Niche perfume boutique Aedes de Venustas has launched 16a Orchard, a new fragrance named for their street address in the Lower East Side. The brand is also repackaging and reintroducing seven fragrances: Signature, Iris Nazarena, Copal Azur, Palissandre d’Or, Cierge de Lune, Grenadille d’Afrique and Pelargonium…
When Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner opened their boudoirlike perfume shop in the West Village in 1995, they focused on hard-to-find fragrances — the kind they spotted in their friends’ well-appointed bathrooms. Today, their selection includes the Parisian perfumer Serge Lutens’s bold, spicy scents; the heady creations of the 223-year-old French perfume house Lubin; and the New York brand Nomenclature’s intriguing synthetic-molecule blends, such as a vegetal musk extracted from hibiscus seeds.
— Read more in The Beauty Stores, Near and Far, That Are Destinations in Their Own Right at The New York Times.
For their 25th anniversary, Aedes de Venustas is bringing back the Encens Japonais candle they did for their 10th anniversary (and which Kevin said was a great candle). It's a limited edition, and 15% of the proceeds will go to the Covid-19 Emergency Relief Fund. "Escape into a magical world, where the beauty of scent stirs the imagination and evokes wondrous dreams. A luxurious scent of exotic Japanese incense intertwined with the softness of leather, balsam and the sensuality of musk. The honeyed bitterness of strawflowers lends a velvety richness to the voluptuous sweetness of precious woods." $75. (Hat tip to Kevin!)
With Aedes de Venustas Musc Encensé, it’s all about texture. A musk-centered fragrance — especially one that puts incense on the billing — could easily be stifling and itchy, a fur stole of a perfume. Musc Encensé, however, is a vapor that hangs as sheer as the waft off of a cup of tea. It’s the sort of fragrance you spray on, forget about, then later catch a whiff of something nice and realize it’s you.
Ralf Schwieger composed Musc Encensé. Its notes include clary sage, cashmeran, tonka, musk, incense and leather. The musk-savvy perfume lover will want to know what kind of musk this fragrance embraces…
I have never done one of the spit-or-scrape genealogical tests, but I have always suspected that my family has secret Nordic or Baltic blood, as both my brothers are enthusiastic enough about outdoor swimming that they’ll do it in early May or October… in Canada. While I hesitate to frolic in 50F waves, I do sport sandals until snow accumulates, drink Arnold Palmers in January and I’m the only non-menopausal female in my XX-dominated workplace who enjoys our arctic air-conditioning. In a similar fashion, I wear citrus colognes all year. When it is my turn to list summer fragrances around here, I remind myself that normal people generally turn to crisp, refreshing eaux only when the temperature rises. Having exhausted my stable of favored classic colognes in previous posts, though, I thought that this time I’d highlight some atypical choices. Please bear with me. I did test these on myself in the heat, but YMMV…