Parfum de Maroc by Aftelier

By Marina To me, Parfum de Maroc showcases the characteristic that I came to love in Aftelier Perfumes and to recognize as a specifically Afterlier quality. I call it spicy booziness...There is something in each of my favorite Mandy Aftel's scents that has a mouthwatering, nose-tingling quality of a very piquant hard liquor...something dangerously drinkable... Maroc has that intoxicating something in abundance. Its ripe rose is drunk on spices, fermented in cardamom, saffron and nutmeg...There is also galangal, which, Wikipedia informs me, has a "citrusy, piney, earthy aroma (...) its flavor is a complement to its relative ginger." It is supposed to be an aphrodisiac and, smelling Maroc, I believe it. The mix of roses, earth and spices has an aloof, dark sensuality that is irresistible. I love when a perfume allows me to see itself in color. Parfum de Maroc does and it is flame-red. It has the texture of heavy raw silk, smooth and scratchy to the touch at the same time. Parfum de Maroc makes me restless, like beautiful things are often prone to do. I want to imprint it on my senses forever, to make my own, to drown in it...and it makes me anxious that this gorgeous orange-red silk will slip though my fingers....As Camus said (yes, it is a quote-Camus week on PST), "beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time." Available at aftelier.com, $45.00-$300.00.

Bite Me If You Dare: Aus Liebe Zum Duft No. 1

What do you smell? A spicy scent. It's filling up the room. Sweet and strong, it smells so good- Much better than perfume. A Gingerbread Poem First in the series of First in Fragrance's signature perfumes, Aus Liebe Zum Duft No. 1, created by Marc vom Ende, is touted as containing leather. Not on my skin! On me, it is all about ginger. And a little bit about cardamom. And, in the second half of the composition, about a hint of sweet jasmine. But mostly about ginger, on a strangely metallic (and that IS in the description), dry-woody background... If, say, Wylie Dyfresne decided to create his own version of gingerbread...and it would be safe to assume that it probably wouldn't be immediately recognizable as such...and serve it on a silvery plate...this is how it would smell. ALZD No. 1 is gingerbread with an edge and an attitude, foodie only in a very abstract, modernistic manner...I have an urge to spin purple prose today, so I will give in to that urge and say that this is a stylish unisex gourmand to suit the jaded tastes of androgynous urbanites of the 21st century. There! It is out of my system. Another great scent to start the Holiday season, and, in the spirit of the season, to generously share with your trendy other half. Available at ausliebezumduft.de, €100.00 for 100ml. Image source, zazzle.com.

Le Jardin Retrouve Le Citron Poivre: Perfume Review

All summer long I've been in a mood for "scents whose spiciness is fresh or whose freshness has a dark and piquant depth". That mood lasted well into this beautiful autumn, possibly because the weather here in NYC has been mostly spoiling us with clear skies and mild warmth. Le Citron Poivré by Le Jardin Retrouvé is my latest discovery in the fresh-&-piquant genre. The contrast of the citrusy and spicy accords is rendered here with a light, judicious hand, neither side is overwhelming the other. The clear, dry, verdant, mouthwatering and tangy blend of citron and petit grain is perhaps somewhat more dominant in the composition than the mix of spices, but the latter is also evident at all times, practically from the first second of the perfume's life on my skin. Simple as the idea and the execution is, the complex piquant accord does gives the fragrance an additional, intriguing dimensions. Sometimes pepper jumps out from the mix to tickle the nose of the wearer, a moment the warmer spiciness of cloves and cinnamon that becomes more apparent, and -the part I enjoy the most- once in a while pimento takes the lead. What I like about this scent is that it is neutral enough to let one go about one's own business, without taking attention away from one's day making it an ideal chilled-out, relaxing, weekend perfume. The presence of spices, however, adds a snappy twist to the composition; during the course of the day, I keep getting unexpected whiffs of pimento and cloves and wondering what is that interesting, zippy fragrance I am wearing. The fairly dry, non-frilly nature of Le Citron Poivré makes it a great shared fragrance, and being able to wear the same scent as your significant other, just like wearing his shirt around the house, has a certain smug, loved-up charm. Le Citron Poivré is available at lejardinretrouve.com. There you can also request any three samples for a shipping fee of €2. Images by Rankin, Le Jardin Retrouvé.

Czech & Speake Cuba: Perfume Review

These days I am in a mood for scents whose spiciness is fresh or whose freshness has a dark and piquant depth. The examples would be Piment Brulant, Piper Nigrum and Poivre 23. Cuba by Czech & Speake is my latest discovery in this genre. "Inspired by the old town of Havana, its Latin rhythms, smooth cigars, fine rums and exotic beauties," the scent...lives up to its inspiration. Multi-layered and multi-sided, Cuba is an exciting scent to wear, because it inclines you to pay attention to its development. It is interesting to monitor the change from sutbly sweet and delicately mentholated top notes, with their distinct boozy undertone of rum, to the warmer, spicier middle accord of cloves and roses enveloped in a mellow tobacco mist...to the richer and simultaneously somewhat sharper base notes of frankincense, woods and vetiver. I love it when complexity is rendered so harmoniously. The seamlessness of its blend, the familiar softness of its tobacco, the uplifting quality of its incense, makes Cuba as unexpectedly comforting and calming as it is invigorating. It's muy, muy bien! Available at Cambridge Chemists, Czech & Speake and Luckyscent

Baume du Doge by Eau d'Italie: Perfume Review

Inspired by Venice, once legendary gateway to the Orient with all its exotic spices, Baume du Doge is, not surprisingly, a piquant creation, bursting with the golden tang of saffron and cardamom, smoldering with the crimson fire of cloves. It is - surprisingly- also a very earthy perfume. And yes, earthy is Duchaufour's forte, but, in my opinion, the raw quality of Baume du Doge surpasses anything else done by him so far. Saffron and, to a lesser degree, cardamom do have a very raw undertone in their spiciness, a dark, soil-like element that naturally contrasts the brightness of the spicy aromas. Nature is a gifted perfumer after all, and loves a good contrast. So really, the earthy aspect of Baume du Doge is only to be expected, especially if you take into account that the blend also includes the earthy-green-aniseedic fennel and earthy-balsamic myrrh. The latter, combined with sweet orange note in the top notes and vanilla in the base, lends a well-rounded, rich, opaque and creamy feeling to Baume de Doge, softens the sharpness of spices, tames the earthy element, bringing the fragrance to the almost-edible, patchouli-like territory and putting a finishing exotic touch on this understatedly oriental tapestry. The restrained exoticism displayed by Baume du Doge is characteristic to Duchafour's art as is the indescribable, indefinable oddness of the composition. Strangely beautiful or beautifully strange, it has a haunting quality, something that makes you want to keep re-sniffing and analyzing and wondering. A thinking person's perfume. Available at Lafco and Luckyscent, $130.00 for 100ml. Image source, krasivoefoto.ru

Perfume Review: Montale Red Aoud

You probably know by now that I am a big fan of Montale's aouds. And yet I must admit that there are so many of them and the differences between them are so subtle that, well, they all smell kind of the same. Yes, I adore Aoud Roses Petals and Aoud Flowers but, were you to make me blind-smell them, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell which one is which. Red Aoud, however, has something distinctive about it ... Namely, chocolate. That's right, somehow a strange and strangely appealing mix of aoud, cumin, saffron and orris produces a chocolate-like effect on my skin. Imagine one of those bizarre-sounding Vosges bars that blend chocolate with chili and pimento (and things almost unthinkable, like wasabi and bacon). The combination of bitter-sweet chocolate and spice is, to me, irresistible, in food and in perfume. I have a feeling that ingesting aoud is "almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later", but were it safe to consume it in tiny doses, an aoud-rose-saffron-cumin chocolate bar would have been something I'd happily pay $7.50 for. The "chocolate" effect does not last too long. After a while, Red Aoud turns into the usual rose-heavy, resinous, dark and sensual scent that unites all Montale aouds. But the spicy-sweet beginning is unique enough for me to want to own the bottle. Available at the usual Montale retailers, $150.00-$210.00.

Perfume Review: Diptyque Eau Lente

Diptyque is one of the houses that, for some unforgivable reason, I tend to overlook in my never-ending search for the exotic and the unusual. And I really shouldn't, because the company has created some of the most interesting fragrances, comparable in their uniqueness to some of the weirdest Lutenses or SIPs, and some even surpassing these universally acknowledged masters of the odd. Take Eau Lente, for example. Said to be inspired by the times of Alexander the Great, it is a spicy perfume extraordinaire. The spices, of which cinnamon is one and cumin, I would swear, is another, rest on a pillow-soft, powdery-sweet opoponax base, and the contrast of sharp and fluffy is as disconcerting as it is appealing. It is also a contrast of alluringly exotic and comfortingly familiar, of sensual, even animalic, and cozy. One could wear Eau Lente on a cold day to warm up and in the heat of summer to let the piquancy of the notes refresh the senses. If you love spicy-herbal, slightly dirty, quirky fragrance, don't make my mistake of overlooking Eau Lente. Eau Lente is available at Beauty Habit, $70.00 for 50ml. The painting, Dusk, is by Michael Parkes.

Perfume Review: Hermes Paprika Brasil

“I search for subtility, presence, and transparence”, said Jean-Claude Ellena in the interview with Straight. There is a fine line between understated and bland; on the “right side” of the divide are the scents that are tantalizingly elusive, alluringly subtle, fascinatingly minimalist. Many of Ellena’s creations dwell in that rarified land of what Forbes has called “perfumer’s perfumes”. There you would find the delicate and bright Angelique Sous La Pluie, the subtle and surprisingly substantial L’Eau d’Hiver, the uncluttered and strangely concrete Terre d’Hermes. On the wrong side are fragrances, which are subtle and transparent but lack presence, which have the unfussy minimalist quality but no sparkle, no twist, no life…They possess an incomplete, abandoned feel of a draft. And that is, sadly, how Paprika Brasil smells on my skin, too subtle, flat and oddly unfinished. Paprika Brasil is the latest addition to the Hermessence collection of “olfactory poems”; it has notes of pimento, clove, paprika, iris, green leaves, reseda and ember wood (brazilwood, which was “such a large part of the exports and economy of the land that the country which sprang up in that part of the world took its name from them [brazilwood trees] and is now called Brazil. Wikipedia). The spicy notes bear a promise of a scent that is red-hot, fiery, supremely piquant, but Paprika Brasil is much more tame then what the presence of pimento, paprika and clove might suggest. It starts green and dry, making me think of twigs and indeed green leaves. A delicate spicy accord is woven into that greenness, it grows stronger as the scent develops but is always kept in check by the leaves and the wood and the cool earthiness of iris (which is very apparent on my skin). The spice that I smell here is mostly pimento and it is a beautiful note, crimson, dry and appealingly sharp; it saddens me that this attractive piquancy was not allowed to be more prominent. No, I don’t want a scent where other notes are overwhelmed by the spices, but neither do I like the idea of a scent where the spices are beaten into submission by the rather pale and unexciting rest of the ingredients. Dusty-green, too dry, too delicate, dull and fleeting, Paprika Brasil was a bitter disappointment for this fan of the other five scents in the Hermessence series. Paprika Brasil should be already available at Hermes boutiques, $180.00 for 100ml.

Perfume Review: Hermes Ambre Narguile

Ambre Narguile is a part of Hermèssence collection, an exclusive line of fragrances created for Hermès by Jean-Claude Ellena. Meant to evoke cashmere, it does indeed envelope the wearer in a warm, soft, luxurious embrace. The Narguile part of the name refers to a traditional Middle Eastern device for smoking, also known as a water pipe, narghile/arghileh, shisha, hookah, hubble-bubble, or kalian. It is a pipe with a long flexible tube connected to a container where the smoke is cooled by passing through water. The sweet, fruity and smoky shisha tobacco accord of Ambre Narguile is my favorite part of this wonderful scent. Apart from shisha tobacco, there are so many facets to Ambre Narguile. It is a fragrance that never stops developing. Never abrupt, the changes it undergoes are constant; because they are so subtle and nuanced, the changes are also very hard to describe. To depict the development of Ambre Narguile briefly and simplistically, it starts as a sweet, honeyed amber, acquires a deliciously smoky and at the same time caramel-like accord, attains a somewhat drier woody note, gets sweeter yet again, smelling amazingly like the Gerber Dutch Apple dessert consisting of apples and cinnamon that both my three year old and I like so much… Finally, the scent reaches that incredible, almost edible (and smokeable) stage of shisha tobacco that I find absolutely irresistible. It is a mouthwatering accord of amber, apples and tobacco, still sprinkled with a little bit of cinnamon. I absolutely agree with Chandler Burr in his assessment of this scent when he says that ”it is not merely the best; there is simply nothing like it on the market, period. And no one will ever do it as well again.” Ambre Narguile is one of the most delicious fragrances ever created, it is gourmand but not foody, sweet but not cloying, smoky but not overly so, centered around amber but much more complex then simply an amber-based scent. To quote Mr. Burr yet again, Ambre Narguile “warms the air. It renders you mouthwatering.” This delicious concoction can be purchased at Hermes boutiques either as a 100ml bottle (for, I believe, approximately $185.00), or as a part of a Discovery Set of four 15ml bottles (you can choose between Ambre Narguile, Poivre Samarcande, Vetiver Tonka, Rose Ikebana and Osmanthe Yunnan; the set costs about $125.00; correct me if I am wrong). *The painting is Narguile by Alberto Vargas. I will leave you with some more paintings featuring water-pipes. An Algerian and Her Slave by Ange Tissier Algerian Women in Their Apartment by Delacroix Caterpillar Smoking a Narguile by John Tenniel

Eau des Iles by Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier

I decided to review Eau des Iles right after the description of my hunt for a perfect coffee scent, since it was sampled during that hunt, as a fragrance that allegedly contains a coffee note. There was no coffee in it to my nose, but the scent itself is so remarkable that it must be mentioned anyway. According to Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier, Eau des Iles takes the wearer to “perfume islands in which coffee fragrances intermingle with stately rare woods and smooth exotic flowers that have a strange beauty of their own.” According to me, those islands are situated in restaurants specializing in (Trans) Caucasian cuisine. Never before had a perfume made me this hungry. Eau des Iles puts me in a mood for Georgian or Armenian food, for meat marinated in herbs and spices and then barbequed till it is nice and dark on the outside. Salivating yet? So was I. However I am not sure I want to smell like a juicy almost burned shashlyk. Eau des Iles is the smokiest perfume I have ever tried. The description promises “an astonishing olfactory discovery”, and for once a description does not mislead. But it does not prepare you for the fact that the “spices, wood, coffee, ylang ylang, patchouli” combine to produce an incredibly burnt smell. The smell is not unpleasant, not at all, but it is nothing I can ever imagine wearing on my skin. The fragrance is rather tenacious and the lasting power is superb. Applied at noon, the smoky aroma is still going strong six hours later. When it finally subsides, the residual scent is alike the smell that your skin, hair and clothes have when you spend some time in front of the campfire…Top marks for uniqueness. Nil pointe for wearability.