The new releases are multiplying on my desk like perfume tribbles, so let’s whack off a few, shall we? Wait, before we do that… I forgot about a drawing for a sample of Guerlain Iris Ganache, Bois d’Armenie, Pluie and Spiriteuse Double Vanille, and the winner is…. Helen T! Congrats, and hit the Contact us over to the left and send me your address!
Hors la Monde’s Shiloh — This is the one that Angelina Jolie pitched a huge fit over because her kid’s name was on the label, which is !Excellent! news for the Hors La Monde folks. Created by Michael Roudnitska, it has notes of lemon, bergamot, herbs, rose damascena, Virginia cedar, precious woods, patchouli, sandalwood, incense, oakmoss, musk, vanilla. The open seems almost winish, but it’s just the lemon/bergamot pitched against some of the other notes that makes it squeal on me just a little. Not in a bad way, just different, and not a combination I prefer. This dries down to a woody rose, soft, but just a little bit of interest with the patch and lemon/bergamot that still makes it a little bit of a boozy rose… maybe a little like Une Rose, but not quite as dark.
March and Louise and Judith and others have been squeeing about this Parfumerie Generale Cuir d’Iris thing for a while now, and Nancy sent me a little bit of it to sniff. It is a parfum extract from PG with notes of cardamom, Iris Old Black, leather, woods, vetiver, Rizophora tannin, amber, and incense. This is serious fierceness. It is leather, old and rough, gloves that have been worn in, worked in by a super-hot cowboy on the ranch that looks like a youngish Clint Eastwood, out in the blazing sun with just he and his horse in the moonlight, and he happens upon me while I’m bathing in the creek surrounded by iris beds… ahem. Okay, this stuff rocks. If you’re a leather fan, you need to sniff it. Didn’t March say the leather disappeared on her? I have a whole new respect for the eating quality of her skin because I can’t imagine this leather going anywhere.
I don’t have all three of the new L‘Atelier Boheme things, not sure why a sample of the third didn’t get stuck in, but I’ll catch up with it later. Immortelle has notes of Brazilian tangerine, Italian bergamot, light florals, pomegranate, amber, immortelle, per Luckyscent, where you can buy this as well as the Shiloh thing. On the open, there’s some note that’s just a little weird, not sure what it is, it may just be the tangerine mixed with immortelle and amber that feels a little tweaked, but after the first five minutes, this is pure like for me. After the first hour, I fall in love. I have to compare it a little with Annick Goutal Sables, because that’s the immortelle fragrance probably most of you know. Think of Sables as being that big, loud, lovable, handsome, perpetually drunk brother that tells jokes that are more than a little raunchy, he laughs too loud, and he’s usually great fun for an hour or so, but then he starts wearing out his welcome because he;s eating all your food, has taken over the remote, and he just makes your head hurt. Well, that’s Sables for me, and I’ve grown to like it for the first day it’s on my skin, but after that, it really has to go home. Immortelle is the nicer younger brother to Sables. There are different notes that surround it, and Immortelle is just, well, nicer and more polite. The longer it dries down, the more earthy it gets as the amber shows up to claim some nose space. If you’re not an immortelle fan, you’re not going to change your mind, I would guess, with this one, but if you love immortelle and Sables is your most favorite perfume, you may find this one a little too, um… well, it sticks around as long as Sables, but it’s not as fierce and over the top, and it doesn’t send me to the kitchen craving pancakes. If you like Immortelle, but find Sables to be just too, too much, Immortelle is probably one you need to check out.
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