Smells good enough to eat

Smells good enough to eat
Sunday, October 08, 2006 - By Tamara Thiessen in Paris
There are three boxes with the magic ingredients in them: I sniff and take a guess - violets, red-berries and iris. Bingo! I am the first person to have cracked the Insolence code and am still waiting for a beautiful bottle of the scent to arrive in the post.

Insolence Guerlain is one of the latest in a range of perfumes gourmands - softly sweet, sensually fruity, almost edible fragrances; they subtly blend foodie flavours with traditional floral notes such as musk, woods and spices.

In its pretty crystal-pink spinning-top flacon, Insolence, the vendeuse says, is a ‘‘floral fruity gourmand’’ - violet-mellifluous, iris-powdery but with the ting and tang of raspberry and orange blossom.

Aimed at seducing the senses of epicureans of life, Guerlain has chosen actress Hilary Swank as its muse - a symbol of the scent’s supposed flaunty, tangy style and nonchalant grace.

The next day at Printemps Beaute, there is a fairytale spectacle going on under a silvery forest of love apple trees for the release of Nina, the new fragrance from Nina Ricci. Nina is inspired by the pomme d’amour, or love apple, symbolised by its ravishing transparent red crystal flacon, wrapped in silver leaves.

Heavy with the pulp of Calabrian lemons and praline-coated flower petals, vanilla-dipped and softened by apple wood and white musk, it’s a pretty, sweet scent. ‘‘It’s a floral and fruity perfume with gourmand accents,” says Aribert Rinnert, perfume publicist.’ ‘It’s not dominated by the sweet, gourmand side, but by the freshness and fruitiness.

‘‘It’s like a woman who is epicurean but doesn’t want to totally succumb and be a glutton .. . it’s the love apple, which symbolises temptation, without going as far as sinning.” Eve may not have been won over by stomach alone. By the end of day I have been seduced by Paris and had my fill of baguettes and brioches. My tastebuds a r e al so h ig h on gourmand perfumes and my experience of them has only just begun.

Also pending is the release of divinely-bottled oranges and chocolates in the form of Herme' s’ new perfume, Elixir des Merveilles. It was created by perfumer Jean Claude Ellena and features notes of candied orange peel, vanilla biscuit, sandalwood, incense and ambergris. Culinary-infused scents are apparently aimed at increasing both the perfume’s and our appeal, and indeed Elixir des Merveilles is a sensual gourmand beckoning us to the bedroom via the kitchen.

Like many highly-appealing gourmand fragrances, Herme' s has waved the magic olfactory wand to conjure up fairytales and childhood.

‘‘I think gourmand perfumes wake something up in people’s childhood,” says Audrey Leroy of Printemps. Thierry Mugler’s fetish fragrance Angel revolutionised the senso-sphere in 1992 by fusing sweet fairy floss, praline, chocolate, caramel and vanilla, with spicy bergamot, mandarins, peaches and apricots.

Like an audacious olfactory chef, Mugler invented France’s biggest-selling perfume ever and paved the way for the popularity of oriental gourmands with their sweet bases, fruity hearts and spicy heads. Women are set to become highly edible prospects when they douse themselves in L from Lolita Lempicka.

Described mischievously as an ‘‘elixir of perdition’’ - in other words, a sweet and miraculous recipe for ruin - the new Lolita is a delicately and orientally spiced juice with bitter oranges and cinnamon on a woody base.

Delices de Cartier is another sweet treat. As edible as its gorgeous raspberry bottle, it is a sweet bodily blend of frosted Morello cherries, bergamot orange and pink pepper tempered with jasmine and amber.

Lancome perfumer Annick Menardo says the newly-released Hypnose has previously unheard of notes and ‘‘is above all an oriental woody, solar fragrance’’. H eady doses of passion flower and a vanilla heart have been added to make it fit for dessert. The sensual ‘‘love potion’’ is draped in a kimono silhouetted flacon, a slender retake of the Magie bottle of 1950.A floral feminine oriental,

Eclat by Fragonard is zesty with citrus notes, infused with freesia, frangipani and gardenia - the gourmand bit comes in at the base, with a rich slather of marshmallow. Some perfume houses are injecting a little gourmet naughtiness into classical perfumes by adding some soft sugary notes.

Such is the case with Miss Dior Cherie, a little sister to the near 60-year-old classic, Miss Dior. The sweeter offspring, in its chic metal-bowed bottle, has a heart of strawberry sorbet and caramelised popcorn, alongside a head of strawberry leaves on the traditional Cyprus wood, with a mossy wood base.

However, some of the new foodie fragrances are far from subtle. Ralph Lauren’s first gourmand fragrance for women, Ralph Hot, is a sugar overload of rich mocha cream, cinnamon and maple syrup added to fig, milk, vanilla, honeysuckle, mandarins and almond blossom.

Gourmand fragrances pour homme tend to favour spices over the sugar content. For men with exotic tastes, Armani Code has a Mediterranean heart of olive flowers, aniseed and herbs, a base of Venezuelan Tonka bean and Guadalupe gaiac wood, finished with drizzles of leather, smoke and balsamic vinegar.

Ralph Lauren Romance Men Silver is a fresh blend of cabernet grapes, tangerine, silver Cyprus and bergamot, nutmeg, violet, tobacco blossom and musk. Very Irresistible Givenchy For Men is an addictive gourmand with coffee, mocha, mint, sesame seeds and grapefruit rind, rounded off by hazelnut wood and aromatic Virginia Cedar.

Tangy in taste, Hugo Boss In Motion Edition III is all about breakfast energy - grapefruit, cumquat and bergamot with a spicy soul of ginger, red pepper, cardamom, Blue Lotus and sage, embalmed in tobacco, vanilla and myrrh. L’Eau Bleue d’Issey Eau Fraiche is the kind of fragrance you want men to have in mind when preparing you a meal. Mint, pink pepper, rosemary, star anise, ginger, nasturtium leaves, lemongrass and mandarin - it is sensually savoury but wholesome too.

With their exotic fusion-cuisine mixes of savours from all over the world, gourmand fragrances are invitations to travel as well as to taste, and some in particular are moreish beyond temptation.

‘‘As Oscar Wilde said, the best way to way to resist temptation is to give into it,” says Rinnert.

Selected perfumes are available from Brown Thomas