Perfume Infused With Air and Mystery

One of my favourite heady sandalwood scents is the divine Guerlain Samsara. I prefer the vintage formulations as they contain almost nuclear levels of the precious and now *restricted sandalwood and jasmine. But mostly sandalwood. I have both the eau de toilette and extrait in vintage formulation, and extrait (or parfum) wears closer to the skin and is just softer. Note to self: get more before it is all gone. I hold on to the eau de toilette, but frankly never wear it, as much as I adore it. This 1989 beauty was at the tail end of the mighty 80s perfumes, and Guerlain held nothing back. Legend has it that Jean-Paul Guerlain made Samsara for a woman he wanted to seduce (naturally!), and he knew she loved jasmine and sandalwood. It must have worked, because she allegedly wore it faithfully, and that people would cross the street to ask her about her perfume. I'm thinking she may have overapplied but that is just me. And who cares! This is a romantic perfume as only the house of Guerlain does. Even the text on the ad is typically romantic - "Ni tout à fait la même, ni tout à fait une autre". It translates roughly to "Not quite the same, nor quite another"...a conundrum in a bottle, no?

Gorgeous mint tea

That said, it is still a bit of a powerhouse, and I usually limit my wearing of Samsara extrait to the winter, when a rich cozy perfume is required. Enter Guerlain Un Air de Samsara (thank you to my dear perfume enabler, Dane xo) which is, as the name suggests, a lighter and "airier" version of the original Samsara. Loads of mint, bergamot and narcissus have been added and the scent is reminiscent of a minty herbal tea on top of the drop dead gorgeous sandalwood jasmine cocktail. The mint is so cooling, like a breath of air, and seemingly lifts the terrestrial sandalwood up and frees it. More like the scent from a sandalwood fan than from rich creamy sandalwood absolute. It wears beautifully in the heat, and one can only imagine how the gentle and sultry notes of jasmine and sandalwood seduced Jean Paul Guerlain's lover. 

Be like the flower, turn your face to the sun.

~  Kahlil Gibran

Guerlain Un Air de Samsara is a discontinued fragrance but can found online from many vendors. Get it now, while you still can.

*Due to severe over harvesting of sandalwood, the material is severely restricted.

Floris Snow Rose, A Beautiful Cool & Gentle Rose

I have been coming back around to rose scents lately. Interesting, rose is often associated in aromatherapy with "women's issues" and helping to balance moods. That's not to say men can't benefit from the calming and soothing benefits of the scent of rose, but I notice when there are fluctuations of the hormonal kind I often crave rose. In my powdery scent post, I mentioned my love for Talco Delicato. Floris Snow Rose offers a similar feel- gentle, powdery with a soft babyish musk. 

If you are familiar with Rochas Tocade, the iconic & beautiful rose vanilla perfume created by the wonderful Maurice Roucel, imagine Snow Rose as her sweet baby sister. If you aren't familiar with Tocade and love rose & vanilla, get some- stat! Snow Rose is clean and easy to wear with gentle notes of rose, jasmine, vanilla, musk and sandalwood. It is a calming scent and so aptly named. It has little hints of green freshness that shine through, like a little ray of sunshine in this cool powdery scent.

It is missing the violet note that is common in a lot of rose scents- I love violet but the rose-violet combo evokes lipstick and while lovely, not always what I want. Violet -rose scents like L'Artisan Parfumeur Drole de Rose and Frederic Malle's perfectly named Lipstick Rose come to mind. Rose and patchouli is also common- the "dark rose"- in perfumes like L'Artisan Parfumeur Voleur de Roses and Stella McCartney Stella. These are gorgeous but again, not what my sensitive nose has been craving. Then there are bombshell roses like YSL Paris. I love that too and wore it for years but again, looking for soft roses here...Simple rose soliflores can be lovely but for some reason they can end up with a sour note I cannot abide.

Floris Snow Rose is simply pretty and lovely. I adore it, and have received compliments each time I wear it. It is a snuggly skin scent, and could easily work in warm or cool weather. This has earned a top rating in my collection. Sadly, it was a limited edition perfume for Floris. I found it at a discounter, so keep your eyes peeled. It pops up from time to time. There are also a few on eBay right now. Worth getting if you are a rose perfume lover.

The Understated Beauty of L'Artisan Parfumeur Vanilia

L’Artisan Parfumeur is the second niche line I fell for, when I sniffed their gorgeous fruity musk scent, Mure et Musc Extreme in 1998 while shopping in New York. There was something so transparent and “different” about the line,  and the scents seemed so odd compared to the standard commercial releases. The added novelty of shopping at Barney’s and just being in New York City no doubt shaped my impression of the line, and for that, I am grateful. I have beautiful associations with a beautiful perfume line.

I was already a full fledged perfume junkie and had an overflowing dresser full of bottles from almost all the mainstream lines. At the time I worked for an agent promoting new releases of many lines of perfumes from our humble Canadian Alfred Sung to all the Italian houses (D&G, Versace, Bulgari, Ungaro, etc) as well as Byblos, La Perla and some other more obscure but still mostly mainstream lines. I had OD’d on the 90s powerhouse scents like Mugler Angel, Chanel Allure & Christian Dior Dolce Vita after working in environments where they were being launched, meaning sprayed everywhere. All. The. Time. Mercilessly. To this day I can spot either one of those a mile away as they do not change on anyone’s skin (sorry to any fans, but they don’t) and maintain a screeching linear tone that makes me want to cut my nose off.

My first niche line was Annick Goutal. I had fallen for Annick Goutal probably in 1994 when my local Holt Renfrew (the smallest in Canada) had the line there for a very brief period. Serendipity I’d say, as they carry only the most popular lines due to limited space. Their popular and fresh Eau d'Hadrien (lemon, grapefruit, ylang ylang) became my daytime scent and the sultry Passion (tuberose, ylang, patchouli, vanilla etc) was my nighttime go-to. What I loved most about Annick Goutal was no one I knew had even heard of it. DING DING this was the clincher and soon having a unique perfume that no one else might be wearing became a Very Important Thing.

Back to L’Artisan Parfumeur. Dismissed by many hardcore perfumistas as too bland and mainstream (although a few of their recent releases have been interesting…) I still love this line. They were the first house to do a fig scent and their Premier Figuier is still one of the best creamy fig scents- it was my eldest daughter Emilie’s signature perfume for years. Which is why, as much as I love its green, creamy, powdery and slightly coconut-y scent I can never wear it as it just smells like her. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Funny how we can associate a scent with that person and it becomes impossible to mold it into anything or anyone else.

Vanilia is an older scent from the house having been released in 1978. Perhaps it smells a bit like the 70s where high quality ingredients were tossed into perfumes pell-mell, like a soup.  The notes given (or that I have compiled online) are simple- ylang ylang, vanilla bean, amber and sandalwood. There is a fruity note that perhaps comes from the ylang ylang with the vanilla making it almost foody- but it is never too sweet or cloying. It dries down with the amber & sandalwood adding an almost smoky resinous scent, that sits and warms on the skin never becoming cloying or saccharine. The smoke is barely hinted at before it goes and for that I am grateful as I am not a fan of smoky notes. Its more of a soft barely sweet incense. Vanilia is a bit of a shape shifter, one minute being a soft vanilla scent then becoming an amber-y floral. Some have complained that Vanilia is too soft and too ethereal and have wished for an Extreme or more intense version. I think that would take away from the whole point of this scent and I love it just the way it is.

Truly one of the oddest vanilla scents I was never quite sure if I liked it. I am not a fan of sugary sweet scents and, if you are looking for straight up vanilla scent, you may be disappointed by Vanilia. If you want to smell like cookie dough or cake, this is not the vanilla for you. This is a grown up vanilla with the smooth relaxed vibe I associate with the 70s. Think soft flowing hair, maybe Indian cotton dresses and long skirts and even YSL Safari jackets. Maybe some George Benson playing in the background while you mix drinks and get the fondue ready. The beautiful yet carefree style of Talitha Getty comes to mind and Vanilia to me smells like effortless bohemian luxury. Luxury is key because there is nothing hippie or head shop about this perfume. Vanilia is for the beautiful people, to wear when you are going skiing in Klosters, or dinner in Biarritz after surfing all day. It isn’t loud and doesn’t try to hard. Like you are wearing just a touch of make up, with your hair down and sporting a carefree attitude, in Vanilia you are enveloped in a soft cashmere wrap that is so fine it’s almost ethereal- you can barely feel it on your skin. 

News on the internet says Vanilia is discontinued but several retailers I know of have plenty of stock.  The manager at the L’Artisan Parfumeur boutique at Ogilvy in Montreal told me it was not discontinued, and, have it on their price list catalogue they so kindly send me from time to time. Yet, I have decided to get a back up bottle…just in case…

L'Artisan Parfumeur is available in Canada at boutiques, and they have a freestanding boutique within Ogilvy Department Store in Montreal.

Sandalwood Dreams

The title of this post refers to the common note in Chanel Bois des Iles and Guerlain Samsara. They share a creamy, dreamy and delectable sandalwood note that is front and centre in both– they give me a feeling of calm inner peace, as one might expect from sandalwood incense in a temple. I think the 80s French ad for Samsara says it all. Simply gorgeous.

Chanel Bois des Iles was first released by the designer in 1926 and is now included in their Exclusif Collection of Rue Cambon fragrances. It is only available at Chanel Boutiques, and only in the spectacular 200ml bottle in an eau de toilette concentration or in the parfum version in a 30ml bottle. According to Bois de Jasmin, the perfumer Ernest Beaux was inspired to create Bois des Iles by an opera by Tchaikovsky, The Queen Of Spades, based on a short story by Aleksandr Pushkin- a heartbreaking romantic tragedy of love and obsession. Heavy stuff, no? I love a perfume with a story and this perfume is so beautiful, I can close my eyes and feel my heart break when I wear it. Really.  Bois des Iles is centered around one of the most beautiful sandalwood notes I have ever sniffed. Sandalwood is an endangered species so this extract has become rare and incredibly expensive and Bois des Iles manages to take the sandalwood and make it dreamy and transparent, like a dream you keep trying to remember.

Chanel has an incredible feature in some of it’s boutiques- a table where you can sit down and smell each of the raw materials used in their perfumes in it’s raw form. My dear friend Dane took me to this perfume mecca…..OMG this was a religious experience for me and when they gave us the sandalwood to sniff we wanted to grab it and bolt. But I digress. Chanel’s website lists the notes of Bois des Iles as “an accord of Sandalwood and Ylang-Ylang spirals in a base of Tonka Bean and Bourbon Vanilla, with heady, enchanting notes of Sicilian Mandarin and Calabrian Bergamot.” There is also the aldehydic tingle that you find in Chanel No5 which you smell immediately after applying. Fizzy and breezy, it brings out the florals right off the top- but not overly sweet. More like a Champagne fiz- I love it. Chanel No5 is gorgeous but somehow didn’t suit me. Bois des Iles makes me think that someone extracted the sandalwood out of No5 and served it up on aldehydes, ylang ylang with the tonka and vanilla adding that creamy sensation to the sandalwood. Ahhhh,  perfection. The sandalwood manages to be dry but not austere, as I find it can be in some masculine scents. That said, a man could easily pull off wearing Bois des Iles as to my mind it is exactly what Coco Chanel embodies- a perfume that is as easy for a man to wear as it is easy for a woman to wear pants.  This is no girly fluffy cotton candy perfume, but it manages to mingle with warm skin so perfectly that it does become smolderingly sexy.

This is one of the perfumes I wear when I can’t choose one from my wardrobe. It is always perfect,  and wears close to the body so I don’t leave clouds of sillage behind me when I leave a room. It is timeless, even my 14 year old will inhale deeply and ask me which perfume I am wearing because I smell sooo good. If it gets me an extra hug, well that is a bonus.

So now to the bombastic sandalwood, Guerlain Samsara. There are two stories about the origin of this perfume which was released in 1985. The "official" story from Guerlain tells us that Jean-Paul Guerlain sought inspiration in China and Tibet to create Samsara, “Samsara is a Sanskrit word that has its roots in Hinduism. It signifies the cycle of birth and rebirth, the perpetual voyage from one existence to the next, the wheel of life that keeps on turning. Samsara is an invitation to serenity and harmony, with oneself and with the world. It is a voyage between East and West, Orient and Occident, an homage to the woman who is ever in search of serenity.” How fitting that sandalwood would figure in this scent- again images of temples, incense, prayer and meditation come to mind when one gets a whiff of sandalwood. The second less interesting story is that it was 1985, an era of power scents and Samsara was created to get in on this action. Opium, Obsession and Chanel Coco were hot selling heavy orientals in a big 80s way, and Guerlain did a perfect job creating a contender with Samsara. It packs a one-two punch and is denser in feel than Bois des Iles.

Back to bombastic. The notes from Guerlain speak of  “a spellbinding predominance of jasmine. Rose, narcissus and ylang-ylang embellish the fragrance, the better to unite it with the radiant and generous warmth of sandalwood. Lastly, iris, Tonka bean and vanilla render this remarkable fragrance sublime”. I totally agree. There is the classic Guerlain base, commonly known as “Guerlinade” that most (not all) of the classic Guerlains have in common. This is a composition of several perfume notes but notably jasmine, iris, tonka and vanilla. I could drink this it is so divine- it makes you want to lean in and devour the wearer. So, take the Guerlinade, amp up the jasmine to almost obscene levels, then add a combination of pure and synthetic sandalwood at top volume and somehow the sandalwood grounds the jasmine and the jasmine lightens the sandalwood. A perfect and magical combination.

As with many perfumes today, there are different vintages of Samsara, the earlier ones containing more pure sandalwood. There is parfum (purest concentration of perfume), eau de parfum (more alchohol and not as concentrated than parfum) and eau de toilette (most common and less concentrated than eau de parfum and parfum) available in the Samsara line. I have the “vintage” (pre 1990) parfum and eau de toilette as I find the eau de parfum to be the 80s killer BIG PERFUME, but your mileage may vary. They are all powerful in that 80s sense but it’s all in the application. I lightly mist the eau de toilette with divine results. A few dabs of the parfum are intoxicating, the jasmine mingling with the sandalwood in a magical dance that teases forth from the skin. I often dab some on at bedtime (I never get into bed without perfume) and in the morning I can still smell it on my wrists.

Whereas the Bois des Iles is perfect anytime, anywhere, I tend to reserve Samsara for cooler weather. Bois des Iles has a transparency that allows it to adapt from season to season, whereas Samsara's density makes it work so well in fall and winter. I look forward to wearing both this fall- they both smell wonderful wafting up from a pashmina or sweater. What are your favourite fall sweater scents?