Ylang Ylang Lorenzo Villoresi

Source: Fragrantica

I love the smell of ylang ylang and having read about its multiple uses in aromatherapy including being a relaxant and sedative, I managed to track down two young trees to plant beneath my dad's window. Despite being a tropical plant I haven't found it growing around this city island and it wasn't too easy finding the trees either. Anyway home they came and the scent of the flowers is so strong that the night breeze carries it up two floors to me and helps with my dad's insomnia.

Lorenzo Villoresi has bottled the exact smell of the flower in this scent. Ylang ylang has a distinctive scent that stands out amongst other floral notes although I find it hard to pin it down in words for like patchouli it can play so many characters from spicy green to heady narcotic and fits beautifully in a tropical garland. It's restrained and elegant in APOM Pour Femme but Ilang Ivohibé showcases its multiple personalities. In Lorenzo Villoresi's Ylang Ylang, it's ylang ylang all the way as if I am holding a few of the golden-yellow spidery blooms in my hands. Simple and linear but a very pleasurable scent that is soothing and uplifting. 

Source: herbalriot.tumblr.com

On a happy note, two good friends of mine are getting married today and Lorenzo Villoresi Ylang Ylang will accompany me for the day's festivities and I've chosen Tauer PHI Une Rose de Kandahar to dress in for the dinner tonight. 

I leave you with a lovely poem by W.H. Auden that I find to be precious, it has such honesty shining through the words that makes it incredibly touching. My most-loved line would be "if equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me." 

‘The More Loving One’ by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well

That, for all they care, I can go to hell,

But on earth indifference is the least

We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us, we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am

Of stars that do not give a damn,

I cannot, now I see them, say

I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,

I should learn to look at an empty sky

And feel its total dark sublime,

Though this might take me a little time.

A La Nuit Serge Lutens

This is the be all and end all of jasmine scents for me. I bought my first bottle in 2007 and have not craved for another jasmine since. 

It reminds me of being a young child of less than a metre tall, curious about my father's garden with hundreds of different exotic plants calling it home. At the back of the garden is a huge jasmine bush, well back then it was huge in contrast to the little me. It is a type of Jasminum Sambac, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the blooms resembles white roses and they open at night, releasing a super potent jasmine scent, much stronger than the single layer ones. Till this day, it is my favourite plant in the garden and it shares its blooms with me to scent my living space with its unique fragrance. 

Jasminum Sambac, Grand Duke of Tuscany, courtesy of flnurserymart.com

A La Nuit is all about jasmine, from the start, you are greeted with an intense jasmine scent, sweet and clear as if smelling from a just plucked bloom. As you enjoy the fragrance you notice behind the floral sweetness, an animalic note that I usually associate with jasmine and tuberose, although it smells different in each. It is as if the flower has just gone past its prime and is one step towards decay. The scent feels warmer and more pungent at this point compared to its dewy freshness in the opening and stays like this for many hours. Like the Grand Duke of Tuscany, A La Nuit has a huge sillage and I can still smell it lingering the next day.

A La Nuit is both womanly and child-like at the same time, uplifting and yet causes a wistful yearning for past happiness, refreshing yet indolic. There is nothing quite like her.