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Indie special ~ three quick fragrance reviews

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the forest, with moss

Quick reviews of three fragrances: Sonoma Scent Studio Forest Walk, Ayala Moriel Treazon and The 7 Virtues Afghanistan Orange Blossom. The theme: indie fragrances I’ve added to my buy list.

Sonoma Scent Studio Forest Walk

I tried Forest Walk when it came out earlier this year, and I liked it right away but it didn’t match my summery mood so I set it aside. Then, of course, I lost it, and had to tear my office apart to find it again — raise your hand if your perfume samples are in desperate need of reorganization! Anyway, Forest Walk is just what it says it is: “the earthy, mossy smells of the forest floor with tree bark, tree needles, and soft floral highlights”. It’s brisk but deep, and as advertised, beautifully earthy, and it has a meditative quality that’s perfect for chilly fall evenings. It might be the cold weather version of Annick Goutal Nuit Étoilée — if you found that one a little too thin, Forest Walk might be just what you’re after. Bonus: the travel spray can be had for a song…

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Michael Kors Suede & Keiko Mecheri Soussanne ~ perfume reviews

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Tuberoselily

Today, brief reviews of two white florals: Michael Kors Suede and Keiko Mecheri Soussanne.

Michael Kors Suede

It often puzzles me why perfume brands choose the names they do. At the very least, they seem to assume that consumers are paying very close attention — an assumption that seems entirely unwarranted given the number of new fragrance releases every year. So, if you assumed, reasonably enough, that the new Suede by Michael Kors was a soft leather fragrance, sorry, you were quite off base. If you knew enough to recognize the bottle design (see below), and figured based on the bottle that it was a flanker to the brand’s signature fragrance from 2000, Michael by Michael Kors, you were closer to the mark, and if you guessed further that it was a softer, lighter, more summery version, with no relationship to “suede” other than being soft, ding ding ding: you win the prize…

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Madonna Truth or Dare ~ perfume review

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Madonna Truth or Dare advertMadonna Truth or Dare flacon

Truth or Dare is the debut scent from pop icon Madonna. I am frequently forced to “research” the “celebrities” whose perfumes I review here, but even I know who Madonna is, and so I assume you do too. An informal survey of young people (ok, I just asked my tween son) reveals that her fame is wide enough to cross generational boundaries, but Truth or Dare is aimed at a more mature audience than most celebrity fragrance efforts, albeit not one quite so mature as Madonna herself — they’re after women 25 to 45, with special emphasis on the 35 to 45 group. Once you cross 45, as we all know, you’re safely outside of the fragrance industry’s radar.

Truth or Dare is apparently associated with Madonna’s new lifestyle brand of the same name (next up: shoes), and it was made under licensing arrangements with Coty. I’ll repeat the statement from Madonna that I quoted when I announced Truth or Dare:

I have always been obsessed by fragrance and for years wanted to create something personal that was an expression of me, but that other people could relate to as well. Something classical and timeless and yet modern. My oldest memory of my mother is her perfume. I carry it with me everywhere. She always smelled like gardenias and tuberose, an intoxicating mixture [that was] feminine and mysterious. I wanted to re-create this scent, but with something fresh and new about it as well.1

I have no idea what Madonna’s mother wore, but I’ve always heard that Madonna herself wore Robert Piguet Fracas, and it’s easy enough to believe that Fracas was the reference for Truth or Dare — Truth or Dare is basically a big ole white floral with an armload of tuberose and a gardenia tucked behind the ear…

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Flora by Gucci The Garden Gorgeous Gardenia, Gracious Tuberose and Glamorous Magnolia ~ perfume reviews and a quick poll

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Abbey Lee Kershaw for Gucci Flora The Garden

Gucci launched Flora in 2009. Flora is one of those light and sparkling casual florals, pretty and inoffensive — you know the sort I mean, the kind that go for pleasant and wearable over interesting, but that so perfectly hit that “pleasant and wearable” mark that they’re memorable anyway. When I reviewed it, I called it the still-cheerful older sister of Marc Jacobs Daisy, if that helps you place it. And like Daisy, it was just a notch above the competition. I often recommend it to people who are looking for something in that genre.

Gucci’s new Flora by Gucci The Garden is a quintet of floral flankers. Two of them — Generous Violet and Glorious Mandarin — are in limited distribution, and I have not tried them.1 The other three — Gorgeous Gardenia, Gracious Tuberose and Glamorous Magnolia — are widely available in department and beauty stores, and those are the three I’m reviewing today. All of them, like the original Flora, were reportedly inspired by Gucci’s “renowned” Flora print…

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Mona di Orio Les Nombres d’Or Tubereuse, Vetyver, and Vanille ~ fragrance review

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Facing another lineup of soliflores, it’s easy to be dismissive. Everyone from Van Cleef & Arpels and Roger Vivier to Marc Jacobs and Chloé seems to be churning out single note fragrances. Add that to the established soliflores on the market from everyone from Serge Lutens to Annick Goutal, and you have to ask if we really need another take on lily, iris, or amber. Recently Mona di Orio jumped into the soliflore game with her Les Nombres d’Or. Do we really need more soliflores, especially those that retail for $220 for a 100 ml bottle?

Before tackling that question, let’s first consider the soliflore, then look at the latest Les Nombres d’Or offerings: Tubéreuse, Vétyver, and Vanille.

A soliflore fragrance focuses on one note. It’s the sort of fragrance you can sniff and quickly say, “Oh, that’s lily of the valley,” or “That’s incense.” But it doesn’t mean Edmond Roudnitska made Christian Dior Diorissimo, an ode to the lily of the valley, by squeezing a bunch of lilies of the valley into a bottle, and if you smell Diorissimo next to a real lily of the valley you’ll appreciate that the fragrance isn’t a slavish imitation of the flower, either. I’m not an expert, but from what I understand, to create a soliflore a perfumer must draw from a variety of materials to summon the green, crisp, soft, watery, lush, sharp, earthy, or other aspects of the fragrance she is creating.

For instance, take the rose…

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