New in the United States: CREED White Flowers

Occasionally, I'll find a fragrance that transports me to an earthly paradise - one that's teaming with flowers I love. I'll want to bathe in it, live in it, revel in it. The scent makes me forget every little anxiety and focus on the magnificence of a hidden garden suddenly revealed.

CREED's new White Flowers (8.4 oz, $575) is one of those fragrances. The scent is magnetic - drawing in my nose like hummingbirds are attracted to the precious drops of nectar in brightly colored flowers. Instead of a brightly colored paradise, CREED has created one with sublime white flowers, one of the most enchanting white flower fragrances I've worn. White Flowers awakens my sense of smell. It alerts me to a world of my dreams, one I could describe, but you might think I've lost it.

French master perfumer Olivier Creed created White Flowers, new to the Royal Exclusives collection, in bottles CREED considers as collectible as art. I'm not sure the bottle will rival my Frank Stella favorite, even though it is lovely. I'm trying to retain some sense of reality, even though Creed selected hand-picked ingredients from our world to imagine a world that is beyond reach. "Serene and composed, White Flowers is a voyage into spirit and dream." Somehow, that sentence seems perfect.

The fresh floral composition opens with Parma violet leaves, green apple, and lemon from Calabria. At its heart, Italian and Moroccan jasmine, light geranium, and Bulgarian rose seduce. The soft base notes are musk, Indian sandalwood, and narcissus (the narcissus an unusual base note to me). The scent and its aura are transitory. I find White Flowers lasts for about four hours on my skin, giving me an excuse to apply it again during the day for another trip to paradise. A few nights ago, I went to sleep wearing it, sure to have sweet dreams.

The elegant White Flowers hand-blown Pochet glass bottle etched with CREED’s crest has a cut-glass cap that reveals an open-neck pour. Fortunately, CREED offers a complimentary white fabric pump for those of us who prefer a fine mist. Once I can spray with abandon, White Flowers may transport me to another world for a few extra hours.

So far, I'm living with a large sample. My bottle will arrive at Neiman Marcus this month, so I'm waiting for Francesca Camacho, one of the finest fragrance experts I've ever encountered in a department store, to get her stock. You can purchase White Flowers today, though, at CREED's Web site if you can't wait a week or two for your CREED counter or neimanmarcus.com to offer it. The CREED Boutique will begin shipping White Flowers tomorrow. It is already available in France.

How I wish Roberto Ferreira, National CREED Educator and Curator of the CREED Collection, were here this week! I'd love to hear his thoughts in this new addition to the CREED collection. I'm so impressed with White Flowers, I'm almost speechless. All week, I've tried to engage my right brain to summon the words to describe this gorgeous fragrance.

Photo at top courtesy of CREED; narcissus photo by Best Things in Beauty; jasmine photo courtesy of planfor.fr