Karmacoma by Anomalia Paris- Bittersweet Suede Embracing Vanilla Pods

 Karmacoma by Anomalia Paris: A divorce from everything you used to call “normal” — from habits, permission, and the version of you that learned to behave seems like the perfect motto for entering autumn and the new academic year with flair. Karmacoma is inspired by the aesthetic of a blank canvas, where we boldly script our dazzling and magnificent future. This is also the autumn I'm researching vanilla, it seems, and although I tried this during the warmer months, as the weather cools down, it translates as the perfect cozy fragrance to warm my way into the rainy season. 

The delightful element is its leathery top note, composed by Sidonie Lancesseur as a bittersweet element to enhance the saffron note. A Greek saffron note, no less, among the top quality ingredients in the world, small production extracted by hand. The powdery effect of vanilla and musk is further enhanced by a peppery, spicy garland that ebbs and flows. Its effect on the wearer is what the French call "troublant," which means "intriguing" in the best possible sense. Who could have thought a vanilla would be so nuanced?

On Vanilla; Colombian and Otherwise

 Colombia, Vanilla’s New Production Hub in the World

A speech given during the Barcelona Perfumery Congress last year by Ricardo Ramos, Independent Perfumer of Colombian Origin based in Granada/Spain.

"With an estimation of more than 4300 species of orchids, Colombia is a country with a major diversity of this beautiful botanical species in the world, having more than its 35% native from Colombian territory. The existence of Vanilla in Colombian territory has been ancestrally known among farmers and indigenous communities, being used by a few expert coffee farmers in their coffee plantations, adding it to the coffee beans as an aromatic, sophisticated twist. And among indigenous communities as well, as a tool for seduction, for scenting their clothing, and for making fragrant necklaces (Otapa) and garlands to attract lovers, as mentioned by the Jesuit monks in the 17th Century.

"Some of the very first well-documented vanilla species in Colombia date from The Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada headed by José Celestino Mutis between 1783 and 1816, and years after that, the British Colonel J.P. Hamilton documented in his “Travels through the interior provinces of Colombia” published in 1827, the existence of abundant fragrant Vanilla species along the
Magdalena and the Cauca River basins. Later, during the nineteenth century, Colombian, North American, and Spaniard botanists recorded the existence of vanilla species in the provinces of Valle, Cauca, Cundinamarca, Tolima, and Huila.
During the XX Century, with the development and commercialization of synthetic Vanilla, the interest in natural Vanilla progressively disappeared, allowing the vanilla plants to be destroyed, becoming a product for very local use in countless communities.
Recently, in the current XXI Century, due to the high demand for vanilla in the world and the difficulty of its production and exploitation, interest in wild vanilla has been reborn in Colombia, with recent studies on the species surviving in the Pacific and Amazonian areas.

"The Universidad Nacional of Colombia (UNAL) started a project in 2015, doing research about the spices in the Pacific area,
starting from the shore coast of the Cauca province up to the coast shores in the Choco province, documenting the existence of nine native vanilla species, including the most commercial in the world: Vanilla Planifolia, initially known exclusively from Mexican territory. The study highlighted the existence of hybrid species with outstanding and rare olfactory profiles, which could be highly valued in the global food and cosmetics industries. In the Colombian Pacific, factors like natural pollination, the abundance of water, and the humid climate encourage its growth, resulting in the first flowers after a year and eight months, which means 2.5 years in total for having fruits. This is a shorter period compared to productions in Mexico, Madagascar, and China, because in those regions they must wait up to three years to have the first blooming and nine more months for the first fruits.

In recent years, in the Cauca Valley region, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Palmira and Medellín Campuses, have increased the study of the vanilla orchid across biodiversity, agroecology, conservation, and sustainable use. Currently, thanks to the agreement signed with SWISSAID ( Swiss Foundation for Development Cooperation) Colombia, the UNAL Medellín Headquarters began research to study the insects associated with vanilla cultivation in Bahía Solano, where SWISSAID started a project to stimulate vanilla as a local development product that generates income for indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, through training on effective crop management. The project, which began in 2016 with 18 producers in the area, today has more than 200 farmers and has materialized in the community company Aromas y Sabores, which carries out the entire process of purchasing, collecting, curing, and marketing vanilla."

Inkera, the latest creation by Colombian perfumer Ricardo Ramos, is therefore an ode to the relationship between vanilla and the Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities of the Colombian Pacific, as well as a vehicle for introducing Colombian vanilla to the world.

Inkera is the first perfume to feature Colombian vanilla in its formulation, specifically from the Chocó region, home to *Vanilla planifolia* agroforestry crops tended by ancestral Emberá communities and Afro-descendant families.

In addition to vanilla, the fragrance features a *Viche* liquor accord, a traditional artisanal spirit from Colombian Pacific communities made from fermented green sugarcane juice. Historically used as a medicinal tonic for stomach ailments and snakebites, *Viche* lends the fragrance green, jungle-like tones, the sweetness of cane honey, and mineral and subtle marine nuances. Another ingredient making its perfumery debut in Inkera is Pipilongo (*Piper tuberculatum*), an ancestral long pepper also native to the Colombian Pacific; it offers sparkling nuances reminiscent of petitgrain with woody depth, alongside a warm, zesty, spicy heat. 

Jean Paul Gaultier Divine: fragrance review

Back in August 2023, Jean Paul Gaultier launched Gaultier Divine, the brand's new feminine fragrance, classified as a gourmand marine floral. American actress Yara Shahidi has been selected to represent the new fragrance, imagined as a celebration of femininity. It is signed by perfumer Quentin Bisch and is made of floral, gourmand, and marine notes. For Gaultier Divine the bet was on creating something that young women would want for themselves and everyone would like having them approach them. 

Gaultier Divine capitalizes on the marine semiotics which the Gaultier team has used ever since the cool matelot-clad sailor for Le Male. The marine theme is very tongue-in-cheek. On the one hand the homoerotic nuances of sailors, on the other the salty touch of the new fragrance aimed at women. The fragrance is depicted on women gazing at men at sea. But it's all a tempest in a bottle! The allusion to a scent that would create a similar tempest on those smelling it is not lost upon us. The women playfully cajole and seduce the sailor trapped inside this bottle. It's cleverer than a simple seduction trick in advertising and subtle enough that it does not scream sexist or cliché.

 

Solar fragrances are probably the genre into which I would classify this creation. The term solar fragrance notes (on which I have written extensively) expresses the essence of sunshine and the appeal of endless sugar-spun sands, or the embrace of tanned, warm skin. A perfumer uses helional and mainly salicylates to render this effect, sometimes heliotrope synthetics, too. Flower accents of tiare, frangipani, and ylang-ylang, contribute to this exotic field, alongside mimosa, coconut, vanilla, and salty or marine notes. But not all are used in Gaultier Divine which is as airy as a meringue.

pic borrowed from confessions of baking queen

Calypsone stands here for the iodic facets of oakmoss, as well as watery facets in the floral bouquet of Gaultier Divine, as the interplay between watery and yet non-sweet is beautifully rendered amidst the heart notes. My initial personal impression upon spraying is that someone crossed the bridge between the intensely solar-salicylate chord of Lys Soleia (Guerlain Aqua Allegoria), which was a bit too summery, and the much more delicate treatment of lily-salicylate in Vanille Galante (Hermessences). The latter, although baptized vanilla, is really a lily, the kind with white waxy petals and red stamens, spicy and sweet, yet alluring and mesmerizing. Benzyl salicylate has been the mainstay of this sort of genre, with benzyl amyl and cis 3 hexenyl, the mothership of solar fragrances. I am hypothesizing that Bisch is working his magic in Gaultier Divine with the salicylate molecule Karmaflor he has access to, if only to bypass the rationing of salicylates due to IFRA restrictions, but also to tie it to Mahonial (a lily synthetic) and Nympheal (a watery molecule that has flowery, lotus and lily facets). Lilies do have a salty nuance themselves, as deliciously explored in the once poetic Lys Mediterranee (it has now been tampered with somewhat).

The base is crafted through the synergy of mainly vanilla and benzoin, with subtly caramelic facets and a clean musk, but always balanced by the salty-lily drenched in the sea breeze chord — never too sweet like many other gourmands. It's the balancing act of a skilled equilibrist.

 

The effect of Gaultier Divine is therefore beautifully crunchy. A little bit salty, it resembles munching on savory toffee with fleur de sel snippets scattered in it, resisting to the tooth, like...exactly, an airy meringue. A success!

 Available as eau de parfum.