Annick Goutal L’Ile au Thé & Hermès Le Jardin de Monsieur Li

With summer underway, I thought it might be worth looking at two fresher, lighter fragrances that were recently released: Annick Goutal‘s L’Ile au Thé and HermèsLe Jardin de Monsieur Li.

ANNICK GOUTAL L’ILE AU THÉ:

Source: annickgoutal.com

Source: annickgoutal.com

L’Ile au Thé is an eau de toilette created by Isabel Doyen. The fragrance comes in two different bottle designs, one for women and one for men, but they are the same scent. As a side note, Annick Goutal is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amore Pacific since 2011.

The women's bottle. Source: Annickgoutal.com

The women’s bottle. Source: Annickgoutal.com

The Goutal website describes L’Ile au Thé and its notes as follows:

L’Ile au Thé is an infusion of well-being, an invigorating and soothing perfume to be shared.

Between the sea and volcanoes, a stroll in the fields of mandarin trees and tea plantations, waving in the wind of an Asian island. The crystalline mandarin bursts into freshness, contrasting, in a soft and soothing breeze, with the tea, green and leathery, and the osmanthus, carnal and fruity, like a caress on the skin…

[Notes:] mandarin; tea absolute; osmanthus; and white musk.

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Hermès Cuir d’Ange (Hermessence Collection)

“Angel leather,” inspired partially by Hermès’ iconic bag and luggage creations, lies at the heart of Cuir d’Ange. It is Jean-Claude Ellena‘s newest fragrance for Hermès’ luxury Hermessence Collection, an homage to the brand’s most famous products, and was ten years in the making. For me, Cuir d’Ange is the very best thing that I’ve tried from Jean-Claude Ellena thus far, though it’s not without the usual problems stemming from his minimalistic, wispy aesthetic. It’s a truly beautiful recreation of leather that oozes elegance and refinement. In essence, it bottles the very smell of the leather department in an Hermès boutique, capturing it to an astonishing degree.

Source: bostoncommon-magazine.com

Source: bostoncommon-magazine.com

On the Hermès website, Jean-Claude Ellena describes Cuir d’Ange and his inspiration for the scent as follows:

The softness of leather, a promise hovering over the skin. Engaging, bewitching, hazy.

“For a long time I’d wanted to reveal the importance I attach to literature, and where it meets perfume. More importantly, I wanted to evoke my connection with the work of Jean Giono. Two words from a passage in Jean le Bleu came back to me: ‘cuir d’ange’ – angel leather. Using the smells that are my words, I wanted to write a poem to rekindle the love duet between leather and the skin. Its softness and lightness, its tension and its caress. Heliotropes and hawthorn, leather and musk.”

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Frederic Malle L’Eau d’Hiver

"Fall Hydrangeas" by PatChoffrut at Etsy. (Store website link embedded within.)

“Fall Hydrangeas” by PatChoffrut at Etsy. (Store website link embedded within.)

Winter is in full swing in the Western hemisphere, so Frederic Malle‘s L’Eau d’Hiver by Jean-Claude Ellena seemed like a suitably symbolic choice for today’s review. It is described as a watercolour that intertwines water and coolness with softness and warmth. What struck me was the exquisitely delicate opening that felt like an olfactory visual that captured intangible senses of atmospheric light and quiet moods, and turned them into concrete form.

Painted in translucent colours, the opening somehow manages to encapsulate Zen-like serenity, silence, and elegance in a way that makes the perfume as a whole far more than a mere collection of notes, far more than the sum of its parts. Again and again, the words which came to mind were “hushed breaths” and “translucent light.” The overall effect is more of a feeling than just a perfume. I’m not one of Jean-Claude Ellena’s fans and his minimalism usually leaves me cold, but the opening of L’Eau d’Hiver truly impressed me and leaves no doubt as to his technical mastery or brilliance. If only it had lasted….

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My Scented Memories: From Rive Gauche to Fahrenheit

Source: The Non-Blonde.

Source: The Non-Blonde.

A few days ago, many of you shared your scented memories in response to a journalist’s questionnaire, and I loved reading your stories about your earliest fragrance memories, the scents that you loved and, in a few cases, those you hated from early on. I thought I would share my own stories in return, starting with my childhood when I first fell in love with perfume, then hated it immensely due to a few scented traumas, and then fell back in love with it for good. I’ll tell you a few tales, from lavender to YSL‘s famous Rive Gauche, and the impact of Jean-Claude Ellena‘s first breakout hit and acclaimed “masterpiece,” First for Van Cleef & Arpels. There will be talk of HermèsCaleche and Bel Ami, as well as Fracas, Opium, Kouros, and Egoiste, and even a funny work story about Dior‘s Fahrenheit when I was first starting my legal career at an infamously tough law firm.

Source: cqmagonline.com

Source: cqmagonline.com

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