There are several new videos to bring to your attention, featuring reviews of releases from Issey Miyake, Puente, Vyrao and others. Here are links to all of them, followed by lists with timestamps (where relevant) as well as further thoughts on some of the more further-thought-worthy compositions: DKNY 24/7; Edeniste Oud Ghazal; All Saints Ravaged Rose, Shoreditch Leather and Sunset Riot Intense; Vyrao Mamajuju; Puente Galavant reviews — Issey Miyake Le Sel D’Issey review — Jouissance showcase review — Versace Eros Energy pour homme review — Nissaba showcase review.
DKNY 24/7 (Frank Voelkl) 3:48
Edeniste Oud Ghazal (Claire Liegent) 16:14
All Saints Ravaged Rose (Gabriela Chelariu) 25:34
All Saints Sunset Riot Intense (Gabriela Chelariu) 31:03
All Saints Shoreditch Leather (Gabriela Chelariu) 35:22
Vyrao Mamajuju (Meabh McCurtin) 40:38
Puente Galavant (Eliam Puente) 47:07
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La Bague D’O 3:26
En Plein Air 7:40
Les Cahiers Secrets 10:22
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Chaco (Alexandra Monet) 7:45
Tierra Maya (Ilia Ermenidis) 10:45
Grande-Ile (Frank Voelkl) 13:20
Sulawesi (Nicolas Bonneville) 16:20
Berbera (Fabrice Pellegrin & Coralie Spicher) 19:07
Provence (Sebastien Cresp) 22:32
The All Saints releases are easily dispensed with: uninspired, derivative pieces of work that display none of the edginess enjoyed by fans of the brand’s clothing range. The new Edeniste is almost equally disappointing: a been-there-done-that oud. DKNY 24/7 is an intriguing little ditty. If you can ignore the expectations created by the bottle, you might find yourself enjoying the central accord of fragile freesia and lily of the valley. What’s even more remarkable is that the whole thing doesn’t descend into a sorry mess when it gets to the drydown: the floral personality is sustained extremely well and doesn’t display an over-use of musks.
Two rather different takes on contemporary masculinity are expressed in the latest efforts from Versace and Issey Miyake. The former’s Eros Energy – a flanker to the original Eros from 2012 – may resort to predictably boorish patchouli cliches in its base, but its opening consists of an impressive citrus accord, echoing the greatness of that high point of ‘energising’ men’s scents, Davidoff Cool Water. The Miyake is an altogether more complex, more surprising affair. Here, Quentin Bisch indulges his penchant for monolithic, woody-leathery notes (think: Ganymede or Bois Imperial) and presents them with a strange, almost perplexing, salty-ozonic-seaweed twist. Somewhere between Russell Crowe’s and Paul Mescal’s gladiators is a lithe, saturnine mer-man, and he smells of Le Sel. A bold gambit from what is now a staunchly mainstream brand, and it’ll be interesting to see how it fares.
The scents from Nissaba — a brand founded by Sebastien Tissot, formerly of Firmenich — are all solid and extremely well put-together, but they also come across as rather earnest and bloodless. Some of the ingredients they so proudly showcase were formed by Mother Nature at her most outrageously creative: had they been used with equal inventiveness in these scents, the end products might have been more memorable. That said, I’d urge you to seek out Sebastien Cresp’s Provence, a herbal-citrus triumph, evoking a perfect summer picnic, at the end of which you put some lavender sprigs into your pocket in the hope they’ll help you relive this most joyous of days for years to come.
I’m glad to have been introduced to Jouissance — a UK brand that aims to explore female-authored sexuality. Les Cahiers Secrets is a charming take on sweet, powdery iris — all gentle blushes on white cheeks — but the real standout is La Bague D’Or. A veritable Madame De Merteuil beckoning you to an orgy in a velvet-lined boudoir, it is both filthy and regal, pushing out its central rose note with buxom insistence. Imagine a lecherous Portrait Of A Lady and you’ll get a sense of how it operates.
Vyrao Mamajuju is an unexpected delight. Combining spices with a convincing clay note, it is compelling, threatening and dramatic, not unlike Angelina Jolie’s presence in Maleficent. In perfume composition terms, I’d place it somewhere at the intersection of the dank mustiness of the original Zoologist Bat and the souq leanings of Aesop Marrakech Intense. It’s easily the best thing the brand has given us so far.
Finally, we come to Galavant, Eliam Puente’s latest expression of his love of all things retro. The question of whether ‘vintage’ codes are deserving of our praise is explored in the YouTube video, but for the purposes of this post I will say that Galavant is not a pastiche and it is certainly not stuck in the past. Channelling No. 5 as well as Bois Des Iles and, crucially, Samsara, it is a luminous, aldehydic white floral, possessed of enough transparency and clarity to mark it out as a 21st century creation. Wearing it, you imagine yourself strolling along the more elegant sections of the Champs Elysees, but you’re also not entirely sure if you’ve just experienced a timeslip: every now and then, you catch glimpses of hat-wearing people in long coats with upturned collars, and you find yourself longing for an era with greater sartorial acuity.
Persolaise
[Review samples provided by the brands in 2024.]
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