Persephone Susan Seddon Boulet
March 20, 2019 at 5:48 EST is the Spring Equinox, and the day is as long as the night. Persephone returns from the underworld, flowers bloom and we begin to believe anything is possible again. Time to shake off the winter blues and spray on a scent that makes us feel renewed. Our picks for the best Spring Perfumes:
Massimo Alfaioli© Faunus
Anatole Lebreton L’Eau de Merzhin (2014): Staring at the rising sun of March, colorful impressions flicker for a while as you close your eyes. It’s a magic that doesn’t happen in gloomy winter, a fairy dance celebrating the upcoming spring. Spraying L’Eau de Merzhin unfolds emerald, white and indigo sparks at first, blinking with the greenness of galbanum and buttery iris in the best possible fierceness of golden days. It’s Merzhin (the Breton name for Merlin) bringing back to life myths like Vent Vert or am I dreaming of Brittany folklores? Can you hear the bees buzzing? Perhaps I’m just a Faunus dreaming of months to come filled with linen pants and walks, cicada serenades to the first jasmine blooms at sunset and fresh mown hay giving to the wind its intoxicating gilded spell.-Ermano Picco, Editor
“Red Alert" (Photo: Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia 2004)®
Ex Nihilo Viper Green (Nadège Le Garlantezec) 2017: What's springtime without a cool, green fragrance? Ex Nihilo Viper Green performs at its very best with the spring wind carrying its soft sillage: the moment you think it's become too intimate, it dynamically re-emerges. Bitter galbanum and green mandarin are mellowed by airy jasmine and dry iris, Rosyfolia® (a Givaudan-patented captive molecule) enhances the floralness, while herbal angelica, clean patchouli and sweet vetiver add depth and dimension. Viper Green's soapy, crisp-clean drydown makes it a lovely daytime choice; as we're heading for le retour des beaux jours, I crave for a breezy fragrance like this. Cold-blooded but not venomous, this Viper is a real charmer. Notes: Galbanum, Angelica Root, Green Mandarin; Jasmine Sambac, Iris, Rosyfolia®; Vetiver, Patchouli, Powdery Accord – Despina Veneti, Senior Editor
Neela Vermeire Rahele (Bertrand Duchaufour): As spring beckons but the days remain wet and chilly, perfumes that marry warming, rich winter notes with gossamer florals are rare indeed. Neela Vermeire’s gorgeous, shimmering Rahele is made-to-order for such times. I often think of Rahele as the globetrotting, insouciant sister to Neela’s sumptuous odalisque, Trayee. The two perfume do not smell alike but share a central opulence and seamless interweaving of floral notes. Rahele, which means traveler in Persian, wanders elegantly from silky, evanescent sprays of magnolia, rose, jasmine to its centerpiece of fruity osmanthus and spice without a flaw. It possesses the singular, poignant beauty of early spring: reminders of warm spice from winter clinging to ethereal, fleeting blossoms in sumptuous harmony all the way to its chypre base. Rahele is one of those rare fragrances that, smelled on a slight breeze with the sun hanging low in the sky, can bring tears to my eyes. Notes: Green mandarin, cardamom, cinnamon, violet leaf, osmanthus, rose, magnolia, jasmine, iris, violet, cedar, sandalwood, oakmoss, patchouli, leather. –Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
Details from The Music of Love, painting by Mahmoud Farshchian © 2000
As clumps of dirty snow cling to the roadsides and ice and freezing rain continue to fall from the dark skies, all I have to do is dab on a touch of Olympic Orchids Sakura by Ellen Covey to remind me that the beauties and blooms of springtime are right around the corner. Dr. Covey's Olympic Orchids Sakura wears like a cool breath of springtime air, suggesting the sweet mineral qualities and ethereal, earthy scents of newly opened cherry blossoms, suffused with hints of the rich, summer fruit yet to come. Notes: Cherry blossom, airy notes and light musk.-Gail Gross, Sr. Editor
Digital art by Robert
Guerlain La Cuvée Secrète (Thierry Wasser) There’s a feeling of spring in the air. Finally. The daffodils are budding, the peepers (tree frogs) are back in the wetlands north of our house, and wood stove use has been cut in half. We are all so ready for spring after this past interminable winter of cold and snow. I’m looking forward to getting a lot of use out of my bottle of La Cuvée Secrète (The Secret Cave) Guerlains’ 2017 Eau De Cologne for the “Les Eaux” collection. Created with only three noticeable notes, L Cuvée Secrète is a breath of fresh spring air through doors and windows opened wide. Although it tends to fly under the radar, this is cologne done right and a real sleeper in the Guerlain canon. The bergamot is bright and zingy, the fougere-like aromatic lavender is perfectly bitter-ish and dusty floral, and the petigrain is a woody and green addition that sits perfectly in the blend. Although longevity is trivial at best, with a 250 ml. bottle one can spray and re-apply with abandon. Maison Guerlain describes La Cuvée Secrète as “…Ultimate refinement. A hallmark of the Guerlain art of living.” I wholeheartedly concur! Notes: Lavender, bergamot, petigrain– Robert Herrrmann, Senior Editor
via tumblr
The Harmonist Guiding Water by Guillaume Flauvigny was at the top of Editor Sebastian Jara’s Best Spring Perfumes list. A unique take on aquatics, the added surprise of watermelon is a treat. If you are not familiar with The Harmonist each perfume has a Feng Shui perspective.
CB I Hate Perfume Fire From Heaven – (Christopher Brosius) 2007: "The sun has teeth", my grandmother would say, back bent, tilling and tulip bulbs in hand. "But it's still the sun"- and she would keep mending her peasant garden, turning the earth and liming the fruit trees, burning a candle and humming a prayer, repeating her mother's annual movements. Ethereal but humid, comforting but slightly cold, Fire From Heaven smells of all that- smoke, earth, Orthodox rituals, buds, sunlight, and a universal memory telling violets to grow in ditches, bees to awaken, snails to start leaving shiny trails, and smoke to rise in all villages. Resinous par excellence, Fire From Heaven does not impose with the heaviness of straight balsamics; it rather simply IS, like air filling all the space at its disposal. Or like the rural trust that spring will, eventually, come. Notes: frankincense and myrrh, sweet myrrh, cedar, sandalwood, styrax and labdanum. – dana sandu, Contributor
Maxfield Parrish
Wanderer’s malaise accompanies The Eternal Return and Vernal Equinox, as far as I can tell: to quote Joni Mitchell, “I get the urge for going”. I crave its wild winds, nascent undergrowth, the constancy of evergreens and sweet buds of Spring. A photo-realistic perfumed snapshot of the California coastline is available to us all – the intrepid delight of Ineke Rühland’s Idyllwild. Rhubarb tea is enamored of zingy sulfuric-overtoned grapefruit and as a couple they are mouth-watering; a natural foil for lavender, as combined this trio conjures en plein air. The jammy, woody, terpenic all have their parts to play: warmed soil sings the feral notes of musky roots we tread, the crushing of cypress, fir needles underfoot. Take a long deep breath. You can’t make Nature stay, but one spritz will encapsulate its charm indefinitely. There’s a reason that Idyllwild was one of the best perfumes of 2017. Notes: rhubarb tea, grapefruit, lavender, Big Sur sagebrush, cypress, fir needle, cardamom, woods, oud, musk–Ida Meister, Senior Editor and Natural Perfumery Editor
White lilies embody purity and innocence ©Unsplash
Parfumerie Generale PG19 Louanges Profanes (Pierre Guillaume) 2008: I fell in love with Louanges Profanes for its milky scent of lily and orange blossom made light by soft incense. Pierre Guillaume created a simple and masterfully blended perfume that is heavy enough to be soothing, hypnotic enough to bore down into my soul, and bright enough lift my spirits on high. Only later did I learn that name of the perfume translates into a prayer in everyday words and that each note has religious significance. “Heart speaks to heart” indeed. Notes: Neroli, Hawthorn, Lily, Incense, Benzoin, Gaiac wood – Marianne Butler, Sr. Contributor
Abbey lee Kershaw Flaunt Magazine 2015
Grandiflora Sandrine – (Sandrine Videault) 2014: It is beautiful and apt that as the Perfumer Sandrine Videault departed this life, she left us, through Saskia Havekes this profound promise of Eternal Return, in one of her last creation. Verdant and sharp vestments of citrus and pepper, wispy heralds like attendants scattering petals upon a wedding path. Grandiflora Sandrine, the emergent bride on the threshold, milk-white skin secreted away in encasement through colder months. Sandrine captures the glossy greenness of Magnolia foliage, yet the focus is downy calyx and purest waxy candle of Magnolia capsule, tight and embraced. Garden accords and woods layer potent latency, poised on the verge of the explosion of lustrous, lathered fragrance. Nascent, poised bud released from its marron velvet casement, a fragrance reminiscent of the silken Lanugo of a baby. Musky parting as the buds yield their cocoon-like embrace, shedding a few dewy tears of saline exudate, heralding the entrance-ment of the triumphant bloom. The defeat of Winters stagnancy is inscribed boldly on this creamy, viridis parchment. Notes: Citrus, Grapefruit, Pepper, Dry Woods, Fresh Garden Accord, Marine Accord and Musk. – Danu Seith-Fyr, Senior Contributor.
Photo Tim Walker
When I need an instant dose of sun I spray Linda Pilkington’s Ormonde Jayne Osmanthus (2006) with abandon. It is not a complicated fragrance, but I am growing weary of complex; I long for simple pleasures and blue skies. Osmanthus is fruity, in a good way, with a bright citrus top of pomelo that brings to mind a glass of iced tea sipped on a porch when the sun is shining. The heart of osmanthus absolue and jasmine sambac absolue is redolent of citrus fruits and apricots. The woody drydown is light and airy. After 6 months of wearing black tights and boots, Osmanthus is the perfume equivalent of wearing a flirty short skirt that bares your legs for the first time in ages. Pomelo, artemisia, red pepper, osmanthus, water lily, jasmine sambac, cedar, labdanum resin, vetiver, musk–-Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief
Eric de Kalb©
For our Best Spring Perfumes Draw
Worldwide: From the lovely Saskia Havekes of Grandiflora 50 ml of Sandrine
Worldwide and USA: With gratitude from the ever-giving Ellen Covey for a 5 ml deluxe spray of Sakura
Worldwide: Thanks to Anatole Lebreton a 50 ml bottle of L’eau de Merzhin
EU, Canada and USA: Merci Neela Vermeire for 60 ml of Neela Vermeire Creations Rahele
Worldwide: Thank you to Linda Pilkington of Ormonde Jayne for 120 ml of Osmanthus
USA With our gratitude to Ineke Ruhland for 100 ml of INeKE Idyllwild USA
USA: 7.5 ml of Ex Niholo Viper Green thanks to Ex Nihilo Bergdorf Goodman
Photo by Sebastian
USA: 1.7 ounces of The Harmonist Guiding Water perfume
To enter you must be a registered user of ÇaFleureBon. It is simple to do, just follow the prompt here. To be eligible, please leave a comment with what you thought of our best spring perfume choices, the spring perfume you would like to win that are available (there are 8) and WHY, where you live by 3/25/2019.
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