Culture: 426 posts

May’s issue of Marie Claire includes my article about fragrances that satisfy our wanderlust. It’s called Scents of Place (p.79).  I also meant it as an introduction to niche, or however you want to call the artisanal, indie, etc. perfumery that aims to offer something different from the department store perfume counter. Not all niche brands guarantee an interesting experience, but the ones that do are worth exploring. I loved writing about this topic and highlighting my personal favorites in the article.

“Serge Lutens’s perfume Arabie conjures the heady exuberance of a Moroccan souk with cardamom, tobacco, and honeyed dates; Neela Vermeire’s Mohur takes you to India with its lush sweetness of roses and milky sandalwood; and Amoureuse, a perfume created by California-based Parfums DelRae, evokes San Francisco’s jasmine festooned streets. If those names don’t sound familiar, it’s because these fragrances don’t appear in television commercials or on the scent strips in magazines…”

May’s Marie Claire is a global beauty issue, and it has many interesting articles on makeup, health and fashion. Scarlett Johansson is the sultry cover girl. There are articles on beauty trends in Hong Kong, reports from Berlin Fashion Week and more. I especially loved the spread featuring the gorgeous Chinese model Ping Hue wearing summer colors. The magazine is now available at newsstands. I will post the link to my article once it becomes available.

Do you satisfy your wanderlust with perfume? Are there fragrances that conjure up specific places for you?

Who says that tulips have no scent? After spending several hours sticking my nose inside more than three dozen varieties, I discovered that not only are tulips perfumed, their fragrances vary dramatically. Some smell of potato peels and pear brandy, others of cloves soaked in honey and crushed green buds. Lemon, moss, wet earth, rose, carrots, and apricots are some other scents I wrote down in my notebook. A dusky purple hybrid called Cuban Night reminded me of waxed wooden floors. Some varieties may smell lighter than others, but all of them have a distinctive perfume.

Every spring the flower fields in the Netherlands burst into bloom, transforming the surrounding countryside into a surreal painting of vivid red, yellow, and blue.  At the height of tulip mania in the 17th century, a single bulb could cost as much as a house, but even after the economic bubble burst, the flower remained a distinctive national symbol. Today, the flowering fields draw lots of visitors, and one of the most popular destinations is the Keukenhof, considered to be the world’s largest flower garden.

Continue reading →

Cult Perfumes: The World’s Most Exclusive Perfumeries is a new book devoted to small, artisanal perfumeries, or for the lack of a better term, niche. It includes interviews with the perfumers and creators, perfume descriptions and the history of various lines. The author Tessa Williams includes 25 different brands, from Amouage to Serge Lutens. There are even mentions of small lines like Byredo, Tauer Perfumes, and Nasomatto. It also contains a handy glossary of fragrance terms and a list of perfume museums around the world. Did you know that Japan has three such establishments?

There are plenty of photos, and at 192 pages Cult Perfumes is a cross between a coffee table book (albeit, in a small format) and a reference set. The book isn’t overly technical, and as such, it would be best for someone fairly new to perfume or curious to learn more about small, lesser known brands. Advanced perfume lovers might find the information too light.

Continue reading →

Today we have a special guest writer Lauren Salisbury. Lauren and I met as students at the IFF Perfumery Academy, and we’ve spent many hours smelling together.  A life-long lover of perfume, Lauren has worked in the fragrance industry for nearly a decade, developing fragrances for many popular brands around the globe.  She now works as an evaluator for ScentAir Technologies, Inc., and writes her blog, The Little Nose. Lauren will give you a glimpse inside a perfume lab and introduce you to a very important person–the fragrance evaluator.  

How Many Hands Touch Your Bottle of Perfume : Brief

In recent years, the media has focused on the particular talents and tasks of the perfumer, and we are fascinated. They are admired as artists, respected for their finely-tuned, highly-trained olfactory abilities and their knowledge about fragrance materials.  But few of us are aware of the perfumer’s trusted sidekick: the evaluator.  Until recently, perfumers remained completely anonymous, but today you will still rarely see mention of the evaluators in the press. Despite their work behind the scenes, not only does the evaluator help the perfumer complete the project, but also, she can significantly influence the final fragrance.

First, let me explain where the evaluator fits into the process.  When the brief, or fragrance request, arrives from the client (and by client I mean a fragrance house like Calvin Klein or Christian Dior) via the sales department, the evaluator starts her work. She reaches out to one, or several, perfumers, communicating the desired fragrance goal, as well as all the project specifications, such as the maximum cost allowed for the fragrance, material restrictions, target consumer details, and due dates.

Continue reading →

I confess to a perfume quirk:  I love to coordinate fragrance and clothes. I’ve been doing it since I was thirteen, when such a task was made much simpler by the smaller number of perfumes in my wardrobe. By the time I was in high school, the coordination was fairly routine and easy to follow.  Brown clothing (specifically, Levis brown cords) never matched up with a light blue tunic or with any fragrance that I deemed blue.  Whether a fragrance was blue (or green or red or any color at all) depended on a variety of factors, like the color of the bottle, the color of the juice, or the “feel.”

“Feel” was and still is impossible for me to describe, but many perfumistas will know exactly what I mean.  Sometimes determining the color might be simple:  Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche was blue because of the bottle and the sky-high aldehydes, the fizzy, champagne-like notes that smell effervescent and blue to me.  Revlon Charlie was yellow because the juice is gold and fizzy (I daringly wore it with a yellow ribbed sweater and orange jeans.) Houbigant Chantilly was light brown and I wore it with beige and never with teal.

Continue reading →