loewenherz

This is the name of an old Scottish tune, originally written as a lullaby and cradle song. Today, however, the piece is usually performed seriously and with dignity on the bagpipes at the graves of fallen soldiers. During her lifetime, Elizabeth II ordered in the so-called Operation London Bridge (the detailed planning of her funeral) that 'Sleep, Dearie Sleep' should be played at her funeral - legend has it that this was on the recommendation of her personal piper, Major Paul Burns, who was very close to her.

Sleep, Dearie Sleep. There is comfort and sadness in these words - and the end of duty and toil and privation as well as the promise of long awaited rest and tranquillity. And comfort and sadness and rest and peace may have been the inspiration for Hylnds - Isle Ryder, one of those quiet fragrances that D.S. & Durga dedicated ten years ago to the brittle land in the heart of Scotland, on the edge of which lies Balmoral Castle, the summer palace of the British royal family where Elizabeth II died late last summer.

Sleep, my darling, sleep. D.S. & Durga's Isle Ryder quotes much from that quiet Scottish lullaby and mourning song. The brittle, the rough. Sketched out by the burst and dry undergrowth of needles. The unapproachable, rugged. Rendered by a dull, strangely dull green that lacks any freshness and youth. And finally the conciliatory, the calm. Illustrated by a sweetness that is more resin and honey than flowers. And a wounded tenderness - like a rapidly approaching light, yet still suffused with lament and loss.

Isle Ryder is not a difficult fragrance if you don't want to find it difficult. Then it is gray-green-brown and woody, reserved and perhaps a little strange. But if you open yourself up to it, allowing the brittle and rough, the aloof and rugged to come through as well as the conciliatory and sweet - like the notes of those distant bagpipes - then it gives you much more. Dry upland moors and deserted heath. Delicious tranquillity and an unexpectedly soft fund. And the memory of a queen in her beloved castle on the edge of the Highlands.

Conclusion:
'Dearie lie down on your wee pickle straw -
it's not very broad and it's not very braw but
Dearie it's better than nothing at all -
Sleep, Dearie Sleep...'

I sometimes miss the Tom Ford Private Blends of the first generations. I miss how they were conceived and made - and who they were, and the stories they had to tell - which the recent products of the Tom Ford label no longer do. In top, heart and base notes - immediately after application, after an hour and at the end of a long day, these are often completely different fragrances that develop, unfold and blossom. You have to know this, you have to want it - because what the top note promises is often nothing more than a hunch and a promise, followed by a journey that can be challenging, sometimes difficult - but offers much more than 'just' Chamber Note A.

The newer Private Blends - the iconic bottle shape has remained, but their colors are now strangely different, sometimes garish - no longer tell such stories, at least not with the dramaturgy and depth of their predecessors. The fragrances are still quite beautiful and not unsoundly crafted, but comparatively monochrome and one-dimensional - and there are far too many ®s where there used to be none. I know, the naïve idea of Bedouins wrapped in cloth collecting resin in silver vessels under the light of a pale desert moon is just that - naïve. But when everything just looks like ®s put together by artificial intelligence, I miss something. Very much.

Myrrhe Mystère is myrrh through and through. You can argue about 'Mystère'. It is a thoroughly appealing, yet monothematic resin and desert scent, medium in volume and range. It is made of loud ®s, where I would have liked dark myrrh and oily woods - just more than just chamber note A. Myrrhe Mystère promises something that it is not able to deliver: where 'exciting' is promised and then only 'solid craftsmanship' comes, a vague feeling of disappointment will always remain. Because Tom Ford can do Orient, can do desert, can do Mystère - he proved it in Sahara Noir and Vert d'Encens. Estée Lauder can - apparently and unfortunately - not.

Conclusion: a 7 in my nose, maybe a 7.5. That's decent, and I mean it. But a desert fragrance from Ford has to be a 9, at least! Hence, as Judy Garland sang so incomparably and so unforgettably in 'The man that got away':
'No more his eager call, the writings on the wall,
the dreams you dreamed have all gone astray...'

When the wonderful Bolognese songwriter Lucio Dalla wrote his ode to perhaps the most famous tenor in music history in 1986, he probably had no idea that he had created a worldwide hit. 'Caruso' tells of his last days in Sorrento - when he probably felt his end approaching - and of his wistful farewell to everything. In Neapolitan - Enrico Caruso was Neapolitan and remained so throughout his life - it says: 'Te voglio bene assaje, ma tanto tanto bene saje! Very, very much, you know that! To this day, the homage to the tenor of the century is one of the best-known Italian songs of all time.

Dalla intoned 'Caruso' with the same dramatic, woolly melodiousness and pain as Enrico Caruso sang Verdi's Radames and Leoncavallo's Canio - it is one of those songs that cannot be sung without this fist-bumping, eyes-to-the-sky attitude. Everyone - and there are quite a few - who has covered the song since - including Luciano Pavarotti, Julio Iglesias, Josh Groban, Al Bano Carrisi, Jonas Kaufmann and even Celine Dion - has known this. 'Caruso' needs to be howled to tell its story and reach the heart the way Lucio Dalla once did. not everyone can sing 'Caruso'.

Drakkar Noir is French and not Italian, but he has that dramatic, fist-bumping, eyes-to-the-sky quality, just like Dalla's epochal song, today more than ever. Drakkar Noir wants to be consciously chosen, consciously worn - by someone who wants to show off and wear all of this - the macho, the barber, the 80s. Then he is loud and confident, then he shows everything he can: Fougère, juniper, oakmoss. Tiled men's shower after the game (including extra time) and dark forest rut and engine oil. Fine ribs and nowhere shaved and proud of it. Yowling and wounded. Pure drama.

Conclusion: not everyone can wear it. Especially not today. Still beautiful when worn correctly. Like Lucio Dallas' immortal song.

The worst thing, I once heard a wise person state, about growing old is the loss of friends. When those are gone who knew us when we were other than we are today, who can still bear witness to our lives and our defeats and victories, then we feel truly alone. When those are gone who have always been with us.

We need this. With people as with things, certainly including perfumes. It's fun to get to know new things and try out whether they can fit into our lives, perhaps make them more beautiful and richer. But we also need the ones we've always had. For those moments when it's more about remembering than dreaming. Such as Youth-Dew.

Youth-Dew is arguably the archetype of women's fragrance today - with a certain lack of empathy towards its lovers - now referred to as an 'old fragrance'. Perfume users who grew up with La Vie est Belle and with 1 Million may find it disturbing - after all, it tells of a time when perfumes were made so completely differently. Youth-Dew is an opulent floral oriental that roars over the sweet waters of the present like a thunderstorm, weighty, powerful, passionate. It plays virtuously on the keyboard of sepia-toned alto tones that were once girl tones seventy years ago and are now so much more woman than girl. In my commentary on the Eau de Parfum, I called him 'stunner'. That's what he is and yet also much more: memory and melancholy - and under the ashes of his years hot, red, never extinguished embers.

Conclusion: soon the last ones who were young with him will go. And while he may be the fragrance of bygone days from the present point of view, he still exists - and still celebrates life. Celebrates strength, sensuality and femininity. It made Estée Lauder - the ambitious and enterprising daughter of Eastern European immigrants from New York City, and later her company - famous, and the kitchen in which she mixed the first ointments a global corporation. But there are still those who can bear witness to his path, who were once young like him. Let's celebrate them.

For a few years I have been observing - less intentionally than incidentally and mainly in the social media, but actually quite 'in real' - a phenomenon that I call 'the Westwing apartment'. Possibly I make myself now a bit unpopular, but no matter.

The 'Westwing apartment' is essentially beige and white, occasionally broken up by a cheeky gray. It can be in the old or in the new building, and its inhabitant:inside is according to own statement totally important to express their 'Personality'. They like to choose a style that they describe with adjectives like 'skandi', 'japandi', 'boho' or - very important! - 'minimalist' to describe it. An off-white sofa, imitation Wishbone chairs, coffee table books by Tom Ford or Chanel and something DIYtes as texture paste or concrete - and the bower is ready. The online retailer Westwing sells this style from the retort, which in my humble opinion has as much personality as - well.

It is especially nice when the Westwing apartment has children's rooms. They are then just as cheerful monochrome beige as the rest of the apartment, because the Influencer mommy would not bear it any other way. There are even unicorns in beige - that's sad, isn't it? Now I don't have any of my own, but none of the kids in my circle of friends and acquaintances who got to choose the color of their own room chose beige. I would never suggest that children in these 'all beige sad children's rooms' are any less happy than those in rooms where you think you are going blind with glitter and with color. But the so-called 'personhood' in these rooms is not that of the child who lives here.

Cute accessories may nevertheless not be missing - a touch of color is allowed - and Hermès' convertible is ideal, because high-quality and discreet - and the bottle is made really lovely. The fragrance is pleasant and unobtrusive and in its essence delicate and beige as it should be. Fleeting and weightless and warm - a hint of flower and foliage, some blonde wood - and yet better on the wrist of the influencer mommy after the goodnight kiss than on any part of the child's body (in cheerful white-blue from Jacadi or Petit Bateau). Cabriole is a really nice scent - in the very best sense - as peaceful as a nap and as gentle as a kiss on the head. And also deliciously beige.

Conclusion: now I'm going to rinse my mouth with soap.