Paruvea Latte Veil Extrait de Parfum review**, aka The Kraken Wakes (up) and doesn't smell the coffee!

 

 

  ** Eventually...feel free to scroll on down past the "missing in action" preamble to the review itself...

This must be the all-time longest hiatus in the history of Bonkers about Perfume. To be honest, over the last six months I really thought I had shot my blogging bolt: not so much in terms of my personal relationship with perfume, which is ongoing, albeit in a smaller orbit of mostly familiar scents rather than new releases, but rather in terms of my public one. So many reviewers have shifted to short form videos on YouTube and TikTok that I felt rather out of step with the reviewing community, as well as out of touch with the brands themselves. Now and then a perfume house would still "reach out" to me, but by and large I sensed that the PR waters had long since closed over my head, and this despite being the sixth best perfume blog in Australia, haha. Some of my blogging peers and friends from 2010 or so have long since retired - as I thought I had too, to be honest - while others have been catapulted to fame as fragrance experts and influencers, their success richly deserved. Meanwhile, I felt in a strange kind of middle ground limbo, though friends and family have periodically poked me into action every so often. Here's a quick run down of what I have been up to, fragrance-wise, this year:

- A friend gave me a discovery set from The Saltworks in Ramsgate, which I worked through before donating it to my SIL.

- Another one gave me a small bottle of M & S Frangipani perfume, which prompted me to explore their latest offerings. The exquisitely packaged Fragonard and Monotheme ranges are a welcome addition, and I particularly liked Fleur Citronnier, Tuberose, and White Gardenia, if my memory serves me. Definitely worth another sampling session.

- The son of my late father's carer asked me for my opinion on Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille(!). 

- I caught a delightful whiff of a man in the book section of a local charity shop. I channelled Michael Mosley (who famously advocated making small talk with strangers on a daily basis for the alleged mental health benefits to both parties), and asked him what  he was wearing - Paco Rabanne Million Gold for Him was the answer. Note to self to sniff it in store sometime, as it really turned my head.

- I ran into friends at a gig in March whom I had introduced to Ormonde Jayne about 15 years ago, and they immediately proffered their necks for sniffing. The man was sporting Isfarkand - I had given him a sample of this way back then, and also tipped him the wink recently when the brand was selling off its edp collection for a song, preparatory to restocking with parfum strength. His ex-wife was rocking Nawab of Oudh, which I didn't know, but was so instantly taken with on her that I have since sprung for a travel size spray after first buying a 1ml tester from (I think) Fragrance Samples. I love the reciprocity of our OJ perfume recommendations!

- Then a friend in Belfast mentioned that she only owned two perfumes: Chanel No 5 and Bien-Etre Eau de Cologne Naturelle, a French pharmacy brand, 100ml of which can be had for a tenner! I duly bought a bottle on Amazon, and it smells exactly as I imagined - an astringent and bracing mix of herbal and orange notes, a bit like O de Lancome (supply your own circumflexes) or Guerlain Sous le Vent - and it is so lovely in the heat. I made a big decant from my humongous bottle and gave it to another friend.

- My brother asked me to recommend gardenia perfumes.

- I did a lot of reading around the topic of smelling things as a helpful tactic to prevent dementia! An olfactory prophylactic, if you will. ;) That sounded a heck of a lot easier to me than circuit training, cryptic crosswords, or learning Mandarin.

- I bought a BNIB bottle of Carner Barcelona D600 for £41 on eBay! (See my review here.)

 

How chunkily satisfying is that top?

 

So as you can see, I have not been quite as dormant as the title might suggest, but nor did I feel I had any content quite worthy of a post on its own - till now.

REVIEW ITSELF!

About a month ago I received an email from the Marketing Director of a company I had never heard of called Paruvea. 

"I’m reaching out from Paruvea, an affordable luxury fragrance brand focused on wearable, long-lasting scents with strong storytelling potential."

The apparent oxymoron of "affordable luxury fragrance" piqued my interest. Paruvea also struck me as quite a difficult name to commit to memory or spell, but further inquiries revealed its etymology:

"A name inspired by “Parure” (exquisite adornment) and “Veil”, evokes an ethereal veil of fragrance for the soul—whispering close, never clamorous..."

I was reminded of my "Careful Whispers" series of reviews on subtle, nuanced and quiet scents like Penhaligon's Iris Prima, and my bantering exchange with Undina on this subject, who commented:

"You and your “whispering” hang-up!  Are you sure you even need a perfume? No perfume would stay really close to skin, you know."

So now my curiosity was doubly piqued. The Paruvea range consists of nine Veil perfumes, three for day (Daylight Veils) and three for night (After Dark Veils). I wondered if the seventh Veil to be launched, whichever it was, came with its own dance. They are 30% parfum strength, which took me some time to get my head around, given that the cost is a mere $25.99 for a stonking 100ml.

I accepted the company's offer to send me samples, as long as there was no obligation to review them, as per my usual policy, and I was told that that was fine. Paruvea the brand is headquartered in Gardena, California, not to be confused with the make of hose reels of that name, while the production is done in WiYu in China. This is where my package came from after some time, during which I imagined it (possibly fancifully) negotiating a perilous passage through the Straits of Hormuz.

When the parcel arrived I was surprised to find that instead of a discovery set of samples, the Marketing Director had opted instead to send me a single 100ml bottle of Latte Veil.

 

 

I wrote back to her to inquire what her reasons were for switching tack and received this insightful reply:

"Yes, sending you Latte Veil was intentional. After learning more about your fragrance preferences and blog, we felt it would be the best match for you, so we decided to send a full-size bottle instead of several small samples."

I was impressed by this, as I am so used to cookie cutter approaches from perfume brands, and never expect them to have actually looked at my blog when they say what a good fit their perfume would be for it.

I looked at the bottle and thought that what the Marketing Director did not know, however, was that I don't like coffee. ;) It's been a social handicap my whole life, especially in meetings. Arrive for a 10am appointment in pretty much any country in Europe or further afield, and coffee will be the default drink you are offered. Now I did once try to like it: on New Year's Day, 1980, when my then boyfriend and I agreed that I would have a go at drinking coffee, while he would do his best to give up smoking. We both only lasted about a day with these ambitious resolutions, though in mitigation I was drinking black instant Nescafe, which was a bit of a baptism of fire. This was long before the advent of milkier lattes in Britain, which might have been the way to ease myself in. Strangely I do like coffee cake, one of my many inconsistencies. Also, for many years I didn't like dark chocolate or mint, but have always been partial to After Eights.

As for the box, I was reminded of a somewhat cheaper take on Puredistance's packaging - the bottle is nestling in a silky nest, albeit made of some shiny synthetic material rather than satin. But hey - the whole thing cost £25.99 for 100ml(!) vs Puredistance coming in at 490 euros for the equivalent amount. This is simply incredible value. Then the bottle itself is white and opaque. Long term readers may remember that opaque bottles made it into my "Scent Crimes" series, but once again I will cut Paruvea  slack on the point, as I am not active on the split or selling scene anymore, where ability to detect the fill level of a bottle was a crucial prerequisite of equitable trades.

 

 

Without further ado, here are the notes for Latte Veil - which doesn't smell of coffee, I am pleased to report, though it definitely has that dreamy lactonic quality. The perfume is billed as "Your skin, but creamier", which I really like as a strapline ;), and it is very accurate too.

Top notes: melted caramel ("A smooth, golden opening")

Heart notes: tonka bean, wild honey ("A soft honeyed cloud")

Base notes: Madagascar vanilla, musk ("A clean milky finish")

See? Paruvea have basically written their own review right there. I was instantly transported back to the sadly discontinued Ava Luxe Love's True Bluish Light with its notes of vanilla, musk, milk and amber; LTBL has a similar comforting vibe, but is in a deeper register because of the addition of amber. I am tempted therefore to call Latte Veil "Love's True Whitish Light". 

There are also echoes of Lumiere Blanche by Olfactive Studio (supply your own grave accent), to which Victoria Frolova of Bois de Jasmin introduced me in her flat in Brussels many years ago. That is a cooler and spicier scent, but it is very milky. I still have the couple of tonka beans she gave me somewhere. And the caramel-y facet was also suggestive of Prada Candy. So if you like(d) any of those perfumes - and don't mind a certain level of sweetness with your milkiness - Latte Veil could well be for you. And at that price a blind buy isn't a crazy thing to do, though I would normally discourage such impulsive behaviour. ;)

 

I found Victoria's beans!

 

Later, I had a bit of a wobble about the presence of coumarin in the perfume (from the tonka beans) on account of my less than optimal kidney function, as it is counterindicated for anyone with CKD. My contact at Paruvea kindly disclosed the exact ratio of coumarin in the overall formulation, which I ran past one of the less hallucinating AI bots I use, who reckoned it was highly unlikely to do me a mischief, for all sorts of "biotransformative" reasons, the precise ins and outs of which I will spare you.

Lastly, I had an interesting exchange with Paruvea about their creative and marketing strategy:

"Regarding the creative direction behind the brand, Paruvea was built around the idea that fragrance should feel personal, emotional, and memory-driven rather than purely trend-led." 

I could see how the concept of perfume as an enveloping and comforting veil would fit with this. In the "About" section on their website, Paruvea explain the creative principle behind the brand in more detail:

"You’re also right in your interpretation of our pricing philosophy. Our goal is to make extrait-style fragrance more accessible, rather than positioning it only as an ultra-exclusive luxury product. We believe much of traditional fragrance pricing is shaped by prestige, distribution, packaging, and luxury positioning. Paruvea’s approach is to offer a long-lasting, high-concentration fragrance experience at a more approachable price point by keeping the model simpler and more direct."

It's a brave and unusual stance for a standalone brand to take a "budget luxury" positioning at this concentration, as opposed to the likes of M & S, Zara, Lidl, Home Bargains etc, who offer cut price perfumes at weaker formulations - and in the case of the latter three, also dupes of designer fragrances. I haven't personally come across this particular marketing model, which is more akin to a "poor man's Puredistance", as it were, and I mean that as a compliment.

If I had to sum up Latte Veil in two words - which admittedly no one is asking me to do - I would go with "honeyed tonka". Funnily enough, a good friend has a dog called Tonks, so I can think of no better way to finish this post than with a photo of her.

 

Lalique Flora Bella: A Four Star Sleeper Bought With Eyes Wide Shut...

In the very early days of Bonkers, I wrote a review of Jasper Conran Woman, a super cheap citrussy chypre of which you can still pick up gift sets (with body lotion!) for under a tenner in UK supermarkets. Tania Sanchez gave it four stars in Perfumes: The Guide, and likened it to Chanel pour Monsieur, yet it remains lost in obscurity and condemned to a slow death languishing in the bargain bins of Asda.

While I was over in Berlin recently, I had a good old chat with the male sales assistant at Sahling best of beauty in Galeries Lafayette, whose unbridled enthusiasm for Lalique Flora Bella (which he didn't stock, sadly) made a major impression on me. It prompted him to dream of a tropical paradise, where a handsome, raven-haired surfer dude with violet eyes crests the waves and flits in and out of view like a tantalising chimera.

You won't therefore be surprised to learn that one of the first things I did when I got home from Germany (after the usual suspects of unpacking, washing, emergency plant rescue and placating the cat, who always pretends not to recognise me if I have been away for more than a couple of days), was to get onto the Cheapsmells website and snag a bottle of this for under £17, including shipping. As I said in my Berlin Sniffathon report, it was well worth that amount just to see what all the fuss was about - or wasn't...And of course Flora Bella was created by Bertrand Duchaufour, who surely must be incapable of having an off day and creating a duffer.

Now I haven't blind bought anything for a very long time - in fact, I can't remember what the last bottle was, it is so long ago - but sometimes the thrill of the gamble is worth the risk, and if you do end up liking the scent in question, you really are quids in. Well, I have now worn Flora Bella a few times and what can I say? I thought I had smelt it all...but then this lactonic beauty came along. Hmm, I can't seem to find two note listings that agree, but here are a couple to kick us off:

BASENOTES

Top Notes: mandarin, bergamot, baie rose

Middle Notes: Daphne flower, frangipani blossom, vanilla, sweet almond

Base Notes: amber, vanilla, white musk

FRAGRANTICA

Notes: mandarin, bergamot, rose, violet, frangipani, freesia, cassia flower, mimosa, tuberose, carnation, orchid, tiare flower, white musk, vanilla and spices

I had to google Daphne flower and came across an authoritative article on the subject by Octavian of 1000 Fragrances, of which this extract seemed the most relevant:

"Daphne mezereum is maybe the best known type, but there are other scented Daphne flowers like Daphne alpina, Daphne cneorum, Daphne striata, Daphne philippi, Daphne blagayana, Daphne laureola, etc. They are all scented, covering many types of notes: rather strong, heavy, vanilla-like around an aromatic spicy concept, and there is even one that has a violet note."

That's assuming there is Daphne flower in here, of course, and the lack of congruence in note listings suggests that the jury is not only "out", but has long since dispersed and toddled off home. I have just googled a few more note lists and found sporadic additional references to lilac and blackcurrant! What an olfactory shapeshifter this scent is turning out to be...it definitely has a "pick your own" style of note list, so I am going to keep Daphne flower for starters.

A word on the packaging next: for example, the box is a rather nasty shade of mauve - I say nasty, though that is in fact the colour of the bedroom carpet in the spare room, which is also picked out in the curtains, so I must have liked it at one point. As for the bottle, it has those pleasingly square and chunky Lalique "house" contours, with hobnail studs on the edges, not unlike a musician's flight case, or the milk jug pictured further down. (I will come back presently to these twin themes of metal rivets and dairy products...)

Now here's another shapeshifting dimension to this scent - if you google pictures of the bottle, 90% of the images you find show the juice to be blue or mauve! How mad is that? I found just one or two where the perfume looks its actual colour, which is in fact a sort of washed out plum. Why should that be, I wonder?

On to the smell of the fragrance - not before time, I hear you clamour! The first thing that struck me is its lush, enveloping warmth. Texturally, I was reminded of Puredistance 1, another ambery-musky scent, but this struck me as a much airier version - and I said Puredistance 1 was airy in my recent review of it!

And I am of course assuming that Flora Bella does have amber in it, which it seems to to me, so I'm going to appropriate amber too in my pick 'n' mix note list. Oh and on my friend at the weekend - who also fell in love with this one and has probably bought her own bottle by now from the same site - it smelt remarkably similar to DKNY Gold. Once again it seemed lighter and airier than Gold, while still managing to be potent and lush. Now for sure, that is a clever stunt to pull all right - to be simultaneously full-bodied and airy - but Flora Bella is that contradictory chameleon!

DKNY GOLD

Notes: patchouli, balsam, acacia flowers, jasmine, Casablanca lily, clove, amber

Okay, so those notes looks nothing like Flora Bella on paper, but they share a beguiling sensuality, and even in the absence of lily in Flora Bella, the similarity was compelling on my friend's arm. I don't get any particular development with Flora Bella, just this initial big whoosh of gorgeous sweet florals, suspended in an airy, milky cloud over a musky, amber base. And for the record, my friend doesn't care for overtly vanilla-y scents, so this manages to be milky without straying into Yankee vanilla candle territory.

In a Facebook exchange, Olenska of Parfumieren drew my attention to the fact that Tania Sanchez also gives this scent four stars in Perfumes: The Guide. Which was an additional source of "post-purchase cognitive assonance", not that any was needed by this point, as I was well and truly smitten.

Tania's overall caption for this scent is "milky metallic", and she goes on to speak of its "dreamy, dense, milky note, which reminds me of a Filipino dessert of sweetened condensed milk poured over shaved ice", later summing Flora Bella up as "Silver, chilled cream, and a far-reaching transparent glow: it should have been called Luna Piena instead".

So now of course I had to google "Luna Piena", whose preeminent incarnation in Google seems to be an Italian restaurant in Whitby. I don't suppose Tania had that in mind at all. I have now quickly consulted an online dictionary and confirmed that this phrase is simply the Italian for "full moon". : - )

I had already formed my thoughts before reading this review, but I totally agree with the dessert-y aspect. And there is definitely a steely, flinty edge to Flora Bella too (cue rivets and milk jug!). Alain in Sahling spoke of a saltiness counterbalancing the lush tropical flowers, but it may well be this helional-"sucked spoon" note Luca Turin has identified, and to which Tania makes reference in her review.

Olenska picks up the lunar theme in her own review of Flora Bella, describing it as: "truly a lunar phenomenon, unsettling and alien."

Now that I have lived with Flora Bella for a while, I can totally see why Alain the SA is captivated by it, and why it is his favourite scent of all. I would also urge anyone who normally shies away from blind buys to take the plunge on this one. It is dreamy and creamy, and it is a bit metallic, though I personally find it warm rather than chilled. Maybe it's my age - a lot of things feel warm to me these days!

But anyway, my advice is simple: "There's a full moon, so do something a little lunar/loony - close your eyes and hit "Add to cart"...




Photo of island from capacitacionvirtual.net, photo of surfer from blog.holidayparkhols.co.uk, photo of Daphne flower from slice-heaven.com, photo of flight case from ranedj0.co.cc, photo of jug from trocadero.com, photo of Flora Bella bottle (blue) from perfumezilla.com, photo of full moon over water from chicks-beach.com, other photo my own