I was at Nordstrom’s with a friend of mine when, out of the blue, the perfume SA started to spritz Atelier Cologne’s ‘Grand Neroli’ to us and said ‘Doesn’t this perfume remind you of your youth?’  It startled me. First off, what does this person know about me, much more my ‘youth,’ and secondly, let me smell that and see if it does. Well, Grand Neroli, at first blast smells just like any ‘cologne’ type perfume I have ever smelled – so I was at a loss as to what to answer. And then he said ‘De Ne Nes,’ which is a Spanish baby cologne. I remember every child’s mother would swathe it on their children and that lemony cologne smell would be a nice cold blast. Since I grew up in a tropical country, it was most welcome and made each child smell ‘fresh.’

Well, Grand Neroli certainly evokes that smell, though it is not exact Grand Neroli is more sophisticated, with its initial blast of neroli and orange blossom. At times it smells slightly green, then sweet the next minute,. And it is certainly ‘heftier’ than most colognes (it stayed with me the whole day!) and is not just wafting. The base is pretty solid, and warm but not hot, which is a great contrast to that initial blast. I am sampling this in cold weather, but I am sure this works much much better on a nice hot summer day. Summer, get here if you can.

It’s a new year and here is the new release from Atelier Cologne – Iris Rebelle.  I saw this while browsing through Sephora, so it must be one of Atelier’s ‘common’ releases, and I do like the pinkish-purplish bottle. I thought to myself, I can wear this scent on Mondays.

Obviously, it is an iris perfume, and this is a soily, rooty iris, freshly picked from the ground. I have seen a lot of people describe a ‘carrot’ note and I do get why they do. I think what they got is the soil that’s embedded with the iris flower.

I love iris based perfumes, and this one has a surprising twist – it is mixed with a citrusy orange blossom note. It’s ‘fresh,’ and I am surprised that I like it because normally, I despise scents that smell ‘fresh.’ But the orange blossom here is nice and refreshing, not the normally indolic type. It stays all the way through the drydown, and here I am sniffing my wrist hours after, and it is still bright and sunshine-y. I wish they offered this in their 1 oz bottle, but they only have two choices – the massive (for collectors) 100 ml. But, they also have the 10 ml travel spray for $32.00 and that is enough of a concession.

I was watching a video interview with Anna Wintour recently where she was asked her favorite flower, and without skipping a beat, she said tuberose. Well, that’s one thing I have in common with Ms. Wintour, I told myself, although I don;t know if I could classify it as my favorite, it is certainly up there. I always say that in recent years, I have developed a real fondness in white florals – both in the rel sense, and in perfumes.

So, in theory I should like Atelier Cologne’s Cafe Tuberosa. First, I love most of this brand’s releases in varying degrees, from like (any of the Cedrats) to love (Pomelo Paradis) And the notes description certainly intrigued me: Coffee and tuberose. Sadly, though, I think this is the first time that an Atelier release totally did not work for me.

And I gave it two chances. The first time I tried this I was at Luckyscent, and it was a ho-ish day, and the perfume felt heavy and cloying. All I could smell was heavy coffee with something so sweet – vanilla extract. At that time, I blamed it on the temperature, thinking this is probably a scent suited for colder days.

So today, a 6o degree day, I tried it again, and I still felt the same way. The coffee was a bit on the heavy dark side, but something made it feel too heavy -the coffee I did not mind, but there comes a sweet concoction of vanilla, and cocoa that just sits there, and this is scent that felt like it weighed a ton. It sits there, and assaults you, and I made a ‘mistake’ of spraying generously that it stayed with me for hours and hours. It felt like torture. I have never really been a fan of overly sweet scents, and this is as sweet (and heavy) as it gets.  This is really a big thumbs down for me, my first ever for Atelier Cologne.