Orange Blossom & Neroli: 64 posts

Oranger en Fleurs (“A celebration of the orange tree”) is a new release from Houbigant, a perfume house with a history dating back to 1775.  The company’s perfumes have for several decades been identified with drugstores, but the release of Oranger en Fleurs signals a return of Houbigant to the luxury market.

Oranger en Fleurs is a fully realized orange blossom fragrance that presents the honeyed floral note in a tableau of leaves and twigs, jasmine, rose, tuberose, ylang-ylang, nutmeg, cedar, and musk, along with something called “eau de brouts” (an absolute with a sharp, green orange blossom aroma).  The moment I sprayed it, the resemblance to Serge Lutens Fleurs d’Oranger was unmistakable.  Substitute Lutens’ cumin for nutmeg and give the composition some airiness and you have, for the most part, Oranger en Fleurs.

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Âmes Sœurs (Scent of Soul Mates) is citrus-musk perfume oil created by Joya as a response to the novel The Book of Lost Fragrances by M. J. Rose. Author Rose wrote the book—a “novel of suspense” centered on reincarnation and a recipe for an ancient fictional perfume by the same name—while frequently burning Joya candles.

Joya is a Brooklyn-based “creative collective specializing in fragrance” designed by Frederick Bouchardy.  Joya Studios makes candles, perfumes, and decorative amulets. Âmes Sœurs created by perfumer Rayda Vega comes in a handy 10 ml roll-on, priced at $28.00.  It’s this latter that has been sitting in my bag for the last few weeks, making an appearance whenever I feel as if I might want a fragrant kick from this thoroughly enjoyable perfume oil.

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by Suzanna

Some of the most intriguing fragrances are meant to evoke environment and emotion, time and place. This is why the newest L’Artisan Parfumeur fragrance, Séville à l’aube, caught my attention. Perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour created Séville à l’aube as a celebration of journalist and perfume blogger Denyse Beaulieu’s remembrance of romance and seduction past. The idea stemmed from a story Beaulieu told the perfumer about an erotic event that transpired during a long-ago Holy Week (this turns up in the scent as an abstraction) and about the smells and associations of that time and place (more literal). Beaulieu describes her experience in the creation of this fragrance in her book The Perfume Lover. Duchaufour documents Beaulieu’s story as an “orange blossom Oriental” in which the sweet and honeyed white flower appears meaty and succulent and the dry resins of the base curl upwards in the manner of incense.

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When we were talking about cravings for salty perfumes last week, I began to compile a list of such fragrances.  On the face of it, a salty perfume seems like a strange idea, because salt doesn’t have a strong smell. At most I notice  the tangy iodine whiff from granulated table salt like Morton’s or the slightly marine sweetness whenever I open my jar of fleur de sel — thin, crunchy flakes gathered from the top of salt dunes.  But think of what you experience when a salt crystal melts on your tongue—a rush of sweetness that’s followed by a mild saline bitterness. That’s how I imagine salty scents.

A great illustration for this salty impression is Parfum d’Empire Azemour les Orangers. Created by perfumer Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, the founder of the Parfum d’Empire line, it’s an homage to his parents’ orange grove in Morocco.  When I first tried Azemour, I was instantly smitten with its green richness, effervescent citrus notes and moss and musk drydown.

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There are days that feel so perfect that I wish I could capture them somehow—in a sentence, in a drawing or in a drop of perfume.  It may just be a mild spring morning when I wake up by myself before the alarm clock and find that my husband has already made some tea for me and the whole room smells of jasmine petals and wet leaves. Or perhaps, I’m enjoying a cup of coffee at a sidewalk café, soaking in the sunshine and the perfume of dusty geraniums. None of these moments are great epiphanies, but they comprise the small pleasures that color my days the most.  When I read that a niche house A Lab on Fire launched a fragrance called Sweet Dreams 2003, I became tempted as much by its story as by the scent itself.

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