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Les Parfums de Rosine Rose des Neiges ~ fragrance review

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Les Parfums de Rosine Rose des Neiges

Les Parfums de Rosine has been one of my favorite niche perfume houses for the past decade, so I always look forward to trying its newest releases. This fall, Rosine has launched Rose des Neiges, “a modern interpretation of a powdery rose” inspired by the image of an unexpected late-autumn snowfall that frosts all the flowers in a rose garden. Rose des Neiges was developed by perfumer Nicholas Bonneville and includes top notes of mandarin, pink pepper, lychee and watermelon; heart notes of rose and white violet; and base notes of sandalwood, ambroxan, heliotrope and musks.

“Powdery” is an understatement here…

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Maison Martin Margiela Replica Lipstick On ~ fragrance review

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Maison Martin Margiela Lipstick On brand image

Back when we wrote about our favorite perfumes of 2015, I mentioned the recent proliferation of perfumes that evoke lipstick or other cosmetics — not a new idea, I pointed out, but a trend I can actually enjoy. One example I mentioned was Maison Martin Margiela Replica Lipstick On, which I kept meaning to try and I’ve finally been able to sample. (Earlier last year, I reviewed a few of the original fragrances from this collection — reviews here and here.)

The description for Lipstick On reads, “Within the intimacy of an apartment, a woman applies the finishing touches to her makeup. A cloud of rice powder lingers around the intensity of crimson lipstick. Lipstick On evokes an age-old ritual in a sophisticated, modern fragrance…”

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Narciso Rodriguez Narciso Poudree ~ fragrance review

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Narciso Rodriguez Narciso Poudrée, still from brand commercial

I used to hate (really, hate) powdery perfumes. Now I’m very nearly the opposite: you can take a fragrance that I don’t love all that much, give it a nice dusting of powder, and there’s a good chance I’ll at least like it better. So it goes with Narciso Poudrée, the latest from Narciso Rodriguez, and the latest entry in the current trend of powdered flankers. If they’d dumped a load of powder on Narciso by Narciso Rodriguez, a fragrance I already thought was darned good, I might have been forced to buy it. Instead, they did an Eau de Toilette version that I found distinctly less interesting, and then they dumped a load of power on that.

Actually, this one is tweaked a bit from the Eau de Toilette…

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Oriza L. Legrand Cuir de L’Aigle Russe ~ fragrance review

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Oriza L. Legrand Cuir de L'Aigle Russe label

Oriza L. Legrand’s latest perfume has a strange name — Cuir de L’Aigle Russe.1 No, this is not the scent of a ‘Russian’ eagle’s tanned skin…I assume we’re in “Royal Leather” territory. Oriza L. Legrand is one of my favorite new fragrance houses of the last several years. So many of their perfumes are on my to-buy list that I’m paralyzed with indecision and will probably buy none. After my first sniff of it, Cuir de L’Aigle Russe also went on this weird active-but-inactive to-buy list.

Cuir de L’Aigle Russe begins with a dry lemon-bergamot accord; I detect fuzzy geranium leaf with a hint of rose, warm immortelle snuggling with cardamom and a burst of non-species-specific floral indoles…

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Valentino Donna ~ perfume review

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Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey for Valentino Donna

If you adored Lancôme La Vie Est Belle1 or any of its various spawn (Giorgio Armani Sì, Nina Ricci L’Extase, Salvatore Ferragamo Emozione et. al.) and you were hoping for more candied iris powder, do try Valentino’s new-ish Donna, which I’d call the latest in the series except that I’m so far behind that Donna has been out for months and there are probably umpteen new fragrances in the same vein that I haven’t even smelled yet. Ah well.

Donna is the feminine counterpart to last year’s Valentino Uomo, and it maintains that scent’s emphasis on sugar, or to put it as Kevin did in his review, loads of sugar, at least in the opening…

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