Top Five Perfumes

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Let’s see, once I get out of the top two, things get a bit muddled. I don’t have a signature scent but that doesn’t help when you’re trying to whittle down a perfume collection and generally like them all. But I suppose if I were to narrow it down:

  1. Guerlain, Spiritueuse Double Vanille
  2. Victoria’s Secret, Plumdrop
  3. Chanel, No. 5 Eau Premiere
  4. Guerlain, Eau de Fleurs de Cedrat
  5. Boadicea the Victorious, Pure

That last one is particularly ridiculous as I don’t own it. I own a tiny sampler vial of the stuff and can’t even begin to imagine affording something like that. It has a very tenuous hold on the list because it’s so expensive for what is essentially a fragrance that smells clean. It’s there because I couldn’t think of anything else. Sorry Pure, you’re a nice smelling one trick pony.

Guerlain Idylle

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Idylle was the first mainstream released fragrance by Guerlain’s new in house perfumer, Thierry Wasser. The lack of the Guerlinade is noticeable in this one and in its absence is a fairly plain, fairly boring, modern mainstream scent. Good for wearing, great for the office, but missing the heart of what Guerlain used to be. Idylle

In Bottle: Idylle is a pretty surface floral with a bouquet of pretty young flowers. This scent starts off smelling young and dewy and fresh. It’s reminiscent of pretty much every other modern floral fragrance that’s been released in the last decade.

Applied: I smell Idylle in a lot of places. It’s wearability is outstanding if you’re looking for a modern Guerlain that works well with the modern staple. Don’t look for anything classic smelling in this–it’s not there. I am a little disappointed with the fragrance to be honest because it’s so benign that it’s rather boring. Idylle’s opener smells of rose and lily off the bat. It’s a well blended thing that slips into its mid-stage with so much elegance that you’ll have barely noticed it until you catch the floral heart and realize your fragrance has changed for the better. The rose note is the predominant player in this but it’s a cleaned up, fresh rose. Not at all like Nahema’s deep red rose. Idylle stays beautiful and remains on the skin until the dry down where you’ll get a cleaned up patchouli that smells like scrubbed earth and polished darkness.

Extra: Maybe I’m being harsh on Idylle. It is at it’s core a very pretty and competent fragrance that will please a wide audience. After all, how I can dismiss Idylle when I loved the much loathed Champs Elysees? Or My Insolence? I by no means hate Idylle. I just don’t think it’s particularly interesting. It’s fantastic as a mainstream release. It’s like a more competent Gucci Flora. A more grown up Gucci Flora, if you will. I guess I just miss the classics and was hoping Idylle was a bit more classical and less modern. More niche and less commercial.

Design: Idylle’s marketing surrounded the concept of golden raindrops. The bottle is shaped like a golden raindrop. Despite the interesting shape, it is easy to hold and easy to spray. It looks interesting on display and is a great looking piece to add to a bottle collector’s array.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Lily of the valley, lilac, peony, freesia, jasmine, patchouli, white musk.

Idylle is what the industry refers to as a modern chypre. A formulation that so far has been fuzzy to my understanding.

Reviewed in This Post: Idylle, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Eau de Guerlain

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While known for its deep and rich fragrances back in the day, Guerlain also carries a series of light scents featuring sheer and airy notes mean to go on light and wear like pleasant rain. Eau de Guerlain is one of these such scents. Eau de Guerlain

In Bottle: Beautiful bright lemon, bergamot and herbal scent. So light you would swear this is a modern Guerlain and not one from the 1970s. 1974, to be exact.

Applied: Beautiful lemon opener. Eau de Guerlain does not suffer from the chemical lemon that I experienced in Covet or Versense. This is a nice, background lemon that comes in, does its thing and leaves without fanfare or a fight. Only, it imbues its freshness in the rest of the scent and hangs about as the basil throws in a dash of greenness and herbal. The mid-stage of Eau de Guerlain is a lovely jasmine and rose deal headed by the fresh green basil. Dry down starts with a lovely spicy sandalwood and musk. Eau de Guerlain is a bit of a stretch considering this house was Jicky central. It’s a bit removed from what I’m used to when it comes to pre-1990s Guerlains but it is lovely, fresh, very wearable. One of the nicest, complex, fresh fragrances ever.

Extra: If you’re looking for a spicy fresh scent and have some money to drop, Eau de Guerlain is a very worthwhile fragrance. It’s deceptively simple at first but has a very beautiful mid and dry down stage that you just can’t find with today’s spicy, woodsy sports scents.

Design: The tester I used was presented in a Guerlain bee bottle. I just don’t get tired of looking at these and want to own one very badly. The Aqua Allegorias do a throwback to this style of bottle and I absolutely love the distinctive look of them. The glass has raised details in it making it fun to both look at and hold.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Aromatic

Notes: : Lemon, verbena, bergamot, neroli, carnation, sandalwood, tonka bean.

The more I sniff this on the tester strip, the more interesting it seems to get. Certainly more interesting than Light Blue Pour Homme. There’s just something that makes Eau de Guerlain unique that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Reviewed in This Post: Eau de Guerlain, 2008, Eau de Toilette.

Guerlain Nahema

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Released in 1979, Nahéma is like an ode to the rose. Nahéma is a rose explosion that calls up the vision of what a rose is supposed to be. Nahema

In Bottle: Lush rose in that familiar Guerlain smell. Beautifully dense and musky delicate roses. So sweet that for a moment I’m thinking I smell cherry or anise instead but it’s all rose from here.

Applied: Big and fantastic and familiar. The rose goes on strong, comes out of the gates yelling and makes itself known. This is what a rose is supposed to smell like. A little sweet, a little floral, clean and dewy. Tea rose is what I’m smelling, and tea rose to me has a lighter, sweeter fragrance often used as a subtle addition but in Nahéma is the primary focus. I get roses for hours and hours as Nahéma has some fantastic staying power. The dry down is a lovely sweet rose on woodsy base and that familiar Guerlain scent.

Extra: Apparently, Luca Turin in The Guide shares with us a little rumor. That Nahéma, the greatest rose fragrance in perfumery, was made without any rose oil.

Design: The image in this post is not the bottle design that I’m talking about in this section. The modern Nahéma bottle that I held and sprayed is a mostly flat, rather boring bottle design whose shape is reminiscent of Tommy Girl except lacking that third dimension. It’s dull, drab and uninteresting and I wish they hadn’t changed it from the old bottle. But the bottle certainly is functional at least.

Fragrance Family: Soliflore Oriental

Notes: Rose, peach, vanilla, woods.

Even if you hate roses I highly recommend giving this a sniff. If not so you can find the perfect perfume but to know what conceptual rose smells like. If the rumor is true, that Nahéma doesn’t contain any actual rose oil then the mind-boggling alone is worth a smell.

Reviewed in This Post: Nahéma, 2003, Eau de Parfum.

YSL Opium Fleur Imperiale

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Still working up to my ultimate appreciation of Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium. I decided that since I wasn’t able to work myself up to Opium yet, I should start with Opium Light, as I call it. Otherwise known as the limited edition Summer Opium Flankers that feature Fleur Imperiale. Opium Fleur Imperiale

In Bottle: Definitely Opium based but the original fragrance has been reduced from its big flashy self to a lighter pleasant base for a layer of clean and sheer woods.

Applied: Neroli and Jasmine make a first impression as the Opium base matures and sticks around for the mid and dry down stages. Over Opium there is a nice, dusty sandalwood that covers the fragrance in a clean twang. The rest is handled by dry osmanthus and cleaned up myrrh. At its heart, this is a more flowery version of the original Opium. Carnation is used sparingly in this giving the fragrance a bit of floral spice. Not a lot though so if you were concerned about it, don’t be. Fleur Imperiale smells exotic. Like a nap under the shade of a tree in a desert  palace. It helps that Fleur Imperiale is a dry, warm, clean scent as its approach on dry down is a parched but beautiful myrrh-backed, golden vanilla amber.

Extra: Great introductory fragrance to Opium, the classic. Even though this is a flanker one wouldn’t venture to purchase a flanker if they didn’t like original Opium. I urge you to try the summer limited editions, however. Particularly Fleur Imperiale and Shanghai. They are toned down and more sheer. Great for anyone hesitant and anyone who wants to come to understand and appreciate Opium for all its earthy, spicy goodness.

Design: I love the design on this bottle. It’s shaped like Opium with pretty red flowers on the glass. My major complaint, however, is the plastic sprayer and plastic cap. Okay, the plastic caps are common and I should stop raging about those now. I can dig that. But a plastic sprayer? Come on. Every time I go to spray this stuff, I’m worried the plastic sprayer is going to somehow break or worse yet, break off. The plastic sprayer just feels and looks cheap. I’d like a hardware upgrade (too late for that) but other than that, Opium Fleur Imperiale is a pleasant thing to behold.

Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental

Notes: Mandarin orange, neroli, bergamot, carnation, jasmine, apricot blossom, amber, patchouli, vanilla, osmanthus, woods, myrrh.

I was very  impressed though a little disappointed by how similar Fleur Imperiale and Fleur de Shanghai are. There is a minor difference though as Imperiale is decidedly warmer and lacks the gentle sweetness.

Reviewed in This Post: Fleur Imperiale, 2006, Eau de Toilette.

Gucci Flora

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There’s nothing very special about Gucci Flora that you couldn’t get anywhere else. It has a nice scent, an inoffensive and pleasant aroma perfect for office or school wear. Something about its squeaky cleanness just slots it in generic category. Generic, boring, common but ultimately very pretty. Flora

In Bottle: Light, sheer, clean peony with citrus and a mixture of discriminatory florals. Nothing stands out too much in Flora.

Applied: Citrus opener that has a nice clean kick to wipe the palette before it calls in the peony and its entourage of florals as the scent prances in a field wearing a cotton dress into the mid-stage. Rose is used to bolster the scent in Flora as I can’t smell rose, exactly, except for its presence. That sweet pinkish feel that builds up the power of the other flowers must be those mysterious fruity notes that Flora alludes to while rose is happy to just settle in the background. I was looking forward to a few other notes in this but they never actually make an appearance. It’s all just lumped into one big bouquet of fresh and clean. If someone asks me what I smell in Flora, they’re likely to see my eyes bug out as I chirp, “Flowers!” Flora lasts a decent time, often getting hours of wear before approaching its dry down which is a clean patchouli, vaguely flowery, and sandalwood mix.

Extra: I like Flora. I really do. Don’t let my comments about how pedestrian it is turn you away. This is a very nice fragrance with a classy, clean aroma that’s pretty set to be widely worn and commented upon. Mostly you’ll get things of the, “Hmm, you smell nice” category. Then you get the pleasure of telling them what it is and it’ll be a great time.

Design: Cute squat bottle in a geometric shape with a little black ribbon on the bottle. The design is pleasant, the bottle isn’t too awkward to hold and everything works as it should. One thing I will note is that I love the floral pattern detail on the inside of the box. Reminiscent of botany texts and old woodcut floral patterns. I am a big sucker for that kind of thing.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Citrus, peony, osmanthus, rose, fruity notes, sandalwood, patchouli.

I own a small 30ml bottle of this stuff that I spray on whenever I want to smell clean and fresh but more interesting than one of my clean musk scents. I always find myself smiling a little whenever Flora wafts up to my nose, so something in this stuff is doing good work.

Reviewed in This Post: Flora, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Guerlain Vol de Nuit

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Much raved about by fragrance lovers, I had this on my list to smell and try for a very long time. When I did spot it at a counter as a tester, I wasted no time making a beeline for it. Excited as I spritzed it, stuck my nose it, slapped it on my skin and then stuck my nose in again, I was hoping for the shapely beauty of Mitsouko. Or the chilly distant wonder of L’Heure Bleue. What I got was a little disappointing. And I say that as I don my metal armor and prepare for the angry mob. Vol de Nuit

In Bottle: That lovely, iconic Guerlain base that defines all the classics shoots Vol de Nuit into heavy hitters category immediately. Though after the guerlainess makes its way through my nose, Vol de Nuit’s underlying personality seems a bit weak. A little big of bergamot. A little bit of spices. Not what I expected from a fragrance that was so well loved.

Applied: Lovely little opener with the guerlainess leading the way for bergamot to flare and dissolve, leaving a little trace of it behind for the rest of the fragrance. Vol de Nuit is a gentle waft of spices, woods, and florals. It’s green ivy and dense flowers on a bed of soft spices. It smells–kind of ordinary. I expected great things from this fragrance. Things so great that it couldn’t possibly have fulfilled. Perhaps I read so much hype that it’s gone to my head and I wanted laser beams and dinosaurs when all Vol de Nuit had to offer me was pleasant featurette. Vol de Nuit is lovely, for sure. It’s more complex than something made these days but I also expected it to be so much more than this. When the dry down approaches, Vol de Nuit turns into a dense, dark woodsy vanilla spice before fading completely. Very nice. Very much Guerlain. Vol de Nuit still blows most modern fragrances out of the water. But I guess I was just expecting more, especially if you slot it in with the other classics.

Extra: Vol de Nuit is a true Guerlain classic of the likes of Shalimar and Jicky. It was released in 1933 and composed by Jacques Guerlain.

Design: I love Vol de Nuit’s bottle. Colored glass with recessed patterns in the shape of a belt buckle. An interesting circle with the fragrance’s name. Reminds me of Art Deco and the days gone by when the women were like columns and the men wore fedoras.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Hesperedic notes, narcissus., galbanum, oakmoss, woods, iris, vanilla, spices.

Since you’ve probably seen it listed a lot and likely wondered what it means, hesperedic notes are scents reminiscent of florals mixed with citrus peels such as orange, lemon and tangerine. Also you can bet your horses that oakmoss note is either synthetic or has been formulated out. If it hasn’t, I would be shocked and fully expecting it to be phased out soon.

Reviewed in This Post: Vol de Nuit, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Chunky Earl Grey Tea

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I have a small bottle of Earl Grey Tea by Demeter and much to my chagrin, it looks like the stuff is starting to turn. Now, this is not a new thing for Demeter as I’ve noticed most of their fragrances start to turn rather early in their lives as little white specks float around in the juice.

It happened to several bottles sitting at Sephora, and it’s happening to my Earl Grey Tea. I’m thinking this is not a coincidence and is just an unfortunate combination of Demeter’s removable sprayer nozzle and whatever components they choose to use in their perfumes.

This is a fairly new, two year bottle that has been properly taken care of. Just as a comparison, an older Annick Goutal in my possession with the same removable sprayer nozzle is not experiencing this bout of unpleasantness so it cannot be entirely blamed on the removable sprayer. I would absolutely hate it if the industry got rid of removable sprayers because I want to be able to reuse my bottles.

In either case, I love Earl Grey. It still smells fine but I am contemplating dumping the juice before it decides to become sentient and I would be leery of their products from this point on. Don’t get me wrong, I love the stuff but this is just silly.

Oh Shalimar, No!

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In light of the recent IFRA restrictions amendment, it looks like Shalimar is about to take another hit. One of the specific groups being newly restricted is the quinoline family. Quinolines primarily were used in Shalimar to give the fragrance its leathery scent.

That means there are possible reformulations for Shalimar in the near future and potentially any other fragrance that relies on quinolines.

[Source]

Guerlain Habit Rouge

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Sometimes when people hear a woman admit she’s wearing a men’s fragrance they act surprised. Like it’s a scandal to wear a men’s fragrance. And don’t even start on how people react if you’re a man admitting you’re wearing a women’s fragrance. The truth is, perfumes aren’t constrained by gender. Though some perfumes can be construed as feminine or masculine. The final say on the matter always ends with the individual. If you like it–just wear it. Habit Rouge is one such fragrance where if you like it then just wear it. Habit Rouge

In Bottle: Musky citrus as the opener. After over a month of smelling safe modern fragrances, I was ready for this. Already I can detect the minor Guerlainess in the fragrance as the musk insists that I test this on.

Applied: Citrus opens with a brilliant brightness. I know the version of Habit Rouge I’m smelling is not the same well-loved one that came out in 1965 but it is still a complex and extremely likable fragrance. The best part comes after the citrus as Habit Rogue morphs into a strong but not overpowering sandalwood and floral. The cinnamon in this pops in and out of the picture and continues to do this even during the dry down. The vanilla peeks in on the dry down when Habit Rogue decides that it’s time to go. Along with the vanilla something dense and leathery ushers on in as the fragrance takes a turn for the smoky vanilla and leather darkness that signals its final curtain call. Try and find a scent like this in the recent releases from mainstream houses and you may find it difficult. Habit Rogue remains beautiful even through its reformulations.

Extra: Commonly marketed and considered a men’s fragrance, Habit Rouge, to me is actually more of a unisex scent. It has a slight sweetness to it though its dry down is masculine, its opener is unisex, its heart is feminine. If you wanted a full on masculine scent, look elsewhere. If you want a beautiful unisex fragrance that’s stood the test of time, Habit Rouge it up.

Design: The eau de toilette version, which is the one I tested is a very simple design. Glass rectangular bottle. Red label, metal and plastic cap. Nothing fancy, nothing over the top. I would have loved to see what the other versions were designed like but the EDT packaging was pleasant enough. No frills, no bells and whistles or gimmicks. I like it that way.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Bergamot, lemon, rosewood, basil, pimento, sandal, carnation, patchouli, cedar, rose, cinnamon, vanilla, amber, moss, leather, benzoin, labdanum, olibanum .

I had been chasing this one for a while, knowing that’s lovely. It’s dry down reminds me a bit of Shalimar but is a bit grittier and animalistic. It’s the leather, I think.

Reviewed in This Post: Habit Rogue, 2009, Eau de Toilette.