Sandra‘s Closet

Today is Burberry day and I am so excited to attend the S/S 2025 show in London. Yesterday, I was suprised by the Maison with a personalized bottle of Burberry Goddess, the new ambery scent launched in 2023. This Eau de Parfum is a unique gourmand aromatic fragrance led by a powerful trio of vanillas. On top, a vanilla infusion with woody tonalities, at the heart a vanilla caviar with a rich sweetness, and at the base a vanilla absolute enriched with luminous lavender to intensify a vibrant woody aroma.

Burberry Goddess Eau de Parfum Intense is housed in a square bottle filled in light ambery shades. The nose behind this fragrance is Amandine Clerc-Marie.

Fragrance Family: AMBERY GOURMAND

Top Notes: Vanilla Infusion, Cacao and Ginger
Middle Notes: Vanilla Caviar
Base Notes: Vanilla Absolute and Lavender

Personally speaking, I am more a niche fragrance kind of person but this scent really got me. It is warm, different and stays on very well. I like!
I am really excited for today’s show! Stay tuned.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht / @georgiashane
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This week, I strolled through Perfumery Osswald in Zurich and explored some of their gourmand fragrances. In the end, some of my old gourmand favorites as well as some new treasures landed in my basket. Their dessert-like qualities and embracing aldehyde accords that tickle our taste buds as well as our nose are enough to make one salivate! Enjoy those beautiful scents below – I wish you could smell them while scrolling:

Kilian
ROLLING IN LOVE

This musc de peau is capturing the sensation of feeling so high on love that it seems to almost «get under the skin.» Working with perfumer Pascal Gaurin, Kilian Hennessy took an entirely new direction. Rolling in Love is more direct and less faceted than his previous fragrances – almost «monochromatic» in its focused representation of a single emotion. Rolling in Love is a «white» scent, layering different textures along the scent’s trail with notes of ambrette seeds, almond milk, iris, and musk.

Top notes: almond milk, ambrette seeds
Heart notes: iris, freesia
Base notes: musk, vanilla, tonka bean

50ml Eau de Parfum for CHF 259.00

Pierre Guillaume Paris
5.1 SUEDE OSMANTHE

Osmanthus is a most bewitching flower, its elegant petals often scenting the rice fields of China with their potently smoky, fruity fragrance. In Suede Osmanthe, the delicate flower’s seductive contrasts are deconstructed and magnified to gorgeous effect. A precious suede, a thin and delicate skin, infused with apricot and black tea notes, olfactive illusion of an osmanthus, conspicuous by its absence.

Top notes: aldehydes, orange blossom absolute, apricot
Heart notes: leather notes of Suederal, black tea notes, osmanthus
Base notes: Moroccan cedar wood, cashmeran, honey sweet musk, myrrh

100ml Eau de Parfum for CHF 188.00

Tiziana Terenzi
KIRKÈ

This chypre fruity fragrance for women and men was launched in 2015 and an immediate success. It is inspired by the Goddess Circe’s famous enchanted potions – nectareous and mysterious and infused with a lush bouquet of sweet fruit including passion fruit, raspberries and pears. Kirkè’s juicy scent is warmed by the sweet, indulgent heliotrope flower and a sensual base of musk.

Top notes: passion fruit, peach, raspberry, cassis, pear, warm sand
Heart notes: lily-of-the-valley
Base notes: heliotrope, sandalwood, vanilla, patchouli, musk

100ml Extrait de Parfum for CHF 218.00

PROFVMVM ROMA
ACQVA E ZVCCHERO

Like waking up from a dream of eating something delicious with the taste still lingering on your tongue – sweet, elusive and ambrosial. As airy as a meringue, as fragile as first love, this feels like honey melting in your mouth, enveloped by tender relaxation.

Top notes: wild berries
Heart notes: orange blossom
Base notes: vanilla

100ml Perfume for CHF 280.00

Montale
VANILLA CAKE

A gourmet and bewitching fragrance, subtly mixing milk, grilled almond, warm caramel and vanilla from Madagascar. A real yoghurt cake just out of the oven with a delicious meringue sillage, reminiscent of your childhood days when your mum prepared a cake for you.

Top notes: almond powder, butter cream
Heart notes: milky mousse, caramel, yoghourt cake
Base notes: baiser, vanilla

100ml Eau de Parfum for CHF 119.60

In Switzerland, all these fragrances are available at Perfumery Osswald.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of the Brands

Thierry Mugler takes the success of his famous gourmand scent Angel from 1992 a step further with the launch of «Étoile des Rêves», a special reinterpretation made specifically for the night and its rituals, available as Eau de Parfum and scented candle. Enriched with large quantities of soft white musk it provides the illusion of silk lingerie and cashmere blankets.

Wrap yourself with a delicate negligee of scent as you unveil a new night ritual with the sensual ANGEL «Etoile des Rêves» Eau de Parfum. This new star product is an intimate, intense version of ANGEL with an intoxicating fragrance that lasts… all night long. Even the stars won’t resist you!

Fragrance notes: bergamot, praline, vanilla, patchouli, musk
CHF 125.00 (100ml)

Reinvent your night ritual with the ANGEL «Etoile des Rêves» Scented Candle. Inspired by the glamorous boudoir tradition, this delicious scented candle diffuses the intimate, sensuous atmosphere of ANGEL Eau de Parfum all night long…

Fragrance notes: bergamot, tropical fruits, vanilla, caramel, patchouli
CHF 84.00 (160gr)

Both products are available now only for a limited time.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Mugler

This fall, Tom Ford introduces four new Private Blend fragrances. The collection, so-called JARDIN NOIR, is dedicated to four classical flowers: Narcissus, hyacinth, rose and lily. “When you showcase their darker and less innocent aspects, flowers can become so thrilling and beautiful, they could almost ruin you. That was the sensation I was after,” says Tom Ford.

Here are the four new amazing scents:
Jonquille de Nuit, Ombre de Hyacinth, Café Rose and Lys Fume.

Jonquille de Nuit

”Unusual top notes of wild Alpine cyclamen, acacia and angelica seeds, balanced with Egyptian violet leaf and bitter orange leaf absolute, provide a contrasting structure which allows the heady narcissus heart to spill into the senses. This powerful floral vibration is pushed, heightened, and teased to the brink—until a sensual, hypnotic base of orris and warm amber arrest this frenetic blossoming.”

Ombre de Hyacinth

”Merged with the rich earthiness of galbanum and the green drive of violet leaf, then enhanced with a glamorous veil of Magnolia leaf ORPUR and cool, incense-inflected Olibanum, lovely Hyacinth becomes a maddening enigma. It plays distance against desire with gem-like shimmers of pink peppercorn and jasmine absolute that tease and entice. The tension finally breaks as Persian galbanum, benzoin and musk pull back the curtain to reveal Hyacinth’s addicting sensuality.”

Café Rose (My favourite)

”Three precious rose essences dance with exotic spices and dark coffee. Saffron and black pepper entice the tight blossoms of Rose de Mai to unfurl. Then, the lush and saturated heart of precious Turkish rose oil and Bulgarian rose absolute creates an enveloping, narcotic haze—until a teasing bite of coffee essence cuts through the romance and awakens dervish passion. Incense resin, amber, sandalwood and patchouli surround this dance with sensual, creamy depth.”

Lys Fume

”Soft notes of Italian mandarin and pink peppercorn and cool, spicy nutmeg and turmeric entice you into a lush and overgrown garden of night-blooming tropical white lilies, tangled with ylang ylang from Moheli. The intoxicating air, soaked with this expansive floral effect, is streaked with the beautiful, sub-tropical melancholy of balsamic, South Indian davana essence and West Indian Demerara rum essence. A woody harmony of rich vanilla absolute from Madagascar, amber-toned cistus labdanum, styrax and oakwood creates a dreamy, hypnotic warmth.”

The collection will be available at all Tom Ford Private Blend counters from September 2012 in Switzerland. 50ml (CHF 250.-) and 250ml (CHF 660.-)

Gentlemen, pay attention. This fall, here is the elixir that will infatuate the ladies around you. TOM FORD NOIR includes notes of bergamot, verbena, caraway, baie rose, violet flower, black pepper, nutmeg, iris, geranium, rose, clary sage, opoponax, amber, patchouli, vetiver, civet and vanilla. A truly sexy composition.

Ladies, be careful. This scent is dangerous stuff!

Tom Ford Noir will be available from September 2012. 50ml (CHF 120.-) and 100ml (CHF 156.-).

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Tom Ford

The press event for the launch of Lancôme‘s newest fragrance LA VIE EST BELLE started with the following statement:
“Lancôme is not a brand, it is a philosophy of femininity.”

The French house is turning over a new leaf. The scent is meant to be a declaration for a new era. In a world full of diktats and conventions, there must be another way. Therefore, the concept plays with the idea of natural and simple beauty, the choice of once own vision of happiness and freedom. This shows best in the advertising film directed by Tarsem Singh (Mirror, Mirror), in which the face of the campaign, beautiful Julia Roberts, frees herself from being an imaginary puppet on a string (Click here for the making of).

This gourmand and elegant composition was developed by three famous perfumers together, Olivier Polge, Dominique Ropion and Anne Flipo. It took them three years of probation and endless versions to create the final formula that includes 63 ingredients with iris playing the lead, surrounded by orange blossoms and jasmine as middle notes. I especially like the warm and powdery base with accords of tonka bean, praline, patchouli and vanilla. This fragrance is surely going to be a new bestseller, following in the steps of its famous predecessor Trésor.

The flacon is a redesigned version of the classic Lancome bottle from 1949. It is a masterpiece of crystal in the shape of a smile, a square in the circle that achieves the impossible. Happiness captured in a bottle.

Top notes: Pear and black currant
Middle notes: Orange blossom, jasmine and iris
Base notes: Praline, tonka bean, vanilla and patchouli

Available in Switzerland in September 2012.
Eau de Parfum 30ml (CHF 75.-), 50ml (CHF 115.-) and 75ml (CHF 145.-)
Shower Gel 200ml (CHF 59.-) and  Body Lotion 200ml (CHF 66.-)

The press event took place at the Dolder Hotel in Zurich. The weather was definitely not co-operating but you have to take the rough with the smooth. No matter what: La vie est belle – Light up the world with a smile from the heart, like Lancôme’s lovely PR-lady Magi.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Lancôme and © Sandra Bauknecht