L de Lolita Lempicka
It’s really hard to imagine a summer scent, bottled in a turquoise blue bottle smelling of vanillic warmth and musky hugs. But here is proof to persuade us otherwise.
Enter the new L eau de parfum de Lolita Lempicka, the fashion designer’s latest scent.
Lolita Lempicka owes her name to two different references. Lolita comes of course from the literary masterpiece by Vladimir Nobokov, the manifesto of wit, a recount of the torment of an heir to a perfume company – no less- who happens to fall in love with a 13 year old girl. Or was this his vice? Hmmm…..Anyway, he imagines her in “Soleil vert” perfume (referenced in Perfume in literature and film)here
Lempicka, on the other hand, comes from Tamara de Lempicka, the famous artist with the peculiar and unique paintings of full female forms in fiery colours who is a favourite of Madonna’s.
This fashion designer with the borrowed names came up with a wonderful vanillic scent that has lured even me, who am not crazy about vanilla like most of the rest of the female population at this particular moment in perfume history. Vanilla is said to be a male attractant, maybe that’s what accounts for its popularity? ( I doubt the effect, nevertheless) Or is it that it makes women feel they are perceived as more attractive, therefore it entices them to feel better about themselves? Or ultimately does it have to do with our salivating glands and nothing more? It’s a conundrum.
Anyway, L is no ordinary childish foody vanilla because it manages to combine an ambery depth with a salty kiss, like skin baked in the Mediterranean sun, under a cloudless azure sky.
Featuring immortelle flower, the infamous note in Annick Goutal’s Sables and Dior Eau Noire, it has a weird sense of hot summer images (immortelle is a very usual sight around the Mediterranean coast) despite vanilla’s traditional association with winter and homely smells. In Sables admittedly the impression is more of a wearable maple syrup, a very warm hug, a drier beach with no fish like that near a fossilised forest at the island of Lesbos. Sables is like seeing the earth’s history in a long gaze and a moment of eternity becoming yours.
L comparatively is much tamer and for that reason, above all, it will undoubtedly be more popular. It features also orange and cinnamon notes that contribute to the likeness I detect with Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur by nose Maurice Roucel.
However the effect is not as dense in L.
It also lists almond , bergamot, precious woods(sandalwood) , tonka bean and solar musks as notes. It comes in Parfum and eau de parfum for now and my review is based on the latter.
The bottle is encased in a bright mandarin coloured box, that is quite more fitting to the juice than the shade of the container.
The bottle is a polarizing matter: some say it’s the most fabulous thing since sliced bread, others swear they can’t bring themselves to like it. Shaped like a beach pebble that has fallen in love with the erosion of water that surrounds it, taking roughly the form of a heart, it is coloured in turquoise blue and veiled with a little gold netting. The letter L hangs from the netting like a lucky catch of a discerning fisherman.
This is the element that brought to mind images of sea, fish and women. In a nutshell, mermaids.
Mermaids are not an Esther Williams proposition. No, sir.
They originate in classical myths of sirens, mythical creatures who had wonderful voices to entice seamen with their song only to destroy them (shaped like birds from the waist down, they had the torso and head of a woman and tried to lead Odysseus/Ulysses astray) and of gorgons (Greek for mermaid) monsters who fossilized anyone who looked them in the eye. Not exactly appealing ladies, either of them.
Yet, there is one mermaid that popular myth forever associates with a love tale, like the one we could imagine in L. She is the one who fell in love with Alexander the Great and stops seamen in their course to ask them if King Alexander lives. For millennia now the reply must be less than accurate: the king lives, or else the boat will meet the depths.
So, yes, L is like that: “the king lives and still rules”. Still.
click pic to enlarge
credits:pic of Lempicka art by sunsite.dk, pic of statue in Thessaloniki,Greece from Wikipedia
two commentsIt's a supposedly scientifically proven fact that people wearing food-like scents, or vanilla-type scents can have a calming effect on those who would otherwise be aggressive.
This may partially explain why it is now considered a bit of an aphrodesiac of sorts, when in actual fact your co-workers are more likely to be nicer to you! Male and female. That's how they found out about it.
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