Amber Absolute (2007) is one of those scents that just can’t be appreciated in warm weather. (How the Indians wear it in the extreme humidity, one can only guess.) Perfumer Christophe Laudemiel’s creation for Tom Ford Private Blend betrays more th…
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October 8th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
The Memory of Smoke
October 6th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
A few year back, in a class I audited on Robert Motherwell, the lecturer went on and on about white space, the blank canvas, etc. Likewise, Christopher Brosius’s olfactory creations, for better or worse, have always struck me as studies in what isn??…
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October 4th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
A few weeks ago, I received a selection of fragrances by Montreal perfumer Claude André Hébert. Hébert has created 12 fragrances for men and women, inspired by the continents. Among them, I managed to find two very pleasing masculines, Dundee and B…
Related StoresSquare Root: Le Labo Iris 39
September 28th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Frank Voelkl’s Iris 39 for Le Labo came out a couple of years ago. Before someone told me that the number referred to the number of ingredients used, I was thinking it referred to a female character out of dystopian science fiction. You know, Iris 39…
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September 21st, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Cinematically speaking, Oyédo by the Parisian fragrance house, Diptyque, is a Technicolor citrus, all chartreuse greens and warm chrome yellows. Ostensibly Japanese in flavor, it succeeds more in a vein of sheer Oriental weirdness – as if Rei Kawaku…
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September 14th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Not much has been written about Joel Arthur Rosenthal’s bejeweled perfume creations. In 2005 Luca Turin remarked on his Duftnote blog: “When jewellers make perfume (Boucheron, Van Cleef et Arpels, Bulgari), it is usually because they have a big nam…
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September 11th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
A day of cool weather and I’m already thinking of raking leaves, baking pies, dressing for the woods – I don’t get to them that often – chopping firewood, going to the opera (you weren’t expecting that gear shift), sipping coffees on the benc…
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September 4th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
The name alone conjures up golden temples at dawn, concubines and opium pipes. But this self-professed oriental by perfumer Enzo Galardi would be better described as a hesperidic chypre dressed up like the Empress Dowager of China. It’s a gutsy perf…
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September 4th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Doing some research today on Dutch designer Wieke Somers, I ran across this beautiful image of a bottle she did for IFF Hilversum. In the past, Somers has collaborated with Droog. About six years ago, I bought a pair of barnacle glasses she created at …
Related StoresAutumn Paraphrase: Brûme d’Automne
September 2nd, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Jean Paul Guerlain’s Brûme d’Automne (2008) brings to mind those lines of Wallace Stevens’: “The wind of Iceland and / The wind of Ceylon, / Meeting, gripped my mind.” (I had the good fortune to obtain a small decant from Guerlain, extremely…
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August 30th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
When Florentine perfumer Enzo Galardi entered the American market last year with his line of unisex fragrances, Bois 1920, I was going through a “niche-suspicious” phase. For the space of a few months, niche after niche seemed to be filling up, lik…
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August 26th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
I had a hankering for lemon today. I’d consumed quite a few of them, Meyer and otherwise, at the cabin last week. Each day, after hiking somewhere in Alpine County or the Desolation Wilderness, I would squeeze a couple into a tall drinking glass, fil…
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Continue reading → Sleeper Standout 1: Chanel Allure Edition Blanche
Quartiers d’Été
August 13th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Vacation time. Hikes, morning- and late afternoon swims, birds, chipmunks, books and hopefully some good wine. See you all back on August 26 for more musings on the stuff in the bottle. Bon août!
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July 28th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Having recently become a New Yorker-with-a-bike, I’ve taken to zipping around parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan I’d never had the chance to terrorize before. (An old friend once told me that Raymond Roussel took to doing similarly in a white Rolls-Ro…
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July 25th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Well, I guess we can all do a long exhale, as the inevitable has occurred. Chandler Burr, esteemed critic of the olfactory has passed into bafflement. Like Frank Bruni stomping out of Vong, steam billowing from his ears or a claque of Michelin Guide Ro…
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July 23rd, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Things simply aren’t as they would appear –– not this side of the looking glass, at least!But Alexis Dadier, the young talent behind Thierry Mugler’s À Travers le Miroir (from the Miroir, Miroir Collection), was thinking more of Jean Cocteau?…
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July 14th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
This is one of those superlatively subjective posts that I’m doing just because it feels good. For a great many perfumophiles, fragrance is a form of therapy. Like a person who finds in a glass of wine a problem to be worked out (“what am I smellin…
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July 3rd, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Narcissus is one of those brand of soliflores that people either love or hate. I have yet to encounter a happy middle ground.On the face of it, it would seem that any floral accord which strays into the province of the indolic runs the risk of alienati…
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June 21st, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, to prattle is “to talk or chatter idly or meaninglessly; babble or prate.” (And you, dear reader, already are thinking that this is going to be a bad review. Patience, s’il te plaît.) Annick Goutal?…
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June 17th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Leather in summer. Sounds like the title of a German mountain film or an avant-garde poem from the Weimar Republic. Inevitably, these are the words that come to mind when I think of Parfums d’Empire Cuir Ottoman.For some reason, here I am reminded of…
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June 9th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides) is a material of aristocratic mien but humble means. Used to stanch water erosion in the tropics, vetiver traditionally has been utilized in everything from window shades to grass mats. The dried roots resemble a tangl…
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June 5th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
For a second there, I thought I would subtitle this review “When Natural Just Isn’t Enough.” (Well, I guess I just did.) Lierre Rose (the name means “Ivy-Rose”) was created in 2007 by Jacques Chabert, uncle of Nicolas Chabert the founder of G…
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June 2nd, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Yves Saint Laurent lived his life as in a dream. And for forty years he succeeded in giving the world a privileged glimpse of what he saw each day in that lush and, often, dangerous place.He represented la belle France’s uneasy relationship with her …
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May 27th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Jean-Paul Guerlain’s Nahéma parfum (1979) was unarguably one of the biggest, sexiest, most luxurious rose fragrances ever created. And one of the most terribly timed releases in perfume history. Its muse, the actress Catherine Deneuve, strangely was…
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May 21st, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
A few things come to mind:Cutting it.Summer of ’02.Dornach, Switzerland.The onerous task of running in front of the bailer.Raking the stray blades into clean rows.Blazing sun beating down on me in farm clothing.Running behind the bailer straightening…
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May 12th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Now, here’s a fragrance that Luca Turin really did a disservice to. He didn’t pan it. Rather, as with too many perfumes in his (and Tania’s) guide, he awarded it four stars, threw off some gnomic wit, and basically told us nothing. Yes, to his po…
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May 6th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
And a piece of toast. (Be not afraid, I shan’t channel Gertrude Stein.) I’m just trying to wrap my mind around two genre-bending gourmands which use milk-and-toast accords in novel ways: Serge Lutens Douce Amère (2000) and Thierry Mugler Miroir de…
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April 29th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
It takes a lot to excite me. Chalk that up to New York jadedness or whatnot. In a world of perfume junkies (bless their hearts) who constantly talk up the next new “masterpiece” and who throw the word “lemming” around with such abandon as to g…
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April 22nd, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
My search for the perfect fragrance was a search for authenticity. Raised in the Eighties and Nineties in an affluent suburb about fifty miles from the city, I had learned about fragrances at an early age on trips with my mother to the local Saks and B…
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April 17th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Tilleul (tee-LOO).Tilia vulgaris, etc.The lime- or linden blossom.The tisane savored by Proust’s (namesake) narrator.Remedy for hysteria.A spoonful of honey.A hotel soap.How to describe it? Fragrant. Sweet. Old-fashioned. The sort of thing I’d imag…
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April 14th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
For those of you who attended this weekend’s Sniffa Spring Fling, I would like to follow up my presentation of Vero Kern’s extraits de parfums. Many of you already know the admiration with which I hold this Swiss master perfumer and student of the …
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April 7th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Amid the dearth of scents which try – unsuccessfully – to turn men into boys, there are a few fragrances which turn boys into men. Caron Pour Un Homme is one of them. Created by the legendary Ernest Daltroff in 1934, it resides on a plane far remov…
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March 31st, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
“White flowers” often are invoked in the descriptions of a good many white wines. Rheingau Rieslings come to mind, as do better chardonnays from Chablis and a great many Alsatian wines, particularly Pinot Blancs and Gewürztraminers. As the weather…
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March 28th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Many of you already know the admiration with which I hold Swiss perfumer Vero Kern. Her three extraits de parfums (Onda, Kiki and Rubj) provide for endless olfactory fascination. But unlike many niche perfumes, Kern’s actually work as “statement sc…
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March 17th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Etro fragrances are among the most pleasant of the fragrance market’s unsung heroes. A bottle of Vetiver has graced my bathroom vanity for the last seven years, and when I go anywhere on extended vacation a bottle accompanies me. Etro Patchouli was m…
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March 13th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Is there a better example in modern perfumery of how inextricably a name can be linked to the experience of the juice it introduces than Guerlain L’Heure Bleue? No one can argue with the place of Mitsouko (which, seven year later in 1919, marked the …
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March 11th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Imagine yourself waking in an attic room, a light rain falling outside the rickety old window and lilac bushes swaying gently in the breeze. Olivia Giacobetti’s En Passant, created in 2000 for Frédéric Malle’s Editions de Parfums, was conceived, …
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March 4th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
I nearly entitled this posting, In Which I Am Invited, as I didn’t see much “infiltration” going on at the Chanel Fragrance Master Class hosted by Sniffapalooza on Saturday, March 1. Trajecting the inner sanctum of Monsieur Karl?––now, that w…
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March 2nd, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
The recently launched Cereus pour Homme line of men’s fragrances sets its sights on the plus-35 crowd who crave Italian suiting and other of the finer things. I must say, then, that it was with much trepidation that I made the initial approach to Cer…
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February 26th, 2008 — from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
After a day of luxuriating in Etat Libre d’Orange Jasmin et Cigarette, I decided to follow the floral path that stretched before me to a willing sample of Linda Pilkington’s Ta’if parfum (2004) for London-based house, Ormonde Jayne. My first tho…
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Continue reading → Taffy Ta’ifi: Ormonde Jayne’s English Take
Precious Ore
February 21st, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Michael Morsetti’s Or et Noir (1949) is a rose scent to be reckoned with. After weeks of admiring Edouard Fléchier’s incomparable Une Rose (2003), I detect a marked family resemblance between the two. Both are cool, luscious and dark, with sweet-…
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February 20th, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
These last few weeks of experimenting with various perfume oils from North Africa, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, India and Southeast Asia, have been something of an education in a different school of perfumery. The word that comes to mind when I a…
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February 16th, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
A recent exchange with a fellow Sniffapalooza member occasioned some thoughts about the coming (not fast enough) change of seasons, and indeed my eye has been wandering to the lighter end of my fragrance spectrum: scents like Fréderic Malle Cologne Bi…
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February 15th, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Imagine a Bulgarian rose carved out of Mysore sandalwood, drizzled with oud, resting on a frond of some sort, decorated with little mounds of savory spices. Pierre Montale’s blending of these elements in Attar is hardly revolutionary in the Arabic-sp…
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February 11th, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
That nagging question rears its hoary head yet again: Is bigger necessarily better? I don’t know about you folks, but size does make a statement … even when it’s aw-shucks goofy. Honestly now, given the opportunity to explore the immensities of s…
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February 7th, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
If you are like me, no matter how tired you are on a weeknight you put on a little something before bed. (Weekends are a different story entirely. This is New York City.) A brushed cotton v-neck tee, my flannel boxers from Uniqlo and, of course, someth…
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February 3rd, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Boys, as you recover from a day spent in front of your 52-inch LCD watching instant replay and the consumption of much beer and questionable snack foods, hear me loud and clear: come the warmer days of late April and May, stand out and blend in. “Sta…
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January 30th, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Today I waited around for the better part of the day for furniture deliveries. I rose an hour later than usual and prepped two rooms for their new additions. This sort of thing always throws me out of whack: I leave the tea diffuser in for too long (th…
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January 28th, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Hey superstars, doing some fragrance slash-and-burn and would like to find new homes for the following:• L’Artisan Parfumeur Méchant Loup (100mL, 98% full)• Creed Tabarôme Millésime (75mL, 98.5% full)• Creed Original Vetiver (75mL, …
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January 27th, 2008 — Perfume Bloggers from Vetivresse @ Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style
Branding 101. Doesn’t the value of a good name come from its mystique? “Aqhawan” is a variant spelling of the Arabic ????? ??????, meaning “two brothers.” And it couldn’t be a more appropriate name for a fragrance which aligns tw…
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