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SmellyBlog

What's New for Spring 2008?

Spring 2008 will bring two new perfumes from Ayala Moriel: Gaucho and Gigi.
Gaucho will be accompanied by a matching tea, based on Yerba Mate.
Gigi is a limited-edition gardenia soliflore, the newest addition to The Language of Flowers - Ayala Moriel's Soliflore collection.
The following posts will be dedicated to Gaucho - the perfume and the tea. Gaucho was a particularly difficult to conceive perfume, for various reasons, and I would like to share with you some of my experience of this 6 year journey that took me to create it.
There will also be some guest appearance blog entries by Dawna Ehman, who created the Gaucho Perfumed Tea. So tune in for an exciting series surrounding mate, bitter herbs and the story behind the scenes of creating this perfume...

Ancient Perfume Factory in Cyprus

The Daily Telegraph reports about the ancient perfume factory on the island of Cyprus, where perfumes were manufactured in impressive quantities in the 43,000 sq ft facilities, and stored in alabaster bottles. According to the article, these perfumes contained mostly lavender, bay, rosemary, pine or coriander and were re-created by an "An Italian foundation which aims to recreate antique traditions distilled them according to techniques described by Pliny the Elder, by grinding the herbs, adding them to oil and water, then burying them in a small long-necked jug over hot embers for 12 hours".

The island of Cyprus is already known to be the birth of Chypre perfumes, and now it seems to be also the first place where perfumes were produced on a mass-production scale.

Tirzah: New Linden Blossom Soliflore

Ayala Moriel is proud to announce the launch for our new summery soliflore: Tirzah.
Tirzah is Hebrew for Linden, and the name for the newest addition to my soliflore collection - a linden blossom soliflore! The sweet and tart elegance of linden blossom is at the heart of this light and refreshing summery fragrance.

The timing for the launch of Tirzah couldn’t be better: linden blossoms are in full bloom throughout the month of June, emanating their delicate, honey-like aroma in the air. And what more - Tirzah is particularly suitable for a heat wave, with its top notes of green lemon zest and the cucumber-like mimosa, chilling heart notes of iris roots and a clean woody base of Fokienia with a hint of hay.



Tirzah has a deep green coloured juice and comes in parfum extrait (alcohol base) only. As linden blossom seems to be the favourite of only select few, Tirzah will be only a limited edition for now. It will remain part of the collection only for this summer. If it proves to be exceedingly popular, we will add it to our regular collection. Otherwise, we’ll just bring it in again next summer…

Top notes: Green Lemon, Mimosa, Elemi, Frangipani Absolute
Heart notes: Linden Blossom, Guiacwood, Iris Roots
Base notes: Fokienia (Siamwood), Hay Absolute, Ambrette Seeds


Illustration: Rusalka by Konstantin Vasiliev
(If you're wondering why I picked this image - it best portrays the scent visually in my opinion, just like hiding from the heat of sun among the cool shady trees by the river; and also it has trees from the linden family all over it)

Scene from
Die Trapp-Familie (1956)
The Von Trapps are singing Der Lindenbaum by Schubert, a beautiful Lied about a linden tree, from "Der Winterriser" (D911) Lieder Cycle. It is originally for piano and voice, but I love this a-capela interpretation with the beautiful, innocent children's voice. It really reminds me of the delicate scent of linden...

Holt Renfrew Re-Opens with "Holtscents"

Good news for all Vancouverites: Holt Renfrew re-opened today at its new location on 737 Dunsmuir St. (Pacific Mall) with several new lines of niche perfumes which were never available in either Vancouver or Canada before.

This afternoon, I went to check out the new selection at the “Holtscents” corner, devoted to these new lines. It took me a while to find the place, as I am notorious for losing directions in the mall. You’ll find Holt Renfrew where the “bridge” between the south side and the north side of Pacifi Mall was (as pictured above), or you can get to the scents via street level on the north side of Dunsmuir street (pictured below).
After getting lost for a few minutes in the mall, and inside Holt Renfrew (I went all the way down to the lower level, where only “men’s scents” can be found alongside other manly luxuries, I finally got to the right place, which happens to be simply at street level, and located on the left side just a few steps away from the entrance (if I had the smarts to approach it from the outside word rather than the maze of the mall…).

Drazana, the lovely Sales Associate, greeted me with her pleasant and friendly presence. She guided me through the new lines – some of which I was already familiar with (such as Miller Harris), and some are in Canada and/or Vancouver for the first time. These include:

Ineke
Etat Libre d’Orange
Carthusia
Miller et Bertaux
Juliet Has A Gun
Frederic Malle Edition de Parfums

I received samples for most of the lines, for the scents that interested me, anyways, so I am going to keep my comments about the scents I’ve smelled today brief and informative:

I started with Etat Libre d’Orange, because I am least familiar with this line (I have never smelled it at all actually). While some of the scents are interesting, such as Jasmin et Cigarettes (think stale cigarette butts and deflowered jasmine blossoms) and Encens Bubblegum (it’s what you’ve just heard: incense and bubble gum) and Putain de Palaces (sweet leathery floral), the line left me with a very bad taste for the entire day as I kept getting phantom whiffs of blood gushing out of flesh cut by rusty metal. You know which scent I’m talking about. I smelled to much of it trying to overcome my initial olfactory shock, and the scent just stayed with me for the rest of the day. Clearly the perfumer tried to create shock, and succeeded. To me it smells like injury trauma.

Once I got some samples of these to fool around with if I have th guts to mess up with them again, I moved on to more aesthetically coherent lines such as Carthusia, which has a few very nice, clean yet interesting scents which I am going to love trying as the summer heat is becoming unbearable already (for me anyways, but I prefer to have room temperature anywhere I go…). Numero Uno and Io Capri captured my attention immediately and I will be wearing a lot of them soon…

Miller et Bertaux has the most lovely packaging I have seen in a while, think French meets Zen with their legged carton boxes and the branch tied to the top… Of their three fragrance, I think I like the first perfume the best, Parfum Trouve the best.

Juliet Has A Gun offers two fragrances, and they are both rose-themed. One comes in a black bottle (and is more spicy, I think I smelled saffron in there), and the one in the white bottle is lovely, with Turkish rose I believe, it’s sweet but not overly so and does not smell as artificial as many roses I’ve smelled lately.

I re-visited the Ineke line, paying a bit more attention to the two scents I am less familiar with. I think Chemical Bonding is a vibrant citrus and I like it quite a bit even though I am not known for being a huge citrus wearer. It’s sweet and with a powdery dry down, which makes it a bit different.

I also revisited Tangerine Vert and smelled Coeur d’Ete for the first time (I really liked it by the way, it has a banana note and is sweet and powdery in a very comfortable way).

And finally, I paid a visit to the Editions de Parfums boutique, where the large red “inhaling cells” are erected and being utilized about 30 times in the 10 minutes I spent in that area. You spray the perfume in the cell, wait for 10 seconds, and than you can smell how the scent will smell 20 minutes into the dry down. It’s an interesting concept, but I still think that nothing beats a skin test. As I was already familiar with the entire line (almost) I concentrated on smelling Un Rose, which I was not familiar with at all, and it almost won me over. If the day was not so hot I would have tried some on. Instead, I smelled it in the “red cell” and I took the card with me, which still smells magnificent, 8 hours in. I was hoping to get a whiff of French Lover, but apparently, it will not be launched here until September, and by than it will have a different name, as to not offend the North American men, who must feel terribly inferior to French lovers and wouldn’t buy a perfume bearing such name. Shame!

Elemental Beauty Concept

I am very pleased to announce that Ayala Moriel Parfums are now available at Elemental Beauty Concept in Dnepropetrovsk and in Kiev, Ukraine; thus making our perfumes more accessible to our customers in Eastern Europe.

Elemental Beauty Concept are the first ones to stock Coralle, our brand-new ylang ylang perfume.
At the moment they are offering mostly fragrances from our soliflore spring collection (including Zohar, Yasmin and Kinmokusei), and some other light-speritied fragrances such as Tamya and Fetish; but you will also find there a few of our year-around staples such as Espionage and Ayalitta.

ELEMENTAL BEAUTY CONCEPT
Katerinoslavsk Boulvard, 2
Dnepropetrovsk
Ukraine
Tel. +380675391012
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