You enter my muscles and cells coiled like a serpentine swell,

then unfurl to release the froth of my own musk-scented core.

Even the sheets become an ocean of musk that we ride until

night drops, heaving our bodies to shore and devouring us both

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This interview was pivotal in my career as a journalist; divided into three ‘acts’;it portrays M. Ellena as an iconic influencer of 21st century fragrance, the friend of Michel Roudnitska, student of Edmond Roudnitska and ultimately, provides glimpses into the life and ART of an extraordinary man.

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The yin/yang aspects of the sultry Geisha Noire and the Effervescent Geisha Blanche are truly tantalizing, these scents beg to be worn…again….and again WIN either an 8ml roll on of Geisha Noire OR Geisha Blanche in this beautiful pouch by posting a comment on CaFleureBon on how you explore the duality of ying/yang within yourself or your appreciation for Aroma M fragrances. Maria from Aroma M has put together this special giveaway especially for CaFleureBon packaged in this beautiful luxury bag made from original Japanese silk fabric Shouken, which has been deconstructed from vintage Kimonos worn by geishas. Please specify which one you wish to receive

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This is a fragrance that is meant to celebrate all that makes a man successful and it is an unabashed masculine fragrance.Aventus keeps intact the recent string of successes from Creed and show that the House of Creed is far from their Waterloo.

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The early contender for the longest perfume name of 2010 has to be the new fragrance from Heeley; Orange And Lemons Say The Bells of St. Clement’s. The name is based on a British nursery rhyme which names all of the great bells of Old London. Its last stanza is quite creepy. I assure you that the fragrance is anything but!

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When I saw Frederick Bouchardy at Barney’s New York, it was definitely a “joyous’ reunion.There were quite a few editors, so you will probally see these fragrances featured in national magazines for October 2010. Thank you Joya Studio for offering the travel size of Composition No.1 or No. 6 to a CaFleureBon reader. And a shout out to our readers… we thank you all for your comments. The winner of the random draw is:

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Thanks to everyone who participated in the draw for these four beautiful Aftelier fragrances and joining us in celebrating the relaunch of www.aftelier.com. Your insights and comments were all so thoughtful and moving. I spoke with Mandy personally, and she was so honored by all of your heartfelt entries. CaFleureBon picked each mini carefully. They were chosen because they represented, four very different artstic interpretations of Mandy Aftel’s body of work. And the winner is:

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Mandy’s gift to the world of natural and fine fragrance is abundant… she is giving again. If you want to enter this seperate draw for a mini of Lumiere, please leave a comment on this site and on Mandy’s Facebook page @aftelierperfumes about her new website www.afterlier.com or why you would like to win Lumiere or Cassis.

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Although Penhaligon’s has recently reformulated fragrances from its archives, I don’t think they will touch this classic perfume, Bluebell will endure; it’s as for ever appealing, tenacious and unique as Jayne Eyre

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As a fan of many of the INDEX fragrances including Fresh Cannabis Rose (by nose Jerome Epinette), the discontinued Mukki, Patchouli Pure and Cannabis Santal, which were created when Fresh was an indepedent perfumery, I am ‘”praying” that his “love’ for fragrance and for wife Alina Rothberg, does justice to Elizabeth Gilbert’s inspiring book, and that Eat Pray Love doesn’t turn out to be an ‘Avatar’ or “Matrix” of perfumery

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So to celebrate her beautifully designed new website www.aftelier.com, we chose our favorites and one lucky winner will receive them all. Leave a comment on both sites as to how Mandy Aftel has impacted you or about her beautifully designed website, that was nearly a year in the works and you are eligible for the draw

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After two years of collaboration with Bertrand Duchaufour, the House has chosen perfumer, Karine Vinchon as the nose for an exploration of the many facets of vetiver

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Comparisons between lovers of wine and perfume seem like natural matches. Both sets of aficionados rely on their sense of smell as part of the appreciation of their respective passions.

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“Natural aroma chemicals are chemicals.
Synthetic aroma chemicals are also chemicals.
Chemicals are chemicals and the sense of smell and the sense of taste are both chemical senses.

Synthetic versus naturals in perfume is here not the question! In my opinion it’s the huge quantity in the use of Aroma Chemicals in cleaning products, cosmetics, food and medicines.
Vero Kern

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The two fragrances created by this team are Composition No. 1 and Composition No. 6. Ms. Cihat has created hand cast ceramic bottles in white for Composition No. and black for Composition No. 6. The stopper is a 22K gold dipped wand that is used to apply these fragrances. Ms. Vega has created two fragrances which embody the colors of the beautiful ceramic containers created by Ms. Cihat. (for the original announcement , list of notes and imagery http://tinyurl.com/25jqh87

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The phrase *floral chypre* /categorizes /it, but it doesn’t begin to reveal the seamless loveliness and abundance of which this fragrance sings to me.

Like many chypres, we tickle the senses with bergamot up front; fortunate ones, we get neroli and mimosa , into the bargain.

The heart is every bit THAT- plenitude of spicy carnation, voluptuouness of Rosa Centifolia, essential Jasmin de Grasse

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Wise women pick your plants today! That special medicine lasts only for an instant pick the herbs of the sun, the fragrant liquid light of St. Johnswort, your water, mint and marjoram, your bitter herbs, your sacred herbs, your fragrant herbs for our sweet full summer solstice perfume, our Sun Dance.

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For Vetyverio M. Pescheux has chosen to use a blueprint that worked for another Diptyque fragrance, Tam Dao. Tam Dao is one of the most complex studies of a single note, sandalwood, as exists in perfumery. It works because, Daniele Moliere the nose, allowed sandalwood to create an axis around which the other notes would interact and allow for those interactions to illuminate and delineate the central note. In Vetyverio I experienced the same kind of development as M. Pescheux takes us on a journey through all that vetiver can be

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Here is wishing everyone a Happy Father’s Day. A heartfelt thank you to all our contributors,sponsors and poster for such evocative scented memories.

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We conclude our seven part series, Fragrances of our Fathers. Thank you to all the contributors, all who shared with our readers the meaning of filial love, through the fifth sense. It’s as adults, that we realize that these strong olfactive memories, are time in a bottle. To our fathers and grandfathers, we are forevever connected.

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Majora Carter, a community activist in the South Bronx in New York City, TED speaker and the woman who is ‘greening the ghetto’

teamed up with an unlikely duo- two French perfumers Bruno Jovanovic and Pascal Gaurin from IFF who created L’Eau Verte du Bronx du Sud (the Green Water of the South Bronx ).The fragrance isn’t intended for personal use; its purpose was create an ambiance of wellbeing at the low-income housing development—the Sister Thomas Apartments.

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The official press release states that Olivier CREED is the nose for Aventus, the new fragrance for men celebrates the House of CREED’s 150th birthday, we have it on good authority that it the House’s heir, 7th generation Erwin CREED that formulated this “Eau de” to Napoloean, the Corsican general who became Emporer of France in 1814

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I lathered up the fluffy old badger brush, still redolent of the musky, animalic bristles with which it was made, and the creamy, mild- scented soap [ which can best be described as smelling faintly of both olives and clean babies’ bottoms ] .

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Our fathers and our father’s fathers; there is a generational thread of scent that connects us to them as surely as their DNA. As dashing as William Powell, as handsome as Jack Kennedy, they were ‘men’s men” who knew how to craft gold, plant a garden, scare off a rattlesnake and grill a steak

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From trips to the soda fountain to the back of a station wagon, reminiscence with us of days gone by but never forgotten. A sharp dressed man from NYC, a Brazilian perfumitsa, and a web designer in L.A.; all share scented memories of their fathers in this chapter… “No place to be ending but somewhere to start.”

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Whether they wore a suit and tie or overalls they were our heroes. We waited for their return each night, or watched them get ready for a night on the town. Snapshots of their scents …we close our eyes and they are with us, and even a grown man feels very small. The aroma of crisp white shirts, a Cuban cigar, the smell of hay fields and the unforgettable aroma of Old Spice wafts our way. Close your eyes. Daddy’s home

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I met with Frederick Bouchardy, the Creative Director of Joya Studio last summer and previewed two parfum extraits, marking the Company’s first entrée into the world of fine fragrances… FvsS: Parfums Composition No. 1 and Composition No. 6.

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They were Soldiers, lovers, mentors; mothers, fathers, daughters and sons share their most treasured memories in this evocative edition of Fragrances of our Fathers. A young daughter recalls the safety of being held in her father’s arms and a beardless young boy and his dad “shave” together; scented memories that are indelibly etched into our hearts. The smell of cherry pipe tobacco pervades; scented love letters, the aroma of the ocean, orange blossoms, WintOgreen ‘lifesavers’ and the unmistakable fragrance of Dior’s Eau Sauvage celebrate remarkable men…our dads.

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Ms. Zorn has become one of the most reliable artisanal perfumers working and in the Studio Collection, we find her working at a high level, again. In a time where everything seems to be ‘going green’ Liz Zorn creates three exceptional new fragrances.

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Walking together on a beach in Southern California or living on a farm in Oklahoma, we honor them. Born in Athens or in Brooklyn, whether it was Aramis or Chanel pour Monsieur or the smell of coconut oil, mango or the “deep scent of rat shit”, the scents of our fathers and their fathers pervade our memories.

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What is a father? Is it our biological male parent? Not always… The Father-child relationship is more than paternity. In this six part series I have asked many friends-in fragrances to create an olfactive portrait of their father or father figure. Some chose to use poetry, some music, some prose. Yet, there was a marked difference between an earlier piece we did for Mother’s Day entitled Scented Memories of Our Mothers http://tinyurl.com/33uyfe ; the fragrance of our fathers seemed more about rituals and ‘smells’

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For their second collaboration Mme. Roth and M. Vasnier choose another well-known floral as their central accord and, as in Mythique, find a unique source to build their new fragrance Coup de Foudre around. The flower at the center of Coup de Foudre is rose and M. Vasnier goes right to the heart of French perfumery in Grasse and uses one of the two remaining fields of Rose de Mai (Rosa Centifolia) as the source. Through a new extraction process gave the Rose de Mai a “feel of sniffing a live rose on the vine they wanted to add a new vibrancy to a rose fragrance”.

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  The Fragrance Foundation Fifi Awards were handed out in a gala ceremony in New York City on June 10th at The Downtown Armory. The Fifi Awards are considered to be the most prestigious awards in the industry and are frequently described as the “Oscars of the fragrance industry”. Via the Fifi awards Twitter feed [...]

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  I discovered Xerjoff fragrances about a year ago and was sent samples of the entire line at the time by the company. Xerjoff was positioning themselves to be the ultra-luxe Italian fragrance equivalent to Amouage and their French-Middle Eastern influences. Of this initial group of fragrances I admired the quality of all of them. [...]

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Although many of us in the global fragrance community have been writing about the resurgence of Natural Perfumery as a ‘lost’ Art for nearly a decade, it it is now a ‘growing’ trend that has reached mainstream media. As our lives have been taken over by increasing isolation, technology (there have been more technologic advances over the the past five years than in the past 5000), and products that are mass produced without soul nor passion, the artisnal movement has been gaining momentum since the year 2000. It will not slow down, that I assure you. To refuse to acknowledge it, is burying your head in the sand.

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Kama by AvaLuxe is one of those “unsung scents”- the sort that once you wear them, you go through several bottles, before you realize how gratifying they are. And how hooked you are.

Kamadeva, the Hindu god of Love [and the Hindu Cupid], provided Serena inspiration.

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Ms. Han has done an incredible job of reformulating her original six fragrant oils into something different and exciting and altogether beautiful. I think this shows a perfumer who really understands the architecture which underlies her fragrances and how to successfully alter it. Then again what else would I expect from a perfumer for whom the Chinese character for her name, Yosh, means fragrant. It is clear to me she has a deep connection to her fragrances

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As it happens, big cats of all stripes are obsessive when it comes to the scent. Roan Balas McNab, a Wildlife Conservation Society program director in Guatemala, has been using Obsession for Men since 2007 to help study jaguars in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, a protected tropical forest spanning 8,100 square miles.

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Animals and nature play an important role in Colette’s writing. Mood, desire, relationships, emotions, atmosphere are all expressed through a language intertwined with the phenomena of nature. It is perhaps here, in her descriptions of the natural world, that she achieves her greatest writing.

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Musc Botanique can be considered a triumph in sustainable and botanical natural perfumery, as well as stand proudly amongst all fine fragrances

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give me your heart lover, that I might paint it with roses

when the string of love binds you to me

give me your wrists lover, that I might hold them with frankincense

when the string of love ties us forever

give me your body lover that I might own it in eternity

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When you look at that note listing the only notable woody note missing seems to be pine or fir. When you look at that note list you also undoubtedly get the idea that this is a wood fragrance to the nth degree and your tolerance for that sort of fragrance will go a long way towards how you feel about Wonderwood.

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    Mr. Olivier Creed is the 6th generation of CREED family sons, and perhaps the most influential. The House of CREED has created some of the most experiential and classic fragrances of the past two centuries. At the time of this interview, in 2008 I was told that Mr. CREED had not given an [...]

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Bosque reminds me of a humid summer morning with the smells of the neighborhood wafting into my bedroom with the sheets surrounding me and it is a place I want to visit often.

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Why do we wear fragrance? For most of us, it’s a sensory form of self-expression. But if we cut through the clutter of jargon, and really examine the power of scent at its most elemental level, it’s all about pheromones that attract. Even the word sensual sounds like the word scent. Deep down, we want to be ‘sexy’. According to Geza Schoen, an independent perfumer, “At the end of the day anyone wearing a perfume wants to smell seductive”.

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Both of these Bond No. 9 fragrances are excellent examples of the synergies that can be achieved when a perfume brand works well with their retail partner. Both Saks-En-Rose and Harrods Rose are “go to” rose fragrances , for both daytime and appropriate for a night out.

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I chose both Mahora and Mayotte for the character Sadie Thompson, not just because they are both tropical fragrances that smell of the South Pacific, but they strike ‘an accord’ regarding the “two Sadies”.

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CaFleureBon will be one of the participating sites that will explore The Mystery of Musk, a ‘scentual’ internet project put together by Anya McCoy, president of The Natural Perfumer’s Guild in celebration of NPG’s 4th birthday

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Perfume is an Art. Some people may not think of it quite this way, but it the 8th Art…Sensual art. It is the art that comes to the senses through the beauty of nature and nature’s gifts. This is the essential lesson. Like a beautiful piece of music, it can speak to us of the future or of days gone by. If it is fortunate enough, the fragrance will evoke the same feelings in the future as it did when first you used it, and like a fine wine or musical piece, it can bring you back over and over for more.

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This is why I look forward to every new release by Mme. Micallef eagerly because when she finds these serendipitous combinations these fragrances are wonderful. In her two latest releases she has done this for incense in Shanaan and lily of the valley in Lucky Charm.

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“But— Niche’s growth is so explosive there is danger here too. If a niche fragrance is not singular and different; if it tries to pass off expensive hard to find perfume as fine fragrance, it will become as ubiquitous and as boring as many of the commercial fragrances and lose its relevancy and cache.”

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