Parfumerie Generale Night Bird

Parfumerie Generale L’Oiseau de Nuit (Night Bird) is one of those irritating little treasures Pierre cooks up in his basement because he’s bored one night or because some overly enriched Eurotrash wants their own perfume, then it either doesn’t release outside of Paris or hides under all those numbers in the private collection part of their website. This particular one is Private Creation No. 199 for 148 euros. Why has no one named a perfume Night Bird before now?

The blurb from PG on this one is:  “modern leather … dedicated to the precious essence of cistus labdanum. A swirling core of fruity and flowery notes set afire by benzoin and the liqueur of davana.”  Think Bois Blond meets leather, and that will be about where you should be in your perfume diagram in your head.

It goes on with an almost hay-like blast, very earthy and pungent, and then some of the sweet base that you find in most of the PGs bubbles up to take the edge off the rawness of the open.  Early on is where it reminds me most of Bois Blond. If you don’t like Bois Blond, you likely are not going to like this.  It’s a very rich, almost sweet leather early on, though it’s not as sweet as Bois de Copaiba. The longer it is on, the less sweet it is, and it smooths out into a very smooth, elegant leather.  I adore it, it is easy to wear and just lovely. Those of you who thought Bois Blond was too hay’ey and wanted it to skew to the leathery end, L’Oiseau de Nuit might suit you better. If none of the PGs have worked for you thus far, this isn’t going to change that for you, it’s got the PG stamp/base all over it.

Y’all did read this over on Now Smell This yesterday, didn’t you?  If you didn’t, go read, we’ll wait.  You back yet?  Great. Could you just….

SCREAM!!!!!!111!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!11!!

Annick Goutal is doing amber, myrrh and frankincense?!?!  As soon as I heard this, I phoned Tom at Bergdorf to see what he knew, and he’s trying to get more information on when it might arrive on our deprived shores. I read further in the cosmeticnews article, and it sounds like it is releasing in Paris in December (there will be an AG stop when we go and much begging to see if they have a drop to sniff or early bottles to sell – priming my charm now), with the edp going wordwide in 2008. It is a pricey little thing, with the 100 ml bottles individually going for over $200. That coffret of all three in 50 ml bottles for 1k is the parfum version, so for parfum, that’s really not that bad. Has Annick Goutal ever done a parfum? Maybe, but I’ve never sniffed one, nor can I recall another.  They had better be good, or someone will get a few choice, sharp words from me.  They can’t keep taking away the interesting stuff like Eau de Fier, finally give us back a great Three Gifts of the Magi set in time for Christmas and then have it suck.  I’m warning you, Annick Goutal, screw this up and we.are.so.over!!!  *shakes finger*

So I just add my anticipation on this one to the new Parfum d’Empire three being released in October, the Iris Pallida from L’artisan in November, that By Kilian thing that’s coming out in October or November, and several other things that are all neatly entered on my Excel spreadsheet. It’s exhausting worrying about all of these, but they are so much fun to anticipate! Which new release coming up has you the most frenetic with anticipation?

image from robertellisonimaging.com