Tag Archives: Fresh Floral

by | August 9, 2019 · 7:00 am

Gucci Bloom Acqua di Fiori by Gucci

Hello A Bottled Rosers,

While you are all sweltering in heatwaves up north I thought we could chat about a new to me fragrance in my collection. Someone at Gucci has remembered how to make wonderful fragrances again. It’s really exciting and fun for me to find new Gucci fragrances to try and love. The Absolute range is killer and so too is the Gucci Bloom range.

Gucci Bloom Acqua di Fiori 2018

Alberto Morillas

Parfumo gives these featured accords:
Top: Galbanum, Blackcurrant bud
Heart: Jasmine, Rangoon creeper, Tuberose
Base: Musk, Sandalwood

A leafy green fruity floral aquatic. HA! Sounds particularly vile, doesn’t it? WRONG! It’s freaking wonderful. An aquatic wash that gives a salty seaside vibe without it feeling like the regular cucumber water that so many perfumistas find horribly reminiscent of the 1990s. Here it’s all poured over white flowers with a lovely tart yet unscreechy blackcurrant. Refreshing without resorting to most of the old fashioned tropes.

Gucci Bloom Acqua di Fiori is the late, hazy days of summertime captured in a bottle. In feeling it’s analogous to hanging out on a Sunday afternoon with a white wine spritzer and joining the kids running through sprinklers to cool off.

 

 

I really like the way that green is used, it’s an interesting, slightly off kilter leafiness with a hint of unripe fruit. The closest I can think in terms of feeling was that Annick Goutal scent Mandragore. Here we smell a similar ivy-like green cutting across everything else. The Gucci does it with a really lived-in set of musks and breathy white flowers which feels very tropical hotel gardens in the moonlight.

 

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A casual, wearable white floral fragrance that starts with the pep of thirst quenching water and finishes warm and cozy. Perfect summer wear but also excellent for our mild winter here in Sydney. It’s reminding me of what we look forward to in a couple of months time.

Have you tried any of the Gucci Bloom series yet? What did you think?

Portia xxx

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by | September 28, 2016 · 7:00 am

Blasted Heath and Blasted Bloom by Penhaligon’s

There’s nothing like a returning trend which you remember vividly from the first time around to make you feel your age.  It doesn’t seem like five minutes since aquatics fragrances were at high tide before receding from the mainstream market. When they went out of vogue, many of us were relieved to see the back of them.

Really, it’s unfair to tar all watery-themed fragrances with the same brush. For me (and I suspect many others) it was more the ubiquity of the calone-fuelled 1990’s phenomenon L’Eau d’Issey that made me tire of the genre. There’s actually been a number of really great niche oceanic fragrances since then, including Heeley’s Sal Marin and Epice Marine Hermessence.

Last year aquatic fragrances staged a comeback. I was pleasantly surprised by Jo Malone’s Wood Sage and Sea Salt and in September Penhaligon’s launched a duo of scents which were also inspired by the windswept British coastline.

Blasted Heath and Blasted Bloom were both composed by perfumer Alberto Morillas who incidentally did – count them – five L’eau d’Issey flankers.

Blasted Heath

Aquatic accord, seaweed absolute, clary sage absolute, green leaves, Clearwood™, tobacco absolute, whiskey accord, patchouli essence, Alaskan cedarwood essence, gaiacwood essence, vetiver SFE and musks.

Blasted Heath embodies the scent of salty sea air and seaweed mingling with the aromatics of shrubbery and wild herbs.  There’s an aquatic accord woven through dense leaves and sage.

It has a decidedly masculine feel, with a slight metallic edge. If you can imagine such a thing as an aquatic fougere you’d be on the right track. Blasted Heath is as much about aromatic greenery as it is about seawater.

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Blasted Bloom

Notes: Wild berries, aquatic accord, green leaves, eglantine rose, pink pepper CO2, hawthorn, Alaskan cedarwood essence, Clearwood™, moss and musks.

As you may have suspected from the name, here in Blasted Bloom we have wildflowers at the shore being blown about by the bracing sea breeze. The berry note isn’t bold or syrupy sweet but actually quite tart and subdued.

The flowers are delicate and spring-like while the aquatic aspect is less evident than in Blasted Heath. This is more about cool, reviving coastal air than brine and algae. You wouldn’t need to be a fan of aquatics to enjoy this, but you would need to like super fresh florals.

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Both fragrances wear pretty light with soft sillage and moderate longevity. Neither is to my taste but Blasted Heath is novel and it successfully captures the wilderness by the cliff edge as the waves crash into the rocks below.

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How do you feel about aquatic fragrances? Are there in the genre that you admire?

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by | September 7, 2016 · 7:00 am

Constance, Millicent and Loretta by Deco London

 

Deco London is a British fragrance brand which launched last year and is inspired by Art Deco and the glamorous Bright Young Things of the 1920s.  Founder and Creative Director Sophia Fannon-Howell may well have drawn on her own ancestry for inspiration, being descended from a number of colourful characters, including English poet, satirist and Restoration wit John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester and Grace O’Malley, the Eilzabethan Irish ‘Pirate’ Queen.

Sophia apparently has a passion for vintage perfume and set out to establish a luxury fragrance brand that reflects British elegance, history and quality. There are six fragrances in the line at present; three feminines and three masculines. They each have names that would have been popular among the upper classes at the time, with their own personality and sense of style.

Below are brief reviews of the three feminine EDPs.

 

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Constance

Notes: Bergamot, Mandarin Blossom, Mimosa, Raspberry Blossom, Rose, Pink Pepper, Jasmine, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Labdanum, Vanilla, Beeswax, Musk

Constance is demure by day, transforming into a flapper by night. Starting off fruity with a woody undercurrent, it soon becomes gently spicy while remaining lady-like.  The spices are gourmand-tinged and extremely soft. It’s as if they’ve been lightly pressed into the equally soft woods.

I get a strong sense of texture here; velvety, cushioned and warm to the touch. The whole feeling is rather languid. I see Constance lounging in an Egyptian themed nightclub, flourishing a long cigarette holder and sporting a razor-sharp bob. For Downton Abbey fans, she’s very much the Lady Mary of the bunch.

Millicent

Notes: Bergamot, Mandarin, Honeysuckle, Orange Blossom, Jasmine, Lily, Ylang, Patchouli, Cashmere Woods, Musk

Millicent is more conservative and subdued than Constance; she is very feminine and understated. Her dark blonde hair is perfectly waved and her clothing is always proper and appropriate to the occasion. After an orange citrus start, the scent is full of well-blended, fresh white florals on a light and clean musky/woody base. It’s uncomplicated and not my favourite type of fragrance but Millicent is wearable, smooth and nicely done.

Loretta

Notes: Orange Blossom, Osmanthus, Rose, Jasmine, Patchouli, Moss, Amber, Musk, Vanilla, Vetiver

I instantly took a shine to Loretta when I read she is described as a “romantic bohemian, graceful with ethereal beauty”. The scent is an elegant yet relaxed white floral chypre and the kind that would drift along nicely on a summer’s day. It has the peachy tones of osmanthus and the cleanest of jasmines, creating a cool haze over a gently mossy base. Loretta is sophisticated and more thoughtful than her two sisters: a delicate modern chypre in the style of Perle de Mousse by Ann Gerard.

 

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All three in the collection are good quality, tasteful and accessible. With the Art Deco packaging, they’re likely to appeal to those who have a thing for London during the Roaring Twenties era as much, if not more so, than perfume lovers.

 

Are you drawn to a particular period in history? Do you have any perfumes that reflect that era?

 

 

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