Readers of The Economist and jaundiced realists like myself will not be surprised to hear that diversity and competition are the engines of creation. Add to that the magic element of surplus, i.e. a surfeit of talented art school graduates chasing too few jobs, and you have the makings of a revolution. This is precisely what happened in postwar Italy: too many architects + too few interesting things to build = Italian […]
Some new things are immediately, obviously useful, some reveal their brilliance in time (e.g. many Apple devices in my experience). A month ago I posted about Ponk, a subscription service that sends themed perfumery raw material samples by mail. They kindly sent more. This time the Module 5 collection of small samples, as ever beautifully packaged, was of woody-ambers, which have seen an extraordinary arms race in recent years. With a smell […]
This post is about good sound, how wonderful it is (as good as good perfume, I think), how everyone can appreciate it —the look on my 3-yr old daughter’s face when she first heard it said everything. It makes a huge difference and you don’t have to spend a crazy amount of money to get it. So 1- Forget loudspeakers. The cost of good sound is exponentially related to power, therefore 2- Use […]
When smelling Hiram Green’s Shangri-La I was struck by the powerful note of gamma-undecalactone , a molecule first introduced in perfumery in 1908 by its discoverers, Russian chemists Zhukov and Shestakov. Hiram Green describes his fragrances as all-natural, so I wrote to ask what this archetypal synthetic was doing in there. He kindly explained that this was EU Natural undecalactone. A little searching revealed that EU Naturals are defined as molecules that “must have been […]
Monsillage sent me samples, including two larger bottles of fragrances that owner-perfumer Isabelle Michaud thought I would like. She was right: Eau de Céleri is a very refined, urbane, and charming spicy-herbaceous composition, the sort of fragrance you put on every summer morning as you would an Eau de Cologne. The difference is that the entire, and very clever, accord involves little or no citrus and achieves freshness by completely different and […]
I first met Hiram Green over a decade ago when he had a tiny boutique called Scent Systems in near London’s famed (and now completely theme-parked) Carnaby St. He then moved to the Netherlands and set up as an independent perfumer. He sent me samples of three of his fragrances. Dilettante is an orange flower composition, sunny and straightforward, “fresh and sweet throughout” as HG himself describes it. Moon Bloom is a beautiful […]
LO sent a neat box containing fourteen fragrances released between 2010 and 2016. The look is reassuringly, indeed soporifically hip, complete with slightly moth-eaten Courier typeface, square-format leaflet, Byredo-type bottles, lots of white space, nice photos. In short, all the perquisites of a niche firm that wishes to be carried in respectable stores, bought by young women in white Capri pants and Superga shoes, and one day be acquired for an eight-figure sum by L’Oréal. […]
Murphy’s Law. A long-awaited box of fragrances arrives from Canadian firm Libertine. First thing I do is break one of the bottles by opening the box too enthusiastically, manage to dip two smelling strips in what’s left and curse myself for being impatient and clumsy. That would have been Soft Woods, mopped up off the floor, its lovely smell mixed with the weird hospital waiting room smell of wet kitchen paper. On […]
Christophe Laudamiel, in my opinion the greatest inventor of novel perfume structures working today, will be giving a talk at the PerfumeSchool in New York on July 27. The subject will be the Osmothèque collection of painstakingly reconstituted marvels from perfumery’s past. I’ve heard Christophe give lectures: passion, brilliance and fun in equal parts. Plus you’ll get to smell some of the oldies. Pic credit
Some things are sent to try us in the department of open-mindedness and forbearance. The blurb for Therapeutate —awkward neologism, btw— blithely describes the company’s botanical products as the “grass-fed option to other brands filled with petrochemicals and animal-by-products”, which would be laughable if it wasn’t sad. What is wrong with petrochemicals that isn’t also wrong with plants? If nature knows best, how come smallpox and hemlock? What animal byproducts? Does the whale […]
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