Cepes et Tuberose – Mandy Aftel

This perfume is a fusion of dark and bright.  I thought of a stroke of lightening, a flash of brightness piercing through darkness.

If you have a particularly clear head, and fresh breath, inhaling this is like experiencing the liquid distillation of dark brocade with gold thread worked through it.  The cloy of tuberose is completely subsumed by the earthiness and acrid tang of the loamy mushroom, yet retains its powerful floral sweetness and together they create something like a new form of patchouli.  A form that is much brighter and greener, anchored tightly into a strong muscular base. Each element seems to both conceal and reveal each other.  It must be that push pull that gives it an addictive quality.

At first consideration, this may sound like a combination that would not make a happy marriage, but it is a case of each element highlighting each other’s best side, and even minimizing each other’s potential drawbacks.  I love the earthiness of the essence of cepes, but it can have a dirtiness that isn’t always appropriate, where the tuberose is achingly beautiful but so heady as to be almost immediately headache inducing with the well known cloying aspect that quickly becomes the dominant tone.  So unusual, for a natural perfume to be able to manipulate the notes in such a way as to remove those two over-the-top aspects of each essence so that you have the freshness of a rain soaked earth quality without dirtiness, and the floral high without turning the corner into over-sweetness.  The combination is both primal and refined.

Almost like making a discovery, rather than sensing the beauty of a composition, I was so struck by my first exposure it was like witnessing two essentially different worlds/cultures meet and instead of colliding they enhanced each other.

As with all true and completely natural fragrances, this one is very ephemeral, and dissipates its strength quickly.  The glory is so big it is completely worth it.  This perfume is like poetry -- condensed, powerful, skillfully hitting all the sweet spots in the pleasure and memory centers directly.

This is a most remarkably beautiful thing and my favorite of all the Aftelier fragrances I have tried.  The full note list is bois de rose, tuberose, Moroccan rose, cepes absolute, benzoin. I think the roses and benzoin are smoothing the edges of the strongest elements - not evident in themselves but acting as the most subtle moderators.

Lord's Jester - Part 2

These are additional notes in regard to the Lord’s Jester liquid perfumes to accompany my prior entry on the solid perfumes (scroll down just below this one).  All of them have the rare element of natural ambergris in the base, and begin with deep toned sweetness brightened with a little pepper, either pink or black, and lift off after some time into a classically floral themed heart that continues to lighten and illuminate the deep notes of the base composition.   

The liquid perfumes are all very tenacious for natural perfumes, which ordinarily don't last more than a few minutes on me if they really are all natural, probably because of the depth and particular quality of the base note materials.  Re-application is worth experimenting with too, especially on different areas of skin, because then the often surprising development will be staggered at different stages.   I am not listing all the notes, because each perfume is made with between 15 and 22 fully natural elements.  Those I mention are the ones that came forward on me.

As with all fully natural perfumes, they require a more meditative/concentrated/mindful quality of attention to what you are breathing in, to be able to apprehend the singular qualities of the essences as they reveal themselves over time. 

I find myself feeling very well disposed towards the full collection of scents.  I think they are suited to both men and women, maybe more serious women who appreciate the lower tones, like the notes of cello and bass guitar, and they would all be absolutely killer on men.

Demeter edt, as you might expect from such a name, suits the autumnal harvest season, with hay and tobacco, pine needle, rose, neroli and fir cone.  The tobacco tints the honeyed sweetness of the hay, giving it a warming quality.  This would be a bright ray of warmth in the depth of winter, and a refined reflection of the heat of summer.

Zephyr edt has an immediately bright and light tone, with certain notes such as pine needle, jonquil, petitgrain, cedar and star anise opening up the dark heart to the breath of air that such elements personify.  This is one that creates a floral liqueur cloud around you after it has soaked into the skin for some time.

Daphne edt has, among other things, I am happy to say, oakmoss, a favorite of mine, in its base, immortelle and magnolia at the heart and cypress, ginger, marigold and citrus notes on top, making for an almost chypre style of perfume. Almost, except that big doses of vanilla and two forms of jasmine and frangipani soften and sweeten the edges considerably.

Selene edp begins almost harshly for a minute, probably because of the combination of certain almost opposite elements, then burns itself quickly down into a carnation nutmeg and clove mist with geranium and juniper pulling in a fresh herbaceous fragranced air around a spicy core.

Dionysus I have posted about before, it was the all natural musk without the use of actual musk, and was the contribution from Lord’s Jester to the Natural Perfumer’s Guild musk project not long ago.  This is a perfume with a most extreme development; from – on me - a sharp, almost ashy earthy coffee to a mellow tobacco-toned honeyed musk, which is as warm and comforting as a sweater knit with strands of sunshine.

 Heracles has the masculine strength of its name.  Somehow the elements of black currant bud, ambrette, boronia and styrax  are adding something clean and clear and body conscious to the rest of the composition which is otherwise made up of very similar elements to the others.  This almost doesn’t smell like a scent, but actually smells like a man whose own scent smells very good.

 Ares mists out like a blend of wood and spice and musk, the ambrette and labdanum holding down but not dominating the fir and cedar.  There is an element of lavender at the center that pulls it all together into a more traditionally masculine type of fragrance; not that I have much respect for the gender classifications of perfumes and I can easily see this worn by a woman who likes the "oriental" style of fragrance.

Above mosaic of the four seasons at Tolmeita

Photo of last autumn's hydrangea leaves by me, Lucy Raubertas.  Please visit my links above to prior posts on the highlighted words.

Lord's Jester - Part 1

Lord’s Jester is an independent, handmade natural perfume line produced by Adam Gottschalk and a small group of artisans based in NYC. Adam studied with Mandy Aftel, and he is a member of the Natural Perfumers Guild.

I recently received a set [1]of seven liquid and three solid perfume samples, all named for the mythic classical Greek sacred spirits - Anthea, Ares, Daphne, Demeter, Dionysus,[2] Helios, Heracles, Selene, and Zephyr.

A common theme that runs through them all is based on the use of ambergris and a wild animal tone of labdanum in the lingering base notes, and frequently a very soft rose for a bridge in the heart notes, and often a form of pepper in the top notes with hay and tobacco tones arising from the sweetness of the resulting scent cloud.

These perfumes are all generally much darker and lower in tone than most perfumes, like musical compositions based around the cello or bass guitar. This style is something that appeals and works for me, personally. The liquid perfumes themselves are golden in varying tones of honey color, or like whiskey, and similarly warming, too.

The solids are pale blond/honey colored and slippery, and feel luxuriously moisturizing, so they could be raked through the hair to perfume and condition it at the same time. The liquids feel very much propelled by the evaporation process, quickly rising fully out from the application in a way that seems like they should be producing a gigantic sillage trail, but as the ingredients are completely natural, this aura stops about six inches away from you. This is an essential quality these days, for those of us who work or travel in close proximity to others.

Even so, I am not sure these are scents are work appropriate, though personally I would not want to let that stop me, because their development tends to pass through a long period of drowsy sensuality before emerging into subtle sweetness and light.

Many of them have a very marked development process, starting out one way, some even bitter and harsh, and then resolving into something mellow and sweetly unexpected from such a start. One thing I found to be true of them all was that after about five minutes or so of applying them, they created a subtle sweetness in the air around me that was mysterious yet simple, like the aroma of summer morning air warmed by the sun. This would suddenly appear and disappear, in and out, on the edge of sensory consciousness, as if a fragrant breeze was passing through.

I love solid perfumes. These three solid perfumes are all deep and rich, while as is common with naturals, holding close to the skin, so can be applied to the face or hair to continually enjoy their effect. This is a good idea because they hold even closer to the skin than the liquid perfumes, since the emollient base is much less evaporative.

The Anthea solid is a jasmine with ambergris, orris, clary sage, rose and petitgrain, which all resolve into a gorgeous soothing soft un-cloyed jasmine with tobacco and soft leather, that I could see worn easily by both men and women. If a man wore this it would almost be unfair, because those unschooled in the effects of jasmine[3]* might not understand they were in the presence of an unusual and seductive combination of jasmine with what are traditionally masculine signals. I find I apply this one over and over for a fresh hit of the floral essence of the jasmine in a greener form than usual.

Helios, in reference to the sun, as a solid, begins immediately as a soothing vanilla patchouli ambergris and orris base beneath the energy of oranges, neroli and bergamot, and a tiny stimulating amount of pink pepper, with tagetes (marigold) that moves to and awakens the back of the throat. The vanilla and citrus notes are equally balanced to continue the stimulation in a controlled way, and patchouli is a blender rather than a foreground character. Like sunlight, both comforting and waking the senses.

Selene, for the moon goddess, as a solid is different than the liquid version in its notes list, in that there is additional orris, and osmanthus rather than styrax in the base and geranium sur fleur and juniper in the top notes. Both are based in ambergris /carnation/vanilla that creates a dry woods aura, supporting the acidic citric petitgrain top. The solid has more jasmine at the heart, nutmeg, clove, rose and especially clary sage very softly blending to hold the bridge between the top and the base. The result to me is redolent of dry grass and hay giving off their heat after the sun has set, and the pepper again sharpening the nostrils to breathe this all in more fully.

All available at the Lord's Jester website. The solid perfumes are gradated in size and on sale so they can be a much more affordable luxury - $25, $60 and $80.

More to come on the liquid perfumes.

[1] Lord’s Jester supplied my samples.
[2] Previous post in the Musk Project describes this scent.
[3] Prior post on the narcotic effect of jasmine

Above the goddess Selene as the moon incarnate,
Pegasi-chariot, Athenian red-figure
kylix C5th B.C., Antikensammlung, Berlin