Ava Luxe's Midnight Violets

(above thee Beau Brummel)

Notes: Violet, Blue iris, Orris, Earth, Black hemlock, Galbanum, Pink pepper, Cinnamon, Cedar, Sandalwood, Incense, Wood balsam, Moss, Civet, Cashmere musk. On the website she says this is for both men and women and I can believe. I think there is some definite inspiration from Balmain's Jolie Madame in this, what it doesn't have is the sweet gardenia/violet banana middle or the leather/asthtray note in the dry down. The violets are subdued and other wise the woods and incense take over with the galbanum bringing that note of harsh green soapiness. This definately has a chypre quality running through it but a bizarre hint of creaminess (which i can only assume comes from the cashmere musk and sandalwood). This would be lovely on a man; of course my perfume dream is to smell Jolie Madame on a man. The earth note runs strongly through this and the cedar definitily has its moment. Overall this is a smoother more approachable version of Jolie Madame, but does not lose the qualities that make Jolie Madame unique and wanted by those discerning few. A lovely earthy violet scent. Now to find a man to wear.

In a luminous grey haze..scent of the day

I'm wearing Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely today, it is hard to rhaps poetic about a celebrity perfume without delving into sounding fangirlish or sounding like you bought it only because they put their name on it, and too often the scent is mediocre or worse. But with Lovely it is another story this is a scent that immediately evokes a color to me and a texture, it is misty grey silk with just a hint of velvet at the edges. It starts often with a clean medicinal note that immediately awakens the nose with quality a winter breeze has on a sunny day, yet as the fragrance begins to change it takes on the character of grey haze that you often see before sunset in fall around the mountains. It is a clean hazy scent that is both enveloping crisp.
The notes are: patchouli, paper whites, orchid, cedar, musk, woods, manderin, bergamot, rosewood, lavender, apple martini