Gustav Klimt Bauerngarten 1907 detail via theguardian.com
If words are seeds,
let flowers grow
from your mouth,
not weeds.
If hearts are gardens,
plant those flowers
in the chest of the ones
who exist around you. ~ R.H.Swaney, Seeds and Gardens
Elizabeth Gaynes, Creative Director Helena Christensen and Master Perfumer Christophe Laudamiel via Strangelove NYC
Newly burgeoning love, like the garden in full bloom – is a thoroughly enveloping intoxicant. To say that we are swept off our feet hardly begins to describe its headiness; we are consumed by a force more immense than our own insignificance – one which awakens vertigo and wonder. Founder and CEO Elizabeth Gaynes, Creative Director Helena Christensen and Master Perfumer Christophe Laudamiel have jointly labored to gift us with this experience in strangelove nyc lostinflowers. Ms. Gaynes recently related that this perfume is one she has been wearing most lately: “I’ve been wearing tons of it every day. It really brings springtime to life in my apartment.” To quote our Robert Hermann in February 2019: “Let me tell you how much I love Strangelove NYC’s LostInFlowers: it was the ONLY perfume I chose to take with me to the Milan Esxence perfume expo last year.”
Helena Christensen Debenham’s Summer Campaign 2017
Having been given the opportunity this week to explore it for myself was a true joy. One smells a good many perfume – a large number of them attractive, some of them delightful and a few of them Extraordinary. Lostinflowers is enrobed in the extraordinary; even if you are not an oud devotee you will likely admire it for its sheer beauty. If you are a fan of oud fragrances (the entire strangelove nyc line swirls about oud), then entrancement is on your docket; in this perfume oud serves to ground celestial florals in reality, give them roots and remind us of the carnal inner lives of plants.
Helena Christensen via bellazon.com
Lostinflowers manifests blossoms most vocal: no shrinking violets to be found among them. You might well think that such beautifully opinionated and sweet florals would result in fragrant cacaphony, but they don’t. Oud doesn’t accomplish this on its own: burnished solarity in the form of saffron tends to temper sweetness, and marigold contributes marvelously intricate facets, as it smells herbal/floral/boozy/fruity/dry/honeyed. On to flowers in which we lose ourselves: a superb gardenia enfleurage always makes me swoon; they are rare and costly and capture all the aspects of the bloom. Jasmine wears many faces (both possess animalic characteristics as well as tranquilizing effects), is always welcome and is most certainly not timid. Champaca, that Indian relative of the magnolia – wafts a velvety sultriness embroidered with warm peachy/apricot tones and haylike tea notes well into the drydown. Demure and winsome as they appear to the eye, lilies of the valley are verdant, ebulliently cheerful and undeniably floral (muguet is not a retiring scent by any means). It oughtn’t surprise anyone that such legerdemain is the consequence of master Monsieur Laudamiel, who conjures olfactory sorcery before our nose.
Klimt Meadow in Flower via wikiart.org
The first breath of lostinflowers is a rapturous moment: I’m transported to the beloved’s garden in my bare feet amidst coolest grass. Midday sun warms petals and pollen; I inhale greedily, stoop to greet and sample the white bell-like clusters which populate a shady nook, nestled at the foot of a venerable oak. Peace descends, an invisible cloak of talismanic floral protection; the damp earth beneath me molds itself as if it were bone structure.
“In the autumn I gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden. And when April returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers.” ~ Kahlil Gibran.
Notes: jasmine, red champaca, gardenia enfleurage, saffron, oud, lily of the valley, marigold
Lovely flacon sent me by Elizabeth Gaynes for my birthday; I cherish it! My nose is my own…
~ Ida Meister, Senior Editor and Natural Perfumery Editor
Stangelove NYC photo of lostinflowers
Thanks to the generosity of Strangelove NYC, we have a 15ml ml bottle of lostinflowers for one registered reader in the US, EU, and Canada (you must register on our site or your comment will not count). To be eligible, please tell us what you enjoyed or found interesting about Ida’s review, if you have favorite Strange Love NYC perfume before and where you live. Draw closes 4/23/2020
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Editor Sebastian Jara reviewed deadofnight here
Editor Dana Sandu reviewed fallintostars here and chose the house’s meltmyheart for this past Valentine’s Day here
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