Etat Libre d'Orange The Afternoon of a Faun & Dangerous Complicity: new fragrances

Etat Libre d'Orange have stunned us with Jasmin et Cigarette and Like This. They have surprised us pleasantly with Fils de Dieu du Riz et des Agrumes and Archives 69. They have had our jaw dropped on the floor with Secretions Magnifiques in a most memorable way. And now, set for release for October 2012, the French niche brand is issuing something that has me reminiscing of the days when I was practicing for piano solos at the Conservatoire, listening from the adjoining rooms all the other musicians practicing as well; namely a fragrance inspired by a most famous musical piece, L'apres midi d'un faune by Claude Debussy set into a ballet infamously by Nijinsky.
And to follow, there's yet another fragrance launched in autumn 2012 stepped in the myth of original sin...

The symphonic poem by Debussy derives its theme of the wanderings of a mythological creature, a faun, symbol of the wild forest life, from another source too: the erotically charged poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, The Afternoon of a Faun (1876).

 "The pomegranates burst and murmur with bees; 
And our blood, aflame for her who will take it, 
Flows for all the eternal swarm of desire. 
At the hour when this wood's dyed with gold and with ashes. 
A festival glows in the leafage extinguished: 
Etna! 'tis amid you, visited by Venus 
On your lava fields placing her candid feet, 
When a sad stillness thunders wherein the flame dies." [excerpt]

The new Etat Libre d'Orange fragrance romantically named The Afternoon of a Faun is composed by perfumer is Ralf Schwieger (of Lipstick Rose fame) and will include notes of bergamot, pepper, cinnamon, incense, immortelle (everlasting flower), orris, myrrh, leather, benzoin. Sounds like the erotic dream of the amorous faun is passed on into the olfactory domain now...



 Etat Libre d'Orange also issues another fragrance, Dangerous Complicity, inspired by Adam and Eve and their loaded story in the garden of Eden; a charged olfactory composition that will create talk thanks to its ingredients if nothing else. Perfume Violaine Collas combined Rum Jungle Essence by Mane, ginger JE, coconut JE, bay essence, calamus essence, osmanthus absolute, Egyptian jasmine absolute, ylang ylang essence, lorenox (an aromatic woody-leathery base developed by Mane), patchouli essence, a leather accord, sandalwood, and Cashmeran.

music: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, L'Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, directed by Charles Édouard Dutoit.