June 2008 Archives

Originally crafted in 1919 for a strictly female audience by French perfume house Caron, Tabac Blond is still a creature of striking, potent glory. It appeals to the dark-eyed minx that lives inside the best of women, and can even overpower a good portion of the wimpy metrosexual excuses for men's colognes out on the market today.

Rich and heady, it rushes from the bottle in a blaze of pipe tobacco and powdery florals, both of which combine to produce an incense-smoke veil about the wearer. As time passes, Tabac Blond only gets warmer and throatier, its woodsy, vanilla, amber and musk destination snapping into clear focus, though it never fully loses the primroses that line the path.

Some reviewers swear by the hair of the their chinny chin chins that Tabac Blond is a blast of leather from start to finish, but I don't get a whiff of leather -- not a snort or a toot. The original 1919 formulation was allegedly all about broad strokes and bold leathers, but modern requirements have softened the edges and tamed its more aggressive tendencies into the soft, amberish, woodsy floral it is today.

Angela at NowSmellThis states that Tabac Blond "feels luxuriously womanly . . . on the right woman, Tabac Blond is chic as all get-out." A man could wear it, too, but it saves its last, best dance for the ladies.

Just because someone hands you a bottle of perfume and states that it smells like leather is no guarantee that it does. Rien by Etat Libre d'Orange is described in all its PR glory as a potent leather fragrance, but to me, it's more peat bog and kerosene than anything resembling a tanned animal hide -- which is a pity, as I really like the smell of tanned animal hide.

Rien is also a near exact clone of Fumidus by Profumum. Lots of boggy, smoky oakmoss that overpowers the rest of the ingredient list (though a few floral gasps manage somehow to escape its vice-like grip).

The name Rien means "nothing" -- which is exactly what I felt upon experiencing the stuff, but it's possible that if I hadn't already smelled the whole shebang in Fumidus, I might have been more appreciative of the performance.

When you read about Humiecki & Graef Skarb, you're likely to be met with a pile of ridiculous crap about how Humiecki & Graef allegedly asked the perfumer (Christopher Laudamiel, who also created the terrific S-eX by S-Perfumes) to create a perfume that approximates "how men cry" . . . which is fine, if you're just making up prose out of thin air in order to manufacture even the tiniest of buzz in the hopes that it will help your new fragrance stand out from the 4,652 other new fragrances that were launched just that week, but it's patently absurd as any kind of meaningful description for the fragrance itself.

When you get right down to the nitty gritty, Skarb and S-eX have a lot in common, and it seems a signature of Laudamiel's to craft a warm base of soft musks to underscore the cheery chemical hello that greets the user at first spray. Both fragrances are reminiscent of the storage room in a science lab, with whiffs of formaldehyde and vanillin, and Laudamiel infuses the two works with a scent of salty human skin that creates the illusion of an organic heart beating at the center of his synthetic machines.

Skarb is an admirable enough piece of performance art. There are divergent notes that yet work in balance (sweet & bitter, warm & cold), a dash of abstract floral (Orange Bigarade buds?) and a shaker of spice, and it's light enough to wear in close quarters without offending anyone while still possessing its own streak of individuality.

S-ex by S-Perfumes, however, is the more accomplished fragrance of the two (cozier, richer, a bit more layered and complex), and if you're considering a purchase of Skarb, you might want to do yourself a favor and check out S-eX before plunking down your cash. There's no point in living a life full of buyer's regret.

Hermes Equipage is a bracing retro-splash of woodsy, old-fashioned masculine aftershaves. Warm and spicy, it's as if some laboratory technician dumped a vat of Old Spice into a vat of English Leather, then tossed in a Brinks truck full of cold hard cash for that special Hermes touch.

Equipage is direct and uncomplicated, as confident and virile as a phalanx of dark-suited business types with thick hair combed back, square jaws scraped clean, who stride into sun filled, wood-paneled executive offices at 7:30 a.m. and immediately start dialing numbers without pausing to take in the view.

If your ambition is to work your way to the top, Equipage will provide the impression that you're already there.

Odalisque by Parfums de Nicolai is a delicate, strictly feminine fragrance that stays true to its floral intentions. I kept waiting for it to betray its soft lily of the valley principles for a cup of baby powder and two tablespoons of musk, but it never did.

While Odalisque starts as a bright, backlit floral and glides right along on that track without apology, don't think for a second I'm dissing the juice for over simplicity -- there's some expertly blended iris root and oakmoss tossed in as useful, earthen counterpoints to the waves of white pollen suffusing the air, and they function much like a gilded, hardwood frame around a classy field of painted flowers.

Odalisque is masterfully crafted and doesn't make a misstep: it doesn't come on too strong, stay too long, or overwhelm the wearer with potency and sweetness (i.e. Black Orchid), and its woodsy, mossy undertow tugs back at any high notes that think about straining -- think Daedalus and Icarus.

For a soft floral perfume that was created almost twenty years ago, Odalisque still comes across as fresh and relevant, especially now that we're seeing nearly every major fashion house issue floral-infused collections for both Spring and Fall.

I received a promotional packet the other day from upscale niche fragrance company Bond No. 9 New York in regards to their recent Andy Warhol Union Square release. I had previously mentioned their Andy Warhol Silver Factory and New Harlem perfumes, so I must have pinged their radar in that respect -- but those mentions weren't that long ago, which means they must either have a crack PR team, or they have a PR team on crack.

Hey, when you're attempting to struggle to the top in a city that never sleeps, you do what you have to do.

The promotional pack includes some pages of typical marketing prose (though at least it's well written typical marketing prose), three decent sized samples of the Andy Warhol Union Square fragrance wrapped like candies in bright fuchsia cellophane (fuchsia for spring -- spot-on trendy), plus large, shiny photo-prints of the splashy Union Square bottle and shots of the Bond No. 9 flagship store in New York.

It's a nicely thought out PR package for a nicely thought out fragrance.

Bond No. 9 New York portrays itself as an uptown fragrance company with a downtown edge, and its partnership with the Warhol estate was a brilliant move on their part as the Warhol legacy is the near perfect embodiment of that very ideal.

But back to the perfume!

Andy Warhol Union Square possesses a uniquely glass-and-steel skyscraper with flower beds at the entrance quality -- a floral fragrance that recognizes the importance of context. It embraces angles and edges in favor of powders and puffs, the incorporation of metallic tangs and snappy greens adding some spine to what would otherwise have been an ordinary mix of white flowers and light musks.

I would say an abstraction of flowers in an idea of a metropolis would nicely sum up its impact, its stylized character fitting hand in glove with the Warholian pedigree. If I close my eyes, I can almost picture standing on a Manhattan street corner on a Spring morning, the glossy wafts of a freshly mown, flower-buds bursting Central Park drifting through the urban canyons of metal and glass.

It's a good concept in the contemporary-abstract genre, and it's executed with finesse. With its pop-art packaging and exclusive appeal, Union Square would be an exceptional feminine for the female urban warrior, clutching her patent leather briefcase as she flags down the last available rush hour taxi on Lexington Avenue.

Counterfeit clothing a growing problem

"Demand for fake fashion continues to grow at an alarming rate according to a new report from just-style, with captured shipments indicating that around 20% of all athletic merchandise is fake . . . The Department of Homeland Security seized US$155m worth of counterfeit merchandise in 2006, an 83% rise on previous years."

20% of all athletic merchandise is fake? That's . . . I don't even know what to think about that except that I'd hate to be UnderArmour right now:

From the looks of their stock chart, I'd say UnderArmour's kinda hating to be UnderArmour, too.

The Getty Museum website states that "a kouros is a statue of a standing nude youth that did not represent any one individual youth but the idea of youth . . . The kouros embodies many of the ideals of the aristocratic culture of Archaic Greece . . . In a society that emphasized youth and male beauty, the artistic manifestation of this world view was the kouros."

This seems an apt description of YSL Kouros -- a fragrance that smells of warm skin, funky musk and sweet spices. There's a bit of a tart blast at the opening bell, a kind of astringent clean that functions as a warmup for the earthier elements lurking in the wings, youth moving into funkified beauty.

Kouros is another one of those fragrances that launches a thousand hyperboles (see: Yatagan, Muscs Koublai Khan), with most of them being wide of the target and short of the mark. No, it doesn't smell like urinal cake; it doesn't smell like fecal matter; it doesn't smell like a trucker's sweaty underwear.

If it actually smelled like any of these, countless men and women wouldn't be reviewing it and/or wearing it, and they do both -- endlessly. Rather, Kouros smells decidedly rich, complex and multi-tiered: tangy and bracing at first, then giving way to dry woods, green mosses and earthy resins mixed with some medium-to-light florals for balance.

The sh**ty civet some reviewers swear upon their grandmother's holy grave they smell isn't real civet anymore (genuine civet musk has become prohibitively expensive due to pressure from animal rights groups and worldwide bans on the cat), but rather some synthetic approximation, so there aint no there there, you know what I mean? So let's back away from our fecal-focused hysterias and just concentrate on how the synthetic mosses mix with the synthetic woods, synthetic musks and synthetic spices to create one of the more deeply redolent fragrances to come out of the 1980's.

It still smells good today, too, unlike other 80's blockbusters (Obsession, anyone?). I like YSL M7 better, but this comes in a very close second -- and it's much easier to find, since it hasn't been, you know, discontinued.

Ignore the accountant driven sequels: Kouros Body, Kouros Tattoo and Kouros Fraicheur. Just stick with the original -- it's the best of the bunch.

Photo of the Kouros bottle below:

The almost nautical (in a lighthouse kind of way) bottle doesn't really give much of a hint of the spicy, musky fragrance inside.

When I walked into the kitchen after showering this morning, the BF remarked: "Are you wearing some musky thing? It's kind of strong."

Not really the thumbs-up a fragrance in test-drive mode craves. Oh well, it saves me from shelling out the cash for a full bottle.

There's a nice, warm earthiness to Thundra, plus a tang of cool mint, but overall, it's just not that unique or inspiring. If you're looking to drop some bucks on a striking patchouli that'll win friends and influence people, there are any number of better patch-fragrances to choose from: Le Labo Patchouli 24, CdG Luxe Patchouli, Serge Lutens Borneo 1834, Bond No. 9 Andy Warhol Silver Factory . . . and that's just a start.

You can order Profumum Thundra from Lucky Scent.

Weak dollar puts America outside luxury's "Golden Triangle"

"While American buyers are keeping an uncharacteristically low profile, with a beady eye on the miserable dollar exchange rate, other parts of the world are rejoicing in burgeoning markets and have no thought of recession . . . designers agree that it is definitely not, as it used to be, all about America setting the pace as the market for luxury, even if the weak dollar is saving retailers in America's tourist regions. The Middle East, stretching via the Mediterranean coastline to Turkey and Greece, is the most buzzy area."

Growth indicators are flapping wildly in Brasil, Russia, China, India and the Middle East/North African regions, while the U.S. consumers are biting their nails and digging in for a long-haul of economic pain.

We import two-thirds (or more) of our fuel, and this is having a staggeringly negative impact across all aspects of our economy as fuel prices skyrocket (not to mention the impact of natural disasters, which is just icing on the Misery Cake). This is not a problem that can be solved quickly or easily, and certainly not without a lot of radical rethinking of how we live our lives in the 21st century, but as cheap fuel becomes just another memory, look for the countries with the last of it left within their own borders to be the only ones left to close down the party.

Goodbye, New York! Hello, Moscow!

Space NK Man is like a toned-down, well-mannered, mass-market Armani fragrance. It's warm, woodsy and spicy, but everything is blended and in balance rather than Armani in-your-face (though the new Armani Prive line of fragrances exhibits unusual restraint).

There's a distinct cedar and juniper one-two punch to Space NK Man that really gives it some oomph, but Space NK dialed down the sharp edges by tossing in lush spices like cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, while also slathering a layer of smooth musk across the entire concoction to buff away any random splinters and shards.

Space NK Man also has a lot in common with S-eX by S-Perfumes, but its inclusion of the astringent cedar and juniper elements distinguishes it from the smooth salt and skin musk of S-eX.

It's heady, potent stuff when first applied, but winds its way down into a dry woods and musk pleasure.

Elizabeth Snead points out that Michelle Obama's wardrobe choice for her appearance on The View was a sucker punch to the Designer Name Dropping of her political rival, Cynthia McCain:

"Tom Julian (president of the Tom Julian Group, a New York City-based brand consultancy) predicted that (Michelle) Obama will change the face of political fashion in that she could be the first first lady to wear both high and low-end fashion: 'She will bring affordable American sportswear to the forefront, and this is very appealing to the Middle American woman voter' (he said) . . . how incredibly refreshing to see an intelligent, articulate woman who shops for herself, doesn't use a stylist and doesn't think a designer name means she's better dressed than someone else."

What you wear in an election year matters, and apparently Cindy McCain needs to reevaluate her wardrobe choices, stat. Voters expect celebrities to be glittery and glamorous, but a potential future First Lady? Maybe a little more down-to-earth wouldn't hurt.

God knows, no one wants a frump representing the people, but there's a huge difference between browsing an Oscar de la Renta boutique and grabbing something suitable and widely accessible off the rack. As Michelle Obama's appearance on The View so amply illustrates, a politicians wife can win big points with the public for choosing the latter.

Unless she's French, that is . . .

Video clip of Michelle Obama on the The View below:

Serge Lutens Borneo 1834 is the smarter, wiser, more accomplished brother of Thierry Mugler's supra-exhuberant Angel Men. It's patchouli with respect, not patchouli with sugar and coffee and caramel and cotton candy and vanilla, and it's all the things you'd expect out of intelligence and wisdom: a direct nature, a forthright attitude and a low tolerance for frivolity.

Borneo 1834 (the 1834 reportedly refers to the year patchouli was first introduced into Paris society) is dry, smoky and with a serious camphorous bite at the beginning that mellows way out until it's a nicely mannered dusty-cocoa scent that stretches out across the skin.

It holds its own in the thick, summer heat, too, but I'd stress that it's best approached with caution -- I put it on five hours ago and it's still kicking like a stubborn mule. One dab too much and you'll bowl over anyone within nose-shot. I'm still feeling a little sorry for the owner of the mom-and-pop grocery store I stopped into on one of my first errands this morning.

Borneo 1834 is not my favorite patchouli scent -- it adheres too strictly to the sharp, insect-repellant nature of actual patchouli to inspire that much love in me -- but once it starts its wind-down into dry spices and bitter-sweet cocoa, it's easy to understand why there are people who luxuriate in it.

Serge Lutens Borneo 1834 is inexplicably a "non-export" item (I'm sure there's a reason, though one isn't offered), and can only be purchased from Les Salons du Palais Royal in Paris (and they don't ship to the United States). I got my sample from The Perfumed Court.

UPDATE:

This review was revised July 25th, 2008.

Me: "So, I've heard a lot about you . . . "

Fidji: "I'm 42 years young!"

Me: "Uh, I wasn't really concerned about your age, but now that you brought it up . . . "

Fidji: "Sparkling! Vivacious! Did they tell you I was sparkling and vivacious?!"

Me: "For your age."

Fidji: "42 years young! What else have you heard?"

Me: "Well, there was some mention of spice."

Fidji: "Spice Girl -- that's me! I've got the soul of an island girl."

Me: "Trapped in the body of a zealous Baptist. Did someone spill a bottle of laundry detergent under our table? I smell soap."

Fidji: "Ooooooh, I love clean things! Don't you just love it when the world is all clean?"

Me: "That smell is you . . . ?"

Fidji: "Clean and spicy and sparkling and vivacious!"

Me: "So you keep saying. You're really too young to be going senile already."

Fidji: "I'm a spicy flower! From a deserted tropical island!"

Me: "Slathered in laundry detergent, yes."

Fidji: "Mmmmm, can't you just picture it? The air is so fresh!"

Me: "So that's what "fresh" means these days."

Fidji: "I crocheted this dress just for our date -- I teach a macrame class on the commune. Don't you love it? Don't you love me?"

Me: "It's only our first date, and you're coming on a bit strong."

Fidji: "I'm laying down on the warm sand of the tropical island, the waves crashing over my 42 years young body. We're the sole survivors of a terrible shipwreck. RAVISH ME!!!"

Me: "Dear lord, a little bit of patchouli and the crazy girls start thinking they're sexy."

Fidji: "Where are you, oh my captain? It's just you and me and this brave new world!"

Me: "Excuse me, but I have a bad stain I need to scrub out of my life."

If you must buy Fidji by Guy Laroche (and I suggest that you don't), you can find it here on Amazon.

For a tropical perfume that actually smells like the tropics (instead of laundry soap and cheap musk), go for Un Jardin Apres la Mousson by Hermes. Also, Salt Air by Demeter is a great washed up on the beach potion that smells more like a salty summer breeze than Fidji will ever approximate.

Lucky Scent states that "Oud Cuir d'Arabie is a classy whip crackin' leather, a "pay attention to me" leather, a seductive and carnal perfume which demands a wearer with the personality to make it their own and then, look out world!"

Ok, whatever.

Oud Cuir d'Arabie is, instead, that wheezing geriatric fellow passenger who snores on your shoulder for the entire six hours of the plane flight after first getting drunk and insisting on showing you his prized pair of assless chaps in his carryon luggage -- it smells tired and dull, not because the ingredient list is foul, but because the formula has been around the block so many times you wonder how it can still stand upright, much less pretend to be whip-crackin' sexy.

Try YSL M7, instead, or maybe Hermes Equipage.

We've been engaged in a rather lively discussion of Un Jardin Apres La Mousson over at the Perfume of Life (POL) forum. Here's a sampling from some of the reactions:

1.) "The scent itself is nice enough...but it kept reminding me of an extremely high quality fruity shampoo . . . flat, featureless, boring."

2.) "I find the longevity of Un Jardin Apres Las Mousson maddening: I love the fragrance, but I need more of it."

3.) "It was like I was at the beach just lying on the warm sand with the sun overhead. (Though) It's not a beachy-suntan type scent at all . . . I have to say, this is one of the more interesting scents I have smelled so far this year . . . a day at the beach -- warm sand under my feet and that salty air breeze with a little bit of something fruity."

4.) "It doesn't move. There are no layers to this. To be honest, it feels like Bath and Body Works could have created it. It doesn't feel like a finished statement."

5.) "On me it evolves in stages: melon, floral, spicy, earthy-rooty. My favourite stage is the spicy stage, which seems to also linger in the air in my apartment and I love walking through it."

6.) "I wasn't so keen on the first twenty minutes, but then it settled down into a supremely pleasant reference of a cool, tropical breeze. 4 hours later and it was smelling even better -- a little warmer, floral but extremely subtle about it."

The perfume's creator, Jean Claude Ellena (featured in Chandler Burr's 'The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry'), has developed a reputation for minimalist perfumes -- sheer, subtle fragrances that lay close to the skin, creating a fine aura around the wearer rather than filling a room. His style has both its fans and its detractors, and I'm not certain he's raised the profile (and/or profits) for Hermes fragrances the way they had hoped when he was hired on as their permanent In-House Parfumeur, but Un Jardin Apres La Mousson suits the House of Hermes well with its subdued charm and simple grace.

Ellena seems to have taken the concept of today's dime-a-dozen, overly fruity florals and classed up the joint -- resulting in a perfume that's so subtle and understated that you almost don't notice how clever and unusual it is: a little bit of ripe melon, a few ginger flowers, a lot of humid salty air and cool wet leaves. This is a melon perfume that's for the adults, not for teenage girls chewing bubblegum at the mall.

Un Jardin Apres La Mousson was ostensibly created for the burgeoning luxury markets of Asia by referencing the scent of the air after an Indian monsoon. Hermes just recently announced that it would be opening its first stand alone boutique in India, and it would be interesting to know how the sales figures for Un Jardin Apres La Mousson line up with the intention behind its release.

Below is a video clip (in French) of an interview with Mr. Ellena:

My first reaction to JAR Bolt of Lightning was not good -- fifteen to twenty minutes into it and I was hoping a bolt of lightning would strike whoever formulated what seemed to me a sodden, vegetal disaster (Joel Arthur Rosenthal, I'm talking to you). I was ready to thoroughly write it off and move on when it suddenly changed its tune, lowered the volume and slid into a much more pleasing register.

What began, to my nose, as a soaked pile of grass clippings and tree leaves in the back yard after a storm transformed into an airy, fresh, lightly green and subtly sweet concoction -- warm sunshine on wet roses, thanks to a golden, shimmery musk shot through the heart of it.

Bois de Jasmin writes that "Bolt of Lightning is one of the most unusual creations from the house, with its pairing of white florals and green fruit, creating a deep wet accord against a hot floral breath", Perfume Posse states that it's "a rich, green, hair-raisingly sharp smell that made me think of bamboo", the Non-Blonde states that it's "wet, earthy and green, but . . . very complex and interesting . . . The scent and the price tag are not for the faint of heart", and Marlen Harrison at Basenotes writes: "wet cardboard...dampness, soil...potting soil...a hotel room air conditioner . . . here come the flowers - rose? mimosa? a little powder...stale ice cube trays...a wet shirt after coming in from the rain."

And so on.

It's obvious that Bolt of Lightning is complex enough to inspire a variety of reactions, but beyond its complexity, Bolt of Lightning is, at the end, an expertly balanced and near perfectly crafted perfume -- which it should be for the price it commands. If you can stagger your way past its perilous, rotting-vegetable opening (some people call it tuberose), the reward is indeed great.

JAR Perfumes can only be found at specific JAR boutiques (one is in the Bergdorf Goodman store in NYC, while the other is in Paris), and they have so far refused to offer them for sale online -- which seems a rather charmingly boneheaded move for a 21st century business.

Photo of JAR Bolt of Lightning bottle with box:

You can find more photos of JAR Bolt of Lightning at the following link: JAR Bolt of Lightning: The Arrival

Oscar carries the floral torch into 2009 . . . yet he carries it so well; also note the continued emphasis on buttoned down, Jackie-O stylings that were all over the runways for Fall of 2008.

Looking at all the cinched belts, oversized jewelry, high waists, cropped jackets, ruffled necks, flared trousers, riding motifs, flouncing skirts and vivid colors, the motto appears to be: "Don't worry, be 80's!"

I can think of worse things to be . . .

Type the words Serge Lutens Muscs Koublai Khan into Google and you'll wind up with a deluge of hyperbole: "shocking and erotic", "raw, dirty and sensual", "musk, salt, armpit and leather, in that order", and my favorite piece of ridiculousness: "the aftermath of bodies intertwined in coitus".

Uh-huh. Right.

People, please -- can we have some perspective when it comes to talking about a frickin' perfume? One of the reviewers said she let her fourteen year old daughter smell Muscs Koublai Khan and the girl said that it smelled kind of pretty, like incense, which is a far more perceptive and honest statement than all the noise about skank, sweat and armpits her mother was raving on about.

I've been in a lot of locker rooms, played baseball, football, soccer and basketball with a lot of sweaty guys, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that there's nothing about Muscs Koublai Khan that smells remotely like a rank armpit or a sweat soaked guy, and I have this suspicion that some women (and some gay men) who review this perfume engage willingly in a kind of mass Harlequin Romance delusion about how men smell when they sweat.

Really, we don't smell anything like Muscs Koublai Khan when we sweat. If we did, we wouldn't need Muscs Koublai Khan, and need it we do if we desire to smell at all dashing or charming when standing at a doorway, a bunch of flowers clutched in one hand and a finger pressing the doorbell.

Muscs Koublai Khan is, instead, exactly how the level-headed fourteen year old girl described it -- a little sweet, a little smoky incense and kind of pretty (albeit underscored with a warm, rich synthetic musk for lots of depth). The rest of the twisted-knickers crowd twittering their skanky fantasies over Musc Koublai Khan reminds me of the same sort of reactions that get twittered over Caron's Yatagan -- since it doesn't smell like a powder-puff, the more, erm, delicate souls among us succumb to the vapors and immediately start hallucinating fecal matter and men's sweaty armpits.

Believe me, how they jump from a bottle of rather nice, lightly floral and smoothly musky cologne to writhing coitus, sweaty balls and "every secretion ever extracted from a mammalian backside all rolled into one" reveals far more about them than it does about Muscs Koublai Khan.

Muscs Koublai Khan is not sold in the United States, but you can order it from their Paris boutique.

You always hurt the ones you love . . . or, in this case, drop them on the tiled floor where they shatter into pieces.

RIP, my sweet Labdanum 18. You were the best friend that money can buy.

Thank god you're so easily replaced.

Released in 2002, YSL M7 created a splash for its Tom Ford approved advertising campaign that included the fully-frontal tae kwon do champion Samuel de Cubber and not much else. The campaign was quickly edited for the U.S., which might explain its lack of punch in the American marketplace, but YSL M7, a deep, smooth fragrance centered on the oil of the agarwood (aka oud) tree, was likely a bit too far ahead of the fragrance curve for its own good.

Around that same time, crisp, fruity colognes were taking shape in the men's marketplace and M7 appeared to suffer for staking out its own earthier territory, but now that a new breed of niche perfume companies are bringing their exclusive patchoulis, incenses and woodsy fragrances to the forefront, M7 might just enjoy a renaissance of its own -- provided that YSL doesn't discontinue it first. It's not the easiest bottle of stinkin' potion to get your greedy little hands on.

***Note: it's now discontinued.

I'd place M7 in the same class as Pascal Morabito Or Black, though it has a much sweeter disposition. Robin at Now Smell This writes, "As with most fragrances containing agarwood, it starts with a bit of a medicinal edge, but that fades along with the short-lived citrus top notes. After that, it is dark, warm, and dry, with a mild spiciness and deep earthy woods."

I can't, and won't, argue with that assessment.

One additional note: due to the commercial disappointment of M7, YSL released a lighter version in 2004 called M7 Fresh in a bid to capture some of the market for today's juicier, frothier scents. M7 Fresh is said to be more sharp and green, less warm and earthen than M7 proper. I love M7 myself, and can't imagine preferring its accountant-driven successor over the lush, striking notes of the original.

Photos of the bottle for M7 below:

I think this resonates a lot more now than it did then . . .

Demeter is an odd little fragrance production company, founded in 1993 by Christopher Brosius and Christopher Gable (though since bought out by the Freedom Marketing Group in 2002). They have an extensive library of over two hundred scents created to specifically mimic their descriptive titles -- Gin and Tonic, Tootsie Roll, Grass, Crayon, Laundromat, Wet Garden, Play-Doh, Hawaiian Surf, Sugar Addict, Dirt, Marshmallow, Chocolate Chip Cookie, etc.

Salt Air was the one I was most interested in taking for a spin, and it performs admirably, smelling just like a fresh tropical breeze -- some sweet flowers, a little salt tang and a lot of air. There's nothing gourmand, earthy or complex about Salt Air, and it's incredibly light to wear, acting as more of a sheer veil than a potent room filler.

Inexpensive in comparison to most niche fragrance companies (you can find a 4 oz. bottle of Salt Air on Amazon for under $25.00), and absolutely straight-forward about its intentions, Salt Air is exactly what it claims to be.

For nostalgia's sake, you might want to check out their Tootsie Roll, Junior Mint and Tropical Dots colognes . . . you know, just cuz.

UPDATE:

Another terrific perfume for the summer is At the Beach 1966 by CB I Hate Perfume. It smells just like those perfumed suntan lotions from the 60's and 70's. The LuckyScent site states, "If you loved the smell of classic Coppertone tanning lotion, your jaw will hit the floor when you try this" . . . and it's true! Total nostalgia trip in a bottle.

UPDATE 2:

Bahiana by Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier is also great as a summery, beach-bound scent.

Heavier and more floral than Salt Air and At the Beach, incorporating the zing of fresh pineapple and a smooth creamy coconut, it suits hot, humid, ocean flanked climates. You'll feel right at home in the ripe tropical breeze.

Ormonde Man by Ormonde Jayne reminds me very much of Matthew Williamson's Warm Sand -- or I should probably say that Matthew Williamson's Warm Sand is a lot like Ormonde Man, since Ormonde Man debuted in 2004 and Warm Sand followed three years later.

Both are smooth, sandalwood and musk fragrances with light floral notes that hang in the background, though Ormonde Man distinguishes itself by offering more layers: a little bit of pepper and additional wood notes (cedar, aoud), with some vetiver root thrown into the mix to result in a sandalwood with depth, and floral notes with pungency.

Yet despite the additional complexities, Ormonde Man is still as much wash and wear, grab and go casual as Warm Sand, not trying too hard and ending up rather Corporate Office, Dress-Down-Friday smashing because of it.

UPDATE (06/04/09):

Here it is, nearly a year later and I find I need to revisit this review.

First off, Matthew Williamson's Warm Sand is now discontinued. It was never available in the U.S. to begin with, and several months ago it was announced that the entire Williamson fragrance line would be axed. So, the comparison of Ormonde Man to Warm Sand really has no resonance any longer, since it's now impossible (or extremely difficult) to compare the two side by side.

Secondly, over time, Ormonde Man has become much more than Dress-Down-Friday smashing to me -- it's just smashing, period. For something daring to label itself as overtly masculine, it's got a serious unisex vibe (i.e. both men and women could easily wear it). The woods are rich without being aggressive, the spices and musk are appealing without being feminine, and while it starts off a bit potent, the finish is a smooth and soft sandalwood + vetiver mix.

Ormonde Man is also notable for being an early adopter (2004) of oud as a scent material. Five years later and you can't swing Schrödinger's cat without knocking a new oud release off the shelves, but Ormonde Jayne founder Linda Pilkington was ahead of the curve when Ormonde Man first hit the market.

Chandler Burr, scent critic for the NYTimes, gives Ormonde Man a five star review and calls it "spectacular". I agree.

You can find photos of Ormonde Jayne Ormonde Man at the following link -- Photos: Ormonde Jayne Ormonde Man (a tale of surprising generosity)

Vetiver 46 is the third fragrance I've tested from Le Labo -- the first two (Patchouli 24 and Labdanum 18) were both clear winners in my book: casual, smooth, easy to wear and they last for most of the day. The Vetiver 46 is my least favorite of the three as it comes across as needlessly complicated, or maybe I just don't like the scent of vetiver as much as I like the scents of patchouli and amber . . . ?

The vetiver entry on Wikipedia states that vetiver oil is smoky, earthy and sweet. Now, I love smoky, earthy and sweet, which leads me to believe that I should be liking Vetiver 46 a lot better than I am, so it's more likely that it's the 45 other ingredients that aren't rocking my boat.

Vetiver 46 starts off a bit sharp and medicinal, like wild grasses and pepper (which is fine by me), but then appears to veer off into a focus on wood tones rather than the earthy vetiver root, focusing in particular on cedar wood before it winds down into a musky clove finish. To me, cedar is a tricky note to pull off in a perfume; it has a sharp, distinctive quality that can throw an entire formula off-balance, overpowering the rest of the ingredients if it's not reigned in properly. Armani Prive Bois d'Encens utilized cedar perfectly, perhaps because the formula, said to consist of only five ingredients, was so simple and straight forward that the cedar came across as relaxed and confident, but that's not the case with the rather muddled Vetiver 46.

With a list of 46 different oils in Le Labo's Vetiver 46, the resulting concoction is like the adage of too many cooks in a kitchen -- smoke, earth, cedar, gaiac wood, amber, bergamot, vetiver root, vanilla, pepper, clove and so on (all of which are rather strong, distinctive scents on their own) -- the kitchen is decidedly high class and the cooks are all top notch, but because of their sheer number, they're tripping over one another and getting in each other's way.

Motto of the story? Don't order the soup.

UPDATE:

Okay, well -- I'm not totally dissing Vetiver 46. It has a lot going for it, but it doesn't fully click for me; with all its full-bodied ingredients, there's a bit too much Clash of the Titans action going on. That said, there are noses I respect who really dig it, and my overall experience with Le Labo has been positive.

I don't think I'll be shedding any tears over the demise of the necktie, that strangling piece of neck decoration that was the male equivalent of the stiletto heel -- great for making a high-style entrance, then you're quickly looking for the first justifiable opportunity to rip it off.

Tie Association, a Fashion Victim, Calls It Quits as Trends Change

"After 60 years, the Men's Dress Furnishings Association, the trade group that represents American tie makers, is expected to shut down Thursday . . . According to a recent Gallup Poll, the number of men who wore ties every day to work last year dropped to a record low of 6%, down from 10% in 2002. U.S. sales have plummeted to $677.7 million in the 12 months ending March 31, from their peak of $1.3 billion in 1995."

So I'm curious -- what constitutes Casual Friday now? Board shorts and flip flops?

Said to be created exclusively for the Middle Eastern market, and apparently no longer available for sale at all except maybe on ebay or from resellers who will sell smaller portions out of the bottle, Soir d'Orient By Maître Parfumeur Et Gantier is a rich, spicy perfume heavy with the layered scents of leather, vanilla and woods, mainly the fragrant agarwood (aka aoud) from which is derived a rare and complex oil with similar character to ambergris.

Impressively potent and long-lasting, it starts off a little funky -- a quick succession of gasoline, sweat and freshly fertilized earth -- but then blooms open on the skin to reveals its smooth, sweet and smoldering soul. You don't wear Soir d'Orient, it wears you (and nearly all day), but I can think of worse fates (CdG Hinoki, for instance -- one of the worst perfumes I've ever had the misfortune to experience).

Soir d'Orient can be worn by either men or women, whoever can appreciate its dark, courtly charms -- if you can find it first, that is. Rumor has it, there were only 2000 bottles of Soir d'Orient produced. The Perfumed Court is currently selling smaller vials of the rich, aoud wood potion until there is no more left to sell.

Though I was dragged to church every Sunday as a child and young adult, it wasn't the kind of church that had showy rituals or used incense as part of the proceedings, so I find myself speaking a different language than someone who grew up Catholic or Greek Orthodox when the topic of incense perfumes is mentioned, which is where Bois d'Encens by Armani Prive comes into the picture.

When I think incense, I get a clear memory of heavy amber, frankincense and sandalwood fragrances from the numerous new-age boutiques I used to frequent in my twenty-something years: boutiques full of shelves of quartz crystals, numerous iterations on the tarot deck, little vials of homeopathic potions and stacks of self-help books designed to free the mind and cleanse the spirit -- this is the incense of turquoise stone necklaces and copper bracelets, but this is not the incense of Bois d'Encens.

Giorgio Armani is clearly of the orthodox church incense camp, for Bois d'Encens is a dose of dry cedar and light, meditative smoke; a sage and pepper perfume that references religious faith rather than new-age mysticism -- and like religious faith, it stresses simplicity over an anything-goes multitude of layers, for Bois d'Encens is nothing if not bracingly straight-forward: the cedar and smoke is present from beginning to end, with a no-nonsense mossy, earthen tone that emerges only when the dusty woods and peppery spices have taken their time to stretch out and relax.

Strangely enough, I tested this out on a hot, sunny day in the tropical climate of Maui. I thought it would certainly be too sharp and smoky a fragrance to wear for the climate, but with my toes in the swimming pool and a gin and tonic in one hand, the dry cedar of Bois d'Encens mingled perfectly with the potent, resinous scent of the thousands of Norfolk Pines bending in the stiff Kapalua winds.

Incense -- it's not just for winter anymore.

Yves Saint Laurent, fashion icon, dies at 71

"Yves Saint Laurent, who exploded on the fashion scene in 1958 as the boy-wonder successor to Christian Dior and endured as one of the best-known and most influential couturiers of the second half of the 20th century, died on Sunday in Paris . . . Among his greatest successes were his Mondrian collection in 1965, based on the Dutch artist's linear paintings, and the "rich peasant" collection of 1976, which stirred so much interest that the Paris show was restaged in New York for his American admirers. "The clothes incorporated all my dreams," he said after the show, "all my heroines in the novels, the operas, the paintings. It was my heart -- everything I love that I gave to this collection."

There's a fascinating book written by Alicia Drake: The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris -- in it, she profiles both Yves St. Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, contemporaries in the design world, rivals, co-conspirators, friends, enemies.

It's a terrific piece of biography and I couldn't put it down once I started reading it. Both designers come off brilliant and abysmal, by turns, and it's almost heartbreaking as Drake charts the rise and fall of Yves St. Laurent and his battle with his own inner demons.