This new fragrance launching May 2013. This girl in the picture, Anabela Belikova, is so fresh and pretty and doesn’t look like a bag of bones on heroin. I love her look and she makes me want to try
Van Cleef & Arpels Rêve Fragrance 2013 Ad Campaign
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords: Top: Pear and neroli Heart: Osmanthus, peony and lily Base: Sandalwood and amber
Image via TFS. Stolen with huge thanks from art8amby
Camilla Akrans photographed top catwalker Anabela Belikova for the latest fragrance campaign from Van Cleef & Arpels, Rêve.
Hi all you lovely smelling people. This is my 5th review for APJ and I hope you’re enjoying reading them as much as I am enjoying writing them. I seem to have had no real structure or direction when purchasing scents until Portia started sharing his love of perfumes and I realised there was so much more to learn and get excited by. Today’s frag is one that I discovered quite by accident but I have fallen mightily in love with.
Grigioperla Essence by La Perla 2009
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords: Top: Cypress, Pink Pepper, Bergamot Heart: Magnolia, Lavender, Jasmine Base: Pine tree, Thuja, Oakmoss, Vetiver, Cedar
Grigioperla Essence for Men was created in 2009 by master perfumer Pierre Bourdon. Now that little titbit had completely passed me by til just now, as I started to research for my review. He was the nose behind more than 40 fragrances but probably best known for the commercial smashes of YSL’s Kouros (1981) and Davidoff’s Cool Water (1988). Amazing, right?
Woody, much? I do love my woody scents, and this was precisely why I bought this one completely on spec (unsmelled).
I’ve just blasted three big juicy sprays onto my forearm to get a good whiff of it going and I just love that super cypress and pepper opening. Wow. Wow. It wakes me up and makes me feel so good. Like the day ahead is one that I can do anything with. Grigioperla Essence settles quickly into the lavender and jasmine – they gently play together while running down the side of a fresh meadow.
The magnolia takes a little longer to get there but when it does, it joins the flowers to add a sense of masculinity that it would otherwise lack. I think the combination is delicious.
The final phase brings together the last of the woody notes, and for me, it’s where this fragrance really shines. There’s not one ingredient that takes centre stage here, but they all work together to create a harmonious forest of smell that I find incredibly sensuous. They aren’t heavy but exude a freshness and crispness, much like a cool autumn morning on a wooded track. I just love it.
A lot of other reviewers have mentioned the poor sillage, and I have to agree. It does fade quite quickly and is basically non-existent around 4-5 hours. I like to think that my skin loves it as much as my nose and just gobbles it right up, hungry for more. My poor little 50ml bottle is already nearly empty but a replacement is so reasonable. It seems its not stocked widely these days, which is a shame, because this is very wearable and enjoyable.
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot and elemi
Heart: Benzoin, incense and musk
Base: Oak moss, cedar and vetiver.
Boys, here is one for the 21st century man, not a flower petal in sight. The brief to the perfumer was a photo – create a fragrance inspired by the picture below. I first encountered this scent in December at World Beauty. When I trial a new scent I make sure not to read reviews or the even the notes on the packaging. February came and Autoportrait was still wafting through the scentmills of my mind. Back to the shop for another spritz. Back to the shop twice in a day. On my fourth visit the SA read out the marketing notes before I could protest. When I heard the words Nathalie Lorson I swooned as the attraction made sudden sense.
The photo that inspired Autoportrait. Photographer: Luc Lapôrte
Natalie created one of my best-loved ‘fumes, the warm masculine vetiver that is Encre Noire from Lalique. Autoportrait is Encre Noire released from the woods and flying above the clouds. The vetiver smells like the roots have been washed by a waterfall leaving a clear hint of something that is usually more vegetal.
Let’s take a quick side trip to the Moonlight Waterfall in Issan. Will you stroll with me? There is a path behind the waterfall. The waterfall will be an olfactory reference.
Sang Chan Waterfall, Issan, Thailand Photos: Jordan River
Back to Autoportrait: A tonal quality like a chime is what wafts from the bottle. Back in the office I sprayed this new delight. My Social Media Manager said “I’ve tasted that scent”. He was saying he had eaten elemi berries from the Phillipines. Resin from the elemi tree make up the top notes along with lemon and orange. We are seeing a lot of berry notes this season; the blackcurrant Co2 extract and absolutes hidden in The Enchanted Forest is another example of this direction.
After 30 minutes the scent becomes nice and dry. This is a skin scent meaning that you have to be reasonably but not intimately close to smell this. Your skin ++. Benzoin resin from Thailand, incense and oak moss or more likely a well composed synthetic substitute with a tiny drop of oak moss, are the other notes which all evaporate on me within 4 hours. No worries there, just top up.
Autoportrait is smooth with a clean feel but not in the laundry musk or American sense. Maybe clear is a better word. It’s not about the notes; this is a harmony of composition. A beautiful blend by a woman I admire.
Perfumer Nathalie Lorson
Love your work Nathalie. But this is not really work is it? This is an artistic expression which moves the vetiver story higher into the fragrant stratosphere. Next I am expecting vetiver in outer space.
Careful if you wear this: someone may want to eat you if they move close enough within the first 30 minutes. I know I like to taste everything.
Center shelf, a welcome addition to the fridge
Autoportrait from Olfactive Studio is an EDP available in 50ml and 100ml.
Founder and Creative Director of Olfactive Studio, Céline Verleure
The photo is included in the box. My solution to flatten the curl of the cheap paper stock is to frame the photo for my office. At this price point ~ $US145, €85 (50ml) a higher gsm would be appreciated to carry this beautiful piece of art.
Further Information
Elemi is a berry tree from the Philippines. You can taste a dried version of the fruit at most Asian food stores. Luc Lapôrte photography Olfactive Studio website Picturing Perfume – The Olfactive Studio story by Denyse Beaulieu
A couple of years ago a decided to try the Le Labo line. None really jumped out and grabbed me and I decided the Le Labo vibe just wasn’t for me. Then, only a few months ago, I found myself craving….
Vetyver 46 by Le Labo 2006
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Tahitian vetiver, labdanum, pepper, guaiac wood, cedar, olibanum, amber, bergamot, vanilla and cloves.
The reason I enjoy this fragrance so much is that it’s beautifully balanced. Cedar is a note that I often have trouble with. It can be too “scratchy”, too harsh, too much like pencil shavings. And then, adding pepper to the mix!? Yet these notes are treated with a deft touch and balanced perfectly with the vetiver, labdanum and olibanum. These are what I get though most of the life of Vetyver 46 by Le Labo. They weave together with not one part or nor another standing out too much – always moderately woody, moderately smoky….always in moderation. The fragrance feels full and alive.
The vanilla is always there too, hiding in the base, and becomes more apparent as the fragrance dries down and makes the drydown wonderfully cosy. I remember the first time I wore this fragrance. I was away for work and after a long day I finally made it back to the hotel room. As I climbed into bed and tucked my arm under the pillow to fall asleep I noticed the wonderfully mellow and calming drydown of Vetiver 46. I suppose I should have known back then, that this was going to be a keeper.
Vetiver 46’s sillage is moderate and its longevity strong.
I was lucky while in Vienna to catch up with one a the scentbloggospheres most loved bloggers, Birgit from Olfactoria’sTravels. Sitting pretty at breakfast with the gorgeous Sandra they both plied me with samples and Birgit handed me the most fabulous bottle ever. I wish I had known that gift giving was a traditional perfumistas handshake, so embarrassed, but the girls are so wonderful that they didn’t even bat an eyelid at my gaucherie, for which I will be forever grateful.
Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Labdanum, tonka bean, Arabic frankincense, raw tobacco, Indian tuberose, damask rose, incense, agarwood, benzoin
From the AbdesSalaam’s blog: In Mecca, the scents of Labdanum resin, of Benzoin, frankincense and of the precious Agar wood invade the streets together with the 4 million pilgrims who pour to the streets 5 times every day, walking to the great mosque like river. The trail of a million scents in the wake of the pilgrims at Mecca raptures the nose of the visitor and make this travel an unforgettable experience for a westerner little used to such a profusion of olfactory stimulus.
Photo Stolen 22h22
AbdesSalaam Attar is the name that perfumer Dominique Dubrana goes under to create his all natural, astounding fragrances. I have a little sample set of them on my desktop that I’ve almost used entirely and one of my favourites has always been the Mecca Balsam. The bottle Birgit gave me had the name Balsamo della Mecca on the base, in our excitement I did not put 2 and 2 together and realise that these two names could be one and the same. Oh joyous rapture, oh bliss eternal!! They are the same and I now have this extraordinary bottle on my desk.
Straight out of the atomiser and onto skin it is resinous and sweetly balsamic, bitter, herbal, dark and still light. Tobacco notes both sweet and burnt, burning, smoky. Oudh adding its cow poo/medicinal/acrid/beautiful voice and the whole is so complex and happening at once and big, brash, shouty. It picks you up by the hair and shakes you till your teeth clack like castanets, then it throws you to the ground a laughs at your incapacity. OK it doesn’t really do that but this is certainly experiential perfumery of a class that you will never find in department stores. This is the real thing and I love it. Loving it SICK!!
After an hour or so it calms to a dull roar, the size is considerable less but the fragrance is pretty linear, at this stage though there’s enough air between the notes that it’s not the bombardment of before. Now you have time and the ability to savour the resins and the flowers make a very quiet and pretty descant over the base notes of everything else. It softens and softens till gone, hours into the dry down.
Have you seen the website and do you have favourite names? They are all so evocative for me. Maybe you tried these fragrant masterpieces? What were your impressions?
Till tomorrow, take care of yourself and those in your orbit,
Portia xx
My mate Michael who writes for APJ is often turning up with unexpected gifts of fragrant decants. A lovely and generous soul I am lucky to have such a buddy in the same city. Today’s perfume was a very large decant gift the other night and I have been spritzing with abandon. Thanks Michael!!
Clove Absolute by Washington Tremlett 2009
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords: Top: Amalfi lemon, lime Heart: Clove, heliotrope, rose Base: Incense, vanilla, French labdanum, patchouli, musk
From Wikipedia: Cloves are the aromatic dried flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium aromaticum. Cloves are native to the Maluku islands in Indonesia and used as a spice in cuisines all over the world.
Funny story! Well funny for me. I get a soy sauce smell in the first opening waft from Clove Absolute, it’s salty, tangy and a little bit burnt. Every time I spritz it the opening jumps up and takes me by surprise for about 5 minutes, it’s excellent. The cloves, lime and lemon then take over and already the vanilla pods are bursting through behind them. Though this is not the sweet biscuit and bakery scent that most gourmands are it certainly is foody. Is it possible to be foody and sensual concurrently?
My nose reads only the food elements at front and centre, everything else plays support and extra work. Clove Absolute has a definite Eastern-ness about it that is not perfume related but life smells related. There is also an oiliness, a sheen to it, a glistening, scintillating magic. I love to wear Clove absolute and have found myself reaching for it a few times since I was gifted a very generous 5ml, quite a bit of air in the atomiser now and I think it will be well and truly emptied through the Australian winter.
Dry down is sweet and warm, the patchouli/vanilla/amber/musk all mushed in together making a beautiful soft skin scent that lasts more than 12 hours completely smellable. I want to smell this on Jin but am too selfish to even give him one spritz of something I enjoy so much.
Do you have fragrant fairies that gift you interesting new scents? I have a couple and they are often spot on with my taste but always opening my nose to new olfactory vistas. See you tomorrow,
We have recently been cataloguing my samples, a long and tedious job that took nearly 6 days and still we had not got them all on the spreadsheet. You will be disgusted to know there are over 600 samples and decants in this house! I am beyond disgusted at my outrageous frag gluttony. The fact that they are not all opened or sprayed yet is what worries me most, I have these rare and often precious works of art and science just laying around unsmelt. TRAGIC!!
L`Humaniste by Frapin 2009
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords: Top: Lemon, bergamot, cardamom, pink pepper and black pepper Heart: Juniper berries, nutmeg, thyme and peony Base: Gin, oak moss and tonka
From Frapin site: It is to François Rabelais, the most illustrious member of the dynasty, that the house of Frapin has dedicated L’Humaniste. A shot of gin laced with citrus, spices and herbs anchored by soft tonka bean makes it as bracing and limpid as the curious, open minds of Renaissance men.
Fresh and sweet opening, it’s like the new millenium opening for fragrance: citrus and pepper with a green hint. Very pleasant and bright but hardly groundbreaking. That’s OK, it doesn’t need to be NEW and L’Humaniste is very nicely blended, the cardamom giving a very nice nod to Indian curry, in fact it reminds me a little of the sweet curry that my Mum would make for us, not the same but a lovely reminder.
As the fragrance progresses it has a lovely light depth, remaining quite crisp but with lovely shadowy undertones. I know I’m not going crazy for L’Humaniste and it reads like I’m a bit Ho-Hum but that would be a very wrong impression. This is a very solid, beautiful and interesting fragrance in the grand tradition of men’s aromatics but where I think L’Humaniste would truly shine is on a woman. I have sprayed my BFF with it and she commented that she would LOVE to wear this, it reminds her of Bigarade Concentree by Frederic Malle but less in your face, more wearable, softer. I agree, L’Humaniste is a very wearable unisex fragrance that could easily take you from brunch, to the gym, to the boardroom or to romantic dates and conquests.
From Wikipedia: Frapin is a Cognac producer establishing their headquarters in the Fontpinot Castle at Segonzac, in the heart of the Grande Champagne region of France. The Frapin family has been established in the South West of France since 1270, initially as a family of wine-growers who became distillers and have continued in this tradition for 20 generations.
I love that the Frapin company has moved into fragrance and done such an excellent job of it, this is extremely well priced niche fragrance at its best. Which of the line have you tried?
Portia xx
Just a bit of Louis Vuitton fun with cartoon and games. I like the simplicity and colours. It keeps me interested as I wait for their fragrance. HURRY UP Louis Vuitton!! We are waiting.
While in Vienna recently Birgit and Sandra from Olfactoria’sTravels took me to the only known place on earth where they let you mix & match your Frederic Malle 3 x 10ml set when you grab it!! I think it was called Day Spa? Anyway, tell Birgit you are coming to Vienna and she will give you the address. Here is one of my lovely scores:
En Passant by Frederic Malle 2000
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Lilac, surrounded by watery and green notes, cucumber and wheat
This morning in Sydney the weather is beautiful. Crisp, sunny, warm: it feels more like spring than Autumn 10am and 21 degrees celcius. I am writing a week ahead of today and Kath and I are doing the office work, well Kath is doing the office work and I am writing to you. As I went to spritz myself this morning I also gave Kath a healthy squirt too.
I love the pretty green sappy swoosh directly after the spritz, the cucumber and watery greens, it’s fresh, wet and slightly plastic. I find flowers often give me a plastic vibe, not a wet Tupperware stink but a slightly unreal-ness, lilac has it in spades. I could walk out the back door into a spring garden in my mind. This is crisp and elegant but in a less formal tone, less knowing than Chanel 19. A younger, free-er, lighter and happier version of one of my favourites, without being like it at all.
It’s hard to get my head around how beautiful and delicate En Passant is, usually not my style at all but there is something alluring and beguiling about this little Frederic Malle stunner that keeps me coming back to my wrists again and again.. En Passant is seriously selfish, introverted fragrance. You won’t skunk anyone at the office or anywhere, you will give an aura of fresh vitality and exuberance.
There is something magical and whimsical for me even in the name Frederic Malle. His scent curation adds a patina of glory to everything with his name on it. I wonder if I would find En Passant as alluring and interesting if it was by Woolworths Home Brand? Would I sneer at its trite simplicity? What do you think?
Portia xx
ZARA – A Spanish success story. A clothing and accessories store. Louis Vuitton fashion director Daniel Piette described Zara as “Possibly the most innovative and devastating retailer in the world.” Possibly. Although I have my doubts.
ZARA SPORT 421 by – who knows?
(So far out of my comfort zone I need oxygen ……. )
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica call it an aromatic spicy fragrance for men. Featuring musk, mandarin orange, thyme and pepper.
A story in three parts.
PART 1
My son invited me to go shopping with him, about a month ago. Never one to turn down a date with him, off I went. All I had to do was buy him lunch. (A Chanel bag would have been cheaper!) Just before heading home he asked me to nip into Zara and grab him a bottle of Zara Sport 421. “You want me to do whaaaat??? Over my dead and mangled body!! I will not. If you want it you will have to get it yourself.” So he did. With much muttering as to what a snob I was ……
PART 2 (next day)
“Mmmmmm, that smells nice son.” Mucho laughter from him. “It´s Zara, Mum.”
“Aaaaaargh!!” I cried in agony. “Maybe you would like to write about it!” he chuckled.
Sweet smelling son.
PART 3 (A few weeks and several random compliments later)
Here I sit. Zara 421 is really quite nice Nice is not a word I like to use, but it is perfect for Zara 421. Soft, musky, slightly orangey and spicy. Warm. I cannot pretend to pick any notes out, because I can´t. Maybe there aren´t any that are readily identifiable. But I like it. It´s staying power is about three hours. Would I recommend it? Well, if it was a choice of Axe, Lynx or Zara? Then yes, definitely the Zara 421. There are three in the Sport Range. Zara Sport 421, Zara Sport 675, and Zara Sport 615. Am I going to try the other two? Am I hell. My son says the 421 is the only good one. That is enough for me.
It is only available in certain Zara stores, and it is NOT available online. I guess that makes it pretty exclusive huh? ;))) The fragrances run at about 12 to 20 Euros. Totally affordable.
See James? You owe me lunch.
Bussis until the next time.
CQ
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Photo Stolen 
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Australian Perfume Junkies 