THE QUEEN OF LOVE ~ Pour L’Amour by Vicky Tiel

Once many years ago, late into the Alexandrian night when the city was asleep and the waters of the Mediterranean shimmed under the impersonal gaze of the universe something magical happened. I have heard tales of others who have seen it. Yet I have never had occasion to meet anyone who could share their story with me.  Never having told anyone before I wonder if it is wise to tell you now?  For no one could possibly believe such a tale born of the stars, and the dust of fallen empires and of love.

    It was the summer of 1922 and I had just arrived in the city from England on my way to the Valley of the Kings. I was to be a part of the last expedition in search of undiscovered tombs. Lord Carnarvon had sent for me to aid the expedition with more supplies and money. On this particular night before I was to take the train to Upper Egypt I could not sleep and against the advice of the hotel concierge I went for a stroll along the Grand Cornice that runs along the Eastern Harbor in the direction of Cape Lochias. The night was redolent with the smell of jasmine and amber marble dust that had baked in the sun the day before. It was heady and intoxicating as it mixed with the scent of vanilla and peppered spices that seemed to hover like holy incense over the city in the moonless heat of midnight.

I wandered in a dream like state onto the Cape where once the royal enclosure of the Ptolemies had ruled the city.   Enveloped by a sense of wonder at being for the first time in Egypt I didn’t see the fallen column in my path and stumbled over it.  I fell face first knocking myself out when my forehead met the earth.

“With no moon to watch over you young man, you should be more careful in the dark.” A woman’s voice spoke in a strange archaic Greek.

I opened my eyes. Not knowing how long I had been unconscious I looked about for the owner of the voice. There sitting on the fallen column was a woman, not of great beauty but instead possessed by great charm and presence. Yet beyond this charm was her voice, it was a lilting music that captured my imagination. Rising and falling in perfect harmony it possessed the beauty of a small chamber orchestra.

“You are not cut but you are going to have a rather large bump on your forehead.”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. She seemed to glow around the edges of her form and at moments became almost transparent.

“Who are you?” I asked rubbing the growing nub on my head.  She ignored me and looked out past the entrance to the Eastern Harbor to the open sea.

“This ships should be coming soon. And the end with them.”

“The end?”

She smiled as she watched the horizon. “Why is the beacon not burning in the lighthouse?” She looked back at me. “Not a bad thing really. Without the light the ships might crash on the rocks and sink and  with them Rome’s ambitions.”

Suddenly I was very cold, and as the icy hand of realization touched my shoulder I understood what was happening.

“Where is Antony?” I said softly.

Her smile faded at the corners of her mouth. “Wandering the beaches by day looking for his lost army, in the taverns at night singing sad songs, and all because of me.”  She reached out to touch my hand, her fingers passed through me. “Have you ever been in love?” She looked very tired.

I glanced but for a moment past her to the east knowing that Octavian would come over the Delta to take the city and not by sea. Not as Caesar had, when she was young and the future held hopes of Empire. Now the future was behind her and turned to stony history.

“Love?” I said. “I don’t think so; no I have never really been in love.”

Her soft laughter was soothing and beautiful.  “I thought years ago that a goddess was above love. I was wrong. Loving him was not in the plan, but young man love has its own plan that is greater than us all. In the first moments of falling into Antony’s fire the Goddess was destroyed. I was divine no more and became a woman utterly lost in the divinity of love.”

In the distance toward the end of the Cape there was soft ghostly merry music of lutes, lyres and a man singing slightly off key.

“Ah….my love calls” She stood up and I could see the stars glittering through her body where her heart no longer lived. “I must go and make things ready for the victor and all things right with my Antony.”

She started to walk toward the sea and to fade in her progress to eternity.

“Your Majesty!”

She turned.  “Why did you put such trust in him? Why do you go to him now? Now that it is all lost, your kingdom, your freedom, your life?”

She was turning to a starry mist and I could just make out the traces of her last smile. “for love…. For love…..for love.”

All the treasures we found later that following November in the tomb of Tutankhamun were nothing in comparison with the beauty of that night in Alexandria. The night when I met a Queen who gave everything for love.

*******

Pour L’Amour the new fragrance by Vicky Tiel is something special. Vicky is thrilled to say that this fragrance is her best fragrance yet, her most sensual, magical and erotic even. What makes it an elixir of sensuality is the inclusion of four aphrodisiacs and one very secret ingredient. That ingredient being a note that since the late 1700’s has only been used in men’s fragrance. What could that note be?  Whatever the answer is, for she refused to tell even me, this fragrance is presented in joy, with flair and all wrapped up in Vicky’s mantra of Love.

Love life, love yourself, love every aspect of this existence. It is all for love, live for love, Pour L’Amour.

VICKY TIEL

The perfume opens with a glittering citrus cocktail of sparkling bergamot, and tangy Mandarin orange. The note of Quince is added to give the fragrance a tropical fruitiness. Not a sickly sweet tropical fruit, a mixture of apple and pear but lush and ripe and juicy splash of this really beautiful note. The Quince may indeed be one of the aphrodisiacs of the perfume as it was the favorite fruit of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.

The top notes set the scene immediately for the mid notes and burn of in a passionate blaze to reveal a gorgeous patchouli leaf that lends an exotic eastern flavor to a fully blooming white Jasmine Sambac. This luxurious center is framed by golden peppery notes of Freesia, this patchouli and the pepper/spicy freesia keep the fragrance from going too indolic and lend it a rather strong unisex quality.

Well into the sixth to seventh hour the dry down of the base notes kicks in. A creamy warm amber is blending into a rich vanilla bean and smothered in the most soothing and smoothly polished sandalwood. The vanilla gives the dry down a touch of gourmand which is interesting and makes the dying notes sweet but without regret for its fading. Rather it invites one to reapply the perfume and begin the romance anew.

Over all it is a lush Oriental that captures in olfactory style the felling of a grand passion. Beautify rendered it is well worth checking out. It is a full and adult perfume that gives me great joy in its unapologetically charming nod to classicism in the perfume world. It is time for perfume to become sophisticated and alluring again. Leave the fresh clean watery fragrances to be but mere after bath splashes. Pour L’Amour is arresting of the senses and demands adoration, It will command the room without overwhelming it or the person who wears it. It is magnetic and whispers a promise of grand passion, a love that my even topple an empire and turn a goddess into a woman.

I have to agree with Vicky Tiel, this is her best fragrance yet.

At this time Pour L’Amour is only available on HSN. (Home Shopping Network)

 

 

 

 

8 Comments

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI