Lilies of the valley and thunderstorms: The best spring scents up to 5,000 rubles
Text: Ksenia Golovanova, author of the Telegram channel Nose Republic
With the arrival of spring changes the aromatic palette around, and in your own wardrobe you want to add smells that will organically fit into the atmosphere. Our perfume critic Ksenia Golovanova chose seven truly spring fragrances that will easily change the mood - and cost sane money.
The Smell of Weather Turning
Lush
2800 rub.
for 30 ml
"The weather is changing" - one name is enough so that all the Byronic natures, who in winter have missed not so much heat as thunderstorms, awaken their noses. The Smell is cleverly built on two chords that create a potential difference between the points of this fragrant field, spring and green: the first is creosote, greasy dirt and last year’s leaves warmed by the spring sun, the second is mint, and the camphor smells of wild herbs. None of the Relax Melodies apps can replace the thunderstorm in May, but The Smell of Weather Turning can: there is no deeper and more fragrant puddle in today's perfumery.
Eau des jardins
Clarins
1170 rub.
for 100 ml
In addition to serums, creams, blush and lip gloss, Clarins produces unexpectedly convincing aromatherapy agents: in the brand’s collection, for example, there is an excellent Relax line that smells of basil and petitgrain — leaves and young sprigs of bitter orange, and the famous Eau Dynamisante, stuffed with essential oils water combining the functions of care and perfume (this is a classic chypre).
Eau des Jardins belongs to the same chimerical genre - something moisturizes there, but it mostly smells and is great: if you are looking for a green, fruit-currant rose in the spirit of the classic Diptyque L'Ombre dans l'Eau, but for less money, you waiting for a pleasant surprise.
L'eau de chloé
Chloé
1999 rub.
for 30 ml
Here is a rare example of a flanker that turned out better than the original: if Chloé of 2008 is almost unrecognizable in the assembly of other “luxury” roses with syrup from lychee, like a witch in a circle of Gogol drowned women, then L'Eau, released four years later, is smart green chypre with rose in buttonhole.
The sparkling tip hisses and shoots sparks of lemonade, practically bubbling on the skin; barely shot out how the pepper-citrus freshness gives way to a large and skillfully shaded rose, behind which a beautiful, slightly bitter chypre trail drags. The fragrance is either not in demand, or is about to be taken out of production: in most chain stores, the wonderful “Water” is sold for a penny.
Le Monde Est Beau (not to be confused with Ça Sent Beau in a similar bottle) appeared in the mid-1990s - the golden time of Kenzo perfumery, fascinated by large forms from a textbook on biology. At about the same time, the trio Jungle rolled out onto the green clearing with a wild roar, to be more exact, the result was not entirely intact: the managers of the company shot Tiger in the early 2000s, leaving only a couple of Elephants.
Le Monde Est Beau, however, is holding on - to the delight of lovers of real, not candied perfume grapefruit and natural tomato tops, who have not yet realized separation from the ground. Green aroma with a recognizable flavor of a country greenhouse.
There are two "Crystal": eau de toilette and perfume - we write about the first. He came out in the mid-1970s, but has not lost his herbal freshness since: all the citrus and pale flowers of the first Cristalle are covered with translucent greenery, like precious paintings in the vault - with a silk screen protecting the honey glow of the Renaissance. Sultry, peach-floral perfumery water of the same name, but fundamentally another olfactory profile, Chanel was probably released so that Cristalle - green, clear - bought not only in spring.
Un Jardin Mystique
Brocard
395 rub.
for 70 ml
In this category, we have repeatedly called the perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour a rock star of the fragrant world (if not in words, then about himself for sure), a man who set the standards for many perfume genres, and invented a couple of them in one test tube .
Being a star, Duchoufour regularly receives large or potentially Hippe themes from customers: echoing incenses, table-rose roses, exotic wood and all sorts of strange flowers that you cannot find in the glass on the corner - he manages all this perfectly. What does Duchaufour do when he receives an order for the everyday lily of the valley, even if he grew up in some kind of "mysterious garden"? It gives it an electric charge and saturates the garden air with thunderstorm ozone. Water, mint, spicy sour smell, spring earth chomping underfoot.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the French graphic artist Raymond Payne created a whole universe of "Lovers", consisting of hearts, doves and arbors; at the sight of his drawings, modern man immediately has a desire to donate blood for sugar, but in post-war Europe these simple codes of happiness and appeal to internal life - as opposed to external, torn by wars - were read very differently.
It is not known why the Molinard company decided to dedicate another flavor to this vintage story, but the composition turned out to be completely timeless: it smells like a classic French cocktail of Alsatian cremant and tea with verbena, ordered at the bar a moment after the salary text message.
Photo: Molinard, Pudra, Chanel, Ile de Bote, Rive Gauche, Lush, Myer