My perfume odyssey is finally endearing me to the ways of amber. I wasn’t wearing fragrances in the 1980s when it was all about Opium and Poison. I’m part of the CK one and Eau D’Issey generation. I grew up thinking that I should smell fresh, watery, summery and that’s about it. Fabulous up to a point. But it gets boring. And I feel too old to be smelling like a combination of cucumber and the seaside.
Many modern fragrances, such as Prada’s recent L’Eau Ambrée tend to use amber notes to excess. This amber overload was my sole experience of the note until I started delving a bit further.
Recently I wrote about Hermes’ Ambre Narguilé. I tried Ambre Narguilé largely because it features on Make Up Alley’s list of top perfumes from. It provides a great starting point for somebody, like me, who loves perfume and wants to understand the greats but has a very limited knowledge.
Like several other scents from the house of Hermès, Ambre Narguilé is a fragrance with an extremely light touch. Although it’s an amber scent, it’s regularly referred to as ‘gourmand’, ie foody. Narguilé definitely fulfils the foody brief. It conjures up all sorts of lovely spices like cinnamon and nutmeg; things you associate with warming winter fare. I began to understand that amber needn’t always be that excessive, eye-watering overdose of synthetic materials. In fact it can feel warm and mildly spicy and soft.
So, back to Guerlain’s Attrapé Coeur. This is a floral fragrance swaddling a tender heart of amber notes. Until now, I haven’t understood the appeal of many of Guerlain’s delights that critics rave about. However, I’m beginning to get the point. Attrapé Coeur is warm and cosy and wintery. It’s got an amazing depth and is even slightly musky too. It’s a sexy sophisticated smell. It smells like a woman should smell, ie not girly – but genuinely grown up.
If you want a warm, sexy, sophisticated smell, then Attrapé Coeur should be at the top of your list.
And here is my little home-grown Attrape Coeur!