Coming next month from L’Occitane will be Rose Nuit de Mai (shown above left), a new perfume for women:
The captivating sensuality of rich red roses, the warm and mysterious scent of woody essences.
In May in Provence, the young people from the Pays de Forcalquier celebrate the joys of the first harvests….
Christian Dior will follow last year’s Escale à Portofino, the first entry in a projected series of “fragrance cruise collections”, with Escale à Pondichéry:
…the “Escales de Dior” collection continues its journey. Today, the Orient glides by on an exotic passage to India. The former trading post of the French East India Company, Pondicherry is the new destination for Parfums Christian Dior…
On vacation in Morocco years ago, I spent a week inexplicably pronouncing the French word for “mint” (menthe) as “mountain” (mont). During that week, in Fez, Marrakech, Casablanca, I ordered lots of ‘mountain tea’ (thé à la mont) before I realized my mistake. I turned red as I remembered all the waiters and café owners who had looked at me strangely as I ordered mountain tea (no such thing!) when what I really wanted was a glass of thé à la menthe. I recall one café proprietress — in the Atlas Mountains of all places — her eyes lined in kohl, shouting at me maniacally (between hearty guffaws) when I asked for some mountain tea:
ME: Thé à la mont, s’il vous plaît.
SHE: (eyes opened wide, shaking head from side to side) Non.
ME: (a bit louder) Thé à la mont, s’il vous plaît.
SHE: (frowning, shaking head from side to side and moving arms up and down) Non!
ME: (emphasizing each word) Thé à la mont, s’il vous plaît…
Esteban has launched Esprit de Thé, a new fragrance in their Bathtime range:
A floral-musky eau de toilette in which the purity of green tea reveals a floral heart with a woody base note…
The Eaux de Fleurs collection is the latest from Kenzo. They are starting off this year with a trio, Eau de Fleur de Thé (tea flower), Eau de Fleur de Soie (silk flower) and Eau de Fleur de Magnolia (you can figure that one out), and they're planning to add a new flower to the series every year. Like the Guerlain Aqua Allegoria collection, these are meant as a “return to nature”, and they're advertised as “subtle” waters based on flowers picked from Japanese trees.
Eau De Fleur de Thé is meant as a tribute to “the tea flower”. It was developed by perfumer Aurelien Guichard, and is described as “a floral infusion with green tea and musky notes”. It's a slightly smokier (although only briefly; I wouldn't call it a smoky scent in general), more-tea-less-citrus variation on Bvlgari's Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert…