Scents that Sing Spring! A Joint Project and a Free Giveaway

My perfume personality leans toward orientals, chypres and florientals but when spring arrives I’m ready to flaunt simple floral beauties that are neglected the rest of the year.

This depends on where you live, but for me, I’ve usually spent the last 6 months indoors, in front of a fireplace, television or reading a book, disconnected from nature. When warmer weather and blue skies show up I’m longing for nature specific florals. Early spring is when I pull away from abstract scents and desire more realistic fragrances. I crave certain florals like a vitamin deficiency, such as hyacinth, lilac, iris, violet, honeysuckle and green florals.

And, because we all love lists, here are my favorite spring fragrances broken into three categories; 1. The all time hits; 2. New loves for 2010 and 3. Recurring loves, last spring and this year, too.

THE ALWAYS RIGHT, ALL TIME GREATEST HITS FOR SPRING:
Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile in eau de toilette
Iris Nobile is my favorite iris. I wear the eau de parfum during the fall/winter and I love the eau de toilette in the spring/summer.

Annick Goutal Grand Amour
Pure class and beauty. Hyacinth heaven.

Annick Goutal Le Chevrefeuille
The best honeysuckle fragrance bar none. It reminds me of honeysuckle iced tea. Simple and stunning.

Guerlain Chamade
Elegant aldehydic hyacinth. Chamade feels suited for festive soirees during the months of March, April & May. Invite me to an outdoor wedding, I’ll wear Chamade in vintage parfum de toiltette.

Jean Patou Vacances
Vacances is the quintessential spring fragrance and the only lilac focused perfume that works. It is luminous and I wish I had gallons of it so I could wear it 24/7 for the month of April.

Serge Lutens Fleur d’Oranger
This is my favorite orange blossom. It’s pure, natural and true to the flower but with more facets than other orange blossom scents. It has a soft oriental base rather than that clean-musky-soapy base.

NEW SPRING LOVES FOR 2010:
Byredo La Tulipe
Clean, soft vegetal floral. Fresh cut stems. Byredo pulled this one off. It’s unique and memorable.

Bond No. 9 Eau de Noho
EdN is a delightfully cheerful linden floral that lasts; it's a linden gem.

Parfums DelRae Debut & Mythique
I’ve been living under a rock because I just discovered Debut this year. Debut is dreamy and striking the perfect chord with me these past 10 days.

Mythique is my second favorite iris scent and it might have knocked Acqua di Parma off it’s pedestal if it only had some sillage. Mythique lasts but so close to the skin I have to touch my nose to my arm to smell it. It loses points for zero sillage but the aroma is magical ... just can’t deny the glorious spring fantasy this one conjures.

RECURRING LOVES; LAST SPRING AND AGAIN THIS YEAR:
Annick Goutal Un Matin d’Orage
Gardenia, wet stones, fresh upturned earth and soil. Makes me think of gardening, sinking my hands in the cool April ground. Love it.

Parfums MDCI Un Coeur en Mai
Another green hyacinth prominent fragrance. I told you, it’s as if I have a vitamin definiciency, my system requires hyacinth!

Creative Universe Mare
The notes for Mare are sea salt, avocado and ginger lily. Mare is remarkable for conjuring a breezy cool seaside without any of that ozonic/aquatic drivel. Mare reminds me of a walk along the ocean on the northshore of Massachusetts in May. Creative Universe doesn’t receive enough accolades. Several fragrances from this line could easily be a spring/summer favorite.

Sonoma Scent Studio Voile de Violette
Deliciously flirty, fruity and fun violet. VdV is not candy sweet and it's a robust violet which is nothing short of a triumph for springtime violet lovers.

This article is a joint project suggested by Ayala over at Smelly Blog. Thanks so much to Ayala for organizing everyone and for providing such a goofy-great image above (I must have watched The Sound of Music 100 times as a child =).

Participating blogs:
Katie Puckrik Smells
Perfume Shrine
The Non Blonde
Notes from the Ledge
Scent Hive
Savvy Thinker
Roxana's Illuminated Journal
Perfume in Progress
All I Am A Redhead
Ambre Gris
Olfactarama
A Rose Beyond the Thames

Ok, so I made you read all the way to the end before telling you about the free giveaway. It's not a full bottle of Tauer's newest release or anything that special - but it IS your choice of any of my favorite spring scents above in a large decant.

You know the rules, you must have commented before this post... I will choose the winner on Sunday evening (April 18) Good luck!

Annick Goutal Grand Amour: Effortless Grace

Day 7, the last post in my week-long tribute to Annick Goutal

I’ve had the most difficult time with this last post. I want to write about so many more AG perfumes but this is it, the last one, and I had to make a choice. So I chose Grand Amour.

But first, I want to leave you, dear reader, with a few parting thoughts about the house of Annick Goutal, so please indulge me. Perhaps a normal fragrance customer (you know, those odd souls who have less than a dozen bottles of perfume) would immediately understand the sheer beauty of fragrances from Annick Goutal because it takes just a sniff to instantly recognize the exceptional quality and artistic creativity captured in this line. But then there’s “us,” the fanatics, the connoisseurs who have sniffed so many beauties that we’ve become jaded and bored and require so much more than simply “pretty” from our perfumes. But I ask you, is it not an enormous accomplishment, worthy of high praise, for a small artisan perfume house to create exceptionally beautiful, exquisitely high quality perfumes, time and time again? Annick Goutal is not driven by the latest fad and is never derivative or just blah. What is that you say, Annick Goutal is not edgy enough for you? Well, I would ask if have you tried AG Vetiver, Sables, Eau de Fier, Ambre Fetiche, Musc Nomade, Un Matin d’Orage, Vanille Exquise or Mandragore? The house of Annick Goutal has something for everyone – edgy, unusual and classically beautiful. And, I don’t think it’s just me, but I’ve worn nearly every single fragrance from AG and never has there been a sour or unpleasant note. Clearly, the house knows how to make perfume.Anyway, back to my last review: Grand Amour. Grand Amour was created in 1997 for Annick Goutal by Isabelle Doyen. Annick Goutal wanted a fragrance that expressed the devotion she felt for her husband, to capture that feeling of true and tender love. Grand Amour is a perfume for a lady, it is not one of the “daughter” perfumes, not particularly light or girly, but not heavy or overdone either. This is the perfect fragrance for a woman who has come into her own, and knows true love. Grand Amour is an airy blend of hyacinths, lily, honeysuckle and rose with a base of amber, myrrh and vanilla. I smell mostly hyacinths and honeysuckle, which is good for me, because I’m not usually enamored by lily. The hyacinth note is dreamy and reminds me of Guerlain Chamade, mostly because this is the only other perfume I’m familiar with that smells of hyacinth. Grand Amour is more casual in comparison with Chamade, there’s a stronger aldehydic formality to Chamade; Chamade is the beautiful woman with a full face of make-up and glamorous couture ensemble while Grand Amour is the natural beauty who knows her lover finds her even sexier without make-up lounging in her white eyelet baby doll pajamas.

Grand Amour starts off all hyacinth and honeysuckle with a tender green leafiness as a foundation for the florals. It then unfolds slowly but surely to a less green and more pronounced rose note toning down the succulent hyacinth and honeysuckle brigade. Once Grand Amour dries down it turns into a gorgeous soft ambery myrrh scent, ever so slightly powdery and delicate. Inexplicably, I think of Grand Amour as a floral for those who don’t usually like to wear florals. It’s feminine but still subtle. It’s pure class and grace.

I apply Grand Amour lavishly. About 6-8 sprays last 4+ hours on me and I have the eau de parfum. Unfortunately I can’t compare the edt with the edp because I’ve only ever purchased the edp. Typically I prefer the edp concentration because I like a more potent perfume.

This concludes my week-long tribute to Annick Goutal. In the past I’ve also written reviews for Sables, Vanille Exquise and Ce Soir ou Jamais.

PS: If anyone from Annick Goutal is reading, I think you should make more limited edition bottles! I have ideas for so many gorgeous bottles :-) Also, some new perfume suggestions: a mimosa scent would be a dreamy addition to your Soliflores Collection. Also a dry green chypre, an aldehydic oriental and a tuberose-fl-oriental (think sultry vixen) would be a great addition to the line. And don’t forget the boys, surely they could use an edgy leather.