SOME OF the recently launched fragrances that have caught our attention include some reworked classics and perfumes inspired by haute couture, as well as opulent love potions, sun-warmed seas, skin scents and floral delights. Glass also travels, fragrantly, to Japan, Brazil and the Mediterranean.
La Collection Privée Christian Dior – New Look
£245 for 75ml – Available here
The New Look was Christian Dior’s famous post-war collection. Now Francis Kurkdjian, the House’s new perfume creative director, wants to explore the relationship between its couture heritage and fragrance with a view to becoming a “couturier-perfumer”.
True to Christian Dior who wanted his fragrances to be an olfactory mirror of his couture, I strove to retain this perfect symbiosis between fashion and fragrance with incredible daring,” he says. “I wanted to create a fragrance that echoes the spirit, nuances and essence of the New Look today.”
New Look is a beautifully composed and compelling scent with frankincense extract and white amber notes for an earthy base. Aldehyde and a light touch of incense elevates the scent.
Chanel Beauty – Chance Eau Fraîche
£136 for 100ml – Available here
This season, Chanel reinterprets its delightful classic fragrance, Chance Eau Fraîche. This beautiful reworking by Chanel perfumer Olivier Polge has the richness and intensity of an eau de parfum.
For this reworking, Polge has not simply ramped up the concentrations of the original ingredients – it has the same profile – but with more density and texture. He has created Chance anew.
L’Objet – Kérylos
£135 for 50ml – Available here
The master perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena – the nose behind Eau au Thé Vert, Terre d’Hermes and several Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle – has collaborated with the founder of L’Objet Elad Yifrach in a “joint obsession” to create Kérylos.
This eau de parfum evokes the Mediterranean, its landscape, its sand and rocks warmed by the sun. Its aromatic, musk and citrus ingredients in Ellena’s genius hands are blended beautifully in perfect olfactive harmony. This is a wonderful fragrance.
Celine – Cologne Céleste
£240 for 250ml – Available here
As you might expect, Cologne Céleste from Celine is a very stylish act. Refreshing, light and complex with beautiful warming undertones of skin, it is ideal for the days between winter and spring … when the warmth turns cooler and vice versa.
Celine creative director Hedi Slimane says, “I created the eau de cologne Céleste and its line for the intimate and comforting ritual of bathing. This is an essential gesture that systematically plunges me back into the gentle and soothing atmosphere of childhood.”
From the Celine Haute Parfumerie project, Cologne Céleste has accents of angelica, sweet lemons essence, petitgrain, neroli, ambrette butter and orris butter.
Hiram Green – Philtre
£145 for 50ml – Available here
Gouda-based via a long stint in London, Canadian perfumer Hiram Green makes breathtakingly opulent handcrafted fragrances using only ingredients of natural origin. His most recent launch, Philtre, which means love potion, is an intoxicating blend of flower stems, clove, rose, carnation, jasmine, resins, vanilla and black pepper. Love is indeed the drug.
Serge Lutens – L’Orpheline Limited Edition
£138 for 50ml – Available here
The legendary Serge Lutens re-issued L’Orpheline from his Collection Noire this Spring as a limited edition to celebrate its 10th year.
Originally created by the perfumer, Christopher Sheldrake, L’Orpheline is elegant, intriguing, delicate and mysterious with notes of black pepper, dry woods and incense. This anniversary is well worth celebrating.
Granado – Flora Magnífica
£110 for 75ml – Available here
In 1870 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian fragrance house Granado was founded, where it was originally a pharmacy that specialised in making remedies, cosmetics and other products made from herbs and native flowers. Now the company solely produces fragrance, home scents and body care and has recently expanded into Europe.
Composed by nose Leandro Petit, Flora Magnífica is its latest perfume. It is made using the maceration process – only a few perfumeries use this – which allows ingredients to mature and deepen, enhancing the olfactory notes. As the name suggests, Flora Magnífica is a magnificent floral fragrance with heavenly bergamot, green leaves, rose, jasmine, magnolia, coconut blossom, musk and sandalwood.
Maison Tahité – Officine Creative Profumi, Floranilla
£110 for 100ml – Available here
The founders of cult perfume house Laboratorio Olfattivo, Roberto Drago and Daniela Caon, have launched Maison Tahité – Officine Creative Profumi, a line exploring the “raw materials of perfumery” and an “ode to the gourmand note”. Their debut collection celebrates vanilla, cocoa and coffee – all things I very much like. Vanilla is having a moment in fragrance and I am here for it.
The mysterious Floranilla, made by nose Lucien Ferrero, is an intriguing and cleverly balanced blend of vanilla absolute with iris and violet. It also contains tangerine, violet absolute, heliotrope; a heart of iris concrete and vanilla absolute with a base of myrrh and vetiver of Haiti.
