Cartier

Perfume Chat Room, May 10
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Perfume Chat Room, May 10

Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Saturday, May 10, and I’m late posting because we’re on our way to London!

I have a long list of things I want to do, mostly special exhibits or events since I’ve been lucky enough to visit London quite regularly because of my husbands job, which takes him there often.

Tops on my list is the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, which I last visited pre-pandemic (I think it was 2019). And of course, I plan to enjoy the usual spectacular displays by the UK’s top rose breeders, which are always so beautiful — and fragrant.

Then there’s a massive exhibit of Cartier jewelry at the V&A Museum, and an installation of the red ceramic memorial poppies at the Tower of London, plus a special exhibit of apparel at Kensington Palace. Whew!

To get in the mood for Chelsea, I’m wearing a sample of Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Rosa Verde. It’s very pretty and fresh, but I’m not sure how I feel about the dry down. It’s almost a bit sour, to my nose.

On the other wrist, I spritzed Cartier’s Baiser Volé, also very pretty but with a progression I find more appealing,

If you know of any more must-dos or must-sniffs, please add suggestions in the comments! And if you were going to a massive flower show, what would you wear as fragrance?

My own roses

Perfume Chat Room, March 29
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Perfume Chat Room, March 29

Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Friday, March 29, and it is Good Friday in the Western Christian world (the dates when the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Good Friday and Easter are different). For the first time, I was able to go downtown to my church and help with all the labor that goes into the magnificent floral arrangements we enjoy at Easter. Even though Good Friday is a somber day, it was lovely to work with my hands with a very congenial group of fellow parishioners and handle the gorgeous flowers. The large room where we were working was filled with their fragrance, especially the lilies but also roses and stock.

There were many other flowers but those were the most fragrant. As I smelled it, I kept thinking it reminded me of an actual perfume, and then I realized what it was: Cartier’s Carat.

A fraction of the flowers to be arranged for Easter Sunday

Created by Mathilde Laurent in 2018, I feel as if Carat has never gotten much vocal love among perfumistas. I like it very much, especially in the spring. It was meant to constitute a fragrant evocation of diamonds, with their prismatic reflection of the whole color spectrum, each component color represented by a different flower.

To accomplish this, the perfume maker decided to imitate an optical phoneme that is characteristic of diamonds: diffraction of color. So she chose seven different fresh flowers that, when combined, formed a new, abstract flower.

The composition represents the colors of rainbow in the form of flowers; violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red are captured with the notes of violet, lily, hyacinth, ylang-ylang, narcissus, honeysuckle and tulips.

Per Fragrantica, top notes are Green Notes, Pear and Bergamot; middle notes are Hyacinth, Tulip, Narcissus, Lily, Honeysuckle, Violet and Ylang-Ylang; base notes are Mimosa and White Musk. I agree with one reviewer who also smelled lilac; I have a small lilac blooming on my patio right now, and it definitely makes an appearance in Carat. It reminds me of the lilac in Jean Patou’s Vacances, the Collection Heritage version created by Thomas Fontaine in 2014.

Now that my nose has associated Carat with arranging Easter flowers, I think I’ll have to wear it on Easter Sunday, together with a hat. If you celebrate Easter or another spring holiday, do you have any favorite fragrances you associate with the holiday? And do you have any special Easter or other spring holiday traditions?