Lalique Flora Bella - The Sequel: Our Man From Havana & My Dreamt Up Dream Sequence

Since writing my last post, I have received a surprise email from Alain, "Our Man from Havana" in Sahling best of beauty, Berlin. Right off the bat I should set the record straight and tell you that he is not in fact from Havana, but from Santa Clara, but that wouldn't have made nearly such good copy, so I am glad I didn't know as much at the time I wrote my Berlin Sniffathon post.

Anyway, Alain has now caught up with that post and the Flora Bella review. He agrees with my assessment of the scent and adds:

"It's a very unique 'floral', completely strange but still in some way very simple. Heavy, cool, salty, milky, capable of always touching my heart and soul and opening my eyes to my exotic and tropical dream-scenario. For me it is definitely one of Bertrand's best fragances ever."

I am also pleased to report that Alain was fine about being featured in this way - indeed I have a standing invitation to drop in any time I am passing, so that is all good!

He did, however, point out that either he misexplained the dream sequence which he associates with this scent, OR I misheard or misunderstood it, a much more likely explanation if you ask me. Yes, it was late in the day by this point and my German just wanted to knock off and go back to the hotel and put its blistered feet up. Moreover, I have become so accustomed to using a dictaphone in my interviews that when I have to listen and take notes without that safety net, I am liable to end up with a scrappy and muddled version of events.

So here is the dream evoked by the scent Flora Bella, straight from the horse's mouth. And look - we could have spoken English all the time! : - )

Oh, and as you will see, I assigned the raven hair and violet eye colour of the Flora Bella character to the surfer dude, and managed to lose her altogether! Also, I did struggle to find a photo to illustrate Flora Bella. It was jolly hard to find any picture that wasn't Elizabeth Taylor, to be quite frank, who actually brought out a perfume called Violet Eyes, as I have now learnt! Yes, you may need to morph the two women's faces into one mental image for optimum verisimilitude.

"A tropical island paradise. No big hotels, no luxury resorts. A small village where the tourist of the west world are coming to practice diverse aquatic sports, diving, fishing and of course surfing. A young surfer man (maybe from Germany or the Scandinavian countries) with blond hair and ice-blue eyes falls in love with a beautiful young woman. She has long wavy black hair and deep violet eyes. Her skin has been tenderly touched by the sun and her juicy lips always reveal the most beautiful smile. She's very warm and sensual but at the same time so feminine, so sweet, so delicate and fragile. They see each other and they both fall in love immediately. They spend a beautiful night together at the beach, in which she gives him all her heart and only the knowledge that her name is Flora Bella.

The next day he searches for her. He asks other people in the village. Nobody knows her. They never heard of her! He desperately searches for her, completely sad and devastated without any results. Was it real or was it a dream? The day he had to return to his home-country, he stood in front of the sea with his feet deep buried in the sand there where the waves die. It was morning. An old lady is passing by with a bouquet of frangipani flowers. He asked the old lady. She looked at him and smiled back very politely. Then in the same kindly and lovely way that a grandmother looks at her grandson she answered:

'My dear child, of course I know her. She's everywhere. Can you feel it? Smell it...'

She took a deep breath and then let it out in a very pleasant way like she had smelled the most beautiful perfume ever. A tear ran down his cheek and the morning breeze took away a frangipani flower from the old lady's bouquet making it disappear in the blue space between sea and sky. Maybe it was a dream, maybe it was really real. But the truth is she will always be there: in the flowers of the island, in the foaming waves, in the salty sea breeze, in the tropical rays of the sun, in his heart... Flora Bella."

So that is rather a lovely story for any romantics out there, and, as you can appreciate, it would have been rather a lot to scribble down on the back of a fragrance blotter and a folded up bit of google map...

And the humour of my mix up was not lost on Alain:

"Oh! And Vanessa, since I read your reviews now I have two dreams of Flora Bella. The other one involves the raven-haired surfer boy with violet eyes... and moonlight! It's beautiful and it's real! Thank you for that too."

Meanwhile, such was the hypnotic effect of Flora Bella on me, that I thought it worth getting some feedback from Mr Bonkers in this instance (I am quite selective these days, as he does reject 99% of what I ask him to sniff). This was his reaction:

"Baby powder."

Pause...

"Yes, milk and babies."

Pause...

"Why, that is almost an endorsement!"

A perfume Mr Bonkers almost endorses? Surely that is yet another reason - if one were needed - to blind buy this with confidence!


Photo of island from cdislands.com, photo of Santa Clara from blingcheese.com, photo of violet eyed girl No 1 and of frangipani from flickr, photo of violet eyed girl No 2 from twilightmoviefranchiseupdates.blogspot.com

Ormonde Jayne - A Fragrance Capsule Wardrobe In A Slidey-Out Box

At the heart of my work in market research lies the concept of the "strike rate". This is basically the conversion rate of interviews you manage to set up from a given database of contacts. Sometimes the parameters are very straightforward: "Here is a list of 20 of the client's customers - recruit as many as you can." This is the case currently with my daytime job. By night, however, I am working on another project on the West Coast of the US (a shift pattern known as "time zone moonlighting"), and here the parameters are a lot more tricky.

For I am trying to achieve an "interlocking sample", which involves looking for a selection of people, each of whom must meet a kaleidoscope of different criteria which will add back to a larger overall segmentation. To take a totally different example, it is rather like looking for "bald, left handed, politically right wing speedboat owners in Oslo" AND "right handed, left of centre canoeists with a comb-over in Bergen" AND "ambidextrous, politically indifferent Harley Davidson owners with a full head of hair in Trondheim". You get my drift.

And all these variables have to total the overall requirement in the sample for bald people, people in Trondheim etc. Now my database is large - very large - and these highly specific respondents may well be out there, but the $64,000 question is whether I will find them in time, because the details on the database are sketchy at best, and there is a cut off point when you are supposed to have your ducks in a row and go out and interview these people, though you will invariably be knackered and cross-eyed when the time comes.

This morning, as I was still fretting over the difficulties of the US sample, I sprayed on Ormonde Jayne Orris Noir for the third day running. It is soft and comforting, and I haven't much time to agonise over my perfume choice at the moment. Then I remembered that of all the perfume houses I know, Ormonde Jayne is the one with the highest "strike rate" in the sense of my liking almost all the scents in its range.

And I hasten to add that the reason I say so has nothing to do with the fact that their PR lady recently sent me a Discovery Set - or only in the sense that as a result I have been able to test the last three scents in the line that I had not got around to sampling before, namely Orris Noir, Zizan and Isfarkand. By contrast, Jean Paul Gaultier could send me a pantechnicon crammed to the gunwhales with every scent they make, tossing in a crate of body lotion and a metallic leatherette tote bag for good measure, but it would not endear the house to me any more. If anything, such a delivery would be likely to inspire a post along the lines of: "If you could only wear perfumes belonging to one brand, is there a house which could put you off scent forever?" With arguably a slightly snappier title.

But going back to Ormonde Jayne, my strike rate with their scents is not the only remarkable thing, but also the fact that they have the potential to form a "capsule wardrobe" of fragrances, ie a set of scents to cover all bases, whether in terms of notes, family, mood or occasion. Now it would be an easy enough task to put together such a thing from one's entire collection of scents - or if not easy exactly, it could be done with a bit of time and head scratching - it is the sort of thought process we naturally go through when people ask: "What would your top 10 or 20 perfumes be?"

But from a single house, and one with such a small range as this it is impressive. For sure, I could probably pick myself out a great capsule wardrobe from either Chanel or Guerlain, but there is more to go at with either of them. And compared to Ormonde Jayne, my strike rates with Chanel or Guerlain are much lower - it's a very rough guess, but maybe 30-40% for those two vs an 80% hit rate with Ormonde Jayne. So OJ scores highly on BOTH strike rate (as in "my liking the scents at all") AND on capsule wardrobe potential. Why, that is its own little interlocking sample right there!

To take just the nine women's scents, plus Isfarkand, which I think could easily be positioned as unisex, here is my own stab at assembling the capsule.

OSMANTHUS (fruity floral with herbal notes)

Casual everyday wear - cropped trousers and a top with a bit of interesting detail (ribbons, wacky buttons)

CHAMPACA (light floral with tea and basmati rice notes)

Serene and zen-like scent suited to gym or pilates/yoga wear ie stretchy, Lycra-enriched cotton bell bottoms and ballet wrap top and pumps.

TIARE (sparkling, citrussy chypre)

Crisp business attire or smart casual (pencil skirt, tailored blouse). There is a sort of review here.

SAMPAQUITA (light floral with exotic flowers)

Feminine, girly - floral tea dress for summer, or a flippy Boden skirt.

FRANGIPANI (heady floral with exotic flowers)

Ultra feminine summer holiday outfit with more va-va-voom and a come-hither look, eg sarong and bikini, halter neck maxi dress and jewelled sandals. Would make a good bridal scent contender.

ORRIS NOIR (dark woody oriental with iris)

Winter casual clothes - cashmere sweater, wool trousers or skirt, thick ribbed tights. Shades of slate, heather and periwinkle. Would go well with most of the Brora and Toast catalogue. The best choice for funerals, notwithstanding the comment on black outfits below - Ormonde Woman is a little too spiky for venues encouraging public displays of emotion.

ORMONDE WOMAN (dark woody oriental with black hemlock!)

"Little black dress" or other black outfit of any kind, as long as it has a bit of edge - asymmetry, unusual fastenings, scary funnel neck, apertures where you least expect them etc. A "go-to" scent for female investment bankers wearing wide gauge black pin stripe suits.

TOLU (resinous woody oriental - rich and sumptuous)

Very formal winter party wear - ie cocktail dress or full length gown in a fabric of velvet or brocade, preferably in shades of emerald green or burnt orange. May be accessorised with fur, depending on your stance on such things.

ISFARKAND - crossover with Champaca as a quiet meditative scent suitable for gentle forms of exercise and with Tiare as a discreet business scent. Also works well with a "boyfriend cardigan" and Ugg boots. Maybe also a coatigan, provided it is not too shaggy and hippyish.

TA'IF (dusty rose oriental with saffron and "EAT ME" dates)

"Wild card" scent in the range - combines the sombre, buttoned up snuggliness of Orris Noir with the rampant sensuality of Frangipani. "Covert pulling gear" is the closest outfit description I can come up with, which could range from dark skinny jeans and boots to a short vintage dress and a leather jacket. Touches of lace would not go amiss. Or red, but definitely not for the leather jacket. Escaping bra straps (ideally Aubade or Chantelle) in contrasting colours are permitted. May also be worn ironically with any of the above ensembles.

So there you have it - feel free to tweak and rearrange the outfits, the way I used to enjoy doing on those cut out paper dolls on the back page of Bunty... Meanwhile, I must dive back into the database of contacts and see if I can winkle out some no-handed Green Party keep fit enthusiasts in Kristiansand. Or their Stateside equivalent, obviously. And if my posts become sparse / "spotty" in the near future, you will know I have disappeared down the rabbit hole of my 16,000 entry Excel spreadsheet.




Link to Ormonde Jayne site.

Photo of Ormonde Jayne discovery set and perfumes from the company website, photo of a human jigsaw from gamerevolution.com, photo of a puzzle from kids-strategy-games.com, photo of a capsule wardrobe from business-bombshell.com, photo of Bunty comic from dgthekneelo.com, photo of database from sibis.com.