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.

Issey Miyake, A Scent

Several weeks ago, when I was at Saks, I saw a pretty husky guy look up, down, and all around nervously before spraying on A Scent. It was the first I'd heard of the fragrance, so when he asked me whether it was for men or women, I really didn't know what to say, though I generally don't know how to answer that question anyway. Before I had a chance to, he'd covered himself in a cloud of the stuff, so maybe the question was a formality.

I've never been a huge Issey Miyake fan. I like Intense for Men okay. It's good for a kick, though I suspect I'd never wear it. I like F'eau Dissey but can't seem to figure out when to wear it and always want it to last longer or go somewhere else at some point. L'eau d'Issey for women is an interesting calone fragrance, with that salt-water effect Escape by Calvin Klein has. L'eau Bleue is probably the most interesting to me, a sleeper from Jacques Cavallier, part herbal, part coniferous, a little doughy.

I wasn't expecting much from A Scent, so I was very surprised. I'd received a sample of Estee Lauder's Jasmine White Moss, which it resembles, shortly before smelling it. I couldn't picture myself buying Jasmine White Moss--too soft, maybe, or too refined---whereas I was at the cash register with A Scent before I knew what I was doing.

As you might have read elsewhere, A Scent recalls green fragrances past, particularly, to my nose, those which feature galbanum prominently. I smell a history of green in there, with stops at Aliage, Balmain's Ivoire, Chanel No. 19, Givenchy III, and Jean-Louis Scherrer. A Scent is much softer than Aliage, overlaying its punch of galbanum with a significant whiff of jasmine. Brighter and fresher than Jasmine White Moss, it also lasts longer. It has a citrus aspect to it that never really goes away, and somehow feels stronger rather than weaker as it wears. It also gets deeper, and richer.

It was created by Daphne Bugey, the nose behind Kenzo Amour, the DSquared fragrances, and the more recent Kenzo Amour Florale, all of which are equally persistent and weirdly more pronounced later than they at first seem they will be. Amour is one of those scents that seems to have gone away, until it wafts up again. I wouldn't say it's a skin scent. I'm starting to notice bedrock similarities in Bugey's work, relationships which intrigue me, making me wonder at her artistry.

I like A Scent a lot. It has a happy but intelligent feel to it, and if the same guy asked me who it was meant for all over again, I would say the masses.