mercredi 11 novembre 2009

Penhaligon's Amaranthine: Lost in the Hothouse



The name conjures a princess in a French 17th century fairy-tale: the fair Amaranthine, championed by her knight-servant Penhaligon. But their distant descendent, Amaranthine Penhaligon, could be a plucky spinster hammering away whodunits in a Dorset cottage under a suitably masculine nom de plume…

That’s pretty much where we left off the venerable house of Penhaligon’s: stuck somewhere between Fortnum and Mason’s preserves and Aquascutum macs in the list of royal crest-bearing British institutions.

But since its acquisition by Cradle Holdings, also the owner of L’Artisan Parfumeur, Penhaligon’s has been dusting off its shelves and bottles with the help of – surprise, surprise – L’Artisan’s star signatures Olivia Giacobetti (who composed last year’s Elixir, a tribute to the 1872 Hammam Bouquet) and Bertrand Duchaufour, who revamped four house classics issued in the Anthology collection (Night Scented Stock, Eau de Verveine, Extract of Limes and Gardenia).

Duchaufour’s contribution to the catalogue is the aforementioned Amaranthine, which is just about as far from tweedy and spinsterish as you could imagine – unless this spinster has a deep dark secret in her past.

In fact, Amaranthine conjures an entirely other type of English heroine, say Mrs. Crosbie in Somerset Maugham’s The Letter, as played by Bette Davis in William Wyler’s 1940 adaptation: a beautiful British colonial wife in a Singaporean rubber plantation, accused of murdering her lover…

Amaranthine develops similar layers of crisp propriety concealing scandal and steamy passion. The scent has variously been compared to Jean-Michel Duriez’s Sira des Indes for Jean Patou for its banana/sambac/milk rewriting of the oriental genre, and to Sandrine Videault’s Manoumalia for its tropical lushness on a hint of vegetal decay. But unlike the latter – French perfumery gone native with an anthropology vibe – Amaranthine would never skimp on slipping on a floor-length tea gown for her 5 o’clock Assam.

The fragrance’s closest relative to my mind would probably be Michel Roudnitska’s Amoureuse for Parfums DelRae: in fact, if you liked Amoureuse but found it a little overwhelming, Amaranthine is more than worth a spin.

Bertrand Duchaufour has clearly stretched his usually more austere vocabulary to include sensuous white, green and spicy florals. Amaranthine has the intricate structure of a particularly fussy orchid – the pride of Major Penhaligon’s hothouse – with layers unfurling teasingly over the hours. An almost metallic, cardamom and coriander-spiked green accord swings between banana-vanilla sweetness and a muguet-jasmine-orange blossom soapiness, before warmer, tropical spices take over with clove and ylang-ylang relaying the banana-vanilla accord.

The scent’s development is truly labyrinthine, with every flower in the hothouse engaging in duets, trios and choruses in turn, with wafts from the spice garden and the orchard where exotic fruit are slowly ripening and fermenting…

When Amaranthine finally drowns in a lush, milky sandalwood and musk base, petals strewn all over the plantation, she has shed her last shred of propriety. And she’s ready to take the consequences.

Image: Bette Davis in The Letter, by William Wyler (1940)


16 commentaires:

  1. fun! i have tried this on a scented ribbon outside the Burlington Arcade shop- I dare not go in or I will buy things. I agree it did seem a bit out of the norm but very nice all the same. I will reserve judgement until I do a skin test. I loved Elixir- really loved it and was surprised by it and bought a full bottle very quickly. I have long loved Bluebell too- it beings out my feelings that I must be secretly aristocratic and will one day go back to the family seat and take baths in bluebell oil looking out onto my acres of tumbling green fields. Until then I have baths in it when I'm feeling like a pamper in my not so aristocratic London flat.

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  2. I'm so glad you reviewed this and in your usual stylish manner! Octavian's review picqued my interest and I've been fascinated ever since. I have a couple of the paper butterflies impregnated with the scent on a shelf above my desk and every now and then something (fruit? flower?) slightly rotten but creamy and mesmerising drifts into my consciousness. Thank you also for mentioning Amoureuse which I had also thought about after I had renewed my acquaintance with that lovely but very powerful (on me) perfume. This has kinship with it. Quite different from both Duchafour and Penhaligons! Nicola

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  3. I loved Amoureuse...used up my entire bottle. So, I can't wait to receive my sample of Miss Amaranthine!

    Hugs, and thank you for a wonderful review, D!

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  5. Rose, I loved Elixir as well and hope to review it soon... Hey, don't we all want to feel aristocratic once in a while?

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  6. Nicola, I'm glad you see the kinship as well. I'm a huge Amoureuse lover (pleonastic turn of phrase, isn't that) but I'd consider Amaranthine for days when I want to be amoureuse without advertising it to the whole office!

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  7. Violetnoir, please report back when you do, to see if you get a similar vibe as well!

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  8. Timely that you write about this today. I read Octavian's review and I had to try it immediately. A generous swapping friend sent me a small decant and I spent yesterday with my nose hovering above my arm. The entire development is fascinating. It seems to unfold over and over again, but I am particularly enamored of the spicy, green, indolic, almost offputting topnotes. I love the scent in its entirety, but that opening simply pulls me in and begins the seduction! A full bottle is in my future.

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  9. Melissa, I'm considering that myself. A certain gentleman liked it very much indeed... and could be induced to... well...
    I love that opening too, though I do get a bit of soapiness I could live without, but it's gone pretty quickly. It's incredibly complex, isn't it?

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  10. Thanks for the review, D. Melissa has been encouraging me to try this, so I'm looking forward to getting a sample. I was having a hard time imagining what it smells like, but the comparison to Amoureuse intrigues me...

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  11. Whoo! I just jumped in on a bottle split with some friends, without having tested first, but it sounds like it was a good bet. (Well, it was only 5ml for a very reasonable price...) Now I'm looking forward to it even more than before.

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  12. (Oh, yes, and forgot to mention elsewhere that I also picked up a decant of Lumiere Noire pf without testing first, being greatly influenced by your review. That's some gloriously dirty-good stuff, so I will thank you again for that review!)

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  13. Jarvis, I'm wearing Amoureuse today (a bottle from last year, still with lots of oakmoss) and it's somewhat rougher and darker than Amaranthine but pretty much in the same ballpark. I'd need to do a wrist-wrist thing to really pinpoint whether I need both... I might.

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  14. Mals86, if you like your tropicals, you can't be disappointed, especially with 5 ml (except you may need more). And I'm glad about the Lumière Noire -- I'd have felt responsible if you'd hated it!

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  15. This sounds so very interesting! I don't understand why something so different from the other Penhaligons did nt get a special bottle, but nevertheless it seems to be something truly unique, I must try it!

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  16. Flora, I don't think any bottle is different at Penhaligon's but that really doesn't bother me at all - my bottles stay in their boxes anyway, protected from the light.

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