Shay & Blue English Cherry Blossom

by: Elena Knezhevich

Shay & Blue London is ready to launch their new spring-time fragrance English Cherry Blossom. The new perfume will be available for purchase on the first calendar day of spring, March 1st.

The blooming cherry is one of the most romantic picture many of us recall when thinking about what spring looks like. Although its scent is less memorable than its appearance (can you easily tell it apart from the scent of apple, peach or plum flowers?), everyone will say that the beautiful cherry flowers first of all smell young. Which usually means light, delicate, with a flirting fruity touch (it is cherry after all), i.e. as good as it looks. Here's how Shay & Blue London describes their English Cherry Blossom:

"The flush of first love. The charm of innocence. Fleeting blossoms. A rush of pink. A flirtation of soft scented petals. Delicate blushes. Cherished blooms." S&B press release

English Cherry Blossom is created for 2016 by Dom De Vetta and Julie Massé, who is responsible for the entire Shay & Blue line. The house offers two handy fragrance sizes in Eau De Parfum concentrations: 100ml spray and 30ml purse size bottle, both in smoky blue glass. It's stated that the perfume will have matured for over three months before hand-filling the bottles with it.

Source: Shay & Blue London Press Release

Framboise Noire From Shay & Blue

by: Elena Knezhevich

British perfume brand Shay & Blue has announced the launch of their latest edition,Framboise Noire, which is scheduled for September 2015. With this release the brand is now exploiting a very trendy current in modern perfumery - "fruity or fruity-floral fragrances for adults". This is the first Shay & Blue's fragrance with a French name. "Noire" here is, of course, more than just the color of a rare sort of raspberry, it is a genre; a special, dark, mysterious and dangerous mood of a fragrance.

"Plumb the depths of black raspberry and forest berries. With a heart of black woods. Step into the dark. The blackness of night. Succumb to the thrill of Framboise Noire."

SNIFFING NOTES:
Framboise Noire, dark red berries with a deep undertone of black woods.
 

TOP NOTES:
Rare black raspberry with mixed forest berries for a hit of red fruit.

HEART NOTES:
A touch of chic iris pallida and white oud to seduce and enchant.

BASE NOTES:
Musk and black woods underpin the composition for a darkly noir finish.

The fragrance is the result of a colaboration between the brand's founder Dom De Vetta and perfumer Julie Massé.

Framboise Noire is offered in Eau de Parfum strength and available in two sizes: 100ml and a portable 30ml. The prices are £55 (85 USD) and £30 (45 USD), respectively.

Blacks Club Leather: Drunk and Sexy Leather Gentleman

by: Miguel Matos

There are a plethora of leather scents coming each year and they all tend to smell alike or maybe align themselves into categories like the vintage leather jacket, the new suede ladies' purse, the leather aromatic or the oud-hued oriental. This one is none of that. Blacks Club Leather is stylishly young, slightly drunk, has been smoking all night and it is still on its feet, fashionably dangerous and ready for seduction. Dark, sweet, boozy, smoky ... Those are the family names for Blacks Club Leather, one of the latest scents released by british house Shay & Blue.

I have had my bottle of Blacks Club Leather since last spring and only now can I wear it, for this is really a winter fragrance. All the smokes and sweets don't go very well over 15º C and so I've been waiting for the occasion to spray this. Like, for example,Ambre Fétiche, this one requires cold dry weather in order to be fully appreciated and not to overwhelm the nose. A rough night out is also in order for this composition by perfumer Julie Masse.

The intoxicating character of Blacks Club Leather is charming, but hard to cope with at first. This is one of those scents that need that extra courage from the wearer in order to get to the best part of it. I find it too sweet in the top notes. The beeswax and the tobacco—already very sweet accords to begin with—are here very amplified. Actually, tobacco is not listed in the ingredients but I can't help to associate the first things I smell to other tobacco fragrances like Tom Ford's Tobacco Vanille or Lanvin's Avant Garde. But this is a different animal after all. It brings a youthfulness to it but also a gigantic initial projection. One can actually think this will be a bomb, but not quite so after a while. It settles in the heart notes and then releases all its obscure charms. You just have to wait.

Blacks Club Leather was named after a private member club in London and surely there are a lot of people drinking cognac there. The fragrance is drenched in booziness. I wonder if it's cognac instead of perfumer's alcohol inside that bottle ... The typical smell of cognac and whisky fuses with the smoke from the fireplace and the old furniture polished with beeswax. This is very evocative and sometimes I tend to think this is not a perfume but just an atmosphere, bottled. Well, wait a little more. The drydown reveals a calm, not so powerful, sexy and masculine character. It gets more discreet, warmly animalic but not too much, still a bit smoky and woody. The evolution makes it more elegant and subtle. All the initial burst is gone, the hot drunk stud transforms into a refined gentleman with a taste for good cigars and naughty pleasures. All in all this is a thick scent, not for everyone, but a compliment-getter for a night out.