Bracken Man. Source: elyseeconcept.ro
Amouage returns to the fougère family with its new Bracken Man, the latest eau de parfum to join the higher-end Midnight Flowers Collection. Last year’s Sunshine Man (also in the Midnight Flowers Collection) had fougère elements as well, but mixed them with gourmand elements. This time, in the case of Bracken, Amouage adds dark, oriental flourishes but the fragrance is truer to the fougère genre, at least initially.
Opulent iris butter as thick as cream turned ashen from cinders dropped by smoked woods; grey floral suede and leather wrapped up in vapours of pink and red, first from carnation, and later from roses; the flanks of an animal heated from an afternoon ride, its golden muskiness pulsating softly through its heartbeat to cling to your cool hands as you stroke fur that is as smooth as satin and infinitely creamy — these are parts of the tableau painted by New Sibet, the latest fragrance from Slumberhouse and it’s quite a departure from the brand’s usual style. Gone is the rugged aesthetic of old created from dense, forceful, practically opaque bases imbued with sweetness, spices, or brooding darkness.
Instead of nature-based landscapes slashed with colour and loaded with weight, this is a coolly elegant, sophisticated scent, soft and vaporous, worn with sleek city suits, furs, or cashmere, and constructed in a fashion that is often as much about tactile texture as it is about scent. Often, even more so, because it’s frequently an impressionistic scent where its elements are sensed almost on a subconscious, intuitive, and subliminal level rather than an actual one, its notes a suggestion that pass on the breeze — there and, yet, not there at the same time. It is scent that is often rendered through a filter, notes tinted in sepia hues like an old photograph, and it’s all done in a way that is extremely artistic and sensory.
New Sibet. Photo: my own.
Orchid Soleil. Source: tomford.tumblr.com
Tom Ford‘s Orchid Soleil is meant to be a new sibling to his popular Black Orchid and Velvet Orchid series of fragrances, but it doesn’t feel like it to me. The choice of the word “Soleil” in the new fragrance’s title is no mere coincidence, in my opinion, because Orchid Soleil has far more in common with Tom Ford’s recent Soleil Blanc for much of the first half of its life than anything redolent of Black Orchid. There is a token nod to the latter when a highly modified, toned-down version of its black truffle and chocolate accord appears via “chestnut cream” (or, to be precise, patchouli vanilla) late in Orchid Soleil’s development, but the connection between the two fragrances is attenuated. If that’s the reason why you’re interested in Orchid Soleil, you’d do better to lower your expectations, if not put it out of your mind entirely. Actually, I don’t think you should have high expectations for Orchid Soleil at all.
Source: upi.com
So, I guess luxury “Choco-Florals” have now become a thing. This year alone, there have been three luxury-priced Roja Dove chocolate floral orientals ($500+) and a luxury-priced Amouage ($300+) one. And, at first glance, Serge Lutens‘ new Veilleur de Nuit (“The Night Watchman” or “Watcher of the Night”) would appear to be joining their ranks.
The reality feels different, though. To me, Veilleur de Nuit is quietly and only tangentially floral, and the fragrance is primarily an animalic chocolate with leathery, musky, and smoky facets. When wearing it, I never thought of something like a chocolate version of Tubereuse Criminelle. Not even once. I thought of a chocolate twist on Boxeuses instead, albeit only briefly.