Fabirss

Many moons ago, when it was released, I fell in love with this fragrance, being young and careless enough to wear it during hot summer days just to smell the queen of the night and jasmine perform strong in all their glory. More than twenty years have passed and my mind hasn't changed about it: a true masterpiece from Monsieur Wasser. Such a pity that the subsequent reformulations managed to morph it into a mere shade of the glorious first version. I still own a bottle of the first formulation and although I fear it might/will turn one day, I cherish every single spritz and wear it like holy water. For vanilla lovers if worn during winter, and jasmine lover if worn during summer.

If you love Honour Woman but get tired of its linearity; if you love Alien EDP but consider it too strong for everyday wear then you must give J'Adore L'Or a try. Mr. Kurkdijan managed to envelop in his composition two very ambiguous aspects of jasmine: its sweet, luminous tenderness and its dense, indolic soul. The only downsize: the price tag.

I received a sample of Dior Joy during a purchase and considering the nice package and the lovely pink color of the juice, I jumped to it in order to check what Dior had been up to.
Now, in order for you to have a picture of what I’m trying to describe, I must ask: have you watched Blade Runner 2049? If the answer is yes, then you know that Joi/y is depicted there. If the answer was no and you want to save time, let me put my feelings into words: both Joy (the fragrance) and Joi (the pretty girlfriend of the main character) are HOLOGRAMS. In the movie, Joi is a program developed through artificial intelligence and she is “put into life” as a hologram. She is the pretty and passionate girlfriend of Blade Runner “K” and they live a very comfortable and happy life except for that fact that Joi is not real. You can see her, you can interact with her, but once you touch her, you know she is not really there. She is the idea, the representation of something – a human being, in this case. Dior Joy is exactly like Joi: an idea, an interpretation, a chemical vision of something – a real fragrance. I do know that most fragrances nowadays are composed of synthetic ingredients, but some are so well put together that if you close your eyes you can really believe you smell the real thing. But not with Joi/y. Yes, she’s pretty, yes, she’s adorable, but even closing your eyes you know that she is a mere representation of the real thing. You can surely have her by your side and feel comfortable and happy, but I’m still up for the real thing.

As a sucker for tuberose, I added Nuit de Tubereuse to my wish list and waited patiently for a bottle to show up on these lands, for L'Artisan Parfumeur doesn't sell in local shops where I live and buying online would mean paying four times the retail price due to taxes and currency exchange rates. So I couldn't be more thrilled when I found a 30 ml for sale online from a fellow traveler for a very reasonable price. Having read many reviews about NdT, I thought its peppery aspect could be challenging, but believed I could get past the initial blast and enjoy the rest of the composition. Silly me. The harsh peppery opening accompanied the fragrance from top to bottom and although it lost some of its potency within the passing of time, it was still a shy tuberose lying in a pool of pepper. I tried NdT both in colder and warmer weather, but my efforts were useless. The heat would give the tuberose some room to develop, but still it wasn't enough to make me like the entire composition, which felt watery, spicy and much more masculine than feminine. So I bid NdT adieu and the bottle went straight to my son's closet. And believe me: NdT smells divine on him!

How I would have loved Jasmin et Cigarette if it wasn't for the ashtray smell. Of course one expects to find some trace of cigarette in the composition, but for someone like me, who loathes cigars and cigarettes in general, this juice obviously wouldn't work out. I can easily detect the jasmin and although the ashtray smell diminishes within 15 minutes or so, I still can't find a reason to have it in my collection.