Xinu OroNardo ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 29 March 2025 18 Comments

I fell in love with the scent of tuberose flowers in Los Angeles; every week, huge piles of tuberose stalks would be delivered to the big downtown flower market. A two-foot-long individual stalk was $3.50! (A laughable figure these days.) A work friend would go to the flower market every other Friday to pick up ten stalks — five for her home and five for the office. Weeks and weeks would pass when I’d smell fresh tuberose flowers almost every day. Heaven.

At the same time, Robert Piguet Fracas (the Pierre Negrin version) was a huge hit in Hollywood. Wherever I went — the museum, the movies, Grand Central Market, my dentist (the worst place to smell Fracas, believe me!) — I was knocked in the nostrils by the most powerful perfume version of tuberose. Hell…

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Tuberose

Posted by Robin on 20 November 2020 5 Comments

A 3 minute spot from International Flavors & Fragrances' in house naturals facility, Laboratoire Monique Rémy, about the cultivation and processing of tuberose in Mysore. Perfumer Dominique Ropion appears at about the 2:30 mark.

Rogue Perfumery Flos Mortis ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 18 December 2019 17 Comments

I have a complicated relationship with tuberose (Agave amica). I love the flowers, and summer is not summer without tuberose blossoming in my garden. My husband loves tuberose, too — in the garden and on his person (he wears Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower). If I had my druthers, a vase full of fresh tuberose flowers would scent my house at all times. Tuberose soap? Yes, please! The “complicated” part of my tuberose relationship is: I don’t like to wear tuberose-rich fragrances! Most tuberose-centered perfumes turn dainty on me or the tuberose element is combined with glaring white florals to produce a shrill glamazon vibe. Tuberose scents I’ve worn with pleasure include original-formula Serge Lutens Tubéreuse Criminelle, Naomi Goodsir Nuit de Bakélite and Olfactive Studio Ombre Indigo. I’ll now add Flos Mortis* to this list…

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At night it’s richer, more generous

Posted by Robin on 13 September 2019 2 Comments

I smelled [tuberose] from the morning to the evening and I realized that the smell is very different. When you smell the tuberose at night it’s richer, more generous. It emphasizes the lactonic creamy notes, the fruity peachiness. It’s much more powerful and orange-flower-like than the smell of the bud, which is greener. It’s addictive – you want to smell it again and again.

— Perfumer Sophie Labbé, who developed Bvlgari Tubereuse Mystique. Read more at Is Tuberose the Sexiest Fragrance Note? at Town & Country.

Maison Margiela Mutiny ~ fragrance review

Posted by Jessica on 29 March 2019 8 Comments

How much does a fragrance’s “back story” matter to you? I occasionally try to ignore the promotional copy and just smell a new perfume, just experience it on its own terms, but over and over again I fail in that resolution. I love storytelling. I love visuals. I want to know why people create the things they create. Sometimes a description or advertisement for a particular fragrance resonates with me; more often, it causes me to roll my eyes. I had both reactions to the promotional messaging for Mutiny, the new women’s fragrance from Maison Margiela.

Mutiny was developed by perfumer Dominique Ropion and its tagline is “Assert your self-expression. Banish conformity. Break the rules.” In a short promotional video for Mutiny, Ropion mentions being impressed by Galliano’s “audacity to subvert, deconstruct and rebuild” traditional clothing forms and wanting to do the same thing with tuberose…

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Now Smell This

a blog about perfume

Xinu OroNardo ~ fragrance review

Tuberose

Rogue Perfumery Flos Mortis ~ fragrance review

At night it’s richer, more generous

Maison Margiela Mutiny ~ fragrance review