Duftsucht

A fragrance can hardly be more British than "Bouquet de la Reine"! One thing I'll say right away: studying the fragrance pyramid - which is unavoidable in a blind purchase like this one - led me completely astray. It sounded to me like I had almost adjusted myself to something mitsouko-like inside. But Bouquet de la Reine is very British, indeed! Cool, reserved, disciplined, elegant, slim.
It is a real art to tame tuberose and ylang-ylang in such a way that they appear almost translucent, as if their radiant brilliance were trapped in a glass house through whose windows, which have not been cleaned for a long time, greenishly subdued light falls. And so the bouquet appears a little bit victorian - like some other Floris fragrances I have tested.

The bouquet starts for my nose almost completely without flowers, but with a lot of green and a lot of fruit - decidedly red, tart berries. Fruity is not my favourite scent in perfumes, but here it evokes a picture from long gone summer days: standing in the middle of the big old bush, picking red currants. When the small, fully ripe fruits are rubbed off, one or the other bursts open and spreads its characteristic sweet-sour-sour aroma in the air heated by the sunshine. From time to time a currant leaf is grated and a fresh green tone is added harmoniously.

Only gradually do the spiky, fruity green tones fade away, become softer and now the flower bouquet, which is delicately embedded underneath, also comes to the fore. I can smell tuberose and ylang-ylang when I concentrate my nose on it - and indeed, a peach breeze hovers over it too. And yet, as I described at the beginning, it remains an English garden, in which lilies of the valley and bluestones also bloom, not too neatly, but, like the fantastic English gardens, an incredible mixture of tamed profusion, formal elements and seemingly unintentional disorder.

Just as slowly and consciously pleasurable as the change from the top note to the heart note, it moves very gradually into the base. The most delicate light wood, a hint of vanilla, rounds off the bouquet perfectly towards the end.

I am thrilled with this fragrance - and I am glad that I ordered plenty of samples with my order - because I am almost certain that there are some other beauties to discover.

PS: And once again a (meanwhile a bit more cautious, you know, I think why) thanks to Susan, whose statement made me spontaneously add this royal bouquet to the long planned purchase of the wonderful "Lavender" from the same fragrance house!

My first walk on my last London parfa stalk took me straight to 89 Jermyn Street to the Floris headquarters. Actually only planned as a side trip to spray "Lavender" briefly and take it with you. With classic lavender scents you can not only do almost nothing wrong with me - no, you can also really put me in raptures with them!
All the greater was my disappointment when the nice salesman, when I asked him about lavender scents, presented me all kinds of treasures, but not this simple "lavender". When asked, he said that the fragrance was no longer in the range, but that Floris, for some unknown reason, was still hoarding something in some warehouse - and that they could always be ordered online when they sold out after Christmas.
Only half consoled, I went stante pede to Fortnum & Mason, which is very close by, to console myself over my grief with a bottle of Grossmith's "Sylvan Song". Since then I have been waiting and indeed, after Christmas "Lavender" appeared in the Floris online shop for a ridiculous price and was ordered promptly.
And now I am sitting comfortably in the armchair, which still belongs to my husband's great-grandfather, a really wonderful old-fashioned baroque piece of furniture with curved upholstered mahogany armrests, the backrest framed by an elaborately carved, squiggled wooden frame. Of course with a matching footstool and wonderfully comfortable, as I assure you.
You are probably wondering what such ancient furniture has to do with Floris Lavender. A great deal!
Because the fragrance fits wonderfully well with this piece of furniture: old-fashioned in the best sense of the word, dignified, perfectly crafted, lovingly designed and absolutely timeless. Just as the great-grandfather's armchair is an eye-catcher in the otherwise very modernly furnished room, yet does not appear to be a foreign body or antiquated, but simply IS with all the dignity of its age, so too is Lavender quite naturally simply there, as if it had always floated in this room.
Up to now I would have said that Caldey Island Lavender is the most beautiful lavender scent I know, but now I'm starting to wonder. At the beginning I find the two not dissimilar at all, a crystal clear, transparent light lavender immediately captures me. Not herbaceous-wirey or sharp, but mild, fresh and not soapy at all. But with Floris, there is much more to the wonderful top note. Perhaps a violet with a leaf - or another modest flower. It is a very natural, soulful pleasure, without any synthetic material. In the depths I am able to straighten a little noble wood, which gives lavender a certain substance.

The fragrance does not try at all to pretend to be anything other than what it is. A simple, elegant, withdrawn touch, perhaps a vague reminder of earlier times, when simplicity meant great pleasure and saturation had not yet taken over. A quiet melancholic reverie of days long past.

I sneak around some fragrances for a long time before I start a comment. Often, however, these are exactly those that touch me in a special way and where I am almost bursting with enthusiasm and the need to communicate.
I feel the same way about Private Collection. A blind purchase, I must confess, my meanwhile almost sore ordering finger pushed over the inhibition threshold by the forum topic "Who is your true 'life partner'", which Susan had raised.
A first spraying triggered a lot of associations - especially to several other fragrances. And so I spent the last two days sniffing around with Private Collection on one arm and with Chanel N 19, Fragonard von Fragonard and Diors Diorella (one after the other, of course...). Only when a colleague gave me strange looks in a session that felt endlessly long, because my head was constantly swinging from side to side like a snake, and I was afraid that someone might diagnose me as having mad cow disease, did I get a grip on myself again and decided: "It's time for a comment!
In fact, Private Collection has something in common with all the fragrances mentioned. But the honeysuckle is more lovely and a bit sweeter in Fragonard's work, while in Diorella's work it is overlaid with citric sharpness - especially at the beginning. I was reminded of Chanel N 19 by the green component of the top note - but there it is darker and goes into the mossy woods. Private Collection is a fragrance that truly need not fear all these comparisons. It almost fills me with a little awe, because it is not a simple fragrant water that one sprays in the morning lost in thought and which one simply forgets at some point during the day. No, he keeps reminding himself and seems to challenge me to fathom the secret of his complexity and versatility.
The beginning is a bang in the green. Not delicate, sweet lime green, not moss-covered dark green, not fir green, and not exotic jungle green, but the green of freshly cut stems - Annarosa's comparison with dandelion is actually very apt. Immediately I have a memory of when we used to put together dandelion wreaths as children. The stalk had to be slit with the fingernail to insert the next stalk. For me, a nail-biting, impatient child, not blessed with any special skills - a real challenge, which did not only end once in tantrums and shamefully left flowers - but the bitter smell of dandelion milk and the scratched stems is deeply anchored in my olfactory memory...
The green with which the fragrance greets me has a slight bitterness - and immediately makes a clear statement. This is a mature fragrance and from sweet-sweet miles away. But soon a wonderful white honeysuckle shines in the middle of the harsh green, whose natural scent I have almost fallen for. Until now, Fragonard by Fragonard (besides the old Chevrefeuille by Yves Rocher, which I am certainly not the only one who is mourning!) was my favourite honeysuckle fragrance. Now I have two - the more easily accessible, somewhat more lovely, romantic Fragonard and this radiant and yet somehow also cooler-distant adult honeysuckle, which perfectly combines flower, leaf and later earth and wood. But the icing on the cake for me is a hint of mysterious spice, subtly bitter, which always attracts my attention and gives the fragrance a charming originality - and I almost think I hear a seductive murmur: "Explore me, follow me, let yourself be seduced, lose yourself, maybe you will then discover the secret of my beauty..."

Many thanks to Susan! You make sure that my collection does not get smaller and my account does not get fuller - but my fragrance drawer becomes more diverse and more courageous!

…. Longing for harmony, for indulgence, for sweet dreams. Sometimes I'm tired of standing up for something or opposing something else. Sometimes I want things without corners and edges, without deeper meaning, without ifs and buts.
And so it happens that J'Adore L'Or has moved in with me, although it does not correspond to my other fragrance taste at all. The golden love starts with a fruity-sweet fanfare thrust, a bit like a cross between orange and quince. Little citric peel, much freshly pressed juice of fully ripe, juicy fruits. Sweetness is the deep, heavy sweetness of exotic flowers, where you almost wait for the sticky stamens to drop to the ground like nectar. No less impressive it goes on: a drum roll of jasmine and ylang, uninhibited, full, warm and humid. The rose, no less present, holds against it with opulent spiciness and delicate freshness. And so they, the countless petals, fall into a powdery bed of dark vanilla that dusts softly as clouds and envelops everything.
And yet, with all the abundance of flowers, sweetness and almost shameless opulence that J'adore spreads before me, the fragrance always remains on the side of elegance and eroticism and does not drift off into cheap glitter or open display.

A scent to drop, to beat over the strands, to switch off thinking and just to feel.
Just perfect.

The name "Taklamakan" alone, in combination with the golden, luxurious bottle, creates a picture of fragrance in my imagination. Warm and dry, it will carry with it the mineral smell of sand and perhaps smoke. Is there a well or an oasis nearby? No, that's not what the word sounds like to me, it sounds like vastness, emptiness, sublimity. Perhaps it is a fragrance of the night when the starry sky above the pure desert air shines so brightly on some nights that I can see my own shadow? Or perhaps the djinni I fear in perfumes lives in the bottle after all - namely oud, which I still smell in traces myself and which (so far, but I doubt that this will change) regularly lets me flee.

I'm certainly not the only one who can make out a certain picture of how the content will smell based solely on the name, the bottle or the colour of a fragrance. And Taklamakan fulfils my expectations, plays with them, surpasses them and at the same time leaves the longing for more open. That's the first thing you have to do as a fragrance.
When spraying on I spontaneously think: "resin patchouli" - so not wrong for my fragrance preferences. At the same time, however, there is an immediate hint of freshness and something herbaceous and aromatic that opens the first impression and gives hope for more.

Two fragrances that I have come across so far go in a similar direction for me: Bois d'Arménie by Guerlain and Coromandel by Chanel. And yet the three are fundamentally different. Bois d'Arménie is much woodier, less resinous-aromatic and the freshness hidden in Taklamakan is completely missing here. The desert scent shares the patchouli with Coromandel. At Coromandel it is much more natural and present, earthier, cooler cellar, while Patchouli in Taklamakan is wrapped in a soft coat of sweet resin and vanilla. Maybe that's why Taklamkan is also worth a try for people who aren't real patchouli fetishists. For all who fear oud as much as I do, this is good news. Although in Taklamakan there is hidden something dirty, dark, slightly disturbing, almost animalistic, it is so subliminal, that even for me Animalik-und Oud-Memme it is not too much, but simply wonderful!

The way Patchouli is finely woven in Taklamakan brings me straight to the next point: the sweetness. Here, too, the scent surprises. It is sweet and dry at the same time - or maybe unsweet-vanilla and sweet-aromatic-resinous after all? Depending on what my perception concentrates on, different layers of the scent come to the fore, like a desert wind that brings scents from all directions from far away. Sometimes it's the mineral clash of hot sand that has a characteristic smell that one can almost taste more than smell, made to float by ethereal translucent smoke. The resin of crippled small bushes, which release spicy aromas in the scorching sun, mixes with it and it almost seems to me as if sometimes flowers from the far away oasis could be guessed at.

Now one should think that, after this, as I like to admit, somewhat overflowing hymn of praise Taklamakan immediately ascended with enthusiasm to my new darling, who from now on often accompanies me, my dreamy desert wind. And yet it is not so. For me it is (once again) a fragrance that I admire, but which I don't want to smell of as a person all day long. Then he is too much for me, too present and also too long staying in one phase.
But at the weekend, sprayed on my wrist to take a deep breath while walking, shopping or reading, to dream of the glistening sun, of faraway lands, of unfulfilled desires and of the possibilities that hopefully lie ahead of me: Yes, it's just the scent my heart longs for!