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Cartier Le Baiser du Dragon ~ fragrance review

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Cartier Le Baiser du Dragon perfume

You know how there are people in your life that you can’t really say you like — oh, maybe you did at one time, but not so much now — but you appreciate them? Maybe a person you otherwise had nothing in common with helped you out by incidentally imparting wisdom just when you needed it. Or you learned by example how not to do something. You don’t really care to spend time with these people, but you’re happy for what they’ve contributed to your life. This is how I feel about Cartier Le Baiser du Dragon.

When I first encountered Le Baiser du Dragon, I fell madly in love with it and bought first the Eau de Parfum and then the Parfum. Now it feels to me like an itchy fur coat on an August day — it swelters me. In the meantime, Le Baiser du Dragon taught me to avoid fragrances that overwhelm rather than enhance who I am, and it trained me to pay more attention to nuance. It also showed me that I adore a good patchouli. For these reasons, Le Baiser du Dragon is like an ex-husband that I meet on the street and am surprised that we ever had a life together. At the same time, I wouldn’t be who I am without him.

Alberto Morillas created Le Baiser du Dragon for Cartier in 2003. Morillas knows how to put together both blockbusters (Kenzo Flower and Estée Lauder Pleasures) and rule breakers (Yves Saint Laurent M7 and S-Perfume Lust), and I can imagine Cartier eagerly handing him photos of their vaguely deco, Chinese-inspired line of Le Baiser du Dragon jewelry and asking him to make a perfume that reflected its aesthetic…

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L’Artisan Parfumeur Dzing! ~ fragrance review

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L'Artisan Dzing! perfume

There are few perfumes as defined by their stories as is L’Artisan Parfumeur Dzing!. People who have heard about Dzing! but not smelled it still usually know that it’s supposed to smell like a circus — well, either that, or like cardboard.

When Dzing! was launched in 1999, it was called Désir de Cirque. In what surely must be one of its most successful bits of perfume copywriting, L’Artisan described perfumer Olivia Giacobetti’s inspiration for the fragrance as the full range of the circus’s “sights, sounds, smells and tastes”. They topped off the description with a tiny drawing on Dzing!’s label of a lady wearing an ostrich feather in her hair and riding a tiger. With this idea planted in a person’s head, one whiff of Dzing! invokes images of leather harnesses, caramel apples, sweaty trapeze artists, elephants, and the greasy underbellies of aging trucks with hay spilling out their backs…

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Choosing a Perfume for Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving dinner

Thanksgiving is coming up, and you know what that means: a house full of the aromas of roasted turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes. Maybe there will be a fire blazing in the fireplace, too, and if you're really lucky someone will mix up some Old Fashioneds before dinner while catching the last few minutes of the Detroit Lions game. What perfume goes best with this mix of family, craziness, and coma-inducing food?

Maybe it's easiest to think about what perfumes don't work well at Thanksgiving dinner. For the most part, a grand French perfume or a pungent floral will bomb, especially if your dinners, like mine, are more likely to include Chex Mix than foie gras. Smelling of Chanel No. 22 or Amouage Gold while you ladle gravy over Parker House rolls doesn't seem right.

On the other hand, spicy perfume — something with cinnamon, ginger, or cardamom, for example — could be perfect…

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Beckham Signature for Her ~ Fragrance Review

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Beckham Signature fragrances

In the back room of a large department store, a handful of sales associates sat around a chipped melamine table. Towers of holiday-themed fragrance boxes were stacked along the walls. Deb, the store's fragrance department manager, poured a cup of coffee and sat down with the group.

“Is everyone here? Good. Joe, would you hand out these tester cards? Thanks.” Deb held up a rectangular bottle filled with purple liquid. “I want to introduce a new fragrance we'll be carrying, Beckham Signature for Her. We're also carrying Beckham Signature for Him, but today I want to focus on Signature for Her.”

Jackie, who was still catching her breath from dashing into the meeting at the last minute, brought the tester card up to her nose. “It smells like grape juice,” she said…

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A New Day, a New Perfume

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Bois 1920 Sutra Ylang

A new school year, a new love affair, a new home — all these things offer the chance for reinvention. We're somewhere new, or around new people, and we have the opportunity to present ourselves in a new way, or better yet in a way that's more true to ourselves. For fragrance aficionados, these beginnings cry out for a new perfume.

After spending a year in a job that felt like a bad relationship, I cast my resume into the job pool and came up with two job offers. I took the job that was riskier financially but looked like it would be more satisfying personally, and the decision has paid off big time. Every morning I wake up early and rework the draft of a mystery novel in progress (featuring a perfume-loving protagonist, of course) then ride my bicycle downtown over the heavy green river to an office full of dedicated, diverse people. Afternoons I work on freelance projects at home with my dog on the couch in my office and a cat in my lap. All that and the coffee is good, too. Could life be nicer? It truly feels like a new day.

Naturally, I'm itching for a new perfume to celebrate this new beginning…

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