L’Artisan Parfumeur will launch Haute Voltige, Rappelle-Toi and Onde Sensuelle, three new fragrances joining the Explosions d’Emotions collection (see Skin on Skin, Amour Nocturne and Déliria). The fragrances were developed by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour…
Taking a cue from the designer perfume line’s Déliria fragrance, which features notes of toffee and apple, the first course of Nova Scotia Salmon incorporates citrus-cured apple and grain mustard. The second course includes guests’ choice of Atlantic Black Cod, served with carrots and roasted garlic fumet, or the Omaha Beef Tenderloin with smoked potato mousseline and Bordelaise syrup, both of which are inspired by the saffron, whiskey, lavender, and rose bouquet found in L’Artisan’s Skin on Skin.
— Los Angeles restaurant Patina is offering a Valentine's Day dinner inspired by L'Artisan Parfumeur's Explosion d'Emotion trio. Read more at Patina Partners with L’Artisan Parfumeur for Valentine’s Day Dinner at Haute Living.
Long-time perfumistas, what were the “big” niche brands when you started out? My own perfume addiction took hold on the fragrance board in MakeupAlley in 2003, and at that time, as I saw it, the “big four” were basically Diptyque, Serge Lutens, Frédéric Malle and L’Artisan Parfumeur.1 When one of those four brands released a new fragrance, perfumistas sat up and took notice, and everyone did their best to get their hands on a sample as soon as samples were available to be had.
It’s a different world now. There are approximately three times as many fragrance launches every year, and so many niche brands have sprouted up — and in some cases, vanished again just as quickly — that it’s impossible to keep track of them all. Diptyque, Serge Lutens, Frédéric Malle and L’Artisan Parfumeur are still big names, but even venerable old brands can no longer rest on their laurels what with all the product out there competing for attention. It takes some doing to keep the affections of your long-time customers and still attract new business.
L’Artisan Parfumeur kept my affections for a good long time, but lately, I’ve been puzzled by exactly what they’re doing over there. Many of their beloved series — the limited edition summer fragrances, the travel fragrances (Bois Farine, Timbuktu, Dzongkha), the harvest perfumes — appear to be in remission, and it looks like they are phasing out a number of my favorite scents…
I admit it: sometimes I do feel an “explosion of emotions” when I pass a bakery display case. But I wouldn’t have thought a perfumer’s rendition of an emotional explosion would give off so much brioche and baba au rhum. To me, that’s just what L’Artisan Parfumeur Explosions d’Emotions Amour Nocturne and Déliria do. They smell like sophisticated pastries steeped in liqueur — and for Déliria, sitting in a crimped foil holder.
L’Artisan Parfumeur released three fragrances in its Explosions d’Emotions collection: Amour Nocturne, Déliria, and Skin to Skin (which Robin will review later this week). L’Artisan describes the collection as “Three concepts, translating the extraordinary emotional power of fragrance, created without compromise, with master perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour.” They’re packaged in a larger, squat version of the perfume house’s classic columnar, heptagon1 bottle and cost an eye-popping $280 each.
So, what do we get for all that cash…
Like many kids — including, currently, my daughter — in elementary school, I dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. We lived in Steeltown, Central Canada, but my parents humored me by giving me books on whales and sharks. Then, when I was ten, we moved to the Pacific Northwest, to live within walking distance of the ocean, and my mother realized humoring me now was going to involve keeping tanks full of weird, wet, smelly sea things in our laundry room. She was a good sport about it. Eventually, I went away to do half my double major in biology as an undergraduate and in the meantime, my parents had moved to the other coast. I spent two university summers living with them, working for an Atlantic fish conservation agency, and those months spent in hip-waders, prying errant eels out of fish ladders and tagging traps, cured me of the childhood career dream. But my love affair with the ocean has not wavered.
For a while after I left home, then, I was suspicious of any vacation destination or employment opportunity that lacked access to saltwater. Once I was married, though, my husband coaxed me into moving to Alberta. After I got over the nosebleeds, I found I enjoyed the famed high blue skies of the west, and day-trips to the badlands to the north and in Montana suddenly appealed. Again, I started reading, desert stories like The English Patient and Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines, books about Mexico, Wilfred Thesiger, the Battle of the Little Bighorn and, oddly, Los Alamos. The reading led inevitably to vacation plans and traveling, trips to New Mexico, North Africa and to the arid edge of the South American altiplano…