Maison Martin Margiela

May Melange Marathon: Bohemian Bluebells
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May Melange Marathon: Bohemian Bluebells

I promise I won’t spend the whole month of May dissecting Zara Emotions fragrances, but here’s another one: Bohemian Bluebells. I like it very much and it’s certainly affordable! Also truly unisex, I think it would smell wonderful on a man as well as a woman. Its listed notes are lavender, sandalwood, and musk (nothing to do with bluebells). If you can imagine a warm lavender, that’s what it smells like to me. I do tend to associate lavender with bedtime, given its soothing properties, but I don’t usually associate it with warmth in spite of its cultivation in hot, sunny climates like Provence (there are also famous lavender fields in England and other parts of the UK). Sometimes I crave Jicky eau de toilette at bedtime, if I’m going to sit up and read for a while, but Jicky feels cool to me somehow, like the clean sheets that have been newly put on a bed, with their crisp, unwrinkled surfaces.

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National Fragrance Week: Miller Harris
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National Fragrance Week: Miller Harris

Another UK fragrance house I like very much is Miller Harris. British perfumer Lyn Harris founded Miller Harris in 2000. Before that she spent 5 years training in France at one of the highly prestigious schools of the perfume in Paris and then Robertet in Grasse. After selling her eponymous company, which still produces fragrances under the brand name Miller Harris, she started a new line, Perfumer H. The Perfume Society has a lovely summary of the founding of the Miller Harris line and its ongoing work: Miller Harris. I was able to visit the boutique in Covent Garden some time ago, which was a rainbow of color from various packages.

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Miller Harris

I am the happy owner of two Miller Harris “travel sets”: Fragrance Friday: La Collection Voyage. I especially liked Terre d’Iris and La Pluie, but honestly, I haven’t yet tried a Miller Harris scent I disliked. I liked Tangerine Vert very much, but found it did not last well on my dry skin. Applying a “filter” like Maison Martin Margiela’s Replica Filter Glow was helpful, as was the application of a rich, fragrance-free cream. All in all, I’m delighted to have made the acquaintance of Miller Harris. If you enjoy fragrance lines like Penhaligon’s or Jo Malone, you’ll probably like Miller Harris.

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Miller Harris

Scent Sample Sunday: Lazy Sunday Morning
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Scent Sample Sunday: Lazy Sunday Morning

Yes, I’m having one of those: a lazy Sunday morning. And this week, I also took part for the first time in a “freebiemeet” on Now Smell This, an amazing fragrance blog and community. So in honor of that, and with gratitude to kind NST member Katrina, who offered up a “mystery grab bag of samples; some mainstream and some niche. Absolutely no rhyme or reason in what’s in the mix!”, here are my thoughts on one of the several she sent me: Maison Martin Margiela’s Lazy Sunday Morning, one of the Replica line of fragrances. It was such a treat to open the package and discover what was inside — it really made my week, which was somewhat sad because of the unexpected news the week before of the death of a former student, and planning a memorial with his friends.

Lazy Sunday Morning is meant to evoke the sense of awakening on a sunny morning in a bed of white linen sheets, skin warm, in Florence, Italy. I haven’t yet had the pleasure of visiting Florence, so I can’t speak to that, but the fragrance includes notes of iris, the quintessential Florentine flower. However, for me the dominant floral note is lily of the valley, or muguet, which I love. That is one of the top notes, with aldehydes and pear. The combination of a soft, light, fruity note with muguet reminds me a bit of Lily, by Lili Bermuda, which combines pear with lily of the valley among its heart notes.

The aldehydic opening is light but noticeable, then the scent moves quickly into floral fruitiness that stays light and fresh. It’s very pretty, but it doesn’t smell to me like Sunday morning in bed, unless one’s bedroom window opens onto a bed of lilies of the valley and one wakes up to a glass of fresh-squeezed juice. (Which, by the way, I wouldn’t object to finding by my bedside …). However, if I am spending a lazy Sunday morning in bed, I’m much more likely to have coffee by my side, as one Fragrantica commenter noted!

Lazy Sunday Morning also reminds me a bit of Jean-Claude Ellena’s last Hermessence fragrance for Hermes, Muguet Porcelaine. I would say that it is brighter, less of a subtle wash of watercolor, and with fewer nuances. In fact, the image that comes to mind is a set of bed linens by Lilly Pulitzer, the quintessential Floridian brand with its bright pops of citrus-inspired colors on its fabrics, which ties in nicely with the orange flower that is also a heart note in Lazy Sunday Morning.

Pillow cases and bed linens by Lilly Pulitzer with lily of the valley print in bright colors

Lily of the valley bed linens, by Lilly Pulitzer

I really don’t smell rose or iris at all, even as it dries down, although they are also listed as heart notes and other commenters have felt they come through strongly. The white musk that lends a “clean laundry” aura to Lazy Sunday Morning emerges during the drydown and is very soft. All in all, this is a very pleasant, fresh fragrance. It doesn’t remind me of my own Sunday mornings in bed, but it is very pretty, and I’m happy to have a sample of it! Thanks, Katrina and NST!

Any other thoughts on Maison Martin Margiela’s fragrances?

Perfume samples in glass vials

Perfume samples

Fragrance Friday: Tangerine Vert, and Glow
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Fragrance Friday: Tangerine Vert, and Glow

To round out my comments on my Miller Harris Collection Voyage, I’ve been sampling the third fragrance in the coffret: Tangerine Vert. It is really a unisex citrus cologne.Top notes are tangerine, grapefruit and lemon; middle notes are geranium, orange blossom and marjoram; base notes are oakmoss, musk and cedar. I have read that there is an actual fruit that is a green tangerine, very popular in China and Japan, where it is loved as a fruit that signals the end of summer and the start of autumn. It seems right to review its namesake fragrance in September, especially as we are enjoying beautiful Indian Summer weather. The Miller Harris website refers to “Sicilian green tangerine” but I love the imagery of the Asian fruits heralding early autumn.

The opening of Tangerine Vert is marvelous: a burst of citrus, sweet but not too sweet, with an undertone of slightly bitter rind and grapefruit that turns into an aromatic, green herb, nicely balancing the sweet tangerine. The citrus notes do not feel sharp to me; although lemon is listed as a note, I don’t pick that up. The tangerine dominates without being tangy. In the middle, the dominant notes to me are the marjoram and geranium. In the final stage, I cannot say that I smell anything but the lightest oakmoss faintly tinged with cedar. Lyn Harris has declared that “citrus is all about top notes” and Tangerine Vert embodies that principle.

Sadly, this fragrance comes and goes so quickly on me that I would have to spray it every hour to enjoy it the most. I have dry skin, and citrus notes are famously fleeting; the combination probably doomed the longevity. I may have a solution, though, or at least an experiment! I recently bought a bottle of one of Maison Martin Margiela’s new Replica Filters, Glow.  The “filters”, Glow and Blur, are lightly fragranced dry oil sprays that you use like a primer on your skin before spraying on a perfume. They are meant to brighten (Glow) or soften (Blur) your chosen fragrance as well as extend its longevity, and they are especially designed to be layered with other Replica fragrances.

Bottle of fragranced dry oil spray Maison Martin Margiela Replica Filter Glow

Maison Martin Margiela Replica Filter Glow

I tried both of them at Sephora and much preferred Glow, which I could happily wear on its own as a very simple scent, with its notes of neroli, grapefruit blossom, bergamot and rose. It feels lovely on the skin, not oily but like a veil. Blur was pleasant enough, but I felt it was somewhat nondescript on its own; and when layered with a Replica fragrance (Flower Market), it tamped it down too much. So I bought Glow (shoutout to the lovely SA at Sephora, who happily sampled fragrances with me and sent me home with two samples of Flower Market and several more Chanel samples).

I plan to try Tangerine Vert layered over Glow, in the hopes that the “filter” will improve longevity and that its bright solar notes will amplify what I like so much about Tangerine Vert, the citrus opening. I’ll post an update! Have you tried either of the Replica Filters or Tangerine Vert? What did you think?