The newest additions to on my vanity, all from boutique scent-creator Arquiste. Photo: conferodezso.wordpress.com
I’ve never been a big perfume wearer. Fragrances have always intimidated me, partly because I’m worried they’ll be overpowering and I’ll smell like my over-spritzed French tutor, and partly because I never understood that I could choose more than one. I assumed I should just find a signature scent and stick with it. Since starting at Birchbox, though, I’ve learned that fragrances should change with your moods. I can have musky ones for days when I want to curl up in a warm blanket, citrus-y ones when I need a shot of energy, or floral ones when I’m feeling extra romantic. This summer, one of the beauty adventures on my to-do list is building up my fragrance collection. (Not sure how to start? Check out our great tips on picking a perfume here.)
Struggling to tell your boyfriend how you really feel? Start wearing this fragrance and he might get the hint. Innamorata is the newest fragrance from Italian design house Blumarine, and is designed to be worn when you’re in love. The fragrance includes fruity top notes, middle notes of ylang ylang and magnolia, and base notes of benzoin, creamy musk, and cashmeran. It was designed by Sophie Labbé and Olivier Polge, the duo behind one of our favorite fragrances, Bulgari Mon Jasmine Noir.
We can’t get enough of this video from Salvatore Ferragamo for their new fragrance, Signorina. The video follows the five Ferragamo “girls about town” as they ride around New York, get photographed on the red carpet, and generally look fabulous. You can learn more about the “girls” (who include Alexandra Richards and Rachel Chandler-Guinness), and purchase Signorina on the new site, TheGirlsAboutTown.com.
After you watch the video, you can apply to become one of ten new “girls about town” to be featured on the site and receive a special gift.
Patience has never been my strong suit. Fittingly, I just want it to be spring already—like now. A large part of my eager anticipation: I’ve just come down with my second cold of the season, and I am positive it could easily be remedied by an uptick in temperature.
Lately, I’ve been dying to take a break from the standard floral perfumes that populate the fragrance world and spritz on something a little different. Since Birchbox HQ is full of discerning noses, I asked my co-workers to recommend a non-sweet, non-cloying scent, and they had one suggestion across the board: BLK DNM’s Perfume 11. This spicy blend of musk, incense, and black pepper smells equally great on guys and girls, and it doesn’t come across as too cologne-y. It also has plenty of cosmopolitan street cred. The line is the brainchild of Johan Lindeberg, the Swedish fashion designer whose hip-hugging denim line is beloved by hip kids from New York to Stockholm, and launched at Art Basel Miami last December to much fanfare.
The Of a Kind founders have unquestionably impeccable taste—a huge reason we love having their designer picks on our blog. Today’s featured designer, Elizabeth Thompson, creates ladylike jewelry for her line, Elizabeth Knight, named after her two grandmothers. We’re already picturing unlimited outfits that would benefit from these oxidized silver and rose gold Athena earrings. Thompson also has a penchant for fragrances, an addiction we share. Read on to find out her favorites.
Having started her training at SCAD in Savannah, it’s really no surprise that Elizabeth Thompson has a thing for all things old and stately. When it comes to her jewelry designs, that means casting a lot of amazing found objects and creating pieces that would look as good on you as your great aunt—take the oxidized silver and rose gold earrings she created for Of a Kind, for example.
In the beauty realm, she has a fascination with fragrances. “Jo Malone’s Wild Fig & Cassis and the Soaked Earth scent from CB I Hate Perfume have long since been competing for my heart—all in all, I usually won’t deviate too far from my earthy-musky go-to scents,” she explains. “Lately there has been a new one in the running: Bal D’Afrique perfume by a Stockholm-based line Byredo Parfums. The fragrance is inspired by Paris in the 1920s and by African dance music. It is still too hard to decide which is my favorite, but what I can say is the Bal D’Afrique bottle has come and gone in the time that the other two have sat on my vanity.” If that isn’t a hard sell, well, we don’t know what is.
As long as I can remember, I have never been into fragrance. I don’t like it on myself, on my significant other, or on the gentlemen sitting next to me on the subway. No matter how many perfumes I try, I always have the same reaction: it smells like rubbing alcohol. Even a single spritz is too much for me to handle. But every season, when I hear about fragrance launches from Calvin Klein, Kim Kardashian, and everyone in between, I feel a little left out. As a self-described “beauty enthusiast,” I feel as like I am putting my title to shame by being fragrance-free. With a little research, I found great options for other sensitive sniffers:
Balenciaga has just announced that Kristen Stewart, who plays vampire-besotted Bella in the Twilight films, has signed on to become the face of their new fragrance.
For the first time since the 1930s, Louis Vuitton will be launching a new scent. The esteemed luxury brand has been gradually making headway in retail markets outside of their signature handbags since 1998 — with ready-to-wear collections, fine jewelry and watches, and eyewear — but this is the first time in almost a century that they will be creating a fragrance.
Notable Quotables is a weekly series featuring a great quote. Whether it’s the founder of a beloved beauty brand, an eccentric makeup artist making headlines, or even a super-stylish celebrity, our favorite tastemakers always have something worth sharing. Today, it’s the latter: a super-stylish celebrity, Emily Blunt. The new face of YSL’s Opium fragrance, clearly the gorgeous star has no idea just how striking she is.
“I don’t know. I’ve no idea. There was no one else? They made a mistake, a terrible mistake.”
— Emily Blunt to Telegraph.co.uk when asked why she was chosen as the new face of YSL Opium.
