By March
Unfinished business: First, I got equal requests for June and July for the next Swapmania, so let’s split the difference and annoy everyone equally – Wednesday, June 22 – that’s the weekend BEFORE the July 4 weekend – I’ll put the post up on Wednesday and let it run through the weekend, okay? That way everyone should have time to play.
Second, next week I’m going to do a “Regrets, I’ve Had a Few” revisit of stuff in my collection. Your assignment is to pick one or two scents you own (samples/decants are fine) that you can’t even remember what they smelled like, but you loved them at some point. Next week you’ll be telling us, how do you feel about them now? Are you glad you rediscovered this neglected gem of yours, or is it just taking up valuable shelf-space?
Okay, perfume review. It’s fun to be five years into this and still have something “new” to run across –a fragrance that has a huge perfumista fan-base. So today I’m nattering about Gucci L’Arte di Gucci. Here’s a plausible list of notes via Fragrantica: aldehydes, coriander, fruity notes, green notes, bergamot, mimosa, tuberose, orris root, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, rose, geranium, narcissus, leather, amber, patchouli, musk, oakmoss and vetiver.
I smiled when I saw Donna’s extensive review on Perfume-Smellin’ Things last week, because I’d been playing with my sample, and I enjoyed reading about it while smelling it. (Here’s a link to Angela’s recent review on Now Smell This, and an informative review on Perfume Shrine as well.)
For a fragrance released in 1991 and allegedly discontinued some time ago, L’Arte di Gucci still turns up on the blogs periodically in rhapsodic reviews, as evidenced above. L’Arte di Gucci is a big ol’ rose chypre, with giant shoulder-pads and long red nails and heavy, Robert Palmer-video-level eyeshadow. It’s about as subtle as vintage Chloe, and it must have hit right before we went all clean with 1994′s CK One, etc., so maybe that’s why it didn’t fare too well. In fact it has more in common with the 1980s — say, Paloma Picasso (1984), another spicy-mossy-aldehydic chypre.
It’s bubbly and bergamot-y at the top, and a ribbon of green green green runs all the way through it – the crushed leaves of geranium, cut grass, muguet, with a rich, dark, leathery base (the leather-hay of narcissus and all those funky, mossy notes.) There’s also a surprising honeyed note (Donna mentions this too) that gives the fragrance a softer, more languorous feel – less shoulder-pads in the boardroom and more silk stockings in the bedroom.
Is it my style? Well, no, not really – there’s a lot of rose in there, and you wouldn’t want to break a bottle of this in your car. It is definitely the sort of fragrance that would get dissed by the words “old lady” in reviews on Sephora; also, it’s got a half-life of plutonium on my skin, and a few sprays of this causes my family to frown at me. But I’m not such a dope that I can’t recognize how incredibly beautiful it is, and, frankly, how much more interesting and full of character it is than much of the new niche stuff I smell.
My review is for the EDP, and good luck finding it; the EDT, which I have not smelled, still seems relatively easy to find online. Update: hey, look what I found. I have no idea if it works, since I didn’t try to buy it, but Overstockperfume.com lists the 30ml EDP splash for$55. Anyone who wants to compare the EDT to EDP, please feel free to do so in comments.
Sample source: private sample, atomizer
Awhile ago I blogged about how much I like Gucci Envy for Men, which features a lot of ginger, an unexpected (and for me, quite welcome) note in a scent. Musette, in one of our chatty email exchanges recently, asked me what I actually wear when I’m not test-driving something new. I admitted that I probably wear Gucci Rush more than is decent. I still can’t find the line in The Guide where Luca Turin describes a scent as (paraphrasing here) “making vulgarity seem like a richly-deserved vacation from good taste,” but I could certainly apply that to Rush, a milky-sweet thing that is both art and trash, like those big, shiny Jeff Koons balloon dogs. Gucci Flora was okay, and while I ragged in passing on Gucci Guilty on Monday, it’s … perfectly fine. It’s a very current, office-friendly floral-amber that I wouldn’t object to putting on my body, in theory. But as I don’t work in an office, and it’s a little too floral to be a wallpaper scent for me, I’d rather wear something else. Leading me, in roundabout fashion, to the top of today’s review: Gucci Envy.
Envy came out in 1997, when I had a toddler, a baby, and a more-than-full-time corporate job that involved travel. Whatever marketing message they were sending out with Envy, I missed it. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve walked by a bottle of Envy without once picking it (or any of its spawn) up for a sniff. I’d be able to buy one of those MDCIs and an Amouage, or maybe I’d dial up the Roja Dove boutique instead and see if they have any of that discontinued Les Larmes Sacrees de Thebes under the counter… anyway, how it is I’ve gotten to this point in my life and in perfumery without a hint of Envy I have no idea, but there you have it. It’s pretty hard to dig up a list of notes, here’s one cobbled together from Osmoz that seems plausible: bergamot, freesia, peach, hyacinth, magnolia, lily of the valley, rose, jasmine, cedar, sandalwood, orris, musk. The fragrance was done by Maurice Roucel. I had no idea. Maybe I’d have tried it sooner.
Envy is, if nothing else, an interesting study in how tastes have changed in mass-market perfumery. It’s a green floral, and a big one – one of those goes-with-cigarettes scents like Estee Lauder Azuree the original, Estee Lauder Jasmine White Moss, and Issey Miyake A Scent, although there’s no oakmoss finish to Envy. The first five minutes are sweet and fruity, rather synthetically so, like the hairspray top notes of the Rush bottle next door crept in. It feels a bit dated in a fun way, as if I’d oversprayed Chanel Cristalle and suddenly time-tripped back to 1984 for a pineapple daiquiri and a cigarette on the outside patio of the local watering hole. Then the top fades and it’s both green/metallic (hyacinth and the LOTV) and watery – I get a lot of magnolia – and as it drifts toward the drydown it becomes progressively more musky/woody. The florals aren’t identifiable individually to me beyond the touch of rose. Envy’s got the velvety curves of muguet rather than the sharpness of galbanum, and it’s never as dry or sharp (or grown-up) as, say, Azuree, but it’s quite pretty. It seems far more sophisticated than most of the new mass-market scents I run into.
People are still making green florals – there’s the Jasmine White Moss and A Scent right there on my list – but those seem more exclusive, or niche-ier, in terms of demographic. What’s Gucci making now to lure the huddled masses? Flora and Guilty, two fragrances that fit in seamlessly, scent-wise, with the newer offerings on the shelf at Macy’s and Sephora. The idea of releasing a scent that smells like Envy to the same market (18 to 30 year olds?) it was aimed at fifteen years ago seems absurd to me. It must have been the Obsession (or the Poison) of its day, right? For the party-going 20-somethings? These days it’s Gwen Stefani and Coach, cupcakes and light musk, nothing that’s going to pull a groin muscle.
I’ve enjoy my continuing journey through the powerhouse scents of the 1980s and 1990s, most of which I missed, not really being into perfume at the time. There’s always another surprise out there, no matter how assiduously I sniff. Envy is stirring my faint memories of green scents with LOTV … does anyone out there remember Sung? How about Fidji? Wow, that’s much older, from the 60′s. I knew a lot of women wearing it in the 80′s. Who wore Envy back in the day, raise your hand? How did you feel about it? How do you feel about it now?
March
