Jacques Zolty Van-ile: Delicious Simplicity

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Photo & Source: The Kitchen McCabe. (Direct website link embedded within.)

Move over Tihota, I’ve found something else. Van-ile is almost as good, but costs much less. Imagine airy vanilla, wrapped up with ribbons of lemon, tangy orange, orchid floralcy, and clean musk in a silky cloud that soon turns into the delicious coziness of silky, cake batter-style vanilla made from expensive Tahitian beans. That’s the essence of Van-ile (officially spelt as “Van-île”), an extremely simple, unpretentious eau de parfum that bears a strong resemblance to Indult‘s famous Tihota for almost all of its life, only for a third of the price. It’s a soft, easy-to-wear scent that is so appealing, I bought a bottle for myself. It helps that Van-ile is very reasonably priced, especially for the quality in question, and I’m a sucker for a good deal. More than that, though, it’s been extremely difficult for me to find a vanilla that is neither so sweet it would trigger a diabetic coma nor too heavily imbued with the ghastly white musk that I loathe. Van-ile fits the bill.

Jacques Zolty. Source: fless.ru

Let’s start at the beginning, though, since Jacques Zolty is probably not a name with which you’re familiar. I certainly wasn’t. According to Fragrantica, he was a French supermodel in the 1970s and then, in 2007, founded a perfume house whose creations celebrated the smell, culture, and vibe of the island of St. Bart’s in the West Indies. In 2014, the brand was bought by Roberto Drago, the owner of Laboratorio Olfattivo. He asked Cecile Zakorian (creator of Masque’s Tango, Majda Bekkali’s Mon Nom Est Rouge, Jovoy’s Private Label, and other fragrances) to make two new scents for the line, and one of them was Van-ile.

Vanilla orchid flower via imgarcade.com

Van-ile is an eau de parfum that was released in late 2014. According to First in Fragrance, its name is a play on “vanille (vanilla) and île (island)… in French, the native language of Saint-Barthélemy. This fragrance is a passionate homage to vanilla planifolia, the sugar orchid that grows up symbiotically with the sun in the Caribbean and makes life sweeter on the most beautiful and glamourous island in the Antilles.” The perfume’s notes are:

Top Note: Bergamot, Orange, Almond
Heart Note: Vanilla, Heliotrope, Frangipani, Jasmine, Patchouly, Powdery Notes
Base Note: Vanilla Bean, Leather, Animalic Notes, Oakmoss, Musk

Source: cecilezarokian.com/fr/wins

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Roja Dove Amber Extrait: Willy Wonka’s Amber

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Kafkaesque

"Chocolate on My Mind," Painting by Pamela Van Laanen. Source: AbsoluteArts.com (direct website link embedded within.)

“Chocolate on My Mind,” by Pamela Van Laanen. Source: AbsoluteArts.com (website link embedded within.)

The joys of chocolate and sandalwood, encased in golden amber. That is only one aspect of Amber Extrait which merges the wonders of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory with the luxury version of a Starbucks line-up: Earl Grey tea, hot chocolate, a white chocolate chai, and a vanilla latte sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts, all enveloped in multi-faceted amber velvet. Yet, at its heart, Roja Dove’s Amber is almost as much about sandalwood as it is about chocolate or its namesake note. There is a Mysore-like bouquet that is, at first, milky, then creamy and spiced, before finally turning smoky. It is a significant part of the fragrance, and one reason why Amber is hardly the simple soliflore that its name suggests.

Amber (sometimes called “Amber Extrait”) was released in 2014. On his website, Roja Dove describes the fragrance and its notes as follows:

Source: Neiman Marcus.

“Seductive Enveloping Opulence”
RICH, SOFT, VERY SWEET, & WARM

“Amber, a blend of exotic materials, crafted to give us a glimpse of the mysterious Orient. I blended a rich, velvety note of black chocolate with the soft sweetness of an amber accord to create an edible olfactive delight”. Roja Dove

TOP: Bergamot, Geranium, Lavender, Orange
HEART: Cocoa, Rose
BASE: Amber, Benzoin, Cedarwood, Coumarin, Labdanum, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Vanilla.

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Reviews En Bref: Penhaligon’s As Sawira & Levantium

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Penhaligon’s Trade Routes Collection are fragrances inspired by the exotic spices and woods brought to London in the 19th century from the Orient and Middle East. Two of the oud scents in the line are As Sawira and Levantium. I’ll take a look at each in turn. In general, my Reviews en Bref are for fragrances that — for whatever reason — didn’t seem to merit one of my detailed, exhaustive reviews. In this case, it’s because neither fragrance was particularly complex or enjoyable.

AS SAWIRA:

Source: Penhaligon’s.

As Sawira is an eau de parfum that was created by Christian de Provenzano and released in 2015 as a limited-edition part of the Trade Routes Collection. According to Twisted Lily, the fragrance’s inspiration and its notes are as follows:

As Sawira, a new addition to the Trade Routes Collection, is inspired by the city Essaoiura, which became the first seaport of Morocco in the nineteenth century. With extensive trade connections to London, many of the commodities which adorned the wharves of the docklands will have originated from there.

Bergamot, Davana, Saffron, Absinthe, Rose, Jasmine, Carnation, Clove, Cardamom, Labdanum, Amber, Oud, Myrrh, Gaiacwood, Sandalwood, Cedarwood, Patchouli, Musk, Vanilla, Maltol.

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Orto Parisi (Nasomatto) Boccanera & Stercus

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Alessandro Gualtieri via Fragrantica.

Orto Parisi is the new brainchild of Nasomatto‘s Alessandro Gualtieri who founded the theoretically separate, unrelated house in 2014. Boccanera and Stercus are part of the 5-piece collection, all of which follow Mr. Gualtieri’s manifesto to create over-sized, strong scents that represent “parts of our body,” as well as how our animalic side has been repressed by civilisation. I’ll look briefly at each of them in turn with a more generalised summation than my usual in-depth analysis.

BOCCANERA:

Boccanera via Luckyscent.

Boccanera is a pure parfum that was released without any notes. It was recently chosen as a finalist in the Independent Category for the 2015 Art & Olfaction Awards. I’m surprised, to say the least, because Boccanera trods very (very) well-worn territory. In fact, it’s a complete riff on Mr. Gaultieri’s own Black Afgano for his Nasomatto line, only with a heavy dusting of cocoa in the opening phase and a heightened quantity of industrial-strength aromachemicals.

As noted earlier, Boccanera comes with no notes and Orto Parisi offers no description for the scent on its website. However, First in Fragrance has a small blurb that seems to quote the company’s press copy. It states: “Boccanera means ‘dark mouth’ in Italian. Nature offers dark holes that express sensuality in an erotic dark way.”

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