Gin and Vanilla - A Comparison of Arquiste The Architects Club and 4160 Tuesdays The Sexiest Scent on the Planet (IMHO)

Side by side comparison time!  I haven't seen a comparison of these two done yet, but the notes were so similar that I was really curious to see how the slightest shift could change the feel of a composition.  The Architect's Club by Arquiste's notes are as follows: 

Juniper berry oil, Angelica root, Lemon peel oil, Bitter Orange, Pepperwood, Guaiac wood,  Oakwood, Vanilla Absolute and Amber.  Compare to 4160 Tuesdays' The Sexiest Scent on the Planet (IMHO).....gin, bergamot, vanilla, woods, musk, & ambergris.  The characteristic flavor of gin comes from juniper berries, bergamot is very similar to lemon peel and bitter orange.  The woods and vanilla line up, and the use of amber in one and combination of musk and ambergris in the other can potentially give the same feel to a fragrance.  So let's go!

The architect's club opens with a party feel:  bright, bergamot laced gin and a light transparent vanilla feel airy and somewhat festive.  It's a bit exciting....I want to be at this get together.  Similar to when you take a sip of gin, it gets past your nose and suddenly you are hit with the impact of the spirit....the gin gains strength and loses its fizz.  I swear I get a mild whiff of olive……astringent and tart with a hint of brine, and a bite of black peppercorns when they are freshly ground.  Though it sounds off putting it works here, and is relatively unmistakable to my nose.  It's an interesting melange of sensations.....cold fizzy drink, the zing of olive, the light sparkly vanilla dancing around it.  This stage is masculine in feel but a woman can wear it.  I get the sense of the architect's aesthetic: clean cut and sharp edges, almost cold lines, metallic, but leads your eye to where the artist wants you to go.   Very slowly the fragrance loses a bit of that vinegar edge……a smoke-of-the-guaiac-variety joins the party which is pleasant. If this fragrance was an event, this stage would feel like this: the just-bordering-on-raucous evening starts winding down.  The acquaintances have left and the people who remain are well fed, a touch inebriated, and perhaps a bit drowsy.  One by one the attendees drift into the night and the ones that remain are the old, dependable and true friends....in this case a lightly sweet vanilla which becomes deeper and even more well rounded over time, a hazy hint of guaiac and perhaps a bit of barrel oak. I really enjoyed every stage of this fragrance, it is truly original and made a great transition from cool to warm, and I feel like it's a great reflection of the architect's philosophy.

4160 Tuesday's The Sexiest Scent on The Planet (IMHO) also opens with a gin and tonic vibe, although this one is being enjoyed on a bright summer evening with more emphases on the citrus.  The bergamot is very apparent and the gin actually feels carbonated.  The vanilla is already apparent and at an equal level with the bergamot and gin. It's a scent that brings to mind a *fun* party.  You may not know everyone, but nobody cares....it's a summer afternoon and we're outside!

This scent moves faster through its progression.  The vanilla increases in intensity but it's joined by a drier and sweeter wood note.  The wood and vanilla work well together, and musk also joins in.  Happily, the bergamot adds a lime peel facet that doesn't dissipate quickly and holds it all together until the end.  The life of this fragrance fairly quick, but it is pleasant.  Is it the sexiest scent?  Not IMHO.  But it is fun and maybe enough to consider for a one night stand.  And being married, a fragrance one night stand is just about all I'm willing to do.

In all, whereas The Architects Club is a martini, IMHO is a gin and tonic. The are similar enough that if the Arquiste scent is out of your budget the 4160 Tuesdays is a good alternative.  I myself prefer the drydown of The Architects Club better, and the longevity makes it more appealing to me as well, but I have a bottle of the 4160 Tuesdays and I'm sure I'll be revisiting it since I don't feel bad applying it with abandon.

Reviewed from my decant of The Architects Club and my bottle of 4160 Tuesday of The Sexiest Scent on the Planet (IMHO), both of which I purchased myself.

Profumum Tagete - To Take a Picture

Here in the high desert, winter can be very difficult.  We'll transition from frigidly cold days when the streets are almost impassible and you need to have a fire burning in the fireplace in addition to blasting the heat indoors, to having days that are relatively temperate which give you a hint of the spring to come.  The air is dry and cold, but most of the time when you look up, the sky is blue and the sun in shining, even when you can't feel you feet in your boots.  At this time of year, I yearn for warmth and the smell of grass and flowers.

Yesterday I reached for my sample of Tagete from Profumum out curiosity.  I had specifically ordered this sample from Luckyscent because I was intrigued.  Who would make a perfume named Tagete?  I've never smelled a marigold that was particularly interesting to me, and calendula can have a piercing thin scent that has never appealed.  Yet during this miserable series of cold and snow, a scent based on a summer bloom gave me something to consider.

Profumum scents tend to be very strong on me, so I used one drop on the scent and it immediately revved into high gear.  Tagete starts with very, very sweet jasmine, and a vaguely citrus-tinged marigold.  Initially this stage has a creamy element, which disappears in a snap.  The impression is of pale yellow light.  Very feminine in character, the florals become warmer,  and gain a honeyed aspect which almost gives it a fuzzy edge.  When the sweetness starts to veer into potentially overwhelming territory, a touch of relief comes in the form of that creamy note again, just outside of your periphery, similar to how on a warm day with a clear sky, you can start to feel the potential for a late day storm.  This is a  drowsy Summer scent, wearing an airy dress and walking barefoot,  closing your eyes and listening to bees buzzing nearby.   IT's a tactile scent and gives the mental image of crushing a yellow dandelion…you are left with crushed gold and the vaguest memory of milky sap and stems.  Oddly, as the scent progresses, I find it also reminiscent of real honeysuckle, on the vine.  It's slightly wild and untamed, and can take over all the other nearby plants if not kept in check.    

A few hours in, the roundess of the scent takes a backseat.....still warm and yellow and sweet, it takes on the additional character of a light herbal tea underscoring the wild nature of the garden.....the jasmine becomes less evident and scent starts to take on the image of a gold and orange marigold.  The tentrils of a green note start threading through the florals, but it is not an obvious green.  It is a mere further tempering of the sweetness with a little dusting of seedlings growing at the base of your plants.  I can't really identify vetiver in here, and if it's the moss I'm sensing, it's adding an appealing, vaguely dewy scentsation that encourages balance in the scent.  I am now getting a sense of the plant as a whole rather than a picture of the single bloom.  It also hits a very brief period of an almost acrid edge, but thankfully this stage only lasts a few minutes and we settle back into the white and gold feel of the composition.

As the fragrance settles to it final stages, the camera is now pulled back to include the garden. I finally sense the balance of moss and floral, leaving me with the sense of a lovely gold and green silk on my skin.

Frankly, I have never smelled anything like this fragrance.  To me, that’s a good thing....I didn't find it challenging but interesting.   To some, it may be too focused and somewhat distracting...it is most definitely for spring and summer, or days in which you need a dose of sunshine.  It's quite clean-smelling yet not soapy.  Due to the strength of this perfume I could never imagine spraying it on, and a bottle would last forever.   It almost has the character and strength of an oil....a little goes a very long way.  I found myself using this scent again today and I must say, I really enjoy it.  It's going to make this winter a little more tolerable.

Agonist Dark Saphir Review

Sapphires have an interesting history.  Mined from many different regions, they can be a variety of colors depending on the trace elements present in the stone.  The most common color is blue, which is where my mind immediately went when I heard the name...but the stone can come in various reds, blues, and even orange...the rarest being the Padparadscha, which is an orange or orange-pink sapphire that comes by its color naturally and was originally mined in Sri Lanka.  The sapphire was thought to bring blessings from the heavens in the middle ages, and has been used for purposes of protection, spiritual enlightenment, and peace as well as being conducive to clairvoyance and astral projection.  A gem with such high power and expectation would have to have a scent that could reflect the strength of the stone.

Dark Saphir opens with a burst of violet leaf and citrus which gets quickly tempered by a filter of oud.  This is the oud that is vaguely medicinal but not of the "band aid" variety.   A plum note, brimming with juicy pulp, mixes with the citrus and violet giving the scent a purple feel.  At this point, the scent gives the feel of warm sunlight in an exotic locale.  Here is the fruit of the market, there are some trinkets made of wood, and in the distance you can smell the fragrant stall brimming with bowls of spice, waiting to be measured and weighed.

The scent sweetens somewhat, and now a slight leather peeks out as well as a light dose of incense.  There are florals weaving their way through the composition as well.  However, they are so well blended that at no point does this become a floral scent.  It's as if you are surrounded by a floral-scented air that has become so much a part of the environment that you don't sense it until you walk back outside, where it hits you with a wave of light, ethereal sweetness.  Although the fragrance sweetens at this stage, at no point does it become anything but unisex.  With the appearance of leather and incense, this now becomes a scent that starts suggesting an ethnic market in modern, urban landscape.  The smoke evokes a cooling effect while the plum continues to add a brightness....cold, but not unwelcoming.  The whole effect, once again, is that of an indigo-purple rather than blue and I would almost refer to it as a meditative stage if not for the transparent overlay of fruit.  It reminds me of a better balanced version of Indult Isvaraya, structured to be more attractive to a wider audience.

The scent does a beautiful gradual dip into its final stage.  The scent becomes a sophisticated incense-like scent that never goes churchy or overly commercial.  When I read the notes for this fragrance I quickly found my bottles of copaiba and labdanum, and tried to figure out what was so appealing to me.  A veil of smoke, a smattering of herb, the sense of a blue evening right as the air cools....the lingering hint of sweetness from fruit and flowers.  In investigating my bottles of copaiba, labdanum and peru balsam,  I can safely say that the base of this fragrance holds elements of all....the smoke imbued leather holding them together must be the nagarmotha. 

I love this scent for the personality it brings.  Upon reading more about sapphires, I find this scent to be very representative of the stone itself.  Like a beautiful silk sari in vibrant colors, this scent is a shapeshifter and gives the dual experience of warm color and cool fabric, rich and shimmering and somewhat tactile in its lush softness.  This is a scent of strength in identity.  It's the embodiment of this generation of cultures blending in cityscapes that when taken in terms of sections can be very unique, but when viewed as a whole creates a whole new environment in which the elements complement one another rather than any piece being greater than the others.  

Agonist is a line that has rocketed to one of the top positions of my Favorite Perfume Houses list.   The inital line, for me, had some hits and some misses, but each subsequent release has proven to be better than the previous.  In the beginning, there seemed to be a period of both scorn and admiration for this house stemming from the the original highly priced releases, with people overlooking the fact that the initial releases were only available in one of a kind glass flacons which is what drove the prices so high..... yet when they were release in the regular bottles, people seemed less impressed with the juice;  whether it was due to reformulation or the increased availability I could not tell you.   I, however, had never tried the scents in the original bottles so i never could compare.....therefore my enjoyment of the scents was never potentially swayed by the price paid.   Does perfume smell better when it comes encased in a work of art?  Perhaps....we are always convinced that we are getting something special when we spend more.....but in this case, I say the art is in the scent rather than the bottle.

Frederic Malle Editions de Parfums En Passant

I used to live in a house that had 2 enormous lilac bushes in the backyard.  One had purple blossoms with white trim, another had purple.  Being the in Pacific Northwest,  we would be inundated with rain from October to May and the fairly temperate climate would allow bulbs and flowers to start blooming as early as February.  It was hard to gauge when summer was on its way but I quickly learned that when the lilacs bloomed, it meant winter was truly almost over, so I looked forward to those beautiful amethyst blossoms every year.  I would cut  branches off to prune them, then fill some crystal vases in my house with the gorgeous blooms which would then fill my home with a light, lovely lilac.   However, the scent in the house was never quite the same as smelling them outside as they were blooming in the cool rain under a gray sky, with the grass a vibrant carpet beside it, exuding its own powerful green and earthy scent. 

 

En Passant is a fragrance that has been reviewed to death, however, it is one of my favorites and I wear it frequently.  I find it to be the most realistic portrayal of those blooms in my old backyard.  The initial spray is a veritable blast of cool air and lilac and it feels as if a breeze has traveled across my arm, surrounding me in the wraps of early April.  The scent feels calming yet anticipatory, as if there’s something waiting behind the breeze and flowers, and holds the wearer in suspense for a time, until it unveils a hint of loam and rain.  But then, much like the flower in the spring, it blooms further to reveal the full lilac blossom, loads and loads of them, surrounding you with the sure promise of the upcoming sunshine. 

I had  one more lilac  in a very different environment, the High Desert, where it grew in my front yard with the help of an extensive irrigation system.  This lilac was much smaller, with its constant struggle to retain moisture, and we would get fewer blooms, but what a welcome respite it was from the endless terrain of juniper and sage surrounding our house…..these lilac blooms were fleeting, and only produced a single quick round of blossoms, and had their own character.  They smelled sweeter and drier, the effects of the low humidity keeping their scent closer to the bloom itself,  and infused with a dry warmth.  As En Passant further progresses,  I am treated to these lilacs.  The scent is slightly sweeter but you can now feel the sun that has burned through the clouds, and the spring is a sweet memory, but the summer has brought joy and the sweet, dry air with it.  For hours I am held in that beautiful scented desert air, surrounded by a cool mist of lilac, until it gently fades, much like the lilac bloom itself.

I save my En Passant for days when the winter seems infinite.  At times where I am walking around in the snow, doing my mundane errands and glaring at the gray sky, this lovely lilac serves to remind me that in a few short weeks, the cold air will begin to give way to that unmistakable spring aura, and we’ll be seeing the blooms once again.    Another beautiful, beautiful scent in the Editions de Parfums series, and another winner by Olivia Giacobetti.

Reviewed from my own bottle of En Passant.

Antonio Alessandria Nacre Blanche

Sometimes it's interesting to try a perfume before you've ever read the marketing materials.  I love the Chandler Burr Untitled series for that reason, so I've been trying to stay away from promotional information and just going into trying a scent to see what I think about it.

What interested me initially in the Antonio Alessandria line were the bottles.  They are absolutely beautiful, and who doesn't want a pretty piece of art that contains great scent besides?  And with each scent interpreting a color, I was hooked.  I ordered the samples, and at this point, I have tried all three in his line.  They all have a unique character that appeals to different seasons and moods.  The Noir is Christmas-y and feels like winter.  The Rouge is bright and fiery, and the Blanche is for a more reflective mood.

Nacre Blanche is one that I initially envisioned to be light and airy, with perhaps some creaminess to it.  A scent with pearl in the name should be absolutely elegant and soft.  It's the stone that is not quite a stone, but a condensation of beauty surrounding a simple grain of sand.  I think pearls are absolutely beautiful...to me, they almost look like silk that has been infused with light.

Nacre Blanche opens sweet and somewhat suprisingly, heavy.  My mind interprets the initial stage as a combination of nag champa and the sweet tuberose that sometimes gets mistaken for gardenia.  I sense some petigrain as well, keeping the florals from becoming too much, and the nag champa quality is actually very attention getting....it's very high end headshop, which may not appeal to some but for me brings back wonderful memories.  The citrus is all but absent in the top notes on my skin.

The scent then takes a complete turn to the tropical.  The frangipani aspect blends with a scent that is reminiscent of coconut milk and a touch of ylang, the jasmine is also apparent, when all of a sudden something green comes in to add a cooling veil to the heat all that floral power is generating.  I suspect this is the coriander, which smells very much like the Kiehl's coriander.  The impression is of being at a tropical beach after dark....it's humid and sweet and all the night blooming flowers have blossomed, releasing their perfume into the night air.  The surrounding leaves and dark earth are just out of your sensory reach, but you know they are there.  I could bask in this stage for a long time, and as this scenario solidifies for me, the coconut milk subsides to a light breeze holding the florals aloft.

In the later stages, vanilla and benzoin become apparent, replacing and adding a nice echo of the nag champa feel in the opening.  Musk and Sandalwood, which is the other element of nag champa, becomes more apparent than the frangipani of the duo.  You are left with a wonderful white floral incense that lasts for hours.

I was surprised by the marketing copy when I read it....in the end, this scent reminds me not of a young maiden at the window waiting for her world of night romance, but of a great hippie retreat in the tropics.  Is it evocative of a pearl?  Maybe.  Pearls have so many layers and you can sense the depth in the stone,  and the scent holds that same fascination.

I will be buying this one.  It's perfect for summer evenings when you're tired of fruit or light florals.  

Indult Tihota

I am a huge fan of vanilla fragrances.  Most people love vanilla, whether in scent or edible form, so it's no shocker that many gravitate towards them.  In the fragrance world, especially, there are so many types of vanilla fragrances that you can own almost all of them and none would smell alike, at least for the first few hours.  Vanilla with spice, vanilla with smoke, vanilla with wood.....vanilla with fruit, musk or sugar, straight vanilla, dry vanilla, herbal vanilla, sweet vanilla......if you want it, you can find it.

That's not to say that all the vanillas are great.  I definitely have my vanilla preferences, and some overly sweet vanillas over the years have filled me trepidation when ordering vanilla perfumes.  I live in an area where I don't have access to any scents other than a rural Macy's that really has the slimmed-down version of the other stores, so many of my purchases are blind buys if I can't get a sample.  For this reason, I totally ignored Tihota when it first appeared for purchase.  When Tihota was released the first time around everyone pretty much went nuts.  Touted on blogs as reviews as ethereal, amazing, true, the best, the most amazing cloud-like vanilla imaginable, I quickly became anxious every time someone mentioned it, thinking that I must be really missing out on something.  It was almost a relief when the limited edition became unavailable....I could let go of it.

Then it showed up again in 2012.

Again I was tormented.  It sat, mocking me, from my wishlist.  Finally, in a fit of bravado and devil-may-care spending, I bought it.  I hadn't even tried it, but obviously, with all the hype, it must be great!

Then I read some reviews that said it smelled like Vanilla Lace.  Uh-oh.  Vanilla Lace is a loathed vanilla in my book.  Now I was full of anxiety again, and it seemed like forever to get the bottle.  When I got my package, it smelled fragrantly of vanilla.  Again, uh-oh.  I opened it and the bottle had slightly leaked.  Luckily it was negligable so it was still full, but I could already sense the flat vanilla.  I had been looking forward to creamy and tempered so now I had a bad attitude.  I sprayed it on and for the rest of the day walked around in a storm cloud.  This was not the vanilla I had envisioned.

But wait, there's more.

After 4 months of it sitting in my closet, I gave it another shot.

The first spray:  flat vanilla, again.  Sweet with a hint of smoke, which honestly I don't love.  But I decided to be patient.  A few minutes later, it got even sweeter, but some of the 'flat' aspect started going away.  It seemed like the vanilla was trying to figure out how to work with my skin and it started to have personality.  15 minutes in it felt more comfortable....a sweet vanilla with a hint of the blossom that created the pod.  I was relieved that this was not Vanilla Lace on me, which I found to be a cheap musk bomb over a bit of vanilla (sorry to anyone who likes it, it may smell lovely on you, but that's what it did to me).

Over time the slight orchid element remained but only hovering in the background.  The vanilla retained its sweetness but never crossed the line into too sweet.  I don't really get a vanilla pod from this, or extract.  I get dark vanilla, almost liquor-like in intensity, but if you're looking for creamy it's not here.  If you're looking for a steady, dependable vanilla, this is it.  And yes, you must be a huge vanilla fan to love it because it's going to stick to you for hours.  Very smooth, lingering and beautiful.

I also noticed it's great for layering, if that's your thing.  I like to layer this with Bruno Acampora Musc.  The dirty, mushroom like opening is nicely tempered by Tihota and the animalic musc balanced by the vanilla is absolutely sexy.....and it doesn't turn into my nemesis Vanilla Lace (again, sorry Vanilla Lace lovers, but we all have our limitations).

Helmut Lang Cuiron

We all know that guy who's all business and button down at work but then spends his weekends roaring around a track on a motorcycle, or traversing distances with his chrome-enhanced bike.  He's a biker in no sense of the word, but he is a motorcycle enthusiast.  He wears tailored shirts but you get the slightest scent of bad boy from him.

Cuiron opens with a very energizing, bracing bergamot note which is quite strong and actually brings to mind lemon peel.  Bergamot usually strikes me as a more refined citrus, but in this fragrance the note is front and center and there is no denying it.  At the same time, there is a definite whiff of soft leather with an underpinning of motor oil.  It seems masculine leaning, but a leather-scent loving woman would enjoy this as well and the juxtaposition of this phase on a woman could be very sexy.

The leather and oil are prominent notes but I'm very surprised at how the citrus holds it at bay.  There is no struggle for dominance, but an uneasy harmony.  Think lemon oil conditioner on leather.  When this starts becoming disconcerting, the citrus steps a little over and allows a tempering agent to come through.  I believe this is the pink peppercorn as it sweetens the lemon a bit, and at the same time the cassia comes through as well, not in a spicy, cinnamon wave but in the flat bark manner of cassia.  This is not baking cinnamon or big red, but rather the cinnamon stick itself, vaguely woody in nature.  This is never a spicy scent, nor a sweet one....but I enjoy how it never veers into the burn-your-nose leather.  This is how a black motorcycle jacket scents your closet when you open it....even if you can't see it, you know without a doubt that it's in there.

The oil scent/feel of Cuiron fades over time but the citrus always hangs around the edges of leather....the effect almost brings to mind oakmoss during one phase of the fragrance.  The notes listed include 'resins' but I get no sense of the usual suspects in this scent.  Instead, it stays very California-professional-meets-biker/motorcycle-stuntsman....the just-showered guy wearing a leather jacket in a lemon grove.....It would be fabulous on any man, but the right woman could definitely wear it as well.