Fête Accompli: Hilde Soliani Conaffetto

By Marina Falling in love with one orange blossom scent was surprising, falling for another one is really pushing it for me. Add to that a renewed interest in jasmine and a sudden craving for roses...Body rebelling against winter, refusing to seek comfort in the usual warm-resinous cold -weather comfort scents and instead trying to find it in an escape to ever-blossoming, ever-summery nevernever lands? Conaffetto is certainly escapist. It might not carry you to a faraway exotic paradise. It would take you as far as down your memory lane or down the path of your imagination, to "that place between sleep and awake where you still remember dreaming", where images of real, imagined, read-about-in-books, seen-in-movies childhood excitement and happiness dwell. Conaffetto is a smell of a Fête, which you maybe experienced or maybe only hoped to experience, a perfect celebration or an ideal carnival, where everyone is happy, clowns are not creepy, each throw of a dart wins you a stuffed animal, cotton candy never melts and the air is fragrant with trees in bloom. (As an aside, fragrance has been inspired by a wedding, and it certainly fits that inspiration just as well, just replace clowns with uncles.) After smelling first of sugar, plain and simple, then of bitter-sweet almonds, then of sugared almonds...a startlingly true-to-life replication of those candies ubiquitous to certain events, which, at real life celebrations, look better than they taste, much like most wedding and birthday cakes (but not at this Fête!), Conaffetto transforms into an orange blossom dominated composition. I probably wouldn't recommend this to someone seeking an almond scent, the realistic almondy feel is too short-lived for that, but certainly would to someone looking for an interesting take on fleur d'oranger. Funny as it might sound, even sugar doesn't make the blend smell overly sweet, and orange blossom puts a stop to any potential veering towards sweetness by being tangy, fresh and verdant. What intrigues me in this perfume the most is an unexpectedly raw, dare I say almost earthy feel...Does anyone remember Sloth by S-Perfume? The sadly discontinued Wasser's creation had a unique undertone, which I called "boiled courgettes"...I could also call it "boiled potato skins"...As it was the case with Sloth, this raw aspect brings a tinge of melancholy to the otherwise joyful Conaffetto. Nothing too existentially heavy here though, this is the melancholy of realization that it's late, and the Carnival is closing for tonight...but you know that tomorrow is another day and the Fête will go on. I believe that Conaffetto will be available later this year, probably from the usual Soliani stockists like Luckyscent and New London Pharmacy. Image, Ocean Club Sea Carnival by Sally Caldwell Fisher.

Xerjoff Oesel

Because of you, the heady perfumes of Summer pain me; because of you, I again Seek out the signs that precipitate desires: Shooting stars, falling objects. Pablo Neruda, Love By Marina I was not prepared to like an orange blossom perfume; after being over-exposed to one of those (even if one of the most beautiful ones) for several years, and this time of the year, this is just not a note I appreciate. So loving an orange blossom perfume came as a shock. Another shock was discovering that the exuberantly floral Oesel was in fact meant by creators as a masculine scent. Not that I mind in the least, anything is unisex anyway. I suppose I can see how the masculinity can be justified: by a certain dryness of the blend, the lack of sweetness one might expect from a mix of orange blossom, jasmine, rose and acacia. And yet...there is something so ...breathily, effervescently feminine about Oesel. The dazzlingly bright orange blossom is the dominant note, to my nose. Aided in the top by a more verdant, sharp citrusy-ness of petit grain, it stays on my skin right though the whole development of the composition, singing louder than the other flowers in the heart and even getting through the sumptuous dark muffle of patchouli and woods in the base. The aroma of this fleur d'oranger is like a sheer, bright yellow of a diaphanous organza fabric blowing in the hot summer wind...The vividness of the note makes one catch one's breath and then go, delightfully, aaahh! ...There is just something so infinitely, vibrantly beautiful about it. I should emphasize again how non-sweet this floral explosion is on my skin. And despite the brilliant dominance of orange blossom, the composition retains a certain degree of darkness. If Mona di Orio's truly nocturnal, indolic, earthy, complex Nuit Noire and L'Artisan's buoyantly sunny, fresh and simpler Fleur d'Oranger had an offspring, it would have been just like Oesel...a luminous, joyful creature, which throws an unexpectedly dark shadow... Available at Xerjoff's website and Luckyscent, $345.00-$470.00.

Fleur d'Oranger by L'Artisan

Fleur d’Oranger, L’Artisan’s latest and “very" limited edition fragrance, was built around the 2004 harvest of orange blossom from Nabeul in Tunisia. Nabeul is apparently well known for the distillation of perfumes using orange blossom and even hosts an orange blossom festival, every year from the late March to the early April. Exceptional olfactive qualities of 2004 harvest inspired the creator Anne Flipo and marked a rather novel approach in the perfumery, which binds a perfume to the year of a harvest. By definition, L’Artisan’s Fleur d’Oranger can only be a limited edition. Only 2990 bottles will be available in L’Artisan Parfumeur boutiques and selected stores; it comes in the signature L’Artisan bottle, which in this case is beautifully engraved with flowers of orange tree and is set up in a wooden coffret, much like an expensive vintage wine bottle. Fleur d’Oranger is a beautiful, slightly green and dewy scent. It starts very citrusy on my skin; this citrus accord becomes greener and greener, leaving an impression of a leaf being rubbed in one’s hands. A floral note meanwhile gathers momentum and by the middle stage it is very much a floral scent, albeit with delicate citrus undercurrent. Orange blossom note becomes sweeter, creamier and more luscious by the minute, sometimes almost turning tuberose-like on my skin. It reaches the apogee of intensity and sweetness and then gradually begins to settle into a more subtle fragrance, with almost a tea-like note to it that reminded me of another L’Artisan, Thé Pour Un Été. This is my favorite stage; when the drydown comes, Fleur d’Oranger is everything I want in an orange blossom scent; it is light, delicate, almost ethereal and very summery. This is not a complex scent in any respect, and however unique the marvelous qualities of the 2004 orange blossom harvest in Nabeul may be, in my very humble opinion, the price of this fragrance is still rather exorbitant ($250.00). Fleur d’Oranger is essentially a linear scent, a light Eau de Toilette to be applied generously in hot weather or indeed in winter, to dispel the gloom and cold. It is lovely and pleasant, but that is all there is to it. The engravery and the wooden coffret seem a little over the top where this pretty but simple fragrance is concerned. Fleur d’Oranger is available in L’Artisan boutiques and selected stores like Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys. *The photo of Fleur d’Oranger is from osmoz.com