I can tell that we're going to be friends

Have you ever despaired of not having a place to gush over Frederic Malle's Carnal Flower?
The dream has been realized.
Frederic Malle has joined facebook.
http://on.fb.me/fmallefb

So far the page has discussed the candles, included quotes from the new book "Frederic Malle: On Perfume Making" and the greatness of Une Fleur de Cassie. This fragrance does not get enough love or appreciation.

Let us all wish for a Frederic Malle twitter account for 2012.
For now...go become buddies with the rascal that is responsible for all my fragrance lemmings!

Credit: Frederic Malle
Title: We're Going To Be Friends by The White Stripes from White Blood Cells.

40 Days and 40 Nights of Fragrance Notes: Iris

What does the iris note smell like?
I think it smells rooty and slightly powder-like.
It can be confused with violets but it is less candied or green. It is more bitter, damp and earthy.
I have seen it described as carrot-like, papery, raw potatoes, woody, soapy,or plummy.

Mr Luca Turin describes iris more romantically and quite simply perfect. This is from his review of Frederic Malle's Iris Poudre in Perfume The Guide.
For the fragonerds it is located on page 205.
"Simply stated, the problem with iris-root smell is this: everyone loves its gray, nostalgic, romantic powderiness, but the stuff is, truth be told, as funereal as it gets."
It has a gossamer effect in fragrances. It adds just a hint of mystery or macabre.
Iris is an "extract of the root of the iris plant". It is also known as orris. There is plenty of debate about what makes an iris. To put it simply....a village of notes and science creates a iris scent.

My personal favorite iris scent is Frederic Malle's Iris Poudre. Many would argue that it does not really capture an iris feeling. I get the diaphanous powdery goodness in the drydown. So delicate and enchanting.
Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist is considered the benchmark of all iris fragrances. Luca Turin states that Uncle Serge insisted that the perfumer, Maurice Roucel, go "balls to the walls" with iris. Turin describes it as the most sinister of all the iris scents. It is not dark but ethereal.

Other Iris Fragrances:

Chanel's 28 La Pausa: a more green soapy iris with a vetiver drydown
Chanel 31 Rue Cambon: earthy iris with a amber drydown.
L'Artisan Bois Farine: I get more peanut butter and heliotrope...but there is iris peeking through.
CdG Zagorsk
Chanel 18 and 19
Le Labo Iris 39
Guerlain's Iris Ganache
Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile: Almost candied iris with a box green. Detect a bit of anise.
The Different Company Bois d'Iris: A more floral iris with anise, dry grass and woods.
DKNY Delicious Night
Hermes Hiris
Dior Homme
SMN Iris
Prada Infusion D'Iris
Thierry Mugler's Alien

What are your favorite iris fragrances? Please share them in the comments.
Also tell me what iris scents that I neglected to mention!


Reviewer: Annie
Quote: Luca Turin from Perfume The Guide by Tania "Tbone" Sanchez and Mr T.
Graphic Credit: Melanie Parker
Disclosure: I have purchased all three of my Iris Poudre bottles. Hardcore fan.
All samples sniffed at stores or through my makeupalley stash.

40 Days and 40 Nights Of Fragrance Notes:Tuberose

The tuberose, with her silvery light,
That in the gardens of Malay
Is call'd the Mistress of the Night,
So like a bride, scented and bright;
She comes out when the sun's away.
- Thomas Moore,
Lalla Rookh--Light of the Harem

The best description of the tuberose note is from Luca Turin in Perfumes The Guide. It is located in his review for By Kilian's Beyond Love. Page 92 for the fragonerds.

"Not only is the smell of tuberose flowers wonderful, it isn't even, properly speaking, floral in the clean, vegetal sense of floral fragrances. Tuberoses smell of butter, rubber, leather, blood, and heaven knows what else".

Tuberose is strong, sweet, exotic, illicit, tenacious and heady. It is a slightly rubbery, loud, creamy white floral that has a Dr Pepper vibe. It is simply glorious.
The tuberose is a night blooming plant. Tuberose has a mistress of the night kind of reputation.
My favorite tuberose fragrance is Frederic Malle's Carnal Flower.
I have gushed about this fume on this blog before.

"This summer I fell very hard for Frederic Malle's Carnal Flower. This Malle has the highest amount of natural tuberose absolute in any fragrance. I am a girl that shys away from Fracas and any other tuberose based fragrances. They are too loud for me. Carnal Flower manages to be a loud whisper. No baseball bat impact for me! It has wonderful sillage and the dry down is gorgeous. Like a lush jungle. It was beyond perfect for this summer".

A legendary tuberose perfume is Fracas by Robert Piguet. This is a buttery tuberose with a soapy dry down. It was worn by Marilyn Monroe.
Michael by Michael Kors is the holy grail scent of my boss. It smells like power. The tuberose is strong in this juice. The sillage wafts through the office. It can breed fear.
By Kilian's Beyond Love is a greenish tuberose with a dollop of coconut. Slightly tropical with a camphorous (band aid) opening. Pilar & Lucy's Tiptoeing Through Chambers Of The Moon is a candied tuberose. Almost sugary. Serge Luten's Tuberose Criminelle starts out with an opening of gasoline and ends with just buttery heaven.
But those first few minutes are rough.
It will make you shudder and give up.
Be patient.
True heartbreakingly loveliness soldiers on through that opening!

Tuberose Fragrances

The Best: Frederic Malle's Carnal Flower
The Legends: Fracas, Creed's Tubereuse Indiana, Serge Lutens Tuberose Criminelle
Others:
L'Artisan Nuit de Tubereuse
Michael by Michael Kors
Diptyque Do San
By Kilian Beyond Love
Marc Jacobs
Pilar & Lucy Tiptoeing Through Chambers Of The Moon
Etat Libre Vierges et Toreros
Parfums Del Rae Amoureuse
Annick Goutal Tubereuse
Keiko Mecheri Tuberose
Toykomilk French Kiss
Miller Harris Noix de Tubereuse
Comme des Garcons Daphne

Dish in the comments on your favorite Tuberose fragrances.

Reviewer: Annie
Credit: Annie
Graphic Credit: Melanie Parker
Disclosure: All products mentioned have been purchases or sample vials scored at stores or through Makeupalley.
By Kilian's Beyond Love sample vial was provided by Bergdorf Goodman.
Luca Turin quote from Perfumes The Guide. This book is by Tania " Tbone" Sanchez and Mr T. I love this dynamic duo.

40 Days and 40 Nights of Fragrance Notes: Violet

And the sky was all violet...

by Patti F aka MUA's Cavewoman

As I write these perfume note reviews for Blogdorf's 40 Notes In 40 Days, one of the things I like to do is to choose one of the fragrances I own which contains that particular note. I wear it while I'm writing. So, with today's review about the violet, I went to my perfume tray to see what I would find. After a few minutes, I came to realize that I was having a very hard time choosing! Next to rose perfumes, violet is my second-favorite fragrance note. And my perfume collection definitely proves it. I pulled all of my violet fragrances and set them inside a box. I thought that might make it easier, if I saw them all gathered together. It didn't.

It began to be perfectly clear to me why I was having so much trouble just choosing one to wear as I write. Violet scents are utterly fascinating perfumes, so varied in style that none of the ones I had in the box seemed to be an overall representation of the entire group. So, what I did was to choose my favorite violet fragrance of all of them (that was hard to do!) and spray it on as I gathered my thoughts. I'll tell you in a bit which one it is.

My first real violet fragrance was a bottle of Borsari Violetta Di Parma, which I found in a pretty box on a markdown table at our local TJMaxx. I knew I had found something special, I knew it was legendary. I bought it ($10!) and brought it home, and then did some research. It seems that the most true violet notes come from Italy, and many of them were done by the Borsari house. I did not even know that real violet flowers even had a scent. The little wild violets that grow in my back yard might smell a bit greenish, but there's no floralcy to them at all. I can't say I loved the Violetta Di Parma. It was dry and dusty and thin. It's long gone from my collection, and in the hands of someone who appreciated it much more than I did.

I did not give up on Borsari, though, because what I was learning is that the violets of this particular part of Italy produce the violet scent which is treasured in perfumes. While browsing a European website that specializes in beautiful and rare mini perfume bottles, I spotted a gorgeous Borsari called Bouquet Di Violette. I ordered it, along with a few other pretty minis, and when it arrived, I opened it to try out the scent. Ahh! This was way more appealing to me than the first Borsari. Less green, more floral, a bit powdery, I was enchanted. I'd never smelled anything like this before. Of course now I wanted to explore and find more violet perfumes. I even found another Borsari (this time at Marshalls! Again on a markdown table!) -- Violetta Classica, which turned out to be a very musty earthy fragrance which I find almost too dirty to wear. MAC Asphalt Flower is another one of those dirty violet types, but I love that one, with its juxtaposition of feminine florals and a gritty downtown vibe. I tried a sample of Serge Lutens Bois De Violette, which to me was too much bois and not enough violette.

On a trip to New York City, visiting perfume counters with a group of friends, I discovered my treasure. Barney's has one of the best fragrance departments in the entire city. And off to one side, on a pretty tray, I found some Italian fragrances called I Profumi di Firenze. The representative for the company was there that day, Miryana, and she started to ask me what types of scents I like. She held up an almost-empty bottle of Violetta Di Bosco and told me that the reason it was almost empty was that all of the beauty floor sales associates would stop by and spray themselves with this scent. I held up my wrist so she could spray some on me. It was love at first sniff and it's been that way ever since. Violetta Di Bosco is a candy-sweet violet. It's the one I am wearing as I write. I Profumi di Firenze lists no other notes, but I detect a woodsy base.

In my search for other violet scents, I found many new loves and surprises. Violet scents can be incredibly green, and those I don't care much for at all. They smell like broken stems rather than flowers. In the green violet category, I would list L'Artisan Vert Violette, Fresh Violette, and Fragonard Apres-Tout. I have that last one, but I don't wear it very often. I tried vial samples of the other two and was not wowed. Violets blended with woodsy-incensey notes are ones that I love, and those include Nanette by Nanette Lepore, John Galliano, and the gorgeous but limited edition MAC Hue:Violetrix.

Violet scents that tend to be more powdery are FlowerbyKenzo and the stunning Balenciaga Paris, which has a rich base of patchouli, woods, and oakmoss.
I like floral blends with a dominant violet note, such as the original Caron Violette Precieuse. Perhaps the most rare of my violet scents is Comptoir Sud Pacifique's Eau Des Arts, in its silver metal spray cannister. I found this at a tiny cosmetic boutique in Cleveland, where the owner told me she was able to obtain a few CSP scents that were never intended to be sold in the United States. It is a blend of violets with jasmine, lily of the valley and heliotrope in a soft base of woods and spices.

But I continue to love the candy-type violets the most of all. Next to my beloved Violetta Di Bosco, I am crazy for Frederic Malle's Lipstick Rose. The perfumer, Ralf Schweiger, is given credit on the label of the bottle, as are all of the Malle scents. The initial aldehyde moves quickly into a sweet violet with rose, iris, coriander, and a vetiver and vanilla base. It's so addicting that when I purchased my first bottle of Lipstick Rose, it is all I wore until I finished the bottle.

When my two favorite perfume notes, rose and violet, are combined into one perfume, something magical happens. Paris by Yves Saint Laurent is the best example of this combination. Many of the scents I've listed here have rose notes combined with the violet. Within these scents, one plus one is bigger than two! There is something about the rose-violet blend that becomes its own entity. It's as if they belong together.

Do you love a violet fragrance? Which one is your favorite?

Disclaimer: In the photos, every bottle was purchased by the reviewer, with the exception of one which was a gift.

Reviewer: Patti F aka Cavewoman
Graphic Credit: Melanie Parker
Photo Credit: Patti F aka cavewoman

Title: Hole's Violet

40 Days & 40 Nights Of Fragrance Notes: Lilac

We have been doing the 40 Days & 40 Nights project since the Lent of 2006. It all started with primers.
Back then, primers were just starting to gain popularity. It was a stretch to locate 40 primer products. We were begging for samples on the beauty floor of Bergdorfs.
Last year we tackled skincare. This was the most exhausting and stressful project. It almost made me throw in the towel.
My friends have encouraged me to continue the blogging tradition.
This year we have decided to focus on fragrance notes. So for 40 days you will see gushes and slams on everything from the rose to the oud.

The first note in the series is lilac. This is one of my favorite flowers to grow and wear. The tiny flower bundles come in the shades of purple, white, pale yellow and pink with heart shaped leaves. The moment of bloom is fleeting. The scent makes up for the short life of the flowers. It is operatic and glorious. Lilacs smell sweet without being cloying. They smell innocent. They smell fresh and clean.


When "fragonerds" discuss great lilac scents, there is one perfume that is always mentioned as a benchmark of greatness. This fume is Frederic Malle En Passant. En Passant is a stemmy lilac with some salt and a loaf of bread thrown in. The actual notes are lilac, water, greens, cucumber and wheat. It is haunting and quite lovely. It is considered perfumer Olivia Giacobetti's finest creation.
En Passant can be purchased at Barneys in NYC. The 50 ml bottle retails for $130.

I recently fell hard and fast for a new scent at Anthropologie. It is a collaboration with the Le Labo perfumers and creators. Bouquet Blanc listed notes are cassis, bergamot, jasmine, tuberose and vetiver. My nose picks up lilac. A strong and singsong lilac. Patti aka Cavewoman proclaimed it to be the best lilac she ever sniffed. This is a grand statement coming from Blogdorf's chief perfume pal. It is springtime in an amber bottle. The price point is lovely at $62. The Le Labo/Anthropologie fragrance series really knocked my socks off. Impressive quality.


Other lilac fragrance appearances are Ineke's After my Own Heart(a favorite of Beauty Alchemist!), Guerlain's Apres L'Ondee, Yves Saint Laurent's Jardins Romantiques, Ralph Lauren's Blue, Gucci's Guilty, Estee Lauder's Pleasures and Demeter's Lilac.

Disclosure: Le Labo's Bouquet Blanc was purchased at my local Anthropologie
Photo Credits: Blogdorf Goodman
Graphic Credit: Melanie Parker
Day 1 Reviewer: Annie

Interview with Frederic Malle on Musc Ravageur oil

From an interview with Amy Larocca in New York Magazine.

What’s the philosophy behind this oil? It’s freedom oil! You can put it all over. It’s a technology for maximum sexy pleasure.

Oh. [To our assistant: “Could you go get a pack of handiwipes at Duane Reade? Hurry!”] And why turn this scent into a body oil?I first tested the fragrance on my assistant Mylene. That evening, a crazy guy chased her home on the métro. It is a musk that destroys everything in its passage.

And how has it been received on these shores? When I had my launch party in New York, this big guy said, “Mr. Malle, you have changed my life!” You see, it is not a fragrance that the large houses can do. It is too naughty.

Available at Barneys for $110.00

Visit: http://www.barneys.com/b/index.s

40 Days and 40 Nights of Beauty Brand Reviews

Day 12, Frederic Malle

Cavewoman: If you want to sample one of the fragrances in the Frederic Malle Editions De Parfums at the boutique in Barney's Madison Avenue store, don't offer your wrist to be sprayed. Well, not at first, anyway. The Malle sales staff will ask you a few questions first. What types of perfumes do you already wear and love? The SA will then choose just a few of the Malle scents for you to try, based on your answers. Your first whiff of one of your chosen Malle scents will happen in a most interesting way. Inside the little Malle boutique are 'scent chambers,' each a clear glass cylinder with a little door. The SA opens the door, sprays the scent into the chamber, closes and opens the door a few times, and then you are instructed to put your face into the chamber and sniff the scent. Only after you sample the scent in the chamber, and like it, will the sales associate spray some on your wrist.

Frederic Malle is not the perfumer of his line of scents, but he enlisted some of the most interesting perfumers of our time to create the Editions De Parfums. My favorite Malle is Lipstick Rose, created by perfumer Ralf Schwieger, who trained in the field of chemistry and then in perfumery at Givaudin-Roure.

Lipstick Rose is one of the most unusual fragrances I have ever smelled. To me it is a masterpiece of blending synthetic and natural notes, very modern and totally unexpected, and yet at the same time, hints at vintage scents from Grandma's era. This dichotomy is the fascination factor in Lipstick Rose. It smells like Grandma's lipstick, but it also smells like candied, sugared violets adorning a wedding cake. In fact, it's the combination of rose and violet at the heart of this scent that captured my own heart. Lipstick Rose is candy-sweet, tasty, enigmatic, whimsical, and addicting. Rose lovers will wonder where the rose is. Rose haters will not smell rose in the typical sense of the flower. The notes in Lipstick Rose are grapefruit, ambrette, coriander, tagette, aldehydes, rose, iris, violet, raspberry, heliotrope, musk, vetiver, vanilla and amber.

It has come to me recently that I love the combination of rose and violet in a scent. One plus one equals more than two. Violet-rose perfumes fill my perfume tray, and with a little research and investigation, I have come up with a list of my perfume loves that contain the rose-violet accord. I knew I loved this combination even before I realized what the combination was! I continue to seek out perfumes with both rose and violet, and I'd love to hear yours, if you know of any.
Just a short list of other rose-violet scents:
Bvlgari Pour Femme and Rose Essentielle, Bond Broadway Nite, Malle (Roudnitska) Le Parfum De Therese, YSL Paris, Shiseido Zen (original, black bottle,) Caron Fleurs De Rocaille and Aimez Moi, Lauren by Ralph Lauren, Fragonard Apres-Tout, La Rose De Rosine, Guerlain Apres L'Ondee and Jardins De Bagatelle, FlowerByKenzo, Houbigant Demi-Jour, and last but not least, Deneuve!

Annieytown: Years ago while in NYC, I was bamboozled by a Frederic Malle Sales Associate. I was loitering in the Malle boutique in Barneys sniffing Une Rose and Musc Ravageur. The SA insisted that I needed to try Iris Poudre. I informed her that I was not a powder scent girl and that I would not be interested in trying it.

She looked me up and down noting my pink velvet coat with the peter pan collar.
She smirked.


Later she had two scents on the table. She encouraged me to test both. I was feeling the buzz you get when you shop with some of your favorite people and sniffed both cards without question. I instantly fell in love with the first one. It was gorgeous and feminine.
My SA was triumphant.
The sneak had made me test Iris Poudre.
I thought that was a great move on her part. I was being close minded with a chip on my shoulder.
She introduced me to the world of iris based scents and for that I will be forever grateful.

Notes: Bergamot Orange,Rosewood,Ylang-Ylang Carnation,Magnolia-Jasmine,Lily of the valley,Violette-rose,Aldehydes,Iris-musk,Amber-vanilla,and Sandalwood-ebony.
The aldehydes is subtle in this fragrance. It is not a powerful punch.

Frederic Malle scents can be purchased at Barneys or from their website:
http://www.editionsdeparfums.com/
I prefer Barneys in NYC because I adore Luis, the FM counter manager.
Call him for any orders 212-833-2652.

What are your favorite Frederic Malle fragrances? What will be your next purchase?

Photos: Blogdorf Goodman and Anthropologie
Disclosure: All the products in this post were purchased by the reviewers.

New Model Army

An army of Frederic Malle's.

Blogdorf Goodman

The Frederic Malle Sampler set.
I thought it was an fragrance urban legend.

I have seen and smelled a lot of amazing things during the Cleveland get togethers but this one is the most memorable. This is from the fragrance collection of Miss Koneko.

Koneko has introduced me to so many things such as Bubble Tea and Armani lipglosses.
Everyone should have a Koneko in their life.

Photo: Koneko/Blogdorf Goodman