When I chose Sylvaine Delacourte Florentina to review, I didn’t know Kevin had already served it papers in his review of the line’s Helicriss, where he called Florentina “the most insufferable of the bunch” of the house’s releases. I understand that. If you don’t like powder and musk, you might well loathe Florentina.
Me? I’m a fan. I love a silky soft, swan’s-down puff of a perfume, and Florentina is all about that. To me, its musk is more about texture and body than about cleaning products…
My favorite musks smell animalic: wild, oily, hairy and sweaty. In a word: sexy. Such musks are an endangered species (much like many of their original animal sources). Whenever I’m asked what fragrance notes I hate, white “toddler” musks always get a mention (as do Calone and Iso E Super and Cashmeran). Yet, I can easily name you perfumes I own that contain each one of those ingredients and I absolutely love and wear these perfumes all the time. I enjoy Jardins d’Écrivains George and Hermès Eau de Gentiane Blanche — both contain white musk. All ingredients can be used masterfully to highlight or to augment other notes in a fragrance; white musk in the right hands (or Nose) is not juvenile, obnoxious, cloying, utilitarian — or readily apparent. But, to be frank, white musk is not ‘musk’ to me, and if a perfume house puts ‘musk’ in the name of a fragrance, I expect some colorful MUSK (not white fluff).
I was interested to try two new musk fragrances that found their way to me in December; these are the first perfumes I’ve smelled from the niche lines Aether and Mad et Len…
A Lab On Fire’s new fragrance, Mon Musc à Moi, sounded reasonably tempting. It was developed by perfumer Dominique Ropion, and it’s from a brand that’s done more than one fun gourmand (What We Do In Paris Is Secret, Paris*LA). The ad copy was a little silly, but it usually is, and while I couldn’t say exactly what they mean by “contemporary retro”, it sounds like it can’t hurt, right?
As it turns out, Mon Musc à Moi smells entirely contemporary to me, and I probably would have liked it better with another dash of retro…
I “met” my first elephant in a zoo when I was little and a life-long fascination with elephants was ignited. My elephant-love led me from Babar children’s stories and elephant picture books, to studies on elephant physiology and behavior, and the symbolism of elephants in art and religion, especially in Buddhism and Hinduism. My house is full of Ganesha statues and amulets, and I always go to Seattle’s Asian Art Museum when a tiny statue of Kangiten is on (rare) view — two elephants stand face to face and tenderly embrace. I love the Indian paintings of Airavata, the white elephant god and mount of Indra, who emerged from the churning of the milk ocean, an event that made the nectar of immortality available for the Hindu gods to drink. (You may know him as Erawan; in Thailand, you’ll see him depicted with three, or more, heads.)
I used to perk up with excitement when I’d see a photograph of elephants in a magazine or newspaper or hear their trumpeting on TV. Now? I approach such images and sounds warily…
Ashley and I are really into oils, and those were the notes we were really attracted to. — Mary-Kate Olsen, talking to Women’s Wear Daily.
Remember way back when — about 20-odd years ago in perfume years — when Sarah Jessica Parker launched Lovely, and everyone was talking about exactly which perfume oils it was based on? It was the first thing I thought of when I smelled Nirvana Black and Nirvana White, the new fragrances from Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s Elizabeth and James lifestyle brand. Lovely, it turned out, was inspired by Parker’s own layering blend of Bonne Bell Skin Musk, Comme des Garςons Avignon and some Egyptian Musk oil she bought from a street vendor, but as translated into something marketable by Coty, Lovely was far tamer and more wearable than you might have expected from the original mix.
Nirvana Black and Nirvana White come closer to walking the walk…