Coffee with a Side of Paradise: Maître Parfumeur et Gantier Eau des Iles

By Donna Using a coffee note in perfume can be tricky; sometimes it’s gimmicky and too literal, and maybe tarted up with too much sugar and “cream” so that its real character is obscured. Many years ago there was a fragrance called Café that smelled exactly like a cup of sweetened coffee with a slightly burnt note, as though it had been left in the pot too long. It had a certain novelty appeal, but I was never tempted to purchase it. Then of course there is the popular Vanille Mokha from Comptoir Sud Pacifique, which is simple and pleasing but very sweet like most of their perfumes, and that could get tiresome after a while, and besides it's so realistic that it does not really smell very much like perfume, so wearing it could result in serious caffeine cravings all day long. Coffee has become a standard ingredient in men's scents, where it sometimes gets lost in the forests of woody-amber and cedar and other such standard issue masculine notes that usually accompany it. Then there is the mutant monster that is Thierry Mugler's Angel Men, with its bizarro world major notes of mint, coffee, caramel, lavender and tar, of all things. I cannot imagine who would wear it since it's even more discordant than the original Angel while remaining just as loud to my nose; I finally got up the nerve to try it at a department store not too long ago and I wish I had resisted. Fortunately not all coffee fragrances are one-note wonders or avant-garde disasters. I have come to love one that was intended as a masculine, but that has not stopped me from keeping it in regular rotation. Eau des Iles by Maître Parfumeur et Gantier hits just the right balance of coffee, spices and woods so that its coffee aspect is the essence of the roasted bean itself and not a sugary beverage. It is also quite smoky, and you may even think it's excessively so unless you have ever smelled Tauer Perfumes' Lonestar Memories, beside which all other smoky perfumes hang their heads in shame. I don't find Eau des Iles to be too smoky for my taste, perhaps because I really like the aroma of very strong dark coffee beans, and I enjoy grinding my own so I can revel in the powerful fumes as they rise up. The bracing bitterness of an espresso or French roast is perfectly captured in this perfume, weaving in and out of the other notes to create an aura of dark mystery. An intriguing feature of this perfume is that there are unexpected elements paired with the coffee, including basil, thyme, unnamed “exotic fruits” and ylang ylang, as well as both vetiver and patchouli in the base, and for once the vetiver wins, giving it a pronounced green facet and adding to its wearability. Now some people find this perfume interesting but not very wearable. Marina's take on it was that she found it to be highly original but unwearable due to the smoke. Now I am highly sensitive to smoke, so I have no idea why it's not a deal-breaker for me as well. A few weeks ago I awoke from a sound sleep in the middle of the night because I smelled something burning, and it set off my inner alarm. I got up to make sure it was not in my house, and then I thought maybe my neighbor had burned something in their fireplace, but it smelled wrong for that. I was just about to go outside to see what was happening when I heard the sirens of several fire trucks heading down a nearby road. The next day I found out there had been a house fire - more than three miles away from me! I think the smoke in Eau des Iles is so entwined with the roasted coffee and patchouli that it does not smell like the “bad” kind, the smoke from a dangerous fire that would make me recoil instinctively, but more like a hearth fire, signaling home and comfort instead of fight-or flight. Recently there was a rumor that this house was pulling out of the U.S. market, but that was not the case, and it is widely available at both finer perfume shops (see their website to find out if one is in your city) and better online emporiums such as Luscious Cargo. I received my bottle as a gift in an online contest. It is sold as an Eau de Toilette only, and the 3.3 oz. Size has a retail price of about $120 USD, though if you poke around online you can find it for less, usually around $80. Lasting power is nothing short of legendary, especially for an EDT, so the big bottle would be an excellent investment. I have always admired the fragrances from the Jean Laporte era of both Maître Parfumeur et Gantier and L' Artisan, and before that his eponymous line that is sadly gone. The newer ones in the MPG line have thankfully been very good too. I just wish they could be had in smaller sizes, and maybe in a coffret of miniatures. The house does not have a sample program, so you would need to find a retailer that does, such as Luscious Cargo or Luckyscent. With so many quality scents in the lineup, it would be nice to be able to try them in smaller doses before committing to buy the big one. Image credit: Coffee bushes flowering in the tropics, from the redorbit.com knowledge network

In Search of Comfort: Hilde Soliani Bell'Antonio and Carnival Wax 1965

'Tis was a winter of discontent, an up and down spring, and a cruel summer. Fall 2008 finishes the cataclysmic year on a fittingly destructive note. What does a perfume lover do in a situation like that? Well, she goes in search for new comfort scents. Hilde Soliani Bell'Antonio and Carnival Wax 1965, which I tried thanks to my wonderful friend Elle, provide comfort in two very different ways, both tremendously satisfying. Bell'Antonio, is "focused on multi-nuanced aromatic tobacco and dark roasted coffee" (and that's exactly what it smells like, of not excessively tarry tobacco and hints of coffee). I can't think of two smells more attractive on their own, but bring them together and ...well, I can only describe the result as an olfactory, um, climax. Having said that, sensuality is not what Bell'Antonio all about for me, or not primarily anyway. Imagine that you are dating somebody who has to travel a lot, and he smokes (and you like the scent of cigarettes, of course). And when he is away and you go to sleep, you lie down on his side of the bed and on his pillow still lingers delicately the scent of his skin, his perfume and his cigarettes...that unique fragrance that is unlike anybody else's. You curl up under the blanket, you inhale that aroma and you are instantly comforted...or you put on one of his sweaters bearing the traces the same warm, elegant smoky perfume, and it is as if he is right next to you... That is Bell'Antonio. A masculine fragrance created to be worn by women. Whereas Bell'Antonio was comfort given by a man you love, Carnival Wax 1965 is, to me, the kind of comfort one would find in the arms and the house of one's mother or grandma. Now, if you go to Apothia and read the description of 1965 (all about hustlers, red skirts and booze), you'd get a very different impression of the scent. I don't know what kind of booze the copywriters were drinking, because there is nothing slutty, dirty or even a tiny bit sexy about this scent. This is the smell of the kitchen where blinis were being made, a buttery, sweet aroma of dough, vanilla and spices...and the smell of the skin of the baker, soft, infinitely familiar and absolutely comforting. Hilde Soliani Bell'Antonio is exclusive to newlondonpharmacy.com and retails for $175.00 for 3.3oz; Carnival Wax 1965 is sold at ronrobinsoninc.com, $95.00 for .35oz of oil. Image by Diego Uchitel.

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!