Perfume Reviews: 873 posts

Atelier Cologne’s challenge is to take the citrus cologne idea and spin it into several guises–rose, patchouli, iris, vetiver, and even leather. The most successful variations, on the other hand, are the brand’s perfumes that dance around the classical citrus but smell modern and distinctive. Orange Sanguine does the seemingly impossible with its long lasting juicy orange, and now Cédrat Enivrant reinvents the bitter lemon.

Citron, cédrat in French, is a large fruit with tart flesh and sweet, edible peel. It smells like lemon peels crushed with dry Mediterranean herbs and a handful of cherry blossoms. In comparison, the ordinary lemon is downright boring. For Cédrat Enivrant, perfumer Ralf Schwieger took the floral citron and accented it with enough lime and basil to give his fragrance an instant bracing effect. It’s as if you had crushed  lemons and limes for a pitcher of lemonade and then took a deep inhale of the messy, oily pile of peels. The initial jolt is enough to wake you up!

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Andy discovers how refreshing and uplifting Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea can be.

Potent is the last word I’d associate with Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea, yet when I first tried it, it felt like a jolt of something refreshing and uplifting. It was very early in my fragrance journey, when I wanted to build a small fragrance wardrobe without spending too much. I can remember picking up a bottle of Green Tea for $10 during a sweltering May heat wave, ravenously ripping the packaging open in my overheated car, and spraying myself liberally. To this day, I still reach for Green Tea whenever I need some immediate relief from the heat, or for no reason at all, because it is both refreshingly simple and pleasantly sparkling.

Elizabeth Arden launched Green Tea in 1999, following dozens of other fragrances (like Tommy Girl and Ck One) in the trendsetting footsteps of Bulgari’s Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert. But in comparison to Thé Vert’s nuanced, misty interpretation of green tea, Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea, composed by Francis Kurkdjian, smells somewhat one-dimensional. As a result, Green Tea can be considered neither revolutionary nor particularly outstanding in composition, but instead it seems to me a study in technical expertise, of making the most out of a formula that is composed of relatively few ingredients while still smelling complete.

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Does the world need another rose perfume? I’ve posed myself that question on many occasions, as the variety of roses keeps increasing, but I invariably end up saying, yes. Jasmine, orange blossom and tuberose, the so-called white flowers, may seduce me, but rose makes me happy. Light and shimmery or dark and velvety, this blossom in the perfume bottle is my gateway to fantasy. Enter the new rose to tempt me, Ann Gérard Rose Cut.

A jeweler based in Paris, Ann Gérard has already three perfumes to her name, Cuir de Nacre, Perle de Mousse, and Ciel d’Opale. All three were created by Bertrand Duchaufour, the perfumer whose name graces many niche offerings. Rose Cut is also his composition, and in creating it, he and Gérard were inspired by a diamond-cutting technique which gives stones a special radiance.

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Why did “the feral floral,” a tag line used by Cartier to describe its perfume, La Panthère, catch my attention? It’s not that I’m all that keen on the smell of unwashed animals; otherwise, the camel leather belt I bought for my husband in India (now banished to the outside closet) would have satisfied that craving and more. Cartier’s perfumery, on the other hand, is in the hands of talented Mathilde Laurent, and if anyone could make feral smell good, it would be her.

La Panthère was the nickname of Jeanne Toussaint, the flamboyant artistic director of Cartier jewelry from 1933 to 1968, who was responsible for some of the most dramatic examples of Cartier’s art. Named after this tremendous character, the perfume couldn’t be just another well-behaved floral, and Laurent decided on a composition based on contrasts: moss and leather; gardenias and patchouli.

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Elisa discovers another underrated gem and white floral beauty in Carolina Herrera’s 1988 perfume. But don’t say that you haven’t been warned about its big sillage and quintessential 80s character.

My mother has never worn perfume, so as a young girl I had to look elsewhere for scented role models. One was my grandmother, who introduced me to the wonders of White Linen. Another was my best friend’s mother, a beautiful, petite brunette who always entered the room in a cloud of womanly sillage. Her weapons of choice – I remember seeing the bottles on her vanity – were the original Escada and Carolina Herrera.

They both seemed impossibly glamorous and “grown up” from that vantage point. But in my first year of full-on, post-rabbit-hole perfume mania, I remember realizing with a jolt that, as an adult woman myself now, I am free to drown myself in Carolina Herrera if I choose to. Not having smelled it in years if not decades, I picked up a small bottle of the EDP at a discount store (in the classic polka-dot box). I got it home, sprayed it on, and smiled in recognition: it hadn’t changed.

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