Bloom Perfumery

a mixed bag

Bloom Perfumery kindly sent me another batch of samples. They will apparently soon be moving to larger premises, still in Covent Garden.

Teint de Neige EdP (Villoresi)

I had not paid much attention to Villoresi fragrances since I shared a couch with him aeons ago on an Italian TV program about perfume and watched him hand around a lump of cheap “vegetal” amber¹ and describe it as a valuable lump of ambergris. I said nothing at the time but have since stayed away from the fragrances he claims to compose. Teint de Neige (snowy complexion) is true to its name: a copy of Chanel No.22, itself a copy of White Linen, the reference snowy aldehydic. Why snowy? Ernest Beaux, the Russian perfumer who introduced aliphatic (straight-chain carbons) into perfumery soon after their first synthesis, thought that they conveyed the smell of snow. This fact is apparently reported in his assistant’s memoirs and was related to me by Viktoria Frolova. What is TdN like? Like 22, an overly sweet aldehydic that screams fake white fur and fluffy mules. The extrait, more floral, features said mules in size 11, pink.

Staelios (Pierre Guillaume)

Staelios—possibly the Greek first name Stelios pronounced with a Québec accent—comes advertised with a photo of a handsome tanned dude and a blurb explaining that the smell is based on a legendary batch of purple reindeer leather. The composition is in fact a cheap but admirably clever trick. If you overlay a classic 1970’s green chypre with a huge slug of ambrox, you instantly get the best of both worlds: a wet-concrete, suitably industrial-modern vibe up front, and at the back a quiet background classical music, which by this time could be described as perfumery’s Mozart. I really should not like this fragrance, but I do. The exact way it is done is so poetically spot on, so radiant, and so affecting in a naive way that I cannot resist.

17.1 DILSHAD (Pierre Guillaume)

Pistachio is apparently flavor-of-the-month in perfumery, and 17.1 claims it is used in this composition. My first reaction smelling it was that it reproduced exactly—only ten times lifesize—the smell of fresh baguette crust collected while still warm from the nearest bakery in France. I had no idea that French bread smelled of anise, rubbing alcohol, and hamster-cage thiazines. Not sure it works as a perfume.

Untamable! (Imaginary Authors)

I mistook Untamable! for a Borntostandout fragrance and included it in a previous post. When my mistake was pointed out, I cut out the review and forgot to save it. I will not repeat myself, save to say that this vile, sweet, urinous, animalic thing has caused Tania to leave the room and close the door behind her after asking whether I’d pissed myself. I’ve just opened two windows and the cat is trying to escape.

Story of Your Life (ELO)

Not bad but entirely derivative fruity-ambery thing with a suede note.

King Cobra (Zoologist)

An interesting attempt by perfumer Prim Lonros to fit geosmin, the smell of wet earth, into a proper accord, rather than serve it as a simple olfactory one-liner. Many have tried, none succeeded. Lomros cleverly juxtaposes it with camphor, grapefruit and vetiver and pulls it off. The end result is an abstract, dry, cooling, slightly medicinal thing, as if Badedas bath gel had decided to become a real perfume. Well done.

Afternoon Tea (Exaltatum)

I see what they’re trying to do here, namely a huge jasmine tea. So huge in fact that, as with a Chuck Close portrait, you end up looking at skin pores and stray mustache hairs and don’t get much of an overall picture. Works better from a distance.

Curtain Call (Toskovat)

A surprisingly competent fruity floral.

1. Vegetal amber, a friable, buff-colored substance, is typically made of acetanilide, an odorless powder, mixed with labdanum and other resinoids with added vanillin.