Easter in Guerlain

Picture: Easter Egg, with no resemblance
to the fragrances worn….
Photo: Parfumista (c)

And here are my Guerlain choices for the second part of Easter 2019....

 

Easter Eve: Encens Mythique D'Orient - I know that EMD'O is a high quality and well blended perfume but it doesn't team up well with my skinchemistry, at least not when heavily overapplied, applied five tiny spritzes and even if I tried to wash it off, it lingered like a second skin. I'll try only one spritz to do it justice another day. Starts with an interesting accord of cedar, spices that creates that almost eletrical note or dust on warm a light bulb note that is present in Mona di Orios Carnation and Téo Cabanel Kasar. After that I lost contact with EMD'O, it becomes an unstructured muddle of spice, rose and woody notes. But I don't give up that easy, the notes are just my cup of tea and I'll conquer EMD'O sooner or later.

 

Easter Sunday: Apres l'Ondee Edt - A comforting and calming perfume experience compared with the suffocating experience on Easter Eve. Starts with a beautiful, clean, earthy, slight carrot-y irisaccord, after a while violet, anis and heliotrope joins and Apres l'Ondee smells just like the outdoor precursor to L'HB as it also is. Not as powdery and indoor as L'HB, elegant casual and almost fresh. A happy fragrance unlike L'HB.

 

Easter Monday: L'Heure Bleue Edt - As mentioned above, the more powdery, lipstick, deeper and darker variation along the iris-violet-anis-heliotrope theme which isalso  the core of Apres l'Ondee. In L'HB there is also neroli that combined with carnation and balsamic notes creates a more dramatic and sophisticated style than the cheerful Apres l'Ondee. L'HB is melancholy, beautiful and intriguing, one has to take time with this, it's not an easy fragrance. I tested the Edt version today to compare with Apres l'Ondee which also is in Edt. The Edt (vintage from 1989) has a great radiance and longevity, when it comes to Guerlain the Edt and Edp formulas are different variations of the fragence with some differences in notes/accords. It's not som much about strenght and longevity.
 
Wearing Guerlain for six days is not at all boaring, on the contrary, I'll explore the fragrances further.

Springfragrances 2013

Picture: Violets
Photo: Mr Parfumista (c)

The winter has been staying for an exceptional long time this year so the real inspiration of wearing springfragrances has not really appeared. Instead I have been much into fragrances which are suitable year around and  with a renewed appreciation of some of the great classics, particulary the Guerlains. Regardless of this, but of course also with some inspiration from it, here comes a list of fragrances inspiring me this spring:

Rose Splendide (Annick Goutal): The tough, rough and wild pink rose, just as a not trimmed rosebush. Rose Splendide smells as the flowers, leaves and steams are all crushed and extracted into the fragrance.

La Violette (Annick Goutal): This leafy,crispy green perfectly just a bit candided sweet violet is not of the lipsticky-powdery cosmetic styled type. This is the small violet struggeling in the old grass just before the new fresh and green appears.

Violette in Love (Parfums de Nicolaï): Also a non-cosmetic violet, this time supported by citrus, peppery and slight berry notes. In the same style as AG La Violette but different when it comes to the details. Pretty, feminine and chic.

Vie de Chateau (Parfums de Nicolaï): This citrus-topped, hay-ish, slight leathery chypre is the  quintessential of casual chic. Like a stroll on the fields a sunny, day in the late spring/early summer.

I think that Annick Goutal and Parfums de Nicolaï are my ulitmate houses when it comes to springfragrances. Both have several light, sparkling, natural fresh fragrances which are very suitable for spring. And when spring approaches, the craving of fragrances from these houses arises.

As I have been in some sort of Guerlain obsession the latest months there is of course some gems from this house in different facets of blue.

Apres l'Ondee (Guerlain): More iris than violet, some soft spices warms it up a bit but in hte same time there is a moisty cleanness as the smell of earth, grass and fragile springflowers just after a rain.

L'Heure Bleue (Guerlain): After decades of testing, I finally get this more complicated follower to Apres l'Ondee (or have become totally exhausted and have capitulated :-) and also have been almost addicted. I often long for wearing L'Heure Bleue.

Last but not least, the house with the always so wearable, casual chic classics, Hermès.

Amazone (Hermès): My all time favourite fresh flowery fragrance. I have so much appreciated the fresh leaves and bulb- and other crisp flowers of the wild but chic Amazone since we met for the first time twenty years ago. A signature of younger days.

Jour d'Hermès (Hermès): Hermès latest will probably be a floral classic. This green floral is, to my nose, a paler and more polite variation of the extroverted great narcissus, mossy, green Le Temps d'une Fête from (here is the fabulous Patricia again:) Parfums de Nicolaï.

Fragrance(s) of the week (11) 2013

Picture: Good old Mitsi
Photo: One of the myriads of  the PR pictures of this classic .

This week I have been terribly cold and just smell fragments of the frags I'm wearing. Beside my Frederic Malle testing activity, my belated Guerlain obsession is growing. I really appreciate to wear (even if they don't suit me perfectly) the classics like Mitsouko and L'Heure Bleue in different strenghts and longing for apring and Apres l'Ondee. Even in the current or almost current versions, this frags are by far more original than most of the niche launched today. And also like several of the current Guerlains, for example Cuir Beluga is caring with its smooth, suedelike texture, which is excellent when having a bad cold. I also have to admit that I like Shalimar Initial with its elegant iris-patchouli accord and Shalimar Initial L'Eau, an interersting bergamot and iris combination, perfect for spring.

To further enhance this Guerlaineuphoria I just have to hang around at Monsieur Guerlains blog drooling over these beauties

Fragrance(s) of the week (1) 2013

Photo: Parfumista (c)

Almost every week there is a fragrance or fragrancestyle that I particulary crave. Maybe I wear the fragrance some day that particular week, just sniff it, tray it or just let the longing persist as I'm often totally off-season when it comes to what I crave and the season current. To examplify: The week before Christmas I suddenly started to long after the sparkling, grassy and green springlike Chanel No 19 Edt, this in the middle of the cold and darkest winter, with lot of snowing. The same phenomena, but in the opposite fragrancedirection, is happening in the middle of the summer, some years as early as around Midsummers Eve. Than in the warmth and brightness of the Nordic summer, I start longing for dark and deep fragrances as ambers, dark roses, ouds, patchouli. Another observation when it comes to my perfumecraving during the latest half year is an increasing need and appreciation for the classics as the classic Chanels, Guerlains, Rochas or Diors. When it comes tocontemporary perfumes, I prefer perfumes created in the classic style as the offerings of Puredistance, Parfums de Nicolï and Parfums MDCI or more complicated contemporary perfumes with many dimensions as the perfumes of Ramón Monegal, Amouage or Mona di Orio.

To conclude this philosophising: 1) Fragrancewise I'm often in the reverse season 2) Fragrancestylish the circle is completed, I'm back where it all started, with the classics or  classic styled, well-crafted fragrances.

For 2013 I will start to notice (and post) if there is a/some special weekly cravings. Here are my observations for the first week of January 2013:

- The longing for springfragrances has intensified. Today (chilly and grey outside) I'm wearing  the Guerlain iris/violet/mimosa/guerlinade classic Apres l'Ondee Edt and I'm constantly sniffing my wrists.

- The other perfume that influenced me this week and I really liked to wear at New Years Eve was a perfume that not belongs to any of the categories mentioned above: Miss Dior Le Parfum which IMHO is a well crafted, contemporary mainstream with some dept and body to it. Features that is becoming more and more rare these days,  both within mainstream and niche.