Today, September 18  is Neil Morris's birthday; not a truer friend could a gal have.

So we picked today for this review of two of our favorite recent compositions..

Happy Birthday, Big Guy!

 I thank the Divine for my color acuity.

My eyesight is beyond poor, but correctible; my sense of color, odor, and hearing are compensation enough, and I’m grateful beyond telling for this bounty.

A few weeks ago, when Neil and I were going at it, sniffing like crazed creatures-

I experienced a powerful correlation between two vastly different perfumes he had created.

The common thread was the color yellow!

Not just any yellow, mind– but two variations of saturation, saffron coming immediately to my mind’s eye.

It struck me as surely as if it were a blow, so that’s where we’ll start.

 

 

 

Scrumptious:

 

Pear, bergamot, mandarin, green tea, lavender, jasmine, vanilla, white amber

One of Neil’s clients hankered for a fragrance that was simply yummy, scrumptious.

That is precisely what he created.

 

Scrumptious’ first breath is fresh and fruity, in the most joyous way.

Juicy pear shares that subtle similarity to rose, it’s verdant and clamors for communion with bergamot and mandarin.

Green tea and jasmine are a natural choice, intuitively, and the master adds a winsome lavender to intensify the greenness and enhance the sweet grassiness we smell so gladly…

At this point, the perfume is positively frolicsome.

It is good that the astringency of green tea tempers the mélange so that it doesn’t feel cloying.

White amber and vanilla provide a gentle, tenacious base that doesn’t shout for attention- It softly anchors the composition.

What began as juicy remains so, escorted by plush echoes of comfort.

Bright, warm, effervescent, Scrumptious might appear easy, but it was quite a handful to ‘get right’.

The sillage is considerable, as is its tenacity.

 

 

All the while, it feels like the extreme dilution of a single thread of saffron in hottest water, color-wise.

 

 

Tea House:

Anise, black tea, Virginia cedarwood , Russian leather, Indian amber, labdanum

This formula, once again- appears very brief and uncomplicated.

WRONG.

Neil marries the dark, astringently beautiful black tea to anise; it’s brilliant, really.

Russian leather accord and labdanum, sultry spicy Indian amber [I’ve sniffed it from the flask- it’s gorgeous!] is sweetly disciplined by Virginia cedar…mmmm.

It is so clearly a tea scent, but that barely connotes Tea House’s depth and allure.

This is a sumptuously smoky, delicately spiced perfume, thoroughly resinous and slightly dry, like a fine aperitif.

Tea House feels autumnal but never melancholy, saturated with richest red-gold hue.

Saffron threads themselves in their purest form.

Foliage and light, captured in a bottle.

I enjoy them both:

Scrumptious for its cheerful wearability, a definite go-to perfume when you want to smell beautiful and make certain that everyone else is delighted, too.

Tea House for its inscrutable charm, a haunting melody in a minor key that isn’t mournful.

Which  fragrance  will you prefer?

Neil Morris has generously offered sample bottles of both to a reader. And on his BIRTHDAY, no less!

Please, join us at CaFleureBon in wishing our dear friend the best life has to offer-And tell us why he, and or his work- intrigues you www.neilmorrisfragrances.com .

Draw will end on September 20, 2011.

-Ida Meister, Senior Editor