Cartier L’Envol ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 14 September 2016 36 Comments

French postal card showing Santos Dumont flying the 14 bis

Cartier just launched L’Envol (the flight). If you read about the fragrance online, you’ll see it compared to the scents of mead and ambrosia; there’s even a connection with one of Louis Cartier’s favorite people, aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont. Santos-Dumont has a Cartier watch and perfume named after him, and you may have seen “him” (wearing his Cartier watch) in the beautiful L’Odyssée de Cartier film (he’s the guy in the sky bringing the leopard back to Paris).

I got a kick out of L’Envol’s sample card’s wording, which shows even super-rich companies fall short in PR and translation: ‘”Un nectar aérien et boisé. Une potion de vie pour prendre son envol” was translated as “An airy and woody nectar. A life potion for men to take off.”¹ After spraying on L’Envol, I didn’t want to take it off; I wanted to spray on more…

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Sarah Jessica Parker Stash SJP ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 7 September 2016 64 Comments

Sarah Jessica Parker Stash SJP brand image

I forgive Stash many things:

1. its name (to me, “Stash” doesn’t jibe with the advertising or bottle);

2. the fact I could only smell Stash at Ulta Beauty (I went to two Ulta stores in order to get a sample of Stash. At Ulta No. 1 the S.A. said: “Uh, nope, we have Stash but not a tester bottle…I have a bottle here I’m making into a tester.” Me: “Can I sniff it?” S.A.: “I’m making a tester…SOON.” She chuckled and moved on. The store was empty.

3. Sarah Jessica Parker (whose roles never resonate with me). SJP: hie thee to a desert, strip your face of all makeup and play a character with little money and no “wardrobe;” perhaps a graveyard-shift nurse who also runs an animal rescue farm near Albuquerque with her lazy-ass teen sons and bitch of a mother…Sissy Spacek? Kathy Bates?

I admit I didn’t have much hope for Stash…

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Versace Pour Homme Dylan Blue ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 31 August 2016 20 Comments

Versace Pour Homme Dylan Blue advert

Versace just released Versace Pour Homme Dylan Blue and Donatella Versace had this to say about it:

I have always believed men should be strong, passionate, proud, expressive, unafraid. I love that in today’s world, men feel able to reveal their true natures, to share their passions and their beliefs. It’s there in the fragrance, which is strong, fresh, seductive.¹

Donatella grew up in ITALY. Italian men, including those in diapers and strollers, don’t exactly have a reputation for hiding their true natures, passions or beliefs. Who put these dumb words into Versace’s mouth? She grew up surrounded by brothers! Robin Here at NST™ had another take on Donatella, using Versace’s quote “I love how Dylan Blue captures such an evocative world of Versace masculinity.” Robin: Then, I picture her closing the door of her room, laughing, and counting her money.

I don’t know Ms. Versace personally (she seems nice enough in interviews), so I don’t relish her successes…or gloat over her failures…

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Charenton Macerations Eye, Hatshepsut ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 24 August 2016 28 Comments

Charenton Macerations Eye, Hatshepsut brand image

I’ve always loved ancient Egyptian art and history, the complex religious practices of Egyptians and the depictions of their gods (including such “gods” as the female pharaoh Hatshepsut). Call me macabre, but I enjoy reading about ancient Egyptian mummification practices and the fragrant oils used to preserve and scent important corpses big (rulers) and small (cats); I’ve written here at Now Smell This (10 years ago!) about kyphi incense. Like everyone else, I’m sometimes susceptible to advertising, so any time a perfume house releases a scent that references Egypt, I sample it in hopes it will be glorious. (Why didn’t Serge Lutens ever “go there”…with a rich, “profound” Egypt-inspired fragrance?)

Charenton Macerations Eye, Hatshepsut (which was, according to ad copy, researched at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo) goes on smelling medicinal, or “medicinal” as interpreted by a contemporary perfumer…

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Mirus Wicked Stepmother & Driftwood ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Kevin on 19 August 2016 20 Comments

Rubus sumatranus stem

I’d never heard of Mirus perfumes until I visited Tigerlily in San Francisco this July; a sales assistant insisted I sample the Northern California-based line. I was so taken with Mirus Wicked Stepmother, I included it in my Top 10 Summer Fragrances 2016 post.

Wicked Stepmother

(jasmine, lychee, orange, carnation, animalic amber and vanilla)

Wicked Stepmother reminds me of a vintage French perfume, one I could easily imagine being worn by the likes of Anouk Aimée or Simone Signoret in their heydays (both actresses could have rocked a mean stepmother — méchante belle-mère — role!) Wicked Stepmother opens with lush jasmine, spiked with a shot of something green…

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