Angel Garden of Stars Peony: The Garden of Stars collection was a set of three initial flankers that took Angel and gave it a floral cast. Later, a fourth (Rose Angel) was added. As far as I can tell, the Garden of Stars is long-discontinued, at least here in the US. Since I’m a floral fan who appreciates but doesn’t really want to wear original Angel, I figured these might be good bets for me. Peony is probably my least favorite of the set. Three of the four Garden of Stars have, to my nose, a green-stemmy aspect, and it’s most pronounced in Peony. Other than that, Peony smells fairly spicy-rosy to my nose. As you might expect with an Angel flanker, the patchouli predominates on the drydown. Indeed, all of the Garden of Stars smell pretty recognizably Angel-ish on the drydown.  This one was done by Olivier Cresp, creator of the original Angel.

Angel Garden of Stars Rose: Rose is the Garden of Stars perfume I’d heard the most about and seemed to be the most beloved among perfumistas. I’d see it mentioned here and there in blog comments, although I don’t really think I’ve ever read a full-on review of it. I honestly find Rose quite similar to Peony… and I’ve now seen that Olivier Cresp is also credited with Rose, so there you go. It’s a rose over patchouli with fruit, with some of the greenness of Peony at the start, although not nearly as much. It’s maybe less spicy than Peony. I’m wondering if the reason I’m less enamored of Peony and Rose than the other two Garden of Stars is that the rose + patchouli combination is done so much in perfumery.

Angel Garden of Stars Violet: Violet was done by Francoise Caron… Violet also has a greenness to it, but it’s more that of violet leaves. There’s also candied violets. While original Angel has an over-the-top candy floss note, here the delicate candied violets stand in for cotton candy. It seems more sophisticated and “French” somehow. And then patchouli. Violet + patchouli doesn’t strike me as a common combination. I really, really enjoy this one.

Angel Garden of Stars Lily: This is far and away my favorite of the Garden of Stars. Just before writing this review, I found that Lily was done by Christine Nagel, which makes sense because I’m generally a fan of her work. In this perfume, the initial greenness of the other Garden of Stars is not as present. I smell spicy lily and what I would swear is honey. I have recently been trying Donna Karan Gold, which has so many fans, and I’m trying to love it. I don’t think I do. Garden of Stars Lily is a modern lily perfumer that’s more to my taste. Its lily aspect is much less intense than Gold’s, to be sure, but I far prefer its honey-patchouli drydown to Gold’s amber. I’ve put Garden of Stars Lily on my buy list, and there’s a bottle in my shopping bag at one of the big discounters… I probably won’t cave and buy it quite yet, though. But how much longer will I even  be able to find it?

Dis-Moi, Miroir: The Miroir, Miroir collection is (I think??) Thierry Mugler’s version of an exclusive collection. I don’t know how widely distributed it is. I’ve never seen it in person but I think it’s still for sale somewhere – they’ve added perfumes to the set in the last few years. A few months ago, when Perfume Posse started their single note series, and inspired by my love/hate of Seville a l’Aube (which has now pretty much given over to love), I ordered a bunch of Patty’s recommended orange blossom perfumes. This was among them. It’s actually not just orange blossom. It’s a mix of orange blossom and lily. It’s a really interesting heady-yet-clean floral perfume. The flowers are big and blooming, and not particularly sweet, but it also doesn’t smell like it would scare perfume haters off. There are supposed to be “milky notes” and while I don’t smell anything that overtly reads as “milk,” there’s sort of creamy lactonic aspect that blends the florals together really strongly, so I can barely tell where one ends and the other begins. I really want to like this and it strikes me that I’m almost on the verge of liking this. I sort of wish it were dirtier. It seems like an a pretty well-behaved perfume for the house of Mugler. Maybe that’s the shtick of the Miroir, Miroir collection? I haven’t tried any of the others. I’d like to get to them.

No. Seriously, you will. Most likely.

I have an affinity for the Oscar de la Renta brand, and when they announced an exclusive collection, I didn’t know whether to cheer or roll my eyes. It seems like every brand is following Chanel’s lead and launching super-limited, super-expensive perfumes that are limited to their boutiques and maybe the biggest, fanciest department stores in the biggest cities. If exclusive collections always meant high-quality perfume, that would be awesome… but clearly, a lot of these brands are copying Chanel on price point and packaging more than anything else. (I mean, seriously, even Dior, a house with arguably a fragrance history equally storied as Chanel’s, basically ripped off the Les Exclusives packaging.)

Anyway, I guess I was more inclined to roll my eyes at Oscar’s exclusive collection, especially given its cheesy and oxymoronic name – Essential Luxuries? ugh. I held out hope though, because the perfumer was Calice Becker and I appreciate her work quite a bit. I tried to ask around about the perfumes, and got very little feedback – someone on Facebook Fragrance Friends said they were fabulous, someone in the NST comments said they were horrid… I figured I’d have to try for myself. So, Perfume Posse has been doing this perfume-fairy-godmother post monthly, and I asked for samples of any of the Essential Luxuries. I ended up with two Essential Luxuries, plus quite a few other goodies, in my fairy godmother package in February. I really like both of the Essential Luxuries, in fact, I pretty much adore Mi Corazon. But…

Mi Corazon is a tuberose-centric perfume by Calice Becker. Much like By Kilian’s Beyond Love. Luca Turin famously, and controversially, called Beyond Love the best-ever tuberose soliflore in Perfumes: The A-Z Guide. Well. Mi Corazon is very, very, very much like Beyond Love. The tuberose note is quite similar. Mi Corazon substitutes the coconut of Beyond Love for peach. Mi Corazon has a hit of ylang-ylang that I’m not sure is present in Beyond Love. Beyond Love, to my nose at least, is sweeter, more tropical, and on the drydown has a musky/warm skin scent effect. Mi Corazon, while sweet and still vaguely tropical, is not as sweet as Beyond Love, and the base notes seem quite different… not as beachy or as musky. Perhaps greener, more earthy? I’m having trouble naming these notes. I don’t think the lasting power of Mi Corazon is quite as good as that of Beyond Love, but it projects really well at the beginning – people noticed this one on me and I got compliments.

To be honest, while I really like Beyond Love, I may like Mi Corazon better. The tuberose note seems equally nice (well, pretty much the same) as in Beyond Love, but the whole thing seems somewhat drier and more glamorous, more bombshell. I really do appreciate Beyond Love, but the high pricepoint and tropical sweetness probably prevented me from adding it to my buy list – I already have a number of tropical florals in my collection. People who loved Beyond Love for its tropical, musky, easy-to-wear aspects might not like Mi Corazon as much, but if you like Calice Becker’s style, I think you should really check out Mi Corazon and the rest of the Essential Luxuries Collection. The other I’ve tried is Oriental Lace, which is a sweet fruity oriental very much in the Calice Becker style. I think I probably prefer Oriental Lace to any of her sweet orientals for By Kilian. In fact, as I think about it now, Oriental Lace is what I wished the Garden of Evil collection would have smelled like. So. Yeah. So far, the Essential Luxuries are pretty much rocking my world. Mi Corazon is on my wishlist.

One more note. Oscar de la Renta Essential Luxuries Mi Corazon is $150 for 100 mL. So not quite cheap. But. By Kilian Beyond Love is $235 for 50mL at LuckyScent. Yes, you’re paying somewhat for that fancy black bottle, and you can get the By Kilian refills much cheaper, but still… If you like Beyond Love but balked on the price or sweetness, try Mi Corazon.

Andy wrote about Noontide Petals as an aldehydic perfume with a floral heart and woody base. He’s symbolizing the perfume with a creamy yellow sunshine color. For once, I made a point not to read any other reviews of a perfume before writing this up. Inevitably, after this posts, I’m going to go to the other blogs that I know have reviewed this before me, and realize that I’m not smelling it right at all. Such is life.

Noontide Petals begins with a burst of citrus – it doesn’t smell particularly “fresh,” but thick, fizzy, zesty. If you’re scared of aldehydes, I don’t think you have a ton to worry about here – these are not the fatty, waxy aldehydes that I love in perfumes like Van Cleef & Arpels First, but the champagne-like ones that serve to thicken up the citrus a bit and make everything kind of bubble up. I smell patchouli, too, almost from the beginning. In the early moments of wear of Noontide Petals, I am reminded of Lush’s Karma, a favorite of mine. Karma is a more straight-on citrus-patchouli, not nearly as complex as Noontide, but they’re sort of cousins nonetheless.

As Noontide calms, I smell rose and ylang mostly in the heart. There are moments in the heart when this perfume reminds me of Tauer’s Une Rose Chypree. I like Une Rose Chypree a lot, but like a lot of rose chypres, it doesn’t totally move me… in the latter parts the rose/moss/spice can overwhelm me sometimes.  I don’t know that Noontide is a true chypre – there’s no moss – but if a “modern chypre” is one that substitutes patchouli for moss, then Noontide might qualify as a modern citrus chypre with a floral heart. It’s been forever since I smelled Clarins’s Eau Dynamisante, so I couldn’t really say that Noontide smells *like* Eau Dynamisante, but something about the feeling that Noontide gives me reminds me of how Dynamisante makes me feel… When I used to work fragrance retail, I would often head to the Clarins counter for a perk-me-up hit of Dynamisante sometime after lunch.

Noontide has great lasting power; on the far drydown, I smell a thread of the rose-ylang, and earthiness: patchouli for sure, maybe a bit of incense and a whiff of rootiness: the iris and vetiver together, I think. Much has been made of Andy’s “Tauerade” base. I sometimes think that “Tauerade” is just a way for people to describe why they don’t connect with his scents, and I’ve seen people claim “Tauerade” in scents that I don’t perceive to have it, but Noontide definitely has that thick, warm-incensey-woody base that many of Andy’s scents do. In contrast to many of the scents that are heavy on “Tauerade,” though, this feels springlike… I maybe wouldn’t wear this in the height of Austin summer, but I’d wear it in the very warm (we’ve been in the 80s for a week or so now) Austin spring, after I’ve already retired some of Andy’s orientals that I wore through the winter.

Andy says Noontide was inspired in part by the perfumes of the 1920s and art deco. Some of my favorite perfumes are from the 1920s… Noontide feels more contemporary to me than Arpege and No. 22, not to mention happier and sunnier, less severe, but it definitely has that abstract, transmogrified-through-aldehydes feel that those classics do. It feels perfumey.

So, I’m going to give away my extra sample here. Just leave a comment to be entered. I’ll leave the draw open for a week and will choose a winner through random.org next Monday.

Well, I was quite surprised when I spent the rest of that evening huffing the poor man’s chest. While I believe all perfume can be unisex, there are definitely perfumes that I think smell better or more appropriate on my husband than on me… Apparently Vétiver Fatal is one of those. Reading the notes of Vétiver Fatal really perplexes me, because it doesn’t smell at all how I might imagine based on the note list. The Atelier Cologne website lists the notes as: bergamot from Calabria, lemon from Sicily, heart of bigaradier from Paraguay, orange flower absolue from Tunisia, violet leaves from Grasse, fig, heart of vetiver from Haiti, cedarwood from Texas, and dark oud accord. I feel like I’m missing half the notes in this. I basically get: bitter orange, vetiver, and a dark woodsy smell that verges on mineral which I assume is the “oud.” Maybe I get the violet leaves too. I don’t know. On my husband, I think it smells really divine… sort of sultry and mysterious and dark, without feeling dirty. Vetiver and oud are obviously notes that can feel very grungey if used in certain ways, and both notes here are very cleaned up. What really attracts me to the scent is the way the vetiver kind of shimmers over the mineral facets of the oud… I would describe this perfume as dark-clean. I don’t know if that makes a hill of beans sense, but there you have it.

I ended up ordering a bottle of Vétiver Fatal for my husband for Valentine’s Day. But of course our incompetent postal carrier lost the package. (According to our apartment manager, the new carrier has been delivering lots of packages to the wrong complexes… I have some words for USPS these days. I used to love the postal service. I don’t know if it’s the specific carriers I’ve encountered in Austin the last few years, or if what I’ve experienced here is just a sign of the larger issues USPS is having, but… they are really incompetent here. I mean, in contrast, my parents, on the farm, have had the same postal carrier since we moved there in 1990, and he shows up like clockwork.)

Well, I want to give credit where credit is due: I called Atelier Cologne’s NYC boutique (I ordered direct from their website) and they were kind enough to ship me another package. Ross was even nice enough to 1) send it UPS 2) upgrade the two mini samples I’d also ordered to 7.5 mL vials and 3) throw in EVEN MORE samples to boot. So yeah, call Ross and make your Atelier Cologne orders!

The two samples I’d ordered were for the two new scents from the house I hadn’t tried: Ambre Nue and Mistral Patchouli.  (OK, I haven’t tried Sous le Toit de Paris yet either, and I’m dying to. But it’s so new that when I originally placed this order online, you couldn’t yet order samples of that one.) So now I have big-honking samples of Ambre and Patchouli. I decided to try Ambre Nue tonight, because I was thinking about amber.

In this weekend’s NST open thread, the commenter Lys asked if there was anyone else out there who dislikes amber in perfumery. I immediately responded with a resounding yes. Amber seems to be beloved among perfumistas, but it not an accord I love. I don’t mind sweetness in perfume – not if it’s via fruit or florals, anyway – but I often find amber sweet, cloying, and suffocating. I can think of only one amber perfume that I really, truly adore: Tauer Perfumes Orange Star. And I’m not sure that’s exactly amber in the traditional way. And I’ll also give some nostalgia points to the mimosa-amber-gourmand YSL Cinema, which I bought in my pre-perfumista days. That one now verges on too sweet for my taste in the later stages. But a lot, maybe most, amber-centric perfumes I just think are icky, sticky, sweet, and forgettable. So I don’t know why I even bothered to order a sample of Ambre Nue. Yet, I’m wearing it today for the first time and really loving it. It starts spicy and then I smell a really nice mandarin note – reminiscent, I think of Orange Star. It smells for all the world like holiday citrus – not exactly pomanders, because I don’t get full-on clove, but sweet, reduced orange juice with cinnamon and spices. There’s some spicy florals in there too – the notes list says tagetes and orchid, and I could buy that. Anyway, the sweet spicy citrus lingers into the drydown, which, honestly, I don’t find overly ambery. At least, it’s not in that choking amber way that I can’t stand.

To be honest, though, the similarities between this and Orange Star are striking. Let’s take Orange Star and make the following tweaks: replace the orange blossom with marigold. Replace the incense with cinnamon. Remove the lemongrass. Lighten the sillage up by about tenfold, and make the whole thing feel somehow sheer and more natural. That’s Ambre Nue. It feels like the cologne version of Orange Star. That sounds like I feel Ambre Nue isn’t essential, but I’d like to have both, to wear at different times and in different places. I could wear Ambre Nue at the peak of Austin summer; I’m not sure I could say the same of Orange Star, much though I love it. I will say that Orange Star makes me think more: it sits on the border between industrial-strength synthetic orange cleaner and painfully real mandarin, and makes me think about and question what I’m smelling, what is “natural” and what is “fake.” Ambre Nue is just really, really, nice. I don’t know that even those of us who love Orange Star would call it “nice.” Nonetheless, I’m really surprised, maybe flabbergasted by how much I am enjoying Ambre Nue. I wonder what true amber-lovers would have to say about it, though. How ambery is it, really? Am I liking it because it’s less ambery that its name would suggest?

One final note. Today after my shower I slathered on something that would probably horrify most perfumistas, so of course I’ve got to share it with you. Wait for it… Wait for it.

Bath and Body Works Rain Kissed Leaves lotion.

Oh yeah.

I’ve reviewed Bath and Body Works stuff on this blog before. I’ll make no bones about my appreciation for this company. Right now, their current offerings are pretty lousy – I haven’t really loved anything they’ve launched in quite some time. They’ve been launching berry gourmand after berry gourmand, and in the meantime discontinuing all of their scents I used to love. The only really safe bets in their store right now would probably be Moonlight Path, something from the Aromatherapy line, or a candle. (America apparently only wants sickeningly-sweet-fake-fruit body lotion, but will put up with nice-smelling candles. Go figure.) Anyway, I have a dark perfumista secret: I don’t like amber that much, but I do occasionally like aquatic and ozonic fragrances. I know, I know. You maybe should stop here.

Well, so Bath and Body Works has discontinued pretty much all of their aquatic fragrances in the last few years. Gone are Dancing Waters, Cotton Blossom, Rain Kissed Leaves, and even, can you believe it, the old workhouse Cucumber and Cantaloupe. (Most of these can still be purchased on the company’s website though.) The only one left standing in stores is Sea Island Cotton, which I think is fairly icky. A couple of years ago they launched a new aquatic, Deep Aqua, and promptly discontinued it only a month or two later. Anyway, I guess it shows that aquatics are pulling a much smaller share of the US women’s fragrance market these days.

In truth, I don’t like many aquatics but there are a select few that I like, particularly as shower gels and lotions. And Rain Kissed Leaves is one of those. It smells like water and leaves, with a vague floralcy.  I just went to the Bath and Body Works and it lists the notes as “Crisp Watercress, Lush Muguet, Transparent Woods, Fresh Raindrops.” Honestly, BBW notelists should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but this list makes sense. You’ve got the leaves, water, the muguet for the flowers (I wouldn’t have guessed muguet but we’ll go with it). I’m not really sure about the woods part but whatever. Three out of four ain’t bad. Anyway I find Rain Kissed Leaves exhilarating and refreshing. I love it in Austin’s July and August, when I struggle with many of my regular perfumes. I don’t think I would ever buy the eau de toilette; in fact, that idea seems almost repellent, but I’m really glad to have the lotion and shower gel.

Now get ready for the gross part: I think Ambre Nue smells ridiculously great over Rain Kissed Leaves. Don’t even ask. I know. I can’t explain.

The By Kilian brand gives me feelings. Except when it doesn’t.

On one hand, the brand has made some lovely things, has sleek packaging, and is very generous with its samples. So generous that I’ve actually had a chance to try the brand’s perfumes. Of course, this free-sample-train is largely due to Kilian’s ample finances, or at least I’d imagine so. While I gotta admit I’m jealous of brand owner Kilian Hennessy’s ability to self-fund a luxury perfume line, he seems to have a real passion for the business.

On the other hand… not many of By Kilian perfumes have truly moved me. The prices are high. While I admire the bottles to some degree, I don’t covet them as many others do… at least not the black ones. And for the price of By Kilian, I want to be moved. I want to covet the bottles. I want to be blown away.

So, I’m conflicted.

When I first heard about the In the Garden of Good and Evil collection, I was actually kind of excited. If the L’Oeuvre Noire collection was to build brand stability by focusing on classic French perfumery notes, the Arabian Nights collection was BECAUSE OUD, and the Asian Tales collection was to be as bland as possible, then In the Garden of Evil promised something like: YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED FRUITY FLORALS!!! ONLY BETTAH!! (Also, I can’t take credit for this, but I am in love with Victoria’s speculation that the Garden of Good and Evil perfumes are targeted to Las Vegas tourists.)

Well, honestly, I like fruity florals. I don’t care for most department store perfumes these days, and lord knows most of those are probably fruity florals (or their sister genres, the fruitchoulis and fruity orientals), but a fruity floral with a strong structure and something that actually smells remotely like natural fruit or flowers? I can dig that. I can dig that A LOT. Calice Becker, who is a frequent By Kilian collaborator, is a perfumer that I admire, and many of whose works I find appealing. And two of the Garden perfumes were done by Becker.

In the City of Sin was the perfume I expected to like the least from the collection. And I guess it shakes out that I probably did like it the least. The scent is supposed to be “a rich composition of fruits and spices, flowers and woods, in which the essence of fruit liquefies and melts onto the heady woods.” I don’t really know about that. Every time I hear the worlds “melt” and “wood” together, I think of Estee Lauder Sensuous, which was supposed to embody the scent of molten wood. In the City of Sin smells nothing like Sensuous. It’s basically red fruits that fade into cedar. Lots and lots and lots of cedar. It’s OK. The cedar smells real. The fruit definitely smells realistic too. But it just doesn’t do much for me. I struggle to say much about this scent. It does deliver on its promise of fruit and woods, I guess. I sort of wonder if this is “Kilian cleans up Serge Lutens for the Las Vegas audience.” Because…. cedar.

Good Girl Gone Bad was the scent I really, really, really wanted to love. The description promised to be the straight up fruity floral of the line. So I wanted to be very excited. The notes sounded wonderful. Jasmine sambac, tuberose, ostmanthus, violet, narcissus, plum… many, many notes that I love. But somehow it didn’t add up to much. It doesn’t feel naughty or silly to me. I’d really rather wear Juicy Couture. Something about the plum + floral aspect reminds of Liaisons Dangereuses, which I reckon is still my favorite Kilian… Liaisons Dangereuses just smells richer, realer. Good Girl Gone Bad smells well-done, but it’s not over the top at all. I wanted a naughty fruity-floral, the ur-fruity floral, with rich notes and an overpowering presences. I mean, I kind of struggle to pick out the individual floral notes in this one, which kind of upsets me in a line that I would expect to have distinctive natural notes. I can really detect osmanthus but not much else. Maybe I just built up what this scent could be in my head, but it just doesn’t do much for me.

Forbidden Games was the hardest to peg on what the feel would be from reading the description before I sampled. It seemed like a fruit and honey perfume. What it actually is, is an Applejacks perfume.

Yes, something in this one reminds me of Applejacks. It’s apple and cinnamon and sugar. I actually don’t hate this one. I don’t think. The apple and cinnamon and sugar are all way over the top. I find it amusing that we’re talking Adam, Eve, and the serpent, and we have LITERALLY an Applejacks perfume. It’s hilarious to me, kinda like Kilian is talking down to us a bit. I guess there is some other fruit in there with the apple, but this is definitely one of the most apple-centric perfumes I’ve smelled outside Bath and Body Works.  The drydown is supposedly honey, vanilla, opoponax, but in my estimation it just becomes a musk bomb, loads and loads of warmish but clean musk. The entire thing smells synthetic from top to bottom. In that way, it’s like many department store fruity florals, but this does smell better and more unique than those. But, like them, it blasts you, full force, from start to finish… with APPLEJACKS. I think it’s sort of in horribly bad taste, but I also kind of love it. I can’t believe that someone would have the gall to put this out and sell it for $245. Somehow, this manages to be my favorite from the collection, because it actually inspires an emotion in me. I’m not sure if the emotion is horror or amusement, but it’s an emotion.

At the same time, I sort of get why they may not. Maître Parfumeur et Gantier is a very serviceable perfume line… It’s not as flashy as many of the niche brands vying for our attention these days, and there’s not a single perfumer figure to draw us into a storyline about the brand. In many respects, MPG is nigh well traditional, as you might expect for a line that takes its inspiration from early modern Parisian perfumed-glovemakers.  So there’s this traditional French-perfumery influence, but there’s also something of the semi-granola vibe of early L’Artisan Parfumeur (keep in mind Jean Laporte founded MPG after leaving L’Artisan, a brand which he also founded) and something of the perfunctory luxury house feel of By Kilian. Like By Kilian and many other lines, MPG ticks all the note boxes. They have their amber. They have their vetiver. They have their jasmine. They have their white floral bouquet. They have their iris. They have their tuberose…

OK, so what I just wrote sounds like I’m undercutting MPG myself. Not so. I think it’s a great line. I think the juices generally smell fabulous and while the bottles aren’t completely to my taste, one thing I’ll say about this line is that it really feels like the money has gone into the juice and not the marketing and bottles.

The reason I’ve had the opportunity to try the MPG line is that there’s a small perfume shop in downtown Austin that carries a good portion of the line. The place is called Enchanté. Going to Enchanté is… interesting. The store is sort of split between fragrance and shaving products; indeed, the shop proprietor has created his own shaving method, which is richly documented on his website. I highly recommend perusing “A Short History of Method Shaving,” available for download on Enchanté’s website to get a sense of the uniqueness of Enchanté.

Anyway, Charles Roberts, the owner of Enchanté, has great affection for Maître Parfumeur et Gantier. I don’t know if I was just being suggestible, but on the visit on which I bought Tubéreuse, the perfume I’m writing about today, I found myself strongly attracted to the Maître Parfumeur et Gantier line as a whole.

But Tubéreuse was the one I came home with.

When I was prepping for this review, I read a bunch of other reviews of Tubéreuse online. I know that some don’t consider that good form… for me it seems necessary to read what others think as I attempt to make sense of a perfume and convey it into words. But I didn’t find much. Most of the reviews are older. There’s a sentence here from Robin. A few from Victoria. Another from Abigail.  Honestly, though, the one that comes closest in my mind is from user Emily7 on Fragrantica. Well, maybe she’s just saying the same things that Robin and Victoria and Abigail were, but in a way that resonates with me.

The beginning is green, maybe a bit sharp, and probably the hardest part of the perfume. I don’t know if it’s parsley-like, as Emily7 suggests, but maybe. Slightly herbal for sure. As it dries, the tuberose is green and full and slightly buttery; the buttery aspect is attenuated, which I like: it’s buttery enough to feel like real tuberose, but not so buttery as to be stifling.   As it progresses I definitely detect green jasmine, amber, and musk: the drydown is kind of a powdery-ambery thing. The green tuberose is there nearly top to bottom. Overall, it’s lush-lush-lush and the greenest tuberose perfume I know.

The wear time on Tubéreuse might be my only complaint. I get maybe four hours from this one, which isn’t long on my skin. On the other hand, I have a full bottle and I can reapply. And I do.

The thing I love about Tubéreuse is how versatile it is. I can wear it on a 100-degree-plus Austin day (and in fact often do, it’s one of my summer favorites). I can wear it in the winter for a quick tropical fantasia. I can wear it to work and not feel like I’m going to be oppressing others (OK, I normally don’t worry so much about this, but still).

When I was first starting to think about writing this review, I thought I’d try to test some perfumes that I find similar to this one. I thought it was a lot like By Kilian’s Beyond Love, but last weekend I retested Beyond Love and it’s MUCH sweeter, more coconutty, more buttery, and frankly less up my alley, although still stunningly well-done. I don’t have any Fracas sitting around to test, but going from memory it vaguely reminds me of Fracas too. Don’t get me wrong: Tubéreuse doesn’t really smell “like” Fracas. But if I had a chance to modernize Fracas, it might be something more like Tubéreuse and less like Madonna’s Truth or Dare: rather than adding caramel sugar, I’d amp up the greenness, add a bit of jasmine, make the drydown enveloping and a bit soapy.

Tubéreuse was a milestone perfume for me: I had read about Enchanté at the Basenotes forums and made a special trip to sniff their wares. Tubéreuse was the first niche perfume in my collection, and I think it still might be the single most expensive bottle I’ve purchased (you see that I don’t spend as much on perfumes as you might think!). I’d venture it’s one of my most frequently-worn perfumes, though I don’t keep running stats. But basically… Tubéreuse was the point of no return. Once you’ve spent $160 on a niche perfume and spent two hours talking perfume, gender roles, and libertarian economics with a shop owner in the process, you know you’re down the perfume rabbit hole permanently.

Cartier Baiser Volé in extrait: I’ve talked about this before. A few others have highlighted it. But if you liked the original and though it was a bit wan in the late stages, try the extrait. It’s divine, much dirtier and skin like than the original in the drydown, and it’s on my wishlist.

Sweet Anthem Nicolette: Maybe I shouldn’t include this, as it was a limited edition for fall and is gone-gone-gone (bring it back!!). But I will anyway. A simple, lovely construction: orange blossom and honey. I purchased this one right away. Orange blossom is THE note of 2012, for me, I think. I did so much exploration of this note this year – mostly inspired by Séville à l’Aube - expect more writing on this to come.

Alien and Angel Les Parfums de Cuir: These were SO good. Masterful! Why didn’t more people blog these gems? I’d guess it’s because they were flankers, but people gave more love to the Taste of Fragrance editions last year. I prefer these to the Taste of Fragrance editions and maybe even to the originals. I would have bought both if I had unlimited funds. I’ll be watching the discounters for them in the new year. I only wish the darn Womanity edition would have been available stateside.

Kate Walsh Billonaire Boyfriend: I think I’m the only one who loved this more than her first scent. I’d peg it as my favorite celeb scent of 2012. Very close runner up: Dita von Teese (first perfume). I hope to try the second Dita soon.

Tableau de Parfums Loretta: This one hasn’t gotten as much wear from me as it might have, because it terrifies my husband. But it’s really glorious stuff. I could contemplate it for hours.

Atelier Cologne Vetiver Fatal: This one got a bit of love. I have mixed feelings about Atelier Cologne as a line – I’ve admired, but perhaps not loved, their offerings. It’s good “starter niche.” I tried Vetiver Fatal on myself when it came out and thought it was nice. Then I put it on my husband. Uhh, rawwwwr.

Guerlain Encens Mythique d’Orient: I am the farthest from a Guerlain fan. I have struggled to enjoy their classic perfumes. For whatever reason I thought their Arabian collection sounded appealing and I order samples of two. Encens Mythique d’Orient is gorgeous. I’m not sure it’s something new, exactly, but it’s beautiful. Incense + aldehydes + moss + saffron + rose + animalic goodness. So many perfumes that bloggers proclaim as “animalic” don’t seem at all dirty to me, but this one does. It’s not churchy at all. This one got a fair bit of love on the blogs, but not nearly as much as it deserves. It’s not really clear cut at this point – I just got a larger spray sample of this one to test, courtesy a lovely perfume friend, but this is likely my favorite perfume of 2012. Seek it out.

On another note, 2012 was characterized by some lovely discoveries of older and VERY much older perfumes – anything from Hové Belle Chasse to Lanvin My Sin to Nez à Nez Amber à Sade. 2012 was also the year I found a church to call my own, the year I got married, and a year of significant professional development for me. It also saw the end of one blog and the beginning of this one.

2013 holds a lot of promise – I’m thrilled for three new releases from my favorite perfumer, a definite trip to at least one major open-wheel auto race (and maybe up to three!), and a potential summer beach vacation. We’re also looking at the possibility of a move, the end of my husband’s dissertation (!!), and more writing and thought about fragrance regulation. My husband and I were brainstorming ideas on how to contribute to a discourse on the politics of fragrance on and off all day today… it’s a big, intimidating thing, but something that I hope will drive me for the next year and beyond.

Each year, Andy gives out 24 special gifts over the first 24 days of December, leading up to Christmas.

Today the draw is for a very-limited-edition tuberose-scented soap made by Andy. In my experience, Andy’s soaps are highly scented and make for a luxurious bathtime.

The draw is open to all, worldwide. To enter, just leave a comment about what your favorite creation of Andy’s is, or if you have not tried any yet, which you would most like to try. Please use a valid email address with your comment – one that I can use to contact you if you are the winner. I will use random.org to help me select the winner.

I will announce the winner of the draw sometime on Friday morning (USA time). You can check back here then, or at Andy’s Advent Calendar page.