Tuesday, November 15, 2011

L'Artisan Batucada Eau de Toilette

Sometimes, you want to deny winter with fragrance. L'Artisan Perfumeur's new unisex Batucada Eau de Toilette ($100 to $145) is a perfect way to say, "I'm sticking with the fun times!"

L’Artisan’s latest journey takes us to contemporary Brazil with a vibrant, joyful, and sensual perfume, inspired by the effervescence and rhythm of Rio. Batucada is the name of a percussive style of samba music. It's a celebration - repetitive, fast, and racy. Want to hear Batucada? Click on this YouTube link to hear Carnival Batucada by Sergio Mendes. It will rev you for something - my first two thoughts were food and fragrance!

L'Artisan calls Batucada "refreshing as a cocktail, sexy as a Brazilian dance." The notes listed by L'Artisan are tiaré flowers, caïpirinha accord, and "skin notes." Look up images for Batucada online, and you'll see why skin notes are perfectly appropriate for the fragrance.

Batucada was developed by perfumers Karine Vinchon (in Grasse, France) and Elisabeth Maier (in Saõ Paulo). I read at basenotes.com that the scent opens with mint, davana, tiare, lime, and caïpirinha accord. The heart notes are ylang ylang, amber, benzoin, aquatic notes, and coconut. The fragrance dries down to reveal vanilla, sandalwood, skin notes, patchouli, vetiver, and musk. Fortunately, the patchouli is barely discernible (if it can be detected at all). That one note can ruin a fragrance for me. LuckyScent does not list patchouli among the notes.

Batucada is a refreshing fragrance, one that opens with the scent of caïpirinha, Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça - sugar cane rum, sugar (preferably white powdered sugar, or any other sugar, even honey), and lime. The green, lime-laden drink might even be garnished with mint! Because I had never had one, I had to drink a caïpirinha. I don't often drink hard liquor, and my reaction was "smells great, tastes great, but a few of these would knock me on my toosh." Quite a blend!

The fragrance is a nice blend too. It's revs with the samba, relaxes with tropical flowers, and lingers with sea air and a musky, salty memory of celebration - like the crowds have moved on, but their scent remains. I like it. It's not a characteristic scent for me, but every so often, we need to shake things up (maybe with a cocktail, maybe with a fragrance). Batucada will do that!

You can find L'Artisan's Batucada online at L'Artisan and L'Artisan boutiques and at LuckyScent.

Photos courtesy of L'Artisan and Wikipedia

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