Impressions of Peace

A girl: "How come we aren't doing all this stuff?
Another girl: "We didn't know."
~from "The Strawberry Statement"

Long before "world wide peace" became the finishing note in the pouting mouths of aspiring beauty queens in pageants across the world it was something less cliché, more noble. I wasn't born in the 60s and only have that strangely appreciative feeling that later generations too will have for that romantically delusional and missteppingly optimistic decade (Historical research suggests things were much grimmer than populary thought of). Someone once said that the 1960s as an "idea" didn't really begin till May '68 (Paris May) and it ended in August '69 at the Summer of Love in Woodstock. I vividly remember watching The Strawberry Statement/ Strawberries and Blood (a 1970 film) on state-television as an impressionable teenager. Simon's tiny apartment worked as a time capsule in retrospect: the "2001: A space Odyssey" soundtrack, the Robert Kennedy photo on the wall, Neil Young's "Down by the River"... The (how ironic!) paean for peace by John Lennon at the final sit-in was waving like the rowing gestures of the quiet hero in my mind for months. Almost 40 years later it still has resonance. (It would take an even more touching, more nuanced film to lightly smudge the impressions in my mind: Johny Got his Gun...)

So what's an essentially political post doing in a perfume blog? But I have long opined that basically everything is political, more or less! Everything we do, the views we have, the actions we perform have impact and they make a difference: To us certainly, but also to the world. The very etymology of "political" comes from the Greek word πόλις which means city-state (the formation of choice in classical Greece) and in that concept the citizen is the one who forms the essence of the city ("it is men who stand as the walls of the city") and is keenly aware and participant in everything that surrounds his/her life, embodying the city and the world around spiritually. The ideal of participating in common affairs was simple yet wise: if the city/world goes well, so will the citizen!

On a related thread I was contacted a few days ago by independent artist and perfumer Roxana Villa, who has created a special fragrance for the International Peace Day: developed specifically to help raise funds for an annual worldwide telecast concert of Superstar musicians performing Sacred Music from the most mystical concert venues on the planet. The perfume is officially unnamed due to the squatting on words perpetuated in the fragrance industry these days...but the Peace sign dangling leaves little doubt; and it rang a bell.

Let's leave Roxana explain the concept in her own words: "This fragrance is very much like the concept music albums that came out in the 60's when the Peace movement became part of mass consciousness. This perfume began with the intention of supporting a friends vision to create a global chant for peace as a series of concerts in sacred sites all over the world. His vision has not yet manifested. I intend that this perfume will facilitate manifesting that vision, just as Q facilitates manifesting consciousness for the California coastal live oaks. The illustrated image, the illumination, was created by my husband Greg. He is an award winning visual artist who has worked both in illustration (Time, Sports Illustrated) and in film (Narnia, Golden Compass). We choose a shade of burgundy from my palette as the color harmony for this fragrance based on the pigments in the image".

The perfume was orchestrated like a symphony with three complex chords of base, middle and top notes. Each chord contains up to seven different essences which come from all parts of the world and what I personally get is an earthy floriental (with a delectable neroli and possibly petit-grain with coriander/ginger opening? Roxana didn't specify but it's piquant!) on a smooth, smoky tobacco-vanillic woods aftertaste (sandalwood? and probably also rosewood in the middle?). It consolidates my faith in Roxana's woody blends and seems like a great, sweet fit for moving into the autumnal season.

Perfume launches September 21st, the United Nations International Day of Peace. The fragrance will give a portion of the proceeds from each of the 7 gram liquid perfume flacons and solid compacts to the POE (Project Peace on Earth) organization to facilitate their vision of a global prayer concert for Peace.
Join the celebrations for peace on the International Day of Peace link and learn about the non-profit project Peace on Earth here.
The perfume will be available as a pure, perfume extract and a solid natural perfume unguent. Visit Illuminated Perfume for purchases and Roxana's Journal for a chance to win two liquid samples.

Please visit the rest of the participating blogs with thoughts on Peace:
Bitter Grace Notes
Examiner Cleveland
Examiner Portland
Illuminated Perfume
Indie Perfumes
Memory & Desire
Perfume Smellin' Things
Scenthive
The Non Blonde
Illustration by Greg Spalenka

The winner of the draw...

....for Magnolia Nobile is Olfacta! Please mail me with a shipping address so I can send this out to you to try out. Thanks to everyone who participated!

I will be announcing the winner of the naturals scents set too soon.

Essentially Me: fragrance reviews (& draw)

Essentially-Me.co.uk is an artisanal perfume company founded by Alec Lawless, whose book Artisan Perfumery or Led by the Nose we had reviewed on Perfume Shrine a while ago. The beauty of the company and the site is that you can order your own supplies and play around with real, genuine, authentic essences to see what the heck they really do smell like! You never knew what's the difference between Virginian and Atlas (Moroccan) cedar? They have both. You read about Guaiacwood (Paraway lignum) and get confused? Now you won't be anymore. You have never in your life come across broom or boronia? You have your chance to revel in those unique and paradisial smells. You hear about orris (the rhizomes of iris) and how it's super costly (and apparently not used in your commercial perfume)? For 44.99 pounds you can get your very own with a very high 16% irones ratio (this is the percentage of the smelly molecules in it) and use it to enhance your scents with the wonderfully earthy, powdery, delicate aroma that was prized since antiquity. Same for link lotus absolute, osmanthus, labdanum, oppoponax, oakmoss and so many others....

Being a purveyor of fine essences through his and his ex-wife's company Aqua Oleum, Alec Lawless was in close proximity with good materials for quite a long time. At some point he decided to blend his own scents for sheer pleasure more than their aromatherapy value (and who can blame him, it's ever so inviting to mix those delectable materials!) and, what have you, he seems like he knows a bit or two about the art. Alec uses his own copyrighted "system" of describing and differentiating between notes, baptizing them Heart (the main idea, the "family" classification if you please), Nuance (the character of the composition, the central cord) and Intrigue (the accessory notes that pique your interest and provide the desire to explore further, top notes and nosegays, so to speak).

The line currently includes 10 fragrances made from naturals with only about 1% of synthetics*, of which I am reviewing 5 today (you will find a link for more reviews of the rest on Scenthive at the bottom)


White Blooms
Heart: delicate white floral
Nuance: soft green balsam
Intrigue: warm woody.

If you have never smelled real essences from flowers you're missing on a whole brave world: the essences vibrate with a Kirlian aura, emitting their life-force on paper, on skin, wherever. Those dregs in perfume bottles that pass as floral fragrances these days do not possess even one iota of that kind of vibracy. White Blooms is expectedly an orgy of lovely flowers, of which orange blossoms, jasmine and the sweet honeyed mantle of beeswax comprise the very core. It's awfully pretty ~without being all "demure" like so many office scents are~ and it is positively optimistic: sunny, feminine, ambrosial, wonderful. "White Champac and orange blossoms cover a faint hint of pink lotus and jasmine. Delicacy is maintained by using absolutes of hay and beeswax to impart soft warm green notes, which are, in turn supported by a base of sandalwood, frankincense and a light vanilla courtesy of benzoin resin".

Amber
Heart: masculine floral
Nuance: balsamic incense
Intrigue: herbs and spice.

Let it be said that I am not an "amber person". I mentally picture those people ooohing and aaahing over the densest of amber fragrances as big, "wooly" personalities with terrific social skills, engulfing hugs and always a virtual pattisserie of things to offer in the remisses of their cupboards. Although I don't stand small myself, I am certainly none of the above and my house-warming gestures usually involve on-the-spot preparing of little amuse-bouche (Better not shop for sweet things if no-one is scheduled to appear on my doorstep I tell you!). Having said that, most ambers usually strike me as pleasant on the one hand, but too embulient, too "expressive", too sweet somehow; and usually they scare the hell out of me with their gigantic sillage-d tentacles! To its credit this Amber follows the prime example of Lutensian vision and adds a fat dollop of herbal and spicy elements that manage to give a culinary aspect (the housewarming bit of something roasting in the background) while it simultaneously gives a lightly cool aspect through frankincense and melancholic myrrh (essences I am especially drawn to). It makes me feel comfortable without having that heavy, petting aunt with the auburn curly hair insisting I tell her "all about my classmates and my boyfriends" and I can finally relax... "Subtle hints of spice, mint, caraway and thyme evolve on the skin to reveal a floral heart of jasmine, lavender, rose and clary sage. The base is provided by labdanum, frankincense, sandalwood and myrrh with hints of vanilla and patchouli".

Trade Wind
Heart: cool sea
Nuance: warm earth
Intrigue: warm wind.

There's nothing more difficult than creating a "marine" or "ozonic" fragrance with natural materials. I believe it's nigh impossible because that family strongly depends on the popularised synthetics of the 90s. Trade Wind manages to just skim Charybdis, by opting to borrow the warmer elements of earth with its rooty aroma (very discernible vetiver and woods) and folding them into saltier things (seaweed compliments vetiver well, both sharing a salty nuance). The result is not exactly a marine and it's not screechily persistent and piercing like most marines are, which is a good thing. "Seaweed absolute with mint and violet leaf conjure up the ocean whilst galbanum resin, sandalwood, and vetivert hint at the soft warm earth. Carried in the breeze are faint impressions of orange flowers, linden blossoms, hay and nutmeg

Souk
Heart: Precious woods
Nuance: rose and spice
Intrigue: Incense.

No prizes for guessing this is a Middle-East and India-inspired fragrance: the very elements comprising it, from rose to incense to spice, suggest the East and its bazaarss. Perhaps because it's such a traditional concept or because Lutens has spoiled me rotten with his own mirage of Felix Arabia with dried fruits and dirty armpits I wasn't impressed as much. "The haunting smells of the spice markets, the Arab love affair with the rose, fragrant gardens, precious woods, resins and incense. Sandalwood, frankincense and Cedar of Lebanon are blended with balsams to provide a complex woody heart. Rose Maroc, jasmine, orris and neroli bring floral tributes from surrounding lands. Citrus fruits, herbs and oriental spices bring nuance from the market stalls and the ancient mysterious opoponax suggests incense with help from frankincense and sandalwood".

Tangos
Heart: violet leaf, tobacco
Nuance: Jasmine, rose
Intrigue: guaiacwood.

"Needs to be worn by a dark haired woman day or night if you have the confidence" is how Tangos is presented on the site. The thing practically beckoned me, calling my name. Dark hair, check. Confidence, check. Day or night wearing, check (I wear whatever whenever). Finding out it was originally made for a friend from Argentina based upon her choices of aromatics was titillating. The reality is it smells of many things that amalgamate into a musky, rose-tobacco mix with prominent florals in the framing. There is a bitter and also a sweet element antagonising each other and I feel like it should have been a little more feathered out so as to let the essences project more clearly ~this happens after a couple of hours on skin, I'd love it to be so from the start. "A deep green sultry forest (oak moss, violet leaf, vetivert Bourbon and tobacco) slowly releases complex floral bursts (jasmine, ylang, rose Otto, geranium Bourbon, vanilla and rose Maroc) with hints of herb and spice (hay, coriander, tonka bean)."

Please visit Scenthive for more reviews on the fragrances by Essentially Me.

I have a set of all the fragrances (minus the quantity I tried) for giving away to a lucky reader!

*Disclaimer on account of Essentially-Me.co.uk: "Synthetic fragrance compounds usually have petrochemical-derived ingredients. The ones we use are about 50% petrochemical-derived, with the rest made up of turpentine derivatives (that is, synthetic molecules created from chemically processing alpha-pinene which is extracted from pine trees)”

Body Painting Jack O'Kundalini taking "Jack in the Pulpit" by Geogia O'Keefe as the starting point via livingbrush.com. Tangoing couple via cam.net.uk


In the interests of full disclosure we have been sent samples of the line.

Parisienne limo sex?

I just got sent the full 60-seconds commercial of Parisienne by Yves Saint Laurent with Kate Moss. Did I mention they went a bit overboard with the raunch? Or is limo sex (or the memory of sex fantasized in limos) still popular? I think the pouting on Kate Moss shows that she's taking it far too seriously. In my opinion a good reminiscence of frantic sex should employ a little self-depreciation, some humour, some tears, some laughs...
Check it out on this link.

Fata Morgana: Arabesque...

I'll take communion with sea water,
distilled from your body drop by drop,
in an ancient copper cup from Algiers,
as done by pirates of old before the fight.

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana*.

A leather sail, all smeared with wax,
smelling of cedar-wood, of incense and of varnish,
like the smell of the hold in an aging ship
built in olden times on Euphrates in Phoenicia.

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana.

Fire-hued rust in the mines of Sina,
the capes of Gerakini and Stratoni.
That ship-coating, that old blessed rust gave us birth,
It feeds us, feeds on us, and then it kill us!

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana.






























The poem Fata Morgana by sea-faring Greek poet Nikos Kavvadias is set to music and sung by Mariza Koch.

*A "fata morgana" is a mirage, an optical phenomenon caused by abrupt variances in air temperature. Objects on the horizon, such as islands, cliffs, ships or icebergs, appear elongated and elevated

All photos © by Elena Vosnaki