Photo by Bianca Czarnock on behance, borrowed for educational purposes Dior's Dolce Vita fetes its 30th anniversary this year, being launched in 1994, when Dior was very careful with its new launches and the firm was creating mega-hits that shattered antagonism in one fell swoop. The promise of happiness, exuberance and confidence in Dolce Vita, in its flamboyant and optimistic package ..read more

Chanel often comes to mind when we talk about festive occasion drenched in champagne, if only because of the reputation of aldehydes being fizzy and sparkling materials (the aldehyde sequence in No.5 is mostly citrusy and waxy, to be honest, though).  Chanel's perfumer, Olivier Polge, taking the baton from his father Jacques, had stated clearly that the legendary perfume of Chanel No 5 ..read more

Encens Mythique by Guerlain is a great choice for mid-season as well as wintertime in the north hemisphere, because it adapts so well to a multitude of requisites. I'm talking of the revamped edition in the cylindrical bottle with the gold spherical cap and the cute ribbons on the neck, as the scent originally launched among a trio of Middle Eastern exclusives (later brought into international ..read more

Although we tend to overlook Boss fragrances, if only because of their ubiquitousness and confusing names, apparently, they still possess the power to surprise us. Color me impressed, then, upon discovering that Boss Bottled Elixir is nothing short of an anomaly in the usual Boss range. It's exciting, atypical in the roster, certainly night-time material, and with a dark streak that defies the ..read more

 Glamour fragrances go hand in hand with the celebrities who endorsed them. No myth is stronger than the tie of Marylin Monroe with Chanel No 5 Parfum or Audrey Hepburn with L'Interdit by her preferred couturier Givenchy from the 1950s. Whereas No.5 has retained its core formula to the best of the brothers Wertheimers' ability, rendering the contemporary versions recognizably No.5, the same ..read more

Back in August 2023, Jean Paul Gaultier launched Gaultier Divine, the brand's new feminine fragrance, classified as a gourmand marine floral. American actress Yara Shahidi has been selected to represent the new fragrance, imagined as a celebration of femininity. It is signed by perfumer Quentin Bisch and is made of floral, gourmand, and marine notes. For Gaultier Divine the bet was on creating ..read more

 My friend Chandler Burr unfolded the story of how the charming and cerebral Jean Claude Ellena was inspired for this fragrance in a New Yorker piece which catapulted a series of events for both him and perfumery reportage. Looking for the starting point of inspiration in Aswan, traveling the Nile, aquatic plants gave way to unripe mangoes as the team of Hermès travelled up to the roots of the ..read more

 It doesn't matter that Dior Homme is everywhere, either in one of its -many- versions, or in some copy of it from another brand. It remains one of the most interesting men's releases of the last twenty years, because the formula brings a more unusual note of iris root, halfway between dry retro face powder or old lipstick along with dusty dried flowers, to an otherwise standard formula for a ..read more

 The drift into the corporate mainstream by some of the older niche brands always creates the risk of a possible (or rather probable?) diminishing of innovation and creativity as a result: Tom Ford, L'Artisan Parfumeur, Penhaligon's, Le Labo, Diptyque, you name it... We're therefore experiencing niche 2.0 with newer artisan and indie brands. Creed is the latest brand to be sold to a large luxury ..read more

In 2016, the house of Thierry Mugler opened a new chapter in the story of the famous gourmand galaxy of Angel fragrances - the "futuristic-gourmand" Angel Muse. The Muse Eau de Toilette version of this scent came out at the end of 2017.  The sweetness of hazelnut cream at its heart, a repeat from the original Eau de Parfum version, is not overly foody, and it keeps the dignity that a ..read more