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Counterpoint: Ginger Biscuit
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Counterpoint: Ginger Biscuit

This is the last month of Portia’s and my collaboration, so the last “Counterpoint” unless I decide to resume in January. For December, we agreed to write about Jo Malone’s Ginger Biscuit, first launched in 2013 as part of a limited edition collection called “Sugar and Spice.” The perfumer who created it was Christine Nagel. It was released again this year as a holiday special release, just in time for me to grab some for my daughter’s birthday. Jo Malone’s Global Head of Fragrance, Céline Roux, describes its creation:

“Ginger Biscuit is not sugary sweet at all. If it was, it just wouldn’t be wearable. We have a lot of creamy wood notes in the formulation; you need the elegance of the wood to make it wearable. There’s also some natural ginger, which brings a zingy freshness and balances out the sweetness, and vanilla absolute. When you create scents like this, you need the best quality vanilla so that it is not candy sweet. So, what you get instead is a mouth-watering gourmand.” 

1. How did you first encounter Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit, and what was your first impression?

Old Herbaceous: Ginger Biscuit was one of the small 9 ml bottles that came in a holiday fragrance sampler set from Jo Malone several years ago (basically the same set is now available again as a holiday coffret, with some really nice scents). I tried it and liked it, but I liked all the fragrances in the collection! Then my daughters asked to do a fragrance-sniffing session over Christmas a couple of years ago, and my oldest absolutely fell in love with Ginger Biscuit. Of course it had been a limited edition and was discontinued for the time being, available online only for exorbitant prices. I didn’t realize just how much she loved it until she told me of her many searches for a dupe or something that might come close. She rarely falls for a fragrance so hard, so I kept looking myself and hoping to find a stray bottle for her.

Well, lo and behold, someone commented on a Facebook group for fragrance fans, back in October, that they had seen Ginger Biscuit briefly listed on the Saks Fifth Avenue website, though it had quickly vanished. This raised the hope among many perfumistas that it was due to be re-released for the holidays. My city has a Saks Fifth Avenue store and it’s not far from where we live, so I made a rare trip to the mall to ask a sales associate for any information. The lovely woman who helped me confirmed that it would be a holiday release, and said she thought it would arrive at the start of November. I also stopped by Nordstrom, and another lovely sales associate told me the same thing. Both of them took my name and phone number. Just a few days later, the SA from Saks called me and said she had just gotten in a few bottles and would hold one for me. Shortly after that, the SA from Nordstrom made the same call. And so, dear readers, that is how I ended up with not one but two bottles of Ginger Biscuit. We gave one to our daughter in November for her birthday, and she was thrilled. Imagine her surprise when the second bottle appears under the Christmas tree! She’ll be set for life, or at least for several years.

Portia: I’d never heard of Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit before Old Herbaceous told me about it and how excited she and other perfumistas have been about its re-release for Christmas 2023. TBH Jo Malone perfumes just aren’t on my radar. Jin wears the woody number one and I had a couple of bath oils, Red Roses and Blue Agave. They were nice but the perfumes I’ve tried have all been totally underwhelming. 

So it was with mild trepidation that I ventured into town and grabbed a small decant from the tester bottle (all samples had gone in the first few days of arrival, the SA was really lovely and even did the sample into my own little decant).

My first impression was. OH! it really is what is says on the bottle. A delightful waft of freshly opened iced gingerbread man wafted out as the SA was decanting. I was very taken but off to another perfume event so couldn’t douse myself.

2. How would you describe the development of Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit?

Portia: HA! I can’t help but smile like a fool when I spritz Ginger Biscuit. It’s just so freaking lifelike. Photo realism in fragrance. Ginger Biscuit smells like a ginger biscuit, or what is much closer to my heart an iced gingerbread man from Pizza Hut. I smell my wafting gorgeousness and am transported back 45 years and more to family events. We had a really lovely one in the next suburb and went for every occasion. The staff knew us, it was wheelchair accessible for Dad, there were banquettes that Mum and I loved to sit in with a chair for Jodie (my sister) and space for Dad. They had all you can eat salad and soda. At the end of every meal as we left the staff would give us kids an iced gingerbread man. THIS IS THE SMELL.

As we move from the top into the heart the ginger remains but less intense. Here the whole fragrance becomes a soft, chewy caramel that’s heavy on the vanilla.  

It gets more and more vanilla essence as it dries down and is the softest, merest wash of gorgeous gourmand for hours and hours and hours.

Old Herbaceous: Right out of the bottle, Ginger Biscuit smells to me like a true gingersnap, spicy, sweet, and warm. It smells like a cookie or gingerbread that was made with real ginger and spices instead of artificial flavoring. I don’t usually gravitate to gourmand fragrances, as I find many to be too sweet and heavy for my taste, but Ginger Biscuit stays light and spicy. It is sweet, and there is a lovely vanilla that pervades the whole development from start to finish. A dominant note is said to be caramel, but I smell brown sugar more than caramel. The cinnamon and nutmeg bring depth to the sweetness of the vanilla and brown sugar, just as they do in real baking.

The vanilla persists even after the spiciness fades into the background. I do like a good vanilla, and that is how Ginger Biscuit ends up on my skin. It smells wonderful on my daughter; I enjoy it more on her than on myself, just because of her obvious delight in it. Smelling this light, sweet vanilla fragrance on her skin reminds me of how sweet she and her siblings smelled as babies, a very happy memory.

3. Do you or will you wear Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit regularly? For what occasions or seasons?

Old Herbaceous: Ginger Biscuit is absolutely perfect for the winter holiday season and beyond. Given the associations with gingerbread, I would wear it most in autumn and winter. It would be lovely to wear to a workplace during the holidays, as it isn’t overpowering. If you do wear it to work, you should be prepared to have people follow you trying to figure out what smells so nice!

That said, I don’t see myself wearing it very often, and now it will be a signature scent of my daughter’s, so that makes it even less likely that I would wear it often myself. But I might get in the habit of pulling out my small bottle at Christmas every year! It would be the perfect fragrance for Christmas morning breakfast, when our family tradition is to make cinnamon rolls.

Portia: Honestly? Though Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit is very nice, has excellent memories and smells good I just can’t imagine myself wanting to smell like this. I’ll definitely use up this decant over the silly season but am much more comfortable in Nuit Noel and Exultat for my hit of Holy. Maybe also because in Australia we are usually at around 35C/95f by 10am and thinking more about swimming pools and beaches than roaring fires.

4. Who should/could wear Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit?

Portia: Anyone who wants to smell like they’ve just been baking gingerbread or who loves the idea of smelling utterly edible. Even though I’m not putting my hand up for a bottle I really can imagine Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit smelling wonderful on both the major sexes and anything in between. It would be so nice to hug people over the holiday season who smell of it and I can imagine in the cold northern hemisphere that many compliments and questions about this beautiful scent would come your way.

Imagine on Christmas morning while hugging in thanks for gifts, smelling so divine! It would be the cherry on top of the magic.

Old Herbaceous: This could be happily worn by anyone, of any persuasion. It is as non-gender-specific as baking is. It’s a cozy scent, so anyone who wants to smell warm and cuddly should give it a try. It might attract some cuddles! I know many perfumistas were ecstatic that it has been re-released this year, and I can see why. Wouldn’t it be nice if Jo Malone would release it for every holiday season, as Clinique used to do with Wrappings?

Have you fallen for this or any other limited holiday release fragrance?

Bottle of Ginger Biscuit fragrance by Jo Malone
Jo Malone holiday release Ginger Biscuit
Perfume Chat Room, December 1
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Perfume Chat Room, December 1

Rabbit rabbit! 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, December 1, and I managed to avoid making any fragrance purchases in the weeklong “Black Friday” sales that were swamping my inbox! I’m patting myself on the back because some were quite tempting. Undina’s Saturday Question last weekend was whether one had bought any fragrance items during the sales, or planned to, which elicited some confessions, lol. I used the sales to get ahead on some Christmas shopping for family members and to buy a new refrigerator.

I feel very productive this week: I’ve gotten ahead on some volunteer work, I went to three workout classes at our local YMCA, and I’ve gotten quite a few plants and bulbs planted, including moving an entire climbing rose. I hope all this activity will help me drop the pounds I gained over Thanksgiving, just in time for Christmas! Also, our son who will graduate this spring got a terrific job offer, which he has accepted and which is located in our city, so he’ll be close by. It’s a happy close to the very tough semester he’s had this fall. We’re very proud of his patience and resilience!

Here it is, December 1, and I haven’t decided whether or not I’ll do another “Scented Advent” series this year. I think if I do, it won’t be every day, because I’ve got a lot of tasks to get done. These include clearing out the lower level of our house so our oldest daughter can use it as an apartment while she applies to graduate school and saves on rent with the goal of buying housing sooner. I do have so many samples and decants that I have plenty of material with which to generate content. Maybe I’ll just do it on Sundays … stay tuned. And come back on Monday for another Portia/OH collaboration!

We put up our tree last weekend and it smells wonderful. We still get a real tree, though my DH wants to revisit the issue of an artificial tree. Maybe for next year … So many holiday preparations going on all around us! Hanukkah starts next week and this Sunday is the first official Sunday of Advent. I need to get out my Advent wreath candles and buy the actual wreath. That is a Christmas tradition I do love.

Are you getting ready for any particular holiday or holiday traditions?

Advent wreath with colored candles
Advent wreath with candles, including Gaudete pink candle
Perfume Chat Room, November 24
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Perfume Chat Room, November 24

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, November 25 — Black Friday! I hope all who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday had a wonderful, peaceful holiday filled with love and food. I’m still recovering from the excellent meal we had (mostly cooked by me, I love to cook). Thank goodness, we ate in mid-afternoon, which provided time to go for a short walk after the feast and delay dessert. No evening supper was necessary!

I haven’t bought any fragrances for Black Friday although there are some nice discounts available, including among independent perfumers like Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, whose coupon code “cheer20” gets you 20%% off, and Scent Trunk, which has 30% off site-wide, deducted in your shopping cart. We did, however, order a new refrigerator (!) that I’ve been eyeing for some time now. The very large one we’ve had for 25 years still works fine, but we don’t need that much capacity any more and I’d rather have more floor space. We also need a fridge for the bottom level of our house, which will temporarily become an apartment for our oldest while she gets ready to apply to and attend graduate school (fingers crossed). Saving on rent will help. That level of our house has its own private entrance into the back garden, so she can come and go as she pleases without disturbing us.

It’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas here, as my husband went and got our Christmas tree and put it up with our son’s help. It’s a Fraser fir, and it smells lovely. We haven’t put anything on it yet, as its branches still need to come down a bit. It was so sunny and warm here today that I spent most of the day outside, doing some late planting of daffodil bulbs and cleaning up perennials. It was a good way to work off some of yesterday’s excesses! I did make an effort to have mostly healthy side dishes, like sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. The dressing (what I call “stuffing”, but I bake it separately) was loaded with minced veggies and turkey sausage; and the cranberry chutney featured both cranberries and diced apples along with real ginger. Yum!

If you celebrated, how was your Thanksgiving? If you shopped, how was your Black Friday?

Counterpoint: Beyond Paradise
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Counterpoint: Beyond Paradise

November’s “Counterpoint” fragrance is Estée Lauder’s Beyond Paradise, in its original bottle and formulation. In many ways, it is a unique fragrance: almost a hologram of an imaginary tropical flower.

Rainbow bottle of Beyond Paradise eau de parfum
Beyond Paradise by Estée Lauder; image by Portia Turbo.

1. How did you first encounter Estee Lauder Beyond Paradise, and what was your first impression? 

Old Herbaceous: Like a few other scents I’ve described, I first encountered Beyond Paradise because Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez rated it with five stars in their book “Perfumes: The A-Z Guide.” That book was a big part of my going down the rabbit-hole with fragrance, and I sought out several of the five-star fragrances as part of educating myself and my sense of smell. Although Beyond Paradise is still available (though apparently discontinued now), what one usually finds is a reformulation dating from 2015, in a standardized rectangular clear glass bottle. The original, in the ovoid rainbow-tinted bottle, was launched in 2003, created by Calice Becker. That’s the one I sought, with eventual success.

My first impression was “Wow – white floral alert!”, though I wouldn’t describe it as the proverbial “Big White Floral” that strikes terror into so many perfumistas’ hearts (or noses). I have mixed feelings about white florals. I love many white floral notes and accords, like jasmine and gardenia, and their corresponding flowers in real life, especially outside. Many white flower fragrances smell more like hothouse plants, grown in humid greenhouses and conservatories, warm and somewhat stifling. I wonder if this is because many perfumers encounter the blooms of plants like jasmine and gardenia in those settings?

Interestingly, Beyond Paradise is supposed to have been inspired by the largest conservatory in Europe and the UK, possibly in the world: the Eden Project in Cornwall, which I’ve actually visited with my family some years ago.

The Eden Project, Cornwall

This origin is reflected in the 2003 list of its notes:

Top Notes: Eden’s Mist, Blue Hyacinth, Orange Flower Templar, Jabuticaba Fruit
Middle Notes: Laelia Orchid, Crepe Jasmin, Mahonia Japonica, Pink Honeysuckle
Base Notes: Natal Plum Blossoms, Ambrette Seed, Zebrano Wood, Golden Melaleuca Bark

The accord “Eden’s Mist” is supposed to be based on the scent of the air inside one of the Eden Project’s domes. More prosaically, Fragrantica gives the following notes list: Top notes: Hyacinth, Orange Blossom, Grapefruit, Bergamot and Lemon; middle notes are Jasmine, Gardenia, Honeysuckle and Orchid; base notes are Hibiscus, Plum Wood, Ambrette (Musk Mallow) and Amber.

Portia: Many years ago on my first visit to India after Varun had moved back to help run the families’ hotels, I was shopping in the Sydney Airport Duty Free for gifts to give him and the family. Because I’d spent some serious money the SA was unbelievably generous with the samples. One of those was a spray mini of Beyond Paradise. When I first sprayed it on me I couldn’t believe anything could smell so good and fell madly in love on the spot. Nothing in my history of loving perfumes prepared me for what Beyond Paradise is.

Funnily, when I arrived in India Varun loathed it. He couldn’t understand why I would want to smell exactly like the jasmine, tuberose and marigold that Indian women wore woven into their hair and that Indians gave to their deities’ statues. 

Obviously I ignored him and wore the whole mini over the next two weeks. I think I bought my first bottle on the way home.

2. How would you describe the development of Estee Lauder Beyond Paradise?

Portia: JASMINE! with some other florals and a citrus burst running underneath. It’s so over the top I can’t help but laugh and then once that dies down I continue to huff my wrist and smile the smile of a happy perfumista. There is even a squeal-y urinous hit from the grapefruit and a breathy poopiness. To me this is the most French of the Lauder summer oeuvre. Definitely not the super clean of many American perfumes. There is the dewy cool fresh water aspect though, like the cold rivulets on a bottle of white wine.

How are marigolds not a note, I can smell their sharp funkiness clear as day.

While Beyond Paradise does have a trajectory it’s not a large one and the noted amber in the base seems to pass me by completely. There are some green broken branches or twigs, white flowers and shitloads of vegetal musks with still pretty hints of pithy citrus right to the end.

Old Herbaceous: Given that my first impression is of exotic flowers growing in a conservatory, I think my nose is actually picking up on “Eden’s Mist”. I don’t smell any hyacinth, and I couldn’t tell you what jaboticaba fruit smells like. The closest I can describe to what I smell at first is a combination of jasmine and tropical orchids. Although Mahonia japonica is listed as a middle note, I don’t smell that. I grow mahonias in my garden, and to me they smell most like lily of the valley. That’s not what I smell in Beyond Paradise. In fact, the whole development of Beyond Paradise most resembles its origin story: a walk through a fantasy conservatory with abstract, imaginary flowers. I agree with Portia, though, that of all the floral components, the strongest is a jasmine accord.

Lauder initially described the fragrance and its flankers as “prismatic florals”. The word “prismatic” usually refers to the image created when a prism refracts a beam of light, separating into its color constituents. I experience Beyond Paradise as a sort of prism in reverse, with its many notes coalescing into a smoothly abstract whole. The image that comes to my mind is the modern sculpture “Cloud Gate”, by Anish Kapoor, in Chicago’s Millennium Park. It is made up of almost two hundred stainless steel plates, welded together so seamlessly that it appears as an unbroken polished surface (shaped like a giant bean, which is its nickname). To my nose, Beyond Paradise is almost linear, though it warms slightly after about an hour or two. That’s also when I smell some underlying fruitiness and green, and a bit of the funk that Portia describes.

Cloud Gate, by Anish Kapoor

3. Do you or will you wear Estee Lauder Beyond Paradise regularly? For what occasions or seasons?

Old Herbaceous: I don’t wear it often, but it’s a lovely fragrance for warm weather or a beach vacation. It also works well in an office, since it doesn’t shout BWF. I think it would be great for a romantic dinner outside on a terrace on a warm summer evening. It is quite elegant, in its streamlined abstraction.

Portia: The last couple of summer seasons Beyond Paradise did not come out of the Lauder box even once. I always think of Lauder as winter perfumes like Youth Dew, Azuree, and Cinnabar and forget this, Modern Muse and Beyond Paradise in the warmer months. This year as the weather heats up I’m leaving it in the grab tray so it does get a bunch of wears. It’s way too gorgeous and holds too many happy memories to leave it languishing, all forlorn in the cupboard.

Spring and summer seem like the perfect and obvious seasons to wear Beyond Paradise but I think it might be nice on any sunshiny day. It could also be a breath of nature and cool water in an office environment. So bright and refreshing without feeling like a regular freshie.

4. Who should/could wear Estee Lauder Beyond Paradise?

Portia: This is perhaps one of the girliest non-confectionary perfumes that’s available. I will say though that when I wear it the incongruity of a dude walking around smelling like this works in my favour. It’s one of the perfumes that people ask about. Mainly because it jumps out as not something you often smell on gents. 

The change of bottle from gorgeous to boring AF will also mean that men will probably have less trouble having it on their dresser or in the collection.

Old Herbaceous: The opening of Beyond Paradise puts it squarely in the “feminine floral” camp, but as it dries down, it becomes more unisex to my nose and reminds me of some classic aquatic fragrances. I think it would especially suit anyone on a warm summer evening, when its fantasy florals would blend with the night air, especially in a humid climate. If you come across it at a reasonable price, sometimes still found online, it’s a nice addition to a fragrance collection unless you just loathe florals.

How do you respond to white florals, big or otherwise? Any favorites? Have you tried Beyond Paradise?

Counter/Point, a monthly blog collaboration
Perfume Chat Room, November 17
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Perfume Chat Room, November 17

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, November 17, and next week brings Thanksgiving in the US. I love Thanksgiving! I like to cook, and it is a holiday that’s really all about food and family. All three of our young adult children will be with us, as usual, and I’m especially looking forward to our youngest being home from college for a few days (although his college is near by, he lives on campus during the semester). The weather here has been mild, though cloudy — very good for planting. I have some new roses and daffodil bulbs to plant (two of my top favorite flowers), and I’m making progress. I choose roses based in part on their fragrance, so I’m looking forward to lots of rose scent in my garden next summer. Since Thanksgiving is also all about gratitude, I may also do a special post on “What Went Well”; I invite you to join me in reflecting on what went well for you this year.

We gave our daughter her longed-for Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit for her birthday last week and it was a big hit! She had guessed we might be getting it for her, because she texted me that she had heard it was reissued and when she got my non-committal reply, she thought I probably had already bought it, lol.

On Monday, I’ll be posting November’s “Counterpoint”, a 2023 monthly collaboration between me and Portia Turbo of Australian Perfume Junkies. Last week, we posted our other project, “Notes on Notes”, focusing on oud. All good things come to an end, and since those were a 2023 project, November and December will be the last of the collaboration, but I might continue with one of them. Let me know what you think!

Next week also brings “Black Friday” and its many sales, some of which have already begun. Macy’s is having a 50% off sale on some Guerlains and others in the 1 oz. size, I noticed, and significant markdowns on larger sizes of other brands. Are you eyeing any particular fragrant purchases next week, or watching any particular websites for discounts? If you find any great markdowns, please share in the comments!

Carding Mill rose growing through Annabelle hydrangea, Summer 2023
Perfume Chat Room, November 10
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Perfume Chat Room, November 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 Friday, November 10, and tomorrow is Armistice/Veterans Day. As the granddaughter, daughter, and wife of veterans (both British and American), I honor their service.

Earlier this week, Portia of Australian Perfume Junkies and I published our monthly “Notes on Notes”, this time on oud (or oudh). Please add your thoughts in the comments, on those posts or here!

My retired life has become something of a social whirl this month, starting with the family christening that just took place last weekend. It was such fun, the baby was perfect (of course!), and I loved spending the weekend with both of my sisters (the baby’s grandmother is my older sister). I stayed with my other sister, who sings in three (3!) rock bands, and she took me to see the Taylor Swift concert movie on Saturday. It was SO MUCH FUN! She and I and her friend were among the few adults there, surrounded by a sea of little girls aged about 8-11, and a handful of saintly mothers who had shepherded groups of children there. Some of them were even game enough to wear sequined tops, which is apparently a thing. My sister and I wore sequined scarves, just for the spirit of the thing. Honestly, the movie was great fun, even if you’re not a Swiftie (which I’m not). The stagecraft alone was spectacular to see, and I was surprised at how many of her songs I actually knew from the radio. My favorite video of that song, though, is the YouTube video of a Dover, Delaware patrol officer lip-syncing to it:

Cracks me up every time!

What fragrance did I wear to the concert movie? Diptyque’s Eau Rose! Going all in on pink. I really enjoy that fragrance.

NST’s Community Project this week is to mark author Neil Gaiman’s birthday today by wearing a fragrance that refers to one of his books or characters, or evokes other fantasy fiction. So my SOTD is the new eau de parfum release of Fath’s L’Iris de Fath, since it is a fragrance unicorn and a unicorn is featured in his book “Stardust” (later made into a delightful movie). I had the joy of trying the extrait de parfum a few years ago, at Jovoy Paris‘ boutique in London, so I was eager to try the eau de parfum, which is more affordable (not actually affordable, I hasten to say). I was able to buy a decant in the recent NST splitmeet, and it arrived about a week ago. I’ve finally worn it — if you like iris fragrances, this is a stunner! Perfumer Patrice Revillard discusses his creation here:

Do you have any favorite fragrances that include iris as a note?

Memorial stained glass window, 1908, Louis Comfort Tiffany; Magnolias and Irises, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany; Magnolias and Irises, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Notes on Notes: Oud
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Notes on Notes: Oud

November’s “Notes on Notes” is about oud, or agarwood. I don’t think I can provide a better or clearer explanation than this, from Sarah McCartney in her book “The Perfume Companion: The Definitive Guide to Choosing Your Next Scent”:

Oud is Arabic for wood, and you’ll also see it spelled oudh, aoud, and aoudh. An oudh is also a musical instrument which looks a lot like a lute. In perfumery, though, it’s a specific kind of wood from the agarwood tree, also called aloewood. Even more specifically, this tree must be infected by a species of mould, Phialophora parasitica, which makes it strongly whiffy.

Montage of the development of agarwood and oud essence from aqualiaria trees
Agarwood and its products; image from Researchgate.net.

Perfumer Geza Schoen offered this explanation to Allure magazine in its excellent article:

Natural oud, the scent (the essential oil) arises when a particular fungus places itself on an Aquilaria tree. A reaction creates a resin that slowly embeds into the wood creating agarwood, known as oud, which is then soaked, and using a distillation and evaporation method is developed into an oil.

That is how perfumers in the Middle East, India, and the Far East have traditionally made a essential oil that can be very costly. As many perfume-lovers know, oud has been a trend in Western perfumery for several years (6  Western commercial fragrances based on oud were launched in 2007, over 200 by 2019), but what we mostly encounter is a synthetic re-creation of that oil, which puts oud-based fragrances within reach of many more fragrance lovers. The qualities of oud that don’t attract me are when it is used heavily to evoke smoke or leather. A great reference for some fragrance-lovers, but not really me. However, I’ve read that there are many different facets to oud,  in nature depending on the specific variety of Aquilaria tree and the environment where it was grown, so I’m sure the synthetic creations also vary widely.

I’ll be honest – I can’t think of many oud-focused fragrances that I like a LOT, though I don’t object to it as a supporting player. It may be that my nose is acting sensitive toward a synthetic, but that’s not usually an issue for me. And I’ve gotten weary of every other new fragrance seeming to have “oud” in its name! There is one oud-centric fragrance that I really do enjoy a lot, and it grows on me every time I wear it: David Yurman Limited Edition. It is a classic combination of rose with oud, and both are used with a deft touch. The bottle, by the way, is gorgeous, a heavy, faceted, dark red crystal flacon.

Red bottle of David Yurman Limited Edition fragrance
David Yurman Limited Edition extrait de parfum; image from Amazon.com

Launched in 2011, it is an extrait de parfum with central notes of oud and Taif rose. Top notes also include coriander, geranium, saffron, and raspberry, but the rose and oud notes appear immediately and carry through the parfum’s development, so the typical pyramid structre may not accurately describe it. Heart notes include violet and jasmine, though at this stage my nose is so distracted by the Taif rose and oud that I hardly detect them. Base notes add suede, musk, vanilla, and sandalwood. Interestingly, the notes list makes a point of saying “natural agarwood”, though that is no guarantee that the ingredient used isn’t synthetic.

I think this is a very skillful fragrance. The rose and oud could have been overwhelming, and they’re not, at least not with a controlled application, lol. This fragrance is all about gentle, rosy warmth with a bit of spice. The notes are well-blended, with saffron and fruity raspberry peeking through. The rose fades away sooner than the oud but it still hums softly in the background. DY Limited Edition reminds me a bit of Aramis’ Calligraphy Rose, and I wonder how it would compare to Calligraphy Saffron, which I haven’t tried. It’s not clear who was the perfumer behind DY Limited Edition, but I think it has to have been Harry Frémont of Firmenich, who created all the other David Yurman fragrances (the link will take you to a long interview of him by Richard Goller of the Fragroom blog).. He certainly knows his way around a rose, too, as a creator of Estée Lauder’s marvelous Knowing, as well as dozens of other scents.

Have you tried DY Limited Edition? Or can you suggest other oud fragrances that would appeal to a floral lover like me? Drop by Australian Perfume Junkies to see what Portia has to say about oud!

Perfume Chat Room, November 3
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Perfume Chat Room, November 3

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, November 3, and I’m on my way to New England for a family christening! Our niece had her first baby this year, the first grandchild of this generation. The baby is my older sister’s first grandchild. I made her a bonnet from silk and lace from my sister’s wedding dress; I’m quite pleased with how it turned out, given that it’s my first real sewing project in many years.

I’m excited — I took part this week in a NST splitmeet for the first time! I’ve received my 5 ml of Jacques Fath’s L’Iris de Fath eau de parfum from the NST splitmeet; haven’t worn it yet because I’ve been so busy this week and want to give it my full attention. Some of you may remember how I swooned when I got to sample the extrait de parfum when it was first released, at the boutique Jovoy Paris, in London. I am so, so tempted to buy the eau de parfum but I’m trying to behave myself and not rush into an expensive blind buy. Splitmeet to the rescue!

Portia and I will be posting a new “Notes on Notes” on Monday, so please drop by and share your own thoughts!

Perfume Chat Room, October 27
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Perfume Chat Room, October 27

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.

I apologize for not posting last Friday! I was helping one of our daughters pack and move all day Thursday and Friday, and it just got away from me. Earlier this week, I posted Portia Turbo’s and my latest “Counterpoint“, which I hope you’ll read if you haven’t yet. This month’s Counterpoint fragrance is Diorella. You might also like a past post I wrote about Meet Me On The Corner, Sarah McCartney’s Diorella-inspired fragrance for 4160 Tuesdays.

The roses I grow are having another flush of bloom, now that the weather has improved, and they are so fragrant! I’ve been especially noticing the fragrance of “Winchester Cathedral”, a beautiful pure white with a lemony rose scent, a lot like Jo Loves’ White Rose and Lemon Leaves, and “Princess Alexandra of Kent”, whose fragrance really does smell like perfume. Both are English Roses by the late hybridizer David Austin, who spent his life bringing strong fragrance back into modern roses by crossing them with heirloom roses. Winchester Cathedral has performed admirably all year, starting this spring, but Princess Alexandra has been the proverbial late bloomer. I’ve had her for a few years now, and never got much from her in the way of bloom, but I think I’ve finally figured out what soil amendments she wants in her pot, so she’s doing much better. I have high hopes for her next spring!

White English Rose, "Winchester Cathedral"
Winchester Cathedral rose

I’m excited — I took part this week in a NST splitmeet for the first time! I’ve requested 5 ml of Jacques Fath’s L’Iris de Fath eau de parfum from a kind NSTer. Some of you may remember how I swooned when I got to sample the extrait de parfum when it was first released, at the boutique Jovoy Paris, in London. I am so, so tempted to buy the eau de parfum but I’m trying to behave myself and not rush into an expensive blind buy. Splitmeet to the rescue!

Do you often take part in splitmeets? What has been your favorite “split”?

Counterpoint: Diorella
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Counterpoint: Diorella

Welcome to the (late!) October installment of “CounterPoint”! I was thrown off by how early the first Monday of the month was, and various other distractions, but here we are, to discuss Christian Dior’s Diorella. Thank you, Portia, for being so patient!

Launched in 1972, Diorella is a “lemon chypre”, a narrow and specialized category of fragrance, given that chypres generally are a specific category. Perfumer Edmond Roudnitska created Diorella in 1972 at the peak of his powers, having already created for Dior the legendary fragrances Diorama, Diorissimo, and Eau Sauvage.

Ad for 1972's Diorella eau de toilette
Diorella; image by Christian Dior.

Interestingly, Diorella was the inspiration for Meet Me On The Corner, a crowd-funded fragrance by Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays that she created to capture the vibe of 1970s chypres and named after a 1972 pop song.

Teenaged girls wearing tie-dyed clothing, 1970s, Doreen Spooner
Tye-dye girls, Doreen Spooner/Getty Images
  1. How did you first encounter Diorella and what was your first impression?

Portia: When Old Herbaceous asked if we could do Diorella my first internal response was “Diorella? Sure I’ve heard of it but have no memory of ever seeing it or smelling it.” Dutifully I went to the DIOR box and rummaged around just to be sure. Lo and behold, there is a 100ml, extremely vintage looking beat up houndstooth box of Diorella EdT. There’s clearly been some leakage, the sprayer and surrounds have residue and some eating away of the silver. The moment I touched the very bleached out label it just fell off. This bottle is O L D. Even on spritzing I have no memory of smelling this beauty. So while I may have smelled Diorella in the past I’m coming at it as a newbie. First impression is that I’m really surprised that the top seems to be intact. 

Old Herbaceous: My perfumista journey began when I read “The Perfect Scent” by Chandler Burr, then moved on to “Perfumes: The A-Z Guide” by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. I was fascinated by their witty insights and their rating system of stars, so I started to seek out the fragrances they had awarded five stars, their top rating. One of those was Diorella, in its pre-2009 formulation. As I learned more about fragrances, I started to figure out how to find vintage fragrances (sadly, without access to the amazing Japanese flea markets that Neil Chapman describes in his blog The Black Narcissus!). I found an intact bottle of Diorella eau de toilette that dates from 2002, as best I can tell, based on its box, bottle, and batch number. It was a reasonable price, so I snapped it up.

My Diorella

My first impression was “Yes, this is a true chypre!” I happen to love most chypres (I can’t think of one I have disliked yet), with their classic structure of citrus top notes, floral heart notes, and base notes that include oakmoss. Per Fragrantica, the structure of the original Diorella is: top notes of green notes, Sicilian lemon, bergamot, melon, and basil; middle notes of honeysuckle, Moroccan jasmine, peach, carnation, cyclamen, and rose; and base notes of oakmoss, vetiver, patchouli, and musk. While the top notes of my bottle have faded somewhat with age, the combination of citrus and green notes is still evident and lively.

2. How would you describe the development of Diorella?

Old Herbaceous: The top notes aren’t as vivid in my bottle as I’m sure they were when it was new, but they are vivid enough to indicate the lemony/green opening accord intended by M. Roudnitska. The melon and green notes have taken precedence in my bottle, including a lovely basil accord. I think the basil is what may have prompted Turin and Sanchez to declare that if Guerlain’s fragrances are desserts, Diorella is a Vietnamese beef salad. Fear not! It smells nothing like rare meat. I think I can smell a couple of the base notes right from the start, specifically the vetiver and oakmoss, humming in the background.

In the heart phase, I smell honeysuckle and jasmine. The jasmine isn’t heavy or narcotic, it stays light. The hum of vetiver and oakmoss becomes more noticeable, and soon they take over from the floral notes entirely. In the drydown and base stage, Diorella moves from fresh toward warm without becoming spicy, supported by patchouli and musk. It also lasts a good long time, surprising in a fragrance that also smells very fresh.

Portia: Fizzy opening with bright green citruses and aldehydes, leaning slightly waxy like putting your fingernail into the peel and getting that luscious burst of fresh and sunshiny goodness. The greenery is both camellia leafy and tulip stemmy, crushed to let their greenness explode.

As the initial heady notes calm, I have a very modern masculine waft of cucumber/melon intertwined with the bouquet. It’s a surprise to have something so stuck in my mind as a 1980/90s gym men’s changeroom smell be lurking so significantly in this epitome of female beauty. It does not detract from the femininity at all and makes me think of how many of the men would also swoon for Diorella.

I will say that Diorella is very cologne-ish. This is not a complaint, merely an observation. For some reason I was expecting a very fruity/mossy chypre in the style of Mitsouko. This is as far from that as you can imagine while still bearing many of the same notes.

The heart and base take a long time merging and there’s plenty of crossover during this time, plus the citruses are subtly tenacious.

The crisp, green, oily grassiness of vetiver is tempered by the earthy patchouli and moss but there is much more going on here. I’m getting wafts of quite astringent eucalyptus, the fresh green of shady creeks as you trudge through the greenery. There’s a cooling, slightly salted seaside breeze hiding below.

The last gasps are a very vegetal musk and sweet greenery.

Diorella is so tapestried and I think it will take a dozen more wears to even get a hold of what’s happening here.

3. Do you or will you wear Diorella regularly? For what occasions or seasons?

Portia: Honestly, now that I’ve found this gorgeous unicorn it might be too special to wear willy nilly. Though it feels like an excellent sunny day spritz and could give me blue sky reminiscences in winter, I think just holding the bottle and sniffing the cap will be all I’m capable of doing.

Old Herbaceous: I haven’t been wearing Diorella regularly, but it has been such a good fit for the beautiful October weather we’re having that I plan to keep it out and within reach for at least a while (keeping it in its box, of course, to protect it from light!). It partners beautifully with these crisp, sunny, dry autumn days, although I often think of it more as an early summer scent. Diorella works well for a whole range of occasions, from casual to elegant, from daytime to evening. It’s like a Diane von Furstenburg wrap dress, the kind that were so fashionable in the 1970s (my mother wore them) and that you could dress up or dress down, endlessly versatile but with a distinct, chic personality.

4. Who should/could wear Diorella?

Old Herbaceous: Well, here’s what Luca Turin wrote on that topic: “Diorella was intended as a feminine and was the very essence of Bohemian chic, with an odd, overripe melon effect that still feels both elegant and decadent. The modern version, no doubt fully compliant with all relevant health-and-safety edicts since the fall of the Roman Empire, is drier and more masculine than of old, no bad thing since I have always seen it as a perfected Eau Sauvage and one of the best masculines money can buy.”

So there you have it! Diorella will work well for many perfume-lovers and can be spritzed for just about any occasion.

Portia: A truly unisex beauty that is cologne related but so much more. I need to go sniff a modern bottle to see if it still smells as good. Then if it does I might buy a bottle and wear it regularly through the warmer months. I’ll be most interested to read OH’s description of how it has survived.

Old Herbaceous: Borrowing again from Luca Turin with regard to the 2009 reformulation: “Great perfumery accords share with holograms the strange property of being damage resistant; the picture remains legible even though noise increases and fine detail is swept away. Diorella is one of those accords, and while the latest version is less caressingly decadent and lush than of old, it still conveys much of what made the original great.” Note that his comment is about the 2009 version; I think this is still the current edition, as I haven’t been able to find anything about a later formulation despite new IFRA restrictions on oakmoss. I wonder whether the oakmoss was already greatly reduced in 2009, with vetiver taking a more prominent role in the base, so more changes weren’t necessary.

Ad for 1972's Diorella eau de toilette
Diorella; image by Christian Dior.