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.

Daphne Comme des Garcons

Daphne Guinness collaborated with Comme des Garcons and released her signature fragrance in 2009, which she described as a "battle of contradictions". A battle or a bottle of contradictions? 

The description on the Comme des Garcons website is as such: "The fragrance DAPHNE gleans images from childhood memories in gardens, family houses and mysterious church rituals of an imaginative young girl."

Official listed notes lifted off the CDG page are: Bitter orange from Sicily, Incense, Saffron, Rose centifolia, Tunisian jasmine, Tuberose from India, Florentine iris, Indonesian patchouli, Oud wood, Amber, Vanilla from Madagascar. 

Comme des Garcons is all about the artsy and the experimental, from fashion to fragrances. As much as I like quirky, the clothing isn't wearable in my line of work nor does it quite gel with my personality i.e I'm not fashionably flexible enough. So I content myself with their their radical line of scents instead. My first ever CDG take home was their first and eponymous fragrance which has a very spicy and resinous unisex personality.

Daphne lives up to her name and the brand she is part of. I've admired Daphne Guinness for being fashionably eccentric and carrying it off with insouciance that cannot just be copied. It's something you are born with. Read more here. She's witty and I enjoy reading her quips. She was once quoted saying, "Nothing terrifies me more than being social."- ditto here. Other quotes I enjoy:

" I spend alot of time upside down. It increases the blood flow to the brain, so it really helps your creativity."

"Life is full of banana skins. You slip, you carry on."

So back to the scent. Bittersweet, more bitter than sweet, like the taste of Hédiard's bitter orange marmalade. A leathery, dusty saffron opens the scent with heady tuberose and spicy, smoky incense. They are followed by a metallic, powdery iris and an earthy patchouli. I smell the patchouli more obviously as time passes and it's paired with the oud, that's perceptible but not overpowering.

Daphne is elegantly dark and intoxicating on me, an interesting and unique take on one of my favorite flowers, here matching the narcotic white flower with equally potent partners, such that this tuberose scent is not just attractive, but intriguing as well.

Sillage and longevity are very good.

Mnemosyne was an art video created and directed by Daphne Guinness to accompany the perfume Daphne, a Web-released "anti-ad". 

A little trivia: Mnemosyne was the Greek goddess of memory and remembrance.  Memories are the influences behind the creation of Daphne, which was born from a personal blend she made out of tuberose, incense and oud. The tuberose and cedar take her back to her mother's garden in Cadaques, Spain, the incense sparks visions of High Church rituals during childhood and the oud speaks to her sense of adventure. 

"Fragrance takes you on a journey of time. You can walk down the street and pass someone and get taken back 20 years. It's very Proustian that way."- Daphne Guinness.