Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle

A selection of fragrances from the perfume house Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle

🌹Mood Scent 4 Roses, Roses, Roses!🌹🌹

It’s time for Mood Scent 4! Where Portia (on A Bottled Rose) , Samantha  (I Scent You A Day), Megan (Megan In Sainte Maxime) and I write about a different subject linking perfume to mood or occasion. This time we picked roses in perfumes. Powdery roses, fruity roses, roses with chocolate or spices, there are so many to choose from! I adore roses in perfumes, roses as flowers and own several rose centric fragrances. For this article I chose different kinds of roses in perfumes, tea roses, dark roses, powdery roses and wild ones.

Paul Smith Rose Eau de Parfum 

Paul Smith Rose is an elegant, sophisticated, natural smelling light pink rose scent. This eau de parfum smells very natural as if smelling a bouquet of recently picked small light pink roses. It reminds me of rose lemonade on a hot summer day too. Think of a fresh, light pink rose with shiny drops of dew on its petals and a light tea touch. After a few minutes Paul Smith Rose turns into a slightly warmer dark velvet rose.

Paul Smith Rose was created by perfumer Antoine Maisondieu and launched in 2006 at the famous Chelsea Flower Show in the UK. The scent reminds me of the discontinued Stella McCartney Stella Edp, a reasonable and affordable alternative for this fragrance. Paul Smith Rose is cheap as chips at discount stores and makes an excellent gift for lovers of rose scents.

Neela Vermeire Créations Mohur Eau de Parfum 

Mohur is a fragrance with many faces, changing continuously showing us different notes each time you smell your wrist; saffron, powdery rose, oud, creamy woody sandalwood, spicy refreshing cardamon, green stems and sweet milky notes. It feels like experiencing those kaleidoscope tubes we used to see as a child, where every time you turned the tube with beads and mirrors, very different shapes and colours appeared.

Surprisingly Mohur smells very lightly at the beginning but after a few hours it is at its best and very noticeable on skin. It took me time to fully appreciate Mohur as there are so many sides to this fragrance. Now it is one of my favourite spicy rose fragrances as it is such a special and distinctive scent.

Guerlain Nahéma Eau de Parfum / Extrait 

Nahéma is a lush powdery rose, full of dark velvet rose petals, juicy peach on a warm smooth sandalwood, with a balsamic base of peru balsam and creamy not overly sweet vanilla. Wearing Nahéma feels like walking in a bright red velvet long evening gown fit for an movie star. from the 1950’s ties.  It is bold, voluptuous and daring. I prefer the discontinued extrait/pure perfume to the eau de parfum which is still sold today. This version is worth a try as well and can be found at Guerlain counters in department stores or online. I haven’t been to department stores for some time so I am not sure if they still sell Nahéma. The Eau de Parfum seems more powdery and not as filled with lush velvet rose petals.

Nahéma was released in 1979 ahead of its time in the 1980’s ties when big and bold fragrances like Dior Poison and Yves Saint Laurent Paris were introduced. I wonder how long Guerlain/LVMH will be producing Nahéma as it is so hard to find. It is one of my personal favourite rose fragrances and gets a lot of wear.

Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle Une Rose 

Another fragrance which gets a lot of wear is Une Rose, created by perfumer Edouard Fléchier. He also made Dior Poison and Tendre Poison. Une Rose is a rose with thorns and darker boozy edges. A rose which has endured storms, heavy rains, winds and is still showing its beauty. It is not your usual light tea rose but an ancient breed grown to undergo hardships. Une Rose is beautiful at times, powdery and scented of rose jam but you can smell its rough green stems and torn leaves. A magnificent creation.

Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle Rosa Rugosa Scented Candle  

Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle Rosa Rugosa was created by perfumer Carlos Benaïm (also from Polo Ralph Lauren). This scent is sold as a scented candle, rubber incense set and large room spray.  Rosa Rugosa was inspired by the scent of the rosa rugosa flower. This is a wilder kind of rose bush which can usually be found in the dunes near the sea.  In The Netherlands they were planted next to roads or in parks as well. It seems they have grown out of fashion. The blossoming Rose flowers turns into little fruits which are the size of cherry tomatoes and can be used to make jam or syrup.

The burning Rosa Rugosa candle smells like leaving your window open and wafts of the blossoming Rosa Rugosa bushes enter your room leaving the room lightly scented of wild blossoming small rose flowers. Rosa Rugosa bushes grew abundantly in the Dutch village where I grew up near the sea and I have a fondness for these small fuchsia coloured pink wild roses with their green wrinkled prickly leaves. The rose underneath is not a Rosa Rugosa but another kind of Rose.

These are the rose fragrances I picked. Have a look on Samantha’s blog I Scent You A Day Megan’s blog  Megan in St. Maxime  and Portia on A Bottled Rose,  to read they choices too! It is always a joy to read their picks and see what they chose. Sometimes we choose the same fragrances which is a nice surprise as we don’t know in advance what we will pick.

Back to you Do you like rose perfumes? What are your favorite ones ?

Disclosure: All fragrances mentioned in this article were bought by me.  The Bottles or scented candles which are sold now, might be different from the ones shown on the photographs. The photographs were made by me and are an artistic expression. The aim of the photographs is to portray personal impressions of the fragrances.

Mood Scent 4 : Perfumes That Work For Everybody Else But You

 

It’s Mood Scent 4 time again! Tara from A Bottled Rose, Samantha from I Scent You A Day, Megan from Megan in St Maxime and I are all writing on the same subject every couple of months. This time we write about fragrances which work for everybody else except us. It might be due to skin chemistry, hormones or just personal taste. You can find the links to the others blogs at the end of this article.

I have chosen two fragrances very much loved amongst many perfume lovers: Parfum d’Empire Azemour and Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle Portrait Of A Lady. Unfortunately both don’t work for me, here’s why.

Parfum d’Empire Azemour Les Orangers Eau de Parfum

Notes: orange, clementine, tangerine, grapefruit, coriander, cumin, black pepper, pink pepper, blackcurrant, galbanum, neroli, geranium, orange blossom, rose, hay, moss, henna and cypres (as of to Luckyscent)

Fragrance Family: Mossy Woods / Chypre (as of Michael Edwards)

Azemour was introduced in 2011 and created as a tribute to Morocco where it’s perfumer Marc-Antoine Corticchiato was born and raised. The Eau de Parfum is said to contain all the parts of the orange tree from pulp, fruit, peel, leaves, to bark and earth. I found the use of all parts of an orange tree very appealing as I love everything from the orange tree. Azemour has had many positive reviews online (Bois de Jasmin, The Scented Hound and Olfactoria to name a few).

Orange Tree

Azemour starts very promising on my skin with golden sweet orange to continue quite rapidly into a very sour citrus. The glorious orange shines through from time to time showing a glimpse of the chypre I would like it to be but the dusty moss/hay and sour citrus notes ruin this Eau de Parfum completely for me. I was given a tester bottle when I purchased a fragrance a few years ago and used Azemour from time to time hoping for the better but alas the dusty moss/hay and sour citrus notes make it rather difficult for me to wear. My partner wore Azemour this summer and it smells amazingly warm bright and golden on him. I wish it smelled like this on me. My skin and Azemour just don’t match.

Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle Portrait Of A Lady Eau de Parfum 

Notes: rose, blackcurrant, raspberry, clove, patchouli,sandalwood, frankincense (as of the official Frederic Malle EU website)

Fragrance Family: Mossy Woods / Chypre (as of Michael Edwards)

Another well loved fragrance among many perfume lovers which doesn’t suit me is Frédéric Malle Portrait Of A Lady (often called in short PoaL). PoaL is said to originate from an accord of Frédéric Malle Geranium pour Monsieur. Some describe PoaL as a jammy rose with incense or as a dark rose. On my skin PoaL is very much about patchouli which I am not very fond of when it plays a prominent role. I get whiffs of jammy rose but mostly of very earthy patchouli which I can appreciate at certain moments but not for a whole day. Unfortunately the rose is not too noticable on my skin.

Bottomline: A perfume might not work for you due to personal taste, skin chemistry or hormones. Parfum d’Empire Azemour didn’t work due to my skin and probably hormones and Portrait of a Lady due to the prominent patchouli. So always test on your skin before buying a fragrance and monitor how it develops during the day. If you can test a few times.

You can read the choices of perfumes which don’t work for Tara from A Bottled Rose, Samantha from I Scent You A Day, Megan from Megan in St Maxime by klicking on their names.

Are there any perfumes which seem to work for everybody else except you?