Soft warm female skin. A cashmere sweater. Hot cocoa with cinnamon inside during a snow storm blazing outside and some wood burning in the open fire. A little love note from your sweetheart on the kitchen table. Finding a long lost friend on line in another continent. This is what the legendary 'Hypnotic Poison' 'feels' like for me. Comforting, cozy, a warm blanket... And beauty, unabashedly honest soul baring beauty.
HP, created in 1998 by Annick Menardo, was an instant hit and is still a best seller. It sells even more than it's parent: 'Poison'. But it is also a totally different fragrance. It is not a ordinary second rate B-star flanker, it is as good as its originator. And maybe even better. 'HP' is the upstart, the original flanker who pushed the star aside, the understudy who became bigger than and eclipsed the diva, the Apprenctice who pulled 'the Donald's' hair. Deservedly so.
I sniffed a few testers of HP years ago, but I didn't hit it off with her right away. Maybe it was an old batch, maybe my nose was not ready for the subtleties and sheer beauty of HP. Last week I received some new HP tester vials. I fell utterly, helplessy in love and under her spell. No slow seduction this time, but a ‘coup de foudre’ that still resonates in my soul. Like that crush on the most beautiful but unattainable girl in high school class. Only now I can feel her bottled caresses, gentleness, soothing elegance, sophistication and radiant, warm love. I was- here it comes- hypnotized by HP. Yes. And mesmerized. And in awe. After sniffing hundreds of fragrances, you still can fall like a block of concrete for a 'new' fragrance. That's the beauty of perfume. To put it simply this is a 'crème' of a fragrance. Creamy, discreet yet powerful, very cozy, brings an almost zen-like calm to you. It is like the olfactory equivalent of the certainty that you are loved by some people for what you are. Love is the best, and HP comes close.
It is a vanillic fragrance all right, but contrary to most cheaper vanillas, this vanilla frag doesn’t give you a sugar rush-like fake energy boost, like a meal of 'empty calories'. It brings calm, joy, peace, deep satisfaction. The word 'sensual' has been misused a lot. HP IS unapologetically and seemlessly effortless sensual. Make no mistake: HP is not overtly sexual, not risqué. When 'Boudoir' is '9 1/2 weeks', 'HP' is über sweet US Meg Ryan flick 'Sleepless in Seatlle' crossed with a deep wordy French 'film d'amour'. Like 'homely-intimate-sensual with a twist' contrary to 'straight sweaty hot-love-animalistic-sexual' (Boudoir) or 'lust without abandon, 'Do it to me one more time'-, 'Baby one more time'-sexual' (Bal à Versailles). It is a great fragrance that has absolutely nothing to do with the army of linear vanillic cookie monsters out there. This is a classy, deep, intricate, original, high quality Dior. It is vanillic like Chopards 'Casmir'. Great sillage, impressive longevity, perfectly mixed and balanced. And cozy but ultimately very original.
I love it as a man to smell on a woman. I find it one of the 'real woman' fragrances. It is a very 'physical' fragrance, if you know what I mean. Full bodied, not Japanese-minimalistic or diabetic-sugary. Delicious, gorgeous, not too dark mysterious but definetely intriguing and inviting. HP is a relaxing fragrance, a joyful feast where the plates of delicious foods just keep coming, like here the wafts of delicious vanilla-almond-coconut-flowers-wood-spice weave a hypnotic cocoon of contentment that keep swirling around you like the 'white' ballerina in 'Black Swan', the Oscar winning film with Nathalie Portman, who did great ads for Dior buy the way.
So what makes this flanker of the original Poison, that has become much more successful than his fiery inspiration, ‘da bomb’? What makes this one of the world’s most successful and appreciated fragrances in all ages?
Simple: the genius nose of Annick Menardo (Boucheron's 'Jaipur', Bulgari's Black, many Lolita Lempicka's...). Menardo makes original yet wearable frags. She doesn't descent into niche hell and distances herself from mass market accountant frags. Here she pulled off another class act, built around that most abused note in perfumery: vanilla.
Top: Allspice, mandarin, plum, coconut
Middle: Tuberose, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, rose, rosewood
Base: Sandalwood, almonds, vanilla.
Menardo plays hook, line and sinker with three strokes of master-perfumery craftsmanship and creative genius. Three bases to score a home run. Firstly she puts a strong dose of almonds in the base. Very unusual, almost never been done before. The result: the almonds give this frag from the first second of the initial blast to the last minute of the long drydown a velvety, sweetisch, creamy, very pleasant, 'soft, cozy, fuzzy' feel. And she links the strong nutty and not too sweet almond (this is no cloying sweet 'marzipan'-smell like in some celeb scents, marzipan being half almonds and half sugar glued together with some liquid glucose and egg white) to an evenly strong high grade natural vanilla. She uses the sweet sandalwood to fuse the vanilla, almond and that sandalwood into a very proud, present and out-of-the closet ‘ménage à trois' that radiates all over the frag with an intense, irresitable nutty-vanillic-sweet-woody warm aura or soft blanket. These three in the base are really a marriage made in perfume heaven. We've seen many bases with sandalwood and vanilla, but never in combination with almonds only. The result is a very strong base that is like the essence of Lutens 'Un Bois Vanille' mixed with his almond -inspired fragrance ‘Louve’, but here broadened to a full base. First base for Menardo the perfumer!
Secondly in the mid-level she lets loose a rampaging gang of flowers-with-attitude: tuberose, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, rose. On itself each flower is very strong. In combination with each other instead of reinforcing each other these strong personalities pummel each other partly into submission so that they smell less pushy. Each sepeartatly is so damn ‘there’ that put togheter they mellow each other out to just the right amount to be there in just the right amount. A carnation or iris would have been eaten alive here by these power flowers. But these strong notes balance each other out and let nobody of their pals take the upper hand. Menardo has the balls to put all these stars into one team and succeeds in forming a collective, balanced, rounded well oiled 'mean' dream team out of it in the middle. For that she used another secret weapon that puts a muzzle on the potentionally overwhelming flower combo and at the same time ads another new great olfactory facet to HP: a strong dose of delicate but effective dry rosewood. Its prevents the flowers from becoming overbearing and running wild all over the fragrance. And rosewood works together great with the sandalwood in the base. The dry rosewood deepens the flower-force, but also to tones the flowers a notch down to just the right amount to harmonise with the vanllia-almond-sandalwood base and the top, that perfectly plays into this middle and base. Stopping here we would have a great but not exceptional fragrance with flowers and almonds and vanilla. But: Second base for Menardo the perfumer!
Time for the cincher, third base. Third genius stroke from Menardo the perfumer! Aaah, the notorius third base, stuff of male exaggerated bragadoccio and outright lies and exagerration. But Menardo delivers the goods! She strikes gold or oil in the third base. Judge for yourself! In the top she positions geniously two not so often used notes that ingeniously complement the base and middle. The notes are creamy, rich, give a rounded feel but also have the capacity to suck up, to absorb some of the excess and force of the flowers in the middle. She at the same time prevents the woody power of rosewood-sandalwood, the strong almond-vanilla, and the flowerbrigade from taking this fragrance hostage. Ladies and gents, here they are, stars of the top: Plum and Coconut! Plum files away the edges of the flower assault and defuses possible flower overload. And adds a juicy meaty, velvety fruit note all on its own. And then the coconut. Creaminess, lube for the other notes to make love together and another dose of velvety cozy heaven. Coconut adds a rich, creamy aspect and also is a barrier if one the too strong flavors would try to escape to try to kidnap this fragrance. If you made a curry with coconut, you know that the coconut at the same time deepens the taste of the spices while keeping the too sharp edges edge in check. And its not over. Time for two cherries on the pie! Two kill shots! To be sure that some of the spiciness stays with all that rounding, creaminess and soft richness soothing around, she adds allspice! Dzing! And the last kill shot: to give some sparkle, zest and freshness to she adds sweet mandarin. Bergamot would have been too sharp, breaking the magic. 'Meaty' mandarin is perfect. Pow! Third base and full strike for Menardo the perfumer! The combo allspice-mandarin seals this fragrance as one of the future all time classics. That plum-coconut-allspice-mandarin goodness in the top blends seamlessly with the flowers-rosewood middle and the almondy-vanillic-sandalwood base to create a ‘wow’ and ‘aahh’ nearly perfect masterpiece. Truly nose candy without the sugar overdose. Only true great noses can pull this off. And hereby Annick Menardo takes over the reign of the undisputed Queen of the Female Noses from Sophia Grojsman (‘Spellbound’, 'Tresor’, ‘Paris’, ‘Eternity’…)
There are contrasts between these notes alright. The combination of the very underrated almond note with flowers and spices and fruits, makes magic. But contrary to a lot of powerhouses, all contrasts and inner workings are on the softer, 'smoldering' side. No spectacular clashes, not 'in your face' drama. This is a soft caress of a fragrance all the way. Bliss. Not interrupeded by a head reeling suprise to the nose, now and then. That doesn't mean that HP is weak. On the contrary. It means subtle but very strong. Totally captivating. The power of gentle, inescapable loving persuasion. And as a whole HP gives you that great blanket of coziness, that 'feel good cocoon', that 'hypnotic' sense of calm and joy and goodness and an endorphin induced fuzzy deep contentment, that you sometimes feels after a massage or a hard workout.
Technically it is Menardo's the best work as a perfumer since Bulgari's 'burnt rubber and vanilla''Black' where the contrasts played out against each other. Here they are played into each other. The almond-vanilla-sandalwood base working together with the coconut-plum-allspice-mandarin top that keeps the flower bomb-in-the-middle (tuberose, jasmine, rose, lily) with the help of the refined rosewood in check, is the key to the magic of HP. Sounds maybe easy when you read it, but it is damn genius perfume craftmanship hard at work.
The result: a smooth über enjoyable fragrance, perfume creativity coupled with mass market appeal, the holy grail of perfumers all over the world. And the praise is deserved. HP is a high quality, creative and popular fragrance: it exists. It is called ‘Hypnotic Poison’. Try it and let yourself be hypnotized, hooked, poisoned and overwhelmed by this fragrance of sheer beauty, comfort and the intimacy of real love. Perfume Magic.
Mar
01
2012