Black Annis

I've fallen so hard for so many of the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab fragrance oils that it will take me at east a month to really dig into the nature of their appeal. It's a curious line, and I'm sure more than a few fragrance lovers have dismissed them out of hand. How do you classify what they're doing? The volume of their product inevitably seems suspect. The oils themselves often smell crude in the bottle, giving very little if any indication what stories they'll tell on the skin. The image is decidedly Goth, and those who don't view that sub-culture as a harmless, even quaint relic of pre-internet suburban disconnection suspect that its exclusivity isn't imposed but self-ordained, implying an active hostility toward outsiders. For various reasons, Black Phoenix is approached with a preconceived set of dismissals, a phenomenon which can be felt on makeupalley, the pink hues and girly splendor of which would seem diametrically opposed to BPAL's sensibility, like the jock's girlfriend bewildered by a goth peer's heavy eyeliner.

Go to the Black Phoenix forum and you get a totally different impression. Every BPAL release is discussed there, sometimes passionately, often heatedly. Far from sycophantic, the reviews display a wealth of opinion which quickly dispels the stereotype of the Goth as conforming nonconformist. The people who (sometimes lazily) get grouped under Goth aren't a select few--but as author Poppy Brite might tell you, they're a fantastic audience, often as discerning, committed, and articulate as the majority is fickle and indifferent. Part of what bonds them together is the ability to look beneath surface impressions. One way of looking at heavy black eyeliner is to view it as a shorthand. Dismissing the person underneath without going much deeper saves the wearer a lot of time.

But this is all sort of philosophical, suggesting that the Goth sensibility is purely cosmetic and, ironically, superficial, a theoretical exercise. Another way of looking at black eyeliner is: it's gorgeous. Bands like This Mortal Coil aren't thesis papers. They make fantastic music, rich in sensory detail, a sonic gift to the listener. To say they're not for everyone is kind of beside the point, really. As much as I love so many BPAL scents, there are those I can't get behind (March Hare comes to mind). What exactly is for everyone? Certainly not Black Annis, and I won't waste time trying to convince fans of the department store fruity floral to give it a whirl (instead, I recommend Jezebel or Sacred Whore of Babylon) but I do want to bring it to the attention of those who might just truly love it, as I do.

Black Annis is as interesting as just about anything I've smelled from a niche line. Maybe more so. Its challenges are more viscerally palpable than those supposedly presented by more widely known fragrances like Oud 27, Pathcouli 24, Boadicea Complex, Parfum d'Habit, and Rien, to name just a handful off the top of my head, while, for all that, going nowhere near the assault which is Secretions Magnifiques. Black Annis takes something of an adjustment. Like the majority of BPAL fragrances, the smell given off of the bottle is no real indication of where this scent will go; likewise, the list of notes. Try to wrap your mind around damp cave lichen, vetiver, civet, and annis. The combination is something you can only really experience.

On skin, the initial impression isn't much easier to describe. What starts to emerge for me immediately is a fantastic interplay of opposites, what I call barnyard gourmand. I get chocolate and hay, particularly, with a leathery anise chaser. In the spirit of concision, the nearest analogues to this effect are Heeley's Cuir Pleine Fleur and Molinard's Habanita. Black Annis is at first much darker than the former, but they dovetail at certain stages of development, chiefly around this sweetened hay aroma. Habanita is powdery par none, but it too adjusts more gourmand influences with something smokier, resulting in a peculiar density unique to these two scents. After a heady intro, Black Annis softens down to something above a skin scent. Not all of BPAL's fragrances do. Many retain that early vigor.

Though there are comparisons to be made, I've never smelled anything quite like Black Annis. The first several times I smelled it I alternated between disliking it and loving it. Mostly I disliked it. I think that's because it doesn't operate the way most fragrances do, the way I'm conditioned to believe they should. I wasn't looking past the black eyeliner, maybe. I highly recommend getting to know this stuff. All of the BPAL oils come in 5ml apothecary bottles and can be ordered from the website. They're also available as testers.

L'Interdit (R.I.P. Audrey Hepburn)

Can someone please tell me what the 2002 reformulation of L'Interdit ever did to anyone?

I know, I know, the first one was Audrey Hepburn, all powdery florals and white gloves with a touch of wispy, ephemeral whatnot. I'm sure it was lovely, and in comparison, here comes Raquel Welch, top heavy, shaking it, showing it, lips like a come on, hips like a been there, done that. It's like replacing a Rolls with a Ferarri, I know, but a Ferarri is quite something too, so can we all stop acting as if it's chopped liver and onions?

I'd read so much about the reformulation (and we're not talking about the more recent reformulation, which seeks to restore, some say successfully, the original Hepburn effect) that when I tried it, I was a little shocked how much I liked it. I don't know why these things keep shocking me. When I smelled Parfum d'Habit, more recently, I was surprised too. I'd read customer reviews on basenotes and makeupalley describing it as the most animalic thing this side of a rat's ass; foul, leathery, urinous, and just generally, unforgivably offensive. I couldn't figure out what people were talking about. Medicinal, yes; urinous, no. I smelled no leather, no animal, no wet dog, and really, truth to tell, not a whole lot of anything I'd heard described. Parfum d'Habit is pretty, to be sure, and even somewhat jarring at certain points, particularly the opening, which has the medicinal astringency of witch hazel, but it's hardly the caveman I expected, and the 2002 L'Interdit is certainly no run of the mill fruity floral.

I should have known, with Jean Guichard at the wheel. Everytime I smell a Guichard fragrance I'm again reminded how much his son Aurelien has inherited from him, and you can see links between L'Interdit and the light/dark achievements of Visa and Azzaro Couture. Like father, like son. Papa Guichard's genius, to me, is persistent radiance with an inner edge which somehow turns things inside out or upside down. Rather than getting brighter, and lighter, Guichard Sr.'s best work dries down to a burnished, heat seaking core, revealing unexpected, unsettling dissonance. So Pretty by Cartier has a straightfirward succulent fruit note up top and a darker, contrasting pit of angst deeper down. Eden seems so bright, so cheery and floral at first, and yet the picture Cacharel uses to package this fragrance gets right to the bottom of its attraction, showing a tangled jungle of competing white flowers and the somewhat unsettling suggestion of something like a poisoned apple beyond all the distracting foliage. Fendi Asja achieves this contrapuntal effect by turning berry into heady red wine. Go down the list, and you'll find these magic tricks throughout Guichard's oeuvre, right down to the weird, doughy jasmine of LouLou.

Guichard's L'Interdit sprays on like an easy going if steeply pitched fruity floral, but there's something in there which doesn't quite fit the image, and you start to see it very soon after the initial notes start wearing down. I'm no chemist, but judging by the pyramid provided by Osmoz, I would guess this has something to do with the combined effect of iris, frankincense, and tonka bean in the dry down. What I kept thinking, before I'd seen the notes, was that someone had mixed some incense into my bottle. How could a stereotypical fruity floral dry down into something so resinous and compelling? The answer: this is no stereotypical fruity floral. Givenchy seems to have known this, and after you discover the fragrance's weird complexity, the red label and box make perfect sense. Yes, red for rose--and passion.

That iris and frankincense combination gives L'Interdit a rooty incense accord I find pretty intriguing, making L'Interdit anything but a 1950's nice girl perfume. That isn't to say you would notice iris in the mix, before or after you know it's there. The tonka bean gives it a sturdier platform to stand on, suggesting cinammon, hay, clove, caramel and, especially, almond. This trifecta of contrasting basenotes gives L'Interdit a curious quality, making you wonder what it might do next. The Audrey Hepburn prototype died with its source, and what Guichard seems to have been saying or suggesting with his reformulation is that it might be high time we redefine what we mean by "nice girl" in the first place. In the fifties, being a nice girl meant that you knew your place and didn't rock the boat. You were to look pretty and to defer, always demurely. You refrained from showing more skin than absolutely necessary. Guichard's L'Interdit is a celebration of the nice girl's emancipation into sensual and emotional complexity, allowing her the freedom to be outspoken and even contradictory without reducing her to total transparency. Whereas the original evoked soft, powdered skin, Guichard's version celebrates the dewy prespiration of a woman too busy experiencing life to let the tought of a little sweat trouble her.

The accomplishment of this 2002 remake is its ability to balance light and dark, sweet and salty, hot and cold, and a world in between.

This Week at the Perfume Counter

I've resisted writing this for over a week now because I know it's going to upset some of you. I told a friend over the phone a few nights ago and, hearing her reaction, I was glad we were separated by several states. Listen, I'm always going to TJ Max and Marshalls. I drop in at least once a month, sometimes (okay, usually) more. Most of the time I find nothing, nothing being your Polo Sport, your Giorgio Red, your Ralph Lauren Hot, Rocks, et al. I leave empty handed more than I'd like, and sometimes the thought of leaving empty handed bums me out so much that I grab one of said nothing specials. Believe me: what I'm about to tell you is a rarity for me too.

Last time I casually ambled into Marshalls, I found Armani Prive Cuir Amethyste. This retails for a pretty penny, as you might know. At Marshalls, it was less than thirty bucks. Luca Turin detests Cuir Amethyste--or is it Tania Sanchez--or does it matter? If one disagreed with the other, the dissenting opinion would have been logged under its contradiction. The Guide calls Cuir Amethyste a mess. I think it's pretty great. It aspires to the violet leather territory occupied by Balmain's Jolie Madame and provides, I think, an interesting contrast to that fragrance's more old fashioned approach. The violet is creamier, the leather more sheer, closer to the Lancome Cuir reformulation than the heavier-handed leathers of yester-year. A steep price tag is almost always mediated by good longevity to me, and Cuir Amethyste sticks around quite a while. I could smell it hours later.

Naturally, once I knew that one Marshalls had an Armani Prive, I was obligated to drive all over town. How would I sleep that night, otherwise? What if there had been other bottles in other stores? How would I ever sleep again, wondering what might have been? I visited four TJ Max and Marshalls locations and realized very quickly that some sort of major drop must have occurred recently. There was so much product I hadn't seen before. I'd love to tell you just what, but I was in a fugue state, and now only Calvin Klein Secret Obsession comes to mind. It won't make you any happier to learn that I did find another Armani Prive, perhaps the best, according to many. Hidden among the other, bigger boxes was a bottle of Bois d'Encens. I'd smelled it at Nordstrom months before, and might have even sprayed some on. I remembered liking it, but at upwards of several hundred dollars for 1.7 ounces, I'm more apt to dismiss alleged greatness than collapse in helpless ecstasy. What's the point?

Bois D'Encens is indeed fantastic. For under thirty bucks I'll spend all the time in the world allowing myself to fall in love with a great fragrance, and Bois d'Encens rewards the adoration. It goes on sharp and, like Amethyste, sheer. Even sheerer, really, a penetrating incense which feels like something burning up at higher altitudes, at some mountain monastery where the air is thin and brisk and makes all the monks a little giddy and ditzy. This sets it apart from every other incense I've smelled, including the ultra popular Comme des Garçons series, which locate in lower altitude houses of worship. I would say Bois d'Encens is more of an outdoor scent overall, smelling somehow of clean air. This impression only intensifies as time goes on, reinforced, if anything, by the emergence of an interesting, equally sharp but bracing vetiver.

Interestingly, both of these Armani Prive fragrances were created by Michel Almairac. They were the only ones I found, and, as far as I know, the only two he created for the line. Almairac is someone I've known about and with whom I've been fairly familiar ever since I started consulting the nowsmellthis nose directory. Until recently, I never took as much of an interest in him as in my initial favorites: Maurice Roucel, Annick Menardo, Calice Becker, Sophia Grojsman. Slowly, I've acquired more and more of his fragrances, and over time have started to pay more mind. Cuir Amethyste and Bois d'Encens certainly caught my attention. Until smelling these powerhouses of persistence, I'd thought of him as someone who created some nice but wan fragrances, among them L'Artisan's Voleur de Roses, Chopard's Casmir, Gres' Cabaret, Gucci Pour Homme, and Rush, most of which I liked, some of which I really loved, all of which, however loud in theory, faded to a maddening whisper on my skin. While the Prive scents don't change my mind about these others, they do give me a more well-rounded appreciation.

One last thing about Armani. I find--do you?--that those sheaths they come in, wood casing with stone tops, somehow reinforce the idea that they aren't worth the asking price. The bottles are light as air, which made me feel, however unconsciously, that there was practically nothing in them, that whatever it was had little substance. Who knows what the design principle was behind this packaging decision from a rigorously, even religiously, uniform company. Armani's aesthetic is all about straight lines, simple contours. No showy flourishes intrude upon this cool surface like a ripple does on the surface of a pond. In that sense, the bottles fit. But from a sales perspective, lightweight risks reading as negligible.

I did make some other purchases, though none which will likely inspire jealous fits of rage. Who knew Bulgari Blu was so nice? I didn't. The packaging is so similar to Bulgari Blue Notte that I'm not sure I even realized these were two separate fragrances. Blu gets knocked a lot on the blogs and boards, I discovered. Soapy, too much ginger, yuk, gross, etc. I think it's a far superior ginger scent to the latest Ellena Hermes, by so far a margin that to compare them in any other way would be exceedingly misleading. Blu is milkier, for one, in stark contrast to the Jardin's ozonic properties. It's a richer, more pungent ginger, with a creamy floral influence. I like it a lot and will wear it frequently (as frequently as someone with as many fragrances as I own can).

Let me just close by saying that being sick with a cold sucks for anyone. For a perfume lover, it's truly utter hell. For the last two days I've been unable to smell a thing. What torture it was last night, inviting my friend Bard over for dinner, begging him to describe for me the smell of Parfum D'Habit and Ambre Precieux, especially when his descriptions are so typically off the wall. Please, I begged him, try to describe them, just this once, using typical perfume descriptors, rather than items one finds in a thrift shop, as "stuffy vinyl suitcase with strawberry juice stain" will mean next to nothing to me. It didn't help that my efforts to reconcile his impressions with the reviews on makeupalley and basenotes proved futile. Without fail, eight out of ten reviewers described Habit's opening as compost or fecal or Kouros with even more urine. Bard's bewildering verdict was "no such thing." The consensus seems to be good longevity and sillage, whereas Bard says both Precieux and Habit remain skin scents, barely there. Any thoughts from readers who have smelled these and can describe them realistically, as opposed to romantically? Your input would be more than welcome, and I promise I'll return the favor in your time of need.

Put Another Blog on Fire: Eau des Iles

I'm sure Eau des Iles has its roots in several other fragrances (I've heard tell of L'eau de Navigateur) but I'm not sure I've ever smelled anything remotely like it. I'm a latecomer to Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier, having just tried Camelia Chinois earlier this month. That perfume reminded me of a Barney's fragrance I once really dug and still own, with the addition of a smoky petrol note lurking underneath an otherwise chipper green amiability. I liked Chinois so much that I scanned reviews of the line's other fragrances to see what might interest me, and Iles seemed an obvious choice, with Parfum d'Habit running a close second. What sold me were comments referring to Iles' smokiness. It was also compared to wood wine barrels, cigars, and meat rubs. What's not to like?

I'm always on the hunt for a good smoke scent, though I understand others are just as eager to run from it. Kolnisch Juchten is a good example of the category for me, as are J'ai Ose and the John Galliano room spray produced by Dyptique. All have a cured leather sensibility that really appeals to me, something about which takes me into a nice headspace. J'ai Ose is one of my favorite fragrances of all time (and a real undiscovered gem), a sublimely unisex blend of florals and birch tar which is at least as well done as Lancome's Cuir and in my opinion far superior to most other cult leathers (Reve en Cuir, Cuir d'Iris, et al). Like Kolnisch Juchten (German for "Russian Leather"), J'ai Ose smells of the hearth and the outdoors, conjuring mercurial trails of bonfire smoke.

Because I had only these fragrances to go by, I unconsciously expected something along their lines, so I wasn't prepared for Eau des Iles, which is in their camp but burning a different kind of wood. It could easily become my holy grail smoke scent, but there's more to it than that. Under the smoke are coffee, spices, and green notes. This dry smell is similar to the fragrance produced at my local coffeehouse, which roasts its own beans, a slightly resinous coffee aroma, as if coffee were taking a cigarette break. Add to this labdanum, frankincense, myrrh, and ylang-ylang. Perfume Shrine's profile of labdanum is worth quoting:

"It is balsamlike, with woody, earthy, smoky, and even marshy undertones. Some even describe it as ambergris-like, or leathery and honeylike with hints of plum or oakmoss after a rain. Usually it is referred to as ambery, but it is mostly used to render leather or ambergris notes..."

This is a good starting point for a description of Eau des Iles, as well. It would seem that labdanum ties all of the fragrance's disparate influences together, blurring their individual start and end points. If there is galbanum in the base notes of Iles, as I've heard, it's used with unusual subtlety. I've also heard tarragon. I wonder if the absence of birch tar and the addition of labdanum makes it seem simultaneously kissing kin to my favorite leathers and worlds apart. One of the things I appreciate most about Iles is its resistance to easy classification. This is a softer, woodier, foodier smoke than J'ai Ose and John Galliano. It's certainly smoother, more refined than Kolnisch Juchten; both are savory, but Kolnisch seems slightly undercooked by comparison. Jean Laporte created Eau des Iles in 1988, after leaving L'Artisan; thus, perhaps, some of the comparisons to L'eau de Navigateur (1982), which also makes use of a coffee accord. The dry down brings in a little bit of the barbershop and the fougere, a powdery aftershave which makes more sense to the nose than the mind. Iles is said by some to be too challenging to wear. Me, I've yet to find a fragrance too challenging to wear, including Secretions Magnifique (though that comes closest, admittedly), so I'm probably the wrong person to judge. No question, it's an uncompromising, no nonsense fragrance. I'm not sure that means it takes no prisoners, or whether some might feel incarcerated in its presence. For me, if this is a life sentence, I'll gladly serve it.