Pacifica, a range of well-priced, good quality scents that circulate in the US (and have been fortunate to been able to try in some of their scents in the past and see their delightful packaging) are introducing a new sampling program that is worth your attention. Their top 17 scents are now available as mini .1oz solid samples for just 2$ each, so you can pick your favorite without just relying on a written description. Plus there's a free sample for every order over 25$ and two free samples for every order over 50$.
Meanwhile, Pacifica is introducing a new solid perfume in those adorable little tins that you can slip into your purse or airbag when flying on a carrier with instructions on liquids: it's Island Vanilla, one of their best-selling fragrances combining vanilla absolute, jasmine and fruit with a touch of tea notes on top. Retailing at 9$ for the full size tin.
A mutual passion for scent, botanicals and art brought Anthropologie and Ineke together to create the Floral Curiosities limited edition line of fragrances in 2011.
Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) is a clove-scented flower in the family of carnation that is bi- colored in white/pink/red tones.
Kate Middleton included it in her bridal bouquet, presumably for both the lovely scent and the name, and that was it: a trend was born. Ineke Ruhland has created a Sweet William soliflore fragrance that is anchored with rich wood notes and opening with a juicy peach note. Cinnamon, clove and cumin essential oils provide spice. The dominant wood notes are a blend of cedarwood, sandalwood and patchouli, sweetened with Bourbon vanilla.
Sweet William is now available at all Anthropologie stores and anthropologie.com
Also, Ineke parfums is doing a giveaway of the new perfume at the following link, if you want to participate:
http://promoshq.wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/291550
My childhood summers were spent mostly outdoors, till very late at night. The Mediterranean nights are balmy, warm entities with inviting arms, when the nature is still buzzing in full force, the sky is pitch black but the stars can be clearly seen, and the energy from the sun-soaked bodies which have enjoyed their siesta in the early afternoon (unless us children rebelled by sneaking out of the room as soon as the elders slept to catch cicadas) take a long time to unwind and get ready for a good night's sleep. It was only natural that staying out so long produced its own pattern of rituals: backgammon-playing by the blue-tinged lights of the terraced porch watching the boats dock at the bay in the distance, chasing frogs by the small watering poodles in the yard, hanging fresh herbs from the fields upside down to dry, raiding the fridge for watermelon & feta cheese if bored and of course the "ceremony" of lighting incense coils for repelling mosquitos at sundown. Those tiny insects sure knew how to bite if left unattended, making us scratch and scratch our legs ad infinitum...or so it seemed.
We affectionally called that spiral (hey, we still do!) φιδάκι "fee-THA-ki", i.e. "little snake", due to its shape. These mosquito coils have their detractors who can't stand the smoky smell; they insist the product relies on a placebo effect ~one's mental perception of the insect bites is blunted by the fumes, as if smoking cannbis or something (come to think of it, the smell does have a cannabis note in there). And they have their ardent fans who love them just because of that particular smelly smoke they emit. You can count me among the latter...I just love it; does this come as any surprise?
Typically mosquito coils in this part of the world (and in Asia) are held at the center of a spiral, suspending it in the air, or wedged by two pieces of fireproof nettings to allow continuous smoldering. Burning begins at the outer end of the spiral, slowly progressing toward the centre, taking hours; a process that is as navel-gazingly, painfully slow as to render it almost a philosophical pastime.
Katori Senkou mosquito coil ad, 1900-1929, originally uploaded by Gatochy.
via oldadvertising.blogspot.com
Do not be fooled, the history of the mosquito coil is an old one, as befits these pastimes, clicking audibly like the amber on a lazy man's beads: Pyrethrum (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium) was used for centuries as an insecticide in Persia and Europe and the mosquito coil was developed around 1890s by a Japanese business man, Eiichiro Ueyama. The Japanese used to combine pyrethrum powder with sawdust and burn it in a brazier or incense burner. Initially, Ueyama created incense sticks mixed from starch powder, dried mandarin orange skin powder, and pyrethrum powder. It was his wife who had the idea of coiling the incense into a spiral so as to extend the duration of the mosquito-repellent smoke for maximum practicality and his company, Dainihon Jochugiku Co. Ltd, became a powerful player in the game of insect repellent products.
The variety we used to buy ~and still buy~ locally has always been a vivid, dark forest green. I don't know if this is indicative of a specific formulation, as I have also seen coils in tan and deep brown in other parts of the world. These mosquito coils have a very distinctive scent: sweetish like a sweet-shop burnt sugar note, intoxicating and resinous, with smoky, incense-y peppery notes; a mingled aroma that oscillates between sassafras, labdanum, cloves and camphor/eucalyptus.
But how does the mosquito coil work, you ask. And what about the origin of that scent?
The active ingredients in mosquito coil are pyrethrins, naturally occurring in the seed cases of the perennial plant pyrethrum (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium, grown mainly in Kenya, the Med coast of Dalmatia in Croatia and in Japan), which has long been grown commercially for its insect repellent properties. Pyrethrins are chemically classified as terpenoids, being derived from dimethylallyl pyrophosphate, which combine by the action of the enzyme chrysanthemyl diphosphate synthase. The extract of the pyrethrum plant is solvent-extracted and yields pyrethrin I and II, cinerin I and II, and jasmolin I and II [the I tagged molecules are esters of chrysanthemic acid, while the II tagged molecules are esters of pyrethric acid]. That's enough of chemistry though. I'm pretty sure that besides the naturally gasoline and terpenes scent of the active ingredients in the coil there are additives which impart a more complex "bouquet" so to speak, rendering the coil pleasant smelling. The sticky brown residue that remains if you burn on a ceramic disk is viscous enough and bittersweet-smelling enough with amber-leather facets to suggest that a smidgen of labdanum incense is indeed used.
I have heard that the OFF mosquito coils sold in the US are also pleasant smelling with an incense whiff (and they're green too!), though I haven't been able to compare side by side so far. And mosquito coils are apparently not that new in that market either, which gives a nicely vintage-y factor to it all! Vintage coils even surface on Ebay, proving their cult status I suppose.
For all its sweet, smoky scent, certain precautions are of course de rigeur when using a mosquito coil, as with everything involving use of chemical and combustible materials: You should only use mosquito coils outdoors (being the equivalent of smoking 57 cigarettes if indoors!), never leave it burning close to anything in risk of catching fire (though it burns without a flame, it can transmit heat and produce sparks into combustible materials) and not use it more than occasionally -if that- if pregnant, especially during the 3rd semester. The pyrethroids in particular (used synergistically in some coils) are considered xenoestrogens [Garey et al., 1998], so take care if concerned, as should people with asthma and respiratory ailments. Also best avoid if you keep cats or fish, as it can be toxic to them if used by accident or they're exposed to the fumes. [For a full list of health/environmental concerns you can consult this article. ]
Pyrethrins are not fatal to insects in low doses ~especially to these modern, "mutant" ones which seems to have escaped from camp movie Mimic~ but they do have some sort of repelling action on them still. At the very least, these incense coils provide a smoky, scented ambience that is very evocative of the languor and mysticism of an exotic part of the world. Can't knock that.
I am doubtful as to whether an elegant yet lush floral with woody undertones is really reminiscent of the opulence of the 1920s and 1930s. Historically, I know these were years when florals were given the sheen of aldehydes, transposing them from worlds of flower beds into vistas of abstraction (Je Reviens by Worth, Chanel no.5, Bois des Iles), and big profuse chypres, often with decadent fruity notes (see the pineapple in Colony by Patou, the peach-skin in Mitsouko by Guerlain et al) or leathery scented accents (Cuir de Russie by Chanel, Scandal by Lanvin for instance), reigned supreme. In that sense Opardu, the latest fragrance by Puredistance, is rather incongruent, but it is delightful all the same in its own genre, much like all the fragrances in the line have proven so far: from the smooth bravado of M by Puredistance to the nostalgic femininity of Antonia, the compact line is well thought of, evidenced by the lack of continuous releases heaping up like an avalanche on us -much like it happens with some other niche lines that shall remain unnamed.
No, Puredistance makes an effort and as soon as the first transparent drops of the new elixir, Opardu, landed on my skin I knew that this was another quality fragrance from them. My only complaint? For a parfum concentration, it seems weaker, less lasting than the others. But don't let that stop you from trying for yourself.
The inspiration
The word 'OPARDU' is a creation of the owner and creative director of Puredistance: Jan Ewoud Vos. "When he came up with the word OPARDU he felt that this word had always been there, in a mysterious way... evocative and strangely familiar" the official story goes. I can't say it means anything specific to me, yet it does evoke leopards, bringing to mind Visconti's glorious and utterly romantic Il Gattopardo in mind.
"It took more than a year to further work out OPARDU. Central to the 'feeling' of OPARDU have been the expressive paintings of Kees van Dongen, in particular one of his illustrations for the book 'PARFUMS' by Paul Valéry, published in 1945 in a limited edition of 1000. (Jan Ewoud Vos is the owner of book no. 429)." [according to this info]
The bouquet in the middle below is an illustration of Kees van Dongen
The perfumer
When Jan Ewoud Vos showed this illustration of Kees Van Dongen - a rich and lush bouquet of flowers - to Annie Buzantian, the famous Master Perfumer from New York, she instantly fell in love with it.
The first word that came to her mind was 'Opulence'. She also felt this nostalgic feeling for the early years of the previous century; the golden age of perfumery. And then her work began. As a starting point Annie used a reinterpretation of a classic carnation she had already created which was safely stored in one of her 'secret' drawers.
How it Smells
To my nose the dominating sensation is not of a classic carnation (those tended to be clove-spicy affairs, like in Caron's Poivre & Coup de Fouet), but rather of lilacs; pollen-dusted and with nectarous facets that mingle with a smidgen of green, transparent gardenia impression and a hint of powder and cedarwood. These lilacs are divested of their more melancholy, rained-upon ambience that En Passant by perfumer Olivia Giacobetti for Frederic Malle's perfume line has turned into a cult. That was a passing impression of walking under an umbrella in the early spring just catching a whiff of white lilacs in the distance from some stone and cement-walled garden afar. Here, in Opardu, the purple lilac is trembling under the morning sun and the white flower notes (not especially indolic, but not sanitized either) provide a tinge of honeyed sweetness. The wink of a bit of spice could be said to evoke a carnation interpretation, though I'm mostly struck by the inclusion of the non mentioned powdery soft and woody-earthy garland of ionones (rendering a violet note) and what I could liken to a hawthorn/mimosa note with a little muskiness. If you have always admired Vacances by Patou (1936) but have been frustrated by its rarity (now that even the 1980s reissue is discontinued for so long), Opardu can provide a good substitute.
This delicate bouquet in Opardu makes for a very feminine and subtle composition that is graceful rather than opulent and restrained in very good taste. I would have loved it to be a bit more maxed out for the opulent effect and for greater tenacity, but that's just me.
Notes for Opardu by Puredistance:
Main notes in Opardu as announced in time of writing are: carnation, tuberose absolute, jasmine absolute and gardenia with a background evoking the gentleness of romance through soft powdery notes. (All notes will be officially revealed in the first week of November, when I will update).
OPARDU will be available in a 17.5 ml. Perfume Spray and a 60 ml. Perfume Flacon as pure Perfume Extrait (32%) only, in November 2012. Available at select carriers.
A sample of the as yet unreleased Opardu parfum will be given to a lucky reader who comments on this post. Draw is open internationally till Sunday midnight. Draw is now closed, thank you!
Music: Φεύγω (i.e.I'm leaving...all those years I'm leaving) by Greek songwriter Orpheas Pieridis, adapted here & sung by Dionyssis Savvopoulos.
In the interests of full disclosure I was sent a sample for consideration.
“Smells are things you treasure for a lifetime,” [Carlos Benaim] says. “As a young boy I would often accompany my grandfather to the marketplace in Tangier, and I remember the smells of the spices and fruits, oranges, peaches, melons and apricots — they are engraved in my memory.”
The Moroccan-born, Jewish Benaïm thus reminiscences of his childhood in Tangier before the Six-Day-War of 1967 made him move to Paris, then to Amsterdam and to Buenos Aires before finally settling in New York where he's still working today for International Flavors & Fragrances. His latest foray into cult fragrance is A Lab on Fire's "Liquid Night".
His appreciation of fragrances coupled with his knowledge of chemistry helped him establish himself early as one of the world’s leading perfumers with the classic masculine "green" Polo by Ralph Lauren bring his first breakthrough and popular commercial successes following; Flowerbomb for Viktor & Rolf, Giorgio Armani’s Code for women, Helena Rubinstein Wanted, Bvlgari Jasmin Noir and Yves Saint Laurent’s Saharienne among many many more.
An article by Jeremy Josephs which appears in The Jewish Chronicle online stresses his heritage: "He never has forgotten his Sephardi roots or the plight of Moroccan Jews who made their way to Israel rather than Europe or the United States. “They didn’t have the same opportunities as we were given,” he says. “To put it bluntly, Sephardi Jews in Israel were discriminated against in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s.”
"Benaïm’s response is to have become first a donor, and now chairman of the ISEF Foundation, which attempts to combat social inequality in Israel by offering funding for higher education to gifted students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It has awarded over 18,000 scholarships since it was set up in 1977. “Israel’s greatest resource is the minds of its young. Our approach is a way of protecting Israel — by developing its brain power,” he says.
Carlos Benaim has also received the Leon Levy Leadership Award during the events honoring Moroccan Jewry and their heritage as seen at the American Sephardi Federation.
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