The ideal "grandmother" and perfume apocrypha: The best flavors of last year
Text: Ksenia Golovanova, author of the telegram channel Nose Republic
Traditionally sum up perfumery season with the help of our perfumery critic Ksenia Golovanova: while we are not overwhelmed with spring-summer novelties, we should look back and look at the scents that managed to stand out among others in 2018.
Top New Flavors
Erawan, Dusita
15 050 rub. for 50 ml
This year the creator of Dusita Pissara Umavidzhani, and her last fragrance Erawan, named after the sacred white elephant, on which the god Indra moves, arrived in Russia. According to the legend, once Indra hung a flower garland, presented by a flock, to Eravan’s trunk, but he did not appreciate the offering — he threw and squeezed flowers into Asian mud. Erawan smells like: clay, grass, pollen, wild sage, broken stalks. In every way divine.
Nudiflorum, Nasomatto
10 680 rub. for 30 ml
Nudiflorum would be worth including in our list, if only because Alessandro Gualtieri finally, after so many years, managed to do something good - for this he can be forgiven for both the migraine Black Afgano, the hangover cacophony of Baraonda, and the fact that in 2018 The only truly good fragrance of the brand, patchoulium Hindu Grass, was removed from the line. The main flaw in Nudiflorum is that it clings to the skin, like a bull terrier does not “play” and does not “overflow”, as romantic users of Fragrantica say, but sits in a bend of an elbow tightly. The rest is a beautiful greenish-leather chypre with floral powder in the spirit of the classic Bandit, Robert Piguet - in fact, nothing new, except that Nudiflorum is similar to the XXI century, and "Bandit", alas, no.
Aura Eau de Toilette, Mugler
6900 rub. for 50 ml
On the "Aura" (the one that Eau de Parfum) already written terabytes, but without it in our text in any way. Over the past year, the emerald heart was not only registered in all perfumery reviews, but in addition spoiled a lot of blood to passengers on long-haul flights: if they had previously complained about Angel lovers, they now jointly despise flyers, who swim into the cabin of the green tropical vanilla. Every perfume brand secretly wants to get a passionate club of haters - is this not an indicator of success? But it would be nice at the same time to throw a piece of good meat to a tiger, to give the buyer something that you can love with simple, without any reservations, love. The new Aura in the concentration of toilet water has become such a compromise for Mugler - more transparent and calm, less malaria-suffocating than the older sister. Keep in mind, the diffuseness and stability of the “toilet” is about the same, so one zilch for the flight Moscow - Bangkok will be more than enough.
Music for a While, Frédéric Malle
14 540 rub. FOR 50 ML
When Frederick Mal brought his Music for a While to Moscow, we even interviewed him, so we wanted to know where his legs grew from this unlikely perfume work. It turned out that from a candle made by the same perfumer several years ago, and the baroque aria of the XVII century of the same name seems to be nothing to do with it. This is all Mal: when it seems to you that you understood his brand, having demolished the bottle of Musc Ravageur and a couple of Carnal Flower, he throws you a new riddle - for example, how can you make an old-fashioned lavender relevant? Ethyl Maltol - Is it always sweet to disgust? Pineapples - "pops" or serious perfumes? Music for a While contains answers to all these questions.
The best "returnees"
Molinard de Molinard, Molinard
6000 rub. FOR 75 ML
“The perfect grandmother,” cried the blogosphere when a new, but in fact well-reassembled 1979 Molinard came out. Beautiful green chypre with aldehyde top and delicate vontsoy in the outlet of bitter leaves fell to taste and vintage lovers, and those who just tired of perfume sweets. A separate bonus is the price: at present, there is some kind of attraction of unprecedented generosity.
Sicily, Dolce & Gabbana
14 590 rub. FOR 50 ML
And here with the price trouble - an old and discontinued Sicily, which Monica Bellucci advertised in an unforgettable Oscar-winning Giuseppe Tornatore commercial, was accessible to most of L'Etoile visitors. The new, more precisely updated, is sold only at TsUM and is expensive, although it is objectively good - a large, beautiful, moderately odorous aldehyde-floral arrangement with an impressive neckline, in which a honey twig of orange blossom is covered. But how beautiful and good old-fashioned.
Vettiveru 2, Comme des Garçons
5515 rub. FOR 125 ML
In 2017, the Comme des Garçons brand made a generous gift to its customers, returning ten discontinued fragrances to the shelves at once, including the important Calamus and Garage. In 2018, everything is more modest and sadder: Andy Warhol's You're In excellent mandarin was removed from the permanent collection, and only one fragrance was returned from non-existence - but what a smell! Vettiveru 2 (a deuce in the name means a new build) from the Cologne line smells of grass roots, hayloft, in the summer on its dried, but still green, scrap by the fall, uncultivated forest. It remains to hope that Vettiveru's neighbors in the collection will be brought to Russia, the cloveted amber amber and the bitter, rosemary orange Citrico - although the splash format is not in demand with our customer.
Musk Eau de Parfum, Etro
14 400 rub. FOR 100 ML IN ARTICOLI STORES
For some reason, Musk, and even in the concentration of perfumery water, Etro Italians decided to re-release on the occasion of their half-century anniversary, although of all the flavors of the collection it is the least, in the language of marketing, corresponds to the so-called brand DNA. Etro's last one is tabletop chrysanthemums, sneaking tigers, hidden dragons and non-existent hair princesses, a whole chest with beautiful Asia, as Europeans imagine. But Musk is infinitely alien to all this orientality - bitter green rain with toads and lilies of the valley, under which the Indian “cucumbers” Etro, its paved cashmere patchouli, and its colorful scarves are spreading.
The best perfume collections
Les Eaux de Chanel, Chanel
9400 rub. FOR 125 ML IN CHANEL BOUTIQUES
Perfumery is much more traditional art than, say, fashion, and it still has, despite the apparent dominance of unisex in a niche, gender stereotypes are strong: a woman smells of flowers and sweets, and a man smells of wood and caustic spices. But if a woman deliberately leaves the role of a walking bouquet and chooses, for example, frosty lavender or caustic citrus with aromatic herbs - conditionally male perfume profiles, - a dissonance arises.
Cologne is a masculine genre that we associate with dandyism, Savile Row costumes and other eternal values of the male world; trying it on himself, a woman can make a spectacular shifter. Let it not be a sharp social comment on the topic of gender, but still a way to understand something about yourself and about your own sexuality, push the boundaries of the conditionally permitted, put yourself in an active perfumery position. It is not for nothing that this year the fragrant world has covered with a cool wave of colonies - the latter came out at a variety of perfume brands, luxury and niche ones. In particular, an entire collection of Les Eaux colognes, beautiful and far from the usual femininity, was released by Chanel, who had already mastered gender bending on Boy's lavender.
La Collection Vanille, Sylvaine Delacourte
10 270 rub.FOR 100 ML
Sylvain Delacurt is a rare example of a corporate worker who spent many years in a large company (in her case, Guerlain) and left there not only morally and creatively safe, but also armed with "company" knowledge. For example, how to make perfumes that are good and at the same time clear to everyone. Her first independent collection, Musk, was already quite good, but the new, vanilla, is gorgeous: even if you are indifferent to the title component, you will appreciate how diverse you can work with one scented material, revealing its many facets. The best vanilla of the line is the green Virgile, smelling like the grassy undercoat of the Mediterranean coniferous forest.
McQueen Collection, Alexander McQueen
12 710 rub. FOR 75 ML
Here, perhaps, the most underestimated perfume line of the year - eight fragrances McQueen, dressed in a multi-colored smoky glass. If you climb on Fragrantika to watch the pyramids (why it’s better not to do this, read there), then, most likely, decide that this is a collection of soliflora or simple monoaromat: Celtic Rose is supposedly collected only from rose and pepper, Luminous Orchid - from vanilla and tonka bean and so on. In fact, you have a library of perfume apocrypha, unusual statements on well-known topics: the same rose is wet, angry and spiky, vetiver is from the gloomy slum of the Brothers Grimm, and the lily is explosive, in a cloud of gunpowder.
PHOTO: Essenza Nobile, Generic Perfumes, Mugler, Frederic Malle, Rive Gauche, Central Department Store, Luckyscent, Essenza Nobile, Chanel, Sylvaine Delacourte, Harrods