Frederic Malle Cologne Indelebile

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Source: Frederic Malle website.

Cologne Indelebile is the latest fragrance from Frederic Malle, and the first release for the brand under its new Estée Lauder ownership. The word “indelebile” means “indelible” or permanent, and the new Malle is meant to be a “modern yet traditional” eau de cologne that reinterprets the genre partially by lasting “forever.”

Cologne Indelebile was created by Dominique Ropion, and is described on the Malle website as follows:

A clean scent, yet surprisingly magnetic. A modern yet traditional Eau de Cologne that lasts forever. Dominique Ropion embraces musk’s nature as both a quasi-aphrodisiac and a scent of purity to create a very personal interpretation of Eau de Cologne. A splash of the best neroli intertwined with orange blossom, bergamote, and the most technical musks for a scent that endures, and endures, and endures… Cologne Indélébile (Permanent Cologne).
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Tauer, Tom Ford, Euphorium Brooklyn, Morph & Elisire

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Kafkaesque

I’ve tried a number of fragrances that didn’t work for me over the last eight months, but not all of them were actually bad scents. Although I scrubbed all of them off, a few were things that I actually think some of you might like quite a bit. The problem in each case (for me) was that the fragrance had one or more elements which pushed one of my hot button issues, and did so in a way that not only felt imbalanced but, quite frequently, also made the scents physically difficult to test.

Perfume reviewing is a wholly subjective thing that is dependent on individual tastes, experiences, and skin chemistry, but it’s not easy to write about scrubbers in exhaustive detail, one after another. (And I’ve gone through a lot of scrubbers in the last 8 months that I haven’t talked about.) For many of the fragrances mentioned in this post, I lacked the heart and will to write thousands of words for one of my usual reviews, and didn’t want to cover them even in one of my short(er) Reviews en Bref because I wasn’t keen to relive the experience. Yet, as I said, some of you might like a few of the fragrances quite a bit — like the new Cilice from Euphorium Brooklyn which should appeal to lovers of dark, smoky, woody, and campfire fragrances. Two of the scents are things that I would sincerely recommend to people with a very particular taste set to try for themselves.

Cilice from Euphorium Brooklyn. Source: Twisted Lily.

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Review En Bref: Serge Lutens Gris Clair

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Kafkaesque

My Reviews en Bref are always for scents that, for whatever reason, may not warrant one of my more exhaustive, detailed assessments. Today, it’s for Gris Clair, a Serge Lutens fragrance that I found utterly unbearable all five times that I tried it over the last seven months.

Source: Luckyscent.

Gris Clair is a lavender-centric eau de parfum created by Christopher Sheldrake and released nine years ago in 2006. The Serge Lutens website describes the scent in the usual abstract terms:

“Like pollen blowing over a lifeless city.

As grey as ashes floating through a sky of sunbeams. Lavender, then, to add grey to clarity, I added incense. I’m crazy about it! In every sense, incense makes sense to my senses.” Serge Lutens

Serge Lutens always keeps the note list secret, but Luckyscent guesses Gris Clair includes:

lavender, amber, tonka bean, iris, dry wood, incense.

Source: de.wallpaperswiki.org

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Amouage Epic (Man)

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Kafkaesque

The Silk Road’s legendary spice route from China to Arabia winds its way across the face of Epic for Men from Amouage. It is a very unisex fragrance that is an enjoyable swirl of spices, woods, incense, golden sweetness, and creaminess, but it is neither the fragrance that I expected nor very “epic” in nature. Not now….

Original poster for Turandot. Source: Wikipedia.

Original Turandot poster via Wikipedia.

Epic Man (hereinafter just “Epic”) is an eau de parfum that was created by Randa Hammami and released in 2009. The inspiration was two-fold: the legendary Silk Road and Puccini’s Turandot opera which is set in China but based on a tale involving a Persian princess and a deadly riddle. First in Fragrance has the company’s complete press description:

The theme of this latest Amouage fragrance is the legendary aria from Puccini´s unfinished opera, Turandot. The legend says that one day the composer Puccini completed the opera and then buried the completed work somewhere in the sands along the Silk Road. The last act of the opera, it is said, was an incomparable aria, which could not possibly be sung by a human voice…

The legendary city of Ubar in Oman is the starting point for a journey in search of this missing aria, which leads us along the Silk Road through the Orient and over the highest mountains in the world – to China. The way of the ancient caravans, that carried silk and other treasures over many hundreds of miles, where tea, gold, pearls and jade from China where exchanged for precious silver frankincense from the Oman – a legendary land where the valuable raw materials can be found that were used in the composition of this new Amouage fragrance.

Caravan on the Silk Road via uzcaravan.com

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