By Kilian: In the Garden of Good and Evil & 50 Shades of Grey

Books, By Kilian, Floral, Fruity-floral, Jasmin, Perfume review, Summer, Tuberose, White flowers, , , ,

I love perfume as much as I love reading. The only problem is that I don’t have enough time to read as much I would love to. Usually I manage to stick some pages in to my busy day only during my summer holiday.

I went to the library to get the famous book Fifty Shades of Gray by E L James and in the same day I got some samples from generous Kilian Hennessy. If that wasn’t lovely coincidence or what! But…

Fifty Shades of Grey and By Kilian samples

Fifty Shades of Grey and By Kilian samples

The book is nice, easy summer reading. The perfumes from The Garden of Good and Evil collection: In the city of Sin, Good girl gone Bad (I believe to think that of myself ;-) ) and Forbidden Games are the same. Not so much adequate to the names given. But they fit the story.

Good girl gone Bad, created by Alberto Morillas, has some twist I like. Jasmine, tuberose, osmanthus narcissus and cedar give the composition nice impression of stale air. That’s not of sweat, but hall full of above mentioned flowers (starting to decay – I guess this is due to indoles) and some smoke of good aromatic cigarillos. This perfume reminds me of Jasmine et Cigarette from Etat Libre d’Orange, only that I get here more ashtray effect than nice cigarillo smoke.

I admit I have expected story to be more rough and feelings were similar for the fragrances. I find Good girl gone Bad pretty enough to wear. The other two created by Calice Becker are nice, but to me they don’t differentiate enough from all similar perfumes on the market for much lower price.

Forbidden Games is my least favorite. I think here it was the intention to recreate the forbidden fruit, not just one, but bunch of it.

I must say that I like the bottle design and the box with snake that comes with it.

The final conclusion is, that this is a little girl who want’s us to think she is grown up and  unfortunately she is not quite up to it.

If you have read 50 Shades of Gray, what perfume would you suggest for Mr. Grey? I think Bulgari Black would suit him quite well.

The other reviews about these three: The Black Narcissus, Extravaganzi, Perfume Posse, EauMG.  Enhanced by Zemanta

What’s your pack for the summer holiday?

Civava's collection, Summer

Here’s mine for third time in a row now.  I just add something new from year to year. The reliable bunch includes: Diptyque-Eau Lente, Balmain-Vent Vert, Parfumerie Generale-Psychotrope, Corps et Ames, Bois Naufrage, Iris Oriental, Bois Blond, The Different Company-Parfum des Sens and Bois, Sublime Balkiss, Il Profumo-Aria di Mare, Pioggia Salata, Huitieme Art-Naiviris, Calypso-Marine, Dior-Dune.

It seems I have used up Heeley’s Sel Marin.

Samples for the summer holiday

Samples for the summer holiday

This year I’ll add The Different Company’s Sel de Vetiver and L’Eau d’Issey from Issey Miyake.

My favorites are Dune, Vent Vert and  Odalisque.

What are your choices for summer holiday?

Esxence 2013 – Lecture on Tuberose

Caron, Cartier, Chloë, Christian Dior, Frederic Malle, Giorgio Beverly Hills, Givenchy, Guerlain, Jean Paul Gaultier, Nicolaï, Perfume review, Robert Piguet, Serge Lutens, Tuberose, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Polianthes tuberosa

Polianthes tuberosa (Photo credit: kim77_au)

One of great privileges at Milano Esxence are lectures held from Osmotheque, Michael Edwards and other famous names and experts from the perfume world. Lectures are free of charge. First lecture I attended was about Tuberose, a flower which had not been used in perfumery until very lately. The scent is obtained by enflourage technique. It takes over 1200 kilos of buds to get 200 grams of tuberose absolute, which makes one of the most costly natural raw materials to use. So today synthetic substitute is generally used in commercial perfumes.

It is classified as “white floral”, like jasmine and orange blossom. The span of facets this flower gives gets from metallic, medicinal, rubbery at the beginning to the intensive creamy, buttery at full bloom to the rotten, earthy, dewy when the flower dies.

We had a chance to try several so-called iconic tuberose perfumes, but first we were introduced to pure tuberose. After that we started to test fragrances among them was Robert Piguet’s Fracas. Fracas created by Germaine Cellier was first launched in 1948 and reissued in 1998. It’s perfume that is easy to love.

Next one was Chloë by Chloë (1975), a very romantic floral perfume. Created by IFF .

Very well-known perfume with tuberose was Giorgio from Giorgio Beverly Hills (1981), composed by Bob Aliano, which was so strong it was banned from restaurants due to huge sillage.

Ysatis (1984), amber, floral, woody perfume from Givenchy is still one of my old favorites. The nose behind is Dominique Ropion.

The following is not appreciated by many, but very well known to us all (even non-perfumistas). That is Poison (1985) from Christian Dior created by Eduard Flechier. Dark  sensuality is brought out with flowers, spices, fruits, woods. Wearing this you cannot get unnoticed.

Panthere (1986) from Cartier is also one of fabulous perfumes in a gorgeous bottle. I find the bottle stopper like a piece of art. Created by Alberto Morillas this is another elegant amber, floral, spicy perfume.

Patricia Nicolaï created Number One in 1989 a lush perfume with jasmine, tuberose and orange blossom, and received an award for best perfume creator.

Not very successful but very beautiful perfume, and the bottle, is Fragile (1999) from Jean Paul Gaultier. It’s creator is Francis Kurkdjian.

The must-try perfume in this range is Tubereuse Criminelle (1999) from Serge Lutens, created by Christopher Sheldrake. The opening of this one is really medicinal.

Mahora (2000) lovely floriental with tuberose and lots of ylang-ylang from Guerlain and created by Jean Paul Guerlain, wasn’t on a market for long. I’m not sure what was the real reason for this  but it is a great loss. Soon it was replaced by Mayotte and available only in Les Parisiennes series.

Of course no great perfume house shouldn’t go without one tuberose scent in their range. The same stands for Caron’s Tubereuse (2003). This scent is refreshed with citruses and is much lighter from all here mentioned fragrances. The nose is Richard Fraysse.

Carnal Flower (2005) from Frederic Malle, created by Dominique Ropion. This is the fragrance with the highest percentage of tuberose in the formula now in the market.

The conclusion is that this was the most interesting and inspiring lecture. I wouldn’t mind wearing and owning any of above mentioned perfumes.

Many thanks to the lecturer Emmanuelle Giron from Osmotheque.

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Neela Vermeire Creations Ashoka – new perfume

Autumn, Balsamic, Fig, Floral-balsamic, Floral-woody, Gourmand, Green, Lactonic, Neela Vermeire Créations, News, Perfume review, Spring, Summer, Woody
Neela Vermeire at her Esxence stand (2013)

Neela Vermeire at her Esxence stand (2013)

At Esxence Milan I had an opportunity to try new perfume named Ashoka from Neela Vermeire Creations. Neela Vermeire created this pefrume in collaboration with perfumer Berthrand Duchafour. Neela explained the perfume’s pyramid is revversed. That means it has base notes in positon of top notes. You can find that in Eau des Merveilles from Hermes.

Ashoka is a tribute to an emperor, whose own evolution from ruthless conqueror to benevolent emperor is reflected in Ashoka’s journey from the fierce opening to softly floral heart and the gentle embrace of its richly complex drydown.

At Ashoka opening I smelled leather, maybe some galbanum or these were only crushed fig leaves. The effect is dry, green, balsamic. My first impression was that this is strange and so different from all other perfumes in Neela’s collection. But very quickly fig milk and more flowery notes emerged. It is lactonic and with skin (at least mine) gets very nice. I wouldn’t say gourmand, because there is not enough sweetness and other spicy elements. Tonka been just slighltly supports the fig-milk-skin mixture and what you get is like yor skin is covered body milk.

I was surprised by the lasting power of this perfume, which is quite long, even though the sillage is not big and perfume stays close to the skin. It is very confortable to wear but nevertheless quite unique.

Ashoka includes notes of fig leaves, leather, white and pink lotus, mimosa, fig milk, osmanthus, rose, water hyacinth, vetiver, styrax, incense, sandalwood, myrrh, tonka bean, fir balsam.

The perfume will be available in autumn 2013 in Eau de Parfum concentration.

There will be also new version of perfume Mohur, which will come in higher concentration. It will be available in the flacon of amethyst glass with a special panache (mist) spray.  NVC perfumes will also be in new bottles designed by the perfume bottle designer legend Pierre Dinand. The new silver metal will have the NVC logo on it with Ashoka Dahrmachakra which has twenty four ridges on each side like the spokes on the wheel on the logo of NVC. Each spoke depicts one virtue. To me these bottles look so elegant and remind me of Art Deco era.

Neela’s version of Dahrmachakra with stylized Eiffel Tower

You can get more information here in Serguey Borisov’s interview with Neela here in Fragrantica.

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Smoothie For Better Blood – Recipe

Food Mood,

Hopefuly this will improve my poor blood, otherwise it just tastes good ;-) .

photo

Recipe:

1 cup of yogurt with  3,5% fat

1 cup of almond milk

1 banana

1 handful of strawberies

1 beet (medium-sized)

1 orange

2 cm of fresh ginger – peeled and grated

3 tablespoons of agave syrup

pinch of Flower Power spice and flower mixture for decoration (optional) (from Sonnentor)

Mix all ingredients in a blender, except the decoration (if you want, you can mix that too) and decorate with Flower Power mixture for better look.Dont blend too long.

I like to drink it like it is, not too cold. Keep in refrigerator. It is best to use it in 1 day.

 

 

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Esxence 2013 – Time Travel With Perfume

Cosmalia, Guerlain, Lanvin, Schiaparelli, Vintage, Worth, , , , , , , , ,
Always helpful - Cristiano Canali and Emmanuelle Giron - Osmotheque

Always helpful – Cristiano Canali and Emmanuelle Giron – Osmotheque

After attending the Esxence  –  International Event of Artistic Perfumery, with almost 6.000 attenders in Milan, for the 3rd time, I decided to take it easy this year, therefore I tried only few perfumes.  I almost “killed” my nose last year ;-) .

It is impossible to smell all that stuff there and it is even harder to get some impression after dipping a nose into few scents at short time. You are just able to say  you like it or not, but not much more. To get samples is rarity and it is reasonable, because of large number of visitors and due to the fact that many new creations use rare or expensive materials.

Finding quite some new names between the exhibitors, missing some old ones, but generaly there were mostly the same as the previous 2 years, so I didn’t have to catch up with all things missing all these years living in perfume ignorance and oblivion ;-) . It is advantage to have some mileage, at least with most of the existing products of the companies, so you have to check only new releases. And new releases are mostly presented at this or maybe some other large perfume event.

As usual I ran to the Osmotheque stand to see if there is something new. I tried Worth’s Je Reviens from 1932, the great floral aldehydic perfume for women created by Maurice Blanchet. I’m not a huge fan of aldehydes and honestly, I didn’t like this one. In the drydown it gets very skanky. The answer is in base notes that consist of sandalwood, tonka bean, amber, musk, violet, oakmoss, vetiver and incense.

After that I was offered to try Shocking by Elsa Schiaparelli from year 1937 created by Jean Carles. Actually I can’t imagine how it was to wear this strong animalic, musky oriental floral perfume loaded with flowers, honey, spices and civet. It has a sillage to kill an elephant. After a week on a blotter it is still very powerful. If you want to be noticed just put a drop of this on and every single pair of eyes will be looking back at you. Not necessarily because of liking it ;-) . I should have tried this one at the very end. Everything after that seemed like blah! But how could I know that this is the one ;-) . Now you can’t say you haven’t been warned! The name of the perfume fits perfectly to what you get.

The next scent, much more in accordance with my taste was, Lanvin’s woody leather chypre fragrance Scandal created in 1931 by Andre Frysse. Comparing Shocking to Scandal, is like comparing tiger and a kitten. First one loudly growling and the other one gently purring. That wouldn’t be of course if I hadn’t had tried the Shocking before. In normal circumstances the Scandal would be loud enough for average perfume wearer today. I would like to wear that. It’s like soft suede, it has chypre character, but the vanilla, benzoin and a light incense soften the composition, a hint of the vetiver is present to the end. I guess this refreshes the juice.

Nina Ricci‘s Coeur Joie composed by Germaine Cellier to me is green white floral. It stays fresh throughout. It never gets sweet or powdery. Base have some woody background  just for preventing it to from becoming too green. According to being launched in 1946 I find it quite modern.

Behind the scent Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène: L’Authentique Eau de Cologne de l’Empereur by Cosmalia lies a whole story. As we know Napoléon was exiled to the island of Saint-Helena in 1815 until his death in 1821 and he was obsessed with use of Eau de Cologne. At his imprisoning island he he ran out of the precious water and he was also refused to get some stock. So he asked faithful manservant of his, nicknamed Ali, to make a cologne based on ingredients available on the island with the help of formulas found in the library at Longwood and personal recollections. It has masculine herbal tones, with pine and bay leaves. Very refreshing indeed!

Jicky Extrait dated 1889 and as explained first version of the formula mastered by Aimé Guerlain. What a difference between this and the current edition! I love it! It opens with creamy lavender and in gentle background stays there to drydown. There are also citruses to add some sparkle and impression this is a masculine perfume. This was one of the first perfumes created with addition of synthetic materials. The heart is composed from orris, rose and vetiver. The base warms the freshness from the top and middle notes with adding patchouli, amber, musk and vanilla. This perfume is for men and women It is a masterpiece!

That is not all from the history lesson. More you will read in the next post…so stay online ;-) .

 

 

 

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Everything Wrong – Scented Artistic Project

Art & Perfume, New releases 2012, ,

If you are intrested how all the perfumes from year 2012 smell like, take a look at this project by Lernert & Sander. There you will also find a list of perfumes released in 2012.Everything1

Everything is a big bottle of perfume with a design that’s reminiscent of a sample vial, containing extracts of each fragrance launched in 2012… that’s 1,200 fragrances! A unique 1.6 L creation with an extraordinary scent.

 

The Civava’s Collection: Givenchy Organza for Women

Autumn, Civava's collection, Floral, Floral-woody, Floriental, Gardenia, Givenchy, Jasmin, Oriental, Perfume review, Tuberose, Vanilla, White flowers, Winter, Woody, , ,
Givenchy Organza EdP

Givenchy Organza EdP

I forgot  how beautiful this perfume was. White florals: gardenia, jasmine and tuberose lying on a base of vanilla. Soft, sweet (nothing edible there), warm and opulent, but not too heavy. Sillage is moderate, longivety is great. Even after showering it was stil there. This is a dabbing bottle of eau de parfum. I think I had bought it in the year of release, that is in 1996 or maybe a year later. The perfumer is Sophie Labbe. Adorable bottle designed by Serge Manseau is gorgeous too (just from the front :-) the back is plane). The perfume add and the bottle are according to what you get.  Personally I would place this perfume under typical or classic floriental genre.

Givenchy Organza perfume add

Givenchy Organza perfume add

I obviously liked white florals long before my fall in the rabbit hole of perfumes. I just didn’t know that. I loved to wear this perfume a lot, and yesterday when I tried it again after many years, I was druged by it.

You can find one nice review here www.thenonblonde.com.

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