Trésor

Noir de Noir by Tom Ford 2007

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Post by Trésor

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Those who know me well know that I’m a bit of a day dreamer, spending many an hour within my tremendously ornamented flights of fancy. Out of all these splendid dream sequences there is one which I am particularly fond of and replay time and time again. I am sitting in the Hemingway Bar at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, it’s just past the witching hour and I am returning from an event somewhere near Place Vendôme that’s run a bit late. The room is dimly lit, the diaphanous golden aura refracting through the crystals on my Chanel Haute Couture gown as I sip my favourite cocktail, a French 75.

A man sits next me, ruggedly handsome with the kindest eyes of piercing sapphire and asks for my name. When I go to respond I am beguiled by exqusite vapours rising from his chest, a hypnotic cirrus of inky petals against warm skin. It takes me a moment to collect myself and then I realize that this is something I’ve smelled before, a familiarity so unequivocally beautiful and close to my heart. He is wearing Noir de Noir.

Noir de Noir by Tom Ford 2007

Noir de Noir Tom Ford FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Agarwood (oud), patchouli, tuber (truffles), saffron, vanilla, rose, oakmoss

The genesis of this potion is through an unimaginably beautiful sequence of tarry black rose petals so rich in their nocturnal hue that they capture all light that dares to touch their obsidian velvet alongside an earthy and brilliantly sumptuous note of black truffle. The petals of the rose are so rich with their precious essence that they appear to glisten in the darkness with their elixir collecting as crepescule dewdrops as the truffle adorns them with just a whisper of soil and musk. As the composition begins to gain some levity you are received by a luxuriant dark chocolate and what I can only describe as a romanticised vision of red wine, all of the tannins removed. This marriage can border on confectionery but only in oscillating bursts, never cloying or distracting from the inky and atmospheric soul of this wicked brew. The grounding element for all of these, on my skin, is the aromatic copper flash of saffron which lends warmth and a particular radiance that keeps this from being one big heap of base notes.

Noir de Noir Tom Ford Saffron WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

As time progresses something so intoxicatingly vanillic begins to emerge. It’s not the edible vanilla of a sweet and delicate madeleine but something a shade sinister and of the Earth. Though this fragrances toys with the illusion of innocence it keeps its claws firmly planted within the realm of splendid seduction. As Noir de Noir begins its final descent you are greeted with a pulchritudinous menagerie of that same black truffle atop a captivating patchouli that’s been dusted by what, to my nose, smells of vintage cosmetic powder you would find in the handbag of a Hollywood starlet from a bygone era. It is within this magnetic embrace that Noir de Noir finally fades into the skin and you are left with but a sweet memory of the time you’d spent together.

Noir de Noir Tom Ford Veronica_Lake WikipediaPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

Noir de Noir lasts about 8-10 hours on my skin but if I am feeling trigger happy I can push it up to around 12. The sillage is quite considerable, this fragrance is exceptionally dense and rather opulent so do expect other’s to be aware of its presence. You can however dab it as you would an extrait de parfum for a more controlled and subdued application.

Further reading: Perfume Posse and Fragrant Man
LuckyScent has $215/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $4/ml

If you have a thing for rose as I do I urge you to give this gem a go, I can almost guarantee you won’t regret that you did.

Have you tried Noir de Noir? Have you a favored Tom Ford?
Trésor xx

Cuir de Lancôme by Calice Becker and Pauline Zanoni for Lancôme 2007

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As I am writing this the very first snow of the season is beginning to fall and winter’s crystalline breath is rushing through the labyrinth of tree branches outside my window, sounding with an orchestral percussion as if greeting the frigid embrace and welcoming it with open arms. My world is now captured within a veil of glimmering virginal white and my heart longs for a warmth that’s slipped away as sand through an hourglass.

Cuir de Lancome Grandma Katina Rogers FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

Not the physical warmth of being cocooned within a favourite blanket but an intangible emotional warmth that only blooms with the reminiscence of being held in the arms of one who’s love has served as both shelter and unfailing nourishment. Someone who’s love remains only as radiant aura held within a sacred chamber deep within your heart. Few fragrances are able to manifest such cherished memories for me, to transcend space and time and revive as this fragrance does. Today I review Cuir de Lancôme, a magical potion and olfactory time machine who’s precious vapors transport me and pay tribute to my beloved grandmother. A pulchritudinous woman, a force of nature who’s luminous soul taught me of absolute joy and unconditional compassion.

Cuir de Lancôme by Calice Becker and Pauline Zanoni for Lancôme 2007

Cuir de Lancome Lancome FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Mandarin orange, saffron, bergamot
Heart: Patchouli, hawthorn, jasmine, ylang-ylang
Base: Orris root, birch, styrax

The opening of Cuir de Lancôme is a spectacular symphony of brilliant, spherical mandarin and delicately bitter bergamot. The effect is so incredibly familiar, not dissimilar to the aroma of an exquisite artisinal soap procured on a journey through the south of France. This is a most beauteous prelude to what I can only describe as one of the softest, most creamy and positively unctuous leather notes I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Cuir de Lancome leather_jacket WikipediaPhoto stolen Wikipedia

Cuir de Lancôme is not akin to the subversive, BDSM black of Etat Libre d’Orange’s Rien but a master class in restrained elegance. Utterly smooth with textural symmetry to that of whipped butter and kissed with delicate swirls of saffron and I’m certain other spices which are so meticulously blended that they simply register as a gossamer veil of whispering heat. Beneath this leather smolders a rich, deep and dry patchouli interlaced with the balsamic splendor of a languid styrax and an exceptionally photorealistic note of birch.

What’s so terribly beautiful about this act of the fragrance is how it pulsates from the skin in a soft and gloriously diffuse halo, maintaining a poised restraint while beckoning you closer as if to draw you into a tender hearted embrace. It is this precise moment where Cuir de Lancôme is most fragile but as with all creatures of beauty it is in this fragility where it exhibits it’s most extraordinary power, an immaculate vulnerability. An achingly divine swan’s song leading the fragrance into conclusion, just traces of powdery warmth dancing upon the skin.

Cuir de Lancome Swarovski_swan elektriksheep DeviantARTPhoto Stolen DeviantART

I usually get a good 8 hours wear out of this deeply beautiful elixir with a moderate sillage that’s surprisingly enveloping despite it’s modest nature. Though I prefer it as the temperatures descend I think one could wear it any time they pleased, it’s really quite versatile in that way.

Further reading: Now Smell This and Olfactoria’s Travels
Galaxy Perfume has $79/50ml
FragranceX has $102/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $5/ml

I’d love to know which fragrances bring to life memories of an incredible happiness as this does for me. Sending each of you all of my love.

Trésor xx

Mamluk by Sonia Espelta and Laura Santander for Xerjoff 2012

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I have a fascination with gold. To me there is something so powerfully mesmeric about the opulent splendor of visions graced by the hand of Midas. Anything from the lustrous sheen of a treasured piece of jewelry to the scintillating hue of a lover’s skin bathed in a radiant aura of summer sunlight, just before the star collapses into dusk. I am enraptured. For ages I’ve been on a ravenous hunt for fragrances which mirror the essence of this exquisite ore and very few have fully realized my desire. Very few except for Mamluk.

Mamluk by Sonia Espelta and Laura Santander for Xerjoff 2012

Mamluk Xerjoff FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Musk, osmanthus, jasmine, amber, benzoin, vanilla, bergamot, agarwood (oud), honey, caramel

Mamluk opens in a most extraordinarily ebullient sequence of rich, highly sacchariferous honey and a lemon who’s skin seems almost bio-luminescent in its vivid incandescence. It is a prismatic pas de deux, illuminated citron trapezing alongside the toothsome honey’s molten gold as if in a cosmic light show. There is a fleeting animalic undercurrent, the very faintest whiff of urinous vapors making way for scintillating flashes of an almost candied oud.

Mamluk Xerjoff Scintillating water drops Steve Beger FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

This is not the challenging, fecal oud found by the tola in prolific collections of connoisseurs but oud envisioned as an utter confectionery delight. Beneath the oud lay a bed of blossoming jasmine flowers, their indolic form bathed in the oozing fluid luxuriance of decadent and flowing caramel. It’s sumptuous amber hue held in glorious juxtaposition with narcotic white petals, all the while maintaining a perpetual radiance which never quite disappears despite being ensconced in an exorbitantly dulcet density.

BenQ Digital CameraPhoto Stolen Wikipedia

As the composition progresses your sensory experience is permeated with the dazzling facets of a beautiful crystalline musk that calls to mind the scent of salty, sun soaked skin but as seen through the fractured light of broken crystal. It bounces and refracts in the most peculiar way that leaves me in a state where I am transfixed, my wrist glued to my nose. The hours pass and the composition gains a speherical quality and becomes exquisitely diffuse until finally it registers at a faint hum of honeyed sweetness just above the skin.

Mamluk Xerjoff blue_line_swinger derekdavalos DeviantARTPhoto Stolen DeviantArt

A word to the wise: this is one potent elixir so I implore you not to go guns blazing with the atomizer. A single spray (or two if you’re a hedonist like me) will do, trust me. When I first received my bottle I sprayed at least 6 times and thought I just might just drown in those gilded, thrashing tides of honey. This darling has quite a gorgeous, fairly powerful sillage and wears like iron. I get a good ten to twelve hours, quite impressive if I do say so myself.

Further reading: Kafkaesque and Perfume Posse
First In Fragrance have €247/50ml
Surrender To Chance have samples starting at $7/.5ml

So tell me, my sweet honeybees, what are your favourite fragrances for those who’ve an appetite for the olfactory manifestation of this precious ore?

Trésor xx

Moon Dust by MiN New York 2014

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All of my closest friends will tell you that I am particularly fond of nightfall. How with the sepulchral toll of the bell reverberating upon the witching hour my neurons electrify and I feel alive, in tune and illuminated by the muses once more. Along with this nightly revivisence comes an exquisite and pensive solace, a period of magnificent alleviation where I can be with my own thoughts and allow myself the time to experience a cherished potion who’s vapours are for my nose and my nose alone. It is now when I reach for the transcendent and beguilingly abstract and set off on a journey beyond corporeal manifestations. It is now when I reach for Moon Dust.

Moon Dust by MiN New York 2014

Moon Dust MiN New York FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Leather, soil tincture, musk, benzoin

As you step out of the airlock and on to the ashen lunar terrain you are received by the unmistakable aroma of flint striking cold, galvanized steel and releasing a lambent display of sparks into the atmosphere. Glacial and mineralic, this sequence is in the same breath both galactic and so deeply familiar. Moments later your body is enraptured within the fluidic chill of water rushing through a labryinth of river rocks, polished like glass by eons of cosmic erosion. It is this phase in particular which brings tears to my eyes, the reminiscence of playing with rocks in the small brook nestled behind my grandparent’s home as a child. A simple memory of absolute peace and splendid joy.

moon-dust-min-new-york Child pilostic PixabayPhoto Stolen Pixabay

An almost iridescent haze of tobacco infuses the air and scintillates as if imbued by wet earth flecked with shards of precious, gleaming stone. It is an exquisite oscillation of a tangible, native realm and that of another dimension, one both rigidly industrial and poetic in its beauty. As you begin your descent back down to the Earthly dominion you can feel the brisk ozone of the stratosphere filling your lungs, an invigorating aurora and olfactory contrast I’ve never quite experienced before. As your feet finally rest upon terra firma a cloak of tarry, ink hued musk rises from the dust below and kisses you with lips lacquered with a candied nuance of benzoin. It is within this human aura that Moon Dust becomes evanescent and bids the senses a resplendent farewell.

moon-dust-min-new-york roltirirang DeviantArtPhoto Stolen DeviantArt

This fragrance is not so much a prototypical perfume as it is a conceptual olfactory expedition, defying convention while preserving an enigmatic enchantment that is only present within creations authored with a great deal of love and profound passion. If you are one who revels in the midst of an vanguard splendor I urge you to spend some time experiencing this contemporary aromatic landscape.

Further reading: Colognoisseur and What Men Should Smell Like
MinNY has $240/75ml

The vapours of Moon Dust are diffuse but not at all audacious, with a longevity of around 6 to 8 hours on my perfume devouring skin.

Trésor x

 

Nahema by Jean-Paul Guerlain 1979

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I’m often asked if I were forced to choose a single rose fragrance to wear for the rest of my life, the be-all and end-all of sumptuous carmine petals, what would that rose be? Would I choose to enrapture myself within a bordeaux hued nebula of Frederic Malle’s Une Rose? The labrynthine delicacy of Mohur from Neela Vermeire? The striking and immaculately vivid photorealism of Olympic Orchids’ Ballets Rouges? Though I appreciate their beauty beyond measure and spend many an hour in their passionate embrace the answer is simply no. My rose is Nahéma and it is her panoramic film star joie de vivre which draws me in close and beguiles me beyond the tangible and into a state of resplendent olfactory euphoria.

Nahema by Jean-Paul Guerlain 1979

Nahema Guerlain FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Rose, peach, bergamot, green notes, aldehydes
Heart: Hyacinth, Bulgarian rose, ylang-ylang, jasmine, lilac, lily of the valley
Base: Vanilla, passion flower, Peru balsam, vetiver, sandalwood

The incipient rush of Nahéma is an exquisite spectrum of golden sunlight, her rays are a fluid opus of scintillating aldehydes, bergamot and a rather fascinating, fleeting flicker of hesperidic emerald green. Before long she begins to reveal a precious gift passed down to her by her older sister Mitsouko, the most unctuous and extraordinary peach who’s ripe flesh is gilded with flourishing spices. The beauty of the peach in Nahéma is in the way she carries it with utter ebullience and effortless charm. This symphonic assemblage of top notes cannot hold a candle to what comes next, the ripples of which have pervaded the very atmosphere of the entire composition from the beginning, the rose.

Nahema Guerlain Peach Liz West FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

To begin to explain this rose seems almost an Olympian task for it is not simply a rose, it is a dream sequence and conceptual art piece in and of itself. It is not a rose of the Earth but a romanticized rendering, an olfactory landscape of scarlet lipstick kisses and lucid eruptions of honeyed, crimson velvet. The facets of Nahéma’s rose are akin to those of an intricately cut diamond, a radiant explosion of luminosity grounded by a weighted, baroque floridity that calls to mind a bygone era of unabashed luxury and excess. As the operatic rose begins to settle into the skin you are met with a redolent hum of rich, balsamic warmth. She’s borrowed some of Shalimar‘s characteristic vanilla and has again worn it in her own signature style.

Nahema Guerlain Baroque WikiCommonsPhoto Stolen WikiCommons

While still a study in resinous complexity it also maintains a dulcet levity to foil a smouldering depth. This is something that must be experienced for all the words in the world seem a failure to convey the inimitable beauty hidden within these treasured vapours.

Further reading: Colognoisseur and The Non Blonde
Beauty Encounter have $320/30ml Parfum
Surrendeer To Chance has vintage PdT samples from $6/ml

My concentration of choice in this pulchritudinous potion is the dense and luxuriant extrait de parfum. It lasts an exhorbitantly long time on my skin, sometimes through a hot bath and into the next day. I’m particularly fond of anointing my skin with Nahéma when I am looking to feel unapologetically glamorous and in need of an instant boost of confidence. For me, it truly is a sacred elixir.

Trésor XX