LipsNspritz of the Week 06.12.15

After spending last weekend doused in Tom Ford's finest Black Orchid (albeit in the new Eau de Toilette version rather than the EdP), I was obviously stuck in a rather Tom Ford kind of groove for the early part of this week.  

Monday brought Tom Ford Black Violet, a scent which I have always preferred to Black Orchid, for some reason (but it's now discontinued), a gloriously rich and decadent fragrance, one which reminds me of the glory days of women's cinema in the forties.  It's a fragrance with shoulder pads and red lipstick, which I subverted by not wearing shoulder pads, and wearing with MAC Hot Tahiti, which is a slightly browned wine-shade, which reads like a neutral on my lips.  I did wear black leather though ...

Tuesday was Tom Ford Tuscan Leather, long one of my favourite fragrances.  I was surprised on wearing it this time, however (the first since I lost my sense of smell last year) that I can now pick up the raspberry notes that, in other writers descriptions, have always mystified me somewhat.  A nice discovery!  It still smells leathery to me - which I love - but now it has an extra dimension that I never noticed previously, a great thing. I wore it with Bare Minerals Call The Shots which is a great red lipstick.

Wednesday brought a neglected gem from my perfume collection, which was Maison Francis Kurkdjian Amyris Femme.  This had been shuffled to the back of one of my drawers, and I confess that I'd completely forgotten about it as a result.  I'm completely kicking myself about that now, as it is incredibly beautiful.  I described it on Instagram as luminous and sheer, bright with citrus in the opening, and warm with woods and resins in the base.  Classy and expensive-smelling, it's radiant and gorgeous, and I can't wait, actually, to wear it again.  So I'm wearing it again today as I write this ... I paired it with Laura Mercier Cherries Jubilee Lip Parfait, which is a sheer natural red, which I like a great deal too.

I spent some of Thursday talking to various government bods (like you do) so I thought I'd wear something classic.  Naturally, when I opened the box, I was a bit hacked off that my bottle of Chanel No 5 was actually a bottle of Chanel No5 Eau Premiere. Not the end of the world, admittedly, but annoying, especially when it turns out that Eau Premiere is just a little too restrained for my damaged nose to pick up in any detail.  It's very nice, I'm sure, but it's no No5.  Now I'm wondering where my bottle of No5 has got to, I know I have one!  I wore it with Revlon ColorStay Moisture Stain in India Intrigue, which is one of my favourite pinks, as it lasts and lasts.  It does dry a bit though.

On Friday, I was planning to meet some friends for dinner, so an old favourite fragrance was in order, and I picked Guerlain Pamplune Aqua Allegorica.  Grapefruit scents have been tricky for me for a while, thanks to their sulphurous qualities (I struggle with vetiver as well for the same reason), but I think it's coming back now.  Either way, Pamplune smelled good, well as good as a sweaty grapefruit (and I mean that in a good way) can, let's put it like that.  I wore it with Smashbox Lip Lacquer in Legendary Red, which is a smashing red - I'm ashamed it's taken me so long to wear it.

Saturday I was ill, again, I'm totally fed up with it now, but  it's becoming a way of life at the moment, it appears. Anyhoo, I still wanted to smell good, so I picked up my bottle of Balmain Ivoire, which is soapy-fabulous (even though rather thin in comparison to its 80's-tastic fabulousness before reformulations and re-releases happened to it) and classy and very, very clean.  Still lovely.  I had been planning to wear it with a revlon lipstain, but as I spent the day in my pyjamas, that didn't actually happen ... 

What've you been wearing?

The Fine Print: PR Samples and purchases, all combined.


This post: LipsNspritz of the Week 06.12.15 originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Burberry Christmas 2015 - Military Red Lips and Nails

Nothing says Christmas like red and gold, and Burberry have gone out of their way this year to package up some of their cult products (and add a couple of new ones) in a festive manner.  This might be my favourite collection of theirs in quite some time.

Packaged in shiny golden livery, in a festive change from the traditional pewter, the mini-collection consists of Burberry Kisses glosses and lipsticks in either Festive Gold or Military Red,  Nail polishes in the same, an eye cream-shadow in Festive Gold, alongside a shimmering fragrance powder, and a fluid base in Nude 01.  I have the Military Red selections to show you with the fragranced powder today.

Military Red is a perfect bright scarlet, bringing to mind holly berries, and, of course the colour of Christmas itself!  I haven't tried the nail varnish yet, but it'll be the next thing on my nails for sure, it's such a beautiful colour (I've long been a fan of Military Red - I reviewed it first on here back in 2012!).  The golden fragranced powder has only a slight hint of the My Burberry that it is fragranced with, but it's a subtle golden glow for the decolletage and shoulder blades.  If you find a fluffy enough brush, you could possibly decorate your hair with it too.  

In-store (at Harrods) and online now, the pieces in this collection start at £15 for the nail varnish and rise to £45 for the fragranced powder.  See anything you like? 

The Fine Print: PR Sample


This post: Burberry Christmas 2015 - Military Red Lips and Nails originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Burberry Christmas 2015 - My Burberry

For Christmas 2015 Burberry have re-released a bunch of their cult favourite products in a seasonally appropriate golden livery.  Today I'll take a look at the fragranced products, and tomorrow I'll show you the (beyond beautiful) Christmas makeup.

In beautifully textured golden boxes, My Burberry, a blend of sweet pea, geranium and rose over a base of patchouli, has been released in both a golden "snowflake" version of the Eau de Parfum and a lightly glittering solid version, perfect for your handbag.

Topped with a magnificent faux-bakelite knob, the EdP has been tied with a pale golden bow, and the fragrance is filled with tiny golden sparkles.  For the solid version, the brand's signature pewter lid has been switched to gold too.

But let's take a closer look at those sparkles:

Burberry.com will be engraving up to three initials onto My Burberry bottles in the run up to Christmas, and a personalised anything makes a great present!  And this is a gorgeous bottle to engrave, as well.

My Burberry EdP will cost £90 for 90mls, and £55 for 50mls.  The solid fragrance version is £30,  and you can buy it online and from Harrods now.

The Fine Print: PR Samples
 
This post: Burberry Christmas 2015 - My Burberry originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Perfumer H by Lyn Harris

I spent a lovely afternoon with Lyn Harris at her new venture, Perfumer H, last week. In the stripped-back luxury of her Marylebone studio, we chatted parosmia, hyperosmia, the hard work that goes into making a life's work look so simple, so effortless and so elegant, and, of course, we chatted perfume.

Jo Malone Mimosa and Cardamom

As a result of losing my sense of smell last year, I'm attracted to smells that stimulate my trigeminal nerve as well as my olfactory one, and, from a perfume point of view, that means spicy fragrances are my friend, so when I heard about Jo Malone London Mimosa and Cardamom fragrance being launched recently, I was intrigued.

The last fragrance I really took to from Jo Malone London was the fruity-herbal Blackberry and Bay - all their releases from 2014 were released when I couldn't smell, so are a bit "lost" to me right now, but I fully intend to at least properly smell Wood Sage and Sea Salt if it kills me this year.  Mimosa and Cardamom is a slight departure for the brand, being slightly less lady-like and inoffensive than some of their releases in recent years - the "English Desserts" collection in particular turned my stomach somewhat I'm afraid, and it's all the better for it.

It starts with a puff of musky saffron and spicy cardamom before the tickly scent of mimosa kicks in.  Later, once the spices have dissipated slightly, it's a milky tonka and sandalwood, with just a hint of flowers in the background.  It makes an excellent house-scent, being warm, welcoming, and ... strangely lovable, without being over-sweet.

As a layering fragrance, it works astonishingly well over the Cologne Intense in Tuberose Angelica from the brand too, the clean bubblegum scent of Tuberose adds a depth and narcotic sexiness to the spicy green cardamom of Mimosa & Cardamom.

So nice to see - and smell! - a new direction from Jo Malone London.  As we turn into autumn, this is a perfectly-timed release from the brand, too, the spicy warmth makes a great addition to knitwear and tweedy jackets.  The candle version in particular is great for lighting on cooler autumn evenings.

The Fine Print: PR Sample

This post: Jo Malone Mimosa and Cardamom originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Joan Collins Timeless Beauty Launch

I don't write about events (rather than products) very often, but I was invited to Claridges last week to have cocktails with Joan Collins (JOAN COLLINS!) and, as it was an offer I very much couldn't turn down, I didn't.  I even took a day off work to attend (okay, it was mostly to get my roots done by Jack Howard, but lets not let facts get in the way of events, right?), and a great time was had by all.

I've had a few bits from the Joan Collins range for a while now, and I like them very much.  The quality is a bit variable (I'm not a huge fan of the powder-based products, for instance, but that's just me), but the lipsticks, and fragrances are really very good indeed.  Joan herself was wearing the entire range at the launch, and she looks damn good in it:

By the way, Joan Collins is EIGHTY TWO.  That I should look half that good at EIGHTY TWO.  Honestly.  Yes, she's wearing a lot of makeup, but she's Joan Collins!  If she'd turned up in a no-makeup look in jeans and crisp white shirt, we'd have all been bitterly disappointed, let's face it. A floor-length black gown, full length opera gloves and a jewelled belt were perfect for the occasion.

More pictures of the event after the jump:

Joan Collins - I Am Woman Review

Early last year, I was obsessed (and I do mean completely obsessed) with this perfume to the extent that I carried both the eau de parfum and the fragrant essence around with me, and forced all of my perfume pals to smell it at every available opportunity.  I was so happy and delighted to have found a beautiful, and clever, celebrity fragrance at last.  Everyone loved it (and I know a few people bought it as a result), but then my sense of smell disappeared for a while, and sadly, so did my ability to write, or even think about fragrance properly.

But now my sense of mell is coming back, and there's no better way to celebrate than with a spritz (or three) of Joan Collins I Am Woman, and finally getting to write about it.  I Am Woman opens bright and slightly citrussy, with subtle bergamot giving it a sense of sparkle and fizz which quickly gives way to a fuzzy and warm peach-effect.  The peaches in I Am Woman smell like they have been soaked in an expensive wooden brandy barrel for some time, giving them a slightly boozy tone, and then dusted with a little baby powder, which lends them a little softness, taking the edge off the booze.  Once you get past the peaches, there's a rich and dark wooded base, which  is smooth and silky with sandalwood, and there's just enough cedar in there to stop the whole thing being too sweet and ladylike.

Whilst the perfume is rich (not to mention replete with powder, booze and fruit, and bearing in mind that it bears the name of Joan Collins), you'd almost expect this to be a HUGE fragrance, but it's actually surprisingly subtle, and the sillage stays close to the wearer - it definitely does not enter the room before you do.  It's sophisticated, and the first time I smelled it, I knew, this is exactly what a perfume from Joan Collins should smell like.  That what is essentially, boozy peaches and baby powder, should smell so sophisticated is the real wonder.

I love the peripherals from the range, too, which is unsual for me.  The body lotion is very subtly scented and a very light formulation which makes a great layering base for fragrance - any fragrance - as it is very subtle, and moisturised skin holds fragrance better than drier skin, plus this is a good moisturiser too.  The darker bottle in the top picture is actually a "Fragrant Essence", which has a slightly deeper scent than the spray eau de parfum as the oily formula doesn't hold onto the citrus notes as well, but it can be used to scent baths, linen sprays, and my own personal favourite; diffused in a scent diffuser.  A brilliantly simple idea!

You can find Joan Collins I Am Woman at Urban Retreat in Harrods, on QVC (where you'll also find the rest of her makeup range too), and online at Joan Collins Beauty.  I Am Woman scented products begin at £12 for the fragrant essence (bargain!) and go up to £50 for the full-size fragrance.

The Fine Print: PR Sample


This post: Joan Collins - I am Woman originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

The Library of Fragrance: Gin and Tonic and Fresh Laundry

Having parosmia makes you paranoid about being smelly.   I'm clean, don't get me wrong, but having a nose that interprets smells incorrectly (and sometimes not at all) can make you worry about the oddest things.  I was a huge fan of Demeter Laundromat back in the day, and the first thing I did when I heard they were being re-released as the Library of Fragrance in the UK was check that Laundromat was in the line up.  It was, but is now called Fresh Laundry, and no one is happier about that than I am...

Ormonde Jayne Vanille D'Iris

At Linda Pilkington's tiny jewel-box of an Ormonde Jayne salon in Bond Street last week, Vanille D'Iris was launched.  Expecting an over-sweetened custard-and-carrot melange from the name of the new addition to the core range (the first in a couple of years), I was extremely impressed with what I did find.

At first sniff, Vanille D'Iris is dry and almost spicy, there is pink pepper and bergamot in the mix, and the first "whoosh" into the nose has a sparkling, almost effervescent effect.  Once the peppery citrus has died down, the iris pushes through and makes itself known.  Iris can be powdery-soft and reminiscent of lipstick and facepowder, but the iris in Vanille D'Iris is assertive and buttery-rich with just a hint of damp brown earth and juicy white roots.  I often get a whiff of carrots with iris-based fragrances and Vanille D'Iris is no exception to that, but here it's a sophisticated butter-braised carrot with the merest hint of caraway-spice to lift the whole composition from the kitchen to the drawing room.

I'm surprised at the subtlety of the vanilla in the composition, it's darkest bourbon vanilla, complete with the seeds to my nose rather than the sugary custard trifle I was expecting.  For me the vanilla doesn't turn up until we're right into the drydown, and even then it is muffled by the amber and woods that round out the formula.  It's there for depth, not for sweetness, and as such, it's a massive relief.  Too much sugar would have made this a migraine, but as it stands it's dry and sophisticated and rich. Most enjoyable!

Ormonde Jayne Vanille D'Iris is grown up and lady like, poised and polished.  One day I shall be groomed enough to do it justice, it's no jeans and t-shirt kind of a fragrance, it demands a lipstick and properly brushed hair.  A worthy, and not too sweet addition to the core Ormonde Jayne line, it demands your attention in a ladylike way.

Ormonde Jayne Vanille D'Iris will be released mid-September and will cost £90.

The Fine Print: PR Sample


This post: Ormonde Jayne Vanille D'Iris originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Jil Sander - Sun

There are always a bunch of people discussing Jil Sander's Sun on my Twitter timeline, and I've wanted to smell it for the longest time, so when I found a bottle at a bargain price at Vienna airport recently I snapped one up without even the slightest hesitation!

It's an odd one, the name conjures up suntan lotion and coconut, maybe jasmine and tiare in line with other "sunny" smells, something tropical at least.  But no! It's actually a benzoin-heavy, warm and slightly powdery fragrance, practically an oriental (it has hints of vanilla and spice) to my nose.  Not what sprang to mind, and, slightly the better for it, to be honest.  It is definitely a warm scent, but warm like a hug rather than a sunny day.  

There are no tropical flowers here, just heliotrope, which gives it that powdery-almond effect, which, coupled with the balsamic-woods scent of the benzoin makes this a very snuggleable (totally a word) fragrance.  There's also a slightly "clean" facet to how the fragrance smells, which is, I think, down to a combination of bergamot and blackcurrant in the opening, but it's neither fruity, nor floral, weirdly, it's a warm, ambery, slightly spice slice of "Sun", rather than the suntan lotion you'd expect from the name.

If you're travelling this summer, you can pick up Sun for around £12-15 at Duty Free, for some reason, it's impossible to find in stores in the UK.

The Fine Print: PR Sample


This post: Jil Sander - Sun originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Guerlain Reissues Terracotta le Parfum for 2015

Last year, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their iconic bronzing range, Terracotta, Guerlain released a limited edition tiare-inspired fragrance Terracotta Le Parfum, and to say it was a hit would be a mild understatement.  It sold out in what seemed like moments, and I kicked myself hugely for not hunting down a bottle as soon as I saw the press release. So this year, when I discovered it was being re-released, I wasted no time and literally had a bottle in my hands the day after I found out it was back ....

On first spray, you're enveloped in a cloud of white flowers and sunshine. Tiare always smells tropical to me. Waxy and fat, it's an ingredient I used to have trouble with after overdosing on LouLou in the eighties, but it is something I'm slowly re-learning to love, and love it I do, now.  Anyway, here the tiare is surrounded by jasmine, ylang-ylang coconut and vanilla, and the effect is like expensive suntan lotion on hot skin initially, bringing to mind beaches and cocktails, and sun-warmed sand.  Once the tiare flowers wear off a little, there's a creamy and milky musk with hints of orange blossom left behind that wears close to the skin, and reminds you of holidays in warmer climes than the UK.

It's a lovely bottle too, a flat gold-embossed flask with a wooden top.  I'm actually taking this away with me on my summer holidays this year, but if you can't afford a holiday away, the bottled sunshine of Terracotta le Parfum might just be an acceptable substitute ... 

The Fine Print: PR Sample



This post: Guerlain Reissues Terracotta le Parfum for 2015 originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Maison Francis Kurkdjian - Oud Satin Mood

I should probably preface this review with two facts: the first is that Oud Silk Mood by Francis Kurkdjian is one of my all-time favourite fragrances of all-time and this review will potentially be coloured by that, and secondly it must be made known that I am still currently parosmic  and as a result I'm not sure how much use a review written by someone with a distorted/lessened sense of smell will actually be, but I'm jolly well going to write one about this anyway.

Almost two years ago, I wrote a rather prickly review of Oud Silk Mood by Francis Kurkdjian, one in which I loved the fragrance, but had got rather tired of perfume bloggers attitudes towards oud as an ingredient in perfume.  Fast forward to now, and I'm rather over the cynical "We need middle eastern clients! Let's make an oud!" fad in perfumery myself to be honest, but I still do love an oud when it is well done.

When Francis Kurkdjian released his initial oud fragrance in 2012, there wasn't an oud fragrance quite like it.  He'd taken a thick, medicinal, traditionally "heavy" (or funky, or gross, depending on your point of view) ingredient, and turned it into a lightly shimmering phosphorescent haze of beauty.  His original Oud was still odd, but it was acceptable, even pretty, and infinitely wearable, even for the oud-phobic.

In 2013, Kurkdjian released the Oud Moods collection, featuring oud fragrances as inspired by fabrics, namely Silk, Cashmere and Velvet.  All showcased oud as the major ingredient, but featured another scent alongside to recreate the sensous feeling of fabrics on skin.  As someone with synaesthesia, which often took the form of textures and fabrics (iris, for example, was grey cashmere) in the past, this collection really appealed to me.  Cashmere and Velvet featured labdanum and cinnamon respectively, and Silk Mood was roses.  Jammy, fruity, lush and deep, deep red roses, which were displayed atop a splintery bed of shimmering, yet still somehow slightly dusty oud.  It's a perfume I reach for whenever I want to wear roses, but not the roses your grandmothers would wear, and it's probably in my top five fragrances of all time.

However, since I became parosmic, roses have become a tricky ingredient for me, sometimes smelling burned, sometimes papery, sometimes just flat and unpleasant, and so I have been reaching for Silk Mood less and less recently, as I couldn't predict on any given day how I'd be able to perceive the smell.  Life with parosmia is often hugely surreal and unpredictable, and so my fragrance choices have been by necessity been more limited over the last twelve months, in order to avoid nausea. However, when I heard that the new addition to the Oud Mood range was going to feature violets alongside the roses, I let out a little whoop of joy, for, after a trip to the Osmotheque in Paris last year, I know that violets are one of the few smells that for me are never distorted, and so I looked forward to smelling Oud Satin Mood very much indeed.

Oud Satin Mood opens with candied violets over a powdery soft vanilla, which is both sweet and floral. Until the rose turns turns up in the midsection it is rather soft and quiet, but the dark roses appear here to add both richness, and more vibrancy to the scent.  Where Oud Silk Mood is jammy and voluptuous, Satin Mood is powdery and ladylike, the soigné Grace Kelly to Silk's rather blousy Jayne Mansfield.   At the end, which takes a good long while to arrive at, there is a warm and comforting hug of benzoin mixed with the vanilla, which stays close to the skin, but doesn't get cloying. Throughout wear, there is a shimmer of oud, which adds mystery, alongside both depth and an unexpected gauziness, alongside a certain playfulness to the scent. But the oud itself never overpowers the other ingredients as it does is many other formulas, happily remaining a background player at all times.  It is quieter than Silk Mood, less prone to blooming in the heat, and stays closer to the skin. Even my damaged nose can still pick up the scent 8-10 hours after application, so wear-time is extensive.

Thanks to the roses no longer being central in this iteration of Oud Mood, this, along with the addition of ionones from the violet accord, means that they no longer seem burned or papery to my nose, making this a more pleasurable wear for me than Silk Mood at present.  As an aside: it seems that ionones have the simplest molecular structure of many other perfume ingredients, and so may require fewer functioning receptors available in the nose in order to be able to smell them (this is a theme I'll be returning to in a later blog post, however), and so even people with a distorted or hugely lessened sense of smell might be able to at least faintly pick up the scent of violets where previously it was thought they couldn't smell, or distinguish much at all*.

Oud Satin Mood is an eau de parfum rather than an extrait de parfum, and this is reflected in the price, which will be £165 when the fragrance is released on May 1st, rather than the £275 that the rest of the Oud Mood collection sells for. The packaging is also slightly different, a black box rather than the blue of the rest of the range, and the gold fascia on the bottle is no longer there, but it is good news for purses, at least!

I don't mind admitting that a few happy tears were shed on initially smelling this fragrance. So few things smell "right", much less beautiful, at the moment that having unexpected access back into the world of both one of my favourite fragrances and one of my favourite perfumers has been a very happy event indeed.  I can no longer smell in as near as much detail as I used to (though things improve almost every day at present), so if this review - my first full fragrance review in almost twelve months - seems thin on descriptions, I can only apologise. In any event Oud Satin Mood is a glorious addition to the Oud Mood collection, however badly your nose might be brain-damaged.

* Info from The Monell Centre in a conversation via Twitter.

The Fine Print: PR Sample

This post: Maison Francis Kurkdjian - Oud Satin Mood originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

It's Christmas!

Well, nearly ...

To the left: Candles of Christmas future.  To the right: Candles of Christmas past

And Christmas at Lippie Mansions means candles.  LOADS of them.

Coming up over the next few weeks we'll be featuring candles from Cire Trudon, Neom, Elemis, Ormonde Jayne, Rachel Vosper, SpaceNK, Miller Harris, Fornasetti and much more besides.

How do you guys get ready for Christmas?


This post: It's Christmas! originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Tauer Perfumes: Sotta La Luna Gardenia Review

By Laurin

Spending one’s Saturday afternoons poking around perfume blogs and websites brings one to a small and perhaps completely obvious conclusion. Many perfumers and perfume lovers alike are also gardeners. This makes sense when I think of it, that a love of fragrance might be born out of a love of nature and the bounty of odours within. Or perhaps having a living reference to hand is useful when attempting to evoke through scent a childhood memory of long summer nights and fragrant breezes. OR, maybe we’re all just natural hedonists for whom the feel of one’s hands in wet soil or the sun on bare skin is just as irresistible as any foray into gluttony or lust.

All of the above?

I have neither a green thumb, nor a garden in which to put it to work. My personal smellscape is limited to the urban, the gourmet and the grotesque. To my knowledge, I have never smelled a gardenia. So, when I sat down to write this piece, I found myself at the mercy of the Royal Horticultural Society via Google. On the subject of gardenia, they have this to say: “(Gardenias are) grown for their attractive foliage and highly scented showy flowers. (They are) often considered to be difficult.”

Attractive, highly scented and possibly difficult could easily apply to Andy Tauer’s latest release, Gardenia Sotto La Luna. To be fair, you could apply the same to most of his fragrances and you wouldn’t be lying. They are not fragrances for the faint of heart, nor do they make small talk. They should only be sprayed when you’re in the mood to listen.

Gardenia gets straight to the point as it takes the stage. This is a heady, intense floral with no aldehydes or bergamot to soften its seductive message. The flower is laid over a creamy base of tonka and vanilla, which peek through its spicy facets of gingerbread and clove from start to finish. But lest you thought you were getting a freshly baked confection, warm from the over, you should also know that this gardenia always keeps its feet planted firmly in the more earthly scents of overripe banana and tiny mushrooms pushing through the forest floor.

There is a telling scene in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises in which Montoya, the bullfighting aficionado and hotel proprietor, walks into a bar in search of the young bullfighter Pedro Romero and finds him: 

“with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting between (Jake) and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod.”

Sotto La Luna Gardenia is that bare-shouldered woman, Lady Brett Ashley. Nominally an upstanding fragrance that you could introduce to your grandmother, but ready (and more importantly, willing) to fulfil your most carnal urges behind closed doors. Or, as that noted 21^st century philosopher Usher noted in his 2004 treatise entitled Yeah!, “a lady in the street but a freak in the bed!”  

The Fine Print: Sample sourced from Les Senteurs

This post: Tauer Perfumes: Sotta La Luna Gardenia Review originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

On anosmia and other stuff.

By Get Lippie

The sharp-eyed amongst you might have noticed that I've been doing fewer perfume reviews than usual, and for that I have to apologise.  I'm ill.  I've been ill for a while now, and whilst it's nothing life-threatening (or even anything painful for that matter), it has been life-changing.

It began inauspiciously - as these things tend to - with a severe cold back in May, and I had no sense of smell for around six weeks after.  If you read my piece for Basenotes around this time: Anosmia - Don't Take Your Noses For Granted! then you'll know how heartbroken I was by this turn of events.  Since then, I've started to recover, and things have got better in that respect, but in a few ways, they've also got worse, in ways I wasn't really prepared for.

My sense of smell has been returning for a while now, and I'm what is termed "hyposmic", ie I now "merely" have a diminished sense of smell, rather than a complete lack of it, but alongside that return of smell have been some pretty horrendous side-effects: namely "phantosmia" and "parosmia".

Phantosmia is where you can smell things that aren't there, either things that don't exist, or you react to smells that aren't actually there.  In my case I could smell burning meats, specifically that red-lacquered pork belly you get at Chinese restaurants.  Imagine smelling burning, slightly sweet from the red-laquered meat, but also deeply charred and smokey from the carbonisation of the rind, 24 hours a day, to the exclusion of all other smells.  Even applying neat lavender oil to the inside of the nostrils doesn't help when this happens. It's maddening and distracting, and there's no relief when it occurs

But worse, oh so much more worse, has been my experience with parosmia.  Unlike phantosmia - where you are reacting to smells that aren't there - parosmia is where you are reacting to smells that are happening (and do exist), but they are distorted by the time your olfactory system registers them properly.  And, of course, they are not distorted in a nice way, where roses might smell like daisies, or peanuts suddenly taste like chocolate. No, everything, and I do literally mean every single thing you encounter literally smells and.or tastes completely disgusting.

Imagine, for a moment that, you have the worst halitosis ever (you know those hangovers where you wake up wondering if an elephant took a dump in your mouth when you were asleep? That), and now further imagine that every thing you encounter smells like that, and purely of that, with nothing else.  That you can't recognise the scent or flavour of anything you encounter as itself, everyday smells are filtered through this smell, so that you can't recognise any smell individually, they just smell bad.

Imagine that every single thing you taste, even your own saliva, tastes like that. Constantly. 24 hours a day. Seven days a week. Sometimes it's only a noticeable hint, but occasionally, like playing Russian Roulette, something you encounter either nasally or orally will be like a nugget of raw, pure sewage, topped with a sauce of slimy rotted onions,  mustard gas, and well-rotted swamp.  Chocolate, coffee and cigarette smoke make me sick with monotonous regularity. Water, even - which had been a revelation during anosmia, owing to it not having any taste to miss - tasting rotten.

Well. That's my life right now. And has been for a little while.

Nothing I eat, drink or smell tastes like it should, and there is little joy in my life as a result.  I don't know, when faced with foods I haven't prepared myself, whether I can eat them.  Supermarkets are a form of torture, as I can't identify which items will set off the "sewage" nausea reaction rather than simply the "elephant halitosis" smell, which I've simply had to learn to live with.  Kitchens.  Well, let's not even talk about kitchens, okay?  I used to love to cook, let's leave it at that.

It's heartbreaking.  Over the years of writing this blog, perfume and fragrance have been an intense pleasure to me, and something I'd learned a lot about. However, I still have hopes that smell will come back properly, that the parosmia will pass. An ENT surgeon I saw recently confirmed that there is nothing physically wrong, and that the parosmia could be a sign that any nerves which were killed by the infection back in May (which would have caused the initial anosmia) are regenerating, but he also warned that these things are unpredictable, and confirmed that there is no current treatment which will lessen my parosmia symptoms.  This wasn't good news for me, as the parosmia is currently one of the worst things I've ever suffered, and I can't deny that I'm finding it very difficult to deal with.

In the meantime, I'm spending a lot of time talking to Fifth Sense, in the hopes that my troubles may help other people who are affected by any of these symptoms, and I'm hoping to be able to attend  their annual conference in November, in order to meet more people who know what this condition is like.  In the meantime, however, in the words of my surgeon, I'm just going to have to ride this out.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading.  Getting it down - and out! - has been helpful.

This post: On anosmia and other stuff. originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Guerlain L'Homme Ideal

I have said this before of Guerlain, but they really don’t like to rush fragrances out. It’s been nigh on 6 years since they released a men’s fragrance. I may be overstepping the mark here, but I often feel Guerlain doesn’t get a fair slice of attention, and this really is a shame.

Guerlain, despite having been around since the dawn of time it seems, are still relatively new to me.  It’s only recently that I have discovered that they are quite the place to go for assured quality and proper attention to detail when it comes to practically everything they do.  Even their packaging is to die for.  I am a big fan of pretty much everything, from skincare, to makeup, and certainly their fragrances.  And you should be too. They already have a stellar line up of men’s offerings that many have grown up with, and like me, some people are discovering only now.

Many of them have stood the test of time, classics such as Vetiver, Habit Rouge, and the more modern and very flirty L’eau Boisee (easily a second date fragrance if ever there was one), and I think this is testament to their integrity as far as taking time to make sure it is right before setting it free upon the masses.  The same level of attention to detail and time has clearly been taken over their newest release for blokes, which is the L’Homme Ideal (Ideal Man, obvs).  Thierry Wasser is always a bit of an innovator, and he doesn’t seem to shy away from this here either.

The top notes are rosemary and citrus, giving it the kick it needs to really launch it, but they don’t last long, as most citruses don’t on me. Not to worry though, the best is yet to come.  Now, reading the press release (as with most that are associated with men’s products) they are keen to let you know that this is a ‘masculine’ fragrance in every sentence.  So the irony of it containing nuts is somewhat of a macho giggle. Stop yourself; the nuts that I’m talking about here are almonds.  At its heart there is an ‘amaretto’ note that gives the fragrance a beautiful dry, almost sandy feel to it, not at all sweet, and it doesn’t disappear into the marzipan end of the almond-scale.  This is accompanied by sugar cane and the increasingly present tonka bean.  It really is almost good enough to eat, and a very, sexy smell indeed. Almonds. Who knew?! The only thing is, it doesn’t project terribly well on me.  But, it does last a fair while. So you’ll have to invite people to get closer to smell it.

The bottle itself is also rather fabulous.  A faceted square cut gem, surrounded by a lacquered band of black.  It almost looks like a very smart men’s watch, which is also mirrored in the cap which has the look of a dial.  The box is also a hero.  On the monochrome front, the very classic silver and black letters all merge into each other to read ‘No need to be L’Homme Ideal anymore. You have your fragrance.’

Well, that’s a relief for us all then isn’t it.


L’Homme Ideal is out September 1st Nationwide, and starts from £48 for a 50ml EDT.

This post: Guerlain L'Homme Ideal originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Anubis by Papillon Artisan Perfumes

By Laurin

Generally speaking, I’m quite happy to live in 2014. I do have the occasional fit of Mad Men-inspired melancholy, but although I’d be quite happy to have regular access to 60’s style hair and music, I’m decidedly less keen on 60’s style access to contraception and career opportunities. So despite its aesthetic deficiencies and frankly appalling lack of whiskey decanters in offices, I remain gladly in the 21st century.

What I’m not so keen on is much of modern perfumery. I rarely write about new releases, and that’s because they so rarely move me to any words beyond, “Eh…” To my mind, the word “modern” when applied to perfumery translates to “clean and bland”, or if we’re being polite, “minimalist and commercial”. Exceptions abound, of course: the Italian house Nu_Be pulls off the neat trick of crafting perfumes that are both interesting and easy to wear. No one would ever accuse Frederic Malle of playing it safe. And if all else fails, there’s always Mugler. But for the most part, I ain’t buying it.

That’s why I’m genuinely excited about the launch of three new scents from the nascent English brand Papillon ArtisanPerfumes.  Papillon is the baby of Elizabeth Moores, and its three debut fragrances are truly stunning creations. I’m obsessed with both Tobacco Rose and Anubis, and I struggled mightily to decide which to review first. Early bets are on Tobacco Rose being the best-seller, but the audacity of Anubis is too compelling to resist.

According to Egyptian mythology, Anubis was the jackal-headed god of the afterlife and was strongly associated with funeral rites and mummification. Liz tells me that she named the perfume after the ancient deity partially because it went through so many reincarnations before it was exactly right, but it is also worth noting that many of the materials in the composition would have been available in some form or another to the ancient Egyptians.

Smelling Anubis for the first time is akin to burying your face in a vintage suede handbag lined with silk. It envelops you in rich, dusty warmth that sings with anticipation. At first sniff, the bitterest orange peel note hangs in the air for a fleeting moment before seamlessly melting into a rich heart of rose,smoky Egyptian jasmine and pungent pink lotus. This is also where spicy immortelle and a medicinal, meditative frankincense Rivae show up and never quite fade, even as the fragrance dries down into saffron, buttery suede and an overdose of sandalwood. Anubis is striking in its originality, but easy to wear and never veers into the “rough-riding cowboy” territory of some of my favourite leathers such as Montale’s Aoud Cuir d’Arabie or my beloved Lonestar Memories. But what an act of bravery it is as part of a first collection! Commercially, I imagine it would have been a much easier sell to launch a sparkling citrus, or yet another fresh take on a white floral. And yet, here we have a dusty, erotic leather rendered in smoke and flesh. This is not a perfume for the masses. It’s a perfume for perfume lovers.

When I was eighteen years old, I saw the English Patient for the first time. Since 1997, I’ve probably clocked up another fifty viewings minimum. It’s still my model for what a healthy romantic relationship ought to be: passionate, furtive and in all likelihood, ending with fevered whispers in a remote cave. Anubis, for me, is the personification of Count Almásy’s weathered copy of Herodotus. After the plane crash, when the history is already between the pages and needs only silence and a willing pause to reveal itself. “Listen,” it says 

Papillon Artisan Perfumes launches its first collection of fragrances Anubis, Tobacco Rose and Angelique from June 24th at http://www.papillonperfumery.co.uk/. They will be available in Les Senteurs from early July, but you can get a sniff in the Seymour Place branch now. They’re worth the trip.

Fruity Florals Worth Your Time and Skin

 

By Laurin

I’ll come clean – I think most fruity florals smell like shampoo*. In the minds of many a perfume lover, “fruity floral” is a byword for bland, safe and indistinct. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them exactly, it’s just that to me, they’re the fragrant equivalent of settling for a semi-detached house in Bromley when you had your heart set on a studio above a gay underwear emporium in Soho. They mostly smell of resignation and barely supressed rage.

Having said all that, I’ve recently found myself occasionally longing for fragrances that have no hidden agenda or awkward pronouncements to make over Sunday dinner. Listen up: despite what breathy marketing materials may have you believe, no fruity floral is going to make you smell sexy, seductive or even especially sophisticated. That’s a job better suited to an oriental or a chypre. A good fruity floral should simply make you happy to be alive. And on some days, that’s enough. Here are four stand-outs to evoke a sense of rosy-cheeked well-being.

Salvatore Ferragamo Signorina Eleganza, £60 for 50ml at www.houseoffraser.co.uk

I confess I was having a bad day when this arrived in the post, but it brought a smile to my face at first sniff. It opens unusually with a burst of juicy pear, sweet almond and a refreshing twist of bitter grapefruit that fizzes joyfully up from the skin. The fragrance sails along on a breath of osmanthus before finally drying down into soft, pillowy white musks which have the soupy warmth of an afternoon nap after an al fresco lunch on an unexpectedly sunny day. Wear with white linen and an air of rude good health.

Amouage Interlude Woman, £175 for 50ml at www.lessenteurs.com

Each time I smell this I want to break into a rousing chorus of “Oh! You Pretty Things!” I am certain that this is how mermaids smell. Nothing with a top note of kiwi fruit has any right to be so enchanting, but a dose of spicy immortelle, dark rose, a dusting of incense and the merest hint of oud all beckon you to break the surface of Karine Spehner’s shimmering composition. Wear this, and know that the best days are yet to come.

Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire, £63 for 50ml at www.debenhams.com

I was pretty awful about LPRN when it first came out, and I’m still not sorry. Stupid name, stupid bottle. Apparently the name is a reference to the “dark” ingredients (black cherry, black tea, black rose and patchouli), but the cynical side of me (both sides) reckons it’s an attempt to draw in a younger customer who probably associates Guerlain with her grandmother. Fortunately, the juice itself is not just good enough to bear the name of its house, it’s an absolute delight to wear. It bursts out of the bottle with all the joy of a child running into a sweet shop: there are cherry lollipops, liquorice allsorts, candied almonds and Turkish delight all in there, waiting to rush straight to your head. I picture this on Lydia Bennet – all bouncing boobs, curls and giggles. Wear for dancing the night away with thoroughly unsuitable men.

By Kilian In The City of Sin, £75 for 50ml at www.lessenteurs.com

A few weeks back, Sali Hughes wrote that in order for fruity scents to be suitable for grown-up women, they must have a hint of tartness to elevate them above the usual sugary tweenage offerings. I tend to agree, but I’d also make a concession for herbs or warm spices. Here we have ripe plum and apricot stewed with bitter cardamom and finished off with crushed rose petals and pink peppercorns. It’s incredibly moreish on the skin without quite tipping into gourmand territory, so no one will mistake you for a crumble. Save this one for late summer, and buy the 50ml refill spray, unless you’re desperate for a gold snake-embossed clutch (and maybe you are, I don't know you your life).

Still not convinced? Would you sooner punch an Innocent Smoothie in the back of its stupid knitted hat than rise at dawn for sun salutations? Fine, I’ve got something for you as well. Get your clenched fists on a bottle of Etat Libre d’Orange Rien, and join me on a trip down memory lane to That Time The Neighbour’s Cat Weed on The Leather Seats of My Uncle’s 1979 Pontiac Bonneville on a Sweltering July Day. Let’s wear black and recite Sylvia Plath and refuse to go outside. Best. Summer. Ever.

* Did you see what I did there? [self five]

The Fine Print: Mixture of PR samples, and perfumes from my own collection

This post: Fruity Florals Worth Your Time and Skin originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Miller Harris Summer Collection - Le Petit Grain, Tangerine Vert and Citron Citron

The Team recently popped along to the Miller Harris Boutique in Belgravia, to see their beautiful new "Symphony of Colour" summer collaboration with Cyril Destrade.  A re-release of three of their well-known citrus-based fragrances, with new limited edition water-coloured packaging, here's the team's thoughts on the fragrances themselves.

Petit Grain by Tindara

Some of you may have noticed I have an unusual name. It’s Sicilian, and those who know me best, know I never stop blathering on about this. Sorry and all that, but being an inbetweenie Anglo-Italian affects EVERYTHING. Look at me with my lapsed Catholic rusty bi-lingualism! No I’m not called Tandoori or Tindra, that’s an IKEA flooring. Yes, my dad was a chef and my mum is a seamstress. What of it? 

... I’m meant to be talking about perfume aren’t I? It all links up, honest. I spent every summer as a child in the Sicilian countryside on the north-eastern coast near the city of Messina with the Aeolian islands in view. My grandparents had fig, bergamot, lemon and orange trees, trails of verbena led to the olive groves that were punctuated by prickly pear cacti. I am really lucky that this was my summer playground, and nothing takes me back to it like perfume.

Le Petit Grain, like a lot of citrus based scents, has a particular resonance. First it’s a fresh splash of lemon and bergamot but with something herby and warm that gives it a bit more substance and spice. Like smelling the citrons on my nonna’s kitchen table, whilst the woody rosemary branches are hanging all around us. So I’m ambling down the road and this stuff is sparkling away like a summer drink with citrus and herbs and then this subsides and Mr Vetivert and Mrs Patchouli come for a visit, and they leave me with a heart of oaky wax reminiscent of the finish to Serge Luten’s Ambre Sultan. I really like this, as you can probably tell. My only disappointment with it is that it doesn’t last well on me. But this does happen with citrus scents and cologne and the only answer is to apply more frequently. I think for this one it might be worth it.

Tangerine Vert - by Get Lippie

Bearing a strong resemblence to Hermes' Orange Vert (one of my all time favourite scents), Miller Harris' Tangerine Vert starts in with a startlingly photo-real blast of tangerine peel, which almost verges into an extremely clean and lively-bright grapefruit, but this is backed up with the smell of bright green crushed leaves, that eventually softens into a blend of cedar and musks.  It's bright, and pretty (and hugely unisex in appeal), and uplifts the spirits gorgeously.   It's a little spiky, and rather on the lively side, but that's just what summer scents need, if you ask me.  It won't last longer than the average spell of British summer sunshine, but that just means you need to reapply regularly.  I've suffered from a spell of anosmia recently, and this has been one of the few fragrances to cut through my smell-less world, so for that, I shall be eternally grateful.

Citron Citron - by Luke

I was assigned Citron Citron and, as I have had a bit of a lament recently about not owning a real citrus scent this was a good choice.

Citron Citron is one of the original Miller Harris fragrances, and the scent is a really gentle, woody spicy citrus. Very lemony, it has lime, and orange in there too. All the citrus bases are well and truly covered. This fragrance has the same sensation of lying in long grass in the summertime surrounded by very ripe citrus trees, and a cold glass of martini. We’ve all been there.

It is a very herby smelling citrus as it has basil, which is very pleasantly perceptible, alongside mint. It's not too warm, being a little on the sweet side, and it's not too zingy as a result, it dries down to an almost powdery scent. I like it a lot.

Being a citrus scent, it really doesn’t last on my skin for very long, so was I bitterly (see what I did there) disappointed. This was surprising to me, especially as it’s an eau de parfum formulation. However, I realised that spritzing this on my clothes instead seemed to make it’s ‘waft’ power somewhat stronger, and it has lasted longer as a result.

Absolutely perfect for the current clammy weather, this will no doubt cut right through any of that beautifully.  

***

The limited edition Symphony of Scent collection is available in 50ml bottles from Miller Harris at £65 a pop.

The Fine Print: PR Samples

This post: Miller Harris Summer Collection - Petigrain, Citron Citron and Tangerine Vert originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper