The Beat by Burberry : Perfume Review

The dry, wonderful skin-scent Burberry Classic, the lightly sweet, summery, honeyed Weekend, the exuberant, succulent Brit and the lovely, warm and comforting Brit Red, are all favorites, quality mainstream scents, that have made Burberry a brand that is well loved among perfume lovers. Even though neither the fragrances, nor the packaging and advertisements can be described as groundbreaking, Burberry has built a solid and rightly faithful relationship with consumers, largely due to the consistent quality of their scents. I count myself among the many that have come to expect good things from this brand, so I was eager to sniff their newest offering, The Beat.

Now, as I mentioned a couple of months ago in an unrelated post, my first impressions of The Beat were not entirely favorable. In fact, I found myself quietly disappointed by both the juice and the packaging. Yes, the juice was indeed nowhere near groundbreaking once again, but on top of that, smelling it on the blotting paper it seemed downright generic. Since then I have had the opportunity to test the scent more leisurely at home, both on my own skin and on the skin of a couple of friends and my impressions have changed to its favor. The opening is strangely incongruent, featuring a mildly citrusy, slightly soapy and intensely clean breeze over something very obviously warm. The effect can be likened to a clean smelling mantle of ice draped over a burning heart. As you might imagine, this feeble construction disintegrates almost instantly, the cool, clean top quickly melting away to reveal what it never quite managed to conceal anyway: a warm, gooey center of interesting, spicy sweetness. Unfortunately, like a miniature dragon that was bred to be someone’s pet, The Beat will never really blow fire or snort clouds of brimstone. The farthest it will venture into misbehaving is blowing a bubble or two when it hiccups. The spices never really scintillate the senses and the warmth never manages to spread like wildfire. In fact, the longer it stays on the skin the more it fizzles out, becoming milder and softer. Half an hour later we are left with the attractive sourness of a green apple dusted with black pepper and an aromatic tea blend, still dry. Nice enough and strangely familiar, like the face of an old friend whose name you can’t quite remember. Interestingly, what’s surprisingly more pleasurable than smelling The Beat on oneself, is smelling it on someone else. No, really. In fact, smelling it on someone else comes almost as a revelation. A single spray is enough to have this little baby lazily bouncing from wall to wall like an echo. It radiates from afar with quiet allure, never being obtrusive, but rather slowly coming in and out of consciousness, always as a pleasant surprise. It feels like a shining kind of warmth when it comes from another, spicy, pleasant, kind.

The Beat comes across as rather unisex, not particularly feminine and certainly not traditionally masculine, comfortably falling somewhere in the middle. The warm, slightly sweet and spicy scent is rather comforting, definitely better suited to the colder months of the year. The bottle itself echoes the unisex appeal of the fragrance, shaped like a spirit flask adorned with the brand’s signature plaid pattern. Definitely not the type of bottle I personally crave to display on my dresser, but I have no doubt this well designed, attractive object will appeal to many, as indeed, will the juice within.

Images: www.burberrythebeat.com

Yukimi by Annayake : Perfume Review

When I was a child, time seemed to stand still. Each season was endless, each year lasted a decade. As I grow older, seasons seem to come and go in the most fleeting of manner, each one melding quickly into the next, a year gone in the blink of an eye. So have the seasons of Annayake passed before our eyes and we have invariably arrived to the last one, the longest stretch of the year, Winter.

Yukimi means “snowviewing”, and once again, the name bestowed upon this fragrance fits the composition wonderfully. I’ve never experienced coolness and warmth blending at once with such effortlessness, with no sense of dissonance whatsoever. And what is perhaps most curious is the overwhelming sense of quietness and stillness that this fragrance delivers.
It is the same sense of quietness I experience when I wake up in the morning with the unwavering certainty that it has snowed the night before, for every single sound in nature is eerily muffled. I love mint in fragrances, and its addition in Yukimi is utter perfection, boldly announcing crisp cool winds and steely light. The fruit in the blend quickly brings me back inside the warmth of the house, where mother is throwing rinds of mandarin oranges and peels of apples in the lit fireplace, thereby scenting the air with festive aromas. Cool musks, cedar and soft powder, enveloped by the warmest of amber, enfold me in a bubble no sound can fully penetrate. They form a safe cocoon, offering protection from over-stimulation and the demands of adulthood. Time stands still again, affording me the luxury of reflection.

The woman that will gladly dance among the falling snowflakes, the woman this perfume is meant for, is rare, uncustomary. She is a self-assured innovator. It is not by chance that my mind places her dancing in winter wonderland. Even though she is a grown up, her essence is that of a child. She sparkles, full of joie de vivre. For her, time will still bend, making every season last a lifetime, just so she can suck every single drop of life out of every single day. When snow falls, she’ll still try to catch snowflakes on her tongue. When she goes to bathe in a hot spring up on the hill, she hopes to encounter macaque monkeys, completely unafraid. When she walks home at night, she’ll stop to marvel at the light twinkling inside the stone snow-viewing lanterns, yukimi-gata – even though she has seen them countless times before. Her laughter is crystaline and clear, like snow melting on the first days of spring. Her perfume of choice is subdued, to counter and contrast her playful character. Her perfume is that of innocence and clarity, quiet happiness and sweetness. She chooses something that blurs the lines between her own sweet skin’s scent and the perfume itself. She chooses Yukimi, scenting her neck with a childhood her body has outgrown.

Pictures courtesy of: www.japaneselifestyle.com.au, www.japonia.org and www.hikejapan.com

Tsukimi by Annayake : Perfume Review

Since I promised to start with Hanami and Tsukimi, I will unorthodoxly suspend a review of the second seasonal fragrance, Natsumi, to write about Tsukimi. The third fragrance in the seasonal quartet of the Annayake fragrance line, Tsukimi, means Moon Viewing. It embodies the spirit of autumn and is meant to represent a woman who is radiant, devoted to tradition and family. This characterization might sound a bit archaic to western, individualistic societies, but this is most certainly not how it would be viewed in the Japanese collectivist culture. Keeping with tradition, Japanese tradition specifically, is a great virtue, and such a woman will be revered, like a precious flower that is never to be sullied, corrupted by unworthy elements. She will be the most attractive ray of light, sought after like a rare, incandescent jewel. She is the woman with the magical ability to bring out the best in the most contemptible of men; she is the bringer of redemption. Her radiance is an eternal, ever-giving spring. Everything she comes into contact with will be blessed by her virtue and beauty, enabled to shine a bit brighter each time for it came to be in the presence of her unyieldingly pure kindness.

Annayake places this woman in the setting of the Harvest Moon. Moonviewing, just as Hanami, flowerviewing, is a tradition that originated in China and was embraced by the Japanese court initially, before spreading to the masses during the Edo era. It is the time of year when farmers harvest the last crops and offer thanks to the moon. It is the time of year to come together with family, friends and loved ones to admire the beauty of the moon, to put seasonal offerings next to the moonlit window and to celebrate togetherness under the silvery lunar rays. The Tsukimi woman will go meet her lover on a hill, to hold his awaiting hand, to bathe in the moon’s light with him under the starry sky. She will be the joy of her family, an emblem of the continuation of tradition. A tradition that might be sadly, slowly fading.

Tsukimi reminds me in many ways of Féminité du Bois by Shisheido, which is not very surprising since they share a lot of the same notes. But having smelled Tsukimi, Féminité du Bois now almost seems aggressive and harsh. The top citrusy notes fly off quickly and leave the skin enveloped in the intensely woody, ambery veil of the fragrance. There is also the scent of lovely, smoky incense there, making the experience all the more interesting. Cumin haters beware, for this is a note that plays a prominent role in this perfume. It blends marvelously with cinnamon, sunflower, violet and precious woods, in a manner that makes me think of fine, viscous oils of anointment. Despite the intense notes, the overall feel of Tsukimi is that of calm sweetness, warm, effusively graceful and heart-achingly nostalgic. It stays relatively close to the skin, making one gently emanate a softly perfumed, filmy aura, like the golden body of a saint, streaming myrrh.

Pictures courtesy of: wikimedia.org, yuanryan.ld.infoseek.co.jp and www.saryou-sakura.com