Cumin in Perfume

Posted by Angela on 25 October 2010 238 Comments

cumin

Few notes in fragrance are as polarizing as cumin. Some people associate cumin with sweat or food, and even the tiniest hint of it will cause them to double-bag a perfume sample and take it to the garbage can in the backyard. Other people, including me, like the carnal edge cumin adds to a fragrance.

For people who want to experiment with cumin-laced fragrances, I’ve put together this cheat sheet of a few perfumes and their ratings on the cumin-o-meter. I hope you’ll chime in with your favorite fragrances, too.

Cumin-o-meter rating 1: Serge Lutens Chêne. Have you ever leaned your head toward a four-log fire in a fireplace that draws well and breathed deeply? Riding the heat is a touch of cumin…

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Serge Lutens Bas de Soie ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 26 August 2010 103 Comments

Blue Moon silk stockings

…I’d rather say that it is a perfume at the center of doubt; that the beam balance never settles between iris and hyacinth in the main accord, which is what makes the composition interesting. — Serge Lutens

It is rare that Serge Lutens says anything about his own fragrances that I find helpful, but in this case — he was doing an interview with Grain de Musc — he has so neatly summed up the experience of wearing his new Bas de Soie (silk stockings) that only a few more details need to be added.

First, the iris is that cosmetics-powder sort of iris, far from the turnips and dirt-caked roots of Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist. The whole fragrance is cold and spiky early on, and very peppery, and the hyacinth is green and slightly bitter; later, Bas de Soie is warmer, softer and sweeter, and as advertised, the two notes seem to weave in and out (or struggle for control, depending on your outlook) for hours without ceasing until it rather suddenly fades away…

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Forbidden ingredients

Posted by Robin on 16 July 2010 55 Comments

The forbidden ingredients this time round are so extensive that I am asking myself, to give you an analogy, how could a baker make bread without flour? Substituting some materials with others is an option but it is possible that some fragrances will never see the light of day. This has already happened to me three times.

— Serge Lutens, talking about IFRA regulations, in There’s a bad whiff about this fuss over fragrance at the London Evening Standard. Thanks to Anya for the link!

He could never quite bring himself to move in

Posted by Robin on 24 May 2010 79 Comments

Although the rooms all have ostensible functions, most are rarely used; their raisons d’être are visual, not practical. The most conventionally domestic section of the house is an inner sanctum that Lutens calls “the apartment,” which he once planned to inhabit, though he could never quite bring himself to move in. “So there’s an office with no purpose, a bedroom where I’ve never slept, a bathtub where I’ve never, ever taken a bath,” he says. There’s also a small TV room, but you can guess how many World Cup matches Lutens has watched in it. He has flipped on the TV only once, for a few seconds, to make sure it worked.

— From Casbah Confidential, an article in the June issue of W Magazine about the house in Marrakech that Serge Lutens has been renovating for the last 35 years. Lutens apparently goes there in the afternoons, but sleeps elsewhere. The article is not online, but you can see the (wonderful) pictures by Patrice Nagel here. (via press release)