Guerlain perfumer Thierry Wasser, in Tunisia to talk about neroli.
Friday scent of the day 3/29
The last Friday in March! (It’s also World Piano Day and Pearl Bailey’s birthday.) Our community project for today: wear an orange blossom or neroli fragrance, if you have one.
What fragrance did you pick? As always, do chime in with your scent of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.
I am repeating last Friday in Hermès Eau de Néroli Doré…
Orange flower
A short film from International Flavors & Fragrances' in house naturals facility, Laboratoire Monique Rémy, about the cultivation and processing of Tunisian orange blossoms into orange blossom absolute and neroli. (If you never understood the difference between the two products, this video will explain.) About 6 minutes; perfumer Anne Flipo appears at about the 5:20 mark.
Parfums de Nicolai Neroli Intense & Thymes Neroli Sol Body Lotion ~ fragrance & body product review
I may wear rose more often than any other floral note in my fragrances, but I’m also very fond of violet and carnation, and sometimes I really crave an orange blossom perfume. Parfums de Nicolaï recently launched Néroli Intense, Patricia de Nicolaï’s tribute to her own “passion for the orange flower,” and since this house is one I respect, I was looking forward to trying this new scent.
Néroli Intense’s composition includes notes of mandarin, neroli, tarragon, pittosporum flower, petitgrain, beeswax, patchouli and white musk. It does indeed evoke the “different olfactory properties” of the bitter orange tree, while remaining coherent and tightly constructed. Its petitgrain note — evoking the oil distilled from the twigs of the bitter orange tree — is green and raspy, and takes the lead after Néroli Intense is applied to skin…
Hermes Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate & Eau de Neroli Dore ~ fragrance review
Eau de Rhubarbe Écarlate and Eau de Néroli Doré are the latest additions to ‘Les Colognes’ at Hermès. It is not my favorite collection — I own a lot of Hermès fragrances, but only one from this series, Eau de Pamplemousse Rose (I do also keep a small bottle of the older Eau d’Orange Verte, which was repackaged into this series in 2009). But still, I’m always glad to see something new from the brand that takes most of my perfume dollars, and I was especially curious since the rhubarb is the first fragrance for Hermès signed by perfumer Christine Nagel, who joined Jean-Claude Ellena as house perfumer in 2013.
Eau de Rhubarbe Écarlate is, as I said above, the Christine Nagel scent, and the description, “the crisp and tangy freshness of rhubarb softened with white musks”, is pretty accurate…