Tauer Perfumes

Ringing In The Spring

lilybells

– a review of Tauer Perfumes’ Carillon pour un Ange

I don’t know about you, but this winter is getting old. Old as in … just move along already and give way to my most favorite time of year, the season of renewal, of hope, of sunshine and warmth… spring. And what better way to kick Old Man Winter to the curb than through a luminous perfume that exudes its own sunlight and adds a lilt to your voice and a sashay to your step?

Which was precisely where I was this wretched, rainy, cold March day when I remembered something in my Guilt Trip Review Box that just might be the one-way ticket away from all the months-long miseries caused by a seemingly endless winter of drab, dank and damp.

Many flowers have laid claim to being the embodiments of spring; hyacinths, tulips, daphne, bluebells… it makes for a long list. Yet in spite of their many virtues and the perfumes that pay homage to them, perhaps none are so emphatically spring-like in their appearance or their fragrance as those tiny, fragile snow-white bells known as lily of the valley.

The paradox about lily of the valley in perfumery is that the fragrance can’t be extracted from the flowers, so a lily of the valley perfume relies on a perfumer’s skill in building an accord to evoke it, whether that is by flower essences and absolutes and/or using hydroxycitronellal, Lilial or Lyral.

For many, the ultimate lily of the valley recreation is Edmond Roudnitska’s 1956 Diorissimo, the one lily of the valley to rule them all, but Diorissimo and I – as indeed my opinion of lily of the valley perfumes in general – don’t get along at all.

First of all, my mother wore it, which kills it for me stone cold. Second, although I adore the verdant fragrance of the flowers themselves when I find them, something about their interpretations in perfumes strike me as too virginal, too snow-white, too altogether frilly, hyper-feminine and white-tulle-with-added-meringue bridal for my personal tastes.

Until that fateful September afternoon (because I’m nothing if not perverse) in Florence when I discovered one that wasn’t, the one that was indeed a lily of the valley perfume, but didn’t strike me as an ad for the wedding service industry (or meringued-out gowns), as musty or old-fashioned in the slightest:

Tauer Perfumes’ Carillon pour un Ange, henceforward referred to as Carillon.

I’d read the many reviews of Carillon, read them with that instinctual frisson which informed my synapses that maybe, just maybe it wouldn’t be one of those virginal ingénues that sent this post-punk catastrophe running for the hills of the blackest, raunchiest, goatiest labdanums I could find.

So it all magically came to pass that overly fragrant afternoon at the Stazione Leopolda, when the entire glorious lineup of Andy Tauer’s creations gleamed in front of me and the first one I reached for was Carillon.

Muguet? Oh, yes. Lily of the valley and a whole supporting cast of viridian characters danced in on a silvery spring sunbeam that instantly blasted away the memories of most of the countless hyperluxe eau de niche perfumes I sniffed that day.

I left the Stazione Leopolda thinking new and very modern thoughts about lily of the valley. Such as… I want a bottle of this, pronto per favore. Not to mention: This! Is a lily of the valley I can actually love. And wear. And not feel like Bridezilla five minutes before walking down the aisle.

When Andy Tauer kindly offered to send me samples some long time later in another context (his re-release of the bottled summer known as Cologne du Maghreb), I remembered Carillon, remembered that moment and asked for Carillon, to see if my recall had been correct. The day it arrived, I sprayed it, swooned to be back in memory at least to that afternoon in Florence, put my Tauer tin in the Guilt Trip Box… and forgot all about it until today, as winter writhes its last throes outside in the rain and the wind huffs and puffs against my windowpanes, today when I am desperate for a breath… of spring.

If you could assign a color to spring, surely it would be the tender sunny green of leaves about to burst?

So it is with Carillon, right from the opening peals floating on the breeze right above my skin. I detect a smidgen of rose, certainly lilac and a suggestion of a dense, oily-green hyacinth, although hyacinth isn’t listed among the notes, but above all, clear as the bells of the flowers themselves is this lily of the valley, no ingénue but instead an olfactory interpretation of the flowers, the stalks and leaves, the cool snap of sap and the rise of sunshine, as much as to sing… wake up, wake up!

Winter is dead – long live spring!

Long may it reign, and indeed it does once these bells hit their stride and grab the airy, verdant jasmine for a Viennese waltz on the lawn in the sun and around and around they go. Ylang ylang, which is listed on the Tauer website as a topnote, doesn’t make an entrance on my skin until well into the heart and then only as a discreet sugar dusting to balance the green and banish the bitter. Off they all waltz into the sunset of a flawless spring day across that emerald lawn, echoed by a soft step of leather, moss and ambergris that is nothing in the slightest like the Tauerade you think you know.

In flower symbolism, lily of the valley symbolizes the return of happiness. If that is an omen – just as I was reminded of Carillon on a dire, drab day of doom and despair this winter will ever end – then I’ll take it, thank you very much. Or else I’ll take it as a sign that spring will – all momentary appearances to the contrary – indeed return and happiness, too, so long as I can ring in the clarion call of spring with this peal of bells for an angel (or a mortal!) called Carillon pour un Ange.

Notes for Carillon pour un Ange: Rose, ylang ylang, lilac, lily of the valley accord, jasmine, leather, ambergris, moss woods.

Carillon pour un Ange is available at Luckyscent and directly from the Tauer Perfumes’ website.

Disclosure: A sample was provided for review by Andy Tauer. For the sample, for his support, encouragement and for his astonishing patience, I thank him profusely. My reviews and opinions are my own, for which see my review disclaimer here. Also a big thank you to Monica Miller, who reminded me.

The Epiphanies of 2014

C4crown

  • the thrills and spills of the past year in perfume

It’s that storied time of year again when I finally sit down and decide on my favorites of (the thankfully passé) 2014. In spite of a frantic year that was frantic for all the wrong reasons, and in spite of far too much to review and not nearly enough time to write about it, I did indeed, thanks to dear and generous friends and my own initiative, get to stick my nose in not a few things I loved this year, many I very much liked and a few I absolutely loathed.

This time, instead of posting three separate lists, I’ve decided to mix things up a bit on one ultra-list, otherwise you and I will be here ‘till Doomsday, and I don’t know about you, but I have a long to-do list this year…

Another thing I feel compelled to point out is that many of the perfumes that have made it to this list have yet to be reviewed. Some because… well, that’s a surprise I’ll be getting back to in a bit. In so doing, that violates a principle I have about only including the things I reviewed, but we all have things to do. Some will be reviewed here on TAG, and others… well, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The Worst of 2014

We might as well get the bad stuff over with.

Which means that whoever is in charge chez Parfums YSL will be the first to go down in flames in my revolution dream. It evidently wasn’t enough to slaughter one of the greatest perfume heritages of the late 20th century in terrible/lazy/rushed refomulations, nor even to pour ‘PVC+phthalate doll accord’ into the dregs of (badly reformulated) Paris and call it ‘Parisienne’. But did whomever-should-be-shot-with-current-version-Tabu stop to think about how we would perceive Black Opium? Because it is neither ‘black’ in the slightest, nor Opium in the least particular. It’s as forgettable and unremarkable as last year’s haute blondes. Henceforth, I shall proceed to call it (“perfume”) Methadone, except it neither alleviates Opium withdrawals nor the nostalgic pangs of prior highs. When Hedi Slimane, chief designer at YSL, finds it necessary to dissociate himself from it in a press release, you know it’s one terrible idea. Horribly executed. Alas, not fatally.

Oud

Perfumers and perfume houses: I have a announcement for you:

I. Am. So. Over. Oud.

And yes, I do like oud, except not so much the barnyard stable ‘fierce’ ouds, and certainly not the synthetic oud that passed for the real thing this past year. This is a trend that needs to die. You still have flowers, woods, resins, plants, all with their own languages to explore and their stories to tell. Start listening.

Hyperinflation

True luxury, stated a friend of mine in the know, is always inclusive. Meaning that inflating an already hefty price tag on a niche perfume, pouring gold dust all over the bottle (or whatever gimmicks are used to justify the price tag) and marking it all up by at least 5000% is not, in fact, luxurious at all. It’s simply, as I see it, pandering to the lowest audience of all: those who are too unsophisticated and too rich to know better. There are far too many ‘hyper-luxe’ sheep masquerading as big, bad wolves worth their prices. If I ever have 1000€ to spend on perfume (because I can dream!), I hope to spend it where my business is properly appreciated, not where I leave with a big, fat “SUCKER” tattooed in risible ink on my forehead. Roja Dove and Diaghilev extrait, here’s looking at you, and I say that because Diaghilev in extrait is literally flawless. And forever and always out of my reach. Damn it.

Flankers.

Because they display a distinct lack of inspiration or ambition, and I can’t decide what’s worse. Maybe both?

Worst idea:

Guerlain Shalimar Souffle de Parfum. I spent the better part of two hours trawling through a large Copenhagen Sephora this Christmas on the first day of the sales, and lo and behold, there was Shalimar and Souffle, and I thought I might as well live a little. While I was certainly impressed with the original current-version Shalimar (although I much prefer the amped-up vanilla frangipane of Shalemur), this was a baby-faced powder puff girl desperately trying to look about 30, because that’s, like, old. Or mature. Or something. I wonder whether the marketing department of Guerlain has a huge THINK YOUNGER neon sign somewhere. The problem is, those ingénues don’t have the cash to go to town on perfume. We gens d’un certain âge, on the other hand, do. Grow up, Guerlain! Thierry Wasser – you’re better than that. And you know it.

Worst trend:

Before I shoot myself in the metaphorical foot here, let me start by saying this is me. Your mileage may vary. Yet for all I adore consuming both chocolate and coffee, sometimes together, I’m emphatically not a fan of wearing either of them. (There are a very few exceptions.) It could be my skin chemistry, it could be something else, but as soon as I try, virtually all the perfumes I’ve tried with either note just grows and grows and grows into an espresso-choc Godzilla, the second before I’m eaten alive. Argh!

The Best of the Best

Biggest Overall Unexpected Surprise:

Jardins d’Écrivain’s Junky.

Please forget that I’m a perpetually immature overgrown teenager who took an inordinate amount of glee in wafting Junky a good deal of this past summer and fall, and then laying it on my unsuspecting audience when they asked what I was wearing. But Junky – just as the other things I’ve sniffed so far from Jardins d’Écrivain’s line – is a super-seamless unisex green floral I can’t get enough of whatever the season or the reason. I’m hopelessly addicted. You can bet your vintage My Sin I hope to explore the rest of Jardins d’Écrivains in detail, tout de suite!

Best Seamless Floral, Part One:

aroma M Camellia Perfume.

If your heart belongs to that grand age of perfumes à la Française, if Coco Chanel had a few great ideas in perfumery at least, if you like your flowers bold and luxurious, if you also love the glories of frankincense all wrapped up in a bow of Parisian Ooh la la!, if in short you’re a nostalgia freak like me, then you might love aroma M’s stupendously beautiful Camellia Perfume.

Best Perfume I didn’t expect to like, but did:

Parfums Serge Lutens Borneo 1837

It smells like unearthed secrets and undiscovered sins of the most glamorous, Baudelairean kind. A dry, dusty, ever-so-slightly rose-flecked, cocoa-dusted patchouli that shouldn’t work at all, but does. This past autumn, I’ve been rereading J.K. Huysmans’ Against Nature and The Damned. I suspect Des Esseintes would be all over Borneo, just as Huysmans would be all over Parfums Serge Lutens, when the paradox is actually the other way around!

Honorable Mention: I’m ashamed I haven’t tried this one before now, even considering I’m such a fan of leather perfumes. But Chanel’s Cuir de Russie has been growing on me like a fungus, and the more I wear it, the more I love it. Who knew?

Best Mainstream releases:

Even in my backwater part of the world, miracles happen. Such as the time I discovered Dior Homme Parfum

in my local chain shop. Since I consider the original Dior Homme (and Dior Homme Intense) among the greatest masculines ever made and I wear them whatever the label, I had to sniff this one. I was not disappointed. François Demachy, you have almost redeemed yourself. I dreamt about smelling this on the right kind of man for days. Lacking that option, I’d wear this super-sexy film noir beast, too.

Balmain Ivoire Eau de Parfum:

The original (I have a vintage eau de toilette) Ivoire is such an all-star favorite of mine, it was the very first true perfume review I wrote. There is neither a season, a reason nor an occasion when it is less than perfectly satisfying, perfectly lovely in its green soapy-sappy-aldehyde aura and perfectly appropriate. So I was expecting another hot-mess reformulation when Balmain launched the eau de parfum in 2014, only to find they’ve kept virtually everything that made the original so great except the oakmoss base. And speaking of…

Best “We’re not worthy!” perfume, Part One:

Every so often, it happens that a perfume launches I suspect Planet Perfume isn’t entirely prepared for. In 2014 came Bogue Profumo’s MAAI. Holy St. Mary Magdalene! Antonio Gardoni took tuberose, that most erotic of flowers, and super-glammed and super-sexed it up, and up and up and UP. No Superman would stand a chance against this perfume Kryptonite. It is as luxe, as grand, as velvety-plush, as mossy, as heady and did I mention s-e-x-y? as anything the Eighties ever dreamed of. I’m saving that sample for a date night with definite ulterior motives, presuming that ever happens. As they say, hope springs eternal, and Signor Gardoni – I’m not worthy! Of either hope or this perfume, I can’t quite decide… 😉

Best New Perfume House:

Aedes de Venustas. AdV, the storied Greenwich Village perfumery store, has a very special place in my black and decadent heart, because once upon a time, their printed catalog provided all the perfumes I had – to dream about. Some time later, my sister brought me back a modestly priced perfume from Aedes, and whoever sold it to her was also sweet enough to provide samples for a severely aesthetically and perfume-starved woman. I never forgot it. So when Robert Gerstner and Karl Bradl launched their own perfume line in 2012 with their eponymous Aedes de Venustas, naturally I sat up and paid attention. Fate had plans when I was sent samples of everything AdV and they all blew me away. The running theme of Aedes de Venustas is incense – heartstopping, sacred, swoon-worthy incense, in unexpected combinations that both intrigue and hugely please this jaded perfume writer. I’ll be getting to those marvels in future posts. On that note…

Best Resurrected Floral, Part One:

Why carnation has such a fuddy-duddy, dowdy reputation is completely beyond me. I can’t get enough of carnation; peppery, rosy, clove-ish, fiery, feisty, thick, sweet and utterly delicious. Carnation sprang into my awareness with a bang when I had the chance to try a brand-new carnation (or so I thought) through a perfume split of Aedes de Venustas’ Oeillet Bengal. I bought a decant blind and promptly… adored it. Oeillet Bengale – actually, the name of a rare China rose – is a peppery, rich, rosy incense-laden wonder that shot to the top of my Hotly Coveted FBW wishlist, especially since that decant is going, going…

A Rose is a Rose is a Marvel… a.k.a. Best We’re Not Worthy, Part Two:

Not many perfumers can claim to have not one perfume that doesn’t do me any favors. The one who does like no other is Vero Kern of vero profumo. Heaven help me, I love all her work in any version: Rubj, Kiki, Onda (Onda did take a while) and Mito. So Vero gave us Rozy, her fragrant tribute to Anna Magnani in ‘The Tattooed Rose’, and just when you thought there was nothing new to say about rose, here is Rozy: emphatic, dramatic, sensuous and earthy, with a honey-flecked sweetness that shows a true maître’s effortless hand. I’ll have a time-travelling tale for Rozy’s crimson glories, but more on that one later…

Best Heatwave Antidote/Best Re-Release:

Tauer Perfumes’ Cologne du Maghreb.

Bless dear Andy Tauer for re-releasing this instant 2011 classic, for it subverted much I thought I knew about Tauers and everything I assumed about colognes, mainly that most of them are boring, as Cologne du Maghreb never, ever is. It is sparkling, subtle, intricate, cooling, distinctively different and utterly delicious, and over several sweaty weeks of a summer heatwave, it kept me and my composure as cool as a glass of chilled cedary lemonade. I think of ‘July’, and I think of this cologne. Because It’s That Good.

Best All-Round Unisex:

Olympic Orchids’ Blackbird.

‘Fruity’ – as in ‘berry’ – and I don’t get along that well. But Ellen Covey’s perfume for Seattle store Blackbird is an exception to that rule. This wondrous green concoction with a heart-of-darkness is an ode to the blackberry bushes (something of a plague) of the Pacific Northwest, and if you think blackberry and balsam firs don’t mix, think again. Many of Ellen’s creations have an extraordinary sense of place, and Blackbird’s verdant ode to where the sweet wild things are has been known to make me sing in the dead of night and high noon too, showing just how much one of my favorite perfumers just keeps on getting better and better. And better.

Best Bottled Gothic Autumn:

Neil Morris Fragrances’ October & Chasing Autumn.

Neil Morris is another perfumer whose nose has an exceptional sense of place, and never more dexterously demonstrated than in his two tributes to the beauty of a New England fall, October and Chasing Autumn. Everything I love and adore about autumn is here: the scent of apples on trees and on the ground cradled by leaves, burning leaves and bonfires, the breath of forest trees breathing their seasonal farewells as flaming leaves dance a timeless measure to the forest floor. I do mean everything. If October is mulled wine, apple cider and all things sweetly great on a peerless Sunday October afternoon, then Chasing Autumn is a forest… of Halloween bonfires and eerie shadows in the dark beyond, a resolutely Gothic ode to all things autumnal with no signs of that fabled new England restraint. Nathaniel Hawthorne could do them justice. I’m not sure I could. I’ve never come across anything quite like either of them, and since they’re Neil Morris creations, I know I never will.

Favorite Perfume Experiment:

Sometimes, instead of simply chasing after the Next New Things, it can be good to take a deeper look at what you actually have. The results may surprise you. I was very surprised to learn I owned no less than 22 different Serge Lutens/Christopher Sheldrake creations in varying degrees of full bottles, decants and samples. I then proceeded to wear each of them consecutively over the course of about two weeks, and gained a whole new artistic and aesthetic appreciation of all of them. It goes without saying I don’t have nearly enough of any of them, and wish for at least eleven more…

Happiest Perfume of 2014:

Amouage Sunshine

On rare occasions on Planet Perfume, a concept, the execution of that concept and the final result come so seamlessly and perfectly together it’s all you can do to keep your cool before you surrender with a helpless shrug and a laugh in the face of such beauty. Sunshine arrived with impeccable, supernatural timing at a time when I was seriously considering to pack it in as a perfume writer and just give up the ghost of ever trying to capture the ephemeral art through words. Yes, I reviewed it. No, my words didn’t convey what I had hoped they would. But a few scant days later, I held my daughter as she made me a grandmother to a lovely little girl, and since it was the only thing I had with me at the time, I gave her Sunshine. To see the joy on my daughter’s face as I did was all the sunshine that cold night in November needed. To experience the arrival of a new generation perfect baby girl was all the immortal sunshine I needed. Apropos finding the right words…

Proudest Moment in Prose, 2014 edition:

Amouage Journey

I’ll be honest – Christopher Chong made it very easy for me. Shanghai in the 1930s, Chinese film noir and all things grand and great (noblesse oblige!), wrapped up in the two parts of Journey Man and Woman, one a fiery gold Chinese dragon, the other a sublime osmanthus song, my story of Journey counts among my finest – and hardest – hours as a perfume writer. It took me into new and wondrous places in my research and made me wonder at that story’s continuation of ‘a celluloid cliché of a Shanghai that was an improbable fiction anywhere else but here’. You’ll find no clichés in either Journey, but just as all the best journeys do, you’ll be a changed person when you return home. Whenever I wonder at why I even bother to write about perfume, which happens at least once a day, I look to Amouage. Oh. Yes. That’s why.

Greatest Shapeshifter Perfume of 2014:

Aftelier Palimpsest.

Mandy Aftel’s Palimpsest, inspired by the layer-upon-layers-and-lines of ancient manuscripts, is without question the greatest shapeshifter I encountered in 2014. I’ve never experienced a perfume containing the Australian firetree before, which partly explains it, but this thick, honeyed animalic-peachy-ylang-ylang growl in a bottle did two spectacular things: It completely flummoxed a perfume writer of four years’ standing, and shape-shifted entirely from ‘dead-wildebeest-wearing-ylang-&-jasmine-wreath’ on a blonde semi-vegetarian to a sumptuously sexy come-hither Mae West on Ms. Hare, the carnivorous brunette. Which only goes to prove the artistry of Mandy Aftel and also the maxim, written through several layers of parchment… chemistry is everything.

Best Resurrected Floral, Part Two:

DSH Perfumes Scent of Hope

Among vintage perfume lovers, a select few perfumes stand out for their greatness of execution, their scope of imagination and their sheer, jaw-dropping sleight-of-hand artistry. When perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz was given the bespoke assignment of recreating one such perfume, Jacques Fath’s fabled 1947 Iris Gris for a private client, she apparently succeeded beyond all imagining and expectation. Luckily for those of us who don’t have access to the Jacques Fath original (and being an iris lover, trust me, it’s on my list!), Dawn decided to make it available for the rest of us, and if the original Iris Gris is even 10% of this, then by Golly, it deserves its reputation. Scent of Hope is the apex of Great, Grand Perfume and the perfumer’s art: a peerless, perfect contradiction of everything you’d suspect an orris-centric perfume could be, warmed by the caress of a sun-kissed peach. I thought she outdid herself with Iridum, another of her iris perfumes, but Dawn has had an astonishing creative year and Scent of Hope is among the stratospheric best perfumes I’ve ever encountered. In my life. Why my fixation on the art of perfumery? (Also) Because miracles like Scent of Hope happen. Stay tuned!

Best Floral Reinvention:

Envoyage Perfumes’ Fiore di Bellagio

Readers, bear with me. I tried. I truly did. I tried to think of something else, tried to stir things up a bit, tried to come up with alternatives and be a little different this year. Only to have to give up the ghost, shrug in surrender and kowtow to the spectacular talent of Shelly Waddington of Envoyage as she once again blew my proboscis to smithereens with the companion perfume to last year’s no less spectacular Zelda. Fiore di Bellagio, her ode to Ernest Daltroff’s 1927’s Caron classic, Bellodgia, is neither Zelda nor Bellodgia, but something altogether otherwise and resolutely one of a kind. If you could somehow wrap up all the glamour, all the glitz, all the decadent fun and all the flowers of a 1920s summer day in a luxurious villa at Lake Como, you might come up with something this great, this grand and this glorious. Or, if you love carnations, summers, epically great perfumes and all those words imply, you could take the easier route and head straight for Envoyage and buy a vat of Fiore di Bellagio, the instant before you plant Shelley Waddington on an onyx pedestal in the Perfume Pantheon of Fame and crown her with 20 carat diamond-studded dianthus blooms. This was another high apex of 2014 perfumery for me and although I realize I’m repeating myself (and an army of other perfume bloggers and writers), but there is method to my madness: I recognize greatness when I smell it. That’s all. Go buy it!

My Greatest Perfumers of 2014:

I can’t even hesitate here, and if you’ve read this far, this is a foregone conclusion. But with everything I’ve stuck my nose in this past year, I’ll have to hand it to two. Understand that even the names that made this (overly long) list are at the very top of their game, but these two outdid themselves and their justly deserved stellar reputations:

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz & Shelley Waddington

I’m not quite sure what to say about Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, since I know I’m preaching to the choir, but Dawn has had the most amazing, productive and creative year. Whether it’s her tribute to the Impressionists in her Passport à Paris collection, her Cannabis Culture Collection (review pending), her Brilliant Collection (ditto) or the utterly flabbergasting Scent of Hope (likewise totally ditto), Dawn should be right up there will all the Great and the Grands of perfumery, indie and otherwise.

Shelley Waddington nearly did me in. After taking my breath away with Zelda last year, she pulled another epic rabbit out of her proverbial top hat with Fiore di Bellagio. I had some intimations of what I was in for. Only to find that they weren’t nearly big enough. But Shelley Waddington certainly should be. Make it so…

A Waft of Things To Come

Anticipation is part of the pleasure of writing about perfumes. I’ll never know what pleasures lie ahead. But apart from spending this winter catching up on my review backlog and returning full-speed as a perfume writer to the best of my capabilities, I anticipate becoming acquainted with two ‘new’ brands that have been on my radar for a while: Oriza L. Legrand and Stéphane Humbert-Lucas’ 777. Stay tuned!

Another thing to anticipate is the arrival of not-your-usual perfume book at some point in the year. If you appreciate my perfumed fictions, you might like this book, which will feature not just the Greatest Hits, but also ten brand-new perfume stories, some of which have not been reviewed yet. Watch this space for a book by yours truly with the salacious title: Stories of L’Eaux.

Rumor has it that Neela Vermeire Creations (another all winner line for me) will launch her newest perfume later this year. Are we excited yet? I know I am!

So what are you, dear readers, anticipating in the year to come? What took your breath away this past year, what do you hope to try, what floats you out the door in a cloud of scented bliss?

Tell me all about them in the comments! And have a happy, healthy, fortuitous 2015, too!

With special and perpetual thanks to my greatest enablers and loudest encouragers: Val, Portia, Lucy, Shelley, Dawn, Maria, Neil, Ellen, Andy and Mandy.

Photo: The crown of Danish king Christian IV, 1596.

Lemon Aid

Lemon-Slices

–  a review of Tauer Perfumes’ Cologne du Maghreb

Certain things are a given in summertime. You can reasonably expect to survive the heat of July with a) a few mosquito bites, b) by moving from one shady spot to the next if you’re anything as fair-skinned as I and c) last but never least, by rejecting most of the contents of your perfume cabinet in favor of lighter, flirtier scents, unless of course you’re also like me and suffer a fit of heatwave-induced contrariness and roll out what my friend Ms. Hare calls ‘bombs’; those take-no-prisoners odes to opulence that do wonders for your mood if not for your 12+ hour sillage trail.

Today, dear readers, will not be one of those days. For today in my garret in Niflheim, it is an already warm, blue summer day with the promise of more heat on the way. It won’t be long before I turn on the fan and place it on the floor to the delight of Hairy Krishna and Janice Divacat. All my windows are as open as they can be with two cats under a rooftop, the blinds are down to keep out most of the heat and as I type these words, my hair is up in a clip and my iPig is blaring a favorite baritone. I am wearing precisely one item of textile since it’s far too hot for anything more – a tissue-thin A-line rayon dress that won’t make the mailman blush too hard should he arrive, but it’s the coolest item of clothing I own and I have no air conditioning apart from my fan.

Today is also the day I reach for a small vial I’ve been meaning to review for quite some time – Andy Tauer’s recently re-released Cologne du Maghreb, which was originally a 2010 limited edition he has now made part of his permanent collection.

You could argue that the European perfume industry as it exists today owes everything to the cologne – that refreshing if fleeting blend of citrus, flowers and herbs that has been applied to everything from skin to hair to babies, and even used as a mouthwash since Giovanni Maria Farina hit upon a lucky blend in 1709 and named it for his new hometown of Cologne in Germany, an homage also to the local belief that the waters of Cologne cured everything that ailed you, bubonic plague included!

If this eau de cologne by the great Andy Tauer (one of my Primeval Forces of Perfume) is another panacea for all things heat-related that plague me, then it can’t possibly hurt to try.

Famous last words!

If colognes – at least, the ‘classic’ variety embodied by brands such as Roger & Gallet or 4711 – strike you as uncomplicated, somewhat linear fragrances to mindlessly revive your melting self beneath a molten sun, then I have news for you.

Cologne de Maghreb is not one of those. Surely, we perfume diehards hoped for no less from the august Andy Tauer?

And just as we hoped, dear Andy delivered. For his Cologne du Maghreb is neither simple, uncomplicated nor linear in the slightest, yet it is very much a cologne, meaning it is as invigorating as a dip in a cool swimming pool (I can dream!) yet also every drop as sophisticated as all his perfumes.

It begins, like so many great perfume tales, with a blinding bright sunshine burst of lemon and bergamot. And I do mean… lemon. Lemon with a capital L, lemon with all its zest and juice and joie de vivre intact, a lemon that must be a close relation to one of my own heatwave standbys, namely homemade lemonade.

But under that citrus-y sunshine lies a verdant bite of herbs and an earthy, shady vibe from the Atlas cedar that on my skin is apparent from first to last. As it softens and fades, I detect a seamless aura of neroli and orange blossom (never, ever a bad thing in my book), a whiff of background rose and a whisper of lavender, but they’re very hard to tease apart unless I close my eyes and concentrate.

As it evolves and moves forward, the lemon stays in the background like a heartbeat in tandem with that luscious cedar, and it becomes greener and earthier when the vetiver and labdanum arrive treading softly, adding a touch of sunset amber to the greenery.

Unlike most Tauers I’ve been lucky enough to try, Cologne du Maghreb doesn’t last much more on me than approximately three hours or so, which is still quite impressive for a cologne.

I have generally speaking – apart from a vintage bottle of 4711 I acquired in a thrift store for reference – tended to avoid true colognes (as opposed to eau de cologne concentrations of certain perfumes) precisely because they’ve seemed a bit too simplistic, fleeting and linear for my personal tastes. In some hard to articulate way, they’ve failed to scratch my perpetual itch for Slaying Them With Sophisticated Sillage.

Now, with Cologne du Maghreb, Andy Tauer has upended all my preconceptions of what a true cologne can be, by making a cologne for the rest of us perfumista diehards. It is not boring, not simple, not clichéd or trite in the slightest.

Instead, it is the closest thing to bottled air conditioning I’ve tried all summer. While I very much doubt Cologne du Maghreb will cure bubonic plague like those famous waters of Köln, it certainly cures any summertime heat blues I might have. I’ll be buying a bottle as soon as I possibly can.

Perhaps I should just call it…

Lemon Aid.

Notes: Lemon, bergamot, clary sage, rosemary, orange blossom, lavender, neroli, rose, Atlas cedar, labdanum, vetiver and amber.

Cologne du Maghreb is available from First in Fragrance and Luckyscent.

Disclosure: A sample was provided for review by Andy Tauer, for which I can’t thank him enough. Also special thanks to Jeffrey Dame and to Andrew Millar, who suggested a cure for my long and debilitating case of writer’s block.

The Very Best of 2013 – Part One

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–  the Genie’s slightly belated guide to the perfumes that defined 2013

I’m a bit surprised – to put it mildly – at just how quickly 2013 sped by, and such a year it was! A year of an unprecedented amount of releases, an unprecedented amount of hype and blather, and most of all, an unprecedented claim to olfactory epiphanies that were anything but.

To my own personal dismay, I wasn’t able to write or review nearly as much as I wanted to. This does nothing for my review backlog or my hugely guilty conscience, but I had a rather good explanation – 2013 was the year I became a published novelist, and naturally, that took priority. It also goes a long way towards explaining why October and November seemed to vanish in thin air. As a writer, I doubt I’ve ever worked harder in my life. This holds true even as 2014 begins, because ahead looms events like book launches and Getting The Word Out and dealing with other things that strike terror in my heart.

Yet 2013 was also a high water mark in other ways. Thanks to my fantabulous readers, I was able to purchase an upgraded computer, attend Pitti Fragranze (and what an experience that was!), and more than anything else feel the connection I have with my readers more than I ever have before.

And then, of course, there were the perfumes. One of the last perfume-related statistics I remember reading was this: as of the autumn of 2013, more than 1440 new perfumes were released. Which was more than the year before, and the year before, and the year… etc.

It’s getting to where I read about new brands being launched and I clutch my head in despair. With so many brands competing for shelf space, customers and their own slice of the ever-expanding perfume slice of the beauty industry, inevitably, corners are cut and shortcuts taken, and we end up with what I saw and sniffed at Pitti Fragranze – Eau de High-End Niche, which smells expensive (and all too often is), recycles themes from other, more daring/creative/inspired perfume houses and is in its own aspirational marketing way just as generic and soulless (if far more prohibitively priced) as any ‘mainstream’ brand.

For 2013, which was a year I’m not likely to forget any time soon, I’ve decided to do things a little differently than before. I sniffed more things in 2013 than at any other time in my life, so my own personal favorites in the year gone by will be in part 2 of my Best Of list. Meanwhile, you want to know what really rocked my planet in 2013…

Best Correspondence Between Brand and Perfume:

Donato Style – Glam Monster (Donato Crowley/Kedra Hart of Opus Oils)

Donato Crowley, the LA-based stylist, photographer, artist and all-round Renaissance man, really knocked my socks off with Glam Monster, a glorious, sultry, super-unisexy take on all the very best parts of California and all the naughty bits, too. If ever a perfume somehow managed to wrap up an entire artistic statement in a bottle, it’s this one. My sample is all gone. That bottle can’t be far behind. I need glamour, too.

Best Novella In A Bottle:

Amouage – Opus VII (Christopher Chong/Alberto Morillas/Pierre Negrin)

In the Just Kill Me Now department, Opus VII wins by default by a) showing just how wrong even a perfume writer can parse/interpret ingredients and b) then humiliating herself in full public view by publishing the first review of it. I said iris. Opus VII contains no such thing. What it does contain is a swirling, whirling, spectacularly moody heart of Gothic darkness I haven’t had enough of yet, and I doubt I ever will. This is Edgar Allan Poe, bottled.

And speaking of iris, only this time, it’s very much there…

Best Iris of 2013:

DSH Perfumes – Iridum (Dawn Spencer Hurwitz)

Iris perfumes – a definite love of mine since I first fell hard for Chanel no. 19 – tend to run towards the chilly end of the olfactory spectrum. Not so Iridum, which is a feisty, spicy, incense-laden iris revelation that was love at first sniff and holds its own next to that greatest of all irises  – Iris Silver Mist. For a dedicated iris lover, that says everything.

Best Unexpected Hit:

Chanel – Les Exclusifs Chanel 1932 (Jacques Polge)

Having only ever tried 28 La Pausa from Chanel’s Les Exclusifs collection at the time, I was not quite prepared for how much I liked this twinkling, sparkling little marvel of aldehydes, iris, jasmine and all things grand and glorious. It is always classy, never inappropriate (I’ve worn it to job interviews), and perfectly epitomizes the very best of Chanel in all the very best of ways. Unlike 28 La Pausa, it also lasts.

Best “Slay ‘em, baby” perfume:

Opus Oils – Babylon Noir (Kedra Hart)

I’ll be the first to admit it – I’m biased. Babylon Noir was originally created by Kedra Hart for the Devilscent Project, but it launched to the general public on Valentine’s Day last year, and likely has been slaying scores of hearts and swollen heads ever since. I know for a fact that my bottle is often loaned to Ms. Hare for nefarious purposes with a 100% success rate, because that’s what best friends do – support each others’ nefarious purposes…

Best New Brands I discovered at Pitti Fragranze:

This was a hard decision, since I sniffed many, many things from many, many brands (don’t get me started on those bags of Pitti samples I haven’t dared touch yet) in Florence, but two dedicated perfume brands in particular stood out from the rest: Bruno Acampora and Parfums de Marly. I’ve worn several of Bruno Acampora’s oils (Iranzol was an instant love) and even a lethal dose of Parfums de Marly’s Herod over the course of this past autumn, and although I haven’t had enough time to do them the verbal justice they certainly deserve, they have taken my breath away.

Best Applied Epiphany:

Tauer Perfumes’ Noontide Petals (Andy Tauer)

One of my favorite moments at Pitti Fragranze was finally being able to say hello to Andy Tauer – and sniff ALL the Tauers, which I never had before. Andy will be another expensive person to know. I was also very curious to try Noontide Petals, which was getting a lot of press at the time. So after politely enquiring whether I was sure – Tauers are known for having the perfume half life of plutonium – Andy then proceeded to sweep me off my feet with Noontide Petals by spraying my arm. My nose was glued to my wrist the rest of the evening. It really IS… all that in a blinding burst of sunshine.

Best Perfume Reformulations:

vero profumo’s Voiles de Parfum (Vero Kern) & Neela Vermeire Creations Mohur Extrait (Neela Vermeire/Bertrand Duchaufour)

Interesting things happen when a perfume concentration is amped up. Facets only partly apparent in an eau de parfum can take on whole new multiverses of context and significance. Nowhere was this more evident that in vero profumo’s Voiles de Parfums line of Rubj, Kiki, Onda and Mito, because Vero Kern does not simply add more jus – she redefines and reconstructs her own work to breathtaking effect – as she did. Likewise, Mohur, Neela Vermeire’s no less beautiful perfume was redefined in extrait, and an already bone-chilling glorious creation was painted new in ever richer and more opulent hues. I thought it would be impossible to improve on the peerless Mohur. I was dead wrong.

Speaking of dead wrong…

Worst Perfume Idea, Ever:

O’Driu’s Peety (Angelo Pregoni)

Call me old-fashioned, call me a prude, call me whatever you like. Sometimes, I can admire the concept behind a perfume even if I can’t wear it. Sometimes, I love the perfume and ignore the concept completely. So let me just state that I truly admire the degree of chutzpah/audacity behind Angelo Pregoni of O’Driu’s Peety. It appeals no end to my inner post-punk iconoclast. That’s the idea. The reality of Peety, however, is just about the vilest thing I sniffed this year, mainstream launches included. Your mileage may vary. But this one turned me chartreuse in the worst way, and not just because it was sprayed upon a feather.

From The Bad Idea Department:

One word – oud. Enough of the oud already. Yes, it is a marvel of a raw material. Yes, incredible, astonishing perfumes contain oud. Yes, it has many facets and aspects that can all be shown in many revelatory ways. But dear Creative Directors and perfumers – who are you kidding here? Real oud is now a very rare commodity. Apparently, so is creativity. Which I frankly find hard to believe considering the number of new launches in 2013. Wait a minute…

How To Kill A Storied Fragrant Heritage, Part One:

Dior.

How to Kill A Storied Fragrant Heritage, Part Two:

Yves Saint Laurent. Belle de Opium. Manifesto. I rest my case, because once upon a fabled time, a fashion genius truly cared about his perfumes. Alas, they no longer do at either Dior or YSL.

Worst Aspirational Marketing:

I suppose it’s one thing to flat-out declare your indifference to 99% of Planet Perfume and set your price point accordingly. But since I suspect that 99% of perfume aficionados buy way more niche/indie perfume than the one percent (I could be wrong), I think Roja Dove is doing us 99% a serious disservice by creating something so flawless as Diaghilev in extrait and then pricing it in the exosphere of attainability, splits or no. If that marketing tactic doesn’t prove that life isn’t fair, I don’t know what does.

Best Witnessed Out-of-Body Moments:

I have a friend – tall, good-looking, young, green-eyed, a Scorpio (which figures), who recently stated he was in need of an image upgrade which also necessitated… perfume. His former staple Fleur du Male notwithstanding. So one evening chez Genie, I sat him down with some of the stellar contents of the Red Ikea Cabinet of Doom. And then, I experienced something most passing strange. He sniffed a perfume (Olympic Orchids’ Dev no. 2) and jumped off the floor in a flash. “Holy “#!”§€%!?. What IS that? That should be… illegal!!!” His doom was sealed with Amouage’s Fate Man. He’ll never touch anything mainstream again. Mission accomplished.

Most Extravagant Habit of 2013:

By this time, to my own surprise not least, I have acquired a LOT of perfumes. So it follows that I should use them in whatever ways I can. Mostly, I simply wear them, but in the past year, whether testing for review or simply my own decadent pleasure, I’ve taken to spray my bedding, my Tibetan prayer flag, my carpet and sometimes, the radiator of my living room. This was how I discovered that Janice Divacat is a definite Amouage fangal, whereas Hairy Krishna prefers Serge Lutens.

Greatest Vicarious Pleasure:

A friend I made in Florence took me to an English apothecary in a Centro Storico side street that also sold Frédéric Malle’s Editions de Parfums and Serge Lutens’ export line. I thought she deserved the very best and introduced her to Carnal Flower. She floated, she told me later, the rest of the afternoon on a cloud of tuberose bliss. I was so proud of her. And when I can, I’ll buy it for her in every incarnation. Because that much bliss to follow is so worth it.

Best Vicarious Pleasure, Part Two:

Furthering pleasure to a dear friend and fellow blogger, Caro of Té des Violetas, by sending her a decant of Fate Woman when Argentine customs impounded her own press sample. This made me happier than I can say, and Argentine customs be damned!

Best Fragrant Export Ever:

The ‘Mysore’/Santalum Album sandalwood plantations of Australia. This is the sort of thing that gives me hope for humankind – that we will never be without this most beautiful of perfumery materials. So long as we have sandalwood, we can endure anything. And now, we will!

Best WTF moment:

Kinski by e-scentric molecules (Geza Schoen)

My sister and I have vastly differing tastes in perfume. For one, she can wear no. 5 and I can’t at all, for another, she used to exude radioactive clouds of patchouli bombs and Obsession for Men. But when she bought Kinski to celebrate her own publication as an author, we both flipped over it. Impossibly louche, impossibly wrong, improbably sexy and possibly the greatest thing two 21st-century thoroughly twisted Sisters Brontë of dark, depraved literature could ever agree upon.

You have been so patient, dear readers, so forbearing. Thank you. You have read through my wrap-up of 2013 blather and are dying to know what skyrocketed to my very top in the past year.

Just as it happened last year, I couldn’t decide between three perfumes I had already reviewed (my criterion for making the list), so I could either roast over a slow fire as I decided which one would win or I could just wimp out and award the Genie’s Best Of 2013 awards equally to all three. They are equally great, equally grand, equally the stratospheric best that perfumery can offer. So without further ado…

Best of 2013, Part One:

Envoyage Perfumes – Zelda. (Shelley Waddington)

Are you familiar with experiencing an artform – a movie, a book, a painting, a perfume – and you have that immediate rush of recognition and revelation? Not only is it good, not only is it something your intellect can appreciate, but your emotions chime in, your heart begins to flutter, and you get it in your bone marrow? You feel it, you think about it, dream about it, want to bathe in a vat of it. It won’t let you go. One of those out-of-body moments – they don’t happen often any more – for me this past year was Envoyage Perfumes’ Zelda. If there is a Heaven, they’ll have Zelda the perfume there too (the firebrand by that same name is already there), because it makes the angels (and yours truly) sing.

Best of 2013, Part Two:

Neela Vermeire Creations – Ashoka (Neela Vermeire/Bertrand Duchaufour)

I am privileged to live in a world that has such dedicated perfume lovers such as Neela Vermeire in it. For her fourth launch, she took her time and no shortcuts at all when she created Ashoka with Bertrand Duchaufour. It is a) one of the most evocative, numinous perfumes I’ve ever sniffed b) has one of the most unusual developments I’ve ever come across and c) is arguably the greatest figgy, floral, leathery enlightenment in eau de parfum ever made. Yes, I said that.

Best of 2013, Part Three:

Amouage – Fate Woman (Christopher Chong/Dorothée Piot)

On the day Fate Woman (and Man) arrived, I remember my surprise. Amouage, who delivers epiphanies, decadent olfactory symphonies and full-blown Wagnerian oeuvres, had gone… did I dare think such a heretical thought? – a tad… mainstream? Well, almost/not quite/not exactly, but this is still very much an Amouage and very much an Oriental with no compromises or shortcuts of any kind. If this is the last chapter of the first epos Christopher Chong has to tell, I can’t wait to see what he’ll put into Volume 2.  But the biggest surprise was this: Everyone in my immediate vicinity – and I do mean everyone: Ms. Hare, my sister, my daughter, lovers and friends, complete strangers on the street, a makeup artist in Copenhagen on the day of my photo shoot – everyone loved it instantly without question or quarter. This has never happened before. So I gave small decants to them all from my press sample, and now have to hide the rest of it away in a secret location, or else it will be abducted/stolen by Ms. Hare and I’ll never, ever see it again. But one thing I came to discover for myself – the most incredible things have happened when I wore it. Such is Fate…

Best Perfumer of 2013:

Envoyage Perfumes – Shelley Waddington

Here lies a dilemma – one of my top three favorites was nominated Perfumer of the Year last year, so my apologies, M. Duchaufour. Ms. Piot – I suspect you have marvels and wonders ahead of you. If Fate Woman is any indication, you’ll very soon be exuding greatness of your own.

My nominee for Perfumer of 2013 goes to…Shelley Waddington, for creating Zelda and then, having the hugely flattering idea to send it to me to review. I sniffed it with an open mind and some expectations – I know she’s an exceptionally talented indie perfumer – but Zelda sideswiped me, stole my heart and never gave it back!

Stay tuned for Part Two, which was all I wore and (also) loved…

Orange Bomb!

– a review of Tauer Perfumes’ ‘Orange Star’

Associations can be a dangerous thing. When I close my eyes, touch my nose and think of the word ‘orange’, very definite memories come to mind.

I grew up in Southern Florida, and at that time, you would be hard-pressed to find a backyard anywhere that didn’t contain at least one orange tree. These oranges did not look like the oranges we’re accustomed to buying every winter. They were more green than orange, with definite orange blotches, and even now, I can close my eyes and conjure up their taste of tart, sweet sunshine, or the smell of the blooming tree in all its white-green-gold bridal glory…heady, indolic, with a zesty hint of the wonders to come lurking in the blossoms.

I can remember another memory…a roadside stand somewhere on the road to Delphi in Greece on a blustery January day and a farmer selling bags of gargantuan, softball-sized oranges that glowed like jewels far down that road, oranges flavored with all the heat and toil of that blazing Mediterranean sun.

I think ‘orange’, and I automatically think ‘happy’ and I think ‘joy’. Both of these words and any of their synonyms all add up to…

I’m the world’s biggest sucker for…orange. Orange zest, orange blossom, neroli, petitgrain…whatever way it’s used – and indeed, orange on one incarnation or another is one of the most ubiquitous notes in perfume – will find me day-dreaming at the thought of inhaling happiness in a single sniff. I own not a few…a bell jar of Serge Lutens’ ‘Fleurs d’Oranger’, Bertrand Duchaufour’s ‘Orange Blossom’ for Penhaligon’s, Atelier Cologne’s Grand Neroli and Orange Sanguissime, Dior’s ‘Escale à Portofino’, the delicious orange accords of Aftelier’s ‘Candide’, ‘Tango’, ‘Oud Luban’, Doc Elly and her interpretation of the orange cattleya orchid…

Yes, I love, love, love orange! Now, if someone would ever dare to make a smoky, sultry orange-themed chypre…

Therefore, I was an accident waiting to happen when Andy Tauer launched ‘Orange Star’ in 2010. The idea of Andy+orange was enough to make me swoon with anticipation in front of my laptop as I read one glowing review after another. Somehow, a few drops managed to find their way to me, and it was…love. That tiny sample vial was gone in nothing flat. When I finally remembered to review it, I had nothing left.

This was no way to do an orange – or indeed Andy Tauer – the justice they both deserve. Recently, a decant found its way to my mailbox, and I was one happy blogger as I tore open that envelope and sprayed.

And hated it! Soap! LOTS…of super-luxe, beautiful, glorious…soap!

On the wall in front of me, I saw a neon sign blinking two very depressing messages.

“Philistine!” said one in Da-Glo orange neon. “And you dare to call yourself a perfumista!” said the other in equally pulsing Las Vegas orange.

Oh, the shame of it! My perfumista street cred would never, ever live this down! 

But before I could pack up all my samples, bottles and decants and send them off to more sophisticated, appreciative, far less Philistine homes and noses, I took a deep, deep breath. I know enough by now to know that first impressions can be misleading. I packed it away for a few days. It could have been the day, my mood, or my hormones playing tricks on my perceptions.

Over the next few weeks, I straightened my spine, re-schooled my nose, steeled my resolve and tried again. At some point, this orange finally dropped.

 ‘Orange Star’ is…there is no other way to put it – an orange pulse bomb. Take that as literally as you please.

Because this is every aspect of orange, every quintessence of Citrus Sinensis you could possible think of. A stop-motion orange movie played backwards in slow motion.

It’s biting into an exploding sensory orange bomb as you would bite into an apple, the bittersweet perfume of the rind, and the wet, sweet glories of the flesh as the juice runs down your chin. You are engulfed in some alternate universe of orange, mandarin and Clementine that fills your senses as far as you are able to perceive, and best of all, this marvelous stage lasts for quite some time, far longer than most other orange-centered perfumes I can name. Those thirty-second summer colognes with their thirty-second moments of glory turn green with envy.

The fun is nowhere over yet. A good long while later, as you revel in your own wafts of orange magnificence, this perfume begins to bloom, first softly and imperceptibly, like a far-off, ghostly memory of orange blossom, and then, those blooms open wider and wider, and you lie in sated bliss beneath the canopy of an orange grove in full bloom, swooning in that heady, sensual scent. The sun is shining, the birds are singing in the flawless blue above, and orange blossoms rain their delectable nectar down upon you as you inhale deep with every breath, joined by that earthy, bittersweet dark green of petitgrain and heated earth – this must be the lemongrass listed in those notes – and if optimism has one perfume note, this would be it. I don’t know how anyone could be blue as they breathe in that scent. All I know is I can’t. Blues? What blues? Happiness…is orange, and as any visual artist knows, the complementary color to blue is…orange!

Hours and hours later, you are still there in that mythical orchard, still with the ghost of juice running down your chin, still breathing in those staggering, beautiful blooms, still so happy it’s a wonder you can stand. Only now, ambery, incense hints creep in through the shadows deepening in the sunset of this perfect day, a suggestion of smoke, of sultry, sexy patchouli, a feather-light touch of vanilla glowing on your skin, glowing in the corners of that perma-smile on your face.

I’ve never known a perfume like ‘Orange Star’, never met an orange like this one, and I’ve never encountered an evolution like it. Forget everything you know about top, heart, and base notes…this one swirls and dances and bounces for hours, one constantly evolving, burnished surprise. When I inhale and think my happy thought of ‘amber-patchouli-and-is that tonka bean?’, it winks its zesty, saucy wink, and when I think ‘zest’, a puff of orange blossom takes my breath away. Like not a few Tauers I’ve encountered, this has the half-life of some radioactive isotopes. Not for the commitment-phobic, it will last, and last, and last, and l-a-s-t.

Not everyone will love this, and I can see why – there is a definite scaffolding of the famous ‘Tauerade’, which works for some people and not for others, so I can only state what I always say…try before you buy!

Back in my day, I planted Andy Tauer in my Perfume Pantheon for the genius that is ‘Incense Extrème’. Thanks to ‘Orange Star’, he’s still there, just glued a little tighter to that pedestal…I blanche to contemplate his many other creations…

If you have ever loved an orange, you should try it. Give it time, give it more than one chance, give yourself a chance to get to know it.

Let ‘Orange Star’ explode upon your skin, and blow those winter blahs to smithereens!

Because happiness…is an orange bomb!

Notes:

Top: Mandarin, Clementine

Heart: Lemongrass, orange flower

Base: Ambergris, tonka bean, vanilla

Incense isn’t listed, but I swear it’s there…

‘Orange Star is available from Luckyscent, First in Fragrance and directly from the Tauer Perfumes website. Samples are also for sale at all those locations.