Scent Sample Sunday

Scent Sample Sunday: Galanos
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Scent Sample Sunday: Galanos

Occasionally I find a fragrance gem online, for sale by a resale shop that has discovered the internet. This spring, my find was the first fragrance from designer James Galanos, an eau de toilette named, simply, Galanos. James Galanos was highly selective in all his choices, from the very wealthy women who were his preferred and devoted clientele (most famously, Nancy Reagan), to his refusal to license his name for almost anything: the two exceptions were furs, and fragrance.

There are only two Galanos fragrances: the first, eponymous one, and a flanker called Galanos De Serene. Both can be found in eau de toilette and parfum though both have been discontinued. I found an unboxed bottle of the first eau de toilette, for sale online, and I knew I would probably like it as I already had a small bottle of the parfum. The fragrance was created in 1979 and won a FiFi award in 1980, the one for “Women’s Fragrance of the Year — Prestige”. I have been unable to find out who the perfumer was; please comment below if you know! Angela at “Now Smell This” wrote a terrific review of Galanos, aptly comparing its appeal to that of classic vintage clothing.

There was only one catch to my purchase: when it arrived, the top of the sprayer turned out to be a replacement that didn’t work. I contacted the seller (from whom I had successfully bought a vintage fragrance once before), who immediately offered to send a replacement top or a partial refund. Since I was pretty sure I would be able to use a Travalo to get the fragrance out, the price had been very reasonable, and it really wasn’t worth the seller’s time to send a new top that might not work either, I took the partial refund and bought my first Travalo. Happily, it worked!

Basenotes analyzes Galanos as follows: top notes: lemon, orange, mandarin, chamomile, coriander, clove, and bay leaf; heart notes: lily of the valley, orange blossom, jasmine, gardenia, ylang ylang, rose, geranium, carnation; base notes: cypress, musk, amber, vanilla, tonka bean, vetiver, cedarwood, oakmoss, sandalwood, and patchouli. It smells to me like a cross between a floral chypre and a green chypre, with the herbal top notes in smooth balance with the floral heart notes, and its woody, mossy, aromatic base. It reminds me a bit of Estee Lauder’s Azuree, but with a more floral, 1980s vibe. The notes that “speak” to me most strongly are the carnation and geranium notes, followed closely by ylang ylang and gardenia, but the herbal notes are evident from start to finish.

James Galanos was famous for the craft of his designer clothing, often compared favorably to Parisian “haute couture” although his creations were ready-to-wear (but still VERY expensive). Galanos’ designs reached their height of fame in the decade of excess, the 1980s, and he used only the most expensive materials and finest workmanship, but you rarely see huge puffy sleeves or gigantic flounces on his dresses.

Gowns by designer James Galanos at Phoenix Art Museum retrospective exhibit

James Galanos gowns; image from Phoenix Art Museum.

You see elegant, feminine lines, often enhanced by exquisite embroidery. Nancy Reagan once commented about his dresses that “you can wear one inside out, they are so beautifully made.” His fragrance is consistent with that elegant, luxurious simplicity: understated, classic, of its era but also timeless. It feels like an elegant accessory, meant to complement the wearer and the outfit instead of outshining or competing with them.

Designer James Galanos in clothing atelier

James Galanos; photo by Getty Images

Although James Galanos retired in 1998 and died in 2016, you will still see his creations on the red carpet, since many stylish women wear vintage Galanos gowns to occasions like the Academy Awards and the Met Costume Institute Gala, where they are as elegant and timeless as ever. I wonder if any of the wearers know that they could also wear the perfect fragrance accessory with those beautiful gowns?

Do you have any fragrances that you think of as couture accessories? Favorites?

Just had to add this photo, taken in the early 2000s in San Francisco, when Mr. Galanos was delighted to discover a perfume boutique that still carried his fragrance:

Fashion designer James Galanos in Jacqueline perfume boutique, San Francisco

James Galanos with his fragrance; image from San Francisco Chronicle

Featured image: James Galanos vintage gown (1950s), www.etsy.com.

Scent Sample Sunday: Vraie Blonde
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Scent Sample Sunday: Vraie Blonde

For National Fragrance Day this past week, I chose to wear Etat Libre d’Orange’s Vraie Blonde, mostly for its note of pink champagne. It turned out to be a prescient choice, because we went to an engagement party last night for a friend’s daughter, and the happy couple was toasted with flutes of pink champagne! Vraie Blonde was created by Antoine Maisondieu in 2006 and it is still sold through the website and other retail outlets, so it has clearly found its fan club. The copy on the brand’s website says:

She has all the assets of platinum blond seduction. A full-fledged décolleté, shapely hips and a sensuous catlike walk. A perfectly curvaceous body in a sequined lamé dress, a Technicolor version of the American dream! Accords of ambergray, fur and white pepper evoke an excess of luxury, the flashiness of casinos, women in sheath dresses and Marilyn naked under a mink coat. Is she a real blonde?

To know the answer one will have to wait for nudity… Flushes of aldehydic notes fill the bedroom air, a tribute to the perfume the star wore at night, red-hot kisses enhanced by a bubbling thirst-quenching pink champagne note that leaves one panting. One feels like biting into this lovely sugared almond. Everything a brunette ever dreamed of!

Vraie Blonde is a FUN scent. It is bubbly and pretty and it doesn’t take itself very seriously. In fact, it reminds me of Jayne Mansfield, another platinum blonde bombshell and contemporary of Marilyn Monroe, in her most famous role: Hollywood star Rita Marlowe, in the comedy “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” One of the funniest scenes in the movie shows her in a bubble bath, reading “Peyton Place” and shrewdly discussing her publicity with her trademark breathiness and mew, like a kitten, at the end of her sentences.

The film, based on a hit Broadway play in which Jayne Mansfield also starred, is a farce about how a hapless junior advertising man, played by Tony Randall, gets ensnared in a starlet’s scheme to make her TV star boyfriend jealous, by pretending that he is her new love interest. In return, she agrees to become the “face” of his client, “Stay-Put Lipstick”, as her own PR promotes her as “the most kissable” star in Hollywood. Yes, it’s a very silly film, but it is oh so funny! And a big part of the reason it is still so funny is Jayne Mansfield, who fully understands and uses the comic potential in her blonde bombshell image, even more fully than Marilyn Monroe (a gifted comedienne overshadowed by her tragic life and death). While Jayne Mansfield also died in tragic circumstances, people who knew them both often said that Monroe’s vulnerability was real and deep, while Mansfield had a more resilient, tougher attitude that allowed for more self-mockery.

In “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?”, Jayne Mansfield basically played an exaggerated version of herself: a voluptuous, platinum-from-a-bottle blonde starlet whose ditzy exterior and mannerisms concealed a determined and strategic will.

Like the film, Vraie Blonde is a light-hearted romp. It opens with the sparkle and bubbles of aldehydes, combined with a soft, peachy top note that is just right and not too sweet. I also smell a light powder note, like one of those swansdown powder puffs sometimes found with vintage powder boxes.

pink powder puff

Swansdown powder puff, from VintageInTheShires, http://www.etsy.com

A pink rose hovers nearby, while a touch of white pepper spices things up — just like the 1950s calendar girls and centerfolds, who were considered naughty back in their day, and who now seem impossibly wholesome by today’s standards.

Blonde movie star Jayne Mansfield as a centerfold model.

Jayne Mansfield, centerfold.

Jayne claimed the color pink as her “signature” color, which was something starlets did back then. She took it all the way, in line with her exaggerated public persona: painting her Hollywood mansion pink and outfitting it with pink fixtures and lights, even pink fur in its bathrooms, driving a pink convertible, and of course, wearing pink frequently in public. In fact, her “Pink Palace” had a fountain filled with pink champagne!

As Vraie Blonde dries down, a synthetic ambergris note emerges, listed as “ambergray”, which provides a pleasantly sensual but light note of warm skin, with suede notes to evoke the luxurious furs we associate with Hollywood glamor of the past. The peach and rose notes persist, however, tinting the fur with shades of pink.

I’m really enjoying my Scentbird decant of Vraie Blonde! It’s a lively, charming fragrance with a sense of humor. And really, what’s not to celebrate about that?

Do you have any borderline kitschy fragrances that remind you of movies or other entertainment?

Christine Ebersole as Elizabeth Arden in the musical War Paint

War Paint; image by Joan Marcus for Town & Country magazine

Scent Sample Sunday: Brocard’s Mechta
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Scent Sample Sunday: Brocard’s Mechta

When I last stayed in London, I was able to visit the wonderful Bloom perfumery, near Covent Garden. I highly recommend a visit! They carry an amazing range of niche perfumes and the staff is remarkably friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. I spent a LOT of time there and emerged with a few discovery sets, including a set of three floral fragrances from Brocard, the revived Russian perfume house. It holds three of the series “Gardens of Temptation”, 15 ml each. This set includes: Mechta, Elegantnost, and Luybov.

Brocard Gardens of Temptation set 1 Inspiration

Brocard Gardens of Temptation set “Inspiration”

The set contains three small, simple flacons, not the funky bottles pictured above, which are the full-size bottles.

Mechta is described on Bloom’s website as a “spicy mimosa”. Its composition is described as: top notes are violet, hyacinth, and grass; middle notes are mimosa, linden blossom, magnolia, and clover; base notes are musk, honey, and cedar.

On my skin, Mechta opens as a bright, grassy violet; no hyacinth that I can detect. One thing I enjoy about this opening is the absence of citrus, which makes it a little different. I do love a good citrus opening, but I like this scent’s different top notes. As it dries down, the mimosa emerges, and it is a soft, pretty, yellow mimosa.  In the process of reading for this post, I discovered a wonderful Russian fragrance blog (thank you, Google Translate!) called Parfumistika, and its review of Brocard’s Gardens of Temptation, which includes the brand’s own description:

… drops of morning dew glistening on the grass and unusual green bitterness of hyacinth. The sun rises, coolness recedes, and the bright, joyful smells of linden-colored, mimosa, magnolia and acacia are revealed in all their glory. A firework of flowers gradually turns into a warm, honey-musky trail.

My experience of Mechta is more soft than bright, but very pleasant. If you don’t care for intensely green scents, fear not — the only green I detect is the grassy opening, which gives way to the mimosa pretty early. I would describe Mechta as a soft, warm, yellow, light floral. It’s very pretty, and very affordable if you can find it. I look forward to trying more of Brocard’s fragrances!

Scent Sample Sunday: White Queen
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Scent Sample Sunday: White Queen

Oh, how I love literary references! Put them together with a great niche perfume, and I am a happy perfumista! Today’s Sunday scent is White Queen, by 4160 Tuesdays, a collaborative creation with Michelyn Camen of the blog CaFleureBon to mark the blog’s eighth anniversary in 2018. 4160 Tuesdays founder and perfumer Sarah McCartney wrote at length about how this joint project came to be, and her inspirations, at CaFleureBon, here: New Perfume: 4160 Tuesdays White Queen. I won a bottle of White Queen in one of CaFleureBon’s generous giveaway draws and it was sent directly from Sarah with a personal note; thank you, Michelyn and Sarah! Look carefully at Sarah’s stationery — it’s so clever.

The literary reference is to the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The character of the White Queen makes some of the most-quoted statements from Carroll’s works, such as the advice to “believe six impossible things before breakfast” and the offer of “jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day.”

In the book, the White Queen is an elderly lady, but in Tim Burton’s 2010 movie “Alice in Wonderland”, he reimagines her as a beautiful young (or ageless) woman, played by Anne Hathaway.

Anne Hathaway in Disney Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie.

Anne Hathaway as the White Queen; http://www.disney.com.

As many have noted, this White Queen is far from being all sweetness and light, and so is her namesake perfume, alluring as they both are. Sarah McCartney describes the fragrance’s notes as: incense, hazelnut, citrus fruits, raspberry, jasmine (which some call the Queen of Flowers, although the rose might disagree), cream, opoponax, vetivert, patchouli, and musk.  The goal was to create a modern gourmand without evoking candy, while also referring to the phrase “falling down the rabbit-hole”, which many people use to refer to their own response in discovering how much more there is to perfume than a single signature scent.

The modern gourmand aspect is fulfilled by using methyl laitone, which creates what Ms. McCartney describes as “clouds of whipped cream and white fluffy marshmallows.” However, on my skin, the incense note is more pronounced and very long-lasting. Fragrantica’s perfume pyramid lists it and the cream note only among the top notes, but they persist throughout the fragrance’s life and should be included with the heart and base notes. (Fragrantica also lists notes that Ms. McCartney does not, and omits notes she describes; I’m going with her on this one!). On me, these marshmallows are toasted.

Tray of toasted marshmallows

Toasted marshmallows; http://www.maplestreetcandle.com

I love incense as a note in perfume, but I tend to prefer less smoky incense notes, so this is perfect for me. Ms. McCartney’s post makes it clear that her incense note comes from frankincense, or Boswellia Carteri. This incense is also inflected with opoponax, a type of myrrh known as “sweet myrrh”, which brings warm, balsamic, honeyed notes to a fragrance. On my skin, these come even more to the forefront as White Queen dries down, and they are lovely. The combination of frankincense and opoponax makes White Queen‘s incense note more like a lovely vapor.

incense vapor

Incense; image from Fragrantica.

I can’t pick out separate notes of raspberry or citrus, but I can tell that they are present because of the brightness they lend; I think they help lift White Queen and add to its airiness. Similarly, I wouldn’t be able to tell you on a blind sniff that there is any jasmine, but it makes sense once that is revealed — jasmine is one of the sweeter floral notes, though to my nose it is less sweet than tuberose. As White Queen dries down, I do pick up the patchouli, but it does not overwhelm as that note sometimes can; nor am I overcome by gourmand sweetness, which I can only take in limited doses (not a fan of Angel, sorry). The combination of patchouli, vetiver, and musk is meant to evoke the “rabbit-hole” and its earthiness, and I think it succeeds.

Mia Waskikowska in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, by Disney, falling into rabbit-hole

Alice and the rabbit-hole; http://www.disney.com

As much as I love floral and green notes, White Queen is a winner for me! It is especially appealing on these cool February days, when we alternate between warmth when the sun is out, and chill when our climate remembers that it is not yet spring. When the extremes swing too far here in the Southeast, the season is called a “false spring” and, like the White Queen, it can be dangerously deceiving. (I am a gardener as well as a lover of perfume, and these false springs make it quite challenging to time rose-pruning).

This White Queen displays all the warmth and none of the chill of our false spring, so it wears well in cool weather; given the presence of frankincense and myrrh, it would also make a great Christmas-themed scent, and I’ll try that next year! Do you have any favorite cool-weather fragrances you are wearing right now? Any favorites from 4160 Tuesdays?

Featured image: http://www.disney.com.

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Scent Sample Sunday: Hoarding?

Uh oh. The New York Times is onto us! This is why I need “Thunking Thursday.” Do you feel that your collection of samples is starting to look like hoarding? What (if anything) do you plan to do about those samples?

Scent Sample Sunday: What to Try, What to Buy?
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Scent Sample Sunday: What to Try, What to Buy?

Hello friends — this week, I am seeking your advice! I will be in the South of France, and I’d love to know your thoughts on any particular fragrances that are easier or less expensive to get in France than in the US, or any special fragrance “explorations” I should pursue. I am already signed up for a perfume workshop at Parfum et Vous, and I can’t wait! I’ve been to Grasse before and have done one of the factory tours at Molinard (great fun and very instructive). Our group will be visiting Saint-Paul de Vence and Nice. I’ve visited Nice before and plan to wander in the markets there; I’ll probably bring home some of those lovely soaps. Any other suggestions? P.S. We will have one transfer in Charles de Gaulle airport, coming and going, but I don’t know how much time we’ll have there.

white square ceramic ornament

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Scent Sample Sunday: Florist’s Fridge
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Scent Sample Sunday: Florist’s Fridge

I have been curious for a while about the company Smell Bent, and its proclaimed mission to “delight your nose and your funny bone.”  One of their lines is called “Frankensmellies“, because they have been assembled from accords that their creator just thought would work well together as a “sketch.” When they had a sale this fall, I ordered a Frankensmellie that had been on my radar: Florist’s Fridge.

Florist’s Fridge appeals to me on a few levels. One, I love florists’ shops and their smell! Two, it smells strongly green, which I love. Three, it really does smell like that blast of mixed scents when one visits a florist and they open the fridge to show you or take out flowers that are chilling in buckets. Four, that evokes happy memories for me of going to the florist with my teenaged son to buy corsages for his dates (yes, that still happens on formal occasions, and those still happen for teenagers in the American South).

Wrist corsages at high school formal prom dance

Wrist corsages for high school formal dance

The listed accords are orchid, hyacinth, and chilled flora. Other commenters on Fragrantica have noted the strong impression of green stems and leaves, and I agree. Actually, to me the floral notes smell more like carnation than hyacinth, but luckily I enjoy both. Florist’s Fridge doesn’t last very long on my skin, but it really is fun, and you can get it for such a good price that you may not care very much about its longevity.  I haven’t come across anything else that smells quite like it, and it has that almost addictive quality of making me want to spritz and smell my wrists over and over. Like a corsage.

Remember to thunk something this week and tell us all about it on “Thunking Thursday“!

Scent Sample Sunday: Thunking
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Scent Sample Sunday: Thunking

This is my first “Scent Sample Sunday” post of the New Year, and I have thunking on my mind, thanks to a running conversation on the blog Australian Perfume Junkies (a very welcoming online community, btw, which I highly recommend). I think it was APJ reader Brigitte who coined the phrase, referring to the satisfying “thunk” sound made by an empty vial or bottle of fragrance when it hits the bottom of a wastebasket, having been happily emptied and enjoyed by its owner. Thunk!

The running conversation has been about the readers’ commitments to finishing the fragrances they already have before rushing to buy more. A related commitment is to “shopping in your own closet”, i.e. to rediscover what one already has in one’s fragrance cabinet or other storage, enjoy and appreciate it, and reduce impulse buying.

Count me in! So I’m going to start a new series of blog posts here, called “Thunking Thursday”, and I invite you to join me! I’ll write briefly about something I’ve thunked that week, and I hope you’ll comment on whatever you have thunked, whether that week or earlier. Or even what you plan to thunk in coming weeks! Maybe we can reinforce each other’s New Year’s resolutions — or at least vicariously enjoy each other’s “thunks.” I might award a prize to the reader who describes the most completed thunks here this month if I get a large number, so boast away! Please include a brief description of the fragrance and your experience with it, including whether you think you’ll seek it out again.

I’ll start today, claiming one “thunk point” for my sample of Tiffany & Co. Intense EDP.  I loved everything about it: the strong iris note, the packaging, the ad campaign. Maybe I should have to deduct points from myself, though, since I got a full bottle of it for Christmas based on my love of the store sample! Oh well. We all know what paves the road to … you know the rest.

How many thunk points have you accumulated so far in 2019? If you need a few days to think and thunk, come back on Thunking Thursday and comment there! Happy New Year!

Bottle of Tiffany & Co. perfume Tiffany blue

Photo by Bryan Schneider on Pexels.com

Scent Sample Sunday: Adam Levine For Her
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Scent Sample Sunday: Adam Levine For Her

If you are like me, you MAY have vaguely heard the name Adam Levine. You may even know that he is the lead singer for a pop rock band. You would probably recognize many of his songs with that band, Maroon 5. Maybe you’ve seen him as a coach on The Voice (I haven’t). What I’m trying to say is that I’m not his “target audience” , even though I’ve enjoyed his songs on the radio. I wouldn’t normally seek out his particular celebrity scent, or any particular celebrity scent. And yet I find myself recommending this one more than I would ever have expected, especially in colder weather, so I might as well explain why!

I have found that there are some perfume “noses” whose work often meshes with my own nose; some are mainstream perfumers working with big fragrance houses and companies, and some are truly indie perfumers, creating for their own niche brands. One of the more mainstream perfumers whose work I enjoy more often than not is Yann Vasnier. He has created several for Arquiste, including my initial discovery of his work, the two Arquiste fragrances for J. Crew, No. 31 and No. 57. I loved the “Bloomsbury Collection” he did in 2017 for Jo Malone, especially Blue Hyacinth.  The Arquiste for J. Crew fragrances were discontinued some time ago, so I was browsing around for a similar scent, and looking up other fragrances by M. Vasnier, and I came across Adam Levine For Her, which was launched in 2013. It is truly a bargain — 3.4 fl. oz. of eau de parfum for under $15, sometimes even under $12.

Fragrantica lists its notes as follows: “top notes are saffron, citruses, marigold and spices; middle notes are Indian jasmine, Australian sandalwood and rose petals; base notes are benzoin and vanilla.” The opening is pleasantly bright and spicy, and I definitely smell the marigold, too, which is a less common note in fragrance but one I like very much (I love the smell of real marigolds, but some people don’t like it at all). The middle phase of Adam Levine For Her is what I would call a “warm floral” — the jasmine and rose are softened and blurred by the sandalwood, while the spice notes of the opening persist for a while after the opening citruses have faded. This is the most floral stage of the fragrance, so I think it would work very well on many men, even those who don’t fully embrace floral notes.

The drydown becomes sweeter and warmer as the benzoin and vanilla take the stage, but not excessively so. A really clever aspect of this fragrance is that it evokes Adam Levine’s own voice, which ranges from a bright, pop-inflected tenor to a warmer, deeper range. M. Vasnier again shows an alert mind at work even behind this discount fragrance. On my skin, Adam Levine For Her lasts a long time; I like to wear it to bed because of its calm warmth and I can still smell it when I wake up. It also lasts forever on textile, and I’m seriously considering spraying it on one of my wool scarves this winter just to enjoy it wafting up to me when I’m outside. I don’t think I’ll want to wear it in the spring or summer, but it’s great for autumn.

Interestingly, when you read about it on Fragrantica, thirty (30) readers have noted that Adam Levine For Her reminds them of — wait for it — the much more expensive Santal Blush by Tom Ford in his Private Blend line, also created by Yann Vasnier. I haven’t tried Santal Blush, so I can’t speak to any resemblance, but I can say that the Whisky & Cedarwood he created for Jo Malone does remind me a lot of Arquiste for J. Crew No. 57, so it appears that he thinks about and reworks certain themes in the fragrances he creates, which makes sense. Santal Blush has more notes and probably more expensive ingredients, but if you like it, you might see if you like this more affordable sibling. Australian Perfume Junkies has an excellent review of it, from 2015; and I Scent You A Day also reviewed and liked it in 2016.

It may have been discontinued, as I often see it at various discount outlets, both brick and online, but it is still widely available for bargain prices. Earlier this year, Yves St. Laurent announced that Adam Levine would become the new face and ambassador for its 2017-launched men’s fragrance, Y. I think I’ll order a backup bottle of this fragrance for women!

Have you tried this, or any similar fragrances by M. Vasnier? Have you tried Santal Blush? Thoughts?

Scent Sample Sunday: Iris Dragees
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Scent Sample Sunday: Iris Dragees

Lancome has launched another in its “Maison Lancome Haute Parfumerie” line, and it’s a winner! I am coming to love this higher-end Lancome line, as it is launching some truly gorgeous florals, my first loves in fragrance. Iris Dragees , launched in 2018, is by perfumer Nathalie Lorson. Fragrantica lists its notes as follows: “top notes are bergamot and pink pepper; middle notes are freesia, orange blossom, almond, sugar and iris flower; base notes are iso e super, orris, vanilla and white musk.” The box and the Lancome website list only three notes: iris distillate, iris resinoid, and sugared almonds. The latter are the “dragees”, which are literally almonds coated in a hard sugar shell, usually in soft pastel colors.

Iris Dragees is very true to its name. Contrary to Fragrantica’s list, I smell iris right away, although there is a brief, fresh pop when first sprayed that could be a hint of bergamot. The iris jumps forward almost immediately, and it is a sweet iris, but not too sweet. (I’m not much into gourmand scents, though I do like some gourmand notes, like vanilla and coffee). Although iris is often perceived as “powdery” because of the note’s long use in, and association with, luxury powders, this iris feels less powdery to me although still floral, and  I think that’s because of the almond note. To my nose, almond lends a creaminess that is very appealing. Here, it is a light creaminess, so maybe more like almond milk — subtle, and enhancing the iris rather than announcing itself.

The “dragee” aspect of Iris Dragees also shows up quickly, with a light vanilla undertone  that also subtly supports the iris heart note. As the scent dries down, the iris becomes more and more pronounced, but it never loses the underlying sweetness from the “sugared almonds.” Iris Dragees lives in the same realm as its sibling from the same Maison Lancome line, Jasmins Marzipane, which Tania Sanchez gave five stars in the new “Perfumes: The Guide 2018.” It is a land of elegant sugared flowers, so artfully composed that to the human eye, it would be hard to tell whether the delicately tinted decorations on a gorgeous cake were real flowers or their idealized facsimiles.

Sugared iris flowers on wedding cake by Amanda Earl

“Iris” cake by Amanda Earl; image from http://www.amandaearlcakes.com.

A little goes a long way with Iris Dragees; a small spray on each of my wrists is ample for me to enjoy it, and its longevity is good. The base has a lightly woody vibe, which is probably from the Iso E Super listed among the base notes by Fragrantica. It is a soft landing from the soft heart notes.

Another aspect of this fragrance and its siblings which I appreciate is that they can be bought in a 14 ml size, just right to bring the price down to “impulse purchase” range (suggested retail $35.00), but enough to enjoy more than once or twice. These travel-size bottles are as pretty as the big ones, with their artwork based on cut paper.

Iris Dragee bottle

Iris Dragees by Maison Lancome; image from http://www.lancome.co.uk.

If you like iris fragrances, I suspect you will like this one a lot! I’m a relatively new convert to iris as a fragrance note; not that I ever disliked it, I’ve just always gravitated to greener florals and notes like muguet, rose, and lily. But I have discovered in the last couple of years that I really do like many iris-centered fragrances, such as Miller Harris’ Terre d’Iris and Laboratorio Olfattivo’s Nirmal.

Have you tried Iris Dragees or any others from Maison Lancome? What did you think? Can you recommend any other iris fragrances?

Edible iris flower cake toppers from Sugar Butterflies on Etsy.

Edible flowers from Sugar Butterflies