a new perspective...

I am very happy to show you, my dear readers, a new facet of my life and to proudly introduce a new blog:

WINTER TALES

Of forests and wild apples

My favourite autumn scent this year is apple.
This may be caused by an apple-allergy i am suffering from since adolescence. Remembering the sweet juice from a fresh apple-bite still makes my mouth water, but i can only eat apples in processed forms unless my throat will swell inside, up to breath-taking measures and an itching will start in my gorge which is making me mad.

So, naturally, i am very fond of everything containing apples, be it pie, cake or juice, as well as apple puree (my grandma and mum prepare it from their home grown Boskoop especially for the poor kid -> me) and of course - apple scents.



My three favourite apple perfumes are:

1) Lolita Lempicka EdP by Lolita Lempicka (the premier parfum in the apple bottle)
2) All About Eve by Joop!
3) Brandy by Brandy Pefumes

Another heavenly scented apple product is Lush's Snow White bath bomb and German drugstore brand "Schauma's" apple-scented shampoo which mum used all the time during the 70ies for my thick chestnut strands.

Forests enchant me, any reader of this blog will know this by now and maybe you'll already think: oh no, not another enchanted-forest story, girl!
OK...
But i want you to know my top-five autumn-forest smells for 2011, in no particular order:

1) Mechant Loup by L'Artisan (the big bad wolf is all honeyed fur and sweet leaves)
2) Féminité du Bois by Serge Lutens (do i need to explain?)
3) Black Casmere by Donna Karan (burning leaves, a bonfire and incense)
4) Candy by Prada (sweet incense and powdery vanilla-musk)
5) Kelly Calèche by Hermès (soft suede on rambler rose leaves)
6) Ormonde Woman by Ormonde Jayne (hemlock, pine, rain)




pics: own

Poison, Christian Dior (1985)

When Poison was launched in 1985, i was 10 years old. The nose behind the perfume is Jean Guichard (who, to my surprise also created my beloved Obsession, as well as LouLou and Eden for Cacharel and Deci Dela for Nina Ricci).


No woman in my family and no teacher at school wore it, luckily, i say today.
While thinking i might perhaps would have loved it, i only remember glossy mag ads i saw for the perfume.
As Poison is well-known for being a means of olfactoric nuclear warfare (due to constant overuse and overspraying by its addicts during the late 80ies) i am a lucky girl for being able to say so.

I sprayed Poison every now and then at the store to sample it. I am a regular user of its daughters Midnight Poison (2007) and Hypnotic Poison (1998) but the mothership stayed a secret to me, i simply had no craving for it. Up to now.

Poison is perfect for a powerful woman, slightly bohemian, please, as too polished an outfit would destroy the carelessness this scent needs for it doesn't become bourgeois and reminding of the aforementioned teachers from the 80ies. Her strength is only seen at second sight. She knows about the force of the second sight very well.

The combination of red berries, plum, honey, crumbling leaves andspices didn't leave my fantasies until i had sniffed every bottle of my collection, strolled through the stores and samples, Poison, again, of all.
And there it was again. A "strange delight" (to quote Kate Bush's lyrics in Babooshka, which is a song that funnily enough comes to my mind when i sniff Poison) and a fascination. I had to have a bottle.

Posion is very wearable in cool temperatures and with a light hand. And i mean L I G H T. Only when the deep chestnut and dark-purple basenotes are allowed to settle down and are not longer torn by the tuberose-screeches in thevery top, the spices and honey can develop properly. Before i read that Jean Guichard also created LouLou, i detected a powdery swet heliotrope-note in the middle of Posion which made me instantly think of LouLou.

Jan Moran's official notes:

Top Notes: Coriander, plum, pimento, anise, rosewood
Heart Notes: Rose, tuberose, orange blossom, honey, cinnamon, wild berries, cistus labdanum, carnation, jasmine
Base Notes: Sandalwood, cedarwood, vetiver, musk, vanilla, heliotrope, opopanax

The plum in comination with cinnamon and dry leaves is a note which might appeal especially to lovers of Féminité du Bois, by Serge Lutens (one of my all-time-top-3 scents).

Lovers of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's "Rappaccini's Daughter" who are in search for a easier to obtain source of their dark delights might find it interesting that Poison is a very close relative, they're literally like twin-sisters, taken apart at birth.

images:
(1) Daisy Lowe by Max Farago for Paradis Magazine
(2) Lucas Cranach d. Ältere (1552), Venus and Cupid as a honey-thief.

Kingdom, Alexander McQueen (2003)

I have been loving it since i bought my first bottle in Galeries Lafayette, Berlin around 2003/04. In Autumn, of course. Meanwhile i am on my third bottle. Mostly wear it during the "dark season".

Official notes are: 

top notes:

orange, mandarin orange, mint, neroli, bergamot and lemon;

middle notes:

carnation, ginger, rhubarb, jasmine, celery seeds and rose; 

base notes:

amber, musk and oakmoss. 

Jacques Cavallier( le "néz" behind  YSL M7 and YSL Nu, Jean Paul Gaultier, L'Eau d'Issey, Givenchy Hot Couture, Bulgari Pour Homme, to name the most popular ones) created it in 2003 for the house of fashion enfant-terrible Alexander Mc Queen (*1969, + 2010). 

I mainly get SANDALWOOD, cinnamon, jasmine, ginger, amber, mandarin ... and .... (BRACE, the dreaded c-word follows:) cumin from it. EdP version is best. Autumn, embrace me.

Shalimar Parfum Initial (2011)

A new Shalimar. This sound like a paradoxon per se...
There had been "lighter" summer flanker, such as Eau de Shalimar and Shalimar légère but now a new one, created by in-house chéf de parfum Therry Wasser himself, pink juice, of all things...? The perfumista-world is trembling.

What i can say from spraying my samples is: it is (for me, hardcore Shalimar lover in pure perfume, EdT and EdP) nice and wearable!

I love that it contains less civet (which had always been a little sharp in original Shalimar for me) - not that i had minded but now that i can get it without the sharpness i might prefer the newer version and i admit: yes, there is one component in it that reminds me of the patchouli-musk mixture in the very very end phase of Obsession. Or Angel, even Prada... a warm soft and very very decent and deliciously spicy patchouli note, in any case.
It is very long-lasting, prevents a great sillage, not overbearing but distinct.
A floral (rosy) and lemony accord in the head, just like the original Shalimar, a hint of cool iris, almost gourmand later on, ambery in the base...
I really adore it.

Coral Flower - Lolita Lempicka

Coral Flower, the corresponding scent to "L" was launched in 2008 by the house of Lolita Lempicka.
Just like the aforesaid mothership, it was created by néz Maurice Roucel.
Its main features are orange blossom, a salty vanilla and baked seasand although official notes say grapefruit, bergamot, orchid, frangipani flower, amber, musk and woody accords/driftwood (notes via fragrantica).
Coral Flower is a perfect summer scent when you want to leave aquatic and "clean" behind, yet want a summery and fresh breeze and have a severe longing for the seaside.
The very smell of the surf is captured as well as a white floral note which lends Coral Flower a tropical beach smell, whereas "L" was more of an Atlantic kind of shore.
Not only a flanker, a true new experience, i cannot really decide which one of the two scents of one mermaid theme i like better but no need to decide, i'll have both... :-)
Coral Flower's bottle is shaped exactly as the one of "L" (vaguely like a heart) and made of turquoise glass but the finish is matte here and reminds of a piece of seaglass after you let it dry. An (artificial) piece of white coral decorates the sprayer.
Available sizes: 30 ml and 50 ml of EdP.


pic: http://photos.linternaute.com/auteur/3620988/285302997/

Womanity - Thierry Mugler (2010)

The first test-drive with this scent was a disaster.
I checked it off and when i ran into a woman at a fuel station a few weeks ago i couldn't believe which whiff i was getting from her (and, no, it was not the fumes...) - it was Womanity (yes, i know, there is a problem with this name, as it is... weird... it gives people strange associations: from the ocean (birthplace of all life) over humans (vs. aliens) and of genitalia... all well planned by marketing experts, i guess. But hey, this is Mugler. He wants to provoke and he wants you to use your brains, they created the word out of "city", "woman" and "humanity", is circulated).

I tried it again on skin and recently got an association with it that i absolutely dig:
when i went to Brittany for an extended holiday in1996 there was a lollypop kiosk and they sold the most fancy twisted-lollypos in all colours and all flavours - if you would buy some, they packed them into white/blue striped paperbags.
I still have one of those bags left in my guide of Brittany.
Imagine the sweet and candied scent of this paperbag soaked in the salty waters, mingled with some seaweed-flavoured sand and dried in the sun. Later packed into my bag along with clothes, still wearing hints of perfume. (I wore Coco EdT back then, nonstop.)
Along with the special salty-sweet perfume (and feeling...) these holidays have in my memory - Womanity totally captures it.

A milky and fresh fig note follows a freshand salty lime which opens the scent. Afterwards a warm, almost oriental wood-note builds the extremely long-lasting base.
The ocean note is unmistakeable in it but it never goes towards fishy, unwashed or stale. It's more like a juicy fresh ocean breeze and a whiff of a huge chunk of driftwood over a layer of warm skin.
Do not mistake this skin-accord for the sun-baked amber note in, say DUNE. This is a overcast day at the beach, think Point Break, the final scenes... The salt note intensifies the skin's own scent, in my impression. Not something everybody will love.

Still, low dosage is everything regarding this perfume! It can become stinging and salty-sour on some skintypes and trying it on a paper strip also was very misleading to me.
This perfume, for sure will divide the audience in love and hate. (This is also what i heard from sales assistants.)
It is a very versatile scent if you can wear it. But it does provoke thoughts as it is so unknown, the combination so new to our noses, it might also provoke a raised eyebrow as it is very unusual.

It might be the property of the house of Mugler to create something completely new. Something you've never sniffed, encountered or imagined before. Imagine, the mere idea to create a caviar-fig accord. Salty ocean waves and a fig? It sounds almost Dalièsque...

Just like Angel was influential and shaping style, fragrance-wise, for years with its now trademark caramelized-patchouli, its successor Alien also divided the minds because of the screechig jasmine-wood combo.
Womanity follows this tradition as it is again, something completely different with enough potential to become a classic.

Official notes are:
fig, caviar, fig wood, fig leaf, woody notes.
Womanity was created by nose Fabrice Pellegrin for the house of Mugler.

I am still amazed how intense memories are when being brought back by a smell. Thank you, limbic system. After all these years with this hobby i notice this fact every now and then and it makes me wonder, wonder, wonder....
LOVE those moments.

pic: own

Belle d'Opium (2010)

"Hey little sister, what have you done? Hey little sister, who's the only one?"







New Belle d'Opium had a bad bad start when it was launched late last year. Opium's younger sister faced a phalanx of bad-breathed censors when it hit shelves in fall of 2010.


Long awaited by the perfume crowd, it was said to be a vile fruity-woody (a term which is synonymously used for bland, dull and juvenile) before even one had sniffed it.
As an aside: interestingly regarding perfumes no-one ever wants to smell young. Ripe, mature and experienced sophistication is what everybody seems to be calling for...




Well, not as if this all wasn't enough disaster, the video ad (directed by Romain Gavras), showing a Kathak dance, written by choreographer Akram Khan on a piece of music by Nitin Sawhney and performed by Mélanie Thierry, was now accused to foster intravenous drug abuse by showing the model running her index finger up her arm at a point.

http://bellasu.gr/13618598

What i personally find more alarming is, that in the print ad (see above) something beneath the model's skirt seem to be smoking of... well... of what? But that's only me, again...

Or is it all about marketing tactics?

"Belle" was created by noses Honorine Blanc and Alberto Morillas.
Its official notes say: Casablanca lily, sandalwood, gardenia, white pepper, jasmine absolute, and the infamous narguilé accord on which alledgedly Blanc had been working for four years.

To me, this is all about soft and humid shisha tobacco (grape and plum) and cool white smoke, fruits bedded on a mahogany tablet and softened by some spicy and lasting woods (sandal and patchouli).
Nothing harmful but under the right circumstances powerful enough to make you sweat and plant a sweet little memory into your brain.
One of the main reproaches is the weak staying power. Well, to be honest - and i LOVE the original Opium stuff, in EdT - but in comparison to the original Opium ANYTHING created after 1990 would pass off as a bodyspray!

So, nice one, little sistah, i say and keep using it for sleepytime, preferably!


lyrics: Billy Idol "White Wedding"