atelier cologne: 15 posts

A Russian friend told me that when she first moved to Sicily twenty years ago she couldn’t get used to the overabundance of oranges. Back in Moscow you had to queue for hours to get a box of precious Jaffa oranges but the sidewalks in the villages around Palermo were covered with fallen fruit. Or in what seemed to be a case of utter decadence, people would use oranges to polish copper. “Imagine cleaning your dirty pots with oranges!”

I think of this story whenever I cook with oranges or try an orange based fragrance. I imagine myself eyeing in dismay the piles of orange opulence–wasted, unwanted!–and stopping to stuff yet another orange into my purse. Even though oranges for me are not a rare luxury, I find their vibrant color and exuberant taste irresistible. My kitchen is never without at least one orange, and there is often a small bottle of Atelier Cologne Orange Sanguine (Blood Orange) in my purse.

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I find endlessly fascinating the “stories” created around perfumes; the one concocted for Atelier Cologne Rose Anonyme is briefer than many but is still dramatic:  “She turned the dial until the safe opened, revealing the diamond. She had stolen jewels before, but none compared with this one. She left a single rose and the scent of her perfume in its place for him to find. In a moment she’d be halfway around the world and he would be in pursuit. The chase began again…”

More useful for someone wondering whether he or she might enjoy the fragrance is a sentence about “a breathtaking seductress caught in a stolen affair between light and dark.”  Forget the seductress and go right to the light and dark part.  This isn’t fiction.  Rose Anonyme contains mostly dark elements that can easily topple a less carefully considered fragrance. But it’s so smoothly blended that the perfume feels like something that one slides into rather than something one sprays on.

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When I first smelled the Atelier Cologne fragrances Rose Anonyme and Vetiver Fatal, I immediately fell for the sheer, smoky roses and left the vetiver to languish on my desk. Perhaps that day I craved more flamboyance and more glamour which Rose Anonyme amply delivered. But a week or so later, I absentmindedly dabbed Vetiver Fatal on my wrist–there was no other perfume around–and curled up with War and Peace. Well before Natasha Rostova appeared on the scene, I abandoned the book and sat with my wrist glued to my nose. The scent on my skin was bright but moody, rustic but sophisticated. It smelled of sliced oranges, damp earth and fallen leaves–a little vignette of late summer.

At first, Vetiver Fatal makes me think of green tangerines, complete with their leathery leaves–verdant, zesty and tart enough to make my mouth water. The vetiver takes form stealthily, until you distinctly smell its characteristic scent of earth covered roots and milky hazelnuts. Perfumer Jerome Epinette makes a seemingly simple choice by pairing vetiver with citrus (vetiver oil naturally has a  grapefruit-like accent in its top notes), but the harmony and the addition of other elements makes Vetiver Fatal stand out.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

I admit it. I am a perfume Casanova. The moment I meet Atelier Cologne Ambre Nue, I immediately go through my roster of amber favorites. I have to make sure that we have not met before. The classical amber accord based around labdanum is an ever popular fragrance style. It is sweet and warm. It is redolent of vanilla, the perfume note equivalent of an easy tune. Add some incense or dark woods, and the amber becomes sexy and dark. The problem is that after a while this theme gets repetitive, unless a composition offers some new and original twist.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

I love the playfulness of Vanille Insensée, which cannot decide whether it wants to be a vanilla or an amber, and while oscillating between luscious sweetness and dark richness, it manages to beguile with its complex, nuanced character. The contrasted nature of this fragrance created by perfumer Ralf Schwieger for Atelier Cologne not only makes it exciting to wear, but also gives it a beautiful signature.

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