For more than 400 years, since the time of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, the Indian city of Kannauj has been distilling flowers to make perfume.
But the industry is in decline. Synthetic perfumes are pushing the distilleries towards closure - and these exquisite scents may soon be lost forever.
— Read more at The soul of the rose at BBC. Hat tip to PekeFan!
Kai by Gaye Straza recently launched a new feminine fragrance called Kai Rose, a flanker to the brand’s original Kai. Kai was launched way back in 1999 (!), and if you participated in any perfume message boards, perfume swaps, or perfume meet-ups in the following decade, or even received a “gift with purchase” bag from Barneys during that time, you no doubt encountered a perfume vial tagged with Kai’s green-and-white logo…
Ambra, Gomma, Heliotrope, Lemon Sorbet, Magot, Messe de Minuit, Palais Jamais, Patchouly, Royal Pavilion, Sandalo, Vetiver, Shaal Nur. I’ve owned all these Etro perfumes. A new bottle of Vetiver arrived at my home last week, and I’ve bought many bottles of Magot, Sandalo and Messe de Minuit, too. When ManRose1 was released I had to try it (though my love of Etro perfumes stops around 1997…recent releases have been “nice,” but don’t appeal to me like the older fragrances).
I love the scent of roses and almost go bankrupt each (dry) Northwest summer watering the plants that keep my home smelling rosy from May till October. Rose appears as a note in many men’s fragrances these days, though it’s usually a bit player…
I’m not an avid traveler. Motion sickness, fear of terrorism, a simple but strong attachment to my own bedroom (husband and cat included) — all things considered, I’d rather stay home. But I can always journey through scent, right? Well, there are so, so many niche perfume lines named after geographical locations these days. Every time I see a new one, I recall a line from the film version of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” in which the main character remembers her young lover’s musical tastes: “He played me songs. The bands were new to me: Boston, Kansas, America, Europe, Asia. Travel exhausts me.”
For example: fragrance line Une Nuit à Bali recently rebranded as Une Nuit Nomade, promising a wider itinerary of global travels. They’ve followed their Bali-themed scents, oddly enough, with Une Nuit à Montauk, an olfactory homage to Montauk, New York. The mention of Montauk piqued my interest enough for me to order samples, because Montauk reminds me of 1) the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and 2) a long-ago weekend trip with the above-mentioned husband. (If Une Nuit Nomade had named this collection Une Nuit à Nantucket or Une Nuit à Santa Monica, on the other hand, I probably would have kept scrolling, exhausted…)
The more obsessed you become with scent, the further you may venture in your quest for a fragranced life: beyond perfume and fancy candles, for example, you might become very particular about the fragrances of bath and body items or household products. (Hence my long and happy relationships with Lush and Mrs. Meyers, to name just two of my brand obsessions.) But why stop there? What about skincare? If I’m going to put something on my face, of all places, either it has to be unscented or have a scent that I truly enjoy.
On a recent browse through Sephora, I stopped to examine a new collection of skincare products from the beauty mega-giant’s signature line. There were brightly packaged lip balms, sheet masks, facial wipes and — most interesting to me, personally — four new micellar cleansing waters. About two years ago I stopped cleaning my face with soap-based cleansers…