Blue by Morgane Le Fay

Blue by Morgane Le Fay aims to conjure the blue of evening. It gives the sense that you can touch the contours of smells you cannot see in the dark. Once again, understatement is not to be underrated.

While Blue certainly evokes a deep blue evening, it also surprisingly calls up the mystery of the sea. Marine notes are oft maligned. Blue's air of smoky wood on the beach and dune rose reminds me of Les Parfums de Rosine's Ecume de Rose and is a kissing cousin to Kisu. Although each of these fragrances has a distinctive olfactory profile, all three scents share a particular "marine" component. As I encounter this quality in disparate scents that don't bear the label "marine" I become curious to describe what gives perfume the marine quality.

Blue evokes peppery driftwood and tart dimpled blooms on succulent stems that grasp the sand with their roots. It's quite fizzy at first, with the glint of galbanum, bergamot, and ylang-ylang. The scent's heart is a fantasy of roses in turquoise, a spiky pepper, and a faint, mellow cardamom.

While many fragrances that feature oriental notes of precious woods and incense tend to lack subtlety, Blue is a hushed oriental, with a soft but astringent incense and sandalwood as smooth as a fresh shave. Cedar echoes the sharpness of pepper. Musk and benzoin make for an intimate, velvety drydown. In fact, Blue's dark sweet muted base is so evocative of a warm summer night that it makes me want to refer to evening as "drydown."

Image above from www.morganelefay.com