Clearly, for that serene calmness of deep blue, mainstream marines were not the place to look. I thought a bit more and one finally one more scent emerged! It’s not exactly Monaco Blue 19-3964 either, but when all of it’s parts are taken together it’s not that far off (and I actually DO like it, in spite of the colors). The scent is Annick Goutals Nuit Etoilée (and I do willingly confess I’d probably not thought of it if the bottle didn’t happen to be very close in color to Monaco Blue 19-3964). Color wise, to me, it looks something like this:
It’s a lovely scent that starts off with a smooth tangerine opening. As it moves on it captures the feeling of taking a nightly walk in a pine forest. It’s winter, the branches of the trees are covered in snow. The air is so cool there comes steam out of your mouth while breathing. Somewhere in the distance there is a hint of smoke. And I’m sorry if I’m a bit sketchy here but I just had a few drops left in my sample vial, but it’s definitely the best pine forest interpretations in perfume I’ve ever come across.
Lessons learned:
- The color experiment of the lasts two weeks went so smoothly, but now I had such problems focusing. With 2 jobs, 2 kids and a sometimes a social life in between, slowing down is not an option! I wouldn’t say I dislike blue in general but Monaco Blue 19-3964 is clearly not my shade. I disliked it so much it made me all jittery with irritation. It feels great to put it firmly behind me and move on to shades I actually enjoy.
- Life is to short to wear bad perfume. Seriously. This week was very polarized, perfume wise. After nearly drowning in mainstream calone I also, for the first time, met up with some of my local perfume enthusiasts. Everybody had brought some scents for the others to try and some of the fumes brought to that meet-up just blew my mind. There were vintages, cult classics, skank monsters and that just did it for me. When there is so much good stuff out there, there is no reason for me to wear a mediocre fragrance again. Ever!
Thanks again to Parfumistan for supplying the Nuit Etoilee!
Images: Pantone and myself
”Life is to short to wear bad perfume” Exactly Mr Parfumistas device despite he is even more conservative. He refuses to wear fragrances which he classifies as good but not interesting enough to wasting a day to wearing. And to add something to his collection the criterias for entering is really high; he have to develope an almost personal relation to the fragrance. When it comes to me, I’m too restless and curious to adopt such a reasonable approach.
I’m not saying that I won’t wear anything but vintage for the rest of my life but I’ve curbed my previous opinion that open-mindedness is an end in itself (at least when it concerning mainstream perfumes that I know beforehand I’ll probably not like). From now on, I’m going to focus on wearing scents that I love and when trying something new, first read up, then try either on paper or just a minuscule drop somewhere on my body that can easily be hidden away and not just spray away.
Interesting, Sigrun. I love this shade of blue, in terms of clothing (a Google search on ”Monaco blue” brought up one woman’s Pinterest board full of beautiful fashions in this shade) but it’s pretty difficult to come up with perfumes that evoke this blue, or any other shade of blue, in my mind. Parfums di Nicolai Sacrebleu does evoke blue for me, but it’s a purple-y shade of blue.
Undina will probably love this post, as she’s a great fan of Nuit Etoilee! For me, that scent is more cologne-like and summery, but I can also see it now the same way you do, thanks to your excellent color map.
If I had any clothes this shade I’d sent them over right away! And, if nothing else, if this is the no1 color this spring and summer I’ll be saving lots of money, not buying clothes
Parfums di Nicolai Sacrebleu sounds divine when I’ve been reading it up on the net. I’d love to try! I do love purple, and blues leaning against purple I have no problem with at all!
It’s very cold here at the moment (-20C or -4F) so that might affect my perception of Nuit Etoilee, forcing it into a winter setting. Last time I tried it (before this week) was this summer and I do realize now that I didn’t think of it as very winery back then…
Calone=shudder.
A whole WEEK of Calone=utter horror!
You poor, poor thing.
Yes, this was a rough, but for next week I’m picking a color that I know I’ll enjoy a lot
Not only I’m a fan of Nuit Etoilee, as Suzanne has mentioned, but I thought of it immediately after looking at your color swatch. And I like this color, it looks good on me
You’re lucky as this is supposed to be the no1 color in fashion this spring and summer
I have a very cold complexion and eye color so I generally feel more comfortable in warmer colors, myself.
I think I like this color in real life, and I like Nuit Etoilee, but for some reason when I see it on the screen it looks very boring and corporate to me. Which I guess is a long way of saying that I think it would be polarizing for me to try to wear perfumes that embodied this color, too. Like I was fighting with myself.
I agree about the corporateness about this color, I loathe anything corporate-looking, that’s the number one way to get me in a bad mood about something visual.
Of course, smell and sight are two different things and even though we associate a sight and smell in some way there will always be a number of ways that they are not similar at all (NE does smell corporate-ish in any way to me, for instance), so I’m not claiming that anyone should take this seriously, just see it as a variety on the regular blog post takes on perfume