Spending Valentine's Day 2017 with a new love... Le Beau Parfum Maison Francis Kurkdjian

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: Fragrantica.com

Valentine's Day 2017, which lucky scent is sharing today with you? I recently caved in and ordered Baccarat Rouge 540 off the Francis Kurkdjian website, together with a bottle of Lumiere Noire Pour Femme body lotion as a gift to myself. I received as samples, the new Aqua Celestia in a travel size (which I haven't tried yet), Le Beau Parfum and Lumiere Noire Pour Homme (tinkling with the idea of gifting this in the future).

Back to Le Beau Parfum. Must, MUST love big fat white florals to enjoy this. It's not a diva like Fracas but it's definitely not a shrinking violet (although I love my violets and I don't think it's quite fair to the flower, but origins of the quote here). As Savage Garden cheesily crooned " I knew I loved you before I met you", I guessed correctly that I would love Le Beau Parfum once I read the notes and I mean it is a Kurkdjian creation...digressing a little here but there is a fellow perfumehead who wrote in a forum that she wants to have his babies...I totally understand that sentiment. 

With tuberose, orange blossom, ylang ylang and jasmine arranged according to the intensity that I perceive of each note, Le Beau Parfum is a classy floral that is seamless and uncomplicated. Candid as well as rather candied (not toothachingly sweet but it is sweet), it stays constant from start to finish, starting strong and remaining clearly noticeable even after the end of a work day and a vigorous gym session on top of that. Terms that come to mind when describing Le Beau Parfum would include: decidedly feminine, elegant, sweetly innocent, lush, exotic...oh just think Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday and you'll get my drift! 

Le Beau Parfum is the answer to my recent craving for new undiscovered white florals. I tried Creed's Love In White which is a lovely mix of zesty and creamy, less sweet than Le Beau Parfum but similarly innocent and unaffected. I also tried Les Exclusifs de Chanel Beige...I had hoped to enjoy this but it's so....prosaic? Like a person whom one can have neither good nor bad things to describe. Kudos to those who love Beige and can relate to its beauty but it's just not for me. Taste and colours as they say...Anyway I know exactly what I'm ordering next from the MFK website. What about you? What lovely florals have you been craving recently?

Happy Valentine's Day to one and all! I leave you with a perennial favourite poem...

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. 

Pablo Neruda

L'Instant de Guerlain

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: www.osmoz.com

Milky sweet floral.

Despite the advertisement above, I don't find L'Instant to be seductive or wearing a little black dress. Instead L'Instant soothes me, it feels as relaxing as drinking a floral tea laced with milk and honey and smells like it too. Well if tea could be made out of a combination of the flowers ylang ylang, magnolia and jasmine. 

L'Instant is a strong scent but not suffocating, it's easy to wear even on the most humid days here thanks to its lightness. If it were a colour it would be the palest of pale honey and honey is definitely a major feature of L'Instant, proportional to the lush milky floral notes but despite all the flowers and honey the scent is not heavy on sugar, everything about L'Instant says delicate and feminine. In the drydown there is a wisp of clean musk that adds to the pillowy effect and L'Instant maintains its warm celestial glow until the very end many hours later.  

Delire de Roses Caron

Desirability: Full bottle and back up

Source: www.b-b-com.ru

Feminine. Dainty. Graceful.

This smells like a garden party held within walls covered with thousands upon thousands of rose blooms in every shade of pink and yellow. The sky above is crystal clear and blue with not the slightest threat of rain to mar it. The slightest of breezes keeps the party cool and lively with the uplifting green and floral scent of the blossoming hedges but not heavy enough to ruffle the table linen, upon which a delightful feast of pretty treats is laid out, the fruit in season is lychee and here it is in abundance from lychee Martinis to lychee panna cotta. Delicate rose petals and tiny fragrant buds of jasmine are scattered across the table cloths whilst at the corners of the party stand cavernous pots as tall as your hip holding lotus plants with guppies darting about under their broad leaves from which grow translucent pink, purple white and golden blooms. 

On me the exquisite fresh rose blooms and the sweet lychee fruit are the most dominant and although lychee can get a little dense and syrupy, Delire de Roses stays light and tender throughout, rather soft but long lasting. 

A beautiful antidote for Monday blues and somehow I'm reminded of my darling nemesis/niece warbling "Ring a Ring o' Roses".

Source: theillustrationist.com

Bouquet Ideale Xerjoff

Source: www.coccio.de

Having more perfume than I could finish in several lifetimes, I try to purchase new scents in the smallest size bottles possible. Which is why I'm very pleased that Xerjoff has both the Oud Stars collection as well as the "female" Casamorati scents in discovery boxes at reasonable prices. 

I smell no flowers in Bouquet Ideale. No matter. It's very yummy from beginning to end, if you like all-fattening, no calories spared vanilla that is. The opening is dry, spicy and sweet but the aridness of the festive spices disappears quickly to be replaced by a thick, creamy almond and vanilla combination that cannot fail to conjure up images of sinful desserts. As if one is indulging more than the vice of gluttony, there is a rich and aromatic pipe tobacco scent in the background which adds to the decadence of the scent. There are soft woody notes and warm musky undertones in its drydown and overall it feels quite linear, a tobacco vanilla lightly laced with spices, woods and musk. Beautiful and alluring.

Average projection and good longevity, unless you are a man who adores his sweets and can wear them with aplomb, I find this more suited to women, there's something playful even flirty about Bouquet Ideale, irresistible feminine wiles for every woman's arsenal.

Lulu, Pandora's Box. Source: wn.com

A La Rose Maison Francis Kurkdjian

This may have been inspired by Marie Antoinette but unfortunately history has painted Marie Antoinette as frivolous and excessive, two words that do not fit this creation. Instead A La Rose smells like something I would envision Juliet to have worn, being both beautiful and innocent. 

In A La Rose, the rose is young and sparkling like a fresh rose that just unfurled its delicate petals to marvel at the world through eyes filled with love and idealism. I do smell the citrus and powdery notes but the rose stands out clear, bright and unfettered, ever unchanging and staying true to its dewy pink colour residing in its signature Maison Francis Kurkdjian glass flacon. Linear and soft, this stands at polar opposites to sumptuous goddesses like Absolue Pour Le Soir or the heartbreaking rose of Lumiere Noire Pour Femme from the same house and feels more innocent than the chic and classic APOM Pour Femme, a soft beauty of orange blossom and woods.

Having failed to fire up any enthusiasm over the recent Feminin Pluriel, my faith in the artistry of Francis Kurkdjian is renewed by this exquisite example of femininity, a story of a starry-eyed girl standing at the border of naïvety and maturity, destined to become a well known and well loved Shakespearean character, a courageous, loyal and capable woman.   

Jour d`Hermes Absolu Hermes

Source: www.style.com

Jean-Claude Ellena said “I wanted to express the essence of femininity with flowers and nothing but flowers.”

Well if femininity is delicately classy florals from start to finish, JC Ellena got it down pat. I can't recall the previous versions well enough to comment on similarities or otherwise, but Absolu is like a glass of sparkling wine in the palest shade of gold. Wine of a good standard but nothing to gush over. From beginning to end about four hours later, it stays as a golden subtle glow about oneself, perfect when one wishes to remain unobtrusive.  Light, bright, sweet and dry white florals that would wear well for both the office and casual days, as well as being a safe choice for gifting, the luxurious flacon adding to its charm (as long as she enjoys the lighter scale of things and flowers). While I won't need a full bottle of this anytime soon, I am very pleased with my 15 ml, part of a set of four scents, my departing buy from JFK, along with Caleche, 24 Faubourg and L'Ambre des Merveilles. All in identical minimalist glass bottles, with their own cloth bags...Hermes really knows how to package their goods!

APOM Pour Femme Maison Francis Kurkdjian

Francis Kurkdjian introduced the orange blossom note to me. I was looking for another work of olfactory art to treat myself with, having fallen in love and lust with Lumiere Noire Pour Femme and Absolue Pour Le Soir. This was suggested to me and the name caught my attention. APOM. A Part Of Me. How romantic. How could I pass?

It opens with a tingle in your nostrils from the citrusy sweet and slightly soapy orange blossom, the scent trail from start to finish always remaining on the lighter scale of things but I prefer to enjoy APOM Pour Femme in its subtlety, it's easier to pick up the slight nuances as it changes over time rather than if the notes were all barraging towards you and clamouring for attention. 

The scent takes on a musky tone and the ylang ylang with its seductive creamy golden glamour slinks in, fully dressed by still oozing sex appeal. Ylang ylang can be overbearing sometimes but here it shows its character albeit with some restraint and does not drown out the orange blossom. The flowers prevail and join the cedar and amber in the dry down, both the wood and amber serving to enhance the floral scent by warming its golden yellow into a darker gold as time passes. 

This sweet musky floral lasts and lasts for hours on me, setting forth gentle wafts of its well-blended smooth self every now and then. It's feminine and refined, deceptively simple with its brief note pyramid but the notes engage in such sinuous play it suggests otherwise and owns a suggestive but not overtly sexual mien. Perfect for ladies who revel in their femininity and it accessorises as well as elegantly simple gold lariats for both the office and the evening after. For the days you wish to wear perfume without the perfume wearing you.