Bogue MEM

Close your eyes and imagine, if you will, floating and being engulfed in a cloud that glows with pearlescent luster like opals mixed with mother-of-pearl. Unlike most clouds, this one hovers low on the ground, a few feet above the swaying tips of a field of lavender, some in bloom, some tightly budded and tipped with green. They ripple in the warm summer’s wind, a wind that carries the scent of the orchard mere inches away where orange and grapefruit trees grow like citrus sentinels watching over the aromatic field of purple. With every gust, the branches shake their flowers in a shower of white petals, their scent mingling in the air with that of the lavender. The trees hang heavy with fruits that are fresh, bright, and only recently ripened; the juices which seep out from time to time are sweet, but not sticky or jammy, and they, too, join the scented swirl within the opalescent cloud.

Photo: my own edited, altered collage from Zedge wallpaper.

On the other side of the lavender is a river. Its banks are emerald with grassy vetiver, red with rose bushes, and white with jasmine that drips a golden honeyed nectar, but its waters are swirls of brown from malted beer and caramel from ambered resins. A small nook of cedar and spicy sandalwood trees lies just beyond, their roots growing amidst more grass, vetiver, and lavender.

Continue reading

Bogue Gardelia: Vintage Luxury Reborn

Photo: Jerry Uelsmann," Untitled, [Reclining nude Woman, River waterfall and Yosemite Landscape], 1992," Telluride Gallery. (Direct link to his website embedded within.)

Photo: Jerry Uelsmann,” Untitled, [Reclining nude Woman, River waterfall and Yosemite Landscape], 1992,” Telluride Gallery. (Direct link to his website embedded within.)

Gardelia by Antonio Gardoni of Bogue Perfumes is a remarkable fragrance. An opulent, baroque, and complex symphony of notes that deluge the senses, evoking the very best of the vintage chypre style, and so much more as well. Animalic, lush, tropical, floral, vegetal, mossy, resinous, furry, musky, and indolic elements shine in pitch-perfect balance within a prismatic kaleidoscope that clearly nods to Gardoni’s famous MAAI, but also to vintage Mitsouko parfum, albeit a Mitsouko that is given a tuberose and gardenia twist. It’s like stumbling upon an unexpected nook of hot-house flowers growing deep within the recesses of a mossy, dark forest, unfolding like a furry and autumnal twist on the Rite of Spring. Roja Dove’s Mitsouko-inspired Diaghilev sought to do something similar, but that fragrance never impacted me the way Gardelia has. I think it’s superb.

Continue reading

Bruno Fazzolari & Antonio Gardoni Cadavre Exquis (Limited Edition)

Cadavre Exquis. Source: press release.

Cadavre Exquis. Source: press release.

Two masters of the indie genre got together to play a transatlantic olfactory game whose only rule was to put their individual spin on the gourmand genre, combining ideas and formulas for over a year until they came up with Cadavre Exquis. They call it their “Frankenstein” twist on the genre but, to me, it feels much more like an oriental fragrance that gives only an occasional or passing nod to gourmand tropes until its drydown. It’s a rich, smoky, earthy, sometimes leathery, and always heavily spiced immortelle-driven fragrance that I think will appeal enormously to some fans of classic Serge Lutens, Andy Tauer, and the much-loved Histoires de Parfum, 1740/Marquis de Sade, though there are a few caveats involved, as you will see.

Cadavre Exquis is a new, limited-edition eau de parfum that was created by Fazzolari‘s Bruno Fazzolari and Bogue‘s Antonio Gardoni, and released just two days ago. The press release that I was sent explains their goal for the fragrance, how its name refers to an old 1920s Surrealists’ game that the two perfumers used to collaborate on the scent, and some of its notes. The explanation reads, in part, as follows:

Continue reading

Bogue Profumo O/E

O/E via Luckyscent.

O/E via Luckyscent.

The news of O/E‘s release late last week had me drop everything in sight. O/E is the newest scent from Bogue Profumo, an Italian artisanal house that not only makes some of the most interesting, bold fragrances around but also the brand that put out MAAI. I chose the animalic chypre masterpiece as my #1 best new release of 2014 as well as my favorite scent on my personal list of fragrances (irrespective of debut date) that I’d tried that year. I even admired Bogue’s aromatic leather and lavender Cologne Reloaded despite being rather a lavender-phobe. Bogue is simply one of those houses that I find really intriguing and high quality, thanks to the talent of its founder and nose, the charming, intellectual Antonio Gardoni. So when Luckyscent announced it had received his newest creation, O/E, I was practically fell over myself to order a sample. The fragrance bears the Bogue DNA, but it is not what I had hoped for.

O/E is an eau de parfum that is a reworking and reinterpretation of Mr. Gardoni’s first fragrance, the now discontinued Eau d’E. I never tried it, so I can’t tell you if some people’s accounts of O/E as “reformulated Eau d’E” are accurate. Bogue’s website has no description for its latest release, nor any notes, so I can’t tell you that either. All I can share with you is Luckyscent’s note list which is:

Bergamot, grapefruit, lemon, neroli, clove, black pepper, rosemary, thyme, camphor, Lebanon cedar, juniper, pine, cypress, rose, jasmine, vetiver, benzoin, tobacco, resins, sandalwood.

Ricola herb garden, Switzerland. Source: myswitzerland.com

Ricola herb garden, Switzerland. Source: myswitzerland.com

Continue reading