Indieperfumes

Trayee, Mohur & Bombay Bling – Summer in India and NYC

2013-06-05T09:05:00.000-04:00

Varanasi/Benares, the oldest city in India. by Cha.

Summer is the perfect time to introduce yourself, if you haven’t yet, to this trio of perfumes by Neela Vermeiere/Bernard Duchaufour, based on the aromatic personalities of India.

They soften and ease the summer by beautifying the humidity and heat into an aura of deliciousness.

When we reach the upper 90s with equal humidity during a heat wave in NYC, the city changes. We have to move a little more slowly so as not to melt into the pavement before we accomplish everything we must. In such times I wear perfume more for myself than anyone else, more for moral support, for a reference to elegance in a harsh environment. The weather is frequently difficult in NYC and taking too much notice of it makes it harder to function at the de rigueur top speed. Best to tap into all the accoutrements that remind you to be a civilized being, in a way similar to old school British colonialists who dressed not for the climate but for pride and morale.

A softer gentler way to do this is with perfume.

Trayee especially ornaments heated skin, emanating a dry decorative energy that is akin to a fragrantly spiced dish and/or a precious material stored in a cupboard protected by the aromatic spirits of an ancient culture. Its opening of the transparent smoke of powdered incense is a soft burning wood fragranced with flowers by exposure and proximity. On me as the smoke moves into a powdered wood phase a light licorice air arises.

The ginger/cinnamon/berry/jasmine/sandalwood/vetiver/oakmoss notes, among others, hold together, influencing each other rather than stepping out individually. This one harkens to the Vedic tradition, the face of India to which I respond most viscerally. I find myself eased by its ability to embellish strong heat and humidity and soothed by its balanced nature.

Bani Thani, A miniature, Kishengarh, Jaipur, Rajasthan 18th Cent.

Mohur is opulent with several forms of rose and precious woods, including oudh. Touches of Indian spices, pepper, and violet spike the naturally narcotic effect with energy which then slowly becomes infused with a mist of powdery softness, the combined effects of almond milk, sandalwood, white woods, orris effects, vanilla and tonka bean. The notes hold together to influence the rose with a refined atmosphere of dry warmth and soft heat. This perfume would be in the category of a true beautifier, an enhancement of presence, a luxuriantly sophisticated rose that breathes out intelligence as well as seduction. This refinement is dedicated to the Mughal/Raj India, in the persona of the legendary empress Noor Jahan who devoted herself to perfume in the final Act of her dramatic life.

Bombay Bling is a brilliantly white heady floral bouquet sweetened with lightly spiced lychee, mango and blackcurrant, tightly hugging its body-conscious partners patchouli, tobacco and vanilla. It is an olfactory tribute to the energy of Bollywood and unfurls a brightly smiling, glamorous air, imparting something of modern India’s internal chemistry, that is, the energy sparked between a marriage of ancient and modern. In this perfume happiness itself is the essence of beauty.

All this makes me think of the immensely rich Raj Quartet by Paul Scott, which I read over and over, that formed strong impressions of India for me, and now it seems time to read it again. These four magnificent books depict the dying embers of Edwardian British colonialism slowly burning down among the realities and dreams of India; whose deep traditions, cultures and internal forces are so layered and complex it could hardly be comprehended in any one person's lifetime. It’s a story of enormous culture clash describing a time when people did not wish to step outside their native cultural boundaries. It seems that only now, the English speaking West is beginning to get something of a handle on India. Certain aspects of modern yoga and meditation have helped crack open that ornate and massively heavy door for many people.

Now we may begin to gain the benefits of exposure to the ancient Indian traditions of perfume, especially as translated into forms we can apprehend and incorporate into daily life.

With these perfumes we have aromatic interpretations reaching us through the collaboration of Neela Vermeire, both a native of India and at home in the West, and the French Bertrand Duchaufour, accustomed to extensive and immersive travel in many cultures.

Each of these three perfumes calls to or even magnifies a different aspect of the personality of both of the wearer and India. For complete list of notes of each perfume, samples, pricing, etc. please visit the Neela Vermeire Creations site.

Music to listen to perfume by:

Sheila Chandra, combining her Indian and Western heritage in song:
Sacred Stones
Lagan Love/Nada Brahma

Copyright 2013, Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved.
I received samples from Neela Vermeire, and Carlos J. Powell.

Fueguia 1833 Patagonia - Perfumes with a Sense of Place

2013-05-27T15:32:00.000-04:00

Patagonia

This small independent perfume laboratory is creating perfume with a strong sense of origin and ancestry, to bring us the distinctive fragrances of a location that shaped unique experiences and perceptions.

Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, they reach across South America all the way down into Patagonia to sustainably source their aromatic materials, as well as the stories that inspire the perfumes. While the modern culture of Argentina is overwhelmingly Euro-centric, it is situated in a place that is much more closely connected to the wildness and mystery of deep nature. You get both sides in these perfumes, the French classical tradition presenting the wilder varieties of nature’s energies.

This perfume house works along the line of themes, some inspired by the exploration of the most remote areas such as Patagonia, some by its native writers such as Borges and important personalities of regional influence such as Darwin and Magellan. There are perfumes inspired by the spectacular native flora and fauna, and by womanly beauty. I very much admire their extensive catalog with details and photographs of their process and inspirations.

These are coolly elegant yet dreamy perfumes referencing vast spaces that hold wild contrasts, as processed by a rationally educated European-American mind. They incorporate pieces of a place of deep impenetrable greens, all aromatic with the scents of clear mountain and humid tropical air, fragrant forests, and European-style cities redolent of the 19th Century, that arise in the midst of dramatic landscapes.

I attended an event at Aedes de Venustas introducing 20 of the perfumes (the line has about 50 at this time). Three of my favorites were Bibliotequa de Babel, Agua Magnolio and Xocoatl.

For me the most distinctive thing about these perfumes is that they incorporate unique and exotic materials from the Western Hemisphere within a classically elegant French manner. I also appreciate that they promise to use these precious resources sustainably. Only the main three or four notes are listed for each perfume in the beautiful catalog.

Bibliotequa de Babel represents the fragrance of an old library. The main notes are several different forms of native South American cedars as the anchoring center, cabreuva (similar to Peru Balsam) for its woody roundness and subtly floral sweetness, and cinnamon. There is also a quietly inky tone at the opening. The perfume stays stable throughout wear, made as it is primarily of wood notes.

This perfume is one of a cool dignity that is the essence of elegance, while referencing the romance of old stories and esoteric information, as an ethereal influence. This could be the result of the cabreuva with its round floral woody qualities creating a balmy air to hold the lightly mentholated bite of the cedar woods.

Agua Magnolia is centered on both Amazonian and Fragrantissima types of Magnolia, an ancient anchoring native tree species of the South American rain forests. Jasmine Grandiflorum and Santalum Album bring out the greenly sweet and soothing aspects of the magnolia’s fragrance. It has a balmy mildness, while the distinctive magnolia floral tone is held throughout the life of the perfume’s wear.

Aesthetically it acts like a cross between a perfume and an eau de toilette, in that it feels like something you'd drench yourself with without becoming an intrusively loud olfactory presence, while it holds on with the stability and longevity of a perfume. It could be worn by both sexes as its charm lies in the energy of a lively green floral without any cloy.

Xocoatl, (pronounced “sho ko lah tuhl, the Aztec for chocolate) is a warm and floral vanilla orchid over bitter cocoa and rum, as was used to flavor the precursor to our liquid chocolate drinks. More similar in fragrance to the original way chocolate was given to Aztec warriors and used in sacred ceremonies than to the familiar hot chocolate, it dries down to a lightly orchidaceous vanilla with a black chocolate astringent base. Vanilla is always a warm comfort but this one is more sophisticated than domestic, due in part to the hints of rum and orchid, and that there is no sweetness or cream whatsoever.

I recommend a download of the intricate and extensive catalog, which has beautiful illustrations from the early 19th century era of exploration and detailed descriptions of the themes behind the perfumes, as well as a price list. The perfumes are available in New York at Aedes de Venustas and their site has a question and answer session with the perfumer Julien Bedel.

An interesting if melancholy story of Tierra del Fuego natives and the early British explorers, including Darwin: A True and Sad Story of Fuegia Basket and Captain Fitzroy.

Copyright 2013 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved.
I received samples from Aedes de Venustas.
First photo: I could not find a credit, if it is yours please let me know.
Second and third photos fron

Andy Tauer /No 14 Noontide Petals EdT

2013-05-20T19:54:00.001-04:00

Photo David Douard at Valentin

This is one of my favorites of all the Andy Tauer fragrances. He has been, among other things, creating highly individualistic interpretations of certain classical perfume types, referencing the traditional European perfume forms while bringing in a smartly modern and open feel. As an independent perfumer who does everything himself from start to finish, I find his fragrances are always expressive of his personality, and this one I think especially expresses his rational, sophisticated yet friendly and down to earth persona.

Eau de Toilette was traditionally used especially for warmer weather to create a stimulating, cleansing and brisk aura to fight the heat and its attendant effects on the body.

Noontide Petals opens strong, bright sunny and keen, with plenty of bergamot, sparkling aldehydes and Bourbon geranium. Calling this an EdT makes it sound like it might be softer than his usual perfumes but the sophisticated presence of this fragrance is at the level of an EdP. The way it opens out with such an intense burst of sparkling citrus, and then morphs into a floral-ized powder to then focus on the reality and charm of clean skin, is where the EdT tradition is fulfilled.

Clarity and excitement are imparted by the citrus and aldehydes, which then wind down to the next stage. A geranium astringently leads into the heart notes of rose, ylang, tuberose and jasmine, which are unified into a rich floral statement with a soft cooled and powdered skin tone. A strong sense of development is created from the high and full-throated opening down to the soothing comfort of a calm sensuality. The citrus lingers with a gin and tonic-like sweetness that hovers over patchouli, frankincense, vanilla, sandalwood, cooling iris, styrax and vetiver. For me the sandalwood dominates and unifies all within the lingering base. Eventually, after about a half hour, the citrus burns away, and then you are left with a sense of cleansed warm skin beautifully enhanced by the subtle precious base notes.

This is a beautiful accessory for the warmer season, both clean and sophisticated in its body consciousness. There is a lively sharp beginning and then a subtle and lasting aura emanating from the skin, more like a reminder and an encouragement to energy and lightness. It well recalls a dip into and a drink of sparkling water while moving through the aromatic flowering trees and shrubs of full summer. Each phase is vivid and contains its own Tauer-ly personalized tang, while creating a sense of movement, air, brightness and light.

I received a sample through a friend, the Non-Blonde, whose lovely site I have enjoyed since 2006.

Music to listen to perfume by: More of This (Neighbors RMX) by Vetiver

Kedra Hart of Opus Oils Creates Perfume Personas

2013-04-29T15:10:00.000-04:00

We all have our own intensely personal perfume preferences. Some of us are fortunate enough to find the right perfumer who can express our personalities and persona through the medium of fragrance. I have written about Kedra Hart of Opus Oils before. It took awhile for me to acclimate my nose to what Kedra Hart was doing, but now that I have I am entirely sold, and find the more I explore the line the more deeply I fall under her spell.

It is her birthday today, and as a project between a number of perfume reviewers, we have decided to showcase eleven of the fragrances designed specifically for those who have a strong individuality that meshes with her own aesthetic. She's created layers of perfumes, like a scent geode that sparkles with both her and her muse's individuality.

AND, there will be a giveaway of two sets of eleven samples as discussed in our posts. If you'd like to be entered, please contact me at indieperfumesatgmail.com, and I will randomly choose two of you (contiguous U.S. only). It's a tremendously involving and unique set of perfumes to have before you all at once.

Kedra Hart's aesthetic has a deep connection to vintage perfume, and expresses the vulnerable glamor of old silent film Hollywood, Art Deco and heavy Sixties Los Angeles, and Fifties Las Vegas, Rock and Roll/ R&B, with serious connections to burlesque and cocktail culture tucked into the details. In other words, what we have here is serious true blue Americana in perfume form, with lashings of California and twists of the South and Southwest as they influenced same.

These perfumes are like swan's down powder puffs that take down the glare of the shine of the bright lights and make you and everyone else look and feel a lot better. Her perfumes are what I imagine the dames wore in those film noirs full of cigarettes, booze, wit, and significant eye contact. Fun and entertaining while still dealing with the serious emotions and dire consequences of following your instincts all the way out to their logical conclusions.

There is a strong primal side, connecting to the human beauty beneath the cosmetics and fashion, expressing the intoxication of the naked body with itself and other bodies. They all project strength and are strong perfumes with good longevity, but since they are (mostly) oils hold closer to the skin without creating intrusive or overwhelming scent trails.

These perfumes were all created with others who wanted to have perfumes made that expressed their personas and fantasies through perfume. They are available through Opus Oils and/or the muse's web locations as noted below.

Satan's Angel is a big white floral bouquet tribute to a burlesque star known for the fire and spirit in her act ("Queen of the Fire Tassels"). A luxuriant womanly fragrance, with a definite musky-powdery undertone that is sensual and mature in the best sense of the word. Labdanum and oakmoss are the base to stargazer lily, tuberose, gardenia, narcissus and jasmine. They slide over you after a brief initial kick of bergamot to start you up, so there is a full, powerful, even defiant femininity in this fragrance. Going full bore as gorgeous and ultra female.

Star F*cker is the other side of the equation, made for Tiger Powers, a Hollywood fetish model, musician and muse, with his own highly self-refined tastes, featuring strong Mediterranean citruses opened up with acquatic tones, over a comfortable woods and amber dry down. The perfume also contains a few molecules of Tiger DNA, just to keep it real and connected. There's a strong citrus sparkle that flirts and teases and lasts into the serious eye contact of the base notes. This is SoCal in a bottle, getting high on the pleasures of the sun before winding down into the dark for sex on the beach and breathing in more oxygen than your brain has ever been exposed to before. Available through both Tiger Powers and Opus Oils.

Glam Monster/Poison Style was made with and for Donato Style, Inc., an artist designer collector and purveyor of certain special luxurious things. Made in the USA and as they say, corrupted by Hollywood. It opens up with a blast of celestial harmonies created by pink pepper, white grapefruit, tuberose, jasmine, lily, oud, narcissus, and bittersweet chocolate, and comes in both EdP and EdC strengths, to be ordered directly from Donato Style. This perfume is like going hunting with your intoxicated friends who magically turn into a pack of animals, that wear crowns of crystals and flowers as they search high and low for their gods and goddesses, loping in the dark towards the lights in the distance. The florals are subsumed within the citrus and the chocolate so that while it this is not an abstract fragrance, the florals being individuated, the rest of the notes heighten the floral effect towards the soprano end of the scale without standing out as representational themselves. It has an exciting yet narcotic edge.

Eau de Flog was created in limited edition for a new form of TV personality, the Geek Girl, as personified by the actress Felicia Day, who explores the internet and her immediate environs to bring the audience her discoveries. She came to the Jitterbug Perfume Parlor and worked with Kedra Hart to design a fragrance that matched her own instinctive attractions. The result is a young, easy going, lighthearted fragrance that is even-tempered bright and clean. It adds something fresh to an online persona that might otherwise have been working too hard indoors for too long under too bright artificial lights with a script, as so many of the rest of us are. This is relaxation, the fragrance of sanity in the midst of a casual weekend; citrus-y with a clean white musk so it may hold on without clinging. It has a tenaciousness that belies its lightness.

Unearthly Beauty? was created for Gretchen Bonaduce, to match her clothing line and in concert with her other activities as a media personality, first became known to the public as a true relationship performance artist, and then developed into a clothing designer. The perfume begins with a scent like the candy Sweedish Fish. This innocent pleasure has a deeper undertow of course, and the Pavlovian mouthwatering light sweetness opens into a vast softened jasmine-d vanilla space just behind it. There is a grounded warmth and body heat built into the fragrance. Pink and red grapefruit, red raspberry and Indian jasmine, French vanilla and tonka bean absolute. There is that signature Opus Oils high keyed note kick that holds throughout, in an alcohol base.

Wild Child is dirty and sweet as Tom of Perfume Posse pointed out (I agree 100%). Marc Bolan of T-Rex comes to town and stays over with you. Or you are sharing a beach house in Ibiza with the Stones in the Sixties. Powerful, deep aged dark patchouli (at least 25%) is the star of this show, but wait, it's a complex composition that will keep the sophisticates' attention with saffron, cabreuva, blood cedarwood, peach tree leaf, clementine, yellow mandarin, wild orange, middle notes of honey, milk accord, black currant bud, tuberose and peach accord and base of sandalwood, ambergris, dark amber, vetiver and vanilla. It was the first place winner in the big Summer of Patchouli Love organized by Monica Miller, the Perfume Pharmer, with whom Kedra Hart of Opus Oils has collaborated several times.

Mother is also for Monica Miller as part of her vast Primordial Perfumes project, which is wild rose, fig, woods and dark chocolate. This one is to express the comfort of the fecund Earth itself, in all its most ornamental and nurturing aspects. It raises a soothing cloud that wraps around you in a cashmere cloud of balanced natural fragrances. It comes in both alcohol and oil, and makes a beautiful deep comfort perfume to wear when you want to embrace the primal earth and connect to that source of natural strength. It creates an amber tone while all the notes harmonize together, with extended longevity. Officially launching May 3rd, it already has many fans and has created converts and crossovers who normally dwell entirely within the European niche perfume world, into this genre of American artisan perfume.

Strawberry Passion perfume, in both the green and cream mods, is a great favorite of mine. I have written about this beauteous pair extensively in my post of April last year. Monica Miller asked Kedra Hart to create comfort perfume based on her childhood memories of high cream tea with jam and fruit in the England of her youth, replete with flowered tea cups and whipped cream with fresh garden strawberries. All this gets mixed up with passion and the yearning of young hearts and the virtuosity of using natural scent materials found on Martha's Vineyard, mixed in with the olfactory equivalent of the baroque/psychedelic stylings of Raspberry Beret by the artist formerly known as Prince. I should mention that I also have the body cream form, which is entirely luxurious and densely fragrant. It is available at the Skye botanical store on Etsy.

Babylon Noir is described in detail within my prior post on Opus Oils, among a number of others, where I "held forth" on my fuller understanding of the perfumer's style in general.   This one was created for Sheila Eggenberger's book, Quantum Demonolgy, and its Devilscent companion perfume project, which I have also written about extensively before. (This post has become quite cross referenced). This perfume expresses darkness and light married together as Lucifer and Satan were within the course of their own myths, as princes of both light and darkness in succession. Here is a cool bright citrus sweetness over a deep labdanum base that overpowers all in its path. I personally love to be overpowered by dark perfumes, so if you are of the same mind, you will be most pleased with this tenacious and bold perfume. It has a masculine quality but makes me want to wear it as my Anima's connection to her counterpart. Available through Opus Oils in the Parlour Collection.

Rouge Beauty was created for a boutique in New Orleans, which is now sadly no more. The ephemeral nature of time and beauty personified, as is the whole city of New Orleans.   I have no notes but my impression is one of the fragrant interior of a fine lady's make up bag. There's a touch of skanky leather in there, as the perfume might have leaked and brought out the animal in the handbag's leather. A hint of warmed powder, the vintage feel of a perfume to be worn with an satin evening gown for a dance in a humid tropical climate, deep powdered cleavage and white gloves required. It is now been reissued and is available directly on an Opus Oils Etsy page.

Please enter the draw by sending me a message as listed above, at indieperfumes at gmaildotcom, with the subject Opus Oils (contiguous U.S. only, please, sorry but we must post by ground mail only due to the new postal regulations). I will have two sets of eleven samples to give away, so this is a perfume wardrobe enough for the coming Spring and Summer (depending on how free you are with application, I know I am very free myself). I myself have been tempted to increase my stock of Opus Oils and have ordered a couple for myself while writing this post.

I keep falling in love again with these perfumes now that I have broken through my "nice girl" hesitation and understood the unconventional beauty and dramatic glamor that lies within our most Hollywood of perfume queens.

For more takes on these perfumes, please visit Perfume Pharmer, and for videos please see Brenda Boo Elder-Fornay and Eau My God Perfumes. It's so interesting to see the differences in what other perfumistas focus on within the same perfumes.

Copyright 2013 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved.
The samples were provided to me by the perfumer and these are personal opinions, not compensated or commissioned.

Music to listen to perfume by: Marc Bolan and T.Rex Get It On, especially for Wild Child
and Raspberry Beret by Prince, especially for Strawberry Passion.

Above images from the Opus Oils website, except for the geode which I got from Pinterest and have no photo credit for - if it's yours please let me know.

CB I Hate Perfume - I Am a Dandelion

2013-04-23T20:20:00.001-04:00

By Jordan Busson via Wikimedia Commons

CB I Hate Perfume is a line that everyone who loves perfume should do themselves the favor to get to know well. If possible it’s best to visit the gallery/shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where you can try everything for yourself. There are maybe a hundred or so perfumes and accords out at any given time, based on the fragrant experiences of everyday life and many based on daydreams too. It’s like visiting a library of perfumes that are like extracts of experience and moments of happiness and calm.

The site has a lot of information about the perfumer Christopher Brosius, so I need not repeat it all here. I was glad to find he comes from my home state of Pennsylvania, where he played and delved among the lush green weeds in the black earth and the oxygen rich air as a child. The air and the light of where you grow up with all the attendant scents live with you your whole life, and those personal elements and sensations are the basis of everything he makes. There are accords that closely resemble reality, and then perfumes that are compositions fragrantly describing imaginative narratives.

I’ve written about this perfumer before, but then got caught up in other things and didn’t get back to the gallery again for quite awhile. I made a visit recently (with a fellow perfume fanatic, Carlos Powell) and intend to go back again very soon. It’s been good in a way because now I have more perspective and can appreciate what these perfumes are all the more. These are non-traditional, original, highly creative and very much down to earth. They are made with both natural and chemical components and range from the floral to the mineral and earthy, containing the air and heat of the sun and many scent components of our pop culture such as lotions and candies and the things we encounter in our travels through daily life.

Christopher Brosius has long been a pioneer in imaginative perfume making in this country and has had a tremendous influence over indie-perfumes generally. Some of his creations are highly refined and remarkably exact portraits of archetypical scent experiences, such as snow or grass, soaked earth or burnt wood, which he calls accords. There are more elaborately composed narrative perfumes of real and imaginary experiences or personalities based on the perfumer’s memories and imagination.

Barbara Regina Dietzsch Butterfly and a Dandelion

They come in two versions, absolute and water based. The absolutes are oil based and dense and last long on the skin, holding close and are a bit softer than the water-based perfumes. The water perfume version evaporates more quickly and so there is a bigger initial burst of the entire fragrance immediately, which then dies down more quickly. That’s fine with me since the water-based perfume has a gentle refreshing quality you can reapply again and again without ever going overboard.

I Am a Dandelion is one I have tried a few times, the last time maybe a year before and then mentally filed it away; I never forgot it. I tried it again at the gallery last week and fell back in love with it instantly. It captures the dandelions I have seen every year ever since I can remember. I find within this perfume the clarity of an astringent green and bright happiness of the simple yellow flower, which is well married to the lively sweetness of the grassy lawns where it grows. The perfume captures the tremendous energy of a dandelion’s life force. A hyper-realistic and addictive dark earth accord is the base that supports this most common of florals.

It’s one of my favorite flowers too. I realize for many it remains an unpretentious if bothersome weed not deserving of so much focus or adoring attention. There have not been many or really any other perfumes that I know of showcasing its unique characteristics.

The perfume begins with an the initial burst of cool sweetness that's like biting into a green stem of grass in the summer. I am astonished that someone could by hand and discerning skill make such an evocative distillation of the dandelion experience. While understanding and respecting the dandelion experience for being the wonderful thing that it is.

In this part of the world, the dandelion is an important flower for the very young. With virtually unlimited access, so numerous and unimportant to adults, it makes a big and deep seated impression because it's one of the first and only plants children are permitted to explore and have intimate contact with. They are enthusiastically and thoroughly explored piece by piece, in all life stages, because they are so close to the ground, so reachable and plentiful and go through such a fascinating transformative metamorphosis. This perfume captures the experience of that time of complete and undivided attention to a simple and beautiful thing. It's brilliant that the perfumer decided to bring that all back to us in perfume form.

The perfume is sold in several places but I recommend you go to the gallery/store in Williamsburg if possible, because then you will have a full experience with the entire line. They all come in elegant but very simple graphic packaging and so are not over-priced for the sake of elaborate presentation. The absolutes also come in a travel size, which makes them affordable enough to indulge a range of preferences and even to play with layering, as you will.

Please visit the site for more information and maybe even phone ahead of a visit to the gallery to make sure they are not too low in stock. Getting ever more popular, there have been times they have run out of enough perfume to go around. Everything is made and packaged start to finish by hand.

Please follow the highlighted links within this post to get to the site for pricing and size information or to find other shops where the perfume is carried, or to order or visit the gallery/store in Brooklyn.

Disclosure: This perfume was purchased by me, and this is my personal opinion. I was not compensated for this post.
Copyright 2013 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved.

Tommi Sooni Perfumes: Jinx and Passerelle

2013-04-12T15:50:00.002-04:00

Australia and the lands Down Under have grown their own perfumers and thriving perfume scene. As with music and film, there is a strong influence from Europe, but these original niche perfumers are using the French classic perfume forms as a starting point and reinterpreting them to incorporate the alternative experience of their own cultures and environment.

Australia itself is such an extraordinary place, that if wasn’t real it would not be believable. As a continent the western part holds some of the very oldest landscapes on this Earth, with a shore line that contains some of the most ancient forms of life undisturbed from the beginnings of life on this planet. There are iron red mountain ranges of solid metal, unique animal species and a vast complex coral reef that is something like the lab from which all life grew.

The region has given rise to many strong and uniquely stylish film makers, musicians, writers and now perfumers. The Tommi Sooni style is one of brightness and warmth.

Jinx EdP is my favorite of the samples I have tried. It has a joyful air combined with complexity and depth. I would call it celestial, and smart in both senses of the word, that is both stylish and intelligent. It maintains my curiosity and feeling of alert interest. This perfume could well bring you into a sense of kinship with your own inner healthy animal. I imagine a white horse or Siamese cat in an open sunny field of fragrant blooming plants; one who crushes aromatic greens as it moves. As the perfume settles the flowers serve to enhance this essentially deep natured perfume. Softening over time in its longevity, there is a sense of elegance and refinement that soaks in and allows the skin’s own warmth and scent to play a real part. The notes are described as fig, green vine leaves, crushed basil, the classic white flower combination of jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, and ylang ylang over a base of moss, vetiver, white musk, with rock rose and crystallized ginger to kick up and maintain the soprano key.

For me, Passerelle EdP strongly references the lily of the valley perfumes of classic French perfumery, but uses native Australian flowers to accomplish the piercingly pure floral effect. To quote the perfumer’s site:

"For Passerelle we gathered an Australian Spring floral bouquet of delicate native jasmine, starry tea tree, soft honeyed myrtle, the crisp notes of boronia buds and the much loved flowers of silver wattle, adopted by the French and known to the world as mimosa. We chose yellow rose, honeysuckle, winter sweet and golden trumpet to reflect the warmth of the Australian sun and to add a cosmopolitan edge to Passerelle. Adding these golden flowers of joy to our native bouquet we then spun fine threads of Australian sandalwood amongst the blooms and finally, drops of pettigrain for the green stems. The word Passerelle is French for bridge or catwalk, a name befitting a perfume that is both fashionable and a fragrant link between two cultures."

The use of strong and unique Australian versions of classic materials modernizes the perfume’s couture aura and creates a warmth and liveliness that connects directly to a wilder, less domesticated form of Nature. Super bright and warm, there is no chemical edge in the dry down, but there is more and more use of the skin’s human warmth as an element, incorporating body heat itself as it directly beautifies your own persona in a refined way.

What I like about this take on classic forms is that it’s not perfume you have to live up to. Instead this is a refreshing take on the disciplined perfectionism of French perfume types, using the beauty of special and unique materials that graciously usher in an atmosphere of innate elegance. These Tommi Sooni perfumes reference and respect the great perfume beauties of the Old World while exposing you to the complex lively energy of a New World, in an intimate way. Since I have become aware that the materials of this New World are rooted in the most ancient landscapes on earth, I find such exposure to them delights me all the more.

There are other intriguing perfumes in the line to explore also. Please see the site for prices, samples, full bottle, direct order or for Stockists: Discover Tommi Sooni

Perfect Australian music to listen to perfume by:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Images above from the perfumer's site.

FYI another Down Under niche perfume I have posted about before: Fleurage
and also Pacific Perfumes from New Zealand.

Copyright 2013 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved.
Samples were provided to me by the perfumer, I was not compensated for my review.

PNW Perfumes: Sweet Anthem & Imaginary Authors

2013-03-20T13:11:00.001-04:00

Ashahel Curtis Lantern Slide from the Washington State Archives

The Pacific Northwest is one of the most vital scenes of creative indie-perfume making. There are so many perfumers working there, with more emerging all the time. These two are perfumers that have helped create the personality and style of the PNW perfume culture. There’ll be more on the region's perfumers to come. In the meantime please also see my prior posts on Olo and Ayala Moriel.

The perfumes from the area are grounded in the aesthetics of artisan perfumery, made in small hand-made batches, with styling effects relating to what is known as naturalismo* in music, which can also be easily extended to this perfume aesthetic.

I see the influences of the weather, the wilderness and the active physical life that is the ideal, with plenty of dashes of rainy day interiors and greenery brought indoors. This includes DIY culture, spending real amounts of time curling up around good used books, and holding the spirit of the cooperative while staying small and individualistic.

The region is a center of rose and flower farms, essential oil purveyors, mountain and shore hiking, books, music and coffee culture, with the perfume sensibility centering on the beauties of daily life.

It’s about integrating the grace of fragrance into an interior experience, when the grand and dramatic just won't do. Perfumers here sometimes leave aside the classic manner of making perfume and spontaneously come up with their own ways of formulation.

There’s a fascination for the old but as part of the past, modified to the present day. For example the vintage aesthetic that keeps an eye out for the spectacular French perfume classic as a lucky find on a grandmother’s dresser, with all the notes softened and broken down by the passage of time. It’s about the charms of the past, worn without corsets or hierarchy. It’s to be worn every day and night, as part of a suite or wardrobe of perfumes, to be varied by mood, occasion and opportunity.

Asahel Curtis 1920 Lantern Slide Washington State Archives

In feeling and inspiration it is lyrical, imaginative, tending toward the introverted, while reaching out to be experimental and personal. PNW perfume can be seen as the aromatic equivalent of the predominant musical influences of the region, (as there are many tiny bands expressing the zeitgeist of all the local cultures, all along the West Coast, and even across the country among the like-minded, so there are many micro indie-perfume makers doing the same thing with their fragrances).

There is a heavy use of naturals but synthetics are not eschewed. Leading to amplified edges, leading to heightened longevity and even sometimes an easier affordability. In other words, it’s not an entirely acoustic aesthetic, but it definitely shows the strong influence of the natural perfume movement.

There is a collective consciousness at work, since this style of perfume and its making and preferences for it have resonance all over the country, from Brooklyn to New England to California and points in between and even internationally reaching into the UK as well as Washington State.
The PNW makes room for the chorus of fragrances that are varied and numerous enough to become a part of the personality of the place itself. There’s something devil-may-care about them, as there is a refusal to carry the weight of a lot of perfume history or expectations, while still attracted to what is aromatically beautiful, as an enhancement of personal space and expression.

I notice the frequency of fresh tobacco and honey/beeswax notes, and there’s a rehabilitation of the evergreen scents in the works, thank you very much, something I’ve been longing for, for ages.

Sweet Anthem has a suite of florals that are forthright and strong. I’ve worn Joan to sleep and woke up to it from time to time in the night and into the morning, with it still going up to a late morning shower. These perfumes come in a number of different formulations, but what I have are 40-60% fragrance materials in a fractionated oil base. These are the kind of fragrances that will cling to your clothing and sheets.

Joan is a bright green of white mint, coriander peony, tomato leaf, and beeswax. These notes all gather together after the first initial green opening, then turn the corner to morph and change so as to a incorporate a sense of musk. It is as if the perfume is emanating from your own hair. The same thing happened to me during the course of wearing Catherine, made of amber, bergamot, neroli, red tea, wisteria. There is a powdered amber dust beneath the citrus that gives a bow to Italianate verve and energy.

Juliet hit me initially with mango hidden within a nest of clove, jasmine sambac, muskwood, neroli and pink pepper and tobacco. Mango is not my favorite, but I must say it quickly passes on to the tobacco, which tints the jasmine and neroli and the rest to dominate while being sweetened by the florals like a long steeped herbal tea. It actually goes quiet and soft in a way that holds the ephemeral freshness of floral throughout the life of the fragrance.

Annabelle is the softest of all the samples I have, made of jasmine, osmanthus, sea salt and white amber. This fragrance makes me think of freshly hand-laundered vintage lingerie, perhaps one of those delicate pale peach silk slips now worn as outerwear by those who are vegan-thin enough to fit into their old fashioned tiny proportions.

All of them are soothingly casual and remind me of beautifully pressed vintage cotton dresses worn by capable young women riding their bikes, with a stack of library books in the baskets on their way to the farmer’s market. They are distinctive, satisfying and well priced, similar to those used books by unusual authors that fill the cafes and bedrooms of the PNW.

Which brings me to Imaginary Authors. The concept behind this perfume line is actually so perfect for my own sensibility, I feel it’s almost not fair I wasn’t part of the brainstorming sessions that came up with the writers and their books, as expressed in perfumes based on their invented lives and works.

Memoirs of a Trespasser, by Philip Sava, a loner: “who needs love when there is still cognac in the glass?” My handsome high collared imaginary boyfriend of the group, with notes of Madagascar vanilla, guaiacwood, myrrh, benzoin resin, ambrette seeds, oak barrels (in one way or another). With a note list like this, as you can imagine this fragrance feels like being under a cashmere blanket on a cool night, as the vanilla and benzoin browning your skin to toast radiating its own warmth beside a wood fire, that brings even more heat to the skin. The vanilla in this tones everything in its path, without sweetness but like breathing in the essence of a benevolent big cat’s strength. Soft and warm, it is an antidote to that which is not, and while a masculine under the strictest sense of the word, it is as wearable by women as a soft scarf around the neck.

Violet Disguise, authored by Leonora Blumberg, a California girl who had a career in Hollywood but withdrew to a more peaceful existence in a wild valley, is composed of plum, violet, dried fruits, balsam, amber, and even the evening air; the month of May. There’s something delicate but invigorating here, the convertible top is down and the hair flies back as she drives at night through the canyon roads to meet up with her exquisite Hollywood lovers in her youthful success. This might be what you wear when you are not quite what you appear to be, as your still waters run deep. Violet and plum are sweet but here just a touch of sweetness in the cool air as the amber comes up quickly. I associate the serious studiousness of an Asian scholar with plum and the darkness of violet as a color, the delicately sweet ultra-feminine tone in the quietness of a perfume that gathers inspiration from deeply sensual relationships with the like of amber and balsams.

The Cobra and the Canary has a theme of escape, of luck in finding the means to get away, feeling the breeze through an open car window rushing along toward adventure. Composed of the stimulating energy of lemon, the coolness of iris, the specificity of heat within tobacco flowers, leather, hay fields and asphalt. This perfume reminds me of the scent of someone who has just walked in the door from being away for awhile, as the scents and air of the outside world they’ve just passed through clings to them. Definitely a masculine fragrance, as is the imaginary author James Spundt, “driving faster than dammit”. It's one of my favorites of the line and I would not hesitate to wear it. It maintains a low-key air of mystery and freshness even if a cigarette might have been smoked along the way.

I find the packaging and back-story of these lines adds immensely to my enjoyment of them, and love that they are so casual and seem built to enhance all manner of personal mythologies.

They have longevity but don’t throw too far as to be intrusive to others, and are shockingly well-priced, if you are coming from European niche where $200 is the new $100. The websites for both are engrossing and they both have sample programs set up to try out the range. I think of them both as lines that ought to be experienced more as a suite of perfumes rather than choosing only one to be worn over and over.

P.S. I just got my second sample order from Sweet Anthem in solid perfume form, (of the new Cybele, which I find to be smooth and deliciously excellent in a Jane Austen's magnificent countryside kind of way) and as I am a huge fan of solid perfumes, I was pleased to find out that this line’s most popular form is as solid perfumes that come in extendable sticks. Portability of perfumes is what I like, since I tend to reapply frequently or switch out during the course of a long outing.

There’s so much going on in this neck of the woods it will take several more posts over time to give the appreciation deserved.

*For a full explanation of naturalismo, see this NYT article about that style of music http://arthurmag.com/2006/06/19/nytimes-on-naturalismo/ which I thinks explains the PNW perfume scene as well.

Speaking of which, a little music to listen to perfume by: Rachel’s Family Portrait

Disclosures: I both purchased the samples and received a separate set of selected Imaginary Authors samples as gifts from a fellow perfumista Tami Holubar. My opinions are my own and I am not compensated in any way.

Copyright 2012 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved.
Photos above from the Washington State Archives
and the perfumer's sites.

Arquiste Floral Perfumes

2013-03-08T21:18:00.003-05:00

Perfumes that reference specific historical moments fascinate me, and enhance my appreciation of the fragrance. This line is steeped in stories that build around the past, creating an aura of austere romanticism, delicate and refined. There is much on the Arquiste site about the creative director Carlos Huber's background in historic preservation an approach to perfume as a way to connect to certain times in history.

Flor y Canto is inspired by the August of 1400 in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). The major notes are Mexican Tuberose, Magnolia, Plumeria (aka Champa, aka Frangipani) and Marigold (aka Tagetes), all New World flowers. The name is taken from the expression “flowers and song”, which is the way the word for poetry was expressed in Aztec Mexico. The Aztec goddess who was the origin of all beautiful fragrance was honored with offerings of these flowers.

They are all naturally intoxicating but here they are handled with restraint and delicacy. There is something soothing embedded within this perfume; I will go out on a limb and speculate it could be an element within the magnolia that ties everything together. It’s got a candle flame kind of presence. While the tuberose exerts a dominant influence the rest of the flowers join to create a cloud that restrains the tuberose tendency to overwhelm. There is a sense of purity in the effect, as it clings to the fabric around the wrists as well as the skin. It will reveal its full effect after the initial show of strength only by coming in close. This could be a personal signature kind of perfume, in that it is wearable everywhere, creating an atmosphere of freshness and purity. It only becomes extravagant upon intimacy, when its passionate dimension is fully unveiled.

Diego Velázquez [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Infanta en Flor is meant to evoke the June 1660 meeting of Maria Teresa of Spain, best known through her Velasquez portraits, with her fiancé Louis XIV, the Sun King; both of them youthfully romantic and hopeful while enacting an arranged marriage for the sake of peace. This perfume shows you the national fragrance style she brought with her, as symbolized by orange flower water, Spanish leather, cistus resin and immortelle. The floral carries a musky amber effect of heated blushes beneath powder, with a Moorish Spanish influence from the orange flower held together with smooth suede gloves.

A faint dusting of powdered caramelized sweetness is behind the orange flower, which maintains a sense of youthful freshness. For all the infinite softness this is not a casual perfume, there is a sense of gala held within it, more right for a personal ceremony like a wedding or a party that requires formal attire.

Fleur de Louis on the other hand, might be what emanated from the youthful Sun King as he presented himself to the Infanta. Iris, rose and jasmine, white cedar wood and orange blossom, reversed his match’s perfume to emphasize the wood over the floral. Louis XIV could never get enough of perfume and would most certainly be enveloped in personal fragrance. This one has the cool iris and cooler white cedar wood together melting into the warmth of skin to join with it completely. This makes an impression that the scent your own skin gives off is simply a sophisticated and subtle impression of refinement and elegance. I find the florals are background elements that serve to smooth the surface of the wood to a satin feel. On me this perfume is an invisible aura of elegance that wraps the animal self in silk velvet.

The two perfumes above would be perfect for a couple, to complement and enhance each other’s aura.

The masculine aimed Boutonniere no. 7, is a green floral representing the “opera flower” gardenia traditionally worn in the lapel with evening dress, along with the colognes of bergamot and lavender as often worn by gentlemen attending the Opera Comique in Paris, May 1899.

Fred and Adele Astaire

This fragrance was part of a limited edition of boutonniere and silk knot cuff-links sets that could be infused with the perfume, that quickly sold out. This fragrance would represent the crushed boutonniere giving up its last fragrance in the embrace of the first kiss of the evening, against a background of crisp masculine cologne. I did not realize the use of a flower in the lapel was to enhance a potential personal connection in this particular way, which makes it all the more charming.

In this fragrance, even if not in black tie, you are wearing these olfactory references. The gardenia will become most apparent upon a closer embrace, while the sense of crisp green glamour will enliven the atmosphere in the meantime. Notes include lavender, bergamot, Italian mandarin, gardenia, genet, vetivert, and oak moss. While this is a traditionally masculine note list, it can definitely be worn by a woman who prefers a green gardenia held on equal footing with sparkling astringent notes.

This line is meant for those who prize the effects of refinement and elegance in perfume above all else, and especially for those who appreciate layered references to the past.

I received a set of samples at the Elements show in New York earlier this year. Please visit the Arquiste site for stockists or more information.

The opinions are my own and not compensated in any way.
Copyright 2013 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved.

April Aromatics Calling All Angels & Bohemian Spice

2013-02-21T13:40:00.001-05:00

The Plains of Heaven by John Martin 1851-3

T anja Bochnig has made perfumes that use the human body and its ever present aura of history and
memories to express a physical beauty that includes the ethereal, as energized by spirituality, balance and strength.

Her serious study and practice of yoga and aromatherapy led to a full commitment to all natural, botanical fragrance materials for the sake of their complex lively and beneficial beauty. She has combined aromatherapy with yoga into a unique personal form of Aromayoga.

As a model herself, she has lived the full immersion experience of fashion, disciplined elegance and a luxurious level of sophistication and quality.

All these influences have been braided together in April Aromatics. These are exquisite perfumes that are both connected to the old lyrical sensory traditions and grounded with the strength of the modern world as they reference both the aromatic classics and then unfold as multi-faceted, bold and clear.

This intersection of the ancient and modern results in setting a strongly Romantic mood, referenced in the names of these perfume experiences, such as Unter den Linden, Rosenlust, Calling All Angels, Bohemian Spice, Nectar of Love, Liquid Dream, Jasmina, Precious Woods, Rose L’Orange.

The first twenty seconds of these perfumes are not what they are after that –- they then warm up on the skin and burst out into themselves in a way that seems to ascend and bring your interior world up with them into ascension, then turn and dive and deepen and unfold rapidly with every pulse as your body heat melts the perfume essences and breaks them open.

This is especially true for Calling All Angels (edp) which promises to be the first of a series of Angelic perfumes. It is a honeyed incense, that comes up in strong waves that then turn cool and ethereal, with a hint of white smoke developing in the distance. As heady as a fresh gardenia, yet containing the powdered white ash of the burnt charcoal tablet that liquefies and evaporates the incense into that special soft pure white smoke. If perfume culture was originally based on the use of incense to communicate with the gods, this is one directly related to that ancient practice. Its modernity is in how it holds a warmly narcotic incense style of highly ornamental aromatic materials within a core of clear piercing beauty as if emanated by fresh flowers.*
If you stop and take the time to simply notice your own perfume unfold, these complex compositions make for a fully engaging olfactory immersion experience.

They are strong and bold, without becoming intrusive or distracting, and have wonderful longevity.

Mountain Landscape with Rainbow by Caspar David Friedrich

Bohemian Spice (edp) also possesses a dimensional composition that moves through a number of interactive layers. The sandalwood and vanilla base, both favorite notes of mine, are ever present and unifying. Vetiver, patchouli and woods with Oman incense and Highland Lavender arise to infuse each other with energy and an earthy soulfulness that softens down to a gourmand tone. I also find fleeting impressions of creamy almond. This perfume will seem to settle down and then suddenly when you least expect it, a waft of celestial beauty will arise from your skin. This pre-supposes you have a taste for much that is earthly within your personal paradise. I know I do.

There are more exquisite multi-faceted perfume experiences to explore in this beautiful line, such as Nectar of Love and Liquid Dreams from the bright end of the perfume spectrum, about which more later. There are also perfumes that combine several variations on a single theme, such as Rosenlust and Precious Woods and Jasmina.

Tanja B.

Please visit the site for more information, and also you can find a selection on Etsy. I recommend the tester set so you can try the full run of the line, that is a fantastic experience in itself. There are also interesting products made for atmospheric use and yoga practice on both the website and Etsy.

*Originally part of the Spirit section of the Perfume Pharmer's Primordial Project, which I have written about before.

Music to listen to perfume by: Sea Wolf - The Rose Captain

Disclosure: I received the tester set of perfumes from the perfumer at the Elements Show in NYC about a month ago.

Copyright 2012 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved

Romance and Freedom: Jul et Mad & Charenton Macerations

2013-02-07T10:53:00.001-05:00

Fractal Yin Yang

Our time and this culture plays with gender divisions in perfume and much else. Personally I have never subscribed to the notion that a smell is gender specific, though there some that still have particular associations, such as sweet for women and astringent for men, though even the most “masculine” territories of scent have been invaded by women wearing whatever they like.

Men too now venture forth and reach into sonorous florals like rose, or the icy powder of iris, or the warm sweetness of gourmands like vanilla and chocolate. While many don't see themselves in the essences of the most traditionally womanly notes of lily of the valley or violet or gardenia, those perceptions are changing too.

Tilda Swinton in Orlando

There are no more fragrance boundaries for women, and the world of leather, smoke, tobacco, balsams and bright citrus no longer give them a moment’s pause.

Still, the same scent comes across differently, give a different signal, depending on if worn by a man or a woman, and while sometimes exaggerating gender differences can be most effective, inhabiting some icons of the traditional gender opposite is freeing and expansive.

Perfumers have come along to embody this contemporary feeling and cross over and collaborate to join the genders together in their expression of a fragrance story about both romance and freedom.

This is bringing men further along into the world of niche and artisan perfumes. One of the most exciting trends in niche and indie perfumes has been the heightened interest of men in them. I see more and more young men discovering these kinds of perfumes as an expansion of their sensory world, finding an array of exquisite pleasures in the enjoyment of a powerful sense that most American men have so far ignored.

Jul et Mad are a young and multi-talented couple who found each other by chance, fell in love and had three perfumes made to mark the phases of their romance, as a Histoire d’Amour, creating their own niche perfume house based in Paris. All of them highly wearable by both sides of the aisle.

I think the second of the series stands in perfect balance between yin and yang. Terasse a St-Germain, meant to evoke “a veritable ‘coup de foudre‘ between two souls on the terrace of a Parisian café.” has notes of grapefruit, tangerine, rhubarb, freesia, lotus flower, blue rose, musk, sandalwood, and Indonesian patchouli. It was developed for Jul et Mad by perfumer Dorothée Piot and is in parfum strength.

Terasse a St-Germain by Jul et Mad

The mid-tone citrus and floral notes are blended together so as to seamlessly slide into the smooth musk sandalwood and patchouli as the next level unfolds, never stepping down very low in the base, or climbing up very high at the top end of the olfactory scale either. The fragrance cloud it creates contains the vivacity of the floral and citrus notes that stay beside the sophisticated and restrained elegance of the base. This is a firm hand-hold that doesn’t let go while masculine and feminine speak to each other gazing into each other’s eyes. There is a youthful freshness energy and a European sophisticated elegance.

I like that they offer a travel flacon of the three perfumes. Being able to re-apply a perfume as desired is a grace that ornaments and personalizes time away from home.

Charenton Macerations is a new artisan perfume house in New York that also plays with the classic gender lines and divisions. The first perfume release Christopher Street makes a strong yet refined first impression with a sparkling lime note that holds its presence through the development of the companion top citrus notes of bergamot and bitter orange, toned by leather and tobacco accords floating over a base of incense, moss, musk, myrrh and patchouli. The mid-notes of cinnamon, clove bud, orange blossom and poet carnation all share an interior tang that has been harnessed to the vivacity and energy of the perfume. The perfume holds to the skin beautifully, and on my skin comes across as a lightly intoxicating cocktail made of sparkling precious fragrance materials.

As worn by a woman, I find the fragrance mingles well with the scent of the hair warming it as applied at the neck. As worn by a man, the brightness emanating at an intimate distance acts as a lively wake up call that invites you to breathe it in more deeply.

Christopher Street by Charenton Macerations

It came to me in a sparely elegant flacon, cloaked and hand tied up in its own square of raw chamois leather that has been perfumed with a sachet of patchouli and included a hand-written list of the notes, like a message in a bottle from another shore. That country is one where the inhabitants actively cultivate the energy to dance all night long. Christopher Street liberated itself and the energy it released re-energized gender dynamics in a way that turned out to enhance everyone’s primal identity.

It's clear that the energy of this perfume relates to freedom gained from the release of traditional and strict gender roles, as opened up in our own time by people actively seizing the opportunity they’ve created for themselves to be truly themselves. There’s a lot more about the history of Christopher Street on the perfumer’s fascinating site Charenton Macerations, where the perfume may be ordered directly.

I understand that there will be leather bracelets imbued with the fragrance available soon. I look forward to that as I am partial to the idea of perfumed personal accessories and hope to see their use expand.

Copyright 2013 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved.
Disclosures: I received these perfume samples directly from the perfumers and discussed the perfumes directly with them. My opinions are personal, and are not compensated by the perfumers.

The Perfume of Reality: DSH, Parfums Lalun, Juniper Ridge

2013-01-17T17:31:00.001-05:00

Horst/Lisa Fonssagrives/Hands/NY 1941

Certain natural perfumes are what I think of as hyper-real, because they usher you straight into a one to one relationship with a specific and exceptionally beautiful scent experience that already exists in nature. I have found them to be among some of the most exciting perfume experiences I have had recently, after a first impression of simplicity.

They are perfumes and not simply blended essential oils because they take an iconic aromatic theme and distill and heighten the recognizable elements within to express the personality of the perfumer. It’s an interpretation rather than a reproduction, at the same time more of the real thing than the real thing. Perfume by its nature is a concentration of fantastically beautiful elements anyway, and these push that idea to the limit.

In what I call ‘reality perfumes’ there is a sense that a primal olfactory beauty has been plucked out of the air and magnified and sung back to you like a standard given another spin by the stylings of an artist who is expressing themselves through the classics.

Perfume has its own standard ballads like music does, and the interpretations and riffs on those are a special and satisfying subset of the artisan perfumes genre. By the classics I mean for example such themes as vanilla, rose, and the great outdoors These three perfumes delve into these themes as deeply as can be.

DSH (Dawn Spencer Hurwitz) Vanille Botanique Eau de Parfum

Notes: Top notes bergamot, lemon and palisander rosewood; middle notes are bulgarian rose, beeswax and jasmine; base notes are australian sandalwood, labdanum, peru balsam, siam benzoin, tahitian vanilla, tolu balsam and vanilla absolute.

The predominant note is the vanilla, with a gentleness infused by ambered beeswax and touches of sandalwood, jasmine and balsams. It begins with a bright moment of citrus but it’s never anything but a true vanilla experience from start to finish. The complex set of notes above smooth and brighten, and make this entirely botanical perfume an elegant adult vanilla related to the tropical orchid of its origin. Soft and luxurious, it is still mouthwatering and seductive enough to make me want to bathe in it or ingest it in some way. Wonderfully tenacious for a botanical perfume, it throws enough of an aura to enjoy on myself or someone else for an extended length of time. I like it for the neck area especially before wrapping up in a soft scarf to go out in chilly weather. It scents the scarf with fragrance and exhales fully upon unwrapping.

Please see Indiescents for a full size, and the Dawn Spencer Hurwitz site for smaller sizes and in product varieties such as body oil and creams (that seem especially delicious).

Qajar Rose Eau de Parfum by Parfums Lalun, newly released by architect turned perfumer Maggie Mahboubian, is also a fully natural handmade perfume. It retains the refreshing quality of inhaling fresh open roses in the garden still attached to the earth through the stems and intimations of the fruit that will develop after the flower is spent.

The perfumer grew up in the perfume culture of the Middle East where the native rose continues to imbue daily life. The concept is that the rose fragrance is part of a tableau of scents wafting over a garden wall at dusk.

This is a delicious and sophisticated mix of several rose types, whose complex aspects are buoyed up and extended by all the other notes. The notes all have something of rose within themselves, and those aspects then lend themselves to support the theme. The rose personality moves through all the notes and the result is a gentle expression of depth that clings to the skin and seems to refresh itself over time. There is both the dignity of elegance and the hypnotic quality of meditative calm; skillfully heightened facets of the classic rose experience. The longevity is exceptionally good for a fully natural perfume.

Notes/Top: Rose Otto Iran, Fragonia, Roman Chamomile, Tagette, Pomegranate, Galbanum, Ethyl decadionate nat. Heart: Rose Otto Turkey, Rose Otto Russia, Rose Geranium sur fleurs, Davana, Saffron, Coffee, Strawberry furanone nat., Phenyl Ethyl Alcohol nat. Base: Angelica Seed, Buddhawood, Oudh Laos, Ambergris tincture, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Ambrette, Cocoa, Katrafay, Patchouli, Vanilla. Please see the Parfums Lalun site for more shopping and sampling details.

Juniper Ridge makes experiential wild-crafted fragrant products, Their Wild Plum Campground Backpacker’s Cologne, as all their other fragrances and products, was made from harvested wild plants gathered from the mountain ridges that stretch from California to Washington State, and distilled on the spot. In hikes of many miles the perfumers bring pre-industrial distilling equipment along with them and sustainably harvest fragrant wild materials from the forest litter and also from branches and other plant materials that have been thinned by the Forest Service. Turning it all into fragrance saves a powerful and beautiful part of these wild materials from being simply wastefully burnt away.

The Wild Plum Campground Backpacker’s Cologne smells like you have been soaking yourself in a bath of strong tea infused with the sap of evergreens dissolved in cedar water, bark, mulch and earth. Wild Plum Campground was created in the Yuba River region. It has a strong undertow of raw wildness and darkness. There’s also a lively sense of evergreen and a clear hit of terpenes but also a mysterious and powerful hit of thick tree pitch and sap that holds a hint of natural sugar. These fragrances are strong enough to cling onto the skin clothing and hair tenaciously and stimulate your own inhalations with the experience of the great outdoors. This would have to be the closest you could get to the fragrance experience of hiking the northern Sierra Mountains in full summer without doing it yourself. Because they distill the materials and combine them it is a much intensified version of a wild fragrance experience. The first impression would be that this is a masculine fragrance, but since this is the perfume of the wild open spaces, I believe there can be no gender assigned to it.

I also have been using the wild-crafted Siskiyou Trail Crew Soap, (a northern Washington mountain range). This liquid soap brings the mountain air into my Brooklyn shower.

I originally stumbled on this line through my search for a winter room/ambience fragrance. The Cascade Glacier room spray is, as they say, an aromatic snapshot of the wild place itself. It’s a refreshing, almost marine evergreen that incorporates the high meadow grasses and spreads them out into your domestic interior. The Steep Ravine Room Spray was made in the Redwood Trail of Mt. Tamalpais. One of the most enjoyable aspects of these products is the intense impression of freshness, and the experiential connection to the giant pine trees and winds among the mountains of California and the Pacific Northwest.

The ingredients are described as: organic sugar cane alcohol; 100% natural fragrance: tree pitch, plant sap/juice, steam-distilled essential oils. Please see the Juniper Ridge site for more information.

Music to listen to perfume by:

Winterpills – A Benediction (for Vanille Bontanique)

Fleet Foxes – Sun Giant (for Qjar Rose)

Explosions in the Sky – Inside it All Feels the Same (Wild Plum Campground Backpacker’s Cologne)

Copyright 2012 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved. The images above are not mine and their rights are reserved to their owners. The above perfumes were obtained by both purchase and sent to me by the perfumers. These is an independent site and I am not compensated by the perfumers.

A European Fragrance Vacation – Puredistance M and Opardu

2013-01-02T18:30:00.000-05:00

I have an idealized vision of Europe, which in my mind remains eternally elegant, sophisticated, civilized and enlightened. I have always thought that the inhabitants have arranged matters so that they are getting plenty of fun out of life. All are comfortable, or at least never desperate, everyone freely well educated and reasonably calm, beautifully dressed and standing straight, with clean streets, great fresh food, and layers of priceless treasures everywhere.

I have cultivated and renewed this view over and over with films since the days of Truffaut and Godard, novels and poetry from the 19th Century to the present, modern music both pop and classical from Kings of Convenience to Arvo Part, and the ravishing images of fashion media fantasy from the world of couture.

I have been there, and I read the news, so I am aware that in reality life is not so easy there, to say the least, as is the case everywhere in this long hard period of economic downturn. Still, I hold to that internal picture I have built of Europe, because it reflects a way of life built around its pleasures great and small, and we all need to believe there is a place where all your favorite things hold sway. My internal continent of Europe is like a vacation for the soul. I have heard that Europeans often idealize New York the same way we do them, only for what must be completely different or even opposite reasons. I am very much aware of the cross pollination going on between the two.

One thing I know is true, Europe it is a place and even a state of mind where fragrance is the focus of sophisticated attention and those who understand how perfume can be used as yet another form of personal expression.

I am glad to see the number of independent niche perfumers growing in Europe. They follow the pattern of having a central figure who is something like an art director or publisher or film director who produces perfumes based on their own developed and refined tastes. Their perfumes are made to express a feeling, a time of year, a mood, an atmosphere, and exalt the beauty of both simple and complex pleasures.

One such niche perfume house is Puredistance by Jan Ewoud Vos, who put together the perfumers and the concepts, in a method similar to that of Frederic Malle or Serge Lutens.

I recently received several samples that transported me straight into an ideal European alternate reality. The concentrated elegance if of Paris, London and Vienna and all that those powerful place names convey within themselves. The general style of the line is of refined modernist luxury.

Opardu is inspired by lilacs in the rain and an illustration by Kees van Dongen, a Fauve expressionist from the book Perfums by Paul Valery. The perfumer Annie Buzantian also created Puredistance 1 and Antonia.

It creates a subtle mood, a feeling of lilac, that fugitive delicate and slightly elegiac floral, as it emanates from the skin into soft air, carried by the warmth of the body’s heat. Or imagine the flowers just opening in dappled sun reaching through their leaves, quickly brushed away by a breeze.

The opening has a fresh cut open green citrus that reaches out from the gardenia and tuberose. The spiciness of carnation is well in the background. This is a true Perfume, something I can imagine worn by a young Anna Karina in an early Godard film, or Catherine Deneuve in an early Truffaut, still quite the stylish young ladies for all the casual Sixties attitude. The headiness of ephemeral and reckless youth is definitely there too, imparted by the gardenia tuberose and lilac. Soft as it is, it persists and clings to the skin tenaciously.

I am not typically red lipped or high heeled, at least not as a matter of course, but this fragrance instantly brings me in to that world of glamor, even if just internally. A European woman’s beauty and glamor always seems to be the end product of effortless and overflowing femininity, but is more likely the refined result of the strictest self-discipline and rigorous self-editing. Simplicity married to luxury, this perfume and style of feminine glamor is the result of applying an innate sense of balance and proportion, married to an all important sense of the poetic. This perfume personifies a glossy refined yet lyrical edginess I have long associated with the image of modernist European femininity.

At the other end of the spectrum is Puredistance M by Roja Dove, a leather chypre, infused with mosses and bergamot, cinnamon and musk. Designed for men, it would also be worn by the kind of woman who wears leather or suede jackets and tall boots. The initial hint of a fruit tang burns off and a fine tobacco’ed musk sinks deep into the skin and takes up long term residence.

This is headiness of another kind, a push-pull between stimulating energy and a narcotic buzz. This one holds the qualities of a leather that is at the same time bracing as a cup of strong coffee and as warm as a soft cotton shirt that is supple from wear, cozy enough to fall asleep in. Dreamy. The astringency of the chypre style is most definitely there yet moves into animalic territory with the musk and the warmth of cinnamon.

Both are perfume oils in 25% strength. Both have heightened the reality of my inner fantasy life, the dream that takes place on vacation in one of the legendary capitals of Europe. An inner experience of what it might feel like to live in a light romantic film co-starring Deneuve and Leaud, or even something a little darker with Belmondo and Seberg.

This soft power is one of the reasons I am such a devotee of the creative skill of modern European niche perfumes and search them out. They create an atmosphere I'd like to live in.

Please try this music to listen to perfume by:

Madeleine Peyroux, singing Getting Some Fun out of Life on a Paris street

Lyrics (in case you want to sing along):

When we want to love, we love
When we want to kiss, we kiss
With a little petting, we're getting
Some fun out of life

When we want to work, we work
When we wanna play, we play
In a happy setting, we're getting
Some fun out of life

Maybe we do the right things
Maybe we do the wrong
Spending each day
Wending our way along

But when we want to sing, we sing
When we want to dance, we dance
You can do your betting, we're getting
Some fun out of life

Maybe we do the right things
Maybe we do the wrong
Spending each day
Wending our way along

But when we want to sing, we sing
When we wanna dance, we dance
You can do your betting, we're getting
Some fun out of life

Images above:
Seberg and Belmondo in Breathless, Godard, 1960 (nice film clip selection)
Puredistance flacon from their site
Kees van Dongen illustration from Perfums by Paul Valery
OTK Boots by Stella McCartney

Disclosure: The perfume samples were sent to me by the company upon my request. My opinions are my own and I am not compensated in any way.

Perfume in the Rain-Aftelier Wild Roses and Fig +

2012-12-19T17:42:00.001-05:00

It's been grey and raining most days since the end of October, and that's influenced those of us who tailor our perfume to the variable conditions of our lives. Perfume is a force that can fight the greyness.

Perfumes can bloom out more fully in the humidity of the rain, though in the winter months when there is a cold wind and enough rain coming down, it takes perfumes with strong personality to counteract the pull of an almost gravitational force that wants to bring them down almost close to the ground.

I have recently become aware that I am operated by the sun, so now I pay more attention to balancing my withdrawal from its presence through the winter months. Thank heavens perfume is an infinitely varied and effective aid in this specific regard.

Recently a thickly foggy grey morning, one in a line of many, condensed into rain but then turned into a fragrance festival when I received a welcome mail delivery of two minis from Aftelier, of the new Wild Roses and a prior favorite, Fig. Two that go together well.

Fig has a deep and thick honey/musky tone and Wild Roses has enough indole and pure floral that together they heighten each other's inherent golden summer personality and situate me within the magical realms of pure Nature under the smile of a gentle sun. They enhance each other, the notes crossing over and heightening the effect of the other. They both have such a gloriously warm and sweet animal tone that they make me feel closer to the power of a true animal consciousness in myself.

I brought them with me on that grey morning, on an errand with a friend, the writer and illustrator Kris Waldherr. The fog and rain outside intensified the perfumed atmosphere within the car as we rode through the old fashioned neighborhoods of central Brooklyn.

Wild Roses - the notes are listed as Top: rose CO2, heliotropin, bergamot, geraniol, m-methyl anthranilate, damascenone.  Heart: apricot, Turkish rose absolute, pimento berry, p-ethyl alcohol, rose petals attar.  Base: tarragon absolute, vanilla absolute, indole, aged patchouli.

It's especially the apricot, the rose absolute and attar, vanilla, indole and aged patchouli that pull the rope and chime the gigantic inner bell that awakes and connects to the freshly opened summer roses still on the bush I have been lucky enough to experience in my life so far. The very last of the dry down (on me) is a soft powder with a whiff of fresh green air. There are enough important less purely decorative elements within this perfume to keep the composition clear and bright and sparkly.

This is a rose perfume that does not fall into the soliflore category of being simply a recognizable note that pushes my internal buttons. The rose is wild enough and the dry down into a balmy green aura is soft enough to soothe an unruly mood. There’s enough complexity, definition and strength to ornament the vast greyness of days and days of winter rain for the likes of me.

Meanwhile my friend was caught up in the full on Fig perfume experience, which her skin drank like it was thirsty for it. We made sure to apply enough to last her into the afternoon to aid her in all the paperwork ahead of her later that day, which worked because I saw an afternoon Twitter that she was still enjoying the ambiance around her. She was having a dreamy experience sitting at her desk and the perfume sweetened a demanding and detailed task. By that time it was steady rain for the rest of the short dark day.

Fig: Featured Notes
Top: grand fir, pink grapefruit.
Heart: pink pepper absolute, jasmine sambac.
Base: Africa stone, fir absolute.

This fig perfume contains no fig (not available as a natural essence). It is built with an accord whose main components are a fruity Spanish lavender and a jammy fir absolute (which I have and prize as beautiful and dimensional enough to wear alone as a perfume in itself). I will testify that it does endow the skin and air with a subtle and softly intoxicant mood, something like a small glass of sherry to sip on a mental visit to a Mediterranean summer. I think the touch of jasmine sambac at the heart of the perfume is a key component too, not recognizable or standing out as jasmine but wielding influence.

So the grey skies, soaking cold rain and fog became a background that brought out the bright beauty of these perfumes.

These are both all natural and more lasting than is usual for fully natural perfumes.

Another recent perfume in the rain experience came later, when the temperature was still colder and it was fully dark with a stinging fine rain cooled by a strong wind that soaked my coat sleeves and turned my umbrella inside out several times one night. The wind suddenly kicked up as I took the wrong turn when going to a perfumed food and drink party hosted by Mindy Yang of MiN. I went astray further into Tribeca on a Sunday night of dark and empty streets, and so got even more soaked than absolutely necessary.

Before I left my place that night, I was debating what perfume to wear, if any, and I chose to break out my vintage Opium, which I hold dearly and rarely use since it requires the right occasion and is not replaceable, as far as I know. I was bracing myself to go out in the weather and so applied it in three sprays, but then as I was about to walk out the door I realized I was not getting what I really wanted from Opium. It was emanating as too sharp and edgy, which surprised and disappointed me, as this was not the Opium effect I knew or was going for. Not blaming the perfume at all, because I think mood, clothes, weather and the state of the skin affect perfume enough to bring out some aspects a lot more than others at different times, so it might have been my own nervous energy burning through. Impulsively I took up Chergui, and sprayed it lightly over the Opium, to tone and soften it down. Its honey amber took the sharp edge off.

I need not have feared anyone being bowled over by too much perfume, which selfishly I had not worried about, because all that cold rain and wind whipped most of it off before I got there. I was glad I made the effort, because I am interested in the modern combinations of perfume and drink and food. The occasion reminded me of those Tales of Genji stories where people gather and refine their sensibilities with experiences of exquisite versions of normally ordinary things.

There was a little left on my wrist when I got home later that night. It was something like a sweetened smoky Lapsang Souchong tea that had steeped for an hour, lightly warmed by body heat, and diluted by the energy of all that wind-whipped rain. I felt like the perfume helped propel me out the door into a cold rainy Sunday night when otherwise I would have stayed home. It took that much to create an aromatic aura around me that brought my comfort zone out into the world with me.

I have written about Opium and Chergui before. They are two of my favorite classics and powerful spirits that are a match for a chill dark winter night full of rain and wind. I think of them as almost supernatural perfumes, with powers and lives of their own created by my history with them and all the women who have worn them before and along with me. Sometimes it takes such spirits and forces of nature to withstand and gracefully live within the forces of nature.

Music to listen to perfume by:
40 winks Melancholia

Images Above
Top: Rainy Day in NY from Nicko's Big Picture; Aftelier perfumes from the Aftelier site; Raindrops on branches from Celebrate Canada; Fog in NYC by Nichole356; Lapsang Souchong from the James Beard Foundation
Images above are not mine, if they are yours and you wish them to be removed please contact me.

Disclosure: The perfumes were purchased by me. My opinions are my own and I am not compensated in any way.

Monica Miller the Perfume Pharmer

2012-12-01T21:02:00.000-05:00

Portrait by Krista Baetz

Monica Miller is a Renaissance woman. She is perfumer, an impresario of artisanal perfume, a social activist, a patron of the arts, a blogger, an instructor, a practitioner and devotee of natural healing techniques, a poet and yes, a real life farmer (flowers, herbs, bee-keeping). She lives in Martha’s Vineyard year around, and incorporates much from that location into perfumes, balms, remedies and tinctures.

As a statuesque and naturally beautiful blonde woman of enormous energy, with a light British accent, she goes about to accomplish her aims with an ingrained sense of style and elegance, even as she wears her crystal tiara to the farmer’s market and looks great in her bespoke body conscious ensembles at special events. She is a representative of the British eccentric of the grand tradition at its best, but comes with an appealing self-presentation and down to earth plan of action.

St Gauden's Diana

Her remarkable profile reminds me and others of the ladies on coins and the personifications of various virtues sculpted by turn of the century artists, something like a cross between the Statue of Liberty and a Gibson girl. Not to dwell on such personal characteristics but I think it is part of her innate charm and makes it easier to reach “across the aisle” to get the attention and ear of many who have not so far given attention to natural and artisanal perfumes and the social causes dear to her heart. She always uses her super-heroine powers for the forces of good.

Monica is a large presence in the world of artisan made perfumes and supports others wholeheartedly.

My favorite of her myriad perfume projects is the intention to create a line of comforting perfumes to be both beautiful and indeed reliably comforting. They are to be worn and experienced as comforters, and then to be used especially in those times of need, so that an automatic physical reaction to nice associations will be triggered to calm and soothe. There are three already.

Lavender and Honey, sounds like such a simple thing, sounds like a piece of candy, and been done a million times before right? Not like this. The honey and lavender retain their wild quality and have an almost feral energy. The fragrance is strong, like crystallized honey that has an amber tone mixed with refreshing almost mentholated lavender. I have it in both the solid and liquid versions. Of course the liquid version is the stronger of the two, but find that the solid perfume being incorporated into soft beeswax brings in another dimension as it softens the lavender’s strength to equalize it a bit more to the honey. This is something to carry with you in case of emergency, or just to relax a bit as needed. (I must say this perfume along with Alexis Karl’s amber and chocolate extravaganza Requiem for the Immortal got me through as relatively sane for three weeks, as I was partially immobilized from a nasty accident, stuck in a 4th floor Brooklyn walk up. The Lavender and Honey was the daytime perfume anchor. Consider credit given to where credit is most certainly due).

Fuzzy Blue Blanket is a warm skin and wool tone, a blend of various soft wildflowers with vanilla, chocolate and musk, added in such proportions as to be reminiscent of fur or clean hair after a bath. Super subtle but most definitely there, once you settle yourself down to pay attention to what is going on beneath the noise and pressure of life. It is a low hum in the background that sets your dials on cruise control as it smoothes the road ahead. Good for re-calibrating your attention if you have any tendencies to fall into the rut of multi-tasking ADHD thrill-seeker. Wild blue chamomile, white linden flowers, white roses, coffee flowers, a touch of lavender and biodynamic tinctures make a soft hum of a fragrance to wrap the wearer within an interior space of calm well being.

The third comfort perfume hangs on a strawberry cream tea theme, the Strawberry Passion Perfume comes in both Green and Cream versions, which I have written about at length before. These were based on Monica’s brief to Kedra Hart of Opus Oils, to capture the feeling of afternoon tea and scones with strawberry jam, a greatly comforting British ritual whose formality became associated for her with safety, abundance and sweetness. Because it’s Kedra Hart it also incorporates a fun-time psychedelic tang that implies an alternate reality, one where you can live in peace, and an imaginary world where Alice’s encounters are purely fun and never frightening.

The most recent incarnation of this perfume is in the form of a rich body butter, which holds the fragrance to the skin at great length. The richness and depth of the emollients are infused with the green version of the strawberry perfume. I find it great for the winter on the East Coast since it reminds me of Spring and Summer and the cream itself is so rich it holds perfume tenaciously.

copyright Igor Drandic, Croatia

Monica’s Traveling Perfume has been imbued with the great faith that this aromatic liquid will hold the strengths of all who participated in building it. It’s a combination of fragrance and homeopathy. Monica used distilled hydrosols of traditionally sacred herbs and flowers, from Martha’s Vineyard and California and added a tiny drop of a homeopathic composition made of the additions of all the perfumers around the country and different parts of the world that she knows personally, who each added something of olfactory importance to them to the mixture before passing it on to the next.

Drops of the oceans, rain, rivers, essences that the perfumers from all over identified with as part of the liquid magic they used in their work, even a tincture made from a well-used leather combat soldier’s glove soaked in perspiration from Afghanistan[1]. This is a fragrance of purpose and intention, and can be worn as a subtle ambience around the body to confirm personal charisma and chosen direction. The homeopathic essence is meant to enhance the wearer so as to bring out their best inner selves into the outer world.

As she says herself:

"It is a homeopathic perfume for PEACE, an AURA Spray, a perfume to enlighten the WORLD (meaning US HUMANS), a traveling perfume, a magical spell, a prayer, a song, a spark, a primordial element designed by US for US. We are our own remedy and this is what we have created."

Monica’s intention is always to promote peace on earth and healing of the environment, while she goes about her business making perfumes and healing balms and essences from the wild and cultivated plants around her. She has orchestrated large projects among indieperfumers and discovered many new talents that she has brought to the attention of a wider world of indieperfume interest. Monica throws herself with whole heart in to all her projects, both others and her own.

Her perfume contribution to my Clarimonde Project, with her Sangre Perfume worn with a myrrh infused carmine lip stain, hits the spot of immediate appeal with the satisfaction of deep woods notes and crushed unsweetened dark fruit that dries down to a subtle sacred aura hovering over the skin.

Her contribution to Sheila Eggenberger’s Devilscent Project, which was a fragrant herbal infused massage bar in the shape of the Green Man’s face, to be rubbed all over the body and melt into the skin, confirmed my opinion of her ability to fuse the concept of a theme with a physical manifestation of an aromatic product that brings the body and mind together.

She has created two large perfume projects over the past couple of years that have yielded many perfumes from small independent makers that became cult hits.

The Patchouli Project aimed to rehabilitate the reputation of a note that was associated for many with less than its significant contribution to fine perfumery.

The Primordial Perfumes Project was even more ambitious in that dozens of perfumers created perfumes based on the ancient principal of the primordial elements, for earth, fire, water, air, metal and spirit. This project came out to reach across the aisle to those who were not much exposed or involved in this type of perfume (witness this delightfully enthusiastic video by a new convert).

Sample sets of everything she has done are available directly from her site and on Etsy. Everything is hand made with the most wholesome and highest quality materials available.

Music to listen to perfume by: Iron and Wine - The Boy with the Coin - perfect in mood and style for this kind of perfume

[1] Combat Glove Fragrance Tincture created by Jeanne Rose, author and aromatherapist – homeopathic remedies are often based on the principal of opposites. Monica says “in everything lies the seed of its apparent opposite, therefore in the tincture of War/Combat Glove, we search for the seed of Peace.”

Disclosure: I have both received samples from the perfumer, and have worked closely together with Monica on several perfume projects.

Copyright 2012 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved

Requiem for the Immortal-Alexis Karl and Ken Weaver

2012-11-10T21:14:00.001-05:00

Detail of The Voluptuous Horror of Metaphor by Ken Weaver, 2012

This is an extraordinary project by an extraordinary creative couple, both painters and performers, using the element of perfume to express their philosophy of life and creative energy. Alexis Karl has created eight perfumes based on eight paintings by Ken Weaver, whose style and life she shares most intimately. It’s a project that reveals the connection between the visual and olfactory, and also how a personal relationship can translate into creative collaboration.

They are both deep-dyed in the world of Gothicka, in a manner stylish, melancholy, ornate, sexy, ornamented to a demented degree, and gallantly brave in the face of vulnerability and death.

Generally, Ken Weaver’s paintings are hyper-real depictions of completely imaginative scenarios, repeating and patterning the beauty of individual and unique closely observed detailed scenes, with an implication of an almost fractal sense of repetitive infinity. As in fractals, there are an infinite number of curves and re-curves, something relating to the forms of a Turk’s Cap Lily, or the corkscrew curves of Chippendale 18th Century ornament, yet arranged with a sense of symmetry and equality. All things within the paintings are equally important and equally forceful in visual impact.

The paintings show beautiful women, bare flesh, a carnival/bordello décor, curves and more curves and re-curves, teardrop crystal lights, opulence and drama, while featuring anxiety and a little blood seeping through to clue you in that life is a lot more serious than simply the display of a peacock’s procreative urge. The reality of death and the anxiety of that awareness also sharpen the awareness of youth, beauty and sexuality, in the manner of the old Elizabethan sonnets. As they would say, beauty is vulnerable and death is near, so take full advantage of life before it is too late. The bright opulence set beside the tropes of darkness give all the images a sexual edge.

Alexis’ perfume interpretations of the paintings are a suite of eight, and move from intense, deep, rich, dark to bright and cashmere smooth, sometimes showing the corners of bright mint or herbs poking through. They have the feel of smooth chocolate ganache; melt-in-the-mouth pleasure-triggers. Decorative, realistic notes are assembled to arise one by one.

For me this relates to the paintings that are photo-realistic representations of imaginary scenarios, set within ornamental flourishes. The tension of beauty and pleasure is always set off all the more by darkness. The natural dangers of death and loss are represented by the sonorous base notes of each perfume, that play a prominent role and as a deep background heighten the effect of top notes that emerge against them like diamonds against black velvet.

Some of the perfumes are all high notes of such intensity they are like the opera soprano voice, penetrating the body with the vibration of emotional vitality that is close to overwhelming. All eight together are a perfume wardrobe, from piercing floral green to the deepest narcotic amber.

Speaking of natural dangers, the perfumer and her painter husband have been tirelessly and valiantly assisting close relatives and friends with the hurricane disaster fallout and Alexis herself has lost the contents of her perfume studio, flooded by the fury of the sea and winds. They both display a gallant spirit and I know that their many-faceted brightly-flashing-from-the-darkness flavor of personal expression will go on, in the midst of their compassion and loss.

The Voluptuous Horror of Metaphor

My favorite painting is The Voluptuous Horror of Metaphor, a mirror refracting its own image upon itself, containing all the decorative and ornamental flourishes humanly possible to include, within every inch. Yes, metaphor’s self reflections can carry you down a road that never ends but circles back onto itself infinitely, but then you come to understand the symbols more deeply at every turn. Alexis’ perfume is a “mixed media fragrance of jasmine, lilac, smoke and a mélange of ethereal flowers”.

For me it is a piercing green of tuberose proportions, the smoke is a distant shadow on the horizon, the top notes never-ending. It is on the very edge of cloy, without ever falling over that edge, but then that edge conveys the anxiety we all live with, that our current pleasures are so ephemeral, so as to addictively excite wanting more and more. You get more and more ornament and pleasure in that mirror of a painting, but it reveals a tense addictive quality that subliminally cautions you from falling down the mirror’s reflective but static well. Over time the smoke emerges and comes closer. This is a beautiful ornamental perfume.

The Death of Rave

The Death of Rave is a beautiful triplet portrait of a creamy fleshed young woman in intense states of emotion, naked but for an elaborate black mourning necklace. This piece of jewelry emphasizes her breasts, perfect and full in the central image and yet diminished and gone in the images beside herself. As a visual image it is not a literal illustration of anything, but for me the implication is clearly there, that sexual pride in the body can be taken away, maybe by an illness, maybe by a situation, or the forces that be in the world. Of course this image, like all the others is a Rorschach test, it reveals what’s on your mind to yourself. It could also be seen the opposite way, as summoning the forces of nature to increase the life force and sexuality, maybe through anger, maybe through intention and bravery.

The perfume is based on a forest at night with its arboreal essences used as an incantation to summon that dark fallen angel of light, Lucifer, who will give you something valuable in return for your equally valuable soul. This is a completely natural composition of clary sage, oak moss, liquid amber, fossilized amber, rose, petit grain, sur fleur, and fir balsam.

It has an evergreen camphor top note grounded by the moss and amber, smoothed by rose. For me there is a sap-like sweetness coursing through the perfume cooled by the herbaceous quality of the clary sage and fir balsam. I love those two notes, so as a personal prediliction I always love a perfume that features them prominently. This is a clarifying and bracing perfume. This could be worn to revive a tired body or spirit, to go to work or exercise or fight your battles in the world. The natural beauty of the materials are carefully composed so they stay bright and clear, and the component notes have qualities that keep them long lived on the skin, holding close to the body, but with longevity.

1000 Years After I Am Gone

1000 Years After I am Gone, as a painting, is more difficult for me. It reminds me of why I am fearful of carnival figures, clowns, and the performer/comic. There’s a side to all that extreme gaiety that seems like it might suddenly turn serious and deadly and turn on me personally. I understand it’s actually a rather common fear/phobia in children. I guess I never grew up in some ways. For me it depicts the entertainer as breaking through the brightness of the footlights and showing the dark side of tension and anxiety, to the point where blood trickles down from the jaw so tightly clenched the pain and damage are unmistakable. Performers have to give a lot of themselves to entertain us, or show us something to take us out of ourselves. Some may thrive on this extraversion, others may be depleted by it, yet still yearn to impart their spirit to others as forcefully as possible. This self-portrait of the artist showing his teeth, mouth welling with blood, shows ultimate control in its technical virtuosity, yet reveals the lifeblood effort it takes to bring us along with him where he wants to go.

The perfume by Alexis is a natural fragrance of copal, agar wood, fossilized amber, beeswax absolute, liquid amber, ambergris and immortelle. The fossilized amber from the Himalayas came from plants pressured into resin by the rise of the tallest mountains in the world during a natural cataclysm the scale of which we can’t even imagine. The earth moved beyond any earthquake we can comprehend, bringing all life forms with it and crystallizing them into a resin that is mined today for a fragrance material. It is an honor and privilege to have the experience of wearing such a material directly on the skin.

This fragrance begins with a strong dark smoke note, that softens down rapidly to the other blended elements smoothed by beeswax, the ambergris a natural gift from the oceans, and then the subtle dry herbaceous immortelle. It then remains as a complex dry and natural sweetness marrying with the skin completely. It has the quality of making your skin seem like it is emanating fragrance itself, indeed as a personal quality.

I can see how Alexis related these notes to the sense of the immortal, as all things remain even after death, and their vestiges have become fragrant materials that bond with the skin of the living so well. There is a natural wild and free quality to these notes put together. While subtle and holding close to the skin as most fully natural perfumes are, they put me in mind of a horse on the prairie running at full speed. A full extension of every effort, body and mind. As a performer may need to reach for, in order to go on with the show at all costs, out of respect for the audience.

The Art of Dying Well

The Art of Dying Well. This painting resonates for me, as I have had very recent experience as close witness to this most difficult of final acts. Coming to the end with grace and acceptance is something that usually requires a lot of support from religion and culture. It can also be done with the inner resource of accepting the natural order that rules all things. Physics says that no energy is ever destroyed, only transmuted or transformed. This painting shows personifications of our old beliefs draped in the symbols of death as colorless tomb ornaments. A beautiful youthful female angel with the wild wings of a raptor stands out against them in front of the brightest light.

Alexis in her fragrance refers to “the religion of the earth itself” with all natural materials of rosewood, Peru balsam, cassia, benzoin, and ambrette seed. There is a sweet darkness within the softened musk, and the strength and wildness of cassia uplifts the whole composition without overwhelming it or becoming too identifiably cinnamon. It is the volatile energy of cassia, not the full-on confection aspect it often wears, that acts. The Peru balsam and benzoin are similar to the middle cello notes of a chamber piece acoustically performed on stringed instruments in an echoing hall. There is a wild energy in this perfume too. The sight of the painting’s bright angel’s raptor wings must have had a strong influence on this fragrance. I again get that energetic updraft of a lively essence and a hint of spice that is grounded and held to close to the skin by velvety base notes.

Requiem for the Immortal

Requiem for the Immortal is a dramatic piece that focuses on a portrait of the artist as a performer. The artist is flanked by identical twin alluring angels grasping swords and skulls, crouching on twisted baroque columns carved in the Vatican style. They appear before a landscape divided to reveal the death’s head skull and lightening that illuminates the scene with the energy of high voltage white light. It has sinister overtones and a repetitive, symmetrical, equalized composition folding out from either side of the artist like an open book. He is grasping a bloodied weapon as he beckons the viewer closer. He appears to be the master of ceremonies that promises a violent severance of the body from the soul.

The scent is one I know well, it was the first one I received as a gift of comfort from Alexis during my recuperation from an accident this past late summer that kept me from walking much for about three weeks. It was indeed a comfort and an elegance that lightened my spirits. This newer version has less of the chocolate/velvet feel I had in the first version, and more of the prickly sensation of myrrh drenched in honey. It is a mixed media fragrance of myrrh, copal, dragon’s blood, honey, honeysuckle and amber. The defining characteristic is the honey infusing the rest of the notes.

The myrrh opens, dominating its marriage with honeysuckle, which is there to impart a light green beauty that can’t be stopped no matter what else is there to modify it. Honeysuckle is indeed a flower that like other cloying flowers such as gardenia and lily possesses the strength to come through no matter what else is in a composition to soften it. Drenching it in honey is a friendly yet brilliant move that removes the cloy but not the green freshness. The amber base becomes more evident and is grounding, while magically, the top floral note never entirely fades away.

I know from experience that this perfume is practically immortal itself, and fragrances the clothing you wear with it for an extended period of time. I have found it clinging to my robe after being away for ten days, with a lovely warming air that held the honeyed floral ornamental flourish. I find that to be so kind to the spirit on a cold autumn morning, and one of the things I most value in a perfume, that is to say, a cling to the personal articles of clothing that lasts to create further memories and experience over time.

I would apply this to my wrists and rub them on my winter coat or scarf to scent them. It does not have a huge “throw”, but enough of a fragrance halo will be created around you to enjoy through the season of windy damp cold. It will still be soft enough not to intrude or interfere with any other perfume applied that day, but perhaps give it a soft coating that will allow the emergence from outerwear to accomplish a full reveal of the current Scent of the Day (aka SOTD).

The Mourning of Lost Souls

The Mourning of Lost Souls – This painting is a particular favorite of mine, since it refers to the 18th Century Chippendale decorative style and incorporates fields of ambiguous darkness that imply reflective space. I fondly recall drawing these curves and re-curves myself for a decorative painting project in the past. I love the almost natural branch-like aspect of this decorative style that also conveys implications of wealth, history, and the preservation of the artisan’s work of the deeply skilled past. The darkened mirror is a symbol of death and mourning. People have covered mirrors for centuries in honor of the recently departed. This mirror is not draped, but is dark within itself, as if the souls that have departed haunt “the gilded cage of corporeal glory” to quote Alexis.

She created a mixed media fragrance of lily of the valley, gardenia, anis, and vanilla. As you might imagine from the note list, it is a reference to the beauty of the flowers of mourning, which are also the flowers of spring and summer; their high-keyed voices mellowed by vanilla. It is an exquisite blend that holds all the pleasures of a white floral perfume tempered by the warmth of vanilla and a very light touch of anis. Normally anis is too much for the likes of me, but here it creates a bridge between the heady white floral and the vanilla, so they marry well.

I would personally love to have a gigantic flacon of this one that never runs out, so that I might liberally apply when I crave a dose of such mellow beauty. The ornate bright frame within the painting holding the soft and deep-mirrored darkness is conveyed in olfactory form by the brightness of the floral against the roundness and subtle depth of a really good vanilla. I am even a little reminded of Estee Lauder’s Pleasures, only without the chemical edge and far more softly spoken as a perfume. The vanilla deepens a floral nectar sweetness and that makes all the difference for me.

The Trauma and Terror of Leaving

The Trauma and Terror of Leaving – an elegant woman in a beautiful robe holds the candle that illuminates her as she gazes warily at us. It appears that this is a portrait of a woman on the verge of losing her soul in some form of Faustian bargain, so her tension is from an awareness and anticipation of both great loss and great gain. The quality of the decorative detail, and heightened sense of being fully alive to the next fatal step, creates a sense of danger that all the ornamental beauty in the world cannot hide. I find a sense of tradition in the style of beauty of the woman and the quality of her dress and the candle illumination. Still an air of modernity and fashion comes through in that some of her attractiveness is that of a beauty in peril of being lost. There is that essential human vulnerability but also a strong will that chooses to jump off the cliff in return for some mysterious form of devoutly desired personal power. This Faustian theme is seen frequently throughout our modern culture, only now in the modern age it has been extended to women as well as men.

The perfume is a mixed media fragrance of fig, ginger, leather, tuberose, rose, mimosa and vanilla. The fig and leather are for the human skin quality that carries the life force, while the heady floral notes reference the otherworldly, and the soft tone of vanilla is there to both hold them all together and also to reference the edge of darkness and uncertainty. The blend of dark and bright, with the dark being the final resting place of the perfume, energized by the hints of ginger and white floral, resolve into something that holds an slightly surprisingly evergreen quality. The composition has an herbaceous edge created from the accord of all the notes, yet still holding the beauty of the classic vanilla and floral referencing something of a turn of the century French perfume. I would say this perfume symbolizes the classic allure of the beautiful notes of the Perfumes Past, reaching out to you from across the leather and fig grounded present.

History in a minor key

History in a Minor Key shows an empty heavily gilt ornamental chair of the Chippendale 18th Century style, worthy of a Louis XIV or some other even more powerful figure. The seduction and corruption of the imperial style, its wealth and power, all that opulence and privilege, all the ill-gained riches possessed, have forever been fatally attractive and a perfectly powerful snare that the devil might use in return for your eternal soul (or conscience, to put a modern face on it). Splendor can be overwhelming and incite lust even in the heart of a Buddhist monk at a weak moment. Independence from greed is one of the greatest freedoms, but many have crashed on the rocks of that golden shore, and brought many more down with them, too. There can be danger in beauty and opulence.

Alexis manifests the regal power in a perfume that opens with strong chocolate and tobacco notes, that soften down rapidly to reveal the blackberry, honeysuckle, vanilla, ambergris, liquid amber, and delicate spice elements. The brilliance of the ornamentation lies in the blackberry, which has a crushed ripe quality that intensifies the tobacco and chocolate muskiness. Perhaps the tobacco and chocolate refer to the wealth gained by colonial conquests. They are both such strong and addictive substances. The tobacco continues to stain the life of the perfume, richly enhancing the vanilla and ambers, as they are lit from within by the touch of spices. Though I’ve never been one to assign gender to perfumes, this one struck me immediately as masculine, though in the dry down I believe I could carry it, and with pleasure. Perhaps we all harbor an inner thirst for imperial power in our heart of hearts.

This is an exciting project, and I think the perfumer, because she knows the painter so well, married as they are, has a unique window into expressing a shared aesthetic and message together with his paintings. Alexis Karl’s background as a painter herself and her knowledge of perfume materials and all their references and history adds yet another unique personal perfumed dimension to an aesthetic journey.

I hope those in the perfume community in NYC will take the opportunity to come to the opening on November 15th at Schroeder Romero & Shredder Gallery in Manhattan, so as to see these paintings and smell these fragrances in person.

Each perfume will be in a custom etched flacon at 2 ounces of Eau de Parfum for $200, in very limited edition.

Disclosure: I received samples of the perfumes directly from the perfumer, who I consider a friend. We have collaborated on a number of creative projects together. I have seen the paintings in person at the artist’s studio.

Music to listen to perfume by:
Alexis Karl and her group Ondyne’s Demise: Where Black Flowers Bloom

For further information and an in depth understanding of modern Gothic, please see the book Gothicka, by Victoria Nelson, on the new supernatural

Images reproduced with permission of the artist, Ken Weaver, who reserves all rights, 2012.
Copyright 2012 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved

Clarimonde at MiN New York

2012-10-14T08:45:00.000-04:00

A masquerade will unite the spirit of Baroque Venice, 19th Century decadent Paris and timeless New York as it exists today, behind the doors of MiN Perfumes. They will present the mysterious beauty of Clarimonde over three nights: October 25th through 27th, 7:30-9:30 pm.
Here is your invitation.

These three evenings are held in honor of our secret lives, loves lost, and the beauty of five very limited edition hand-made perfumes created in the spirit of the beautiful Clarimonde. She has died many times yet continues to live among us through these perfumes and the legends about her.

The spirit of Clarimonde is that demanding beauty within us that calls to us from an alternate sense of heightened reality, sometimes in our dreams, sometimes even in real life. If we invite her in she may show us a more complete version of ourselves, revitalized by our emotions, desires and aspirations.

Clarimonde’s story is told by the French 19th Century decadent writer Theophile Gautier, and can be heard read aloud in the voice of Joy Chan.

Described as incandescently beautiful, Clarimonde is steeped in the immortal power of sexuality and so both natural and supernatural, immensely rich and worldly wise, yet vulnerable, sensitive and deeply empathetic.

Five perfumers have each interpreted her story in their own way, in the form of fragrances.

For Monica Miller, the focus was on the mouth with fragrant lip stains, worn together with a perfume, Sangre, of juicy ripe fruit set against incense. Mandy Aftel in Oud Louban layers several types of ouds and frankincense, builds a physical link between the sacred and profane. Maria Mcelroy and Alexis Karl collaborated as the House of Cherry Bomb, to express with Immortal Mine unbounded passion in warm amber laid over the darkest woods, infused with floral nectars, swooning together into sensuality. Dawn Spencer Hurwitz with Paradise Lost matched an iron/blood accord with sweet cool violet to embody a strong spirit who married physical pleasure with the supernatural. Ayala Sender with Dreaming Parallel reached out in her sleep perfume from a warm base into the coolness of an ethereal presence with violet and herbal notes, for refreshing chill, like the presence of a spirit in the dark.

Links to more about the perfumes and story online can be found at two central locations, “Surrender to Beauty” on this site, Indieperfumes, and at The Clarimonde Perfume Project site, which also links to every single post from each of the writers, and a page for each perfume.

As creative director and writer, my posts on Clarimonde can be found here at Indieperfumes. The other writers who did some of their best work ever for this the project, were Sheila Eggenberger/The Alembicated Genie, Trish Vawter/Scent Hive, Monica Miller/Perfume Pharmer, Jade Dressler Beth Shreibman Gehring, and Deana Sidney of LostPastRemembered.

The event will include a performance by Michal Towber.

We have constructed individual perfume shrines, to visually express the mood of each perfume. Cocktails based on the theme of duality will be created by Mindy Yang of MiN, using the chef's essences of Mandy Aftel. Alexis Karl composed music for the event with Ondyne's Demise. Deana Sidney will be on hand the first night with perfumed port. I will post a playlist for the event on Spotify, more on the performers and writers too. Let's start thinking about our costumes and masks for the event....

Much more later!

Above images Ralph Lauren 2012, Green Eyes from the DPH Club, Countess Castiglione by Pierre Louis Pierson

Please also follow the Clarimonde story as it continues on Pinterest (she is immortal)
and subscribe to the Clarimonde Perfume Project on Wordpress too, as a central location linking to all the writers and posts on the project. There is a tab to both Pinterst and the continuing story on the Clarimonde Perfume Project at the top of this page.

Copyright 2012 Lucy Raubertas, All Rights Reserved

Serge Lutens Chergui and Fille en Aiguilles

2012-10-07T00:13:00.000-04:00

The perfumes of Serge Lutens are the air of intimacy. The classics in the line pull me into a mood of voluptuous melancholy, like a midnight piano sonata, or a cello solo. They are serious and quiet, rich and nuanced. They never disappoint. I can wear them no matter what is going on with me, and never become irritated by their presence, even if they come through a headache or some other frustration with me. I never tire of them. They act as a lifeline to the discipline of elegance.

Serge Lutens opened the door into the world of niche perfume for so many as indeed SL is one of the original impresarios of the niche perfume concept. My curiosity and excitement is always out sized whenever a new SL is launched, but my stand-by two, Chergui and Fille en Aiguilles, are are like resources of beauty I can always count on.

Chergui, named for the famously fragrant desert winds of Morocco, is by Christopher Sheldrake, who is also responsible for Feminite du Bois, another perfume that hits all the right spots for me. Chergui rises up from the skin in an atmosphere of shimmering amber resinous powder, topped by a citrus that is subtle while clear. The notes have been listed as honey, musk, incense, tobacco leaf, hay, sugar, amber, iris, rose and sandalwood.

I think the sandalwood is the key to this perfume, whose exquisite refinement unifies and soothes the notes into a whole that is as lyrical as any played in a piece of chamber music.

Chergui retains a calm sense of elegant proportion from start to finish, and lasts for hours. As it dries down and the bright citrus opening burns off, the mellow tobacco note unfolds into a resinous amber powder, cooled by iris. Towards the end, after having become accustomed to breathing it in as it floats up, it reminds me of something like the aftertaste of creamy coffee and the scent of fresh tobacco; a distant memory of the first coffee and cigarette of the day habit of earlier years. The sweetness it exhales is distant yet satisfying and the touches of the other notes of musk, rose and hay, within the heart of the perfume magnify the effects of each. These heart notes are not individually identifiable but I know they are smoothing everything together into a tight composition. A touch of incense clings to the amber honey and sandalwood notes and enlivens them, as a finely drawn detail of this dreamy golden structure. This is one of the classics of Oriental perfumes, perfect for cool weather, and even works in the heat of a summer night because it is elegant enough not to overwhelm, even in humidity.

Fille en Aiguilles, named for a play on words in French, refers to girls in stilettos and/or girls and pine needles. The notes are listed as pine needles, vetiver, sugary sap, laurel, fir balsam, frankincense, candied fruit and spice.

I love the scent of evergreens, especially the balsamic and camphor spirit lift of dark old pine and fir woods. It is more than high time that the beauty of evergreens was rescued from automatic association with harsh consumer products. At the time I found this perfume I was hoping, not expecting, but wishing I could find fine perfume based on the most invigorating aspects of evergreens of all types. It seems these notes are now in the process of being rehabilitated, but when FeA was released it was a pioneer.

Sensitively constructed, this perfume is infused with the green brightness of fir and pine toned by the dryness of vetiver, laurel and with the resinous aspect of frankincense. Candied fruit and spice join the high pitched notes within the fir and pine and bring out the full roundness within their green. Rather than compete or dominate, the sweetness gives a fuller balsamic tone that relates to something like an amber accord constructed out of these elements. There are breaths of terpene that arise from time to time, a scent of good associations for me, connected to oil painting As the top camphor and terpene notes burn away the composition becomes a miraculous piece of ancient amber that somehow managed to preserve the distinctive scent of evergreen sap. This is a beautiful winter and fall perfume, though I also enjoy walking on dried pine and fir needles under the shade of these trees in summer, especially because the scent released is so naturally cooling and refreshing on a hot day.

These two perfumes are like liqueurs that warm the mind as brandy might bring a soft blush to the body. Chergui is more the amber warmth of a cashmere scarf and Fille en Aiguilles suggests an amber stimulated by the movement of invigorating crisp air infused with evergreen. I would never want to be without either one.

Disclosure: Both perfumes were purchased by me. My opinions are my own and I am not compensated in any way.

Opus Oils Babylon Noir, M’Eau Joe, Dapper, Dirty Sexy Wilde

2012-09-18T12:57:00.000-04:00

Kedra Hart of Opus Oils is an indie-perfumer with an aesthetic like no other. She mixes opposites, in both feeling and effect, to create perfumes that are modern and young, yet deeply steeped in nostalgia.

It reminds me of how DJs splice apart pieces of music and put them back together in a new way. If these perfumes were scent films you would see rapid jump cuts from one scent scene to another. The effect is ironic, gently naughty, energetic and physical.

These perfumes take some getting used to, if you prefer perfumes that bring you into a mood of romanticism, or some form of classic elegance. They will give you something more like psychedelic ambient electronica in aromatic form, instead. Perfumes can be a part of the wardrobe that expresses more than one side to your nature. These will express facets of personality and style you didn’t know you had in you.

As I have said about Opus Oils' Strawberry Passion perfumes earlier this year, this tone calls to mind the style of the artist formerly known as Prince. I also find attention has been paid to the raw appeal of the high-keyed femme fatale film noir anti-heroines of yesteryear. Or I can even see the screwball-comedy dames’ arched eyebrows raised at each other from across the nightclub, as they crack wise from within the blaze of their sequined evening gowns, smoking and drinking up a storm.

These perfumes are cloaked in the flavor and mood of vintage burlesque and cocktail culture, the show business of Las Vegas/Hollywood and many of the old-fashioned flavors of adult vice. Some of the perfumes hint of the scent of martinis and margeritas and mojitos in their top notes. There’s much in these perfumes that refers to that era that held sway in America until recently, when all comers were met with a drink in hand. But think of a bohemian drinker of absinthe rather than champagne, and certainly not beer. The men are louche charmers and the women can hold their own. All the perfumes I’ve tried are made for both men and women, reading wildly differently on each, of course.

Babylon Noir is part of the Devilscent Series based on the book Quantum Demonology by Sheila Eggenberger. I have not seen a note list for this perfume, so I will simply venture to describe the effects on my skin. This one is couched in deep ouds and woods with top notes of a bright citrus, like key lime or even kiwi; sweetened. Whatever it actually is made of, I like the way it turns my head around, because the opposites each retain their full beauty and both go full steam ahead in parallel, while neither one diminishes or modifies the other much. It’s like holding two different ideas in your mind at the same time. Or starting to play that eternal game of should I or shouldn’t I –while bearing in mind all the good reasons for both.

Strangely enough, the most persistent aspect is the bright sweetness, which tends to go even higher into a lightly mentholated effect over time. This leads me to suspect the involvement of a sweet candied violet and/or an icy iris or some combination of both, over an oud/woods base with perhaps some secret infernal magic ritual cast over them, to keep them all apart within one perfume.

I can only imagine that the perfume’s relationship to the Devil as a theme is that familiar feeling of being pulled in two different directions. This perfume may represent the many temptations he will put before you just as you fully intend to step outside and face the world in righteous mode. Some sins have their own strange pleasures, such as pride and envy, but then every one of the seven deadly ones has its fatal attraction to different types of personalities. I don’t know what the perfumer was thinking of exactly, but this is how it relates to the story’s metaphors for me. The play of olfactory opposites could be symbolic of the perpetual struggle between masculine and feminine, or between the Devil and his wife Lilith, or between black darkness and golden light, as depicted in the book. The opposites of the perfume eventually resolve themselves into a sweetly boozy hazy mystery.

M’Eau Joe No. 3 - Hollywood Whiskey Perfume was made in a second collaboration with Michelle Krell Kydd of GlassPetalSmoke, after the unusually visceral Eau Pear Tingle of last season. This one breaks out of the gate with a caramel rich bourbon tone that is yet gentle and redolent of faint tobacco/amber. The materials say they were thinking of the blues and rock and roll and of course whiskey, that time-honored fuel of such musicians. There is no acrid bite in this ode to an intoxicant, which makes it a softer and smoother and more appealing rendition of relaxation than the real thing, as far as I am concerned. It softens down to an amber musky wood earthiness that clings to the skin like it is part of your own personality. It’s a perfume for Night People.

I think of Night People as those described in The Fugitive Kind by Val, played by a young Marlon Brando in a snakeskin jacket. They were the demi-monde of New Orleans and so dangerous and seductive it was all he could do to keep his wits about him long enough to get away before it was too late.

The note list is Top Notes - Whiskey, Saffron Attar, Rice Paddy Herb, White Cognac & Geosmin; Middle Notes - Pyralone, Honey, Rose, Violet & Chocolate; Base Notes - Dark Amber, Vanilla, Tobacco, Musk, Moss; Woods

I am not familiar with Geosmin, but have read it is an earthy-smelling substance, isolated from materials found in lake sediments. Pyralone is a Givaudan fragrance material, described as leather, green, woody, powerful, tobacco like.

Dapper is part of the Les Bohemes Collection, which is designed with a 1920s speakeasy aesthetic. A violet absolute is set against a dark aged patchouli. The candied sweet coolness of violet and orris shimmers and stands out against the dark silkiness of tobacco crossed with patchouli. The sandalwood and orris also pair together in a powdery haze that throws a sheer veil over all. This one may be worn either alone or as a layering fragrance with the others in the collection. It can go both ways as either a feminine or masculine type. It could be perfect for a Goth Lolita, dainty as a soprano whose sweet upper register may still transmit the undertow of dark possibilities devoutly to be wished.

This would also be right for a dandy who wears his hair slicked back with his evening clothes, seeking the attention of those who prefer a dark mystery filling within the sweet outer shell of a dessert presented on a glittering silvery platter.

The note list shared is Violet absolute, Orris Root, Blond Tobacco, Sandalwood & Aged Dark Patchouli.

Dirty Sexy Wilde is inspired by that era of the turn of the past century when people did not apply perfume to the skin, but only to their handkerchiefs, or their letters or other personal items. These would be left behind as tokens of their personality and ambassadors of all kinds of interest in their targets. Fragrances then were meaningful adornments. They were generally made as soliflores or based on other subtle symbolic themes from nature; to send messages along with their scent as was also so often done with colors of flowers, or dress, or specific gestures of fans and gloves.

I suspect the dandies also had their own walking stick language that signaled to each other across the drawing rooms as they simmered in the heat of the last throes of late Victorian repression. It was almost too late for such conventions indeed, as the cultivated bon mot and double entendre expressed all that was necessary beneath the sheer veil of shocking witticisms.

Oscar Wilde took the practice of glittering pronouncements to mind bending and highly enjoyable heights. He was both very much of his time, as he publicly observed all the formalities and conventions, while brilliantly subverting them by using these conventions to press against the restrictive boundaries. So he is a perfect subject for this type of perfume, meant to send a sweet seductive message from something deep and smoldering beneath it all.

This one, while as subtle as an old fashioned handkerchief fragrance, is the opposite of that convention in that the main theme references a dirtier side of nature, that is, sensuality itself. It starts out as a dark dry hay, in that galbanum tints a blond tobacco and renders the base notes the most prominent ones from the very beginning. The unusual Opus Oils signature structure flips the conventional top and middle notes to the opposite side of the pyramid, so that a subtle undertone of florals holds steady beneath the deep and dark notes. This is all lightly dusted with the fine sugar of candied violet sweetness, softly fading into dryness as time goes on.

This perfume has been created as a line in itself, with Parfum, EdP, a body and bath oil, lotion, butter creme, and bath salts, whose beneficial ingredients are nutritive, such as shea and cocoa butter and dead sea salts, with vitamins. There is a delightful special edition flacon in the shape of a silver coffin shaped flask, with a choice of an inset of Mr. Tiger Powers channeling both Oscar Wilde and Dorian Gray. He is shown as above, lolling on an ornately upholstered sofa, beside several alternatives that may be chosen to illuminate the personally symbolic significance of this fragrance for you.

The line is well priced, and available directly online from Opus Oils. All of these have good longevity, and hold close to the skin. They are of the mixed media type, and many have a high percentage of natural materials. The collection is wide, and there are clear and succinct descriptions of notes and materials on the Opus Oils site. These are only the tip of the iceberg. Personally I find my taste for them growing as the perfumer goes further and further out on a limb in her collaborations on projects with others.

Disclosure: The sample of this perfume was sent to me by the perfumer. My opinions are my own and I am not compensated in any way.

Impromptu - Roxana Illuminated Perfume

2012-09-09T21:58:00.003-04:00

Impromptu by Roxana Villa of Illuminated Perfumes began in a spirit of improvisation. There were a number of botanical chords already in her studio, which she adjusted and refined until they resolved themselves into a sweet smoky botanical leather.

The notes, as always, are handmade and wild-crafted materials that were gathered into wood, earth and musk chords, created from the plants and woods nearby, combined with resins, geranium, rose, tarragon, basil, clary sage and mimosa. There is Chinese Emperor Pu-erh tea with a teaspoon of her own bees' honey to finish.

This perfume was made by instinct and through long experience, without a recipe. This is a symphonic combination that ends up in a place you would not expect from such beginnings in spontaneity -- as a leather, which is a traditional type in natural perfume. The modernity is in the leather holding an edge of honeyed smoke.

This is very much in the vein of the original perfume styles from the oldest days of Grasse, in France. They created such perfume for the elaborate embroidered leather gloves worn by both men and women. Men especially wore leather style perfumes, to go well with all the time they spent in the saddle, and their gloves and boots. In this day and age, many women love this type of perfume even more than men do. It has the depth of a cello and refers to a classically elegant outdoor life of horseback riding, woods and herbs, and leather boots and gloves, which then moves indoors to the warmth of a wood burning fireplace with cut flowers on the polished wood mantle.

Unusually for purely botanical perfume it has good longevity. It lingers on the skin, as if married to it. It has an earthly material world feel, while still allowing the edges and details of the notes to peak through.

It shows a celestial side too, because you keep catching the edges of it rising from you skin as you move, to quietly surprise with its subtle and complex aura. It puts me in a good mood to find myself emanating this subtle veil of botanical complexity.

Roxana is a true artisan perfumer, making and doing everything herself from beginning to end. Her online journal is both beautiful and informative, especially the background to the accords and composition of this perfume.

For obvious reasons this perfume is a limited edition, of about 10 ounces in total. It is currently for sale at Roxana's E-shop within three of six liquid sample sets:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/66646839/eco-luxe-organic-natural-perfume-sampler
https://www.etsy.com/listing/88719309/organic-botanical-natural-perfume

It is also available in a glass vial with 1 gram (by weight) and an amber glass vial: https://www.etsy.com/listing/106572418/impromptu-botanical-natural-perfume
https://www.etsy.com/listing/106476777/impromptu-botanical-natural-perfume-deep

Her husband Greg Spalenka often makes paintings and illustrations that depict the perfumes in visual form. He created the illumination above for Impromptu, which is available as a print at his E-shop:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/106338072/impromptu-is-a-divine-feminine-sensual

I have written several times about Roxana Illuminated Perfumes. For a complete selection of these posts please enter the word Roxana in the search box at the top right hand corner of the screen.

Disclosure: The sample of this perfume was sent to me by the perfumer. My opinions are my own and I am not compensated in any way.

Juan M. Perez Flor Azteca & Oudh Nawab Primordial Perfumes

2012-08-26T18:44:00.000-04:00

Juan M. Perez of Exotic Island Aromatics lives on that island far yet near to those of us in the U.S., known as Puerto Rico, where he gardens and studies botany.

His is a rare talent as a perfumer, because he knows how to bring out the most feral fragrance aspects of his plants and materials and make compositions that are transparent and fresh and that also hold the tropical balmy air within them.

His use of naturals is so skillful that no matter where you are, once these touch your skin you are treated to the sensation of densely oxygenated air warmed by golden light, saturated with fragrance. In other words, you are instantly transported to a lushly fragrant tropical island.

Flor Azteca is predominantly a Tuberose that reveals its heart’s nectar, softened.

The Tuberose is a native of Central America, beloved of the native Indian civilizations, and part of their traditional self-adornment. The perfumer has a deep interest in the ancient American ceremonies and rituals using the native aromatic materials, especially for their mysterious spiritual and intellectual uses.

The legends about Tuberose as experienced in the West are intriguing too. Brought back to Europe, by Louis XIV’s time in France Tuberose became identified with aromatic sensuality of such intoxicating strength it was both avoided by young women before marriage and given to them after, to stimulate their capacity for sensual pleasure. Louis planted huge banks of them at Versailles to aid in the seduction of one of his first loves, the young Mademoiselle de la Valliere.

Tuberose can be as heady as jasmine or gardenia, maybe more, because it has a fresh green within it that entices you to inhale it deeply. In this incarnation it joins the creamy white floral family of nectar-laden aromatic intoxicants as a strong individualistic force to be reckoned with.

Notes are listed for top as Mexican Tuberose, Massoia bark, Chocolate, heart notes as Tuberose Absolute, Magnolia, Datura, Fresh Ginger, Pepper, base notes of Mexican Vanilla, Benzoin, Tonka Bean, Copal Negro, Smoky Woods, Mineral Notes.

Mexican Tuberose buoyed up on a bed of Tuberose Absolute should give you some idea as to how much tuberose you will be in the midst of here. The vanilla, chocolate and magnolia (all native American aromatic notes too) are a softening influence, holding the edge off the tuberose headiness in a warm embracing air.

The sparkle of the ginger, pepper and mineral notes run steadily throughout the life of the perfume, which is of good length. I can’t give a more specific time since my skin drinks perfume like it’s thirsty for it.

This is a perfume for an energetic morning. It will make you wide-awake and hyper-aware. Even with the sense of intoxication arising from its dense white floral atmosphere, or even especially because of all that, this perfume sharpens the senses.

I understand that JMP considers the white floral accord to be his speciality. He created Nectar des Illes which is full of plumerias and other white florals (carried at Shelly Waddington's En Voyage Perfume site). He also has an intriguing Gardenia and a Magnolia.

Oudh Nawab Eau de Parfum came to me together with Flor Azetca, and so for me acted as a companion piece, as a voice from the other side of the olfactory sphere. I will immediately list the notes because they are a poetic description in and of themselves:

Top Notes, Tumeric, Bergamot, Black Pepper, Heart Notes, Oudh from Borneo, Golden Myrrh from Somalia, Allspice, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Saffron, Persian Figs, Dates, Base Notes – Benzoin, Patchouli, Tonka Bean, Frankincense from Oman, Labdanum, Vetiver, Ambergris, Musks.

This one is a paean to the Middle Eastern perfume tradition. Like opening the door at night to step into a field of freshly turned earth, with the scent of spices and deep dried hay wafting through. It is a spacious darkness. The complexity seems somehow to create more air so that the individual notes stand out. The tumeric and pepper are as clear as opening bells at the start, with the citrus of bergamot brightening all.

These fairy tale magical materials with their old names from far away places stand up to their own legends. Myrrh and oudh are both fragrances exactly what they sound like, causing purrs and murmurs of satisfaction within the mind as soon as they touch the skin. The fig and dates set beside Tonka Bean, the musks and the other base notes blend together intimately, like a melting buttery moisturizer on the skin. Soothing and calming, this is a profoundly meditative perfume to rest in, to calm yourself with, or to fall asleep in.

JMP is a favorite new find in indie perfume for me. Thank you to Monica Miller and her Primordial Perfume Project for sending him my way. I look forward to following what he does with great interest (I am happy to see that he is soon to release a perfume based on the blue lotus).

These two are new perfumes and not yet released as of this date but will be soon. A preview pack of three 5 ml minis, of these two and a new Magnolia based perfume, can be ordered for $45 This is an excellent price considering the quality of the materials and the skill and passion immediately obvious as soon as you put them on.

Disclosures: I received these samples as part of the Primordial Perfume Project, which I have posted on before, specifically on the Air Elements. These are JMP’s contribution to both Earth (the Oudh) and Fire (the Tuberose) Primordial Perfumes.

Monica Miller the Perfume Pharmer is the host of this admirable project, where she has invited many natural and indie perfumers to create perfumes celebrating the elements of fire, water, air, earth, and wood metal and spirit. This is to establish a library of fragrances that will call an olfactory reaction in people, and will both comfort and bind them to the basic building blocks of life on earth and to love it even more, and so to be motivated to protect the environment. I consider Monica to be a friend, we often discuss our projects together and we have participated in other projects together.

The Exotic Island Aromatics site is primarily for soaps and candles, the perfume page and site will be open shortly. I would love to pay a visit if I ever get to P.R., but I am interested in ordering some of these products because I can tell from the perfumes that they would be special.

Music to listen to perfume by: Erykah Badu and Stephen Marley In Love With You

Above photos, from Juan M. Perez, except for the Moon photo which I do not have a credit for. If this photo belongs to you please let me know. I will remove it upon request.
Copyright 2012, Lucy Raubertas, all rights reserved.

Aftelier Fir and Roses Solid Perfumes

2012-08-12T17:16:00.002-04:00

Certain perfumes, especially these, evoke the deepest archetypes. Everyone knows the scent of rose and fir, even if only from Christmas, or as a reference in the reproduction floral scents found everywhere.

Aftelier Fir and Roses solid perfumes are made from the finest sources available, from essences of the real things, and I must say, these perfumes open as spectacularly as the dawn.

They reach into and round out your memory to fill in the gaps, if there are any, of what you know about roses in full peak of bloom in the sun, and fir standing in cool fog, releasing scent from the crushed dry needles under your feet.

They put you right within the midst of roses and fir. They perfect your memory of these iconic scents in case you have forgotten even a particle of their subtlest aspects. These perfumes provide a full experience of these seductive natural fragrances in the moment the essences of their hundreds of natural compounds hit your brain through your nose.

This is an ephemeral experience, different from other types of perfume, more like tasting a fine wine as it passes through your mouth. Since there are no preservatives or other additives to promote longevity, the experience lasts as long as a natural one does. There is a tremendous initial rush, and then the fade is slow and subtle. As solids these perfumes hold very close to the skin, and have more longevity than they would if held in a rapidly evaporating medium such as perfumer's alcohol.

The initial experience of Roses is like jumping into an enormous pile of fresh rose petals. The fragrance of Fir fills your mind with its energy and bracing aromatic dry wood tone.

According to the Aftelier site, Roses is blended from different tonalities of rose, those of honey, myrrh, musk, and spice. The fir tone has an an almost animal soft sweetness that blends well with the natural clean musc tone of skin. The site recommends trying Fir alone, or as a layer over Roses or other florals, uplifting them both through a marriage of compatible complementary natural compounds.

This perfume experience demonstrates the relationship of humans to both the flower and the tree. We are all cousins in that we aim to cloak ourselves in olfactory beauty for the sake of attracting a mate. Or in our case also for the sake of beauty itself, for our own pleasure, and because it is in our nature to crave beauty.

As I am reading the Ellena book Perfume, I thought of his advice about the juxtaposition of perfume materials, in that they influence our perception when close to each other. It is true when you put these two together, either layered or side by side, they influence your perception of each. My preference is to have one on each wrist, which is close enough to gain dimension by proximity but separate enough for each to preserve their full individual power.

Fir and Roses silver compact/Aftelier

I have long admired the simple divided silver case with Roses on one side and Fir on the other that I have seen on the Aftelier site. It is a brilliant arrangement that works in so many ways. As an object, as the two separate perfumes, as the presentation that allows them both to be accessed at the same time, and as a way to show them to be so essentially different but essentially related.

The medium is a soft unfiltered beewax with jojoba oil. Separately Roses and Fir are $210 each for 1/4 ounce in a solid sterling silver hand-made compact case. (There are also a selection of unique repurposed silver watch and snuff cases for varying prices). The double solid compact of Fir and Roses is $395 for two 1/4 ounces together. Samples of can be had for $6.

Marie Antoinette a la Rose, by Vigee-Lebrun

The Muse (as in ambery musk) and Jasmine solid perfume double compact combination looks like another that would make for a deep swoon in those susceptible to such olfactory natural magic.

For more about natural perfumes please read Mandy Aftel's Essence and Alchemy, so evocative and generous in its sharing of experience and sources.

Disclosures: Please note, the two small samples of these solid perfumes were provided to me by the perfumer Mandy Aftel. We have an ongoing relationship that has developed over time and we have spoken frequently about perfume and our creative endeavors. As always, my opinions are my own and I have not been commissioned or compensated in any way.

Above images: the first two photos are by me (Copyright 2012, Lucy Raubertas, all rights reserved).
The Aftelier compact photo is borrowed from the Aftelier site;
More on the detail of a hand holding a rose, taken from a portrait by Vigee-Lebrun, at: Marie Antoinette a la Rose.

Dear Pinner to Pinterest or Tumbler: If you want to pin my photographs, please link back to this site and make sure that the link works. I love sharing with you, all I ask is that you kindly share back with me!

Copyright 2012, Lucy Raubertas, all Rights Reserved.

Seville a l’Aube by L'Artisan

2012-08-05T23:55:00.000-04:00

The Virgin of the Dawn, about to enter the streets of Seville

Opening with a golden sunrise of orange flower lifted by lemony citrus and lavender, softened in honeyed beeswax, Bertrand Duchaufour has created yet another perfume that transports me.

There is a soft and distant background of strength holding this love song together. Touches of incense cling to mysterious velvet folds of benzoin.

The notes in this perfume have symbolic significance, relating to the opulent Catholic public processions of Holy Week in Andalusia, at the cathedral in Seville, and in particular referencing an intense romantic encounter as related by Denyse Beaulieu in her book The Perfume Lover.

She is fortunate to have a great perfumer skillfully commemorate her personal experience of physical and emotional exaltation. This perfume is a celebration of physicality in refined form.

Two forms of lavender sharpen the nose and keep it from tiring of the waxy roundness of the citric-edged white flowers. The orange flower and jasmine are transparently indolic, and come close to the point of giddiness. This combination on my skin evolves into something like an anise liqueur filtered through orange blossom of such subtlety it almost seems like a memory. There is a mouthwatering quality, yet the lavender refines the animal aspects of pure pleasure in orange blossom and keeps the senses on alert.

The mood is one of a controlled chaos of sensuality, ritualized and contained within a classical story, like a skillfully danced flamenco. I see this making a different impression on masculine and feminine wearers.

On both it makes a sophisticated reference to sensuality refined into self disciplined elegance.

The culture that created the enormous cathedral at Seville, built on the ruins of a mosque, retains hints of Middle Eastern sensibility towards spirituality and physicality. The thick walls surrounding the city were built by the Moors and are thronged with the public during Holy Week, who believe that to witness and participate in the processions is beneficial to the soul. Many believe that some of the fantastically adorned holy images being paraded through streets were created in part by supernatural inspirations that directly flowed into the artists.

A woman of Seville in traditional Mantilla

The swaying floats are thickly studded with myriad tall beeswax candles, wound around with orange flowers and sanctified by censers full of frankincense. The crowds dressed in traditional black, with the women in lace mantillas emanating the scent of their lavender storage, spontaneously burst out in songs and penitential prayers expressing their emotion at the sights.

It’s amazing that a perfume can contain references to all these elements, the orange flower fragrance warmed and dispersed by the burning pure beeswax tapers, the excitement of the lavender scented crowd, the ceremonial incense, and still be such an deep immersion into the pure sensuality of this olfactory atmosphere.

The final stages of the perfume settle into a soothing and softly rounded buttery white floral with a sharply pointed touch of herbaceous and formal astringent green piercing through.

The perfume will be released in the U.S. on September 1, 2012, 100ML for $165.

A sample of this perfume was given to me by MiN, a niche perfumery on Crosby Street in Soho, New York. I have described my personal experience of this perfume and I was not compensated in any way.

Images top, from Viator, The Macarena Virgin in Seville
middle: L'Artisan Seville al'Aube
Last: Mantilla by Lobillo. If these images belong to you and you wish them to be removed, please contact me. Copyright 2012, Lucy Raubertas, all rights reserved.

Peoneve by Penhaligon

2012-07-28T17:11:00.001-04:00

The lush floral perfume is back, only this time with a modern edge.

This was the year I first experienced a naturally fragrant peony at its peak. It instantly transported me into peaceful calm. Fragrance rose up from the cupped blush pink petals, a live thing that imprinted on me something like a cross between a rosebud, a barely ripe peach, and violets living within a green coolness, in combination with something indefinable and therefore distinctively Peony.

This is a floral that can’t be extracted or grasped in a physical way, it is a fleeting ephemeral, dainty and legendarily beautiful inhabitant of a skillfully cultivated garden. You must be there yourself when the flower is in bloom if you want to experience it.

Peoneve edP by Penhaligon has that naturalistic dimensional quality, though it's all done with skill and mixed perfume media. It opens with a hit of beautifully fresh bright peony that after a few minutes goes a little deeper into rose and then eventually the earthy tang of smooth vetiver, that dark dry hay, as centered and smoothed by ambrox, to be the deepest base note in this perfume.

The perfumer Oliver Cresp has said that he used a headspace technology derived peony that captured the flower’s live fragrance and the air around it for the focus of the perfume. This is all balanced and turned into a perfume rather than a simply realistic representation of a peony, with ambrox and a natural vetiver, and some other fewer notes than are usual in a composition, deliberately keeping the formula relatively spare and controlled.*

It must be the highly naturalistic quality of the peony flower set beside the earthiness of the vetiver and the smooth musk of ambrox that carries this perfume out of the ordinary floral into something special. The vetiver and ambrox, representing the earthy and the abstract, hold enough of our modern aesthetic sensibility to carry all this over the line from prettiness into thoughtful elegance and adult sophistication.

This is a perfect example of something that is harmonious yet emotionally resonant. It could go both ways in its softness, inclining toward either easy happiness or voluptuous sadness, or move across both in turn, like certain pieces of music.**

It rests on the skin as a veil of subtle ornamentation. The floral softens down and joins the ambrox to warm itself up, lightly stepping over the threshold into its moist human/amber creaminess. This makes it impossible to divide the perfume’s effects from your own skin’s living heat.

What makes this a brilliant perfume is the sense it gives you that the flower and your skin are blooming together as one. It will eventually come to your attention that your warmth and the perfume’s warmth and floral air have joined into a liveliness and grace that is sensitively balanced; both understated yet still most definitely there. It has a subtle mood elevating quality that I find especially rewarding in a perfume.

The theme appears to hark back to the traditional English vintage soliflores of Jane Austen’s day, but the experience is of something that at first appears to be simple but is actually a skillfully composed and technically advanced aromatic design that unfolds and bonds with the skin in a sophisticated way.

The reference to the ultra refinement of the scented English ladies of yore is deliberate, since Penhaligon is an old British firm that wants to bring its reputation and British-ness into the modern perfume world without leaving anything of such resonance and value behind.

My free sample came through MiN New York, a niche perfume dealer on Crosby Street in Soho, at my last visit there. I believe it suddenly appeared before me because Mindy Yang discerned my tastes from general conversation about other perfumes. My first try was one of immediate refreshment while in the midst of an intense NYC heat wave, having spent a couple of hours walking through the blazing streets on my errands that day.

They carry the perfume in two sizes, 50 ml for $120 and 100 ml for $155.

MiN has become something of a welcoming social center for perfumistas in NYC. They often conduct workshops and events to bring perfumers in to meet the public and for the local perfumisti to meet each other.

* as noted from the Basenotes interview by Persolaise

**Eric Satie - Gymnopedie No. 1 - music to listen to perfume by

As always, my opinions are my own and I am not compensated in any way. These images are not my own, credits are linked above. If they belong to you and you want them to be removed, please let me know. All rights reserved, copyright Lucy Raubertas 2012.

Coming to My Senses, a Book on Perfume by Alyssa Harad

2012-07-18T08:03:00.002-04:00

Alyssa's image of a bitten peach reminds me of the traditional Gurlinade accord

This book describes the transformation of Alyssa Harad, who came from a climate of indifference and even disdain towards perfume as an irrelevant, over-hyped, unnecessary luxury, to become a devotee of the active and growing subculture celebrating all things aromatic. This in turn gave her an important connection between appreciation of the art of perfume, and pleasure in the sense of smell as the key to enjoying life a whole lot more. She came to see it was a way to connect mind body and emotion in a way that that did justice to all three aspects of a well balanced sense of self.

I understand exactly the moments described in the book when her graduate student friends were taken aback by her new interest in perfume. I myself recall attending a gallery party on the Lower East Side a few years ago, where I was told in no uncertain terms that "no one" cared about perfume.

Being of what might be taken for arrogantly confident, I held to my faith in perfume. I saw this pronouncement as an unenlightened response by someone who simply did not know what was going on.

What has been going on is an expansion of the perfume arts across this country and the rise of the artisan and niche perfumer in Europe as well. Perfume is being made with tremendous sensitivity and sophistication using the materials and culture of perfume in both new and traditional ways. This experimentation is expanded and encouraged by those who wear perfumes with a sense of exploration and discernment, and writers who share insights on what the sense of smell itself can do. The joys of olfactory beauty are coming in from all directions.

Alyssa Harad decided she had to bring her friends and family into this perfume enthusiasm with her. She expanded the sharing and knowledge of the perfume community into her everyday life to recruit everyone in her circle that she knew had the openness to appreciate the gift. As her wedding approached, she incorporated the pleasures of great perfumes into her wedding shower by asking for presents of only perfume and then shared them among all the attendees, as a gift back to them. She tracked down her mother’s original vintage perfume in its original formulation to reacquaint her with sense memories of her youth and the romance of courtship. She wrote this book to make the growing happiness and beauty that all this gave her as clear as possible to the general reader.

You don’t need to know anything about perfume to enjoy the book. In fact it seems very likely to infect the general reader with its own spirit of enthusiasm and leave them curious about experiencing the kinds of perfumes capable of sending them into such enviable transports for themselves.

Perfume that connects to nature, beauty, and both personal and cultural history is hard to argue with once the door to its seductive pleasures has opened.

Alyssa enlisted the help of a group of people in NYC to help get this exercise in public seduction launched at her book reading event at BookCourt in Brooklyn, Thursday July 19th at 7pm.

I fondly recall the first meeting at the NoMad Hotel bar, with Alyssa, Bois de Jasmin, Jessica of Now Smell This, and Tinsel Creation, Maria of Aroma M and House of Cherry Bomb and Julianne of Alchemologie, all deeply engaged in perfume culture in their own intensely individual way.

We each had a creatively presented and potent cocktail in the atmosphere of a softly lit and luxuriously appointed old library. I felt the spirits of mysterious and beautifully bound old books hovering around us. We were surrounded by scores of sophisticated hedonists of the city deep in conversation with each other. It seemed everyone was planning their next exquisite experience. Everything conspired to incite to further fragrance experiences.

At that time Maria of Aroma M and Julianne of Archemologie, both with experience in the action of fragrant materials upon the sense of taste as well as smell, offered to work together to create perfumed cocktails for the event at BookCourt.

The two drinks were based on two Aroma M perfumes. Jaded is based on Geisha Green, a green absinthe perfume and First Blush, based on Geisha Blanche, a white floral fragrance. Both perfumes have a summer softness and subtle but tenacious strength.

Fred and Ginger were a source of inspiration for Alyssa while writing

So this event will include an opportunity for intoxication graced by expertly composed touches of essential perfume oils. They pass through the mouth carried by the alcohol, and then fragrance your breath, working in reverse, as the perfume rises from the back of the mouth and breathes out through the nose, you then catch the tone of the aromatics combining with the flavor of the ingredients.

It is amazing how the very smallest amounts of the essential fragrance oils (of a purity to be considered food grade) entirely change the character of a much larger volume of the base drink compositions.

These drinks were composed to be in harmony with and to expand on the spirit of the perfumes themselves. I love that their names are on the opposite ends of the emotional/romantic spectrum: Jaded and First Blush, which sound like perfume names themselves.

Our culture has gone through a long period of puritanical mistrust of this most animal of the senses. People speak of wanting to be "clean", of having no smell, of perfume as an irritant, as we simultaneously are further and more deeply immersed in a vast soup of bodily altering chemical pollutants we don't even notice because we have shut that part of ourselves down.

Perfume itself is a door into reawakening the most powerful sense and refining it. Experiencing and understanding what you are breathing in is an important result of becoming intelligently familiar with perfume and its vast array of materials, its uses through history, and the new directions it is lighting out for just now. Staying within a restricted world of only the very slightest experience of one of the five basic senses we are born with will rob a person of so much information and pleasure. A fear of the sense of smell and how it affects the mind, emotions and body will hold shut one of the doors of perception.

This book is an introduction to the perfumista world and the reasons why a growing number of people are avidly immersing themselves in its pleasures. It is a way to spread these pleasures around and invite ever more people into this "gentle passion" and the welcoming fold of those who have awakened this most evocative and powerful of the five senses.

BookCourt will host Alyssa at 7 pm on July 19, 2012. The first twenty book buyers will receive samples of the perfumes that are the basis for the cocktails.

Alyssa has also written on perfume for Now Smell This and Perfume Smellin Things, blogs of note in among perfumistas everywhere.

.

Starhawk's Fifth Sacred Thing - Air Perfumes - Primoridal Perfume Project

2012-07-09T20:43:00.002-04:00

This is a collection of the perfumes based on the Spirit of Air, for Monica Miller's Primordial Scents Perfume Project.

Monica and the many participating perfumers of the Primordial Project, which include all the classical elements of our physical experience, such as earth, air, water, fire, and others*, believe that perfume can be an active force for healing the world and ourselves.

Because this project has many participants, it also contains many subtle shades of meaning, as spread across all the individuals points of view.

For me the basic premise is to trigger the creation and use of perfume that affects people who wear it, so as to unite them with the elemental forces of nature. To reach through aromatic beauty into the deepest olfactory sense memories toward a basic sense of reciprocity with the earth itself.

This is a belief that mindful appreciation of the elements of our existence, through olfactory means, can unite our minds, hearts and actions to move us into a responsive and positive direction toward the natural environment. Seeking that balance would in turn restore our own interior state of mind and even heal the body.

Monica and a number of the participants developed a ritualistic way of approaching the use of the project perfumes. ** There is also an element of support for a book and film called The Fifth Sacred Thing, by Starhawk, that is a dystopian account of what might happen when we drift too far away from our primordial natures.

Primordial AIR scents include:

Spirit of AIR by Neil Morris Fragrances
First Breath by Naked Leaf Perfumes
Moon Valley by Esscentual Alchemy
Djin by Michael Storer
Honey by Velvet and Sweet Pea Purrfumery

Neil Morris’ Spirit of Air is like the air lifting off of fresh water, with a light mint within the ozone. There is a sweetness like the heart of a flower, where the nectar lies. It’s almost dizzying, like breathing too fast. It does something mysterious to the skin, turning the skin itself into an earthy base, with a misty oxygen laden atmosphere cleansing the breathing process as it wears on. This is a modern perfume, while staying definitely linked to the primordial air, keeping within a presence of fresh coolness.

Naked Leaf Perfume's First Breath alters the air that you breathe by cooling it with soft mint and herbs on a floral and grass green base. Calming and soothing are the words that come to mind. It is meant to be used as an aid for women giving birth, whether to a new life or a creative endeavor.

Moon Valley by Esscentual Alchemy gives me an impression of a dark space where the dust has settled and the stillness intensifies the sense of standing in a wide open place. I get a distant note of ammonia that lends itself to a sense of otherworldly space. For me this one reaches out to the chemistry that makes up the atmosphere we breathe and those elements that stand outside but flavor the air.

Djin by Michael Storer ornaments the air by pulling up a sense of ozone spaciousness toned by a sense of history. It carries the subtle aromatic grace of a Middle Eastern desert wind. Such winds are known for the carrying the fragrance of distant flowers and spices across many miles.

Honey by Velvet and Sweet Pea is the memory of a flower's nectar, set within a humid day. Its subtlety is a presence that holds to the skin. It carries across the space of air as a volume and a lively force, through portraying the feel of humid sweetness. Within the stillness of such air, you may realize this sweetness is being carried into your body by breathing in the work of another species of being; you are receiving a message from the bees' world.

If you want to try the ritual use of these perfumes, you'd begin with the metal inspired fragrance by Lyn Ayre, Coeur d'Esprit Natural Perfumes, Ele-Metal, which is the scent of warm steel cooled by water. The drydown brings out a spearmint tone. This ritual was created created to invite us into a magical sense of unity with the elements.

The stillness of air makes a pause that can be felt and used for attention to the details of experience. Air in motion contains the varied weights of humidity or the clear dry light that affects respiration. Respiration, the breathing in of aromas held in the air is the strongest sign of life.

I think of air as a volume that can be silent and spacious, as was shown us by the music of John Cage and other modern composers, and as potentially a great force like a hurricane or tornado that sweeps through and carries away a period of time, as in before and after, to make an adjustment of creative destruction and balance that pays no attention to our personal concerns.

Interesting and grounding to have perfumes that have been designed to reference the aspects of air and breathing itself. These perfumes would be wonderful for layering with others, or as a luxurious enhancement of oxygen on a hot day, or to bring the outside world within yourself.

Samples can be obtained directly from the Monica Miller, the Perfume Pharmer, as a set.
I received samples from Monica Miller who has organized the Primordial Perfumes Project. Please visit this index for links to all the perfumers and posts on the Primordial Elements. There's lots of activity on Facebook for this project too.

Music to listen to perfumes by: AIR Alone in Kyoto

* spirit and metal
** please see this post on how to ritualistically apply these perfumes

Above images: clouds and sky carry and contain all the fragrances that ever were
(from Tumblr, sorry I don't have a specific credit, please advise if they are yours)