Top Rated Reviews - Week

Greeting to all my fragrance friends!

I'm finally taking the time to thank you all SO MUCH for your kind words about FETISH and our other fragrances as well. I am so glad that so many of you have enjoyed the scent. We sell our perfumes globally and they do very well but when it comes to FETISH, Germany wins hands down! For that I am eternally grateful to all of you on Parfumo.de. You have made it possible.

I do hope someday to visit Germany and meet you all to thank you in person.

Vielen Dank!

Neil

My dearly beloveds, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life and the premature death of a work of art that is sorely missed. Fendi Fendi, according to databases, was first launched in 1985. I only met her just last year when my quest for vintage fragrances began to soar. At first sniff, my eyes watered. Fendi, for me, carries the feel of L' Heure Bleu but sways in the opposite direction. Where L'Heure Bleu is subtle and unobtrusive, Fendi is prominent with a hot chip on her shoulder.

An initial blast of spice leads to soft, aromatic florals.

Warm spices envelop the sweetest flowers. Ylang is captivating as it mingles with Jasmine and Patchouli making this a deep, rich and irresistible. If carefully applied, Fendi can be as soft as corn silk yet powerfully rich and deep enough to make your knees buckle. Woodsy notes and amber bring us to a dramatic finish that reeks luxury and sex appeal.

Fendi can be described as breathtaking and heartbreaking. There are no equals. None.

She and I don't have a long history together but I do cherish my new friend. Just as a departed loved one remains in our hearts forever, I am hoping that Fendi will remain in my collection forever.

I've been threatening to write this review for the longest time so here goes!! I LOVE 1889 - MOULIN ROUGE!! Here's why:

I have been on the stage for the last 25 years ... give or take ... I'd prefer 'take' :). I don't hide the fact that I am a performing drag artist ... who cares?? It's 2012!! I have performed on big stages and I have performed on tiny stages, on TV and in movies ... this fragrance immediately transports me to the most hallowed of places for people like me ... the dressing room! As an artist, this is the place where all of the vital stuff happens ... the prep. What is seen onstage is simply the culmination of what happens back there ... its a little world all of it's own.
1889 - Moulin Rouge is about as 'over the top' as any fragrance can get. The opening is dusty, as the dressing rooms of the most revered theaters tend to be, a touch fruity (orange peels in a wastepaper basket) and a pinch spicy (the cinnamon here is short lived on my skin). The fragrance unfolds typically ... a well worn leather makeup case is opened next to a bouquet of opening night roses, the heat from the lights around the makeup mirror intensifying the fragrance of slightly warm lipsticks (iris) emanating from within. The musky intensity of greasepaint and slightly soiled makeup brushes overwhelms slightly, while at the end there is the scent of damp costumes piled into a laundry basket, faint traces of sweat mingling with the sweetness of the cheap body spray it was somewhat disguised in.
I would hesitate in recommending this frag to just anyone. The wearing of it demands an intimate knowledge of this clandestine world. Make no mistake, this is a Diva ... slightly frayed around the edges, morally questionable ... but in the realm of that which she calls home ... MAGNIFI-SCENT.

Gents, don't even go here unless you enjoy getting up in a party frock :) ... this one takes absolutely no prisoners!!

Bentley for Men intense is ridicolously good. Breathtakingly good, the kind of good which makes you feel there’s still hope for perfumery – both niche and designer, as Intense easily stands above most of both – and it is somehow rooted into both. As other reviewers noted in fact, it brilliantly takes its inspiration from Idole de Lubin for all the exotic boozy-woody stuff, a couple of Tauer perfumes (I strongly agree with L’air du Désert Marocain reference in particular, I clearly smell almost the exact same base of tasty spicy ambroxan for a while), and Amouage’s Jubilation XXV. I would also add Gucci pour Homme I, not because of the notes (even if I get some subtle similarities) but because of a sort of common ground of dark, breezy and understated woody-incense elegance which so far, basically only Gucci pour Homme I itself was able to express at its best – and now, Bentley does it too. Intense is decidedly darker, though: it’s boozy, peppery and leathery with a genius aromatic breeze of greenish, fougère-like notes of bay leaves and a hint of cocoa-like patchouli (think Lutens’ Borneo 1834), but as for many fragrances by Nathalie Lorson, showing an irresistible sort of dusty, weightless resinous-talc texture making it smell discreet, warm, slightly sweet and extremely sophisticated. Also slightly fruity too.

And for once, the “concept” and the skills of the nose are supported by a decent budget, as this smells clearly a great quality fragrance also from the point of view of the materials. It is rich (despite being unobtrusively “thin”), deep, vibrant, it has a brilliant evolution from the sharp boozy-leathery-patchouli opening (the leather in particular is really good here for me – Amouage-like, again) to a fantastic amber-incense drydown with sweet echoes of benzoin, leather and talc. It is really mannered and refined, at the same time totally safe and versatile, almost close to skin as a proper classy scent should wear, but long lasting. My expectations were quite high given the praise by a couple of “key” reviewers for me, but it easily surpassed them, and I think Bentley and Firmenich couldn’t really do better than this. Well to cut it short I can’t say better what other reviewers already said – this is easily one of the very best fragrances of the last decade, period. Apparently the prices dropped as I paid 40 eur/100 ml on a French website, and that’s a steal for such a great fragrance.

8,5-9/10

L'Heure Bleue in its current formulation never interested me much. It always struck me as the wallflower sister of the classic Guerlain family of Mitsouko, Shalimar, Jicky and Apres L'Ondee. Although LB seemed pleasant enough, it couldn't hold a candle to its more interesting relatives in my mind.

Recently, I was gifted with a generous sample of vintage LB from one of the old "donut" bottles. The color alone was enough to get my attention. It had that deep garnet hue that confers a certain gravitas to perfume and is never associated with anything light, simple, aquatic or gourmand. Testing vintage LB brought home to me how much perfumery has been crippled by the loss of eugenol/iso-eugenol and heliotropin. The current miniscule allowance of these ingredients permitted by the IFRA accounts for the vast difference between the nice LB of 2012 and the glory of Jacques Guerlain's original creation. Belatedly, I can understand why LB inspired so many other perfumers to strive for that same powdery perfection with Insolence and Kenzo Flower, or the "blueness' imparted by clove/carnation in Bluebell, Blue Grass and Wild Bluebell.

LB really was trend-setting, ground-breaking stuff in its day, but along with the loss of its true, natural carnation note, the current juice is also handicapped by lack of heliotropin. Whereas my precious vintage vial contains a luscious, almondy heliotropin that whispers, "I'm what's for dessert," today's version of the flower simply says plastic doll head. I never got the melancholy, the "blue hour" poignancy of this perfume until now. I can see the progression from the wistfulness of Apres L'Ondee to the voluptuous but pensive moodiness of LB like lavender deepening into navy on Jacques Guerlain's palette. If you can find it, do try the vintage in order to fully appreciate this beautiful wonder. Thanks again to the lovely person who made this revelation possible with their generosity. :)

Back when I was a child, my mother often wore Zen EdC out of the splash bottle. It lingered on her hands and had a way of turning up on everything she touched, including her books. While she was in the middle of her Zen period, my mother happened to be reading the most enticing novel. It had strange illustrations, some of which were a bit frightening, and a beautiful hand-drawn map in the front that mysteriously featured a dragon.

All of this was irresistible to a curious child, and fortunately my wonderful, unconventional mother eventually gave in to my pleading and read The Hobbit to me as a bedtime story over the course of a few months. Not surprisingly, J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastical tale and illustrations will forever be associated with the smell of Zen for me, and I almost expect its mossy drydown to come wafting off the pages of my recent edition as it did from my mother's copy.

The different perfume sites disagree as to whether Zen is a floral or a chypre, which is not so strange for a fragrance that defies categorization; the floralcy, green notes, woods and mosses are so harmoniously balanced that it is a bit difficult to fit Zen into a particular slot. My vote would be for chypre despite the fact that Zen is missing the labdanum component from the classic formula, simply because the oakmoss is what haunts me about this particular scent. In conjunction with galbanum, it really does bring to mind the depths of Mirkwood Forest in Wilderland. Sadly, I'm not able to pick up the aquatic aspect that others mentioned, but I don't doubt that it's there by virtue of the notes listed.

As a 1964 release, Zen was on the leading edge of the golden age of chypres. I imagine it was popular during the mossy green 70s, only to fall out of favor when the power perfumes changed public taste in the 80s. At that point, subtlety was no longer a fragrant asset and Zen's whispered dark green spells fell silent with discontinuation. Although something called "Original Zen" with the beautiful black and gold sake bottle was recently re-introduced by Shisedo, I haven't tried it so I can't comment on whether it is a faithful rendition of the classic. My sincere thanks to my vintage enabler for restoring a bit of my lost childhood with the lovely sample. I will be spritzing some of it on my copy of The Hobbit for sure. :)

Not being familiar with Rossy de Palma, the woman who inspired this fragrance, I went Googling to ascertain the nature of her celebrity. It turns out that she is a Spanish actress known for her work in the films of Pedro Almodóvar and (please forgive me, Gentle Reader) not exactly an oil painting. My ignorant opinion of Rossy de Palma aside, ELDO gets a lot of credit in my book for selecting an atypical muse as inspiration material rather than the usual teen idol or Hollywood starlet. For a company that sometimes gets a bad rap for using shock tactics as a marketing tool, Eau de Protection strikes me as a thoughtful, intelligent launch.

The perfume itself was an instant love for me because it has so much in common with my beloved Epic Woman and can be had for less than half the price. Eau de Protection opens in fresh fashion much as a natural rose would with some sparkling bergamot, but rapidly transcends the true flower by incorporating a number of darker notes. Before you know it, the rose is quite poisonous, but all the more alluring for being so. Eau de Protection uses a similar strong peppery note to the one I find so appealing in Epic, but replaces the caraway with ginger, rendering Eau de Protection less pickle-like and a bit more wearable. While Eau de Protection showcases a fairly nice Bulgarian rose, Epic revolves around the headier Damascus variety. Both contain incense and patchouli; the Amouage favoring a gorgeous silver frankincense and the ELDO being heavy on the patchouli, and therein lies the rub with this perfume.

Patchouli is a polarizing note, perhaps because some associate the smell with the '60s counterculture and the tumultuous events that surrounded it. My first wearing of Eau de Protection was at an outdoor event of a fairly conservative nature. In my defense, I wasn't familiar with the note pyramid and stupidly figured that Rose Frag = innocuous. Not! An offended woman who happened to be seated nearby sniffed ostentatiously while glaring at me as if I were The Whore of Babylon. In a nutshell, Eau de Protection has great, big sillage and is not the ticket for fragrance-phobic environments. Longevity is excellent. Many thanks to the rock star from South Africa who turned me on to this beauty, which is absolutely bottle-worthy.

This masterpiece of modern perfumery smells like a blast of overly ripe soon to be rancid fruit compote sprinkled with stale cinnamon powder and a touch of rose liqueur, surrounded by grotesquely indolic jasmine bouquet with cloying tropical orchid accord woven through the indoles, resting on a monstrous base of caramel, sickeningly sweet melted vanilla ice cream drips hardening on the kitchen counter, moldy old hershey’s chocolate kisses left over from last Christmas, and the overwhelming odor of musty graveyard dirt from an old cemetery.

Angelic isn’t it? BAH. I wouldn’t even want this sprayed on my corpse.

When I write a list of my top 10 fragrances (a daunting task best left for sometime in the future :o/), Private Collection will undoubtedly be on it more than likely somewhere close to the top. This is not because it is earth-shattering or so different that it brings on that "OH MY GOD ... I have to have a bottle NOW" feeling ... simply just because it is so constant!

I've been around this fragrance for a long, long time! It has been my Mother's signature since the late 70's, and harks back to a time in perfumery when wearing something like this was a status symbol, because even at that time it was considered 'expensive'. I remember being very frustrated that I would have to save my pocket money for at least two years to afford a bottle of this as a gift! As luck would have it, I had a job with Lauder for a short while when I left school and was able to give my Mom a bottle of extrait for Christmas that year! She still has it :) ... along with all the others I have given her since.
When Lauder reformulates, they generally do so in a sympathetic way that retains the original spirit of the fragrance. Private Collection has lost its 'monster sillage and longevity' but retains all of its fabulosity! A superb green floral leaning heavily in the Chypre direction, this fragrance carries all of the hallmarks of what Mrs. Lauder tried to create ... a little piece of luxury for everybody! The deft handling of the Oakmoss, Patchouli and Cedar in the base is a masterstroke of blending. I have taken to wearing this of late as it is completely unisex in the way that many floral chypre's tend to be 35 odd years on.

I yearn for the days of fragrances such as these, when just a drop of extrait carried half a block away. A few spritzes of Private Collection remind me why I am a fragrance fanatic in the first place!!

I read Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief years ago. Some time after, I saw the film Adaptation, about which I knew nothing except that it had something to do with the book. To make a film about the inability of the screenwriter to adapt the book was an interesting premise and I found I loved the film. It was smart and exceedingly entertaining, a balance Hollywood manages to find only rarely.

I’d hoped to be clever enough to dream up some ingenious way of talking about l’Air du Desert Marocain. I thought if I waited long enough, it would become clear. Two years down the road, I’m throwing in the towel on wit and inspiration.

I wear perfume every day, but this is the perfume I wear when I want to make wearing perfume a special occasion. I think of it as remarkable, but since I’ve never managed to be able to say anything sensical about it, remarkable is precisely the wrong word. A well-considered piece of abstract art shouldn’t be judged more successful as it grows closer to the descriptive or narrative. Those criteria are irrelevant. Despite its dreamy name, l’Air is an outstanding abstract perfume in that it is rich with ideas and imbued with possibility. If anything, it is more evocative than suggestive. I don’t think, desert. I don’t think, smoke = incense = sacred. I smell it and my head rises, my shoulders release, my eyes open and the world becomes saturated. This is how perfume is art.