Kenzo Jungle Homme Perfume Advert with Satya Oblet

Kenzo Jungle Cologne was created by Olivier Cresp and launched in 1996. It has notes of Maté, nutmeg, musk mallow seeds, Atlas cedar, blue cedar from Lebanon.

The 1999 advert features model Satya Oblet, who is now the new face for the Airness range of masculine fragrances. He recounts that he saw his luck turn after he'd bleached his hair citing the fact that his dark skin was a problem for him to land modeling contracts. It's impossible not to notice him now!

8th Annual Basenotes Awards Winners

It is that time of the year again! Basenotes has announced the winners of 8th Annual Basenotes Awards. The Basenotes visitors have voted to select their favorites, and you can see the results by following the link. Special congratulations to Now Smell This, the winner of Gold award in Best Blogs category and Perfume Posse in Silver. A big thank you to all of you who voted for Bois de Jasmin (Bronze) despite my long absence from these pages. I cannot express how much your support means to me. Also, a special thank you to Grant Osborne of Basenotes whose hard work and dedication are simply admirable.

Moschino launch new fragrance - Hippy Fizz Perfume

New from Moschino is Cheap & Chic Hippy Fizz - a citrus-floral feminine fragrance designed for summer wear. The 'olive' bottle has a new vivacious look with bright, strong colours.

Cheap & Chic Hippy Fizz contains notes of Lemon, Raspberry leaves, Magnolia, Lotus flower, May rose, Parma violet, Moss, Osmanthus and Cedarwood. The fragrance is available as an eau de toilette in 30ml, 50ml and 100ml sizes.

Naomi Watts is new Angel face

Naomi Watts, the actress, who has appeared in Mulholland Drive, 21 Grams and King Kong has been anounced as the new face of Thierry Mugler's Angel.

According to Thierry Mugler Perfumes, "Naomi Watts was the inspired choice for Thierry Mugler, over and above her beauty and her star image. Displaying a modern touch, the actress projects a personality that blends sensuality, voluptuousness and evanescence to evoke the many facets of Angel. A blond fragility, a natural tenderness, an emotional seductiveness".

The commercial was filmed in Los Angeles, following a scenario by Thierry Mugler and directed by director Bill Condon. Ali Mahdavi will produce the advertising visuals for the worldwide campaign, which will begin in October 2008.

Overstockperfume.com Expands to Offer Sweet Smell of Savings to Shoppers

Overstockperfume.com Expands to Offer Sweet Smell of Savings to Shoppers

Perfume in the Glossies: May 2008

Slim pickings this month. Boo to the usually (relatively) perfume-heavy Allure for hardly any perfume content except for another basic column from “Fragrance Guy”, Frederic Malle, in which he advises that “using a heavy oriental such as Shalimar or Obsession in summer is like wearing a fur coat” and that “sexy summer fragrances are generally made up of white flowers such as gardenia and orange blossom”. (One wonders if it pains a man of so much knowledge to have to adhere to a very primitive accessible format undoubtedly requested by editors…and also if it pains him to be called “Fragrance Guy”).

…But kudos to Vogue for finally starting to cotton on to the existence of the world of fine perfume, and by fine perfume I do not mean 80% of that which appears on the numerous ads on its pages. Erika Kawalek, in an article entitled Into This Air, visits Osmotheque, goes away deeply moved by Iris Gris, Scandal and Rose Jacqueminot and attempts to obtain her new favorites. The articles goes to mention names that one somehow would never expect to see in Vogue: “perfume detective” Anitra Earle, Jaime Lliteras (that’s right, he of the now legendary eBay store!), The Perfumed Court, Luca Turin, Tania Sanchez and a number of very niche scents like Onda and Bois Blond. I feel a sense of strange satisfaction observing Our World (the world of perfume maniacs that is) slowly but steadily seeping into the pages of glossies and from there into the world of normal people general public. To quote Leonard Cohen, first we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

New Fragrance Launches : Guerlain

After discussing the elusive scent of figs yesterday, I was surprised to open my issue of Cosmetic World and discover a mention of an interesting new launch from Guerlain. Figue-Iris was created by Jean-Paul Guerlain in collaboration with Sylvaine Delacourte, Guerlain's creative director. As Ms. Delacourte described in the article, "Today, fig is very well known and popular... I wanted to contrast it with something very chic." Figue-Iris combines the green freshness of fig with warm, powdery iris.

Laurier-Réglisse was created by Firmenich's Marie Salamagne and it combines "the sweetness of licorice wood and the freshness of laurel with bergamot, orange blossom, violet, galbanum and amber." Both Figue-Iris and Laurier-Réglisse will be launching in April of 2008, priced at $52 for 4.2 oz. eau de toilette bee bottle.

Moreover, Shalimar lovers will be glad to discover Eau de Shalimar, which "builds on the contrast of the bright and dark notes found in the original Shalimar." The other new Guerlain launch includes Cruel Gardenia as part of L’Art et la Matière collection, which is available only from the Guerlain boutiques. Perfumer Randa Hammami of Symrise worked with the notes of damask rose, peach and neroli to build the gardenia accord. The gardenia is supported by violet, ylang ylang and white musks. The classical Guerlinade accord of tonka bean, vanilla and sandalwood forms the backdrop for the floral notes. Finally, L'Ame d'un Héros (the reissue of Coriolan) will join Les Parisiennes collection.

What would you...

“Hmmm, this is good, isn’t it?”, said the perfumer enthusiastically, nose wide open.
“Well… that’s the one you showed me yesterday”, replied the W.-factor somewhat annoyed. He was wrong. “No!”, I go, “it may be somewhat close, though. You probably get the roses. Good, ain’t it?” the perfumer again.

“Well… “, the W.-factor goes, “there is something about it, I do not get along with. It is for women.”

“It is a chypre!”, the perfumer replied , somewhat disappointed already, and continues: “You do not like chypres, that’s it! I know. You did not appreciate Chypre by Coty. The gold standard! But imagine coming across this scent somewhere on the corridor! A woman wearing it passed by. You smell her perfume. This perfume! What would you do?”

The perfumer waves the white paper soaked with his rose latest TRIAL under the W.-factor’s nose.

Hope dies slowly.

“Run away”, the W.-factor replied, and continued working on some students tests.

So you see. Life of a perfumer can be hard ;-)

Fact is: The W.-factor does not like Chypres and for all of you who want to dig deeply into the matter of Chypres: Please visit Helg’s perfumeshrine and read her posts on Chypres. Ah…and when visiting her blog: Check our her review on the Incense extrême please!

Second fact: There is rose in the incense rosé and there is rose in this chypre -rose- TRIAL that still runs under no particular name. Both roses are integrated into a big splash of citrus (Clementine for the incense rosé, Bergamot and a touch Clementine for the rose trial).
But the take on the roses are quite different. In the rose TRIAL the rose is a powerful rose, integrated into a chypre structure; and -beside the natural absolute, I use for the first time a steam distilled rose oil (damascena, Bulgaria). This one complements the absolute and its dark sweetness and goes fantastic with the touch cinnamon (cinnamon alcohol), and Bay (eugenol!). Together with Bourbon Geranium steam distilled oil, Egyptian jasmine absolute, some salicylates and other flower power enhancers, the rose accord is heaven for me.

Next: Talking dilutions of this rose trial, and some words on patchouli.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2008 and is filed under Uncategorized. Your comment is highly welcome, please join the discussion!