The People of the Labyrinths Luctor et Emergo

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The title of this one alone kind of made me swallow hard. Not so much because it was long and difficult, but rather I wasn’t sure how my blog would wrap that title. I love the title though, Luctor et Emergo. You saw that to somebody and they’ll probably think you’re casting a spell on them. Bonus points to this one for having some of the most interesting notes, grass, almonds and sour cherries piqued my interest the most.

Luctor et Emergo

Luctor et Emergo

In Bottle: Probably the most interesting experience I’ve had in a while with a fragrance. First spray reminded me of a very expensive rum I had once. Aged some strange amount of decades, it came out smelling very similar to this. Like woody barrels, almond and a bit of spice.

Applied:  The application wasn’t much different to me than the off-skin sniff. It smelled of that aged rum, almond, a hint of vanilla, wood barrel and a sprinkle of spice. It smells tasty, but the initial burst of rum makes way for a predominantly woodsy scent. I smell this and I think of cherries and pencils. It harkens me back to elementary school, sharpening my pencils at my desk a tube of cherry chapstick wedged in the corner of my desk drawer. I liked collecting the curls of shavings because I thought they looked beautiful. It’s a good memory, and I think a nice way for me to describe Luctor et Emergo. It’s the shaving curls off of sharpened pencils. Rolled into little ribbons of wood, collect them together and make a nice masterpiece. I get a bit of the almond in this as well, sweet and mild and working with a hidden vanilla note. The longer I let this age, the more the woods grow on me. They’re pleasant and tempered woods. Not the screaming harpy that I often associate with cedar. These woods are soft and pretty and nostalgic. I actually really love this, just for the memory spur alone.

Extra: Luctor et Emergo was released in 1997. I looked up what Luctor et Emergo meant, and the translation I came up with was “I struggle and emerge”.

Design: I have to admit, I’m not sure I’m a fan of the bottle design. Something about it reminds me of a nail polish bottle and I think it’s a part of that design sensibility that faded away a bit in the 90s.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy

Notes: Grass, white florals, vanilla, almond, cherry, precious woods.

The opinion on this one seems mixed across reviewers. I personally like it because of how nostalgic it made me feel. Hard to believe because I distinctly remember having not that greatest of times in elementary school. But I suppose the reminder of those pretty pencil shavings was something I missed. You can get Luctor et Emergo from Olfactif or LuckyScent.

Reviewed in This Post: Luctor et Emergo, 2013, Eau de Parfum.

Etro Heliotrope

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Etro’s Heliotrope is one of the more unique florals I’ve encountered and makes me question why it took me so long to try an Etro fragrance to begin with.

Heliotrope

Heliotrope

In Bottle: Rich vanilla and florals. I want to think that heliotrope is the prominent flower, but I’m actually getting more ylang-ylang.

Applied: A bit of almond and powdery heliotrope to start off the scent followed by a mellowing vanilla note that sweetens the fragrance a bit. I get the florals rather quickly, and for some reason ylang-ylang is quite prominent for me. Etro’s Heliotrope smells of powdered vanilla and ylang-ylang. It reminds me of vintage things and powder puffs with delicately scented blooms sitting in a pot of earth nearby. The florals smell natural, the vanilla adds a touch of oriental and smooths the fragrance. It’s overall a very pleasant experience.

Extra: Heliotrope is actually a fairly old release from Etro, having been released in 1989. It certainly explains the different approach to composition.

Design: Bottled rather simply, but still elegantly in a glass bottle with a nicely designed silver cap. It looks luxurious without being over the top and feels great to hold.

Fragrance Family: Oriental Floral

Notes: Bergamot, orange blossom, petitgrain, almond, iris, jasmine, heliotrope, rose, ylang-ylang, balsam, tonka, musk.

Etro is a great niche house with a fairly good representation of fragrances. You can find their stuff on StrawberryNET.

Reviewed in This Post: Heliotrope, 2000, Eau de Toilette.

Thierry Mugler Innocent

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While Thierry Mugler’s Angel didn’t hit it off with me, I was going to give Angel’s cousin, Innocent a try. I heard this stuff was lighter, easier to take, and lacked the patchouli that may have caused Angel to go foul on me.

Innocent

Innocent

In Bottle: Fruits and almond with a very smooth and very sweet personality.

Applied: Initial flare of sweet citrus. It’s a little reminiscent of juice on the initial application to me. Like a tall glass of freshly squeezed lemonade with a bit of orange added for more citrus flavor. The fragrance heads into its middle stages with a lovely almond note that plays nice with the sweet berry midstage and–I might be crazy–what smells like apricot. As things go, there’s a bit of caramel-like fragrance that seems to want to join the fray here and there. The dry down is also pleasant with a warm amber and clean nutty aroma.

Extra:  Innocent was released in 1998 and has been compared to Angel numerous times. I definitely see the connection there. Except, unlike Angel, Innocent is much easier to take. It’s all the pillowy softness and sweetness with none of the bite. So if you wanted to like Angel but thought she came on too strong with her patchouli note, then give Innocent a sniff.

Design: Bottled very nicely in a tall cylindrical shape, Innocent is one of the less oddly shaped designs from Thierry Mugler’s fragrance line. It looks slick, it looks less clunky that many of the other designs while still maintaining a unique and captivating look.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, orange, blackcurrant, red berries, almond, praline, amber, white musk.

I was one of those people who just couldn’t like Angel as a fragrance. And I’m probably able to slot myself into some category of people who didn’t like Angel but like this. Innocent is basically a milder, easier-going version of Angel with a couple of tweaks, but the same base personality.

Reviewed in This Post: Innocent, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Givenchy Pi

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Having completed a recent move, I am slowly coming back to the smell game and starting off with Givenchy Pi, a men’s fragrance toting itself as a woody oriental.

Pi

Pi

In Bottle: Mandarin with a vanilla and herbal scent up top. A pleasant if somewhat strange combination.

Applied: Mandarin right away with a nice wave of herbs coming in soon after it. I smell the rosemary rather predominantly. Almost as fast as the opening rolls in, I get a big whiff of almonds and vanilla and the fragrance sweetens up almost immediately. It’s kind of a shame that almond and vanilla and generally considered feminine fragrances because if given enough of a chance, Pi could make anyone of any gender smell good. It’s certainly a bit of a change from what I usually see with men’s scents. I rather like that it started off typical enough then takes itself into a sweet vanilla direction. The fragrance wears on with sweet vanilla and almond until the woodsiness comes up and mingles with the vanilla. The end product is a rather pleasant vanilla woods.

Extra: Pi was released in 1999 and has since split into a few flankers. You can still easily find Pi at department stores and even some drug stores.

Design: Serge Mansau strikes again with this bottle design. It reminds me a bit of Ancient Egyptian architecture with its even, straight form and coloring. The bottle is rather hefty, a little difficult to hold, but it is otherwise a beautiful, interesting piece to have.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Oriental

Notes: Mandarin, tarragon, basil, rosemary, tonka, vanilla, benzoin, almond, brown sugar, cedar.

Pi is like a fragrance exploring the three concepts of fragrance gendering. It starts off masculine, evolves a bit into the feminine, then ends on a rather unisex note.

Reviewed in This Post: Pi,  2010, Eau de Toilette.

V&R Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose 2011

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I decided to give Flowerbomb, or rather its flanker line, a chance hoping that after the very un-floral like contraption that was the original Flowerbomb, they would add some actual flowers to the perfume so it smelled a bit less like a very expensive Pink Sugar.

Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose

In Bottle: Still smells foody though the caramel note in this one is significantly more tame than in the original Flowerbomb. I’m noticing a smooth almond note mingled with that same scent that I got from Flowerbomb. That sweet, nothing-else-but-candy scent that I wasn’t too sold on in the original.

Applied: A flare up of bergamot with sweet tangerine leading the way. It’s typical of perfumes and this citrus opener didn’t happen with the original Flowerbomb that veered right into sweet territory. After the citrus digs itself out, the original Flowerbomb scent comes through with a milder caramel note riding on the waves of an almond scent that adds a bit more foodiness to the fragrance. The florals are still largely absent behind the huge wall of obnoxiously sweet candy-like accords that add nothing to this flanker’s originality. It is, essentially, Flowerbomb with some bergamot and almond. I’m not impressed. The dry down is a similar affair as Flowerbomb. La Vie en Rose is hanging on to some sweet candy scent dotted with a scrubbed clean patchouli until it has faded completely.

Extra: So this version of Flowerbomb’s La Vie en Rose flanker was released in 2011 and toted as being the same floral fragrance everybody’s already loved. I really wish the fine folks who keep producing this stuff would stop kidding themselves and admit that there’s very few flowers in Flowerbomb. I haven’t tried any of the other Flowerbomb flankers yet so hey, maybe they managed a floral one somewhere in there.

Design: Designed much in the same way as the original Flowerbomb. Same shape. Same basic premise. La Vie en Rose has a notable deeper pink though with smaller geometric squares on the flacon’s surface. I like the design. I think it’s cute and clever. I just wish this stuff actually smelled like flowers or at least admit that it doesn’t smell like flowers at all.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, pink pepper, tangerine, freesia, lily of the valley, almond, raspberry, red berries, cashmere wood, patchouli, amber.

Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose  irritates me a little bit. It’s like the convenience store I go to sometimes that gouges me for instant noodles. So Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose is the instant noodles. I know it’s not gourmet, I know it’s got very little nutritional value but the convenience store will still gouge me for it anyway.

Reviewed in This Post: Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose, 2011, Eau de Toilette.

PS. For all my geeky perfume lovers out there, happy Captain Picard Day!

Bvlgari Jasmin Noir

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Jasmin and almonds, two of my favorite smells combined into one awesome fragrance? That’s Jasmin Noir from Bvlgari.

Jasmin Noir

In Bottle: I get light florals and a heavily licorice-infused almond and jasmine scent.

Applied: Light jasmine on the opening as the fragrance quickly mixes the jasmine and florals with the warm, licorice-sweet almonds. I love the progression. It starts off no-nonsense and like the no-nonsense fragrance that it is, goes on to its mid-stage almost right away. Now the mid-stage is marked mostly to me as a floral almond licorice mix. Reminds me a bit of Lolita Lempicka but with less gourmand and more floral. A great mix, for sure. It’s sophisticated and different, a little discordant but in a good way. The dry down is marked with more licorice, faint woods, and a hint of something smooth that might be the tonka bean or even a vanilla at work.

Extra: Jasmin Noir was composed by Carlos Benaim and Sophie Labbe.

Design: Jasmin Noir is bottled in a dark glass flacon with the signature dip in front. It has a golden cap with the house name on the top. And the fragrance’s name and house are written on the glass on the low point of the dip. I rather like the design, it’s simple and the look has–to me–been distinct and popular enough that I do see this bottle a lot and it is immediately recognizable.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Gardenia, jasmine, almond, licorice, woods, tonka bean.

I really do like Jasmin Noir. It did the jasmine note very well and the almond note was just a bonus. I don’t like licorice much myself but the licorice is well used in this fragrance to the point that it may have swayed me from the licorice-haters club to the licorice-lovers club.

Reviewed in This Post: Jasmine Noir, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Beyonce Heat

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Today we’ve got Beyonce’s Heat perfume. This fragrance, along with J-Lo Glow, are extremely popular and are often asked about. So I’m finally crawling out of the wood works and digging up my notes on it.

Heat

In Bottle: Ah peach up front. Big, synthetic, sweet peach. You know I used to like peach but now that I’m smelling it everywhere, I kind of wish these celebuscents would move onto a more obscure fruit. How about the beloved durian? Noble, spiky, tastes like custard and smells like sewage . . . What?

Applied: All right, so we got sweet peach up front blasting the opening wide open with a big fruity announcement. The background to the peach that digs itself into the mid-stage is a series of barely detectable florals. The fluffy opener leads rather well into a warm cleaned up amber and fruity flowers mid-stage with the sweetness still lingering about even now after the peach is all gone. Heat dries down in a rather expected fashion, keeping that warm amber scent and adding vanilla and soft woods. Heat’s nothing new, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but like all celebrity scents it is a good, decently constructed, wearable fragrance.

Extra: So Beyonce’s first perfume release was a big smash hit. Though most of Heat’s popularity probably has less to do with the juice and more to do with Beyonce’s  name on the bottle. This stuff sells, and it’s okay with me so long as the stuff they sell is at least decently composed–which Heat is. Smell away. Heat has already spawned a few flankers so if the original doesn’t float your boat, there’s Heat Rush and the elixir version of Heat.

Design: The bottle’s shape reminds me a bit of Hugo Boss Deep Red with a few interesting curves  and a few neat little colors added in. I’m okay with the design. It is what it is, though, which is a flashy celebrity bottle. One of the better ones out there.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Oriental

Notes: Red vanilla orchid, magnolia, neroli and peach, honeysuckle, almond, creamy musk, sequoia wood, tonka, amber.

I don’t know if I’m going to be up to smelling those two Heat flankers. I expected a bit more out of this fragrance than what I got. In the end, it’s a celebrity perfume that’s fairly predictable in how it was built and how it plays itself out.

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

Demeter My Melody

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My Melody was released in Demeter Fragrance Library’s Hello Kitty series alon with the Hello Kitty scent and the Little Twin Stars fragrance. My Melody is the foodiest one of the three. My Melody

In Bottle: Smooth vanilla and almond. Demeter tends to do simple fragrances anyway and My Melody is a pleasant enough blend of two very gourmand notes that creates an almost edible scent in the bottle.

Applied: Delicious vanilla almond and cake. My Melody smells like cupcakes and cute, happy, tasty things. Everyone needs a little pick-me-up, especially lately and this fragrance is a delightful reminder that–if nothing else–we still have cake. The fragrance doesn’t do any morphing or changing for a while and the scent is fairly fleeting. Being an eau de cologne and all. As the dry down sees a fade in the almond note making the vanilla note more prominent.

Extra: My Melody reminds me an awful lot of many Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab fragrances. The foodies, in particular. I want to say this reminds me a little bit of Dana O’Shee and Boo from BPAL.

Design: The bottle I came across was a small, very typical glass rectangle bottle that Demeter’s fragrances often come in. It’s got a very simple, plain level of packaging that seems a little clinical to me so there’s very little to the design for these fragrances.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Almond, cake, vanilla.

My Melody should be a big hit for its target audience but it’s not really for me. I got Black Phoenix for gourmands like this that I really don’t see a need for something like this in my collection.

Reviewed in This Post: My Melody, 2010, Eau de Cologne.

Guerlain Tonka Imperiale

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Guerlain’s L’Art et la Matière line of fragrances celebrating great perfumers and great perfumes. The line has been going for some time now and Tonka Imperiale, as of this writing, is the newest release.Tonka Imperiale

In Bottle: Boozy vanilla with a slight almond edge and sourness. Tonka Imperiale reminds me a lot of Spiritueuse Double Vanille but the major difference is in the sourness. Tonka Imperiale has a sour almond scent to where. Spiritueuse Double Vanille, on the other hand, had smooth smokiness to back it up.

Applied: Vanilla liqueur with that hint of sour again. The sourness is quick to fly away though, leaving me with vanilla, almond and booze. The booze then escapes me leaving me with a lovely rich vanilla and almond scent that signifies the mid-stage of Tonka Imperiale. Lovely spiciness comes in to the join the parade, turning this into full on gourmand as I’m reminded of cookies at Christmas time, very vanilla and decadent rum and spice cookies. The dry down after the Christmas cooking phase is a smoky woodsy fragrance with the beautiful vanilla note hanging on by a thread.

Extra: L’Art et la Matière is Guerlain’s long awaited answer to their lost niche when they were acquied by LVMH. I always felt most of the mainstream Guerlain releases were really pedestrian and lacking that exquisite Guerlainess that defined them so well prior to the acquisition. Though I do like most of their mainstream releases, I am also overjoyed that they’re still putting out stuff like Tonka Imperiale,  Spiritueuse Double Vanille and the other L’Art et la Matière’s scents.  Guerlain’s still got it.

Design: Bottled in a similar shaped presentation as Spiritueuse Double Vanille, Tonka Imperiale has a neater presentation without the big label and the honey bee wax seal. It still comes in that fitted box that you can’t do anything with if you plan on using the fragrance while keeping it in its original box. But, in addition to having a regular sprayer, Tonka Imperial also comes with a pump atomizer.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: : Bergamot, rosemary, tonka bean, honey, spices, almond, jasmine, vanilla, cedar, pine, incense, tobacco and amber.

I really wrestled with wanting a bottle of this and wanting to keep money in my pocket. The L’Art et la Matière line is a few price points above Guerlain’s mainstream releases. It’s even a few price points above some niche houses. At $230 for 75ml, I found the price a bit rich for my tastes. I liked this, but not enough to blow that much on it.

Reviewed in This Post: Tonka Imperiale, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Guerlain My Insolence

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Seems the Insolence family is working up to its name, or something because everyone seems to have a polarized opinion of each of them. My Insolence is Insolence’s less confused daughter. She knows she’s typical, mass marketed, a little confused, and not one bit special. And she’s just okay with that. My Insolence

In Bottle: Fruity, sweet raspberry top note with a very typical jasmine wafting up from the regions of mid-stage fragrance world. My Insolence, unlike the original that it flanks is a clearly defined fruity floral fragrance that could pretty much smell like any other recent release out there. So you’re at least guaranteed that she smells nice.

Applied: Sweet and fruity raspberry with a nice almond note thrown in there to give the blend some more sweetness and a little bit of nuttiness. I do detect a little early entry of the patchouli in this giving My Insolence a nice sharp, clean quality. There’s the jasmine coming up after the opener to give this a nice white floral edge as the fragrance settles on a pleasant and warm raspberry, almond near-gourmand fragrance. The dry down is equally pleasant with a touch more complexity than one would expect with patchouli cleaning up the joint and giving it a slight bitterness as vanilla ushers out My Insolence on a creamy, mild note.

Extra: Nothing much I can really say for or against My Insolence except that it’s highly wearable, very inoffensive and kind of typical. Not at all what I expected of the house that made Jicky and Mitsouko. But then as Guerlain themselves admitted, they needed to appeal to the younger market and My Insolence is about as appealing as a modern fragrance needs to be. I just wonder if the target audience is wearing it.

Design: My Insolence is packaged in much the same way as Insolence was. In that hard to hold, interesting to look at flower and flower pot bottle. At least that flower and flower pot concept is what I got from this.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Raspberry, almond blossom, jasmine, patchouli, vanilla, tonka bean.

I’m somewhat sad that Insolence itself hit it off badly with me but My Insolence is a nice enough contender with an almost gourmand reach with that vanilla and almond treatment. If you tried Insolence looking for a young Guerlain and didn’t like it, give My Insolence a chance.

Reviewed in This Post: My Insolence, 2009, Eau de Parfum.