The Perfume Bee

Karen Adams, moi, and Karen Dubin at LA Sniffapalooza 2007

This picture shows me standing with Sniffapalooza founder Karen Dubin (to my left) and her Sniffa collaborator, Karen Adams. The photo was snapped after more than 10 hours of sniffing perfume, talking about perfume, listening to talks about perfume, shopping for perfume, and sniffing more perfume. I, for one, was feeling a bit rummy by this point. But all fatigue aside, the LA Sniffapalooza West Coast Premiere was a pure slice of heaven!

Here is what the day looked like: Imagine being surrounded by over fifty people with a common passion for perfume, bare-wrists extended and perfume testers at the ready! Now add in a lovely breakfast at Mauro’s Cafe at Fred Segal Melrose while a series of guest speakers discuss everything from making niche perfumes to the genesis of a top-selling fragrance to the use of fragrance to scent venues (think: the aroma of chocolate wafting through the theater for the premier of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

Follow this with shopping and sniffing at Ron Robinson’s wonderful Apothia, lunch at Chocolat with a fragrance workshop presented by Sarah Horowitz-Thran (founder of Creative Scentualizations), shopping and sniffing at the darling Santa Maria Novella boutique, and High Tea at Chado Tea Room with guest speakers (Miryana Babic of i Profume di Firenze; Adam Eastwood, co-founder of Luckyscent.com; and Marlen Harrison, founder of Perfumecritic.com).

Top off this perfect day with a private reception at the Palmetto Boutique where Miryana Babic and her sweet mother, Rosie, presented the i Profume de Firenze line. As an added bonus, enjoy the expert touch-up from professional make-up artist Fredericke Grillitz of i.q. beauty who was on-site to help revive our flagging complexions. (If I may digress just a moment… her Luminous eye cream is incredible! A few well-placed dabs of this gel- based cream under my eyes was like a refreshing mini-facial. Perhaps it has something to do with the crushed pearls it contains. I don’t know, but I do know it made my face feel positively “glowy.”)

Add all this up, and you have the recipe for one fragrantly fabulous day!

The best part (I know you’re expecting me to say the goodie bags — well, yes, they were wonderful, but they’re not even the best part) of the whole Sniffapalooza was being with like-minded “perfume people.” Let’s face it, sometimes we perfume-lovers can feel a bit isolated when our friends and loved ones look at us with a mix of pity and perplexity as we proudly show them our most recent fragrant discovery. So for me, the highlight of the day was meeting new perfume-loving friends and being able to spend time discussing the nuances of individual fragrances without seeing eyes rolled up in boredom. And it was an absolute pleasure to meet people whom I’ve only known through email correspondence and as readers of The Perfume Bee. Putting names with faces really brought it all together for me.

I will talk more about the day’s individual speakers and perfume discoveries in future posts. For now, I leave you with a few more pictures from the day. And, if you’re so inclined, mark your calendars for the Spring Sniffapalooza in New York City happening March 31-April 1st. You can check out their website for more information.

Karen Dubin and Ron Robinson at Apothia

Sarah Horowitz-Thran at Chocolat

Miryana Babic at Palmetto

Christine, Eliza and Marlen at Palmetto

Cute little visitor at Santa Maria Novella

photos © The Perfume Bee

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I arrived in Los Angeles early today for the first-ever LA Sniffapalooza. Since the event doesn’t officially begin until tomorrow, this gave me time to make a beeline to The Scent Bar, the brick-and-mortar store of luckyscent.com. When I say beeline, I mean beeline as in: drive a rental car all over LA for two hours looking for 8327 Beverly Blvd. (Beverly Blvd. is not the same as Beverly Lane. Who knew?!?)

Long story short, I made it to my destination and I am happy to say it was well worth the effort. The sales associate, Angela, was extremely knowledgeable and very friendly. She was also unstintingly gracious as I requested bottle after bottle of fragrance to test. The counter was littered with literally dozens of fragrant test strips by the time I finished.

The collection of niche fragrances in this store is beyond wonderful. Even though the in-store collection represents only a partial selection of luckyscent.com’s total collection, it offers a very representative sample of their wide-reaching yet carefully-selected range. Here are just a few of the lines I sampled: Isabey; Keiko Mecheri; La Base; 10 Corso Como; Parfum d’Empire; Sage EDTs; Nanadebary; Montale; People of the Labyrinths; LesNez;

So of all of these, which one did I consider most full-bottle worthy?

10 Corso Como
This beautiful, incensey fragrance is a departure from my usual light sparkling florals. It is a very warm, woodsy scent starting off with a big dose of delicious sandalwood and frankincense. Soon, a beautiful combination of rose and geranium peek through. Other notes include musk, vetiver and Malay oud wood oil. This is a rich, complex scent with (so far) 3+ hours of staying power.

Cost: $60/ 50 ml eau de parfum at luckyscent.com.

Tomorrow I will be Sniffapaloozing from 8:30 am until 7:00 pm. Stay tuned for a full report!

images source: luckyscent.com

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photo source: the body shop

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, our thoughts naturally turn toward the obvious: gifting our loved ones with a beautiful new fragrance. When such gifting can be combined with a good cause, so much the better. One such example is The Body Shop’s new limited edition Rougeberry MTV fragrance. The Body Shop has teamed up with MTV to launch the ‘Stop HIV: Spray to Change Attitudes’ campaign.

Together we are working to raise awareness amongst young people about HIV and AIDS, and raise funds for MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation, who support grass-roots charities around the world to help raise awareness and educating young people about HIV and AIDS. Together we’ve produced a Limited Edition bottle of our sparkling new Rougeberry fragrance. Proceeds from the sale of every Limited Edition bottle go to the Staying Alive Foundation. (source: the body shop international).

Rougeberry contains:

• Top Notes: raspberry, tangerine and apple
• Middle Notes: heliotrope, rose, violet and peach
• Base Notes: musk, amber, cedarwood, sandalwood, vanilla and sugared almond

Cost: 1 fl-oz. eau de toilette Rougeberry MTV $16

To know more about the Staying Alive Foundation, please see their website.

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“A women who doesn’t wear perfume has no future”. — Coco Chanel

Leave it to Coco to tell it like it is!

Coco Chanel’s colorful and fascinating life provides the inspiration for the six new fragrances being launched by Chanel this month. Les Exclusifs are based on the things and places beloved by Mlle. Chanel. Created by Chanel perfumer Jacques Polge, these fragrances sound very intriguing. In an interview in The Australian, Christopher Sheldrake (deputy perfumer at Chanel) states, “Jacques Polge wanted to create something original and different.” The article continues:

Each new fragrance balances innovation with historical inspiration, referencing the spirit and history of Mademoiselle Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, and places, houses and furnishings that were important to her. Polge and Sheldrake have worked with exceptional and exclusive raw ingredients, including some not often used by the perfume industry, such as ambrette seed and iris pallida, both rare and low-yield natural materials.

The six fragrances are:

• 28 La Pausa, a powdery floral named for Coco’s estate on the French Riviera;
• 31 Rue Cambon, named for Coco’s couture atelier, is a spicy, patchouli-based scent with notes of jasmine and rose;
• No. 18, named for the address of the Chanel jewelry boutique on Place Vendôme, has a heart note of ambrette seed;
• Coromandel, refers to the Chinese screens that adorned her Paris apartments. It is a blend of amber and wood with a hint of creamy vanilla;
• Bel Respiro, named for Coco’s first country house, has green, stemmy notes;
• Eau de Cologne, which is a unisex, neroli oil-based fragrance with the addition of musk, vetiver and green notes.

Chanel is also re-launching four older scents which have been hard to obtain in recent years: Bois des Iles (woodsy); Cuir de Russie (leathery); No. 22 (like a lighter version of No. 5); and Gardénia (a bright floral).

The fragrances will be available at Chanel Boutiques and Bergdorf Goodman February 12th.

Cost: $175/ 100 ml eau de toilette.

photo source: fashiontomorrow.com
quote source: wikiquote.org
fragrance descriptions source: W Magazine

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In a recent posting (here), we talked about the 2007 fragrance collection of designer Stéphanie de Saint Aignan. Osmoz features a terrific interview with de Saint Aignan in its series on “up and coming fragrance designers.”

…I wanted to design fragrances that have something to say, ones whose goal isn’t to go mass market, but exclusive distribution. Fragrances for aesthetes, people who stand out in a crowd, those rare people who don’t wear a brand, but a fragrance they maintain a relationship with. (Read the rest of the Osmoz interview
here).

The Osmoz series also interviews perfumer Céline Ellena, of The Different Company. When asked about her influences as a designer, she replies,

I would say there’s a bit of a joyful mess that I dip into depending on my mood! I don’t have one particular reference, nor school of thought. On the other hand, I profess boundless love for human beings. I’m quite curious, and probably a bit of a voyeur, too… (Read the rest of the interview here).

To read my review of The Different Company, please see this posting.

I find the “noses” behind the fragrances as interesting as the fragrances themselves. The motivation and creative inspiration for each scent is a story unto itself. Just knowing a bit about the person behind the fragrance makes wearing the scent an even richer experience.

photo source: Michael Jastremski at openphoto.net

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Move over cell phones. Now there are smell phones! Two major cell phone manufacturers have announced the creation of cell phones which are capable of emitting fragrances.

Japan’s top wireless operator, NTT DoCoMo, recently described the Sony Ericsson SO703i,

which comes with scented sheets designed to relax the users while making calls. The phone offers nine aroma choices for the consumer, each coupled with a different panel design. (from news.zdnet.com; photo source: asia.cnet.com).

This phone will initially be available only in Japan.

Meanwhile, Hyundai (source: phoneyworld) has also released a perfume phone: the Hyundai MP 280. It, too, has changeable cover panels in a variety of colors.

This phone differs from the Sony model in that you can actually add perfume to it so that each time you open the phone to make or receive a call, the scent is released. Further, it is possible to refill the perfume receptacle once the effect starts to decrease with the handy syringe that comes with the phone.

The butterfly in the center of the phone is where you “inject” the perfume into the handset. About 2 drops of the scent are enough to last about 8 hours.

The phone will go on sale in China for about 9900 yuan (around 1,225.00 USD).

Can smell tones be far behind?

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Though technically not a niche perfumer, the release of designer Tom Ford’s new collection of 12 exquisite fragrances is about to put him into that category. Private Blend consists of a dozen unique scents designed to appeal to both women and men. Made from very fine and expensive ingredients, they include:

• Amber Absolute
• Noir de Noir
• Velvet Gardenia
• Black Violet
• Tobacco Vanille
• Oud Wood
• Purple Patchouli
• Bois Rouge
• Japan Noir
• Neroli Portofino
• Tuscan Leather
• Moss Breches

In wwd.com, Ford points out that “these are fully developed fragrances, not one-note products.”

Purple Patchouli is “sort of Sixties, with orchid, black leather and amber,” said Ford. “Bois Rouge has red cedarwood; Noir de Noir is a chypre oriental with patchouli and tree moss; Moss Breches is this really rare moss, and Tobacco Vanille smells like pipe tobacco…”

This collection is scheduled to launch with the opening of Ford’s new Manhattan store in Spring 2007 (located at Madison & 70th Street). Each scent will be available in a 1.7-oz. eau de parfum spray for $165 and an 8.3-oz. eau de parfum decanter for $450.

info and photo source: wwd.com; photo by John Aquino

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In my mind, Edith Piaf’s hauntingly beautiful voice epitomizes the mystery and magic of all that is French. I love listening to my Éternelle cd and I invariably get misty-eyed when she sings her most well-known song, La Vie en Rose. So I was thrilled to learn that 1) a new movie about her life is being released this month; and 2) Balmain has created a new perfume to celebrate the opening of this film.

Here is a clip of Edith singing this song on Youtube.com

La Vie en Rose is a biopic film starring Marion Cotillard and co-starring Gerard Depardieu, Sylvie Testud and Emmanuelle Seigner. The film is directed by french filmmaker Olivier Dahan and will premiere at the 57th Berlin Film Festival later this month.

In the U.S., the film will be called, La Môme, which refers to Piaf’s nickname, La Môme Piaf, The Sparrow Kid. She was quite a petite woman, only 4 feet, 8 inches tall (142 cm), and she took on the name Piaf (sparrow) as her stage name (from wikipedia). The film is slated for a 2007 release in the U.S., with no opening date set yet.
Here is a clip from the new movie.

The new fragrance by Balmain is also named La Môme. It is a floral-oriental scent containing:

• Top notes: May Rose, Freesia and Pink Bay;
• Heart notes: Damask Rose, Violet, Raspberry and Myrrh;

Base notes: Iris, musk, amber and opoponax

It will be available exclusively at Marionnaud parfumeries. Cost: 41.40 euros/50 ml eau de parfum; 59.20 euros/100 ml eau de parfum.

• edith piaf black/white photo source: Creative commons
• La Mome movie poster source: allocine.fr
• Fragrance image source: aufeminin.com

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