Bogue Profumo LiTa digital effects/ Michelyn© Bogue Profumo and Pixaby
Girl you know you’ve got it made
Everyone looks afraid
And I know you’re the one I crave
And I know you love it when I get jealous — Duo, “Love in the Afternoon”
Duo is a French pop-inspired musical collaboration between Luke Pritchard, frontman of UK indie band The Kooks, and his wife, Ellie Rose. With their electronic dance beats, detached vocals and sex-love-passion themes, Duo’s tracks at times echo the chic louche of Serge Gainsbourg and the soulful longing of Mylene Farmer. So, when Duo decided to add a scent to drop alongside the album, who better to create it than fragrance maestro Antonio Gardoni?
Antonio Gardoni, photo courtesy of Antonio Gardoni
There are few perfumers as adept at finding the synergies between rhythms and musical forms and scent as Gardoni, as evidenced in Berceuse’s layered, moody vetiver, Allegretto 7.2, and the orchestral sweep of Bogue Profumo’s ylang ylang extravaganza for Scent Bar, I Love YY. “Music and perfume share a lot of similarities, like notes and structure,” says Gardoni in the press release for LiTa, “they both help set the mood and create atmosphere. Using Duo’s music for inspiration, I wanted to produce something that echoed their dark, smoky, lustful sound.” For LiTa, a gender fluid fragrance whose initials reference the Duo song Love in the Afternoon, Gardoni was given free reign. He took his cues from the music, imagining an 80s/early 90s dance club provocation is everywhere and cigarette smoke hangs thickly around a lazy glitterball spinning ennui.
New York Club 1981© Toby Old
Bogue Profumo LiTa is ultimately a dense, loamy, smoky tobacco scent, but one with a complicated past. There’s no real top note to LiTa; in fact, the entire composition ignores the rules of classical construction. Instead, we are dropped right in what would be the middle of most perfumes. The first spray is like a time tunnel to the sides of the dance floor at a time of night when everyone has been up those few hours too long, the ashtrays on the little tables that flank the room overflow with fag ends, and the velvet chairs are damp with spilled fizz and sweat. LiTa gives an immediate smell of clubs of that era: in a nod to the 80s, the first thing I notice is a huge splash of sexy, syrupy ylang thrusting herself into the spotlight, escorted by bright little pops of grapefruit that sparkle like hair glitter, and the smell of pleather and suede that reminds me of the hot vinyl and makeup aroma of Fiorucci, the ultra-glam boutique of early 80s New York.
Image, pixabay
But then it’s all tobacco strutting around the club as crazy coloured lights careen off the walls; sweet, mulchy, and raw, with a hint of menthol, like a hundred cigarettes being rolled to the beat. But the tobacco note, instead of developing further, stops dead. Fast forward 15 minutes. The mulch is gone, replaced by the ashy smell of a smoked Marlboro. A lot of patchouli spreads out from beneath the tobacco, bringing aromas of dried leaves and earth. A few other notes filter out quietly from time to time, like the end of a blue note: a full-bodied but muted gardenia, piney cypress, some milky tonka. Swirled around in a weird cocktail with the smoked tobacco and patch, and then, without warning, the ylang thrusts back in the mix and there’s some scorched vanilla in there, combining with the pleather, that smells almost like petrol.
Still from Duo video, image courtesy of Bogue Profumo
There’s no dry-down to describe. Instead, LiTa loops back to its central points and lets them come and go as they please: all around the tobacco and the cling of cigarette smoke, ylang syrup, tonka, burnt vanilla, pleather, suede and tonka patch dip and dive in a funky hustle.
Anyone who was out too late clubbing back in the day will recognize her. But if you weren’t, imagine yourself in a bodycon sequin dress or a rolled sleeve Crayola coloured blazer, slap on some hair gel, Spotify Duo, and douse yourself in Bogue Profumo LiTa. It is the next best thing.
Notes: Bergamot, coriander, grapefruit, sandalwood, ylang ylang, champaca, cypress, gardenia, jasmine, tobacco, patchouli, incense, myrrh, tonka bean, vanilla, vetiver, benzoin.
Disclaimer: Bottle of Bogue Profumo LiTa kindly provided by Bogue Profumo. My opinions are my own.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
Sample boxes of Bogue Profumo LiTa by Michelyn
Thanks to the generosity of Bogue Profumo, we have 5 boxed samples of Bogue Profumo LiTa for one registered reader in the U.S. or Europe. To be eligible, please leave a comment describing what strikes you about LiTa based on Lauryn’s perfume and what your favourite Bogue Profumo fragrance is. Were you/are you into clubbing? Draw closes 1/30/2021.
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