Dear Chanel, I'm Sorry

When I called and told you the bottle of Cuir de Russie you sent me was busted up, I was sure you wouldn't respond. I'd felt so out of sorts in your shop. I mean, it was Rodeo Drive. People were being shown little belts and things at the glass counter like a belt is a rare delicacy or a highly treacherous surgical procedure.

It was such a weird, alternate reality to me; so much money was going around. Everywhere I looked people were talking but all I saw was cash streaming out of their mouths. I saw dollar signs in their eyes. The boutique was its own eco-system, its own complicated trading floor.

I pictured all these people hopping back into their Bentleys at valet parking, fists of Chanel shopping bags swinging pendulously in their hands, zooming off to Beverly Hills, home again home again, where the biggest, most pressing problem was the apparent stupidity of the Mexicans who were supposed to be cleaning the pool, who seemed never to have seen a pool before, and were going at it with hedge clippers. I hated everyone in the store, Chanel, and I couldn't imagine all shoppers being equal there.

Oh I was mad when I received my broken bottle of Cuir de Russie. It seemed to confirm my worst suspicions about you, proving your contempt for anyone who dared spend less than millions of dollars at your store. I cursed you. I spat bullets in your general direction. I called up my pagan friend to ask about hexes and stuff. What an offense to the name of Jacques Polge, I thought to myself. If he only knew how his perfumes and the people who love them were being treated. Being alive, he might not roll over in his grave, but he certainly would when he got there, if this state of affairs continued.

I didn't expect you to return my call, Chanel, because you'd gotten what you needed from me and moved on. Knowing that I'm a perfume addict you felt confident in the certainty that you needn't do anything to make it up to me. I would keep coming back regardless. When you get some of the bad stuff, you keep going to the shifty-eyed guy on the corner, because the shifty-eyed guy on the corner has what you need. He might sell you baby laxative once or twice, but he laces it with enough of the real stuff that you can't split hairs. I'm not saying you're a drug-dealer, Chanel. I'm just saying you couldn't be counted on not to take advantage of my need, if the way my Cuir de Russie arrived in the mail was anything to judge by.

Imagine my shock when your friend Francisco called from Rodeo Drive. Francisco was sorry and wanted to make it better, and instantly I was embarrassed for the harsh words in my last letter. Perhaps you didn't want me to go fuck myself, or Jacques Polge, or whatever. Perhaps you really truly cared, Chanel. Francisco seemed to think so. His efficiency was impressive. He got right on it. UPS showed up the next day to pick up the Cuir de Russie. The day after that, Francisco called again to say he'd received the damaged goods and would send a replacement bottle right out. And he did.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time grumbling about the fact that when I opened the package there were no samples or testers or, like, a thousand dollar gift certificate to be redeemed at the Chanel counter of my choice. I was so happy to get my pristine bottle of Cuir de Russie that none of that mattered. Don't get me wrong. It annoyed me, but I was remorseful and contrite, and knew I should be kind after my hasty overreaction to your original mistake. I sat the big fat bottle of Cuir de Russie on my shelf, right at eye level, and gazed upon it lovingly for several days. I took the cap off, standing before the shelf, and held the bottle up to my nose, sniffing myself into ecstatic trances of narcotic oblivion.

My faith in you has been restored, Chanel, and I now believe (I now wish to believe, again) that though I drive away in my jalopy and have only one little bag clenched in my fist when I leave your premises, though I drive off sputtering toxins into the environment from a vehicle which barely passes emissions when that time of year rolls around, and end up far from Beverly Hills when I get home, and the closest I come to a swimming pool is the puddle of muddy water left on my back patio by a recent rain shower, I am just as important to you as anybody else you sell your love to.

All They Need is Love: The Gourmands

So often I read comments from perfume-addicts (I haven’t settled on a term yet ~ perfumistas, perfumeos, perfume-geeks, perfume-nerds, etc) about how they dislike gourmands fragrances. The gourmand category is just over a decade old (isn’t Angel considered the first official gourmand? If not, please fill me in), and already perfume-aficionados have been lamenting its existence for years.

I believe the accepted definition of gourmand is anything that contains/captures edible notes. A gourmand could therefore be anything such as chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, bread, pepper, sugar, ginger, nutmeg, coffee, almond, wheat, maple, liquorices and hazelnut. In a way, I’m confused about certain notes *not* being considered gourmand ~ what about edible fruits ~ such as fig, lychee, strawberry or pomegranate? I understand that citrus fruits are separate; they’re categorized as hesperidic, and existed long before the gourmands. But what about fig? This is a little tangential and I ought to get back giving the gourmands a little love.

I often think that when a type of perfume becomes too popular, trendy and mainstream that’s when perfume-aficionados diss it. I get it, this happens with any hobby where someone delves deeply into the thing of interest; wine lovers don’t usually drink Sutter Home and bird watchers don’t faint when they see a Blue Jay. The 'common' is no longer interesting to the aficionado. But come on…Angel by Thierry Mugler is some groundbreaking and amazing stuff! Even if you don’t like the smell of it, it was a bold and interesting perfume back in 1997 and deserves a little respect. After Angel, there have been thousands of spin-offs. I’ve noticed that many perfume-aficionados admit to liking Hermes Ambre Narguile, Serge Lutens Chergui or Caron Farnesiana. Lately I’ve been thinking that not all gourmand fragrances smell like cupcakes with four inches of frosting. I think a lot of folks equate gourmand with sticky sweet vanilla. There are a whole bunch of gourmands that aren’t extremely sweet or mostly vanilla. What about Lolita Lempicka, Bond No 9 New Haarlem, Bond No 9 Nuits de Noho, L’Artisan Bois Farine, Jo Malone Nutmeg Ginger, Serge Lutens Rousse, Keiko Mecheri Gourmandises, L’Artisan Poivre Piquant, Yosh Ginger, Montale Mukhallat, and Parfumerie Generale Aomassai? If you hate all of these, then you dislike gourmands, and that is, of course, fine! Perfume is, above all, subjective. But I just wanted to give the gourmands a little love, because they aren’t all sickly sweet vanilla and many are complex, interesting and smell good...

Staying Power: Fragrances That Last

Ever notice that the perfumes you spend the most money on often seem to be the least likely to persist on your skin, while the cheapos might outlast cockroaches in the event of a nuclear war? For the past several days, we at I Smell Therefore I Am have been spritzing Habanita, the weird, tarry vetiver of which has lingered so tenaciously that it got me reflecting on other equally virulent perfumes. What follows is a highly subjective list based on my own personal preferences and experiences (or lack thereof) in smell:

Estee Lauder Alliage

I lump this into the galbanum camp. Not every fragrance built around this note possesses tenacity (Chanel No. 19, anyone?) but many do. Galbanum can give a perfume quite a lot of kick; witness Sud Est by Romeo Gigli, Chamade, Diesel (the original), Givenchy Insense, Ralph Lauren's Safari, Trussardi Donna, and S.T. Dupont. All of these wear most of the day on my skin. Of the group, Aliage has the most longevity. It's a totally unlikely fragrance in many ways--so wrong it's right. It goes so far over the line that the line isn't an issue anymore.

Paris

Anything by Sophia Grojsman, really. Even Diamonds and Rubies by Elizabeth Taylor, and 360 Degrees for Perry Ellis. Even Coty Exclamation, which puts other, more expensive rose scents to shame. Grojsman's scents have a linear purity to them. They're dense, with a lot going on, but from beginning to end they remain pretty consistent. They're Russian novels, as opposed to beach reads. They have a certain reputation for excess which is fueled by their full bodied construction and near astral projection. But I get tired of all the caveats involved in the appreciation of Spellbound and Paris and Calyx and all the rest of Grojsman's oeuvre. Like Maurice Roucel (see below) she's a brilliant nose, with a baroque sensibility which will inevitably go in and out of fashion. Her perfumes, however, go the distance.

Tocade

And Iris Silver Mist, and Broadway Nite, and Gucci Envy (a member of the galbanum crew), Lolita Lempicka "L", 24 Faubourg, Insolence, Lalique pour Homme, and Missoni. The closest to Roucel in style is Grosjman. Both create fragrances which, whether gourmand or not, have the aromatic headiness of gourmet food, heavy on the butter and cream. This is one of the things which makes Roucel such a brilliant choice for ushering the Guerlain name into the near future. Like their classics, Roucel's compositions are practically edible, with a cake-like texture you can almost sink your teeth into. That said, Roucel isn't to everyone's taste. Personally, I find his perfumes so addictive and decadent that they literally set my teeth on edge.

Yatagan

Many of the old school leathers hang on for dear life. Cuir de Russie, Knize Ten, Rien by Etat Libre d'Orange, Hermes Bel Ami, and Tabac Blond, among them. They mix a petroleum noxiousness with a sweet, sometimes floral counterpoint. Knize Ten and Rien are a little more hard core. Certainly Yatagan. They also last the longest of the above on me.

Body Kouros

And most of Annick Menardo's body of work. Menardo's hallmark is a vanilla dry down, reflecting a penchant for the elaborately edible she shares with Roucel and Grojsman, whether it be the anisic note in Lolita au Masculin or the almond paste of Hypnotic Poison. Vanilla is certainly tasty, but by the time Menardo's constructions have reached their base notes, they've moved in various directions, more an artful tour of the pantry than a sit-down meal. Body Kouros is her strongest to me.

Pineapple Express: Jean Patou's Colony

From the 1600’s into the 1960s, France was a leading player on the world stage, with colonial possessions extending as far as West Africa and Southeast Asia and to numerous points in between. Well into the 20^th Century, the global reach of France was second only to the British Empire, eventually claiming 8.6% of the world’s land area. French was thus the official language of some 47 nations, and the governments of those nations were beholden to France by varying degrees.

Even now, France has significant territories in North America, the Caribbean, South America, the southern Indian Ocean, Antarctica, and the Pacific Ocean, but the scale of its domain has dwindled significantly, and did so especially after World War II. Opposition to and criticism of the French colonial enterprise began much earlier, and the French Colonial Exhibition of 1931 was intended in part as an answer to people on the left and right alike, who either felt France’s paternalism went a little too far, or not far enough.

When people discuss Colony, the perfume released by Jean Patou in 1938 to commemorate the exposition, they tend to characterize it as a snapshot of a certain period in perfumery, as if perfume were made in a vacuum, untouched by current events and popular trends, and might best be evaluated simply by looking at fragrances themselves. These snapshots draw on notions of the past which are more often about now than then. Thus, the imagery used to describe Colony tends to center around blonde women in haute couture khaki, sipping cocktails from decorative coconut shells on the veranda of some unspecified exotic locale; an Agatha Christie novel populated by Grace Kelly lookalikes, set in a Ralph Lauren Safari ad.

Part of that seems about right, in the sense that Colony was conceived as a luxury product and intended to evoke foreign cultures and some sort of transaction with them, but the deeper story of the perfume requires a wider lens. Colony was meant to reinforce, like the Colonial Exposition itself, France’s ideas about herself and her reputation in the world at large. The Expo was planned as early as 1906. In 1912, the Minister of Colonies declared that the centerpiece of the event should be a permanent museum devoted to the art and society of France’s colonies. It was decided that the expo should take place outside Paris, where there was plenty of room: the six month exposition covered roughly 500 acres and each country was given ample space for staging displays of its individual colonies.

The scale of this undertaking belied a national insecurity. Perhaps, France must have worried, the world saw her as plunderer of natural resources, rather than a mother country who, exerting her civilizing influence, brought to all her children prosperity; as Germany put it, "the exploiter of colonial societies [and] the agent of miscegenation and decadence". Over three thousand reports were issued and 100 congresses held during the event by French authorities as intellectual propaganda to counteract such ideas.

The stated mission of the Colonial Exposition was to educate the French population about the importance of its colonies, the contributions to France made by these colonies and France’s contribution to them, representing colonialism as an altruistic endeavor, an equal exchange. Naturally, France’s efforts to impose its language and cultural mores on its territories were minimized.

But in creating interest in the exports and cultures of its colonies, France was in a way perpetuating the kind of exploitation its critics charged her with on a grander scale, marketing natural resources as trinkets and “rare” delicacies.During and after the expo there was an intensified popular interest in ethnic cuisine, namely North African and Vietnamese. Celebrating these diverse cultures was sometimes another way of overlooking their situations as occupied territories.

To some extent, Colony perfume participated in this process, however unwittingly, embodying what soon became a vogue for Parisian women and French women in general: “Going Native” was the fashionable thing to do. Josephine Baker was perhaps the most significant cultural emblem of this phenomenon, bringing jazz and ethnic- inflected iconography into the country as a form of entertainment. But, in grafting the fruity tang of pineapple onto the classic French school of perfume, Colony also reflected the inevitable cross-pollination of the colonial process, where two things which had previously been mutually exclusive fused to form something entirely new.

Pineapple was an interesting choice, highly symbolic. The original bottle for the perfume, designed by Baccarat, was in the shape of the fruit which resembled both a hand grenade and a pine-cone, reflecting among other things the imminence of war. The pineapple was a particularly loaded icon, perfectly apt as a symbol of cultural trade and the impact exports could have on their receiving cultures. Colombus is said to have been the first European to come into contact with the fruit, which he discovered on his second voyage to the Caribbean region.

On the island of Guadaloupe, he and his crew encountered human body parts cooking in large pots—and, not too far away, pineapples. He brought the exotic edible back to Europe with him, civilizing the fruit by removing its associations with savagery. At the time, Europe was practically devoid of sweets. Sugar was a rare commodity, and fresh fruits were extremely limited, making Columbus’ discovery quite a lucrative find. The pineapple became a symbol of prestige and celebrity. To own one was to be worldly, if not royalty. At one point, to be presented with one was emblematic of extreme privilege. It would be two centuries before cultivation of the pineapple was possible in Europe, but long after that it persisted as a symbol of status and cultural exchange through colonization.

Patou’s Colony spoke to a new public consciousness, embodying the conflicted ideas of colonialism in the 20^th century. It illustrated in the form of perfume the erosion of boundaries and distinctions which takes place when two very specific forms or entities merge, sacrificing their individuality for a more elusive ambiguity, a third thing neither of them would achieve or be by themselves. If one must use Grace Kelly to articulate the quality of Colony, a more fitting image for the fragrance is the story of Josephine Baker’s rebellion against the Stork Club, New York’s pre-eminent nightclub and the apogee of 1950s segregated celebrity. Josephine charged the club with racism for refusing her service.

Kelly, who was dining there at the time, joined Baker in her protest, vowing never to patronize the establishment again, a promise she honored. The women, who couldn’t have been further removed from each other in the public imagination, remained friends for life. When Baker went bankrupt, Kelly gave her the use of a villa in Monaco and financial assistance. Their alliance contributed in some way to breaking down preconceived divisions, and like Colony, with its gorgeous leathery chypre and pineapple composition, went some way toward illustrating the complexities surrounding the issues of the Colonial enterprise of the French Empire. If Grace Kelly is on that veranda, Josephine Baker is there with her, and they're drinking from the same delicious cocktail.

Bring on the Earthy Scents

My partner-in-crime, Brian, who co-writes I Smell Therefore I Am with me, is the best because he puts up with my incessant emails about perfume. I’ve noticed, from reading the email threads back and forth between the two of us that my taste in perfume has begun to change. I wonder if this happens to other perfume-addicts? Eight years ago I would never have longed to wear Tabac Blond, Bandit, Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur or Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist. Heck, even three years ago I probably would have considered Caron’s Narcisse Noir slightly unusual, whereas I now think of it as a pretty little number. I emailed Brian recently to tell him that lately all I want are deep, dark, earthy perfumes with loads of vetiver, balsam, sandalwood, tobacco, leather, ambergris and patchouli. Underworld by Soivohle’ is a current holy grail. The Different Company’s Sel de Vetiver has been making me swoon all summer long. Hermes’ Eau des Merveilles, has been a favorite for a few years now and I love the ambergris note. Avignon, Kyoto and actually all five from the Comme des Garcons incense series are the sort of scents I crave now. Perhaps this is a normal reaction from becoming bored with all my citrusy, clean, light florals for the summer. Or maybe it’s a contrariness I've developed because perfume offerings have been dominated by fruity-floral-cocktails for so long. Oh, and how could I forget Mousse de Chine by Ava Luxe (previously known as Moss) and Madame X. It surprises me that I love Montale’s Black Aoud, but I do, and lately all I want to smell is the earthy stuff.

Zombi, by Black Phoeniz Alchemy Lab

Ungaro III and Czech and Speake No. 88 get all the love when it comes to arguably goth rose fragrances, yet Zombi openly references associations those two only politely hint at--the sleepless, the undead, New Orleans plantation homes with floor to ceiling windows and moonlight coming through. That isn’t to say Zombi isn’t a perfectly presentable soliflor. But it can easily be admired on parallel, even mutually exclusive, planes: as a nice, quiet rose in a porcelain dish, and something the undead would bring you, clenched between what’s left of his teeth.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is owned by Elizabeth Moriarty Barrial and Brian Constantine. The company is based in Los Angeles. The perfume sold by BPAL is blended by hand, using natural ingredients such as essential oils and absolutes. Some of the oils contain honey and/or beeswax. Otherwise, the products are vegan friendly. Though you’ll probably see it classified as a dirty rose, Zombi is much more than that. Fresh Cannabis Rose is “dirty” in the sense this term usually means—-dirty as a sort of condition, the opposite of fresh or dewy, maybe. Zombi is more conceptual, aspiring to a very specific if inarticulate realm of associations.

The name is a giveaway. The scent immediately recalls moist, upturned soil, the faint whiff of wet grass and trodden Johnny jump-ups. It's one of the more fascinating, evocative BPAL fragrances I've tried. “Our scents run the aesthetic gamut of magickal, pagan and mythological blends, Renaissance, Medieval and Victorian formulas, and horror/Gothic-themed scents,” say the owners, who, talking like this, might as well call themselves Dr. Frankenstein. BPAL has many oils. Possibly, too many. The site lists upwards of 100. Dragon’s Blood, Dragon’s Tears, Danube, The Hanging Garden. Zombi can be found under the section titled Ars Moriendim, wich translates into “The Art of Dying” and refers to a pair of so-named texts from about 1415 and 1450, products of the Black Death, which describe how to end well.

Other series of oils are Sin and Salvation, Mad Tea Party, Wanderlust, and Rappaccini’s Garden. The Stardust Collection is based on the characters, locations, ideas, and dreams found within the pages of Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name. You see where this is going. It’s hard to take Black Phoenix too seriously, which makes their obvious sense of humor about themselves a fortuitous thing.

Zombi is a fragrance oil and comes in a standard apothecary screw top bottle. All BPAL oils are sold in 5 ml decants. Zombi is $15.00. The notes are listed as dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth.

The above photo is from quasara.blogspot.com

Balmain Ambre Gris: A Review

Balmain Ambre Gris recently launched in March 2008. The nose behind the fragrance is Guillaume Flavigny. The notes are described as: myrrh, cinnamon, pink pepper, immortal flower, benzoin, tuberose and ambergris.

I know, I know…Balmain must have been required by law to include pink pepper since it’s the trendy note of 2007-08. I was amused by “immortal flower” since I’ve never heard of it before and it sounds imaginary to me. A quick google search didn’t shed any light on immortal flower so I’m guessing it’s a fantasy note.

The perfume itself is very sweet. It’s described by Balmain as a “woodsy-animalic-oriental” and with the mention of ambergris I was not expecting something so über-sweet. When I read the list of notes I anticipated something along the lines of Hermes Eau des Merveilles. Ambre Gris doesn’t bear any resemblance to Eau des Merveilles to me. I definitely smell a rubbery tuberose in Ambre Gris along with soft spices like cinnamon & myrrh. I would categorize Ambre Gris as closer to a gourmand rather than a woodsy-oriental. There might be some woody notes in there but you really have to go sniffing for them. Overall, what I smell is a “sweet, rubbery, chocolately tuberose with soft spices.” This is not so say Ambre Gris isn’t a nice fragrance. Even though it’s sweet, it has its merits. I think I was merely put off by Balmain’s description of the fragrance, which just isn’t accurate to me. If I had been prepared for what I smelled I might have liked it more.

It strikes me as the sort of fragrance that someone who likes Lolita Lempicka (though not fruity like LL), Trouble by Boucheron or Dior’s Hypnotic Poison might like. I think Balmain Ambre Gris is nice, especially if you are expecting a sweet floral-gourmand and not a “woodsy-animalic-oriental.”

The bottle is charming in person – I’d call it handsome. I worried the top might look like a golf ball or perhaps Epcot center but sitting atop the classy cube-shaped bottle it simply works.

I just bought Balmain Ambre Gris for $24.95 from www.parfum1.com. At this price, I’m perfectly happy with the fragrance and I’ll surely give it a go during the cooler months.
Lasting power: Excellent ~ 5-6 hours.
Sillage: Medium ~ if you’re a heavy spritzer others will smell it.
PS: I sprayed this on my friend and it smells much more woodsy on him. It still smells entirely sweet on me but I can smell the woodsy quality along with salt on him. Huh....

About Names: The Basenotes Reviewers

Yesterday I posted the first in a continuing series surveying arbitrarily selected Basenotes.net reviews of individual fragrances, starting with Insense, by Givenchy.

As I read over the reviews, I started thinking about how people name themselves online. What do the Basenotes member names mean? I wondered. Why do people pick the screen names they do? By what logic?

I always assume the selection of these names to be highly coded and, to the casual reader, nonsensical, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that some of these terms come up on a simple Google search.

Here, for your future reference, is a brief glossary of the Basenotes screen names mentioned thus far.


Foetidus seems to mean bad-smelling, and is used in horticultural nomenclature to indicate slightly stinky. As in, fetid.

Vibert might possibly refer to Jean-Pierre Vibert, 1777-1866. According to an appreciation by Brent C. Dickerson, Vibert was the master rose-hybridizer of the first half of the 19th Century, introducing hundreds of roses from 1816 to 1851, man of strong opinions, courage, and discernment; enlightened, skillful author; soldier under Napolean! No one can study rose history or old roses without being surrounded by the name Vibert; no one can grow roses old or new without feeling his often silent influence. And yet, so modest was he about himself personally that most details of his personal life--even including what his first name was!--were largely unknown until, assisted overseas by a French colleague, I had the good fortune to be able to discover this personal data buried in French civic records and scattered as stray remarks in periodicals contemporary with Vibert.

Castorpollux probably refers to Castor and Pollux, twin heroes in Greek mythology called the Dioscuri; Castor was the son of Leda and Tyndareus, Pollux the son of Leda and Zeus. They were brothers to Helen and Clytemnestra. Castor excelled as a horseman and Pollux as a boxer. They were great warriors and were noted for their devotion to each other. In one version of the legend, after Castor was killed by Lynceus, Pollux, in accordance with the classical tradition that one of every set of twins is the son of a god and thus immortal, begged Zeus to allow his brother to share his immortality with him. Zeus arranged for the twins to divide their time evenly between Hades and Heaven, and in their honor he created the constellation Gemini. The image at right is by Peter Rubens and is called The Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux.


Wicozani is a Lakota Indian term for good total health, used to describe a healthy, well-functioning tribal community.

Naed_Nitrum I'm still working on.

Dolce and Gabbana Ad from Spring-Summer 2007

My goodness, how did I miss this Dolce & Gabbana ad of two FBI agents who have come upon a knocked over mannequin? Who did this unspeakable crime?

Cannabis Rose

Cannabis Rose is the latest in a line of fragrances by the Fresh Company, most of which seem to come and go (see Patchouli Pure, Galbanum Patchouli, Tobacco Flower, Tobacco Caramel, Violet Moss, etc.). As with the Guerlain Acqua Allegoria series, the brand’s philosophy seems to be survival of the fittest. However, if its allegedly masculine counterpart is any indication, Cannabis Rose should be available for a while.

Cannabis Rose shares with its “brother” Cannabis Santal a certain sandiness or grittiness, a quality as difficult to articulate as it is to get your nose around. The clarity of the rose remains throughout, though it roots around in dirtier terrain at various stages, showing itself off in different ways.

Neither sibling has the bright synthetic cheer of Sake and the other Fresh old reliables, that curious sense of arid pungency now synonymous with the packaging, a Barbie doll’s dream of just-washed, lotion-slathered skin. The notes are listed by Fresh as Bulgarian Rose, pomegranate flower, Italian bergamot, jasmine, chocolate, white musk, patchouli, and oolong tea leaves. The chocolate in Cannabis Rose is negligible, something the marketers came up with to get you in the right frame of mind. Probably what they mean is that something here is vaguely gourmand, and chocolate is an easy, evocative reference point, like vanilla but costlier, or naughtier.

The overriding accents are musk and patchouli, which cancel each other out just enough to support the rose rather than upstage it. They probably make the difference between, say, Fresh Cannabis Rose and Fresh Fig-Apricot. Whatever the difference, Cannabis Rose and Cannabis Santal remain consistent with the overall Fresh project, possessing the requisite foundational properties which each Fresh scent is scrupulously edited toward, whatever those might be. Cannabis Rose is nice on its own: a complex but uncluttered soliflor rose. It also layers well, if you’re so inclined. The same qualities which make it behave so well on the skin endow it with the capacity to play nicely with others, lending just the right amount of rose to perk up the same old oriental or chypre.

Fresh Cannabis Rose was developed by perfumer Jerome Epinette and released several months ago. As with Cannabis Santal, for which this is a sort of flanker, the name is meant to suggest the waft of the dreaded ganja leaf. While evoking marijuana is bound to make this rose respectably provocative to the right bunch, lending the whole proposition a frisson of civil disobedience, you don’t have to be a smoker to know this smells nothing like weed, in or out of the pipe. Calling it cannabis is crying wolf in a way, building expectations which ultimately remain frustrated, and such misguided marketing might just distract from the fragrance’s real strengths.

The fragrance comes in EDP and lasts well. You can buy it at Sephora in a 1 oz. gift set along with lotion and shower gel, both nice, or in 100 ml. The gift set is $45.00. The bottle sold separately is 75.