2012 launches: 129 posts

Bond No. 9 introduces a new fragrance inspired by New York’s neighborhood. Central Park West will officially launch on March 15. The notes include narcissus, black pepper, ylang-ylang, gardenia, jasmine, linden, iris, musk, white oak, treemoss, vetiver. It comes with a detachable pink flower, which can be worn as a brooch.

“Elegant thoroughfares with palatial buildings are in evidence elsewhere in Manhattan, but they’re the specialty at Central Park West, which urban planners and architectural critics regard as one of the grandest, most sumptuous addresses in America… Central Park West, the fragrance, has been designed to have the grandeur and largesse of the street itself. It starts off with a springtime wakeup call: Narcissus mingled with tangy ylang ylang and a pinch of piquant pepper. Then comes a beckoning white-petal mélange— orris, jasmine, and linden—surrounding their centerpiece, majestic gardenia. Sustaining and enriching this bouquet is an enduring base of white oak and vetiver, combined with the animal whiff of musk.”

Central Park West will be available at Bond No. 9’s six New York stores, Saks Fifth Avenue and bondno9.com. Price: 100ml, $250; 50ml, $180; body silk, $130; candle, $110; shower gel, $75. Via press release.

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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“Gorgeous and incredibly cute” is how the pop singer Katy Perry describes her line of fragrances Purr and Meow. Incredibly cute is right on the mark when it comes to the packaging. Maybe I did not get my share of Barbies as a child, but I love the cat bottles, especially the amethyst tinted Purr.

I wish I could be equally excited about the fragrances. They are not badly done, far from it, but they replay the same fruit and cotton candy theme of other celebrity fragrances. I am not the target audience, but since I spend a lot of time around teens in my dance studio, my tolerance for the cloying blandness is sometimes strained to the maximum.

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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.