Making of Cannes - Quick reviews

Picture: A chic bottle of Rocher Princier
Photo: PR Making of Cannes (c)

Making of Cannes is a perfumebrand based in Grasse which creations are inspired of the Cannes Film Festival and the movie industry. Founder of the brand is Audrey Courbier who worked for Estee Lauder form many years, I havn't found who the perfumer is. Technically the fragrances are wellcrafted of a good quality and contains at least 20% perfumeoil, from a creative point of view even if beautiful nothing new or innovative. The fragrances are comforting, elegant and easy to wear.
Below some short thoughts of the five first releases from 2014:

Premier Role: This light oriental amber has a lovely vintage aura, especially in the start with something as unusual as a soft galbanum, this note often tend to appear as sharp. Taken as a whole Premier Role is a mix between two interesting perfumes from the past. Dior Dune and Balenciaga Prelude with an extra dose of smooth, restrained, moderate sweet white and yellow flowers. The first one-third is the most interesting then the fragrance get linear and smells almost the same for the rest of the dry down. Very feminine, warm, soft and comfortable to wear.

L'Amour la Monde: This is Frederic Malle Lipstick Rose crossed with a finetuned, realistic smelling leather like for example Acqua di Parma Colonia Leather. The leathernote vanishes after the topnotes and intergrates with the musky, powdery, creamy lipstick rose/violet accord. The more L'Amour la Monde dries down, the more of the powdery, musky, aldehydic character steps forward in a comfortable way. Just as with Permier Role the first one-third is the most interesting, than the fragrance stays almost the same, even if intensifying.

Invalouable: Starts very feminine as a flowery light powdery vanilla with fruity accents. The vanillic flower in its texture, not in the actual smell, is similar to the style of the angelic, powdery, flowery vanilla from Eau d'Italie Morn to Dusk. As Invalouable dries down to the middlenotes it settles in a light peppery, white flower accord  and the fragrance is close to the sparkling Ramon Monegal duo Kiss My Name and Lovely Day. As Invalouable reaches its warm and musky basenotes, the peppery sparkle steps back and the fragrance reminds of the beautiful summery white flower of Gianfranco Ferré which bears the same name as the designer.

Amazing Shooting: Listed as unisex but to my nose it's lending more to the feminine side. Starts fruity in a air of chypre. The fruits are fresh, not the spicy Mitsouko style, but combined with slight boozy notes, it becomes darker, almost creamy and much more sophisticated in apperance. Something which smells like a wellbalanced, not harsh teanote also glimpses, probably this is the metallicnote mentioned in the notelist. Amazing Shooting reminds me in style and expression of a more balanced EnJoy by Jean Patou made of much better ingredients.

Rocher Princier:  Listed as masculine or unisex the woody-spicy, to my nose dominantly incense-oudy Rocher Princier goes for both. Starts with a cold aldehydic chalky incensy which is close to Montale Full Incense. As Rocher Princier dries further down, a light smokey, confier, cold oudy aura appears and the fragrance in this stage has similaritues with Robert Piguet Oud Some light sweet spicy elements combined with balsamic notes deepens the fragrance in the basenotes. A rounded, well constructed incense-oud without any sharp edges or annoying pepper, very pleasent to wear. The smooth incense interpretation in texture is similar to the sweeter and gourmandy cosy incense Juozas Statkevicius (Josef Statkus). The favorite from the line both for me and Mr Parfumista.

UNUM - LAVS

Picture: A swedish fir in the middle of the long, cold winter
Photo: Mr Parfumista (c)

LAVS is the first fragrance from the House of UNUM. The house started as an atellier for constructing, maintaining and taking care of  liturgical vestments. The Vatican is an important cuetomer and LAVS has a fascinating backgrund. It started as a roomfragrance which is used in the atelliers and also to scent the robes and vestments when packaged for delivery. The wearer of LAVS in other words has the same olfactory aura around as the Pope himself, at least when he wears his UNUM vestments :-) . The creative director and spirit of UNUM is Filippo Sorcinelli which has many artistic skills, for example he is an a church organist and also expriments with painting. His businesspartner Marcello is a tailor who seeks perfection in the creative process creating the UNUM coustumes. More about the backgorund and inspiration of UNUM look here.

The perfumer is a person very close to UNUM’S world who prefers remain hidden, he translates in fragrances the emotions and the ideas of the creative director.

LAVS opens spectacular with an accord containing fresh and brisk birchtar, a very thick and dense, almost honeyed incense and a rubbery note close to fresh, new, tires. There is also a light, smokey note, like smoke from a campfire made of dry pinewood a cold winterdaym with high, dry air in the coniferous forest. The impression is somehow clean, outdoorsy despite the thick notes. After a while a fresh (fresh seems to be the common factor here) and soft leathernote appears followed by a metallic note that bridges over to the middlenotes. In the middle- and basenotes, LAVS calms down and connects to the ordinary incensetrack, most close to Comme des Garcons Avignon and Montale Full Incense, minus the aldehydes of the latter, but also with traces form other Commes des Garcons incenses such as the cold pine in Kyoto and the note similar to a textile band-aid from Jaisalmer. The putty, almost powdery texture in the basenotes reminds me also of Making of Cannes Rocher Princier.

Picture: The stylish bottle of LAVS
Photo: PR UNUM (c)

Not as churchy as Avignon, LAVS has more of a cold, outdoorsy aura. My sons reaction was "It smells like Finland" probably the birchtar, the smokey, sauna like notes as also the cold, airy vibes of LAVS evokes the association of our beautiful neighboring country. Robert Piguet Oud also has this cold outdoorsy feeling and even if not containing oud, LAVS has a similarity to RP Oud in its texture and expression.

LAVS is unisex, appropriate for all seasons expect in the warm days in the summer. Longevity is for more than a day, sillage is medium in the first stage, then close to skin, LAVS after all is in perfume strength.

LAVS starts incredible, the first on third is the most interesting incensefragrance I've tried so far, (and I have tested many :-). From the middlenotes to the base, LAVS to some extent "dissapoints" in the way that it doesn't live up to the extraordinary first part. But LAVS anyway, even if the originality has disappered, is a very good high quality incensefragrance also in the later stages. As I'm sick and tired of fragrances that starts exciting and then morphs into something common that I've smelled so many times before, LAVS shouldn't deserve  the highest rating. But in this case the first part is so spectacular and the rest just as good as for example Avignon (which is a favorite of mine) and therefore LAVS gets

Rating: 5

Notes: Jasmine, cardamon, black pepper, elemi, coriander, clovs, labdanum, opoponax, palisander, amber, oakmoss, tonka been