Posts Tagged ‘perfume’

Kikidoll readers all know she cannot turn a good coconut down, especially when it comes delivered in Big City style.  To Go.

Olivia Giacobetti of Honore des Pres perfumes comes knocking with her all organic range of scents as an homage to her recent relocation from Paris to New York.  Less a story of scents in the the city, the trio of Love NY perfumes–Love Coco, Vamp a NY and I Love les  Carrottes– is more a joyous loved-up affair with her new digs.

Prior to her move, Olivia launched  Honore des Pres after developing fragrances for Diptyque and L’Artisan Parfumeur.

Packaged in her eponymous rounded-edge atomizer bottle, that is then tucked into a plastic coffee cup, then placed in a brown paper bag, buying Love Coco is better than being first up at Starbies for that morning latte.

After you are hit with the raw coconut, the milky smoothness settles in like cream with an undertow of vanilla and a sneak of anis. But wait–there’ a shot of coriander to jizz it all up into a near-fizzy frothiness.

Sit back in your cubicle, put those perfectly pedicured feet up on the desk and sip away.  In a NY minute, visions of yourself in a bikini in a hammock by the beach and palms fronds dangling overhead will be yours. No trace of Hawaiian Tropic or a morning-after Pina Colada, Love Coco comes sashaying with surprising 8 + hour lasting power and more subtlety than a summer island breeze.

Launched in Europe, first in Milan at Excense and then at Colette and Bon Marche in Paris, the trio of goodies to go are now available at Space NK UK, and will be finally winging their way over the pond stateside in the autumn.  If you need that hit of a tropical romance earlier, you know where to go for take-out.

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Looking for a new perfume for Spring, Kikidoll got this email from a fellow fumie friend in Paris:

Dear Kiki,

I am in the Galerie de Valois in Palais Royal and just bought this amazing scent by Serge Lutens called Tubéreuse Criminelle.

You have to smell this–it’s like sitting at night in our lanai back home in Waikiki. Costs a bomb–110 Euros for 75 ml.–  but you gotta have it!  Will give up eating my daily crepe just to buy it for you.

Yours,  Smellarella

Kikidoll wrote back:

Dear Smella,

Yes, heard of it, but can’t buy it here and they won’t ship to US–it’s exclusive in Europe. I googled it and it says it has tuberose alright, but also jasmine and something else…spicey?

Why don’t you just come home and sit in your lanai?  Hawaii’s air is already so perfumed it’s practically criminal.

Save your Euros. And enjoy your crepe au chocolat!

Ever your sistah,  K

Ah, criminal tuberose, like a night thief!

Kikidoll read on:

The lingering, wafting scents of  tuberose, jasmine, orange blossom and hyacinth are laced with spicey nutmeg, clove and vanilla and levelled off with musk for mystery. Developed for Serge Lutens Perfumes by Chris Sheldrake it was first released in 1999 and by now it is well-ensconced as a classic, no, great, tuberose fragrance that’ll steal your heart and wallet.

Nothing prepares you for the ‘ta-dah’ opening  blast it gives. Tubéreuse Criminelle has at times been compared to everything from’ sewer gas to moth balls to Vick’s Vapo-rub.’

Eventually during the dry down once the top notes fade the tuberose left behind is enveloped in a lush, velvety spice bath. Not creamy and dreamy like the tuberose so prominent in Fracas, another heady tuberose perfume that like Tubéreuse Criminelle has its fans swooning and squeeing its delights. Take Fracas as the girlier version; Tubéreuse Criminelle, although not masculine, could cross-dress it can be so seductive. And chilly. And dangerous.  (All props to Now Smell This)

Smella confirmed Kikidoll’s fear that Tubéreuse Criminelle is only available if, like Smella, you are in Paris (or the EC). Eating crepes. Giving up your pocket money just  to own this mysterious, dangerous, cat burglar of a scent.

Or, you could just go to Hawaii and smell the flowers in the air!

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Kikidoll has to confess to an all-consuming passion for perfume. That is, obsessed after bikinis, dresses, shoes, jewellery, handbags, and on and on!

Who could not be so afflicted, having been born with the scent of tropical flowers wafting on every trade wind breeze under her baby bed?

Gardenia, tuberose, white ginger,  pikake, night-blooming jasmine–the list is endless, and these are lushly omnipresent everywhere in the islands.

But it is in the subtle and mystical combinations with florals that the real magic and mystery of scent begins and then takes over.

When asked what perfume is the one bottle Kikidoll would take to her ‘deserted tropical island’ (Blue Lagoon-style) the answer has to be Balmain’s Jolie Madame.  A more perfect concoction of florals and animalic scents simply does not exist. Discuss, please!

Developed in 1953 by the great nose Germaine Cellier for the French house of Pierre Balmain, JM means beautiful woman. With its base notes of chypre and its tough girl blend of classic woods, leather, musk and moss, the heart notes –tuberose, jasmine, rose and jonquil– deepened with top note florals reigning, like gardenia, iris, a dash of coriander and a slice of orange–make it a womanly scent to be reckoned with. Classified as an ‘Oriental’ its scent is both sharp and velvety at the same time, offering a complex, contradictory and delectable blend–like all beautiful women!

This scent is sadly discontinued in its original formula, and the new iteration re-release has been likened to a spirited young lady now sent to a finishing school to rough out her earthier edges.  

Nonetheless, if dreams came true and the original scent were still available, Kikidoll would be tucking it into her life raft, ( after all other necessities like food and water, of course!) were she able to obtain even a vialed decant of it.

Some things are life-preserving, and some things are life-altering.  Jolie Madame is a scent that does both.


Kikidoll on her tropical island 


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