Fall 2020 (image Mihai Christe)
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall” – Oscar Wilde
Fall… when pumpkin spiced everything suddenly appears. Leather jackets and heavy sweaters come out of storage. Trick or Treating, drives to the country for apple picking and hayrides may be put on hold during Fall 2020. Thinking of fall, it feels like a spring in reverse, with flowers wilting instead of blooming and perhaps a strangeness to the scents in the air-the onset of decay. In Part 1, Ermano, Elena, dana, and Despina and I chose our favorite for Fall 2020. We conclude today, September 22, 2020, the autumnal equinox with part 2 of our fall fragrances
Gina Litherland – Autumn
Fall is my deep abiding love season, cherished for its magnificent melancholy and riotous earthy hues which inflame the imagination. I’ve chosen this painting by friend Gina Litherland – Autumn, and Neil Morris’ Burnt Amber: together they embody the season for me. Before Annick Goutal’s Ambre Fétiche (2007) there was Neil Morris Fragrances Burnt Amber – a perfume on which we collaborated (I love it still, fourteen years later). One of our favorite natural perfumers, Ayala Moriel – found it comforting and referred to it as a “feel-good perfume that can take you confidently from the red carpet to that dirty sheepskin by your fireplace” when we sent her a flacon for her personal pleasure. Burnt Amber commences singing of the bonfire close enough to singe, but it soon evolves into smoldering sweet incense-like embers crowned with a ripe plummy note. The entire effect is enchanting; it cossets you in weightless warmth. Notes: plum blossom, black pepper, amber, smoke, oud, castoreum, oak–Ida Meister, Sr. Editor
Sally Sparrow photo
In the heat of summer, Anatole Lebreton’s strangely wonderful Bois Lumiere evokes the smells of heat in the garrigue: juniper and wild sage growing chaotically across the woods that lead down to the sea in the south of France, the thick, resinous perfume of honey and benzoin narcotic and dreamy. But as the days turn sharper, Bois Lumiere shifts, becoming a delicious, sophisticated comfort scent – and more. In the cold, Bois Lumiere’s immortelle comes forward and brings the tempting smell of baking bread; the beeswax and cedar are more prominent, like warm candles dripping onto an old trestle table. Honey becomes unctuous and sexy – there’s more than a hint of something animalic in there – while the herbs and fir tree provide an outdoorsy, aromatic balance. This is the perfect fall 2020 scent for canoodling in that log cabin in the woods. Notes: Corsican juniper, clary sage, mandarin, fir balsam, honey, rose, carnation, immortelle, beeswax, atlas cedar, benzoin. -Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
photo Nicoleta
Fall feels to me like a strange mixture of melancholia overwritten by “I can move mountains” high level-of-energy. Like the two-faced Roman god Janus, one face looking to the future, the other to the past, September marks the beginning of the most ritualistic season for me. Ever since high school, I have a favorite leather jacket I only wear when the leaves hit just the right shade of rust and some music in the playlist that makes sense only when the evening light has that autumnal, reddish hue. Eau d’Iparie by L’Occitane (launched in 2005) is rich, colorful, and full of nuances, with its oriental and thick nectar that mixes myrrh, incense, wood, some herbs, some honey, earthy notes and rose in a whirlwind of nostalgia and hope.
In a world of magnets and miracles, surrounded by resins and smoke E’au d’Ipaire makes me feel like a black-haired version of Steve Nicks swirling in one of her trademark flowery tasseled shawls. Notes: peony, pink pepper, rose, cyclamen, musk, olibanum, moss, patchouli and myrrh.-Nicoleta Tomsa, Sr. Contributor and author of lilitheva.com
Photo by Gail Gross©
For Fall 2020, instead of cuddling up to a cozy fire, I find myself craving a bit of cool comfort, counter to the effects of this hot, crackling, dry autumn. Olympic Orchids Seattle Chocolate, created by Ellen Covey in 2013, pairs the cool fresh breath of silver fir needles with the ultimate comfort food, dark chocolate, offering a scented refuge from the heat and smoke. I have to believe that only Ellen, whose perfumes tend to anticipate olfactory trends by at least two years, would consider replacing peppermint with the wet, crisp, coniferous notes of silver fir. We’ve all heard of the benefits of consuming dark chocolate. The scent of silver fir offers similar healthy vibes and has been used in traditional medicine to help relieve anxiety and depression. In Olympic Orchids Seattle Chocolate, the bitterness of dark cacao and the sharp terpenic notes of a healthy evergreen forest, are smoothed over and blended with aromas of black bourbon vanilla, creating a soothing exotic gourmand, perfect for this strangely smoky season. Notes: Dark cacao, black Bourbon vanilla, sweet poplar bud, evergreen wood, oakmoss, gourmand musk, silver fir, and fir balsam absolute. –Gail Gross, Senior Editor
Samantha and her family©
Here in Wales, we’ve started to wear cardigans, and that’s as sure a sign as any that fall is here. As I welcome the cold breeze on my cheeks, I also welcome fragrances that make me feel comforted and if possible, connected to nature. 4160Tuesdays Buddhawood Box by Sarah McCartney is just such a scent. Buddhawood Box smells as it sounds. Imagine a box, inlaid with opals or mother of pearl and created from four different kinds of woods: oud, sandalwood, cedarwood and Buddhawood. Already, this sounds like my kind of forest. Or to put it another way, seat yourself in a magnificent carved wooden throne and eat brandied plums from a jar. The wood is shiny as a horse chestnut and somewhere in the distance is a faint wisp of fireside pipe smoke, coconuts and all. Do you feel cosy yet? I do. – Samantha Scriven, Senior Contributor and writer/editor at I Scent You a Day
photo by Sebastian
I reviewed Jovoy Paris Incident Diplomatique back in late Summer 2017 and it was the perfect fragrance to review for the upcoming Fall 2020 season of fragrances to wear. I find Jovoy’s fragrances typically to be on the very potent side but I always felt like J Incident Diplomatique was the perfect fragrance to wear in the Fall season. Incident Diplomatique features two of my favorite notes of Vetiver and Patchouli which are perfectly blended almost equally together with some light citruses, spices and woody notes. The dry earthy woodiness of Incident Diplomatique is that perfect concoction to wear during the Fall months or to wear anytime of the year to remind us of how Fall/Autumn would smell like. –Sebastian Jara, Editor
The last time I was in Paris it was the Fall of 2009. On a crisp, sunny afternoon, I went to an outdoor café near the 6th arrondissement to meet a business associate. Plans were canceled but I did meet a man. He starting flirting with me, the way only Parisian men can get away with, since they have no intention of asking you out or ever seeing you again. I smelled him before we even spoke… He smelled of leather, Gitane cigarettes and faintly of Terre d’Hermes with its woody drydown and citrus top notes. Expensive. Sexy. Ironically Field Notes from Paris by Ineke Ruland was launched in 2009 the same year of my encounter. While I never saw Jacques (if it was his real name) again, 11 years later in Fall 2020, I dab Ineke Field Notes From Paris on my wrist and remember that day, just as it was, leaves turning colors as I sipped coffee with a stranger. Notes: Coriander Seed, Orange Flower, Bergamot, Tobacco Flower & Leaf, Patchouli, Cedar, Tonka Bean, Leather, Beeswax, Vanilla – Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief
For part 2 of ÇaFleureBon favorite 2020 fall fragrances. The draws are:
photo by Ida
Worldwide: From the ever-generous Neil Morris we have 30 ml of Burnt Amber
Worldwide: from Dr. Ellen Covey 5 ml of Olympic Orchids Seattle Chocolate or if you live in the USA 30 ml
photo by Samantha
US, UK, EU 100ml of 4160Tuesdays The Buddahwood Box
Thanks to Anatole Breton there is 50 ml bottle of Bois Lumiere for a reader in the USA UK, EU or Canada
USA, UK, EU 100 ml of Jovoy Paris Incident Diplomatique from Francois Henin
USA and Canada: 75 ml of Field Notes from Paris https://www.ineke.com/shop-perfumes/field-notes-from-paris-eau-de-parfum. Note if you want to try this fragrance you can buy the discovery set of A-J https://www.ineke.com/shop-perfumes?category=Discovery+Set and should you buy any Ineke perfume you will get $15 off that purchase
To be eligible for the above you must be a registered reader. Remember to click here or your comment won’t count. Tell us what you thought of part two of favorite fall fragrances, which you would like to win, and where you live. You can list as many of the five as you would like. Draw closes 9/25/2020
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