Teaser #59

As some of you may know, I started working on new Riddles about niche fragrances. The job was not that easy, because I am such a novice, and who am I trying to kid afterall? My whole life is still revolving around designer scents, and I love to give honors to unsung heroes.

Here is to the unsung hero # 44.

Some perfumes have imperial splendor
Shining through their gavroche outfit.
Big bold letters are here to render
This gem's rampant and frivolous wit,

Its alluring red pepper and apple
Vagrant melon and rose de mai,
And transparent insency chapel
Of magnolias, dozing and sly.

Wake them up by the warmth of your body,
All aromas will mingle and play!
They will cold quirky powder embody
On a blazingly hot summer day.

You know the rules about the clues between the lines and you know what I am going to write next -- Good luck and stay in good spirits!

I missed them too, but in this heat the rhyming cells of my brain just refuse to work!

Very good guess, and I haven't tried Silver Rain (part of the reason being the fact it is out of my price range), but here I was thinking about alluring fruit and flowers and insency woods. Cheap too!

Gavroche has to do with it.

Nope and yep, big, well BIGGER letters.

Thanks for not giving up, Magnifiscent! Like they say quitters are not winners, or winners are not quitters.

JPG Fragile is a very nice tuberose scent, this one is not, although the word "alluring" was used to show its resemblance to (what else?) Allure.

BI
GG
ER
letters.

More clues: noses are from Givaudan, and the designer company belongs to LVMH. Designer company Creative Director at this fragrance's launch time was a creative personality working independently now with a few nice fragrances under his own label.

You did it. AGAIN! Congratulations, Mag!

Yes, pour Homme it is
CEL
INE, but pour Femme it is
CE
LI
NE on the packaging and on the bottle with the notes of
Top: Violet leaves, red pepper, black currant, bergamot, melon;
Heart: magnolia, freesia, jasmin, iris, rose de mai;
Base: sandal, cedar, musk, amber, vanilla, insence.

Has anybody ever tried Googling this fragrance? You will be surprised how many references to Mrs.Celine Dion and her scents you will encounter. Even in MUA reviews! The two have nothing to do with each other, BTW. Celine de Celine is very similar to Allure EDP with even more interesting insence note, so if you are into this type of scents it may be for you. Michael Kors worked as Creative Director for Celine back in 2000 when it was launched.

Gavroche reference is easy: the French company Celine started back in the 40s as a manufacturer of children's shoes, then they expanded to children's clothes and now to almost everything. As for their Fall 2006 collection, called "Ubiquitous" (I admit, I had to look it up and it means "omnipresent", "present everywhere at once"), their inspiration was "the mythical image of gavroche street urchins".

"Imperial splendor" is about the regal colors of the packaging together with "shining through": white and gold.

There is also Celine Oriental Summer, which I tried but was not that impressed, and Celine Magic -- a nice ambery-fruity enveloping scent.

Thanks for staying tuned and reading. Please participate, even the wrong guess will "buy" you some clues. More Riddles tomorrow. Would you like another one in this same thread or in a separate one?

Thank you. With kind permission of one Basenoter, here goes.

Riddle # 45.

Hearty peach and rose loukhum
Chase away disparaging gloom,
While black currant in this delightful scent
Makes it sweet to a lesser extent.

Easy-going fresia will soothe
Giving strength to undaunted youth,
With congenial cool bergamot
Quarry likes it a lot.

Some say "Sandal, vanilla could wait
Till a later, say, November date".
Can you name it? A CDG luck
Won't get you stuck.

Good luck and stay in good spirits!

One of you got it, thanks. Will you guys care to elaborate on your guesses?

Clue: How about CDG LUCk?

Well, I have an explanation for "CDG LUCk" -- the nose of Chopard Mira Bai is Mark (also spellt Marc) Buxton, the one who worked productively on several CDG fragrances. At the same time the letters L.U.C. still appear on Chopard watches, first produced with Swiss precision under L. Ulysses Chopard, the company's founder.

Mira Bai is a fresh oriental fragrance, so close to Casmir that it could be dubbed Casmir d'Ete . The poet, the singer and the worshipper Mira Bai, the real person surrounded by the long trail of Indian folklore, was fearless in her nature, simple in her habits and elegant in her demeanour, and so is Chopard Mira Bai (1998), the fragrance. It is not overly sweet, because of easy-breezy fresia and cool and restrained bergamot, although all other notes -- peach, rose, vanilla, sandal -- would suggest otherwise. Lesser known than, say, Casmir or Madness, and undeservingly so, IMO. Ask Quarry.

Congratulations to Musse and please stay tuned for Riddle #46.

Wake up, lovelies! More detective work is awaiting you!

Riddle #46.

I tested this next fragrance last winter, to only swoon over and fall in love.

This harmonious scent of adorable blooms:
Noble cherry, authentic peony
And majestic, idyllic jasmine perfumes
From the land of Mount Fuji and Sony.

And I suspect, its haters would come up with something like this (although, honestly, I do not know how one can not like it).

This horrendous scent of appauling perfumes:
Nasty cherry, annoying peony,
And this monstrous, incisive jasmine that blooms
In the land of Mount Fuji and Sony.

Good luck and please stay in good spirits!

Nice try, Goddess_Dreams, but I was thinking about a different cherry blossom scent from Japan.

Clue: adjectives/epithets used in the riddle, well, in both verses for #46.

Way to go, Audrey! I was thinking about you and your quest for peony for longest time and this one seems to fit the bill.

Solution:
H -- harmonious/horrendous,
A -- adorable/appauling,
N -- noble/nasty,
A -- authentic/annoying,
M -- majestic/monstrous,
I -- idyllic/incisive.

So, Hanami it is. Out of all four of Annayake interpretations of Les Saisons -- Hanami, Natsumi, Tsukimi, Yukimi -- I like spring (Hanami) and winter (Yukimi) best. OsMoz does not list peony as a note, although it is definitely there, and Audrey pretty much described the fragrance itself!

All Annayake fragrances come in 100ml bottles, and since they are EDT strength, it is self-explicable. The bottles are assymetrical and are supposed to evoke the images of the columns at the enterance of the temple of Jomon, the Japanese goddess of beauty, with whimsical carvings on the sides resembling staircase steps. Perhaps, another one to try for Goddess_Dreams? They are hard to find in this part of the world, but I saw them listed on a Canadian based website and of course, there is always bidding on eBay.

Thanks for your input, folks, and please stay tuned for more!

Thanks for reading, thinking and participating! Well, you've asked for it and this one is not going to be easy.

Riddle # 47.

Scents don't have to tell it all.
At all.
Her guileful smile, royal lilies and pond.
Beau monde.
Ripe citrus, woods, make it twigs --
She digs!
Quick rain's disdain brings pain,
Her reign.

Wild sensuality of cardamom.
Aplomb.
Green multitudes of leaves.
Her peeves.
Old and lush floral from France.
Trance.
This new one, sure, she would lurve.
Not widespread.
________ _________.


Good luck and please stay in good spirits!

Thank you for your titanic effort, Tovah, but sorry, no.

Clue: could also be "Quick rain's disdain in Spain". As all of us have probably figured out, this Riddle connects a particular relatively new scent with a life of a woman, like it was in Amazone and Niki de Saint Phalle riddles. And I am not good or knowledgeable at niche.

Playing myself again! Come on, it is not that difficult! Old lush floral from France is a favorite here, although very few can pronounce its name. The woman was mentioned in one of the posts by Magnifiscent last week on the Men's forum.

Very very good, Vinterdroppe! We are half way there. Indeed, Anais Nin was a lady surrounded by Beau monde mysteries, a diarist who first introduced the word "lurve" into the written English language and a magnetic personality.

Right now, folks, please separate Mz.Nin's character features from fragrance notes and we will get: lilies, pond, ripe citrus, woods (although it is shown as a note, the fragrance does not smell much of woods, rather, it has just a hint of woody/bark and therefore I wrote "twigs" ), cool /disdain of a quick rain, green leaves contrasted by the warmth of cardamom. There are also floral notes I have not mentioned in the riddle: rose and jasmine, just because they are not that pronounced on my skin. Its name has to rhyme with "not widespread", and contains two snappy words (to fall into the poem's pattern: at all, she digs, aplomb, etc).

No, sorry.

Okidokey, it is a Spanish fragrance, very spring-like or early summer-like in mood. Strangely, Spanish designer fragrances are not widely discussed on the boards, except for Balenciaga here and an occasional Loewe mentioning on the Men's forum.

Two short snappy words in the name. Also, please, think of a nose who is very good at cool citrucy without being too watery scents.

It is not only in real life that somebody working their tails off behind the scenes do not get any recognition. It occurs in the world of fragrances too.

Creative Director and yes, Managing Director for this Catalan designer is, coincidentally, named Nin. Although FragranceX points out that he is of Anais Nin's descent, I researched it and he is NOT! At some point of his life -- and he is 61 years old -- he published a book of comics with the Nin family tree, well, he himself is a tiny twig there.

We got it! It is Alberto Morillas In Red (2002) for lluis Juste de Nin, I mean, for Armand Basi, supposedly representing Mediterranean sunrise and nature awakening in spring. Good job, Vinterdroppe, you have figured it out!

It is a different kind of fresh, and unlike Bvlgary BLV or L'Eau d'Issey or even Angel Schlosser, it is mossy, not musky. Apologies for repeating myself, but this freshness of the air after the quick cold rain is achieved by combining the citruses with the smell of little buds, first leaves and tree twigs. There is not much wood in it per se. Love the bottle as well, although I must add there is nothing about the scent that would associate with the color red in my fantasies, therefore, it is, perhaps, a different kind of red.

Thanks for staying tuned and more riddles are coming.

Good Monday morning, Ms.Maples and Mr.Poirots! Reviews are back and after reading them, I found one that is very close to what I think about the fragrance in question.

Riddle # 48.

Out of all complex fragrances: stalking,
Stealthy, vivid, or clear as a bell,
This will not only have people talking,
But might just leave them speechless as well.

What's the use of my listing the notes?
This starts similar to L'Ombre dans L'Eau --
Low-key, "melancholic" (double quotes ),
For 1/5 of the bill, I concur!

Plus drydown -- calendula, tansy,
Oakmoss, vetiver of Nombre Nineteen --
Makes it solemn, secure and fancy
And (again double quotes) "serene".

Good luck and please stay in good spirits!

I guess, you got it, Magnifiscent! Nothing fishy about this, though!

Close but no cigar, like they say...

Magnifiscent got it right: no words are needed to describe its beauty. (I got your pm, Mag!) He is just being a gentleman, well like always, and letting the ladies go first.

Hats off to both of you, Tovah and Magnifiscent! And thank you so much for reading, thinking, solving. Our thanks also go to Audrey, whose review I was referring to.

Have a good spirited day, y'all.

Still thinking about good summer scents that are easy on the wallet.

Riddle # 49. (wanted to do something about San Francisco, but decided against it! )

Blue-collar jobs and scents...
How do we juggle both?
Looking for bargains, saving cents,
Not giving way to sloth.

What is then black-collar job?
Nectarine, plum and carnation,
Lavender's spine-tingling throb,
Rose and tonka sensation.

Did someone think of Femme?
Wears like smooth silk pashmina,
They can keep their tidy sum,
I call it simple, tzarina.

Good luck and please stay in good spirits!

No, not yet. Sometimes I call it "mia tzarina".

It is Italian, but no, not Dolce e Gabbana. And really, it does not even have a name, like D&G red cap/red velvet box.

Thanks for your efforts. No, not yet, although "black collar" thingy is, indeed, a reference to the top of the bottle, like in Fendi (Fendi). I also agree with the choice of Alexandra (Alexandra de Markoff), which is on my wishlist and does sound almost like Anastasia Romanoff, doesn't it?

However, most on-line retailers are selling this EDT now with a tan colored top. No indication of this fragrance was found here in the Directory last time I checked, although the house is shown in the first part of the alphabet (A-M), just like Fendi and Alexandra de Markoff.

No and no. Fruity yes, but lavender and rose combo is really its forte. Plus its designer house has to do with the collars, pashminas and ties. Nell Butler, BTW, offers an original, black collar version.