Geisha Blue - Aroma M

This Aroma M perfume, Geisha Blue, comes in the form of a light roll-on oil, and is based on a strong blue chamomile component, characteristically strong, warm, sweet and herbaceous. 

The scent itself is modern and elegant, melded with honey and green tea, jasmine and leafy greens into a whole with a high-flying modern air.  The blue of the name is symbolic and descriptive. The color blue claims beauty and calm, and Geisha references the others in the Aroma M line and the Japanese traditions of strict aesthetic discipline that result in refinement, elegance, lightness and allure.

Delicate and clean yet distinctively and emphatically there, I would say if a hovering and energetic dragonfly had a signature perfume, this would be it, suitable for its blue body glinting and hovering over a pond surrounded by fresh greens and warm air.  That sense of energy in repose, that hovering, that stillness held up in the air with wings that move so fast they whir, all that energy that nonetheless instantly relaxes you just to apprehend it. Every time I’ve seen a dragonfly with blue bodily highlights hovering over water I am reminded of the otherworldly spheres all around us, going about their own business.  They put our preoccupations in perspective.    

This perfume has a similar very active yet calming  air, as blue the color itself often does.  The blue chamomile’s active ingredients directly affect the body  and mood through aromatic means.

In this perfume form it combines with the other elements to calm while it uplifts and enlivens.  It opens up honey sweet but in the dry-down turns gentle. Yet the scent is tenacious. The green leaves and green tea take over and the lift of jasmine, invisible yet soothing, blends all together. Either sex can wear it.  It is beautiful, calming and modern on a woman, and would be quietly sensational on a man, surprising, yet would make perfect sense.  Blue is always cited as the favorite masculine color, and this creates its equivalent on a different wave-length.

I associate our Western fascination with Japanese beauty with seeking a cohesive sense of calm and spareness, and a rest from Western restlessness.  The Japanese traditional arts pursue a disciplined form of calm elegance and refinement that soothes and that in turn is mysteriously beneficial to the body.  

Translating this into perfume takes a familiarity and ease with influences from both directions.  Maria McElroy, who I have been getting to know over our mutual interest in films and perfumes, has unified a personal life of balance between East and West into aromatic forms.  In Geisha Blue, she has created a form of olfactory iridescence that is cool, refreshing and soothing.

The format of a small, subtle yet densely aromatic perfume is highly portable, a great thing in my opinion, and comes to you covered in a layer of fine Japanese printed paper.

Above images:  Dragonfly brooch by Lalique, from The Magic Lantern 

Geisha Blue is available online directly from the Aroma M site and at various retail locations around the U.S., Europe and Asia.

See this site for more images and influences of Japan on theWest - The Floating World

Japonisme is a beautiful site with a wealth of images and information, poetry and art influenced by Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West.