Serge Lutens - Bas de Soie

Bas de Soie finds Lutens back in straight, uncomplicated mode (see also: Fleurs de Citronnier, Clair de Musc): iris + green. As with a lot of iris fragrances, the iris part is great fun, but is over too fast, and then it's on to the drydown, which is a massive punch of galbanum. Such high levels of galbanum make Bas de Soie surprisingly cold; I would even use the word "angry" to describe this fragrance. It's an interesting switch for the line, which has many warm, sweet fragrances; this is the antithesis of warm and sweet.

As much as I like green notes, this might be too angular and haughty for my tastes. This is well-made, but I prefer Lutens in complex, weird mode. However, if you are the sort of person who daydreams about punching kittens in the face, this is the ice queen fragrance for you.

Amouage - Memoir

Apparently these two new fragrances from Amouage were concieved in a somewhat different way than usual: first Memoir Man was created, and then Memoir Women was built from the masculine version. They are both quite unisex, just as the two Jubliations are unisex (and in fact I find Jubilation Woman to be drier and more masculine than the opulent Jubilation Man). This method of construction explains why the two Memoirs are so strikingly similar.

Both Memoirs seem like a continuation of the two Jubilations, which were somewhat of a break from previous Amouage scents. This is a good thing. Memoir Man is deep, rich, and chocolaty; although Amouage claims it is based on the idea of leather, it is a leather in the Amouage school, which is to say that this signature note is framed by the opulent and familiar Amouage base. [EDIT: Coming back to this years later, I have to say that I don't really care much for Memoir Man, perhaps because of the mint note. I do not like mint. Fuck you, mint vitamins I ate as a child. I still love the hell out of Memoir Woman though.]

Memoir Woman is even more impressive: it is Memoir Man, plus more. (Indeed, the drydowns of the two are very similar, to the point where one might confuse the two). To the rich, dry base of Memoir Man has been added a smooth collection of floral notes, but these notes don't create a feminine fragrance; instead, they sweeten the slightly overly-dry impression of the masculine version. It's described as a chypre, and certainly its drydown has the same oakmossy goodness one finds in Jubilation Woman; but it is also quite unisex, and is definitely the superior of the two. It is massively complex: spicy, sweet, boozy, incense-y, woody, sometimes dry. It is so well-blended that I can't discern individual notes until that familiar Amouage drydown. It may, in fact, be my favorite fragrance from Amouage, which is saying something.

I'll also add that the ad copy for Memoir is hilariously, pretentiously overwrought (see here), and on the Amouage website you can find an especially gut-busting promotional video filled with angsty models, swooning close-ups, and feathers (??): " In this emporium of vice and damnation, the anguish, the unwanted, the dark, the haunting and the unmentionable are all beauty of the truth . . . She is him and he is her. They come together as one representing each other’s past, present and future in which they mimic each other’s sorrow and pain." (What the fuck?). Thankfully, I have not become "her" when I've worn Memoir Woman; arbitrary gender reassignment shouldn't be the goal of a fragrance. I do think, though, that I'm going to start telling people that the haunting and the unmentionable are all beauty of the truth. IT IS SO TRUE.

Histoires de Parfums - Défilé New York

Défilé New York, by Histoires de Parfums, is, in short, one of the most impressive fragrances I have smelled in a long time. It also has a highly unique form of distribution: it was only sold last night, September 10th, 2010, at Henri Bendel's, as part of Fashion's Night Out, and only 150 bottles were made.

I was lucky enough to get a bottle, and I also got to meet Gérald Ghislain, the man behind Histoires de Parfums; he signed my bottle, which was very nice. This is actually the first fragrance from the house that I've smelled (I also picked up 14ml bottles of a bunch of other scents from the line as well), and it is astonishingly good. I'm shocked that a fragrance this interesting and masterfully made was created with such limited distribution in mind.

The notes are as follows:
Top notes: fresh mint, bergamot and cut grass
Middle notes: water flowers, pineapple, rhubarb, clove, cinnamon and star anise
Base notes: coffee, chocolate, licorice, vanilla, Gaïac wood, patchouli

As befits a fragrance with such a unique collection of notes, this is a highly nonlinear fragrance. It starts with crisp green, and right out of the bottle feels like a sparkling green fragrance with a touch of warmth given by the base notes. Quickly, though, the fragrance settles into a dance between the green notes (grass, etc), the mint, and the ambery/gourmandy base notes. I was surprised by how well these seemingly disparate notes work together, but then I realized that the genius of this fragrance is that the mint acts as a sort of bridge between the green notes and the warm notes.

This is not a mint-heavy fragrance (which is good, because I don't like mint), but the mint is the key to the whole structure. As Défilé dries down, it becomes variously: gourmandy, green, minty-green, ambery. The balance between green and amber shifts and sometimes becomes almost bizarre, but in a good, novel way. At the extreme dry-down it reminds me of a warmer version of Geranium Pour Monsieur, and the coffee/chocolate/vanilla come out to give a hint of sweet mixed drinks or a warm dessert. But again, the green notes keep this from becoming too sweet: it never becomes cloying or overly edible. This is not a sweet, thick fragrance, but rather smooth and streamlined.

Anyhow, I am blown away. This is a brilliant fragrance and it must have been a huge amount of work to balance these notes, which represent a combination I've never seen before. I'm torn between hoping such a groundbreaking fragrance gets a wider release, versus wanting my bottle to be a sought-after holy-grail scent.

Voyage d'Hermès and Jean-Claude Ellena

Jean-Claude Ellena is, without question, one of the best and most innovative noses working today, and his work for Hermès represents some of the best work he's done. One of the striking aspects of his fragrances is that he is unafraid to return to various themes and permute them in various directions. The peppery top-notes of Cartier Declaration occur, in purified form, as the central element of Poivre Samarcande; the cumin in Declaration makes a strong appearance in Cologne Bigarade, one of three fragrances Ellena created for Frederic Malle; the light vegetal elements found in Kelly Caleche also recur in the Jardin trio; the sparkling grapefruit in Eau de Pamplemousse Rose pops up again in Rose Ikebana, and the rose in those two fragrances grounds Cologne Bigarade; the savory bergamote of Divine Bergamote provides a citric top-note for Eau d'Hiver.

Because of this, Ellena is sometimes (unfairly) accused of plagiarizing himself. These recurrent themes don't represent laziness, but rather a return to the same ideas, a technique followed by many artists with a mature style. Having said this, there are times when certain themes give diminishing returns, and unfortunately this is the case with Voyage d'Hermès. Here, Ellena marries the gin-soaked vegetation of Angeliques Sous la Pluie (another of his fragrances for Frederic Malle) with the sweet ginger base of Declaration. Unfortunately, Angeliques Sous la Pluie wasn't very good the first time around (it smells powerfully of gin, and I don't know why I'd want to smell like that), and although marrying it to a woods-and-ginger accord is an improvement, the result is still a disappointment. This is a perfectly okay fragrance, but I've come to expect more from Ellena.

EDIT: Upon reflection some years later, Angeliques Sous la Pluie is awesome. I was insane when I wrote this.

Iä! Iä! Killian Fthagn!

Here's a fun game. Can you guess which of the following quotations come from actual By Killian press releases?

"I conceived L’Oeuvre Noire with a quasi-Faustian ambience in mind. I wanted to cast a spell, like those that darkened Rimbaud's spirit or conjured the witches in Macbeth. But it also recalls contemporary R&B lyrics like those of 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg or Pharell Williams, all about temptation in the face of urban violence, like Baudelaire before them, as expressed in his prose poetry."

"The black tassel imparts mystery to the fragrance, mystery warding off all sorts of black magic . . . . It's as if the protective shield engraved on the side places the wearer under the protection of a fallen angel. This object is a talisman."

"I am the absolute worst. Please put me down before I write more of this shit."

"The perfume asks the flower:
'who can tell me why I exist?'
Do non loose your heart, dear friend,
in a perfect dawn
you will blend your life
with all the life and at the end
you will know, why you exist."

Hahahahaha! Are they fucking kidding? These are all real quotes, except for the one which obviously isn't a real quote, although it should be. Actually, the last quote isn't from By Killian; it can be found on the equally pretentious Profumum website (note the oddly repetitive name of the linked url -- if it's luxury, you gotta say it twice!). Oh wait, my mistake -- that's "Profvmvm;" I shovld have known to vse the correct vowel that signifies skull-crvshing pretentiousness.

Anyhow, this certainly is some overwrought, hilarious garbage. Truly I do feel as though I'm under the protection of a fallen angel (huh??). Please excuse me for a moment while I use a belt sander to remove my face so that I never again have to experience such sweet, sweet, Faustian/Snoop-Doggian brilliance.

So what does this stuff smell like? Let's check out Back to Black. The press notes say: "A tobacco aroma with sweet undertones of honey. A pure aphrodisiac." I must respectfully disagree. This stuff smells like Baudelaire shitting his pants. It is horrifically sickly-sweet, the cloyingly organic smell of outhouses in the hot sun. A dollop of honey can be great -- see, eg, Chanel's fantastic Beige -- but in this nauseating quantity it evokes sickness and the smell of a mortally ill person rotting from the inside out. This is what you smell when you die.

Luckily for you, a 50ml bottle of this will only set you back $225! That's more than a bottle of Carnal Flower or Vetiver Extraordinaire! This stuff costs twice as much as the Hermessences! Since Back to Black seems to be selling, I've begun bottling my vomit; it can be yours for only $310 per 10ml. What a steal!

On the other hand, Prelude to Love is rather good; it's a cologne with a pleasingly dark note, the top-note sparkle of lemon balanced by solemn iris, a combination I haven't seen before. It's actually quite weighty, more like Prelude to Serious Pondering than to Love, which sets it apart from the effervescent sparkle of most other colognes. Should you pay $225 for 50ml of it? God, no. But if you find a bottle for less, you could definitely do worse. After all, 50 Cent and the witches in Macbeth have already written odes to the temptation in the face of urban violence evoked by this fragrance.

The Hermessences: An Appreciation

Hermès was one of the first houses to do a boutique-exclusive fragrance line, and although a number of houses have done the same recently, this is the best boutique-exclusive line so far. Deceptively complex and impressively coherent as a statement of purpose, these 8 fragrances also stand as a monument to the genius of Hermès house nose Jean-Claude Ellena. Today I'll be giving my impressions of 7 of these 8; since I hate licorice, I don't feel qualified to speak on Brin de Reglisse.

Poivre Samarcande: A striking mixture of musk, dry woods, and black pepper, this fragrance is completely sui generis in its spare elegance. Ellena has circled similar ideas in the past, and Poivre Samarcande resembles an angular, rigorous version of his Cartier Declaration, stripped to its bare essence and then magnified. Contrary to various odd claims, it lasts for a long time on the skin: one spray can be detected a full 8 hours later. Simply the best pepper fragrance out there.

Rose Ikebana: In some ways, this is the most difficult of the line to come to terms with, paradoxically because it is the most accessible on first sniff: it is deceptively easy to dismiss Rose Ikebana as just another (exceptionally) pretty face in the crowd. Upon repeated visits, however, it becomes clear that Ellena has once again shown his mastery of simplicity. Rose Ikebana reads, as with many of Ellena's fragrances, as a reworking of past themes: in this case, the crisp citrus of Divine Bergamote and Eau de Pamplemousse Rose is balanced by an ethereal rose note. Simple, beautiful, and a must-smell for those think they don't like rose fragrances.

Paprika Brasil: This is the most underrated of the line. It is also one of the most distinctive; like Poivre Samarcande, there's nothing else out there that smells quite like this. Ellena frequently works with spices, and this is his take on the capsaicin (spicy pepper) note. It works beautifully: a hot pepper accord mingles with basil and iris to create the olfactory version of spicy-sweet food. Odd at first, it quickly establishes itself as a remarkable comfort scent.

Vanille Galant: The only disappointment among the Hermèssences, Vanille Galant mixes a wonderful, non-gourmand vanilla accord with an unfortunate melon note. Melon is a difficult note in general, and its inclusion here proves to be unpleasant.

Osmanthe Yunnan: Despite Luca Turin's rave review in Perfumes: The Guide, this is not the best of the Hermessences, although it is quite good. This is the drier, tea-infused sibling to Paprika Brasil and Rose Ikebana: very well done, but like many polite tea scents it struggles to make itself heard.

Vetiver Tonka: The best "friendly" vetiver in existence, full stop. Other vetivers can lay claim to being a truer representation of the material (Vetiver Extraordinaire, for example), but Vetiver Tonka moves in the opposite direction: its mixture of warm rootiness and savory caramel results in a perfect balance between dark and sweet. The absurdly long drydown is shockingly beautiful. Thematically, VT is a departure: deep and full, it does not have the same haiku-like simplicity of the rest of the Hermèssences.

Ambre Narguile: Some have compared this to the Serge Lutens orientals, but they are wrong: Unlike the Lutens fragrances, Ambre Narguile doesn't make me immediately nauseous. By far the thickest and warmest of the Hermessences, AN is, like Vetiver Tonka, a departure from the rest of the line in its opulence and complexity. Rich ambers mix with dried fruit and tobacco to create the perfume equivalent of a roaring fire. It might skirt the edge of being too much, but unlike most ambers out there it is never boring.

Overall, the Hermèssences are impressively unique: most of them smell unlike anything else out there, and the ones that do fall into a recognizable category (fruity floral for Rose Ikebana, woody vetiver for Vetiver Tonka) stand among the best in their class. Anyone claiming to write this line off as pretentious simplicity is welcome to drown in a vat of Ambre Sultan: there is nothing pretentious about these fragrances. Indeed, they just smell really fucking good, and isn't that what perfume is supposed to do?