Blackcurrant: 18 posts

One of the great vagaries of a perfume habit is how you can end up besotted with a fragrance that you originally disliked. Somewhere in the mid-nineties I came across Diptyque L’Ombre dans L’Eau, a fusion of tangy blackcurrant leaf, dark rose, and white grapefruit. It was completely out of step with the perfumes I knew in those days when niche fragrances were more or less not known or available stateside.

At the time, I was wearing one of those huge glitzy florals (Dior Poison!) and L’Ombre dans L’Eau was its exact opposite. The green intensity of blackcurrant leaf in particular struck me the wrong way, as if the edges were sharp, cold, and brutal.  The fragrance smelled not of a shadow in the water (as its name would be translated from French) but of digging in a garden in the dog days of summer, hands in the dirt around a rose bush, with a heat haze dragging the bitter, earthy and resinous smell of tomato leaf through the thick air.  It was too photorealistic, this experiential French scent, and the leafiness was such that one might experience it as both a smell and as a taste, as if somewhere in one’s memory was trapped a childhood remembrance of biting into a tomato.

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by Suzanna

In the early 1980s, the late Annick Goutal created two fragrances for her young daughters, Camille and Charlotte.  Ivy and honeysuckle inspired Camille’s scent (Eau de Camille, 1983) while Charlotte’s scent (Eau de Charlotte, 1982) described a young girl smitten by blackcurrant jam and cocoa. Despite the foodie nomenclature of the notes, Eau de Charlotte is not a gourmand scent. The blackcurrant and cocoa notes belie Charlotte’s true nature as a lily of the valley scent.

I discovered Charlotte, or she me, on a scent strip in a magazine. It smelled so different—this was the mid-nineties—to anything else I’d smelled until that time.  I was a Jean Patou Joy wearer, and Eau de Charlotte seemed less mainstream and more creative. I wore it through a couple of bottles before finding Gardenia Passion from the same Goutal line (by way of the incredible soap, but that’s another story!)

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

She wears her pink bow with panache. She is in a perpetually cheerful mood. She is pretty and bubbly. That’s Salvatore Ferragamo Signorina for you, a new fragrance that has all the attributes of a best seller — easy, fruity and radiant. Picking up the bottle, you already know that it is going to be a trendy and lighthearted fragrance. The perfume is aimed at the younger market, and for the target audience it hits the spot.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

In Arabic, one can wish someone a morning of roses, “sabah al ward.” Whenever I hear the words “Clair Matin,” I think of this beautiful expression. The idea behind the newest limited edition fragrance from Les Parfums de Rosine was indeed to capture the delicate scent of pink roses as they unfold in the morning. Yet, the question that remained for me as I wore Clair Matin was whether it truly evoked a rose scented dawn for me.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

There is something exhilarating and uplifting about the green notes. A whiff of crushed leaves, mowed grass or of minced herbs—and suddenly the breath of spring itself envelops you, making you feel giddy. Yet, strong verdant accords in fragrances are notoriously difficult to weave in such a way that the perfume maintains its effervescent quality without being overly sharp and aggressive. Therefore, most fragrances interpret the idea of verdancy in a rather tame manner, using the green accords as mere accents. Le Temps d’une Fête by Parfums de Nicolaï comes as a pleasant surprise—a sophisticated fragrance that presents a vibrant green theme, yet retaining a plush, caressing quality on the skin. It has the bold character of Balmain Vent Vert, while it wears as elegantly as Guerlain Chamade.

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