Ayala Moriel Parfums

Ayala Moriel has been a making perfumes by hand  using fine natural and botanical materials for a long time. On trying the perfumes it becomes obvious very quickly that they arise from a experienced and close knowledge and skill in the use of natural substances and how they combine, in compositions that keep the personality of each note intact. 

This fluency in beautiful materials translates into the ability to express ease and a sense of well-being married to beauty and a very individual style of elegance. I find it amazing how the very same classic materials used by different perfumers result in perfumes as completely different as the perfumers all are from each other.  The scent elements are shaped so differently in each of their hands, even within the classic forms.

In these perfumes each note is clearly recognizable, and the scent not as much blended as composed or sculpted. The overall impression is of a particular perception shaping the composition into something you could never have imagined otherwise. With a strong and clear personality putting these materials together in a specific way, the guide of a particular sensibility that understands them deeply makes for a perfume reality that surpass expectations.  At least it does for me.  I would never have imagined these perfumes before having tried them, even while recognizing the classical forms such as chypres and soliflores.  The interpretations are so personal and I find they have a coolness and modern precision that are unusual in the general style of natural perfumery today.  They are an example of how natural perfumery is going through a state of rapid development and evolution. 

These all have a sense of strength that tends to bloom out into a bigger overall tone over time too, though still within the parameters of holding close to the skin, as natural perfumes tend to do.  They don’t travel beyond about 12 inches away.  Still there is a sense of being enveloped in the scents, probably because of their clarity and strength.

I recently ordered a 6-sample package.  I chose them based on my own interests and it turned out to be a selection across the wide range of the line.

My choices were Schizm, an animalic floral chypre that burns down to a dry soft musk; the soliflore Lovender, the herbal cooled with Iris; Roses et Chocolat, a velvety rose with a hint of cocoa; Fetish, a quick hit of strong citrons; Rainforest, a chypric green mossy earth; Yasmin, the undertone of jasmine, which somehow evolves into cleanliness and sunlight.  Each has that modern refined sensibility that keeps each element discrete, yet composes them in such a way as to highlight a particular aspect of the dominant elements.  Their coolness is different from many natural scents that seem to emit a certain heat throughout their evaporation.

I find her site Smellyblog and her newsletters to be a useful reference source about different aspects and materials of natural perfume and perfume in general.  Her course in natural perfumery as described in her site looks to be thorough and rigorous. 

AM offers the perfumes in different sizes, which is helpful as to affordability, and in solid form, which is a choice I love.  She has developed a wide line of perfume-holding jewelry in silver.  She also is delving into teas and chocolate flavorings and gives what sound like wonderful afternoon scented teas in her studio in Vancouver from time to time.

The painting above appears to me to have a visual relationship to something like the effect of a modern Chypre composed of natural materials,  by Ciurlionis, a Lithuanian abstract painter,  one of 13 taken from his cycle The Creation of the World - 1905-1906

MCMC - Brooklyn Perfumer

Another in my series of perfume makers working in Brooklyn, Anne McClain, has been busy lately. I recall a recent feature in the NYT Style section, following her on a shopping expedition, and she was also conducting perfume workshops on the first Monday of each month at Le Labo in Nolita, and now gives intensive classes in her own studio.

She has orchestrated the development of a perfume for a fountain in a Brooklyn public park, flowing until November 6, 2010, with the lovely fragrance Humanity.  Its signature fragrance is part of an art/volunteerism project.   Plus she has created a range of appealing scents that represent different aspects of her own personal history.

It is an interesting manner of expression, to use fragrance to understand and mark a significant event or the important people that come to the forefront in a life.  These experiences and perfumes are all of a type that most anyone can relate to.  They are classic, such as the good friend who influences you through example while being together doing outdoorsy things (Hunter), or falling in love in a State like Maine where nature is a dominant force.   Humanity has the fresh scent of bathing a child’s skin and hair in rainwater. Garden is the appealing plant results, such as lavender and thyme, of a lot of hard work that can be turned to good use. I’ve never been to Maui myself, but I get the salty air carrying a green and floral warmth around, and with Noble the Eastern traditional elements of jasmine and vetiver stand their ground with each other, together emanating an earthy spirituality.

I  discern a very affectionate take and good-natured attitude towards life within each of these perfumes. They are gentle and soft, with a sunny aspect that references the beauty of the materials to comment on the concept of the perfume itself, and what it represents to the perfumer or stands in for, for us.

Hunter - suggested to be worn with a flannel shirt, possibly because the soft absorbent cotton texture will hold yet wick up and disseminate the tobacco absolute (like a cigarette without the smoke) Bourbon vanilla (the dark kind) combined with fir balsam, that tree vapor that brings your mind into alert awareness yet soothes it with a pleasing freshness.

Garden –  pretty, gentle, soft, cloudy yet modern, strong herbs like thyme, lavender, lemon and bitter orange blended and smooth yet discretely still show their distinctive notes without the typical herbaceous bite. This fragrance was created in honor of a group of gardeners who gather upstate to teach themselves and others farming, with half of the proceeds of the perfume going to support the project. It strikes me as contemporary and stylish because it gives out the basically herbal heart of what a floral truly is, without the sweetness most often associated with florals.  The green and fresh lively quality of floral is predominant instead.

Maine – evokes the marine air with the sun bringing up the scent of the wild roses, wind mixing all together with coolness from the Atlantic. The rose absolute shines through the saltiness and that tang keeps it well away from sweetness but lets the fresh air and sun come through.

Noble – the jasmine and vetiver together work together so that the earthiness of vetiver pulls in the cloy from the jasmine which then remains as honeyed air floating over aromatic dry grass. Associations with the traditional perfume materials of the East lend strength and connect these effects to the heat and creative fecundity of ancient spiritual cultures steeped in fragrance.

Maui –ginger and anise give a contemporary aura to the lush tuberose and frangipani center, modified by touches of green bamboo and salt. This is the vacation/yoga aesthetic where you won’t quite lose your sense of elegant self-presentation even while in a state of floating relaxation in the midst of an island paradise.

Humanity was developed in collaborative art workshops, developing through several drafts and versions for a public fountain, as a perfume that could be experienced in quantity by the public, without becoming overwhelming. The scent is the version that represented the project as a perfume, ultimately developed from a subtle combination of lotus absolute, sandalwood and mate tea, with an invitation to  deliberately invoke a moment of compassion while applying. It has a warm, transparent, softly floral rainwater-bathing-the-skin quality.  I have a strong sense that it does indeed convey an understanding and therefore compassionate attitude toward our fellows, reaching for a commonality.  We all live within our own skins and we all enjoy the idea of bathing in warm rainwater. It's something that would make anyone feel good. All of the proceeds of this perfume go towards supporting a yearly act of volunteerism as part of the Humanity project. The bottle is a gorgeous rock crystal formation kind of abstract object, designed and made by a Brooklyn glass artisan.

The use of absolutes as a base in many of these perfumes holds the notes together, allows the individual notes of the absolute to remain true, yet keeps everything floating within the middle range of the scent spectrum.  This maintains their sense of lightness, and gives a sheer and contemporary quality to the fragrances' intelligent modern elegance.


Samples can be obtained through the website and will give you 5% off the next order.

There is much about the process of creating Humanity, the fountain perfume online at their site.

MCMC has an informative site about all the perfumes and their stories, with information about classes and links to other articles and retail locations.

For other Brooklyn perfumers, see CB I Hate Perfume,  Aroma M, and Cherry Bomb, and D.S. & Durga, and Herbal Academy and on another type of creative air, the Butterfly Lady.

Above photos from the Maui album and other areas on the MCMC site.

Gracing the Dawn

Roxana of Illuminated Perfumes makes botanical/natural perfumes that are rooted in her favorite conceptual themes. Her thinking about perfume relates to nature and also closely to her own and her husband’s work in illustration, which specializes in their fascination with old legends, stories of nature worship, myths, fairy tales,  poetry and songs about these subjects.

Her hand-made limited edition perfumes are composed from rare and often unique botanical and natural elements chosen to illustrate moments and concepts steeped in nature and such legends. In this case her new perfume relates directly to a painting by her husband illustrating the concept of the dawn being graced by nature spirits awakening and enlivened by the early light.

The composition is in the form of a floral Chypre.  In reference to the theme of the painting,  a nature spirit is represented materially by the tincture she has made from violets gathered earlier this year.  The top notes of citrus and ginger provide the brightness of dawning light, the three graces are represented by the classical perfume elements of rose, jasmine and mimosa as the delicate butterflies, and a darker accord base represents the black boughs, blended from a trio of base accords that have appeared in certain other of her perfumes, with a touch of Africa stone.

Full and strong straight out of the gate, it is ephemeral as the dawn, moving quickly through its phases and leaving a vivid memory. It is an essentially a very different type of perfume experience.  I think of it as one to be worn for the momentary bright experience of the captured vitality of fragrant natural substances, very much like the the taste of a glass of fine wine or a liqueur, moving through your body and senses in an olfactory way rather than through the mouth.

The elements of Roxana's perfumes are benign and pure,  and basically beneficial to the skin with no harsh fixatives, so I apply this perfume on the skin above my upper lip so as to get the fullest effect. 

What you are invited to experience is a unique moment of time in nature captured with materials hand-selected and composed to illustrate a magical theme that unites the young child and the ancient tribal, aboriginal being that still lives somewhere within you.

Please visit the other participating sites for wonderful writing on perfume and more details and impressions on Gracing the Dawn:

Roxana herself at Illuminated Perfume Journal
Beth at Cleveland Fragrance Examiner
Trish at Scent Hive
Elena at Perfume Shrine

Please see my other posts on Roxana's work:
on Rosa & Sierra; on the chocolate perfumes,  on Alice, Peace and Vera

Above: The inspiring detail of Gracing the Dawn by ©Greg Spalenka 

Cherry Bomb Killer Perfumes/2 Brooklyn perfumers join forces for Good

Two NYC perfumers, Maria McElroy of Aroma M and Alexis Karl of Scents by Alexis, who are well known for making well-made niche perfumes have joined forces to create a pair of perfumes aimed at sophisticated young things, without excluding the rest of us. Maria has shown the strong influence of a Japanese aesthetic on her Brooklyn DUMBO studio, depicted through her Geisha line. She developed and expanded this in every Japanese inspired direction imaginable from tea to incense and the quietest and softest of florals, with a grounded base of something mysterious and deep. Alexis Karl comes from direction of Williamsburg, with its individualist art/music scene, that shows its influence on the personally hand-done gold and silver-leafed unique bottles in which she presents her own personal glow-in-the-dark aesthetic. The combination of these influences has lead to perfumes that refer to youthful sweetness grounded in something softly dark to create an iridescent fragrant quality. This subtle iridescence manifests too in the texture of the solid perfumes. The liquids, Truth or Dare and Rebel Angel are also available in a portable, wearable form for filling the heart-shaped space of a pendant that can be clipped to one’s person wherever way one may choose. I am reminded by the anime girl aesthetic, which is the product of East meets West in the modern day.

Currently the uniquely modern type of perfume is gourmand and it appears that this generation has its signature within that category. Studies show that young men are especially attracted by the scent of vanilla, and the young seem to (rather graciously) like to interest each other even more than please themselves. I look to please myself for the most part, but even so, though not of this demographic myself, I can appreciate beautifully done sweetness beside a deep vanilla especially because the base comes through with a full and wide strength. I find these scents warming and softly sweet yet without cloy.  The sugar is warm and quickly burns off into a subtle caramel café au lait fragrance beside a honey scented flowering vine, and a tree blossom that has no scent except the hint of a freshness in the air. In other words, though these scents are directed at the young, they are very pleasing and wearable by anyone except perhaps the very grandest of dames on the most formal of occasions. They are casual but still thoughtful because the vanilla has been deepened a notch into something approaching a smooth amber.

These perfumes are like the anime girls above from The Capital City of Flowers in the Sky, kiwaii, wistful, soft,  comforting, yet shadowed by the darks highlighting the lights in the modern air we breathe.

Available online and at Fred Segal IndieScents.com