I had hoped to get to the Abinoams today, the two I have, but they are eluding me yet, just in trying to figure out if I like like them or love them or am indifferent.
Instead, I have saffron on my mind and in my hand and on both arms! One of the most desired and expensive spices in ancient times, this is a spice that always conjures up pictures of Marco Polo meandering through the orient, with a fortune of rare spices and fabrics on his camels headed back to Venice.
Saffron is rich and pungent, and I love it in my paella. My family won’t let me make Paella anymore because I go too heavy on the piment and saffron and nobody else but me will eat it, and the house just reeks of those two spices for days. I ♥ Love ♥ it! I started putting piment on everything, and they cut me off and hid all my cans of it. Dirty bastards.
L’Artisan’s Safran Troublant and Laura Tonnato’s Safram are two very different treatments of saffron, but having similarities.
LT’s Safram is sweeter. It goes on with a slightly medicinal edge, but quickly mellows into a nice, sweet saffron smell which certainly does justice to saffron. Not sickeningly sweet, but it just seems to lack some of the saffron pungency that I crave. If you like your saffron to stay pretty and a little sweet, the Safram is a good choice.
L’Artisan’s Safram Troublant is a smeeeelllly saffron, and I mean that in a good way. It has that pungent reek that hits your nose and makes you go “oh, yes, baby, i like it like that.” It is hard for me to believe this has vanillla in it at all, though I can catch it a little bit every now and then, and that seems to round off any rough edges of the saffron and adds to it, but not in any way that seems to be vanillaish.
I can say I like them both, but the L’Artisan seems to be the truer rendition in capturing that saffron pungency, while keepin it wearable. Not an easy feat. As much as I love saffron, I would never just smear that stuff on and wear it out the door.
The Abinoams, just a word on them. The Desejo, just reading the notes, was the one I thought I would love, and when I spray it, that pomegranate is just stunning and biting and sweet. So I could say on the first spray, it’s gorgeous, but then it changes and gets more complicated, and that’s why I’m having trouble with it.
More on that later this week. I may work through some of the other of the four Abinoams first. This is training week, so I’ll have to relax my usual well-researched and thoughtful posting standards. Okay, try not to laugh too hard at that last sentence.
Patty,
I LOVE saffron too. I have LT’s version and like it, but I like L’Artisan’s just a little bit more, it is more complex, there are more things going on there. I am plotting and planning…
And you are killing me with those Abinoams, post a review already!!! Please?
I have saffron on the brain too! So much so that I imagine it in frags that don’t contain it. Now you’ve got me wanting all these. As for your posts: I love ‘em! So don’t dis yourself.
I find the LT sweet and faintly bready and it reminds me vaguely of En Passant without the wet pavement note… but it doesn’t really smell like saffron, does it? Not to me, anyway.
I didn’t think I liked saffron until I tried DSH Cimabue. It is so glorious. It’s a sweeter saffron, probably closer to the Safram, but I’m not sure because I haven’t tried that one. The L’Artisan was a bit too realistic I think for me! But all saffron lovers should definitely sample Cimabue. Mmmmmm.
Marina,but…but…but I don’t want to just slam a review out! I have to be careful on these because it’s just hard right now, they’re different.
Cait, what other perfumes have it? I’m trying to think, and I’m drawing a blank, except the ones that are definitely saffron. Oh, I kid about my posts, but I’m known in the office as the quickest memo in the West.
March, I thought it smelled like saffron, but in a more bready way, yup, sweeter. I put them on arm by arm, and then dug out my saffron out of the kitch — what’s left of it — and they definitely have the smell of it.
Cimabue? How have I missed this one so far.
Carolyn, love your blog, I’m so glad you started writing one! I’ve added you to ye old blogroll!
Patty
Wonder how this will taste
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