Cashmere Wrap: 43 posts

Patricia wraps herself in iris, sandalwood and amber and talks about some of her favorite fragrances from Parfum d’Empire.

Even if Equistrius, a fragrance from the French niche line Parfum d’Empire, hadn’t been named for an outstanding competition horse, I would have been intrigued by the well-balanced combination of some of my favorite notes in perfume. Although Equistrius can easily be worn year round, I find it especially suited to early fall, when the days begin to shorten noticeably, the southward-heading robins congregate in my backyard Kousa dogwood to devour its ripening berries, and the breeze carries a premonition of the chill to come.

Equistrius opens with refreshing green notes and violet, but eases quickly into a warm and buttery iris that is mouthwateringly delicious and demands frequent wrist to nose enjoyment. This is a soft, rather than a demanding iris, and perfume notes have included rice powder to convey this softness. What I get is more a feeling of rice paper: white, translucent, and richly grained, allowing the warm amber and milky sandalwood to show through, especially as the perfume continues to soften and develop on skin.

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Cuir d’Ange is the most recent addition to the Hermès Hermessence collection, a line of fragrances sold exclusively at the house’s boutiques. The idea is to capture the nuances of famous Hermès leather, which smells of flowers and musk. The perfumer behind it is Jean-Claude Ellena, a master of the most ethereal and delicate compositions, and as you would expect, Cuir d’Ange, Angel’s Leather, stays true to its name. It’s wispy and sheer, as if the leather that inspired it was polished to remove any traces of animal funk and made to smell like someone’s clean skin.

Cuir d’Ange is pure comfort. Although I like to think of myself as someone unafraid of the raunchiest animalic scents, my favorite leathers in perfume bottles are soft and cuddly. I’m more in the camp of Bottega Veneta than that of Robert Piguet Bandit on most days. So, here you go. For this reason, the first time I smelled Cuir d’Ange, I felt that I discovered my ideal leather–creamy, suave, and mild. On the other hand, if you want the odor of a beaver in heat and don’t wish to settle for anything less, Cuir d’Ange will strike you as wimpy and bland.

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Andy discovers another cheap and chic perfume.

Smell Bent is a small, independent perfume company with an interest in keeping fragrance enjoyable, affordable, and, above all, fun. The cheeky names and concepts behind their fragrances, including Monaco-Dependent and Violet Tendencies might sound wacky, but in a market where we’re up to our noses in increasingly expensive niche perfumes, I find a playful and inexpensive line refreshing. After recently testing some perfumes from the brand, one stood out to me above the rest, a fragrance called Commando.

At first I thought Commando would be bold and dynamic, as it sounded like a perfume one sprays on for combat. This was before I realized that the creator had another idea in mind—let it suffice to say that Commando is described “as close as it gets to wearing nothing at all.” Likewise, Commando is best described as a skin scent, though wearing it hardly feels like wearing nothing. Commando is both simple and strangely intriguing despite only two distinguishable notes, of musk and tonka. On the whole, this fragrance has little in the way of development, but the overall light and luminous effect is more than the sum of its parts.

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Does the world need another rose perfume? I’ve posed myself that question on many occasions, as the variety of roses keeps increasing, but I invariably end up saying, yes. Jasmine, orange blossom and tuberose, the so-called white flowers, may seduce me, but rose makes me happy. Light and shimmery or dark and velvety, this blossom in the perfume bottle is my gateway to fantasy. Enter the new rose to tempt me, Ann Gérard Rose Cut.

A jeweler based in Paris, Ann Gérard has already three perfumes to her name, Cuir de Nacre, Perle de Mousse, and Ciel d’Opale. All three were created by Bertrand Duchaufour, the perfumer whose name graces many niche offerings. Rose Cut is also his composition, and in creating it, he and Gérard were inspired by a diamond-cutting technique which gives stones a special radiance.

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Elisa plays Scheherazade with her 10 favorite oriental perfumes.

Come winter, you will find me in orientals almost exclusively. An oriental is a fragrance with an emphasis on amber, that fantasy accord of resins and vanilla, often accented with spices, woods, soft florals, or candy-like gourmand notes. Both the phrase and the fragrances remind me of an oriental rug: dark and rich, ornate, intricately patterned, dense but soft.

Orientals tend to be heavy with long-lasting base notes, so they’re perfect in winter, when you want a scent to envelop you all day with comforting sweetness and warmth. Here are my ten favorite oriental perfumes that get me through the cold, dark days of winter.

Flower by Kenzo

The name suggests “floral,” but under the violet and rose lurks this perfume’s true character: a powdery vanilla musk with opoponax that feels plush and white, and seems to sparkle especially when it snows.

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