New Perfume Review: Shay & Blue Watermelons + Verdant Fruit Draw

shay and blue perfume and boxes

The first piece I ever wrote for ÇaFleureBon was on Shay & Blue. It was on the unctuous Salt Caramel scent that Dom de Vetta and perfumer Julie Massé created in collaboration with Charbonnel et Walker. Inspired by the chocolatier’s cult Sea Salt Caramel Truffles, it was one of my most drenched scents year. I think I went through two 100ml in as many months… it was sheer liquid golden indulgence. I am unashamedly passionate about Shay & Blue, I’ve followed them from their early pre-launch colour musings and flower harvest updates on Facebook to brand launch and the opening of the gorgeous Vermeer-esque boutique in Marylebone. The price point is accessible; l like the cerulean hue of bags, ribbon, store and tinted flacons. The styling and marketing is elegant, simple, yet executed with a witty panache and edge that reflects Dom’s years of working in luxury scent, including stints as Senior Vice President of Chanel, responsible for launching Les Exclusifs and then moving on to take the reins at Jo Malone when she stepped down due to poor health; Dom was a recipient of CaFleureBon Creative Director of the Year 2014.

 

I have all the Shay & Blue scents bar Sicilian Limes; I just can’t do limes. My faves are the Almond & Cucumber and Salt Caramel, although the Amber Rose with its melting heart of dulce de leche is a curious shimmering floral creation I go to when I’m sad. Blacks Club Leather and the Oud Alif are both rich, finely balanced variations on well worn themes, yet somehow moulded by Julie Massé into introspective and sensual formulae of grace, force and deliberate personality. I’m aware the oud trend has seeped into every aspect of the perfumery business now, with all levels, niche, mass market and artisan producing oud tinted juice for an ever demanding market. Oud Alif is beautiful and addictively wearable, not something that can always be said about oud; it is a very divisive note. Touches of chocolate and coffee temper the sweaty violence of the oud. It is this ability to riff on familiar tropes that makes Shay & Blue so good at what they do.

kustodiev_merchants_wife

 Boris Kustodiev The Merchants Wife

I like a touch of melonic pungency in scent, it’s a tricky note to conjure up and get away with. More often than not, compositions are just overwhelmed by the creeping dead fingers of aquatic and ozonic effects. The old version of Calyx by Sophia Grojsman for Prescriptives was a very modern and decidedly unsettling blast of off white floral miasma and tropical fruit basket on the turn. The underlying whiff of ripe melon and decayed guava was fabulous. Gorilla’s magnificent Breath of God is actually two scents in one, Inhale and Exhale, one of smoke, the other of external mountain floral. The counterpointing of lush fruit, incense, mud and air is genius. The juice smells damp, joyous and of course deeply beautiful. One of the prettiest melon captures is Michel Roudnitska’s underappreciated Emotionnelle by Parfums DelRae, diaphanous and ultra-feminine, it does flutter a very fine line between gorgeous and kitsch, but on the right skin it smells of love and all its soft secrets.

watermelon fashion editorial

Dazed and Confused Irina Lazareanu

Now we have something so juicy and verdant from Shay & Blue, bursting with blushing chemistry.  Watermelons is an unashamedly joyful melonic note that echoes something Julie and Dom have used quietly and smoothly a few times in previous compositions such as Almond & Cucumber and Suffolk Lavender. It is a rather gentle creamy aquatic effect, almost calone, 3,6-nonadienol or a mix of citral and beta ionone. Rubicund, dripping and lashed to green mandarin, Julie Massé’s watermelon is freshly cut and glossy with Jolly rancher charm.  It is essentially a tertiary essay in green, differing shades of tropical urgency and grassy playfulness. The melon/citrus headburst is chartreuse with a honeydew-tinted halo. A rather plasticed but nonetheless buoyant honeysuckle and green tea heart is shaded in mantis and mint, bright and shimmering in flickering sun. Vetiver anchors Watermelons, ‘clipped vetiver’, according to Shay & Blue that oddly suggests an image of buzzcut lawns and shorn dolls. (My mind can be a strange place). This grassy depth is viridian, a rooty aromatic place where the melon juice drips and stains leaf, soil and passing ant.

inez-vindoodh-vogue-paris-july-2012 watermelon

Gisele Bundchen Inez  & Vindoodh Vogue Paris July 2012

Shay & Blue make no great claims to olfactory advancement or indeed revolution. They simply make beautiful perfumes that your senses will fall in love with. Dom and Julie carefully push our olfactive pleasure buttons, giving us delicious formulae with clever twists to keep us hooked to their stylish way of scented thinking. Watermelons is a wonderful new addition to an already impressive line up.  I’m pretty citrus-phobic so I struggle with fresher scents as we head into warmer weather. This dewy moreish juice is the perfect summer perfume… that’s if the bottle that long of course…

Disclosure: From my own collection

The Silver Fox, Editor and Author of The Silver Fox

 shay and blue watermelons cafleurebon

Shay and Blue Watermelons by TSF

Thanks to Dom DeVetta of Shay & Blue and Ann Onukso of Indigo Perfumery the exclusive American Stockist we have a 30 ml natural spray of Watermelons for two readers in the USA and EU respectively.  To be eligible please leave a comment with what appeals to you about Watermelons and where you live. Draw closes 3/9/2015

We announce the winners on our site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume

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40 comments

  • Well, watermelon is a scent I have not seen in perfume before, so that alone makes it worth a try. I still haven’t tried anything from this line although the Sea Salt Caramel Truffle one is high on my list, once I try all the samples I have and start buying again! I love the cool refreshment of watermelon so I’d love to see how they interpret this into scent. USA. Thanks for the draw.

  • Watermelons remind me of summer and I love the smell of Watermelon. I live in the US…and where I live its cold, so I am actually craving watermelon and it also reminds me of picnic in the park.

  • For the most part I hate melons, except for watermelons! We grew about 20 in our garden last year and they were all amazing. I’d love to experience the fresh joy of watermelon year round! Thanks for the draw, I’m in the US!

  • Watermelon in a perfume sounds very interesting. I enjoy eating it in the summer so it would be great to try it in my skin. I live in South east Georgia. Thanks for the draw!

  • Fazal Cheema says:

    The melon scents are very rare.. the only melon scent i knew of before reading this is Calyx. I agree with TSF that Shay & Blue scents are practical even when it is one with oud such as Aoud Alif. I look forward to testing how this melon scents advances the legacy of classic ones with melon note. thanks for the draw. I am in the US

  • Oh Foxy, I was hoping rather than staining a passing ant it would drown it 😉 This post has my desert heart yearning for the heat of the place I call home and yes Watermelon, mixed with a halo of honeydew! I am in the USA and who wouldn’t love to smell so edible. Thanks for the fabulous draw x 2.

  • This is so interesting. I have never tried a watermelon fragrance, and it honestly sounds very appealing. A light fruity scent, and it sounds wonderful in combination with green tea. I am in the US. Thank you for the draw.

  • Watermelon fragrance sounds so unique. I imagine a sweet, cooling fragrance that would be perfect for the warm weather. I am from NY, so it would have to last through the humid days.

  • The Silver Fox, your review intrigues me. I would love to win because I love watermelons!
    I am in the US. Thanks for this wonderful draw!

  • Scentella says:

    Not only do I like watermelons, but honeysuckle and vetiver, too. This must be good! Fingers crossed. In the EU. Thanks!

  • I really enjoy Mr Silver Fox’s review!!! I remember the first time I tried Calix in 90’s. It was something completely shocking and new… Watermelon is one of the smell of my summer holidays in Tuscany… I live in Italy 😉

  • taffynteddy+1 says:

    Freshly cut with glossy Jolly Rancher charm is going to be my next catch phrase for anything delightfully yummy . I love melonic notes and have not had a good scent with that note since Tocca’s Simone I would love to sniff and enjoy. Please enter me in the draw, I live in the U.S. Thanks

  • Roseinrose says:

    Well can you imagine how this perfume would smell?
    Pure joy to me if it is a reminder of the sweetest time of the year implying summer where days are long and fruits taste delicious. Watermelon is my favorite fruit of the summer time!
    Dear TSF thank you for this lovely review and draw as well.
    I live in EU.

  • Watermelon is one of my favorite fruits. I really love the taste of the sweet watermelon on the summer days. And of course I like it’s scent too.
    So I would very like to try this perfume.
    I live in Europe.

  • Marcopietro says:

    Watermelon and sunny summer afternoons are inextricably linked in my childhood.
    I love that fruit and would love a fragrance that brings me back to those distant memories.
    I am in EU.
    Thanks!

  • I’ve never seen watermelon treated well as a scent (just think of Jolly Ranchers) and I would love to have something change my mind. I’m in the US.

  • My pulse had a tiny moment somewhere in this review. Living in a warm climate as I mostly do I could absolutely feel how this would work, so delectable. Watermelon is one of my most favorite fruits. I love the way it cools me off and I love to add a dash of lime to it- perfection and refreshing..I am in the US

  • Poland, the EU.
    Have never tried close to reality watermelon scent, only fade copies.

  • Gabrielle says:

    I agree with the Fox that melon is tricky..although I do love apres le mousson from Hermes. Watermelon, green grass and veitiver sound lovely to me. Thank you Shay and Blue and Indigo. I enjoyed this review very much . My fave is amber rose. I live in EU

  • Yes, please, I would love me some chartreuse with a honeydew tinge! Thank you!
    Moreover, I never found a single watermelon perfume to like…I hope this could be the one!
    I am in Bulgaria (EU). Thanks for the draw!

  • I do not have many experiences with watermelon scents. I had had only one and I liked it a lot. As for the fruit I love it in hot summer days and I do remember my holidays in Bulgaria where we ate it daily. I am in EU (Slovakia)

  • I have the other scents in this collection and love them. Watermelon sounds like it would be a fresh scent I’d love to have! Indigo perfumery and owner Ann are the greatest. Love going to her fabulous place to shop and talk to Ann!! I live in the US

  • I love the idea of a scent built around the quintessential summer fruit; watermelon! I live in the USA!

  • Jennifer Witt says:

    Watermelon is my favorite fruit! I would love to try it in a scent. I live in the US.

  • Watermelon is… summer!! I love lots of the Say-Blue perfumes (especially, the lavender and the oud scents). so I’m looking forward to sample the last addition as well… In combo with green tea, this should smell great.
    I’m in the EU.
    Thanks for the draw, TSF!

  • Finding scents where you can actually smell watermelon is limited. I have found a few designers that did. Having a watermelon note in a Shay & Blue can take it to an entirely new level. usa

  • The only true melon scent I’ve tried (and owned) is Hilde Soliani Mangiami dopo Teatro. That one is more of a cantaloupe, and I would love to smell watermelon. Ripe watermelon is always one of summer’s greatest pleasures. I’m in the US. Thanks for the drawing!

  • silvrolive says:

    Sounds delicious and juicy! Melon (cantaloupe or watermelon) reminds me of summer and I would love to smell this version. In the US. Thanks for the draw!

  • I have yet to smell a true to life melon scent so am intrigued to try this one. I am in the U.S.

  • The few times I’ve tasted watermelon I haven’t been that fond of it, but I do relly enjoy the taste of watermelon candy and chewing gum. So I’m curious to find out if I enjoy it in perfume. From the review it sure sounds like something I want to try! (I’m in the EU.)

  • the idea of watermelon perfume is unsettling but after the review I think it would smell green and fresh not too fruity
    I read the review of salt caramel and Oud alif, both sound awesome
    I think Gisele Bundchen does for Watermrlon what Cindy Crawford did for Pepsi
    Usa reader !

  • Elizabeth Miller says:

    I love all the Shay and Blue perfumes that i have tried so far so i am really looking forward to trying this one. I love the idea of the smell of watermelon, so fresh and summery. thanks for the draw! i am in EU

  • Cynthia Richardson says:

    The scent of Watermelons screams summer and that sounds pretty good right about now. I live in the US.

  • Watermelon is something my son and I equally love, it is a bonding thing. We love watermelon with the seeds and think it tastes better.. I live in the USA

  • I think it would be a really great summer scent. I love watermelons! I live in the US

  • Watermelon and green/grassy scent, sounds like summer! Would love to try this and I think it would work well with my chemistry. These are such beautiful reviews! I love reading them. I’m in the US, thanks for the draw!

  • The “buoyant honeysuckle and green tea heart” does appeal to me. Thanks, I’m in the US.

  • In all honesty, I have never given thought to watermelon as a scent. I enjoy the fruit in the summer, so the idea of a watermelon themed fragrance is the most intriguing.