Comme des Garcons Dot ~ fragrance review & a quick Comme des Garcons poll

Posted by Robin on 16 March 2016 67 Comments

Comme des Garçons Dot circle

Dot is the latest fragrance release from Comme des Garçons. It comes in the melted light bulb bottle,¹ which I did not like in clear glass, but which looks great fun in opaque black with polka dots (see below). Also in its favor, in my book at least, it’s supposed to be about osmanthus, one of my (yes, many) favorite floral notes: “The aim was not only to capture the smell of the flower but to reproduce the mysterious allure that penetrates the air of a park filled with Osmantus trees in bloom.”²

Throw in a few berries, and Dot pretty much follows its lists of notes…

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Two times two plus one ~ quick perfume reviews

Posted by Robin on 31 March 2015 32 Comments

Quick reviews of two fragrances from Lush (Kerbside Violet and All Good Things), two from Imaginary Authors (The Soft Lawn and Yesterday Haze), and one from Memo (Inlé).

Lush Kerbside Violet

Lush Kerbside Violet solid perfume

A lovely gentle violet with jasmine and ylang. It’s sweetish but not too sweet, and nothing like so strong and sugared as the brand’s Tuca Tuca…

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Osmanthus: The Scent of Happiness ~ out of the bottle

Posted by Alyssa on 20 March 2012 55 Comments

osmanthus

This is my last post as an official writer for Now Smell This.¹ It’s been a huge opportunity and a real thrill to write for the blog that first woke me up to perfume, and I will miss my regular gig very much. But I’ll see you in the comments section, and I’ll be easy to find, so instead of getting weepy or nostalgic, I simply want to say thank you and offer you a bouquet of osmanthus blossoms.

I admit that, as bouquets go, it isn’t much to look at. The flowers, white or yellow, depending on the variety, are simple and very tiny — you could easily hold a hundred in the palm of your hands. The greenery of the variety that grows in the Southern U.S., where osmanthus is widely known as the Tea Olive, is unremarkable. But none of that really matters. This bouquet is not for display, it’s a nosegay, and as soon as you bend your head to sniff, your eyes will be closed in bliss.

I think of osmanthus as the scent of happiness. It smells of warm, ripe apricots, good black tea (maybe a Ceylon, with its floral notes and natural sweetness) and soft leather. It’s a luscious, velvety scent, rich and delicious, but the sunny, citrus-kissed fruit and the tannic tea notes keep things from getting too serious…

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Serge Lutens Nuit de Cellophane ~ perfume review

Posted by Jessica on 19 June 2011 34 Comments

Sweet osmanthus

Nuit de Cellophane was released by Serge Lutens in early 2009 as part of the brand’s export collection. The press release for this fragrance includes a typically Lutensian snippet of prose-poetry and dialogue, but the sample-vial card offers a more concise description: “The night embodied in scent and sight. Chinese osmanthus.” Nuit de Cellophane’s list of notes includes jasmine, osmanthus, carnation, lily, almond, honey, sandalwood, and musk.

I hope my “perfumista” credentials won’t be revoked when I reveal that I’m not a Serge Lutens fanatic. I admire the line’s artistic philosophy and many of its fragrances (and I did own the original Shiseido Féminité du Bois years ago), but although I can appreciate the scents in an abstract sense, I somehow don’t enjoy wearing most of them. Even Sa Majesté la Rose, the rose soliflore of the line, which would seem to be a good fit for my tastes, rubs me the wrong way. (Is it the geranium that bothers my nose? the honey? I’ve never been able to figure it out.) Long story short, I respect Serge Lutens from a distance, but the house’s aesthetic just doesn’t fit me. On the other hand, Nuit de Cellophane sounded like the type of sweet floral that usually appeals to me, and if it turned out to be a non-Serge-like scent, as many diehard Lutensians lamented, then I would probably like it…

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Three from Providence Perfume Co ~ perfume reviews

Posted by Robin on 31 March 2011 60 Comments

Providence Perfume Tabac Citron

Despite my complaints about boring fragrances in general and boring niche fragrances in particular, I’m generally not all that eager to try new and unknown indie lines. It’s true that you might just smell something fabulous, something entirely outside of the proverbial box, something that you can no longer find in mainstream or niche. But to get there, you’re going to kiss a lot of frogs, right? And by frogs, I mean fragrances that are not just boring, but awful — scrubbers, perhaps, or worse.¹

Providence Perfume Co, which has garnered some attention on the blogs & forums, turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I tried 8 of the line’s 9 offerings, and didn’t reach for the liquid Tide even once. Charna Ethier is a relative newcomer to the indie natural scene; she’s been marketing her own perfumes for about a year or so. Her line caught my eye primarily because she makes a fragrance called Osmanthus Oolong which sounded nearly custom-made for me: black, green and red teas, osmanthus, beeswax. As it turned out, I didn’t like Osmanthus Oolong. It was too heavy and sweet, and maybe just too far away from the Osmanthus Oolong of my imagination (I drink real osmanthus oolong tea regularly, and have yet to see it satisfactorily translated into perfume).² But I did like several others in the line, and so here are brief reviews:

I’ll start with Tabac Citron (shown above) because it’s so likable…

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