Here Comes the Sun: Ambre Nuit, Eau du Sud, and Eau Mer
Simon & His Camera / Foter / CC BY-ND
Ambre Nuit by Dior Privee
It’s no rarity in the niche world to have a fragrance name at odds with its contents. Le Labo is legendary for that, as both Rose 31 and Ylang 49 can attest to. Patricia de Nicolai’s recent Amber Oud was patently devoid of either amber or oud. And to many who have worn Ambre Nuit by Dior Privee, the same brush applies: where the hell is the amber? Well, it’s there, friends, you just have to be patient, and perhaps shift expectations of what an ‘amber’ fragrance is.
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Vanilla Madness: The Search to Find My Perfect Vanilla
Winter is a-coming, and I be a-laying down fat to keep myself warm. Ambers, dark musks, spicy orientals, creamy gourmands…..I’ll take one of each, please. But the perfect vanilla has always eluded me. I mean, yes, there’s Shalimar, and Shalimar is pretty much the perfect everything. But Shalimar is an awful lot more than pure vanilla – there’s leather, incense, musk, and bergamot in there too. I’m on the look-out for a vanilla vanilla.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Even though the word ‘vanilla’ itself has come to mean something pedestrian, simple, or even a little boring, the variations that perfumers are able to visit upon it seem to be endless. My quest therefore becomes like the search for the Baby Bear’s Porridge – you know, the vanilla that is ‘just right’. Of course, it would help if I knew what exactly I was looking for in a perfect vanilla fragrance. But, like with good art, it’s something I’ll only know when I smell it. Here are the vanillas that I have tried and tested thus far.
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Ambra Nera: Hot and Cold Amber
Ambra Nera by Farmacia SS. Annunziata is a bit of a surprise. I was expecting a hippy-ish, Arab marketplace amber, the kind that is comforting, but so familiar it runs the risk of being yawn-inducing. Instead, I found an amber that is the stern, bookish sister in the family of ambers – nothing soft or oozing about this one at all. It charts an unusual course from bitter herbs and green mold to dust and smoking resins, eventually arriving at a surprisingly animalic heart before drifting off into a powdery, vanillic drydown that feels both more familiar and less distinctive than what has gone before.
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