From Tauer Perfumes, limited edition handmade Thuja wood treasure chests from Morocco, containing 50 ml bottles of Le Maroc Pour Elle or L’air du Désert Marocain. 135 or 130 Swiss Francs respectively, available directly from Tauer Perfumes…
Hermes Terre d’Hermes Parfum
Hermès has introduced a new Parfum version of 2006’s Terre d’Hermès fragrance for men:
The newest addition to the Terre D’Hermes fragrance range for men. This pure perfume spray has a new denstity [sic] to the woody vegetal, mineral fragrance, with key ingredients of Grapefruit, Orange, Flint, Pepper…
Hermes Eau de Pamplemousse Rose & Eau de Gentiane Blanche ~ fragrance reviews
Eau de Pamplemousse Rose (above center) and Eau de Gentiane Blanche (above right), along with longtime favorite Eau d’Orange Verte (in new packaging, above left, and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year), make up the new trio of unisex colognes from Hermès. I went to visit them recently at my local Hermès boutique, and had Pamplemousse Rose purchased and packaged within minutes. One of these days, I need to sit down and figure out the proportion of my perfume spending over the past few years that has been made up of fragrances from perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena — I’m guessing it’s substantial, and certainly it accounts for many of my on-the-spot purchases.
But I’ll start with the good news: I did not need a bottle of Eau de Gentiane Blanche. Amy Verner, writing in the Globe and Mail1, called it a “haute fresh laundry fragrance, soapy yet subtle”, and that’s right on the money: it’s possibly one of the nicest laundry-clean fragrances I’ve ever smelled, but there’s really almost nothing you could do with a laundry-clean fragrance, haute or otherwise, that would make me want to own or wear it…
5 Perfumes for: a Flanker Skeptic
Flankers make me cranky*. When a flanker is bad, it debases the coinage of the original. I recently spoke with a perfume sales assistant who refused to believe I smelled so lovely because I was wearing Boucheron Jaïpur Saphir. This is because I was not wearing Boucheron Jaïpur Saphir. I was wearing plain ol’ Jaïpur and said so — only to be told: “There is no Just Jaïpur.” With the dizzying rate of flankerizing and discontinuation as well as misinformation from friendly and seemingly authoritative sources, what hope has the average person of keeping this stuff straight?
Almost as irritating to me as a flanker that fails to live up to its predecessor is the sequel that succeeds on completely different terms. Dior Poison’s second flanker, Hypnotic Poison, for example, is a creamy, girlish dream of a fragrance, reminiscent of such wholesome smells as suntan lotion and root beer floats. I’m sure it would have sold at least equally well under another name. Why force a family resemblance where there is none? The only reason I can think of that is consistent with my experience of the perfume industry and buying public is that flankers must be cheaper to make. Presumably Dior saves on the bottle design and less thinking was required all around from the marketing team…
Hermes Vanille Galante ~ perfume review
It has been a very long time since I actually swooned over the first sniff of any perfume, but the latest from the Hermessence collection at Hermès, Vanille Galante, was a rare case of love-at-first-sniff. Happily for me, so far it appears to be a lasting relationship — just as well, since I bought it unsniffed.*
I will start by mentioning that Vanille Galante is likely to be a disappointment to vanilla freaks (there have already been a few disgruntled customers on the fragrance boards). The early scents in the Hermessence series (Ambre Narguile, Rose Ikebana, Vetiver Tonka, Poivre Samarcande, Osmanthe Yunnan) were mostly “about” the material they were named after. Paprika Brasil and Brin de Reglisse were less directly so, and Vanille Galante, while presumably a reflection of some sorts on vanilla…