Scents that bring sunshine to a rainy season

One of the best ways to dispel the gloom of this stormy season is with the power of scent.

Luxasia Philippines’ senior brand manager Dinty Alcantara, senior training manager Tin Conde and product manager Dana Barrozo recently launched three new fragrances that fit the bill, with sunny compositions designed to either uplift the wearer or seduce those around them.

Here’s our mini-guide to the latest fragrances.

For optimists, colorful personalities & flower lovers

The scent:  Bulgari Omnia by Mary Katrantzou

Fragrance family:  Floral-floral

Top note:  Mandarin orange, fig leaf

Heart note: Gardenia accord

Base note:  Blond woods, musk crystals

Perfumer: Alberto Morillas

What it’s about:  Bulgari’s popular Omnia collection of jewel-inspired fragrances has just added its first capsule edition, Omnia by Mary Katrantzou, a collaboration with the rising fashion star who’s been called “Mary, Queen of Prints” and “the Leonardo of Photoshop” by Vogue magazine.

True to Katrantzou’s optimistic, positive personality and boldly colorful fashions, the recycled plastic bottle glistens with fantastic rainbow hues and the fragrance inside is no less colorful.

Katrantzou grew up with gardenia trees scenting her home in Athens, Greece.  Every night “I used to have one gardenia next to my bed,” she recalls.  Bulgari’s master perfumer Alberto Morillas realized her dream of capturing the scent of the living bloom, despite the fact that gardenia is a “mute” flower, meaning you can’t extract or distill its perfume.

“To convey her sparkling personality, I chose to contrast the powerful luminosity of mandarin with the crunchiness of fig leaf accord,” Morillas says.

They imbued the drydown with the same bold and joyful energy that Katrantzou puts into her drawings, mixing and matching blond woods for their depth and musk crystals for their sensuality, just as the designer mixes and matches her prints and patterns.

Designed as a maxi-color dress or jewel, everything’s maxi about this fragrance:  Omnia by Mary Katrantzou is an eau de parfum — unlike its Omnia eau de toilette sisters — and is also limited edition, available until December.

Available as: 65-ml eau de parfum

For those who want to seduce

The scent:  I Want Choo by Jimmy Choo

Fragrance family:  Floral-oriental

Top note:  Mandarin orange, velvet peach

Heart notes:  Jasmine, tuberose and red spider lily

Base note:  Amber, woods, vanilla

What it’s about:  The name says it all:  “I Want Choo” is all about red-hot passion, red-hot glam, and a red carpet-worthy event.

Jimmy Choo envisions the archetypal woman in red wearing this scent, accessorized with a glittering pair of Jimmy Choo heels, of course.

For those of us who want Choo with a more accessible price tag, I Want Choo is a juicy and carnal fragrance of velvet peach enhanced by sparkling mandarin and brilliant pink peppercorn.

The heart is a shiny, floral bouquet of jasmine, tuberose and red spider lily, which dries down to a warm, ambery, woody base.  A floral oriental, this eau de parfum — like most floral orientals out there — is incredibly feminine, seductive, sensual, and sexy.  The almost gourmand, vanillic notes ensure you’ll smell good enough to eat.

Even the design of the flacon, monogram box and makeup convey Hollywood glam.

Available as: 60-ml and 100-ml eau de parfum

For youthful, joyful, playful free spirits

The scent:  Kate Spade New York

Fragrance family:  Floral-fruity

Top note:  Wild strawberry

Heart note: Rose

Base note:  Ambrox

Perfumer: Marie Salamagne

What it’s about:  Young dancer Maddie Ziegler embodies the Kate Spade woman, who’s surprising, humorous, playful, and youthful. She’s also sophisticated, spontaneous, feminine, smart, and joyful, according to Tin Conde, senior training manager of Luxasia Philippines.

The scent itself — from the bottle to the joyful juice inside — is homage to the Kate Spade icons, thanks to creative director Nicola Glass, who’s been evolving the existing codes of the house in unique ways to honor the brand’s origins since 2018.  The blossom in Kate Spade’s flower pattern is made up of four spades, while the pink label recalls those Kate Spade ripped out from the inside of her bags the night before she launched, and stitched on the outside instead.

Perfumer Marie Salamagne wanted to pay tribute to the colorful and carefree nature of the wild strawberry. “My objective was to capture the unique scent of this lush and extremely joyful femininity sublimated by this gorgeous rose essence and the queen of flowers, and of course ambrox brings a woody sensuality to the fragrance,” she said.

Available as:  40 ml, 60 ml and 100 ml eau de parfum.

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All fragrances are available at Rustan’s The Beauty Source and Rustans.com.

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Follow the author on Instagram @theresejamoragarceau and @thebeautytraveler_ph.