Jalaine Amber and Untitled #3 by Sarah Horowitz

JALAINE AMBER: There's really not much to dislike about a Jalaine fragrance besides its price point -- the formulae are simple, the ingredients are high-quality, the longevity is excellent and they wear like dreamy, plush wraps.

Their Patchouli is a sweet, creamy party-mix of musk, amber and patchouli, and their Vetiver scent is like burying your nose in a bowl of fresh cut grass soaked in vanilla, so it's no surprise that Jalaine Amber is just as cuddly and easy to love.

Sweet, fresh and powdery throughout its first half, J. Amber still manages to express the vegetal nature of the amber at its core. The greenery is subtle as all get out, but it's there, cradled (smothered?) in fluffy clouds of feminine white musk. It's like the perfume equivalent of a Milky Way bar -- light and airy, with just the hint of substance.

I think the green note in J. Vetiver holds up better as part of a proper perfume, but for a frivolous snack cake of a fragrance, J. Amber does just fine. One thing to note, however, is that Jalaine Amber gets progressively less sweet and powdery as the hours roll by. At about hour seven (and yes, it's still more than kicking over eight hours later), it's mostly soft musks over what smells like a very smooth, woodsy patchouli.

Exceptionally warm and inviting.

UNTITLED #3 BY SARAH HOROWITZ: Untitled is a line-up of fragrances exclusive to Lucky Scent and commissioned from some of the most indie of the independent perfume scene: Tristan Brando, Yosh Han, Maria McElroy, Sarah Barton King and Sarah Horowitz.

Untitled #3 is California perfumer Sarah Horowitz's contribution to the project, and it's a nose-catching mix of yuzu (a Japanese citrus), african violet, gardenia, coriander, Tunisian red amber, East Indian sandalwood and a light musk.

Longevity is terrific (like Jalaine Amber, it's still beautifully present over eight hours later), and the sandalwood + musk base is given an exotic shake-up with the inclusion of the salted nut-like coriander spice.

I'm not hugely keen on the yuzu opening (though it's not a deal breaker, by any means), the florals in the mid-range are beautifully balanced (so now I like gardenia? who knew!), and the depth, warmth and range of the drydown for Untitled #3 is impressive (it just goes on and on). This is my first encounter with a Sarah Horowitz fragrance, and my interest is now thoroughly piqued.

Each fragrance in the Untitled series is a limited edition of 125 (or is that five fragrances that are all limited to 25 bottles? The copy is vague), and once they're sold out, they're gone. I'm snagging an Untitled #3 post-haste. I can't bear to let something so unique and ephemeral just slip through my fingers.

***Note: I just read on a 2006 Bois de Jasmin posting that the number of limited edition bottles is for each fragrance, not for the series as a whole. BdJ wrote that there will be 150 of each fragrance available, but the Lucky Scent site itself states 125.

Photo below of Untitled #3:

UPDATE:

Just an FYI -- not everyone is as enchanted with Untitled #3 as I am. Makeup Alley presently shows only three reviews for Untitled #3, yet all three of them give it one star out of five, describing it as artificial, shrill and vile.

That was certainly not my experience.

However, Amy George at Splendicity writes that Untitled #3 is "quite arresting . . . just unfamiliar."

UPDATE 2 (04/18/09):

I'm testing Untitled #3 again to see if I can figure out what drove the MUA reviewers into such convulsions. I certainly enjoy the yuzu-citrus opening more the second time around, and I notice a lot more greenery to the gardenia -- it has a more fresh feel than the thick, jasmine-enhanced gardenia of Isabey, much like what I assume Bois de Jasmine meant when she wrote that she considered a good gardenia scent to be fresh and heady.

But twenty to thirty minutes in is when I spot what I think might have caused the uproar with the MUA reviewers -- the musk, while not civet-dark, is most definitely animalic. It adds a sweaty layer that sticks with the development of the fragrance as a whole (with a note that kind of resembles warm, dirty-wet hay), and this might prove upsetting if you read the fragrance notes and believe that "light musk" might mean "white musk".

Yes, there's citrus, african violets and gardenias, but there are also fleshy musks and coriander (which contributes to the salty, sweaty vibe), both of which push Untitled #3 into an unfamiliar, and maybe unexpected, direction.