If you still need to come up with a gift for Mother’s Day, you’re running out of time! Here are a few more scented gift ideas:
From Laduree, scented candles in Caramel au beurre salé…
Byredo La Tulipe ~ new fragrance
Byredo has launched La Tulipe, a new fragrance “built around the idea of the tulip”:
A clean, fresh floral with top notes of rhubarb, cyclamen…
Byredo Baudelaire ~ new fragrance
Byredo has launched Baudelaire, a new fragrance named for the French poet:
« . . . a lazy isle to which nature has given
singular trees, savory fruits…
Byredo Blanche ~ new fragrance
Byredo has launched Blanche, the niche line’s eight fragrance. According to Byredo founder Ben Gorham:
The idea for Blanche is, as the name suggests, built around my perception of the colour white. For the first time i actually made a fragrance for and with a specific person in mind…
Byredo Bal d’Afrique ~ fragrance review
I tried Byredo Bal d’Afrique soon after Now Smell This posted the announcement of its release: “Byredo has launched Bal d’Afrique, a new fragrance inspired by ‘ Paris of 1920’s, balls of Saint Germain and the style of Josephine Baker ‘….”* In its marketing materials, Byredo mentioned not only Baker but “African…music and dance, excess and euphoria” as inspirations. Thinking of “Paris” and “balls” and La Baker, I put on some Bal d’Afrique and a top hat, took off my clothes, played Josephine’s Le Marchand de Bonheur at high volume and did my own version of the ‘banana dance‘ around my living room. (A rite of spring? A folly? Un rêve? You decide — my cats and neighbors aren’t talking.)
Bal d’Afrique was developed by perfumer Jerome Epinette and contains lemon, neroli, African marigold, cyclamen, vetiver, jasmine, violet, bucchu, cedar, black amber, and musk. Bal d’Afrique’s aromatics dance begins with neroli, lemon, a smidgen of marigold, and a punch of “raw” cedar (aimed at the nostrils, emanating from the armpits). The cyclamen note (I assume) provides a touch of clean “water” to the “sweaty” cedar and leads to Bal d’Afrique’s amber-y, musk-y dry-down. Vetiver “jitters” from one phase of Bal d’Afrique to the next and keeps the composition buoyant…