JoAnne Bassett Enchant Parfum: a Brave New Scent review

When autumn and winter weather takes its toll, there is a not so perverse pleasure into getting out the lush florals and the green scents from behind the screen and the books, and in pretending it's late spring all over again. In that frame of mind I spent this past weekend re-testing Enchant Parfum by all-naturals artisanal perfumer JoAnne Bassett.

Enchant was part of the Brave New Scents Project of the Natural Perfumers Guild, which we tackled here on Perfume Shrine a while ago. The perfumer claims to have composed this in a sort of epiphany, or rather "the poetry guided me into what to choose" (A.Huxley was the inspiration behind the project), but I think composing a fragrance with such contrasting notes takes more than just random luck. The happy scent of Enchant reminds me of JoAnne's favourite quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “ Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. ”. It's no wonder she's residing at Cardiff by the Sea in California. The sunny skies and the lush surroundings around her can't but inspire an embracement of nature, even as she focuses on French-inspired scents with accompanying names recently, like Versailles, Madame Pompadour, Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette, Josephine, Napoleon and Malmaison...

Enchant is full of zesty aromas, natural lavender with its camphoraceous top note, very lush rose and jasmine on a bed of hypnotic florals. It oscillates between a sweetish, liqueur-like character (thanks to both rose and davana) and woody camphor, which makes it...well, interesting! It's difficult to classify conventionaly, as I smell both herbal/aromatic and floriental elements in it at the same time; it's quite complex, though it's clear we're talking about a unified composition, not a thing that breaks apart on the blotter within minutes (the bane of several artisanal perfumes). Like I said, I get mostly the camphoraceous-spicy scents (basil, lavender, patchouli), the woody murky (lots of vetiver to my nose) and the floral (lots of rose coupling with pink pepper that compliments it, champaca which is sweeter and jasmine which is extra sweet). This collage gives an uplifting effect, optimistic, and I admit that I didn't expect lavender to give me such apositive reaction: usually I find it either too fake (more vanilla than lavender, as in many functional products or "soothing" products) or straight-out medicinal out of the straight essential oils aromatherapy shelf. Here it's neither, hallelujah!
JoAnne talks a lot about how she gave a spiritual twist by choosing the oils and essences that go into it, but I find Enchant Parfum smells good no matter if you're into getting yourself in a pretzel-shape and humming Ommmm as your mantra or not; it just works!

Enchant is parfum concentration (36% compound) and it shows in its projection and tenacity. The photo on top depicts a limited edition crystal blown flacon for the parfum; I absolutely adore this photo taken by JoAnne Bassett herself and the presentation (notice those tiny bubbles)!

Notes for Enchant Parfum by JoAnne Bassett:
Rose de Mai absolute – the May Rose, expensive and rare oud or agarwood, sandalwood, exotic and costly osmanthus, sacred champaca and holy basil, yuzu, orange esences, butter co2, musky ambrette seed, davana, pink pepper tree, and high altitude lavender, the green note of galbanum, sensual jasmine auriculatum, copaiba balsam, vanilla tincture, and the dark and rich ruh khus vetiver, and dark patchouli in an organic jojoba oil base.

According to the perfumer, the oils that correspond to the Huxley quote are:

I want God: holy basil, oud, champaca,
I want poetry: osmanthus,
I want danger: vetiver, patchouli,
I want freedom: orange essences, yuzu,
I want goodness: rose, jasmine,
I want sin: ambrette seed
  
For more info, please visit the JoAnne Bassett site. 
You can also visit her blogs: Aromatic Journeys and JoAnne Bassett

Top photo by JoAnne Bassett, used with permission. Bottom photo by Margot Carrera

Anya's Garden Royal Lotus: fragrance review of a Brave New Scent & Giveaway

The lotus...floating upon river waters where ancient civilizations flourished and died. Jasmine...the pervader of the night, its piercingly sweet floral aroma the intoxicating scent of carnality.

Alcaloids contained inside the lotus produce a sedative effect, inspiring hypotheses as to its relation to the mythical fruit consumed by the Lotophagi. And the indolic aspects of natural jasmine essence are but an invitation to ponder on our life's primal instincts and how they're sublimated into the poetry of flowers. But in Royal Lotus by Anya's Garden we never quite forget we're dealing with a floral fragrance that though based on modern, cutting-edge sourced materials is always mindful of its pretty, primal nature of aromatics: to smell good!
Indeed, even if it's built on all natural essences, with lots of real jasmine, the less polite aspects of this formidable little night bloom have been smoothed into a silky, gentle canopy that floats in the evening breeze softly promising sweet nothings; thus allowing those curious about jasmine's many fascinating facets to explore into a fragrance that won't scare the horses or prompt anyone to inspect the soles of your shoes!
Royal Lotus is zesty on top with a bursting hesperidic top note that is succulent and fresh, progressing into a soft, floral heart where the sweeter, mating aspects are highlighted rather than the fetid and decaying inherent in white flowers. Lotus essences (uniting absolute and the waxier concrete) bring a light, airated, sivery thread into the mix. The fragrance is very lightly anchored by an equally soft, well-mingled base where no note protrudes above the rest. 

Royal Lotus, part of the Brave New Scents porject, therefore takes modern ingredients into creating what feels like a solid floral: classically topped by an expansive citrus bouquet that reinforces the freshness of the white and acqueous flowers, while a subtle base of woods and coumarin smooth the nectarous essences.
Anya McCoy created Royal Lotus using 21st century materials, referencing only one wildcard from the 20th century, namely clementine essence. Anya after all is no stranger to beautiful citruses and I consider them ~as well as her beautiful floral tinctures~ as the hallmark of her brand: Anyone who likes hesperidia and white flowers would surely find something to appreciate in her all naturals line.

For her inspiration the perfumer states: "My muse was ancient India, brought into the present, once again (remember Kewdra from the Mystery of Musk project)? I chose pink and blue lotus and the extrememly rare night queen absolute (aka Night-blooming jasmine, Cestrum nocturnun) for my heart. Night queen absolute is so rare, this perfume may be, due to lack of any more NQ absolute coming to market, a very limited edition."

The perfumer worked on these notes:

for the top:
wild orange from the Dominican Republic
yuzu from Korea
orange juice essential oil from Brazil
clementine from the USA

for the heart:
blue lotus absolute from Thailand
blue lotus concrete from India
pink lotus concrete from India
Queen of the Night absolute (cestrum nocturnum) from India
Queen of the Night tincture from Anya's garden in Florida
jasmine grandiflorum tincture from Anya's garden in Florida
jasmine sambac Grand Duke of Tuscany tincture from Anya's garden in Florida
orange flower tincture from Anya's garden in Florida

for the base:
sandalwood from Australia
ambergris absolute from Utah
tonka bean absolute from France

The perfumer suggests wearing this fragrance on one's hair, as this would reward the wearer with 24 hours of floral and woody pleasure. Indeed I found that skin application left the more delicate floral elements missing sooner than desired, while a generous blotter application suggests that there is no serious colour staining hazzard for non-silk clothes.

For our readers, a giveaway of a mini 3.5ml of Royal Lotus, courtesy of Anya's Garden. (Perfumer sends prize to the winner). Please state your interest in the comments. Draw is open till Sunday midnight.

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pic via flowerpicturegallery.com

Hermes by Lord's Jester: fragrance review of a Brave New Scent & giveaway

You might be incredulous to see the moniker referring to Aldous Huxley's novel twisted into a perfume review, but indie perfumer Adam Gottschalk of Lord's Jester participates in a blogathon of indie perfumers which we announced on these pages recently and his scent submission Hermes indeed defies classification.

For Hermes perfume, a vividly green (literally!) perfume, Gottschalk used one of the essences which I have always been fascinated by: green cognac. Produced from the wine precipitate known as "lees", from the plant vitis vinifera, cognac essence is a winey, dry, complex note.
The vividly mossy stain of the fragrance does not bely the scent itself: it's rather mossy and quite animalic all right; musty, tart, very dry and earthy, but with a floral depth opening soon, which allays some of the gloom and animalistic character of Africa stone. (Africa stone/hyraceum for those who don't know it yet is the petrified and rock-like excrement composed of both urine and feces excreted by the Cape Hyrax (Procavia capensis), commonly referred to as the Dassie. The material can be harvested by aroma material producers without harming the animal to render a note that unites some of the facets of castoreum, musk and oud. Quite intense!) Coupling the musty with the more hay-sweetish flouve absolute (rich in coumarin) produces a loaded combo that seems to hit you on the head at first, only to mellow soon after.
Lord Jester's Hermes tricks you into believing it is all about the base notes, but the lighter elements (a very perceptible and very lovely indolic jasmine note, plus citrus essences) are welcome leverage which rounds off the perfume. Too much animal can prove unwearable otherwise!
I have tested the fragrance from a spray vial and feel that it would be better suited to a dabbing from a splash bottle instead, to smoothen the initial blast; the rest of the composition blooms wonderfully without assistance even on a mouillette, usually not the perfect medium for all natural perfumes.

The perfumer used in order from greatest concentration to least these "wild" essences for his fragrance "notes":

for the base:
green cognac
linden blossom absolute in 30% fractionated coconut oil
flouve absolute
ambrette absolute
Africa stone

for the heart:
araucaria
rosa bourbonia
boronia
jasmine auriculatum
jasmine sambac

for the top:
linden blossom essential oil
orange essence
lime essence
tagetes

Pretty rare, huh? Indeed Gottschalk clarifies in a blog post how suddenly two of his chosen essences are becoming rarer and rarer; namely rosa bourbonia and jasmine auriculatum. Harvesting materials which are unavailable to the masses and the Big Boys (big aroma producing companies) however is at the heart of small artisanal perfumers, isn't it? In that regard, you won't be disappointed: There's inherent rarity factor in Hermes and I hope Adam finds a way to procure supply of these two rare aromatics. 
Hermes by Lord's Jester is an 15% concentrated Eau de Parfum and is quite decently lasting for an all naturals perfume.
We have a perfume giveaway for our readers (a 10ml/0.4oz) mini of Hermes, so please post a comment if you want to be eligible!  (NB.Perfumer sends prize directly to winner)

Sample provided by perfumer as part of the project. Photo found via AnyaMcCoy's tweets.

Brave New Scents

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in it!
~ Miranda in Shakespeare's “The Tempest”, Act V, Scene I

I want God, I want poetry,
I want danger, I want freedom,
I want goodness, I want sin.
~Aldous Huxley

The time has come again for a collective project uniting several perfumers and bloggers, who will explore new horizons in their quest for accomplished fragrances through innovative natural means.
In the Brave New Scents project, the Natural Perfumers Guild are likened to the members of Huxley’s novel. Like the starring characters in the novel, these brave new perfumers go against the grain and out of bounds, thwarting the ever-expanding regulatory nanny state in order to showcase aromatic extraction feats and use 21st Century aromatics that are not necessarily condoned in mainstream perfume society. Some of the brave new perfumers throw convention to the wind and blend perfumes that showcase their skill extracting scent from previously non-commercial plants, flowers, and substances. Others use the palette of newly-available essential oils, concretes, absolutes and CO2 aromatics; sometimes blending in their own artisan extractions, be they infusions, tinctures or distillations.

The Guild perfumers were provided with an extensive list of 100+ 21st Century aromatics, which was compiled by Guild President Anya McCoy and Guild Manager Elise Pearlstine. They recognized that before the year 2000, most artisan perfumers purchased their natural aromatics from aromatherapy suppliers. These suppliers did not carry many absolutes, and some aromatics available to the mainstream perfumers were not known, or available, to them. Suppliers for mainstream perfume houses did not carry many, if any, aromatics from India, such as jasmine sambac, lotus, champaca and other tropical scents.
Now a bounty of newly-available delightful absolutes such as aglaia flower, boronia, ambergris and many more are at their disposal. Newly-conceptualized and extracted aromatic wonders such as lilac flower and the amazing world of CO2 and SCO2 extractions are now available to the fragrance industry. Also included are the hand-extracted fragrant bounties from the gardens of the perfumers themselves, such as peony enfleurage, Grand Duke of Tuscany jasmine sambac enfleurage, and a myriad of distillations and tinctures. To make it interesting, the perfumers were allowed only one “wildcard” aromatic from the era preceding the year 2000.

The participating perfumers are:
Anya McCoy of Anya’s Garden Perfumes (Project Coordinator & Natural Perfumers Guild President)
Adam Gottschalk of Lord's Jester
Ambrosia Jones of Perfume By Nature
Charna Ethier of Providence Perfume Company
Christi Meshell of House of Matriarch
Elise Pearlstine of Belly Flowers Botanical Perfumes
Jane Cate of A Wing and a Prayer Perfumes
JoAnne Bassett
Liz Cook of One Seed
Rohanna Goodwin Smith of  Ascent Natural Perfumes

**Please visit Anya’s Garden Perfumes for a chance to win a bottle of Sweet Water or Wild Rose!**

The participating bloggers are:
All I Am – a redhead
Ça Fleure Bon (Several writers)
Donna Hathaway at the Examiner
Feminine Things
The Perfume Critic
Perfume Shrine

Expect to see giveaways and reviews on these pages soon!