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Agonist Liquid Crystal ~ fragrance review

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Agonist Liquid Crystal

In my review of The Infidels, I covered the “aim” of Agonist — selling expensive, limited edition bottles with perfume inside. Even though pricy, glass/crystal bottles don’t tempt me, I still wanted to try Liquid Crystal — Agonist’s fourth perfume/bottle release.

Liquid Crystal was created by Fabrice Pellegrin (perfumer) and Åsa Jungnelius (Kosta Boda glass artist). Liquid Crystal includes notes of bergamot, artemisia, spices, cloves, orange, lavender, incense, patchouli, vetiver, white amber, tonka bean, labdanum and cedar.

Liquid Crystal opens smooth, with lush notes of orange, bergamot, lavender and some almost-smoky wormwood. The combined opening notes produce, believe it or not, a rich, ripe mango aroma. Slowly, lavender leaf comes to the fore; this is lavender with a hint of menthol-clove and delicious vanilla — a beautiful combination…

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Van Cleef & Arpels Tsar ~ fragrance review

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Tsars come in all shapes, sizes and scents — from the gigantic, most likely musky-cumin-y-indolic-smelling Peter the Great (Unwashed) to the diminutive Nicholas II who had a penchant for fine French and English toiletries. Van Cleef & Arpels’ “fancy”-fougère Tsar was developed by perfumer Philippe Bousseton, and released in 1989. When I first smelled it long ago, Tsar was “too much” to bear (or wear); today, not many perfumes are too much for me, so I decided to give Tsar a re-try.

Tsar includes fragrance notes of bergamot, artemisia, rosemary, caraway seed, juniper berry, cinnamon, geranium, jasmine, pine, vetiver, oak moss, sandalwood and amber. Tsar begins with the scents of bergamot, artemisia (wormwood), juniper berry and a droplet of cinnamon oil. Quickly, one smells rosemary, pine and geranium leaf. Tsar’s opening is “green”, but NOT crisp or juicy; it’s smooth and polished. As Tsar segues into its heart notes, I detect creamy “white flowers” in quantity small enough not to annoy, or scare, manly-men. Tsar’s base smells of amber-y wood tinged “green” with moss.

What is Tsar’s overall effect? Imagine a scrubbed-clean gentleman…

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Trussardi Essenza del Tempo ~ fragrance review

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Being a dog-centric person, I became aware of Trussardi through its advertisements in L’Uomo Vogue. I loved the Trussardi greyhound logo, and even, blush, wanted a Trussardi walking stick with the dog’s-head handle. (I’ve always had a bad back, so this “wish” wasn’t purely a dandy-ish whim of a 20-year-old; when my back went out, I’d have an interesting and beautiful “aid,” wouldn’t I?)

Trussardi began as a glove-making company in Bergamo, Italy, in 1911 and has since branched out into clothing/accessories, fragrance, design, entertainment/culture and hospitality/food. Trussardi fragrances are not easy to come by in the U.S. (Like many other European perfumes that never make it to stores here, Trussardi perfumes can often be found at online U.S. discounters within a year of their European release.) From the moment I first read about Essenza del Tempo, I wanted to try it, and I finally got around to buying a bottle online last week…

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Gucci Guilty Pour Homme ~ fragrance review

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Gucci Guilty Pour Homme + sleeping men

Gucci has just launched Gucci Guilty Pour Homme in the U.S. I always start my exploration of a new Gucci fragrance by reading Gucci PR news releases and interviews with Gucci execs; these mini-manifestos on perfume are guaranteed to prompt laughter (though they possess not a bit of wit) and a combo of shock and respect (all that Gucci cares about when it comes to a fragrance and its launch is making money…they don’t even try to convince us they regard perfume as an aesthetic creation). The pairing of Gucci with Procter & Gamble Co. over the last several years has produced some bland, inexpensive–smelling “luxury perfumes,” but the cash registers are humming. Gucci Guilty Pour Homme is expected to bring in $250 million in retail sales (globally) in its first year on shelves.1

Let’s start with humor. Discussing the success of the feminine Gucci Guilty launch last autumn, Tracy Van Heusden, senior beauty buyer, House of Fraser department stores, said, I…believe that the success of the launch is also due to the fragrance launching in [the fall]. We do see stronger results for fragrance launches in autumn and winter than in spring and summer, perhaps due to the desire for change that accompanies the change in the seasons.”2 Huh? There IS also an important change in the seasons from winter to spring…and an accompanying shift in “scent sensibilities” from dark, rich perfumes to lighter, brighter fragrances.

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Dans l’Atelier de Cezanne candle ~ home fragrance review

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Cezanne studio

Candles marketed to men usually smell of musk (“the animal in you”), wood (the untamed wilderness), musky-woods (hunting deer in the untamed wilderness), leather (baseball mitt!), vetiver (cut grass), even hamburgers (White Castle), but all those supposedly manly candle aromas smell like so many roses and chocolate-covered marshmallows compared to perfumer Olivia Giacobetti’s Dans l’Atelier de Cézanne candle; it’s the most “masculine,” austere-severe candle scent I’ve ever smelled. Dans l’Atelier de Cézanne is downright UNcomfortable; as I sniff it, I feel an ancient bottle of flammable fluid in a rusty tin bottle is on the verge of igniting, a storm of dust bunnies might suffocate me, or dry-rot could cause the floor under my feet to collapse.

Need I say…I love it?

The Dans l’Atelier de Cézanne aroma was created for the artist Vincent Beaurin and his Le Spectre installation at Paul Cézanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence last July and August. The PR materials say it all:

Nothing has changed in this ancient studio since Paul Cézanne passed away and his paintings were removed. Time has laid a veil of fine dust over it, as the Provençal heat has almost mineralized the wood of the furniture, of his easel and of the floorboards, long stained with colours, oil paints and turpentine.

Giacobetti has worked with Beaurin twice before* and was asked, this time, to concoct a perfume that captured the “essence” of Cézanne‘s workspace…

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