Review En Bref: Frederic Malle Portrait of a Lady

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Kafkaesque

Source: stein.halb6.com

The Purple Rose of Cairo. The old movie title seems like the best description for a much beloved perfume where the rose is purple from patchouli and dark berries, and Cairo represents the strong backbone of incense smoke. The perfume is Portrait of a Lady (often shortened to just “PoaL“), an eau de parfum from the luxury fragrance house, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle.

Portrait of a Lady was created by Dominique Ropion, one of the most well-respected, famous noses around, and was released in 2010. The Frederic Malle website describes the fragrance as:

Source: Basenotes

a new breed of oriental rose, a baroque perfume. It is based on an accord of benzoin, cinnamon, sandalwood and, above all patchouli, musk and frankincense. It takes off with an excessive dosage of the best Turkish rose essence that Dominique Ropion linked to the rest of the formula, thanks to a red berries and spice accord. After hundreds of trials needed to balance such an excessive formula (Portrait of a Lady is undoubtedly the perfume containing the strongest dosage of rose essence and patchouli heart), a rare symphonic perfume appeared: a new oriental rose, a sensuous beauty that attracts people like a magnet, a modern classic: Portrait of a Lady.

Fragrantica classifies the fragrance as a floral Oriental, and lists its notes as follows:

Turkish rose, raspberry, black currant, cinnamon, clove, patchouli, sandalwood, incense, ambroxan, benzoin and white musk.

“Bleeding Rose” by April Koehler. Source: redbubble.com

Portrait of a Lady opens on my skin with the familiar strains of a jammy rose. It is intensely fruited with raspberries that feel almost candied and syrupy, along with a hint of tart, juicy cassis (otherwise known as black currant). The flower is full-bodied, rich, infused with patchouli to its core, and as dark as the finest wine, but it is also set on fire with dry, smoky incense. The flower actually feels so thick with dark, purple patchouli that it evokes images of crimson blood dripping into dry, arid Arabian sands that have been swirled into a storm of incense. Whispers of clove add a subtle spiciness and, in conjunction with the dry smoke, help ensure that Portrait of a Lady is never cloyingly sweet.

Spirit of a Dying Rose by Vincent Knaus via RealityDefined.com. http://www.realitydefined.com/pages/things/spirit-dying-rose.html

Spirit of a Dying Rose by Vincent Knaus via RealityDefined.com. http://tinyurl.com/ml9qfpz

At its core, Portrait of a Lady is a simple fragrance of rose supported by twin pillars of patchouli and smoke. And it never really changes from that essential characteristic. The notes may vary in prominence or strength, and the background elements certainly become less noticeable as time goes by, but Portrait of a Lady can really be summed up as nothing more than fruited, jammy, patchouli rose infused with dry incense. It’s a well-done triptych of notes that eventually turns into a bipartisan interplay of incense and patchouli, but that’s really about it.

Portrait of a Lady has been largely imitated by many similar, jammy, incense purple rose fragrances since then, but it really doesn’t knock my socks off. So, I’ll spare you the lengthy, moment-by-moment analysis of how minimal the clove is on my skin, how long the raspberry lasts in an additional surfeit of fruitedness that I did not enjoy, or how it ends up creating a sour note that lingers well into the perfume’s final moments. I’ll avoid getting into the details of just how much purple patchouli there is in Portrait of a Lady, how it becomes a skin scent on me less than 3.75 hours into the perfume’s development, how there are subtle elements of something synthetic in the base (perhaps thanks to the Ambroxan), or the way there is a weirdly soapy tinge to the fragrance for a few hours.

The simple nutshell story is that, on me, Portrait of a Lady started as a conventional jammy rose with incense and endless heapings of purple, purple, purple, fruited patchouli. I really dislike purple patchouli, and there is a hell of a lot of it here. Portrait of a Lady then took less than 4 hours to turn into a somewhat dry, very subdued, completely muted blur of simple patchouli and incense with an endlessly lingering, unpleasant hint of sourness before it finally died away. It’s a fragrance that lasted just over 9.25 hours on me, and that I found to be tolerably nice. It was also, however, unoriginal, linear, painfully purple and fruited, and wholly boring. I certainly don’t think it’s worth the high Malle prices.

However, I’m hugely in the minority on my lack of enthusiasm for Portrait of a Lady. The fragrance is much adored; in fact, it is many people’s ideal, perfect rose. Some even consider it to be a “naughty” rose, an impression or association that never once crossed my mind. In truth, I am starting to think that Frederic Malle is a brand that simply doesn’t do much for me; thus far, I haven’t been impressed by a single one that I’ve tried. So, I shall put on my “Cone of Shame” (to borrow an apt, recent phrase from Lucas of Chemist in a Bottle), and slink to my corner. Mea culpa.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Portrait of a Lady (PoaL) is an eau de parfum that comes in a variety of different forms and sizes. On his U.S. website, Malle offers: 3 travel-sized sprays that are each 10 ml in size for $150; a 50 ml/1.7 oz bottle for $230; or a 100 ml/3.4 oz bottle for $340. It seems as though the 50 ml size is available only from the US Malle website, as no other vendors, including even the French or International Malle website, carries that small bottle. On the International Malle website, the prices are €100 for the travel trio, and €225 for the large 100 ml bottle. I’m afraid there is a web-error page for the small 50 ml size, so I can’t see its Euro price, and oddly, PoaL doesn’t even appear on this page with all the other 50 ml/1.7 oz bottles. Malle also sells a 200 ml body cream on each website which costs $210. In the U.S.: You can also find Portrait of a Lady at Barneys in all sizes, except the small 1.7 oz, $230 bottle. You’re essentially stuck ordering from the Malle website if you’re looking for that. Outside the U.S.: In Canada, Portrait of a Lady is exclusive to Holt Renfrew, which sells the large 100 ml bottle for CAD $370. In the UK, it is available at Liberty which sells the mini, travel trios for £90.00 and the 100 ml bottle for £200.00. For all other countries, you can use the Store Locator to find a location that carries the fragrance near you. Samples: I received my sample from a friend but you can always order from Surrender to Chance where prices start at $8.99 for a 1 ml vial.

Perfume Review – Grossmith Phul-Nana: Victorian Opulence

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Kafkaesque

Evelyn Nesbit (1884-1967) in the early 1900s.

She was a dark-haired beauty with alabaster skin and a thick mane of hair worn like a Gibson Girl. Her dazzling smile would have merited attention, had it not been for the mounds of pillowy, white flesh that almost tumbled out of her tight bodice to the great appreciation of the aristocratic men around her. Her skin was scented with orange blossom neroli, as spicy, peppered and lush as her reputation, and with amber as darkly golden as the velvet curtains of the theatre box where she held court. Her patron and lover sniffed the aroma appreciatively. It was a marked contrast from the dainty, simple, very prim, floral scents of the other women in his lives, from his fiercely proper Victorian mother who was one of society’s leading matrons, to his retiring, shy wife, and even the young nannies in charge of their children. No, his mistress went for lush abandon and expensive opulence, as was her style, and she wore Grossmith‘s Phul-Nana.

The luxury, limited-edition Phul-Nana Baccarat flacon.

Grossmith is a very old British perfume house. The Perfume Shrine explains that it was “originally established in 1835 in the coterie of influential perfumeries such as Penhaligon’s, Guerlain, Floris and Creed (who were following the footsteps of Houbigant and Lubin)[.]” The house flourished with royal and international acclaim, creating perfumes for royal bethrothals, and receiving royal warrants from various European royal families. As Senteurs d’Ailleurs puts it, Grossmith “rivalled many French houses around the turn of the century. [Then, it] lost its way after the Second World War, going down market and selling synthetic perfumes in the mass market.” By 1970, the house was in serious trouble, and, by 1980, it was sold out of the family’s hands.

Amanda and Simon Brooke. Source: The Perfume Magazine.

Then, one day, around 2005, a man called Simon Brooke was researching his genealogical background, and discovered that he was the great, great grandson of Grossmith’s founder, John Grossmith. A fantastic newspaper article in the Telegraph, entitled “Grossmith: scent by descent” charts what happened next. In 2007, Mr. Brooke decided to buy back the company, return it to the family, and revive it with the help of the legendary Roja Dove, perhaps one of the most famous perfumers alive. “The original plan was to revive the perfume house using Dove as the nose, remastering the perfumes based on photochromatographic analysis of antique samples.” In 2008, however, Mr. Brooke met a distant Grossmith relative, and found that he had old ledgers containing 300 of Grossmith’s perfume formulae which he had rescued from Grossmith’s offices during the 1940s Blitz. It changed everything. As the Telegraph explains, Mr. Brooke and his wife followed Roja Dove’s suggestion to commission Robertet (a French fragrance house in Grasse who specializes in very high-quality natural materials) to replicate Grossmith’s three greatest classics, making every effort to hew as closely as possible to the original formula. Money was no object, no matter how great the personal burden and sacrifice:

‘We didnt give Robertet a budget, we just told them to produce it using the best materials.’ Brooke is tightlipped about exactly how much money he and Amanda have invested in the company, but it is a considerable sum. “We sold our holiday home and used our savings.” The resulting fragrances are expensive-smelling floral orientals that bear no resemblance to the bland massmarket concoctions that litter today’s perfume counters.

The new Phul-Nana and its siblings in regular bottles. Source: Fragrantica.

In 2009, Grossmith re-released its three most famous, historical fragrances. One of those fragrances was Phul-Nana. Phul-Nana was originally released in 1891, and caused a storm, soon becoming one of Grossmith’s most beloved fragrances. As the Telegraph article explains, Phul-Nana “was “the Chanel No5 of its day.” Luckyscent puts it into historical context by saying that, when Phul-Nana was originally released, Jicky was brand new, and Jacques Guerlain was just barely out of grade school!

“The Baccarat set of crystals as it looks today, £23,250.” Photo: Grossmith via The Telegraph newspaper.

To celebrate Grossmith’s revival with true style, even two royal families stepped in to help. The Telegraph article says, “The royal families of Oman and Bahrain… invested in the new Baccarat crystal presentation sets of the three scents costing £23,250, made using the original Baccarat crystal moulds from 1919 (tracked down by Brooke when he noticed ledger entries detailing Baccarat orders) and etched with real gold.” I find them to be stunningly beautiful, but then they should be at that price.

The new 2009 Phul-Nana was created by Trevor Nicholl. Like its siblings, it was released in both eau de parfum and pure parfum (or extrait de parfum) concentrations. This review is for the Eau de Parfum. Grossmith describes the fragrance as follows:

Hindi for lovely flower

“A Bouquet of India’s Choicest Flowers”

A fresh, sweet floral composition with aromatic fougere overtones on a soft warm, woody base. Originally created in 1891, this scent is a rare marriage of the herb garden with the flower garden, unusual in a feminine fragrance. It paved the way for the ‘oriental’ fragrances that were to follow.

According to Senteurs d’Ailleurs, the notes include:

bergamot, orange, neroli, geranium, tuberose, ylang ylang, patchouli, benzoin siam, cedarwood, sandalwood, opoponax [sweet myrrh], tonka bean, and vanilla bourbon.

Phul-Nana opens on my skin as spicy, peppered, herbal flowers. There is geranium which smells fiery, dark, and slightly pungent, followed quickly by neroli. The latter smells exactly like orange blossoms turned spicy, bitter, sweet, slightly herbal, green, and masculine. I should probably explain something about neroli. Both neroli and orange blossoms come from the flowers of the same tree, but the method used to extract the materials differs and, thereby, leads to a slightly different aroma. Steam distillation is used to obtain neroli oil from the blossoms of the bitter Seville orange tree, while distillation with solvents is used to get orange blossom absolute. The latter has a fragrance that is more feminine, indolic, lush, sweet and purely floral than neroli which is more bitter, spicy, green and brisk. Yet, at the end of the day, both ingredients are merely a form of orange blossom, and that is the primary characteristic of Phul-Nana on my skin.

Source: Twitter.

At this point, however, Phul-Nana is primarily herbal, peppered geranium followed by bitter, but sweet, neroli, trailed far behind by small flashes of other elements. There is a subtle whiff of lemony bergamot and juicy, blood-orange, both infused with a hint of dark, peppered patchouli. Lurking far below, in Phul-Nana’s depths, is something floral, herbal, and aromatic that almost resembles lavender. The whole fragrant bouquet is wrapped up with sweet, slightly honeyed opononax, or sweet myrrh. Everything feels peppered, bitter, sweet, herbal, floral, and resinous all at once.

The ensuing result is a very unusual fougère with oriental spiciness and resins. In fact, it seems to be quite rare to have an oriental fougère for women at all. On Fragrantica, as one commentator noted, that there are only five such perfumes listed in the Oriental Fougère database, as compared to 139 for men and 41 unisex fragrances for all. Yet, nothing about Phul-Nana feels as though it’s purely for women. The aromatic, herbal notes which give way to an oriental floral spiciness certainly seem very unisex to me.

Twenty minutes into Phul-Nana’s development, the “rare marriage of the herb garden with the flower garden” finally takes place, and the perfume starts to shift. The fragrance is still a highly peppered, spicy combination of geranium-neroli with a herbal facade and dark, bittersweet citrus fruits, but new elements start to appear around the edges that start the transition into a purely oriental scent. There is a tiny whisper of buttery, custardy ylang-ylang in Phul-Nana’s depths, and the amber begins to grow deeper. The bitter edges seem smoothed out, as the fragrance becomes sweeter and warmer. The opoponax seems richer but, also, drier. It has lost that tiny vestige of honeyed sweetness, and is now infused with cedar which adds yet another layer of pepperiness to the spicy mix. When combined with the feel of bitter, sweet, blood orange, the result is a strong visual of orange and black.

Shortly after the end of the first hour, Phul-Nana becomes softer and even warmer. The fragrance seems to fade a little in power, and the notes feel a little less pungent or forceful, but Phul-Nana still a potent, heady, dense bouquet. The neroli orange blossom has now far overtaken the herbal, spicy, peppered geranium, though the combination still remains atop its amber base. There are hints of cedar and patchouli, even occasionally a ghostly pop of ylang-ylang, but I don’t smell any tuberose and absolutely no sandalwood. The absence of both elements never changes, either. In fact, the fragrance seems to lose a lot of its existing nuances over the next few hours. The extremely muted, subtle, herbal hints soon fade away, as does the minuscule trace of ylang-ylang and patchouli. Even the geranium retreats from center stage, becoming a background player to the warmed, amber-infused, neroli orange blossom that takes over as the star of the show.

Evelyn Nesbit in 1902, photo by Gertrude Käsebier.

By the start of the third hour, Phul-Nana is an amber neroli fragrance with a muted, hidden flicker of geranium. If one wanted to be laudatory, one could call it warm, seductive, opulent, and very languid in feel. If one wanted to be critical, then one could say it was simple, and unoriginal. I’ll say that it’s both those things, but done in a manner that feels incredibly classique. Phul-Nana feels like a very expensively made fragrance with very rich ingredients done in the old tradition of classic perfumery to create a simple, elegant, very seductively opulent, spicy floral oriental. Oddly enough, it almost does feel like a fragrance that a Victorian or Edwardian beauty may wear. It may be the subconscious impact of Grossmith’s history and Phul-Nana’s description, but something about the classique nature of the fragrance does fit for me. There is no grandmotherly powder or floral daintiness to fit with the Victorian times, but then Phul-Nana was Grossmith’s attempt to bring the Orient to England.

Painting by Gyula Tornai (1861-1928): “In the Harem.”

What’s interesting to me is just how full-blooded, thick, and lusty Phul-Nana feels, thanks to the headiness of its spicy neroli blossoms. Around the 2.5 hour mark, that full-bodied, fleshy, sultry languidness is supplemented by the arrival of Siam benzoin. It adds an incredibly plush, creamy, rich warmth to Phul-Nana. Though Siam benzoin is usually very vanillic in nature, here it is initially a very dark, slightly smoky, sweet, balsamic resin. It turns the neroli into something so deep and indolic, you almost imagine the bitter, spicy orange blossoms as an odalisque, lounging on a pile of jeweled, velvet cushions while being oiled to a bronzed goldeness. Phul-Nana has the most indolent, dense, spicy, thick neroli I’ve come across in a while and, yet, the perfume isn’t heavy at all in weight. It’s a soft, airy gauze that envelops you in a tiny cloud of golden, orange warmth and opulence.

Evelyn Nesbit in 1901.

The narcotic headiness of the flower really conjures up images of heated skin and seduction. If this version of Phul-Nana is anything close to the original one from 1891, then the only women who would have worn the perfume would be those whose clothes were ripped off their large, heaving, pillowy bosoms in a dark corner during a surreptitious rendezvous. I simply can’t imagine some prim, highly repressed, ferociously proper Victorian matron, or a sheltered, virginal debutante wearing this scent. For me, the neroli is simply too bawdy and blowsy, too full-blown with improper lushness and exotic, spicy Orientalism, to make Phul-Nana a “respectable” scent by the standards of 1891, a full 122 years ago.

My perceptions of the scent, however, are apparently not shared by Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey. According to the article in the Telegraph newspaper about Grossmith’s revised fortunes, Downton Abbey’s Lady Edith bought a bottle of Phul-Nana for Lady Violet, the infinitely proper, regal Dowager Countess played by Dame Maggie Smith. All I can say is that Julian Fellowes knows his history, but he doesn’t know his perfume. I can’t imagine the Dowager Countess ever wearing Phul-Nana. Frankly, she’d be appalled by its overt sensuality and spicy ripeness.

Source: Stock photos.

Around the 3.5 hour mark, Phul-Nana starts its drydown which remains for many more hours to come. The geranium is just a faded whisper as the fragrance turns more ambered. Phul-Nana drops in sillage, as well, hovering now just above the skin. By the end of the fourth hour, a slight hint of vanilla makes its debut, but it never has a serious impact upon the fragrance. Soon, Phul-Nana is merely a blurry, warm swirl of neroli orange blossoms with balsamic, sweet, ambered Siam benzoin that has a slight hint of smokiness. In its final moments, Phul-Nana is a sheer, muted veil of warm amber. All in all, Phul-Nana lasted over 9.75 hours on my skin, with about 3.5 good smears. I suspect its longevity might exceed that amount if a large amount of the fragrance were sprayed on, instead of the dabbing method that I used.

There aren’t a ton of detailed reviews for Phul-Nana out there. Now Smell This assessed all three Grossmith releases, with Angela writing more about Phul-Nana’s feel than its scent. Part of that reason is that the fragrance seems to have manifested itself as a simple blur on her skin:

To me it smells like an earthy, ambery fougère. Most of the rest of the notes are lost on me. It’s fresh and heavy at the same time. Although Grossmith lists it as a feminine fragrance, men could wear it easily. […]

These perfumes smell old fashioned: dense and contracted, rather than expansive and bright. They smell expensive, but almost as if someone were playing with rare essential oils rather than with the magic chemicals perfumers use now.

For a visual comparison, the Grossmith fragrances each smell like an oil painting darkened by age. If you rub its surface with a soft cloth you see that one of them is a springtime landscape, and another is of a lady’s boudoir, but at a distance they are similar. Modern perfumes, on the other hand, can feel as distinct as an Ansel Adams photograph or an Andy Warhol portrait.

All of the Grossmith fragrances have moderate to low sillage, and they last for a solid eight hours.

Later, in comments to the review, Angela wrote that all three scents “almost smell pre-modern to me. Apres L’Ondee, by comparison, is super modern. The Grossmiths are almost like diluted blended oils–but really nice blended oils.” My experience is obviously quite different, so I don’t feel the same way, though I think “dense and contracted” does fit Phul-Nana in some ways. Still, what manifested itself on my skin was far more than a blurry, pre-modern, diluted blended oil. On me, Phul-Nana smells opulently full, lush, extremely expensive, and wholly baroque in a very classique way. It’s like a very full-bodied, spicy, peppered wine that mellows into a more simple, but still potent, blowsy, full-blown, lush ripeness before fading away as a warm, mellow, blur of ambered, floral sweetness.

Persolaise shares my enthusiasm, and had a slightly similar experience with Phul-Nana, though a few of the details differ:

The most enchanting of the new trio is without doubt Phul-Nana (1891/2009), an exquisite study in old-world refinement. With a trajectory that is a joy to behold, it starts with neroli (edgy-sweet citrus), which then attaches itself to geranium (edgy-sweet floral) before linking up to benzoin (edgy-sweet resin). Enriching the background is a wondrous mix of sandalwood, cedar and tonka bean which lends the whole an air of delectable hauteur. Wear it, hold your head high and walk through the world with the certainty that you’re as perfectly proportioned as the Discobolus.

Grain de Musc, however, was wholly disdainful, summing up all three fragrances as “ghosts” that should stay dead and whose “séance” she’d rather not attend. For her, the issue seems to be the dated feel of the scents and their richness:

The result is the olfactory equivalent of tight-lacing: a surfeit of rich notes which manages to be both as stifling as the corsets of the women who wore the perfumes back in the Belle Époque and as flaccid as their flesh when they removed it. Sensuous in an overbearing, costume-drama way that might appeal to tastes frustrated by today’s skinny juices the way a pastry cart will make a dieter drool…

The reason why she hates the fragrances is exactly why I enjoyed Phul-Nana so much! I would absolutely wear the fragrance if one of the “cheap,” regular bottles ever fell into my lap. The prices are steep, but I just love the spicy geranium-neroli opulence of the scent. There is nothing edgy, revolutionary, or even remotely complex about Phul-Nana, but it smells luxe and old-school, in the best way possible. In fact, it feels like some Guerlain classic from 100 years ago — perhaps, a more simple, uncomplicated, second cousin to something like the sensuous, heady Shalimar (in vintage form). Phul-Nana conjures up visions of buxom, heaving bosoms on women of minimal virtue, or reclined odalisques languidly sprawled on silk and velvet, bejewelled pillows as they’re being fanned, fed, and pampered. It doesn’t feel remotely British and, outside of a short window of time in the opening, it certainly isn’t an aromatic fougère on my skin.

Evelyn Nesbit in 1901. Photo: Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. Source: nl.wikipedia.org

I think Phul-Nana would appeal to perfumistas of both genders who have more ornate, opulent tastes, and who are fed up with the diet of “today’s skinny juices[,]” as Grain de Musc put it. Men who love vintage Guerlain orientals could certainly wear Phul-Nana, and would probably enjoy the transition from an aromatic fougère opening to a bodice-ripping oriental amber. Women who love baroque florientals or neroli/orange blossom scents would be transported by its sensuality. If you like fragrances that have the luxurious feel of vintage Guerlains, or modern Puredistance, then I think you’ll enjoy the opulent richness of Phul-Nana. Those who are Amouage fiends will, too, though Phul-Nana lacks the thousand-layered complexity and true Orientalism of the Omani scents. However, I think young women used to more modern, mainstream offerings would find Phul-Nana’s indolic heaviness and denseness to scream “old lady” — and, as compared to many new, commercial fragrances with their focus on flirty fruity-florals like (the terrible) Petite Robe Noir, they’d be correct. Lastly, anyone expecting an edgy, complicated, morphing, unusual, modern scent will be completely disappointed with Phul-Nana. You can’t expect a perfume based on a 122-year old formula to smell fresh, bright, and different. It’s simply not possible.

Yet, I’m damned impressed by this Victorian old lady, and her heaving, bodice-ripping drama. Perhaps its my historical background, but I was definitely transported back to the golden age of perfumery, or before, to an era where chorus girls became famous mistresses, and exuded a lush, brazen sensuality that scandalized an otherwise proper world. Try Phul-Nana, and I think you’ll see.

1891, the famous Lillie Langtry, future mistress of King Edward VII, posing as Cleopatra. Source: Corbis images.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: The version of Phul-Nana being reviewed here is the Eau de Parfum which comes in two sizes: a 1.7 oz/50 ml bottle that costs $260, €175, or £125.00; or a 3.4 oz/100 ml bottle that costs €260 or £185. Phul-Nana is also available as a 10 ml pure parfum or extrait de parfum, and I think prices start at £150 for that. Fragrantica says Phul-Nana “is available in exclusive glass bottles as 10 and 100 ml perfume, as well as 50 and 100 ml EDP. You can also order the fragrance in the original shaped bottle from 1919, embellished with gold.” Finally, there is also a coffret of all three of the Grossmith classics available in 50 ml. In the U.S.: Luckyscent is the only U.S. distributor of Grossmith fragrances, and they have both the small 50 ml EDP being reviewed here and the 10 ml extrait version. Outside the U.S.: In Canada, Phul-Nana is available at The Perfume Shoppe which sells the 50 ml bottle for $105. In the UK, Grossmith fragrances are available at Roja Dove’s Harrod’s Haute Parfumerie, Bloom Parfumery, and Fortnum & Mason. However, the last two do not list Phul-Nanu on their website. You can find the fragrance in all sizes and concentrations at Les Senteurs which also sells samples of the fragrance. In Paris, Phul-Nana is carried at Jovoy. It is also sold at Belgium’s Senteurs d’Ailleurs, and Germany First in Fragrance. The Grossmith line is available at numerous other vendors from Italy to Dubai, Kuwait, Switzerland, Poland, Sweden, the Ukraine, Australia, and more. You can look for a vendor near you at Grossmith’s Stockist page. Samples: You can find samples at many of the sites linked above. I obtained mine from Luckyscent, but Phul-Nana is also available at Surrender to Chance which sells the eau de parfum starting at $5.99 for a 1/2 ml vial.

Perfume Review – Parfumerie Générale (PG25) Indochine: Sweet Intoxication

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Kafkaesque

Mekong River. Source: terrainfinita.es

Close your eyes, and imagine a pool near the Mekong River in France’s old South-East Asian colony of Indochine. The thick, sultry air swirls around you as you dive in. It’s a pool of decadent, creamy custard that is a bright egg-yellow, unctuous, thick, endlessly creamy, and sweet. As your head hits its top layer, your body is coated by dark vanilla and golden honey, but quickly you are surrounded by flecks of green. Nutty, green cardamon with its warm, toasty edge mixes with the custard. Subtle specks of dry smoky incense touch your lips, but everywhere around you is cream, cream, cream. So golden, so heady, so rich, so luxurious, you fall in deeper and deeper. A sweet milkiness swirls with the toastiness, the custard, and the nutty cardamon to create café au lait. Like a 1960s psychedelic trip, the colours have changed from golden, egg-yellow, to green, to creamy, mocha brown. You’re cocooned in warmth and sweetness, but dryness and smoke linger in the air and soon take over, until all that is left is a patina of dry, creamy, sepia-tinged vanilla that kisses your skin like the warm air of Indochine.

PG25 Indochine. Source: The Perfume Shoppe.

That is the tale of my journey with Indochine (or PG25 Indochine), the 25th creation of the French niche perfume house, Parfumerie Générale. It is an eau de toilette that is named after the former French colony in an area of South-East Asia that was once referred to as Indochina, and whose territory encompasses what is now modern Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Parfumerie Generale’s founder, Pierre Guillaume, is often known for creating gourmand fragrances, but Indochine doesn’t truly fall into that category. For all the perfume’s sweet touches, there are plenty of dry, smoky, woody notes to act as a counter-balance, creating a beautiful, addictive, compulsively sniffable fragrance that is extremely wearable, unisex, and cozy.

Parfumerie Generale’s website explains the inspiration for Indochine, its feel, and the characteristics of some of its notes:

1920 : a sepia-toned cruise following the course of the mighty Mekong River, a kaleidoscope of ephemeral dawns shrouded in mist and glorious days of radiant sunshine.

Slow down, just enjoy the dampness and close your eyes. Beyond the riverbanks, our dreams of Indochina…

One of the sepia images that was the inspiration for Indochine. Source: CaFleureBon.

At once sweet, vanilla-scented, resinous, powdery, milky and spicy, Benzoin Siam is a resin of great olfactory richness that is rarely used as a central theme in Perfumery.

Drawing on rare notes such as Kampot Pepper, Burmese Tanakha, or Laos honey, Pierre Guillaume orchestrates a luminous, smooth and airy perfume, delicately reproducing each and every facet of the unprocessed balsam. [¶] This sepia-tinged balm infuses Indochine with the radiance of platinum…

The short summation of the perfume’s notes is as follows:

Benzoin Siam Resin, Kampot Pepper, Ceylon Cardamom, Burmese Tanakha, Laos Honey.

I think it’s impossible to understand Indochine without discussing a key ingredient that I’d never previously heard of, let alone smelled: Tanakha (or Thanaka, as it is sometimes written). I did some digging, and found a very useful explanation in CaFleurebon‘s review of Indochine:

In reading about Tanakha it is a native tree to Burma which is ground into a fragrant paste used in makeup. As a note in perfumery it shares a lot of similarity to sandalwood. It has the slight sweetness of sandalwood but it also has a hint of green quality which replaces the creamy quality of sandalwood.

Girls with Thanaka cosmetic paste. Source: netmaa.org

Elsewhere, I’ve read that Thanaka paste has “a slight flowery aroma to it something akin to a fragrant light sandlewood.” It is highly popular as a cosmetic paste in South-East Asia, and a simple Google Images search brings up some wonderful photos of women or girls with beautiful, decorative, artistic swirls of Thanaka on their faces.

Indochine blows my socks off with its stunning opening. It’s an utterly intoxicating swirl of sweetness and creaminess: rich, toasty, nutty notes mixed with vanilla and honey. Fast on their heels is a green, spicy, nutty cardamon, then a milkiness that smells a lot like the sweetened milk left in your breakfast bowl after you’ve had frosted cereal. Subtle tendrils of smoke, as light as a summer’s breeze, float at the top. Flecks of pepper with a surprisingly aromatic fragrancy dance at the edges. The combination positively makes my head spin in appreciation; I can’t stop sniffing Indochine not only because of how intoxicating it is, but also because of a quiet mysteriousness that is hard to describe.

Source: Foodival.com

It tugs at me, intrigues me, and leaves me scratching my head a little. I think it’s that Thanaka — which is definitely one of the more fascinating wood elements I’ve encountered — in conjunction with the other notes. To be honest, having never smelled it before, I’m not sure where the aroma of Thananka begins, where it ends, or what other factors may be responsible for what I’m smelling. Whatever the specifics, the overall result is a stunning, sweet, spicy, smoky woody creaminess. Indochine smells so warmly rich and unctuous, it’s like a custard. Yet, it is one which is infused with subtle smokiness, a green spiciness, a toasted rice and nut accord, and milky sweetness. The whole thing sits atop a rich base of Siam benzoin with its vanillic characteristics. After a few minutes, the slivers of honey melt, no longer discernible as pure honey, and become an additional layer of sweetness in that custardy richness.

Despite all that, Indochine is not wholly gourmand in nature. I don’t like cloying dessert fragrances, and I think Indochine has an increasing dryness which helps ensure it never falls headlong into the gourmand family. The fragrance really straddles the line between that and the woody category. In large part, it’s thanks to the Thanaka wood paste which has not only a lovely dryness but, also, a slightly smoked aroma. The cardamom helps as well, even though its primary characteristic here is of toasted nuttiness subtly infused with green spiciness.

Source: medifoods.co.nz –

Ten minutes into Indochine’s development, my primary impression is: creamy, creamy, creamy. The whole thing feels like a dessert at times, only a dry one that is surprisingly lightweight in feel. In fact, it’s almost airy, despite the fragrance’s initial headiness. Indochine is a decadent, utterly addictive, warm, sweet, rich, mellow cloud of creamy woods. A vaguely floral note dances around the edges, but what is increasingly noticeable is a milky aroma. I have no idea where it comes from, but I suspect it is yet another characteristic of the thanaka. The wood is apparently too light to be like true, creamy, Mysore sandalwood, but perhaps the more diluted aroma takes “creaminess” and translates it to “milkiness.” The Thanaka is really, really beautiful. Whether it originally smells like Mysore sandalwood, I don’t know, but the supplemental notes in Indochine have added the necessary spicy, creamy, smoky sweetness to make its aroma quite similar.

Cardamom. Source: www.kitchenheadquarters.org

Cardamom. Source: kitchenheadquarters.org

The cardamom is equally lovely. It feels simultaneously green and brown, fragrant and dry, toasted and nutty. In fact, that toasted note is an interesting characteristic, in and of itself. At first, it reminded me of toasted rice, but as the moments progress, and as Indochine grows richer, milkier, and more custardy, the note smells more like toasted rice in a milky, cardamom pudding. The whole thing is nestled in a sweet cocoon of silky smooth, soft, billowy Siam benzoin, and lightly flecked with the most subtle tendrils of dry, black smoke. The over-all effect is more than just delicious; it’s compulsively sniffable and wholly addictive.

Indochine continues like that until the end of the first hour when it becomes much drier and smokier. Some of the perfume’s richness and sweetness have receded as a result, though Indochine is still very creamy when sniffed up close. Still, the perfume feels thinner and less lushly unctuous than it did in the first 30 minutes. As a whole, the fragrance is a beautiful blend of creamy sandalwood-like woods infused with a light smokiness. A subtle cardamom nuttiness is sprinkled on top, while underneath is a delicate, thin base of milky, sweet vanilla.

Source: biggestmenu.com

As the fragrance gets drier, the visuals start to change. Two hours in, Indochine slowly begins to morph away from the custard, and into toasty, sweetened coffee. Indochine increasingly smells like a very creamy, but dry, Café au Lait sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts and vanilla. It’s an incredibly comforting, cozy, soothing scent, though it lies just a few inches above the skin. With every passing hour, Indochine fades in sweetness, strength, and projection, turning drier, woodier, and increasingly blurry in texture. By the middle of the third hour, Indochine is just a skin scent, radiating a dry, vanillic, woody sweetness that is still slightly creamy and smoky in nuance. The notes have lost any distinctive, individual form, but the abstract version of Indochine is still enormously appealing.

Source: Micks Images. http://www.micksimages.com/Smoke-II(2399572).htm

Indochine remains that way for the rest of its duration. In its final moments, the fragrance is nothing more than a faded trace of dry vanilla with a hint of something intangibly woody underlying it. The longevity was extremely surprising to me; I frequently thought Indochine had died on my skin, only to find it clinging on tenaciously. I was sure it had died away after the seventh hour, the eighth and the ninth, but, all in all, Indochine lasted 10.75 hours on my perfume consuming skin. The sillage was extremely low after 90-minutes, and Indochine became a skin scent shortly after the 2.25 hour mark, but apparently, it’s supposed to be that way. For one thing, it is an eau de toilette, and thus, a much weaker concentration of fragrance. For another, Pierre Guillaume seems to have intended for Indochine to be a “sepia-tinged balm,” as he puts it. CaFleureBon summed it up best:

Indochine has excellent longevity and slightly below average sillage. Indochine tends to add a perfumed coating like sepia does to photographs, subtle but striking. [Emphasis in the original.]

ISO E Super. Source: Fragrantica

I loved Indochine, and would be utterly determined to get a bottle if it weren’t for one thing: ISO E Super. As my experience with Parfumerie Generale’s Dhjenné demonstrated, Pierre Guillaume seems to love the blasted aroma-chemical, and he used it there with frenzied abandon. It’s different in Indochine; there is nothing remotely antiseptic, medicinal or even hugely peppered in feel to the ISO E Super here. However, exactly 35 minutes in Indochine’s start, there was a noticeable woody hum to the base of the perfume. It got louder and louder, until, at the 45 minute mark, its forceful thrum was matched by a sharp throbbing at the back of my head. Soon, it turned into pounding. Then, a new characteristic arose: my eyes started to feel watery.

I am not one of those people who consistently and perpetually gets migraines from ISO E Super, but I do when a hell of a lot of it is used. To avoid a complicated, gobbledygook explanation, the basic gist is that ISO E Super has extra-large molecules that seem harder for the nose to absorb. What was interesting with Indochine is that my headache initially faded after 15 minutes, but only because I didn’t bring my arm to my nose to smell all the layers in the fragrance. However, the minute I did, it was as if a searing hot poker had been rammed straight up my eyeball to the back of my head. I tested Indochine twice, and it was an utterly brutal experience each time during the first two to three hours. The moment I brought my nose to my arm, my headache returned. Instantly. I obviously had to smell the damn perfume to detect all its underlying layers, so I persisted, but it was a painful experience. And, again, I have to emphasize, I have this reaction only when a lot of ISO E Super is used. On the plus side, at least this version of ISO E Super didn’t smell like hospital antiseptic on my skin, because it certainly has happened in the past.

Indochine is so utterly addictive that I honestly tried it the second time solely to see if I could move past that headache stage. After all, no-one said I have to actually sniff it up close if I’m just wearing it for pleasure, did they? It’s an easy, versatile, incredibly cozy, comfort scent that also happens to come in a range of sizes that are quite affordable. It’s a testament to how much I — a person who rarely likes even quasi-gourmand scents, and who loathes ISO E Super with a violent passion– loved Indochine’s opening that I was willing to contemplate almost guaranteed headaches to wear it. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, I simply can’t do it.

Most people, however, can’t detect ISO E Super if it were used to cudgel their brains out. (Lucky devils, you have no idea how much I envy you.) So, unless you’re one of those who knows they are sensitive to it (or to one of the many, many ISO E Super fragrances listed in my article), you have no need to worry. If you love sweetened sandalwood fragrances, if you’re looking for a very dry gourmand fragrance that isn’t extremely foody, or if you enjoy comfort scents, then I strongly recommend that you try Indochine.

The lovely Suzanne of Eiderdown Press has a gorgeous, evocative, and very eloquent review of Indochine. If I could, and if it weren’t so heinously rude, I would copy it out almost in full because it really is beautifully written and moving. I’ll include the relevant parts here, but I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing on her site:

Parfumerie Générale Indochine—a contemplative fragrance that, for all its quietude, somehow manages to be arresting on an emotional level. The strong pull of nostalgia is what lends the light-wearing Indochine weight. Initially it smells like a sandalwood box in which photographs, letters and other precious mementos have been tucked away: poems copied in a lover’s hand, shells from a distant shore, partially burned incense sticks and dusty candles. As the scent develops, though, it goes through a subtle shift, and in its dry-down stage there is a sanded-smooth sweetness to Indochine that is so easy-wearing and comfortable, it makes one feel good about being in one’s own skin.

In the first half-hour of wear, there is a parched and incense-like quality to Indochine. It most resembles a smoky sandalwood scent at this early stage, and if I were to describe its character, I would call it exotic yet reserved. The tingly spiciness of cardamom and pepper intersecting with the light acridness of honey mimics the smell of tobacco, and the combination not only lends an air of aridity to the scent, but is one of the reasons I picture the fragrance in my mind as a sandalwood box, as every good box must have some hand-rolled cigarettes stashed inside. Indochine’s benzoin is more resinous than vanillic at this point, again contributing to that wooden trinket-box smell. […]

Eventually the benzoin does begin to smell more vanillic, and the smoky, incense-like character of Indochine fades considerably after about an hour into its wear. Though the fragrance loses its exoticism in the process, the your-skin-only-better scent that is left behind is not a bad souvenir—no, not bad at all. There is still enough woodiness in the drydown to keep Indochine interesting and to prevent it from edging over into the kind of sentimental sweetness that would take away Indochine’s backbone.

Suzanne says Indochine “makes one feel good about being in one’s own skin,” and I very much agree. My experience obviously differed somewhat from hers in the details, but then my skin tends to amplify basenotes along with sweetness. Still, we were both cleared swept away by what we smelled, and by the beauty of that sandalwood-like thanaka. So, whether you experience my smoky, milky, toasty rice, cardamom custard followed by nutty, dry café au lait, or Suzanne’s sandalwood box of treasures infused with spices, a subtle tobacco-y nuance, and parched incense, I think you’ll generally be in very good hands with Indochine.

Source: antiquesandarts.com

There is one exception, however, and no, it does not pertain to the ISO E Super. It has to do with the honey. People whose skin chemistry turns the ingredient into something sour, urinous, or animalic should test Indochine first. On Fragrantica, the handful of negative reviews all involve problems with honey. To quote one commentator, “Now I know what Tania Sanchez meant when she said ‘the rest of us are howling’ when she referred to Serge Lutens Miel de Bois.”

Outside of that narrow category, however, everyone else seems to adore Indochine. Fragrantica commentators alternatively described the fragrance in dessert terms, or as something darkly smoky, resinous and peppered. (I bet that some of that “pepper” note is due to the ISO E Super, but they don’t realise it.) My favorite review is from a commentator, “meama,” who seems to love food as much as I do:

Indochine is a real melting of spices, like a chocolate fondant: dry and crisp on the outside, soft and flowing in the center. And most importantly, delicious.
Its crust pepper and cardamom crackles under the nose with a little something of toast, black and dry. Then benzoin starts slowly to pour the flood of sweet resin, vanilla, powdered, soft like white sand. Already, a first contrast between dark cold spices and enveloping milky balm. Honey is slowly making its waxy and animal facet participant in turn to a new dimension of flavor, more syrupy, which evokes a black licorice slightly aniseed, such absinthe or ageless whiskey.
On the skin, Indochine takes root, its mineral and syrupy animality clings to the skin without looking tacky, with a discreet diffusion.
Like all the PG creations the longevity and the sillage is disappointing.

On my skin, the honey melted into the base, and was never a distinct part of the fragrance after the first five minutes. Indochine was also never animalic in the slightest. That said, I agree very much with the overall feel and spirit of his experience, as I do with Suzanne’s beautiful, ancient, sandalwood box infused with something akin to parched incense, and followed by sanded-smooth sweetness. Indochine is all those things. It’s not complicated, revolutionary, edgy, or complex, but it is truly lovely and intoxicating.

As a side note, two commentators on Luckyscent said that Indochine resembled some other fragrances. One brought up Indochine’s sibling, and another Parfumerie Generale creation, Cadjmere: “it is sooooo similar to Cadjmere, slight differences, but both are gorgeous.” I’ve never tried Cadjmere, so I can’t compare. A second reviewer found Indochine to be quite close to an Ava Luxe fragrance: “This is nearly identical to Ava Luxe Bois Exotique, but I like Indochine better because it is so smooth and rounded. The Ava Luxe is a tiny bit harsher.” Again, I don’t know the fragrance, but, if you’ve tried or own either one, you may want to keep the alleged similarities in mind. My reference points are different, so what I would add is this: those of you who love Etat Libre d’Orange‘s Fils de Dieu should definitely try Indochine. I think you’d like it because it has the same sort of vibe, even though Indochine is smoky, woody, and drier. By the same token, if you didn’t have much success with the new Dries van Noten from Frederic Malle (a perfume I really dislike, by the way), and if you love gourmands, you should also look into Indochine. The aroma of the thanaka is what I expected from the Malle fragrance, and not the unpleasant, weird, ersatz “sandalwood” that I got instead.

In short, if you enjoy sweet, but dry, woody scents that are easy, uncomplicated, infinitely cozy, and just slightly tip their hat at the gourmand category, then I’d definitely urge you to give Indochine a sniff.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Indochine is an eau de toilette that comes in a 3 different sizes on the Parfumerie General website: 1 oz/30 ml, 1.7 oz/50 ml, and 3.4 oz/100 ml. The prices in Euros are, respectively: €60, €90, and €125. In the U.S.: Indochine is available in the 1.7 oz/50 ml size from Luckyscent for $100, along with a sample. NYC’s Osswald offers Indochine in the 1 oz/30 ml bottle for $85, and in the 3.4 oz/100 ml bottle for $179. Outside the U.S.: In Canada, the Vancouver branch of The Perfume Shoppe carries the Parfumerie Generale line, and sells Indochine for $150 for the large 100 ml size, but they are currently sold out of the fragrance at the time of this post. You may want to check back later, or email them. In the UK, Indochine is available at London’s Bloom Parfumery and Les Senteurs. Both stores offer Indochine in two sizes: the 1.7 oz/50 ml costs £81.50, while the large 100 ml goes for £117.50. Samples are also available for purchase. In Paris, the niche boutique store Sens Unique carries the full PG line, but they don’t seem to have an e-store on their website. Germany’s First in Fragrance sells Indochine for €94 and €104, for 50 ml and 100 ml respective, and ships throughout the world. For all other locations from Dubai to the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and the rest of Europe, you can turn to Parfumerie Generale’s website here for a list of retailers. Samples: I obtained my sample from Surrender to Chance which sells Indochine starting at $5.99 for a 1 ml vial.

Perfume Review: Olivier Durbano Black Tourmaline

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Kafkaesque

Black tourmaline. Source: anobanini.net

Most perfumistas wear fragrances for themselves, for how it makes them feel, and for their own personal olfactory journey. Yet, we all like it when those around us sniff the air with delight or lean in closer, seduced by the glory of the fragrance wafting around us. Unfortunately, my experience with Olivier Durbano‘s Black Tourmaline led to wrinkled noses, pleas that I scrub off the fragrance, or, failing that, remove myself from the immediate vicinity. That’s not a good sign, even if I loved the fragrance. Thankfully for those who sought to have me exiled, I do not.

Black tourmaline. www.rainbowdoorways.com

Black tourmaline. Source: rainbowdoorways.com

Olivier Durbano is a French jewelry designer in Paris who specializes in creations using semi-precious stones. His line of fragrances now number eight in total, each one inspired by a different semi-precious stone. All the perfumes, however, are his own creation and without the assistance of a perfume “nose.” In 2007, Monsieur Durbano released Black Tourmaline which his website describes as follows:

Stone of protection in the former legends, the Black Tourmaline would protect against the pernicious influence[….] It look like bruned wood by her aspect, the oil of earth, the smell of blown flame. […]

Source: Luckyscent

Eau de Parfum inspired by legend and symbolize of black tourmaline:

Fragrance type: woody, spicy, smoky

Top notes: cardamom, coriander, cumin, frankincense, pepper

Middle notes: smoked wood, oud, leather, precious woods

Base notes: musk, amber, moss, patchouli [Emphasis in the original.]

Source: Boston.com

Black Tourmaline opens on my skin with a powerful duality of cold, churchy incense and pine notes. Within minutes, the eau de parfum becomes warmer and significantly spicier. Nutty, dusty cardamon merges with fiery pepper and smoky woods to quickly dispel the subtle, soapy, white, High Church-like incense. Myrrh (or olibanum) is not listed as one of the notes in Black Tourmaline, but it really feels as though it’s there. There has to be, especially given the almost licorice-like, salty, aniseed undertone to the bouquet. In the base, a subtle sweetness starts to grow, while, up top, the strength of the incense creates almost a burnt feel.

Something about that burnt, smoky blackness brings to mind birch tar. Like the myrrh, birch is not listed as part of Black Tourmaline’s notes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a part of the fragrance as well. Here, the note is not mentholated at all, and it never feels electric or soldered as it is in Tauer‘s Lonestar Memories, but the burnt, black, viscous, thicky smoked aroma here definitely feel similar to that of the birch tree. I’m also reminded of a different scent. Something about the spiciness, the hints of sweetness underlying the scent, and that burnt, sharp, black smokiness all together makes me think of the “opium” accord in Profumum Roma‘s Fiore d’Ambra. Black Tourmaline is a wholly different fragrance, but the burnt, smoking opium character of both the incense and the burnt woods here feels similar.

Beijing’s Hongluo Temple. Source: topbeijingtravel.com

Five minutes in, Black Tourmaline turns deeper. Rich resins with a nutty, deeply balsamic, toffee character mix with the cardamom, smoky woods, incense, and burnt licorice note to create a very different fragrance from the cold, wintery, church feel of the opening. This is now a church incense fragrance only if the church in question were a very dusty, ancient Buddhist temple in Beijing or Kyoto. Black Tourmaline is increasingly dry, dusty, sweet, spicy, fiery, resinous, slightly piney, tarry, and hugely smoky — and it’s quite intriguing. As the perfume grows sweeter and richer, flecks of amber now join the mix, as does the merest hint of beeswax. At the fifteen minute mark, the coriander leaves start to become noticeable, adding a lemony nuance to the pine or fir-tree element.

Black Tourmaline shifts and morphs in its nuances quite a bit in the first hour. Notes come and go with increasing rapidity. First, it’s the beeswax which becomes quite pronounced, standing in equal measure with the pine-fir, the sharp frankincense, and the subtle touches of resin. A few minutes after that, there is a subtle leather nuance that pops up, but it quickly fades away. At times, there is a bouquet of amorphous, dry woods which lurks around the edges, adding further depth to the pine note, but they don’t last long either. The cardamon and licorice fade away equally quickly, retreating to the outskirts of Black Tourmaline where they have a subtle effect on the fragrance but are not distinguishable in any individual, concrete form.

Source: chaoswallpapers.com

In fact, the very fast revolving door of notes is one of my problems with Black Tourmaline. All these elements sound great, and would have added much-needed complexity or depth to the fragrance if they stayed. But they don’t. Instead, in the blink of an eye, Black Tourmaline starts to slowly devolve into scent that is primarily pine evergreens with sharp incense and tarry blackness atop a thin, small layer of sweetness. It doesn’t take 30 minutes for the fragrance to take on a nebulous, hazy feel, and for the pine to bulldoze over almost everything else in its path. By the end of the first hour, Black Tourmaline feels completely flat, and is largely just pine with burnt incense on my skin. Many of the other notes — from the cardamom to the amber, the beeswax, dust, and coriander lemon — have retreated to a blurry speck in the horizon. A few of them (the licorice and leather, in particular) seem to have vanished completely. Only the sweet resinous base with its subtle tinge of birch tar remains.

Source: picstopin.com

And this is where the real problem lies. As the pine top note increases in prominence on my skin and the other notes (except for the smoke) fade away, Black Tourmaline starts to smell somewhat unpleasant. Pine is always a very tricky note in perfumery; fragrances built primarily around it can easily tip into the “household cleaning product” category, or into something resembling car fresheners in terms of people’s mental associations. Serge Lutens circumvented that problem with his Fille en Aiguilles by making the fragrance as much about spiced plum molasses and frankincense smoke as it was about the evergreens. (For me, actually, more so.) Black Tourmaline, however, lacks the sweetness of the Lutens, and its focus isn’t so spread out between different accords. Instead, Black Tourmaline starts to become increasing myopic in vision, focused on just a barrage of pine with incense, and very little else else.

It was a huge problem for those who were around me as I tested the fragrance. Initially, it was just a comment about “lemon.” Then, quickly, the comment turned into mutters about “Pine-Sol,” the piney-lemon household cleaning product. Less than three hours later, when Black Tourmaline was full-on, hardcore, smoky pine, there was an actual plea that I wash it off “now” or, failing that, “leave.” Though it was said with affection, my dinner companions simply couldn’t bear it any more. There was even a strangled moan about how I smelled like “toilet bowl cleaner.” (It was expressly suggested to me that I do a side-by-side comparison, because “I bet you they’re the same.”)

Green Shield Pine Toilet Bowl cleaner. Source: iHerb.com

I hate to admit it, but they’re right. My skin simply doesn’t work well with Black Tourmaline for a good portion of its lifespan. In fact, the perfume’s flat, singular, pine-dominated nature somehow becomes worse by the end of the second hour. It lacks any major nuance or body, and the sillage has dropped, though apparently not enough for my dinner companions’ liking. (I was starting to get some glares at this point, and one person tried to move their chair further away.) Black Tourmaline now hovers just above the skin as a blur of incense-infused pine oil atop a thin, subtle, base layer of resinous, tarry sweetness. At the end of the third hour, a tiny whiff of soapy myrrh returns, but all that does is to create a slightly clean, room freshener impression. By the time the fifth hour rolls around, yes, I do, in fact, smell exactly like Pine-Sol “toilet bowl cleaner” mixed with black, smoky accords. Black Tourmaline sits right on the skin at this point, though the sharpness of the incense is still extremely potent when smelled up close.

Relief is around the corner, however, when Black Tourmaline’s final drydown commences. You may not believe me when I say that Black Tourmaline turns into something truly lovely, but it does. Around the start of the seventh hour, the bloody pine note finally starts to retreat, and the other elements have a chance to compete. The birch tar and darkly sugared resins rise up from the base, and become much more noticeable. By the middle of the eighth hour, they fully join the other players on the main stage, turning Black Tourmaline into a very sweet, warm, richly smoked, resinous fragrance with dry woods and birch tar, and only a whisper of pine. There are also flickers of sweetened leather that pop up from time to time, too. Eventually, the remaining traces of pine fade away entirely, leaving only the base notes alongside the black incense. In its final moments, Black Tourmaline is merely abstract smoky, woody sweetness with a touch of tar. The whole thing was gorgeous; how I wish it had been that way from the start!

Source: spicewallpaper.blogspot.com

All in all, Black Tourmaline lasted just short of 11 hours on my skin. The sillage was initially very strong, and seriously forceful, but it turned much more moderate after a few hours. However, someone standing very close to you will (as I learnt) find the perfume’s projection to be quite potent and unbearably intense for the first five hours or so. Consequently, I would recommend using caution in application if you want to wear Black Tourmaline to work, and if you work in a conservative environment with perfume-sensitive co-workers.

People’s reactions to Black Tourmaline generally tend to be enormously positive and hardly anyone seems to have had my experience with the fragrance. Take, for example, the review from Robin at Now Smell This:

The opening is a rush of spices, with plenty of pepper and cumin (other notes: cardamom, coriander, frankincense, smoked wood, oud, leather, precious woods, musk, amber, moss and patchouli). The dry down is dusty-smoky and dry, and smells like incense, smoldering logs and warm earth. There is a touch of leather, slightly scorched, and a touch of human sweat, and the slightest hint of something vaguely medicinal. Only a perfumista (or a crazy person), I suppose, could write those last two sentences and then follow with how absolutely wonderful Black Tourmaline smells?

I said Black Tourmaline was churchy, but it is a deeper and darker scent than Comme des Garçons Avignon (my own gold standard for church incense), in fact, it is more of everything than Avignon: more spice, more smoke, more wood; and while there is nothing feminine about Avignon, Black Tourmaline has a rougher, more obviously masculine slant. Black Tourmaline has a kind of swagger about it that is in stark contrast to Avignon’s austerity, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many people found it to be just too much. [¶] I love it, but I’m not sure it’s something I’d wear just anywhere.

The love fest continues on Fragrantica where there are repeated references to how the perfume is a “masterpiece” or a “piece of art.” As with the NST reviewer, it’s perhaps a little too much beautiful “art” for a couple of fans: they don’t feel they could wear Black Tourmaline all year round, or find it to be a very versatile, easy scent, no matter how much they love it. Some of the admirers get a “gothic” vibe from the fragrance, and one person thinks it conjures up images of an ancient pagan ceremony. However, a few are left a bit bewildered by such comparisons, stating that they don’t see it at all or that Black Tourmaline merely feels like a classic men’s fragrance. One commentator said he found its resemblance to Polo to be “quite discomforting.” (I don’t see the comparison to Polo at all!) A tiny handful find Black Tourmaline to be an okay scent but somewhat over-priced, especially when compared to other famously dark, smoky, black scents like Nasomatto‘s Black Afghano. Yet, as a whole, the reviews are extremely laudatory, and they’re multiplied even more so on Luckyscent where almost everyone gushes about the smoky campfire woods and incense.

Source: Wallsave.com

Rare as it is, there are some vocal dissenters. On Fragrantica, only two people wholeheartedly hate Black Tourmaline, writing:

Oh man, I hate this, it smells like burnt rubber, or burnt wood that’s been peed on. No, no, a million times no.

Main thing that stands out is tar, wtf? [¶] Really why would anyone want to smell like you just got off a crew taring a roof at minimum wage?

There are only a handful of haters on Luckyscent as well. The most amusing comment comes from the woman who spent two hours trying to scrub Black Tourmaline off her skin and who loathed the fragrance so much that she thought of buying it for her ex-husband. “[I]t would be great for revenge.”

A few people on Luckyscent astutely note that you really have to have the right skin chemistry for Black Tourmaline, and I think that’s absolutely correct. My skin obviously brought out the pine, the smoke, and very little else for a good chunk of Black Tourmaline’s lifespan. I’m afraid I simply don’t like pine as a primary note, even when it is infused with incense. And, no matter how much I liked that gorgeous drydown phase, I would never spend a lot of money to smell like “toilet bowl cleaner” to people around me. However, it would probably be a different matter if I were one of the many people whose Black Tourmaline experience was almost all smoky incense mixed with some combination of dark woods, oud, leather, and spices.

Regardless of how the perfume manifested itself on my skin, you may want to test Black Tourmaline for yourself if you adore very dark, smoky, woody, somewhat masculine fragrances. Too many people have had an experience wholly different to mine, and your skin chemistry may turn Black Tourmaline into the fantastic, smoky, woody beauty that so many people adore. Black Tourmaline is not a fragrance to buy blindly, however, even if the perfume were easily available. As of this moment, it’s not — unless you buy Black Tourmaline directly from Olivier Durbano himself. In terms of retail vendors, I have the impression Luckyscent in Los Angeles is the only retailer (possibly worldwide) that carries the fragrance, but they’re not currently shipping any out until February 2014! Judging by a few of the comments on Luckyscent’s Black Tourmaline page, and my difficulty in finding any other retailers (anywhere) who sell the perfume, there seems to be something going on with both the pricing and vendor access to the fragrance. I’m afraid I have no idea of what or why.

Have you tried Black Tourmaline? If so, how was it on you?

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Black Tourmaline is an eau de parfum that comes only in a 100 ml/3.4 oz size and which costs €150. There seems to be an issue about its U.S. price which I’ve read was once increased from $125 to $200, but which seems to be down to $150 now on Luckyscent. Unfortunately, the latter site says it won’t or can’t ship bottles for another six months (!) until February 2014. I’ve also read in the comments there that Black Tourmaline is not available from any other retail vendor. I’m not sure if I can believe that, but I have not been able to find the perfume available for purchase anywhere else except directly through Olivier Durbano’s e-Store. It costs €150, and I believe he ships all over. Samples: I obtained my sample from Surrender to Chance where prices start at $4.99 for a 1 ml vial. Luckyscent also sells samples.