It isn’t precisely a state secret that I really like roses. I do know they’re nearly the cliché of the flower world however I really like them in all of their permutations: the large jammy spicy ones with blooms virtually larger than your head, those with the tiny buds both single or in profusion, those that scent delicate, those that scent so strongly it’s like getting smacked throughout the chops with ROSE!!! and even those that don’t scent in any respect (though these a bit much less.) My pal Sue for years lived in a rented bungalow in West Hollywood with a reasonably ineffective driveway that she changed into “Rose Alley”- pots and pots of them lovingly tended and timed in order that there can be blooms from spring till properly into fall. It was a tragic day after they needed to transfer and a number of the roses needed to go. Fortunately a co-worker of mine had simply purchased a fairly home with a beautiful yard in El Sereno and gave house to the orphans: 20 years later they’re nonetheless going robust and Sue’s lemon timber, transplanted from pots, are enormous.
I used to be truly on the committee that selected the centennial rose in celebration of the 100th birthday of town of Beverly Hills, the ultimate alternative being planted in Will Rogers Park throughout from the Beverly Hills Resort (notorious for being he web site the place George Michael was arrested for cottaging. Who knew I lived in such a sexual hotbed? I believed that was WeHo?!) The rose we lastly selected was a salmon pink one (which I identified matched nearly completely the colour of the Resort once we had been deciding on) and a spicy perfume. Oddly sufficient, the images on this submit confirmed up in my Fb “recollections” simply right now, Monday. Rosy Kismet.
Rose de Nuit can be one which has come up rather a lot on my radar these days, primarily since Serge Lutens is type of pushing it in direct emails. Now, I don’t have to pop $300 or so for a bell jar of this, actually not unsniffed, so it was on my checklist of roses that I needed to hit up StC for. Dabbing it on from the wee pattern I’ve it looks like a giant rose- the opening on me is jammy and boozy and in-your-face in that basic Serge Lutens type of method. Then it begins to get musky, and that’s once I actually begin to like it. It nearly appears to be the Yang to MKK*‘s Ying, the place MKK is in-your-(ahem) face musk that goes to roses. That is rose, rose, ROSE that goes to musk. Perhaps I do want a bell jar? (EDIT) it’s later within the night and I hold getting whiffs of this. Sure I want it. Who wants automobile insurance coverage?
Now simply this previous week Portia reviewed Rose Omeyyade by Atelier des Ors, which was the impetus for this journey to StC. Wonders of pores and skin chemistry I suppose: I do get the oudh within the opening that Portia does, oddly combined with raspberries. Not recent ones, jam. Actually good jam, just like the one my mother used to make. Not candy, however undoubtedly cooked. Then I begin to get the rose. It’s type of odd- it’s nearly a ghost rose- you scent it, you attempt to parse it and it’s gone, simply to reappear once you cease attempting. It’s just like the rose equal of the Museum scene in “Dressed to Kill’ the place Angie Dickinson is attempting to catch as much as the stranger she simply met- she follows him by means of the labyrinthine rooms of the gallery, at all times catching a glimpse of him simply as he’s getting into one other room. Like Angie and her stranger, simply once you assume you misplaced it you flip round and there’s is: just like the Centennial Rose served on a raspberry tart on a charger plate fabricated from peppery oudh. Much more appetizing than that reads and it settles down fairly a bit because it goes alongside, however I don’t assume I’m going to want this one.
After which there’s Rose Prick.
The Centennial Rose, as a result of it’s prettier than Rose Prick, and smells nicer.
I’ve to put in writing that in some methods Tom Ford annoys me. He’s skinny, good-looking, gifted and comparatively younger. He has completed some nice issues is trend, in scents, and even within the arts (I believed “A Single Man”, whereas flawed, was good) However then there appears to be the Tom Ford who’s the good marketer. The one who will take a barely outré title, stick it on one thing that appears to have been designed by AI, on this case with a quick “Make me an costly smelling fragrance with rose that may promote properly however not offend anybody.” In the event you instructed me this was from Lancome, or Estée Lauder I wouldn’t have blinked. In the event you instructed me Avon even, I’d have thought “good for them.” Rose Prick is simply so.. Sephora pleasant Johnny Ross ought to put it in one in all his YouTube movies. Frankly, Tom may have extra precisely known as it Money Seize and stopped there..
Okay, so, what are your favourite roses? Rose scents? Low cost and cheerful or ruinously costly? Please tell us within the feedback.
Rose de Nuit is accessible on the Serge Lutens web site (now fortunately delivery bell jars to the US) for $305. Rose Omeyyade by Atelier des Ors is accessible at on-line retailers lie FragranceNet for about $150 on the time of this writing, $275 retail at LuckyScent. Tom Ford Rose Prick is accessible on the common suspects $250 for 1oz. My samples are from Give up to Likelihood. Images are mine and from Pexels.
*Has MKK been renamed? G-D forbid reformulated? It’s now simply known as “Koublai Kahn” on the website- if , please chime in
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