New French niche brand Cousu de Fil Blanc has launched Collection Les Fleurs du Mal, three new Eaux de Toilette: "absinthe, hemp, poppy, these three plants, of sulphurous reputation, have inspired our three unique cousu de fil blanc perfumes... use liberally with abandon".
Absinthe (shown) ~ "euphoria of wormwood and labdanum, sweetened with aniseed and a touch of liquorice, absinthe ends on refreshing notes of lavender and rosemary."
Chanvre / Hemp ~ "a nutmeg and vetiver base, hints of spice, a heart of hemp, a flirt with cardamom and, surprise, a splash of sparkling mandarin."
Pavot / Poppy ~ "misty aquatic harmonies of moss and musk, a few armfuls of irises, and suddenly a bloom: a delicate poppy dancing in the wind."
Cousu de Fil Blanc Les Fleurs du Mal Absinthe, Hemp and Poppy can be found now at Colette in Paris, in 50 or 500 ml Eau de Toilette. (quotes via cousudefilblanc)
‘Euphoria of wormwood’! Own up…which Prix Eaux Faux contestant among us wrote this copy?
🙂
The new niche lines just keep coming.
It’s astonishing.
Uggh…I want to try the poppy. There I admitted it, they got me!
They really do sound nice, so I guess they got me too!
With all due respect to Baudelaire, he is not the only French poet in history.
LOL…he really gets the lion’s share of the perfume house’s attention.
No, but perhaps the only one who wrote about perfumes/scents *and* took drugs *and* was (probably) an alcoholic too.
I have loved his poems since I was a teenager: they are so intense they have a particular appeal to young people and you don’t go off them in later life. Oh, I want to go and reread them all now… LOL!
Oops, meant to say, in case anyone is wondering: ‘cousu de fil blanc’ means ‘really obvious and rather unsubtle’.
“stitched with white thread?”
Yes, that’s the ‘literal’ translation for it. I didn’t know the origin of the expression so I looked it up. It comes from the fact that. when you’re sewing something, you need to use thread that is the same colour as the material if you want the stitches to be invisible. So if something is stitched with white thread (and the material isn’t white), it looks obvious. 🙂
absinthe is a plant?
I might like to try Hemp.
What did you think it was?
I though it was a beverage but now I see that I was mistaken, thank you for allowing me to see the light with your condescension.
Btw, one of the notes of Clinique Wrappings and SL Douce Amère is artemisia absinthium.
Personally, i had some vague impression of it being some kind of intoxicating drug? There is a drink called absinthe right? Is absinthe a chemical, or solution, derived from wormwood then? Ok, maybe I need wikipedia about now!
Wormwood is the plant, absinthe is the stuff- supposed to turn one’s face green
I had never heard of wormwood itself being called absinthe.
I guess wormwood is called absinthe in French, but I was not aware because I do not speak/study/care about French.
I was aware that absinthe is green tho.
As I understand it, absinthe is an alcoholic drink made from plants, including wormwood. I don’t know how the term is used in French though.
Dont know either – but I’m sure it sounds sexy! LOL
Absinthe is the name of the plant as well as the name of the beverage that’s made with it.
I’ve been looking for a fragrance that is ‘nut meggy’… will have to try Hemp methinks.
Yeah. . .the spices sound nice, but ugh! hemp? I smell enough foul smoke wafting about here in SE Portland, I don’t really need anything reminiscent of Eau d’Hippy. (Saying that with much love for hippies, including several family members–but their smell? Not really something to aspire to.)
Now I’m imagining perfumes that would evoke various subcultures – eau d’hippy, eau d’punk, eau d’goth….
Ha! Didn’t Tokyo Milk Dark Collection cover Eau de Goth?
First I’d get sloshed on the Absinthe, in a very hallucinatory “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” kind of way, followed by a case of the munchies with Hemp.
Poppy would bring the whole thing full circle, with a vision of the Wicked Witch from Oz, casting a poppy spell over Dorothy, playing the part of the Green Fairy in the absinthe.
Somehow I don’t think the actual perfumes would be quite so trippy.
I wasn’t too intrigued by these but now you have piqued my interest!
Ah yes! Good observation – they’re all drug sources…
You would have to use these “liberally with abandon” to get through a 500 ml bottle!
Oh goodness, yes, had not noticed that. Nothing in between 50 and 500 mls? How weird is that?!
I wonder what absinthe is like in perfume. I nearly ordered a sample pf L’Artisan’s absinthe, but held off at the last minute.
Hi Krok! Absinthe is an alcoholic beverage that was very popular in western Europe during the 19th and early 20th century … one of its ingredients was wormwood, a chemical that was thought, for many years, to cause insanity and violent behavior, hallucinations, brain damage, you name it. It was also thought to be addictive. (Modern chemistry has largely refuted these claims, but if you drink enough of anything …) Absinthe was known in France and Belgium as “The Green Fairy” or “The Green Devil” because of it’s bright, lime-green color. It got lots of publicity, and was eventually banned in Belgium and France around the time of WWI. Many domestic violence crimes were linked to the use of absinthe, and ingesting it led many young women “down the road to ruin” … plus lots of artists drank it and then painted pictures of glasses filled with bright green liquid, only they looked funny, all cube-y (Picasso) or stretchy (Modigliani), so it was clearly the beverage of choice for the dregs of society and crazy bohemians!!
As I understand it, it is not that she didn’t know what absinthe was, but that she didn’t understand why absinthe was being referred to as a plant in the ad copy. (Which I also think was perhaps careless, although as I said I don’t know how the term is used in France)
Yip, but i was confused – thanks Dzingnut! I like the word ‘absinthe’, it just sounds so sinister + the green colour and…