Jo Malone Tea Collection

By Mackenzie Reilly I’ve been hooked on perfume ever since my mother let me wear a drop of her Shalimar on my wrists. I was five and fell in love with the story behind the fragrance, named for a garden in Lahore, India – built as an ode of love from an emperor to his wife. I am most passionate about the stories behind the scents, their histories, memories, evocative abilities and cultural implications. I am fascinated by the concept of fragrance design as architecture, the truth and scientific clarity of fragrance chemistry, and the olfactory mysteries that the world has yet to solve. I come from an academic background in olfactive anthropology, and earned my bachelors studying the use of scent in various tribes throughout Africa, gaining a unique perspective on the cultural and osmological role of fragrance around the world. My favorite perfume is Dzing! by l’Artisan Parfumeur. ___________ www.joysocietea.com The cultivation and consumption of tea is a cross cultural-global phenomenon, its presence traced back thousands of years to China. Today, cultures worldwide are known for varying and often elaborate tea customs, like the Japanese who are known for their formal tea ceremonies, rich with ritual and heritage. Moroccans take their tea green with mint leaves and sugar, while India’s teapots are full of Masala Chai and intoxicating jasmine. On the Kohs of Thailand you’ll find tea with condensed milk and an unparalleled syrupy sweetness, and in Nepal and Tibet, tea is served with yak butter and salt. Americans tend to enjoy their tea iced and heavily sweetened, while the Turkish favor black tea with beet sugar. www.flickr.com It’s not surprising then, that following water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. The English are among the world’s top tea drinkers, where the beverage functions as an integrative part of British culture- one that has inspired the new limited edition cologne collection from celebrated fragrance house Jo Malone. High Tea at the Palm Court. Photo © The Ritz London. This five-scent tea collection serves as the perfect compliment to Jo Malone’s creative philosophy of fragrance layering – a way to customize your scent by determining pairings and ratios, allowing you to develop a signature scent or try a different combination every day. As fragrance is experienced aromatically, it is fragrance before taste. These teas, developed by perfumer Christine Nagel, are Assam & Grapefruit, Earl Grey and Cucumber, and Fresh Mint Leaf, as well as Sweet Milk and Sweet Lemon. www.jomalone.co.uk The tea-infused fragrance is certainly not a new idea (Bvlgari, l’Artisan Parfumeur, and Hermes among the obvious pioneers), but it has never been done like this before. Each of Jo Malone’s tea scents is sheer enough to benefit from the addition of another, though complex enough to be enjoyed on its own. Assam and Grapefruit: This has the strongest “tea” note, smelling vividly of black tea leaves with a bit of an aldehydic soapiness to it that is indolic yet still clean. The grapefruit here is more vivid on blotter than on my skin, but I love the idea of an effervescent citrus to balance out the malty Assam. For this reason the Sweet Lemon is a perfect compliment to this fragrance. A muted patchouli emerges in the base, with a damp, musty quality reminiscent of wet stone. Earl Grey and Cucumber: The trademark, signifying note of Earl Grey, bergamot, shines through a watery cucumber, conjuring up images of afternoon tea in London, with bright, aromatic Earl Grey tea and dainty cucumber finger sandwiches. A musky vanilla appears at the end to round out the fragrance into a smooth finish. Fresh Mint Leaf: I am a big fan of mint tea, putting freshly picked mint into a French press, pouring boiling water over the bright green, serrated leaves... the way they pour steaming mint tea over sugar at the souks in Marrakech... the way the steam rises to clear your sinuses, and opens your chest. This is the only tisane, or herbal tea, in the collection and, in my opinion is best on its own. A masculine blend of cedar and basil add some strength to an otherwise transparent scent. Refreshing at it’s core, this is almost aroma-therapeutic – nice both in the morning, or as a calming element before bed. Sweet Milk: This is my favorite of the collection - with creamy, milky lactones and a sweetness that recalls pure, white sugar in such a literal way it’s almost unusual. Sweet Milk hits a nostalgic note with me, reminding me vividly of the very simple, but perfect breakfast of oatmeal, milk and sugar that my mother made me when I was small. Sweet Milk is also a bit like Indian kheer - creamy, cold rice pudding dosed with sugar and cardamom. With a somewhat rice-y quality to it, the fragrance provides a pleasantly satiating feeling all the way to your core and has excellent staying power. This is a fragrance that blends into the skin seamlessly, the way a musk might. I imagine this soothing scent on warm skin on a sleepy Sunday morning, tangled in clean white sheets. Sweet Lemon: This is my second favorite to Sweet Milk. Perfect for the summer and a beautiful addition to Assam and Grapefruit, the citruses complimenting each other creating a spectrum of lush, tangy summer fruits. The sweet lemon, though, gains its sweetness from a fairly assertive pineapple note - one that actually overpowers the lemon. Alongside the pineapple, contributing to the fragrance’s bright quality, is a juicy peach and fresh, dewy freesia. …and if this doesn’t satisfy your tea cravings, British tea company Tetley has even come out with a scent cheekily called “Le Brew.” www.dailymail.co.uk

Sweet Milk for the Soul. Perfume Review

Gale warning hail warning Sky sifts high drifts Finding bright blinding white Snowball snowfall Moonscape snowscape Frostbite dost bite Rococo swirls hot cocoa curls Icy glove spicy love Huddle in cuddle in Rock salt clocks halt. Blizzard by Barbara Reiher-Meyers This winter has been formidable. Blizzard after nor'easter after snowpocalypse put me in dire need of comfort. Nesting with the family in a snowed in house is the best kind, especially when one has a warm, cuddly little person to snuggle with...(Although that little one is partly what made this winter so challenging. A blizzard has nothing on a helpless baby in terms of causing havoc.)... A good book comes as a fairly close second on the scale of comfort (Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale suits my mood perfectly). As far as comfort perfumes go, goodness knows I have many. From armor-like green ones to serenity-now incense ones to good old-fashioned vanillas. But I wanted something else, something softer than soft, not too sweet but still delicious, something milky...I've done a post on milk in perfume before, and not much has changed since then in terms of the number of properly-milky fragrances to choose from. It's same old, same old and a little too sweet Matin Calin, Lann-Ael with just a tad too much apple and...well, that's it really. This year, Jo Malone added one more to this short list. Sweet Milk, the charming little number from the Tea Collection came just in time to satisfy my craving, and let me tell you, it hit the spot. As Goldilocks would say, it was Just Right. Very delicate, silky-smooth, soft as a feather, moderately sweet...I was apprehensive about anise, a note I am not comfortable with ordinarily, but it works well here. The piquancy of it blends right into the lactonic fluffiness, making the scent not as monotone as it could have been without it. Food-wise, I would liken Sweet Milk to a very, very thin rice pudding, spiced by a tiny pinch of anise. Mmmm.... Do not expect from this very straightforward blend it a new word in perfumery. It is a simple pleasure, and those are such exactly because they seem familiar. It is also not a powerhouse of a fragrance, but in this case I appreciate and prefer subtlety. A strong perfume of this nature, a seemingly one-note, gourmand kind, becomes bothersome after a while, too cloying, too samey. The sheer quality of Sweet Milk therefore was one of its pluses for me. Overall I think that to do a gourmand with a light hand is quite an achievement and, compared to, for example, Guerlain's Elixirs Charnel by the same perfumer, showcases the versatility of the talent of Christine Nagel, the author of Sweet Milk. So what comforted you this winter? Any particularly cuddly fragrances that you discovered? Read any good books lately? Do tell! Available along with other four scents in this limited edition collection, wherever Jo Malone is sold, $55 for 30ml...and for once I wish it came in a 200ml bottle. Image, my own.

Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint: Cooling Down the Hot Stuff

By Donna I adore jasmine perfumes, but you won't find me wearing a sexy bombshell like A La Nuit in public very frequently; this is a perfume ingredient that just gets bigger and bigger on my skin until I feel as though there is a cloud of it around me, entwining itself around everyone within reach. Unfortunately other people are not always fans of strong florals, but I have found ways to sneak them into my life without causing undue alarm to those close to me. My first Jo Malone fragrance was Vintage Gardenia, which combine the indolent florals with bracing cardamom and incense to make it the only gardenia scent I can wear to the office. Now I have discovered another under-the-radar white floral from this house that works for me, White Jasmine & Mint. I had tried this 2007 release several times in the store, but I was a bit leery of the mint part. I do not normally wear anything with mint in the list of notes unless it's a light cologne with other herbal essences in it; I don't want to smell like toothpaste. However, I was intrigued by the idea of this fragrance and decided to take it for a test drive to see if it would work. I do like the unusual juxtapositions and contrasts in the Jo Malone line. They seem to have a color wheel theory of perfumery, where the main notes are balanced out by things that are the opposite of each other; not only the Vintage Gardenia but Amber & Lavender, Sweet Lime & Cedar, Wild Fig & Cassis. Jasmine and mint is certainly in this category of perfume notes, and at first it's a little bit strange and dissonant but that part doesn't last very long. The mint part is not at all reminiscent of personal care products, but rather a pleasingly grass-green and freshly cut burst that subsides after about fifteen minutes but never quite goes away. Once it has settled down it's not really all that minty, just something to keep the jasmine reined in and behaving itself. Now, no one loves a properly indolic jasmine more than I do, and I do own some pretty knockout perfumes, but for a “family-friendly” jasmine this is hard to beat. The floral notes also include lily, orange flower and rose which combine to remind me somewhat of another tender white floral that I really love, L'Artisan's La Haie Fleurie du Hameau. White Jasmine and Mint is not as wistful as that, but it is soft and pretty and it blooms on my skin just enough so that I know I am definitely smelling jasmine. All the Jo Malones are called “colognes” but they are really Eau de Toilette (strength except for the house's “signature” scent called 154, an Eau de Parfum) and they can be surprisingly tenacious for something so sheer. This one keeps going all day on me, but I am not too surprised since white florals do the Vulcan mind meld on my skin anyway. I would feel perfectly confident wearing it in close quarters as long as I don't overdo it on application. It's definitely a floral scent for people who like to smell like the actual flowers instead of a more abstract effect, but in my opinion, if you are going to smell “literal” it may as well be of jasmine. Jo Malone fragrances are available from their web site or at better department stores such as Nordstrom. $55 for a 30 ml spray is reasonable, and Jo Malone was one of the first perfume houses to offer everything in the line in a smaller size, something which I appreciate. This one is especially nice in the body crème, shower gel or foaming bath oil formulations, which really bring out the softness of the floral heart. Image credit: White Jasmine & Mint promotional photo via jomalone.com

Jo Malone Vanilla & Anise: Perfume Review

Let me start with a question: before the creation of the aqueous pastel wonder that is Vanille Galante, has there existed a transparent vanilla perfume? I went through the list of oh so many vanillas, and couldn't come up with another name, except for the new Jo Malone fragrance. Perhaps it is simply the first of some more (hopefully not a thousand) scents, which surely have been launched by the sheer, watery beauty of the last Hermenessence. "Transparent vanilla" is a genre I apparently enjoy. It is especially in the first stage that Vanilla & Anise seems to have been inspired by Jean-Claude Ellena's take on vanille. Something in the citrusy-spicy-fresh accord in the top notes has almost a melon-like effect, to me. A spicy melon effect, to be exact. The Malone creation is somewhat sharper then the Hermessence, and, despite "Vanilla" in the name, seemingly more unisex, at first anyway. As it develops, the scent acquires more substance. Vanilla, tuberose and frangipani in the heart of the composition gives it a certian creaminess, a hint of flesh under the gauzy veil of top notes. Still, this tropical-sounding mix is not what I'd call voluptuous. The spicy characteristic from the start of the fragrance returns in the base, with cloves, and so does the sharp-dry unisex feel, with vetiver. This is an interesting scent, refreshing yet vaguely gourmand, at times obviously feminine, at other times almost masculine. There is something off-kilter in it, as if the balance of freshness and sweetness, of creaminess and spiciness haven't been gotten quite right, but oddly, this slight, quirky imperfection of the blend is what I enjoy about it. Available wherever Jo Malone products are sold, $55.00-$100.00. Image source, jomalone.com

Lotus Blossom & Water Lily and Dark Amber & Ginger Lily: The Kohdo Wood Collection by Jo Malone

The Kohdo Wood limited edition collection made a brief appearance in 2008 and has been re-introduced again this year. I managed to miss it last time, so I cannot compare the fragrances, but I assume they were not reformulated. The fragrances are homage to Kohdo, "the ancient Japanese art of incense appreciation". Both, therefore, have a resinous undertone, however, lovers of hardcore incensey incense should not expect to get their fix here. Incense is fairly subtle in both perfumes (stronger in Dark Amber) and serves more as a balancing tool. In the case of Lotus Blossom & Water Lily it balances the fresh wateriness of the floral accord keeping it from becoming too aquatic and too transparent. It gives body to the ethereal composition and infuses it with a hint of darkness. I wrote before that I am in a mood for fresh floral fragrances right now, and LB&WL is exactly what I am in a mood for. The scent is a sip of cold water on a hot day. It is a gauze of pure-white, fragile petals...I could go on. I love it. Jo Malone copy warns about "aquatic nuances", but, even though present, the watery element is not agressive. It is, moreover, a necessary and attractive part of the composition. That wateriness is what evokes an image of lotus and lily, what gives the scent its transluscency and what contrasts so beautifully with the darkness of incense. Sometimes ,the scent is completely dry, cold and "pure" on my skin, sometimes ,the sweetness of freesia, mandarin and lily is more apparent. I love it more when it is coldly innocent. Dark Amber & Ginger Lily is indeed a dark(er) scent. The black angel to the snow-white one of Lotus Blossom. It is sweeter, more full-bodied, a sensual, languid fragrance. It starts with a hit of pepper and ginger, which simultaneously announces both incense (which, to me, has a very obvious peppery undertone) and lily. The floral accord, which includes rose and jasmine, is ripe and candied and brings out both the balsamic sweetness of amber and the heady honey-like quality of ginger lily. Were there no incense to keep it in check, it could have been too sweet. As it is, every ingredient in the composition makes sense in regards to every other ingredients, everything is in there for a reason; I love it when a scent is so well-blended. I don't want to scare anyone off by repeatedly using the word "sweet". DA&GL is indeed sweet, but it is Jo Malone sweet, as in - still rather transparent. To bring down the sweetness, layering with Lotus Blossom works wonders. Both are available for a limited time at Jo Malone boutiques, Bergdorf Goodman, etc., $55.00-$100.00. The collection also includes bath oil and candle in both fragrances.

Weekend Beauty - Bath & Body: Jo Malone Sweet Lime & Cedar Body Cream and Shower Gel

Here is a shameful confession for you: I am too lazy to moisturize. I wait until my already dry skin becomes totally parched, go through a week of panicked use of body creams and lotions, get some kind of result and lapse into laziness again. It is just too much effort! (I wish I somebody would do it for me, why am I not Cleopatra?) There are times, however, when I get so enamored with a scent of a product that I use it regularly and it doesn't feel like an effort. Never has been my skin more smooth and moisturized than when I had Amouage Gold Body Cream. What gorgeous, rich fragrance, so very similar to actual perfume, what luxurious texture...but I digress. This is about my newest obsession, Jo Malone's Sweet Lime & Cedar bath and body collection. The cologne, released last year, although lovely, was a tad too harsh for me. I never thought I would say it, but it was too woody. I fact, it was borderline too masculine on my skin, and you know that I wear masculine scents! And it was a shame really, because I was very attracted to the Thai overtones and adored the notes of cardamom, tamarind and coconut that made the citrusy composition that much more interesting. If by any chance you had the same issue with the cologne, get the cream. It has none of the arid woodiness of the former and, altough it retains the overall dry quality of the blend, is a touch sweeter and "creamier"-smelling. The coconut is more pronounced as is cardamom. Combined with lime, the effect the notes produce is mouthwatering. This is a creamy, dreamy exotic drink of a fragrance, refreshing more so than sweet. I will need a whole lot of this cream for warm weather to wear in lieu of a perfume (or under perfume, see below). The texture of the cream answers all my requirements: it is non-greasy, non-sticky and absorbs very fast. The matching shower gel smells a little bit more citrusy, brighter somehow, to my nose, which is a good thing, as it would be perfect to wake me up in the morning. There also exists, in the collection, a dry body oil, but that would be too much for the lazy me. I will leave that for when I am Cleopatra. Jo Malone advises to layer Sweet Lime & Cedar products with their Nutmeg & Ginger, which, I imagine, would do wonders to bring out the sweet piquancy of the notes. It would also go well with any citrusy or citrusy-, fresh-floral fragrance. For example, the fragrance of the cream compliments perfectly my beloved Puredistance. It also gets on like a house on fire with Malone's Dark Ambre & Ginger Lily, enhancing the spicy quaity of the latter and making the perfume a little less sweet. More on Kohdo Wood colognes tomorrow. Sweet Lime & Cedar collection is available at Jo Malone, $75.00 for 175ml of body cream, $50.00 for 250ml of shower gel.

Jo Malone Black Vetyver Café: Perfume Review

By Beth The other day I had a completely delightful experience when my darling “second son” Zach and I went shopping for fragrance! Zach is my son Alex’s closest friend and they are as different as can be, but they share a bond that goes back at least 16 of my sons 21 years. When I say that they are different, I really mean it as they are truly like night and day. Zach is a uber conservative economics student living in Baltimore and attending Johns Hopkins and Alex is a totally liberal environmentalist living in Southern California whose lifelong dream is to go to the Scripps School of Oceanography and work with Paul Watson on a Sea Shepherd mission afterwards having an eco pirate tattoo emblazoned on his forearm . They love each other passionately and argue incessantly about everything . To site examples, my son’s idea of a shopping excursion is a quick trip to the Gap with a short stop at Next, for some fashionable hemp tennis topsiders while Zach adores Brooks Brothers and has his shirts custom made in Beijing. Alex’s idea of a wonderful vacation is 2 months of Scuba diving in Central America with rarely a shower and only then with Dr. Bronner’s Almond soap. Zach loves a more formal excursion, of course preferring Paris and Prague and only staying in hotels that offer incredible cuisine. Alex is mostly vegetarian whose favorite gourmet meal is Chipotle, whom he will support because everything they use “is free range mother!” He loves my cooking but has no tolerance for long-winded foodie conversation as it takes to much time away from Ultimate Frisbee! Alex wears Burberry’s London, a fragrance that smells absolutely wonderful on him (a bit like a balsam forest) but as of last week Zach hadn’t found a fragrance that suited his disarmingly metrosexual attitude. Alex and his father left last Thursday to embark on a 4 day journey across 8 states with all of our belongings in a large truck , leaving me with a lot of extra time on my hands. I called Zach to see if he’d like to spend a day engaging in some mindless after holiday sale shopping. Of course he said yes and after a delicious breakfast of Eggs Benedict and some wonderful conversation we found our way to the mall. Let me tell you, if you really want to have some fun take a favorite 19 year male fragrance shopping! We started at Sephora , sniffing and laughing and he actually took the process very seriously. We tripped through the Chanel’s, the Givenchy’s and the Guerlain’s. We sprayed the Hermes, tried the Aveda’s (way too organic for him!) but sadly nothing tripped his fancy. We went to Nordstroms, dallied through Dillards and eventually ended up at Saks 5th Avenue. I walked over to the Jo Malone counter to get a whiff of my favorite French Lime Blossom, which is what I adore wearing in Cleveland when the temperature dips below 20 degrees and suddenly it happened. Zach was intrigued. At first I thought that it was the array of gorgeous bottles beckoning with scent sticks but upon further inspection it was the darling blonde sales associate who had caught his eye. She came over to greet us with a sweet smile and inquired as to our reason for being there. I told her that we’d come on a mission, to find Zach a scent that he’d love to wear at school. From then on it was easy. She proffered him with scent strips, stood very close to him and discussed each fragrance with him looking soulfully into his eyes. Nothing was working until she picked up the Black Vetyver Café. With a flourish, she sprayed some on his wrist, gently reached for the aforementioned wrist , and blew lustfully upon it practically fluttering her eyelashes on his skin. Did I mention that Zach really is quite cute. It was absolutely hysterical watching my very sophisticated son practically falling onto his knees with pleasure. “Hmmm, she proclaimed, this is incredible “ and it was. The combination of coffee, black vetiver and temple incense suited him perfectly and blended beautifully with his skin scent leaving a note of burn’t caramel along with the spice. I bought it for him, feeling very pleased that we’d accomplished what I’d thought might be a difficult feat. He loves it and I must admit that it hadn’t been a scent that had done much for me in the past. I guess that I’ll never truly know if it was the cologne that beguiled or the lovely winsome creature that was kissing his wrist, a perfectly hysterical conclusion to an absolutely fabulous day ! Like all Jo Malone fragrances Black Vetyver Café’ can be layered. Mixed with the Wild Fig and Cassis , it is wonderful, but I’ve enjoyed layering it on my husband with a simple Kiehls 1921 musk which smells absolutely decadent on him, but trust me, the little wrist trick helps too:)

Citruses that pack a punch: Parfums Delrae Eau Illuminee and Jo Malone Grapefruit

This has been a cruel, cruel summer and not just because of the heat. It forced me to turn at night to hardcore comfort scents like Habanita, Fahrenheit, Tabac Blond, Coromandel and L'Ombre Fauve. To cope with the days, noli me tangere kinds of scents are required, cool, collected, poker-faced, the ones that would put an icy sort of armor around me. I needed very cold, very dry citruses, kick-ass citruses that would help me "walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer." I found them in Delrae's Eau Illuminee and Jo Malone's Grapefruit. Eau Illuminee was love born out of acute need for icy protection that I described above. Before this summer hit me like a ton of hot bricks, I actually found this sharp fragrance rather disagreeable. These days, I consider its blend of bergamot, basil and lavender to be my holy water. Very urbane, very sophisticated, very modern, Eau Illuminee is the most unlikely magical potion one can think of, but the fact remains that when I wear this chilly concoction, I feel protected, calm, confident and a little dangerous. I also want to note for the benefit of those who, like me, might have never given the scent enough time to develop on their skin, because they were put off by the aggressively fresh, uncompromisingly dry beginning, that the composition warms up somewhat, when the notes of tonka and vanilla appear in the base. Jo Malone's Grapefruit is another recent addition to my fragrance wardrobe. It is brisk, dry and cold. A citrus with attitude. The latter manifests in the form of slight spiciness that compliments very well the resolutely non-sweet, punch-packing tanginess of grapefruits. The earthy vetiver in the base plants the fragrance's feet, so to say, firmly on the ground, making Grapefruit a no-nonsense ally during dramatic times. When I feel, like Kissinger, that there cannot be a crisis next week because my schedule is already full, I turn to Grapefruit. Eau Illuminee can be found at luckyscent.com, $135.00. Grapefruit is available at jomalone.com, $50.00-$95.00. Image source, krasivoefoto.ru.

The Lightness of the Dark: Pomegranate Noir by Jo Malone

New Jo Malone scent is described as a fruity composition with notes of raspberry, plum and pink pepper, combined with patchouli, frankincense and spicy woods. Some of these notes sounded very appealing to me, some of them made me hesitant to try it (yes, I am referring to you, patchouli). Good news for people like me, the fruity- and /or patchouli-shy, no need to worry…Bad news…there are no bad news apart from the fact that I will need a full bottle of Pomegranate Noir and soon. Pomegranate noir starts as a burst of a plum note on my skin. Almost instantly the notes merge to evoke what I perceive to be a dry, almost leathery scent of pomegranate skin. This is a fruity scent at this point, but in the driest, most abstract sense of the word. After a while the pepper note becomes more obvious to my nose. For those familiar with IUNX Burning Water or Comme des Garcons Harissa, this pepper kick is somewhat reminiscent of the “feel” of those two scents to me. Both of these stages are wonderful, but the third one is my favorite, this is where the promised frankincense (very light) and woods (I think it is mostly cedar, but I may be mistaken) are most prominent. Patchouli is simply absent on my skin; I am sure it plays an important role in the composition, adding the dark depth to it, but it does so very discreetly. I love the way the fragrance keeps developing, each stage smoothly extending into the next. I also admire the fact that the top notes never disappear completely, that incredible dark, somewhat astringent, almost leathery “pomegranate skin note” is perceivable till the very end. Unlike so many other Jo Malone scents, Pomegranate Noir is long-lasting on my skin; I can still smell it six hours after application. I cannot really compare Pomegranate Noir to any other scent out there, apart from the middle stage reminding me of Harissa and Burning Water, but even then the similarity is not so much about the notes as about a certain ethos shared by the three scents. Having said that, there is something incredibly familiar in Pomegranate Noir, especially in the drydown, a note that reminded me about happy poignant days of my past, and I don’t know what that note is. In any case, there is something in Pomegranate Noir that made me react to it in the most visceral way. In his article, The Unbearable Lightness of Scent, Chandler Burr describes Pomegranate Noir as a massless scent and very deservedly titles Jo Malone as a queen of light. Burr perceives her new perfume to be “the scent of the darkness that inhabits the corners of paintings by the Dutch masters. Think of Rubens’s self-portrait. The rich, luscious dark that surrounds the illuminated head, the bright white collar floating in the warm blackness. Rubens’s dark is not the cold heaviness of the void. It is the deep warmth of all that is there, but is simply unseen.” Pomegranate Noir is definitely a dark scent, however, in my opinion, this is not a deep, warm and impenetrable darkness of Rubens and Rembrandt, the dark here is weightless, transparent. Aubrey Beardlsey’s black-and-white ink drawings immediately come to my mind when I smell Pomegranate Noir. To me, this is a smell of twilight, of that place between sleep and awake, memory and oblivion, where you can still remember your dreams before they dissolve in the morning light. Pomegranate Noir will hit the stores in October, at the moment it seems to be already available at Neiman Marcus Online, $50.00 for 30ml, $85.00 for 100ml. * The picture of Pomegranate Noir comes from Neiman Marcus Online. * The painting is The Woman in the Moon, 1893, by Aubrey Beardsley, Fogg Art Museum

Coffee Scents: A Story with a Happy Ending

Contender No. 1. Hippie Latte: Comme des Garcons Series 7: Sweet – Wood Coffee Notes: cardamom, liquorice, chinese ginger, almond, coffee essence, wood, indonesian patchouli, vanilla. Wood Coffee was the first coffee scent I tried, and, it being Comme des Garcons, I expected something striking. Alas, I was disappointed. I did not encounter much wood, and even though there was plenty of coffee, it was not the coffee of the Turkish proverb, "black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." Rather, Wood Coffee is a diluted, cold latte and I don't mean intentionally cold as in some fancy Starbucks creation, but rather as in “forgotten in a mug and gone cold and stale”. To make the matters worse, in the drydown, patchouli reared its ugly head demoting Wood Coffee from the status of unremarkable to almost unwearable. Contender No. 2. Politically Correct: Jo Malone – Black Vetyver Café Notes: coffee, vetiver, temple incense and sequoia. Black Vetyver Café was allegedly born from Jo Malone’s passion to create the perfect coffee note. I have a passion to find a perfect coffee scent, so there seemed to be a great chance that I would love this. And I don’t dislike it, but…as Ernest Hemingway said, “But did thee feel the earth move?” I did not. This is a big improvement on the stale, cold, patchouli leaden Wood Coffe. However, if, like me, you a crave a rich, dark, sensual coffee scent, this is not it. Black Vetyver cafe is a very neutral fragrance, civilized, elegant, appropriate anywhere...It is very wearable and actually even full-bottle worthy for me, but…this is not It. Contender No. 3. “The Spirit of the Unexpected”: Bond No 9 – New Haarlem Notes: coffee, vanilla, patchouli. How I love the beginning of this fragrance. It is dark, sexy, sweet and very recognizably “coffee”. Very hip, very sophisticated, and, at that point, very wearable. Unfortunately, that is not where the story ends. Memories evoked by scents can be a wonderful thing and enhance one’s love for a new fragrance; they also can be a curse. In this case it is not a bad memory that New Haarlem brings to mind, it is simply that, sometime during the drydown, the scent becomes, to my nose, a fragrance a person from my past used to wear, and I simply cannot get over that and enjoy New Haarlem. I feel that I am wearing another person’s skin so to say. The scent it reminded me of is Route 66, created in 1995 by Coty, which, for those unfamiliar with it, is a tobacco-woody-ambery fragrance. Damn be the tricks of olfactory memory. Memories aside, a masculine cologne drydown is simply not among the characteristic a coffee scent has to possess, in order to come close to the ideal I have in mind. Contender No. 4. Holy Grail Alert! Dawn Spencer Hurwitz – Coffee Absolut Notes: coffee absolute. Wowza! My search for a perfect coffee scent ends here (for now, that is, since a perfumista's job is never done). It is hard to imagine that there can be anything more coffee-like, apart from the coffee itself. From the dark colour of the liquid to the incredible scent, this is it, black, strong and sweet. I don’t know how she did it, the notes on her site don't disclose much, but DSH somehow created that elusive ideal coffee scent I was looking for. Wood Coffee? Purleeze! Black Vetyver Café? Laughable. New Haarlem? Sorry, not even close. A side note for other incorrigible layerers out there. I accidentally layered Coffee Absolut with Bourbon French Romanov (a sweet rose scent) and the result is incredible, I have a feeling this DSH creation would bring a certain stunning dark undertone to many a scent. Know of more coffee scents? Please send your recommendations!