Review: Warm Cotton by CLEAN

I love the smell of laundromats. There is something really comfortable and cosy about the scent of freshly laundered fabrics and you don't need the most expensive of floral essences to feel that way. A clever combination of cheap synthetic musks is enough for you to feel good. My first laudromat inspired fragrance was Synthetic Series Six Dry Clean by Comme des Garcons and while it did provide the olfactory image of 'dry-cleaning', it was too sharp and 'plasticky' and definitely not a comfort smell.

CLEAN by Randi Shinder was inspired by soap and is supposed to make you smell like you've just stepped out from the shower. I found it a little hard to position this brand since they don't exactly fit into the mould of a niche perfumery but yet what they produce is rather niche and at the same time functional. 'Functional niche perfumery' might describe them best.

Warm Cotton by CLEAN

This is the first of the CLEAN range I tried and I picked this first because it is supposed to smell like and capture the feeling of a warm fluffy towel just out from the dryer. It opened with strong hesperidic notes and the immediate impression was lemon scented detergent. It was not as synthetic smelling as I thought it would be and you'd be able to catch whiffs of 'natural' notes such as lemon verbena and lilac. The combination of citruses provided a solar effect that did not last very long as the scent progressed to its salty marine white floral heart. The base is musky (of course) and ambery.  

This review was done on a blotter and the result was a rather disappointing one since I was really looking forward to the snuggly feeling of warm cotton but instead, it smelled more like wet laundry. What happened the next day saved this review. I wore Warm Cotton out and the effect was totally different on skin. The warmth of skin radiated the fragrance and as it diffused through my shirt, it enveloped me in soft cotton-y love. I met a friend half an hour later and she complimented on how fresh and nice I smell. This perfume works great at freshening up your bed too. The sillage and longevity is enormous so go gentle with the spritzing. 

Rating: ****

CLEAN can be found in Singapore at Sephora and Takashimaya.

Review: Aire Loco by Loewe

Known by many as a serious leather and fashion house, Loewe is undoubtedly also a serious perfume house. Like Chanel and Hermes, Loewe's appointment of an in-house perfumer, Emilio Valeros, certainly paid off big time. I personally enjoy most of their fragrances, as I usually do if they come packaged with a strong concept. The Aire family started with Aire Loewe, the classic green chypre, in 1985, which is still my favourite of the Loewe lot.

Aire Loco is the newest lady to join the Aire family and she is your modern survivor with unspeakable secrets. She is a seductress and a voyeur. She is the inner thoughts of your wives and girlfriends. It was only after reading the press release that the advertorial campaigns made sense. Even if they didn't, they were still provocatively enticing.

Aire Loco opens with a platter of fresh and energetic citrus peels that are clean, tarty, and mildy peppered. The heart is almost edible with passionfruit and sambac jasmine. It is quite a challenge to feature fruity and floral notes together without them working against each other but I think the perfumers have done a wonderful job with Aire Loco. The fruitiness and florals are so interdependant that you'd think they come from the same tree. The base is woody and spicy with notes of cardamon, patchouli and cedarwood. 

What do I think of this? I love it, because a fresh, fruity fragrance that when worn will make others still take you seriously is hard to come by. Despite the campaigns, I find this perfume very unisex. The twisted bottle and akwardly off-centered cap are symbolic of  the craziness of today's women. I agree. lol.

The perfumers of Aire Loewe are Yves Cassar and Carlos Benaim.

Rating: ****1/2

50 fragrances in a week + Review of Ambre Russe by Parfum d'Empire

It's been a real hectic week with a lot of smelling and evaluation (over 50) and it is very frustrating that I am unable to make any descriptive mention of them on this blog until the green light but nevertheless, the line up of new fragrances for this year is rather exciting. Keep your eyes (and nose) open for Voyage d'Hermes and Versus. Meanwhile, I received a request to do a review of Parfum d'Empire's Ambre Russe so here it is.

Like the other perfumes of Parfum d'Empire, Ambre Russe is an oriental olfactory time-machine back to Tsaric Russia. The opening reminds me of those whisky filled dark chocolates you buy at airports. It's a strong 'alcoholic' opening that leaves you a bit tipsy, and just as you think that's all, you get slapped face on by a thick cloud of frankincense and dark tea. You'll recognise the amber accord, but before you think - oh amber .. warm, fuzzy, snuggly, comfy, you are wrong. This is serious amber, R(21) amber rated for violence. The perfume remains smokey like a slow-burning cork and warm leather but there's not much going on here except the occasional coriander and cinnamon passing by so don't mind them and that pretty much sums up the fragrance. It is dark, gloomy and heavy, but strangely in a controlled fashion. I find this picture the best description of this fragrance.

This is not something anyone can pull off for you do need the thick jaws, thick wrists, fat fingers and furry chest to make this fragrance work for you, otherwise you will only end up awkwardly strange. Nevertheless, it is great art in a bottle thus is worth a keep. Ambre Russe is created by Marc-Antoine Corticchiato and features notes of rum, incense, coriander, cinnamon, vanilla, samovar tea, amber, honey and leather.

Rating: ****1/2                                                                                                                     image source: wikipedia.org

Review: China White by Nasomatto

Nasomatto is a niche perfumery with few words to say. They do not release fragrance notes nor give a definitive picture of how their fragrance should smell. Because they do not publicize the notes of the perfume, it gives the wearer a unique olfactory experience with total freedom in interpretation. As such, I decide to approach this review in the form of a narrative.

He stopped and in front of him stood a magnificent Chinese temple with green brick walls and white porcelain roof. The door was big and heavy but he pushed hard and got in. Immediately, he was engulfed in smoke from the many joss-sticks burning out of porcelain urns and although heavy, it did not choke him. He looked around and could not help noticing how new and clean the walls were. His guess was confirmed by the smell of fresh paint lingering in the air amidst the smoke.

He walked down a corridor lined with pots of white flowers and corn mint and before he got to the other side, he saw a little animal run across the room. Curious, he investigated and found it to a rather tame civet. He followed the civet and entered a room where he saw an exquisite day bed carved out of teak and lined with well-aged leather. It was a temptation he could not resist and he laid on it. Slowly, he drifted to sleep and the temple started to disappear, and very soon he found himself sprawled in the corner of his own bedroom. Unfortunately, it was his last hit and he had no more heroin^ left for him to return to the magical temple.

Rating: ****

^China White is a slang for refined heroin.

Nose notes: Exercising with accords

Today I did an extremely fatiguing exercise by investigating accords created by combining blood orange with different aroma chemicals. The exercise is simple - one drop of blood orange essential oil on a scent strip with one drop of aroma chemical. This is a very effective way of training your nose to recognition and picking out the changes in quality when you create an accord. Let's say you decide to compare blood orange with 10 different aroma chemicals and you line them up and go through one by one, while taking short breaks in between and after you've complete all 10 and hopefully written down your olfactory notes, you repeat the exercise again, but this time using clementine essential oil, followed by tangerine, mandarin, pink grapefruit, bergamot ... ... ... and you will realise why there arn't many perfumers in the world, and why only a handful are good at what they do.

Fortunately we are blessed with the ability of deductive reasoning which means as we become familiar with the scent of certain molecules, we are able to assume the resulting scent if we combine that with another molecule we are familiar with.

eg. d-limonene smells sweet, citrus, fresh and orange
     vanillin smells sweet, creamy, phenolic, vanilla
     therefore, d-limonene + vanillin should smell sweet, orange, creamy,
     therefore, d-limonene + vanillin smells like orange ice-cream

This of course is not true all the time, as I discovered once again today when putting blood orange and heliotropin together. Heliotropin's odour description is cherry, vanilla, coconut and creamy with cinnamic nuances. Using deduction, it should smell like some orange based dessert but I was wrong and who would have guessed? Warm white pepper vegetable broth.

Introducing the world's first celebrity headspace scanner

We already have the fashion police and reporters and no celebrities can escape headlines with the smallest wardrobe malfunction or plain bad taste but I think it is also time to have a fragrance reporter at every red carpet event to find out the hottest and not so desirable scent of the night. This is not an easy task and our poor reporter might just suffer permanent nose damage after a long night of sniffing who knows what.

To fix this issue, The Scenter presents you our very own prototype of the Celebrity Headspace Scanner:

 

In just 2 minutes of posing time, the Celebrity Headspace Scanner can detect to canine accuracy what scent your favourite celebrity is emitting. Find out their scent of the moment, what they had for lunch, whose bed they were in ... the information is endless. 

Coming soon to a red carpet event near you.

White Musk Midnight Iris by The Body Shop

I can't remember the last time I stepped into The Body Shop let alone recall when I last bought anything there. I do however remember that I have never purchased any of their perfumes because they were mostly dull or smell like they came out of an underground lab. Anyway, I went in there recently to check out the hype with the new Love Etc parfum and it was surprisingly pleasant. There was definitely effort in it (and undoubtfully since the nose behind it is Dominique Ropion) but still not something I'd buy and wear. As I turned to exit the store, three words caught my eye - Iris de Minuit (Midnight Iris). What is such a seductive and niche sounding name doing in The Body Shop? I picked it up and sprayed. It had such a familiar scent but my brain wasn't co-operating then so I bought it to investigate further. Yes, my first The Body Shop purchase in over 7 years.

White Musk Midnight Iris is an extension of the original White Musk and the listed notes are bergamot, water lily, muguet, clary sage, orris, musk, sandalwood and tonka bean. Reviewing this perfume was a challenge because of how fleeting the notes are. It opens with a cocktail of fresh bergamot laced with lilial and muguet aldehyde I suspect and with rubbery violet ionones. The heart is iris that is earthy with a hint of clary sage and drydown is a sweet veil of translucent iris and musk. The style of this composition has the watercolour quality as seen in many of Jean-Claude Ellena's creations but alas lacks the master's touch and longevity. This is when I remembered what was so familiar! This is the premature stillborn offspring of Lolita Lempicka without the gourmand notes. I quickly brought Lolita out for a comparison and found another similarity.

Coincidence or not, I don't know but this could have been a potentially good perfume if not for its ridiculous longevity (lack of). What a pity but at least it still cheap enough to use as a good room spray.

Rating: **1/2