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[quote user="pipcleo"]try frederic malle - the best smell designers in the world concocted these brews and the best of the best is Jean Claude-Ellena (he deserves these capitals) .
bigarade concentree +angeliques sous la pluie
the finest two scents know to mankind
[/quote]
+1
What do you think aboutFrench Lover that is quite similar to Angeliques?
I'm fan of citrous scents and my "citrous top" is
Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle - Bigarade Concentree,
CdG 888 smells really good. however, i crushed a bottle of cdg 2 recently and got the smell all over the place. better keep away from cdg for a while. so, anyone had experience w/ this?
Not sure if you've seen it. Aedes de Venustas review in NYT. Arguably this is the best fragrance store in New York City. Although, to be honest, I never feel comfortable in temples, so I don't feel comfortable in that store. The packaging cannot be beat though - best place for a present.
April 3, 2008
Critical Shopper | Aedes de Venustas
Secrets From the Temple of Scent
By CINTRA WILSON
AEDES DE VENUSTAS, the
quirky fragrance shop on Christopher Street at the corner of Gay
Street, is just a few doors down from the site of the historic riots in
1969 that marked the first battle for gay rights. When you walk by on
the sunlit sidewalk, 40 proud years of midnight camaraderie and spilled
drinks spring to life.
The ?temple of beauty? is precocious for having been born in 1995;
it appears to have aged into an old European patina. The window looks
incense-buttered like the storefronts of old fortune tellers, a display
ready to be inhabited by a Caravaggio
youth or a Joel Peter Witkin corpse. It?s such a visual feast of dusky
Renaissance colors you can practically taste the linseed oil and dusty
grapes; fat mauve roses just beginning to wilt; dried pomegranates; and
stuffed white pigeons with glass eyes.
Gold-dipped reliquary trinkets are crowded artfully on heavy damask
around treasures that the stores owners, Karl Bradl and Robert
Gerstner, have archaeologically prized out of the Old World. There are
gem-cut bottles of some of the oldest and hardest-to-find European
perfumes: Santa Maria Novella (the 400-year-old line originated by
Florentine monks, whose Acqua di Colonia was created for the wedding of
Catherine de Medici); Acqua di Parma, developed in 1916, beloved of
1950s movie stars; and other antique rarities of a luxe and scented
variety.
Inside, Aedes is all papal sumptuousness: velvety, claret-colored
curtains and carpeting set off branches of cherry blossoms just turning
papery; bottles of amber oils under glass bells; cloudy crystal
chandeliers; an impressive feat of white peacock taxidermy. A
remarkably unified assortment of Second French Empire vitrines, inlaid
wood with gold flourishes, have been ingeniously repurposed as
armoires, retrofitted with glass shelves and subtle backlighting to
make the perfume bottles even more bewitching.
Hey, the Italianate apothecary of Napoleon III, right off of Sixth Avenue! Whodathunkit?
?I want you to try this ? yellow roses,? one of the owners said,
spritzing a white cardboard stick next to a woman with a deep tan and a
Day-Glo yellow parka. I sidled over to eavesdrop (nosedrop?).
?Isn?t it wonderful when you finally find your scent?? the woman asked me.
?Yes! It practically takes half a lifetime of research and development.?
?Then you have it for a while, and 10 years later, you want a change.?
I wondered what perfume the owner would have recommended to her if she had been wearing a plaid coat.
Aedes is a great go-to source for opulent little quelque choses,
perfect for the rich associate you are afraid to buy anything for.
I liked a carved wooden ball full of amber resin ($145). It looked
like something Gauguin would have on his coffee table to compliment the
nude Tahitian.
The ancestral tea company Mariage Frères has begun an expansion into
home décor with Darjeeling, Lapsang Souchong and other pleasantly
tea-flavored candles for $68, ideal for those who can?t bear the scent
of real tea.
Aedes collaborated with Molinard to resurrect an old classic: Une
Histoire de Chypre (pronounced SHEE-pr; not cheap). It?s heady and
complex: an exorbitant fusion of bergamot, mandarin, iris, neroli,
jasmine, Bulgarian rose, patchouli, oak moss, musk and amber, packaged
in a black box with gold lettering and a Lalique bottle with a black
spray-bulb.
The owner seemed to object to my description of it as pleasantly
?after-shavey.? I understood his reaction a bit better after reading
the ?olfactory ode? to Chypre on the Aedes Web site: her aromatic
corset unlaced ?the demure tendrils of her timeless spirit.? (Chypre,
the French word for Cyprus, is not an ancient goddess, but it might be
a hot new octopus.)
?I love woods and mosses,? I told a sales assistant. ?Anything else turns into Love?s Baby Soft on my skin.?
She nodded. ?Baby powder, you know, smells like this,? she said, sticking a heliotrope-scented candle under my nose. Eau bébé.
We explored the monstrance devoted to the fragrances of Serge
Lutens. Diam Blond was described to me as ?suede-y.? Indeed: like
huffing a saddlebag full of star anise.
The Cedre had a mouthwashy top note. ?Pepsin!? said my sales assistant. Dead-on. Bazooka Joe trapped in a sauna.
Most interesting was Escentric Molecules, a German fragrance in a Bauhaus-y bottle.
?The designer, Geza Schoen, feels he has replicated the human pheromone. It actually has no scent at all!?
She assured me that the lack of liquid in the bottle was due to the
popularity of the tester and not that this fragranceless fragrance is a
complete test of faith.
Neighborhood ladies swanned in and out with their cellphones and
Rhodesian Ridgebacks, grabbing Diptyque candles, but mostly popping in
to discuss Carla Bruni?s
new Jackie O. Sarkozy look and inquire about a birthday gala that I
divined was being held in honor of an owner?s dog: a motionless blot of
white fur in a black armchair.
?Oh, I thought she was more taxidermy!? I blurted artlessly.
?No, she?s very much alive,? said the gentleman in a chilled tone.
Scent, that most powerful of mnemonics, is a sensitive and personal business.
I bought incense ? packets of Esteban?s woodsy Pin (pine) and Cedre
and ($27) to transform my apartment into a roaring log cabin.
I once read that the French believe a woman isn?t truly beautiful
until she is touched by decay. Societies older than ours, decorated by
the detritus of collapsed empires, have a deeper appreciation for
entropy and its wisdom, fungi and ferment. Soft cheese, mushrooms,
wines, older women and little luxuries ? purified essences that evoke
sensations of the past ? make the certainty of mortality just so much
sexier. Add dried pomegranates and taxidermy, and you?ve got a little
slice of heaven.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde
BTW, while perusing this thread it came to mind that years ago I read about some Ultra Limited Helmut Lang cologne/perfume that had to be special ordered, came in some baller box, crystal bottle etc. etc.... wasn't even mentioned in the stores as being for sale. I think only the sadly gone HL flagship in SoHo was the only place that could even get it for you.
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