Premium Melon Chameleon: Hermès Muguet Porcelaine review

Giant Cavaillon melon, Provence ~ Source: mapio.net

I like Jean-Claude Ellena. He has a likeable air of weathered cragginess. A bit like Samuel Beckett, but tanned, more approachable, and without the slightest trace of demented woodpecker. I watched an interesting documentary about Ellena a while back, which showed him at work in his airy studio in the pine-covered hills near Grasse. Having lived on the Riviera myself for a year, with frequent forays into the Provençal hinterland, I can well imagine what a sensory paradise that would be. Then I once met up with Denise Beaulieu of Grain de Musc the day after she had been to a launch-related Hermès jolly in Brittany, where the great man was in attendance, so I felt I'd come a little bit closer to him in an asynchronous, 'one degree of separation' kind of a way. Oh, and I have read Ellena's book, 'The Diary of a Nose, A Year in the Life of a Parfumeur' - in the original French, even. I also lapped up 'The Perfect Scent', Chandler Burr's fascinating account of the making of Jardin sur le Nil, one of Ellena's numerous aquarelle compositions on which I cut my neophyte perfumista teeth.  And I could cite a number of perfumes he created for which I have a very soft spot to this day.

Jean-Claude Ellena's village of Cabris

But the latest addition to the Hermessence line, Muguet Porcelaine, the very delicacy of whose name unleashed a flutter of anticipation when the über-generous enabler Val the Cookie Queen of APJ said she had scored a sample with my name on it, did not quite work for me. Or rather, the opening is sufficient to put me off the later stages. Specifically, it's the mahoosive melon and cucumber accord that whooshes up on first application which floors me. I am not partial to either note in perfumery, and in Muguet Porcelaine they are very big, very juicy and in your face - or 'up your nostrils', to localise the phenomenon a bit more precisely. And though it pains me to say so, for it feels like heresy, given the prestigious nature of this line and the high regard in which I hold Ellena, but this big fruity explosion also comes off as noticeably synthetic to my nose.

Source: zeppy.io

And I do love lily of the valley, I really do. I have a soft spot for this particular flower too because it was my mother's favourite. She copped for many a tin of Yardley talc with that scent from me as a child. Plus I know that lily of the valley can only be replicated by artificial means, which adds an extra layer of difficulty to proceedings. Once Muguet Porcelaine settles down I do think it comes a very close second to Diorissimo, having conducted a number of side-by-side trials with an old sample of the EDT from The Perfumed Court. Or rather it is in a soprano register to Diorissimo's alto. But crucially Diorissimo is not remotely synthetic smelling from the off. If anyone is curious as to how this compares to Van Cleef & Arpels Muguet Blanc, I would say that that one is much softer and musky - the Puredistance Opardu of LOTV scents, if you will.

Source: Hermès

Yes, to my chagrin the opening of Muguet Porcelaine is too strident for my liking. To my mind, the word 'porcelain' conjures up whiteness and stillness, not shrillness. I think of Birgit of Olfactoria's Travels' serene and milky-white complexion, for example, And also of course the delicate little white bells of the flower itself, so tiny and dainty you would assume them to be constitutionally incapable of producing a scent that loud. Though I do concede that the slight indolic facet you get with lilies in general can readily translate as decibels rather than harebells, or flowers in that general neck of the woods, say. The opening of Muguet Porcelaine is a china bowl that you have vigorously pinged with your fingernail, creating a booming soundscape that fades away (eventually, though not nearly fast enough imho) to a more pleasantly muted frequency.

So yes, I would like to stress that it is just the opening that bothers me. And not only me, it would seem, as I got a couple of sales assistants in my local branch of The Fragrance Shop to sniff my freshly spritzed wrists and give me their off the cuff observations in a blind test. Of the two ladies in question, one was about my age at a guess, the other still in her teens. She was rather shy and would only say she liked it and thought it was a young person's scent, so the following commentary is all from her older colleague.

Source: The Fragrance Shop

"It's a floral...I'm getting some fruit...a fruity floral, then. Is there honey in there? It reminds me of Marc Jacobs Honey. It's a bit young for me, and a bit too sweet - I don't think an older woman would wear it. That said, it probably settles down after a while."

When asked where she would position this perfume, in terms of brand or price point, she ventured, quick as a flash:

"Oh, Premium, certainly, I'd put it on a par with BOSS."

I am still struggling with my take on this one, as I did a while back with Alaia, where I seemed to be flying in the face of the consensus. At least I care enough to put the accent in in Hermès. Now there are some stellar reviews of Muguet Porcelaine out there from bloggers whose noses I respect far beyond my own, yet I still cannot come to terms with the 'fruitbomb' opening, to channel Viktor & Rolf for a moment. And I have dubbed this scent a 'melon chameleon' because I sense that other people's melonious mileage will vary.

And hey, the upside of the whole unfortunate saga is that if I hadn't gone into The Fragrance Shop to seek a second opinion, I wouldn't have clocked the fact that Mary Greenwell Plum is on offer at £28.50 for a 100ml bottle, or £19.50 for 50ml. The more you spray, the more you save!

PS Here I am in Cavaillon c1980, home of the giant melon pictured at the top of the post. So my inability to bond with the melon note in Muguet Porcelaine is clearly not due to a lack of early exposure to this refreshing fruit.

Sniffing by numbers: Fragrance Republ!c FR! 01 / 04 review

Argentina tango ~ Source: artdigitalpaintings.deviantart.com

A number of reviews have been appearing lately of the new line of perfumes from Fragrance Republ!c (note odd use of an exclamation mark where an 'i' should be), which is described as:

"A new club of fragrance enthusiasts that gives exclusive access to original fine fragrances as created by world class perfumers.  Every month our members receive an exclusive fragrance straight from our lab to their door."

The difference between working for Fragrance Republ!c and a conventional perfume house is that their perfumers are allowed free rein to create whatever takes their fancy.

I was contacted by a PR person for the brand back in December and have since been sent two perfumes from the line, FR! 01/ No 3 and FR! 01 / No 4.  Oh look, even the initials are exclamatory!  I haven't tried the first two releases, but here are a couple of reviews: of FR! 01 / No 1 on Chemist in the Bottle, and of FR! 01 / No 2 on Another Perfume Blog.

FR! 01 / No 3 is a brisk, slightly masculine-leaning ode to the Mojito, and I have nothing to add to Val the Cookie Queen's review here.  FR! 01 / 03 would make an excellent choice for a buff, sporty young man like Val's son, who has apparently pretty much adopted it as his signature scent.

This week I have been wearing FR! 01 / 04 by Amélie Bourgeois for three days straight, but my decision to write about it today was in fact prompted by Sandra's post on Olfactoria's Travels about the latest Hermessences scent, Epice Marine, in which she detects a 'toasted cumin' note.

Do those stitches remind you even a teeny bit of sesame seeds?

Now as it happens, the most salient note for me in FR! 01 / 04 is the rather offbeat use of sesame. When first applied on my skin, I am strongly reminded of stir fry oil, both in physical texture and scent. Having now had a good old sniff of the bottle of stir fry oil I currently have on the go, I can confirm that this impression is entirely erroneous.  My cooking oil smells sharper and more lemongrass- and ginger-y.  But I still have a vivid mental picture of anointing myself in cooking oil which refuses to go away.  As well as the strongest nutty note I have ever smelt in a perfume - and it could be that I have nut-amplifying skin - there is a slightly camphoraceous quality to the opening.  We are almost in lighter / barbecue fuel territory, but happily not quite.

Now I don't mean to put people off this scent, for this singular opening soon mutes down into a rich and smooth - albeit still slightly oil-reminiscent - floral accord.  But before I leave the oil facet, I must relate my interesting discovery about Bourgeois' inspiration for this scent.  For she grew up in an area of the SW of France called Les Landes, which is noted for its long sandy beaches fringed by pine forests.  And apparently 'hot sand' and 'sunscreen' were very much in her mind at the inception of this perfume, though after thinking long and hard about which direction it was going to develop in, she settled on a floral note - namely magnolia - as the main turn in her composition, with its evocation of 'sensual dance' and 'hotness'. By a curious chance we are back in Zelda territory again and my own associations of that perfume with a languid and sultry weekend in Charleston!

Those really are naked people swimming, but this is a family blog

So the mental leap from sunscreen to stir fry oil is perhaps not too extreme after all.  I have a bit of a soft spot for Les Landes as it happens, which was kindled by my voracious reading of the rather gothic works of Francois Mauriac at school. I have also visited the region for work a few times, but my most abiding memories of the coast are of accidentally spending two weeks in a naturist camp in Montalivet-les-Bains in 1983. The first few hours were excruciatingly awkward, but it is surprising how quickly you become accustomed to the naked human form in all its myriad variants.  So, you know, a disproportionate amount of sunscreen will have been deployed on that holiday all right...;)

Our cabin in the forest - mosquitoes had never had it so good!

But that is enough about the germ of the olfactory idea for this scent, for Bourgeois's final composition is not about France, but Argentina, where I have never been, though I have eaten a few tins of corned beef in my time.  The description inside the lid of the box the perfume came in states:

"I wanted FR! 01/04 to be as bright and exhilarating as a weekend getaway to Argentina, while also recalling the sensuality and tempo of the tango.  Conceived as two bodies dancing, its structure evokes the tango's abrazo, as an intense floral with magnolia and cassie flower, and an enchanting woody note embrace with passion and grace."

Top notes: yellow Italian mandarin, sweet orange
Middle notes: jasmine, fleur de cassie, mimosa Maroc, magnolia
Base notes: sesame, tonka bean, white musks

Once the oily effect dissipates, I'd say the dance is rather between a very juicy fruity blend - reminiscent in intensity of Atelier Cologne's Orange Sanguine and Aftelier Secret Garden, also a little of Vero Profumo Rubj maybe, as well as a rather obscure orange-forward scent by Ajne called Bloom de Nuit - and an intense floral hit of magnolia, flanked by sweet and sherbety mimosa.  FR! 01 /04 is bombastic all right, a showgirl scent, with the intensity and unctuousness of Zelda but none of the latter's zesty greenness.  I would personally lose the sesame note altogether, because it plays up way too much on my skin and fractionally tips the fragrance into 'odd' territory, although it is Bourgeois's stated aim that it should appeal to as many club members as possible.  I have never smelt anything like it, though, I'll give it that - and the sesame note may be the reason.

Source of the stir fry oil chimera

What else is there to say about this scent or the range in general?  Well, for one, it is commendable that the Fragrance Republ!c perfumers have unlimited creative freedom in this way.  The release of perfumes in just 15 ml bottles is also greatly to be encouraged - and hopefully a trend that will gather momentum in more orthodox quarters of the industry.

As for the clinical packaging and the numerical names, I am not so keen on that.  I am working up to doing a post on Biehl Kunstwerke, in which I shall doubtless also have a pop at this 'sniffing by numbers' approach. Overall though, I think it is an exciting new business model, and I look forward to catching up with the other numbers in the range - both the earlier ones I missed and the ones (or rather 05 'and higher', as the flight attendants say) yet to come.

Special credit is also due to the nifty cut out foam in which my bottles were most securely shipped from France.  I do like a bit of avant-garde packaging, as long as - as in the present case - it is commensurate with the item housed within.

If you have tried FR! 01 / 04 already, I would be most interested to know what you made of it, and how prominent the nutty note was on your skin.

And if anyone has any more creative names for a 'big juicy fruity magnolia scent with Latin American connotations', I would love to hear your suggestions.  

Not sure about 'Evita', no...