Victoria: 2669 posts

What happens when a talented photographer and a perfumer cross paths? To figure this out, I take a close look at the striking sunshine filled image by the Italian master Massimo Vitali and apply a drop of Lumière Blanche to my wrist. The idea behind this perfume by the French niche house Olfactive Studio was to capture the intense white light saturating Vitali’s photograph of a Sicilian beach.

It’s easy enough to fall under the spell of suggestion with something as intangible as a scent and as vivid as this image, and I could tell you that I smell “white” and “radiance.” What I feel above all is just pleasure. As I press my nose into my wrist, I notice a comforting warmth from the perfume’s blend of spices, almonds and sandalwood. There is a beautiful synergy between picture and a scent, but even on their own, they are striking.

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Serge Luten has unveiled his newest Paris exclusive fragrance called Une Voix Noire. “The stars rise in chorus. The night sky is filled with the light of the moon.  It is a tribute to the singer Billie Holiday, a reference to a gardenia she wore in her hair.

The perfume is now available via sergelutens.com, 75ml is 130 euros. Via sergelutens.com

“Flowers can have a dark enchantment,” says Tom Ford of his new Jardin Noir series. “When you showcase their darker and less innocent aspects, flowers can become so thrilling and beautiful, they could almost ruin you. That was the sensation I was after.”* For a flower from a collection called Jardin Noir, Lys Fume upon first impression is not all that dark. For a perfume named “Fume”, which I take to mean “smoked lily” in French, the smoke is quite subtle.

But even if Tom Ford is after the “film noir” glamour goddesses in theory only, Lys Fume is an enjoyable fragrance. Real lilies smell intensely indolic–of ink and moth balls–and while perfumers Rodrigo Flores-Roux and Shyamala Maisondieu  tone down the animalic components, they didn’t shy away from exploring some surprising twists to create this blossom.

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Guerlain’s Les Déserts d’Orient trio of Rose Nacrée du Désert, Encens Mythique d’Orient, and Songe d’Un Bois d’Été is now available at Bergdorf Goodman in New York.

A tribute to enchanting Arabia with three iconic creations that represent the Orient in all its original splendor… There has always been a beautiful love story, an undeniable and faithful bond, between Guerlain and the Orient. Superb compositions are the prestigious proof. With the creation of Shalimar (1925), Jacques Guerlain founded the great oriental olfactory family. As rounded as a waltz, it majestically combines the sweet, opiate notes of balms, precious woods and vanilla with flowers and exotic essences to embody the opulence of faraway horizons imbued with mystery… Thierry Wasser, Guerlain’s perfumer-creator, wanted to demonstrate this concept in his own way, with sumptuousness and freedom, while giving dazzling expression to the notes that make these lands an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

Via Bergdorf Goodman

“Behind the Scenes at Firmenich For the Creation of AXE Excite”video fits right into my How Many Hands Touch Your Bottle of Perfume series. Harry Fremont, Frank Voelkl, and Pierre Negrin, perfumers who work for a fragrance supplier Firmenich, explain how they created Axe and lead you into the lab. You can see the way the labs are organized and observe the lab technicians at work mixing the perfume oils. In the final scene, you will see that perfumes are tested on skin–the only way to properly understand how a blend develops.

It often comes as a surprise to many people that mass market products like Axe are created by the top perfumers in the field. As does the fact that the development of these scents is a careful, detail oriented process. While Axe body sprays may be cheap and ubiquitous, the process behind creating them is anything but. The Axe projects are among the most coveted for the perfumers, and when Negrin grins proudly mentioning the win, his emotion is genuine.  The big scope and diversity of Axe also mean that a perfumer can experiment with some unexpected accords like Voelkl does with his masculine coconut-caramel twist to make Excite. Not all mass market lines are willing to take risks, but Axe is big enough to push the boundary on occasion.

Thank you, Robin, for a link!