Jasmine: 63 posts

Today’s guest post is brought to you by Anne-Marie. She is a museum curator and historian living in Canberra, Australia. Her mother wore Yardley’s April Violets for over fifty years, and this is what sparked Anne-Marie’s interest in perfume. You  can also find Anne-Marie’s reviews at Beauty on the Outside.

“Oh, it’s from my private collection.”

Thus would Estée Lauder reply when people asked her about the intriguing perfume was wearing. It could not be bought. At first she shared it only with Princess Grace of Monaco and the Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson). In 1973 Mrs Lauder was finally persuaded to put the fragrance on the market and she kept the name, Private Collection.

Whether or not this is true, Private Collection is a brilliant example of fragrance marketing. Its story makes me think of Givenchy’s L’Interdit, a bespoke fragrance created for Audrey Hepburn and launched commercially in 1957. We are told that Estée Lauder tried to keep Private Collection “to herself”, just like Hepburn, who upon heard the proposal to release her fragrance cried, “But that is my perfume, I forbid it! (Mais c’est mon parfum, je vous l’interdis!)”

Continue reading →

I might as well admit it, I originally disliked Chanel Coco.  I will be up front about that because now I won’t be separated from it. Coco is a good case for retesting a fragrance:  more compliments have come my way with Coco than with any other fragrance. Although created almost 30 years ago in 1984, Coco is far from being dated. It is an outgoing, definite statement scent, not a wallflower. It is a fragrance from the time when women adopted a signature perfume as bold style accessories. Consider Coco an adornment, a piece of jewelry, the finishing touch.

Classic Chanel scents reveal themselves through mists of aldehydes that always to my nose make a Chanel perfume smell high concept.  They are tailored even when they are meant to be sexy, as is the case with Coco.  The top notes are bright and brassy with ripe, fruity aldehydes, mandarin peel, and macerated raisins.  These notes ignite as if flambéed.

Continue reading →

A man at the outdoor market where I shop each Friday cuts melons to entice customers. He lays out a colorful platter that looks like a Byzanthine mosaic of golden cantaloupe slivers, opalescent musk melon cubes, with an occasional splash of watermelon red. The colors makes me wish that I had a big pile of summer dresses in these shades, but it’s the scent that makes me bring home more fruit than the two of us can possibly eat. The perfume of ripe melon has an almost tangible quality, and its musky sweetness is so seductive, I feel lightheaded.

Yet, as much as I love melons, when I hear that a perfume contains this note, I approach it with caution. Too many melon fragrances have crossed my path that smelled either too sweet, too artificial or both. For this reason, it took me a very long time to try Parfums DelRae Emotionnelle.

Continue reading →

I have a love and hate relationship with summer. I wilt in the heat, my hair becomes unmanageable thanks to the humidity and my skin burns within seconds. The bronzed summer look with glistening lips that heralds the July editions of fashion magazines all over the world is unachievable for me. On the other hand, I love the balmy feel of warm summer evenings, when the soft breeze caresses your face and plays with your hair. A good matte finish sunscreen, Wella mousse and Mineral Veil powder is what I rely on to go from morning to evening without looking overly disheveled, but I also like to keep a small atomizer of perfume that can likewise bridge the heat of the summer day and the languor of the evening.

It’s hard to go wrong with a great citrus cologne, but sometimes you want a perfume that lingers longer, while retaining a pleasant freshness to cool you down. That’s the category of perfumes in which Parfums de Nicolaï L’Eau à la Folie fits perfectly–a blend of citrus and tropical fruits with a drydown of jasmine and moss.

Continue reading →

Lauren was one of the greatest American perfumes that made a big splash in the 1980s, but where is it today? Ralph Lauren counters rarely feature the familiar red bottle shaped like an ink well. Moreover, like most classics, Lauren got so many face lifts that it’s barely recognizable. I’m still learning to like it in its pale green and soft version, but my memory of the juicy cantaloupe and jasmine folded around mossy cedarwood is still too poignant. My readers Michelle, MaryAnn and Renée felt the same way, and I’ve decided to review Lauren and turn to you for possible alternatives to this lovely fruity floral fragrance.

Now, ‘fruity floral’ and ‘lovely’ rarely appear in the same phrase on perfume blogs, mostly because the onslaught of identical and boring fruity florals has devalued this charming perfume family. Lauren is a great example of how appealing and delightful the marriage of flowers and fruit can be. Right from the moment you put it on your skin, it feels sparkling and refreshing, like a sip of iced cocktail. It’s green and tangy like Granny Smith apple skin, but also velvety like a ripe melon.  In today’s Lauren, the top notes are mostly green—a tangle of leaves and a squeeze of tart grape juice.

Continue reading →