Igniting the Flame at Versace's Ero's Flame Launch

The spark of true love is the dream that each of us pursues ~ Donatella Versace

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​I’m a fragrance queen, I don’t leave the house without spritzing on a perfume that reflects my current mood or ‘completes’ my outfit. I’m just as interested in what’s new in the world of men’s colognes. Dave Lackie held a beautiful launch party to celebrate Versace’s’ Ero’s Flame at Terroni’s on Adelaide last week. A chic event space on the 2nd floor was transformed into a Miami-esque dinner party, complete with palm leaves towering over dinner guests in tall black vases, gold lamps gently glowing over bouquets of geraniums, roses and scattered oranges, a nod to the notes of the fragrance. It was the perfect escape from the blizzard that was happening in downtown Toronto, just outside the front doors.

​Camera’s were in tow from CityLine, capturing the excited guests taking in the décor, sipping wine by the roaring fireplaces, photographing the beautiful deep red cologne bottle with the face of Medusa protruding from the center. I love when bottles feel like little art pieces, and usually keep my favourite’s around even after they’re empty. They look fantastic on my vanity.
Who doesn’t love a good love story? Melanie Chaplin was on hand to talk about the print ad, featuring Gigi Hadid and model Salomon Diaz (who was reportedly discovered on the Jersey Shore, oh my!) that is inspired by Canova’s ‘Amore e Psiche’ marble sculpture.  It has been regarded as a masterpiece, capturing mythological lovers in a tender embrace, Psyche reaching up towards her love, Cupid. How fitting for Valentine’s Day weekend!
Donatella Versace is so hands on when it comes to fragrances, we were told that when it comes to the design of the bottle, to the pigment they use, to the colour of the packaging or the models that appear in the ads, they all need to have her stamp of approval. If there is something she doesn’t like, it goes back to the drawing board to be re-done. If it has the Versace named attached to it, it needs to be perfect, and lovers of the brand expect nothing less.

“The top note of the fragrance is lemon and tangerine, but then it has something very special because no fragrance would be able to carry the name Versace if it didn’t have something very special and different to it.” Melanie explained during a Q&A with Dave. “So this fragrance has an ingredient called chinotto and that is a very unique orange from a certain area of southern Italy, and it is a bitter orange and is used in many beverages in Italy, I’m told that this is as Italian as pasta!, so it has that bitterness to it, that cuts through the lemon and the tangerine, we then move into the heart of the fragrance, a lovely blend of rosemary, and not just the normal rosemary that you would find in a pot or in the garden, it is wild mountain rosemary.”
“Rosemary is kind of an interesting ingredient” Dave remarked. “What does that add to the scent?” Good question! Melanie was quick to respond “It adds a vivacious and aromatic flavor to the fragrance, because when we talk about fragrance, when we talk about the scent, we talk about the flavor of it, it does add that harmony and it also blends very well. If you think about cooking, it blends well with citrus” I’ve never thought about it that way, it was such an interesting take and it does make a lot of sense. But it doesn’t stop there. The fragrance has notes of black pepper from Madagascar, cedar, patchouli, oak moss, sandal wood, tonka bean, vanilla and even roses, which I found maybe even a little strange to be added to a fragrance geared towards men, Melanie was quick to point out that rose was the ‘new unisex’.
“The rose is Donatella Versace’s favourite flower and so it was very important to Donatella that the rose was included in the fragrance, and rose, you might think is unusual to be in a men’s fragrance, but rose is the new unisex.”

​I found the scent to be very woodsy and spicy. A lot of women are flocking to scents like these nowadays, you may even remember that Dave mentioned this at the Beauty Finance talk a few weeks back. We met with a wonderful woman named Kayla, who works with beauty and fragrance and Holt Renfrew and told us over dinner that more and more women are coming in asking for masculine or unisex scents. It’s a huge trend right now. Several of the guests were remarking than rather give the bottle to a special man in their lives they were going to be rocking it on their own. I’m a girly girl at heart, I love floral and fresh scents (my go-to’s are Marc Jacob’s Divine Decadence and Givenchy’s Simply Irresistible) so my husband was happy to get his hands on this cologne when I got home. He immediately got a compliment on it the next day and work, and I really love smelling it on him. It’s very masculine and sexy.

I would recommend this as a great Valentine’s Day or anniversary gift as the scent feels deeply personal and intimate.
Many thanks to Dave for being a wonderful host as always. His events are so magical, it feels like we’ve been swept away by every theme he chooses, if even for one night.
Be sure to follow his NEW Instagram account @DaveLackieBeauty and on twitter as @DaveLackie. He also has a wonderful online beauty magazine called Beauty Departure that you can subscribe to for free: BeautyDeparture.com  
Until next event!