Love, Chloe Eau Intense

Love, Chloe Eau Intense, the 2011 flanker to Love, Chloe (2010) is described as a more intense version of the original.  Even me, who prefers her perfumes potent with some sillage, was a little nervous about a much stronger version of Love, Chloe.  And, thankfully, this isn’t what Love, Chloe Eau Intense is about.

Since these names may get confusing I’ll refer to the original Love, Chloe (2010) as Love, Chloe and the 2011 flanker Love, Chloe Eau Intense as simply Eau Intense.  I adore Love, Chloe and now I adore Eau Intense just as much but for different reasons.  Love, Chloe is a smooth, polished powdery floral fragrance with emphasis on a chewy orange blossom floral with a big dollop of cosmetic powder.  In a way, after smelling by Kilian Sweet Redemption, I think of Love, Chloe as a more polished version of Sweet Redemption.  I thought I’d enjoy Sweet Redemption, but couldn’t help but find it juvenile after wearing it once or twice; it was just too sweet for me.  I have worn Love, Chloe dozens of time over the past year and this says a lot as I hardly ever wear anything but my absolute favorites more than a handful of times per year.  Love, Chloe agrees with me, it melts into my skin and even though it does have a good bit of sillage, it still feels like the most pleasant skin scent on me. It’s there but it isn’t obtrusive.  It’s me but better.  

Now along comes Love, Chloe Eau Intense, which turns out not to be a more potent version of Love, Chloe but instead a mellower version with amplified vanilla and heliotrope.  Eau Intense smells like the stereotypical ‘skin scent’ (soft and easy vanilla and musks) but with a little more oriental intrigue.  Eau Intense certainly exhibits the original Love, Chloe impression; this sort of chewy orang-y floral, but this only lasts for about 20 minutes after which it becomes a softer, much less floral and imminently cozy fragrance upon dry down.  In trying to think of a comparison, I vaguely recall Estee Lauder Private Collection Amber Ylang Ylang, but when I pulled out the Estee Lauder for an actual side-by side, I found it to be one dimensional and syrupy while Eau Intense is less sweet with slightly more florals and a more varied (less flat) vanilla/heliotrope oriental base.  I also smell something akin to leather once Eau Intense dries down.  The far dry down of Eau Intense is almost as if I’m smelling the inside of my nicest leather bag, the one with a gorgeous suede liner and my stockpile of far-too-many lipsticks and cosmetics in the side pocket.  Eau Intense is a ladylike scent yet it’s so supremely comforting with the addition of a gorgeous non-foody vanilla and fluffy heliotrope note.  It’s entirely possible to enjoy Eau Intense even if you didn’t like Love, Chloe.  

Love, Chloe and Eau Intense have saved me from “perfume ennui” over the past year.  Both of these fragrances are “permanent collection” status.   By that I mean I’m not just sniffing them, enjoying them enough for a couple days, reviewing them, and then forgetting about them.  I will definitely wear both Love Chloe and Eau Intense frequently.  I have already worn about 1/3 of my Love Chloe bottle since last year and I expect I’ll wear at least as much Eau Intense during the fall and winter months ahead.  An observation occurs to me about Eau Intense which is that this (Eau Intense) is my “Guerlainade.”  I love several Guerlain fragrances but never the ones with the trademark Guerlainade accord.  This Guerlainade accord just doesn’t agree with me, it’s too sweet and a little sickly.  With Eau Intense, I’ve found a comforting Guerlainade-type accord that suits me to a T.

Fashionable Attitudes: From Tuberose to Ylang Ylang

It's fascinating to read the comments about Abigail's Nuit de Tubereuse--mainly because I can't make any connection between what I smelled and what you all are talking about. A month ago, when I smelled it at Barney's, I found Tubereuse infinitely uninteresting. Like Abigail, I'm not much of a Bertrand D fan, though I do really love Amaranthine: I don't find it sugary or banal. But Tubereuse, which has been hyped for months and waxed poetically about, really seemed much ado about nothing to me, on top of which, the now-chronic persistence problem which characterizes all of L'Artisan on my skin. It's sad. Back when I first smelled a L'Artisan fragrance I thought the heavens had opened up. Now I'm horribly blase about the line. Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe Bertrand just had his work cut out for him.

Meanwhile, I've smelled the new A Scent Florale and think it's a great addition to the original. Fainter, yes, and not as green, but the original has plenty of green to go around, and Florale retains a lot of it. I'm probably relieved that Florale doesn't feel like a corrective of some sort, an attempt to "fix" the most oft-cited problems with A Scent. Too sharp? Too masculine? Who cares? Florale is the kind of flanker I enjoy: it doesn't simply use its source material as a marketing springboard. It plays around with many of the same characteristic elements, tweaking and recombining them, almost as if the perfumers had been asking themselves, "How much can we push this, in baby steps, until it isn't quite what it was?" Only be staying very close to the original can the differences truly be enjoyed, the contrasts fully absorbed. The biggest difference are the highest top notes, a dewy burst of peony mixed with galbanum and, possibly, ylang ylang. Galbanum and Ylang Ylang have some interesting interplay, their rubbery, almost mentholated facets mingling nicely. The fragrance is closer to the skin than A Scent original but by no means a skin scent on me.

Speaking of Ylang Ylang, I'm only now getting around to Estee Lauder's Private Collection Amber Ylang Ylang. I'm glad to be smelling it now, while the conversation about Nuit de Tubereuse rages on. I remember how disappointed people were in Amber Ylang Ylang. I thought, wow, it must be pretty bad. I'm surprised to find that I like it very much, though I suppose like many who did I should qualify that by saying it isn't the most groundbreaking thing I've ever laid nostril on. I wonder what makes Tubereuse, which seems so uninteresting to me, the topic of so much excitement and praise, while Amber YY was regarded so resolutely as a failure. I can see things being worked out in it, like the challenge of bringing vintage balsamic florals into the future. Oriental Lounge seemed to be asking itself the same questions, and answered them differently and possibly more emphatically. My impression is that Amber YY aimed for a more languorous tribute to those older sisters Bal a Versailles and Youth Dew. Ultimately it presents a far more mellow meditation on those themes. Much was made of the price, but 80 bucks for an ounce of Amber YY doesn't really seem exorbitant to me. Again, I don't smell the vanilla overload everyone seems to have suffered under, but talk to me in the winter.

Know what I continue to love? Histoire D'Amour by Aubusson. Another Ylang Ylang driven fragrance which didn't have the good fortune to have been created by Bertrand D or manufactured by L'Artisan. Personally, I like it as much as anything I've smelled from either. Another good one for me lately, and I have yet to review it, is Yosh's EDP version of Omniscent. I've read very little about it, and it strikes me as one of the best releases of the past six months. I smelled the EDP version alongside the original when I picked up a bottle at Barney's. They smelled not very similar to me. I suspect people haven't been reviewing it because they assume otherwise. Like Amber Ylang Ylang and Oriental Lounge, Omniscent approaches the subject of an older style of fragrance with both respect and irreverence, resulting in a uniquely contemporary wear.

Estee Lauder Private Collection Amber Ylang Ylang: A Review

Estee Lauder’s newest addition to its Private Collection is Amber Ylang Ylang. On Estee Lauder’s website the fragrance is touted as an “oriental amber” and, in spite of myself, I’ve been really excited for it. I’m a huge fan of comfort scents and anything that focuses on amber is usually the epitome of a comfort scent.

I purchased the eau de parfum, not the pure parfum, which means I didn’t get a bottle with the handsome stones; the edp bottle has a hammered gold colored cap as shown in the above pic. It’s still a nice looking bottle, simple, classic and somewhat masculine.

There’s not so very much to say about Amber Ylang Ylang itself. It smells like a straightforward amber & vanilla fragrance with a pronounced play-doh note for about the first hour. Don’t get me wrong, Amber Ylang Ylang smells good, I’d go so far as to say it smells really good, but it’s just too simple to garner much more praise than that. Given that it’s Estee Lauder’s Private Collection I did expect something more sophisticated. Truth be told, Amber Ylang Ylang basically smells like something you could purchase from Bath & Body Works. If someone gave me Amber Ylang Ylang as a gift, I’d be perfectly happy with it. But since I shelled out $120 I’m a bit miffed that it’s not a step above what it is.

Amber Ylang Ylang notes: ylang absolute, Italian bergamot, geranium oil, Bulgarian rose absolute, cinnamon Ceylon, incense, vanilla bean, sandalwood, and amber.

Amber Ylang Ylang, as part of Estee Lauder’s Private Collection, is only available at select department stores.