The incense tray - Bond No.9's Andy Warhol's Lexington Avenue

(Goodness, try saying that title 5 times fast!)

Bonds are normally very hit or miss for me, but the concoctions are always fun, the packaging is amazing, and the correlations Laurice has started drawing between art and fragrance are very thought-provoking and classy. Andy Warhol's Lexington Avenue is the third in a series of Warhols, preceded by Silver Factory and Union Square. I have not yet reviewed the previous two, mainly because they don't smell good on me but smell fun on a card, and it always takes me a bit more time to write those kinds of Bond reviews. I always feel I'm missing something.

However, Lexington Avenue is different. The concoction, to start, is very unusual in its notes - who thinks of cypress as a top note? Or roasted almonds, fennel, and peony together?? It has been compared to Bond's prior success, Chinatown, and I think for good reason. It seems to share the same kind of rich, incensey sensibility, but there's one major distinction.

This starts off pale for me and stays pale throughout. Whether it is on the card or on my skin, there's just something about my nose that renders it very sheer for me. When on my skin, instead of fennel I get faint cinnamon with my pale cypress. If I breathe deeply I can smell the roasted almonds, but it is never strong. The creme brulee in the drydown sits shyly behind the lightest smoke-trace of sandalwood. The sillage is nearly nonexistent, but even with my nose next to my skin, it's incredibly faint. It's as though someone had burned incense a while ago, and I can still get a gentle whiff of it from the tray that sits nearby.

In itself, this is unusual. I'm sitting here pondering to myself "when in the world has Bond EVER made a fragrance that sits close to my skin??" I thought my nose was wrong somehow, and that I was smelling something incorrectly, but no... While others find the scent much stronger on the card, on my skin it's this wild "your skin but SO much better" kind of scent.

It's a little miracle of chemistry. I guess my skin eats whatever molecule brings out the normal sillage in this scent, but I'm not complaining. While I'm not that fond of the shoe motif, it's always good for a woman to have a yummy, neck-bound scent in her arsenal - one that makes people want to move in closer.

Brainfreeze - Versace's Bright Crystal

Every once in a while, you come across a perfume which has an intriguing set of notes, which excites you and at the same time, you wonder how that will work. I liked the notes list, but I wasn't sure how the thick sweetness of notes such as peony and pomegranate would work out with slightly greener notes, like yuzu and acajou (cashew tree), and the rich creamy-pink smell of magnolia and lotus flower. Fruity-florals are ubiquitous, but this had an interesting enough take that I wanted to try.

On a card, Bright Crystal comes across initially like a lovely fruit sorbet with orchid garnish, settling down into an outright tropical experience with none of the typical heaviness associated with tropical fragrances. On my skin, though, the experience was vastly different. I got frozen grapefruit with turbinado sugar right off the bat, but within 10 minutes that "iced accord" note takes over everything and I was surrounded by citrus-punch-Slurpee. It doesn't take long for the iced accord to really mimic the sensation of brainfreeze. It was quite the overdose, and it's a pity because I enjoy quite a few other Versace compositions (The Dreamer being my favorite).

I do wonder how this scent would work on someone with different chemistry. Aldehydes are notoriously tricky on my skin, amplified to a surprising degree. My skin turns a sparkle in a scent into the equivalent of an uncomfortably bright strobe light. So if you can wear Chanel No. 5 with grace, this scent would probably do marvelously on you. If you, like me, avoid Chanels, this wouldn't suit you at all.

Ikebana - Jo Malone Dark Amber and Ginger Lily

Many people are well aware that Jo Malone, the person, is no longer involved with Jo Malone, the company that produces the perfumes. She left in 2006, along with her husband. Many people bemoaned the departure, worrying about what Estee Lauder would release in her name. Blue Agave and Cacao was the first post-Jo release, followed by Sweet Lime and Cedar and then White Jasmine and Mint. They all seemed to miss the mark of a Jo Malone concoction by quite a bit.

Given all of that, it was such a lovely surprise to put on Dark Amber and Ginger Lily. It truly has a similar character, that minimalist yet vibrant beauty that marks such formulas as Vintage Gardenia. At first spray you take off with gingered wood, gathered in a bow of spice (cardamom, and for me the faintest touch of star anise) and a minimalist warm floral to accent it. Like many Malones, there's little evolution of the fragrance, which is something I appreciate, but this does have some heart notes and base notes. The heart has a slightly bready sillage, though it is cleaner and spicier close to the skin in that phase. The base casts off the ginger and keeps the wood and cardamom. The floral never takes off on me; it's like a single blossom in a larger composition; a single orchid placed carefully among the wood on which it is anchored.

This aspect is what brought Ikebana - the specific Japanese art of flower arranging - to mind. The minimal flower presence, combined with multiple woods, evoked some of the floral compositions I've seen. Even the triangular nature of Ikebana seems reflected here in the constellation-like arrangement of subtle notes. I am largely unaware (read: ignorant) of the mechanisms of symbolism within Ikebana, but this fragrance does feel as though it carries the sacred and the symbolic within itself.

The scent is something I shall wear for a long time, and I'm very pleased that Estee Lauder succeeded in making something so... Jo-like. Incense lovers, run, don't walk, to the nearest Jo Malone counter!

Wet hearth - Le Labo Oud 27

Normally, Le Labo has a bit of an unfair advantage with me. Not only did I meet and talk to the owners of this line long before I looked at their site or marketing, I also sniffed four of their most stunning scents in a row (Neroli, Ambrette, Fleur D'Oranger, and my beloved Labdanum) before hitting something even remotely mediocre.

Seriously. If Eddie and Fabrice were movie directors, I'd be so in love I'd forgive almost anything. (Cue Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg giggling in the background.) So when I received the rather astoundingly generous sample of Oud 27 this past month, I was so excited I bounced. Yes, they made a near-40-yr-old bounce.

Therefore, the development of the top and heart notes on this scent were pretty devastating to me. I have tried a few times, and each time I wander around going "Where's the gaiac wood? Where's the saffron?" Well, I'll tell you where it is - it's waiting in a back alley to come sneak up on you and steal your wallet ~2 hours later... after you've come out of the theater, recovering from watching a version of Cinderella where all they do is throw buckets of dirty bathwater on the poor girl's fire. I kept thinking 'soaked ash can, ash can' for those first two hours. It's a pity, because the intriguing, oud-and-spice drydown is reminiscent of (yet divergent from) some of the more bold Montale oud mixologies. However, I can't wait two hours for my fragrance to get to a point of public wearability.

The positive bit is that I never, even during the ash can/soaked fireplace phase, felt compelled to wash this off. In a sense, it reminds me of Fumerie Turque in that way. I'm curious what FT wearers think of this scent!