Blogger Kafkaesque expressed dismay at the fact that I was handing out four stars to fragrances which cannot stand comparison with the four stars in the Perfume Guide. Let me explain. 1- I am doing a little affirmative action here for artisan and niche perfumers who mostly do not have access to the huge technical resources of mainstream perfumery. 2- The name of my blog constrained me somewhat because I […]
Andy Tauer and I go way back: I’ve loved his fragances right from the start, i.e. late in 2005 when I first smelled his Le Maroc and wrote about it in glowing terms. Then when Tania Sanchez and I wrote our perfume guide, we gave his L’Air du Désert Marocain five richly deserved stars. I like to think that we had a part in Andy quitting his day job and becoming a […]
The process from a good idea to a great perfume usually goes through a stage of broad strokes followed by a long, slow and painstaking stage of refinement. This is not unlike editing a text, where you may, in a burst of activity, write a couple of thousand words in a morning, then find yourself messing with one small thing or another for weeks. Half-way through the refining, you become thoroughly […]
I have never been fond of all-natural perfumery, for two reasons: 1- Constraints in art are fruitful only if they channel creativity to give results pleasing to the senses, e.g. rhyme, modal harmony etc. The all-natural constraint is not productive: no all-natural perfume has ever been as good as the best natural-aromachemical ones*. 2- My definition of Nature includes Organic Chemistry and all who sail in her. This said, I find Anna Zworykina‘ fragrances very impressive […]
If HoM is anything to go by, niche perfumery is growing up fast, both in presentation and in content. Beautiful blue bottles with coppery labels; a distinctive look, half steampunk and half Islamic-abstract; consistently good, properly worked-out perfumes with apt but not hyperbolic names; and an overall cast of high quality and good humor. There is much to like in the 9-perfume collection they sent: Trillium, a herbaceous green-floral that feels mostly natural without being […]
I am always wary of programme art: Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring was composed in complete ignorance of its title, with Martha Graham merely asking for a piece “on an American theme”. Yet Copland got a lot of mail afterwards telling him how the piece nailed spring in the Appalachians. One thing is to give a piece or a perfume a brilliantly apt name after it is done, as in Lento or Angel, quite another is to produce […]
Today I cracked and ordered online something I thought I’d never live to see: Rondini sandals. Rondini is a small shop situated Rue Georges Clémenceau in Saint-Tropez, where my parents used to go on holidays when I was a kid. There are two sandal makers in St Tropez, Rondini (est. 1927) and Keklikian (est. 1933). The differences between them are millimetric, but to the trained eye Keklikian sandals are beautiful, […]
Nothing whets your appetite for a little sense of humor like smelling the work of two or three niche firms of the US West Coast hippie persuasion, forever declaring their perfumes to be an homage to some desert flower, extinct civilisation or spiritual practice. That stuff is the perfumery equivalent of yoga music, and demands a couple of Sousa marches as a chaser. I felt lucky therefore to receive a package from Anastasia […]
I got a mysterious little box this morning from an outfit called Ponk. It said Module 4 on it and contained five carefully wrapped, numbered little phials, well-sealed with what felt like Teflon tape, and a square envelope that said “The Reveal Inside.” I naturally opened it, whereupon it turned out the phials contained five raw materials. Aphermate (1-(3,3-dimethyl cyclohexyl) ethyl formate, see pic), an unusual ester of formic acid that smells typically […]
Perhaps one of the most mysterious associations in all of perfumery is denoted by the term “powdery”. Why should one state of matter smell like another? What primeval talcum powder have we all inhaled that smelled like heliotropin? Was it some face powder in a circular box with a little dusting pad? Is it, perhaps conversely, the fluffy aspect of mimosa flowers that causes the association? Does everyone think powdery in response […]
perfumesilove 