Tableau de Parfums Miriam ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 19 December 2011 35 Comments

Tableau de Parfums Miriam

When I first dabbed on Tableau de Parfums Miriam Eau de Parfum, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that it reminded me of something. Something vintage. What? I smelled my wrist and concentrated. Calm, snuffy aldehydes. Lots of violet. Creamy sandalwood. Then it hit me: Miriam smells an awful lot like Balenciaga Le Dix. Once I wore them side by side, I could see that Miriam and Le Dix differ distinctly. But besides major notes, they share a feeling of gentle femininity that isn’t fashionable these days.

Miriam is the first fragrance in Tableau de Parfums, a planned series of fragrances by Andy Tauer of Tauer Perfumes created to accompany film shorts from the Woman’s Picture film series by Brian Pera. During this ten-year project, Andy Tauer and Brian Pera will work together on three films — Miriam, Loretta, and Ingrid — and their accompanying fragrances. Miriam’s notes are bergamot, sweet orange, geranium, violet blossom, rose, jasmine, ylang, violet leaf, lavender, vanilla, orris root, and sandalwood.

In describing Miriam, Andy Tauer says he puzzled over creating a perfume that recalls another era yet is still modern…

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Lancome Tresor ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 12 December 2011 93 Comments

Kate Winslet for Lancome Tresor

In one of my favorite reviews in Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, Luca Turin tells of seeing a busty woman on the London Underground wearing a tee shirt that read “All this and brains too.” He compares that “vulgar-but-wily combination” to Lancôme Trésor.

Trésor’s apricot-tinged rose is the pulchritude, and the vetiver is the intellect. I get it. But to me the rose is more Dinah Shore than Jayne Mansfield, and the vetiver doesn’t quite rate Mensa. That’s o.k. Trésor is entering its third decade not because it’s a sensual shock, but because it’s a crowd pleaser…

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Modern Perfume Classics

Posted by Angela on 5 December 2011 233 Comments

Chanel No 5

Years after Now Smell This publishes a post, people still drop by to comment on it. Recently, Julia left a comment on a four-year-old post about Chanel No. 5 wondering what modern fragrances might achieve the classic status of No. 5. It’s a good question.

Victoria at Bois de Jasmin compiled a comprehensive list of modern classics. Most of the fragrances, such as Thierry Mugler Angel and Lancôme Trésor, broke new ground or influenced fragrances to come. It’s a formidable list of stand-out perfumes.

But what about fragrances that aren’t particularly influential, but are beloved anyway? They might well endure changing tastes like No. 5 did and earn their place. When it launched, Jean Patou Joy was expensive and lush but not particularly innovative, yet few would dispute that it’s a classic now. A modern perfume that is beloved but nothing original is Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds. I can imagine White Diamonds turning up on drugstore shelves for decades…

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Aftelier Secret Garden and Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Pandora ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 28 November 2011 39 Comments

Aftelier Secret Garden Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Pandor

Something about natural perfumes is so appealing. I envision a greenhouse with a long table heaped with blossoms. On another table, glass panes crush grease-laden tuberose flowers. A perfumer — always a woman with flowing hair and the witch-like quality of knowing the perfect herb for every ailment — dispenses jewel-toned liquids drop by drop into lead glass bottles. If love potions exist, surely they are made by natural perfumers.

Of course, that’s just my overly active imagination. I know little about natural fragrances, and I haven’t developed much of a nose for them. My brief experience has shown natural perfumes to feel more “telescoped” and dense. I haven’t encountered one that’s a sillage monster — I doubt you’d get kicked off an elevator if you wore most natural fragrances — and they don’t tend to last as long as a department store fragrance.

So I was curious to take Aftelier Secret Garden, an all-natural fragrance, and Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Pandora, a 97.5% natural fragrance, for a test drive. Would they smell too, well, wimpy? Short answer: no…

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L’Artisan Parfumeur Voleur de Roses ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 21 November 2011 51 Comments

b&w roses

When I choose a wine, I often take one of two approaches. I’ll select a wine that complements dinner, but doesn’t match it — a spicy Gewürztraminer or honeyed Chenin Blanc for Thai food, for instance. Or, I’ll choose a wine that blends with dinner — for example, a barely oaked Chardonnay with roast chicken. I tend to do the same thing when I choose the day’s perfume. On a rainy day like today with leaf rot in the streets, I might go for the complement and choose a warm, soft fragrance. Flower by Kenzo Oriental, maybe. But if I were going to choose a scent that feels like today in all its chilled autumn magnificence, it would be L’Artisan Parfumeur Voleur de Roses.

Michel Almairac created Voleur de Roses (French for “rose thief”) in 1993. The L’Artisan Parfumeur website lists its notes simply as patchouli, rose, and plum. That sounds right to me. Voleur de Roses smells like a Syrah-soaked rose washed over with wet patchouli, moldering wood, and cold plum. The wet has an almost metallic edge, like the ocean. The fragrance’s patchouli is one of its main features, so if you don’t like patchouli, steer clear…

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