Australian botanical brand Aesop will launch Marrakech Intense, a new flanker to 2005’s Marrakech fragrance…
Aesop Marrakech and Mystra ~ fragrance reviews
We all have a favorite locale (or two) where a combination of climate, landscape, architecture, and aromas makes us happy. I love stormy coastlines, with raging oceans, billowing clouds, screeching gulls, old lighthouses, and the scents of rain, salt, mossy rocks, and seaweed. But I also love the ambiance of the exact opposite of a wet beach — warm, sunny, semi-arid hilltops, covered with flowering broom and poppies, where cypress trees reach up into blue skies and fragrance the air. (Add an abandoned cemetery, the cinder scents of a nearby active volcano, or some crumbling statues and buildings — an ancient temple will do — and I’ll purr with contentment only opiates can deliver.) Two perfumes from Aesop, Marrakech and Mystra, are perfect accompaniments for bright highlands, strewn with ruins and scrub.
Marrakech, which includes notes of cloves, sandalwood and cardamom, was developed with an idea of “a city draped in colours of the desert, where artisans sit on rugs hewn by hand, and lute music mixes with the smell of spices in hot wind.” Marrakech is a resinous fragrance that smells of spicy sandalwood…
Top 10 Winter Fragrances 2010
I take advantage of the cold-weather months and pour on amber-rich, resinous, incense-y, musky, and powdery perfumes (known as “gasp-inducers” in hot weather) but I also use perfumes to help me forget winter woes — my flowerless garden, chill-induced headaches, spark-filled hair, and dry-as-bone skin (citrus and florals…come hither). My top-ten list of winter fragrances is, of course, personal, and far from definitive; these are simply perfumes I’m enjoying this winter.
I usually wear “sharp”/herbal amber fragrances such as Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan and Tom Ford Amber Absolute, but it’s nice to have a classic amber scent handy as well. Enter Histoires de Parfums Ambre 114 (with notes of patchouli, cedar, sandalwood, tonka bean, vanilla, benzoin, and musk). Like many amber perfumes of its type, Ambre 114’s soft and sweet aromas transport me to a particular “scene” (a snowy twilight landscape viewed from inside a warm, dim room) and state of mind (contented…but nostalgic too). I suppose that means amber scents make me feel safe and comfortable and, perhaps, remind me of someone time has erased from my life.
Aesop Mystra is bold — and a bit severe…
Fragrance gifts for Father’s Day 2008, part 2
A few more ideas for those of you who are still shopping…
A classic: Cartier Declaration (“an original, distinctive composition that basks in a harmonious blend of cold spices”) in a 100 ml leather travel case. $110 at Nordstrom…
Lulu Guinness Cast A Spell, Elternhaus MoslBuddJewChristHinDao & Aesop Marrakech ~ new fragrances
New from Lulu Guinness: Cast A Spell (shown), “inspired by fairy tales like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty”.
The fragrance includes notes of dark berries, frosted blackberry pulp, mulberry, red currant, iced lavender, lilac petals…