indieperfumes

Cire Trudon - scented atmospheres

2010-01-03T20:30:00.010-05:00

In keeping with my current predilection for tuberose, I am in the midst of enjoying Mademoiselle de la Valliere, a scented candle from Cire Trudon (a thoughtful holiday gift). This candle has the romance of being created for a mistress of Louis XIV, to envelop herself in the intensity of tuberose, which was and is still considered a deeply sensual scent that keeps its exotic connotations. The flower was imported to France from Mexico in the early 1600s, and its intoxicating qualities flamed into such success that it was planted by the thousands in Louis XIV's gardens. I have mentioned before what a perfume addict he was, until this passion was ended through overexposure toward the end of his life.

Even though they are expensive items as candles go, they are still, like other forms of perfumes, an affordable luxury of the highest standard. Trudon is one of the true old luxury French brands, still manufacturing the finest wax candles in its traditional ways, but has now branched out to commission new scents attuned to modernity, such as the scent of the moon's soil, or the Havana of Fidel, or the spirit of Dada. I am deeply appreciative that they help to keep the legend of Mademoiselle de Valliere alive through the sensual reality of her taste in ambient perfume. She was seen as the first of Louis XIV three great romances (there were many minor ones) and as tragic muse of passion because she cultivated a poetic romantic love for the king while her self awareness required that she live in a melancholy that understood such illicit romance, such idolatry, was a danger to her immortal soul. Once she was released from the affair and his attention she spent the rest of her life in spiritual repentance. She had four children with him, but in respect to the queen she attempted to conceal her state, to pretend that nothing was happening, so complained of the scent of the tuberose flowers as being the cause of her shaky state when the queen noticed signs of her pregnancy.

It was believed that young girls would be inflamed to a romantic, passionate frame of mind by exposure to the scent. It takes a disciplined artistry to keep it away from the edge of becoming cloying and overwhelming, but just freely seductive enough to reach out and incite the desire to inhale more deeply.

The candles burn very cleanly, and the scent thrown is subtle, but definitely and softly there. The soft light and scent are especially good for the long dark winter nights.

Marron Chic - Nez a Nez

2009-12-22T07:35:00.003-05:00

I was introduced to Nez a Nez at Aedes De Venustas, which now carries the full line. They gave an event this autumn as an opportunity to try the perfumes and meet the perfumers. Their atmosphere of richly embellished darkness is very conducive to the seduction of scent impressions, along with the drinks and charm being passed around, and meeting other perfume enthusiasts busily engaged in the pursuit of finding something wonderful. Happily, I at last met the Non-Blonde, Gaia Fischler, who is untiring in her soft-spoken enthusiasm for all things relating to personal beauty culture. I tried about half of the full line there, and received a packet of fluffy feathers scented as samples to try later. As a presentation for sampling, feathers work surprisingly well, since the feather holds the scent for a long time, like skin or hair, and you can waft it before you like a fan. In the interests of full disclosure, I will say they were very generous and gave everyone there our choice of a full bottle of perfume from the line. Since I was on sensory overload at that moment, after I tried a number and was unable to decide, I requested the assistance of those around me (particularly Gaia) and one of the designers of the perfumes (Stephane Humbert Lucas) to help me choose. I came away with Marron Chic, which was the obvious choice since I am thoroughly brunette, and been around long enough to appreciate the pull of opposites in a perfume. The reference to the look and flavor of the variegated warm and dark browns of a polished chestnut have a great appeal for me personally. I associate well brushed, polished brown hair as particularly French in that most French women I have seen have that hair color, and use it to set the palette for what they wear. Then also the traditional street vending of roasted chestnuts in Paris associates them with the typical French seasonal experience of autumn and winter. The opposites joined in the scent are the initial strong icy cool sweetness of iris and violet, against a background of creamy warm cocoa, which becomes softer and more powdery over time and settles down into a slightly spicy nut-powder woodiness, once the iris has burned away. Because of the joining of two such opposites in one scent, it is not an easy one or immediately seductive, but more a conceptual interpretation of autumn and winter embodied by the combination of a brisk, sweetened cold violet and iris with the powdery warmth of a creamy cocoa flavored aromatic wood. Rather like coming into a warm wood-paneled room after being out for a long walk in the winter air and having a hot drink of cocoa while a few snow crystals melt on your clothes and eyelashes. There are citrus elements that impart a tang and unify the impressions into a composition that holds together strongly opposing forces of cold and hot. The perfumes are indeed strong and dense as compared to for example, L'Artisan (which I find typifies the taste for transparent scents). Marron Chic lasts for a full day, so it is a commitment to a certain frame of mind to choose this perfume in the morning, and it is definitely not one for an effect of easy prettiness, but rather of an associative and "interesting" cast. It is a true unisex fragrance, and I can't picture it worn by someone in their twenties, though the stroke of midnight at thirty would be enough to carry this type of perfume if you have a serious side (while understanding that being sérieuse is far more of a compliment in France than it is here)...The notes listed are: top - kumquat, orange blossom, heart - karo karounde, violet, cocoa flower, base - benzoin tears, labdanum, roots of vetiver, cocoa beans.

Above photo, the Havana Brown Cat, elegantly chestnut brown from tip to tail...they sound like great breed.

Carnal Flower by Frederic Malle/Dominique Ropion

2009-12-14T23:59:00.000-05:00

It might seem counter-intuitive to wear Carnal Flower, the tuberose and cut-grass extravaganza, in the depths of winter, but the darkest days highlight its brightness and light. It's a lifeline to the energy of green sap flowering into thick white petals that truly enliven the grayest of days. My rather simple and dark winter wardrobe is enhanced by contact with it because it has enough body to cling to natural fibers and give a lift when next I put on the scarf, sweater or coat, plus the ultra-smooth freshness is a neat contrast to the woolen thicknesses and the winter air. It also hangs in the humid air of summer with loads of redolent grace notes unfurling slowly around with a delicious headiness that does not cross the line into too much in any sense. Instead it invites you to keep reaching for more while keeping its distance enough to stay interesting to the nose without exhausting it. It pulls off an appeal that is both primitive/instinctual and refined/elegant, which is not a trick well-played very often.

It's a surprise to find I am so enthralled because I've never been a fan of tuberose as a dominant note. So often it has affected me like the cloying, overwhelming quality of a lily in a closed room. Still, long after getting to the end of a small sample I found it lingered on my mind, so I got another, larger sample, and now realize it's one worth aiming for in full size, costly though it is. This one is worth it, as a great example of the perfumer's art. I see from the list of perfumes composed by Dominique Ropion that tuberose seems to be a predilection of his, a type of material that is both naturally dominant and malleable to subtle pushes in different directions that will directly lead into other notes of a perfume's composition.

Editionsdeparfums says that Ropion used head space technology to capture and then analyse the formula of real tuberose, which must be why that sense of a living flower is rendered so realistically. He then exaggerated certain aspects and married them to a soft musk that weds the perfume to the skin. That is probably what keeps the tuberose from taking over and becoming overwhelming as it is often wont to do. Instead it combines with an individual's skin tone in such a way as to bring the liveliness and grace of a heady floral into the personal envelope of warmth and character of the wearer. Other very softly rendered notes, melon and coconut among them, act as stepping stones leading down to the musk. Since this perfume came out in 2006, many have written about its particular lyrical beauty and addictive quality, and now I know from experience everything they say is true.

Above Blue and Green Music by Georgia O'Keefe

12/7 - Advent - Anticipation - Looking Forward

2009-12-06T20:38:00.006-05:00

The season of Advent ties in with many spiritual traditions, and our bodily and psychological cycles too, and it all comes down to the confident anticipation and belief that something truly good is coming soon.

There is a sense of excited expectation at this part of the year, with all the preparations and parties, and the scent of winter greens brought indoors, and the beautiful light of candles and fireplaces and the tiny ones used everywhere for decorations. In combination with the crispness of winter air, the ambiance and scents often suddenly connect us to the energy and hope of our very young selves. It's inspiring to think about possible resolutions to help us shape our paths for the chance of a fresh start. It's getting down to the wire to the darkest days of the year, when there will be only about seven hours of day light, but as soon we hit that mark the days lengthen again and we know in our bones this means Spring is coming. We all celebrate this one way or another.

In this part of the world, the Advent weeks are the heart of winter, and to my mind, all about coziness and nesting, contrasting with the bracing cold, the consciousness of the coming end of a year, and thinking about what is to come. My personal traditional heart-of-winter scent list is made up of essences of balsam fir, black spruce, the incense notes of frankincense and myrrh, pure wax candles, cinnamon and clove and orange peel, maple syrup, hot chocolate and whipped cream, wood burning down in a fireplace, the scent of fresh cotton flannel sheets and the hints of perfumes past that cling to the coats and scarves I pull out of the closet (CB Wild Hunt and Ava Luxe Moss). Also wonderful is the comfort of a hot shower before facing the cold morning, especially if scented with a rich soap. I'll make up small batches of a moisturizing and fragrant body oil with frankincense and many other elements to impart a velvety texture to the skin, to give as gifts. These are all mini celebrations that go straight to the brain directly from the nose, and help make the dark cold winter days into an anticipation and celebration of the turn of a new year.

Because it has turned so much colder, I feel it is safe now to bring out what I call the big guns of perfume in my possession, such as Opium, Poivre, Marron Chic, and Myrrhe Ardente. They love the winter, and are brought out by body heat and unfold into the cold air in a such way that is mutually flattering to their composition and the person. At home I can light a Guerlain candle of Cuir Russie to re-read the great old Russians.

I think about the cultures that lived in long winter seasons and nights like Scandinavia and Russia, and how they used this time of year to paint their furniture and interiors with colorful patterns and nature motifs, and knit patterned wool sweaters, and sew quilts and write novels, and meditate in the steam bathhouses, and drink and party and endlessly discuss the state of the world. These are also the people who go really crazy in the summer, loving it all the more intensely because it is so short. Sometimes the wait, as in the season of advent, makes the arrival of what we hope for much sweeter.

I am grateful to Roxana of Illuminated Perfume for bringing us all together to share our stories of Advent, one each day. It feels like we are all around a campfire with each voice, each personal connection to the power of scent, illuminated in turn. I am glad too that Roxana makes and continues to focus on composing fragrances made with precious materials by hand, with thoughtfulness and refinement. It is a great pleasure and beauty to smell the scent of California oak leaves captured in solid perfume, softly breathing out from the wrist or neck, even in the darkness and cold of winter. The style and texture of solid perfumes especially suit the season, and I anticipate the new Chocolate, with great pleasure.
Illustration above from Roxana
Here is a list of the other bloggers participating:

Sunday - November 29th: Guest blogger Jane Sibbett opens the Circle

Monday - November 30th: Guest blogger Wendel Meldrum

Tuesday - December 1st: Roxana Villa

Wednesday - December 2nd: Guest blogger Ida Meister

Thursday - December 3rd: Memory and Desire, Heather Ettlinger

Friday - December 4th: Memory and Desire, Jason Ettlinger

Saturday - December 5th: Guest blogger Jade Shutes

Sunday, December 6th, Eve and Roxana

Monday - December 7th: Indie Perfumes, Lucy Raubertas

Tuesday - December 8th: Scent Hive, Trish

Wednesday - December 9th: Olive Bites, Catherine Ivins

Thursday - December 10th: Perfume Smellin' Things, Tom

Friday - December 11th: Lillyella, Nicole

Saturday - December 12th: The Non-Blonde, Gaia

Sunday - December 13th: Portland Examiner, Donna Hathaway

Monday - December 14th: Xenotees, Noelle

Tuesday - December 15th: The Beauty You Love, Lee

Wednesday - December 16th: Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom, Mrs. B

Thursday - December 17th: The Artful Gypsy, Wendy Amdahl

Friday - December 18th: Perfume Shrine, Helg

Saturday - December 19th: Notes on Shoes, Cake & Perfume, Wendy

Sunday - December 20th: Grindstone Girl's Daily, Kathi Roussel

Monday - December 21st WINTER SOLSTICE: Perfume Smellin' Things, Beth

Tuesday - December 22nd: Guest blogger Davis Alexander

Wednesday - December 23rd: Guest blogger Greg Spalenka, Artist as Brand

Thursday - December 24th: Fringe, Dennice Mankarious

Friday - December 25th: Asking Leah, Leah

SAPE -- the Cult of Elegance, with Ineke Field Notes From Paris & Les Parfums de Rosine Rose d'Ete

2009-12-04T07:42:00.001-05:00

Looking around the internet trying to find a certain kind of African music, I stumbled upon sites relating to a cult dedicated to elegance, known as SAPE (Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elegantes). The more I find out about this movement, the more I feel an affinity to the devotees. It originated in the Congo, after the Belgian and French arrived with a distinctive style of dress and manners which were obviously very different from that of the native Congolese people. On close observation, it was seen that together with the brutal aspects of their colonialist culture, the French speaking Europeans brought a distinctive quality to their manner of self-presentation. They set great value on personal elegance, along with a strict sense of grooming and appreciation of fine materials and European workmanship. This strongly affected the Congolese, who some say are the most naturally elegant people of Africa. Some became fascinated by this particularly French style of charismatic self-esteem engendered by this highly mannered and stylish self-presentation. The Congolese interpretation of these concepts morphed into something akin to a cargo cult, with serious followers to this day. They have created their own version of living in close connection to extreme French stylishness, despite being surrounded by difficult conditions.

In the Sapeur societies men vie to have the most elegant self presentation, couture clothing, and grooming (including fine perfume). The devotees re-name themselves and invent gestures and walking styles to heighten the effects of what they wear. The Congo still suffers terribly and the people are in constant and immanent danger of the disasters of war, but the Sapeurs have spiritually migrated into an alternate universe. They are pacifists, because it is impossible to pursue such elegance and engage in the chaos of strife at the same time. I admire the interpretation of elegance as a motive and force for peace and pacificism in an area constantly under threat of war and daily violence.

I identify with this attitude and these goals, because I know that personal elegance (and especially the use of fine perfumes) can create a concrete connection to the glamor, romance and beauty of an idealized aspect of our culture and the past, even if the rest of the environment may not support such an image.

I found myself transported to both the season of summer and the city of Paris by the use of two very alternate and opposite spectrum perfumes this past week. Both are intimately and conceptually connected to the lore of French elegance and style. Les Parfums de Rosine's Rose d'Ete (the Summer Rose) is a very pleasant and ambient rounded fragrance, with a pure yellow honeyed-rose, uplifted by tart apple, melon and linden notes. Worn with a thin cotton shirt, it reaches into past associations of French style during its high floral periods of the turn of the last century and the 18th Antoinette aristo-milkmaid styles; sophisticated and rustic at the same time. Field Notes from Paris, by Ineke is for the city-dweller, drinking cinnamon dusted black coffee in a cafe in Paris while reading a newspaper with some good chocolate and caramel consumed in the immediate vicinity, while listening to smart, fast, complicated music,like Miles Davis. The bergamot, cedar, wax, tobacco flower, leaf and vanilla give it a tailored quietness that sits well on an arm clothed in a finely knit wool sleeve.

Wearing these two fragrances over the course of the past few days gave me a sensory connection to the pleasures of a both strict and hedonistic culture I myself do not live in, but would like to, mentally if not physically, vacation in. Perfumes offer this experience even if only vicariously, through the elements of style that specifically recall the details the legendary forms of French elegance. I can have all this even while spending too much time in a florescent lit windowless room dealing with a pile of papers. So I worship at the altar of my own French cargo cult of perfume, which keeps me human in the midst of certain environments that would otherwise be a little too close to sensory deprivation. The gods of French perfume throw me the lifeline of elegance!

Above photo of a Sapeur's dressing table from the wonderful photo essay by Hector Mediavilla :The Congolese Sape

Anya! Part 2 - Natural Perfumes

2009-11-11T08:17:00.001-05:00

Anya's natural perfumes are a full immersion experience. Wild-crafted, organic and sustainable materials are used to compose these densely aromatic liquids that arrive in small bottles like little plant bombs. Even the packaging is made from plant-able seeded paper. I like that you can tear the very box up and put it in the ground and wildflowers will grow.

While wearing these scents, it feels as if my animal instincts have been sharpened, that I am clad in aromas that signal to the rest of the natural world that I am friend, not foe. I imagine animals would not be put off by these perfumes in the least, but might even be moved to roll around in them. It's like steeping yourself in a tea made of thick deep mosses and the distilled essences of plant materials from the bottom of the forest and garden floor. Sharp clear notes of flowers and fruit stand out from the background and make the composition more spatial and dimensional.

There is an Art Nouveau quality to these perfumes, with a flowing, almost curvilinear line to the development of the scent on skin. They are strongly organic, while remaining wholesomely clean. Their most important quality of organic plant notes are econstantly present in the foreground.

Fairchild has a clean skin-musk tone combined with dark wood notes, brightened with a spray of salty ocean air. Temple is a relaxing oud with spices uplifted by the very recognizable sharp citric twang of orange juice. Kaffir has a Thai lime gourmand quality overlaid on softness, with
a blurry-edged floral-scented leather in the distant background. RiverCali is as comforting and as soothing as water, made from mild rose and vanilla moderate pink pepper and citrus elements. I like putting RiverCali with Temple on opposite sides, one right, one left. They remain separate but having both on at the same time enhances each and gives a spatial, dimensional experience that I increasingly seek in wearing perfume.

All of them are very wearable in daily working and casual public life. As I have found typical of natural perfumes, they hold close to the body, and are attractive on both on sexes. I notice that men in general (American men that is) are more open to wearing natural, organic fragrances, and they suit men very well, so I would like to see natural perfumes more directly marketed to men in particular. I find the style of natural perfume is also trans-seasonal. Indeed they are flattering to all seasons of clothing, lightly clinging to leather and wool, cottons and linen. They tend to migrate and impart their soft appealing fragrance to the clothes you wearing and to the sheets and pillows. These perfumes are a reminder of the strength of a tropical summer that can hold on to your skin throughout the long winter to come.

Eau de Parfum mini samples are each enough for three or four wearings. Don't forget to save the box they come in and plant it in the Spring! Maybe it raise a plant like the one in the illustration above...that looks like the scent it emanates.

Illustration above, an imaginary Art Nouveau plant drawn by
Hermann Obrist, Thorny stalk with bud, ca. 1900 (pencil on tracing paper). More information on this fascinating site of a collector of artist's books A Journey Round My Skull

Anya! Part 1 - Natural Perfumes

2009-11-04T08:53:00.002-05:00

Anya has made two new soft and subtle American Southern-tropical perfumes with mystic qualities. Moondance is a surprisingly soft, subtle, restful tuberose mixed with night blooming florals. Star Flower begins in one way (a crystalized sugar-candied lily packed in moss) and ends in quite another (by the lily dissolving into almond poured into chocolate and vanilla dusted with clove). They are both very relaxing but at the same time clarifying. It must be their purity.

Anya McCoy of Anya's Gardens has studied natural perfumery for many years, and has devoted herself to natural aromatics, often growing and tincturing the perfume's components herself in her own Florida garden. She has over the course years of avid collecting compiled a range of sources to the purest supplies of fully organic traditional perfume materials from around the world. She is now become quite experimental at the same time, trying all kinds of materials that are not traditional. After all the years of experience and exposure to many influences, I think she has now created a distinctive and very particular line. Her compositions have a sense of delicacy and complexity, and develop over time, going from strength to softness and opening into different aspects of the notes over the evaporation period. which is playing an aesthetic game seldom engaged with purely natural elements. What she does is provide a unique sense experience of the the natural world that is rich yet ethereally soft and at the same time clarifying and sharpening the sense of smell and memory.

She made a box of seven samples with a suggested order of application while sampling, with the lightest and softest to be tried before the strong and full bodied. In that way, as she says "the delicate nuances of the lighter creation is not lost due to the intense fragrance of the more assertive perfumes." Botanicals are subtle and delicate elements anyway, and this method of presenting her perfumes deliberately educates the mind and nose to become more aware of the nuances and also moves into a dance about what the sense of smell is capable of once developed. People get stressed from too much information and we sometimes become jaded through overexposure to difficult smells. This set is a pleasurable lesson plan to recalibrate the brain/body connection through the sense of smell. Starting out in naturals by getting a full set of these samples would be a lovely way to afford trying a wide variety of special natural substances you don't normally run across in daily life. It's an experience in and of itself and also a way to find those tones that most appeal to you before deciding on a full size.

One blessing is that it is unlikely that people with a heightened sense of chemical sensitivity will be offended by a perfume made with botanical elements. They hold very close to the body, and do not leave a big scent trail. The longevity of regular commercial perfumes can't be matched by organic natural perfumes because there are no preservatives or chemicals that would extend the natural life of the scent once exposed to the air. My skin has always tended to dryness, so I need to moisturize well if I want a natural botanical perfume to last more than an hour. I know there is a lot of variation because these fragrances last a number of hours on most other people. It's a very individual thing, so you have to see for yourself.

The seven, which are (in order from softest to strongest) are Pan, Moon Dance, River Cali, Temple, Fairchild, Kaffir and Star Flower. I have written about Pan before. The presentation of a suggested order of sampling in order to heighten the experience is delightful More in my next post...

Alternate Universes -- Off Topic

2009-10-15T14:26:00.000-04:00

A quick off-topic post. Just now leaving for a trip to Amsterdam and Bruges. I have not been away like this for a long time. This is a pilgrimage to visit the painter heroes/saints I revered in my youth. The Northern Renaissance Primitive paintings have a fairy-tale quality, like windows into detailed illustrations of miraculous occurances. I wonder, are people like Hans Memling and Hugo van der Goes and Rogier van der Weyden still walking the earth today? Are people just like them still even inhabiting the area from which they were produced? I suspect there are -- I think there must be -- perhaps they don't even know it themselves, that they are people who would have been great painters if they lived in another time.

Look carefully and you will see van der Goes has put this beautiful, calm, privileged child close to a huge dragon, just behind her - the monsterous mouth is open and the teeth are as large as her hands, while the eyes are limpid as old crystal. The old masters often depicted their subjects with completely calm expressions, beautifully dressed and composed, while placing them in the midst of suspended mayhem. Just like real life in the real world...

I'll be back next week to post on perfume! I am missing the great Fall Ball gathering of Sniffapalooza, and have to rely upon the reports of my friends to catch up with the new things for Winter...

Stimulating Impossible Desires - Yosh Kizmet & L'Artisan Cote d'Amour

2009-10-04T11:30:00.000-04:00

Perfume makers are in the business of (even though they may not consciously mean to be) stimulating impossible desires. Impossible desires such as to materially revisit the long lost places of memories and history, to experience the fantasy travel and wide ranging possibilities of a beautiful world, to have everything at once, both opposite and compatible at the same time.

Perfume can temporarily satisfy cravings for reconciliation of the many layered inner workings of the soul with the outer body's sensations of concrete things, with both natural and creative experiences.

I am thinking of how it is when you find two stylistically disparate perfumes that have some strongly characteristic elements in common. They can express those similar elements in very different ways, each one resolving into its own distinctive personality.

Both Yosh Kizmet and L'Artisan Cote d'Amour are in the family of primarily botanical fragrances. Some say that botanical elements in perfume are like food and when applied to the skin are absorbed by the body and will act internally to affect the body's own odor. I am not absolutely sure this is true, though I permit myself to believe it. (If anyone knows more, please share). I have read that certain essential oils such as lavender enter the skin in a hot bath and are eventually expressed back through the skin, with a very subtle effect. I do know for a fact because I have experienced it that a person's diet of Indian spices eventually causes the breath and sweat to take on the tone of turmeric and cardamon. It is said that though botanical fragrances are very much more ephemeral than those that use fixatives or man made molecules, they are after all, to be reapplied frequently since like food the beneficial effects of the components will blend in with your own body chemistry and distinctive odor.

Yosh as a perfumer has always had a strong predilection to the use of botanical ingredients as the primary components of her designs, and L'Artisan initiated a green line of fragrances that are ecologically correct. I see the thoughtful use of ecologically sound botanicals, as much in demand, are reaching further and wider into the perfume establishment.

Yosh's Kizmet is a perfume oil, very densely floral with an immediate, strong impact of narcissus, playing a high keyed note that morphs into a blend including the notes of hay, turmeric, chamomile, boronia, osmanthus, ylang ylang and dill. I notice this trend of combining strongly aromatic herbs into florals or woody incense notes creates a push pull that brightens and modernizes heavy classical floral and oriental notes. This is a very rich and dense perfume that lingers even after washing, though it does not throw its scent so far as to annoy other people who may or may not be in the mood for it. After about ten minutes the top note of narcissus steps back to a more polite distance and bows into the rest creating a high keyed musky herbaceous tone. The impression for me is of a single narcissus in a wood paneled room with the windows open pulling in the scent of dried grasses. This is a scent that will be picked up by clothes, especially wools and cashmere but that is not a problem for me. I find it layers well with the other scents of everyday city life, like coffee or autumn leaf dust or even road and animal smells. I think it benefits from being spread over a longer length of arm, so that personal skin tone becomes an element that comes through. It has at the same time a forthright and unavoidable manner, and it makes sense to me that Yosh's inspiration was the concept of kismet. This is an old Middle Eastern idea of fate and fortune, that what is meant to be will be. The steady and even strength of the composition relates to an acceptance of the flow in the voyage of experience, while you carry a flower to sweeten the passage.

It was unexpectedly delightful to find that the opposite end of the perfume spectrum of style, L'Artisan's Cote D'Amour had an aspect that related to the liliaceous, herbal Kizmet. It is something like two different writers telling the same story in a Roshamon-like anthology describing a romance with the same person, but at different points in her life, in different locations. There is that commonality of a strong floral beginning crossing into an herbaceous composition. This one's style is transparent and subtle, with the ozonic saltiness of spacious air allowing the dimension of the ingredients enough room to retain every sharp angle and corner. The focus moves back and forth from sweetness and light to tiny reminders of the depth of the sea and the height of the sky. This is an olfactory experience of French nostalgia, for the perfect off-season vacation on the northern French coast's rocky seashore. Open skies with sprays of ocean water reaching into the fresh air that is backed into by stony earthiness, supporting herbal grasses and wild roses that throw their fragrance into the ocean air. In the U.S. I think we have something like this in the coasts of New England, like the rocky beaches of Maine and Newport. For me the salty ozone notes combining with the rose pulls up a soft gardenia-hyacinth-narcissus-like quality from the floral. Notes are rosemary, imortelle, gorse, rose, broom, heather, cypress, green tangerine and pink grapefruit.

The floral aspects of both, in Kizmet very thick and rich and in Cote d'Amour, full and spacious, both combined with herbal/mineral airs, seem dreamy wafting up from the sleeve of a jacket on a warm autumn day, or worn around the house before bedtime.

Both perfumes are available in sample form from Lucky Scent, and if you are in the neighborhood Yosh is at Barney's and L'Artisan at Bendel's and at L'Artisan stores.

Maybe it's just me. These perfumes represent very particular brands of impossible desires, all the more seductive for being so detailed. They pull me into memories I don't personally have, of a luxurious length of time spent on beautiful coast without a care, and/or the peaceful and calm acceptance of a graceful voyage through a fully beautiful life. It's an expansion of my experience, where at the moment the extent of my contact with Nature is personified by this morning's loudly excited starling vigorously plucking at the dried grass heads in my window box. Yes, I know I'm lucky I found these two perfumes at this particular time when they both speak to me fluently in their different languages, about similar wonderful things...

Above, Coast of Brittany by Maurice Prendergast, 1910.

Peace - Roxana Illuminated Perfume

2009-09-20T19:29:00.012-04:00

Monday September 21st, is the International Day of Peace, a call to attention, as Peace is "a precious need and also a calling".

Thich Nhat Hahn writes eloquently about the juxtapositions of peace and violence in this world:

They woke me this morning
to tell me my brother had been killed in battle.
Yet in the garden, uncurling moist petals,
a new rose blooms on the bush.
And I am alive, can still breathe the fragrance of roses and dung,
eat, pray, and sleep.
But when can I break my long silence?
When can I speak the un-uttered words that are choking me?

The results of violence and the absence of peace require the expression of grief and healing from its effects. The violence in this world operates as a spiraling self feeding force that can be broken by the moments of peace available to us all. There are are natural reminders around us of peace. They are reminders of an alternate reality that can teach and heal and strengthen us so that we ourselves can also become manifestations of peace through cultivating and maintaining a peaceful center. There is a connection to the still presence and awareness of beauty and the passing of time and peace.

ODE TO AUTUMN, John Keats

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Truly peaceful is living with a full awareness and participation in the passage of time and the seasons, especially now that autumn weather is harvesting its distillation of summer into a wine for the deepest rest of winter.

Roxana of Illuminated Perfumes recently sent me her interpretation of Peace in perfume form. It was created in honor of International Peace Day.

It seems very autumnal, ripe with spicy sweetness and calm, and reminds me of hay heated in the sun and honey and cinnamon on dark bread. It is ephemeral, as are all truly pure botanical perfumes. It feels like you are anointing yourself with the essence of the year's harvest. It would be perfect for reminding yourself to slow down, cultivate peace in every step, fully enjoy the sweetness of the fleeting passage of time, to fully experience and be part of the peace and beauty of the season. I can see it could be worn during meditation or yoga or even during a horseback ride. I am sure that animals would not be spooked by it, as they might be by other perfumes made of more alien components.

For more information on International Peace Day
For more information on Thich Nhat Hahn and Peace is Every Step
For more information on Roxana's Peace Perfume

Others also posting about International Peace Day:

Bitter Grace Notes: http://bittergracenotes.blogspot.com/
Examiner, Cleveland: http://www.examiner.com/x-5804-Cleveland-Fragrance-Examiner
Examiner, Portland: http://www.examiner.com/x-4780-Portland-Fragrance-Examiner
Illuminated Perfume: http://journal.illuminatedperfume.com/
Memory and Desire: http://memoryanddesire.typepad.com/
Perfume Shrine: http://www.perfumeshrine.com/
Perfume Smellin' Things: http://perfumesmellinthings.blogspot.com/
Scent hive: http://scenthive.wordpress.com/
The Non-Blonde: http://thenonblonde.blogspot.com/

Chinese Perfume - The Temple of Heaped Fragrance

2009-08-23T11:52:00.013-04:00

I have seen it reported (in the NYT) that in contemporary China, Western marketing research has concluded that "clean" scents are preferred, or even "scentless" products. If this is true, it proves what a tremendous a break there has been between the past and the present in this large area of the world. It can't be denied that the Cultural Revolution of Mao did accomplish an unprecedented break with the past. Now that the time of gigantic historic cataclysms seems to have receded in China, it could be possible again to be inspired by a past which had a deep affinity for perfume in all its forms and uses.

You can reach this past through the great Chinese poets, and find a strong predilections and taste for scent. The direct opposite of a scentless aesthetic held great sway throughout China for more than a thousand years. Following my own winding road from reading a novel set in ancient China, I began reading old Chinese poetry, and have been struck by how frequently fragrance is cited. In the Chinese past, perfumes and natural scents carried great sensual and spiritual significance. Woods, balsams, incense, florals, and musks were treasured and appreciated with the greatest subtlety as to associations with the seasons, the passage of time, the understanding of a personality, the decoration of the body (both male and female) and as part of spirituality and mythology.

TOWARD THE TEMPLE OF HEAPED FRAGRANCE
Wang Wei (A.D. 701 - 761)

Not knowing the way to the Temple of Heaped Fragrance,
Under miles of mountain-cloud I have wandered
Through ancient woods without a human track;
But now on the height I hear a bell.
A rillet sings over winding rocks,
The sun is tempered by green pines....
And at twilight, close to an emptying pool,
Thought can conquer the Passion-Dragon.

A HEAVENLY WOMAN'S IMPRISONED IN THE PALACE
Li Yu (A.D. 937-975)

A heavenly woman's imprisoned in the palace at Penglai Hill,
All are silent as she sleeps by day in the painted hall.
Her glossy hair is spread like cloud on the pillow,
Her embroidered clothes bear a wondrous fragrance.
I secretly come and slide the pearl lock back,
She's startled from her dream behind the silver screen.
Her smiling face is overflowing with bliss,
We gaze at each other with unbounded love.

A modern historical fiction based on true events , Lisa See's novel "Peony in Love" is a vision of 17th Century China, about the tragic life of a lovesick maiden and her haunting the living with her love after death. The theme of the lovesick maiden inspired poetry and opera in ancient times which in turn influenced the character of the individuals who followed to experience life through the stylistic lens of this poetry and music. It's fair to say that ancient Chinese culture had great influence on most Asian cultures -- a large part of the world -- and therefore had a vast reach and depth. The sensibility of the Chinese scholar poets and writers who steeped themselves in the ephemeral nature of beauty clearly depict the practice and use of a heightened awareness of scent to enhance all forms of experience.

from A SONG OF A GIRL FROM LOYANG
Wang Wei (A.D. 701-761)

...On her painted pavilions, facing red towers,
Cornices are pink and green with peach-bloom and with willow,
Canopies of silk awn her seven-scented chair,
And rare fans shade her, home to her nine-flowered curtains.

In addition to scenting the skin and hair, the wealthy had paper and ink, furniture and clothing, houses and temples enhanced by fragrance. Incense was greatly appreciated, and cosmetics were also perfumed and used with refinement. For example, lipstick was worn by wealthy women who imprinted the form of their lips onto a fine fabric and gave it as a gift to their lovers. Sandalwood fans, camphor-wood carvings and statues, rosewater imported from Persia, jasmine scented oils, ginger and nutmeg from Indonesia and patchouli from India were traded from very early times. Distillation of many different essential oils was highly developed, and had spiritual significance because the Taoists believed that the soul of the plant was released in its fragrance. Perfume was divided into six moods: tranquil, reclusive, luxurious, beautiful, refined or noble.

The "ordinary" people carried perfume pouches and used them as personal gifts. This practice survives today in the Dragon Boat Festival celebrations.

from BATHED AND WASHED
Li Po (A.D. 701-762)

Bathed in fragrance,
do not brush your hat,

Washed in perfume,
do not shake your coat:

Knowing the world
fears what is too pure,
The wisest man
prizes and stores light!....

There exists a deep cultural affinity to perfume in Chinese culture which must manifest itself again once the door is re-opened to the use of perfume in everyday life. Something to look forward to.

Handmade

2009-08-11T22:40:00.008-04:00

This is a toast to handmade products, and the individual artisans out there creating beneficially organic ingredient body scrubs and butters and soaps. Many are infused with the scent of beneficial essential oils that persists even after rinsing. This is the real season for them, now that it's so hot and humid that I end up having two showers a day. That sheerness in fragrance may be one of the nicest ways to inhale the herbal/terpene tone of many essential oils such as lavender and citrus and a good volume of scent for sweltering days. I also find that handmade products tend to be stronger, in that the emollient quotient is higher, the exfoliants are more serious, and the level of salts or other active ingredients more generous than in commercially manufactured products.

One that I really like is Cocoa Butter Walnut Scrub by Sacred Herbals. It has a dense texture that is not really rough like so many that use crushed nut shells. The milling is finer and it acts more like the quality of a heavy rough cotton washcloth, suffused with super emollient cocoa oil and a woody-clove incense fragrance that is noticeably long lasting even after using it on hands that then go on to be washed again later. It creates a moisturizing barrier on the skin while exfoliating, and this is especially nice for the hands and feet in the summer. Wearing open sandals for a couple of months, especially in the city, is tough on the skin and your feet need almost as much attention as your face in the summer.

The handmade aspect generally seems to result in a denser composition of purer quality ingredients. Even a big commercial operation like Lush, (why did I come so late to that particular party?) being handmade, with lots of real ingredients, ratchets up to a much higher level of immediate action, at least in the products I have tried. I recently went through the smaller size Buffy Body bar within two weeks, because it melts on your skin so pleasantly it's not easy to stop using it, and also because two showers a day requires some serious moisture replacement. The Ocean Salt Face and Body Scrub contains a lot of salt, lime, grapefruit and coconut in vodka, among other things, and is indeed coarsely salty and feels clean and purifying. Following this with the Lemon Butter on hands and feet makes for an instantly velvety texture. I look forward to trying more of the line, especially the solid shampoos and vegan skin products like King of Skin, a solid moisturizer bar for application while still wet from the shower.

Another surprise is how well priced these handmade products are, especially in comparison to finer commercial ones that are anywhere near comparable in quality of ingredients. It seems like they generally run about half the price, possibly because of the direct marketing from the maker to the consumer. This is especially nice in these days of being more careful about spending on luxuries. I feel like I am getting much more for the money. It also feels good to support the making of handmade products of such quality that you can immediately tell are working. At this point, word of mouth, such as on here, and browsing Bath and Beauty on Etsy , a site where many artisans have opened their own e-commerce storefront, are the best way of finding these products. People are experimenting and refining and we are all the beneficiaries of this creative use of e-commerce. The handmade artisanal methods are again thriving because there is this direct outlet for them to the many who appreciate them.

Jacobson's Organ: And the Remarkable Nature of Smell

2009-08-03T22:09:00.007-04:00

This book, by Lyall Watson (1999) is of interest to those who want to be more aware of the sense of smell. Jacobson's Organ is a little discussed auxiliary olfactory sense organ, named after the scientist who discovered it. It can be clearly seen in reptiles and mammals, from snakes to horses and cats, who all have these two small openings in the nasal cavity leading to a separate neural pathway going straight to the brain, that instantaneously senses chemical information about dominance, sex, and danger. Apparently humans also have this organ in the early stages of development in the womb, but as we grow into adults it appears to become vestigial, at least to the naked eye. Further studies have shown however, that this organ appears to be the part of us which is sensitive to pheromones, the basis of that good sexual chemistry we are all in search of. Something invisible and without the kind of smell that our more familiar olfactory sense can register, but which is there nonetheless and can be highly influential in our relationships, even to our moods and sense of security, and our understanding of the physical realities around us. Watson extrapolates that Jacobson's Organ is the source of our intuitions, which is the controversial part, along with exactly how functional and influential this organ is in most humans.

There is no hard proof (yet) that this sixth sense, closely related to smell, is as fully functional in adult humans as it is in many of the other creatures we evolved along side of. The natural history examples in the book impart a lot of information about how different reptiles and mammals, from snakes to lions navigate reality with great refinement by employing the sense of smell in concert with Jacobson's Organ. He also gives lovely examples of how plants evolved to directly appeal to those senses as a means to enlist outside aid in their own reproduction, to reach out and attract other living beings who are capable of being attracted.

I know we are very complex organisms, but still I'm surprised that we don't already know absolutely everything about how our bodies function by now, considering the tools we have developed, and the close study we have made of ourselves. We do know now that there are many chemical reactions in the environment around us that we become aware of through our skin and sense of smell which affect us deeply, both emotionally and physically, in ways we are not consciously aware of. For example, human mothers bond with their babies and vice-versa with an unerring sense of smell as identifier, as do other mammals. We know that we each have our own particular aroma (not related to uncleanliness, but to our own chemistry) that is emanating from us all the time. Animals, and most famously dogs, can discern individuals by their unique smell, proving these emanations are most definitely there, whether humans are registering them consciously or not. We may not need to be conscious of them, in order for them to have a purpose, to influence us and to reveal significant information we require about each other and the world. It may well be that the Jacobson's Organ in us is functioning without our being aware of it, or knowing yet exactly how it works. We do know that so many other mammals rely on it and also that we are more similar to them in many more ways than we are different. We do know that we ourselves are greatly affected by very subtle differences and changes in our environment and our experience of other people and creatures. We do know that we are animals ourselves, first and foremost. Jacobson's Organ implies that there is another very sensitive sensory system at work taking in the chemistry of life around us, a true sixth sense, connected to the oldest and deepest part of our brains, influencing us without our being completely aware of it. I like the idea.

The book is available through Amazon or Google Product Search.

Oakmoss and Nadia Wagner at Cabinet

2009-07-26T23:26:00.007-04:00

Some artists have begun to consider the use of the sense of smell in their work. One such is Nadia Wagner. As part of a new piece she has done on oakmoss, and its associations, she has used perfume materials and written (in Cabinet, an art quarterly) about the history of science's ambitious but essentially unsuccessful attempts to organize and classify smells. Scent is its own world, and it has yet to be uniquely described on its own terms.

The exhibition consists of an interior space containing the scent of oakmoss. She has wiped the interior walls of the gallery space with its scent, using the molecule Evernyl, which is a distinctive component of the extract of oakmoss. As she points out in her exhibition essay, the background smells -- of a decaying waterfront industrial space, lying fallow and revived for the uses of artists, are complex and both pervasive and less noticeable the more time you spend in their midst. We are becoming more aware of the power of the sense of smell on the mind and the body, while at the same time we note how recognition diminishes over the length of exposure. Indeed, as part of the experience of the installation, it is expected that you will comprehend that your ability to register the scent you are surrounded by diminishes the longer you are near it. Scent is always ephemeral, yet renewed by a pause and return. It connects the body and mind, the past and the present but it can only work for a finite period without a break. But once exposure is renewed, it reconnects the body and mind to its experience over time in an uniquely powerful way.

Her work with perfume and its qualities, legends and bodily effects has been grown in collaboration with and education gained from trained perfumers (such as Christophe Laudamiel). It is not surprising that she turned her attention to oakmoss. The element of oakmoss has an poetic, elegiac association for those who are interested in perfume. We know that it is a rare and proscribed material that has given a unique earthiness, edge and charismatic depth to classics such as Mitsouko. I happen to have some oakmoss absolute from Yugoslavia, have used it personally, and realize more than ever now that this is an increasingly rare and precious experience. How sad to learn from the exhibition article that the best remaining natural sources are unobtainable because they are located near the town of Chernobyl, and that the material has a tendency to soak up radioactive particles.

The exhibition is at Cabinet, at 300 Nevins Street, until August 8th. The Cabinet exhibition space is in an old warehouse on the Gowanus Canal, and their magazine is an interesting combination of literary and visual ideas, both intellectual and sensual. This exhibition article "Notes on Scent" is in issue 32, whose overall theme was Fire. Examples of the other issues' themes are Deception, Magic, Insecurity, Ruins, Chance, the Sea...

above photo from Urban Olfactics 1A/1B exhibition essay on Nadia Wagner.

Crazylibellule and the Poppies

2009-07-19T19:50:00.006-04:00

Crazylibellule and the Poppies solid perfumes sticks are often carried in the really good old style independent pharmacies that carry lots of beauty products in NYC, such as New London, or Bigelow, as well as in Sephora, and it is really nice to have something simple yet so well made at such a reasonable price of about $18. They have no parabens, or artificial coloring, or alcohol, and the packaging is very pretty and ecologically benign. They are generous, so a perfume stick will last you through the summer at least. I like portable perfume, and these travel well. The scent holds very close to the body, comes on in a melting emollient base which feels like a waxy moisturizer. They are a mood lifting, pick me up for the summer work day, and also for the errands-and-gym routine of the weekend, because they are quite soft and don't throw scent far. They are more for personal or intimate enjoyment rather than for making a big public impression. They layer well also, with each other, or perhaps another simple summer cologne such as Roger & Gallet Gingembre. I can see them as appropriate for the very young or for any age, in a casual way.

Three new ones in the Les Garconnes Collection (which all feature a typically masculine fragrance note such as vetiver or guaiacum wood) are Rose a Saigon, Hommage a Gabrielle, and Tamara Charleston. They all three have a turn of the 20th century feel to them. What an interesting period of time that was; there was the beginning of the freedom of the modern age for women, while they were still formed by the softness of the past.

Rose a Saigon, inspired by French colonial Indochina of the twenties, has a humid rose/ylang and passion-fruit top with a light smokiness in the base, like languid cigarette smoke rising up in the conservatory. There is also jasmine, vetiver and a light patchouli.

Tamara Charleston makes me think of what the French idea of an old fashioned American Southern summer would be like. White floral, gin and lime, absinthe and hay, humid and green, the moment right before having that iced cocktail. Green madarine, peach and amber. The sepia of amber especially gives that twenties feel.

Hommage a Gabrielle is in honor of Coco Chanel, and it gives the sense of dense ivy drying down to incense. Cedar, peony, leather, elemi crystals (from a brazilian resinous tree) vanilla, jasmine and ozonic flower. It is softness pointed sharp by the cedar and ozone. The drydown is primarily woody incense with a touch of green ozone tang.

I must remember to keep the inner cap on the sticks, because they dry out otherwise.
These are fun and affordable yet very thoughtfully made small luxuries, made in France. From what I have read, it appears that spending is down on luxury goods of all kinds, but that is to be expected, especially after the amazing highs of recent prior years. All the more reason to be pleased with these well priced little indulgences.

I like the kohl rimmed eyes and the graceful, casual up-do of the lady above. This is a vintage image but she still looks very modern to me. If the rest of her showed tattoos and muscle tone she would fit right into downtown Manhattan or Brooklyn right now...

Neil Morris 2

2009-07-07T23:08:00.008-04:00

I think people who get involved in perfume as an important part of their pleasure repertoire soon start noticing that it often also acts as a mood altering substance. At least the ones you love do. Once you start building up your physical/mental associations with different, oft-used components of scents, like labdanum (a ceremonial feeling) or jasmine (humid sweetness) or sandalwood (spaciousness and expansiveness) or tuberose (dizziness) or vetiver (warmth and dryness) you notice much more closely how they act on you. In a composition that works for you, these classics may be combined with new scent molecules, chemically created, that are like either a shade of color that is new to you, or a much heightened aspect of one you know well. It amazes me how different people can take the same, classic scents and combine them in different ways to come up with things that are so individual. I think Neil Morris compositions are grounded in a fluent personal vocabulary of perfume materials. I also sense the aspect of a person very well read in there, with many classical associations to history and literature and Nature (with a capital "N" as Van Gogh used to write it). Once you know your materials that well, you can play with them to come up with compositions that work on mood in an almost musical way.

There are ones that induce a sense of peace and others that burn up into an active and energizing atmosphere around you. There are ones that have a windy movement to them that give a sense of spaciousness.

It has taken me a long time to learn not to be completely swayed by the initial top notes or opening of a perfume, and then quickly make a snap judgment as to whether I like it or not. So many take time to unfold and reveal their real character on you. I had an initial mistrust of Coral, which seemed to me too fruity and sweet and melon-y and not my style. After ten minutes or so of pomegranate and fig though, it becomes something else, at least on me. The sandalwood, incense and musk are tripped and it opens out into a spacious and subtle, almost salty airy walk in the afternoon sun, in a peaceful settling down together of the sympathies between the sky and the ocean and the plants beside and between them. It's like the sun is shining down, and everything is fresh and clean.

Mystic Dragon is wood consumed by fire warming up and smoothing out on the skin to a buttery creaminess. That must be the chocolate note that underlies the amber, patchouli and smoke. Something to wear when you are really excited about going out at night, it makes perfect sense to me to find out that it was inspired by a Chinatown New Year's celebration.

Midnight Forest has an element that is new to me: nagarmotha, dry, woody, earthy indeed. There is an sense of the peace of a full grown woods, probably induced by the galbanum, myrrh and myrtle wood (an aromatic bay leaf scent).

I find Prowl very masculine, notwithstanding the honeysuckle and jasmine, because they are subsumed and absorbed by the black pepper and oakmoss and patchouli and civet. The amber unifies all and even so it has a cleanliness and understated quality, holding close to the skin. It would act as an enhancing transparent accessory rather than a featured performer competing for center stage. Somehow masculine scents are far better as this type of subtle/complex background, in my estimation. I think it must be the civet in the driver's seat (a re-creation I am sure) acting as a musk in the form of a clean skin scent.

Takashimaya, based on the tea house within the ultra refined Japanese Fifth Avenue store, has been well reviewed in the NY Times, so it suffices me to say that as a unisex fragrance it is that combination of restrained and sensual that works in both a casual and more formal sense, and projects a different image depending on if worn by a man or a woman. Beautiful in a solemn way on a woman, I would find it even more remarkable on a man because so unexpected in its sophistication and balance, like a glass of plum wine, drunk in the presence of incense with blooming narcissus and bamboo walls around you. The cedar note sharpens up the sense of smell like a pencil. It is exclusive to the store it is named for, and well worth a special trip just for that.

Neil Morris is as they say, ultra niche, and it takes some effort to seek his perfume out, either at Takashimaya or his website, but I promise it will be rewarding. I am glad he offers samples and a range of samples in a package. As I have said before, I wish there were some ultra sophisticated tea or coffee or wine bar that stocked his vault fragrances in NYC, so we could go there and try and choose something appropriate for the moment, in calibrated sizes. He does thankfully offer these as an affordable luxury in a one ounce size, for $70. They are true perfumes, and therefore lasting.

I am just happier knowing that there are people creatively experimenting, and discovering and expanding their own and our sensibilities through the sense of smell, and making things like these perfumes out there these days.

Above photo by me.
Lucy Raubertas, Evening Trees, 2009. I love that airy calm after the sundown breeze ends and the birds have settled down.

Neil Morris Vault Fragrances 1

2009-06-22T22:48:00.010-04:00

I wish there was a place close by in NYC that had the full collection of all the Neil Morris vault fragrances to try, in one spot. I have had the opportunity to try about a dozen, thanks to the generosity of my dear Chayaruchama, aka Ida, a Muse in the classical sense. It would be great to be able to make frequent visits to the complete Neil Morris Vault Collection and try them all over time. So far, according to his site, he has a personal portfolio of about 100, of which he brings out a limited number at a time, to the public. In addition he makes new ones as he is inspired to create them. At this point there are about 40 vault perfumes on his site. I know Neil produces custom perfumes too, so I am sure that if there is one that is no longer held in stock, he could make it for you, or possibly something specifically for you on that theme, as a unique perfume. He has the ability to express personality through either a perfume portrait, or a fragrance that enhances a specific persona, to manifest a person's aura physically, through the medium of fragrance. Something I think we all imagined that celebrity perfumes were going to do, but don't, actually. Le Parfum d' Ida is the one I know, and it well expresses Ida's exuberant and intense personality with warm clove, geranium, incense, and the rich floral sensuality of gardenias crossed with oakmoss, on leather. A romantic Russian soul, both joyful and serious, transplanted to transcendentalist New England. Anna Karenina swimming naked in a summer Walden Pond filled with water lilies in bloom, then warming her skin before a bonfire made of aromatic branches.

I love Dark Earth (aka Earthtones #1: Dark Earth), because I am always looking for that scent of deep rich earth, a holy grail of mine. This one is truly loamy and mossy and smells exactly like humus-rich freshly turned soil freshly watered by a soaking rain. It also has the subtle presence of crushed mulch, of an aromatic wood that has been out in the rain and is dissolving into the earth. There is also an ornamental touch of green stems, and too, I get the myrrh, and patchouli and "golden" musk. I can see it worn alongside Spectral Violet (lime, violet, sea moss, vetiver, among others), if you are in the mood for sensory overload, as I often am. A perfect combination for sleeping in during a cool rainy Spring, such as we had in NYC this year.

The very names are spare in a poetic, non gender specific way, which is I think an integral part of the presentation. His perfumes are most often made so as to be able to be worn by both sexes. I wish more men knew of these fragrances, because they are far more intriguing than most of what is on the shelves on the men's side of Sephora. Cafe is a true coffee and tea and chocolate scent, inspired by the cafes of Paris, and would be incredible on a man, and is also another good combination with Dark Earth.

Two recent ones, Vapor, and Leather Garden, have a very modern abstract edge. Leather Garden reminds me a little of Psychotrope, ( a leather/jasmine) in that it is a distinctively leather scent under a narcissus, hyacinth, and lily of the valley high-pitched floral tone. The two opposite ends of leather and floral are unified by the mediator of basil flower and agarwood. Vapor is like ice evaporating in the warmth of the sun. A strong aldehyde uplifting the water lily and heliotrope, wafting down into a frankincense and amber musk. There is a lot of movement in them both, they are not static perfumes. They unfold and rise up, and then the deep basenotes emerge and dive back down into the skin and out into the air.

The Vault Collection is rich and strange indeed, strange in the sense of unique, yet the aesthetic is modern and natural, and very wearable. I will post on a number more, next time. The variety and range -- this is why I think we (perfume fanatics) need a central location for the complete collection. I think the whole concept lends itself to the idea of going to pick something out for the particular time or occasion or mood. Like getting a new dress or pair of shoes for an event or to expand the wardrobe from a favorite designer, these perfumes express a particular unifying taste, so they all work together, in a style that is both abstract and down to earth at the same time.

For complete notes, prices and availability, please see the Neil Morris site.
Above photo: Morning Vapor, taken by Ivan Orozco, Mexico, aka Vallas.

DSH Perfumes des Beaux Arts Part 2

2009-06-14T21:49:00.007-04:00

It's been a vacation from modernity to try the DSH collection of 10 perfumes in the style of 17th and 18th century Versailles. In keeping with the requirement to wear a different perfume every day, having 10 I can follow the custom of "le Cour Parfumee/the Perfumed Court" of Louis XV. It was a great age for fragrance. Everything that could be scented, was, and on occasion even the impossibly extravagant fountains of Versailles were perfumed. It was possible to use so much perfume at this time, because this was the era when France was first able, through the expansion of colonies in tropical areas, to secure and cultivate a large supply of fragrant materials for the perfume trade, and also began the mass cultivation of local European materials in Grasse. This was the beginning of the French mystique of perfume and the fashions of the court encouraged its consumption everywhere. The French economy has profited ever since.

I imagine the fountain's mist on the breeze must have been a full body experience. (Louis XIV overdid it and ended up unable to have anything perfumed near him at the end of his life. Even the scent of blooming flowers caused him migraines. Let it be a lesson to those who over-apply!)

This collection uses natural botanical materials, in keeping with the period, except for the animal notes, which are synthetic.

Royalty and courtiers engaging in the daily ritual of the "toilette" developed it into a creative definition of personal style and distinctive expression. It took a bare minimum of two hours to dress and put together all the accessories and apply the cosmetics and perfume, to make an appearance at court, for both men and women.

Except for the brisk Aqua Admirabilis, which is the classic Eau de Cologne developed by Gian Paolo Feminis, the rest are very floral fragrances. They are divided into roughly three types, those that are combined with high keyed citrus notes (d'Oranger du Roi Louis XV), those that are strongly floral with just enough of an earthy base to hold them onto the body (Mille Fleurs), and those that have middle notes of carnation/wood types combined with a stronger tone of animal/musk or vanilla absolute (Reinette).

Jean-Louis Fargeon, the great court perfumer, left a number of detailed and descriptive formulas DSH was able use for reference. The paintings of Boucher were also an inspiration for the perfume personality of Marquise de Pompadour, the great luxury stylist of the period. I was amazed to find out that her active love affair with Louis XV lasted only five years. During that short time she did everything she could to keep him from being bored, to personify the feminine, to be a solace and refuge from the harshness of politics and power. Gathering writers, philosophers and artists for intimate and social conversation, commissioning beautiful furniture and domestic interiors of remarkable craftsmanship, developing an ultra refined taste in fashion and personal adornment, she was a founder of many of the the elements of French culture as we know it today.

This extremely cultured woman's use of her ephemeral position to become an important patron of the arts, especially the personal ones, left a lasting impression. She created a standard of elegance and grace in support of an intimate relationship that became the ideal in French romance ever since. Reinette is a Rococo-style composition of a hyacinth accord mixed with bergamot and jonquil, cassis, carnation, rose and tuberose, violet leaf and ambergris, civet and vanilla, so it has both the high pitched and the graceful mid-notes cascading into a sensual animalic tone over time.

Pot-Pourri de Pompadour is an interpretation of an 18th century ambient fragrance, meant to be refreshing and calming for the courtiers. M de P loved Chinese porcelain jars filled with herbal and spicey formulas. This composition has coriander, crushed mint, lavender, rosemary, rose geranium, lemon balm, marjoram palma rosa, rose absolute, jonquil and orris root.

Her successor, Madame du Barry, is represented by day and night perfumes, based on Fargeon's notes. Eau de la Favourite for day has a soft, feminine, clear orange-flower-water top, with an orris-violet heart over the spiciness of cognac and mace and a tiny bit of musk. It contains an unusual Daucas accord (Queen Anne's Lace) that required the use of some synthetics to recreate unavailable ingredients. It gives an impression of clarity, transparency and refinement, holding very close to the body.

Eau de Coquette for night, is based on Fargeon's Eau de Cypre Composee. Rich and seductive, with floral absolutes of jasmine, rose, orris concrete, angelica, nutmeg and a deep animal finish of ambergris. This one is the most similar to modern perfumes, reminding me a bit of Andy Tauer's themes.

Louis XIV, the Sun King, known for his extravagant elegance and aggressive persona, was enamored of perfume and customarily had himself massaged with it when commencing a new romance. It has a bright citrus accord leading into a strong leather finish that still somehow maintains an elegant transparency.

His son Louis XV, was strongly identified with orange flower water and Eau de Fleurs d'Oranger dur Roi contains both orange flower water and the absolute, bitter orange and lemon, with a grounding in pettigrain and ambergris. Orange-flower water became a popular flavoring and scenting agent in confections such as madelaines, laid in wait to trigger a whole other world of sensual stream of peculiarly French consciousness and memory.

Marie Antoinette's Eau de Trianon is based on detailed Fargeon notes for his commission to evoke the gardens of Petit Trianon. Subtle, fresh and very delicate, it uses the usual floral ingredients of the period such as rose and jasmine and orris but the addition of the Atlas cedarwood and benzoin cuts the floral aspect to turn it into an evocation of fresh air in a sunny meadow. So sad to think her distinctive perfume gave her away on their attempt to escape the heavy hand of the French Revolution.

Cyprian was popular scent used for hair and the wigs generally worn in Versailles for about a hundred years. It was so pervasive and characteristic that it nostalgically evoked the court of Versailles to many after that life was long swept away by the Revolution. This mossy violet fragrance with orris root and French oakmoss, rosewood and clary sage was believed to keep the hair fresh. I recall that the wealthy in Europe and the Americas all wore wigs of varying degrees of elaborate-ness for that long period and this must have been a very familiar aromatic signal of formality and sophistication.

This collection of fragrances are wonderful for those who appreciate botanical fragrances and also love to live with fine antiques, or the avid readers of historical fiction, biographies and memoirs, or those who travel to France and visit Versailles and would like to have a more intimate, personal experience of a particular time and place's refined yet powerful beauty.

Above: "The Toilette of Venus" by Boucher, 1751, thought to be a portrait of the Marquise du Pompadour, surrounded by silken luxuries. It was installed in her private bathroom, with other such panels. The silks of Lyon were an enormously profitable export for France at the time, as was and is its image of luxury and sophistication. The original is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity tor a weekend perfume workshop in an idyllic French Chateau, you might want to contact Nicholas de Barry.

DSH Perfumes des Beaux Arts - Historical Fragrance Part 1

2009-05-31T10:13:00.009-04:00

One of my favorite times of day is in the hot shower every morning. The luxury of abundant pure hot water is something we take for granted but the experience is one that is relatively new and rare in the context of history and the economy of nations, and all that jazz. I know that people in many countries, from northern Russia and Finland to Turkey and Persia and most of the Middle East, ancient Rome and also Japan developed a big bathhouse culture over time, and everyone would go regularly as a communal ritual, to enjoy the steaming hot water, and so were therefore quite clean even by modern standards. Many parts of England and Germany had ancient spas where the privileged would go to drink and take mineral baths from springs were were specially kept pure for health and beauty. But certain parts of the world, such as France, had to make do with other means, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not so much. Water was very impure, and drinking it or bathing in it was actually dangerous, and greatly feared. Alcohol was the purifier, and therefore was used commonly as the drink of choice in preference to water, and as a rubdown to cleanse the skin, in the form of cologne. Those who could afford it used it in huge quantities this way, while the peasants also used fragrant natural materials to drive away insects and for cleaning, and as antibacterial cleansers (though they didn't understand germ theory, people noticed that certain substances such as lavender assisted cleansing and healing and therefore were reliable beautifiers also, since health and cleanliness do so often equal beauty in many respects).

All this leads me to believe that French culture became perfume conscious and highly creative in the sense-genre of smell because of these very particular historical conditions. The culture has always encouraged the creative transformation of humble beginnings, such as fermentation into refined products like wine and cheese of great quality, and the people in France grew to respect the appreciation of sensual nuance, thereby turning necessities into pleasures.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, aka DSH, aka Parfum des Beaux Arts, shares my avid interest in fragrance history, particularly that of France in the 18th and early 19th century. I often wonder if people were really so different then. Probably they were, there are theories that even our emotions are often culturally influenced, but I believe that if a historically accurate formula for perfume is followed, that we will experience a close sensation to what people in the past experienced. A similar experience is listening to music played on historically accurate instruments. Dawn has studied the period, and created some interpretations, based on the materials, preferences and trends that are known to have been important in that time. As they are based on pre-industrial revolution formulas and ideas, they are of the natural, botanical type. They hold close to the body, and are subtle and ephemeral in duration, as all natural perfumes are.

I know that Napoleon used enormous amounts of eau de cologne as a substitute for water to bathe with while out on the military field, and Dawn has sent me her interpretation of this tangy clean stimulating scent, simply called L'eau. This must of been expressive of his Corsican Island past since this scent contained the classic Mediterranean aromatics of bergamot, lemon, lavander, neroli and rosemary.

His great love Josephine balanced and contrasted Napoleon's high energy with the sensuality of roses, which became a theme of her personal taste at her home, Malmaison. Her tropical island upbringing was known to have a great influence on her attachment for lushness in floral fragrance. She was one of the world's greatest patrons of roses, using much of her wealth from association with Napoleon in part to plant a specimen rose garden and commissioning portraits of her roses from Redoute. While Napoleon once famously requested she not bathe before meeting with him I am sure that did not preclude application of the transparent scents of the past which allow the individual scent of the body to come through. DSH Rose Imperiale comes on initially as a strong true botanical rose with a piquant carnation accent. It is a smooth clove-y scent that is allied to a clean skin musk, and quickly dries down to a soft tone that holds very close to the body, with an almost secretive quality to it. It would be sure to scent clothing worn on it, and objects of personal use. I imagine Josephine had diaphanous Empire shawls and neck ribbons and fans and writing paper that held her perfume.

I have received a set of DSH "Versailles" samples, which will be Part 2 next time. These scents are based on the preferences of the court of Louis XV and his favorites, M. de Pompadour and M. du Barry. There is also one called Cyprian, a wig powder scent, which I have been wanting to try ever since Dawn spoke of it. I wonder how it would be to spend the day with towering powdered hair....

The above portrait of Napoleon is a mutual favorite of DSH and mine, done when he was still a young uncorrupted-by-power genius, during the height of his romance with Josephine.
Painted by Gros in 1796, on display at the Louvre. He was probably emanating aromatic l'eau de cologne...

Roxana Illuminated Perfume: Rosa, Sierra

2009-05-24T17:31:00.009-04:00

Roxana's Illuminated Perfumes are the creation of a romantic soul, whose perfumes personify a philosophy of life rather than act simply as a fashion accessory. Seductive because the materials are so precious and connected to an ecstatic experience of nature, she also illustrates a sense of place with a California series of perfumes. These honor the particular local countryside beauty of California, where the dry heat of the Mediterranean climate puts forth extremely aromatic materials in abundance throughout the year. It may be just me but I get a sense of smoke and thick honey in the background, in the two from this series, Rosa and Sierra, that I have tried. There is a soft smoothness overall and the result is a very feminine interpretation of California. Rosa is inspired by the wild chaparral rose, and Sierra is about redwood conifers rising from their forest floor bed.

There is a strong sense of the very personal, in that all the perfumes are handmade in small batches in her studio, where she also practices illustration, in what I call a fairytale manner. By which I mean visual representations of a heightened sense of natural reality, using classical symbolism, as you find in the old illustrations of fairy tales. (If you enjoy this kind of thing as much as I do, see Sur La Lune which has a beautiful illustration gallery.) I know Roxana walks the trails and studies the plants and spends a lot of time conferring with others who are devoted to the landscape and ecology. There is a purity and exalted sense of purpose, mixed in with nature poetry and and an intimate sense of invitation to participate with her in appreciation of the great natural beauties she lives with. This strikes me as a very American, Thoreau-like love of simplicity and wanting to thoroughly delve into what the landscape has to offer.

Her site has transported me on occasion. I especially enjoyed her post about her visit to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens, and her research into the wildflowers there. There is a sense of childlike joyousness about these endeavors which comes through in the perfume compositions.

There is a certain deep quietness inherent to natural perfume. You must keep in mind what was well said by Mandy Aftel, at an event recently in NYC honoring her accomplishments in this area. Which is that natural perfumes are very ephemeral, much more so than other modern perfumes, and hold very close to the body, and are are also necessarily far more expensive, because of the materials and labor involved. They are not a mass market item. They are very personal, because of the handmade aspect of one person often making the whole perfume start to finish, from gathering and making the actual ingredients, to making the actual packaging. There is a dimensional, complex, spacious and lively quality to natural perfumes that are only present in other types of perfume to the extent that they incorporate real and natural materials also. It has been said that no one will ever be able to create a chemical which rivals the hundreds of different components that comprise a natural rose, or jasmine, or sandalwood, or any other plant material. From all the writing about perfumes recently, we have become sophisticated enough to know that man-made molecules have become the largest component of modern perfumes. They offer a definitely enhanced, bigger experience of the archetype of each material or thing they represent and then often combine these with other abstract indefinable aromas, expanding the repertoire exponentially. Perfumes composed strictly from natural materials seem to require much artfulness to keep the elements distinct and to create a composition that unfolds over time in a way that works aesthetically. I am not one who sees myself exclusively in one camp or the other, while keenly aware of a certain rivalry between natural perfume vs. those who use chemical components. I began my interest in perfume from the natural perspective but gradually became aware of the often amazing beauty of perfumes composed with man-made elements. At the same time I am so glad of the work Roxana and others are doing, making beautiful natural perfumes. They are essential in that they keep us connected to the real world through our sense of smell in a primal way, to the wild world.
Above illustrations from Roxana's site.
See Rosa Perfume on Etsy

Your Blog is F@*%^&# Fabulous! Award

2009-05-12T22:05:00.014-04:00

Ms. Trish of Scent Hive has been so kind as to include me in her Your Blog is F@*%^&# Fabulous! Award list -- so now it is my turn to pick five excessively diverting sites for awards, likewise:
I Smell Therefore I Am -
Brian and Abigail display a highly detailed sensuality as they depict their constant search for the next perfume kick;
Bittergrace - Graceful indeed, and piquant nature and art and olfactory lore;
Legerdenez - The yin and yang of sophisticated/down to earth perfumania/crossed with art smarts;
Asking Leah - A perfumista who makes connections and meaning and goes about her world cross referencing all that she surveys, especially anything to do with Manhattan;
Jade Dressler - Art and fashion with a sense of humor and connection to the modern and the past.

My Five Addictions (other than perfume):

1. Makeup -- I haunt the store aisles of both the high and low ends, because I love the colors and textures.
2. The New York Times online and Salon every morning -- I can't go out the door without visiting them both while having breakfast.

3. Story-telling podcasts such as The Moth, This American Life, WNYC Radio Lab (yes, you can tell I'm a media addict in general).

4. Quality dog time -- my own Dante is a highlight for me but also all the other wonderful dogs I get to see everyday living so close to a big city park.

5. Grapes -- I eat them almost every day and have for at least the past three years, that I recall, and enjoy them immensely every single time...

Here are the rules for those of you who just got this Your Blog is F@*%^&# Fabulous! Award:

1. You pass it (the award) on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.

2. You list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.

3. You copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post. (Below)

Instructions: On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. Also, don’t forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.

Above photos: Shu Uemura false eyelashes from his fantasy collection; and Dante, photo by me, Fabulous button from Flickr.

Magnolia Heaven

2009-05-05T22:04:00.010-04:00

Luckily I had a chance to bask, during that brief burst of true Spring-like weather about two weeks ago, in the blooming magnolias, which were in full force, and great effect. Looking up through magnolia flowers to a blue and white sky on a warm breezy day is the most enchanting and uplifting experience. This variable quality is what I like in a Springtime perfume, too. Freshness, airy spaciousness, crossed with moisture evaporated by warm sunlight through thick petals, supported by the structure of strong dark woods and earth. So Un Matin d'Orage by Annick Goutal is perfect for me this time of year. It appears to be one of those fragrances people either love or hate, and has produced strong reactions at both ends of the spectrum. I am firmly in the camp of love. The opening is fresh, green and bright with magnolia and jasmine notes mixed into a gardenia cloud, high pitched enough to revive a faint. Upheld by top notes of Sicilian lemon, minty shiso and ginger, which burn off and melt, after a few minutes, to slide down rapidly into a pool of softness much lower down the scale, into a smooth blend of champaca and sandalwood. This softens out into a mist that retains a tiny floral tang. The scent's changeable nature from high energy to thoughtful restfulness in a relatively short amount of time is reflective of springtime weather,
the coolness of a breeze passing over the warmth of the sun on skin. It aims to and succeeds in creating the impression of a scented mist rising up after a rain. The perfumer's aim was to give the effect of a Japanese garden after a storm, and it succeeds.

Photos by me, this past April, in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. There is a courtyard of many varieties of magnolias planted close together that are among the first to burst into bloom in early Spring, that are worth a pilgrimage every year.

Self Soothing

2009-04-26T18:38:00.006-04:00

Spring got here, went into retreat, then came back as full summer. This warmth feels good for a bad cold I've been dealing with, especially now I have completely lost my voice. Decongestants dry out the throat and lead to laryngitis, and dry everything else out as well, including the skin. In this state I have not been able to really appreciate much in the way of perfume though it still gets through to me; I simply have no desire for it at the moment. I am probably missing a lot of subtle components also, as with food. When this happens, as it happens to us all from time to time, the only thing to do is as much self care as possible. Tea made of fresh ginger with honey tastes a lot like brandy and for me quiets the cough reflex more reliably than Robitussin, and also helps with the attendant sinus headache. Tiny bits of eucalyptus oil mixed into the palms with a lotion and rubbed into the arms and chest sends therapeutic fumes to the face.

The dry skin is another factor, and I am very lucky that my kind friend Leah gave me a a new product -- Argan oil. It is very light, clear, and goes on more like a serum than and oil, and sinks into the skin almost immediately. It is also used on the hair and body. Made from the nut of the Argan tree, which grows only in Morocco, the nuts are gathered and the oil is extracted by the local women who are now beginning to materially benefit by setting up as cooperatives. Earning their own money brings them social and financial independence, a rare and precious benefit for them.

Argan is exceptionally rich in natural vitamin E and fatty acids, reduces inflammation and is anti-bacterial. It seems to bring out the latent rose in the cheeks so I am not surprised that it is known for reviving the look of dull, dry skin. At the same time it works well for oily skin because it is cleansing and balances the moisture levels, and so ideal for combination skin on the face.

It is pure enough to eat and is used as a food oil in a similar manner to olive oil. Better known in Europe than in the U.S. so far, we now have Kahina "Giving Beauty", a company that has entered into fair trade practices with the Moroccan women's cooperatives, and they have also created a larger product line that uses Argan as a primary ingredient. Their products have no parabens, synthetics, or petroleum products, and they have been careful to exclude other culprits that might give you pause as you apply a product to your face. Their packaging is thoughtful and renewable and they give back 25% of profits to women's programs in the Moroccan region that produces the Argan. I hope they do well, because they are doing good and have made a beneficial beauty product you can feel good about using.

Above photo of ladies in the dry desert winds, from the Kahina web site.

Interesting Perfume Conversations

2009-04-06T07:51:00.005-04:00

After going everywhere to try every kind of perfume, everyone gathering at the finale of the Spring Sniffapalooza perfume safari's last stop at Aedes de Venustas has experienced so many enthusiasms and scents over the past two days, that they are still standing only by sheer force of will or the strength of an innately iron constitution. They have become willing to share their uncensored impressions. I learn more about perfume then than at any other time. My fellow enthusiasts have always been my best teachers. People are tired and foggy, in a good mood, and basking in the afterglow of numerous satisfying fragrance experiences. They let down any guard they may have left, and I have the most truthful conversations with attendees who appear like oracles informing me of the most intimate feelings about perfume. This is when I come to see perfume as a prime vector for a soul satisfying mind/body connection.

Ida Meister/Chayaruchama, an eloquent missionary on the subject of perfume, has generously made a point of introducing me to a serene yoga/science guy (who leads a double life as an Iyengar yoga instructor and a research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health). Jarvis Chen combines meditative calm with interest in beautiful materiality. We spoke about modern tensions between the Eastern monastic teachings on the practice of austerities and an active searching for transcendent experiences of beauty through the sense of smell and the refined compositions of perfume. It is possible to become too attached to the discipline of minimalism as you can to the appreciation of complicated sensual beauty. In balance they can each inform and support the other so neither is overwhelmed or mutually exclusive.

Christopher Voigt of Vetivresse remarked on the difference of cultural standards of perfume beauty as a factor in appreciation. (For an example, Raphaella Brescia, the editor of Sniffapalooza online magazine enthusiastically points to the 5 star you-will-cry Amouage Homage to Attar kept under a bell jar). Can you even smell it? How do you cultivate the ability to appreciate the subtle and elusive beauty of something so outside your own cultural standards? Exposure and experience, maintaining an open mind, research and the feeding of curiosity. On the other hand, you have Amouage Ubar, very easy to like, all beauty, no edge. I smelled it on someone who had to have it because it worked so well on her skin that it gained dimension from her own physical presence, and vice-versa.

Then I got to talk to Dawn Spencer Hurwitz. She is a perfumer who has collected vintage perfumes and flacons for years and plans to open a museum for them. She has the ability to recreate a one-off copy of vintage formulations for personal use. That will be one way you can have the opportunity to know the originals of Mitsouko or Coty Chypre or the classic version of Chanel No. 5, that will soon disappear from availability at any price. We discovered our mutual interest in the Internet subculture specializing in female life of the 18th century, such as Marie Antoinette's Gossip Guide (and the English version by Lady Georgianna). They are a forum for art historians and writers to enjoy the feminine side of the history of that time period, and not incidentally the great importance placed on self presentation and the significance and elegance of personal gestures such as scents. DSH has delved into antique recipes for perfume used in the hair powder of the 18th Century. I would love to try that and many of her others, especially those inspired by our commonly held interest in Napoleon and Josephine.

Karen Adams, one of the two Karens who organize all this rich parade, drew me to Les Parfums de Rosine to try the new Rose Praline, an amber rose of high definition, and also the yellow summer rose of Rose d'Ete which I loved also for its bright warm air of softness and spacious dry sweetness. She knows from prior experience (Creed Fleur de The Rose Bulgare 1890) that I am helpless before a very accurate rose perfume. What I don't quite understand is the prejudice against roses these days. True, they are not the personification of modernity, but they are so smooth and beautiful, and an essential ingredient of so many of the fashionable aoud compositions, they are not to be dismissed so easily. It's like trying to live without the color red. The Rosines do personify that modern taste for transparent but defined spacial layers in a composition, unified and grounded by the basic primal beauty of different varieties of roses. If I could afford it I would have taken both the Praline and the d'Ete. But then I have the Creed Fleur de The Rose Bulgare back-listed also.

It's remarkable how while most perfume enthusiasts I know are not people of especially great means, they will still find ways to get their hands on at least one or two fine perfumes a couple of times a year. This year will see I am sure a great cutting back, but there are many who economize elsewhere in order to indulge in this way. I am interested in finding out more about these stratagems and will post on this topic again.

Above, Dante and Beatrice Ascend to the Heaven of the Sun by di Paolo, British Museum -- Looks like they are having an interesting conversation on the wonders of the natural and spiritual worlds.

Do follow my links, they will lead you into many enjoyable diversions...

As a no doubt necessary disclaimer, please consider these recounts of conversations as strictly memories and thoughts of my own, rather than an exact recall of what any of the above persons may have said verbatim. This is more about what I heard that day...

D.I.Y. - Do It Yourself

2009-03-17T06:54:00.007-04:00

Do-It-Yourself is one of my favorite concepts. What it means to me is that when you want something in particular and you don't have it or can't get it, you take the option of making it for yourself. Many new artisan-perfumers are of this frame of mind, and have made perfumes which they imagined and wanted for themselves and others but which did not yet exist. Through experimentation, inspired by self knowledge and also paying attention to everyday ordinary life going on, a number have hand-made very distinctive versions of scent ideas ranging from the sweetness of violets and moss hidden in ferns growing in loamy earth, to strong tea with thinly sliced lemon, to black coffee with chocolate and unfiltered cigarettes, to metallic objects with sharp edges and corners and silver coins wrapped up in bruised flower petals, to all the other possibilities scent accords will allow.

I am thinking of Liz Zorn (Oolong, Sanctuary, Writing Lyrical Poetry) , Neil Morris (Dark Earth, Cafe and Spectral Violet) , Ava Luxe (Midnight Violet, Madame X), and many others. Playing around with the raw materials just as in any other materially based art like sculpture or painting can lead the direction. Sometimes thinking of the powerful plain poetry of single words (which are themselves huge concepts) such as tree, sun, leaf, rice, milk, grass, rain, tar, flame, stone, can act like a tiny bomb setting off a cascade of olfactory associations which are then combined and distilled. There is more than one road that may lead to the development and capture an accord that may viscerally demonstrate the essence of a meaningful encounter. These bursts of perfume creativity are coming from so many directions these days. It can make you feel like there's not time enough or skin, though still eager to try them all.

There must be some connection between this burst of creativity in perfume and the revival of other creative forms of embellishment of daily life, such as the new craft movement and so many people now making jewelry, wine, bread, or hand-restoring old gardens and houses, or making new ones from parts of old ones. Even the expansion of the pod-casting and blogging phenomenon documenting the experience of so many individuals brings something very singular to the public, not available otherwise. Just as now you can try to build and share your own life in a way that is comparable to an artistic creation, these new expressions in individual perfume making are shareable and accessible because of the ability to offer them directly to the public through the reach of the internet.

Herb Trek.com has clear directions for making your own tinctures and extracts from fresh herbal materials, which is one way to get started with the Do It Yourself scent making. Etsy is turning out to be a great way to get them out to the public, if you so desire.

Above photo of Liz Zorn's Tobacco and Tulle from Nathan Branch's site, where you may find a detailed review of same. It sounds delicious, and what a great inspiration -- tobacco and gauzey silk....