Vanilla, incense, pepper: 10 warming winter flavors
In the cold season, it is customary to change the flavors to "winter" - this rule, like any other in the cosmetic industry, convention, but you can give some recommendations. Moore Sobolev, editor-in-chief of the blog Fierce & Cute, gathered a dozen scents with which you can comfortably spend this winter.
Jo Malone Vanilla & Anise
The brand describes this fragrance in 2009 as "a midday rest in Madagascar near the blossoming vanilla orchid". Jo Malone likes to come up with romantic sketches of this kind - it usually happens in England, but neither vanilla nor orchids are found there, so Madagascar was chosen. I don’t like confectionery aromas on me at all, so for a long time I thought that with vanilla smells, I was completely out of the way. In fact, this is not entirely true - I have several samples with excellent non-sweet vanilla, and Vanilla & Anise adorned this collection. Warm, languid, savory vanilla is balanced by white flowers (apparently, the notorious orchid), bitter neroli and bright, spicy anise - a note that oddly adorns almost all compositions, where present.
Naomi Goodsir Bois d'Ascèse
The eccentric Australian Naomi Gudsir, who studied with the protégé of Elsa Schiaparelli, makes custom-made bags, hats that look like pilots' helmets, and leather jewelery. A few years ago she launched a short perfumery line, and this year she was brought to Cosmotheca. Now there are four flavors in the line, I have one of the first, "Ascetic Wood", an unusual combination of tar, wood, tobacco and incense. The smell is very warm, but not heavy, not suffocating and clearly attracting attention. We should also note the incredible beauty of the design: a classic heavy bottle with a bakelite lid (the dispenser lies separately) is packed in black paper and a box, and everything is sealed together in an opaque black corporate package.
État Libre d'Orange The Afternoon of a Faun
One of my favorite perfume brands is French hooligans État Libre d'Orange, the authors of my adorable scent, Like This, created together with Tilda Swinton. I want everything from them: both the wonderful and terrible Secretions Magnifique, and even the new Remarkable People novelty for such a brand. The last addition to my collection is the critically acclaimed "Afternoon of a Faun", inspired by the eponymous ballet by Václav Nijinsky on eclog Mallarme. "Ballet created a scandal, create a scandal and you," the description on the official site calls for. I obviously did not put a scandal here, but perhaps it will still manifest itself in the process of socks. There are a lot of notes here, and they come in turns: this green wine glass turns into an incense side, a rose, a jasmine comes out, a benzoin. The overall impression is absolutely fascinating - a surprisingly boring and inspiring smell.
Agonist Dark Saphir
The Agonist brand seems to me interesting: in outrageously luxurious bottles, decorated as precious stones, it pours in much less traditionalist aromas than you might suspect. Dark Saphir from their works I like the most, and I have long wanted him. Toward thirty years, my southern roots finally declared themselves not only in total intolerance of the Russian winter, but also in olfactory issues, and I fell in love with truly spicy, heavy smells. I have quite a lot of them, and my main spice shop this winter will probably be Dark Saphir. In my opinion, this is an excellent example of the “modern East”: a handful of fragrant spices, a fragrant rose and an indispensable oud — however, everything is mixed up so that the urban girl in jeans, scented with Dark Saphir, does not feel ridiculous.
COMME des GARÇONS Black
For many years, I admire COMME des GARÇONS, one of the few fashion brands who made a truly revolutionary perfumery line, and not just a couple of “in support of the brand” fragrances. In my part, all their fragrances deserve attention one way or another, and I always keep track of CDG perfumery — at least because the brand often uses incense, and this is one of my favorite ingredients. The ascetic smoky Black opens with the scent of smoke from coniferous trees, and then turns into the smell of black pepper with the inevitable (and beloved) of incense. By the way, this Black is not the only fragrance with such a name from the brand (the second belongs to the Play collection, the one with the famous hearts with eyes on the bottles).
Yosh Stargazer 7.71
Usually I buy philosophy and brand design - of course, gloomy - and then try the flavors, but in the case of Yosh, it's rather the opposite. The brand is all imbued with ideas of spirituality and energy interaction (for example, the numbers in the names of the aromas are associated with chakras and numerology), but this is not very close to me. But the smells made by Yosh Khan - perfumer, clairvoyant and healer, woman of many talents - I really like. The most interesting of them, in my opinion, is Stargazer, the clear and sonorous smell of white flowers, especially lilies. However, I must admit that here I also took the name - as an old and devoted fan of Star Wars, I can not ignore the fragrance with that name, and if he is also good, then how can we pass by.
Parfumerie Générale PG13 Brûlure de Rose
I am a big fan of the creativity of the extremely prolific niche perfumer Pierre Guillaume, whose numerous brands are brought to Moscow by the Aroma-tech boutique. I can not imagine how Guillaume has time to produce so many complex, high-quality flavors - even it seems that not enough time to try them all. Parfumerie Générale is the first and main brand of Guillaume: despite working on other brands, PG remains its focus. Brûlure de Rose is designed to show the life cycle of a rose - from a green bud to a withering flower, but I almost don’t hear the “green” stage - the rose is sugared at once and becomes sweet, powdery, absolutely delightful. This is probably the sweetest of my pink scents - and at the moment the most favorite, despite all my dislike for sweet smells.
Tiziana Terenzi Ecstasy
Mark came up with passionate brothers with sister Paolo and Titian Terenzi, heirs of the glorious Italian family of candlestick masters. The new generation of the Terenzi family brought the family business to a new level by launching the Tiziana Terenzi brand: first, the brother and sister made their own (and very interesting) candles, and three years ago they debuted with a line of fragrances. Chief designer of the brand Titian, chief perfumer - Paolo. Ecstasy is dedicated to the "sacred fire of the soul" and was created on the day of the death of father Paolo and Titian Evelino; the creators of the brand call it “creative insanity” and tried to describe in it an instant maturity that comes with the loss of a parent. Ecstasy I would like to call it solemn without this description: the coniferous, wooden and floral notes eventually appear in the earthy-incense scent, but it remains complex and sad.
Laboratorio Olfattivo Alkemi
A small and relatively new Italian niche brand has a portfolio of 12 fragrances created by outstanding young perfumers, as well as home fragrances that niche brands usually disdain. Alkemi is a fragrance that initially calls on the dark side: a romantic name, amber liquid, oak-cognac notes and a promising eastern pyramid. But, revealing, Alkemi turns into a very soft, non-aggressive fragrance - one that does not frighten even a neophyte in the field of oriental perfumery. Yes, there is both incense, and myrrh, and sandalwood, and cedar - but everything is so delicate, so cashmere, so easily flows into one another, plus a concentration of only 10% - there are practically no chances to strangle yourself and others.
Byredo Rose of No Man's Land
The most recent novelty in this review is the fragrance of a prolific Swedish brand that has just gone on sale. Ben Gorham, the lord of Byredo, loves to link fragrances with his own memories, but in this case went far beyond them: his last work is devoted to the sisters of mercy who worked on the front during the First World War and were nicknamed the “nobody's roses of the earth”. I love the rose very much and I have a good attitude towards the brand, so I expected the fragrance. Here the rose is not girly, not luxurious and not solemn, but, according to the concept, austere, tart and a little gloomy, colored with pink pepper and perfectly suitable for winter. Part of the proceeds from the sales of the fragrance goes to the Doctors Without Borders fund.
Photo: Jo Malone, Naomi Goodsir Perfums, Parfume Place, Agonist Parfums, Rive Gauche (1,2), Yosh, www.luckyscent.com, Laboratorio Olfattivo, Byredo
