A Rose By Many Other Names

STELLA by Stella Mc Cartney

The story here is that Stella McCartney told perfumers that she wanted to recreate the scent of a red rose pressed and dried between the pages of a book. I believe they succeeded for this is unlike other rose fragrances. Rose,peony, tangerine and amber. It's so stunning I had to buy my own bottle. There is enough bright peony to keep the roses crisp and fresh smelling. There is something about it that is retro yet modern all at once. It is not a sweet rose, but a salty dry rose. It definitely has mystery! There is the feeling of a whispered secret, a hidden treasure. I love catching a whiff of this in the cold winter air. Most of the time it stays very close to my skin. This is not the perfume for a typical 9 to 5 working girl. It is for the artista.

ELISABETHAN ROSE by Penhaligon

I've spoken of Elisabethan Rose previously on this blog (Proper Young Ladies) and I was mistaken that it was an old perfume. A very old perfumery yes, but it turns out the house launched this particular formulation in 1984. I can totally see this working alongside the flowered lace Laura Ashley dresses that were so popular with romantics in the early eighties. I still really enjoy this scent, and although it will always feel nostalgic and innocent to me..it is extremely relaxing. If I can ever afford pure silk sheets, they will also need to smell like this! It's a fat lazy pink rose growing in the full sunlight of a park. This stuff has great staying power. A little goes a long way and you could even pour some into your bath...heavenly. Ever the scent for a maiden, the geranium and chamomile notes follow the rose around like a chaperone and keep it from being naughty.

LADY VENGEANCE by Juliette Has A Gun

I will admit, I was drawn to this niche perfume house solely on the name and the creepy bottles. Lady Vengeance was my first tryout. It's a rose backed up with a lot of patchouli and vanilla. (Juliette's Gun??) It is a damp, dark rose with a bit of earthiness underneath. It makes me picture a bouquet of red roses, slightly wilted, laying on the piled dirt of a fresh grave. Gothic and a bit distant. I wore it when I knew I would have to deal with an unpleasant person and it made me feel like I could kick ass. So there is that.

MIDNIGHT OUD by Juliette Has A Gun

My second encounter from this design house was also my first encounter with oud, or agarwood. This fragrant heartwood comes from a tree in southeast Asia and is frequently used in incense and Middle Eastern perfumes. It was unlike anything I had ever smelled in a perfume before, and mixed with saffron was a real shock to my nose. I drew back. Juliette truly did have a gun! And a stretch towncar with leather seats! After about 20 minutes or so, the oils had settled a bit and I could smell a very strong rose oil alongside the oud/saffron mix. I felt like this was extremely masculine, meant very much for a Casanova type.

CABARET by Gres

I have also written previously about Cabaret (A Certain Kind of Girl) and how it reminded me of my theatre days. It deserves another mention here under rose scents. It is a rose chypre, somewhat melancholy in feeling but still alive. Like a ghost. One thing I love about it is how long it lasts on my skin and how it gets stronger and more beautiful at the same time as it is dying away. I see that this has the poisonous nerium oleander listed as a note. Is that the elusive quality that makes me keep sniffing? I also see iris, violet, and lily of the valley are included. These flowers always conjure up the garden of my childhood home, another reason this fragrance is bittersweet to me. When at last it fades to the end, what remains is a smudge of burnt out rosewood incense, the way my parent's brass Buddha incense holder smelled when I lifted the tiny top off. What makes me crave Cabaret is the way it seems so personal to me. It's as if someone read my diary and then crafted this perfume.

L'OMBRE DANS L'EAU by Diptyque

I have realized lately that another note I have unknowingly gravitated toward is currant. I have lost count of the number of favorite perfumes now that when I go to look up the notes contain red currant, black currant, or cassis. So I suppose it's no surprise that I enjoy L'Ombre dans L'eau (Shadow on the Water) by a company I previously only associated with expensive candles. It smells very real. Real red roses hiding out beneath ferns in a rain soaked garden. It's very green. That's the color I see when I smell it. Green leaves, green vines, green stems. More rosebush than roses. It is not your typical rose perfume. It makes me think of a child mashing up flower petals and leaves with a rock and smearing the juices to make colors on the sidewalk. It reminds me of sudden showers in the early summer that last all of 5 minutes, the sun shining all the while. It is the beautiful essence of running barefoot over pine needles and moss, past wild rose bushes, laughing and enjoying my childhood. Herbal and uplifting, I want to gift a bottle of this to a friend who is going through a hard time. I feel that this could give her a power she forgot she ever had.