Fragrances Boutique

I am not passionate about Guerlain’s L’Art et la Matière line: so far, they’ve been (mostly) nice, but my wallet does not quake in fear when a new one is launched, as it does when it hears of an upcoming Hermessence. My favorite so far has been the lovely Bois d’Armenie, by perfumer Annick Menardo, but despite the fact that I’ve been through a few samples and small decants, so far I’ve not been moved to buy it.

The seventh and newest in the range, Tonka Impériale, was developed by Guerlain house perfumer Thierry Wasser. As Wasser also did the only one of the group that I seriously disliked, Iris Ganache, I didn’t really get excited about Tonka Impériale until I started seeing glowing reviews. So here I am, joining the bandwagon rather late: this is really wonderful stuff…

Guerlain has launched La Cologne du Parfumeur, a new unisex fragrance.

Guerlain’s LA COLOGNE DU PARFUMEUR! This breezy, citrus fragrance has notes of Calabrian orange blossom…

Guerlain will launch Bouquet Numéro 1 in April. The new fragrance for women is in the Aqua Allegoria range, and will be exclusive to travel retail. As with the recent Guerlain Flora Nymphéa, the inspiration is a spring garden…

Flora Nymphéa is the newest addition to the Aqua Allegoria range at Guerlain. The Aqua Allegoria fragrances are meant to showcase nature, and most years Guerlain adds one or two new scents to the series, and then they might axe a few of the older entries at the same time. At the moment, there appear to be five in production; in addition to the new Flora Nymphéa, there are four survivors from the past: Herba Fresca, Pamplelune (both 1999), Mandarine Basilic (2007) and Tiare Mimosa (2009). The packaging has been given an update this year, with new gold labels on the bottles and white outer boxes featuring a simple bee motif…

Guerlain has launched Homme L’Eau, a new flanker to 2008’s Guerlain Homme. The new scent for men is purportedly a “masterpiece of invigorating freshness”, and was developed by Guerlain house perfumer Thierry Wasser…

Tonka Impériale, launching this month, will be the seventh fragrance in Guerlain’s L’Art et la Matière line…

Flora Nymphéa will be the 2010 addition to Guerlain’s Aqua Allegoria range. As always, the inspiration is said to be “nature”, in this case, more particularly a spring garden…

Nous vendons des parfums dont le plus vieux a plus de 150 ans. Si un jour, Bruxelles ne veut plus d’essence de rose, comment pourrais-je faire ? Il y a de la rose dans presque tous nos parfums… C’est un patrimoine à défendre.

— Perfumer Thierry Wasser of Guerlain, wondering what will happen to the iconic Guerlain fragrances if and when IFRA outlaws rose. Quoted in Les créateurs de parfums ont la Commission européenne dans le nez in Le Monde. The article also quotes perfumer François Demachy, and representatives from Jean Paul Gaultier and Paco Rabanne, among others…

Idylle is the latest feminine pillar from Guerlain, and the first from house perfumer Thierry Wasser, and as such, poor thing, carries with it a fair amount of baggage. I liked Guerlain’s last such effort, Insolence, but would not be surprised to hear that it was not a big seller. I did not like the one prior to that, L’Instant, but would not be surprised to hear that it sold quite well. So.

Insolence made reference to Guerlain’s past and the brand’s famed Guerlinade base.¹ Idylle does not, so we can dispense with that right away. Instead, it offers a “contemporary interpretation” of Guerlinade, based on a “chypre signature of patchouli and white musk”. I’ve gone on ad nauseam elsewhere about the modern chypre concept — which apparently means only that you’ve added a bit of clean patchouli to the base — so I won’t belabor the point here, but I will say that there’s nothing unusual or striking enough about the patchouli and white musk base of Idylle for it to constitute a recognizable brand signature, far from it — it very neatly marks Idylle as a modern department store fragrance…