Maison Francis Kurkdjian - Mon Beau Sapin Candle

Yes, yes, I'm having a bit of a candle moment this week.  But, you know, 'tis the season and all that.  This Christmas Francis Kurkdjian is treating us to a golden tribute to the balsam fir:

Housed in a blingy golden container, etched with representations of fir trees Mon Beau Sapin is a smokey-pine-patchouli blend that definitely feels both foresty and wintry.  It's really lovely, I'm burning it now as I write this and it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas ....

Available from November, MFK's Mon Beau Sapin will cost £xx 

The Fine Print: PR Sample


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Maison Francis Kurkdjian - Oud Satin Mood

I should probably preface this review with two facts: the first is that Oud Silk Mood by Francis Kurkdjian is one of my all-time favourite fragrances of all-time and this review will potentially be coloured by that, and secondly it must be made known that I am still currently parosmic  and as a result I'm not sure how much use a review written by someone with a distorted/lessened sense of smell will actually be, but I'm jolly well going to write one about this anyway.

Almost two years ago, I wrote a rather prickly review of Oud Silk Mood by Francis Kurkdjian, one in which I loved the fragrance, but had got rather tired of perfume bloggers attitudes towards oud as an ingredient in perfume.  Fast forward to now, and I'm rather over the cynical "We need middle eastern clients! Let's make an oud!" fad in perfumery myself to be honest, but I still do love an oud when it is well done.

When Francis Kurkdjian released his initial oud fragrance in 2012, there wasn't an oud fragrance quite like it.  He'd taken a thick, medicinal, traditionally "heavy" (or funky, or gross, depending on your point of view) ingredient, and turned it into a lightly shimmering phosphorescent haze of beauty.  His original Oud was still odd, but it was acceptable, even pretty, and infinitely wearable, even for the oud-phobic.

In 2013, Kurkdjian released the Oud Moods collection, featuring oud fragrances as inspired by fabrics, namely Silk, Cashmere and Velvet.  All showcased oud as the major ingredient, but featured another scent alongside to recreate the sensous feeling of fabrics on skin.  As someone with synaesthesia, which often took the form of textures and fabrics (iris, for example, was grey cashmere) in the past, this collection really appealed to me.  Cashmere and Velvet featured labdanum and cinnamon respectively, and Silk Mood was roses.  Jammy, fruity, lush and deep, deep red roses, which were displayed atop a splintery bed of shimmering, yet still somehow slightly dusty oud.  It's a perfume I reach for whenever I want to wear roses, but not the roses your grandmothers would wear, and it's probably in my top five fragrances of all time.

However, since I became parosmic, roses have become a tricky ingredient for me, sometimes smelling burned, sometimes papery, sometimes just flat and unpleasant, and so I have been reaching for Silk Mood less and less recently, as I couldn't predict on any given day how I'd be able to perceive the smell.  Life with parosmia is often hugely surreal and unpredictable, and so my fragrance choices have been by necessity been more limited over the last twelve months, in order to avoid nausea. However, when I heard that the new addition to the Oud Mood range was going to feature violets alongside the roses, I let out a little whoop of joy, for, after a trip to the Osmotheque in Paris last year, I know that violets are one of the few smells that for me are never distorted, and so I looked forward to smelling Oud Satin Mood very much indeed.

Oud Satin Mood opens with candied violets over a powdery soft vanilla, which is both sweet and floral. Until the rose turns turns up in the midsection it is rather soft and quiet, but the dark roses appear here to add both richness, and more vibrancy to the scent.  Where Oud Silk Mood is jammy and voluptuous, Satin Mood is powdery and ladylike, the soigné Grace Kelly to Silk's rather blousy Jayne Mansfield.   At the end, which takes a good long while to arrive at, there is a warm and comforting hug of benzoin mixed with the vanilla, which stays close to the skin, but doesn't get cloying. Throughout wear, there is a shimmer of oud, which adds mystery, alongside both depth and an unexpected gauziness, alongside a certain playfulness to the scent. But the oud itself never overpowers the other ingredients as it does is many other formulas, happily remaining a background player at all times.  It is quieter than Silk Mood, less prone to blooming in the heat, and stays closer to the skin. Even my damaged nose can still pick up the scent 8-10 hours after application, so wear-time is extensive.

Thanks to the roses no longer being central in this iteration of Oud Mood, this, along with the addition of ionones from the violet accord, means that they no longer seem burned or papery to my nose, making this a more pleasurable wear for me than Silk Mood at present.  As an aside: it seems that ionones have the simplest molecular structure of many other perfume ingredients, and so may require fewer functioning receptors available in the nose in order to be able to smell them (this is a theme I'll be returning to in a later blog post, however), and so even people with a distorted or hugely lessened sense of smell might be able to at least faintly pick up the scent of violets where previously it was thought they couldn't smell, or distinguish much at all*.

Oud Satin Mood is an eau de parfum rather than an extrait de parfum, and this is reflected in the price, which will be £165 when the fragrance is released on May 1st, rather than the £275 that the rest of the Oud Mood collection sells for. The packaging is also slightly different, a black box rather than the blue of the rest of the range, and the gold fascia on the bottle is no longer there, but it is good news for purses, at least!

I don't mind admitting that a few happy tears were shed on initially smelling this fragrance. So few things smell "right", much less beautiful, at the moment that having unexpected access back into the world of both one of my favourite fragrances and one of my favourite perfumers has been a very happy event indeed.  I can no longer smell in as near as much detail as I used to (though things improve almost every day at present), so if this review - my first full fragrance review in almost twelve months - seems thin on descriptions, I can only apologise. In any event Oud Satin Mood is a glorious addition to the Oud Mood collection, however badly your nose might be brain-damaged.

* Info from The Monell Centre in a conversation via Twitter.

The Fine Print: PR Sample

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Maison Francis Kurkdjian Scented Candle Set

If you're looking for a cute and pretty candle set, which is also well made, and will definitely give huge delight to the lucky recipient, this is the set for you.  Maison Francis Kurkdjian do lovely candles, and this box of little ones is no exception.

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Scented with a mix of powdery iris, spicy gingerbread, and with hints of peppery cedar - all of which, even to my damaged nose, smell pretty and sweet, with some spikiness from the wood -  the candles, which are decorated in gold with iconic Parisian landmarks are good-looking enough for the christmas table, and the scents won't overwhelm your Christmas dinner either.

The candles will burn for around 20 hours each, the entire set costs 65 euro, and is available from here. 

The Fine Print: PR Samples

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.

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Best of 2013 Pt II

Fragrance of the year:

Maison Francis Kurkdijan - Aqua Vitae

According to Persolaise, I said it best  - at a preview of the scent -  when I mumbled that it smelt like a hug from the seventies.  I'm astonished that I've not really written about this fragrance since though (might be something to do with having my best line used before I could commit it to my own blog post alongside a touch of the writers block I've had recently.  Oh well!) ... Anyway, there's something reassuringly familiar and comforting about Aqua Vitae, alongside something a little disturbing.  Built around citrus, hedione atop a base of guaiac wood, there's a hint of CK One here, but also very much more. It's richer, deeper, and more enjoyable to smell, but I can't avoid the comparison between the two completely.

Francis was inspired to produce this by the phrase "the space between us", and, in a way, this is precisely what he's created.  Smelling Aqua Vitae is like slipping into a favoured clothing item of a loved one who isn't with you, wrapping yourself in the ghost presence of your beloved, and smelling and comforting yourself with all the associations you have with that person.  It's the smell of nostalgia, of love, of longing and comfort, with just a hint of the smell of their body too.  It's not a groundbreaking smell, it'll drive you a little crazy in fact, trying to remember precisely what smell it is that it actually reminds you of, but it's a wonderful scent to wrap yourself up in, cozy, warm, comforting and very, very sexy in a quiet, understated kind of way.   Less a fragrance, and more a complete sensory experience, it's the most memorable thing I smelled all year.  The price however will make you cry: it's £175 for 200ml.  Mind, a bottle that size will last you forever.

Fragrance Bottle of the year:

Elizabeth Arden: Untold 
 
Whilst I don't particularly care for the fragrance (it's perfectly good, by the way, just a little too sweet for me), this beautifully tactile design, which looks completely different from every angle, is one of the most gorgeous bottles I've seen in a long time

Combining curves and geometrics with the transparency of glass, and the permanence of metal, it's an objet d'art in its own right.

Fragranced Toiletries of the Year:

Noble Isle

I'm an idiot, I spent a great deal of last year completely ignoring the press releases about Noble Isle as I had the impression that they were some kind of fruity aromatherapy brand.   More fool me, because, whilst the marketing of the products is based on traditional British ingredients, such as rhubarb, and their imagery is based around hedgerows and rolling countryside, there are some seriously good scents in this range.  Rhubarb, Rhubarb for instance, whilst it is distinctively fruity, is sharp, and rounded and gloriously juicy, more like a fine perfume than the fruity stew I was expecting.  Whisky and Water is woody and peaty and smokey, and gorgeous.  Fireside is also smokey, but gloriously spicy and comforting with it.  Since being given a bottle of shower gel to try, I've bought hand soaps and hand creams to keep by every sink in the flat, and I've bought bottles and bottles of different products as gifts for other people too. The packaging is sophisticated and unisex, and the contents are glorious. Don't be an idiot like me, try some Noble Isle, you might like it.  Brad Pitt does ...  

Candle Brand of the Year:

 Neom

 God, I do love a Neom candle.  Clean-burning, and gloriously scented, I burn a Christmas Wish, well, every Christmas ... scented with orange, cinnamon and rounded out with tonka bean, one of these will last you a good few  weeks if you burn it a couple of hours a day. AND it smells of Christmas what more could you want?  This year, I supplemented my Christmas Wish with the Pine, Cedarwood & Eucalyptus varieties, and a Comforting home scent too, which is a smokey-scented blend of cedarwood, star anise and vetiver.  Burned separately, or together, these are the scents of winter.  At £42 each you'll get a couple of Christmases out of each if you burn them judiciously, but they're currently available on the Neom website at  £30.50, which is a bargain!  Go snap them up, and hoard them till next Christmas, you won't be disappointed.  Might have to get a couple of backups myself ...

Hair care product of the year 

 Aveda Sun Care After Sun Masque

A late entry into the hair care stakes, this was a product I gave the harshest of tests to, I took it on my honeymoon!  Sun, sand, sea, chlorine, all are hell on the hair, and, when your hair is both curly and coloured, a holiday is about the worst thing you can do to your hair. Ironically, I came back from my trip to the Maldives with hair in better condition than I went away with!  From the slightly fizzy ginger scent, through to the great slip, and down to the wonderful condition this leaves your hair in, this is a fab product.  So good, in fact, I'm still using it now, in spite of the lack of sun!  And sea.  And sand. And pool.  And endless cocktails.  No, I'm not crying, why do you ask?

So there you have it, these are my discoveries of 2013, what was on your list? 

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Maison Francis Kurkdjian - Oud Silk Mood

Of all the perfumers I've met over the last few years, right up there in my favourites would be Francis Kurkdjian.  Never afraid to say something controversial, yet always friendly, and with passion for his art oozing from him in droves, he's a real thrill to spend any time with.  Recently I met up with him for the launch of his latest fragrance, Aquae Vitae, where, in referring to his sales figures, he announced that if the bloggers "love" a fragrance, then it's the kiss of death for the sales of it!  Oddly, I kind of know where he's coming from.

Perfume blogging is an odd thing.  I started doing it because I was bored with all the sugary-pink shit available in the shops, a state of affairs where everything, and everyone, smells exactly the same (like an ADD teenager wrapped in candyfloss, having drenched themselves in fruit-scented body spray first), and nothing had any "sex appeal" any more.

Then you discover niche fragrances, and frankly, the more off-the-wall, the better. They're a revelation! Burning rubber?  I'm in!  Cough drops and cat-poo?  Also in!  Fur and leather?  Oh yes ... and somehow, along the way, you can lose your taste - or even develop a distaste - for the simple, the commercial, or the popular.  It's not always a bad thing (though there are some fragrance shops and departments I simply can't set foot in these days, alas), but for some perfume bloggers, it seems that if a scent is designed to "sell" as well as "smell", then it's automatically inferior, no matter who the "nose" behind the scent is.  

It's a fine line for a perfumer to tread.  Do they design purely for the masses, wanting those sales, and risk the wrath of the bloggers?  Or, do they design their fragrances purely to appeal to that strange creature, the "professional" perfume critic?  Guerlain, in particular, I think suffers from this.  They're actually a brand available on most high streets, but, because of their place in perfume history, they're held in an especially schizophrenic position for most perfume bloggers, adored for their heritage, yet, most of their modern output (one or two future classics aside) gets a somewhat "sniffy" reception ... Guerlain is not niche these days, it's not even ultra-luxe any more, but if their more recent, more commercial releases allow them to still keep their historical (and wonderful) fragrances on our high street shelves - and prove that there is easily-accessible life beyond the candyfloss, to jaded consumers to boot - well, more power to Thierry Wasser's elbow, frankly.

Most people aren't perfume critics, however, and burning rubber is always going to appeal only to the select few, and I think it is far, far, far too easy for people (especially those who have educated themselves to a certain degree in fragrance) to write off a perfumer's more commercial output. But, there are a number of perfumers doing the mainstream very well.  Francis Kurkdjian is, I think, one of the best representatives of how to appeal to both the masses and the niche-lovers.  His Aqua Universalis and Absolue Pour Le Soir illustrate this tightrope very well indeed.  AU is a clean, fresh, laundry-scent, immediately appealling, easy to wear, simple and uncomplicated, it's the scent of the relationship between yourself and your clothes.  APLS, however, is a thick, sticky, sweet and dirty (how dirty?  It's actually pure, distilled filth.  Bottled.  It smells of sweat, sex and honey.  Oh, and a bit of cat poo), hard to love, and utterly impossible to "get" at first sniff, it's adored by perfume bloggers - including this one, who ran out and bought a bottle after reading a single review - the world over.  But it sells fewer bottles than Aqua Universalis, by a factor you can measure in the thousands.  Yet, you never see a blogger rave about AU.  Funny that ...

Anyhoo.  All of that was basically my extremely longwinded way of getting into the mindset to review Oud Silk Mood by Maison Francis Kurkdjian.  In PerfumeBlogVille, Oud is, essentially, over.  Something the professional critics are bored with, and are waiting for the next big ingredient to pop up and replace it.  Over in CommercialLand, however, to very many consumers, Oud is still something new and exotic, still a smell that takes some getting used to.

Oud is a funny smell, it's essentially a rotted, infected tree-sap.  It smells dark, and oddly medicinal, it's thick, and difficult, and, although it's been widely used in fragrances in the Middle East for a long time, it's still relatively "new" in fragrances in the west.  In 2012, Kurkdjian brought out an entirely new kind of oud fragrance; Oud, which was light, transparent, and decidedly shimmering, and whilst still hugely "odd" (and medicinal) to most tastes, is probably the easiest to wear Oud fragrance I've come across.

In 2013, Kurkdijan added three new fragrances to his Oud line, in a selection of "moods": Velvet, Cashmere and Silk.  Compared to the original Oud, Silk Mood is decidedly heavier, opening with a giant bouquet of the richest, darkest, reddest roses you can imagine, with just a tiny hint of fruitiness contained within, like the tiniest smear of raspberry jam in a rose-petal sandwich.  As it dries down, the oud and the chamomile add a hint of dustiness and depth, and a hint of mystery to the jammy fruitiness above.  There's meant to be papyrus in there too, but I have no idea what that smells like, so I can't pick it out.

It's hugely well-balanced, meaning it's hard to pick out individual ingredients above all the others, but this is, without doubt a gorgeous scent, it blooms in the heat - and has been the only fragrance I've wanted to wear in this recent hot spell - unusual for me, who normally cries out for minty, herbal, FRESH scents in this weather.  It's also pretty appealing to the opposite sex, if the reaction of MrLippie is anything to go by, he normally dismisses things as "yes, flowers" or "oranges", but he seems to really like this one.  

I've read reviews of Oud Silk Mood dismissing it as "nothing original", and maybe it isn't (it's the smoother, sexier sister to Guerlain's Rose Barbare, which has a spiky, rather austere beauty, if you ask me, dried roses, and no jam.  Ironically, both were created by Kurkdjian). In Middle Eastern perfumery, oud and rose is the definitive combination for oud fragrances, but in this not-quite-a-"proper"-perfume-blogger's opinion, there aren't very many oud/rose combos that are as appealing as this one anywhere.

Now for the bit that'll make you cry.  It's £275 a bottle.  I only figured that out after I'd been spraying my sample with wild and gay abandon!  A small price for beauty though, perhaps?

The Fine Print: The fragrance was a PR Sample. Waffle, all mine very own.

This post: Maison Francis Kurkdjian - Oud Silk Mood originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper