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I have a new article in The Financial Times “How to Spend It” Magazine. In A Heady and Refined Scent for Winter, I talk about some of my favorite gardenia scents. The opulent and complex scent of gardenias has been on my mind a lot lately.  If I had more space, I would have included Estée Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia, By Kilian Water Calligraphy, Parfums de Nicolai Juste Un Rêve (a gardenia kissed tropical bouquet), and of course, Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia (alas, discontinued).

Gardenia is a flower with diverse connotations, from sultry to innocent. The jazz singer Billie Holiday famously tucked a white gardenia in her hair; 19th Shanghai courtesans used its seeds to colour their undergarments a vibrant yellow; and in the Victorian language of flowers, gardenia symbolised purity and refinement. Its scent is heady and lush, marrying the seductive warmth of jasmine with the sweetness of peach and coconut. A single blossom is enough to perfume a room for hours with a fragrance that reminds me of a summer evening. But with winter approaching, it will be months before I can find fresh gardenias, and instead  I look for them in a perfume bottle. To read the rest, click here.

Do you have favorite gardenia fragrances?

“Iconic 90-year-old perfume Chanel No.5 is one of a host of well-known perfumes that could be banned following research into the allergy-inducing ingredients they contain,” says the Telegraph article “Chanel No.5 perfume faces ban.”  So, should you start stocking up on Chanel No 5?

The mainstream press seems to have woken up to the idea of reformulations and ingredient bans, which is why the Telegraph and other newspapers are running these alarmist headlines. In short, no, Chanel No 5 is not going to be banned in the near future. On the other hand, the pace of ingredient regulation is so fast and so stringent that it’s becoming a real issue for creative perfumery.

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Aftelier Perfumes is launching a fragrance called Wild Roses. Meant as a unisex perfume it was created by Mandy Aftel and inspired by the roses she has grown in her garden. It includes notes of rose co2, heliotropin, bergamot, geraniol, m-methyl anthranilate, damascenone; apricot, Turkish rose absolute, pimento berry, p-ethyl alcohol, rose petals attar; tarragon absolute, vanilla absolute, indole, and aged patchouli.

Wild Roses perfume evokes the garden in our imagination and memory — the book of a hundred petals unfolding: balsamic, spicy, apricot, and honeyed roses, mixed with the smell of warm earth and herbs. This is the rose that exists in your mind after you have smelled so many garden roses — blush, ruby, canary, purple, crimson edged with brown, pure white, candy-cane striped — that you feel intoxicated. …For me, I knew the center of this perfume had to be the harmony between rose and apricot — no other fruit would do: I love the way that they tumble into one another, marrying the soft, warm fruit aromas with the tender florals.

Wild Roses is available as a 1/4 oz. perfume ($170), a 30 ml EDP spray ($170), a 2 ml perfume mini
($50), and a sample size ($6) at www.aftelier.com.  Via press release

Last night I finally caught the new Brad Pitt Chanel No 5 commercial, and I don’t even know what to say.  The monologue is so awful, so cringe inducing that it made me feel embarrassed for Pitt. “It’s not a journey. Every journey ends, but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it. Plans disappear. Dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are — my luck, my fate, my fortune. Chanel no. 5. Inevitable.” Now that I see it written down, it makes even less sense.

I then spent an hour browsing through the Chanel No 5 archives until I found a similar style of No 5 commercial with Catherine Deneuve: subdued tones, simple photography, natural styling.  But you only have to listen to Deneuve to see why her commercial makes you want to run out to smell No 5 and why Pitt’s is inspiring parodies. “I know that he loves me for what I am deeply. I know because he cares about the little things, he brings my coffee always in a small cup, because it is precious to me. He gives me Chanel No. 5 because I love to put it in a special place, behind my knee.”

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Serge Lutens has launched a new website designed for US shoppers. At us.sergelutens.com you can find information on Serge Lutens, his work, creative vision, and of course, his perfumes. The entire collection is available for purchase via internet, bell jars included.

The collection is organized into several groups, such as Fouets de Velours (Sudden Sweetness) that includes perfumes like Ambre Sultan, Chergui, and Boxeuses, or Fleurs San Cueillette (Flowers Unpicked)–Un Lys, Rose de Nuit and Fleurs d’Oranger. The latest launch, Une Voix Noire is described as “jazz, drinks and the night, and, beyond all that, a troubling line of white, gardenia-scented smoke.”  The only thing to keep in mind is that the prices on the bell jars are much higher than what you would pay in Paris.

Via Serge Lutens Facebook page