White Rose and Lemon Leaves

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”?

Roses de Mai Marathon: White Rose & Lemon Leaves
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Roses de Mai Marathon: White Rose & Lemon Leaves

White Rose & Lemon Leaves is one of the fragrances released by Jo Loves, the brand launched by Jo Malone in 2011 when she was able to do so following the sale of the “Jo Malone” brand to Estee Lauder. Continue reading →

May Muguet Marathon: No. 42 The Flower Shop
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May Muguet Marathon: No. 42 The Flower Shop

Those of you who read fragrance blogs and articles know that the brand Jo Loves was started by Jo Malone, who sold her first, eponymous brand to Estee Lauder, worked for them for some time, then launched a new brand of her own, Jo Loves, several years later. She also has a store at 42 Elizabeth Street in London. No. 42 The Flower Shop is named after the coincidence that when she was a teenager, Jo worked as a florist on the same street where her store now stands. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting it, and I highly recommend that if you are in London! It’s a lovely store, and it is close to Les Senteurs, a long-established niche perfumery with a wide selection of fragrances by independent brands.

Jo Loves fragrance boutique at 42 Elizabeth Street, London.

Jo Loves boutique

No. 42 The Flower Shop smells exactly like its name. It is the smell that greets you when you walk into a florist’s shop, a mix of cut flower and leaf fragrances, very green and fresh. While the brand’s website describes it only as “fresh blooms and crushed green leaves”, Fragrantica describes it in more detail: “top notes are green leaves, mandarin orange and peony; middle notes are lily-of-the-valley, freesia, jasmine and narcissus; base notes are iris, white musk, moss and patchouli.” Lily of the valley is listed with green notes as one of the top two notes perceived by commenters.

The opening is indeed very green, which I like very much. There is a slight sweetness and juiciness that reflects the mandarin orange note, but the citrus fades away quickly and what remains at first are green, green leaves. Then the floral notes enter, including the lily of the valley. I think that lily of the valley and freesia are evenly matched in No. 42 The Flower Shop. Both are evident, but they are blended together very nicely; at some moments in this middle stage, the freesia is more dominant to my nose, but at other times, the lily of the valley takes precedence. No. 42 The Flower Shop evokes a very specific memory for me: the florist buckets and potted plants outside my favorite store in the world: Liberty London.  I love everything about Liberty: first and foremost, its signature fabrics and fabric designs; but also its fabulous building in Great Marlborough Street, its tearoom, its amazing fragrance department — everything.

Flowers and buckets outside Liberty London florist store

Flower shop at Liberty London

The green notes persist during the middle stage of No. 42 The Flower Shop; that and the other floral notes make the fragrance a bouquet, and by no means a soliflore, as befits a florist shop. The narcissus note is evident, though not as strong as the lily of the valley and freesia, but it adds a nicely astringent tone to the sweeter flowers (it is not one of those heady, “narcotic” narcissus notes, it too is very green). The fragrance retains its greenness throughout, including in its base notes of moss and patchouli. The moss note is especially clever, as it is so common for lilies of the valley and spring bulbs like narcissus to be forced in pots and potted with green moss.

Forced lilies of the valley potted with green moss

Lilies of the valley planted with moss

Sadly, No. 42 The Flower Shop does show its kinship with some of the original Jo Malone fragrances in that it doesn’t last as long as I would like. It is so pretty, though, that I’m glad I own a bottle; and I’m looking forward to visiting Jo Loves’ boutique later this month to try her new fragrance, Rose Petal 25.

Have you tried any of the Jo Loves fragrances? I’m also very partial to White Rose and Lemon Leaves. If you’re interested and you haven’t tried any but you’re pretty sure you may want one, Jo Loves has a discovery “experience” where you pay the price of a full bottle (50 ml or 100 ml) and get a discovery set with a certificate for the full bottle of your size and choice; I believe that includes shipping.

Fragrance Friday: The Scents of Easter
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Fragrance Friday: The Scents of Easter

Easter is my favorite holiday. Yes, I love Christmas too, but Christmas involves more work over a longer period of time than Easter, and it has been so commercialized that it’s hard to hear the church’s messages over the din of jingle bells and cash registers. We seem to have managed to keep the focus on the religious meaning of Easter; the secular hasn’t taken over as it has with Christmas. After all, as our minister said on Sunday, no one even likes the song “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” (Although one small boy piped up from the congregation, “I do!”).

I know one of the reasons I love Easter so much is that it comes with the start of spring, a particularly beautiful season in my part of the world which calls to my gardener’s soul. Flowers and trees blooming everywhere, days getting longer, sunnier and warmer — plus there is chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Especially in my house. The scents of Easter and spring are my favorite ones: hyacinths, daffodils, lilies of the valley, Japanese magnolias, even an early rose or two. Lots of fresh greenness bursting from the earth. We always have a pot of Easter lilies in the house for the holiday, and pots of forced spring bulbs. Our church’s floral guild goes a little crazy and blankets the entire church in garlands of roses, lilies, and other fragrant flowers.

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It should come as no surprise, then, that this is the season when I happily break out my favorite floral fragrances: Penhaligon’s Ostara, for instance, named for the pagan goddess whose name is also the root for the word “Easter.” I’ve also been wearing Chanel No. 22, a heady concoction of white roses and other flower notes, Jo Loves‘ White Rose and Lemon Leaves, Berdoues’ Somei Yoshino (cherry blossoms), Jo Malone’s Lily of the Valley and Ivy, Lili Bermuda’s Lily, and others. I’m hoping to make our annual spring visit this weekend to an amazing private garden that is home to tens of millions of daffodil bulbs planted up and down hillsides:

Woodland daffodils, GIbbs Gardens, March 2016

Daffodils at Gibbs Gardens, March 2016

I love the sheer over-the-top exuberance of these floral outpourings, and that is what the whole season of spring is like here, all over our city: flamboyant azaleas in Easter egg hues layered under the floating white and pale pink blossoms of dogwoods and Japanese magnolias, underplanted with all shades of yellow and white narcissus or extravagantly bright tulips, combined with swaths of the light blue starflowers that spread here like weeds. Welcome, Spring!

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National Fragrance Week: Jo Loves
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National Fragrance Week: Jo Loves

Since National Fragrance Week is a British thing, and I’m not in the UK, I’m going to write about some of the British fragrance houses I have come to know and love. First up: Jo Loves. I had the pleasure of visiting the Jo Loves boutique in London a year and a half ago, and what a delight it was!

Jo Loves fragrance boutique on Elizabeth Street in London

Jo Loves

I came home with the “Discovery Gift Experience”, a discovery of all the line’s fragrances at that time and a gift certificate for one of them, my choice. I was able to narrow down my pick to one of these: Red Truffle 21, No. 42 The Flower Shop, and White Rose and Lemon Leaves. I also liked Fresh Sweet Peas, but it felt a little young for me — better suited to one of my young adult daughters. I ended up getting No. 42 The  Flower Shop, a lively green floral, with my gift certificate, and recently found White Rose and Lemon Leaves on an auction site for a very reasonable price. I love them both!

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Jo Loves

Both scents are the kind of fresh florals I love. No. 42 is very green, also a favorite theme of mine, and smells very like a florist’s refrigerated storage area. White Rose is a fresh, citrusy rose that almost photorealistically captures the light but strong scent of a fresh white rose. It lasts a long time, too, still discernible on my wrist after 13 hours and counting. I really enjoy the liveliness and cheerful optimism of both scents; they capture the air of spring and early summer, when everything is bursting into new, fragrant bloom and various garden woes haven’t yet taken hold.

We gardeners are eternal optimists; we think that this is the year when the powdery mildew will spare our roses, when sudden storms won’t strip the trees of their blossoms, when insects will magically pass over our borders and feast on someone else’s flowers. Alas, it is never quite THAT year in our gardens, and yet we fool ourselves every spring into believing this might be the one. That is the kind of cheerfulness and optimism that these two fragrances capture.

Have you tried any of the Jo Loves line? What did you think?

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Fragrance Friday: David Austin Roses

I am predictably obsessed with a few things (fragrance being the newest obsession). One of those is gardens. Another is roses. Put together fragrance, and roses, and gardens, and I am in heaven. It should come as no surprise, then, that I adore David Austin’s English Roses. He has been carefully breeding them for decades and I am able to grow a few in my garden with its limited sunny spots, including two that are mentioned in the article: Lady of Shalott and The Generous Gardener. One of the key attributes for which David Austin selects seedlings for his breeding program is fragrance.

In The Romantic Quest of David Austin Roses, Victoria magazine shares some of the roses’ secrets with some lovely photographs. Michael Marriott, the “senior rosarian” at David Austin Roses, explained that “a rose’s fragrance may be the result of a mixture of up to three hundred various oils, but that two or three of these combine to create the dominant scent… ‘In David Austin’s English Roses,’ he explains, ‘the mix will include, variously, Old Rose, Tea, Musk, Myrrh or Fruit. Other oils add important subtle nuances that give different roses distinctive, evocative notes of cucumber, lemon, blackberry, honey, cedar wood, and more.’”

Three hundred different oils that go into creating a real rose’s natural fragrance! I swoon at the thought. No wonder my many rose-based fragrances all smell different. Mr. Marriott found it hard to pick a favorite among the real roses: “’A fresh memory of scent and off I’ll go in another direction.’ For fragrance, though, he favors the classic Old Rose scent of Gertrude Jekyll, and the Buttercup, he says, “for its elusive, truly delicious and rather exotic perfume.’”

Right now I am enjoying my sample spray of Jo Loves White Rose and Lemon Leaves, and it may be the finalist for the gift certificate I received at Christmas. It lasts longer than many other fragrances by Jo Malone (the company AND the perfumer) and it really does evoke a white rose as opposed to a red one (I also have Jo Malone Red Roses).

Which white rose? David Austin has a new one: Desdemona. If I could find another suitable spot in my small garden, I’d find one for her. As it is, I will have to make do with a much smaller bottle of perfume!

White English rose by David Austin, Desdemona

David Austin Rose Desdemona; photo http://www.davidaustinroses.com