Greg Lauren will launch a new limited edition fragrance in collaboration with Barneys New York. The Greg Lauren fragrance follows last year’s perfume for Barneys by L’Wren Scott…
Aedes de Venustas Iris Nazarena ~ fragrance review and a quick poll
West Village niche perfume boutique Aedes de Venustas has launched their second fragrance, Iris Nazarena, or their third, if you count the earlier Aedes scent for L’Artisan Parfumeur. Iris Nazarena follows last year’s Aedes de Venustas Signature, and I think we can now safely say a few things about the Aedes aesthetic: they like assertive perfumes — hey, meek and wearable are already adequately covered elsewhere, right? — and they like incense, and they seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to perfume development.
Perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour did the Aedes Signature and the L’Artisan, but for the Iris Nazarena, they’ve gone with Ralf Schwieger, and I’ll repeat some of the press release…
Aedes de Venustas Iris Nazarena ~ new fragrance
West Village niche perfume boutique Aedes de Venustas will launch their second fragrance, Iris Nazarena, in June…
Charenton Macerations Christopher Street ~ fragrance review
I can rarely resist a New York reference in a fragrance or a beauty product. Charenton Macerations is a new independent fragrance line created by Douglas Bender, a New York resident who has worked in various aspects of the fragrance industry, and its first scent is inspired by an old and storied New York location: Christopher Street, one of the best-known by-ways of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Christopher Street was developed in collaboration with perfumer Ralf Schwieger. Its composition includes top notes of alcoholic lime, bergamot, bitter orange, leather and tobacco; mid-notes of cinnamon, clove bud, “Dance on Skin,” orange blossom and Poet Carnation; and a dry down of incense, moss, musk, myrrh and patchouli.
As the Charenton Macerations website mentions, Christopher Street has been “home to merchants and misfits, Beatniks and Bohemians, dissidents and protesters” over its three centuries of existence. It evolved from colonial farmland into a site of shipping and trade, a crucible of modern art and literature, an epicenter of the sexual revolution, and a key location in the gay liberation movement. Although many of its long-loved bookstores and cafés are now closed, a few reminders of its history still stand, all with their own distinct olfactory profiles…
Etat Libre d’Orange The Afternoon of a Faun ~ fragrance review
As usual, Etat Libre d’Orange loads its newish release, The Afternoon of a Faun, with lots of backstory: Stéphane Mérimée’s poem L’après-midi d’un faune, Vaslav Nijinsky’s ballet (nymphs! sex!), and…uh…Mx* Justin Vivian Bond, who is given equal credit (and ad space) for developing the fragrance with perfumer Ralf Schwieger. (I can’t believe Ralf is pleased.) There’s a world of difference between Nijinsky’s The Afternoon of a Faun and Bond’s…Shortbus (though I can’t believe Etat Libre d’Orange didn’t try for a perfume tie-in with that film); when Nijinsky is “present,” even in a still photograph or grainy film clip, everyone else pales.
The Afternoon of a Faun perfume goes on “liquor-y” — with rich citrus, a touch of jasmine, and lots of immortelle. Out of that initial triad, immortelle is heaviest and longer lasting; it dominates the next phase of development too, but in mid-development it’s augmented with whiffs of rosy incense. In its final phase, The Afternoon of a Faun presents sweet, woody myrrh accented with pepper; its base notes have a waxy sheen, as if the lingering immortelle had been dipped in beeswax…