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La Petite Robe Noire Couture by Guerlain
I think it’s erroneous if one were to roll their eyes at the concept of fruit and perfume. To consider it girly, immature, or innocuous is to succumb to connotation. A rather loose association. Guerlain will do what Guerlain does, and here the scent is put in a swirl. A…
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Une Voix Noire by Serge Lutens
Our dark voice is heard. She rumbles. She roars. Une Voix Noir is a stretched take on the gardenia flower, as if taking its heady white purity then twisting it with an unfamiliar comfort unusual for this style. As a reference to ‘purity’, Chanel’s Gardenia sufficed, with an illusionary gardenia flower constructed from…
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Eau de Cologne by Chanel
On Olfactics, the Eau de Cologne needs no introduction. I am tantalised by its ephemerality. I am left chasing and chasing – applying minutes apart for lively refreshment and cooling. One questions why you’d persist with such a short-lived wonder, and it certainly took time for me to develop an…
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Pour Monsieur by Chanel
The classic Chypre is a fragrance of great drama. A scent of sublime equipoise and symmetry. It gives as much welcoming pull as it does exciting push, and hence it is best described as infinite intersections that form phenomenal contrast. The Chypre is akin to a musical chord, and within this idea, it is a…
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What We Do In Paris Is Secret by A Lab on Fire
What We Do In Paris Is Secret is a dessert rose compacted with sweet powder; a treatment of a rose moved through exotic landscapes and dreamlike fantasies. It is a rose that has discovered the Bosphorus, yet retains its classical, Western sensibilities. The lokum scent is not a completely new…
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Esprit du Tigre by Heeley
An elegant medicinal experience; Esprit du Tigre flips the spicy paradigm on its head. Esprit du Tigre is a bewitching fragrance and is near stupefying. As an intellectual and fragrant study, Esprit du Tigre is an inspection of stylistic effects in perfume; an observable and public reverie regarding how an…
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Bois Oriental by Serge Lutens
Serge Lutens evokes spiritual demons. His perfume as art are recounts of tales magical; tales of his life and other’s lives both optimistic and tragic. Simple philosophies encapsulated in perfume. The tragedy of a female in La Fille de Berlin is shared unequivocally with many others. The tension of terror…
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Tea for Two by L’Artisan Parfumeur
Olivia Giacobetti fascinates me immensely. Density within a perfume seems like an odd idea, but compositions between different perfumers have a different sense of weight to them. Giacobetti, to me, is a master of contrasts, juxtaposition, and the oxymoronic. In reference to her other L’Artisan works, Tea for Two plays…
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Iris Cendré by Naomi Goodsir
Iris Cendré opens in a state of confusion – it tells many tales to begin with. Iris Cendré is a firm iris fragrance. It is rich – a harmonious treatment of the namesake flower with a melange of effects blending into a whole. A rich, buttery floral effect at the bottom, accompanied…
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Sables by Annick Goutal
Sables is a scent of exotic promise; an accurate study of the amplitude of the immortelle flower. It is the scent of dry put through muslin cloth, with the immortelle flower captured, tweaked, and given an inflection in a sterner direction. However, given the distinctive and unaligned nature of the immortelle flower…