Frapin will launch 1697, a new fragrance presumably named for the year the Frapin family received its coat of arms from Louis XIV…
L’Artisan Parfumeur Traversee du Bosphore ~ fragrance review
When he reviewed Coeur de Vétiver Sacré last week, Kevin said that L’Artisan Parfumeur (along with Diptyque and Comme des Garçons) no longer had “the heart for off-center or ‘risky’ perfumes”. I’ll have to regretfully agree about Diptyque, and I haven’t thrown in the towel yet but admittedly Comme des Garçons’ output has seemed a wee bit repetitive lately. On the subject of L’Artisan though, I’ll have to respectfully disagree. I did not love Coeur de Vétiver Sacré, and I didn’t love the two before that — Al Oudh and Nuit de Tubéreuse — either, still, loving a perfume is not the same as respecting it. None of them were dumbed down or boring, and Coeur de Vétiver Sacré and Nuit de Tubéreuse in particular struck me as interesting attempts to do something new with raw materials that can easily descend into cliché.
If anything, I think L’Artisan is looking better than ever since they took on perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour as the not-really-exactly-the-house-nose. I adored Havana Vanille (and in today’s rapid launch environment, it’s hard to remember that Havana Vanille is barely a year old). I adore Traversée du Bosphore even more…
Penhaligon’s Sartorial ~ fragrance review
Penhaligon’s Sartorial is meant to conjure the scents of a tailor’s shop: Norton & Sons, Bespoke Tailors at No. 16 Savile Row; but I don’t get the vibe of a high-end tailor’s shop when I smell Sartorial — no scents of old wooden cabinets and floors or “motorized-metallic” aromas of hot, well-oiled sewing machines, no odors of new woolens and cottons. What I DO get when smelling Sartorial is the scent of men…not the natural body scent of men, but the scent of lots of ‘men of a certain age’ gathered in one place, all of them wearing old-fashioned, inexpensive (but not “cheap”) aftershave lotion on their faces.
Sartorial opens with a sparkling aldehydic and “wet” ozone accord. This “department store” fragrance accord leads quickly to familiar territory: metallic violet leaf that smells a tad ‘old fashioned’ and sedate. Perhaps it’s the ‘sedate’ part of Sartorial that gives me pause; every time I wear it I feel sad; my bad mood is no doubt due to some association I have with the overall smell of the composition…
The Tailors & The Nose
A (wonderful) short film for Penhaligon's new Sartorial fragrance, featuring perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour.
Perfume meet & greet: Bertrand Duchaufour in New York City
Perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour will be making three appearances in New York City next month to introduce his latest perfumes for Penhaligon’s and L’Artisan Parfumeur…