Woo Hoo Perfume Posse! Portia from Australian Perfume Junkies filling in for Tom this week who has been laid low by the dreaded “I can’t smell a damn thing virus”. In honour of Tom’s inability to smell I wanted to bring to your attention a thing that I have not yet smelled but I am seeing all sorts of excellent reviews on the scentbloggosphere for it. Calling  the latest release from Guerlain a breakthrough in gourmand menswear, a sexy unisex frag and many other wondrous things. I also dropped in the videos and ad movie for you.

 Guerlain: L’Homme Idéal by Thierry Wasser 2014

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Citruses, rosemary, orange blossom
Heart: Almond, tonka bean
Base: Leather, cedar, vetiver

Victoria from Bois de Jasmin opens with: The first time I smelled Guerlain’s L’Homme Idéal, I chuckled, because clearly, their ideal man is wearing a little black dress. Yes, L’Homme Idéal is a masculine twist on La Petite Robe Noire. But this kind of borrowing, right down to the toasted almond and praline details, is clever rather than boring. This is not just another bland and safe sports cologne, that’s for sure.

Kevin on Now Smell This writes: I don’t love it and I don’t hate it. I’m unmoved. Either in actuality, or in their treatment or combination, L’Homme Idéal’s materials smell very synthetic to me. Has Wasser, tired from around-the-clock reformulations thanks to IFRA regulations, simply chosen ingredients that are not on IFRA’s radar…forestalling a re-mix?

Photo Stolen Sorcery of Scent

Dimitri at Sorcery of Scent says:  To my delight, Guerlain have delivered a product that is new and interesting and remains faithful to the brand. Perfumer Thierry Wasser has manifested a fragrance which feels contemporary, but without losing sight of the masculine ancestors that came before it.

Monsieur Guerlain writes: L’Homme Idéal may not get rave reviews by perfume aficionados, but the sales figures prove that it does what it’s meant to do: to be a hit. At the moment, L’Homme Idéal is the #1 best-selling men’s scent at Sephora in France.

Photo Stolen DeviantArt

Have you tried L’Homme Idéal yet? Is it one Guerlain you would like to try? Would you wear a mens fragrance?
Please enjoy the videos and hopefully Tom will be back with his lovely schnoz in tact next week.

Portia xx

L’Homme Idéal by Thierry Wasser – GUERLAIN

L’Homme Idéal est un mythe. Son parfum, une réalité – Film TV GUERLAIN

When I first stumbled upon the Posse….oh, honeys….I thought I knew soooo much.  Ha!!…and I didn’t know a THING!  I knew a lot of perfumes but not a lot about those perfumes.  Notes?  Fuggedaboutit.  But constant exposure to Patty & March and all of you expanded my horizons – and continues to do so.  There are so many notes I’ve learned of, both in perfume and in the natural world – linden is one of them.

Linden came about via my friend Howard, aka LindenloverSnugglebunny.  We’ve been friends for over 30 yrs and I’ve always admired his enthusiasm for the sensual aspects of Life.  He’s always had a ‘thing’ for linden and used to go on and on about the smell of linden trees in bloom…blahblahblah…because I had NO idea what he was talking about (I knew One Smell-good tree:  Russian Olive.  He, a former forester, knew A Whole Lot More).  So…blahblahblah…until I actually smelled a linden tree in blossom.  Wow.  A combination of oily lime rind, sunshine and cake batter, linden is one of the essences of Spring.  According to Lindenlover there, it’s a tough scent to translate into perfume.  I wonder what he’ll make of April Aromatics’s  Unter den Linden?  For my part, I think it’s perfection.   Unter den Linden is an homage to the famous Berlin boulevard with which it shares its name – I can imagine that walking along that boulevard, when the trees are in full bloom, is a heady experience, indeed.  The gorgeous Tanja Bochnig,  perfumer/owner at cult House April Aromatics, has perfectly captured the idea of that boulevard (as well as so many of the gorgeous boulevards laid out in Belle Epoque Europe) – when I sniff Unter den Linden, I am transported back to the 19th Century, a fabulous time for arts and culture and civilized behavior – in my fantasy transportation, it all looks like the MGM film version of ‘Gigi’ (yes, I know that’s Paris but in this fantasy every major European city in the 1900s looks like an MGM set)…… gorgeously-clad women in barouches, men in morning coats or lounge suits (and the fabulous boater!  Oh, why don’t men wear boaters anymore? )…..pleached lime trees above pristine pea-gravel walkways, the whole surrounded by Belle Epoque buildings…this scent, while at the opposite end of the spectrum, scentwise, from Une Fleur de Cassie , Les Heures Brillante & Amouage Beloved, has a very important thing in common with those perfumes:  it is a decidedly urban scent.  Paris, Berlin, New York.  Not the countryside.  You all know I have a ‘thing’ about certain perfumes, requiring myself to be done completely the hell up in order to do them justice.  They don’t have to be particularly complex perfumes – there’s just a certain ‘something’ about certain ones  that require my unruly hair be ‘did’ and me being in something crisp and sophisticated.  Dropping a dress size would help, too – but let’s not get carried away here.  Unlike the perfumes I just mentioned, though, which I consider to be completely urban, Unter den Linden shares some of the style of  Patou’s Vacances, in that you can do the Cannes thing, with the crisp white slacks and an elegant flat – as you can see I am loving the juxtaposition of crisp fabric and soft perfume (and Cannes, like Monte Carlo, feels urban, all those boats notwithstanding.  The whole ‘sleepy fishing village’ is LONG gone).   I see myself in a crisp shirtwaist dress or pencil skirt with a polished cotton blouse, meeting the beautiful Tanja at an outdoor cafe in Berlin, exchanging air-kisses so as not to muss our flawless makeup (oh, shut up!  Like I’m the only one to ever have this fantasy!)…we’re both awash in Unter den Linden and every other patron at the cafe is quietly marveling at our fabulosity.  In reality, I would be mistaken for Tanja’s aged nanny and my hips would be hurting from walking on the pea gravel in mah Manolos…but we’re ignoring reality right now, okay?  Back to the fantasy!

I really like this perfume!  It’s bright, soft (with a hint of bergamot bitterness to ground it and save it from being ‘twee’) -  a throwback to a feeling of sunnier, simpler times, when women wore gloves and hats and the world didn’t intrude quite so immediately into everyday life.  Whether or not those days ever really existed is irrelevant: it is a lovely vision and this is a perfect perfume to fit that vision.

Until recently it was rather taxing to get April Aromatics in the US – now Luckyscent has made the cult House easier to explore.  Thanks, Franco!   If you are unfamiliar with the line, I suggest you try them all – Luckyscent carries an elegant sample set. containing 9 of her gorgeous scents (including Unter den Linden) $130 for 2.5ml per. 

Notes for Unter den Linden:  Linden blossom, honey, mimosa, bergamot, magnolia.