Valrahmeh

You can collect old furniture or pictures, but only a scent manages to jump up your nose in such a way that you are blown back 100, 50 or 30 years on the spot. L'interdit is such a fragrance. You spray it on and you turn into Jackie Kennedy with a pink costume and pillbox hat. Or into Audrey Hepburn with pointy high heels and a flowing cocktail dress. Or in Grace Kelly with a brown raglan coat and a turban hat.
L'Interdit is totally retro, as if it had been frozen in 1960 and suddenly brought out like old wine. Because of the aldehydes, it looks like Chanel No. 5 at first glance, but then it is slowed down by the jasmine, which interferes and gives it that 60's look.
I bought this stuff because I'm hopelessly nostalgic, I don't even like it much. But sometimes, when I feel like having a jasmine tea with Jacky, Audrey and Grace, I spray myself with it

My number 22, my support, my rod, my spine. It's clean, it's perfect, it's Ariadne's thread that leads me out of the darkness of the cave, once I've talked my way in. In the conference room with lots of suits, I take a draught from my silk scarf, thank God, it is always there, my 22, don't leave me. "Don't be intimidated", whispers my 22, "my aldehydes are with you, don't worry, as long as I'm here nothing will happen to you". All good, all done, compliments, mate, perfect. Thank you my 22...
Number 22 is the soapy, clean variant of number 5, a highly revved-up aldehyde mixture, elegance just before tipping over, an olfactory tightrope walk, nothing more is possible. A thousand times polished, a thousand times tasted. That's it, that's perfect. Change one little thing, and this tower of aldehydes would collapse. But it holds and holds. And me with it.

Perfume is like food. Anyone who thinks eel in jelly is the biggest and most expensive thing the kitchen has to offer will not do you any favours by inviting them to Anne-Sophie Pic's three-star restaurant in Valence. The person in question would not only not understand the menu, but would also not like the food.
If you think "La Vie est belle" is the greatest thing the perfume market has to offer, Iris Silver Mist is not for you. Because this iris scent of all iris scents, this stone-dry brew of root sap and earth, of silver dust and ice water, of fog wall and castle dungeon, is only suitable for advanced perfume connoisseurs. Grandiose, poetic, the only perfume that fits the reading of Marcel Proust and Baudelaire. Or the Marquis de Sade. Indecent, sometimes annoying, but of a high standard. The best you can do with Iris.
But you should not wear it when you are travelling with eels in jelly. And that is almost always the case. I have my "cloche" from the Palais Royal at home to look at. From time to time I take a few drops. More is not possible

The first impression of Mugler's Poison Tincture: It blows me away into a forest of man-eating woodruff bushes mutated into giant slinky plants. Kind of weird, a bit trashy and intrusive , but also something new. I think with the green-poisonous glowing bottle, the message is clear: I bite my nose like a green mamba.
Still, the stuff is intriguing and finally not on the track of the hackneyed lavieestbelleblackopiumpetiterobenoire fragrances. I think Aura has what it takes to be a trendsetter, because the market is crying out for green forest and witch scents, believe it.
I've always wondered why this track wasn't followed up after the hugely successful first Lolita Lempicka. A French witch scent, Eau de Sourcellerie is also a vicious herbal broth, right on that wavelength. So come on sisters, get your brooms out, but don't forget to mist yourself with Aura first!