It’s that time of year again! Some suggestions for holiday fragrance gifts, big and small…
If Santa is bringing me my heart’s desire, this is it: the Annick Goutal Les Orientalistes coffret. Ambre Fétiche, Myrrhe Ardente and Encens Flamboyant, each in 50 ml, in a white leather box. €500. I haven’t smelled them yet, but at the moment, that just adds to their charm. No idea where you can buy it, but the elves will figure it out…
This December, Annick Goutal will launch a new trio of unisex fragrances under the name Les Orientalistes. Ambre Fétiche, Myrrhe Ardente and Encens Flamboyant focus on the precious ingredients amber, myrrh and frankincense, respectively, and were inspired by 19th century paintings depicting beauty rituals in the harems. Next year, look for a fourth scent to join the collection, this one based on musk…
On a summer evening cool enough to turn off the A/C and open the windows, or with evening rain dropping the temperature, I like to have the warm scent of perfumed candle burning while I am reading or writing. Taking advantage of summer's cool humidity to carry and magnify the fragrance, I can also use the flame to serve as a point of contemplation when stopping to look up and think from time to time. Then the perfume in the candle creates an atmosphere for my mind's fascination in the flame.
As is well known of the Annick Goutal house, each of the fragrances is inspired by a personal association or individual who has been closely connected to Annick Goutal, or now to her daughter, Camille, who continues this practice. Petite Chérie, inspired by Camille's emerging beauty as a teenager, is the one I have been using this summer…
Years ago, while perusing Larousse Gastronomique, I saw a beautiful photo of a cherry clafoutis. The clafoutis had been baked in an emerald-green provençale dish and had been placed on a black-and-cream-colored toile de Jouy cloth that covered a shady spot beneath an ancient olive tree; an antique tin bucket, full of sparkling ice and a bottle of wine, had been set on the ground next to the clafoutis. It all looked so delightful! I had to eat clafoutis! So I made clafoutis (several times) and each time I wondered: how can fresh eggs, butter, milk, sugar and sweet cherries turn into THIS mess, this eggy, soggy pile that becomes inedible just minutes out of the oven? Being tempted to buy a perfume you have not smelled is a lot like finding a new recipe: you read the ingredients, look at a gorgeous illustration, and think “I love everything in this! It sounds and looks delicious!” Acting on a hunch that everything will work out fine, you prepare the recipe (or, as the case may be, buy the perfume). Sometimes you relish the result. Sometimes you become nauseous.
I’ve had decades to learn my perfume lessons. I know I shouldn’t buy a fragrance without sampling it beforehand…
Camille Goutal loves to douse herself in perfume. But when she rides the Paris metro to her work studio every morning, she doesn't want her fragrance to nauseate other commuters. "I try to respect people around me," says Ms. Goutal, the "nose," or official perfume creator, for French fragrance house Annick Goutal.
— Find out how Camille Goutal applies her fragrance in A 'Nose' Puts on Perfume, in the Wall Street Journal.
According to my friend Mikey D, it ‘smells like a cross between Clorox and Old Spice. It’s something a dirty middle-schooler with a mustache would wear.
— An anonymous "beauty panel" checks out some recent fragrance releases in the News Tribune (link no longer working, sorry). The above is one panelist's take on Clix by Axe.