Category Archives: Main Perfume Houses

Tom Ford Lost Cherry

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Well, you can knock me over with a feather! Against all odds and much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed Lost Cherry, the newest release from Tom Ford. I must admit, I’m quite flummoxed. I’m not one who is normally keen on gourmand fragrances and cherry is not particularly high on my list of favourite fruit notes in perfumery. Plus, the fragrance is hardly perfect as there are performance, drydown, and price issues but, nevertheless, here we are: I think Lost Cherry is a heck of a lot of fun to wear and I wouldn’t mind a small decant to wear occasionally during the dark, icy months ahead.

Lost Cherry collage from Elle.com.

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Le Labo Tonka 25

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Le Labo recently released its first new fragrance in three years, Tonka 25. It’s an eau de parfum that was created by Daphne Bugey and it’s available worldwide (as opposed to being part of the city-exclusives line of fragrances).

Though I had high hopes for Tonka 25, I found it as dull as dishwater. There are certain aspects which I could see appealing to fans of a particular, specific genre of perfumery but, for me, it was about as memorable, distinctive, robust, flavorful, and interesting as Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti.

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Niche & Artisanal Giveaway: Bogue, Papillon, Neela Vermeire, Ensar Oud, St. Clair Scents & Sammarco

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Source: Amazon.com

For perfumistas, reading about fragrances is fun but smelling what you’ve read about is even better. As most of you probably know, Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez just published their Perfumes The Guide 2018, the first new version of the book in ten years. The authors sought to examine the changed perfume landscape since the original Guide was released and, consequently, there is a heightened focus on both niche and indie/artisan houses.

I haven’t done a giveaway in years and years, but this seemed like a good occasion to make an exception. One of the criticisms of the book, in some quarters at least, is that too many of the houses are small and unknown. That won’t be the case if you’ve been a regular reader of this blog because I’ve long emphasized niche and indie/artisanal houses over big designer ones. In fact, a good number of the brands that I’ve covered are reviewed in the book.

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Roja Dove Britannia: A Vintage Floriental for the Modern Gourmand Age

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“Something that feels familiar yet also unexpected…” — so reads one part of Roja Dove’s official description for Britannia, and it is a somewhat accurate description. This is a fragrance which does indeed smell very familiar, thanks to the way it echoes, at different points in time, everything from vintage L’Origan and vintage L’Heure Bleue to modern gourmand floral orientals and modern spicy-woody oriental ambers, including several from Roja Parfums. For me, the “unexpected” part of the equation arises from the degree to which Britannia’s first stage harkens back to the opulent vintage aesthetic which had originally made Roja Dove so incredibly popular, rather than the mainstream designer or Middle Eastern bouquets which have characterized so many of his recent releases over the last two and a half years.

Britannia Parfum. Source: Roja Parfums’ website.

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