Stephanie de Saint Aignan Un the Au Sahara and Karl Lagerfeld Kapsule Woody

STEPHANIE DE SAINT AIGNAN UN THE AU SAHARA: Au Sahara was a bit of a surprise. I am not a fan of the smell of tea, and less a fan of the smell of tea in fragrances, but I am a fan of Paul Bowles' novel The Sheltering Sky and Un the Au Sahara is alleged to have been inspired by Bowles' simultaneously stark and sumptuous prose -- so much sun, sand and heat, so little emotional warmth.

The Lucky Scent website states that Un the Au Sahara is a tribute to love in the Sahara desert, but that's film director Bernardo Bertolucci's mangled interpretation of the story. Bowles' original vision depicts a jaded, adventure-seeking couple's ultimately futile attempts to survive the brutal, dehumanizing forces of nature while still reeling from the sucker punch of culture shock. The last section of the novel, where the husband dies in the middle of nowhere and the wife is carted off by a desert Arab to be his shiny new toy, isn't necessarily the stuff of perfume and poetry . . . "Hmmm? This? Oh, it's a perfume that's based on a novel about death, psychological despair and sexual imprisonment in the Sahara. You like?"

But back to the fragrance -- it's actually a nice enough piece of work, the tea note is low and sweet with a hint of mint, like a dark, sugared brew, and there's a dusty, spicy quality that blows through the heart of it. The patchouli in the base is wooded and dry, and I found the whole thing to be a very comfortable, wearable example of mildly exotic, unisex perfumery, like sitting at the weathered table of an outdoor cafe on the side of a sun-baked Moroccan street. In fact, if anyone were to ask me, "Hey, do you think I should buy a bottle of Un the Au Sahara?" -- I'd say, "Sure, why not? And you can hang out by me once you've sprayed some on!"

But this Sheltering Sky nonsense? They might want to rethink that angle.

Video clip below from Bertolucci's romanticized film version:

KARL LAGERFELD KAPSULE WOODY: Resembles wood the way an abstract portrait resembles its human subject -- kind of, but only if you squint.

Still, one has to be grateful that they named the collection Kapsule; having to type "Karl Lagerfeld Woody" with a straight face would have been simply too much to bear.