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Parfums DelRae Wit ~ perfume review & quick poll

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Antonio del Pollaiolo Apollo and Daphne

When DelRae asked me to work on her new fragrance, ‘Wit’, I was charmed and very interested. First, with such a fresh, bright, fun and clever name for the perfume. Secondly, a fragrance centered around Daphne, a beautiful flower never really explored before in fragrance, and finally the story of Daphne, a mythical character full of intrigue, imagination and love.

That’s perfumer Yann Vasnier, talking about the latest from niche line Parfums DelRae. I was likewise charmed and very interested when I heard about Wit, not least because Parfums DelRae is not exactly prolific: they’ve done nine fragrances since they debuted in 2000. In comparison to some niche brands, that’s not even a snail’s pace.

But they’ve all been worth waiting for,1 and there aren’t many brands that warrant such praise. Wit, the fourth Yann Vasnier fragrance for the brand, joined my buy list almost as soon as I had it on skin, and yes, it stayed on my list even after several wearings…

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Grossmith London Floral Veil & Golden Chypre ~ fragrance reviews

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Grossmith Floral Veil & Golden Chypre

Years ago after a friend and I listened to Sarah Vaughan sing her heart-wrenching interpretation of “It Never Entered My Mind,” he turned to me and said, “Well, that song’s been done now. No one else could sing it better.” His comment ran through my mind as I sampled Grossmith Floral Veil and Golden Chypre. Have the ultimate basic floral and floral chypre already been made? There certainly are plenty on the market. Do the Grossmith fragrances have anything new to add — especially at their price?

Floral Veil and Golden Chypre are part of Grossmith’s Black Label Collection. (The collection also includes Amelia and Saffron Rose. Amelia has a dominant woody-musky accord that gives me a headache, and Saffron Rose deserves a true rose lover, so I’m leaving those to other reviewers.) Like the other Grossmith fragrances I’ve tried, Floral Veil and Golden Chypre smell rich, condensed, and expensive, and they last forever on skin. They are Eaux de Parfum, but I can’t imagine Extrait smelling any more luxurious. But are they interesting and compelling…

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Aerin Lilac Path, Ikat Jasmine & Gardenia Rattan ~ perfume reviews

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Aerin Lilac Path and Ikat Jasmine

Aerin Lauder launched her own lifestyle brand, Aerin, in 2011, and she’s already selling all sorts of random lifestyle stuff, which is, after all, the whole point of a lifestyle brand — license your name out to all sorts of manufacturers, rake in some dough. So they’ve got lamps, lipsticks, shoes, eyeglasses, candles and whatnot, and more is on the way. Her beauty and fragrance license, as you surely have already surmised, is with Estée Lauder, and the first collection of five fragrances was introduced last month, with the outer boxes decorated with designs from her Aerin fabric line. Today I’m smelling three of the perfumes: Lilac Path, Ikat Jasmine and Gardenia Rattan. I will try to get to the others, Amber Musk and Evening Rose, next week.

I had sort of imagined that for her debut fragrances, Lauder would do something similar to the upscale Private Collection scents she designed for the Estée Lauder brand…

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Hermes Jour d’Hermes ~ perfume review

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Hermès Jour d'Hermès, watercolor

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, along comes Jour d’Hermès, a brand new feminine pillar fragrance from perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena at Hermès. Longtime readers know I’m a fan, but just how much of a fan? Thanks (or not) to evidence provided by the damage polls, I can report that I’ve spent just over $2000 on fragrance in the past five years (ouch! bless me Donatella, for I have sinned) and about 28% of that apparently spilled directly into the coffers at Hermès. And yes, that includes the mumble-$100-something I spent on a bottle of Jour d’Hermès.

(If you’ve spent a like proportion of your perfume dollars on a single brand, do comment. I will add that if the entire works of Serge Lutens had been available in the US over that same time period, in the more-affordable export bottles, I’m sure I’d have done a better job of padding his coffers too. It does help, though, that Hermès maintains a boutique in my local mall, conveniently situated just outside the front door of Neiman Marcus, another favorite spot for spur-of-the-moment purchases.)

But back to Jour d’Hermès. It starts with bright citrus…

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L’Occitane Delice des Fleurs ~ fragrance review

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L'Occitane Delice des Fleurs

One of L’Occitane‘s limited edition products for the holidays is Délice des Fleurs, a scent inspired by the traditional Provençal confectionary of candied flowers; it is “a gourmand floral fragrance with a powdery vanilla base and aromas of May Rose and Violet leaf absolutes.” I do love candied violets, and anything edible made from rose petals, so I immediately put Délice des Fleurs on my must-try list.

Délice des Fleurs does indeed smell as though it were “inspired by delicate roses and violets draped in sugar.” It leads with its violet note, which is sweet but not chalky; the violet is followed by a sugared rose heart, then vanilla (with a heliotrope-like creaminess) and soft white musk. The violet-rose-vanilla combination is smoothly blended. Despite its concept and its notes, Délice des Fleurs is surprisingly gentle, and can even be applied somewhat generously. On me, it avoids turning cloyingly sweet, and it doesn’t send off overwhelming waves of sillage…

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