Fascination Perfumery - Part 2: L’Agent Provocateur L’Agent, Elie Saab Le Parfum, And Boudoir Scents That Are Basque-ing For Trouble

So...back to Fascination Perfumery, and the second instalment of my sniffing report.

Next up Lynne had me trying drugstore brand Alyssa Ashley’s 2009 launch, Essence de Patchouli. Alyssa Ashley I associate with her 1968(!) fragrance, Musk, which I am not even sure I have tried. It always seems to fetch up on those clearance tables in my local department store, along with the weirder shaped Anna Sui bottles and unloved scents from various Elizabeths (Arden, Taylor). Now Alyssa Ashley could be the reference musk for all I know, yet I had studiously avoided the brand till Lynne pressed me to try Essence de Patchouli in its admittedly rather sleek white canister.

Notes: rose, geranium, iris, cashmeran, cedar, guaiac, patchouli, musk, labdanum, coumarin, vanilla

The initial burst of patchouli struck me as rather loud and rough, but it softened considerably into a poor man’s L’Ombre Fauve or Labdanum 18. Oh yes... A very indigent man maybe, but there was a resemblance. I wish I had tried it on skin. I mean, don’t those notes look lovely to you? (Okay, maybe not the coumarin.) And doesn't the bottle remind you a little of the Tom Ford White Patchouli one? Er...chopped into three, lengthways, say? Oh, and if Alyssa is thinking of going on the pull wearing this scent, she might want to consider losing the beanie.

Staying with our emerging theme of geranium – you don’t see it emerging? Trust me, it will! – Lynne gave me a sample of the new Agent Provocateur L’Agent to try.

My immediate thought on smelling this dark, brooding, powdery diva of a scent was that it was as though regular Agent Provocateur had provoked Strip to strip, and the resultant love child was L’Agent.

Without further ado, the notes are as follows:

Top: davana oil, baies rose, ylang ylang, rosewood, angelica

Heart: geranium bourbon, rose de Mai, jasmin sambac, tuberose absolute, osmanthus

Base: patchouli, sandalwood, amber crystals, tonka beans, rock rose, myrrh, black incense, musk

Additionally, Lynne explained that L’Agent contains pheromones! I found this titbit reported on both Now Smell This and Fragrantica (see quote below), so I am going to take it on good faith – after all, if it is good enough for Escentric Molecules...but hold on, didn’t that turn out just to be Iso E Super in the end?

“In addition to the pyramidal structure, the perfume composition also contains a new secret ingredient of pheromones, guaranteeing heart-winning excitement.”

Wow, guaranteeing heart-winning excitement - it must be really something, then...

Returning to my love child theory again, having cross-referenced the notes, I can confirm that L’Agent shares amber and ylang-ylang with both original Agent Provocateur AND Strip, then rose and jasmine with original AP and geranium bourbon with Strip. So that looks like a fair old helix of common DNA to me.

As with Strip, L’Agent kicks off with a “Geronimo!” of a geranium opening, however, it subsides more quickly, and the scent doesn’t majorly change after that, beyond getting quietly powdery. If the character I would associate with original AP is a Betty Boo, Benefit make up-using 50s starlet perched demurely on her dressing table stool, the person I would associate with L’Agent is wearing two-tone black and pink lace underwear under a black silk kimono - while the wearer of Strip is wearing a red basque under a black nylon peignoir...and carrying a whip.

Now the keen-eyed reader will spot nuances there on the “lingerie louche-o-meter”, but in truth Strip and L’Agent are very close in persona, if not in scent. L’Agent is more feminine and girlish, but still packs a hefty seductive punch. It is definitely more of a hard hitter than regular AP, which I know a number of people think nothing of wearing to work!

Would I wear L’Agent out? Sure I would, and I am not saying that just because someone once indirectly referred to me as a “pious old fluffer” (in a debate loosely about sex in advertising, in case anyone's curiosity is overwhelming!).

Which leads me finally to Elie Saab Le Parfum, the new signature fragrance of the Lebanese designer of that name, of whom I must confess I had never heard till the other day.

On Wikipedia I learnt that Saab – whom, given my history of automotive component projects, it is hard not to think of as a Swedish car - became an overnight success after he dressed Halle Berry at the Oscars in 2002. His other celebrity clients now include Catherine Zeta-Jones (whose name is weirdly starting to look like the new Andy Tauer scent...), Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, Queen Rania of Jordan, Beyoncé, Christine Aguilera and Angelina Jolie.

Elie Saab Le Parfum isn’t due to be launched in the USA till July, according to Now Smell This, never mind here, and Lynne didn’t have a tester of it yet, or even a manufacturer’s sample. However, she had squirrelled away some of the lovely stuff in her Travalo atomiser at the recent Milan fair, and let me test it on skin. The perfumer is one of my very favourites, Francis Kurkdjian, and the rather thin note listing tells us that it contains orange blossom, jasmine, patchouli and cedar. I have read elsewhere that there is a honeyed rose note in there too.

I am just going off my memory on the day, but Elie Saab was simultaneously bold and pretty, powdery yet shot through with a radiance that must have been the orange, while the patchouli grounded it and added depth. This one was like the offspring of APOM pour Femme - whose equally evasive note listing merely concedes orange blossom, cedar and ylang-ylang(!) - and the new L’Agent, say. Or if we could make it a three way love child – it’ll be a right mutant, granted, but in good company on this blog – I'll add a splash of Jo Malone Orange Blossom for a bit of brightness, as APOM pour femme is quite heavy on the old cedar, much as I love it. Ah, Elie Saab was lovely, and I would probably have bought a bottle there and then if one had been available. Not as "provocative" as L’Agent, but prettier and more of a statement scent than APOM pour Femme.

So there you have it - a few foxy scents to suit the whole gamut of seductive styles, from peeping-under-your-fringe-coyness at a film premiere a la Princess Diana back in the day (Elie Saab), to the full-on basque and suspenders raunchfest of Strip. Which all feels a world away from the quiet week I am spending at my desk, ringing an assortment of European users of polyurethane (PUR). I have yet to do a job in PVC, but fancy it might lead down some exotic lines of inquiry...


Photo of L'Agent from fragrantica.com, photo of Alyssa Ashley from Facebook, photo of bra from mentionables.co.uk, photo of basque from rainbowdecorative.co.uk, photo of Elie Le Parfum from saratavasolian.onsugar.com, photo of Halle Berry from stylelist.com

Fascination Perfumery - Part 1: On The Prowl In Fougère Royale, Le Mimosa Le Mishmash, And What The Duchess Wore Next...

So I was up in Blackpool at the weekend, visiting my Scandal- - and now Flora Bella- and Plum- - loving friend (note exemplary use of the double hyphen there), and on the way home of course I couldn’t resist calling into Fascination Perfumery in Lytham, the Les Senteurs of the North, as I dubbed it once. Well, that is not strictly fair, as Fascination combines mainstream and niche in about a 50/50 ratio, and doesn’t carry some of the more limited distribution stuff like Parfumerie Générale, say, which is not to say they wouldn’t love to – and one day maybe will.

But anyway, I have got into the habit of popping into the store unannounced and the pattern I now readily drop into with the manager, Lynn(e) - still haven’t bottomed out the matter of the floating “e” - is that we engage in staccato bursts of conversation, which immediately subside if a customer walks in, whereupon I melt into the background. I will typically loiter behind the masculine fixture (as in shelves, obviously), or stand off to the side by the Acqua di Parma display. However many times I go – and in fairness this is still only my third visit – Lynne (let's settle on the “e” for now) never fails to ask me my top five or ten scents, I guess because they might have changed in the intervening period. She will also fire a barrage of questions at me about new releases:

"What do you think of Acqua Fiorentina? And what about Jimmy Choo? Have you tried Opus V? Mon Jasmin Noir? Le Mimosa? Via Verri? And the new Serge? Yes, Jeux de Peau, that one. How about Jardin sur le Toit? Houbigant Fougère Royale – you must smell that one! And where do you stand on the L'Artisan range in general?”

And much, much more in that vein, on and off for the hour and a quarter I was there.

And in between our chats Lynne meets and greets the steady stream of regular customers who wander in. It feels less like a shop and more like one of those open house parties – you know, where you drop in anytime, stay for a short while and amble off again – only this time the people were leaving with one of the store’s distinctive black and white polka dot carrier bags…

At one point, Lynne had sprayed two male customers with Fougère Royale, and there was some good humoured joshing about which of them would manage to "pull" the only female in the store at the time (staff and myself excepted!) whilst wearing it. The lady in question was well into her seventies at a guess, and was resting on one of the two chairs by the door when she overheard the scented gauntlet being thrown down. Mischievously rising to the occasion, she immediately leapt to her feet and threw her arms round one of the two men sporting the Houbigant. It was a pure comedy moment, for which hopefully you didn’t necessarily have to be there!

Now you know how when perfumistas meet, they get straight down to business, sniffing each other like dogs and lamp posts – no, hold on, lamp posts serve a different function – well, I forgot to mention that when I arrived I went up to Lynne as soon as she came free, held my wrist out and announced: “Guess what? I smell like a duchess!”, echoing my Facebook comment from a week ago when I first acquired this sample of Kate Middleton's wedding scent. Lynne laughed and both she and her assistant Emma buried their noses in my wrist. Emma was slightly more taken with White Gardenia Petals than Lynne, but both prefer more full-bodied scents as a rule. I think they thought White Gardenia Petals was pretty, occasion-appropriate, but otherwise unremarkable. No matter – it is very “me” all right!

As we were on the subject of the new Duchess, Lynne let slip the fact that her bridal make up – or some combination of it, as we didn’t go into specifics – was by Shiseido. So I may be getting closer towards identifying that specific shade of pink lip gloss... And Lynne also had a juicy nugget of info, namely that not long ago Kate had reportedly been staying at the Duke of Westminster’s house (okay, house may be an understatement), and the lady-in-waiting clocked a black bottle of Narciso Rodriguez For Her EDT on the dressing table!

Right, so I have said at the top of this post “what the Duchess wore next”, which arguably involves a bit of poetic licence, because I don’t know for a fact that she will wear Narciso Rodriguez in future – whether on her honeymoon, where she has apparently now gone, or ever again. But surely if she owns a bottle of this – even if she now also owns Cambridge, or the whole of Cambridgeshire, making a bottle of scent either way a tad expendable – I think on balance that she is not one to waste resources. Yes, I shall stick my neck out and say there's a reasonable chance of future royal wearings of NR for Her. Perhaps the Duchess will toggle between that and Dune, whilst keeping White Gardenia Petals for high days and holidays. And not forgetting that bottle of Creed she may still have knocking about in cupboard, the one that also has royal connections!

Okay, so much for what we talked about – what did I smell?

Well, I clearly wasn’t going to get out of the store without sniffing the latest reworking of that Ur-cologne or Grandaddy of all masculines, Houbigant Fougère Royale (Lynne was pretty indiscriminate in spraying men and women alike!). After it had settled down a bit on my skin I thought it was surprisingly soft and wearable for a masculine, especially one with "Fougère" in the name. The reference to “Royale” - which turns out to be part of the name of the fern, with no regal associations whatsoever! - always registers as an intensifier with me, as in “a right royal cock up”. So I was pleasantly surprised by this scent and would recommend it for male friends looking for a classic fragrance with a modern twist. Having just checked the notes, I bet the reason I find Fougère Royale acceptable and not too barber’s shoppy is because of the “feminised”, oriental-style basenotes counterbalancing the usual herbal suspects in the rest of the composition:

Notes: bergamot, lavender, rosemary, carnation, cinnamon, geranium, rose de Mai, amber, patchouli, tonka

I also had a quick whiff of Amouage Opus V, just on card. It was a fleeting impression, but I got a marked iris note and a tolerable oud-y aspect. Stronger than Le Labo’s Oud 27, say, but staying the right side of Homage Attar, my ultimate oud nemesis.

Then I had a retrial of Annick Goutal’s Le Mimosa, sadly with a similar verdict to before. It was too big somehow for a mimosa scent – too “busy” in a fuzzy, fruity way, and with none of that bright, sherbety quality I so appreciate in L’Artisan’s Mimosa pour Moi. Yes, there was a definite weird fruit note in there that I really didn’t care for. I am lost for words to put my finger on why this was so wrong, although Comme des Garçon’s Daphne was also wrong in a similar way, as was Dior’s Escale aux Marquises. The notes just didn’t mesh well. Fortunately, here is Kevin of Now Smell This, who isn’t lost for words at all, and gets straight to the heart of this discordant “wrongness”.

“Le Mimosa opens with a dry, flat note that smells like a combination of pencil shavings, cumin powder, and ‘hairy’ leather. This slightly ‘dirty’ aroma marches thru the entire composition…only soap will remove it from skin. As Le Mimosa develops, I smell artificial ‘peach’ and I detect, for a split second, a puff of iris, a speck of anise, and some vague ‘citrus’. There’s plenty of white musk and the aforementioned ‘peach’ in Le Mimosa’s base, but none of Le Mimosa’s notes produces a scent with the aroma of fresh mimosa blossoms (if that’s what you are looking for or expecting).”

Phew! It isn’t just me then. See how Kevin is using inverted commas to physically distance himself from the distasteful ingredients. And what a criminal waste of a cute ribbon!

I also tried Cartier de Lune on card which was pretty and effortless – a clean, sparkling, radiant, marine? floral of some kind. It reminded me rather of Kenzo L’Eau par Kenzo, though the notes don’t really coincide.

Notes: pink pepper, juniper berries, honeysuckle, wild rose, cyclamen, bindweed (morning glory,) lily of the valley, musk, and woods.

It would be a pleasant office scent, but for lunar mystery and a kick in the solar plexus, I'll stick to Flora Bella. : - )

To be continued...




Photo of Lytham from nwprecast.com, photo of Houbigant Fougère Royale from fragrantica.com, photo of dressing table from thehomelook.blogspot.com, photo of NR for Her from beautysteals.com, photo of Le Mimosa from peonymelbourne.blogspot.com, photo of Cartier de Lune from escentual.com, store photo my own