Our 2014 series of holiday gift posts continues — today we’ve got travel sizes, rollerballs and coffrets. More coming up on Friday!
For more gift ideas, see Bois de Jasmin’s list of Perfume Discovery Sets or EauMG’s Holiday Gift Guide for Natural Beauties.
From Bottega Veneta, a Knot gift set with a 75 ml Eau de Parfum, a 100 ml Body Lotion plus a deluxe miniature of the Eau de Parfum. $165 at Nordstrom…
Niche line Mona di Orio has introduced new packaging for the brand. Two older fragrances, Lux and Nuit Noire (shown below), will be reissued, and a new fragrance, Myrrh Casati (shown above), will be introduced…
It’s easy to mistakenly pigeonhole violet. When I think of violet, my thoughts first go to retro rose-violet concoctions like Frédéric Malle Lipstick Rose or violet as sweet as the candied flowers on Viennese pastries. Really, though, violet can be dark and moody, especially when paired with its leaves (think of the knowing earthiness of Jean Patou 1000) or even elegantly futuristic (like Comme des Garçons + Stephen Jones‘s waft of a flying saucer crashed into a bed of violets).
Then, of course, there’s the classic gentleman’s violet as found in British shaving creams and old-fashioned colognes. Mona di Orio Violette Fumée Eau de Parfum Intense is a gentleman’s violet, but for the modern gentleman (or lady) whose desk is topped not by fountain pens but a MacBook Pro, and whose evening tipple is more likely to be small batch bourbon from Brooklyn than a Scotch whisky and soda…
When Mona di Orio died in December 2011, she left behind formulae for a few more fragrances, among them Eau Absolue. I had to wonder, how does that work? I’m always suspicious of novels published after authors have died. The writers aren’t around to nix an editor’s suggestions or revise scenes that might have not have yet met their standards. How about with a perfumer?
I asked Jeroen Oude Sogtoen, Mona di Orio’s business partner, who continues to manage the perfume line. Of their business relationship, they referred to Mona as the business’s “nose” and Jeroen Oude Sogtoen as the “eye” since he’s responsible for the line’s simple-but-luxurious visual appeal.
He said the concentrates for the Mona di Orio line continue to be made at Accords et Parfums on Edmond Roudnitska’s property, and he doesn’t have another perfumer fine-tune her compositions before they’re produced…
Niche line Mona di Orio will launch Violette Fumée, a new addition to the Les Nombres d’Or series, this fall…