August 2008 Archives

Luca Turin writes in Perfumes: The Guide, "(T)here are really very few perfumes you could honestly call all-natural. Of those, we have yet to find any that belong aesthetically in the top tier" while Chandler Burr, in his review of Guaiac by Red Flower, states: "Perfume as an art form (and as a commercial concern) is built on synthetic raw materials . . . Guaiac is a four-star perfume for one simple reason: Because it lacks synthetics, which often lend substantivity (the length of time the perfume lasts on skin), Guaiac is fleeting. This is the price you pay for an all-natural perfume."

So two of the top perfume critics in the world say that choosing to go the natural perfumery route limits the palette, narrows the window for aesthetic achievement and greatly reduces the longevity of any composition. So why do it? Because not every consumer wants a mass-market, chemical laden bottle of spray, and where there's demand, you can bet that supply will be sure to follow.

Today's blog post looks at four natural perfumers who have recently arrived on the scene as the answer to the Where Can I Buy A Natural, Ecologically Aware Perfume question: Russell Newell with Social Creatures in the UK, Claude Andre Hebert out of Montreal, Canada, Yael Alkalay with Red Flower in New York, and Ayala Sender with Ayala Moriel Parfums in Vancouver, BC.

Though the Claude Andre Hebert site is entirely in French, I did find mention from other sources that Hebert works in the line of naturals as a way of keeping connected to the locales his scents are meant to evoke: "Not only does each of the twelve scents represent a continent, but the ingredients come directly from that piece of land . . . Hebert is supporting sustainability through 100% natural ingredients, corn-sourced alcohol and reusable bottles."

A few weeks ago, I purchased a bottle of Hebert's eponymous scent. It's a complex and spicy-sweet fragrance with good staying power, the container comes with a glass stopper rather than spray nozzle, and the bottle is label-free, so it actually can be re-used with very little difficulty. Hebert's interest in using natural essences appears to spring from a desire to support the local economies of the various regions for which he's named his perfumes. Fragrances can be ordered by calling Mr. Hebert at his shop or emailing him through his website.

I previously reviewed Rebel Ambush by Social Creatures, a small family-run fragrance company out of the UK. Their website states that: "SocialCreatures products use a very high percentage of natural components (typically 95-99%) some of which are high value, and hard to find . . . Social Creatures (does) use a small amount of synthetics in our products. These are usually those that would have been traditionally produced from animals. These include musks from deer and beaver. Other instances are where the plant source is endangered or prohibitively expensive."

Bottles and boxes are handmade in England, and the natural ingredients are sourced, collected, blended and matured in small batches (about 100 bottles to the batch) to ensure quality and consistency. Social Creatures fragrances are fairly expensive in comparison to mainstream productions, but the creation of the perfume and its packaging is labor intensive, distinctive and high quality. A bottle of Rebel Ambush is on its way from the UK, and I hope to have photos of the handmade bottle and packaging to post soon. Fragrances can be ordered directly through the Social Creatures website.

Red Flower Organic Perfumes lives by the motto: "Source sustainably, produce locally." Founder Yael Alkalay creates a very Zen motif with her brand and sticks with it (sometimes to the point of irritation, as a casual surf through her website will attest), but Red Flower's Guaiac perfume is apparently good enough to impress even the synthetic aromachemical cheerleaders, and that's enough to make me sit up and take notice. The website states that: "the scents contain only essential oils, the bottles are made from biodegradable glass, and the boxes were manufactured at a wind-powered plant and printed with soy inks." How many ecological trends can one human being reasonably cover? All of them, apparently.

I have the Guaiac on order and will write about it as soon as I get it in my hot little hands. Perfumes can be ordered through the Red Flower site, or from Amazon and other online retailers.

Yesterday, I received my sample package from Ayala Moriel Parfums out of Vancouver, BC. Ten tiny vials of all-natural fragrances. I wasn't quite certain what to expect, but I'd heard good things about Ayala Sender's work from various members on the POL forum, and as I'm interested in what separates the natural perfumers from the synthetic perfumers, I thought I'd give her line a try.

Ayala Moriel fragrances are handmade in small batches from pure and natural sources, with minimal animal products (beeswax, honey, beach harvested ambergris) and as much locally and organically grown and harvested ingredients as possible. I tested her Schizm fragrance today, and it's just about as perfect a masculine as I could have wished for and had given up hope of finding -- a deep, mossy musk that somehow manages to include some truly beautiful florals without getting even remotely Fracas about it.

Like the majority of natural perfumes, it's on the quiet side and needs to be reapplied if you're expecting your love affair with it to last all day. Ayala Moriel perfumes and samples can be purchased directly through the Ayala Moriel website.

UPDATE:

Rich Hippie is another company that produces organic, naturally sourced fragrances. Their website claims that "Rich Hippie perfume is made using the traditional methods employed by perfumers before World War II and the advent of the chemical industry. Prior to World War II, all fine perfume was 100% natural and chemical free. Perfume was made by combining extracts from flowers and plants that were almost always farmed organically or wildcrafted with 100% natural "spirits of wine" or wine alcohol distilled from grapes grown in the great wine regions of France."

I haven't heard much about Rich Hippie, but I like that the alcohol they use in their base is derived from organic grapes rather than petroleum. I ordered a few fragrance samples so that I can see how they fare against the other four natural perfumers discussed above.

Rich Hippie fragrances and samples can be purchased through their website.

UPDATE 2:

A reader in the comments to this post pointed me in the direction of Liz Zorn. Her Underworld sounds like it could be a very nice Vetiver indeed: "A dark earthy pairing of vetiver and balsams, with a touch of Jasmine and Rose in the heart, set against a smoky leathery base. PROFILE: Green, Balsamic, Earthy, Leather" -- sheesh. What's not to like?

I reviewed Clive Christian X for Men in a previous post (I liked it very much), so here are some photos of the bottle and box -- as with all the photos I post of perfume boxes and bottles, clicking on the photos will take you to my Flickr page where you can see larger versions:

Social Creatures Rebel Ambush: with a name like Rebel Ambush, I might be forgiven for expecting something fiery and take no prisoners, but even with three full sprays to the back of my hand, Social Creatures Rebel Ambush is a rather mild and laid back woodsy scent with some tobacco leaf and just a hint of vanilla.

With a backstory that states that the fragrance is dedicated to the Maroons, a rebel group of several West African tribes who escaped their captors on arrival in Jamaica, I was hoping for some sweat and drama, but the ingredient list includes lavender, tobacco, vanilla, sandalwood, champaca, sweet orange and cardamom -- fairly drama free.

The champaca and cardamom dominate the introduction before it morphs into the exceedingly dry, dusty scent of a lightly sweetened tobacco, and it's not at all bad, but I can't really gather any enthusiasm for it, either. I like its use of the tobacco element, the true smell of light wood burning, and that the incorporation of vanilla is highly restrained, but the moment I take my hand away from my face, I forget all about it.

UPDATE to Rebel Ambush review:
I received an email from the creator of Social Fragrances. He stated that Rebel Ambush has a target consumer audience of 30+ males who aren't already big fragrance wearers, and that "All Social Creatures fragrances are 98-99% natural, so they tend to live quite close to the skin." Both pieces of information help explain what I had originally considered an overly-mellow approach to a woodsy/tobacco scent.

Claude André Hébert Africa: following in the footsteps of Rebel Ambush, we have Canadian Claude André Hébert's take on the continent of Africa. Less dry woods and tobacco, and more cardomom and bitter herbs than you can shake a stick at, Africa is a bolder attempt at playing the dusty spice game than Rebel Ambush.

The website offers a vague ingredient description of African vanilla, ochre, incense and dry herb bouquet (the full knowledge of what comprises that bouquet is apparently beyond our pay grade). The herbal, almost musty tone to the drydown of Africa resembles the smell of sun-baked earth, oiled canvas and and gunpowder. The ochre adds just the right amount of dust, and the vanilla's late appearance is thankfully low key.

Claude Andre Hebert is another perfumer working with an increasingly natural list of ingredients -- I previously reviewed other fragrances of his here. Both Rebel Ambush and Africa are categorized as masculine fragrances, but can easily be worn by women who like earthy, woodsy perfumes (Africa is earthy, Rebel Ambush is woodsy; I think female consumers might actually groove on the quiet tread of Rebel Ambush).

Theo Fennell Scent: generic spicy oriental, with a lack of emphasis on the spice. Five minutes after spritzing it on, it was barely detectable. It sells for quite the hefty price on the Theo Fennell website, but you're paying for the bottle.

Allegedly stuffed with thirteen different spices, flowers and resins, the fragrance smells synthetic, muddled and so drearily been-there, done-that that I could barely stay awake to type a review of it. There are so many sophisticated and imaginative feminine orientals out there that it would be a shame for anyone to choose to support the continued existence of this perfume over, say, Bond No. 9's Chinatown.

biehl parfumkunstwerke MB02: unfortunately, MB02 doesn't hold up well under scrutiny, either (though it's still better than the Theo Fennell). Ordinarily, I'm a fan of Mark Buxton's work -- he created the fairly stunning MoslBuddJewChristHinDao and has developed numerous surprising concoctions for Japanese design firm Comme des Garcons, but the King Midas touch just isn't present with MB02.

Just as with Theo Fennell Scent, MB02 is supposedly chock-a-block full of flowers and incense resins, but instead comes off like a hospitalized anemic in desperate need of a blood transfusion. Buxton is famous for understatement, but there's a fine line between minimalism and laziness, and MB02 reeks of lazy.

It's too bad. biehl parfumkunstwerke is a relatively new perfume company and can't really afford any poor performers on its roster. It's not like they have the reputation of a groundbreaker like Chanel No. 5 that they can sit back and coast on for decades.

I was all set to mow through a pile of samples today, when what should show up at my door but my order of Lalique Encre Noire.

First off, this thing is heavy -- it's two ounces of eau de parfum in what feels like a five pound box . . . and the glossy box is, of course, ridiculously nice, as is the inky black crystal bottle. I mean, it's not like I would have expected anything less from Lalique, but it certainly does amp up the expectations for the juice itself.

And the juice doesn't disappoint. It's an earthy vetiver, utilizing both Bourbon and Haitian grasses for added depth, then mixing them up with cypress and cashmere woods, plus some deep, rich musk. There's no honey or orange blossoms, vanilla or tonka beans, and the fragrance is fairly straight-forward about its intentions right out of the bottle -- yet for an ingredient list so full of dry woods and earthy roots, Encre Noire speaks softly and holds itself close to the skin, qualities I admire in a scent.

Nothing worse than wearing a foghorn.

Below are photos of the bottle. The bottle is said to have been inspired by a 1913 Lalique ink pot (the fragrance itself has a dark, inky quality to its overall character), and is handblown black crystal. The cap is made out of Wenge, a dense, coarsely grained African hardwood, and it fits neatly over a ground glass stopper.

***BTW: I ordered the Encre Noire from Aedes de Venustas in New York. I didn't ask for any samples but they included a generous helping of them anyway, which I thought was very nice of them.

Coty Chypre: Originally created in 1917, Coty Chypre was so successful that "chypre" became the generic label for a whole classification of perfumes; specifically, fragrances based on a blend of citrus (bergamot, mainly), ciste-labdanum (or other amber resins) and oak moss (though vetiver and/or patchouli are starting to replace the use of oakmoss).

Coty Chypre is dark, earthy, potent and without a pretty flower or juicy fruit in sight. It's difficult to imagine a contemporary manufacturer even thinking of marketing a fragrance like this for women today; in fact, it's more virile and kick-ass than the majority of masculine fragrances now on the market. Those 1920's females must have been some tough broads, and our contemporary culture suffers from their absence.

Guerlain Jicky: a classic dating back to 1889. Jicky is instantly recognizable, not so much because you know you're smelling Jicky, but because it's had such a profound influence on nearly everything that's come after it -- which has the unfortunate effect of making Jicky seem trite or cliched. "Oh, vanilla," you think, as it wafts past you in the wake of yet another one of its wearers. "How boring."

But Jicky caused a sensation upon its original release as it was one of the first fragrances to combine natural and synthetic ingredients, extending its lifespan immeasurably; though by now, Jicky's ingredient list is likely fast approaching the 100% synthetic mark due to animal rights activists (bye bye, animal musks!) and government safety regulations.

Jicky fanatics (and they do exist) insist on the complexity of its composition and the mastery of its blending, but I mostly smell a heavy, sweet vanilla for most of its lifespan. Vanilla is my kryptonite when it comes to perfumes, and Jicky includes far more of it than I can rightly stand. If I were thrust into a burning building and forced to choose between saving the very last bottle of Coty Chypre in existence or the very last bottle of Jicky in existence, poor Jicky would perish in the flames.

I'll take savory over sweet any day (admittedly, though, Jicky boasts a smooth and appealingly woodsy drydown).

A video clip below of the history of the house of Guerlain:

Rochas Femme: created in 1944 and reformulated/reintroduced in 1989, Rochas Femme is a plummy, floral (roses and jasmin) perfume that starts off heavy on the cumin (cumin is a critical ingredient in chili powder, and plays a major role in Cuban, Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, Turkish, Moroccan, Afghan and Indian cuisines), then later moves into a neighborhood warm with sandalwood and earthy with oakmoss.

An overheated reviewer at NowSmellThis exclaims that "Femme smells voluptuous and intensely personal" in a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, I See Soiled Sheets kind of way, but at the end of the day, Rochas Femme is just a well-crafted floral chypre, and if you smell it and instantly free-associate with rolls in the hay, well, that's really between you and your Freudian therapist, thanks.

Femme has its earthy qualities, but it's not nearly as dark and earthy as Coty Chypre, thanks to the inclusion of the many flower and fruit notes -- though you can easily tell that Coty Chypre was a huge influence on the creation of the original Rochas Femme. The cumin in the ingredient list was apparently added in the 1989 reformulation as a concession to contemporary trends. A genuinely striking and lovely perfume.

Chanel No. 5: the original sparkling aldehyde, released in 1921 and still one of the best selling perfumes in the world.

It smells like a wheelbarrow full of white flowers, but good luck picking out any single kind or type. No. 5 offers the impression of florals without actually smelling like specific flowers, and this was allegedly its raison de etre -- to buttress the natural beauty of the wearer by highlighting its own artificiality. It also exhibits a sandalwood/vetiver base that appears curiously indifferent to all the white-hot sparkle that precedes it.

Again, this is one of those perfumes that smells like a cliche only because nearly every single subsequent perfumer has attempted to copy its success. A marvel at the time of its release, but rather less so today. To be frank, it comes across as somewhat harsh and/or strident when compared to contemporary perfumes that are making moves back to formulae with a higher concentration of natural essences.

21st century irony, meet Chanel No. 5:

Aqaba Sands of Aqaba: it's a snout full of flowers at the start, plus some green leaves and a clean, soapy element, but once the scrubbed, flowery part of the parade has passed by, the earthier coriander and cardamom make a welcome appearance and transition without a hitch into an incense/tuberose base. For as pretty and flowery as it starts off, I was pleasantly surprised with its salty, spicy finish.

Indult Isvaraya: an easy crowd pleaser (but that assumes the crowd is comprised of patchouli fans), Indult Isvaraya is a mix of primarily three ingredients: patchouli, jasmine and plum. The plum introduces a dusky fruit note at the opening that immediately catches your attention, while Patchouli emphasizes the earthy qualities of the Jasmine flower as the perfume stretches out on the skin. Fans of incense fragrances would probably like Isvaraya quite a bit, but I would think it would strike a more traditional white-floral crowd as too heavy and rich for comfort. The patchouli utilized for this formula is exceptionally smooth -- not a whiff of camphor for miles.

Agallocha Tedallal Homme: a fleeting whiff of citrus and herbs, then it's down to the nitty-gritty of genuine Arabian perfumes for men: cinnamon, clove, rose and jasmin, underscored by a warm layer of rich woods, saffron, musk and incense resins. It's a heady swirl, and you pretty much have to be a big ol' drama queen to pull this off, otherwise you're just a sack of sweet spices in a suit (it reminds me a bit of Imperial Opoponax, once the rose, clove and cinnamon take their exit). Would smell terrific on a woman -- in fact, I'd prefer to smell it on a woman.

Ajmal Aqhawan: this one got to me in a roundabout way that I was not expecting. It's sour and sharp, but blends so well into my skin that I'm beginning to doubt where it stops and I begin, or vice versa. I think what I like most about it is its willingness to forego the usual sweet spice and roses tapdance in lieu of a musky, earthier vibe. Musks are very popular in Arabian perfumes (the Prophet is said to have favored musks), and Aqhawan gets it right in that regard. As with most musks (unless you're encountering the extremely dark type), there's a bit of a soapy clean quality that emerges once the spices fall away and the musk is in full bloom. Usually, I'm against this experience, but I got a kick out of Ajmal Aqhwan's sour beginning wrapped up by a clean finish -- the opposite of what I was expecting.

Ajmal Aqhawan is my favorite of the four, but I can't for the life of me tell you how you might find any to purchase -- beyond traveling to Dubai in person, that is. I ordered my sample from The Perfumed Court, but they now appear to be sold out. Any other reference I found for it on the net turned out to be a dead end.

Parfums MDCI Ambre Topkapi: Dry, dusty herbs in the opening are spiked with a mellow punchbowl of ginger, pineapple, melon and the citrusy bergamot, and yet it's all so easy and laid back you'd swear there wasn't a fruit peel in sight.

But beyond the herbs and fruit opening, darker notes of nutmeg, oakmoss and vetyver circle sweeter notes of rosewood, lavender and vanilla, and while it sounds like half the ingredient list should be snarling and biting at the other half, the result is actually a quiet, smooth balancing act where the light shakes hands with the darkness and both sides agree to a draw.

I'd previously tested out Parfums MDCI Invasion Barbare, and was not impressed. It was too big, too potent, too much, smelling like the pinstriped, clenched jaw of DotCom bubbles and Hedge Fund scandals. Ambre Topkapi is far more relaxed, like a patriarch who made his fortune so long ago that what's all the fuss about? Just pour yourself a drink and sit down with him to enjoy the sunset . . . on the porch of his thousand acre ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, of course.

Clive Christian X for Men: Clive Christian No. 1 for Men is a balanced floral, rich with citrus, cedarwood and a primo vanilla at the base. X for Men is a different creature entirely -- spicy, a little green and with a salty, appealing cardamom oil layered over a cracklin' dry cedarwood.

This is the kind of earthy fragrance for men I've been hoping to find -- no sweet ambers in the base, no white soapy musks, no sharp synthetics to ruin the brew. X for Men is a terrific salt of the earth perfume that knows how to lay it on without going too thick.

I much prefer the salty earthiness of X for Men to the balanced florals of No. 1, but No. 1 is the BF's thing anyway, and far be it from me to take candy away from my baby. That leaves all the X in the house for me, anyway, and who can complain about that?

Some final, parting notes: Parfums MDCI Ambre Topkapi does take a turn toward the sweet at the end -- It is an amber, after all -- but it exhibits a great deal of restraint about it rather than morphing into one of those heavy, syrupy ambers that are typical of the ambers I've been reviewing lately.

Another thing to keep in mind is that both Parfums MDCI and Clive Christian pride themselves on using high-quality, natural oils. This makes them very expensive (synthetic ingredients are cheap, natural oils are not) while also affecting both the staying power and what perfume fanatics call the sillage -- "the trail of scent you leave wafting behind you." Ambre Topkapi and X for Men last for a few excellent hours, then are definitely seen leaving for the door, a fact which upsets people who can't understand why fragrances as expensive as these don't last as long at the party as the decidedly cheaper D&G's and Estee Lauder's they can snatch up at Macy's by the bucketful.

Like it or not, natural essences have a shorter life span than synthetics, so what you're paying for with these two perfumes is an ingredient list rich with top shelf naturals, along with the expertise of the master perfumers who blended the formulae -- a neon-bright, chemical-enhanced lifespan is not part of the package.

Speaking of packages, the bottles for Parfums MDCI are old-world French godawful. While I may not expect the perfume to have the lifespan of Methuselah, I don't think it's too much to ask for at least some small stab at 21st century design concepts. I mean, the Yohji Yamamoto for Men bottle is awesome, and it's a fraction of the price of anything put out by Parfums MDCI. Just sayin' . . .

Imperial Opoponax by Les Nereides is a sugary Nilla Wafer of a perfume. Its namesake ingredient, Opopanax chironium (also known as "sweet myrrhe"), is an incense gum that grows best in hot Middle Eastern and Mediterranean climates, and it's been used as an aromatic resin for centuries -- it's allegedly known as "the noblest of incense gums" which is undoubtedly where the "imperial" part of Imperial Opoponax comes from.

Other included ingredients: amber (sweet!), vanilla (sweet!), benzoin (sweet!), sandalwood (sweet!) and citrus (sweet!) -- so you can see that this is going to be one cavity-inducing ride from the start. If you're a huge fan of sugary vanilla fragrances, you'll fall madly in love with this stuff, cuz it's, like, a desert tray for your nose.

Imperial Opoponax can be considered a "linear" fragrance -- meaning that it doesn't start off in one state and cross several borders to wind up in a completely different olfactory location. What you smell when you spray this on is pretty darn close to what you get the entire time you're wearing it, since it's composed mostly of base notes (ingredients that comprise the foundation of a fragrance).

For me, it's a most definite No on the Would I Wear It scale, but I can easily see how something this cookie-aisle pleasant might ring a lot of bells across the landscape. I think I'm going to send the bottle to my sixteen year old niece -- the one that wears slouchy jeans, plays the cello and burns incense in her bedroom (you know, the same bedroom where the walls are covered in Orlando Bloom posters).

How could she not fail to attract attention while walking through the halls of her high school smelling like a plate of vanilla cookies? Everyone around her will be drooling, literally. She'll love it.

I seem to be on a bit of a photog roll, lately, and I hope you'll bear with me. Today, I'm including some snapshots of the bottle and box for Clive Christian No. 1 for Men.

I reviewed the fragrance itself back in May: review of Clive Christian No. 1 for Men. I'm not a fan of its slogan -- "The Most Expensive Perfume in the World!" -- but I do think it smells great.

It's very retro in its vibe, but not 1980's Wall Street/Gay Club retro, more like 1800's upper-class Brit retro, when fragrances created specifically for men didn't reek of fake flowers and/or chemical exhaust.

"There's no foghorn, no trumpet blast, no desperate bids for attention -- just rock solid composition and a scent that will still be glowing long after the last drunk socialite has been fished from the pool.""

The Clive Christian company has built its reputation on fine, handcrafted goods fashioned out of natural materials. No. 1 for Men is said to continue in that tradition, with an ingredient list comprised of some of the best natural essences available. The price tag is not for the faint of heart.

Yohji Yamamoto for Men is not the same creature as Yohji Homme. Yohji Homme is a sweet, anise infused fragrance with a warm and spicy amber base. It's one of the more edible gourmands for men and it's sadly discontinued.

Yohji Yamamoto for Men is a sheer, rather translucent cologne that blends right into the skin after an hour or so of wear. It exhibits a lighter than air quality, with a wispy layer of incense smoke over a base of warm, transparent musk -- with maybe even a little cumin for good measure.

It's extremely easy to wear and reminds me a bit of S-eX by S-Perfumes, as well as MoslBuddJewChristHinDao by Elternhaus.

Yohji Yamamoto for Men is getting more and more difficult to find. I haven't read or heard that it's been discontinued, but very few internet retailers carry it in stock, and I have yet to find it for sale in a physical store.

The bottle for Yohji Yamamoto for men is a terrific example of sleek Japanese minimalism. Its graceful curves and geometric planes are evocative not only of the light, simple juice it contains, but also of contemporary architectural design -- I think I get a whiff of Frank Gehry! Photos below:

Le Feu D'Issey from Issey Miyake is a strange beauty -- boldly synthetic, oddly distinctive and way too cool for school. It's like a 16 year old math protege who can build a time machine but still can't get a date to the prom.

Luca Turin gives it a five star (out of five) review in his book, Perfumes: The Guide, calling it "the smell of portable intelligence" -- but the fragrance bombed so badly in the marketplace that it was yanked shortly after it was introduced.

There's a sweet spiciness (what Turin labeled the smell of lime peel and Vitamin B pills) underscored by the odors of vinyl flooring and hot spa rocks. You either love it or you hate it -- indifference doesn't seem to be an option. Personally, I have a deep affection for its overt geekitude.

There aren't many bottles of Le Feu D'Issey left for sale, but I managed to snag one from a seller on eBay. Below are a few photos of the packaging and its poison-apple bottle:

UPDATE:

Other discontinued favorites I'm presently hoarding in my bathroom cupboard:
*Matthew Williamson Incense: the original version, not the recently reformulated, and subsequently ruined, version.
*Elternhaus MoslBuddJewChristHinDao: I'm assuming it's discontinued because I can't find it for sale . . . anywhere!
*Maître Parfumeur Et Gantier (MPG) Soir D'orient
*Yohji Yamamoto Yohji Homme
*Yves St. Laurent M7

I won't bore you with yet one more cut-and-paste of the Eau de Polder backstory (click here to find out more), I just wanted to say that #1) it's a beautiful Dutch-minimalist bottle, and #2) it's a clean, green and creamy sweet perfume that's suitable for just about any occasion.

There's a hint of earth and grass to the way it opens that puts it squarely in the unisex camp, yet the wildflower sweetness at its base is definitely a lady charmer. Allegedly smells just like the air of a Dutch polder in the springtime.

What's a polder, you say? Funny you should ask: click link for Wikipedia page.

If you want to travel all the way to the Netherlands, you can even get your bottle refilled at the Essencebron (Essence Spring) in the visitors' center, located next to the Oude Stoomgemaal on the edge of Mastenbroek (I don't know what any of that means, either, but a map to the location is kindly included among the packaging materials).

Eau de Polder is a concentrated oil, so the small bottle will last you a while. The glass stopper does double-duty as a wand applicator. The whole shebang is such an artsy concept that I'd lay good bets it won't be available on the international market for more than a few years. If you like it, now's the time to buy it.

Photos of the Eau de Polder bottle and packaging below:

Profumum Patchouly: leaps out of the gate as a no-nonsense, take no prisoners medicinal patchouli. Your average sweet and floral perfume lover will be startled by the high-pitched mint & mothball breath of Profumum Patchouly and flee to seek comfort and solace elsewhere. True patchouli aficionados, however, will be thrilled. Includes amber, sandalwood and incense ingredients (the incense is especially nice), but these are added sparingly and only show up much later in the game.

Bois 1920 Real Patchouly: gentler at the start than the Profumum Patchouly, Bois 1920 softens the biting top note of patchouli with a dash of lemon and a tablespoon of velvety sandalwood, drifting lazily into vanilla and amber territory with each ticking of the clock. I have to admit it's amusing that they named it "Real Patchouly" since it works so hard at tamping down the harsh edges that are part and parcel to the smell of the genuine article. Nevertheless, a soothing and pleasant ride on the patchouli bandwagon.

M. Micallef Patchouli: a somewhat subdued patchouli that opens with the fresh green scent of violet leaves. A blend of orris root, heliotrope and vanilla moves in and then it's goodbye patchouli and hello Cheesecake Factory. Benzoin, cistus and balsam tolu contribute to the sugary vanilla flavor of the mix, and it's only the presence of cedarwood and vetyver that keep it from collapsing into a diabetic coma. A sweet, feminine perfume with an earthy touch. Consumers who don't like patchouli will buy this in a heartbeat.

Montale Patchouli Leaves: kind of like what M. Micallef Patchouli tries to be, but wisely leaving out the desert course. Montale Patchouli Leaves has an earthy, leafy tone that reins in the sharp bite of actual patchouli so that you're smelling what might be patchouli plants growing in a deep forest. There's a bit of oak and vanilla and labdanum, but it's a fine-tuned mix and the three work with the main patchouli ingredient rather than against it, softening the edges and smoothing out the bite. The vanilla is, at times, more noticeable than I'd prefer, but in comparison to M. Micallef Patchouli, it's a veritable model of restraint.

Les Nereides Patchouli Antique: smells like patchouli doused in sweet cane rum. Not unpleasant, especially if you like the smell of cane rum. Yum!

Etro Patchouly: there must be a lot of light musk in Etro Patchouli, as this is the soapiest, cleanest patchouli fragrance I've ever smelled. Stripping out anything and everything that might be considered dark or earthy, Etro has kicked the dirty hippie vibe to the curb and come up with a light, white floral patchouli for all you freshly showered, sporty types. Would work well for summer wear. I hate it (my apologies to the friend who sent me the sample).

In summation: Profumum Patchouly is the most genuinely patchouli-ish of the bunch, graced with a nice incense afterburn; Montale Patchouli Leaves gets a big thumbs up for its green forest vibe; M. Micallef Patchouli is so sweet I got cavities just by sniffing it; Bois 1920 Real Patchouly opts for the hippie sandalwood routine, making it a smooth ride; Les Nereides Patchouli Antique is what your alcoholic Aunt would drink wear to the family Christmas party; and Etro Patchouly is so very zestfully clean, but is it really patchouli?

And what better way to bring our Patchouli Friday to a close than with a video clip of way-stoned hippies dancing -- have a good weekend, y'all!

Weird and whacky Japanese design house Comme des Garcons receives critical praise by the barrel, but that doesn't necessarily translate into bottom line profit -- hence, their line of fragrances which they churn out with dizzying abandon.

Chandler Burr wrote in his book, The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York, that "It's an open secret that fragrance is essential to the financial health of most of the world's luxury brands. A man I know once sat next to Yves Saint Laurent at a Paris dinner party. He asked, 'What portion of Yves Saint Laurent revenues are accounted for by perfume?' Saint Laurent replied, 'Eighty-three point five.'"

When your clothes, shoes and bags aren't raking in the bucks, it's time to fire up the perfumes, and CdG has flooded the market with an array of fragrances designed to appeal to pretty much any and every taste under the sun (Leaves, Incense, Sweets, Synthetics, Sherbet, Citrus, Woods and so on). Some of them are truly awful, most of them are decent enough, and every so often they really hit one out of the ballpark, a feat that can translate into hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales with the proper distribution and marketing.

I've reviewed several CdG fragrances in previous posts, but I'd like to focus on three more: Champaca, a super-luxe exotic floral designed for the high-end consumer that doesn't bat an eye at plunking down serious bucks for the likes of Clive Christian and Armani Prive; 888, a spicy saffron perfume in a gleaming gold bottle geared toward the consumer on a slightly smaller budget; and Palisander, a woodsy floral with an affordable appeal.

Champaca: A tropical relative of the Magnolia flower, champaca is a rich, heavy ingredient, and CdG mixes it up with angelica and tuberose, both of which exhibit tart, green notes that act as a backdrop for the showy champaca flower. There's pepper for a little bit of spice and some white musk which, frankly, lends the fragrance a fresh, clean and bordering on soapy edge, but the musk also manages to emphasize the idea of green sap and crisp leaves, supporting the illusion of a flower still on the tree. The addition of cardamom adds a fleshy note in the base of the formula that's suggestive of decaying flower petals as the fragrance winds down.

As with a commenter on the NowSmellThis website, I would have preferred the inclusion of musk that was earthy rather than soapy-clean, but CdG knows their Asian market, and earthy/dirty doesn't sell so well in the Eastern hemisphere, especially in Japan and maybe not at all in China.

As a whole, Champaca is a peppery-floral, more tart than sweet. The price point seems to be a brick wall for a good number of perfume consumers, but if you've got it to spend, and you like the fragrance . . .

888: You want to smell like dusty saffron gussied up with a bouquet of geraniums? You got it.

Nothing really wowzy to smell here, and the marketing is geared more on trying to sell the fragrance as "the scent of gold" (replete with gleaming gold bottle) than trying to sell it for what it is: a bright, metallic fragrance that morphs into the scent of your kitchen spice cupboard on acid. You can rest assured that not many other people are going to fork over the cash to smell this weird, so whip out the charge card and revel in your individuality!

Palisander: Now that we've touched back down in the land of the affordable, let's see what a whole lot less money buys you with CdG. Palisander is part of the CdG Red Series, and it opens up a bit on the screechy side, like a can of whoop-ass paint fumes mixed with cherry cough syrup.

Champaca and 888 studiously avoided anything to do with the usual bizarro landscape of CdG fragrances, but Palisander takes a full-on, head-first dive into it. Is it a salt-lick lollipop? A cardboard box full of Red Hots melting on a vinyl dashboard?

Whatever it is, Palisander is not shy, and its neon sweet, sticky aroma makes me think of Hello Kitty switchblades and giggling teenage girls on a shoplifting spree. I'm not so sure this is as much Red as Las Vegas Fuchsia. Supposedly based on the smell of rosewood, but only if the trees come from a poisoned forest (I think the myrrhe really kicked it into the negative goalpost for me).

I'll take a second mortgage out on the house and snag a bottle of Champaca, instead.

With an ingredient list that reads lemon, geranium, galbanum, jasmine, clove, birch, opoponax, tonka beans and tree moss, you might be forgiven for assuming that Esprit de Cuir, from relatively new prefume kid on the block Auguste, is going to be a whip-crackin' chypre. Your assumption, however, would be wrong.

The backstory to the Auguste line is that founder Catherine Fructus commissioned three fragrances to be based on traditional French perfume formulae from the early 1900's. This was perhaps intended as a way to introduce contemporary consumers to the glory days of Grasse perfumery, yet from what I've read about the glory days of Grasse perfumery, Esprit de Cuir seems a bit too sweet and a tad too pretty of a leather-chypre scent to have lasted very long on any early 20th century shopkeeper's restock list.

It opens with a promising aroma of prickly lemon, smoky birch tar, crisp green galbanum and a whiff of bitter moss, and I immediately think: "Okay! Old French perfumery, here we come!" -- but twenty minutes later, the sweet jasmin, geranium, opoponax and tonka beans kick in and then they never let go, so instead of "the spirit of leather" I find myself holding a jug full of floral amber (or, if I were to ask the BF, he'd say, "Smells like vanilla" and turn back to his computer).

The gang over at Perfume Posse say that Esprit de Cuir is a "rich, earthy leather . . . elegant without being too refined. Earthy without being too raw. An interesting take on leather" and perhaps this is how it's meant to strike the wearer -- not as being heavily sweet, but rather, heavy in a thick, old-world potion kind of way.

So maybe it all boils down to your idea of the smell of leather, and what the "spirit of leather" might mean to you personally. Esprit de Cuir has a quality much like soft caramel skin -- a well-oiled, freshly soaped and professionally tanned hide; or even the interior of a black and cream Dusseldorf whose owner smoked cigars as he drove the miles of back country roads to his estate. I just wish it showed a little less gleam on the chrome, a little more dirt on the mud-flaps. Its spotless, pleasant nature isn't offering me that old, vintage leather vibe I was somehow hoping for.

Wasn't it civet musk that pretty much every traditional French perfumery used as a base ingredient in its fine fragrances? I didn't see it on the ingredient list for Esprit de Cuir. I think all that Esprit de Cuir lacks is a nice dose of that gritty civet, and then we'd be the best of friends.

Esprit de Cuir comes in an oily, very concentrated parfum-extrait formula only, bottled in painted porcelain containers -- the website claims the bottles are hand-painted, but I'm sitting here looking at a bottle in front of me, and I'd say it's more likely hand-colored than hand-painted (or partially hand-painted rather than entirely so), but it's not worth arguing with anyone about it. You can order a bottle of Esprit de Cuir from Lucky Scent, which seems to be the only place in the United States that's authorized to carry it.

A couple of photos of the Esprit de Cuir bottle below:

The art of perfumery is a weird, f***ed up amalgamation of scent, description and image, with both description and image successfully biasing the consumer in favor of the scent, justly or not.

Avery Gilbert, in his fascinating new book 'What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life', devotes a signifiant portion of his time detailing the many ways in which the human sense of smell can be manipulated into 1.) smelling something that isn't there; 2.) misdiagnosing a smell due to existing preconceptions; and 3.) reacting in a positive or negative way to a smell simply through the power of suggestion.

Which explains a lot really, especially if you've ever marveled at the breathtaking lunacy of perfume commercials:

Or rolled your eyes at pseudo-poetic descriptions of fragrances that sound as though they were written by pretentious art-poseurs for a high school creative writing class:

"Paestum Rose is a perfume that's rich and filled with meaning like the intimate opalescent blacks Caravaggio painted, instantly known and strangely unfamiliar. In this perfume we smell ancient beauty made thrillingly . . . "

Wait! That was written by a 45 year old gay man? Oh well, same difference.

And here we have upstart French perfume house, Etat Libre d'Orange, that takes this principal -- that image and suggestion dramatically influence our reaction towards scent -- and runs with it. Hard, fast, long and way too far.

Some rave about Etat's perfumes, while others think they're just over-hyped and over-rated, so I chose one of their more evocatively themed and provocatively named scents to review today to see just how much of what they offer is substance, and how much of it is simply a desperate collusion of image and marketing.

Secretions Magnifiques is our Exhibit A -- the PR copy so blatantly illustrated with a cartoon drawing of a man's cock spurting a fountain of semen is a perfect example of the use of provocative imagery to manipulate the consumer. Then there's the PR copy: "Like blood, sweat, sperm, saliva, Secretions Magnifiques is as real as an olfactory coitus that sends one into raptures . . . Masculine tenseness frees a rush of adrenalin in a cascade of high-pitched aldehydic notes" and blah blah blahbbity blah.

Look, spurting imagery and cascading prose aside, Secretions Magnifiques is a fair stab at the skin-scent category daintily wrapped in a sweet floral ribbon, though it starts off with such a gritty, metallic twang as to almost put me off the whole thing entirely; but once all the . . . uh . . . "tension" subsides, what's left is a medium-bodied musk, slightly salty, slightly soapy, sweetly floral, probably easy enough to wear and certainly not unattractive.

But I don't know where the hell they came up with all the blood, sweat, sperm and saliva. Again, this must be their attempt at utilizing distinctive imagery and descriptors to pushbutton the consumer into experiencing the perfume in a way that's substantively different from what the fragrance itself actually offers.

So . . . are people buying what the hype machine is selling? Let's see!

Bois de Jasmin: "the message it sends forth is one of raw power. Its potent sensuality makes it both fascinating and challenging . . . It may remind one of the scent of kisses on warm skin, or of something else far more risqué." Okay, score one for Etat Libre d'Orange.

PereDePierre: "I smell a strange, metallic floral, and quite a striking one at that. Sweet notes of chocolate and coconut contrast in a fascinating way with a peculiar salty note. Things get much tamer as the scent dries, and the foody and sandalwood aspects are emphasized." Hmmm, he concentrates on the scent rather than the exploding cock. Viva la resistance! The Age of Reason scores a point.

Scented Salamander: "To our nose, Sécrétions Magnifiques smells of albumen and sperm in a magnified way . . . We are left with two main impressions: rawness and coldness. The latter evokes a seducer rather than an authentic amorous exchange. The perfume could have been called Don Giovanni and reveal the inadequacy of its wearer to experience love." Okay, female reviewer #2 gets her knickers all in a bodily fluids tangle, as well. That's a score of 2 for Etat's marketing department, 1 for The Age of Reason.

Divine Caroline: "If you could smell it with a French accent, it'd be erotic, provocative, sensual, and dirty (in a lacey French way). In plain English, it's gross. Gross ... but also genius." You think she might be one of those people who are easily hypnotized? Etat -- 3, The Age of Reason -- 1.

A Minx by Any Other Name: "Perhaps the most childishly ill-concieved scent of the line, Secretions Magnifiques smells neither of secretions nor is it magnificent . . . It smells more of inorganic or chemical weirdness than any natural body scents I have encountered." Ha! The Age of Reason shoots and scores! Etat -- 3, Age of Reason -- 2.

Luca Turin: "Stupendous secretions! The Dada name had me drooling. The fragrance is both less and far more than I expected: it is not an animalic (supposedly) raunchy thing that works on the assumption that we collect soiled underwear or frequent the same nightclubs as cats and dogs. It is, however, an elegant fresh floral . . . given a demonic twist by a touch of a stupendous bilge note." I would say that Mr. Turin is on the side of Reason, but then he makes the unfortunate choice to continue on and "mount" an "impassioned" defense (yes, in those exact words) of the perfume's main ingredient, so it looks like Etat and its juvenile imagery wins again. Fight called due to technical KO.

It's more than likely that the perfume industry is completely aware of the scientific studies that resoundingly reveal how easy it is to push around our sense of smell, so what's most important for us, as perfume consumers, is to be aware of the influence peddlers when they come 'round spinning elaborate fantasies.

Rule of thumb: when a marketing hack opens his mouths to speak, he/she is manipulating. Even more so if it's in print. I mean, c'mon -- a perfume that allegedly smells like blood, sweat, saliva and sperm? That's a load of sh*t that's easy to smell, and from a long ways away.

FWIW: I also tested out Etat's Charogne. Charogne -- you know, French for "the carcass of a dead animal". Sex. Death. Whatever. It's really just a deep, dusky incense rose. With vanilla in it. If the carcasses of dead animals actually smelled this sweet, I'd be lobbying for a road kill museum . . . and I'm not.

Yesterday, I gave a test drive to five Serge Lutens fragrances, since I've so far been less than enthusiastic on this blog regarding Serge Lutens perfumes and I wanted to give the line a broader testing to see if I might actually have been missing something special.

The answer, to my nose, was no.

And today I find myself willing to take a gander at two Nasomatto fragrances, despite the near disastrous introduction to their line over a month back. On July 4th, I sampled Nasomatto Duro and found it less than wearable, to put it mildly; but just as Serge Lutens has its admirers, I know that the Nasomatto line does, as well, and I thought it would be a fair shake to give a few of its other scents a chance to counteract the bad taste left in my life from the thoroughly unpleasant Duro.

China White: China White is the most recent Nasomatto release, and its mildly provocative name probably does it more harm than good. China White is a street name for a type of white powder heroin, and while the choice of name is likely meant to conjure all types of hazy and addictive iamgery, it actually comes across as more Beavis and Butt-head than sex, rock & roll and glamor.

"Uhhhhhhh Dude . . . heh heh heh . . . he said "China White" . . . heh heh heh . . . that's so cool!"

Which is a shame, since China White isn't half bad -- but "not half-bad" is like the kiss of death for a perfume named China White. For what should have been a euphoria inducing, eye-glazing and brain scrambling experience is instead a lightly powdered, ever so delicately smoky scent that exhibits a bit of flaming match & scorched coffee-table (including a bit of furniture polish, mind you) overlaying a warm salty-sweet resinous core that hovers just above the skin.

But narcotic? Not so much.

I'd consider buying a bottle, as it's genuinely attractive, IMO better than Serge Noir as far as minimalist incense fragrances are concerned, and its subtle warmth would serve just as well in a crowded venue as an intimate gathering, but the name is so dumb (kind of like MoslBuddJewChristHinDao, only worse because of its lame Studio 54 pretentions) that I'm not sure I can bring myself to actually support it with my $$$.

Nasomatto only has itself to blame on that account.

Silver Musk: an oddly pleasing liquid musk. Chilly and a touch sparkling, with some white florals plus a bit of that Dove soap cleanliness (99.4% pure!) -- and is that a faint watery-melon (not watermelon, but watery-melon) note placed way in the back? Did they honestly put muscone and calone in the same fragrance? I keep getting a here and gone again whiff of Hermès' madly unappreciated Un Jardin Apres la Mousson . . . ? Whatever the combo, this is a surprising and devilishly creative means of effecting a shimmering, see-through musk.

I'd say Silver Musk is likely Nasomatto's most accessible candidate for the perfume sweepstakes yet -- it has a much better name than China White, and it's confident enough in its construction to avoid the use of any showy calisthenics as a substitute for high talent and quality ingredients, though it must be said that China White has a woods and smoke character that satisfies a much different need than the cool chinchilla tones of Silver Musk.

If the rest of the Nasomatto line turns out to be as good as these two, I might just forgive them for Duro after all.

And because I know it has to be a burning questions on somebody's mind, the character that Kathleen Turner played in 'Crimes of Passion' was named China Blue, not China White:

"Save your money, shithead!"

Oh, wait -- she isn't talking about the Nasomatto perfumes! You can find China White and Silver Musk for sale at Lucky Scent. Spend away!

Since I've been less than thrilled by the Serge Lutens I've so far encountered, and I know that there are a lot of devoted Serge Lutens fans (can a million K-Mart shoppers be wrong?), I thought I'd do a quick Serge Lutens field trip and take a drive-by sniffa at five of his fragrances that I've yet to experience:

La Myrrhe: opens with a rather generic floral-aldehydic waft, then turns into a chilled marble bowl filled with mandarin oranges and sugared dates -- I'm probably making it sound nicer than it actually is. A little bit of church smoke makes a later, though not entirely redeeming, appearance. One of my favorite compatriots at POL eschews anything with myrrhe in it, and I think I'm starting to understand why. Dries down decently, but by then it's lost my attention.

Arabie: this was a bit more sharp & sour than I had anticipated, probably due to the cumin, candied mandarin peel and bayleaf, not my favorite scent trilogy. Another blogger noted that it possesses an herbal cough-drop quality, and I would second that assessment. The cumin makes a noticeable reappearance at the finish line, along with an unloved myrrhe.

Tubereuse Criminelle: opens with a serious kick of Vicks Mentholatum Rub and never fully loses it. NOT a quality I admire in a fragrance. Next!

Fumerie Turque: probably the one I liked the most out of the bunch, but that's because, straight out of the gate, it was the easiest one to like. I'm kind of a sucker for incense scents (my boredom with Serge Noir notwithstanding), and Fumerie Turque boasts a honied, incense smoke and cured tobacco leaf sweetness, with a little bit of sandalwood and black tea for good measure. It's not for me, mind you, but I have half a mind to pick it up as an early birthday present for . . . well, she probably reads this blog, so mums the word!

Chene: an unexpectedly fresh-faced ingenue of a perfume, innocent and eagerly charming, yet I can't give it a full thumbs-up since it's just too resolutely cute and squeaky clean. It makes a game attempt at riding down the woodsy path, but can never quite pedal the bike fully into the forest. Is this what a clean, soapy chypre might smell like -- with a transparent citrus, a laundered oakmoss and a diet amber? In any case, it's only suitable for someone (anyone!) who's not me.

To sum it up, I'd have to admit that I'm apparently not part of the Serge Lutens target audience. I find some of his fragrances passable, but more often than not, I'm vaguely bored if not repulsed. Borneo 1834 is really the only Serge Lutens I've so far enjoyed, but the BF hated it, so there we are.

My sincere apologies to the genuine Serge Lutens fans out there. I know there are a multitude of you -- and I'm sure Mr. Lutens will do just fine without my enthusiastic support (drat it all!).

Created for Italian perfume house Eau d'Italie by Bertrand Duchaufour, who's just about as talented and famous a perfumer as money can buy these days, Bois d'Ombrie and Sienne l'Hiver are top shelf, top drawer, top notch perfumes that deserve the over the top praise that gets piled at their doorstep.

Bois d'Ombrie, named for the woods of Umbria, is just about as striking and interesting a woods + smoke fragrance I've encountered. It opens with all the charm of a campfire at dusk in a thick forest, including a flask of whiskey shared between friends, plus a cigar (or two). The floral ingredients tossed into the mix are faint, as if distant, and the real pleasure is the dry, warm smoke scent that lays across your skin without turning ashen or bitter.

Some patchouli and incense notes (myrrhe, opoponax) kick in later, but not so much as to turn Bois d'Ombrie into a full-fledged incense -- because it's all about the Umbrian forest, the roots and grasses and the earth covered in dry leaves.

Sienne l'Hiver is a step in a completely different direction. Meant to evoke the Italian town of Siena in winter, Sienna l'Hiver is much cooler in temperature, with the scents of cold paving stones in the Piazza Del Campo (town square), the chill wind-swept cedars, the damp mustiness of medieval cathedrals, the yellow straw for the horses of the Palio, the translucent green odor of olive oil produced from the Montestigliano Olive estate, the dark, loamy delight of the truffles for which the region is famous.

Neither Bois d'Ombre nor Sienne l'Hiver are traditionally pretty fragrances, as both focus on earthy, masculine ingredients, with florals that appear only as minor accent pieces, at best. Eau d'Italie has other fragrances that focus more exlusively on flowers -- Magnolia Romana and Paestum Rose -- which leave Bois d'Ombre and Sienne l'Hiver free to explore the rocks, woods, earth and trees of the Italian landscape.

Bois d'Ombre is the more accessible of the two scents, with its dry, smoky, warm personality, while Sienna l'Hiver has a frosty aspect to it that keeps it reined in tighter, narrower, as if its full range has been constrained by its more artistic aspirations -- yet both are clever, even witty perfumes, with a definite flair for the unusual.

One thing to note: both fragrances exhibit a faint soapiness in their final phase due to the musk utilized in their individual bases. It's not a deal killer, but it is a little surprising when it makes its appearance.

***Note to Bertrand Duchaufour: I know you're all, like, famous and sh*t, and everybody calls you a genius perfumer, but aren't there musks that can be used in perfume that don't smell like the musks used in hand-soap and laundry detergent? If so, would you please consider using those musks instead of the ones that do smell like the musks used in hand soap and laundry detergent? Just a thought. Thank you for your time, Mr. Genius. I still love your work!

God, I'm such a brown-noser.

You can find Bois d'Ombre and Sienne l'Hiver at Lucky Scent as well as Lafco NY, the US Distribution arm for Eau d'Italie.

Whatever my personal opinion of Tom Ford (and now that I stop and think about it, I don't really have a personal opinion about Tom Ford), I will happily give him kudos for his ability to give the people what they want.

His juvenile shock-marketing campaigns aside (oh, wait -- that qualifies as a personal opinion, doesn't it?), he near single-handedly resurrected the fortunes of aging luxury houses Gucci and YSL before moving on to his own menswear venture, a venture that has thankfully shaken the fashion world to its senses by showing that a menswear designer can be both respectable and profitable through taking the trouble to offer men what they want to wear rather than shoveling ridiculous shrunken-suits, man-dresses and designer on acid collections down the runways year after year.

I mean, you'd never see James Bond in a Thom Browne ensemble, and thank god for such small mercies.

Which brings us to Mr. Ford's Private Blend collection, a series of twelve fragrances that seize upon the more recently successful trends in niche-perfumery and introduce them to a wider audience. On one hand, you have to just stand back a little and gasp at the chutzpah -- here are twelve fragrance ideas that Tom Ford obviously ransacked from better perfume houses with smaller budgets and even more miniscule marketing machines at their backs; but on the other hand, distributing these trends into the wider marketplace might actually help these same niche perfumers, most of whom have their own (again, much better) fragrances already for sale on the net and in exclusive boutiques around the world.

And yes, you heard me correctly -- I said "much better" fragrances, for while the Tom Ford Private Blend fragrances are indeed nice, none of them are groundbreaking, unusual or even all that distinctive, but they are, however, successfully commercial interpretations of more interesting ideas gleaned from his competitors.

It's a good thing the perfume industry doesn't have pesky copyright laws to get in the way of a good cribbing.

Let's take Mr. Ford's Oud Wood, for example. It's smooth, pleasant, a bit sweet and slightly smoky, but L'Artisan covered this incense territory much earlier, Montale has been doing both incense and oud wood perfumes for years, Comme des Garcons launched both its incense and woodsy series over five years back, and Andy Tauer, Ava Luxe, Matthew Williamson, Serge Lutens, Profumum -- all have produced more interesting and creative rides on the golden, smoky incense wagon than Tom Ford Oud Wood, though chances are that the majority of mainstream consumers have no freakin' idea who these perfume companies are, or where to buy their products.

So . . . points to Ford for getting his big name and his bigger bottles on the giant department store chain shelves first, even though this fragrance smells more like sandalwood and vanilla than anything remotely to do with oud.

Moss Breches is pretty much the same story. A chypre with a few cups of brown sugar thrown in to help it go down more smoothly with the younger crowd. Moss Breches is nice, but yet, again, the chypre is a classic formulation (citrus, oakmoss, ambergris) that's been around since the early 1900's and has been worked and reworked to great effect by much better perfumers and more accomplished designers than Tom Ford.

Besides, the amber, benzoin and labdanum in Moss Breches become almost cloyingly sweet as time goes on, and the oakmoss? You can barely (if at all) smell it in the mix two hours later. What kind of self-respecting chypre puts up with that? If you're going to make an amber, then just make an amber. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to formulate a masculine-leaning chypre that opts for a sex-change halfway through and winds up in a big wig, platform heels and way too much makeup.

Noir de Noir is the more interesting of the three as it shows at least some attempt at imagination, as well as a bit of bite and spine. Noir de Noir is actually the closest thing to a real winner in the bunch, and there's a dark rooty quality that teams up with a lavish dose of patchouli to put a little fire in the dragon's belly. Not that it's all beast and bellow, mind you -- saffron and roses have also been stirred into the pot, along with the ubiquitous vanilla (gotta please the sweet teeth).

Noir de Noir is, to my best perception, a perfume for people who listen to ColdPlay -- which means millions of potential paying customers, so who can really fault targeting that particular demographic? But really, once you've gone and christened the thing Noir de Noir, you've pretty guaranteed a mob of oh-so-faux angst-heads will be lining up to grab a bottle for their very own, anyway, and nuts to how it actually smells.

But Noir de Noir isn't the best bracing patchouli scent you're likely to encounter. In fact, Il Profumo Patchouli Noir is a more striking example of the form (even including the vanilla), and I hear that Serge Lutens will make his stunner of a patchouli scent, Borneo 1834, available for export soon.

***Additional Note: Tom Ford was creative director with YSL when M7 was produced, and M7 remains an enduring favorite of mine. Unfortunately, I don't find the same spark of inspiration in Ford's new fragrance work, and actually thought, while testing out Private Blend Oud Wood, that it could easily be M7's less interesting little brother.

Created by master perfumer Isabelle Doyen for niche Swiss fragrance house LesNez, l'Antimatiere is about as close as a fragrance can get to the scent of clean human skin without completely fusing itself to the wearer.

Comprised almost entirely of a soft skin-musk that's dialed down just slightly from the average body temp, l'Antimatiere wins a near perfect score in the 'So Subtle I Almost Didn't Notice You Were Wearing Perfume' Olympics.

This doesn't mean that you can't smell it, it just plays by different rules than the more obvious floral/woodsy/fruity juices that trumpet their arrivals and imprison the room's attention thereafter; l'Antimatiere, instead, performs a series of understated scent tricks and olfactory maneuvers that bypass security and sneak in through the back entrance -- the better to trigger the gong of the unconscious, my dear.

There's a clear difference between "Hello" and "It's a pleasure to meet you" -- a verbally minor yet pscyhologically seismic shift in vocabulary from "That's a lovely perfume you're wearing" to "Wow, you smell terrific!", and wearing l'Antimatiere can easily be the cause for both the latter.

LesNez Let Me Play the Lion is more forthright about its intentions than l'Antimatiere. Another one of Isabelle Doyen's creations, Let Me Play the Lion appropriates l'Antimatiere's hushed foundation but introduces an entirely different, and noticeably striking, structural schematic to build on top of it.

Dry and enticingly spicy, mixing dusty layers of cedar and sandalwood with anise and incense smoke, Let Me Play the Lion literally begs you to asses its charms and burst into a resulting applause. If l'Antimatiere is the brilliant behind the scenes speechwriter, then Let Me Play the Lion is the charismatic candidate bathing in the glow of flashbulbs and news camera lights, ostentatiously flirting rather than covertly manipulating.

"Somebody take a poll -- I can feel my numbers rising!"

Both of them are successful on their own terms, yet I would find myself reaching for l'Antimatiere more often than Let Me Play the Lion, mostly because l'Antimatiere is far more subtle and can therefore insinuate itself into a wider variety of situations and circumstances without attracting undo attention. That being said, Let Me Play the Lion has a terrific drydown, all full of warmth and a slight sweetness.

Photo of bottle of l'Antimatiere -- so yes, I suppose you could say I approached this review with some slight amount of bias:

UPDATE (01/29/09):

Hey! Look whose review of L'Antimatiere got quoted for the new LesNez website:

click photo for larger screenshot

Bruno Acampora Musc has caused a bit of a twitter among online perfume fans, eliciting commentary such as, "it is just very smooth, and I had my nose glued to my wrist all night"; "I find it enchanting and beautiful, with a tremendous sillage", "the drydown is very smooth and satisfying" and "It, I don't know, GETS to me somehow!"

Some even go so far as to claim that it's the best in its league, though I have to admit to an uncertainty regarding which league they could possibly be referring to -- the Sweet Vanilla & Clove Musk League, perhaps?

Because, as an outright musk, I find the Bruno Acampora version a bit too lacy handkerchief and crinolines for my taste, as if the idea behind the creation of BA Musc was to make a musk scent for people who abhor the genuine article.

Marie-Helene Wagner at The Scented Salamander states that Bruno Acampora Musc is "too structured, a bit blocky, and not sinuous enough" when I think its problem is all that plus some -- it's too sweet, too floaty, gauzy and feminine; it works too hard at social prettiness and good manners rather than embracing its natural, slinky, earthy state of being.

The vanilla killed it for me almost from the get-go. The cloves, violets and roses were just insults added to the injury. So I did what any desperate musk lover would do -- I grabbed my bottle of CB I Hate Perfume Musk Reinvention absolute and dumped a good amount into the Bruno Acampora Musc jar, then gave the little jar a good shake.

I cautiously opened the cork stopper to reveal . . . ah, heaven! The CB Musk Reinvention had wiped out everything silly and bashful about BA Musc, and what resulted was a very smooth, warm musk oil that smelled more like a second skin than a Jessica Simpson perfume factory.

Thank god for CB I Hate Perfume.

Below are some shots of the bottle and packaging for Bruno Acampora Musc. The pretty pink ribbon and pink puffy backlayer were my first indications that something was going to be very amiss about this musk experience:

I guess I'll have to do more pre-ordering research next time, but all's well that ends well, and I now have a bottle of CB corrected Acampora musk oil in my cupboard that I can happily wear.

But really -- a vanilla flavored musk? Are they insane?

What with my very satisfying experience with JAR Bolt of Lightning under my belt, I thought it might be a good idea to test something else that JAR has to offer. JAR Shadow sounded like it could be intriguing -- as one member of the POL forum described it: "a dark oakmoss perfume with a sandalwood and 'mustard' type accord, very beautiful and mysterious" . . . hmmmm, beautiful and mysterious. And mustard!

So I ordered a sample (of JAR Shadow, not the mustard, you ninnies!) from The Perfumed Court and am sitting here wearing it as I type. Good news: JAR doesn't make the same perfume twice. Bad news: JAR doesn't make the same perfume twice!

Bolt of Lightning is a crisp, almost crackling floral -- a lush tuberose full of green stalks and wet grasses. The first fifteen minutes of it are godawful, but after the opening notes pull back it transforms on the skin into a thing of near radiant beauty. Honest. I hate hyperbole -- this isn't hyperbole, it's the facts.

But JAR Shadow? I dunno. I'm conflicted. Oakmoss is an incredibly difficult child to love on the best of days, and Shadow is stuffed full of it, not to mention what smells like every other dark, prickly ingredient in the book: Vetiver, Birch, Olibanum, Castoreum and lord knows what else.

I think it might even include patchouli, but, like, the genuine stuff that starts off all bug-repellant harsh before it decides to play nice.

There's not a single grace note to the opening of Shadow, nothing in its manner that bothers to present itself with any charm. You have to have a very open mind and a patient nose to put up with what seems like an eternity of gas-can breath.

"How about a mint? No? Pity . . . it's wafer thin!"

But then a minor miracle occurs and the cold gasoline-kerosene veil pulls aside to reveal a quick flood of warmth along with an entirely unexpected sweetness. There's still a bit of a frosty, sharp edge, but a welcome balance has been introduced and the wearer can breathe easier knowing that all that darkness now lies behind him/her . . . you know, in the shadows.

*groan*

I know! I'm sorry! I couldn't help it!

But I truly am more than impressed with the suave, sophisticated creature that Shadow transforms into -- the conflict, however, arises from the fact that I genuinely hate how it starts off, and I can't imagine meeting up with anyone else while it's still in its initial gaseous, bilious, toxic blob from the center of the planet phase. I can just picture myself putting some on without thinking and then be, like, "Oh, sh*t -- I totally forgot about how this stuff starts off!" *dials phone* "Yeah, hello! Hey, uh, I'm running a little late -- probably be there in, oh, say, an hour? And a half? Or slightly more? How about I call you when I'm heading out the door? 'Kay, bye."

What I'm really curious about, though, is how the expert perfumists at JAR headquarters were able to get Shadow to hop from a vile A to an extremely nice B without any steps in-between; because, really, I didn't notice even the faintest attempt at a transition. I was literally holding my nose one minute and the next it was like the entire universe was bathed in fragrant technicolor.

So tell me. Oh, c'mon! What? Do I have to come to Paris and threaten to kick somebody's ass?

***JAR perfumes can only be purchased from their boutique in Paris, or from Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. They don't offer any of their fragrances online. You can, however, order samples for testing from The Perfumed Court, should they have samples available.

Luctor et Emergo by The People of the Labyrinths (aka POTL) -- and yes, it's a moronic name for a perfume company, but try not to hold it against them -- is a vanilla-slathered incense fragrance that's sweet, musky and a little bit fruity-floral. Terrific news if you're a fan of foody (aka gourmand) fragrances, but if you like your perfumes not so edible, you might want to give Luctor et Emergo a pass.

Once the initial sweet-jam opening starts to fade, the wearer is strapped in for that full-throttle vanilla which, as far as vanillas go, is actually very nice -- warm, pleasantly sweet, reminiscent of cakes baking and fresh puddings on the stove top. Needless to say, you'll be an instant hit with the kids (not to mention a hungry spouse) should you decide you need a little spray of Luctor et Emergo to get you through the day.

There are numerous customer reviews on the Lucky Scent site stating that Luctor et Emergo is not a gourmand fragrance, but you'd have to engage in a willing suspense of disbelief if you're going to convince yourself that vanilla is not primarily a food ingredient.

There appears to be a dash of neroli for a brief cut grass scent, some galbanum to evoke the scent of green apples, and perhaps a spicy clove is buried in there, as well. Color me surprised if there isn't also some cinnamon and the occasional whiff of star anise thrown in for good measure, too.

After the vanilla and spices complete their tour of duty, there follows a drydown of light incense smoke, a sweet floral musk (ambrette seed) and a fragrant amber accord that brings the project to a wrap.

I'm sure I missed a few steps in that dance (patchouli and sandalwood, most likely, because everything seems to have patchouli and sandalwood in it lately; a bit of chewy black cherry at the opening), but I'm thinking you'll get the general picture.

Luctor et Emergo can be worn by both men and women, though I would personally find its candied vanilla nature more attractive on a woman; that said, I suspect it would be a big sugary hit at a sweaty gay disco.

There are two versions of Luctor et Emergo: the eau de parfum (EDP), and the eau de toilette (EDT). I'm writing about the EDP version, so I can't vouch for any similarities or dissimilarities to the less concentrated EDT, though I hear the EDT emits a distinct "Play-Doh" odor -- so if you're determined to buy the stuff, do yourself a favor and shell out the extra cash for the eau de parfum.

Claude André Hébert is still very much a best-kept secret in the world of niche fragrance companies -- he has one single shop in Montreal and his website is entirely in French, both of which keep him from the prying eyes of the average English speaking consumer.

Formerly employed by Thierry Mugler, Hébert is a contemporary perfumer whose grasp of market trends is uncanny, and whose works reflect an ability to blend tradition with innovation in a way that should make any other creatively exhausted perfumer blush (are you paying attention, Mr. "I just released yet another incense fragrance" Lutens?).

Despite the rush by larger market players to classify all their fragrances as unisex while still blatantly churning out product that's obviously intended for the female consumer ("What? Men love rose & raspberry perfumes -- our in-house marketing research confirms it!"), Mr. Hébert deliberately courts the male consumer by offering just as many male versions as there are female versions of his continental concepts: i.e. for his invocation of Europe, there's Milan for women and Matador for men; for the Oceania region, there's Bali and Dundee, so close but yet so very different; and for a scent memory of Asia, there's Geisha and Bombay.

What I'm testing today are Matador and Bombay (I took his signature scent for a spin yesterday, but I'll get to that later). Matador and Bombay are both unabashedly tangy, masculine fragrances. No flowers, no vanilla, no ozones or bergamot, mostly just woods and leaves and fresh spices. Matador is the brighter of the two, its violet leaf, fig leaf and lemon oil opening projecting a bracing air of clean energy and green dash, while Bombay leans back a bit, the woody tones of vetiver, cardamom and sandalwood playing on a more subdued scale. Bombay winds down to an earthy patchouly, cinnamon and teakwood base, while Matador exits on the sharper notes of red pines and beechwood that complement its citrus infused opening.

Hébert's creations are composed of ingredients indigenous to the continents his titles evoke, which lend both Matador and Bombay a direct, unfussy air, but for his signature scent, Claude André Hébert steers the boat in a much different direction.

Said to be worn by Hébert himself, Claude André Hébert is a deliberate throwback to the more dramatic days of perfumery -- where Matador and Bombay revel in their light simplicity, CAH is the very picture of intricate layering, each note flowing into and out from the other in a wave of scent that travels from a blazing bittersweet high to finish in a rolling wash of honied warmth.

But what's in it? Unfortunately for my less than bi-lingual self, I could only guess. I flipped through a mental rolodex of ingredients: Patchouli? Ambrette seed? Tonka bean?

Two other members of the POL forum mentioned that CAH has an anise/almond smell, and I have to admit that there's an almost mouth-watering licorice gumdrop quality to the way it opens, but wearing Claude André Hébert also reminded me of my experience with Houbigant's Ambergris, and I wonder if Hébert perhaps utilized a drop or two of the real deal ambergris for the scent that bears his own name.

Whatever the formula, it's unusual to find a contemporary, not to mention all-natural, fragrance that's so unapologetically lush while yet bearing the distinction of still being available for sale, so I contacted the Hébert company through their website to ask about purchasing a bottle of the signature scent.

While the website may be strictly in French, they happily employed their English skills via email to finalize the sale. The fragrances come in 50ml and 100ml sizes.

***Note: Claude André Hébert claims to use 100% natural ingredients in his formulae (despite the geographical and olfactory limitations of going all natural ), donates a percentage of his profits to charitable organizations and strives for a lower environmental impact by utilizing refillable bottles.

review was revised on 11/08/08

One of the purchases awaiting my return home from Maui was the Le Labo Olfactionary, a metal case containing a limited "dictionary" of perfumery -- 40 glass vials of pure essences commonly utilized in the formulation of contemporary fragrances.

The idea is to dip the enclosed paper blotters into the vials and sniff the essences individually, getting a grasp of what each scent smells like so that you'll be able to better identify these ingredients when you encounter them in full compositions.

It's one thing to read an ingredient list, such as for Parfum d'Empire Equistrius: "orris, violet, rice powder, chocolate, ambrette, sandalwood, vetiver, grey amber" -- but it's quite another to actually know what the essences of orris, violet, ambrette and vetiver smell like on their own.

When the Olfactionary first arrived, there were some problems with the metal case as it hadn't been tied down properly for shipping, but when I contacted Le Labo about it, they were nothing but absolutely polite and snapped into immediate action, shipping me out a replacement Olfactionary before I'd even sent the original one back.

Very impressive. They've made me a customer for life.

Below are some photos of the Olfactionary in all its glory:

You can read more about the Olfactionary at the Le Labo website:

"Our main goal is to help you "open your nostrils" in the same way good books open their readers' eyes to life. Philosophers speak about "men with stitched-up eyelids" when referring to people who are blind to the basics of existence. Most of us live with stitched-up nostrils, having grown up in a world where smells are hidden away, and our olfactory senses left to wither. Le Labo believes that it is about time that we open our eyes, breathe in deeply and take in all that life has to offer."

Escentric Molecules is another contemporary perfume house that excels at creating minimalist perfumes -- light, sparkling, effervescent numbers that can easily go anywhere, and with anything.

Escentric 02 is said to be based around the Ambroxan molecule, with additional ingredients (vetiver, muscone, orris, elderflower, hedione) included for the purpose of adding depth to Ambroxan's singular nature.

Escentric's first release, Escentric 01, was woodsy but in a freshly deforested fashion -- it smelled of wood without the trees; for the release of Escentric 02, we're offered a golden shimmer of ambergris that's been stripped of its heavy, syrupy base.

Yes, I know. I keep waiting for the universe to implode, but so far, the paradox is holding.

In fact, Escentric 02 might just be the first Diet Amber to arrive on the market: sweet, delicate and fizzy, yet totally sugar-free. So go ahead and spray with abandon -- your personal space will remain lean and trim.

Okay, fine -- the name is ridiculous and the marketing copy is straight out of Theater of the Absurd, but MoslBuddJewChristHinDao (mossul-bud-joo-krist-hin-dow) by German company Elternhaus (and created by Mark Buxton, perfumer extraordinaire) is actually a terrific contemporary perfume and darn near the top of the heap in what I would consider the new minimalist movement in fragrance.

MoslBuddJewChristHinDao introduces itself in a fleeting rush of salt, spice and incense smoke, melting into the skin for a transparent experience. This is not a perfume that smells like you're wearing a perfume -- instead, MoslBuddJewChristHinDao appears to calibrate itself to the individual wearer, resulting in a clean, buttery-smooth scent that clings invisibly to the body, noticable only by those fortunate enough to be allowed access to your personal space.

MoslBuddJewChristHinDao is at its best in the first hour following application, so anyone who might wish to prolong that experience should spray it on his/her clothing as well as the skin. After the subtly sweet tones of the opening have finished making their impact felt, the fragrance pulls in even closer and you'll swear you've been shrink-wrapped in the lightest, whitest of musks.

Elternhaus has received a bit of flak for the high price of MoslBuddJewChristHinDao ($300.00 for 1.5 ounces, last time I checked), especially since the perfume is so subtle as to be almost undetectable by those around you -- but as the name implies, it's meant to be a personal experience between the wearer and the perfume itself, rather than a holy hand grenade of a fragrance with the sole intent of bringing the surrounding world to its knees.

If you just want everyone to know that you pray at the alter of the perfume gods, Thierry Mugler's Angel (for instance) will signal your devotion far and wide, but if you're more of the mindset that scent is a religion best practiced with hushed reverence, you'll immediately grasp the appeal of MoslBuddJewChristHinDao.

Good luck finding any for sale, by the way. Lucky Scent has been backordered for months, and an email to the Elternhaus website has so far gone unanswered.

UPDATE:

One reader commented that my description of MoslBuddJewChristHinDao made it sound like it's one of those "barely there" perfumes. That is not the impression to take away from this review; rather, think of wearing MoslBuddJewChristHinDao as the equivalent of drinking alone -- it's a relationship strictly between you and the bottle.

1. Gaultier Set to Launch New Perfume -- Ma Dame: "The juice was created by Francis Kurkdjian. It features acidic orange, rose velvet, grenadine, musk and cedar. 'Ma Dame's signature is short and sharp,' (Gaultier) noted. 'There is a great deal of strength and a great deal of softness in this fragrance' . . . The colour-scheme is shocking pink, matte black and lacquered white, with a graphic typeface . . . The worldwide Ma Dame roll-out will begin on 1 September, following certain exclusive listings." Can we handle yet another major perfume launch? And with all the major perfume launches, one following the other, can they even be called "major' anymore?

2. 'Made In Italy' Doesn't Mean What It Used To: "An Italian documentary called 'Schiavi del Lusso' (Slaves of Luxury) has uncovered the dark side of exclusive (luxury) brands . . . The documentary showed mostly Chinese illegal and legal immigrants working long hours in poor working conditions producing luxury products in Tuscany . . . Utilising cheap labour provides the opportunity for the companies who own the brands as well as the marketers and the retailers to produce these products for €20 and sell them at exclusive outlets for €400." Author Dana Thomas addresses these same issues in Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster. Watch the video clip below about the use of cheap Asian (and often illegal) labor to produce Italian luxury goods:

3. Milla Jovovich Pulls the Plug on Jovovich-Hawk Clothing Line: " In the latest issue of Lucky magazine, Milla reveals that she's decided to kill her clothing line Jovovich-Hawk, which she was designing with friend and fellow former model Carmen Hawk . . . The line, which was carried at high-end doors like Fred Segal, was created in 2003. There's no word yet as to whether Carmen will continue to design." Jovovich-Hawk only just collaborated this past Spring on a Target International line that was well received.

4. Roberto Cavalli Has Designs on Diet Coke: "Teaming with Roberto Cavalli, Coca-Cola will be releasing a limited run of only 300,000 bottles, distributed exclusively in Italy from September through December. Cavalli compared creating looks for the 300,000 curvy containers to designing dresses for his customers, making them 'seductive and feminine, in typical Cavalli style.'" Designer Diet Coke? Really? Will it taste better and ditch all the horrible chemicals? No? Then I'll take a pass.

5. Louis Vuitton Says 'No Thanks' to Free Pop Star PR: "Last week, high-end designer Louis Vuitton reached an agreement with Sony BMG after suing the record label for allowing its artists ... to use the company's signature Toile monogram and Multicolor trademarks without permission in music videos and CD inserts . . . 'High-end companies like Cristal and Petron liquor and Louis Vuitton want to be the gatekeepers of their celebrity affiliations,' said Marvet Britto, the head of New York public relations and brand strategy firm The Britto Agency . . . 'The brands don't say it, but where they spend their marketing dollars is very reflective of who they want wearing their things.'" Because the sight of Britney Spears carrying an Hermes bag is just wrong wrong wrong, y'all.

There are moments when I suspect that Serge Lutens perfumes have become that ubiquitous LV monogram bag slung across a million women's shoulders -- desirable for the name, reputation and marketing prowess rather than because it's the best product on the market.

Just like an LV bag, a Lutens fragrance is well-constructed, uses good raw materials, is not easily accessible to the general consumer and will never be found in a discount bin, but LV bags suffer from being widely imitated and often outright counterfeited, diluting their impact while causing future products to seem already passe by the time they're introduced into stores.

The same thing appears to be happening with the house of Serge Lutens. Lutens was once notable for blazing trails, but his competitors caught up and are now outpacing him while he busily tinkers along with the same tools, attitudes and what seems like an increasingly dated approach.

I've posted previously on three Serge Lutens perfumes: Borneo 1834, Muscs Koublai Kahn and Clair de Musc -- all three are nicely crafted and executed with polish, yet I wasn't moved to purchase a one of them. They seemed -- boring, like a freshly drawn bath that one sits in alone. Relaxing, even comforting, but no fire and ice to mix things up.

Ditto for Serge Noir.

Serge Noir is an incense fragrance that brings nothing new to the already crowded incense fragrance table. Like an Olympic figure skater nailing the compulsories (patchouli, cinnamon, amber, smoky woods) but coming up short on the freestyle, Serge Noir is technically perfect with a rock solid program, but utterly lacking in vigor and verve. Lutens is coasting on his laurels with this one, pushing out a perfume that's easy, casual, sweet and without an intellectually engaging bone in its body.

It should sell like hotcakes.

Speaking of intellectually engaging, there are rumors that Serge Lutens will be discontinuing Miel de Bois, the first fragrance from his line that he's ever pulled from the market. I'm wearing Miel de Bois as I type this and it's a dreadful perfume -- sour and wonky in pitch. I can fully understand the decision to yank it as I doubt it sells very well, but even though I would never want to smell like Miel de Bois again, there's an admirable spark of creativity to it, some aspiration towards an idea, even if not fully formed.

Serge Lutens Serge Noir is an empty suit in comparison.

Serge Noir arrives for sale in the United States in September of 2008.

UPDATE:

Incense fragrances I would recommend over Serge Noir:
1. Armani Prive Bois d'Encens -- stunning simplicity. I still can't get over how a fragrance so restrained can yet be so overwhelmingly lovely.
2. Montale Greyland -- deep, rich, approaching mystical
3. Matthew Williamson Incense (original version) -- Williamson's original Incense perfume has been replaced with a bland imposter. If you can get your hands on a bottle of the discontinued stuff, you're a very lucky human being. It's a marvel of spicy, heady smokes and resins.
4. Chanel Sycamore -- does the laid-back incense and woods routine with less self-congratulatory fanfare.
5. Elternhaus MoslBuddJewChristHinDao -- considerably more expensive than Serge Noir, but it's like wearing sweet white smoke across your skin.

Allegedly, Supergirl isn't just for kids anymore:

Designers Team Up for Supergirl Collection
"While Supergirl is as a fictional comic book heroine and the female counterpart to Superman, Barry Ziehl, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Warner Bros. Consumer Products, said the line has nothing to do with the character . . . 'The whole idea behind the Supergirl shield is a feeling of empowerment -- when a girl wears the clothing, she will feel empowered. That's what we want to get across with this collection,' he said . . . While this isn't the first Supergirl branded collection, it is by far the most aggressive, as industry sources estimate the new line could bring in about $10 million in first-year wholesale volume."

Uh-huh, right -- "Buy our sweatshop crap, feel empowered!" Because, you know, a Supergirl emblem embroidered on the buttons of your cute little blazer is going to give you all the strength you'll need to break right through that glass ceiling . . .

Seriously, they make Superman t-shirts for little boys, comic-con geeks, irony-laden twenty-somethings and gym rats, but you won't see any guy with his head on half-straight looking to a logo-stamped piece of clothing for empowerment, nor will you hear some marketing hack spouting a line of B.S. about a Superman wardrobe unleashing a guy's inner-superhero at the office.

So why, then, are they traveling this road with the female consumer? As far as I know, superhero movies are mostly a bomb with female audiences, guys outnumber girls at comic book stores by, like, 100 to 1, and the fantasy life of your average female doesn't seem to revolve around tossing cars, outrunning bullets, clobbering villains or having a way bigger bicep than the next Jane-Doe on the street.

I could, of course, be completely and utterly wrong, but something tells me that a pair of Supergirl jeans isn't going to be "empowering" anyone anytime soon, at least, not while this is still the mainstream version of a Supergirl:

Two women fighting over a man. Now, that's what I call super!

My initial test drive of JAR Bolt of Lightning can be found here: "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."

JAR Perfumes can only be purchased from the JAR boutique in Paris or from Bergdorf Goodman in New York. Fortunately, the JAR representatives at Bergdorf Goodman are willing to take orders over the telephone; unfortunately, they still seem intent on sticking to the pitch.

"Yes yes yes, I understand, JAR perfumes are the best in the world, the most talented minds creating premium fragrances out of the highest quality ingredients available -- all hail the masters! Can I give you my credit card number now?"

We made it back home this morning at 5:30 a.m. and we've both been pretty out-of-it due to the sudden lurch forward into Dallas time. I had some great packages waiting, but only had the time and energy to open and explore one of them: Jalaine Vetiver.

The packaging is obviously terrific, though I'm quite certain they could have lopped $75.00 off the price by choosing a much simpler presentation. I mean, you're supposed to purchase perfume for the perfume . . . right?

The hoopla certainly does, however, manage to lend the thing an air of special-ificence, despite my skepticism.

More photos after the jump!

Paris Vogue: Is Carine Roitfeld Trying To Tell Us Something?

When the runway reports for the Fall 2008 collections hit the internet, I remember being surprised at the amount of fur on offer from a number of luxury houses that had previously caved to animal rights protesters and ditched the use of fur in their collections.

This would seem to be another sign that Western sensibilities are no longer a priority in a market that's increasingly focused on selling to the Asian consumer. I doubt that PETA has much cache in India, China or Russia.

Below are a few links to articles regarding the resurgent popularity of fur:

Pangs of Guilt Are Gone : Fur Comes Back In a Brashy Way

Back in Style: The Fur Trade

Fighting the return of fur