Chembur (ByRedo, 2008, Ben Gorman)

First, the blurb:

Ben's mother is from Mumbai and wonderful family picnics were held outside the city in the Chembur pleasure grounds surrounded by temples and shrines, always filled with smoking fragrant incense and garlands of marigolds and jasmine. It is this nostalgic picture that Ben paints with CHEMBUR - a shimmering, golden Indian perpetual afternoon palpitating with richness, heat and colour. The top notes are bergamot, lemon and elemi - the warm heart blends different incense oils with nutmeg and ginger; the elaborate base is of musks, amber and labdanum. A transcendental experience, an aching memory...

(Thank you, Les Senteurs.)

It is rare that a new fragrance gets me as excited as this one does. I can't think of a time since Dzing! when I've been so filled with intrigue and joy when sniffing my wrist. The beauty of it! The zinginess of it! The dirtiness of it! This fragrance is magnificent.

There's a citrus/resin zing which I think is the elemi, a whack of spicy, nutmeggy incense and a deep, sexy amber and musk base. There's sweat, too. There's also - and I mean this in the nicest possible way - a distinct woodsmoke touch of the Jorvik Viking Centre. Or the Canterbury Tales exhibition if you're more familiar with that one. (You know the one, with the cardboard bum that sticks out of the window. Everybody remembers the cardboard bum.)

I hear that the rest of ByRedo's fragrances - Pulp, Gypsy Water, Green and Rose Noir - are equally good. I assume we should keep our eyes on this Ben Gorman man. Apparently he's only thirty; I can only imagine what other wonderful concoctions he might create during the rest of his career.

Agent Provocateur trio

(The idea for this post came from the excellent Perfume-Smellin' Things blog. Thanks to Colombina and Mr Colombina.)

Today, Mr Atrocity and myself tested three Agent Provocateur fragrances and made notes (no conferring allowed). We sprayed them both on to paper, which we sniffed straight away, and on to my skin, which we sniffed ten minutes later. Here are the results:

1. Agent Provocateur - Eau de Parfum

Mr Atrocity
On paper: Talc then floral. Lavender-fresh cleaner. Bubble bath. Very light. Doesn't smell of much.
On skin: A bit better, but still bubble bath. Inoffensive. Still doesn't smell very much.

Beverly Sutphin
On paper: Rose, lavender. Swimming pool chlorine. Body cream given by elderly relatives. The lily note is OK.
On skin: Talcum powder. A bit acrid. Rose bubble bath. Not awful, but I wouldn't choose to smell of it.

2. Agent Provocateur - Eau Emotionnelle

Mr Atrocity
On paper: Jolly Ranchers. Strawberry jelly. Marzipan. Lavender pot pourri.
On skin: World of Pleather. Too sweet and too artificial to be sexy - overwhelmingly chemical.

Beverly Sutphin
On paper: Sherbet, Love Hearts. Parma Violets. Peppermint foot lotion. Slight sandalwood note isn't bad. OK summer fragrance if you like sweets. A lot.
On skin: Bizarre transformation. Kind of leather, green, ferns. Old man aftershave. PINE like loo cleaner and that pot pourri with pine cones in. Imagine the hotel in Twin Peaks smells a bit like this.

3. Agent Provocateur - Maitresse

Mr Atrocity
On paper: Granny. Icing sugar and artificial rose flavouring. Now with added sink unblocker. Old folks' home just after a spring clean.
On skin: GRANNY! Cheap hotel room. Plugin air freshener. Nastiest by some margin. Bleach.

Beverly Sutphin
On paper: Dear God! Instant rush of bath foam. Incredibly sweet lily/mimosa. Really artificial strawberry/rose. This one's awful. Those jelly sweets shaped like strawberries. Candy shrimps.
On skin: SO DISGUSTING. Watermelon, aeroplane toilets. Like drowning in liquid candy shrimps. I am going to SCRUB this off.

I am not a fan of Agent Provocateur. Some of their underwear is pretty, it's true, but their branding is bloody awful. Take a look at the image at the top of this post: what exactly is going on there? Quite apart from the rather appalling 'Let Them Eat Kate' - which seems to encourage a kind of rapey attack on a supermodel - there's a photo which looks straight out of the pages of Nuts magazine. Can somebody explain to me how they thought this would appeal to their target audience? Or how anybody thought this was sexy?

Which is, of course, exactly what's wrong with these silly fragrances. Here are some things which are sexy: musk, ambergris, sweat. Here's something that isn't sexy: grannytalc. At best, the scents resemble underwear drawer sachets; at worst, strawberry jelly. They're so far from sex it's almost comical.

Don't bother with these, they're crap. And please, don't buy anything from Agent Provocateur until they remove that disturbing photo of Kate Moss from their window displays.