Liquid Night

I love it when a fragrance house offers the choice of small bottles. My last purchase was a 10 ml travel spray of Musc Ravageur, bought on the spot after wearing it for only a few minutes. I dismiss the pea counters (German for nit pickers)  who keep on telling me that the price per ml is such a bad bargain. I'm not buying a sack of potatoes to feed an army here, I just want to own a piece of something beautiful, and if it's a small piece, so be it. If I love it enough to empty the travel sized one I'm very probably going to buy a bigger amount as a result, and I wish more companies would see the benefit of  'small is beautiful'. Another one that does, albeit  with a very limited distribution, is US based A Lab on Fire, which also adopted a similar editorial style concept to FM. (But who doesn't, these days?)

Liquid Night wasn't an instant love; I had come to the achingly hip Paris department store 

Colette to try A Lab on Fire's "What we do in Paris is secret", but that was sadly out of stock. I liked LN though, and 20 something Euros for a 15 ml bottle was a good enough offer to buy it. I thought. And then it sat on the shelf for months, unloved and collecting dust. I still liked it, in theory, but never got round to wear it. And then suddenly a few weeks ago, I just didn't know what to try...and gave it a go.

Liquid Night, my visualisation

Surprise, surprise: this time I love it. It immediately grabs me with an effortlessly chic aesthetic that is totally wearable but unique enough not to be boring. A creamy saffron note binds dry hinoki woods to aromatics and abstract floral accords and everything dries down to a subtle vanilla. Despite the name, it's actually a rather clear cut fragrance, not sharp, but not floating either. When I created its image I started with very fluid and organic shapes, but after hours working on it and not getting it right I realised what it needed was a very simple geometric structure to emphasise on the contemporary elegance. I took inspiration from neon lights glistening and sparkling on wet asphalt. My colours are very muted, but in principal it's a cold green/warm pink perfume. I find it incredibly suited for this in-between-two-seasons-weather we're having, where spring is on the cards and a few daffs are out, but the wind is still icy and biting enough to wear a big comfy scarf. 

Some reviews complain about the synthetic nature of Liquid Night. I personally couldn't care less. As long as they don't charge me Roja Dove prices for a bottle of ISOE super, I can live with a bit of chemical wizardry in my fragrances. 

How and where to wear:

Not so much a how or where, but with what this time.... my newest fashion find and love is German brand Oska and Liquid Night is a perfect match. A bit of a Japanese influence, urban and edgy, but incredibly comfortable.

Aubade Le Parfum, all knickers, no fur coat

It's been a while since I have spent hours in a meeting room with disgruntled clients who didn't like the latest ad we created for them, but in  those days everyone talked about diversification. If, as in my case, the client was a major tobacco company, they talked about it rather a lot, because they knew what was coming for them and it didn't look good. So tobacco companies became travel agents, fashion outlets and sponsors of all kinds of activities that attracted the, ahem, over 18's. For me it always smelled of fear and/or greed. If you're good at what you're doing there isn't much need to spread your resources and claim other fields in which you most probably feel slightly out of your depth. Unless of course you believe that there is a lot of money in it. 

When I saw that French lingerie bran Aubade has just launched a perfume, my first thought was surprise that they hadn't done it before. Everyone and their mother has a perfume out there these days, and the makers of fine dessous are at least already in the luxury and seduction segment. Aubade happens to be a brand I really like so I was interested. The flacon looks good too and one late morning after my French lesson I went to the nearest boutique and tried it. My hopes weren't all that high, but at first sniff I got hit with a nice spicy clove note, and that was unexpected. I took a sample home and tested it last night before I went to bed. I have had better ideas.

That clove note unfortunately vanishes quite quickly and then it's back to the musks and some floral bits, in this case they call them freesias. It's the worst case of washing detergent perfume I have tried for a while. And of course it sticked to my skin like it wanted to eat it. 

Why, oh why do you have to have a perfume in your portfolio, Aubade? Does it really make that much money? And why did you not try to be a bit more daring? The opening had promise......and then you didn't deliver. That's the equivalent of a bra fastener snapping open every 5 minutes or a pair of knickers pinching your lady bits. Women don't want that. Diversification fail. 

 How and where to wear:

I'm really at a loss here, no idea

Cuir de Nacre, Verweile doch...

...Du bist so schoen. 

It's usually not my style to get overly poetic when describing perfumes; I leave the elegies and opulent odes to those better equipped for that sort of thing, but in this case I have to make an exception and use a quote from Goethe's Faust.

"Verweile doch, du bist so schoen.."  (Stay a while, you are so beautiful) is probably the most quoted quote from the most quoted play from the most quoted author in the German language.

Often tragically misquoted, these few words do not describe a romantic encounter with a woman, but Faust's wish to capture the impossible: the fleeting moment. Bliss, we would probably say these days. I don't want to get too literature lectures here, but it is a defining moment in the play and I have spent many an hour in school debating it. What I find interesting is the connection with perfume and when I tested Cuir de Nacre from Ann Gerard it was the thing that immediately came to my mind, and with some regret. 

My visual interpretation of Cuir de Nacre by Ann Gerard

How can something so beautiful be so eager to disappear? It is the most elegant and soft leathered Iris, much softer than the Cuir d'Iris from PG, and I want to bury my nose in it and cry out:" Verweile doch...!" But no, it won't. Not only does it not stay forever, it doesn't even keep long enough for polite company. The moment of bliss, when you fall in love with a scent is very bittersweet here, because it makes puff and it's gone. I actually thought that something was probably wrong with the sample, or my skin or both, but it seems its fleeting temperament has been noted by other perfume bloggers as well. I'm a tiny bit heartbroken. 

How and where to wear:

High speed dating

Verweile doch image via flickr by silviaN, some rights reserved