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 …”
A warm and romantic vetiver inspired by Paris in the late 20’s and its infatuation with African culture, art, music and dance…
Le Labo will launch Oud 27 in March. It will be their first global (i.e., not a city-exclusive) fragrance launch since the brand debuted in 2006.
As usual, don’t expect to only smell Oud in this creation… Atlas cedar, incense, Patchouli, Saffron or Gaiac wood make this composition an intimate vision of the East.
Eddie Roschi of Le Labo described Oud 27 as the One Thousand and One Nights, bottled…
Living in the Pacific Northwest, I’m surrounded all year by the colors, and scents, of greenery — evergreen trees and shrubs, green lawns (even in January). But there are cold-winter greens (often dark colored, dull, and chilled into scentlessness by frigid temperatures), and then there are spring and early-summer new-growth greens — vivid, dewy fresh and fragrant with zingy juices. Call me sappy — give me springtime and summery greens and lots of them.
I’m a big fan of ‘green’ perfumes: I like sharp and punchy pure-green fragrances (full of leafy, stem-y, grassy notes). I like citrus-y green colognes too; even high-pitched floral-green scents appeal to me. And if a green perfume turns ‘soft’ or ‘wilts’ in the dry-down due to a touch of musk, that’s usually OK — as long as the green notes linger a good while, even in a spectral fashion.
Byredo Green, developed by perfumer Jerôme Epinette, contains sage, petitgrain, jasmine, rose, violet, honeysuckle, vanilla, sweet almond and musk…
Ok, raise your hand if you'd like to see a moratorium on new niche brands? At the very least, I'd like to see an independent judging panel evaluate each line, sniff a sampling of their wares, and determine if they have anything to offer that the world really needs. Given how much product is already out there, we don't need much, do we? More product makes it harder to find the perfect scent, not easier.
I used to define a perfumista as someone who wants to smell everything, but I can't say I fall into that category anymore. I don't want to smell everything if that means smelling 1500+ new fragrances a year, and that's my (obviously unofficial) estimate of what we're going to see before 2008 is over*. More and more often, new niche lines launch, and after reading the fragrance descriptions, I decide I'm just going to save myself some time and trouble and not smell them at all.
Byredo was one of those lines. They launched five fragrances earlier this year, and as I said at the time, none of the fragrance descriptions made me drool on my keyboard. So I didn't chase after them. Luckily, a kind friend sent me a sample of Byredo Pulp so I could see what I was missing…
Byredo is a Stockholm-based niche line that has introduced five new personal fragrances this year (previously, they were known for their scented candles). The range was recently added to the mix at London's Les Senteurs:
Rose Noir (shown) ~ “…uses Damascus roses laced with animalic notes, musk sand bitter citrus notes. The fresh, crisp, bracing and almost metallic top notes are derived from grapefruit, pepper and green freesia. Intense, simmering and vibrant.”…