Perfume Review: Lostmarch Lann-Ael

Another Nor'easter have been raging over us, and it looks like we will have a very rainy Christmas and a sleety New Year. This is the kind of weather that makes my organism scream for a day off work, a comfy sofa, a warm blankie, a good book and a glass of red wine ...but as none of these is an option this gloomy Monday, a comfort scent will have to suffice. My latest discovery in this category is Lann-Ael by Lostmarch, with notes of "buckwheat, other cereals, whiffs of milk, apple and vanilla." Lann-Ael, which sounds like an Elvish name, means "angel heath" in Breton. Angelic is quite a fitting word to describe this delicately sweet, velvety soft, "creamy-white" fragrance. So are maternal and child-like, because the gentle milky sweetness of Lann-Ael reminds me of the smell of my mother's skin, of being very small, cuddled in her arms, feeling content and safe...and of the smell of my daughter, of cuddling her, of feeling in possession of absolutely everything I might ever need. (It also smells absolutely adorable on my little one, like her natural smell, enhanced.) Like many great comfort scents, Lann-Ael is quite simple, without much development, with no twists and turns, with no pretention. It starts with a creamy-vanillic accord in which from time to time the dry bready-ness of buckwheat (the very every-day ordinariness of which is, to this Russian, comforting in itself) might be sensed and it ends in the same candied and cozy and enjoyably down-to-earth manner. Those who, like me, find Matin Calin's condensed-milky-ness to be very attractive but rather tiresome in its relentless sweetness, will be delighted with a much more delicate, skin-scent-like Lann-Ael. Lann-Ael is available at lostmarch.fr, €45,00 for 100ml. The painting is Refuge by Laurie Blank, onessimofineart.com.