Whew!  2011 is nearly over and I still don’t have my Escape limo and I have NO idea where Woody Harrelson is right now.   Better hustle!!!  But – we still have a few days so let’s take a look back at the  best/worst/most intriguing of 2011.  Most of this will be perfume, as it is The Perfume Posse, not Anita’s Playpen…but save room for a couple of weird inclusions, just because I Am In That Kinda Mood.  We are also not limiting this list (or your comments) to stuff brought forth in 2011 – rather, we’re interested in what piqued your interest this past year – some may have transported you with delight, some might’ve brought up your lunch!  Ya nebber know.

So, without further ado, here’s what grabbed us in 2011.

Anita’s picks:

Cartier les Heurres Fougueuse.  I fell in love with this the moment I sniffed it.  Then, inexplicably, I fell OUT of love with it – I think I got scared.  Then I just…gave in.  And swooned as over the course of the year it wrapped its honeyed, monied silken tendrils of sun-kissed hay around my soul….sigh.  Oh, Mathilde…..every time I wear this my step lightens just a little.. Liz Zorn Centennial.  This is an offshoot of her Historical Chypre, which I fell in love with (and bought nearly every drop she had) during the Chicocoa Scentsation.  The perfect peachy chypre, it is the essence of everything I love about Liz’s work;  I’m praying she brings it back soon. Chanel Coco (the original).  Blame March.  I wondered what y’all were yarking on about.  Now I know.  Amouage Epic Bath Gel and Body Creme. (not too far behind on this one, right?   I know it’s a 2009 but I wasn’t able to make it to the Dubai launch -previous plans, don’tcha know…)…anyhoo, 2011 made it New To Musette.   I just might make it through the winter (and the coming Apocalypse) with this.  I’m going to have to send my water bills to Christopher Chong, though.  Or His Majesty.  Whichever one is most likely to pay.

Alahine.  Epic FAIL.  Can you believe it?  Neither can I.  I waited 2 years to sniff that and when I did……..nothing.  I mean, it’s nice.  But what in the hell are you people smelling that transports you so?  March can’t even SPELL it, she is so in love.  She’s all ‘Alahiiiiiiiine’.  Wish I could have what she’s having.  sigh.

BestChowDiscoveries: Trader Joe’s Chicken Shu Mai.  For all I know these are made with chicken feet and beaks.  But isn’t that the best part? Sonoma Farm (from Chicago, go figure) Hot Pickled Garlic (that’s not what it’s called but that’s what it is ).   The website is seemingly gone and their stuff is hard to find (and when you do, at Food Fairs, etc, well, let’s just say they are not Good With the Publick.  But!  these (and the Brussels Sprouts) are worth the slog. Perfect in everything and yummy alone.  But I suggest you actually BE alone when you eat this stuff.  You will be comin’ in HOT for awhile…

Movies:  I hate going to the movies so I’m usually months behind everybody else.  And I admit to being Cranky Old Bat about the sheer volume of crap that gets released every month – there must be a whole lotta money needs launderin’, is allz I got to say (don’t believe me?  take a look at this 2011 list  (and I’m not even that fussy – I love blow’emups and Tony Scott!).  I did brave the plex for Contagion.   3 of us in the theatre.  Hey, I could get used to that!  El O hated the movie.  I thought it was quietly horrifying.  I also finally got around to The King’s Speech - hey I said I was behind! Why didn’t the gen pop like this film?  I think Geoffrey Rush could read the phone book and I would be entranced.   The funny, touching scene with him and Colin Firth when Lionel parks himself in St. Edward’s Chair…  Pitch-perfect.

March says: I went back and looked at the release dates of new-ish perfumes I enjoyed, and … they all came out in 2010.  So this year has been kind of a dud for me, in terms of new releases.  The one exception is Bottega Veneta, a less-powdery alternative to the new iteration of Cuir de Lancome, if you like the smell of expensive handbags.  Mostly I’ve been enjoying old favorites gathering dust in my collection, including Alahine, Jubilation 25, Coco, Tauer Orris, and Lutens’ Fleurs de Oranger.  I can think of worse things.  Anita sez:  that’s Alahiiiine! to you, li’l Missy.

Patty chimes in: This has been a weirdly great year for me in finding new loves.  From Prada Candy to the new JAR Bed of Roses, to Flowerbomb Extrait to a never-smelled bottle of the now-discontinued Lorenzo Villoresi Ylang-Ylang I found in my closet (yes, everyone should have closets like mine where you find a box full of perfume you forgot you had) that has sent me to the moon (um, see yesterday’s post for histrionics over this), it’s been a mixed bag of great smells.

I still love Bertrand Duchafour because he’s prolific and great, and I know for a fact there is more great stuff coming in 2012, so he gets my vote for Perfumer of the Year? Decade?  Oh, wait, we are two years in a new decade, it’s too early.

Ann’s Picks:

MDCI’s La Belle Helene: Up until this baby, no way,  no how was I ever going into pear territory again. Annick Goutal’s Petite Cherie went sour on me in record time and too many cheap pear body products left me shuddering. Until a sweet Posse swapper sent me a sample of La Belle, and one day, feeling brave, I said, “Oh, what the heck!” and put it on. Wowza! Now this is a pear I can wear. On me, it starts out a little bright, but true to the fruit,  and later, deepens, getting burnished down to a slightly gourmand (is that chocolate I smell?) soft oriental. It has a touchable, almost suedelike vibe to it, not unlike SL’s Daim Blond. It’s almost as if her gloves got left behind in the pear orchard, instead of atop a bushel basket of apricots.

Maison Martin Margiela Untitled: The fashion minimalist in me (I’ve always loved designers such as Zoran and Ronaldus Shamask) coveted this cool, paint-dipped bottle long before I had a chance to sniff the juice. And what lovely green juice it is: A hit of bitter green galbanum a la Cristalle segues beautifully into some musky, almost smoky incense, and thankfully, not an ashtray in sight.

Parfumerie Generale’s Indochine: This has turned out to be one of my favorite comfort “blankies” this winter. It reminds me a bit of Kenzo’s Amour (perhaps the thanaka wood that both share) but to my nose, the PG is richer, more creamy, dreamy and woody. This in a body cream would be nothing short of heaven in a jar. Its stablemate, Cadjmere, is another fave, although it gets a little cheeky with me if I do more than dab it.

Bottega Veneta: This lovely is helping to make a leather lover  out of me, despite my earlier misgivings about the note. BV’s easy elegance just coos quiet sophistication and makes me feel like a million bucks. And it doesn’t hurt that the bottle’s a thing of beauty. Now, if we can just get our hands on some MPG’s Cuir Fetiche to try …

And here’s a wonderful scentiment   from Tom, which we all share!!!

I’m doing my “best of” scent-wise on PST, so I’ll content myself with with celebrating a different best here: YOU GUYS!  That’s right!  I want to toast all of you out there, fellow bloggers, commenters and readers.  In the last several years of blogging, reading, learning and meeting people I can honestly state that I have never met a more warm, funny, intelligent and giving group of people.  YOU are the best of 2011 or any other year and I wish you all the best in the future.

For more looks back at 2011 please visit  Perfume-Smellin’ Things, Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This and Grain de Musc.

I give up.  I was told that MDCI Promess de l’aube was reformulated, but I’m smelling the old version and the new one and can only pick up minor differences on the open and maybe a little less powderiness in the new version.  The new version seems to last longer and have more strength in the drydown. So that’s my take on it.  Anyone else compared the two yet?  If you’re a fan of the scent, you won’t be crying with the new version.

Jo Malone has a new scent, officially released in September, though bottles are showing up on eBay, so I’m guessing it is out there in Europe maybe.  Created by Christine Nagel, it features notes of bluebell, clove, lily of the valley, rose, jasmine, white amber and musk.

I’m not sure I’ve smelled bluebell before, so no idea whether it hits the mark.  If this is what bluebell smells like, I gotta say I like it!  It’s a very pretty fragrance, and I’ve been spritzing it on a lot this week because it is working great with the growing heat of the summer. The one thing I’ve always appreciated about Jo Malone, through their ownership changes, etc., they stay true to who they are.  This scent fits in their line and is enough different that it doesn’t feel like a retreat or minor variation or flanker.  It’s slightly sweet, a little musky so it has depth, has  nice green lily of the valley notes that keep it lilting in that “spring in your step” way that Jo Malone always seems to have.  It’s not as linear as some of their fragrances, there’s minor development in the drydown when you hit more of the amber and musk.

I’m digging it. Not in that swoony over-the-moon way, but it’s a solid entry in their line that I think will be well loved, worn a lot without annoying all your office mates/friends/family and sell well for them.  Have you seen the advertising for it?  It’s got an Alice in Wonderland theme, and I think I read somewhere that this is the first advertising where they will have a person in the photos instead of just the bottle of perfume.

Do you have a perfume that fits in that pretty mainstream category?  Do you like that you have one of those or do you feel a little embarrassed that you do?

I’d like to do a draw, and you can pick either the new Jo Malone sample or the comparison of the MDCI samples. Just drop a comment to be entered, and I’ll pick two winners.

Patty

By March

There’s a perfume review down there.  But first – thanks everyone who came out and played on Sunday, giving me all sorts of new words to think about in other languages.  I was/am totally unsurprised by the number of language geeks on here, by the way.  It seems to me that perfume people have a pretty wide range of interests, whatever their level of formal education.

Second, warm thoughts to the wounded Anita, who soldiered on in blog-ville even though her back went kerflooey, and I don’t know how she did it, frankly.   I’m glad she’s feeling a bit better.  Fingers crossed for a full recovery.

Okay, the review. Bear with me.

I was loading my laundry in the washer recently and had to laugh, because it all smelled like Mandragore (don’t worry, this is not another review of my BFF Mandragore.)  You’d think Mandragore was my dryer sheet, or my Glade whole-house scent.  Mandragore is a multi-purpose fragrance for me; it’s calming, it’s focusing, it’s refreshing, it’s cheering.  Mandragore, to me, is a known quantity, and I can wear it year-round, unlike some of my other comfort scents.  Mandragore never seems wrong.  It’s one of the few scents I have a travel bottle of just because I know that whatever happens on a trip, Mandragore will be appropriate.

But that’s why I wear perfume.  I try perfume for a whole different set of reasons, and I try new perfumes all the time.  The greatest perfume moment is when I put something on and it reaches into my brain and gives me a moment of pure, unalloyed … something or other.  I don’t want to say pleasure, because sometimes a new perfume isn’t a scent I’d ever want to wear, but it’s got something going on – it’s interesting, it’s unexpected, it’s unfamiliar.  If dépaysé was the word I was looking for on Sunday, meaning finding yourself in unfamiliar surroundings (in a good way, or at least not a terrible way, although there was some debate about that in the comments), then a great new perfume does the same job.

And thus we find ourselves at MDCI La Belle Helene, which Patty generously sent me a sample of after she reviewed it and I shamelessly begged for some in comments.  Notes via LuckyScent are: Pear accord, aldehydes, tangerine, lime blossom, rose essence, osmanthus absolute, ylang-ylang Madagascar, orris butter, hawthorn, Mirabelle plum, myrrh, vetiver Haiti, patchouli, cedar Virginia, amber, oak moss absolute, white musks, sandalwood, licorice wood.

When I was trying the Xerjoffs for my recent review, the big issue I had with them was: none of them moved me in the way I just talked about above, in spite of the fact that I thought a couple of them (Irisss, XXY) were really pretty.  I considered that a big failing, if not of the house, then some other lack of chemistry.  The Xerjoffs are I guess not my thing.  In the middle of all my testing, though, I spritzed on another atomizer and bam – there it was, that moment where I thought, this this this. That moment of transporting joy.  Then I looked at the label to see which it was and – oops!  It was the MDCI Helene.

We kicked around the idea of luxury perfume and expense and what’s “worth it” on the Xerjoff post, and I’m going to stand up right here and say: I think the MDCIs are worth it.  I don’t own a single full bottle, but I have several of the bottles in their discovery set, and yes, I do think $210 for a discovery set of eight of their scents is perfectly reasonable, because those MDCIs take me someplace I can’t get to any other way.  The only MDCI I find unwearable is Peche Cardinal (too much peach), and if the fragrance fairies were gifting me a bottle I’d ask for the skanky-floral Enlevement au Serail, but I digress.

La Belle Helene starts off with a lot of pear and some powder (probably the aldehydes,) and if you’re not a fan of pear in perfume this isn’t likely to win you over.  But it’s such an interesting pear – not a juicy, pure fruit note, but overlayed with buttery, funky notes like hawthorn that keep it from being overly sweet.  It’s got what I’m going to call the MDCI vibe, for lack of a better expression – as if the fragrance were going two directions simultaneously, a soaring top that reminds me a little of Parfums de Nicolai, with a strong, supporting base that’s rich and complex and lasts forever on me.

La Belle Helene is based on a dessert I’ve never tasted, but it’s an idea of dessert, MDCI’s foray into a gourmand, and this isn’t really something to eat – it’s not “foody.”  The pear fades and then we’re into oriental territory, although I’m avoiding the word “classic,” because there’s nothing retro about it.  The hawthorn, patch and other notes in the woody base suggest something dark and leathery, and about fifteen minutes in, I realized what it reminded me of, a little – Duchaufour’s wonderful recent scent for L’Artisan, Traversee du Bosphore, although the MDCI doesn’t smell like it really – it’s much stronger and more zaftig, for one thing, for those of you who found Bosphore bafflingly evanescent.  It’s a great balance of dark sweetness, like rose and plum, with more than enough cedar, patchouli and vetiver (I can really pick those out) to keep it from being girly.  I think it’s marketed as femme, and I’m not sure how many guys want to wear something with a lady-dessert name, but it would smell great on anyone.   For another take on the fragrance, here’s a link to Bois de Jasmin’s review (she references Traversee du Bosphore as well.)  She feels TdB is similar enough to satisfy this particular fragrance niche-itch; I want both.  On me, the to-die-for plum note of La Belle Helene pays homage to  Poison and Feminite du Bois, while wearing more transparently.

Finally, here’s another shout-out to the man behind it, my no-longer-nemesis Bertrand Duchaufour, who over the last year or fifteen months has been behind several of my favorite new releases.  Gone are the murky days of his previous palette of dank earth tones.  I have no idea what happened, or why he’s doing what he’s doing now, but I hope he continues.

Sample: from Patty; image, wikimedia commons

March

A few weeks ago I reviewed Patricia de Nicolai´s new scent for Parfums MDCI, which now has an official name, “Le Rivage des Syrtes,” taken from the French novel by Julien Gracq.  Claude Marchal of MDCI describes the fragrance as telling the story of a sailor´s travels, gathering various fruits, flowers and other aromatic materials in a chest “to bring back home for the love of his life.” 

Today´s review is of the other new MDCI formerly known as Riche Orient, which has now been renamed Vàªpres Siciliennes after the Verdi opera and is on its way to LuckyScent with the others.  Claude labels it a fruity green chypre, with a fairly extensive list of notes: mandarin, grapefruit, orange, pepper, green leaves, cardamom, lily-of-the-valley, magnolia,  jasmine, ylang ylang, rose, tuberose, heliotrope, oakmoss, cedarwood, amber, neroli, osmanthus, raspberry, cloves, plum, coconut, peach, caramel, musk, wallflower.
 
He explains further, “I wanted something rich, not unlike Enlà¨vement au Sérail, with no gaps, a continuously evolving trail and a fine dry-down.  Notice that this is a very complex formula, with tons of ingredients used as secondary notes to provide an ever changing result; you may be surprised to find certain ingredients part of the heart or the bottom notes (oak moss in the heart notes, raspberry and peach in the bottom notes). The way these ingredients is used is quite subtle, and I believe it works.”

When we were first corresponding about these new scents, Claude spoke of a bit of a departure from the previous scents – that these were meant to be a bit more lighthearted and less formal in design, if I am paraphrasing him correctly (and I invite him to speak up if I´m not.)   While I wouldn´t exactly call them whimsical, both Vepres and Rivage feel … what … a bit younger?  jauntier? … without compromising what are supposed to be MDCI´s top-drawer designs and costly aromatic ingredients.  I wouldn´t know the first thing about that – I´m a perfume nut, not a chemist – but Luca Turin and others in a position to know have said so.  Anyway, Vàªpres Siciliennes is rich but not cloying; I love the way MDCI can do a fruity, floral accord with a gourmand edge that doesn´t feel smothering.  It might be a bit much in high summer in Washington, to be honest, but right now it´s perfect.

The citrus-sweet opening is huge on me, and a bit powdery, although the heliotrope never goes in the unfortunate direction of Play-Doh.  To be honest I don´t get much of the green notes, but the cardamom and pepper are there, agreeably raspy.  Vàªpres Siciliennes takes a bit of a powder at the fifteen-minute mark.  Not in a bad way – it just sits down on a nice stone bench, takes out its handkerchief and rests quietly, enjoying the citrus-grove scenery.  Then the skank creeps in on little cat feet.  It´s not quite the intense, indolic opening of Enlevement, which always startles me a little when I put it on if I haven´t worn it recently – but enough to be a reminder why MDCI labeled this a chypre.  The cardamom, woods and amber become more pronounced, and the fragrance is almost masculine, and reminds me a bit of their uber-delicious man-juice Invasion Barbare.  The drydown gets sweeter, with the caramel, fruits and musk dominating in the drydown, but not so sweet as to be offputting, and certainly not sweet in the sense that mass-market, modern fruity-florals are sweet.  Whereas Enlevement is alluring and Promesse and Rivage are radiant, Vepres is softly sensual.  I´m not sure it´s edged out Rivage in my affections, but it´s certainly trying to.

I´m going to mention again for anyone who clicks on LuckyScent and rolls their eyes at the $610 bottle with the fancy caps that turn the bottles into pricey little sculptures – hey, that isn´t even the expensive one.  MDCI has ones for 3700 euros on their website!  Fine, lucky for me they´re not really my taste either.  But you can buy what I think is the same base (or, if not, a perfectly decent-looking bottle) for $235 for 60ml, which the last time I checked is no longer an outrageous a price for a niche fragrance, and unlike some of the perfume out there MDCI is actually worth it in my opinion.  Furthermore MDCI runs via their website one of the most generous sample programs out there – five 10-ml decant bottles of their original lineup for 55 euros (I think 12 euros extra for shipping to the US).  I emailed Claude and MDCI´s going to continue to let you substitute the new scents for the five originals, since they´re already doing that with Peche Cardinal – with the stipulation that each bottle has to be a different scent – no, you can´t stock up on Invasion Barbare by getting 50mls for 55 euros this way, sorry.  Also this money will credit toward a purchase of a bottle.  I think maybe they ought to make their sample set larger (choose six of the eight?) and charge more, because if you haven´t tried these it´s a damn shame.

If you´re thinking about ordering a set, here´s a link to the sample set (bottom of the page) and one to our original reviews.  Which would you pick for your set of five? 

Rose de Siwa – you could axe this if you hate rose, although I hate rose and I thought it was lovely.  Luca Turin in The Guide describes it as pale, fresh rose, this is one of the two (along with Ambre) he was slightly less enthusiastic about (“nicely done and somewhat dull,” three stars.)

Invasion Barbare – hubba hubba.  Seriously.  You can´t axe this one.  Every man should smell like this.  LT says “a distinctive, high quality masculine,” five stars.  I would wear this, so it´s not too masculine.

Enlevement au Serail – A stunning, heady, indolic floriental that you may not want to throw on right before you get on the subway or the elevator.  Five stars, LT.  Skank queens, walk this way.

Promesse de l´Aube – took me a little longer to come around to, I thought it was lovely without bewitching me.  I´ve been running a head-game on myself recently to see which I need more – this or Chanel 31 RC – and I can´t decide.  More restrained than Enlevement, but as you can guess from the flacons, demure isn´t really what they´re going for, you know?  Rose de Siwa is probably the most demure.  “Superb,” LT, five stars.

Ambre Topkapi – and again, the only one I can never remember of the five, which is telling.  Patty called this one Rich Banker Boy back when its name was still a number.  It´s a very nice masculine, but it´s it´s sort of old-school.  LT characterized it as “the only disappointment from MDCI” but still gave it three stars, which gives you a sense of his regard for the line.

Peche Cardinal – which I have not reviewed, and which, to be frank, is waaaaaay over my line in terms of peachiness.  I think there are probably enough reviews on Lucky for you to get the feel for it.  It is to peach what Fracas is to tuberose, and my guess is you know immediately where that puts you in terms of its appeal.

Image: Morelli,  Vàªpres Siciliennes, sicile-sicilia.net

March

In The Guide review of Patricia de Nicolai´s glorious fragrance New York, Luca Turin makes a comment that Guerlain ought to “buy Parfums de Nicolai, add PdN´s range to theirs, trash fifteen or so of their own laggard fragrances” and hire de Nicolai, a granddaughter of Pierre Guerlain, as their in-house perfumer.  Nothing would make me happier, particularly in light of Guerlain´s latest release.  On the other hand, maybe the curse of lameness that seems to have descended on Guerlain would contaminate PdN and we´d have nothing.

While we wait for Guerlain to get its act together, learning that Parfums MDCI hired de Nicolai to design two of their four new releases thrills me.  De Nicolai has done the as-yet-unnamed PN1 and PN2 (which is still being tinkered with); MDCI has already released Péché Cardinal, a heady peach-floral which has just appeared on LuckyScent, and the fourth, Riche Oriente, a green spicy floriental, is I believe coming along later in the spring.

I´ve been corresponding with Claude Marchal, the man behind MDCI, about these scents and other things – a possible lower-cost flacon among them – and before I go any further I feel I should point out MDCI´s sample set of generous decants of their first five fragrances for 55 euros (including tax and shipping and refundable with a bottle purchase) as one of the great deals of perfume sampling, in my opinion.   Regardless of whether any of the MDCIs is to your personal taste (although it´s hard to imagine you wouldn´t find something to love) it´s a joy to smell fragrances that seem born of a simple desire to turn costly ingredients into beautiful scents.  On the one hand the MDCI fragrances do not smell ambitious in the sense of boundary-pushing or rule-breaking.  On the other, you show me a set of five fragrances from one house in the last ten years that could stand up to these in terms of classic, over-the-top gorgeousness and wearability.  Les Exclusifs, but what else?

The notes of de Nicolai´s first fragrance for MDCI, the as-yet-unnamed PN1 are, courtesy of Claude Marchal himself:

Head notes: fine orange essence, pineapple, galbanum
Heart notes: ylang ylang , tuberose, orange blossom absolute, incense.
Bottom notes: ambergris, vanilla and musc.

Those notes on paper do not induce a mouth-watering desire in me.  Pineapple and galbanum?  Eh, no thanks.  I´ll pass.  But as it turns out, PN1 is stellar.  I´d put it in third place in the line in terms of my personal favorites, behind the gloriously indolic Enlevement au Serail and the woody-sexy Invasion Barbare, although Promesse de l’Aube is suddenly giving Enlevement a run for its money on my arm.

If if if.   If the orange in PN1 were any soapier/stronger.  If the pineapple were any sweeter.  If the galbanum were any greener/bigger.  If any of these these notes stuck out like a misfit puzzle piece then the whole top would fall apart like bad tulle on prom night.  As it stands, it´s like your first taste of some unfamiliar cocktail that leaves you thinking, that combination is genius!  Orange, galbanum and pineapple ought to show up for the Superbowl together, they make such a great team, and while they´re at it, they need to bring incense, because he´s holding his end up in the background.

PN1 leaves me temporarily handicapped because I walk around with my hand glued to my nose like some loon, compulsively sniffing while people take five steps out of their way to avoid me. The galbanum becomes almost grassy.  The incense is slightly peppery, the whole fragrance shifting subtly from fruits to flowers while maintaining that incredible sustained top note that goes on and on and on without ever becoming tiresome or shrill.  I would love to know how they pulled that off.

This smells very de Nicolai.  In general, her perfumes are not sweet.  I´m fonder of some of the PdNs than others, but they´re mostly grand, and having her work with Claude Marchal is a win-win for everyone as far as I´m concerned.

Claude wears PN1 all the time these days.  As he said in his email, an interesting and beautiful composition, with incredible turns, openings, undertones… I just cannot have enough of it.  Me neither.

* * *

For those who’ve been following the debate regarding the name Peche Cardinal, I have here from the house:  it is Péché (sin), my guess is Lucky can’t drop the correct accents in their headlines.  (I can’t type it either, FWIW — I had to cut and paste from elsewhere.)  Further, check out Mr. Marchal’s interesting explanation of the name:

 ”The jest here, for there is one (or at least an attempt) is a bit more than a play of words between “Péché” (sin) and Pàªcher (peachtree).  The effect in French comes from the contradiction between “péché”, (sin), and “cardinal”: in French, when we talk of a “vertu cardinale” it means one of the four fundamental (hence cardinal, from the latin cardo which means “hinge”) Christian virtues: la prudence (prudence), la tempérance (temperance), la force (strength) et la justice (..justice!), which are completed by the three virtues, la foi ( faith), l’espérance (hope) et la charité (charity).

Here, ”cardinal” instead of being associated to ”very important, key, fundamental major”  virtues, is associated with…..SIN! (péché, which in french sounds like pàªcher, or peachtree…).  So here we have a sin that one MUST commit! And the scent does contains some peach…

I don’t know if this works outside France, but to us it has a double, or triple meaning.”

image: MDCI website, illustrating the process of making the crystal bottle stoppers

March