Yves Saint Laurent will launch Elle Yves Saint Laurent in October. Like last year’s L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent, the new fragrance is geared towards a young market.
Opening with citron and lychee smoothed by peony, the fragrance follows with a vibrant heart of jasmin sambac and pink berries and ends with woody notes…
I’ve spent years looking for the perfect dress, a dress I can wear in the winter with boots and a sweater, in the summer with sandals, with pumps to business meetings, and out at night with a Miriam Haskell necklace and hand-knit shrug. When wearing this dress, I won’t have to hold in my stomach or worry that my bra straps show. Slide the dress over my head and I’m done. Well, I haven’t found the dress yet, but I think I’ve found its perfume counterpart: Y by Yves Saint Laurent.
Y is a clean, soft green chypre that lays a gentle background. It is quiet and elegant, but still warm, and when you’re wearing it people notice you and not your scent. It stays close to your body. Someone crammed against you in an elevator when you’re wearing Y won’t think of perfume but will think you’re still warm from your morning shower and maybe have clipped a few flowers from the garden for your desk…
Has anyone else noticed the explosion of incense fragrances over the past decade? In past years, incense seemed to play a backstage role. Sure, the old classics Creed Angélique Encens, Chanel No. 22, and Lanvin Scandal all have incense, but a trip to the perfume counter these days gives you the choice of at least a dozen fragrances featuring incense front and center, from the Comme de Garçons incense series to L’Artisan Passage d’Enfer and Dzongka to Etro Messe de Minuit to incense “soliflores”, if you can call them that, from Lorenzo Villoresi, Crazylibellule and the Poppies and others. One incense-based fragrance that stands apart from the crowd is Yves Saint Laurent Nu…
1n 1993, when Yves Saint Laurent Yvresse was launched, it was named Champagne. It wasn’t long before the Champagne lobby noticed and strong-armed YSL into renaming its new perfume. Whether Yvresse smells to you like Champagne or a bellini or a tropical fruit-scented viognier, you probably agree that its new name — a play on “ivresse”, the French word for intoxication — is a perfect fit.
Sophia Grojsman created Yvresse, and she embedded in it the warm, womanly peach-rose combination that she introduced in Lancôme Trésor and then tucked into YSL Paris and Lagerfeld Sun Moon Stars, among others. Yvresse is a fruity chypre with topnotes of nectarine, anise, mint, violet, and a grain of cumin; a middle of otto rose, blue rose, and lychee; and a base of oakmoss, patchouli, vetiver, and vanilla…
Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We did some serious eating, and I am still in a kind of food-induced coma. But the fragrance shopping must go on…
At formaggio-kitchen, Rose Petal Jam from the Languedoc region of France. This sounds fabulous; please comment if you’ve ever tried rose petal jam! $9.95…