I have several imaginary celebrity friends. Tilda Swinton is the eccentric one. I like to pretend that we regularly go out for a pint in her hometown of Scotland. After a few hours Imaginary Tilda tends to launch into a terrific drunken rendition of one of Shakespeare’s more obscure sonnets, and then I’m all like “Oh, Tilda, you lovable mess” before driving her snoring ass home to her boyfriend and husband.
When I heard that Tilda had created a perfume with niche brand Etat Libre d’Orange, I chuckled “Oh, Tilda, you absolute card.” Of course Tilda would subvert the celebrity fragrance paradigm by choosing the most audacious name in niche perfumery to create her perfume.
I find Etat Libre d’Orange Like This very curious, because I would not have associated it with Ms. Swinton. Like This is a very bright tangerine scent made syrupy by immortelle. I occasionally detect ginger, but unfortunately get none of the promised pumpkin note. This sort of thing really isn’t my cup of tea, but it doesn’t particularly strike me as Tilda’s either. I maintain that Tilda would have been best represented by a sharp green scent that captured her angularity, her otherworldliness.
SCENTS OF SELF 
I only tried Like This for the first time a couple of months ago. I think I liked it, but at the same time it wasn’t totally my style. I do like Parfumerie Generale overall. They’ve done a lot of good stuff over the years.
That’s the same way I felt about it, Michael.
Oops, I’ve just noticed that I mentioned Parfumerie General in here! I think I was still thinking about them after your Felanilla post. My views on PG still stand…
I just starting laughing out loud on the airplane like a lunatic! Thanks! :o)
I’m so glad that I could brighten the usually unpleasant airplane experience!
I own it and I do smell pumpkin in it. It makes me think of pumpkin bread, not too sweet like a pumpkin Starbucks scone 😉
That sounds just beautiful! If it smelled like a pumpkin Starbucks scone to me, I’m sure that I would own it too!
I do get pumpkin, but the musty herbal notes spoil this for me. I know what you mean about a sharp green scent suiting her, but it has a “jolie laide” kind of vibe, certainly. And kudos to her for maintaining the husband and the boyfriend…. : – )
I saw recent pictures of TS on Katie Puckrik’s site, and do you know, she isn’t even ginger anymore.
I’m not positive, is she naturally blonde or ginger? She has practically white eyelashes, so I assume she must be a blonde.
I have enough trouble maintaining one relationship, much less two!! 🙂
First paragraph slayed me. SLAYED. That should have been ELdO’s perfume brief.
I’m so glad you liked it! I’m very passionate about my imaginary celebrity friends 🙂
I can’t remember what this smells like but I think of it everytime I pass Tilda brand rice in Tesco. I need to get that ELdO sample set soon.
Is there a sample set? I’d like to test some more of them too.
Ari, Escentual.com in the UK do a discovery set and the price is redeemable against any full bottle purchase. Obviously you’ll pay a lot more for postage to the States though.
http://www.escentual.com/etat-libre-dorange/elo_025/?t=238#
Thank you, Tara! That’s a much better price than the one on the ELd’O website itself.
I have fantasy celebrity friends too! Only I take it one step further and imagine who’d I’d invite to my fantasy celebrity party where the only non-celebrity is, of course, me. I will add Tilda to the guest list immediately. I clearly have too much time on my hands.
Can’t believe I haven’t tried this yet. Hoping to remedy that this weekend. I did read that the inspiration was her hair colour (rather than personality). Maybe they asked her what she wanted it to smell like and she pointed to her hair and said “Like this”?!
LOL! Tilda Swinton’s red hair was very nice, but I’m not sure that I would build a whole perfume about it. Please let us know what you think of Like This after you try it this weekend!
I’ve always thought that Tilda looks more fey than human, so I imagined unsettling green notes for her when I heard that she was making a scent. Thus the notes seem like a bizzare pick. Tilda is not candied citrus and pumpkin pie, at least not to me anyway.
However, the more I think about it, the more appropriate it seems for Tilda to pick a perfume that is the opposite of what the public thinks of her 🙂
By the way, I’ve been testing l’heure bleue lately, and I must say that I love it. The only other iris perfume I remember trying is prada’s infusion d’iris, which I found to be a rather modern, cool floral. L’Heure Bleue, in contrast, I found to be a warm, powdery, old fashioned floral on me, with more musk than vanilla in the dry-down. It practically radiates old-world elegance.
Thanks again for letting me try it. I love it and will definitely be running through the sample soon!
Agreed that Tilda would be contrary even in her perfume!
I am so happy to hear that you are getting on so well with L’Heure Bleue- it is the most beautiful fragrance I know! A true masterpiece.
OK, so death might be a bit scary. But Tilda Swinton is VERY scary. To me.
I have been wanting to try the Etat Libre d’Oranges. Duh. I have been wanting to try EVERYTHING. But, I think this one might be one that I really like, and possibly Cigarette et Jasmin and a few of the others…
LOL! I do find Tilda somewhat intimidating, mostly due to her crazy height. She is literally a foot taller than me.
I haven’t gotten to try much of the ELd’O line either, and they all sound so interesting. Hopefully we’ll get to try them soon!
Glad I’m not the only one who has difficulty associating the warmth and comfort of Like This with the ice and flint of Tilda Swinton! Think you’re on the money with the angular green scent, though I think an aloof, ethereal iris (with a hint of leather perhaps) might be more her too.
I would fully support an iris and leather Tilda scent too!
How could the so nice short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button be ‘LIKE THIS’….?
One of the WORST, most boring longest piece of crap movies I’ve ever suffered through…
I think Tilda was the only good thing about that (kitsch -in a bad way-) film.
I have to admit that I haven’t seen the movie!! I just Google Image searched “Tilda Swinton drinking” and found the picture, lol!
haha, I see! So you’ve nailed it, she was the standout for me, and it’s probably the best part (if there’s one single interesting scene).
Everyone has their own taste but now you’ve been warned about the film. Go see it if you want to see and old man getting less and less wrinkled and nothing else. You could see the same thing after getting out of long bath.
Soporific (it just goes on and on), predictable, a sorry-looking sight adaptation (ridiculous and tedious storytelling! poor Fitzgerald, Cate Blanchett’s voice-narrator as an old lady is one of the most annoying sounds you will ever hear in your life), the absurd Pitt/Blanchett love story, the Pitt/Blanchett lifting effects -a mere pretext to show how extreeeeemely beautiful people they were in younger age-, void of any interest, emotion, acting ability, engagement and every other aspect that could make any motion picture watchable!
… unless you look for a sleep inducing or a Comedy Festival (it can be hilarious sometimes but please don’t take it seriously AT ALL) —-> it’s a complete waste of time. 😀
As for the perfume, I agree with you, a sharp green scent would suit her much better. I can see her in Y, or in Bandit.