More limited edition collector fragrance bottles, with the usual disclaimers: in most of these cases, the juice is unchanged, just the bottle is “special” (or not, as the case may be), and some of these may not be available in the US.
From MAC, a solid perfume pendant designed by Marcel Wanders and filled with the MAC Air of Style fragrance. $30 at Nordstrom…
More limited edition collector fragrance bottles, with the usual disclaimers: in most of these cases, the juice is unchanged, just the bottle is “special” (or not, as the case may be), and some of these may not be available in the US.
From Thierry Mugler, a 100 ml bottle of A*Men with a wearable leather bracelet (shown above left). For the women, Angel in 10 ml Extrait de Parfum with Swarovski crystals…
From Diptyque, concentrated versions of Philosykos or L’Ombre dans L’Eau in a limited edition hand-crafted 100 ml bottle from the Cristallerie Saint-Louis: “The union of specific expertise in filigree and a contemporary design, created by the young designer FX Balléry, has given birth to an elegantly simple bottle with an apothecary feel.” Packaged in a black lacquered wood box with silver funnel…
Sensuous Noir is one of two flankers from Estée Lauder this summer, the other being the Pleasures Bloom that Angie reviewed yesterday. I have always had a soft spot for Pleasures: whenever I smell it I am brought up short again by how great it smells, and it’s so much better done than the many other squeaky-clean florals of its ilk. Still, I have absolutely no desire to own or wear it. Sensuous is another matter. I would not argue with anybody who said Pleasures was the better fragrance of the two, but Sensuous was the one I bought. The pale honeyed amber works perfectly as a casual, not-quite-oriental (and not particularly sensuous) fragrance and wears well in almost any weather; it is one of my (many!) “what to wear when you don’t want to think about what to wear” scents.
Sensuous Noir, I take it, is supposed to be the sexy, evening-wear version of Sensuous. Estée Lauder is calling it a woody chypre…
At its truest, a flanker is a riff off an original scent, a lighthearted and maybe even forgettable spin on the themes of its forebear. After all, most flankers are around for a year or so then fall out of production. They’re not meant to be masterpieces. Sticking to this definition, Estée Lauder Pleasures Bloom is a textbook example of a flanker.*
I’ve felt so underwater on fragrance launches lately, that as much as I respect the brand, these days I wouldn’t turn my head at an Estée Lauder flanker. But I was wandering through the mall with my niece in Billings, Montana, listening to the ways of dating among teens (Niece: “And so I texted him for, like, two months before I met him.” Me: “You texted him all that time and he didn’t even know who you were?” Niece: “Aunt Angie, that’s how we do it these days. Anyway, I texted him and found out we were both at the mall at the same time…”) and stumbled across the Estée Lauder counter at Dillard’s. A tester of Sensuous Noir was on the counter. As I sniffed a tester strip, the sales associate handed me Pleasures Bloom. “Do you like florals?” she asked. “Try this.”
In that moment, Pleasures Bloom struck all the right notes…