21 Saturday Mar 2020
Posted in Advertising and Scent, Perfume Reviews
Greetings, fragrant friends! I hope you’re all staying safe and staying home during this unprecedented situation.
I miss my friends, and my workplace, and my subway rides on the 2/3 train when I make my “to do” lists, and cocktails at local bars, and visits to perfume stores, and I’m as scared as everyone else about the coronavirus itself and this pandemic’s effect on the economy (not to mention our collective mental health)…but there must be a few silver linings to this giant cloud, right?
18 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in Advertising and Scent, Film/TV and Scent
Jo Malone’s limited edition collection for Spring 2020 is Lavenderland, a trio of fragrances that evoke “an enchanted world of violet visions, where English lavender meanders in purple pathways across the countryside.”
As usual, the visuals for this launch are beautifully styled and photographed…
16 Monday Mar 2020
Posted in Advertising and Scent
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day and “the Emerald Isle,” here’s a 1949 advertisement for Coty’s Emeraude — French for “emerald.”
Emeraude was released in 1921. It’s an “oriental” composition of orange, bergamot, tarragon, jasmine, ylang ylang, rose, rosewood, amber, sandalwood, patchouli, opoponax, benzoin, and vanilla; it has frequently been compared to Guerlain Shalimar, released four years later.
This illustration by René Jeandot represents Emeraude as a siren-like woman wearing a one-shouldered deep green gown, a bottle of perfume held lightly between her fingertips as she turns her face to the wind…
06 Monday Jan 2020
Posted in Advertising and Scent, Art and Scent
Bourjois is remembered today primarily as the brand behind affordable but high-quality fragrances like best-selling Evening in Paris (Soir de Paris), launched in 1928. Another pre-war release was Mais Oui (launched in 1938, no longer in production). Mais Oui’s bottle featured a flirtatious fan-shaped cap and a twist of two-sided, pink-and-blue ribbon.
01 Wednesday Jan 2020
Posted in Advertising and Scent
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Happy New Year!!
For the first day of 2020, here’s an advertisement for Caron’s Bain de Champagne, published in International Studio in 1926…
24 Tuesday Dec 2019
Posted in Advertising and Scent, Uncategorized
Tags
Wishing you a festive and fragrant Christmas…no matter what your style (Charlie, Scoundrel, or Jontue)!
18 Monday Nov 2019
Posted in Advertising and Scent, Art and Scent
“Freetrapper is our most modern masculine scent, but its origins are early America.”
Freetrapper is a fragrance from the NYC-based niche perfume house of D.S. & Durga, whose website goes on to explain,
“Beaver trappers were the cowboys of early America. Renegade mountaineers of the Jacksonian era who cut trails through the wild in search of beaver pelts — prized by hatters, doctors, and perfumers. Dark cedar, snake root, synthetic beaver castor, and wild bergamot.”
So far, so good. Frontiers…settlement…hunting…goods and trade. Earthy, animalic smells. I get it.
But there’s more to read, plus this ad that’s been appearing in my social media feeds lately:
14 Monday Oct 2019
Posted in Advertising and Scent
This advertisement for Écusson by Jean d’Albret (1947, now discontinued) set off an art historical spark in my memory.
The unknown artist who worked on this ad for Écusson (which translates as “shield”) was obviously inspired by Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry the Eighth…
27 Friday Sep 2019
Posted in Advertising and Scent, Perfume Bottles
As we drift closer to Fall (day by day, degree by degree…), let’s pause to admire this bottle of Poupre d’Automne from Parfum de Violet. The fragrance was launched in 1923. The stoppered bottle was designed by Lucien Gaillard, a legendary French jewelry who worked in the Art Nouveau style…
