It’s June — time for the annual summer reading poll!
Please recommend a great book to add to our summer reading lists, and tell us what fragrance we should wear while reading it…
Lazy weekend poll ~ winter reading list, edition 4
The cold weather version of our summer reading poll: tell us about a great book to curl up with on a frosty winter night, and what fragrance we should wear while reading it…
Jardins d’Ecrivains Marlowe ~ fragrance review
Jardins D’Écrivains Marlowe perfume was named for playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe. I know little about Mr. Marlowe, his life or work, but “his” perfume smells like a memorial: it’s antique, faded.
When I first read Marlowe’s listed ingredients, “opulent” osmanthus, “poisonous” tuberose, “tragic” dried flowers, myrrh, elemi, oak moss, labdanum, “tonkin” musk and leather, I expected a rich, syrupy brew, dense and enveloping. Not so! Marlowe smells like a waxy wooden armoire (stuffed with winter-weight wool, velvet and silk clothing, old leather boots and belts) that’s been opened after a hot summer…
Lazy weekend poll ~ summer reading list, edition 5
It’s time for the annual summer reading poll!
Please recommend a great book to add to our summer reading lists, and tell us what fragrance we should wear while reading it…
Frapin Nevermore ~ fragrance review
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before…
In late 2014, niche line Frapin launched Nevermore, a new fragrance inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven.” I love any reference to Poe, and Frapin’s characterization of Nevermore as a “spicy woody metallic rose” appealed to me, so I looked forward to trying it and writing about it here.
Nevermore was developed for Frapin by perfumer Anne-Sophie Behaghel, and its composition includes notes of black pepper, nutmeg, floralozone and aldehydes; rose oxide, rose de mai, rose damascena and “bonded wine”; saffron, Atlas cedar and amber wood. Its concept is inspired by the legendary “Poe toaster,” a mysterious figure who for several decades visited Poe’s Baltimore resting place annually on the writer’s birthday (January 19) and left a bottle of Cognac and three roses…