Hermès will launch Iris Ukiyoé, the ninth fragrance in the Hermessence collection, next month. The word Ukiyoé can be translated from the Japanese literally as “images of the floating world”, and refers to the Japanese art of woodblock printing…
5 Perfumes from: the Purgatory Basket
My guess is that most obsessive perfume samplers have the equivalent of Robin’s purgatory basket. As someone who suffers from chronic indecision, I have a large collection of scents I just can’t decide whether I like or not, separated into a series of elegant “snack-sized” plastic freezer bags. Every couple of months I retrieve all of these baggies and place them on my bed, along with two larger plastic tubs, which house, respectively, fragrances in the current rotation (scents in good standing) and samples that I see every couple of months when I perform this ritual (the tub of no return). I spread the contents of the purgatory bags over my duvet and begin picking through the vials and atomizers, sorting them into piles: judgement rendered, cult favorites that need one more try, scents that have somehow eluded skin-testing. Like Robin, I always end up with a pile of scents that stubbornly resist categorization and tubbing. As my spouse looks on with bafflement and mild disapproval, I return these fragrances to the twilight, limbo land of the snack bag.
The firmer, sterner souls among you probably agree with my husband. With multiple new fragrances being launched every single day, why does anyone bother trying to puzzle out their complicated relationship with one? Well, my problem is that I often prefer the interesting to the simply likable…
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…
5 perfumes for: Sleeper Seekers
For the last couple years, the term “sleeper” has made me think of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan and written as well as directed by Shane Black of Lethal Weapon fame, this satire of film noir came out in the autumn of 2005, just as my perfume obsession was really starting to hog most of my leisure time. I remember thinking that I should go see the movie — it was getting great reviews and I’m one of those masochists who tries to support Downey Jr. when he isn’t incarcerated — but I probably spent the ticket money on a bottle of Bvlgari something. In any case, I didn’t make it to the theatre and I was not alone: the movie site Rotten Tomatoes reports that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang made a woeful total of $4.2 million on the big screen.
When it was released to DVD in June of the following year, I shelled out for the rental. It’s not a profound or ambitious movie, so I was almost embarrassed by how entertaining I found it…
Hermes Brin de Reglisse ~ fragrance review
Brin de Réglisse is the seventh fragrance to join the Hermessence collection from perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena at Hermès. As I reported last month, Ellena hoped to “create an intense, dry lavender, like you would smell in the south of France in June or July” (other notes include licorice, orange blossom and hay); to accomplish that, he…
…turned to his colleagues at an independent perfume lab in Grasse. He asked them to slice natural lavender into 50 distinct groups of molecules, sniffed them all, discarded five and reassembled it. “My lavender had a much purer, cleaner smell,” he says, comparing it with the natural scent. “Then I had to find something to dress it up that would be a little unusual. I chose a touch of licorice.” (via Los Angeles Times, 10/28/2007)…