MDCI

A selection of fragrances from the French perfume house MDCI

Mood Scent 4 Fabulous Fruits!

It is Mood Scent 4 time again!  Our monthly blogging project 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 fabulous fruits: peaches, mangos, pears, blueberries, prunes, melons or prickly pears/cactus fruits (in case you were wondering about the fruits on the photograph). It was Portia’s idea to write about fruity fragrances this month and Sam came up with the title.

Personally I like perfumes with fruit but not fragrances which are only about fruit and I find them at times challenging. But I have several which I love and joyously wear, especially if they have some peach or mango notes. So we starting with green mango in Bombay Bling!

Neela Vermeire Creations Bombay Bling

Bombay Bling is an uplifting and joyful fragrance with delicious green mango, spicy lemony cardamon and a bouquet of flowers like creamy ylang ylang, gardenia, frangipani and tuberose. Created by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour Bombay Bling embodies very different parts of modern, colourful, buzzing, spiritual and joyful India. Curious to know what joy smells like? Try Bombay Bling.

Notes include mango, lychee, blackcurrant, cardamom, cumin, cistus, Turkish rose, jasmine sambac, ylang-ylang, tuberose, frangipani, gardenia, patchouli, tobacco, sandalwood, cedar wood and vanilla.

Parfums MDCI Péché Cardinal

Parfums MDCI (MDCI) Peche Cardinal is a young, joyful and pretty fruity floral fragrance. Wearing Péché Cardinal makes you feel innocent and playful (again). It was released in 2008, means Cardinal Sin in French and was created by perfumer Amandine Clerc-Marie. Péché Cardinal is a special treat if you like tuberose, peach and coconut in a fragrance.

The tuberose flower is fresh and green at the start like its large stem and still innocent before showing us her more lush or even carnal side. Péché Cardinal can be slightly kaleidoscopic as she changes from a sweet peach liquor boozy drink to a creamy tuberose and a light coconut milk drink too.

Notes include peach, coconut, blackberry, black currant, artemisia, tuberose, plum, lily, musk, sandalwood, cedarwood Virginian.

Envoyage Perfumes Vents Ardants

Vents Ardents starts off with very ripe lush tropical fruits reminiscent of the smell of fruits sold in a fruit stall in the burning hot sun at a tropical beach. Fruits are slightly starting to decay in the heat but they are still good enough to eat. There is a thin line between very ripe fruits getting too cloying and just the right touch. But perfumer Shelley Waddington did an excellent job by staying on the right side of the line in this eau de cologne. Vents Ardents smells of boozy rum from the Caribbean as well, moving more into amber territory with sweet vanilla beans and balsamic resins.

Vents Ardents means ardent winds in French. It smells like a passionate love affair in the tropical heat on one of the exotic islands in the Caribbean. Vents Ardents was created to be used as a wedding scent (or wedding night?) to be paired with Nectars des Îles thus creating a new fragrance by layering them together. What a wonderful idea for a wedding scent!

Notes include Blue Curacao, Wild Oranges, Bay Rum, Tropical Fruits, Tonka Beans, Heliotrope, Magnolia, French Narcissus, Amber , Mahogany, Tobacco, Oak, Driftwood, Vanilla, Balsams.

4160 Tuesdays Doe in The Snow

After visiting Modern India, the Maldives and Caribbean islands we are visiting the UK on a cold winter day with Doe in the Snow from perfumer Sarah McCartney. Doe in the Snow was originally created as a wedding scent for Lizzie Ostrom also known as Odette Toilette. Doe in the Snow smells like scenting fresh lemon from an expensive Italian cologne worn by a fellow traveler while waiting for the train on an ice cold polar windy train station on a crisp winter morning.

Notes include grapefruit, cedrat, yuzu, peach aldehyde, snow, cedarwood, rose, jasmine, oak, opoponax, oakmoss, leather, green tea absolute

Goutal Quel Amour!

This composition opens with fresh tart red currants. After some seconds, a very large pink bouquet of fragrant peonies enters the stage followed by red pomegranate jelly. Fancy pink petaled large roses and light powder join as well. They create a beautiful blend of sweet pink peonies, a touch of powdery rose, tart red summer currants and Middle Eastern pomegranate jelly. Although this fragrance has been discontinued it is still widely available online. Grab a bottle while you still can if you like romantic floral (fruity) fragrances.

Notes include red currant, pomegranate, peach, cherry, blueberry, peony, geranium and amber

These are the fabulous fruits perfumes 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!

Leave a comment, I love to read your fabulous fruit perfumes!
What are your favorite fruit perfumes?

Disclosure: All fragrances or samples mentioned in this article were bought by me personally. Photographs were made by me as well and are an artistic expression. Bottles which are sold now, might be different from the ones shown on the photographs.

Mood Scent 4 : Inner Teen Perfumes

Its Mood Scent 4 time again! Sam (I Scent You a Day), Megan (Megan in St. Maxime), Portia (Australian Perfume Junkies) and I write about a different  theme every month. This time we have chosen to post about Inner Teen Perfumes. Which perfumes make us feel like young teenagers again? Fragrances we used when we were teenagers ourselves or perfumes which make us feel like we are in our teens again?

 

When I was a teenager in the eighties I wore perfumes like Diorella, Lancome Climat and Estée Lauder White Linen. Diorella is the fragrance I associate most with being a teenager. I bought a “vintage” bottle of Climat a year ago but it does not remind me of the scent I used to wear at all. White Linen or Climat are not exactly fragrances I would suggest for teenagers nowadays but we had a lot less to choose from in those days as some of you well know!

Diorella!

I wore Diorella with much joy when I graduated high school in 1985. The year of films like St Elmo’s Fire, Back to the Future and Jagged Edge. Diorella extrait was a very generous gift from my aunt and it still makes me feel like a teenager even though it has been drastically changed removing its dominant fruity melon accord in more recent releases.

Diorella is an uplifting fragrance with Sicilian lemon, bright light clean jasmine over a vetiver and patchouly base. Natural jasmine flowers can smell of rotting and decay in the evening in the Mediterranean but the focus here is on it’s clean scent during the day. Perfumer Edmond Routniska interestingly added an almost rotting contrasting cantaloupe melon accord. Diorella was released in 1972. Edmond Routniska also created Frederic Malle Le Parfum de Therese in the early fifties (for his wife)  Le Parfum de Therese was released to the public in 2000 and some bloggers say it is rather similar to Diorella. Honestly I find it rather different but who knows how it smelled when it was first released in 1972? I would love to know Diorella how it was originally intended.

Notes: lemon, peach, basil, bergamot, melon, green notes, honeysuckle, jasmine, violet, rose, carnation, cyclamen. Oak moss, vanilla, clove, sandalwood, vetiver, musk, patchouly.

Moschino Cheap and Chic I Love Love

Pure careless joy in a playful coloured bottle. This fragrance uplifts me everytime I wear it and the blue and red bottle with a toylike spray brings a smile to my face every time I use it. Starting with a bright citrus accord, full of juicy pomelo and sweet candy like lemon, it changes into a warm woody base. Although pomelo or grapefruit is very dominant, it never gets sour and is extremely uplifting. It does disappear rather quickly on the skin though. I love love was released in 2005 and created by perfumer Olivier Cresp, it is said to be rather similar to Dolce Gabbana Light Blue (which he created too) but with a brighter citrus top and as a bonus it is much cheaper too. They do share the same DNA but I love love is much more prominent on my skin especially its bright pomelo opening.

Notes: grapefruit, red currant, lemon, tea rose, cinnamon, musk, cedar wood

Parfums MDCI Péché Cardinal

Parfums MDCI (MDCI)  Peche Cardinal is a young, joyful and pretty fruity floral fragrance. Wearing Péché Cardinal makes me feel innocent and playful. It was released in 2008, meaning Cardinal Sin in French and created by perfumer Amandine Clerc-Marie.

Peche Cardinal was the first perfume with a dominant tuberose note I enjoyed wearing. The tuberose is fresh green and innocent before showing us her more lush or even carnal side. Péché Cardinal can be slightly caleidoscopic as she changes from sweet peach liquor to creamy tuberose and a lighter coconut.  It makes you feel like a young teenage girl feeling very pretty in pink (I am referring here to the 1986 film Pretty in Pink with Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCartney, a film I enjoyed watching in the eighties).

Notes: Davana, peach, coconut, blackcurrant, tuberose, prune, lily, cedar, sandalwood, musc.

These were my three choices! Have a look on the Sam’s blog I Scent You A Day, Megan’s  Megan in St. Maxime and Portia’s Australian Perfume Junkies to read their picks for inner teen perfumes! I am very curious, aren’t you?

What are your favorite inner teen fragrances? Did you wear them when you were a teenager? Which fragrances make you feel like a teenager again?

Disclosure; photographs of bottles were made by me.

MDCI Peche Cardinal

imageParfums MDCI (MDCI)  Peche Cardinal is a young, joyful and pretty fragrance. Wearing it makes me feel 16, innocent and charming like no other fragrance I have found.

It was the first perfume with a dominant tuberose note I enjoyed wearing and is one of my absolute favorites in my collection. What makes Peche Cardinal interesting is that although the tuberose note is dominant it displays a fresher  (greener ?) more innocent facet of the flower before becoming lush or even carnal. Peche Cardinal is a bit of shape shifter sometimes showing more of her sweet peach liquor side at other times more her creamy tuberose and coconut aspects.

One could say Peche Cardinal is a tuberose fragrance for beginners. Peche Cardinal was released in 2008 meaning Cardinal Sin.

The bottles come in two versions a simple more reasonably priced edition still expensive and one with a bisque stopper which looks beautiful and comes with a the Medici price tag. Both bottles are beautiful, although the one without the buste reminds me of the David Beckham glass bottles. The perfume has a beautiful peach pink orange color.

image

All MDCI fragrances were made by very talented perfumers like Francis Kurkdjian, Patricia de Nicolai. Stephanie Bakouche, Cecile Zarokian, Amandine Marie and Bertrand Duchaufour.

I sampled most of the MDCI line some time ago buying a sample kit directly from the MDCI website, 8 small 12 ml splash bottles in an accompanying beautiful box. All buyers except people in the Netherlands can deduct the price of the sample box from their first full bottle. It is an excellent deal and a pity for people living in the Netherlands to be left out of this deal. Peche Cardinal was the fragrance I liked most from all the ones I tried.

Some people on the perfume website fragantica and Luckyscent did not believe Peche Cardinal was worth its price and could have been a main stream perfume. I agree with them this scent could have been one but only if better and more interesting main stream fragrances would be released. Although expensive I have not been able to find a cheaper alternative.

Notes according to Luckyscent: Davana, Peach, Coconut, Blackcurrent, Tuberose, Prune, Lily, Cedar, Sandelwood, Musc

Perfumer: Amandine Marie image

Fragrance family: Floral Fruity

Sillage: 3,5/5

Longevity: 3,5/5

Rating: 5/5

picture 1. Made by Rene Gruau, picture 2 taken from Luckyscent and picture 3 taken from the Parfums MDCI website

Origin of bottle and samples: my own