Top Perfumes for Spring

spring

 

It’s Spring.  Right?  It’s Spring somewhere…but it sure isn’t at my house – at least not yet.  But that doesn’t mean a gal can’t dream!  In the Midwest, we’re still in transitional weather, though at least it isn’t snowing.

Okay, now it’s 50F and pouring with rain.  So ..you know what?  I’mo suck it up and try some NEW Spring scents before it plunges back into Polar temps or the mercury soars.  So here are the .  At least they’re new to me.   March used to yarble on about CBIHatePerfume’s Black March, with its dirt, rain and rotting leaves accord…I’d never tried it until yesterday – and guess what?  It’s all that, the epitome of burgeoning Spring, in the realest sense of the word. Not flowers but rotting vegetation, in wet dirt….in essence, what allows Spring flowers to become Spring flowers.  This is one of the most compelling Spring scents I’ve even encountered…personally, I can’t wear it…but I do love smelling it!  And the memory of it stays in my olfactory brain for ages!   At the opposite end of the spectrum is Irene Neuwirth for Barneys New York.  I got this in a Bag Event and figured I would take a spritz…this is one of those ‘shouldn’t work but does’ scents – and it can ONLY work in weather like this, at least for me.   It’s a ‘beachy scent’ (it actually has ‘watery notes’ and ‘beach accord’ as top notes)…but instead of the beach notes I get something very similar to Jacomo Silences and Caron Montaigne, those thin, light greens that are perfect for this weather as well..  ….and yet…there is something that’s really pushing some nostalgia buttons on this one…then it hit me..it smells like Heaven Sent! Which had a Heathcliff & Cathy/windswept moors in the Spring vibe for me.    So there ya go!  The last one in the Try New Things lineup comes from Berdoues – their original Violettes de Toulouse.   Pretty violet scent but can I just say two things?  1) Lasts about 2.3 seconds.  and 2) WORST WEBSITE EVAH!  This is a sample I got from a friend so I went online to try to get some info – ha!  If not for Fragrantica, I’d be in duck soup!  Here are the notes: Violettes de Toulouse Eau de Toilette by Parfums Berdoues is a Floral fragrance for women. Violettes de Toulouse Eau de Toilette was launched in 1936. The fragrance features violet, iris, jasmine, raspberry, musk, tonka bean, heliotrope and violet leaf.  Like I said, it’s pretty – and who can argue with violets in springtime…I just wish it lasted longer!
From Ann:
Chanel 1932 — This elegant, multi-faceted confection is like a gorgeous Parisian macaron, perhaps tinted a soft, pinkish lavender, then finished with an iridescent glaze. Going into the mix I detect a generous dollop of Chanel’s Eau de Cologne, a teaspoon of lovely iris, a la La Pausa, a sprinkle of 31 Rue Cambon, and perhaps even a smidge of No. 5 and Cristalle for good measure. This smells consummately Chanel to me. I enjoyed it when it first came out as an EDT, but the recently released extrait has put this back on my radar in a hurry.

Aftelier Cuir de Gardenia — I’m very late to this party but so glad I finally got in. This beautiful gardenia gets an earthy grounding from a gentle tether of leather to be a great scent for spring. Just perfect for holding you until the real gardenias come into bloom. I’ve not tried the solid but the parfum was so right on the money, I’ll just stick with that, and save my pennies for a bit more.

 

 

Portia’s Toppers For Spring

As you know Australia is going into Autumn but the temps are quite similar between our Autumn and Spring so often there is a crossover of what I will wear. What did I wear last Spring that I’m wearing again now?
Aqua Allegoria Tiare Mimosa by Guerlain: Tiara Mimosa is bright, fun and sweet. If it was a girl she would be pretty and popular but in a nice way, not mean or nasty. This is sunshine in a bottle and it feels like a tropical holiday scent. Guerlain has tamed the often urinous naughtiness of mimosa with tiara and vanilla. A creamy, lovely and wearable favourite. Available for a song at the discounters.
Bombay Bling by Neela Vermeire Creations: This is ultimately Jin’s fragrance but over the last six or eight months I have been stealing spritzes because it’s so damn fun and I really enjoy the ride from tropical fruit punch to deep woodmill in the forest. Excellent fragrance.
Joy EdT by Jean Patou: I have some old bottles of this and whenever I’m feeling like winter in my heart a couple of swipes and my mood has instantly hit Spring. A smack in the face with a glorious aldehydic fruity floral bouquet that is both memory and history for me. Guaranteed smile.
Geranium Pour Monsieur by Frederic Malle: The cool minty burst offset by fabulous herbs and spices, incense and resins is a beautiful winner in any weather but in Spring it feels like you are wearing promise, the promise of summer.
Mitzah by Dior from La Collection Couturier Parfumeur: I like the old title because it feels so exclusive and elegant, much like lovely Mitzah itself. The sadly discontinued honeyed, vanillic, rose that is both spicy and deep. Wearing Mitzah makes me feel like a million dollars, every time.
Mon Parfum Cherie Par Camille EdT by Annick Goutal: Plum, powder and patchouli, this massively underrated gem is unlike any other fragrance from Annick Goutal,  It simultaneously manages to be green, fresh, dark and bubbly. Love it every time and perfect for weather doing the Hot/Cold Cha Cha.
Niki de Saint Phalle: One of my long term favourites but particularly good for Spring. Niki de Saint Phalle is the coolest and most lovely green that is also sweet and warm. Currently it’s also a super cheap thrill at the discounters. I particularly enjoy a bath with a few drops of the Bath & Body Oil and then heavy spritzing with the EdT which has a better throw on my skin than the EdP.
Shalimar by Guerlain: Because it’s not life if there’s no Shalimar

 

TOM sez:

Spring in Southern California isn’t like spring in the rest of the country. The few trees that lose their leaves gain them back, the temps go from cool to warm, and you’re less likely to get rain. I like to meet spring with something involving lily of the valley, which sadly doesn’t grow here. So I give myself a spritz of commes des garçons green from their leaves series, or even better, vintage Diorissimo. Of new releases, I could seriously face spring with smell bent florist fridge. It’s happy little thing I have to grin every time I apply it.

 

For more great picks for Spring check out Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This, Grain de Musc

  • Nitasha says:

    Wonderful list thanks! I like the greener scents at the moment – wearing L’Artisan Parfumeur Premier Figuier Extreme today. The Irene Neuwirth was so suntan lotion? I have two from the Beauty bags but I couldn’t really get it I guess.

  • Kathy says:

    Snow still lies in ever decreasing piles on the north slopes here in the Rockies, but the catkins on the pussywillows are fat and fuzzy telling us it is indeed spring. While the Pacific Northwest is still blessedly wet and cool we’ll soon be seeing the tiny wood violets springing up in the dark and mossy areas of the forest. It isn’t the sinus clearing lilac that I seek now, but the soft dry and comforting violet is for me. The most beautiful, true and thankfully lasting violets I’ve found in fragrance are Mona di Orio’s les Nombres d’Or Violette Fummee and Atelier Colognes Sous le Toit de Paris. The last is listed as a leather fragrance but to my nose it is all violet with a touch of the metal roof it is named for.

    “A Violet in the youth of primy nature,
    Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
    The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
    No more. . . . . . ”

    Laertes in Hamlet

  • Jennifer Smith says:

    I layered DSH Erbe Bergamote oil rollerball and TPW Tea Rose together. Smells great!

  • Suzy Q says:

    Oh gosh, thanks for reminding me of Black March, Musette. I need to get out that sample. I remember thinking it smelled amazing but…was it a real perfume? , not just a scent. I shall retest!

  • Ann says:

    Hey, sweet Sherri! You’ve got some great picks there, esp. enjoy your lilacs, but I do need to try the Roja Dove one. Glad to see the Aerin one getting a little love too. Must go re-try mine now that it seems that spring really has sprung. Thanks!

  • Monoatomic says:

    Oh, I just got my sample of Florist’s Fridge and it is so much fun! I was kind of wishing I’d gotten the FB (though I think in the long run that would be totally unnecessary). Still looking to find the perfect green/white floral that exists in my head though….

    • Ann says:

      Ooh, yes, the Florist’s Fridge! Bet that one will be especially welcome on a 90-plus degree day this summer.

  • einsof says:

    i’ve been given the great privilege of experiencing Pan from Anya’s Garden. it IS the green carnage musk (thanks to rutting goat’s hair tincture) hope of spring and it’s more lusty outdoor world. other springtime hits for me: Hindu Honeysuckle from Providence Perfume Co & Luscious Roses from JoAnne Bassett.

    the ground carpet turns green and it will snow tomorrow. but the tide has turned and april showers will surely bring it’s own april flowers as everything i winter wearing and yearning to bud.

  • Liz K says:

    Ack! I am dying to try Black March as two CBIHP scents are favorites for spring and summer. As I just posted on BdJ, Under the Arbor smells like spring in my back yard with Mountain Laurel and tilled soil and Wild Hunt (my decant is Missing! ) smells like the rare rain my garden receives. My last CBIHP order was to have contained a Black March sample but it was smashed when it got here as was another and I couldn’t determine the original smell. As soon as my budget recovers I will have to order.

    I have also been all for fruity florals this spring I don’t necessarily mean good quality stuff either but the ones that smell like a teenager’s shampoo. Stuff I bought for the cute bottle (I know I am totally killing any perfumista cred just by owning these) or because, like now, I was in a nostalgic frame of mind. I have been using Ma Cherie and Tsubaki hair styling mist like crazy due to plumbing problems (probably fixed now but running water for showers is such a luxury) so that clean, just showered smell is really appealing.

    • Ann says:

      Liz, those all sound so wonderful. You could spend days and days sampling all the CBIHP scents, couldn’t you? Poor baby — hope the plumbing problem is just a bad memory now.

  • Denyse Beaulieu says:

    Hi all! 1932 is definitely a favorite here too — I should have included it in my own list but it already made my winter top 10 in the extrait… I’m pretty sure my beloved Mon Parfum Chéri was included in a previous round-up: happily, Annick Goutal is reinstating it in the collection. And Tom’s mentioning the Comme des Garçons reminds me there’s a big leaf-shaped hole in my collection, I love that green series!

  • uhusa2 says:

    I just love your selection here. My all-time favorite is DKNY Green Apple, because of its fresh, springy scent. That’s my signature fragrance, as I don’t like heavy, dark perfumes. Thanks for your list – I will check out those that I don’t know. 🙂

    • Ann says:

      Nice choice — my sister in law has always loved the Green Apple. I need to give it another try soon.

  • malsnano86 says:

    It is, FINALLY, spring here. Little baby calves gallivanting about the pasture behind the house… overnight the grass went from dull brown to green… it got hot enough last Saturday to SUNBURN ME. Granted, I am of mostly-Irish descent and burn easily, but still. two hours, and now my forehead is peeling.

    That Chanel 1932 is so absolutely gorgeous – not long-lasting, but gorgeous – in the edt, I got in on a split of the extrait. It hasn’t gotten here yet, but I can’t wait.

    I also can’t wait for my split of DelRae Wit, oh my heavens, that’s almost beyond gorgeous. Gaze could not stop sniffing me the other day when I picked him up from track practice. Usually I get, “Oh, hey, that’s nice,” or occasionally an apologetic, “I don’t like that one very much,” but every two minutes, all the way home, it was, “Can I smell that up close again? That’s just so pretty. MMMM.”

    Side note: Heathcliff is a dang SOCIOPATH and I’ve always hated him… but last spring, when my daughter, the Insatiable Reader, was struggling through Wuthering Heights, she and I hit Youtube and counted film adaptations of it – and we ran across the 2009 BBC production with Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley. You can watch it online, so we did, and that was the start of my Holy Moly Not Only Is Tom Hardy An Amazing Actor, But He Is Flat Gorgeous Too. There you go, three gorgeous things in a row… 🙂

    I do have all my greenies out, of course – Silences, Chamade, No. 19, Crown Bouquet, and my teeny scrab of Vacances. (Le Temps d’une Fete is almost a year-round thing for me.) I also got out my DSH White Lilac. And my travel spray of SB Florist Fridge is a happy-making thing, too.

    • Ann says:

      Too funny, Mals, about the Wuthering Heights, but sorry to hear about the sunburn. Old Sol can be pretty tricky, unfortunately. Glad you like the 1932 as well — hope you get to enjoy your extrait soon.

      • Ann says:

        BTW, hope someone will carry samples/decants of the Wit soon — can’t wait to try it.

  • Sherri says:

    Oh, I just love these “best of” lists! I have been looking for some Springtime inspiration. i’ve been craving flowers, flowers, flowers:

    The perfect lilac quest: Roja Dove Lilac, En Passant, Opardu and Aerin Lilac Path
    Roja Dove Bergamot: Simple (albeit expensive) perfection
    Roja Dove Gardenia: More a Spring Floral than a gardenia soliflore, and I get alot of hyacinth which makes it
    “springy”
    Lys Mediteranee: Classic, pretty much perfect lily

    • Ann says:

      Hey, sweet Sherri! You’ve got some great picks there, esp. enjoy your lilacs, but I do need to try the Roja Dove one. Glad to see the Aerin one getting a little love too. Must go re-try mine now that it seems that spring really has sprung. Thanks!