Balmain will relaunch Ivoire de Balmain, the brand’s well-known fragrance first introduced in 1979. The modern interpretation will debut in August, and will be the brand’s first launch under new licensing arrangements with InterParfums…
Balmain Carbone de Balmain ~ fragrance review
Balmain creative director, Christophe Decarnin,* had a hand (and, presumably, his nose) in the creation of Parfums Balmain’s new (2010) men’s scent Carbone de Balmain:
Decarnin’s Balmain man is sexy and mysterious. He strolls nonchalantly through the city with glam rock elegance. Flashiness goes hand in hand with an ambiguous dark side that often pushes him to the limits of extravagance and provocation. He is demanding and aesthetic and considers art as a core value. He lives in the heart of new technologies, surrounding himself with works of art and objects of graphic design, carved from high-tech materials, as precious and as dark as carbon. Urbane and sophisticated, he is an epicurean who burns with a contagious passion for life. Carbone is a fragrance that develops like a work of art which quietly and secretly casts its spell.
Mysterious and nonchalant, yet…provocative and demanding, elegant, yet…flashy and extravagant, the Carbone de Balmain man is an epicure who values ART, but limits himself to the color black…
Balmain Carbone de Balmain ~ new fragrance
Balmain has launched Carbone de Balmain, a new fragrance for men:
A modern and luminous fragrance, both spicy and woody…
Balmain Jolie Madame ~ fragrance review
Have you ever played the game where you compose a dinner party of any guests that you want? With all four leaves in my dining room table I can seat twelve people. I haven’t chosen all the guests yet, but I’m tentatively down for Dolly Parton, M. F. K. Fisher, Jimmy and Roslyn Carter, Charlie Chaplin — and perfumer Germaine Cellier. Germaine Cellier is the nose behind an astonishing list of list of fragrances, including one of my favorites, Balmain Jolie Madame.
According to a profile of the perfumer by Jeannine Mongin for the Société Française des Parfumeurs, Germaine Cellier was a tall, thin blonde with an unerring sense of style (she favored Balmain suits) and a dirty mouth. She studied chemistry and during World War II worked for Colgate Palmolive scenting soap. She lived in Montparnasse, modeled for André Derain, and was friends with Jean Cocteau. She kept three dachshunds named Cléopatra, Félix, and Valentin and a parrot who could sing Etoile des Neiges. She was imperious, generous, opinionated, and never married but spent the last thirty years of her life shacked up with a tennis pro. If Cellier were alive today, she’d be exactly 100 years old.
And, of course, she made marvelous, groundbreaking perfumes…
Top 10 Summer Fragrances 2008
Summer: it’s the best of times (fresh flowers, fruits and vegetables — songbirds and butterflies in the garden); it’s the worst of times (muggy, bug-infested days of unbearable heat). On the brightest, breeziest summer days (when the temperature is below, let’s say, 78 degrees), I feel happy and fling open the windows in my house to “freshen my life;” I listen to Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne at high volume and imagine myself running, buff and tan, thru poppy-dotted country fields in IMAX — I feel energized and immortal. Then, when the temperature soars, my spirits and outlook plummet: oily faced, limp haired, mean as a snake and with cold booze in hand, I retreat to dark rooms or my basement — and mope (when I’m not lashing out at friends, family, cats).
A summer arsenal of perfumes should make the good days better and the doldrums bearable. For me, summer is a time for sprightly perfumes, and just like I try to grow new things in my summer garden each year — I like to wear new fragrances. Here are a few of my recent discoveries:
A ‘soapy’ cologne is a must for me in summer. Balmain's Ivoire de Balmain smells like a scented summer bouquet sprinkled with pepper and dabbed with labdanum…