Sarah Horowitz Parfums: Perfect Nectar

Yes, it’s summery, juicy and, when you wear it, the boys will wag their tongues at you. But boys used to wag their tongues at me when I wore Bath & Body Works’ Sun-Ripened Raspberry, circa 1998, back when B&BW was ultimate proof of the possible success in simplicity (i.e. the cheap soliflore, or, more precisely “solifruit”).Thus, typical boys, with their general poor taste in fragrance (the well-informed aside) and raves over Armani Code and Vera Wag’s various candy-crack Princesses do little to sway my opinions about perfume.I try to pander somewhat to the boyfriend’s preferences, but if I really paid attention to them, I would be walking around smelling like a piece of fruit that got into fisticuffs with a vanilla cupcake. Not so elegant for anyone but an adolescent, and even for them there’s always some clean and bright alternatives like Tocca Brigitte or Coco Mademoiselle. This brings me to my original point about Perfect Nectar. At first spray Perfect Nectar is pure peach – but not a rich dripping, lactonic peach, the kind you find in the farmers’ market in August. No, I’m talking about the kind of fruit aroma that feels synthetic and sterilized, like naff body spray or artificially flavored candies. Or the way I might like my bathroom to smell after someone has spent too much “time” in it…but even then I prefer the use of a sandalwood incense match. The supposed green tea and white flowers were non-existent against the syrupy fruits, which is a shame because I suspect the intention was to temper the juiciness with some astringent and bitter notes. Mango is listed as a note, but I’ve realized that a sneaky pineapple tinge may be the culprit of my protest, which in fragrance I often find cheesy and rotten-smelling – the oft and peculiar olfactory crime of fruits normally found along the equator. I, however, seem to be a defector in my opinion: my best friend tentatively sprayed this once, sniffed, smiled broadly and sprayed it over her entire body, exclaiming “Oh, my God! It’s great! It’s so fruity!” Because my boyfriend and friend love it and because it is one of Sarah Horowitz’s bestsellers, there are people out there (probably nearly at every corner) bound to love this stuff. But, I may ask, since when is “fruity-ness” the ultimate positive characteristic of personal fragrance? It seems that over the years voluminous florals and wise, but restrained greens have been over-run in popularity by often vulgar syrupy fruit concoctions – and  while some fruity-florals can be fun (Badgley Mischka), most just leave me feeling like a tarty teenager.    In fact, as far as peachy fragrances go, I much prefer Mitsouko, which pairs a resinous green note with peach, rather than fruity, tropical, artificial wonders that push peach out of grace. I digress…There’s an upside! Perfect Nectar is one of the best fragrances to wear to a bar. It’s accessible, easy to identify and detectable by even the most anosmic drunks. It is, by far, the perfume I get the most positive comments on, and, even if in that sense alone, I can see why some women would very quickly shell out the $75.00 required to purchase the perfume. This stuff can make a girl quite popular!  It’s an interesting place when you realize that you are buying perfume not at all for yourself, but rather for the enjoyment of others. I am not sure that I like that place at all.  When I come home from work (instead having worn Ms. Horowitz’s beautiful Love Comes from Within) the house reeks of Perfect Nectar because the boyfriend has taken it upon himself to spritz it throughout the rooms. I’ve remarked that the fragrance is much more expensive than Febreze, but he says someone’s got to use it.   I guess he’s right.

Noel au Balcon: Etat Libre d’Orange

Etat Libre D’Orange is a strange outfit, but this, to those in-the-know, goes withoutt saying. To me, with a few exceptions, I find something distinctly unwearable (aside from, perhaps, Like This) about each of their perfumes. The unsuitability of public wear of Secretions Magnifique is the most obvious, with it’s naff iron-flesh note, but even Encens et Bubblegum, which to the mind’s nose sounds delightful and hippie-dippy, is an overly sweet and heady, unmoving mess that makes me feel a little vomit rise to my throat if I sniff it for too long: it’s the kind of thing that may smell good in passing, or on the face of a five year old, but up close and personal it’s just too much. Not mention that the incense is hardly detectable.

So, we come to Noel au Balcon, which is admittedly much better than the previous two I just mentioned. (In fact, every perfume I have ever smelled is better than Secretions Magnifique, even the shrill and horrifically potent Fleur de Rocaille by Caron. )

The start of Noel au Balcon is a bit like potpourri, the classic spiced kind with a cinnamon sticks, if it would happen to be whirred in a blender with a dot of Jergen’s Original lotion and vanilla ice cream – tasty treat, no? Palatable or not, it smells divine, and appropriately Christmas-y.

The mention of Nigella in the notes had me stumped (I’d never heard of such a thing), and after research on the various species decided that regardless of the specifics there was not much cumin present (my only fear of this genus), so I could alert my boyfriend that today I would probably not be smelling like old underwear.

In the middle though, NaB starts to wind in mysterious directions, of which I mostly approve except for an unnerving sweetness that I can taste in the back of my throat – upon which I am faced with the ghastly presence of my nemesis: honeysuckle.

Honeysuckle, for me, can ruin just about anything, including Sarah Horowitz’s Perfect Kiss (bizarre mix of honeysuckle and chocolate) and Kenzo Summer, which is almost good, but not quite. In fact, the sweet half of Noel au Balcon could be almost entirely replaced by Summer; the official notes of ELO’s odd concoction, however, don’t list honeysuckle at all, but rather orange blossom and honey, which mixed in my mind, could create a honeysuckle hologram quite convincingly. This, I patiently advise, was the bad part of the perfume…it really does get much better, if not quite good.

Noel au Balcon is fine enough, though, even with the honeysuckle. I wore it throughout the day without washing my wrists, and develops with style and interest.

The other half of the perfume is a gleaming rich mix of spice and fruit, a gilded cornucopia of the most pleasant of Christmas pleasures: a clove-studded orange, a bit of potpourri made by your frugal but imaginative Aunt Colleen, a Bath & Body Works Fireside candle, a good chai, and, if you’re lucky perhaps some delicious Santa’s Whiskers cookies from your mother (the only recipe she knows and follows well), all laid on a table, over which hangs some delightfully tacky retro two-inch incandescent bulbs. Or, in short, the better parts of Kenzo’s Jungle L’Elephant, which is plum-y and spicy in a classic and elegant way.

This brings me to a realization: one could very closely approximate Noel au Balcon by mixing three parts Jungle L’Elephant and two parts Summer: this, I’ve found, creates a light airy version of our perfume of discussion, whereas Noel au Balcon is far more narcotic and geared to the more frosty months. Where my mixture is October, Noel au Balcon is December 24^th, after you’ve stuffed yourself and barely escaped a diabetic coma.

However, being that Noel au Balcon is fairly reasonably priced, there is no particular need to jerry-rig your own.

*One kind of Nigella, Nigella sativa, is often referred to as Black Cumin, and can sometimes smell of onion and in
India has been used as an olfactive restorative. There’s also Love-in-a-Mist, or Nigella damascena, which is said to
smell of “strawberry jam,” its essential oil often used in perfume and cosmetics. I am, however, under the assumption
ELO is referring to the Black Cumin variety, as this particular fragrance house seems they would be more prone to use
the less “perfumey” species. Please note, though, that I could very easily be wrong in this matter, and that, at any 
rate, I think the species of negligible relevance when discussing Noel au Balcon’s main olfactory attributes.
See:
http://books.google.com/books?id=M18eSq7RI9sC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=nigella+damascena+scent&source=bl&ots=uY8AFGDhzs&sig=95mlTye9Ho_X40ISdhm5ExeNuj0&hl=en&ei=LySQTLTJIYL58Aa4zKCIDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.alchemy-works.com/nigella_damascena.html