Caron Parfum Sacre Intense: If The IFRA Gives You Lemons….

July 22, 2010July 22, 2010

Parfum Sacre was a spice and amber laden rose fragrance that surrounded the central rose note with a warm enveloping spicy grouping of notes. It was surprisingly light for a fragrance full of intense notes. When I first smelled Parfum Sacre it was an opulent fragrance. I was shocked to find the currently reformulated version of Parfum Sacre to be a wan imitation of the original. Once again the heavy hand of IFRA and their regulations had squeezed the lush juice out of a memorable fragrance and neutered Parfum Sacre in the process. Because of that disappointment my level of skepticism with the new 2010 release Parfum Sacre Intense was very high. What I found, instead, was a perfume House which found a way to pay tribute to the original Parfum Sacre and somehow create a new fragrance that allows it to surpass the current formulation of the original.

EnVoyage Perfumes Carmel de Ville: Olfactive Landscapes Of The Monterey Peninsula

July 20, 2010July 20, 2010

Certainly one of the most successful examples of this kind of artistry are the first two fragrances in Hermes “Un Jardin” series; Un Jardin en Mediterranee and Un Jardin sur Le Nil. For both of those fragrances the perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena spent time in the Meditteranean and near The Nile and let his nose become the way we would experience his impressions of those locales. I am reminded of this by perfumer Shelley Waddington and her Carmel By The Sea Series for her Envoyage Perfumes label

NEW FRAGRANCE Neil Morris Fragrances The Rose Tattoo + Giveaway

July 16, 2010

Neil had been inspired by a woman he’d met in a motorcycle shop.
One of those people whom it is easy to dismiss, perhaps-
Not as tough as she looked in her leathers, bearing a rose tattoo on her arm…
She was one of the kindest, gentlest souls he had ever met; he wanted to create a homage to her.
A testament to her very goodness.

NEW FRAGRANCE: Amouage Library Collection Opus I, II and III

July 15, 2010July 15, 2010

Christopher Chong, the creative director for Amouage, was “inspired by the recollections and fragments we acquire on our journey; the fragments that collectively represent a tome of memories … the notion of the hidden treasures in a library “.
Truly, there is something here for all tastes.
The goal was to transcend gender; all three are to be worn by anyone.

Menage a Trois The Scents of Summer

July 13, 2010

Summer strode into California this year with the heat buzzing at around three digits daily. It’s dry, acrid and sometimes unbearable .My scents always come to the rescue. Although I am not in the habit of having winter- summer rotation fragrances I do find I am drawn to gauzier, less dense ones at the height of summer. This summer, three fragrances have my heart and I cannot get enough of them.

Rewind:2009 Interview with Camille Goutal, Artistic Director of Annick Goutal Parfums songes of my mother

July 11, 2010July 11, 2010

In this interview with the Camille Goutal, Ms. Goutal’s daughter who has led the Company’s endeavors, including its famous fragrances (her “partner in perfume” is nose Isabelle Doyen), we have an insider’s view of the complex relationships between scent, memory, tradition and innovation, mother and daughters, as well as Camille Goutal’s personal memories of one of the most innovative and influential women of modern fragrance, her mother Annick Goutal