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The niche brand A Dozen Roses has just launched a new fragrance called Electron. The collection already includes three fragrances: Shakespeare in Love, Gold Rush and Iced White.

Electron is described as “a shock to the senses. Electron is a stunning combination of Electric Pink Rose blended with a jolt of green tea, violet leaves and cattleya orchid then superchargedwith neon musk, and A Dozen Roses’ signature rose absolute.”

Available at Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. Retails for $95/3.4oz. Via press release.

Narciso Rodriguez For Her now has two limited edition variations: Narciso Rodriguez For Her Eau Délicate Eau de Toilette and Eau de Parfum. They are based around musk, but have different accents. ” “These two Eau Délicate fragrances revitalise what I find so addictive about musk,” noted the designer, “this power that’s both cerebral and emotional – yet never aggressive or overwhelming.” ”

Narciso Rodriguez For Her Eau Délicate EDT is already sold at Saks5thAvenue. I found it pretty and sparkling, with a delicious green spicy note. However, it pales next to the original. The beauty of Narciso Rodriguez For Her was in the combination of soft floral notes with the dense, rich musk. When this density is lightened up, the perfume becomes easier to wear, but it loses a lot of character.

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“It is difficult, not to say ruinously expensive, having any kind of meaningful, lasting relationship with Jules. The love and commitment are there on my part, but… well, not on Jules’s, alas.”

Gareth Wyn Davies explores the topic of discontinued men’s fragrances in his Telegraph article. Jules in question is the excellent Christian Dior’s fougere from 1980s.

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“We [are] just at the beginning. We’ve recruited the famous ‘nose’, Jacques Cavallier, and we are in the final phase of buying a country house in Grasse,” on the French Riviera, where the perfume laboratory will be built, he [the label’s head Yves Carcelle] said. “It’s like when we recruited Marc Jacobs and they asked us the date of the first collection, we replied ‘when Marc is ready’: it’s the same thing here, now it’s ‘when Jacques is ready’,” Carcelle said. Read the rest of the article.

Louis Vuitton recently made a surprising announcement that the brand is ready to venture into the perfume business under its own name. It hired perfumer Jacques Cavallier to serve as the in-house creator. Cavallier has authored numerous fragrances including best-sellers like L’eau d’Issey and Jean Paul Gaultier Classique. Louis Vutton is part of the LVMH conglomerate that already includes several high-profile perfume brands: Dior, Guerlain, Givenchy, and Kenzo, among others.

French Vogue reports that Louis Vuitton had already explored perfumery with three fragrances in the 1920s-1930s: Eau de Voyage, Heures d’Absence and Je, tu, il. I particularly like the ring of Heures d’Absence (Hours of Absence), which sounds wistful and bittersweet.

I recently spotted Stella McCartney’s new signature fragrance L.I.L.Y at the duty-free store.  It will be launched in the UK in April (the US launch at Sephora will happen in September 2012.) L.I.L.Y was created in collaboration between McCartney and perfumer Jacques Cavallier. It is a modern green chypre with a dominant lily of the valley accord. The first thing that I noticed was an interesting salty note, which makes this fresh and radiant lily of the valley accord surprising.  A note to self: to be revisited.

As McCartney explained to the Moodie report about the creation of L.I.L.Y:

“To bring in a more masculine, sensual element I started looking at moss, which I felt was the perfect complement. Then I found myself in Paris in the Autumn, during truffle season, and realised that was the final, darker, sexy element I’d been searching for.”

Cavallier added, “Perfumery is built on the art of contrasts. You need something black in order to make the white thing nice… Stella wanted a fragrance that redefined the extremely natural and fresh image of lily of the valley. To create more depth, we infused it with notes of truffle from the Perigord region of France, adding a diffuse, caressing texture.” Oak moss also features in the dry-down. “It was not easy to combine these ingredients but ultimately we succeeded. Stella is very demanding, but in a good way. She allows no compromises.”