What have they done to Serge Lutens’ Daim Blond? (2004)
And Has Datura also had its gonads clipped?
Filed under Flowers
THERE’S SOMETHING NOT QUITE RIGHT….. SERGE LUTENS’ DATURA NOIR (2001)
The datura flower, a ‘poisonous vespertine’, is one of nature’s very deadliest. So toxic, in spite of its undulous, alluring odour, that it has been used since antiquity to poison one’s enemies; one’s lovers’ with the most fatal, agonizing death: a psychotic madness ensues; convulsions, heart seizures, oblivion.
I took these pictures of a datura tree on Saturday night in Tokyo, lost along the streets of Ikebukuro trying to find a friend’s house whose party we had been invited to, but the Japanese address system is so hopelessly convoluted and illogical, that after an hour ( our cell phone batteries had died), we just gave up.
Still, I was curious to see those Angel’s, or Devil’s, trumpets hanging there like that at this chilly time of the year (the datura in my neighborhood, which has a bedazzling number of flowers: an obscene amount of poison, I’m pretty sure flowers in the heat of late summer): though its scent was not discernible in the starry, December air.
I like to stand under datura bells, inhale their slow, balmy cream, their evil saturnalia – like suspended tropical umbrellas’ the skein of their big wide petals laced with scent:: : : and poison.
Just The idea that death could be so close, and wrapped so enticingly, in the form of a mesmerically fragrant, and silent flower.
It it is a smell that looms faintly. Part tuberosian jasmine: tiare, with a touch of the beach and of cyanide, there is a bitterness there that is offset by the voluptuous cool, sloe-eye of its delirium; its femininity.
**
Like many flowers in perfumery, datura, in fact, can only be created from memory, from observation – a reconstruction. And from a distance, Christopher Sheldrake’s strangely introverted approximation is woozily impressive: a touch of creamy, coconut- infused tuberose flowers and osmanthus; a heliotropic, lemon- scented lilac: vanilla: tonka bean: almond – the overriding note at the heart, probably, of this oozing pointillist portrait – and a note that I am always drawn to in any case ( see my review of Louve ).
Up close, and personal, though, the perfume, on me, is much more problematic. It is a shape shifter. Some days I think I love it. Some days I almost hate it. I received a bottle as a Christmas present last year, but have only recently starting wearing it, trying it out tentatively in the smallest of doses. And the perfume is weird………….it doesn’t quite come together. The lemon and the coconut. The quite odd addition of myrrh……………………….. At times there is a jarring, bungled plasticity; an effect, like the plant’s poison, that at times can smell almost nauseating.
At others, though, when its mood is right, the perfume sinks into my skin with a fabric softened comfort and delicate vanilla that makes it almost suitable as a winter work scent, nuzzled under my shirt cuffs, tamed and in stasis until my skin warms up in the heat of the moment and then one of those ill fitting notes raises its head, its voice, and I regret having worn it ( and common sense would surely tell you that a perfume called Datura Noir is hardly suitable for my profession).
And yet it is too bland, too sweet and falsely, gentle for me to wear as one of ‘mine’. Like Fiore Di Riso, which I wrote about yesterday, another citric, vanillic floral, it is ‘somewhere in between’. Not quite day, and not quite night. Not rude or intoxicating, but not quite respectable either. She is out of place, this Datura Noir. She watches on my shelf, and she waits.
Filed under 'Orientals', Almond, Faux Toxic, Flowers
WHAT I’M WEARING ON MY BIRTHDAY
I turn 44 today, and it’s a work day, so I have just managed a surreptitious grace across my wrists of Fiore Di Riso, a scent that Duncan bought for me BY MISTAKE last year from Lucky Scent ( I opened it: sprayed it: knew: looked at the label: Duncan, this is NOT Vaniglia Del Madagascar…….
(The silence was heavy: I tried to control my breathing and words but God, I was SO ungracious about it I am almost blushing but what a waste!! )
This is not my beloved Vaniglia,even if, in truth, I am off all my vanilla scents at the moment but, to be quite contrary, it IS most definitely a vanilla. A weird, green, floral vanilla that to me smells like Queen Neroli deflowered on her wedding night, screechy verdant and discordant in a way and yet quite comforting:I wear the TINIEST amount as it is a spray parfum and lasts all day as it turns into something warm, pleasing and confectionery like, just right for the very cold but sunny biting freshness that was today’s crisp December sunshine ( it’s almost always sunny on my birthday).
Yes, today was solitary, I didn’t even mention it to my Japanese colleagues, but the weekend was full of lovely wining and dining with lovely people in lovely environments and I feel quite blessed. I am a cranky old fuck so much of the time (so MOODY these days!) and yet I know so many excellent people, you included, that I know I must thank my lucky stars – and they were very bright tonight.
The Tokyo extravagances were heavily scented – the wintry air demanded it, as did my birthday – featuring a well matched combination I thought of Diptyque’s L’Eau de L’Eau which I have worn to death, overlayered with L’Othantique’s very appealing, and also inexpensive, Fleurs D’Ambre, which is a floury, sensual, barbershop Shalimar that works just FINE: fresh, powdery, octaved, and kind of bizarrely masculine: the kind of rock-me simplicity I tend to go for.
I felt dressed, I felt like me, and I could snuggle into my Christmassy coat with my friends, and go with the Noel-ish flow.
The computer is currently being fixed at the giant Apple store in Ginza, and I hadn’t paid my phone bill either which is why I have been absent for a week.
I am writing this instead on my iPhone instead, which could drive a man INSANE or make him smash the tiny contraption against the kitchen wall as it reverts to all kinds of weirdnesses, autocorrects, loses what I have written as I monodigit every word and hope for the blasted best.
Hopefully the real deal will be back soon and I will be able to put up a proper post.
In the meantime I just wanted to say hello. The picture is me behind a blue fibre lamp my Japanese teacher gave me for my birthday.
Any more Sagittarian perfume compadres out there?
N xxx
Filed under Flowers
A LUSTY, MUSTY SELECTION OF PATCHOULI :: : : PATCHOULI by SANTA MARIA NOVELLA + PATCHOULI LEAVES by MONTALE + PATCHOULI NOIR by IL PROFUMO + PATCHOULI 24 by LE LABO + PATCHOULI by MOLINARD + PATCHOULI by LORENZO VILLORESI + PATCHOULY by ETRO + PATCHOULISSIME by KEIKO MECHERI + PATCHOULI by L’ARTISAN PARFUMEUR
Winter. The antisocial, deep pull of it.The malingering invasiveness. How it clings to you; piercing your bloodstream.Patchouli, reminding you of where you came from, and where you are going.The earth. Black, deep, wet: beyond the depths of the subconscious.
I adore patchouli, with reservations. For my Serge Luten’s classic Borneo 1834, my personal favourite, see my other piece on patchouli, Patchouli Patchouly. For a more recent and dressed up Dior take on the patchouli note, look here. For Madonna’s intriguing linkage to patchouli oil look here, but for a simple, more comprehensive look at a selection of the bona fide classics of the patchouli genre, go no further.
PATCHOULI / SANTA MARIA NOVELLA
A must-have patchouli: rich, stinging and pure, the workers at the monastic, Florentine profumeria allegedly having done their patient and diligent work for you with these sour and pungent leaves. A dark, formal preparation, an elixir: root-coloured, viscous, in the classic gold embossed bottiglia.
While Santa Maria Novella’s patchouli doesn’t show off (there are no ‘twists’ or ‘facets’ here to undermine the harmony), the Santa Maria Novella rendition of that darkest of perfumed notes is perfect for those who simply want a well balanced, elegant patchouli. Backed up with the subtle, warm, yet stern and stringent base notes typical of the house, it lingers, sumptuously, all day: a beautiful Italian equilibrium of darkness and light.
PATCHOULI LEAVES/ MONTALE
Already of legendary status among patchouli lovers, this is one of the best ‘straight’ patchoulis. If there is a problem with pure patchouli oil (which, I ultimately think is the best if you can find the right one), it is that it is sometimes much too rough and unwearable in it freshest state. You would have to stay in at home twelve hours before venturing out to get the exact stage of patchouli you were after (and this only with a good oil, they vary so much). And though not the precise balance of dry, musty and earthy I have long been after – I like it really, really earthy – this excellent blend by Montale saves you the bother of sequestering yourself in a patchouli dungeon waiting for the right moment to emerge by instead giving you an instant, fully formed, patchouli hit.
All of Montale’s perfumes are good, especially for those not interested in pale evanescence but who want their perfumes strong, erotic and proud. Patchouli Leaves is exactly that; the leaves of the patchouli plant, macerated for two years in oak tree bark. Under this fulsome melange is an ambered layer of vanilla, musk and Cystus Ladaniferous from Tibet that warms the blend (for me perhaps too much so), but rounds it, smooths it into a full fledged perfume that is sweet, replete and exotic.
PATCHOULI NOIR/ IL PROFUMO
Il Profumo is an interesting Italian niche brand which has what it claims to be a unique method of ‘osmosing’ its ingredients together: a ‘slow evaporation curve which allows a very intimate and sophisticated use of the perfume.’ All their perfumes are apparently given psychological directives; Patchouli Noir, according to the website, is ‘pervasive, decisive, antidepressant, tonic’, and it is, in fact, a peculiarly bodied, warming, musky, bodily patchouli that I find very emotive and enveloping. A chocolatey, vanillic base underlines the title note (with cedarwood and poppy), and it lasts, and lasts, and lasts, forever, on its wearer’s receiving skin.
PATCHOULI 24 / LE LABO
It’s rare to encounter a scent that hits the gut like the end of a love affair, but that’s exactly what this brilliantly original scent did to me the first time I smelled it in Paris. Once in a while a perfumer hits the jackpot with a collection of notes that cut straight to the emotional jugular, and this is it; the poignant smell of a lover gone, an ache of perfume, the perfumer taking the dark timbre of patchouli (very little – this can scarcely be called a patchouli in fact) a hint of cloves, and fused it with a beguiling, almost meaty, smoky-forest note of bonfires; Russian silver birch tar – a poignant, cruel smell, like smoked, Lapsong tea in a freezing wintery room. Fused to this strange and alluring smel is a sex-charged vanillic musk, for a very original, disturbing, and emotive patchouli of a totally different nature.
A hint of this on a lost lover’s shirt would be unendurable.
PATCHOULI/ MOLINARD
The Grasseois house of Molinard has been producing classical, impeccably made yet reasonably priced colognes and perfumes since 1849 in the old tradition, with its own flower fields, distilleries – the original artisanal methods of Provence that the town of Grasse still holds dear. And this is a very French patchouli, very much in the eau-de-cologne tradition of citrus, neroli, lavender, musk; at first glance merely delicate, refreshing, old fashioned.
Shortly though, as the day wears on, the pure, clinging scent of a very dry and well aged patchouli comes through the scent with an impeccable strength of character; staying fresh and close to the skin in a very loveable manner. Molinard’s Patchouli is an unusual scent, at once clean and conservative, mannered, yet eerily seductive.
PATCHOULI/ LORENZO VILLORESI
The great thing about the scents of Lorenzo Villoresi is their passion; fine quality materials blended in generous proportions with a deft, self assured and snarling distaste for the banal. This perfumer does, however, sometimes tend to pack quite a large number of essences into his perfumes and he is famous for his quite startling openings, his lunging preparatory overtures. His Patchouli, I find, on some days that I try it, seems smudged, perhaps, with a few too many ingredients: herbs and spices; a preponderance of dry, herbaceous lavender; vetiver; sandalwood; and warming fixatives of oakmoss and benzoin.
The resulting scent is thick, rich and strange; it disturbs with a dark, sexual power: an under-arm, animal muskiness that is very potent. A friend of mine likened this to the smell of a sweaty mechanic after a day in the garage, and I have to say it is true. This will be, for some, though, not an entirely bad thing – myself included, and I must admit I am actually thinking of buying this at some point.
PATCHOULY/ ETRO
There are plenty of patchoulis out there that do the typical patchouli/musk/vanilla combo for that loose-limbed, oofy, splayed-on-the-sofa thing, and these are rarely my favourites. Etro’s Patchouly is quite an original take on the theme, recognisably an oriental patchouli, but not slack, molly-coddled, or doe-eyed; rather it is a tight, airtight blend; persistent, dry, balsamic, under an arid and beautifully persistent patchouli from Java. Recommended.
PATCHOULISSIME/ KEIKO MECHERI
In Japan’s traditional folk medicine, the leaves of the patchouli plant are the best known antidote to the bite of the mamushi; a poisonous snake that lurks in the grass in mountainous zones (and in the woods near my house). But in perfumery, the Japanese are known for quiet, transparent scents, and like all Keiko Mecheri Eau de Parfums, this does not graze the feral.
Mecheri, Japanese in name but a very New York based perfumer, makes urban, stylish scents that don’t demand too much on the wearer or her public, the appeal of the brand being an instant, colourful and rich likeability. Patchoulissime (a misleading name – there is nothing extreme here) is a light, floral scent with light ambered undertones: the patchouli hazes in and out when it feels like it with a certain clean grace. This patchouli is fresh and wearable, with a restraint that will appeal to some, but not too exciting if you are, like me, a true patchouli fiend.
PATCHOULI / L’ARTISAN PARFUMEUR
If you find this somewhere, on the internet, at a fleamarket, anywhere, anywhere and you love patchouli, then please, please snap it up. Usurped by the much more compromising, less interesting (and far more commerical) Patchouli Patch that came many years later, the powers that be at L’Artisan misguidedly decided to let this haunting classic go.
L’Artisan’s patchouli was beautiful, and the best ever: earth-full, but not earth-bound. A clarified, and purified beautifully brittle vine of dry, sinuosity that trailed behind you like a a stark winter sky viewed through thick bottled glass.
Aerian, light; a dry, holy spirit.
Filed under Patchouli
MEET ME IN SHANGHAI. OR TOKYO. OR BANGKOK. OR HANOI. OR WHEREVER………CREED ASIAN GREEN TEA (2014)
Although I don’t wear them very often, I am quite fond of tea-based fragrances and have several in my collection: Bulgari’s Eau Parfumée Au Thé Vert in both eau de toilette and Extrême, L’Occitane’s innocuous Thé Vert in parfum solide (good for dabbing on sultry August work days); Roger & Gallet’s refreshing, summery Thé Vert, and a small bottle of the delightful Imperial Tea by Kilian – to me, one of the best tea perfumes you can buy.
Tea perfumes have a gentle, neutralizing effect on the senses. An ease of spirit, if not quite of passion, they have a delicate, androgynous, appeal: distancing, aloof: a sly and beguiling ‘gentrification’, almost, of the spirit.
And only the gentry of Tokyo will be able to afford, surely, Creed’s latest release from their ‘Acqua Original’ series, Asian Green Tea, due to debut here in Japan next month (it is already available elsewhere), a perfume I smelled with curiosity yesterday at Ginza’s swankily luxuriant Hankyu Men’s Department Store, as the arch, fashionable, and brand-obsessed metrosexual population milled about the crowded store with the usual dismissive swishes of hair and chin this bustling national holiday weekend.
What I can’t entirely understand with this new perfume is the price: 42,000 yen (on the way to 400 dollars: it sounds cheaper in sterling) for 100ml. Creed was surely already upping the ante price-wise with its recent, extravagantly price-tagged ‘Royal Exclusives’ line (which I must admit did include the subtle and delicious Vanille Sublime, a perfume I would very much like to have in my possession if I could afford the eye-popping seven hundred dollar price tag for a beautiful, 250ml flacon of the stuff). This new fragrance is even more expensive per ml, though – an outrage almost – and, to be honest, I can’t really find any objective justification for the price hike beyond greed.
It is quite nice. A green tea variant on the plum-themed Acqua Fiorentina ( I find them quite similar), Asian Green Tea features the usual Creedian, steely metallic ambergris, the familiarly silvery florals (rose, violet, heliotrope), as well as a sheer and refreshing top accord of bergamot, mandarin, lemon and neroli. The green tea note is prominent, sensual (combined in the base of the perfume with a lick of sandalwood and musk), and the whole is pleasing, fruité, if not quite stunning – although I can easily imagine the person this matches – someone clean, perfectly groomed and self-assured – smelling quite magnetic and stylish in its firm and delicate embrace.
The name, though. So generic: so obviously led by market research and hopes of expansion into the ‘luxury Asian markets’ of Japan, China and elsewhere: so pinpointed to the Stilettoed, Moneyed Doyennes Of The Eastern Capitals, their Gucci pant suits, their gleaming white smartphones.
‘Asian Green Tea’ is a name that is just too bland and race-specific for my own tastes (what do you think of it? And what could be up next in the line: ‘Caucasian Sausage Platter?’ ‘Pan-African Coconut’?). For me, there is no beauty in that name. The scent, also, though enjoyably translucently floral and well blended, somehow doesn’t quite get there either. It is OK. But for that amount of money, I’m afraid, I need poetry.
Filed under Tea
