“A fragrance created today is the one that’s going to disappear tomorrow,” says the director of the Osmothèque perfume conservatory Patricia de Nicolaï. Perfumes disappear for many reasons—reformulations, bad marketing strategies, poor timing. I’m not sure why Yohji Yamamoto was discontinued, but when Debbie emailed me to add Yohji Yamamoto to the long lost favorite perfume discussions, I was glad to talk about it. Debbie mentioned that she wasn’t sure if she really liked Yohji at the time, but as she noted, “when I go back and re-smell (I have about a quarter of a bottle left) I am struck by how interesting it is, especially at the time it was launched.”

When I first tried Yohji Yamamoto for Her, I also wasn’t sure if I liked it either. It was created in 1996 by the esteemed Jean Kerléo. Kerléo was an in-house Jean Patou perfumer, and he’s responsible for the gilded Jean Patou Sublime and the glamorous 1000. Yohji Yamamoto is a departure from the gold and silk elegance of Patou; it’s a gourmand composition that is unexpectedly crisp and bright.

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1) South German, Triptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints, 1505/15

“How can you make a drawing look appetizing?” I muttered under my breath as I pushed the pencil across the white paper. I was trying to draw my first still life of two apples and a pear. “It should look good enough to eat. Also, pay attention to the light and shadows,” the teacher kept reminding us. If I were to compile the images that spell frustration to me, a scene of my 8 year old self sitting in my art class in front of two apples and a pear is one of them. How can one capture the taste, the scent, the emotion in a painting? Years later, as I started thinking more about how to capture a sensation in a drop of perfumed liquid, I began to search for clues in art.

I spent a lot of time at the Art Institute of Chicago during my student days. It has free visiting hours on certain days, and I still think of it as my favorite museum, mostly because it feels very familiar. During my visit over Christmas, I wanted to take photos of a few favorite paintings, but instead I started snapping details that caught my eye–an angel’s brocaded skirt, a hand holding a book, a glistening string of pearls on a white neck.

When I suddenly noticed the shy whiteness of lily of the valley near Santa Margareta’s cloak (painting 1), I could almost smell Diorissimo around me. So I kept taking photos of elements that conveyed a smell, a taste or a tactile sensation to me. I tried playing the game of assigning a perfume to each painting, but I was with my husband, whose fragrance knowledge is still limited, despite years of being my captive audience. He told me that I should play this game with you and let him enjoy the paintings in peace.

So feel free to join my husband in just looking at the images, but if you want to play along, tell me what perfumes these paintings suggest to you.

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As much as I love complex fragrances that feel like an alternative universe in themselves, there are days when I feel that my own world more than suffices to keep me on my toes. At such times I simply want something beautiful: a perfume that feels like a comfortable second skin, or a soft melody that forms a perfect scented soundtrack to my day. The latest such discovery is by Kilian Water Calligraphy, a perfume from the Asian Tales Collection.

Water Calligraphy is immediately inviting—the sparkling citrus top notes are tart and bittersweet, while the lemony cardamom is deliciously piquant. Even when the luscious white floral notes begin to unfold, the perfume retains its initial airy impression. If you’ve ever floated gardenias in a bowl of water and returned to find a room full of their peach and jasmine cream perfume, you will find a similar experience with Water Calligraphy.

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By Suzanna

I live in a city that is high on football and low on perfume shopping.  Gator fans would likely not want things the other way around.  You cannot live in Gainesville, Florida and not participate, one way or another, in the football ubiquity.  As I discovered, however, with a bit of creativity you can live in Gainesville or other small towns and participate in the enjoyment of hard-to-find perfume.

I’m a small town perfumista.  This means that there are no boutiques or high-end stores at which to sample fragrance.  There’s no Barney’s or Luckyscent or even a top-shelf Sephora.  We didn’t have a Sephora until 2009, and when it arrived it proved to be one of the closely edited Sephora stores. We have small versions of big department stores.

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Christian Dior is launching a new fragrance in La Collection Privée, Grand Bal. “Grand Bal is an echo of Christian Dior’s great ball gowns, whose full skirts and beauty evoked the petals of a flower in full bloom,” François Demachy, Dior in-house perfumer. It is a classical jasmine blend that includes notes of bergamot, jasmine, Tunisian orange blossom, ylang ylang, New Caledonia sandalwood, and musk. Available from Dior boutiques.

Via dior.com