smell this - The Seventh Sphinx

Lolita Lempicka is a strange and unexpected fragrance, designed by the talented Annick Menardo in 1997 for the French fashion house. It opens with a very sweet licorice note—imagine aniseed (or maybe better, anisette) cotton candy—which softens but remains in the forefront for the duration of wear. Give it 10 to 20 minutes and it’s hard to say what is happening on your arm; chocolate, lavender, powder, vanilla…the scent is creamy yet not heavy, lasting several hours on me and seeming to change its face from one hour to the next and one wearing to the next. Sometimes it seems like a complex bourbon-vanilla and the licorice, which I can intellectually trace back to, is almost entirely disguised or subsumed by something like praline or marzipan with hints of coffee and chocolate throwing additional licorice-cloaking shadows.

This perfume is often compared to Mugler’s Angel, another sweet gourmand of an entirely different species (chocolate/vanilla/patchouli), and while Angel has something flirtatious and heady about it, the brightening, almost herbal quality of licorice, underscored by the actually herbal ivy and violet notes, keeps Lolita Lempicka light and innocent. It manages to be fully sweet, unmistakably sweet, without being cloying. A more or less straight licorice doesn’t work for me (see Hermes Brin de Reglisse) but the creamy current of powdery tonka sweetness contrasted with the gentle violet grounds this fragrance.

The classic Lolita Lempicka bottle is an apple, and the Lolita Lempicka Au Masculin bottle a tree trunk. I say: cute.

There is an Alice in Wonderland kind of strangeness to this perfume (this is the flavor, perhaps, of the EAT ME biscuit), which was extremely innovative when it was launched and still smells interesting and modern to me now. It can be a bit sweet for me, and it may be a bit sweet for you. It’s often a candidate for layering with something more masculine to temper the sweetness, and I often opt for the less creamy Au Masculin when I want a licorice note (I’ll tell you about that another time), but this is the kind of fragrance I love to find lingering on my scarf or sweater days later.

When I finally picked up Bruno Acampora’s Musc this winter it had been at the top of my fragrance wishlist for over a year. I first heard about it when Katie Puckrik reviewed it on her channel and was, like many, instantly curious. A deep, earthy musk, beautiful, entirely unisex. The team at Lucky Scent gave it an unabashedly glowing review and I knew that I must smell it.

They are right. It is beautiful. It is earthy. It is resinous. It is not, somehow, to my nose, that musky…it is musky, but not that musky. It doesn’t feel overwhelmingly like musk. Actually, it feels like patchouli (there is patchouli in the base). Like a rooty, vegetal, loamy patchouli.

The opening is peppery and vivid, there is that wonderful healthy basement odor I was trying to describe for Lalique’s Encre Noir. This is a completely different fragrance but it has that same great moldy element. For me it is distinctly mushroomy, which I mean in the best way. Imagine a dark loaf of bread that has just begun to mold, that point where the mold does not yet smell like a warning but instead like an invitation. The mold only adds depth and complexity to the smell of the yeast and the grain, and a slight powdery quality. [Everybody with me?] At the same time there is something I want to call sweet about it. Imparted partially by the cloves, perhaps. It is not sweet, but it has that level of saturation and intensity that sweetness can achieve. In the nose and mouth it feels the way sweetness feels. This is a proper, proper perfume. It is intense, concentrated, and a little goes a long way.

The back of the box. “Color: gold.” That’s the color I am! In my mind/heart!

Part of the delight of this fragrance is the complexity, and the strangeness. It is hard to identify what you are smelling (I can’t really pick out the individual florals they reference in their description above), creating the [accurate] impression of an elaborate structure. This is the flip-side of the appeal of a clean, one-note fragrance; a simple citrus or soliflore that delights with its bright simplicity. Dark complexity is equally compelling, and Bruno Acampora Musc has it. The real beauty is, when I wear it, I think I have it, a bit. Or, at least, I project it. A few hours after application I find it wonderfully subtle, a muted and more ambery version of its initial self.

Tag: smell this

smell this: Lolita Lempicka

smell this: Bruno Acampora Musc