Chanel Exclusifs : 28 de la Puasa

I have left this to the last of the Exclusifs to review, however, that does not mean that it would be the best of the six new launches. Only that it intrigued me long enough to keep coming back to it again and again.

Sometimes fragrances are just like that. At first, you might not like it very much and after many tries, and given lots of chances, you grow to like it or even fall in love with it. It may be the other way around. Love at first sight, but after a while, simply boredom, and little death.

28 was something old and something new. In the long line of iris perfumes, it was the newest luminary to be added to that list of perfumes constructed around this noble note. Yet, for all its newness on the market, it really was something old. I could say the lineage of this watery iris note started all the way from Apres L’ondee. That enigmatic fragrance, a little sad and grey, yet tinged with a touch of hope of new life. It truly was a masterpiece.

Thereon, fastforward, the next great piece I smelt was Hiris by Hermes, constructed, or rather painted by the genius Olivia Giacobetti, the note was simply like layered chiffon on the glidden body of the goddess Isis.

My latest love affair with the Iris fragrance was with the Homme by Dior. In such a traditionally feminine note, sprung an invention of utter understated elegance.

How does 28 compare? It is good to know that perfumery ideas continue to evolve and to be borrowed, and like so many of the other Exclusifs, 28 did just borrow an idea, abeit too closely, from Homme.

I did not really fall in love with it, merely was captivated with it at the start, and immediately, I said, “Ah! a female Homme de Dior!” The strong iris heart is evident with the powdered lavender, amber and powdered musky heart. Yet it was not strong and elegant like L’Homme. As I smelt on, it had the lively carrot notes of Hiris, a bit vegetal, warm and a bit steamy.

The second day, and then the third day, and then I started to tire of this. There is nothing original in its construction. There are no intricate little stories. Just predictable little elaborations, of themes I have long known before.

It is a sad little fragrance, grey like Apres but it had no little spark to make you happy once again. It is all doom and gloom, there are no highlights in the fragrance. It is beautiful yes, but it is boring as it is refined ad nauseam, it is featureless as it is subtle ad nauseam.

There goes the problem. Sometimes when you try to be too greedy, and start taking good things from everywhere, doesn't mean you get the best. Something new and something old, but that did not make something great.

Image from http://www.waple.net/bbs/data/gallery_color/sad_b.jpg

Chanel Exclusifs : Gardenia

Gardenia is one of the original creations of Ernest Beaux, and it belongs to the original collection of the Chanel Exclusifs.

I have always had a love affair with gardenias, and I was always very excited when the gardenias are in bloom during spring time. The creamy fruity scent of the flowers often bring to me a feeling of new hope. Its headiness pregnant with expectancy, yet is verdant greenness and its fruity playfulness bring it into another realm altogether, one that is lively and light, like a little dance.

Gardenia by Chanel is a meld of all of this and more. It is meant to reflect Chanel’s personal favorite flower. I had always wondered why, because it is such an emotional fragrance, not elegant and abstract.

In any case, the perfume starts off with a profusion of light floral notes, not so much of the fruity or green notes, which although present, were very well blended into the background in a supporting role. The impression I got, was one of orange flowers (in the Yardley sense), something like the top green note of muguet, brighten slightly with orange citrus notes, elaborated with neroli and dew.

The tonality is very modern, in a way, and gave me a glimpse into how a perfume like that can evolve into the modern and brilliant Beyond Paradise in about 70 years.

And like Beyond Paradise, the swirling light watery atmospheric notes quickly gave way to a very full and sensual jasmine heart. Woven into the jasmine note is a sweet, almost chocolaty sugary sweet note, something like honey and syrup, yet not as sweet. The creamy notes of a typical gardenia are not so evident, no strong lactone notes in sight here, but rather it leads into a kind of sweet fruity jasmine note with lots of benzyl acetate, blended into an ambery, musky, woody and vanillic note that is as smooth as velvet.

I think this is the most beautiful of the lot, the most sultry, passionate and emotional. Compared to this, the rest of the perfumes are quiet elegant pieces, a bit emotionless by comparison, a little like pictures on a wall. But this, this is the flesh blossoming beneath the cool structured Chanel pieces, this fragrance comes alife, like life heralding of the coming spring. In the range, the parfum version is the best of the lot.

Anaïs Anaïs, the goddess, the nymph, the fairy, the girlish woman.

The theme about duality and contrasts brings me to discuss another interesting fragrance that is about the same idea but a very different type of fragrance.

Anais Anais is probably the best known floral, created by Firmenich some 30 years ago. It still remains a very beautiful floral. This ethereal fragrance is quite a different thing from the bleached white and watery ozonic florals you see being launched into the market nowadays.

Anais Anais looks simple and approachable on the surface, and it likes to seem that way.
A refreshing burst of citrus and greens that consist of galbanum, lemon, jasmine, tart crips notes of gardenia, fruits and bergamot reminds one of the singing top notes of Chamade.

But unlike Chamade, which leads slowly down into a sweet vanillic balsamic base, Anais Anais develops slowly into a floral, fruit and musk accord.

As it develops from the top notes, the simplicity of the top note gives way to a simple yet strange personality. One that is nice and one that naughty, very much like the Shalimar that I talked about earlier. The duality comes in the effect of the floral accord and how it is carefully balanced between the innocence and sensuality. The immediate impression is that of the freshness of the white florals, ie. the happy citrusy jasmine notes, the pureness of the virginal white rose notes, the green lily notes that links it all together as the dominant note, making one feeling it's a peaceful, idyllic and innocent fragrance.

This reminds me of the scent of trumpet lilies, which carefully balances a fresh, tart green note, with a phenolic, indolic heart. The effect is strange, fresh and yet exotic and sensual. Its booth daylight and nighttime.

On second impression, the fragrance, with the innocent veil lifted, starts to hint of something quite different. The fruity exotic richness of the peaches, jammy sweet honey together with a slightly oily, mildly indolic note of HCA and indole.

All this nicely wrapped up with a touch of musk, that smells human, warmth and like the smell of clean girlish skin.

The overall effect is one that is like lying in the lap of a girl with a nice white blouse, sitting in field of grass and wild flowers freely blooming in a spring day, and under that, the alluring smell of skin at once musky, smelling of peaches, honey, slightly oily and buttery…delicious.


The floracy starts to develop from there, the grean notes develop iConsidered a symbol of purity by the ancient Greeks, Madonna lilies enrich the heart of this romantic perfume. Amazingly it takes one ton of petals to produces just one pound of lily oil… making Anaïs Anaïs precious indeed! Inspired by the Persian goddess of fertility and death, Anaïs Anaïs celebrates the innocent yet sensual duality

View the video here:
http://perso.orange.fr/imagesdeparfums/indexfr.htm?http://stetol.chez-alice.fr/filmspublicitaires/anaisanais.htm&2