A Perfumer's Nightmare

In my previous newsletter, I reported on the Grand Tour through Switzerland. This week I am again doing a small part of this tour in another region and I am travelling with my Alfa GTV 2000 from 1974. It’s exactly the same car as my dear uncle used to drive. During his lifetime he bought three times this beautiful designed model by Bertone. Now that I myself drive this vintage Alfa, the Grand Tour has an even more nostalgic character. In terms of speed, the GTV 2000 goes well with modern traffic, but you drive without a safety belt and of course the ventilation leaves much to be desired and when you drive you permanently smell the aroma of petrol around the car. Porfirio Rubirosa liked to soak up the smell of Petrol when driving his Ferrari. At the beginning of the sixties he even planned to develop his own men's fragrance with a hint of gasoline. He did not succeed because of his fatal accident. Hence I honoured him with YVRA 1965. To realize that suggestion of pleasantly smelling gasoline in a fragrance, the use of red pepper oil is crucial. Just squeeze some red peppercorns together and you will find out for yourself. With a stopover at Brenners Park Hotel in Baden Baden, I stayed at the Lake Neuchatel. I do not share the opinion of my beloved writer Oscar Wilde by any means. He once said about Switzerland: ‘That dreadful place, so vulgar with its big ugly mountains, all black and white like an enormous photograph.’ The Grand Tour proves that Wilde was wrong. My first fragrance YVRA 1958 has a strong link with the phenomenon of travel and in our collection we also offer scented pads. These days I badly need them in my over heated car. The scented pads can also be used for a musty sports bag or in your wardrobe. During the last few days we entered into a partnership with Travelteq. The company makes ideal bags for transporting your daily belongings and computer. Their bags are made of beautiful Italian leather and have handy storage compartments, even with a separate storage compartment for cigar and telephone. Every customer of their new bags will receive the scented pads in the near future, with which the bag will smell optimally for a long time. Keep you all posted and safe travels,Yvo van Regteren Altena

Dear readerMany of you will have missed in recent months worldly delights such as concerts, shopping or the visit to restaurants. The nice thing about that lack is that you tend to think back to the best experiences you had before restaurants turned to a lockdown.In the past, I have written about both the most spoiled restaurants as the simplest places where you can still find your culinary salvation. And just like with perfumes, good food is always about the right ingredients and the right proportions. For this occasion, I would like to connect 3 of my most appreciated experiences of the past months. And just because I’m obsessed with fragrances, I would like to make a connection with my own fragrances as well. LemonFor a long time, my favourite dessert was the crostata di frutto di bosco at the Florentine Trattoria Cammillo, but when I got a dessert of a crispy lemon from Menton with white peach and verbena in Paris at Epicure my preference changed. I was taken straight away into culinary ecstasy… Perfectly dosed, fresh and sparkling. A delicate freshness that I also strived for in my first fragrance YVRA 1958. Do not hesitate in buying this one, the 25% off deal ends on the 5th of September! Wood I discovered an amazing wine list by Margot Los in Amsterdam at Café Parlotte. Take the two Chablis houses of Raveneau and Dauvissat alone, which are extremely delicate with the use of wood. For me it’s also essential in perfumery. The trend of heavy Oud scents is not for me, the delicate scent of cedar wood or the slightly resin-scented Guaiac wood applied in YVRA 1979 are much more refined.  Pepper My most simple, but tastiest pasta I had in Rome at Roscioli Salumeria con Cucina. It is a very well-supplied delicatessen shop, where you can also eat delicious food. I love their Pasta Cacio e Pepe. A super simple, but tasty sauce with ingredients such as pepper, pecorino and parmigiano, and essentially the water in which the pasta is cooked. This pasta is all about the right preparation and proportions. Just like my fragrance YVRA 1965, which contains a lot of red pepper, you also have to be careful with this dish that you dose it perfectly.It is a good prospect that these locations will be open again these days and let's hope that this situation will hold up this fall. A life without sensory perception in which smell and taste have to be quarantined will hit hard...Kind regards,Yvo  

Last September I made a European road trip for various magazines.   For example, I visited the Champagne house Veuve Clicquot because in their cellars they have captured the scents of the various grapes that they use in their champagne in a barrel. You literally smell grape varieties such as Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. A very special experience that you reach via an imposing staircase where the top years of the house are mentioned. Then I moored in Provence at the spectacularly located hotel La Bastide De Gordes. This is an ideal location with fantastic views. Then I continued my route for a week in Tuscany to moor on the way back at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo on Lake Como. Many rooms overlook the lake where the paddle boats of yesteryear still pass by on their way to the highly romantic Bellagio on the other side. As the last station I visited for a report on the star restaurants of the Swiss Park Hotel Vitznau. The hotel enjoys a superb location on the shores of Lake Lucerne. Life can't get much more spoiled than in this art-infused hotel with only individually designed suites. The hotel also houses an unprecedented wealth of special wines. For example, they have all the vintages of the famous Sauternes Château d'Aquem. And of course, I could not resist photographing the year 1958, while there was also a bottle from 1885. When I got home, the trip seems like a long time ago and it will probably be my last report again for a while, due to the new measures that are restricting us. A desolate prospect where we even face a mini lockdown. Let's hope that this brake on social life will soon pass. If you want to brighten up the semi quarantine, there is still our YVRA 1958 Room Spray that evokes thoughts to happier times.With kind regards,Yvo van Regteren Altena

  In my opinion there is no film series like the James Bond cycle that impresses in terms of superior locations, understated style and perfect decoration. From the furthest beaches to the most expensive champagnes and sophisticated clothing. All these pillars come into the picture in every new Bond adventure.In the late 1990’s I wrote a story about Venice where I had a long interview with Arrigo Cipriani, owner of the famous restaurant Harry's Bar. A beloved Venetian haunt for famous artists, art collector Peggy Guggenheim and writer Ernest Hemingway. I knew that Arrigo collected yellow ties and that’s why I had bought a nice yellow Hermès tie with playing seals. He was clearly thrilled with it and immediately got his fantastic cookbook with recipes like Carpaccio (invented at Harry's Bar) which I still make from time to time.   Arrigo took me on a short boat trip because he had to arrange something concerning the film festival. We moored at a scaffold where three men sat. One of them was still in a white bathrobe despite noon. At first, I didn't even notice, but when he turned around, I was face to face with Sean Connery. I was so amazed that I couldn't put out much meaning and said something along the lines like: ‘Always dreamed of being James Bond myself’, to which he replied: ‘You can always give it a try.’ Even though Connery passed away last weekend at the age of 90; I will never forget his sonorous voice. Many years later, after an Amsterdam Bond premiere, I had a brief encounter with Pierce Brosnan at the Amstel Hotel. The happening was a standing buffet where a friend of mine had put his knife and fork in the breast pocket of his tuxedo jacket. Brosnan said wittily: ‘Are the gentlemen enjoying the party or are you just stealing the cutlery from the Amstel Hotel?’ Of course, the sophisticated world of James Bond is also surrounded by delicate fragrances. Bond creator Ian Fleming was a perfume aficionado and featured them in several books. During his morning writing sessions, he was always enveloped in a richly scented cloud of Floris No. 89.Bond actors Roger Moore and Sean Connery have not followed in the footsteps of creator Ian Fleming. Both actors had a unanimous preference for the historical and sultry scented Jicky of Guerlain. Later Connery switched to the sensual smelling Habit Rouge of the same house. Many ingredients, like lemon, bergamot, sandalwood and patchouli, that figure in Habit Rouge also figure in YVRA 1979. Too bad Connery never smelled it..Kind regards,Yvo van Regteren Altena

As the end of the year approaches, it is a good time to reflect on the past months. The year has turned lives upside down and forced us to change our lifestyle. As a travel journalist I sometimes made 3 return flights a month, while now I have only flown back and forth to Switzerland twice since March.Not traveling does activate your memories of the last long journeys you have made. For example, I have been thinking back a lot about the trip I made to the Andes where I visited the Andes Mountains in Peru, to an altitude of more than 5500 meters. I wrote a reportage about the very rare black Alpaca with its fantastically soft wool. Now it seems like an endless time ago.   I also think back to the long journey I made two years ago to Namibia. A journey that contributed to the development of the recently launched YVRA 1500. I got the idea of ​​developing a perfume with a sort of shock effect from a memorable encounter. I made a long car trip by 4-wheel drive from the capital Windhoek to the North, towards the border with Angola. All the way in the North you sometimes do not encounter a single living being during a day's drive and the world seems endless. After hours of traveling through endless sandy plains, I ended up in Kunene where I saw a deserted settlement of a Himba tribe. You cannot imagine how isolated these nomads live together with their cows and goats under the most primitive conditions. They own little more than a cabin and some water from a nearby well. Both men and women hardly wear any clothes. Their traditional clothing is made from the skins of slaughtered animals. Because water is scarce, Himba women never wash themselves, but rub themselves in with ash and otjize, which is an extremely strongly scented mixture of goat fat, herbs and ocher. In puberty, girls braid their hair into little ponytails that are rubbed with this red colored mixture. The scent of Himba women, and especially their hair, is so extremely strong that you have to turn away from it at first. If you did not know that that striking scent comes from people, you would think that the scent comes from an old donkey.  Together with my guide, I gave a Himba girl a ride to a nearby community. A day after she got out of the car, the car still smelled of the bizarre scent mixture, which, despite the vehemence, had something interesting. The same is true with the recently launched YVRA 1500. At first, the scent is very intimidating and you can almost smell it with your stomach, but over time the scent also takes on something intriguing because you have not smelled it before. This powerhouse, consisting of osmanthus, bitter orange and mint can now be enjoyed by a group of enthusiasts. At YVRA, we are already looking forward to a life where there is again room for positivity, travel and winter sports. To celebrate that new era, we are already working on a new energetic and fresh formula that should please both women and men.Keep you all posted and kind regards,Yvo  

  Dear friends, Many had looked forward to a liberating week of skiing at the beginning of this year. I myself have long been eyeing my favorite areas such as the Swiss Engadine with its vast snow-covered lakes and beautifully situated hotels. I am a fan of the Waldhaus at Sils Maria. It is a 15-minute drive from Sanit Moritz and time seems to have stood still in the hotel. In the common room, where music is played in the evening, you are not allowed to touch your mobile, because that disturbs the peace…   And what a shame not to be able to go up and down to a village like Gstaad these weeks and visit the Palace Hotel where in the past Roger Moore could regularly be found at the bar. Not standing on skis forces you to think back to the past. A time where all limbs were still intact and you skied without a helmet and an old-fashioned salopettes on 2-meter-long skis from the roofs of completely snowed-under chalets. Or the days when you went on the slopes with friends who have difficulty with the regular ugly ski clothing and therefore appear on the slopes in a stylish tuxedo. Who knows that later this year it will still be possible to go to the crackling snow with an après ski around a fireplace. During winter sports I am not really concerned with fragrances, but I recently realized that the YVRA 1500 L’Essence de Distance is a perfect fit for a cold walk through a snow-covered forest. The strong wood tones and some smoky ingredients make this fragrance the ideal choice for winter sports in my opinion. For now, just stay in your own house and keep your spirits up. Of course, you can cover your own house in our YVRA 1958 L'Essence de Résidence room spray dreaming of new winter sports trips in the near future. Kind regards, Yvo van Regteren Altena    

  Dear friends,For some, their own love is enough, as the ever-witty Oscar Wilde once said: ‘To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.’ And then of course there are the cynics like François de la Rochefoucauld in which many will recognize themselves: ‘True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.’ Many still look fondly at the great loves between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward or the turbulent and literally cinematic relationship between Liz Tailor and Richard Burton. Valentine's Day is of course an invention of commerce, but you can also use this event to look at other love than for its peers. That's how I conceived my love for the city of Florence in 1979. I lived there for more than a year and from day one I felt familiar in that city. And to this very day, the place fills me with a serene feeling as the landing gear goes out for a new landing. The love between me and the city has never let go and I travel back to it several times a year to visit old friends and my favorite trattorias. Florence itself, the culture, the people, and the memories have had a major impact on my further life. With all the attention from friends to the quality of primary ingredients, but also in the field of textiles, quality of life, and the world of smell. I have learned a lot. The year 1979 is also the year that I started to fantasize about making my own fragrance one day. I was already playing with the idea of ​​capturing all my favorite ingredients, such as bergamot, lemon oil, and cedar in a fragrance of my own that eventually resulted in the launch of YVRA 1979 L’Essence de Présence. Earlier I said that Valentine's Day is an invention of commerce and that is why we would like to bring YVRA 1979 to the attention of this special day. You can consider it as my liquid love elixir for Tuscany and Florence. The great thing about this fragrance is that it appeals to both women and men. The subject of the link between love and perfume deserves another newsletter because there is so much to say about it. No wonder the famous fashion designer Christian Dior instructed his perfumer, saying: ‘Make me a fragrance that smells like love.’ Try the 1979 fragrance with a free YVRA 1979 Travel set (Worth 29,-) with the purchase of any 100ml! I wish you all a loving Valentine's Day!Yvo van Regteren Altena