Dans Tes Bras by Frederic Malle : Perfume Review

Dans Tes Bras (meaning “In Your Arms”) has been a notoriously difficult perfume to review. In fact, I’ve been lugging the carded sample with me for more than a month, first in a handbag, waiting for that opportune moment when I’d sit quietly at a café to take notes, then later –when that did not work- in a resealable bag in which it travelled with me to Greece and then back. The surprising bit comes here: it was not lack of time that had me tongue-tied, but the perfume itself. Double the surprise when you consider this is not just the newest Malle, but also a violet scent, violet being a note which I absolutely love. So what was the problem? To my horror, Dans Tes Bras actually made me nauseous the first couple of times I tried it. To my nose it smelled improbably synthetic, to the point that I actually had to scrub it off. After taking a little break from it, I tested it again, only to discover that… it simply bored me. While this is by no stretch of the imagination an objective take on the perfume itself (and perhaps it is not even fair), as I’ve mentioned before, I am growing quite tired of the violet/iris fashion that has been sweeping the perfume world like a forest fire during a particularly windy summer. Having said that, this obviously would not have been an issue had this been the most exciting violet I’d smelled in ages. Unfortunately it is not. (Perhaps Stephen Jones for CdG will manage to claim that spot if I ever get the chance to sniff it!)

After another little break, however, I’ve managed to actually warm up to Dans Tes Bras. Maybe it’s the fact that I am studying a book on Philosophy of Science at the moment, which actually tends to be even more boring than Dans Tes Bras' particular brand of violets. All jokes aside though, this is not a bad perfume. Dans Tes Bras promises to deliver “The deep and lasting odor of warm skin, with all its salty hints and rich overtones.”. The disappointing bit is that it smells nothing like skin. Still, we can rejoice for the inclusion of savory hints in the opening: The scent unfolds with the tingling saltiness of salmiac candy over a soft iris scent, before the sweet scent of violets kicks in. Right at the heart, the scent turns bizarrely mushroomy. Think fresh, earthy, uncooked mushrooms with a hint of (now you’re gonna get scared) metallic blood . The best approximation would be to imagine adding a few drops of Etat Libre d’Orange’s Secretions Magnifique on a bed of transparent, sweet violets. The rocky stage of slightly metallic, earthy mushrooms passes quite slowly, but patience will be rewarded when the fragrance makes yet another transition into a stage that smells purely of daintily sweet violets and something herbal, or vaguely minty. For me, this is the most interesting stage indeed, as I keep catching myself trying to place the slightly dissonant, fresh, almost medicinal note. The drydown is all earthy, pale violets and tends to be comforting enough to make me contemplate reapplying.

Talk of mushrooms, blood, earth and minty hints, just might make this perfume sound far more interesting and captivating than it really is, especially if I also add that Dans Tes Bras never smells quite the same, but tends to appear subtly different with every application. It has to be said however, that despite all those little things that make it interesting and different, the overwhelming impression it leaves me with, is that of a common violet.

He Wood by Dsquared2 : Perfume Review

I was fairly impressed with Dsquared2’s first fragrance, a 2007 masculine release titled He Wood. Despite my good impressions of the scent I never got down to actually reviewing it, but with the brand’s newest release She Wood now out in the shops, I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone. Today we take a look at He Wood, and come Friday we’ll explore its counterpart, the feminine She Wood.

Dean and Dan’s first fragrance, He Wood, reflects their love of their native Canada and draws inspiration from the country’s gorgeous nature, making wood the focal point. I love the bottle, which I find elegant in its unique simplicity and intriguing with its eye-catching asymmetry (the stopper is placed off-center). The square glass container is completely framed by Canadian Red Alder wood, which makes it wonderfully tactile as well as renders every bottle unique due to differences in grain and hue. Now, on to the juice itself: The top, middle and base notes are conceptualized as air, water and wood accords respectively, and each is meant to represent different characteristics. The Air accord is purity and sensuality, the Water accord is freshness and fluid energy, while the Wood accord is seen as pivot, the fragrance’s true personality. Reading this might lead you to think that He Wood goes through very distinct phases, with each of the accords unfolding almost independently over time. This however is not true. The woody base notes, namely light, sweet vetiver and smoky, distinctive cedar run through the composition from start to finish, like the skeleton around which the rest of the fragrance is fleshed out. Around these woody notes we find the presence of velvety, smooth sweetness in the opening. The official notes list Silver Fir, Vegetal Amber and Musk, but I struggle to pick out any of them individually. What I get the beautiful, aforementioned gentle sweetness, a light musky presence like a naked body under an overcast sky ready to pour down. The ambery note is intensified for just a brief moment in time, giving us a taste of resin before subsiding in the moisture that quickly makes its arrival. The watery notes found at the heart of He Wood are subtle and careful. There is enough freshness there to appease the average male shopper, but not quite enough of it to make the more discerning niche-lover turn up his or her nose, so to speak. Most interesting is the way the light watery accord blends so perfectly with the intense powdery scent of violets, effectively translating the relationship between water and air that always seems to be playing around the core of wood. Bizarrely, the smoky, dense character of cedar is silenced in the drydown in favor of an ever-intensifying steely cold vetiver note that smells and feels metallic. This is a very evocative perfume, which is extremely successful in its attempt to match the scent with the ad copy. The wearer will have no trouble ‘seeing’ the images painted by the perfumer, and even finding themselves starring in the fantasy of the Canadian woodland, as lone figures unafraid of the dark and pregnant with rain clouds overhead. The whipping of the hard rain on naked skin, the rich smell of the woods, all have a macho appeal - however the genius of He Wood is that this is always set against the sensitivity of musky sweetness and the clean, feminine comfort of powdery violet.

Images: http://sito.dsquared2.com

Parfum d’Ida and Spectral Violet by Neil Morris : Perfume Reviews

Dearest Ida, better known to most as Chayaruchama, was kind enough to send me a whole bunch of Neil Morris fragrances to sample, after I said I was really curious to try them. This week (on Monday, Wednesday and Friday) I invite you to explore the samples Ida sent me, here on Fragrance Bouquet. The first two perfumes are Parfum d’Ida and Spectral Violet.

Parfum d'Ida:

Parfum d’Ida is a gorgeous, sparkling aldehydic composition, elegant and effervescent. Smelling it for the first time, I was instantly reminded of another favorite: L’Infante, by Divine. Looking at the notes of both scents, the similarities are not that many: yes, they are both aldehydic scents and they both have a berry note as well as white florals and ylang ylang. Smelling the two side by side though, I sense a kinship – not perhaps in the smell itself, but certainly in feel. In the end, Parfum d’Ida wins my favor, being both sheer and deep at the same time – a wonderful feat. Too, the scent of civet, unmistakably present already from the opening, is too seductive for me to resist. I home in on it and it never leaves my conscience. Aldehydic, floral, green and animalic all at once, yet perfectly blended and balanced, Parfum d’Ida opens with deceptive innocence and transparency, but goes on to become all the more warm and effusive as it warms on the skin. It speaks of femininity and generosity to the point that it makes you wish to be hugged and comforted by the creature that wears it. Is this really the scent of Ida? It would be very presumptuous of me to give a definite opinion on the matter, considering I have never met her in real life. However, I can’t help but feel that this is just an aspect of Ida’s scent: The part that is capable woman, the part that is feminine, generous and comforting, gently protective and loving. I missed the darkness though, I missed the spice. I missed the part of Ida that is absolutely otherworldly and bewitching. I missed the part that is midnight gowns studded with all the stars in the sky and pure, unadulterated mystery. I missed the Diva I so long to meet. But that is alright - it is to be expected that no single fragrance can capture every aspect of this complex woman. Parfum d’Ida is Ida’s hug and loving embrace. And right now, that’s exactly what I needed.


Spectral Violet:

Spectral Violet, the second of Neil Morris’ perfumes I sampled had a profound impact on me – something I never would have expected from a floral composition. The moment I brought my wrist to my nose for that first whiff, I felt like my body started floating upwards, as though I was suddenly weightless and ethereal. My first thought, literally, was “Oh... I am in heaven...” How could I possibly do this fragrance justice by writing about it? I want to roll around in this scent forever and ever. I want to have it as a bath oil and submerge myself in its pool of dark mystery, a pool of violet waters, a pool that transforms into a majestic lake in a time of kings and princesses and I’ll be the lady, yes, the lady of the lake, with eyes of green and clothes of purple and indigo and lilac, that float around me by gusts of wind unfelt by others. The violet petals are candied, like medieval court delicacies meant to be fed by hand to a loved one, in order to make them forget about all that’s wrong in the world. The feel of the fragrance is velvety and soft, like the most extravagantly expensive cocoon made for a fairy. Despite the name, I cannot describe this fragrance as cool, chilly or metallic. To me, it is absolutely warm and sensual. And even though all my memories of violets were made in sunny gardens, this one is a violet I’ve never encountered. It is a violet of the night, its scent utterly hypnotic. It is seduction in a moonlit forest.

Images: The artwork accompanying Parfum d’Ida in this post is a sculpture titled “Divine Embrace” by Taiwanese artist Gaylord Ho.
The image accompanying Spectral Violet in this post is from www.eastcoastkitty.com, a company that specializes in clothes, accessories and gifts. The particular image is called “Purple Fairy with Moonlight” and can be bought as a shirt. It can be found under their women fairy items.