A bargain: Caron Pour Un Homme, in a gift set with 125 ml each Eau de Toilette and After Shave. $47.90 at Beauty Encounter.
The luxury alternative: Caron Pour Un Homme in a “limited numbered edition of 300 sumptuous Baccarat solid crystal bottles…”
Summer fun ~ brief reviews of six less-than-serious perfumes for hot weather
Six contenders for those warm summer days when a serious perfume just won’t do: Lostmarc’h Lann Ael, ElizabethW Sweet Tea, Comme des Garçons Soda, Gap Grass, Demeter Pruning Shears & Demeter Beetroot.
Lostmarc’h Lann Ael ~ Gourmand-lovers looking for something edible that won’t overwhelm in the summer heat might want to check out Lann Ael from the niche line Lostmarc’h. It is most decidedly not my sort of thing, but something about it makes me smile. If the notes (buckwheat, cereals, milk, apple, vanilla) sound like breakfast, you’re on the right track: this is a dead ringer for my son’s favorite maybe-more-dessert-than-breakfast cereal: Cookie Crisp. It starts out airy and light, with crisp apple (thankfully or not, depending on your point of view, the apple doesn’t last), calms into a mild blend of sweet cereal grains and cookie dough, and eventually finishes off as a light, creamy vanilla…
Comme des Garcons Series 2, Red: Palisander ~ fragrance review
Two of my favorite rosewood-scented products, SABÃO PAU ROSA, Brasil (a soap) and Bois de Rose Eau de Toilette, “disappeared” about 10 years ago. I can’t remember the names of their manufacturers, but I remember their fragrances and have been searching for replacements ever since. The rosewood soaps were bright-red glycerin ovals wrapped in lime-green paper with black-and-white lettering. Bois de Rose was made in Provence and came in pale pink boxes decorated with an old-fashioned drawing of a rosewood tree.
The last time I wore Bois de Rose perfume was on a summertime New Mexico vacation with my friend Susan. I vividly remember our Bois de Rose-scented holiday adventures. After we checked into our rooms at a Taos inn, the owner, while delivering fresh towels, assumed we had switched rooms — SURELY, no man would have so many toiletry items lined up on the bathroom counter mere minutes after arrival…
Top 10 Spring Fragrances 2009
When spring arrives, the black and white world of winter seems to turn technicolor in splotches. The ground is mostly barren, but a patch of lurid daffodils lights up a parking strip, and a tulip tree looks like it has burst into white flames against the grey sky. Even the singing birds sound ridiculously cheerful, like a Looney Tunes short come to life.
Of course, I love it. And mostly I like choosing perfumes for spring that make the same garish splash in the cool, damp air. But sometimes moodier fragrances that reflect the dirt’s slow awakening seem more appropriate. Here are my current favorites for spring, not in any particular order.
Amouage Ubar. Nothing says spring like lily of the valley — light, ethereal, and tinged with green. Unfortunately, when I wear Christian Dior Diorissimo, I feel like I’m wearing someone else’s clothing. It feels cold on me. Ubar, on the other hand, is loaded with lily of the valley and sunny jasmine, but has a warm grounding of sandalwood and civet. I’m hoarding the few drops I have left in my sample sprayer…
Comme des Garcons + Stephen Jones ~ fragrance review
I don't do hats, so I know next to nothing about British milliner Stephen Jones. The Telegraph says “he is the best in the business”*, and I'll have to take their word for it. Jones reportedly met designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons by chance in the Anchorage airport back in the 1980s**, and they've collaborated (on hats and whatnot, presumably) since then. The Comme des Garçons + Stephen Jones fragrance debuted earlier this year, and Jones' description of the scent — “futuristic but rococo” and “a violet that's been hit by a meteorite” — along with the perfect, just-like-a-hat packaging, placed it at the top of my “must smell” list.
The juice was developed by perfumer Antoine Maisondieu, who also did the wonderful Comme des Garçons Hinoki fragrance for Monocle magazine earlier this year, and I'm happy to report that it's exactly as advertised, in fact, if “a violet that's been hit by a meteorite” appeals to you, you'd probably do just as well to stop reading now and get yourself a sample…