Deal at aftelier: for a limited time, spend $100 and get a free miniature Cacao essence.
New at nordstrom: Yves Saint Laurent Paris in a limited edition black bottle decorated with fireworks (do go see!).
New at scentiments: Jean Patou Sira des Indes.
Jean Claude Ellena, the house nose at Hermès, is in Sydney, Australia to help launch the Terre d'Hermes fragrance. And no, he doesn't wear it himself:
He does not splash on cologne, his armpits are a deodorant-free zone and he steers clear of perfumed soaps.
"It is to protect myself," he said. "When I smell odours around me I'm starting to say, well, this contains that and that, so I am starting to work, but I want to concentrate only on creating my own perfumes so I try to avoid smell."
Read the rest in The Australian (link no longer working, sorry!)
Guerlain has launched Mayotte, a re-release of the 2000 fragrance Mahora. Both names are derived from the “Island of Ylang Ylang” that is known as Mayotte or Mahoré, where perfumer Jean Paul Guerlain vacations and where the house of Guerlain has ylang ylang and jasmine plantations. Mayotte joins the Les Parisiennes collection…
It’s amazing that something so simple as sea salt, avocado, and ginger lily should smell so…light and fresh, but this deceptively simple brew works for all the right reasons and stands as a major accomplishment in marine-inspired aromas. Mare, Beth Terry’s 2nd fragrance for her Creative Universe label, is an intoxicating scent of the sea, and one of my newest summer staples.
Having been called everything from “soapy” to “masculine”, with comparisons to Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey and Calvin Klein Escape, it seems that Mare has a different effect on everyone who tries it…
It is lavender-harvest time in Provence. Read about the festivities in the New York Times.
An older but still interesting article in Popular Science discusses how the army is using the sense of smell to train soldiers:
Olfaction could be key. A number of researchers believe that smell, more than any other sense, can powerfully and immediately trigger emotions, memories and states of arousal—all of which, when manipulated adeptly, can boost the sense of immersion and thus the quality of training in VR [Virtual Reality]. In short, smellier simulators could produce smarter soldiers…