Czech & Speake Dark Rose

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Dark Rose

Dark Rose

I love a good rose and abhor a bad one. It’s harder and harder to find a good rose scent because modern, mainstream perfumery loves cleaned up, sparkling, girly rose that barely has a personality because it’s supported by equally dull notes in the rest of the composition. Or the rose is so light and non-existent that it might as well not be mentioned at all. So I’m still feeling a little stung by Forbidden Rose maybe that’s why I gave Dark Rose a try.

In Bottle: Dark and floral, I smell the rose backed up with a smooth sandalwood with a bit of oud.

Applied: Smooth saffron rose with a dark edge that I’m assuming is coming from the oud. No sparkling, clean, girly rose here. It smells sophisticated but not overpowering. It’s light enough to get its point across and has a nice feeling of depth to it. I suppose the lightness might owe some of the credit to it being a cologne. The rose encompasses the scent while staying coated in a sappy oud fragrance as the latter grows stronger the longer you wear it until it hits this warm amber and sandalwood note that helps bump up the woodsy smell and accent the oud’s tendancies to smell a bit animalistic. The dry down is marked with a fading oud and warm amber.

Extra: Dark Rose comes in a wide assortment of other scented products such as a bath oil and some incense sticks. What really piqued my interest was the solid perfume encased in this awesome looking egg. If you feel you need your perfume to be encased in a cool egg, better place your orders soon because it’s limited edition.

Design: Bottled fairly simply, Dark Rose comes in a spray bottle that pretty much resembles what it is–a cologne spray with an easy to hold container. I would have preferred more refinement. But, don’t judge it by its packaging, Dark Rose has a great deal of complexity for what it is.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Saffron, rose, sandalwood, patchouli, amber, oud, musk.

Very nice rose. I’ve read around town that Dark Rose’s composition is fairly tired thanks to the influx of oud fragrances into the market. I haven’t had that much oud in my time, so Dark Rose remains fresh and exciting for me.

Reviewed in This Post: Dark Rose, 2012, Eau de Cologne.

Products L’Occitane Should Turn Into Perfumes

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I love L’Occitane. I started this whole perfume craziness because I ran out of excuses for owning so many bath-related products and L’Occitane’s products were always some of my favorites. They also sell perfumes, but I’m not too big of a fan of many of those. So it struck me as odd that L’Occitane wouldn’t turn some of these products into full on fragrances.

L’Occitane Aromachologie Repairing Shampoo & Conditioner
A gorgeous blend of florals and herbs that scents my hair for the better part of a day. I love washing my hair every time I get to use this. Unfortunately, I don’t have much of it left and need to order more–and it’s a bit pricey for shampoo. So if L’Occitane ever got around to bottling this scent in a perfume, I’ll probably stock up like mad.

Bonne Mere Milk Soap

I wish my house smelled like this soap all the time.

L’Occitane Almond Milk Concentrate
I know, it essentially just smells like almond extract, but the lotion portion of the mix helps add this fluffy quality to the fragrance. Or maybe it’s just all in my head. Whatever it is, bottle up that fluffy almond smell, L’Occitane!

L’Occitane Bonne Mere Soap Milk
I went a little crazy one year and have about 20 or so of these bars of soaps lying around. At one point, I managed to scent the entire house like Bonne Mere Soap because I’d carefully distribute a bar here and there. I’ve been using them up though, but I still love the smell and wouldn’t mind it in spray form at all.

And just to mix things up a little, I know a lot of people who share the same love of Moroccanoil’s Shampoo and Conditioner’s smell.

Moroccanoil Shampoo & Conditioner
This reminds me of clean amber, florals, and a touch of woods with a little bit of nuttiness. A lot of people describe the scent to be just vanilla, but vanilla alone doesn’t sum up the creamy woodsy, nutty, amber fragrance I get whenever I use this shampoo. If there was a perfume that smelled like this, I’d probably wear it quite often! There’s been a couple of recommendations to try Etro’s Shaal Nur for a Moroccanoil equivalent. I know what’s going in my next decant order.

 

Faberge Flambeau

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Deb from Luvparfum kindly included a couple of decants when I purchased vintage Coty Chypre. One of those decants was Fabergé Flambeau. And as with most things that take me by surprise, my first impression was, “Fabergé made perfume?” The next impression was, “Wow!”

In Bottle: That “Wow” was to denote how very good this was. Green aldehydes and florals were my first impression.

Applied: I could smell the florals in this upon application. Flambeau opens with a green aldehyde, flowing into a beautiful jasmine mid-note that’s joined by a full-bodied and tempered rose. There are florals in here that I can’t pick out, but I don’t mind very much because it all blends together beautifully. Flambeau ages into a gorgeous lush mid-stage that exudes white flowers with slight hints of animalic musk. Nothing too wild on the animal side. It’s only a touch to give the fragrance even more complexity. As it dries down, I get less of the rose and more vetiver with a little hint of amber and bit of woodsiness that’s been soften with time.

Extra: Fabergé’s Flambeau was a little known fragrance initially released in 1955. It has since been discontinued and is quite a rarity. It’s really a shame since it’s such a beautiful scent from a long gone era of perfume. Fabergé had other vintage classics as well, including Woodhue, Tigress, Aphrodisia.

Design: I haven’t held or seen an actual bottle of Flambeau, but going by the photos, the parfum vial is a beautiful elegant glass piece encased in a golden shell with lovely markings on it. Very reminiscent of luxury from the 50s.

Fragrance Family: Classic Floral

Notes: Aldehydes, jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, iris, ambergris, vetiver, sandalwood, musk.

I’m only guessing with those notes. Anyway, if you want to score yourself a bottle of Flambeau, Deb from LuvParfum might have one in stock along with some of Fabergé’s other classics. This includes a gorgeous Woodhue perfume whistle. If not, you might get lucky on eBay.

Reviewed in This Post: Flambeau, ~1960, ???.

Don’t Worry, They Have a Scent For That

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“Don’t worry, they have a scent for that” has become something like a catchphrase for me. There’s a bit of a game my friends play where they go away and think of the strangest things that someone might want to smell like and come to me telling me they want to smell like it. Then I spent some time researching and getting frustrated. I know it’s just a joke and they don’t really mean for me to find and test these things, but it’s the principle of the thing. A lot of the time I have no answer because their requests are akin to, “I want to smell like that awkward feeling you get when you don’t know whether you should help someone or not then by the time you decide that person already solved their problem”.

It Exists

It Exists.

Sometimes, I get easy requests. This is a post about three of those requests.

“I want to smell like bacon.”
I want to know if people say they want to smell like bacon because they read Perfumes: The Guide by Turin and Sanchez. Or if they picked it up elsewhere. Whatever the reason, I get asked what smells like bacon a lot. I get asked so often, that I’ve begun to wonder if my choice for bacon perfume is really the best choice. Fargginay Bacōn, smells just like bacon. Probably a really obvious choice for perfumistas, but for everyone else, finding out that a bacon perfume does exist surprises, pleases and bewilders them.

“I want to smell like a balloon animal at the carnival.”
My friend had thought he was being rather smart with this one. Afterall, who in their right mind would want to smell like rubber and sugar? Too bad I had already experienced this one and he can go out and get himself a bottle of Gucci Rush and bathe in the stuff for that sweet rubbery smell.

“I want to smell like the garage.”
I get a lot of smart comments from men who say perfume isn’t for them unless it smells like motor oil, gasoline, or the garage. Thankfully they don’t have to look very hard. Classic Fahrenheit by Dior smells of gasoline and reminds me quite a bit of being in the garage. Though word has it that the reformulated version is weaksauce.

So there, three things I get told people want to smell like. And three rebuttals. I don’t have a suggestion for everything though, and I’m still stumped every time someone tells me they want to smell like “old socks stuffed in a box and left in the attic”.

By Kilian Good Girl Gone Bad

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Hello, By Kilian. Long time no see. Still packaging things to make me covet you, I see. Good Girl Gone Bad is a recent release from By Kilian and features a gorgeous white and gold case.

Good Girl Gone Bad

Good Girl Gone Bad

In Bottle: Fruity, light and floral. I smell a bit of soapiness too.

Applied: A fruity opening with a osmanthus and jasmine showing. It smells like and soapy with a hint of jasmine. The jasmine becomes more prominent as the fragrance wears on and a touch of tuberose can be detected in the midstage. Jasmine takes on a green aspect mixing with a rose note. Good Girl Gone Bad isn’t going bad so far, and as I continue to wait her out, I get impressions of cedar and patchouli with a speck here or there of darkness. The fragrance never really gets very dark or daring. It remains a rather tame rose jasmine and cedar composition all the way until its fade.

Extra: I haven’t been following By Kilian in a while, and when I saw this fragrance had come out, I was drawn in by the name. I had this idea that it would start off light and airy and turn into a sinister beast. But it never really reaches beast form, and the florals in the midstage carry its good girl vibe all the way to the end. Good Girl Gone Bad was released in 2012 and can be had for $245 at Luckyscent.

Design: By Kilian usually does very well with its packaging. Good Girl Gone Bad comes in a beautiful bottle decorated to exquisite detail with a white and gold box featuring a golden snake coiling on top. Everything about it screams luxury.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Osmanthus, jasmine, rose, tuberose, narcissus, violet, plum, cedar, amber, patchouli, vetiver, musk.

Okay, so the bad girl never got to the party. Maybe she was too busy rocking out somewhere else? Wherever she went, she just wasn’t in this fragrance. What is here is a rather nice floral scent with decent longevity and a beautiful casing.

Reviewed in This Post: Good Girl Gone Bad, 2012, Eau de Parfum.

Illuminum Rose Oud

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It’s been a while since I tried a fragrance with oud in it. And just about as long since I tried a rose centered scent. So I picked Rose Oud pretty much out of the blue and was pleasantly surprised.

Rose Oud

Rose Oud

In Bottle: Smells very familiar to me. It’s clean, fresh and simple and plucks at some memory that starts forming the longer I wear it.

Applied: Rose Oud is decidedly less rosey and oudy than I thought it would be. The rose is there. I’m not sure I can say the same for the oud, but the rest of the fragrance carries it forward. The instant I put it on, I’m reminded of something, but it settles on the tip of my brain and doesn’t let me progress much further until I let the fragrance settle down a bit more. As Rose Oud continues its progression, the rose makes its way to the forefront, dominating the scent and leading a pack of fresh florals, most notably the lily of the valley that gives the fragrance it’s soft feel. I’m waiting for the oud and find myself waiting a while as it never really makes itself known. Rose Oud smells more of roses from afar and more of roses and florals up close. For those worried about the castoreum, don’t be. I never got much in the way of it as the fragrance remained largely clean, fresh and floral. I quite like Rose Oud. It might actually be my top pick of the Illuminums so far and it’s mainly because of the memories it teases up for me.

Extra: Castoreum is, ready for this? The secretions from the scent glands of beavers. And of course, as with all these animal sourced notes, the scent glands are located on the animal’s rear. But, don’t worry, castoreum is derived from these secretions after they’ve been put through all sorts of processes. By the time it gets to be an ingredient, you end up with a leather-like fragrance. If you enjoyed Shalimar, you’re smelling more castoreum than I did in Rose Oud.

Design: Rose Oud is bottled and packaged much the same way as the other Illuminum fragrances. Held in a squat and square frosted glass bottle with a brushed metal cap.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Basil, coriander, jasmine, lily of the valley, rose, geranium, oud, castoreum, patchouli.

While I was disappointed when the oud didn’t show up when I was searching for it, I finally realized why Rose Oud smelled familiar to me. It takes me back to 1990. I’m a child and my aunt is hugging me one last time before my parents put me in the taxi. I won’t see her again until 1992 and it made me sad. Two years isn’t that long for an adult, but it was ages for a child. The smell of roses and soap were wafting around at the time, partially from someone’s perfume and partially from the laundry soap that permeated through our luggage. I remember more precisely how dark it was because we were up at the break of dawn. Not much of a happy memory, but still a precious one.

Reviewed in This Post: Rose Oud, 2012, Eau de Parfum.

Disclaimer: The fragrance reviewed in this post was provided to me for free for the purposes of review. In no other way am I receiving pay or compensation for this review. This review was written based upon my personal experiences and opinions of the product.

Calypso St Barth Bellini

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I love a good fruity floral sometimes. A well composed one that has all the hallmarks of a fruity floral fragrance without being way too popular or way too complex.

Bellini

Bellini

In Bottle: Fresh, clean and fruity. It’s sweet, but doesn’t overdo it on the sugar.

Applied: Bellini opens with a lush tropical scent that embodies the idea of a bellini cocktail. It’s lush, it’s juicy and very fruity. It reminds me of summer in the middle of November and has this hint of faux coconut and pineapple that does that, “Summer! The beach! Tropical paradise!” Chant to me. There’s a lighter layer of florals that rolls in after the first stage and settles into this gentle, refreshing midstage that makes me feel like I just stepped out of the shower to a waiting cocktail in the midst of a tropical island. The dry down is a clean sandalwood and white musk with a hint of cool amber.

Extra: I feel a little like I missed the summertime and these days I’m playing catch-up with Bellini here. Maybe some day I’ll actually vacation on a tropical island and I’d be tempted to wear this. Bellini is quite the embodiment of a tropical vacation.

Design: The cap is a bit uninspired, but the fragrance is what it is. The packaging for the bottle itself is quite minimalist, with a bell-shaped bottle, featuring the house name and fragrance name on it. The cap is your standard tall, gold metal. The box, on the other hand, has a rather cute bow adorning it. Something about me and bows, I suppose. Overall, not bad, not very exciting but it does the trick.

Fragrance Family:  Fruity Floral

Notes: Citrus, peach, coconut, pineapple, , frangipani, freesia, jasmine, orange flower, amber, musk, sandalwood.

Bellini is neither interesting or exciting. It is very safe, and it’s one of the better composed fruity floral fragrances out there. I quite like it. And if you like it too, but can’t see yourself wearing it, it comes in a candle form.

Reviewed in This Post: Bellini, 2012, Eau de Toilette.

Coty Masumi

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Someone asks me if I want to test out a classic Coty, I don’t know how I could say no. Masumi was a Coty chypre from the 1960s.

In Bottle: Spicy with a very grown-up fruity vibe with a layer of deep green woods.

Applied: Bergamot up front with a fruitiness that rolls in rather quickly. The fruits in Masumi can’t be described in any terms that one would use for a modern perfume. Certainly not, “girly” or “fun and sweet”. Masumi’s fruits are reminiscent of Mitsouko’s peach note, in that it’s slightly sweet but very, very sophisticated. The fruits are joined by a spicy floral in the midstage with a big showing from the woods and a smooth earthiness that I’m thinking might be the oak moss at work. The fragrance stays a floral woodsy scent with a hint of spice. The fruitiness I got in the opening was rather short lived and the scent isn’t missing anything because of it. Quite lovely, very classic, helps me remind me that Coty did some great things.

Extra: Masumi was released in the 1960s and was later repackaged in the 1970s. It has since been discontinued.

Design: The design for Masumi was very reminiscent of the era in which it was released. The shape is a bit familiar in Guerlain’s Idyll but with a great deal more authenticity. It looks simple, with a teardrop style shape and a tall metal cap. I don’t have a physical body to judge by, but the design works for what it is.

Fragrance Family:  Classic Chypre

Notes: Bergamot, pineapple, melon, rosewood, rose, violet, cardamom, musk, sandalwood, oak moss, cedar, amber, vanilla.

The more classic Cotys I experience, the sadder I am that most of their great fragrances are no longer available.

Reviewed in This Post: Masumi, ~1970, Eau de Toilette.

Holistic Body Therapy Celebration

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I had the honor of participating in the Natural Perfumer’s Guild‘s Home for the Holidays event this year and was super excited to be paired up with Andrea Ashanti at Holistic Body Therapy. Today’s fragrance is a little different than the norm, it was formulated as a misting spray and can be used as a room spray or on yourself. I’ll be trying both.

Celebration

Celebration

In Bottle: Celebration gives me the distinct impression of Christmas trees and warm vanilla cocoa with a dash of cinnamon.

Applied: Celebration goes in the air and on my skin almost at the same time. In the air, it fills the room with a beautiful dense fir fragrance followed quickly by the warmth of a vanilla, cinnamon and yummy cocoa scent. The gourmand latter really strikes a happy note with me, reminding me of days spent decorating and then curling up under the Christmas tree and drinking hot cocoa while it snowed during the Holidays. The fragrance is light but leaves a fabulous lingering impression in the room for a few hours that seems to uplift the spirit. On my skin, I get a little more mileage as the fir needle note blends in with this rich cocoa fragrance. I get more vanilla and a little less cinnamon on my skin but I also get more frankincense presence near the end of the fragrance’s wear time as it joins the delicious vanilla cinnamon cocoa and helps to further warm the scent. I found myself unable to stop sniffing my wrist and looking forward to Christmas more and more.

Extra: Celebration has an impressive mix of ingredients from fir needle, cocoa, vanilla and cinnamon to the Mount Shasta spring water and flower essences that give it a beautiful crisp aroma for a scent that really embodies the idea of Celebration.

Design: Celebration is bottled in a green glass sprayer bottle with Holistic Body Therapy’s label affixed to it. It’s cute and functional and works great for its purposes.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand Woodsy

Notes: Fir, cocoa, cinnamon, vanilla, frankincense.

The closest thing to a Holiday scent I had before Celebration arrived was a cinnamon and clove candle that would fill the house with a huge dose of spice. My Husband admits he doesn’t like it much and neither do I. I leave it in the pantry with the lid closed and it still manages to scent our beans a little. Cinnamon and clove candle beans are about as delicious as you would think. I was ecstatic to discover Celebration and went crazy spraying it around the house one day near Halloween. The fragrance doesn’t overpower, it lingers but its light. When my Husband came home, his first impression was much like mine, memories of good childhood Christmases in a bottle.

You can get yourself a bottle of Celebration for this holiday season at Holistic Body Therapy’s website. At $25 for 2 oz, you’ll get more than enough holiday cheer.

Reviewed in This Post: Celebration, 2012, Misting Spray.

Disclaimer: The fragrance reviewed in this post was provided to me for free for the purposes of review. In no other way am I receiving pay or compensation for this review. This review was written based upon my personal experiences and opinions of the product.

If you want to check out the participants in the Home For the Holidays Project, try Holistic Body Therapy, Anya’s Garden, Happy Herb Soaps, Belly Flowers Perfumes, and JoAnne Basset Perfumes.