Last week I swooned a bit over La Femme Bohème, one of three new fragrances from high-end cosmetics line Edward Bess; this week I’ve been wearing Spanish Veil. This is another oriental scent, also developed by perfumer Carlos Benaïm, with notes of sandalwood, tonka bean and guaic wood.

Spanish Veil was inspired by inspired by the artifice and mystery of facial veils worn like a “second skin”: “Scents of the outside world are trapped in the starched net, a magnet for the plumes of smoky incense wafting through ancient basilica walls that mix with the smells of savage animal hides in bullfighter rings and clouds of white dust native to the Latin land.” But once we get past that somewhat overwrought prose…

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Has there ever been a fragrance that you’ve just had to smell because of its name? For me, any perfume named La Femme Bohème would have been tempting. The fact that this fragrance is also one of three developed by perfumer Carlos Benaïm for Edward Bess made it irresistible, so off I went to sample it.

Aficionados of luxury cosmetics who happened to be in New York City in 2007 were caught off-guard by Edward Bess’s initial appearance at Bergdorf Goodman. He seemed impossibly young as the founder of a cosmetics line, but there he was, debuting his first collection…

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