From the invitation:
L’Artisan Parfumeur cordially invites you to our Perfume Gallery for the opening of our exhibit featuring artwork by New York artist Jaime Lischke inspired by our new organic fragrance line, Cote d’Amour.
Please join us on the second level of Henri Bendel for champagne service and sampling between 6-8pm Friday August 14, 2009…
L’Artisan Parfumeur will launch Havana Vanille, a new fragrance that captures the “aged rum and sweet air of Cuba”, this fall.
Havana Vanille was developed by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour, and the notes include leather, rum, clove, dried fruits, narcissus…
This year, it seemed as though summer would never really begin in my part of the world. After weeks of almost-daily rain, however, and an odd chilly spell that saw me wearing black tights well into June, we’ve finally enjoyed some well-deserved days of sunny blue skies and warmer temperatures. I’m finally adjusting my clothing, my fragrances, and even my mood to suit the climate. So, at last, here is a list of my personal fragrance choices for the season.
Diptyque L’Ombre dans L’Eau. I have a feeling I mentioned this fragrance in my top picks for Spring 2008. I wear it even more often during summer, and I’ve done so for the past five or six years. For me, L’Ombre dans L’Eau is the perfect balance of floral, berry, and grass notes, with a rosy heart that suits my tastes perfectly…
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…
I bought my first bottle of L’Artisan Parfumeur Mûre et Musc in 1990, twelve years after its debut. It’s been ten years since my last bottle of Mûre et Musc and, as luck would have it, a friend has a bottle of Mûre et Musc from 1988 — a high school graduation gift — and she let me wear the ‘vintage’ perfume; the fragrance is just as I remember it: a deep, rich smell of berries (like the scent of fresh, ripe berries cooking in sugar syrup with a whole vanilla bean and lemon rind tossed in for good measure) coupled with a lively and almost “resinous” musk. The mood of 1988 Mûre et Musc is happy, summery (and unisex).
I did a double-sniff when I recently sampled a brand-new bottle of Mûre et Musc Eau de Toilette…