One of the best things about the first year of CaFleureBon’s existence has been the relationship we have had with the Natural Perfume community. One of the closest ties we have had has been to The Natural Perfumer’s Guild of which Ms. McCoy is the head of. Through her efforts and the other talented members of the Guild I have been exposed time and again to the wide range of fragrance they can achieve. In both The Mystery of Musk and Outlaw Perfumes projects, which Ms. McCoy and the Guild sponsored, the participants proved they can create just about anything when they put their mind to it.
Ms. McCoy is one of the seasoned veterans of natural perfumery and Starflower is one of her best compositions as it combines chocolate and tuberose to create a heady floral gourmand. For CaFleureBon’s birthday scent, Timeless, she started with Starflower as the foundation. The main addition to Timeless is another white flower, as well as EIC Michelyn Camen’s favorite perfume note, orange blossom. Orange blossom to steal a line from Ms. Camen is the “other white flower”. When one usually thinks of indolic white flowers tuberose and jasmine are the top of the charts. Orange blossom adds the same intense quality but in a different more subtle way. Early on you don’t notice the dirty indoles and all of a sudden they are there, like they snuck in the back door. Ms. McCoy uses that sneaky quality to turn Starflower into Timeless and allows it to sneak up on you.
Ms. McCoy stated she wanted Timeless to be the daytime counterpart to Starflower. At the opening she keeps the lemon top notes from before but she adds a spicy peppery note to create a bit of bite to the opening of Timeless. The heart begins with the orange blossom delicate at first then turning more concentrated and before you know it tuberose has joined and it is an all-out white flower extravaganza. The slow almost teasing build-up to that extravaganza is the best part of Timeless. Each time I wore it I waited as it developed languorously into something quite intense. The base retains the chocolate which is kept lighter by adding some vanilla as contrast. It is a gourmand base but it also is lighter than its predecessor.
Timeless has average longevity and modest sillage.
I think Timeless does achieve the goal Ms. McCoy set for herself to create a daytime version of Starflower. Timeless is lighter overall but once the tuberose and orange blossom are comingling one would be hard pressed to call this light. It takes a while for Timeless to achieve that level and that is why it is a good daytime fragrance because even though it is intense it is not overwhelming and that does make it something easily worn in the sunshine; or on your birthday.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample of Timeless provided by Anya’s Garden.
–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor