In my IGTV video this week, I’ve talking through a selection of scents to wear this spring. For me, spring is all about dusting off the cobwebs of winter and stepping out into the cool air. In this selection you’ll find scents that brings you all of that, with freshness, greenery, floralcy and transparency a plenty. Check it out by clicking here or via the embedded video below!
There is no language dedicated solely to the world of smell, arguably our most primal of senses. Instead we opt for words associated with our other senses – taste, sight and feel, to describe something that is for the most part, intangible. Colours, textures and flavours pepper our descriptions and allow the realm of the fragrance to move from the intangibale to something more palpable, combining together as the language of the senses to tell a scented story.
The “joint perception of the senses”, specifically the relationship between colour and smell, is the theme for Swedish niche brand, Byredo’s latest fragrance. The scent is a collaboration with Oliver Peoples, a California-based eyewear brand, and it accompanies a series of exclusive frames, and lenses that have been created and inspired by the fragrance. Housed within a choice of bottles shaded in either indigo, green or champagne, Byredo x Oliver Peoples aims to capture the Caliifornian landscapes through lenses in different colours, each of which highlights a new facet or nuance. This is a Californian life through a lens, and it smells/looks good.
“The conception of the collaboration was achieved through Byredo’s master perfume perceiving the sights of Los Angeles through different coloured lenses, and translating them into various smells, therefore producing a multi-faceted fragrance. This unique effort has resulted in an original frame designed by Oliver Peoples, through which the color of the lenses will correlate with the aroma of the custom blended fragrance by Byredo”
– Byredo/Oliver Peoples
It’s impossible to look at TOY, the latest fragrance from Italian fashion brand, Moschino and not smile. I mean, the perfume is packaged inside a cuddly little teddy bear, so one’s initial encounter with the fragrance will usually involve the utterance of noises such as “aww” and “squee” and cries of “OH. MY. GOD. IT’S. SO. BLOOMING. CUTE” and “IT’SSOFLUFFYI’MGONNA’DIE”. It is after all, incredibly cute and that gorgeous little face is adorably cheeky, and impossible to resist.
TOY is the brainchild of Moschino’s Creative Director, Jeremy Scott, who has worked with the likes or Rihanna, Katy Perry, Björk, Madonna, Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga, just to name a small sample of the upper echelon of pop divas that he has collaborated with. The scent is being positioned by the brand as a “revolutionary product launch” that offers “a completely innovative way to package, show and sell fragrance”, posing the question whether this bear is a perfume or a toy. It also serves as a nice nod back to Moschino’s founder, Franco Moschino, who famously used stuffed animals on garments in his 1988 Fall-Winter collection.
Created by perfumer Alexandra Kosinski (Etat Libre d’Orange Cologne), TOY displays woody, floral and citrus notes that are intended to be evocative of the bear’s forest home. Whether TOY is exactly that, a toy, or a perfume, or a teddy bear, or all of the above depends on how you approach it. What cannot be denied however, is that this is an attention-grabbing launch that breathes new life into the world of Moschino parfums, and an incredibly cute one at that.
“From the depths of the wild, stuffed animal kingdom comes TOY, Moschino’s latest fragrance. Conceived by Moschino Creative Director Jeremy Scott, TOY smashes every fragrance preconception to bits, boldly redrawing its form, function and fabulousness.”
– Moschino
New brand, Alford & Hoff have launched their first perfume, ‘Alford & Hoff Eau de Toilette‘ exclusively to Harrods. Created by “gifted athletes”, Barry Alford and Jefferson Hoffman, the Alford & Hoff brand is directed at a “new generation of men” and includes both fragrance and a line of skin care products (currently available in the US) consisting of the “highest quality ingredients”.
The fragrance was created by venerable Givaudan perfumer, Rodrigo Flores-Roux (Neroli Portofino, Boutonierre no.7 and Black Cashmere), and is a fresh-woody fragrance described as being “confident, passionate, stylish, successful, masculine in a modern way”. It is the brand’s signature fragrance and reportedly contains “95 of the finest ingredients.”
“A juxtaposition of light and dark, clarity and richness, texture and polish, Alford & Hoff EDT is a modern scent, luxurious and fresh on top, smooth with an ultra-sexy core and deep, rich woody background.”
– Alford & Hoff
I make no bones about the fact that Thierry Mugler is one of my all-time favourite perfume brands. Their signature perfumes – Angel, Alien, Womanity, Cologne and A*Men – all have a very special place in my collection and are so befitting of the style of perfume I love, they almost feel as if they were created for me – although I am entirely aware that they were not.
Once a year Mugler treats us all to a special collection of fragrances – four unique takes on their existing signature fragrances. The familiar accords of these perfumes are twisted and remixed to include an ‘enhancer’ that presents them in an entirely new light. Over the last few years the likes of Angel et al have been reshaped by leather and gourmet ingredients to name just a few.
This year’s collection – ‘Les Liqueurs de Parfums‘ – sees the famous Mugler fragrances imbued with equally well-known liqueurs and is a sidestep for the brand, having already released alcohol-inspired versions of Angel, Alien and A*Men in 2009. The difference with this collection, however is that the wooden casks each fragrance has been aged in were warmed up and toasted to add a brand new facet to these boozy ‘fumes.
Yuzu Man is the latest masculine release from Caron and personally I feel a bit sorry for it. It can’t be easy being the new guy on the block when your brothers are such highly acclaimed scents as Pour un Homme, Yatagan and Le Troisième Homme. Yuzu Man has a lot to live up to, and the standards for masculines set by the house are very high.
Does Yuzu Man live up to The high standards set by its counterparts?
The Candy Perfume Boy 