Aftelier

The Very Best of 2013 – Worn and Adorned

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–  Being the True Confessions of an Alembicated Genie

Oh, to be a perfume writer, you readers might think and sigh with envy, to sit at your leisure and wax poetic on the wafting wonders of the world. Imagine such a thing – to be able to translate concepts and PR releases, to read eaux and extraits as well and as easily as any bestselling novel.

Well, I hate to burst any soapy aldehyde-scented bubbles here, but the simple fact is… being a perfume writer/blogger is about on a par with being a writer of erotica – both are equally hard to do and for very nearly the same reasons. You are trying to translate the untranslatable into prose.

As a perfume writer, you are trying to capture the Muse as she flies from your skin to your nasal receptors and on to your pathetically limited (and verbally challenged) brain, trying to find a metaphor you haven’t already flogged to death five reviews ago.

When I left for Pitti Fragranze, I thought I would fly home on wings of incandescent inspirational sillage, fired up on all my jets with all the Things I Sniffed At Last and all the stories I would tell my readers. Wow, was I surprised when I came home and the very idea of wearing any perfume at all made me turn green, and as for writing about it… fuggeddaboutit! I had no other choice but to simply live out a few weeks scent-free to recalibrate my nose and my mind.

Sometimes, by Golly, you just want to enjoy a perfume without any attempts at analysis, storyline or opinion and for no other reason than it smells good to you. It enhances your mood, it floats your boat, it turns you on to other headspaces and mind places. What follows below is a collection of perfumes and adornments that did just that. Many have yet to be reviewed and to be honest only some of them will be, not for lack of will or interest, but simply because it’s just been that kind of year and this one could be worse…

Perfectly Simple and Simply Perfect

Serge Lutens – Encens et Lavande (Serge Lutens/Christopher Sheldrake)

The word ‘linear’ in perfumese is often used in a derogatory way, meaning a scent that doesn’t develop much from the initial spray all the way to the far drydown. But any artist will tell you that  ‘linear’ or ‘perfectly simple’ can be hardest of all to pull off successfully, and ‘simple’ nowhere implies a lack of complexity, meaning or context. When life ground me to a fine powder, when I was about ready to call it a day and a half, Serge Lutens’ haunting interpretation of incense – a thick, delicious fog of it – wrapped around a searing purple heart of lavender always, always made me breathe deeper and easier. It is exactly what it says on the bottle – incense and lavender. No more and no less and that’s already more than I deserve.

April Aromatics – Rose L’Orange (Tanja Bochnig)

April Aromatics’ owner and perfumer Tanja Bochnig took a very bright idea and made it even brighter and better than the sum of its parts. I love rose. I love orange blossom. Put the two together as effortlessly and as artlessly as Tanja did, and this is sunshine, love and laughter in a bottle, the happy, uninhibited belly laugh of a very happy baby, the thrilled giggle of the girl I never outgrew (and never will). It has made me smile more than I can tell this past year and still does today.

The Thinking Woman’s Incense

L’Artisan Parfumeur – Dzongkha (Bertrand Duchaufour)

A very dear friend gifted me a bottle of Dzongkha for my birthday last year – a great whopping 100 ml of it no less – and not exactly being short on perfume, I had the inspired idea to use it as a decadent (decidedly non-Buddhist) room spray, simply for the way it made me slow down and think. Dzongkha was sprayed onto the Tibetan prayer flag, the carpet, the bedding, the lightbulbs, and in an instant, I could just be… and think, contemplate and ponder without dashing madly around the racetracks in my mind. A wanton, wild extravagance, you might think, but oh, so worth it!

Liquid Courage

Neela Vermeire Creations – Trayee (Neela Vermeire/Bertrand Duchaufour)

In my younger days, whenever I needed a little fragrant fortification, I wore chypres to add a little titanium to my backbone. Unless I just gave in and poured Chanel no. 19 all over myself. Not any longer, since I came to discover that Trayee – a transcendent wonder of sandalwood, incense, oud, spice, bhang and fire is all I need to straighten my spine, face the world and take it on.

The Sweetest of Sins

Guerlain – Shalemur (Shalimar Ode à la Vanille Sur La Route de Madagascar/Thierry Wasser)

This is arguably the world’s sexiest lemur. Or the most utterly debauched yet fluffiest of vanilla/iris/lemon/tonka bean cupcakes, I’m not sure which. Whatever else it is, Shalemur has adorned my person quite often this past fall, because all sins should smell as sweet or should that be – all sweets should waft such sins? Sometimes, girls just want to get in trouble…

And speaking of trouble…

From the Swipe ‘Em Sideways Department

I have a separate section in my cabinet for Scents of Seduction. These are the ones that have definite ulterior motives, and they succeeded quite a bit more than I ever expected this past year.

Amouage – Jubilation 25 (Lucas Sieuzac)

My scent twin sent me a sample of Jubilation 25 (now known as Jubilation Woman) some (long) time ago with the ominous words: “If this isn’t you, then I’m a …” (Never, Suzanne!) It was an Amouage, so I set it aside for fear of the consequences, only to rediscover it this past summer and be blown to smithereens by its fruity-chypre glories. I wore it on a day when I sorely needed to feel as fabulous as possible, and succeeded beyond all imagining when a dashing rock-star poet commented on it. I can’t repeat what he said, but let’s just say there were… consequences. Always the best kind!

vero profumo – Rubj extrait (Vero Kern)

Another very dear friend gifted me with a treasure, this a small bottle of Rubj extrait, and somewhere in a peerless paradise, the white floral angels sang as down below a different kind of devil danced a tune or two of hot summer nights on velvet moonlit lawns. That devil was Rubj. I wear her – not wisely, but I suspect that’s the whole idea. I’m certain Vero Kern would approve.

And speaking of seduction…

Wafting Down The Rabbit Hole

The Devilscents

I’m not sure what to tell people when I say I rewrote an entire novel in just over a month. They give me strange looks and step slightly sideways as if they expect me to breathe fire and speak in tongues any second. What I can say is without a certain arsenal of perfumes, I rather doubt I could have. Just as I write everything to a set playlist, when I fell down the rabbit hole of my own story and its strange and eerie places as writers are wont to do, I needed all the help I could get to stay there, and what better help than the perfumes my story inspired? The ouroboros of inspiration goes around and around… I wrote a story, created the Devilscent Project, perfumes were made, sent and reviewed, and when the time came to knock a sorry mess into something fit for publication, I donned Olympic Orchids’ Lil, Dev #2 & 4, Neil Morris’ Dev #3 & Lilith, and House of Cherry Bomb’s Dev and Lil during the course of that month and waded into the verbal fray, metaphorical sword in hand. I’m proud to say I did it, proud to state it is now the book I wanted to write (but was unable to at the time, for which I thank the readers of TAG – you’ve taught me so much!), and ecstatic to know that the perfumes and the dear perfumers who rose so beautifully to that infernal occasion made the book that much better! True story. Ask Dev.

Done In By Splendor

It inevitably happens I have what I call Wayne’s World moments – moments I want to kowtow to the floor in front of the perfumer and yell at the top of my lungs: ‘I’m not worthy!’ Many friends have unwittingly sent me a few of these, and others – one I call Evil Incarnate, and I’m not entirely joking – sent these marvels knowing full well I’d freak. These count among my biggest freak-out instances.

Amouage – Epic Woman Extrait (Christopher Chong/Daniel Maurel)

Ah, Epic… how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Twelve sprays on a freezing cold night nearly asphyxiated a rock star (plus everyone else in Scandinavia and most of Northern Europe that night) but did I care? No, and he hugged me goodbye anyway. If I thought the eau de parfum was perdition, I wasn’t at all prepared for the extrait. Swoon.

Krigler – Topaze Imperiale 13

The marvelous thing about Krigler’s Topaze Imperiale 13  – a flawless amber – is that it seems by some strange sleight-of-hand to be constructed upside down, beginning with a decadent sandalwood/patchouli/labdanum and then glowing in the dark with rose, oud, vanilla and orange blossom. In other words, it’s many things I love wrapped up in something that smells like a few handy million after taxes and expenses. I really don’t understand why it doesn’t get more love because by Golly, I’d love it to death and beyond.

Oriza L. Legrand – Chypre Mousse

Once a year these past two years, a perfume will alight out of the blue aether into a world that I suspect is not entirely prepared for it. Last year, MDCI’s Chypre Palatin blew all our socks off, and shortly before New Year’s, this apparition really blew my mind. You see, I cut my perfume teeth on chypres, and I never apply the term lightly – chypres oblige. As Chypre Mousse did by being improbably lush, velvety plush, loaded with thickly applied, musty oakmoss to the max (or whatever accords were used to approximate it) and a definite vintage heritage that ensures there is nothing at all like it, and nothing at all you can compare it to. I know my chypres. Trust me on this one.

Best Comeback Moment

Aftelier  – Cuir de Gardenia (Mandy Aftel)

Dear darling Mandy, you have been very much missed. Rumor has it there is a book underway (I don’t know if it’s true, but wouldn’t that be grand?), but then, you gifted the world with this outrageously sensual out-of-body bombshell of a perfume, and my poor heart has fluttered ever since. I will have much more to say about it, but for now, I can certainly say this much: I’m not worthy!

Score for The Memories

A great tip, a finished manuscript and money in my PayPal account is a dangerous combination. Especially when it involves two of my all-time favorite perfumes in a perfectly preserved vintage incarnation. With a few exceptions, I tend to stay away from vintage perfumes, unless I really, truly, absolutely adored them to death back in the day. For no better reason than this – not only do I live in the niche-free Empty Quarter of Northern Europe, it’s also vintage free, at least where I live. Surely kismet played its fragrant hand on the day I encountered two absolute (vintage) loves. And bought them.

Grès – Cabochard (Bernard Chant)

My mother had a thing for pulpy 70s paperbacks, which was how I first learned about Cabochard in an Irving Stone novel called ‘The Fan Club’ at an impressionable age. Not that many years later, I came across Cabochard in a Copenhagen department store, remembered the book, and bought it. It took me a while to come around to this sexy, slinky leathery green chypre, but come around I did – I was never without a bottle of it again for almost twenty years. When it was gone, I missed it sorely– for the memories, for its slinky-sexy Kim Novak-in-Vertigo vibe, for everything I felt I was when I wore it. So the day I found a vintage version, I bought it pronto and found it to be everything I remembered and loved. In other words, perfect for all the Hitchcock moments I anticipate.

Dior – Dioressence (Guy Robert)

My first Dior was the original Miss Dior, but no Dior quite grabbed me as the louche, bohemian and more than a little risqué Dioressence. Part green, part dirty, part dark and all feline, it wafted behind a short, busty punk in a blue Mohawk through several years of thrills and spills and can now work its green, feline magic on a short, busty blonde all over again. One can never be too louche past a certain age…

The Devil In The Details

I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity. (Diana Vreeland)

Sequestered behind my screen, I can pretend all I like I am everything I ever was, but as events no doubt will prove in the year to come, I can’t hide there any longer. This past year, the Genie ventured into beauty products, and although my main focus here will always be perfume, beauty is as beauty does and leopard print pjs will never do for public appearances. I was never more grateful for upgrading my image than when two spectacularly talented perfumers also ventured into skin and haircare…

 aroma M Camellia Oils

Perfumer Maria McElroy of aroma M ventured into haircare and skincare this past year with her Camellia oils (for hair, for the face and a delicious bath and body oil). I have this to say about them all – they are heavenly fragrant, highly effective and utter bliss to use. I’ll take ten of each to go, please.

Aftelier Ancient Resins Body Oil & Jasmine Facial Oil

With Aftelier, you know it will be good. Actually, it will be so good, you’ll be doomed – or spoiled for life – to revel in these wonders and know your face, your skin, your nose and your very soul will thank you for them forever.

Underrated Gratitude

Everything, so claimed James Burke once upon a time, is connected. Nowhere was this truer than when I encountered an issue  – vanity or narcissism, take your pick – and asked one of my Beauty Swamis about concealer. If I have a day I look better than usual, I can thank Gaia the Non Blonde, because she has never steered me wrong, starting with…

Ellis Faas – Concealer & Hot Lips

There are few things cooler than finding a perfect product that does exactly what it says it will, performs impeccably, and makes you feel well, perfect. Thanks to the Non Blonde, I bought a concealer to start, followed by two shades of Hot Lips – a lip stain of a different kind – and wow, what a difference! I’ll never need an excuse not to act my shoe size ever again.

Nars – Pressed Light Reflecting Setting Powder

It was a Nightmare Scenario. My first professional photo shoot at a time in my life I looked (and felt) about thirty years older than my already advanced age. I was mid-deadline (and nearly dead on my feet) and terrified I’d look like microwaved death soup on my dust jacket. A bit of research and a long Skype conversation with my awesome publisher (who knows these things matter!) landed this indispensible item in my mailbox the day before the shoot. It impressed the makeup artist and the photographer impressed me (and quite a few other people) no end with the results.

Dear Non Blonde. Thank you. Signed, a Blonde.

And as I look through my notes for these Best Of posts, somewhere in the borderlands between beauty and vanity, between fragrance and fragrant, connections and people, I think that in my own evolution as a perfume writer, as a writer and perhaps most of all as a woman these past three-plus years, maybe this is the greatest of all year-end wrap-ups and the greatest of all gifts – to know that somewhere out there on the other side of your screen, is a frothing, seething lot of truly inspiring people who believe as you do in the importance of capturing beauty – or the Muse – as she flies. And above all else,  in passing its wisdom on.

Here’s to the thrills and spills that lie ahead in 2014!

With profound thanks to Ida, Lucy, Ruth, Gaia, Tami, Tamsin, Claudia, Maria, Ellen, Neil, Alexis, Mandy and all those friends I feel so blessed to have in my life. 

The Adventures of Ms. Hare and Madame Hyde

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 – help to look as good as you waft!

As a blogger myself, I also read a lot of blogs. I don’t always comment as much as I know I should, but by golly, I read them. Of all those many blogs I read, not all of which are perfume-related, I have nothing at all but bottomless admiration for those intrepid ladies who (also) blog about the perilous business of beauty. My idols are not those countless twenty-somethings who wax poetic over the anti-aging benefits of Korean snail extract BB creams (I can’t take them seriously), but ladies like myself ‘d’un certain age’ who haven’t given up and packed it in. Who try stuff so I don’t have to as one of them succinctly states, who go where I can’t, test what I can’t afford or am able to obtain and always keep their sense of perspective in order, as well as their sense of humor.

Therefore, before I incriminate myself any further, may I say it: Jane, Gaia, Jen and CharlestonGirl – ladies, I bow down before your utter, jawdropping awesomeness and dedication. You have never led me astray. And although this isn’t strictly speaking a perfume post, I’m no competition. Nevertheless – your stellar advice has changed my life in more ways than you know.

Yet, after a winter that has seemed to drag endlessly on and a milestone birthday ahead I dearly wish I could hibernate through if not bypass altogether, even impoverished perfume bloggers in the BFE sticks (that would be me) can sometimes get lucky and try things that neither cost the sun, the moon or all the stars but also deliver good on their promise without ever promising more than they deliver!

To that end, I recruited some help from my intrepid former roommate and present downstairs neighbor for an alternate perspective on some beauteous goodies I was dying to try. We can call her Ms. Hare. She’s 32, a definite Leo, and thanks to knowing yours truly, a reformed and dedicated lover of all things niche, including the contents of my perfume cabinet. Ms. Hare has a thick, wavy bush of dark brown hair – apart from the color the kind of hair I once had before age, offspring and years of coloring abuse caught up with it. She has taught me the proper use of a hair dryer. (And much else besides). She is therefore uniquely qualified as a test bunny for one particular product I shall get back to in a bit.

Meanwhile, there’s yours truly. I stubbornly refuse to make Botox or cosmetic surgery part of my future, but south does seem to be the general direction in which I’m heading, in spite of all I do, massive amounts of daily sunscreen for over twenty years and a year-round perma-pallor. And something has to be done. I’m not dead yet. Neither, much as it pains me to say, is my vanity. Which received a bit of a dent last year when a dermatologist diagnosed me with atopic dermatitis and put a serious cramp in my style.

What to do, what to do…

The Miracle Workers

Skye Botanicals African Gold Shea Butter

Shea butter has long been the ingredient du jour in the battle against dry skin, psoriasis and other epidermal ills. I had never encountered the Real, Undiluted Deal until Monica Miller of Skye Botanicals/Perfume Pharmer was sweet enough to send me a jar of Skye Botanicals ‘African Gold Unrefined Shea Butter’ when I complained about my horrible traitorous dry skin. This is – let me say it – marvelous, magnificent stuff. Bright yellow and with the consistency of a salve, I’ve used it on my face, the frayed ends of my hair, on scaly elbows, knees and heels, dry hands and everywhere else I could think of, which is basically – everywhere else. I haven’t woken up with the face of a twenty-five year old, but that’s OK, too. A little goes a long way, my skin and I have been on very civil speaking terms since and I never want to be without it again. As if those wonders weren’t enough, it won’t break out your skin or even the bank. Run, don’t walk, straight to Skye Botanicals and buy it. Your skin will thank you by looking the best it ever has, considering that compass is headed south…

Also from Skye Botanicals is the gentle Rose Facial Toner, which has not only convinced me to use toner after cleansing (this is called progress, darlings), but is also great for setting my makeup. Plus, it smells deliciously of wild roses. What’s not to love?

No Snake Oil In Sight

Aroma M Camellia Facial Oil

Skincare oils are suddenly everywhere, even here in the BFE boonies. Had you told me even six months ago I’d be a convert too, I wouldn’t have believed you. Aroma M’s incredible Camellia Face oil – concocted from camellia, carrot seed, golden jojoba, apricot kernel, evening primrose, virgin argan, jasmine, geranium, frankincense and neroli oils – was inspired by Maria McElroy’s expertise with both Western aromatherapy and Japanese Gion Geisha beauty rituals and not only combines the best of both worlds, but also does wonders to rehydrate and nourish the skin, even mine. I love nothing better than to eat my own words on facial oils. My skin adored it. I adored it. I woke up in the mornings without wanting a steam iron for my face. Although I still haven’t woken up with the face of a twenty-five-year-old, I certainly feel far more fabulous than I ever did! Which is also the perfect description of the scent – fabulous.

Aftelier Jasmine Face Elixir

Jasmine oil, so says my aromatherapy research, has anti-aging properties, works to calm the nervous system and relaxes. Mandy Aftel has combined the organic oils of grapeseed, sweet almond, rice bran, squalene, camellia and rose hip to concoct a heavenly, jasmine-scented blend. I’ve used it at night both over and under my night cream, and this has really put the capital G in my g-l-o-w. If that’s not a recipe for sweet dreams, I don’t know what is.

Aftelier Lavender Fresh Ginger Body Oil & Hair Elixir

Since I was brainwashed in childhood with Yardley’s English Lavender soap, I’ve had a soft spot for lavender in perfumes and body care products. I was a bit disconcerted to discover that this dark green gem has since been discontinued, but in the “I can’t believe it’s good for my skin” department, Lavender Fresh Ginger Body Oil checks all the boxes. It’s a favorite color. It smells utterly divine, with both the calming green, herbal and floral scent of lavender and the kicky, spicy fire of fresh ginger. It smoothes my crocodile hide to sensuously silken softness. It has also gone on the frayed ends of my hair with great results, so long as I remember a little goes a long way. All that’s missing is someone to appreciate it, but at least Hairy Krishna has been known to snuggle a little closer and purr a little louder when I wear this to bed. It  comes in several other varieties that are not one whit less delicious – for your skin and your senses.

Aftelier Ancient Resins Body Oil and Hair Elixir.

Originally custom-made for the legendary Leonard Cohen, this is the classiest skin-solicitous celebuscent ever – an oil with all the same benefits for your hair and skin as the Lavender and Fresh Ginger. It smells impossibly luxe, dense and incredibly deep – the olfactory equivalent of Mr. Cohen’s plush, silk-velvet baritone, and I have a thing for those…With frankincense, poplar buds, benzoin, elemi and labdanum. I’ll happily take Manhattan – right after I take this along with it. Or any guy who wears it. They have been warned.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Aroma M Camellia Hair Oil

No kidding, there we were, my friend and I – one bushy-haired brunette Amazon Leo, one pint-sized Doña Quixota Taurus with rather fine, limp, slightly wavy hair color-treated nearly every shade of the rainbow since the early Palaeolithic. These days, however, I stick in the general neighborhood of my own shade if slightly lighter, what with lighter being younger, or so they tell me. Basically, we both have fried hair, although I’ve had a haircut two months ago, so my hair is in better shape and with far fewer split ends.

To put it another way – we were both of us in dire need of some hair therapy, but in a manner of speaking from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Aroma M’s Camellia Hair Oil was created according to the very best and most effective traditions of hair care known to geisha – and Japanese women in general. They take protecting their skin and hair from the elements very seriously, and camellia oil has been used for centuries as a hairdressing aid, protecting and purifying the hair and scalp. It contains camellia oil, virgin argan and golden jojoba oils, and the essential oils of rosemary and Moroccan tuberose.

First impressions first – this is without question the most heavenly scented dedicated hair oil I’ve ever used, and I say this as a diehard tuberose lover and sometime user of Moroccan argan oil.

Ms. Hare and I used it in three ways over a period of three weeks. As an overnight hair mask, as protection before blowdrying, and as a pick-me-up on the ends before the onslaught of hair clips and elastic.

She noted her hair was in noticeably better shape than before. It was smoother, much less inclined to frizz in high humidity and far easier to manage. She did say – despite my warnings that a little went a long way – it seemed to weigh her hair down more than other oils, but she couldn’t argue with the results. Not so that ever stopped her. You can’t argue with a Leo!

Next, yours truly, wimpy-haired blonde. Whether wishful thinking, that sublime tuberose scent or just using a little less oil, since I began using aroma M’s Camellia Hair Oil, I’m no longer tempted by the idea of a really drastic haircut. My hair is definitely smoother, softer, more manageable and certainly glossier, and given I’m blonde, that’s not to be sneezed at. I’ve styled it, curled it, braided fishtails, blowdried it and French braided it, all with no ill effects. The bottom line –  I feel a bit like the girl in a cheesy 80s shampoo ad. Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. I’ll tell you my secret. It’s not my hair, it’s my hair oil.

You can keep a secret, right?

Everyone knows it – whatever can protect a delicate camellia flower – or a likewise delicate flower-like complexion – from the frost, snow and ill effects of a winter that seems never to end can’t possibly be bad!

Disclosure: Samples were provided for review by Skye Botanicals, aroma M and Aftelier. For which I thank them most sincerely!

Skye Botanicals products are available from the website and Perfume Pharmer’s Etsy store. Aroma M Camellia Hair and Face Oils are available from aroma M’s website and select retail outlets. Aftelier Face Elixirs and Body Oil and Hair Elixirs are available from the Aftelier website. With thanks to the intrepid Ms. Hare. And the very inspirational CharlestonGirl, the Non Blonde, Jane and Jen.

Photo: Dabney Rose. Used by permission.

Dreaming A Rose

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 – a review of Aftelier Perfumes’ ‘Wild Roses’ 

A rose by any other name, Shakespeare once wrote, would smell just as sweet. And yet…considering that in not a few ways, this year of 2012 was a major Year of the Rose, I marvel at just how many ways those names of a rose can be interpreted, just how many new songs can be sung of this timeless bloom, a symbol of Aphrodite and a universal symbol of love and beauty. How many tall tales and fragrant secrets can be concealed or discovered within the velvet petal folds…of rose?

Quite a few as it happens, all of them different, many of them marvelous, and none more so than the little vial glowing amber on my desk with such a prosaic name holding such decadent, delicious, joyous tales… of rose. For this rose perfume is no mere ‘rose’, no romantic trope or fragrant cliché, this rose is all aglow and very new, this rose in a year that knew so many roses is…an Aftelier, and Mandy Aftel knows well the many secrets of very many roses.

One of the things I love most about Mandy’s perfumes is just how truly unique each and every one of them are, how they are all created to a very different and definitely audacious heartbeat. Every time, I’m delighted to say they are like nothing at all else and so far removed from any fads or trends, they exist in some alternate fragrant multiverse altogether, where everything you think you know is turned upside down and invented anew. Nothing – not the list of notes, which are precisely what you’re getting, not the so-called family, not even the simple word ‘perfume’ seems to do them quite enough justice, certainly not in this case when confronted with a perfume called no more and no less than …Wild Roses.

Do you think you might have some idea of this rose, is there an inkling of an association twirling its fragrant ghosts through your mind as you think of those two prosaic words wild and roses? I mean, really, what else can you possibly say about roses, be they ever so wild?

I’ll tell you.

I tested the extrait, and Wild Roses opens heady and dense, with an unusual dusky note of heliotrope mingling with the piercing bright green of bergamot and geraniol. Shining through it all with a sunbeam all its own is a sweet, decadent rose, the kind of rose you would sometimes wish other roses might be, the rose other roses might aspire to if they’re very, very lucky. You know you are since this rose sings on you, and as it breathes and blooms, it grows and it glows in all its luscious hues, the apricot adding its own sweet sunlit golden chorus to this aria of rose, the pimento berry centering both the apricot and that peerless rose with its earthy, fiery baritone, smoothing a path through these prolific roses, roses everywhere, down to that sudden fragrant epiphany of an anisic tarragon at twilight in tandem with vanilla, patchouli and indole as these roses dance their last on your skin. Have no fear of indole here, it’s been thoroughly tamed and held in check by the patchouli, vanilla and tarragon, and that too is a surprise, of how seamlessly the tarragon folds itself into both the heart and the base and how the indole opens up the heart of this fully blooming, ripe rose.

What can I say to tell this tale of wild and of roses, how can I convey with my words what a joy this perfume is, how audacious, how delicious is – this dream of roses? Mandy Aftel wrote in her press release that this rose perfume was inspired by a walk through a garden of blooming roses, with the scent of sunshine and warm earth, the many dizzying aspects and perfumes of many different roses, that perfect exhalation of a perfect, joyous moment, when body, soul, and heart all come together bound by sun-kissed, piercingly beautiful roses, and there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no worries and fewer cares, only this now and this place and your beating, happy heart, woven of a velvet-hued vision that dreamed such roses – as Aftelier’s Wild Roses, and yet again, rose was dreamed – and created – anew.

 

Aftelier ‘Wild Roses’ is available in extrait and eau de parfum directly from the Aftelier website.

Notes: Top: Rose CO2, heliotropin, bergamot, geraniol, m-methyl anthranilate, damascenone

Heart: Apricot, Turkish rose absolute, pimento berry, p-ethyl alcohol, rose petals attar

Base: Tarragon absolute, vanilla absolute, indole, aged patchouli.

Painting: Chiu Ming Chiang, ‘Wild Rose’, via Abby Daily

Disclosure: A sample of Wild Roses extrait was provided for review by Mandy Aftel.

The Hidden Art

– Is it… the art of perfume or perfume as art?

Whiling away a dismal Sunday November afternoon can be a most perilous undertaking. For one thing, I have been known to wade my way through all the internecine happenings on blogs, magazines and online newspapers I might have missed out on during the week. For another, this sudden surfeit of information overload has been known to cause something much, much more dangerous to my mind.

It makes me think. Watch out, world!

No kidding, there I was in my usual Sunday demeanor of microwaveable death-warmed-over beneath several layers of ratty wool and a cozy cloud of a favorite perfume, when my Facebook newsfeed alerted me to an item that somehow had managed to pass me by.

Chandler Burr, perfume writer and author of ‘The Perfect Scent’ as well as curator of Olfactory Art at New York’s Museum of Art and Design, has created an exhibition called The Art of Scent, the first major exhibition to highlight perfume as an artistic medium of expression in its own right, and to focus on how perfumes have evolved since the 1889 ground-breaking game changer that was the addition of synthetic coumarin in Houbigant’s Fougère Royale and Guerlain’s Jicky, the latter included in the exhibition itself.

You will find no iconic bottles, no advertising, nothing to distract you from the experience of the perfume itself, inhaled through specially designed snifters created expressly for this exhibition. In other words, not unlike Burr’s recent OpenSky experiment, where decants could be bought in plain bottles of the scents he chose to include, devoid of all marketing mystique.

But is it art? How can it be in an age that provides so many opportunities for redefining sensory artistic expression that relatively few exhibitions have focused on that most atavistic, primitive sense of all – our sense of smell?

After all, scents travel that little-understood information highway from our nasal receptors straight to our memories, emotions and associations, and completely bypasses that neocortical off ramp to language – just like another and not unrelated art form – music. And while no one will argue that an artist isn’t equally artistic in whichever medium he or she chooses whether it’s paint, Carrara marble or decomposing pork carcasses, the idea that perfume is every bit as valid as an expressive medium raises a few eyebrows among many non-perfumistas, simply for being such an unorthodox idea – or is that for turning a much-needed spotlight on the least-understood of all our senses?

Can it be that perfume straddles that great divide between ‘artistic medium’ and ‘artisanal product’, being not enough of one and too much of the other? In which case, perhaps it’s a good thing Mr. Burr chose that loaded headline-grabber for his exhibition…The Art of Scent, for no other reason that it brings us – the audience – to question and maybe even to redefine what we name ‘art’.

I haven’t seen the exhibition, so I can’t say anything you can’t already read in the press release. What riled me up and made me think, however, was Alyssa Harad’s take on Chandler Burr’s intiative, since her excellent blog post echoed many of the thoughts that ran through my own overheated Sunday afternoon mind, and Denyse Beaulieu’s own blog post did not much more to prevent me chewing on my nails.

I’m in no position to argue whether or not perfume is an art form in its own right and with its own merits – and limitations. For one, you could say I have a vested interest.

I’m a perfume writer, and perfume happens to be one of my own personal passions. To me, perfume is a means of artistic expression as valid, as rich, as rewarding, as challenging and as complex as any painting, sculpture or piece of music. To my fellow perfumoholic friends and acquaintances, I rattle off the names of famous perfumes and perfumers as easily as I can reference works by Titian, Gentileschi, or Alexander Calder. These liquid epics and novels, these allegorical redolent poems and metaphorical operas in magic, however, all exhibit a few characteristics in common no painting or sculpture can claim.

For one, I take issue with the general perception of ‘art’ (you insert your own definitions here) as a mode of creative expression that exists in a vacuum, outside any context or touch points with our ‘real’ lives. Art as a means of cultural expression  – in the sense of being ‘fine art’ – often ends up on private hands and out of reach to the general public or in the museums and art galleries who can afford to lend or buy them whereupon they exhibit them as ‘works of art’ to accentuate whatever statements the museum – or the curator – is trying to make. Art to me is something much more inclusive and dare I write it – quotidian. It is whatever enriches your life, makes you appreciate beauty, makes your personal horizons wider and maybe takes you somewhere out of yourself and into a place you would otherwise never know.

Perfume, on the other hand, is a democratic, inclusive art form. It is an instant mode of transport and mood elevator available for the price of a bottle for anyone who can afford to buy it. You can and often do take it with you anywhere and everywhere you go. It exists in a physical, concrete form in the bottle as a chemical concoction of ingredients both ‘natural’ and/or synthetic, yes – but the true story, the true art, is written on your skin every time you wear it, and no two wearings will ever be entirely alike, depending on such factors as your genetic makeup, your diet, your very mood, weather and so on.

You may have been seduced to buy it by the story of its inspiration, by the aesthetic considerations and heritage of the perfume house behind it, but as any perfumista and not a few perfumers know, the ‘story’ is nothing but a marketing ploy to lure you in, and the real story – and my own test criterion of a truly ‘artistic’ perfume – is what happens in that sublimely seductive, intimate space above your skin where it blooms. Not in whatever abstract or elusive inspirations the perfumer/creative director chooses to share with the world to sell the juice.

You may buy into the perfumer’s aesthetic, but the real reason you buy it and love it as you do is what it does to you and for you – in other words, how that perfume sings in its infinite variety…to you alone. Your family and friends, your colleagues and even total strangers can define or explain you by your choices in clothing, hair, and general demeanor – but that hidden art form, that art that may trail behind you and explicate you when you’ve left – that is the true art…of perfume.

In other words – also as Alyssa Harad stated – perfume art is ephemeral art. It exists only in the moments it breathes its wonders on your skin and invents new, untold stories of you, of its materials, of its very existence and the spaces the perfumer chose to give expression.

Even the very language we use to evoke that art form somehow lacks the ability to crack through the fourth wall and open the doors for our readers to perceive it. Which is why the best perfume writers have a large reference frame of history, literature, art and last, but not least, music to call upon. It’s no accident at all that perfumes are often described in notes, whatever Chandler Burr might argue to the contrary.

I applaud Chandler Burr’s decision to create an exhibition around the Art of Scent. I can appreciate his endeavor to create a neutral, association-free space in which to approach it anew, from another, more radical and perhaps more abstractly intellectual, unbiased angle. The question is, if perfume is an art form, is there such a thing as a lack of bias?

And yet. And yet. I look to my little sea grass basket full of wonders, signed by the perfume world’s Titians and Caravaggios, Francis Bacons and Lucian Freuds and Magrittes, the Afteliers, the Jacques and Aimé and Jean-Paul Guerlains, the Dawn Spencer Hurwitzes, the McElroy/Karls, the Tauers, the Kerns, the Lutens/Sheldrakes and the Duchaufours, the Chong/?s,  the Shoens, the Orchids and the Harts and the Morrises too, and I shake my head at such marvelous ideas and laugh and laugh.

Perfume is indeed a form of art, a medium of artistic expression, a story unfolding its unique and ephemeral pages. And as it does, as we who love its art as we do, redefine those stories each in our own individual ways, every time we wear it and every time we breathe it.

Caravaggio’s works should have been so lucky.

For an entirely different take, I can highly recommend Legerdenez.

With thanks to Legerdenez, Lucy Raubertas, Alyssa Harad and Denyse Beaulieu.

Image: ‘La Dame et Le Licorn’, ‘Smell’, late fifteenth century Flemish tapestry, from the Musée du Moyen-Age, Cluny, Paris

Falling Forward

 – an ode to my favorite fragrant Fall thrills

Autumn is one of my favorite times of the year. A little melancholy, slightly tinged with regrets for what might have been and what should have been done, autumn has also proven itself to be the season of cataclysmic change this year, a change so drastic, it’s been all I can do to hang on by the skin of my teeth and know…that all I can do is to go with the flow and give myself over…to evolution and the knowledge that from here on, life can only get more exciting.

And I can give myself over to the many pleasures of falling forward…into autumn, into the incendiary glow of golden-leafed trees, ruby-hued leaves, and the intoxicating sharp scent of burning wood fireplaces and bonfires, the smell of mushrooms and cepes sprouting up overnight, the sound and scent of apples falling to the ground, that looming breath of steel and stone that lurks beneath the colors and the chills in the air. Wrapping my chilly, wintry self into favorite woolen sweaters, and wrapping favorite scarves and mufflers around my neck, inhaling that palimpsest of perfumes worsted in the wool.

Autumn is also an excuse for hauling out the heavy, heady perfumes with which to slay the unsuspecting world – the ones I wear as I would wear cashmere, the ones that comfort and console me on rainy days and Thursdays, the ones I wear like scented armor, and all the ones I love…

Below, you’ll find some of my favorite autumn fumes, the ones that contain October  and November in their essence, the ones that trail behind me like the ghosts of autumns past as well as harbinger angels of the future possibilities that lie ahead, waiting for when life returns and all is green again.

L’Artisan Parfumeur – Seville à l’Aube

It’s generally agreed that Bertrand Duchaufour is one of the greatest perfumed geniuses alive today. His work has ruined me several times over this year, when I was introduced to Neela Vermeire’s breathtaking perfume odes to her native India and all three of them shot to the top of my Most Worn of the year list. Next came an introduction to L’Artisan’s Dzongkha – one haunting, numinous iris – and Sienne L’Hiver, no less haunting and evocative. They all broke my heart. But when I read of Duchaufour’s collaboration with one of my own inspirations, Denyse Beaulieu of Grain de Musc, and heard the fated words ‘orange’ and ‘blossom’, I was had at the first syllable. Oh! So imagine my anticipation when I moved in on a split of Seville à L’Aube blind (this very rarely happens any longer), and all it took to tip me over the edge was one fatal sniff…My full review will be up in a few weeks, but this mesmerizing blend of orange blossom, lavender and incense is …flawless.

Amouage – Memoir Woman

Something about autumn brings out my inner Goth, which is to say, that part of me that appreciates seriously depressed-mode music, rainy days, and lots of witchy black velvet. While I wouldn’t be so bold as to say Memoir Woman is Goth per se, I will say that it is a moody, magnificent, haunting perfume of a kind that tends to stick in the mind long after it wears off. I didn’t like it much at first, but I couldn’t stop sniffing. It reminded me of a advertising tagline I once cooked up for a story I wrote: “Haunted. What he will be.” Haunting, unforgettable, there is nothing quite like it and nothing quite like a love that grows and grows to haunt you.  As it has. As I have been. As I remain.

Serge Lutens – De Profundis

Some claimed that dear Uncle Serge had somehow lost his marbles when De Profundis was released, and I have no idea what mushrooms they nibbled, because De Profundis – inspired by the treatise by Oscar Wilde, death and funereal chrysanthemums – is simultaneously green, cool and impossible to forget. Incense, chrysanthemum and a mesmerizing icy green-tinged, tear-stained violet chill all add up to ‘spellbinding’ in my book, but if any Lutens is perfect for that delicious melancholy that pervades October Sunday afternoons, it’s this one.

Aftelier – Cepes and Tuberose

My first introduction to the fabled perfumes of Aftelier was Mandy Aftel’s justly famous and unorthodox Cepes and Tuberose, which is earthy, floral, spicy, heady bottled magic – or else a horror story of mildewed mushroom and airy tuberose. There is truly nothing at all else quite like it, and you either adore it or hate it. I have since that fatal introduction loved it so much, a mini of the parfum goes where I go and a dab often wafts as I breathe no matter what else I wear. It smells golden to me – golden as the maple leaves that now are turning red to bloom in midair and dance their leafy sigh into the ground.

Neela Vermeire – Trayee

Whether it’s the blaze of color or the sudden shock of chill in the air, there is something numinous about autumn, something that reminds you of the passage of time and the ephemerality of all life. When that sudden pang of mortality hits me with the delicate slap of a falling leaf, I often reach for Trayee, a swirling, whirling, spicy Mahabarata epic in a bottle, wit its fiery, feisty cardamom, a wink or two of sacred bhang, smoke, incense and samsara. In no time, my spirits lift and my mood improves, and I dream such faraway dreams of other times and other, sacred spaces.

A Trinity of Ambers

Autumn is also the perfect time for ambers…those glorious, heady, drop-dead sexy golden potions I once hated and now love with a fury that teeters on obsession. Three in particular hold pride of place in my amber-tinted Pantheon, and I’m not even sure I can bear to know there will be others in their wake. The Great Khadine, Serge Lutens’ Ambre Sultan, with its opening green bite and its sumptuous drydown, whispers its secrets in my ear, while Amouage’s Opus VI speaks its twisting, turning, ever-evolving tongues of wood flickering in firelight, and when I stand still and listen to the beat of my heart in the moonlight, Neil Morris’ Rumi trills its transcendental tale of another kind of sweet-scented magic.

Labdanum dreams

The ongoing Devilscent Project has completely changed my life around in more ways than one. I could talk about these unbelievable perfumes until the cows came home to roost, but the one note the Devil insisted upon to his perfumers was labdanum, a whole fragrant universe unto itself, and one of the oldest perfumery materials in the world. When life has been known to grind me down, Olympic Orchids’ spare, pensive Dev #4, which puts a magnificent labdanum in the spotlight, centers me as nothing else will, so even I can envision such luscious, labdanum things come true. As I do, I’m often taken back to a midnight moment in time, and when I am, another spicier, darker, more ominous labdanum-tinged marvel wafts forward, and that is Neil Morris’ Midnight at the Crossroads Café.

Olivier Durbano – Black Tourmaline

One reviewer on Fragrantica stated that Olivier Durbano’s Black Tourmaline was ‘for real men only’. This is absolute nonsense. For Black Tourmaline is a stunning mélange of leather and the darkest, deepest, smokiest incense you can imagine, and I’ve received many, many compliments when I’ve worn it, despite being nothing masculine in the slightest, not even in a tux. It’s as otherworldly as a fog-drenched November morning and as warming as a firelight glow at night, and when it goes, it will be missed, like November, like firelight, like a ghostly wisp of cloud bearing down to kiss the earth one last and final time.

More than any other season, autumn sings to me of time passing, of moments as fleeting as the bloom of glowing leaves dancing in a deep blue sky. When Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ seems to match the tasty tristesse of a rainy afternoon, and when the smoky thrills of firelight and flame warm the soul through.

What are your autumn favorites? Or just…your favorite things about autumn? I’d love to hear about them!

With many thanks to…Andrea, Amy, Ruth, Christopher, Mandy, Ellen, JoAnne, Neil and Christos.