Efemmeral
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Efemmeral
Smells like particle physics
There it is, the beguiling solidity of skin and self, inviting a spray of Violet Fumée. Immediately the frank simplicity of limpid florals (I must especially declare the delightful unfurling of such a natural and fresh Turkish rose) with the moist crisp apple vitality of their surrounding leaves radiating realness. Violets peep and shrink as violets will.
Melding resins resonate - distracted as I was by genteel florals I’m not sure I noticed them descend effortlessly into my skin, but from there they pulse, their wave forms aligning with mine, now canceling, now amplifying my own. And there it is, a perceptual shift, the solidity of skin dissolves and the apparent substantiality of body is unmasked as permeable charged space. I am released.
The naturalistic and the ethereal dance in the sillage: this fragrance simultaneously offers the convincing perception of a blue mantle sky drawn as a containing dome around the world whilst it does not for a moment deny that the universe hurtles expansively and endlessly outward.
Violet Fumée affords the experience of an atom’s awareness of its nanoparticles, or of a star’s wink of recognition as chemistry morphs into biology on a rock in a distant galaxy.
It’s a hard one to speak of in earth language, but I’ll try. It’s like the most wonderful gathering of friends you could arrange, with your dearest ones all mingling and enjoying one another whilst delighting in the most tempting morsels and refreshments. They are all rapturously present in the space - in energy and laughter - you are aware of them all, but they are never simultaneously in front of you.
In musical terms: a chamber ensemble. It lacks any explosive percussion, bass or brass; but every yearning of the soul is given full voice with sigh of strings and breath of woodwind.
Clearly, for me Violet Fumée tends aesthetic, poetic, poignant, poised. It is a salon scent: intimate, blissful. Sparse, spacious; yet full, satisfying.
In technical terms, the palette of notes is judiciously selected, and for each component the evaporation arcs and ingredient concentrations are beautifully managed - the effect is that aromas weave in and out for the life of the fragrance with nothing dominating, demanding or untimely departing. It spirals around me as I wear it.
I got this fragrance from someone it didn’t work for. As always, everything is relative.
Melding resins resonate - distracted as I was by genteel florals I’m not sure I noticed them descend effortlessly into my skin, but from there they pulse, their wave forms aligning with mine, now canceling, now amplifying my own. And there it is, a perceptual shift, the solidity of skin dissolves and the apparent substantiality of body is unmasked as permeable charged space. I am released.
The naturalistic and the ethereal dance in the sillage: this fragrance simultaneously offers the convincing perception of a blue mantle sky drawn as a containing dome around the world whilst it does not for a moment deny that the universe hurtles expansively and endlessly outward.
Violet Fumée affords the experience of an atom’s awareness of its nanoparticles, or of a star’s wink of recognition as chemistry morphs into biology on a rock in a distant galaxy.
It’s a hard one to speak of in earth language, but I’ll try. It’s like the most wonderful gathering of friends you could arrange, with your dearest ones all mingling and enjoying one another whilst delighting in the most tempting morsels and refreshments. They are all rapturously present in the space - in energy and laughter - you are aware of them all, but they are never simultaneously in front of you.
In musical terms: a chamber ensemble. It lacks any explosive percussion, bass or brass; but every yearning of the soul is given full voice with sigh of strings and breath of woodwind.
Clearly, for me Violet Fumée tends aesthetic, poetic, poignant, poised. It is a salon scent: intimate, blissful. Sparse, spacious; yet full, satisfying.
In technical terms, the palette of notes is judiciously selected, and for each component the evaporation arcs and ingredient concentrations are beautifully managed - the effect is that aromas weave in and out for the life of the fragrance with nothing dominating, demanding or untimely departing. It spirals around me as I wear it.
I got this fragrance from someone it didn’t work for. As always, everything is relative.
Sacramental
If a traditional eau de cologne might annoint the skin in morning ritual, bracing not just in scent but in bracing the self to greet the day; if it might serve symbolically to gird the skin around what lies within, to reinforce a boundary between self and day and world, and make their impossible *mentality* possible, then this Cologne Pour le Soir is for me a most worthy counterpart for an evening ritual of return and repose.
It fizzes on, disarming and unbinding. Then imagine that this rush of joy gives way to bliss: incense hovers slightly above my skin whilst honey melds with it, the Cologne becoming almost immediately something replete with invitation and intimacy. There's a moment in the late dry down of vintage Chanel 22 where the silvery beauty relents and heaven touches earth. Cologne Pour le Soir lives in that moment. Whatever carnality might ensue is imbued with holiness.
This is a sacrament for the skin.
It fizzes on, disarming and unbinding. Then imagine that this rush of joy gives way to bliss: incense hovers slightly above my skin whilst honey melds with it, the Cologne becoming almost immediately something replete with invitation and intimacy. There's a moment in the late dry down of vintage Chanel 22 where the silvery beauty relents and heaven touches earth. Cologne Pour le Soir lives in that moment. Whatever carnality might ensue is imbued with holiness.
This is a sacrament for the skin.
1 Comment
religious experience
This truly is a High Frequency Scent, this #22. Vibrating and resonating, my body plucked like a string pulled taut between heaven and earth. spiritual, soulful, sensual.
This goes beyond scent and skin, as though I have slipped beyond my own perimeter into an boundless universe of fragrant delight.
This goes beyond scent and skin, as though I have slipped beyond my own perimeter into an boundless universe of fragrant delight.
She's a Keeper
Glorious. Elegant, complex, far too distracting in her beauty. Direct, businesslike herbs ride on the killer curves of plum and castoreum. There's such a buzz and warmth about her with labdanum and vanilla, a throaty laugh and earthy humour, but woe betide those attracting her acerbic wit or the crack crack of her fine fine leather.
If she takes the reins, (and you should let her) enjoy the ride of the florals: gardenia, I swear, and jonquils and roses. The depth and smoothness of iris. Blissful ride to end with the comfort of balsam and resin. I want to wear it *forever*.
If she takes the reins, (and you should let her) enjoy the ride of the florals: gardenia, I swear, and jonquils and roses. The depth and smoothness of iris. Blissful ride to end with the comfort of balsam and resin. I want to wear it *forever*.
The scent of youthful transgression
I delight in the long season of jasmine flowering, stalking the staggered blooming of the varieties.
The earliest variety is even now providing heady sprays of indolic pinky tipped blooms borne on their vigorous vine. When the flowers first appeared I dipped some briefly in vodka and the result served over sorrel sorbet was a taste of spring garden. Later the Chinese Star variety popped, its dark handsome foliage and pure white flowers providing such pretty visual contrast to complement the quite different fresh citrus blossom fragrance of those blooms. Both these jasmines seem to feature in today's fragrance.
Let us spray...
When I first smelled Etat Libre d'Orange Jasmin et Cigarette I was startled to have novel nuances of that indolic pink tipped jasmine flower brought front and centre. These smoky stale aspects evident both in the flowers' natural bouquet and in jasmine absolute became so obvious to me as Antoine Maisondieu accentuates them in this composition. He gave me an "Aha!" moment of observational clarity that was enough to intrigue me with this perfume from the outset.
Ah and a memory came - shameful confession - of my younger self, a mere novice, happened upon in a clandestine moment behind the chapel where the exuberant jasmine vine frothed and tumbled. I had just inhaled the fug exhaled by the flowers commingled with my first (and last) gasp of a gasper. Sister Ignatia's smile on seeing me was quiet and indulgent. She wisely intoned: "Tread carefully with anything you cannot set down as readily as you have taken it up..." and strolled on.
Ancient entwined echoes of shame swirling with Jasmin et Cigarette's initial intoxicating headrush of indolic jasmine fragrance and ashy, smoky cigarette fumes soon dissipate. The fragrance becomes expansive with notes of crushed greenery, fresh tobacco and earthiness, all scents that also arose long ago as I hastily snuffed my illicit cigarette underfoot!
Jasmin et Cigarette might commence slightly left of centre for some, the bitter earthy note of curcuma (turmeric) reading too ashy or metallic. These dimensions soon recede as the earthier side of turmeric emerges, a sweet dust that merges with the anchoring warm cedar whilst the tonka lends hints of honey and hay to the now rather delectable aromas of fresh cured tobacco. Over all this a light citrusy jasmine blossom floats and the fragrance hums thusly quiet and elegant for several hours.
Although it seems to wear quite close, I have several times wandered into the delicious light floral breeze of my own sillage. I have worn Jasmin et Cigarette in a range of contexts to much praise and no condemnation. After 5 or 6 hours its last whisper fades with the warmth, sweetness and wisdom of a benediction.
Fragrant blessings,
Sister Mary Magdelene, Patron Saint of Perfumers.
(originally posted at Australian Perfume Junkies)
The earliest variety is even now providing heady sprays of indolic pinky tipped blooms borne on their vigorous vine. When the flowers first appeared I dipped some briefly in vodka and the result served over sorrel sorbet was a taste of spring garden. Later the Chinese Star variety popped, its dark handsome foliage and pure white flowers providing such pretty visual contrast to complement the quite different fresh citrus blossom fragrance of those blooms. Both these jasmines seem to feature in today's fragrance.
Let us spray...
When I first smelled Etat Libre d'Orange Jasmin et Cigarette I was startled to have novel nuances of that indolic pink tipped jasmine flower brought front and centre. These smoky stale aspects evident both in the flowers' natural bouquet and in jasmine absolute became so obvious to me as Antoine Maisondieu accentuates them in this composition. He gave me an "Aha!" moment of observational clarity that was enough to intrigue me with this perfume from the outset.
Ah and a memory came - shameful confession - of my younger self, a mere novice, happened upon in a clandestine moment behind the chapel where the exuberant jasmine vine frothed and tumbled. I had just inhaled the fug exhaled by the flowers commingled with my first (and last) gasp of a gasper. Sister Ignatia's smile on seeing me was quiet and indulgent. She wisely intoned: "Tread carefully with anything you cannot set down as readily as you have taken it up..." and strolled on.
Ancient entwined echoes of shame swirling with Jasmin et Cigarette's initial intoxicating headrush of indolic jasmine fragrance and ashy, smoky cigarette fumes soon dissipate. The fragrance becomes expansive with notes of crushed greenery, fresh tobacco and earthiness, all scents that also arose long ago as I hastily snuffed my illicit cigarette underfoot!
Jasmin et Cigarette might commence slightly left of centre for some, the bitter earthy note of curcuma (turmeric) reading too ashy or metallic. These dimensions soon recede as the earthier side of turmeric emerges, a sweet dust that merges with the anchoring warm cedar whilst the tonka lends hints of honey and hay to the now rather delectable aromas of fresh cured tobacco. Over all this a light citrusy jasmine blossom floats and the fragrance hums thusly quiet and elegant for several hours.
Although it seems to wear quite close, I have several times wandered into the delicious light floral breeze of my own sillage. I have worn Jasmin et Cigarette in a range of contexts to much praise and no condemnation. After 5 or 6 hours its last whisper fades with the warmth, sweetness and wisdom of a benediction.
Fragrant blessings,
Sister Mary Magdelene, Patron Saint of Perfumers.
(originally posted at Australian Perfume Junkies)
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