Parfums de Nicolaï: Number One Intense

There aren't many Parfums de Nicolaï fragrances I don't at least like a lot, and some, like Maharanih Intense, are among my favorites. Several of those I like most are a little more formally innovative or inventive than my ultimate favorite, Number One Intense. Vie de Chateau, for instance, with its curious hay note, is full of subtle, elegant herbal twists. Nicolaï Pour Homme always surprises me, somehow. And yet not one of these satisfies me more than Number One, which seems so pure and perfect in its way that I realize I'd rather be fulfilled sometimes than startled.

Number One was, aptly, my first Nicolaï purchase. Recently, at the Perfume House in Portland, where an older bottle was still in stock, a friend opened it and smelled it and nothing else seemed as good to me in the store. I remembered instantly how much I love it. I would classify Number One as an amber floriental I guess. For a while I thought it was a lot like Hermes 24, Faubourg, another amber floral which seems illuminated from within - until I compared the two side by side. They have a lot in common, but alongside Number One, 24 seems, if not shrill, then a little heavy on the treble. Faubourg seems more like a citrus cologne by comparison.

Number One was created in 1989, which makes sense, because that era produced a lot of my favorites. Like a lot of those '80s fragrances, Number One is rich to the point of plush, but where a lot of those scents have conjured the analogous big shouldered outfits of their time, Number One, despite all its voluble drama, feels softened and remarkably supple, a symphony heard through velvet. Part of this, I suspect, is the restraint shown with tuberose, which in many eighties frags becomes their sole reason for being. The tuberose in Number One plays nicely with the other florals - namely, jasmine, ylang ylang, rose, and orang blossom - allowing all of them to show something of themselves. There's a unique harmony to the fragrance.

The base of amber, oakmoss, and sandalwood shows, for me, the kind of durability and backbone emphasis most fragrances need a hefty dose of patchouli to achieve. Number One is the rare fragrance I imagine patchouli would have ruined rather than improved. And I like to think the use of tagetes up top gives it some level of distinction often lacking in its eighties brethren. The fragrance is perfectly judged and balanced and I couldn't imagine it any other way. It lasts all day on me, without, by the end of the day, feeling more like the day after.

I understand, I think, why it isn't discussed more often. Revisiting Number One recently started me thinking about the way we "review" fragrances. There are so many - so many in existence and so many emerging. It's easy to fall into judging them by what they do that something else hasn't, when sometimes, as with Number One, what they do different is simply, for a change, get it wonderfully right.

Painting: "Torrid Day" by Jane Wilson

Amorvero: Back to My Roots

For months now, I've felt there's something wrong with me.  I was kept pretty thrilled by fragrances for a good four years, consistently surprised, enthused, and engaged.  It's been a real passion for me.  Every day I packed a perfume bag the way some would pack a lunch.  I'd sit at work sniffing one bottle after another.  I'd have four to five different things on, making comparisons.  I made my co-worker sneeze.

Suddenly, I wasn't so interested.  I went from buying samples and bottles on a regular basis, sniffing religiously, to a dry state of affairs where maybe every month or so I might make a single purchase, and I started visiting my perfume cabinet so infrequently it might have been a lost wing in a massive house.  It's been weird.

I couldn't imagine that the fragrance industry turned overwhelmingly boring overnight, so I thought it must be me.  Maybe I'd gone fickle.  Maybe I'm prone to boredom.  I know now that it isn't really me, because the fragrances that always surprised, enthused, and delighted me are still doing so.  And I guess I don't care too much to parse all the vagaries of the industry to determine what's happening on that end, when really the bottom line is that most of what comes out now feels uninspired or insulting.  Otherwise I think I'd be writing more - about my dissatisfaction, if nothing else.  The fact that I can't even be bothered to write about that is the biggest surprise, and disappointment, of all to me.  I feel the industry has finally turned a corner, where restrictions and cost-cutting have crystallized into banality and bottom line as standard practice.

I thought about doing posts during all this.  I thought, okay, so if I still love the same fragrances, what are they?  What would be my 25 desert island scents.  Granted, 25 makes for a pretty cushy island, but narrowing down to ten, while it makes for good type, has always been a struggle for me.  Even 25 seemed like a waste of time.  How often had I written about these fragrances, anyway?  How much more could I have to say?

I say all this mainly to give you some context for how even a simple, well made scent can seem like a revelation these days for me.  Back in October, for instance, I was in LA, and someone who didn't think much of it handed me a bottle of Amorvero.  I'm not sure what I might have thought about it two years ago, but in October I liked it instantly.  How much my liking it had to do with this dry spell I can't say, and I resisted writing about Amorvero until now because I didn't trust the pleasure it gave me.

After all, Amorvero isn't exactly anything new.  It's a throwback to the big picture vanillic florientals of the eighties, really - recalling things like Poison and Giorgio, among others.  But while many perfumistas look back to the pre-fifties fragrances as the benchmark for quality fragrances, the eighties are really my decade of choice in many ways.  Many of my top 25 scents came out of that era, and I would gladly trade some of the things I've bought from recent years for eighties fragrances I want but don't own.

Amorvero reminds me most of 24, Faubourg, a fragrance released in 1995 which feels more like an eighties scent itself.  Like Faubourg, Amorvero buttresses tuberose and jasmine with vanilla and amber on one end and citrus notes on the other.  Like Faubourg, it lasts all day.  A simple story, Amorvero, but the pleasures are pretty complex.  Each time I return to the scent I find new things to like in it.  The thing is an immediate mood lifter, and adds a level of drama to the dreariest frame of mind.

Amorvero was created for a hotel I've never heard of in Rome, the Hassler.  I believe it was in 2000.  The perfumer is Lorenzo Dante Ferro.  I can't see where one finds the stuff, other than a website I googled online.  It would be hard to track down and try. I'm sorry.  But I was glad to find it, and in comparison to most of the dreck currently being released, it's something of a Godsend for me.

There isn't much about it on perfume blogs, though I was happy to see, in the middle of writing this, that Cafeleurebon just wrote about it several days ago.  I like that it goes against current trends in perfumery, because those trends are really bringing me down.  And while I'm not yet sure it would enter my top 25, it has a lot in common with another fragrance favorite on that list, Miss Balmain.

Old School Hermes: 24, Faubourg

It's ironic, I guess, that the current fragrance profile at Hermes is regarded as sophisticated, elegant, and refined, while the fragrances themselves are largely so wan and vegetal.  I won't say the things in house perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena does for the brand aren't elegant, but they define elegance in a pretty different way than I would - in or outside of Hermes.  This speaks to changing times, and what is generally considered chic these days, probably:  clean, effervescent, sparkling, and austere.  Yet no fragrance spells out what I think of as "Hermes" to me more adroitly than 24, Faubourg, a fragrance which has to be the quintessential antithesis of something like the cold-hearted, icy thing which is Kelly Caleche.

24, Faubourg is creamy and ornate, without feeling particularly heavy to me.  In fact, the top notes are practically sunny.  It resembles another ornate fragrance, Ysatis, in certain respects, characterized by a rich floral accord with deep amber tones, but lacks the dusty incense quality of Ysatis, feeling somehow quieter, though neither could be said to whisper, exactly.  Ysatis dates back to 1984, preceding 24, Faubourg by nearly a decade, and it's interesting to see how little the cultural idea of opulence they represent changed in the intervening years, especially when you look at how drastically these fragrances differ from Ellena's fairly recent work for Hermes.  Faubourg is not a particularly large leap from 1984's Parfum d'Hermes (now Hermes Rouge), speaking much the same language, if using different verbs.

Like Rouge, 24, Faubourg is a chypre.  The listed notes are bergamot, orange, peach, hyacinth, tiare flower, orange flower, jasmine, orris, sandalwood, patchouli, amber, and vanilla, according to osmoz.com.

I have two versions, one of which is the original edt, the other of which is a more recent eau de parfum.  There is very little difference between the two, except in respects to longevity and projection.  For me, the edp stays a little closer to the skin but is richer and creamier.  The edt isn't exactly lighter, and I can smell more of the vanilla and patchouli.  It doesn't last quite as well as the edp, but it's hard to say exactly, as neither concentration is anything close to a lightweight and the edt projects a little more, giving it the illusion of more mileage.

24, Faubourg is the very best of Roucel's work, and seems to have a clarity and a resolve that some of his more contemporary fragrances sometimes lack.  It's a statement, a declarative thing, compared to something like Dans tes Bras, a fragrance Roucel created for the Frederic Malle line.  Dans tes Bras is no less forceful, but it feels muddled and morose by comparison to Faubourg, as if Roucel were struggling a bit to adapt his style to changing times.  Dans tes Bras makes a valiant effort to hold onto the old school opulence of Ysatis and Faubourg but ultimately mumbles a little incoherently, insecure in its point of view.

Faubourg is a lot more confident in outlook and execution, I think.  It sits very comfortably within the range of chypres from the eighties and nineties.  It knows it belongs there, and that "there" is a perfectly good, even enviable place to be.  It's rich and intense and feels like a coat you've worn for years and wouldn't dream of giving away, knowing they don't make it anymore and nothing new will ever feel so wonderfully lived in.  I suppose the biggest difference between Faubourg's kind of thing and Hermes by way of Ellena these days is the sense I get from the Ellena fragrances that they are a little like trying to keep warm in a still-wet watercolor.

Love, Chloe eau de parfum: Tactile and terrific

Have you ever tried a fragrance, liked it, but didn’t think you loved it, but then found yourself “trying” it over and over again until you finally must admit you pretty much love the stuff? That’s what happened to me with Love, Chloe.

Cheap Thrills: Dunhill Desire for a Woman

It's a testament to Maurice Roucel's talent that his cheapest fragrances often smell as good as his high end niche reputation makers. K de Krizia is an amazing aldehyde floral, dirt cheap online. Nautica Voyage, a miraculous little sleeper of a scent, retails for as low as thirty-five dollars. Rochas Tocade (25 bucks) smells as fantastic, if not more so, than Guerlain L'Instant (60-70). Lalique Pour Homme (roughly $35) might just smell better than Bond No. 9 Riverside Drive (three times the price). Nothing compares to Iris Silver Mist, of course; then again, it's more an out-of-body experience than a perfume, and holding it up to mere mortals for comparison is like looking for a Paul Lynde "type" to play David Bowie in a high school musical. Wondrous oddities aside, Roucel's work remains remarkably consistent.

One key to that consistency is his trademark magnolia accord, which relates many of his scents to each other and smells so rich, creamy, and tangible you swear you could eat it or touch it or slather it all over yourself. Tocade is vanillic rose laid out on this signature base. L'Instant uses it not just as a foundation but as reason for being. You smell it everywhere in Roucel's ouevre, from Broadway Nite to 24, Faubourg. Tenacious sans bombast, it transitions from high to low, adapting itself to everything in between. What could be cheesier than something named Dunhill: Desire for a Woman? And yet, like almost everything else he's done, missteps and heavy hitters alike, Dunhill Desire too arranges itself around that familiar rubbery magnolia accord.

Lush, long lasting, and impressive, Desire has more going on in its top notes than the entire formulas of many a mainstream fragrance. I bought my 2.2 ounce bottle for 30 dollars--so it has more going on for less money, too. I'm not going to pretend I've wasted much time on Dunhill fragrances as a whole. There seem to be so many--for men, at least--the majority of which strike me as something my straight male friends would wear, lured by some aspirational fantasy associated with the name.

"Dunhill caters to the needs of the discerning man," says the company's ad copy, "from formal and casual menswear, to handcrafted leather goods through to fine men's jewelry" and so on, ad nauseum. Not pens and pencils but "writing instruments"; not watches but "timepieces". Jude Law is the spokesmodel and litters the website looking studiously urbane; suave, styled within an inch of his life, and bored out of his mind. "I'm sensitive, well dressed, and sometimes known to lean against the shelves in my library reading from a randomly selected, leather bound book," his sensitive expression says. Greys, tans, black, white. The menswear line is designed for "the modern gentleman and the maverick traveler."

I suppose a maverick travels in his own private plane, as opposed to lowly first class, and lives in a world drained of color. With their facile attempts at signaling a certain kind of cut-rate Ralph Lauren affluence, the few Dunhill masculines I've smelled depressed the hell out of me--as if to be a man means ipso facto to be magnificently tedious--and why be depressed, with so many wonderful things to smell out there? I've ignored Dunhill, and will probably continue to do so. Desire for a Woman seems to be an anomaly for the line: it smells like nothing else on the shelf, performs impressively, and like my favorite Roucels, manages somehow to suggest both impeccable taste and fun-loving, imperturbable trash.

I don't know exactly what's in it. I only know that I like it. It starts out intensely floral but very subtly evolves on the skin, arriving at a perfectly calibrated olfactory architecture of spiced amber, buttery warmth, and woods. From various sources online I've heard rose, freesia, caramel, sandalwood, and vanilla. There could be watermelon in it, for all I really know. Like everything else Roucel does, Desire smells edible without feeling particularly gourmand or foody. His fragrances share this precarious quality with the work of Sophia Grojsman.

Think of Desire as L'Instant Intense. I was always disappointed by L'Instant, and smelling Desire I now know why. L'Instant was far too timid; a miscalculation for which Roucel overcompensated, three years later, with Insolence, Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill to L'Instant's Masterpiece Theater. Desire situates itself somewhere in the middle of these extremes, a luxury it earned, most likely, by virtue of its market. Imagine the pressure applied at Guerlain, which has a real heritage to uphold, compared to the fairly straightforward, faux historical mass market imperatives of an outfit like Dunhill, whose incessant releases survive or perish according to a sink or swim mentality. Desire seems like Roucel having some fun, with a more relaxed attitude and a healthier sense of humor. The bottle is shimmery fuschia, just so you don't miss it, a delicious squeal of laughter compared to L'instant's pale whispery, watered down purplish pink.

Dunhill marketed Desire as the fragrance equivalent of the young woman in a pajama top designed to look like her boyfriend's, only in bright girly colors. Smells a little like his cologne, they said, but not to worry: strong enough for a man, but made for a woman, etc. Lo and behold, the reverse holds true. The perhaps unintentional effect of Desire's conglomerate of notes is a dreamy-sweet, curried pipe tobacco aroma, a mixture of powdered bubblegum and smoking room which makes the fragrance, in fact, a far superior masculine than any of the Dunhill males I've had the misfortune of smelling.