on a lovely journey through the glowing world of celebrity fragrances.
As of today, there are just under two calendar weeks until Christmas day! If, like me, you have neglected your Christmas shopping entirely up to this point, or if you simply have a few tricky gifts left to buy, you will more than likely be scouring the blogs for some gift inspiration in the form of fragrance gift guides. These pieces can be pretty helpful in guiding us to some special presents for those special people in our lives, so this year I’m bringing you two gift guides; a luxury fragrance guide in my Escentual column and today, this very guide that you’re reading right now!
This year I wanted to do a little something different with my Christmas Gift Guide. Instead of picking out scents for him and for her, or for mums and dads, or even personality types, I just wanted to gather together a selection of beautiful things that smell great. So that’s exactly what this gift guide is – a collection of fragrant things that are just gorgeous and will make wonderful gifts for those people in your life that like smelly things. They range from fragrances to shower gels, shimmering powders and candles, and whilst they may vary in their style, they all share one thing in common: they are drop dead gorgeous in every way!
When I think of neroli I don’t necessarily think of the colour black, in fact, my mind wanders to shades of white, orange, gold and yellow – hues that are as far from ‘noir’ as they possibly can be. But it is the ingredient neroli and the idea of ‘outrenoir’ or beyond black (a concept created by artist Pierre Soulages) that serves as inspiration for the very latest addition to Guerlain’s L’Art et la Matiére (‘The Art and the Material’) collection: Néroli Outrenoir – neroli beyond black.
“I wanted all of its facets to be expressed: zesty, orangey neroli essence; woody, aromatic petitgrain essence; and orange blossom absolute.”
– Thierry Wasser
Created by Guerlain’s in-house Perfumer, Thierry Wasser, Néroli Outrenoir is described by Guerlain as being a fragrance that “draws on the contrast between the luminescence of neroli and the obscurity of much darker and more mysterious notes”. Coming from a collection that boasts bold compositions such as Spiritueuse Double Vanille (the booziest, biggest and baddest vanilla around) and Rose Barbare (the rose chypre to end all rose chypres), to name just two, it’s fair to say that Néroli Outrenoir has stiff composition, but it has many a trick and a surprise up its pretty little sleeves to allow it to earn its place in the collection.
Before we take a dive into the petitgrain pools of Néroli Outrenoir, it’s important to take a few moments to discuss packaging because the entire L’Art et la Matiére collection has been beautifully repackaged. The fragrances now come in a beautiful leatherette box shaded in a deep purple, but most importantly the bulb atomisers which have always been known to aid evaporation have been niftily remade (again in a beautiful purple shade) with an on-and-off mechanism to prevent fragrance-loss. The packaging is sublime, but how does the scent match-up? All shall be revealed…
The Candy Perfume Boy 