Guerlain has launched Nerolia Bianca, the latest addition to their Aqua Allegoria range. According to house perfumer Thierry Wasser, the fragrance evokes a nap in the shade of an orange tree…
Guerlain L’Heure de Nuit ~ fragrance review
Guerlain L’Heure Bleue is the rare fragrance with an undeniable signature. It is sweet and romantic but freakily medicinal, too. It has just as much presence as one of Guerlain’s other singular fragrances, Shalimar. But like the shape-shifting light between day and night, the time for which the fragrance is named, L’Heure Bleue’s mood is less mysterious than Shalimar’s and more magical.
In Thierry Wasser’s modern interpretation of L’Heure Bleue, he’s bumped back its eponymous time a few hours and called it L’Heure de Nuit. After smelling L’Heure de Nuit, I would have named it for a cheerful part of the day, a time filled with sun and cake. Maybe L’Heure de Your Coworker Brought In Cookies This Morning. Or, given L’Heure de Nuit’s streak of clean musk, L’Heure de Laundromat…
Guerlain L’Heure De Nuit ~ new perfume
Last year, Guerlain launched L’Heure De Nuit, a new flanker to 1912’s L’Heure Bleue…
Guerlain Homme L’Eau Boisee ~ fragrance review
Guerlain recently launched Guerlain Homme L’Eau Boisée, a flanker of a flanker: Guerlain Homme begat Guerlain Homme L’Eau and now we have Homme L’Eau Boisée. (Hey, Guerlain, what about a NEW men’s fragrance…and let this “idea” rest?)
Homme L’Eau Boisée was developed by Thierry Wasser; his goal — to overdose the Homme L’Eau fragrance with an “exceptional new type of vetiver” from Coimbatore in Southern India. Indians have been growing, distilling, wearing (and drinking!) vetiver (khus) for a long time, but I was curious to see if 1. there was an ‘overdose’ of vetiver in Homme L’Eau Boisée, and 2. if this vetiver smelled different from other types of vetiver I smell all the time in perfume…
Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire (2012) ~ fragrance review
As announced earlier this year, Guerlain has released a new version of La Petite Robe Noire, the 2009 limited distribution perfume inspired by the wardrobe basic “the little black dress.” This new iteration of La Petite Robe Noire was developed for Guerlain by house perfumer Thierry Wasser; its composition includes notes of patchouli, almond, red fruits, bergamot, rose, licorice, smoked black tea, tonka bean, vanilla and iris.
I was puzzled by the La Petite Robe Noire concept when the first version was launched, and my confusion has only increased while I’ve been trying out this 2012 variation. First of all, what does the “little black dress” motif have to do with Guerlain, one of the few major fragrance brands that has no fashion connection? (It would make perfect sense for a Chanel perfume, of course.) Did anyone really think that the cartoonish silhouette of a dress fits well on the classic square Guerlain bottle with its inverted-heart cap? Why was the romantic-revenge anthem “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” chosen for the commercial? And is the fragrance itself some kind of cynical joke?
If you want the long-story-short, here it is: to me, La Petite Robe Noire 2012 is a washed-out copy of Lolita Lempicka topped with a shot of Cherry Coke…