Long before Hermès perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena wandered through a garden along the Nile in Egypt, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the Hermès fragrance Un Jardin Sur Le Nil, perfumers and fragrance aficionados have circumnavigated the world in search of seductive odors and addictive aromas.
As Ellena wrote in his history of fragrance “Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent,” it was China that recently introduced an entirely new palate to the fragrance industry, resulting in perfumes and colognes as flavorful as fruit drinks and tea.
Our sense of smell is so often connected to sense of place. If you’ve ever returned home from vacation with soaps, shampoos and lotions, then it’s all but certain your memory has returned to that idyllic locale whenever you’ve showered with those products.
If you yearn to travel, even while in the confines of your own home, then fragrance is one way to take you where you yearn to go. This spring, travel the globe in the paths of perfumers. Follow the trail of fragrances that they’ve created to evoke the places they love. Let your nose and your memory be your guide around the world.
Siskiyou Backpacker’s Cologne by Juniper Ridge (Source: Juniper Ridge)
Juniper Ridge: Siskiyou Backpacker’s Cologne
Maybe you still remember that blissful bucolic day in Northern California where you hiked the trails of Mount Tamalpais: the summer sun blazing hot as you meandered through the redwood forests and back out into oak woodlands.
Then, atop the western slope, you collapsed on a blanket and let nature have its way with you. You and your lover: nothing was ever so good as doing it in the wild under the wide open sky – and to this day, there’s something in the Northern California air that brings it all back.
Bottle that scent and you’re an unbridled naturist, dancing atop the mountain. Fortunately for you and your libido, Juniper Ridge from northwestern California recently expanded its line of wild herb soaps and distilled natural products to include fragrances that evoke “life on the trail.”
One of Juniper Ridge‘s stated goals is “evoke the places we love – the High Sierra, Cascades, Big Sur…” Juniper Ridge fragrances – redolent of cedar, sweetgrass, white sage, pine, and juniper – are the olfactory equivalent of “the mountains in a bottle” and the memories therein.
Siskiyou Backpacker’s Cologne derives from a Northwestern conifer located in Siskiyou County, California, on the Oregon border, which is where founder Hall Newbegin often hikes. As Newbegin says, “Real fragrance, the kind that comes from wild harvested plants and trees, rearranges your insides and takes you away…”
Juniper Ridge‘s fragrances are unlike anything else currently on the market; they are as sui generis as nature – and therein lies the attraction. There’s nothing like the real thing, which is what you discovered that afternoon on Mount Tam.
LINK: Siskiyou Backpacker’s Cologne
Mahina by Molton Brown (Source: Molton Brown)
Molton Brown: Mahina
If you’ve ever swooned in front of a painting by Paul Gauguin and yearned to be in Tahiti, barefoot and tanned, a flower behind your ear, then the next best thing might be wearing Molton Brown’s new fragrance Mahina.
Launched in February 2013, Mahina is the latest addition to London-based Molton Brown’s fine fragrance collection titled “Navigations Through Scent.” Previous olfactory expeditions by Molton Brown have traversed the ancient spice route, with stops in Egypt, Indonesia, and China, as well as England, France, and Nova Scotia.
For this journey, perfumer Jennifer Jambon, the 2008 winner of the “International Young Perfumer of the Year Award,” has traveled to Mahina, a region in Tahiti notable for its tiare flower, which is somewhat redolent of a tropical gardenia.
Opening with a burst of fresh orange blossom, Mahina captures the fragrances of a sun-drenched holiday in Polynesia. Jasmine and ylang-ylang meld with tiare flower to evoke those languid afternoons spent on white sandy beaches.
As perfumer Jambon explains, “Mahina is a bright, happy fragrance inspired by the…beaches of Tahiti. The blend of fresh citrus orange flower and ylang-ylang combined with the white floral heart of the tiare flower creates a beautifully balanced floral fragrance for both men and women.”
Mahina by Molton Brown transports you into an idyllic Tahitian afternoon that’s all about pleasure.
LINK: Mahina
Strange Invisible Perfumes Sagittarius (Source: Strange Invisible Perfumes)
Strange Invisible Perfumes: Sagittarius
No matter where you travel around the globe, when night falls, you’re always staring at the same moon.
Botanical perfumer Alexandra Balahoutis, founder of Strange Invisible Perfumes, has always been fascinated with the cosmos and its connection to astrology. Hence the 2011 launch of the company’s Perfumes of the Zodiac collection, which ultimately will consist of twelve botanical fragrances representing each zodiac sign.
For Strange Invisible Perfumes‘ Sagittarius, Balahoutis formulated a fragrance with neroli and lime, meant to evoke optimism and ambition. The warmth of cypress and sandalwood, combined with honey, capture the innate nomadic quality of Sagittarius, as does a base note of pinon.
Founded in 2000, Strange Invisible Perfumes creates fragrances from real botanical essences. Balahoutis utilizes 100% certified organic, beverage-grade grape alcohol alongside proprietary blends of ethically sourced essential oils. Blended and bottled in Venice, California, Strange Invisible Perfumes are certified organic, wildcrafted, biodynamic, and pesticide-free.
Not unlike its zodiac symbol, the archer, Strange Invisible Perfumes Sagittarius aims straight for your heart and memory.
As crisp and refreshing as a gin-and-tonic in the heat of summer, Strange Invisible Perfumes Sagittarius is a burst of ebullience with a twist of wanderlust.
LINK: Strange Invisible Perfumes
#02 by Jacomo (Source: Jacomo)
Art Collection by Jacomo: #02
Back in the Sixties in New York, there were two designers named James and Gerard whose flagship boutique Jacomo on Fifth Avenue became a salon for the jet set and the glitterati. James and Gerard were Renaissance men whose refined tastes in art, music and design were reflected in their fashion, as well as their fragrances.
In honor of these bon vivants, Jacomo recently launched a collaboration between artists and fragrances called “Art Collection.”
Art Collection by Jacomo #02 was created with Cecilia Carlstedt, an illustrator whose work explores the relationship between drawing and photography – and her fragrance for Jacomo cleverly evokes the childlike wonder often associated with art class.
For those who loved finger painting and playing with clay, #02 is a journey back to the classroom where the smell of chewing gum and paints mixes with modeling clay. From the mug of Earl Grey tea that the art teacher drinks incessantly wafts the scent of bergamot and a hint of patchouli hovers in the air as he passes by.
The work of French fashion photographer Guy Bourdin inspired Carlstedt’s work for Jacomo and Bourdin’s sensual and surreal images seem a fitting complement to a fragrance that is rebellious and alluring. Not unlike that one student in art class whose work was as fascinating to you as it was to the teacher. The warmth of tonka bean settles into base notes of amber and suede, but still you can’t get the smell of modeling clay out of your mind – or the memory of that face.
LINK: #02
Inédite by Lubin Paris (Source: Lubin Paris)
Lubin Paris: Inédite
The word “inédite,” which means “unpublished” in French, carries a note of something clandestine – perhaps an epistolary romance between two lovers from faraway lands.
Inédite by Lubin Paris connotes a 19th-century love affair between a harem girl imprisoned in an oriental palace in Byzantium and the young author and naval officer, Pierre Loti, writing a tale about a love that cannot be revealed.
Established in 1798 by the peripatetic global nomad Pierre Francois Lubin, Lubin Paris made its mark with fragrances that captured the scents of exotic lands. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Lubin Paris served as the official perfumer for European royalty.
In 2005, former Guerlain creative director, Gilles Thévenin, took over Lubin Paris. According to Thévenin, “Lubin fragrances have their own character; they have a strong personality.”
Created by perfumer Thomas Fontaine, Inédite by Lubin Paris evokes the sweet seduction of a wander through palace gardens, the scent of sugared almonds mingling with nosegays of roses. Top notes of bergamot and pink peppercorn segue into a heart bursting with heliotrope and lilac and a profusion of roses. In the distance, across the Bosphorus, rise the obelisks from the Hippodrome of Constantinople. A hint of vanilla and cedar hovers in the air, mixing with iris and white musk.
With Inédite, it’s all about the romance of the forbidden.
