By Kilian Bamboo Harmony Is Ethereal Tea For Your Skin

By Kilian has released two new perfumes as part of their new Asian Tales line. It's a bit of a departure from their first two collections, which tend to be headier and richer. They are all beautiful in their own way, but certainly not for everyone. We all wear scent differently, and one person's lovely floral is another  ones suffocating nightmare. So for those of you that like some air and softness in their perfume, which I love too, you must check out By Kilian Asian Tales Bamboo Harmony and Water Calligraphy. 

Water Calligraphy- this is the packaging of By Kilian perfumes SWOON

From By Kilian, "Bamboo Harmony pays homage to Bamboo, considered by the “Men of Letters” as the symbol of human perfection. It is also the main component of their brush, the central element of calligraphy which, in Chinese culture, is the representation of Art and Beauty". That is sort of an esoteric and poetic descriptor for a perfume but By Kilian is not known for their pared down approach to creativity. I love that they put this much thought into a scent, and reading about this new line is as enchanting as their previous offerings.

So- the scent. Bamboo Harmony is a lovely white tea scent. There is a touch of citrus & orange blossom in the top notes, but only a touch. Then the white tea note blooms, and its made ever so gently floral with a bit of mimosa. It dries down to a delicate slightly warm skin scent with a little more sweetness from fig leaves, but never too sweet, thanks to their "Matè Essence" which adds a crisp green fresh note, which is unusual in the base of a perfume. This is perfect scent for warmer weather as well. It manages to balance the complexity of notes By Kilian and the amazing perfumer Calice Becker are known for, and make it an ethereal veil of soft, pretty perfume.Verdict: Lovely! 

By Kilian also has lacquered evening bags that echo the design of his perfume packaging- gorgeous

By Kilian is available online at their e-store, at MIN New York, Aedes, Luckyscent and several large department stores in the US, and at Holt Renfrew in Canada. Bamboo Harmony is $225 for a 50 refillable bottle. Travel sets with atomizer are around $70 but I don't know if Bamboo Harmony has a travel set out yet.

Gratuitous photo of Kilian Hennessy

Funny screen cap of what comes up when one Googles Kilian....oh, ladies.

Beautiful Russian Caravan Tea

I love tea scents but frankly have been a bit bored with them. After the green tea mania of the 90s nothing new or interesting in the tea genre has struck me as something I might want to wear. I do enjoy L’Artisan Parfumeur’s The Pour une Ete which is a gentle green tea with a barely there jasmine but never enough to own it. I have and love Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint, a lovely powdery mint tea with a gentle jasmine, but I tend to wear it to bed more than anything.

A friend recently gave me a bottle of Christopher Brosius’s I Hate Perfume Russian Caravan Tea water perfume and perfume absolute. At first spritz I thought hmm, a lovely black tea scent, and went on about my day. It is the dry down of this Russian Caravan Tea that surprises and delights. And the fact that such a gentle, water based scent could last all day. By gentle I mean hardly any sillage, it wears very close to the skin but throughout the day little wafts of the scent of warm comforting steeped tea wrap around me like a silk scarf. This isn’t an herbal tea, or a green tea. It’s a rich black tea, steeped for a long time. It smells like a quality black tea that brings to mind the Russian Tea tradition. A cozy baroque room, tea served in beautiful podstakannik (silver holders for glasses) and maybe even some Russian Tea Cakes.

My mother’s family is Ukrainian and her mother brought a tea samovar exactly like the one above to Canada when they fled Communist Russia. It always seemed to grand & royal to me- of another time and place, the kind of thing used to serve tea in fairy tales. It had old Russian wiring so it was never used, which made it all the more mysterious. My grandfather was a palace guard in the Tsar’s army and I like to imagine the tea the Romanovs might have enjoyed in the palace, and the scents that might have been wafting around. Tea was an important occasion in the palace, and the Empress Alexandra had a love of fresh cut flowers. Maybe the combined scent of flowers and tea with some buttery tea cakes is the scent I imagine.

The notes from CB I Hate Perfume’s site say there are smoky notes but I can’t smell any smoke at all. Perhaps its so smooth it doesn’t smell lapsang souchong smoky which is good because that kind of smoky would not be a pleasant perfume. There are also notes of bergamot and the citrus is noticeable but so subtle and compliment the tea perfectly. And Russian Caravan Tea is very lovely, addictive almost. Interestingly it is not sweet, which is what ends up bothering me about most tea scents.  Perhaps the citrus balances the tea and adds another dimension in lieu of sweetness. Yet its not bitter either- its just right.


CB I Hate Perfume Russian Caravan Tea is available on their website or at Luckyscent   on their website. If you haven't tried CB I Hate Perfume, you might have fun navigating through his selection. He has a very interesting, often odd, take on perfume.