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 2017! They range from the sublime to the disappointing, and all that’s in between!
Oh and don’t forget, if you’re based in the UK and fancy the chance of winning a £100 voucher to be used at Escentual, then click here to enter my fifth birthday giveaway. You’ve got to be in it to win it, as they say!
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!
What is there to say about the career of Perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena at the house of Hèrmes as it draws to an end? His work speaks for itself and through the perfumes that constitute Ellena’s body of work at Hèrmes one can detect a distinct DNA that has been carefully crafted and woven through the olfactory outputs by the man, who is arguably one of the greatest perfumers of all time. Jean-Claude Ellena has created a signature that is now undeniably ‘Hermès’. It is a complexly pieced together as a Kelly bag but as ethereal and light as a silk scarf. To put is simply, Ellena really has taken the spirit of the house of Hèrmes and bottled it.
Ellena’s work is so often referred to as fragrant watercolours and his lightness of touch has proven that perfumes need not be loud, confrontational and weird to be beautiful, they can portray light and shade in utter simplicity. This style in itself is divisive because the fragrances can so often seem imperceptibly simple or transparent, but they are, in fact, incredibly complex. It’s a testament to Ellena’s talent that he can say so much with such reserved abstraction. His work is cerebral and intelligent in a way that modern perfumery isn’t nowadays, and he has always been a refreshing voice amongst the cacophony. The man is nothing short of a genius and one of the handful of true master perfumers who have earned the title through a life’s work.
For his final piece at Hèrmes, Jean-Claude Ellena has attempted to capture the elusive lily of the valley, a flower that smells so intense, yet yields no fragrant oil usable within perfumery. The work is a construction of the flower, of course and as Ellena puts it, he wanted to “snatch the fragrance of these flowers from the dawn sky, together with that of the foliage that envelops them”, thus crafting an homage not only to white blooms but also to its accompanying greenery. The result? Well, Hermès describe it perfectly as “a shower of delicate bell-shaped flowers evoking the opalescent white of porcelain – radiant, playful, diaphanous”. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
If you paid a visit to the blog yesterday you would have caught our latest episode of Desert Island Sniffs with Barbara Herman, the author and scent historian who has recently launched a brand new line of fragrances called Eris Parfums. Named after the Greek goddess of chaos, strife and discord the Eris perfumes tap into Herman’s love and passion for vintage fragrances, you know the kind with proper animalics and heady florals, and brings them bang up to date. The result is a thrilling clash of the vintage and the modern.
For Eris Parfums, Barbara Herman teamed up with renegade perfumer, Antoine Lie, the man behind Etat Libre d’Orange’s Sécrétions Magnifiques, Tom of Finland and Rossy de Palma, amongst others. The fragrances are inspired by the “bold eroticism of vintage animalic florals perfumes” and they certainly don’t hold back, my friends. If you’re a lover of the bold, beastly fragrances of yesteryear, then you need look no further than Belle de Jour, Ma Bête and Night Flower, because these modern twists on classic florals aren’t afraid to cause quite the scandal.
“Antoine Lie and I have reimagined the intensity and eros of perfumes of the past for a contemporary audience. We wanted to bring back the emotion of animalic perfumes.”
Few things get my pulse racing like a brand spanking new MUGLER launch, even more so if that launch is a spin-off of my all-time favourite fragrance, Angel. So one can imagine my excitement when Angel Muse landed on my doorstep. We’re going to #HateToLove this modern spin on the gourmand queen that is Angel, MUGLER say, and they’re not wrong, because as much as I don’t like to see my beloved celestial being messed about with, I begrudgingly admit (not really, you know I’m here for all things MUGLER) that I do enjoy Angel Muse very much indeed.
Angel Muse was created by Givaudan perfumer Quentin Bisch, who I must say is a real up and coming talent within the industry, having done great work with Etat Libre d’Orange (see Hermann à Mes Côtés Me Paraissait Une Ombre & La Fin du Monde) and with MUGLER on last year’s sticky sweet A*Men Ultra Zest. Bisch is a good fit for Mugler because he is a truly innovative perfumer who seems to work best when tasked with crafting novel accords, such as the popcorn note found within La Fin du Monde. For Angel Muse, Bisch switches out dark chocolate for hazelnut and adds an element of masculinity with vetiver, taking Angel to new and very modern heights.
I wrote a full break down of Angel Muse for my Escentual column a few weeks back (clicky here to give that a read), so I’m going for a review en bref today. I also wanted an excuse to buy a jar of Nutella to use purely for photographic reasons of course. Although, it would have been a waste not to have a spoon or twelve now, wouldn’t it? So let’s get to it and give Angel Muse a good sniff to see whether it is as delicious and divine as Nutella, or whether it falls short of its lineage…
‘Pretty’ that’s how I’d describe ETRO’s latest fragrance, ‘Shantung’. Like a sleepy summer garden, Shantung is a colourful fragrance that wafts and moves at a leisurely pace. It’s a silk-inspired fragrance that pairs citrus, peony, rose and musk all together to pain a beautiful picture of nature in a vast array of colours. It’s no great shakes in terms of ideas, but it’s executed wonderfully. Click here to read my full review over at Escentual’s Beauty Buzz.
There is an ever-growing trend within perfumery for intense sweetness. I’m not talking about your everyday gourmands, because those have been around forever, I’m referring to scents that offer up pure, unrefined sugar by the ton, not say, the likes of MUGLER’s Angelwhich inspired the gourmand trend, but ultimately was an essay in tension between sugar and patchouli. In the mainstream, it all started in 2004 with Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb, a nuclear candy floss scent that contains as much ethyl maltol as is possible to shoehorn into a bottle, presenting sugar toasted at the edges without any dark contrasts to temper it. Ever since, fragrance houses have been stumbling over themselves to see who can make the sweetest, most obnoxious fragrance, well that was until Lancôme came along with La Vie est Belle – officially the world’s most tooth-achingly sweet, toasted candy floss scent. It’s also an international best seller – go figure.
Now, I mention all of this not to moan, but instead to say that despite this ever popular trend, a house is yet to make a deliciously sweet overdose of a scent that doesn’t cause olfactory diabetes with one sniff. Well, that is until GUERLAIN threw their hat into the ring with Mon Exclusif, which turns out to be a decadent little treat that knows exactly when to say ‘no more for me, thank you’. Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that GUERLAIN have been the brand to hit the nail on the head here, they are, after all half-perfumer and half-perume-patissiere, churning out some of the world’s most delicious morsels in fragrant form. So it’s no surprise then, that Mon Exclusif is a delightful bon bon that has depth and contrast to its sugar overload.
GUERLAIN launched Mon Exclusif in 2015. Created by Thierry Wasser, GUERLAIN’s in-house perfumer, the novel aspect of the fragrance is that it technically comes with no name, allowing the wearer to select their own title by placing the sticky silver letters on the bottle, which itself is a reinterpretation of the house’s famous Coque d’Or bow flacon. “Because your relationship with your fragrance is very intimate” GUERLAIN says, “it’s up to you to name this partner by your side”. So Mon Exclusif can be whatever one wants it to be: Jack, Tyler or Pierre. The choices are infinite and for many reasons, which I’m sure you’ll be able to guess, I decided to call mine ‘CANDY’.
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 May 2016! They range from the sublime to the disappointing, and all that’s in between!
I wasn’t prepared to like Armani’s new Profumo version of their flagship masculine, ‘Code’, but perfume often has a way of surprising noses that are stuck in their ways. Profumo won’t set the world on fire for originality but I admire how it presents a smart take on the oriental genre, fusing fougère notes of lavender and star anise with the warmth of vanilla and leather. It’s Code gone ‘full tuxedo’ and the modern men of today could do a lot worse with their fragrance choice! Check out my full review for Escentual by clicking here.
The Candy Perfume Boy 