La Prairie Life Threads in Silver

Recently, La Prairie introduced three new fragrances in its Life Threads family. Here's La Prairie's description of the Life Threads mystique.

Life's tapestry is rich with entanglements, connections, and mysteries waiting to be unraveled. We like to think we cherish freedom with no strings attached, but in our heart of hearts we know...the ties that bind are the only ones that count.

Huh? There's even a Life Threads song. So much for "marketing genius"! I think I'll write La Prairie and offer my services at what they will consider a bargain-basement price. Read on, though...had I (with my sensitive nose) been assisting, the only one to make it to market would have been Silver.

For me, the Life Thread fragrances, available in Silver, Platinum, and Gold, range from seriously exciting to obnoxious. I purchased and adore Silver ($125, but I was lucky enough to get a 20% discount while shopping for charity). Silver is a woody floral with notes of green leaves, bergamot, tuberose, jasmine, ylang ylang, pimento, orange blossom, sandalwood, vetiver, solar musk, and moss. Everyone with whom I have sniffed and spoken in the stores has loved Silver. My friend Loyd Cassler at Saks couldn't believe I was buying a fragrance from him. It's a rare day when I purchase a "department store" fragrance.

I am a huge white flower fan, and this fragrance fits in many of my favorite scents: tuberose, jasmine, orange blossom. What makes it unique is the powdery, sexy undertone, so even if your admirers don't see the gorgeous bottle, which alone is sleek and elegant, they will lean in for another whiff. This is a very feminine fragrance. Love it!

The clear lucite bottle is very pretty with its silver threads wrapped around. I do see my fragrance bottles on my dresser, so pretty is good.

I was less than enchanted by Platinum and Gold, but I'll admit it's a personal preference thing. La Prairie threw in scents that make me run for cover, such as patchouli, cinnamon, clove, incense, and amber. My aversion to these scents borders on allergic. It's too bad these fragrance ingredients are so enticing to modern-day parfumeurs.

So, now I go off the rails with too much information. I'll never forget the days of dry sockets after I had my wisdom teeth removed and had to go many times a week to an evil oral surgeon who packed my healing sockets with eugenol, better known as clove oil. That will turn you off cloves forever. Church did in incense for me. Out comes the priest waving incense at you, while you are gagging trying not to cough and make a scene. The ubiquitous patchouli, particularly aversive in magazine scent strips and elevators, made me request scent-free magazines (did you know you can do that?). One of my best buddies, who was born and raised in Mexico, told me that patchouli is considered "common" in her country. I know I don't have any Mexican blood, but I would fit right in!

OK, so I'm a bit weird when it comes to fragrance. I love flowers, though, and spent many happy days keeping my garden tour-ready. It was hard to keep my fingers clean, but those really were the days (before my knees said "enough!").

Back to Life Threads. Gold is a very spicy floral that features tangerine, plum, clove, pepper, cinnamon peel, coriander, Kyoto rose, lily of the valley, ylang ylang, cedar, patchouli, golden myrrh, vanilla, and incense. And now you know why I don't like it. They took the beautiful lily of the valley, rose, and plum scents and mixed them up with my run-for-cover triggers.

Platinum is billed as unisex, an elegant and edgy chypre floral with notes of plum, violet leaf, galbanum, jasmine, Persian rose, leather, cardamom, iris, Indonesian patchouli, vetiver, golden amber, oakmoss, and labdanum. Take out the patchouli, which I noted immediately, cardamon, and amber, and I might have liked it.

Now you know what to "smell for" when you sample Life Threads. I'll be wearing Silver this week, and I am curious to hear the reactions!

You can purchase Life Threads at Saks, Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus, and wherever you see La Prairie. You can also shop online at La Prairie.

Update 11/7: You know Silver smells good when people walk into your office and say, "What is that fabulous smell?"

Photo courtesy of La Prairie