Perfume Reviews: 873 posts

My saris are my personal archaeological layers. The turquoise and saffron one was bought from a market in Pune on my very first trip to India. The magenta one with the border of gold thread woven into the peacock pattern came from a cavernous shop in Gujarat, where I sat in a hot daze surrounded by towering stacks of silks. The hot pink one with the silver embroidery was a nod to Mumbai fashions circa 2005 picked up on a whim, along with matching bangles. The sienna and orange one was given to me on my wedding day by my parents-in-law.

My saris live in a box and I wear them only when I’m in India. Here, in Belgium, they don’t feel right. A sari needs the context–the music, the movement, the heat, the chaos of an Indian wedding. So I spread them out on the furniture to enjoy their colors, but I drape myself in a sari-like perfume of layers and folds. Like Neela Vermeire’s Niral, for instance.

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Angelica may seem like an esoteric perfume note to be obsessed with. If people associate it with anything, it’s with the candied green stems that make their way into cakes.  As I discovered when I was researching an article for my FT column, it’s an essential ingredient in many types of fragrances and a fascinating material. Angelica combines musky and green nuances with a bright, peppery touch, making it a perfect partner to florals, citrus, woods and musks. Atelier Cologne Jasmin Angélique is firmly in the floral camp, but its angelica layer gives the fragrance complexity and radiance.

The first impression of Jasmin Angélique is so green and peppery that it’s a surprise every single time I put on the perfume. It’s the hit of gin, the bite of black pepper and the pleasant bitterness of greens rolled into one accord. The illusion is created by the use of frankincense that can smell either dark or shimmering depending on what notes accompany it. Here it is paired with leafy notes, and the effect is dazzling.

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Elisa reviews 5 fragrances from Masque Milano.

The word masque, with its auto-glamorous French ending, has two associations for me. On the one hand I think of masquerade balls, those opulent Carnival season events dating back to the 15^th century, and that beautiful scene in the 1997 film Wings of the Dove, where Helena Bonham Carter runs through the dark streets of Venice dressed as a toreador. On the other, I think of plague masks—not as celebratory, to be sure, but they do have some connection to perfume. At the time, people believed that disease was spread through miasma, or the literal stink of death in the air. It made sense to them that if they blocked the smell, they would be protected from the disease. So they stuffed the long beak of the plague mask with aromatic materials—herbs, spices, incense and resins, ambergris, rose petals.

Masque, a small niche line based in Milan, currently has nine fragrances created by eight different noses (given, supposedly, no budget limits) and organized around the idea of an opera (Act I, Act II, and Act III). That may sound a bit pretentious, and I don’t understand it myself—what does Times Square have to do with Montecristo or a mandala? This would be a bizarre opera. But I think you’ll see that this house is not without a sense of humor, and most importantly, the perfumes smell fantastic.

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I’ve been making lists of fall fragrances ever since the end of summer when the new launches started appearing. So, I decided to narrow down my selection to a few perfumes I enjoyed and wore. In this installment, I will talk about 5 such fragrances. They weren’t picked to be traditionally seasonal, and they range from citrus colognes to floral orientals. With the possible exception of Twilly, they’re for both men and women.

Twilly d’Hermès

Twilly d’Hermès is one of my favorite launches this year. The fragrance was inspired by Hermès’s narrow scarves, and if the house aimed for a blend as versatile as its famous accessory, then it more than succeeded. More than that, it also demonstrated that it’s possible to create a lighthearted, pleasing perfume that still smells clever, memorable and plush. The core of the fragrance is composed of ginger, tuberose and sandalwood, notes that together create a colorful, exuberant effect. The floral accord of Twilly is abstract and luminous, but it has a creamy sweetness that’s the trademark of white flowers like tuberose. Like most of Christine Nagel’s perfumes, it blossoms on skin and has a seductive, coquettish flair.

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I sometimes notice that coffee smells better than it tastes–or that it doesn’t taste the way it smells.  Even the aroma of coffee, for instance, is difficult to sum up–sweet, bitter, spicy, acidic, toasted, burned, with hints of blackcurrants, chocolate and hazelnuts. Even more difficult is to render coffee notes believable in a perfume without making one smell like a badly washed coffee mug, or worse, a piece of grilled meat. Coffee notes are stubborn. I’ve been on a search for successful coffee perfumes for a while, and this fall I’m adding a new contender to my collection, Atelier Cologne Café Tuberosa.

The idea behind Café Tuberosa is clever–take a creamy tuberose accord, brighten it with bergamot and give it a bittersweet rush with coffee. All three are bold, strong notes, but the whole fits together so harmoniously that it makes me wonder why this motif is not more explored.

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