Perfume for When You’re Cold

Posted by Angela on 27 December 2010 201 Comments

Search through past “Best of Winter” perfume posts and you’ll find lots of suggestions for perfume to wear when it’s cold out. Most of those suggestions assume you’re looking at the cold from inside your toasty living room. Or at least from the warmth of a thick coat and gloves. When my furnace broke down a few weeks ago I faced a different question about cold weather perfumes: what perfume is good not only when it’s cold out, but cold inside, too?

I came up with a strategy for perfume to wear when you’re cold:

Try amber and spice. Amber is warming, if a little sweet and sometimes cloying. I burned myself out on Lorenzo Villoresi Alamut during my furnace’s downtime and don’t think I’ll be able to wear it again…

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XerJoff Irisss and Richwood ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 20 December 2010 83 Comments

Normally, I would keep my distance from a perfume house like XerJoff. I mean, why break my heart? Even XerJoff’s refill bottles start at $270 for 50 ml, and let’s not even get started on the cost of the quartz or Murano bottles. At these prices, Amouage begins to look like a bargain. But fate intervened when XerJoff asked me to help write copy for their new brochure. Not only did I get to sample all of the XerJoff fragrances, I was paid in perfume. Two bottles of it. I chose Irisss and one of the new releases, Richwood.

Over the years, I’ve learned that things that are truly beautiful evoke a physical response. Who hasn’t hovered on the brink of tears at a moving piece of music or gasped at a turn in the road revealing a breathtaking sweep of scenery? Even the mundane can be beautiful that way: Just last night I had a bite of roast lamb with truffled leeks and parsnips that made my heart beat faster. For me, both Irisss and Richwood elicited the sharp, physical thrill of beauty when I first smelled them.

Jacques Flori, the nose behind Etro Messe de Minuit, Etro Shaal Nur, and Amouage Opus IV, composed Irisss Eau de Parfum. Its notes include Florentine iris butter, carrot seed, rose, jasmine, ylang ylang absolute, violet leaves, vetiver, and cedarwood. To me, Irisss is a Monte Carlo showstopper of an iris — almost bigger and more lush than real life. In short, Irisss is to iris as Guerlain Nahéma is to rose…

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Narciso Rodriguez Essence Intense ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 13 December 2010 74 Comments

Narciso Rodriguez Essence Intense

“This one has been selling like crazy,” the dark blonde woman in the suit told me as she hoisted the gorgeous, silvery bottle of Narciso Rodriguez Essence Intense. “At the fragrance festival last week we sold six bottles in two hours at $110 a pop. It’s been doing so well that I wouldn’t be surprised if they add it to the regular line-up.”

I was at Nordstrom trolling the perfume area for something new to smell, and by chance I happened on the Beauté Prestige rep who handles Narciso Rodriguez as well as Annick Goutal, Hermès, and a few others. She sprayed a generous slick of Essence Intense on the back of my hand (my forearm was already occupied by Chanel Bois des Iles) and awaited my reaction. While the fragrance settled, I admired the fragrance’s heavy, wavy bottle, this one with a darkened stripe toward its bottom to set it apart from the regular Narciso Rodriguez Essence…

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Perfume for the Holidays

Posted by Angela on 6 December 2010 212 Comments

It’s here again: the annual six-week extravaganza of eating, drinking, and getting gussied up. You’ve rolled the lint off your black velvet, checked your supply of Spanx, and shined up your rhinestones. Now let’s talk about perfume possibilities for the situations we’re most likely to encounter between now and New Year’s Day.

The Office Holiday Party

Lucky me, my office holiday party will be in a private room at a lively bar with my terrific coworkers. We’ll be eating cake indoors while through the plate glass windows drag queens smoke cigarettes between sets at the cabaret next door. But in other jobs I’ve endured many a lunchtime potluck and white elephant gift exchange in the conference room carefully timed not to exceed the 45-minute lunch hour.

How best to prepare: Watch The Office holiday party specials, especially the British one.

What you want your perfume to say: “I’m feeling the holiday spirit, but in a restrained, professional way that does not include wearing a lampshade on my head.” Low to moderate sillage fragrances with a slightly more conservative bent might be the best bet here…

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Le Labo + Anthropologie Belle du Soir ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 29 November 2010 27 Comments

Le Labo + Anthropologie Belle du Soir perfume

So, Le Labo has done a collection for Anthropologie.¹ On the surface, it makes a lot of sense. Le Labo’s aesthetic, shown in its heavy bottles mimicking apothecary jars and labeled with a font reminiscent of an old typewriter, dovetails nicely with Anthropologie’s tidy-bohemian image. A bottle of Le Labo Iris 39 would be right at home on a bureau adorned with Anthropologie’s “antique” drawer knobs. Plus, a high-end designer working with a mall-type store can be a raging success. Look at all the fashion designers who put together sell-out collections for H&M.

But in the case of Le Labo’s venture with Anthropologie, I have to wonder if Le Labo merely phoned this one in. Even the line’s packaging is a little shoddy. Sniffing my way through the Le Labo + Anthropologie collection, I miss Le Labo’s usual offbeat take on a fragrance. Sure, Bouquet Blanc is a heady white floral, but so are a dozen others — most notably Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower. Poudre d’Orient is an easy and warm powdery amber, but I’d recommend Kenzo Flower Oriental instead. Orange Discrète? A pretty orange more aldehydic than juicy. Go get Fendi Theorama. Chant de Bois? A fine wood in the two-by-four mold, but not so fine or interesting as too many others to list. Belle du Soir, on the other hand, is the one Le Labo + Anthropologie fragrance that hints at the who-cares-what-you-think attitude I love from Le Labo…

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Now Smell This

a blog about perfume

Perfume for When You’re Cold

XerJoff Irisss and Richwood ~ fragrance review

Narciso Rodriguez Essence Intense ~ fragrance review

Perfume for the Holidays

The Office Holiday Party

Le Labo + Anthropologie Belle du Soir ~ fragrance review