Ava Luxe - Red Tara and Figue de Sucre

Serena Franco of Ava Luxe is a truly independent niche perfumer who does everything herself, and seems to be powered by a highly energetic interior engine driven to create a wide array of different sensations across the whole spectrum of mood and type. She is one of a number of independent perfumers who are prolific; I am thinking of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and Liz Zorn, too. One of the joys of perfume these days is trying their new things, or delving into their library of past compositions. They are all so personal and imaginative, all while aiming for beauty as a primary force.

Serena Franco, like a number of other such perfumers, is essentially self-taught, yet grounded in a fine artist’s traditional education and training. I have noticed that this background naturally has a direct influence on the perfumes, which shows itself by the wide cultural and art historical references used for inspiration.

Inspirations come from the formal opulence of the golden shimmer of the Byzantine and the French 18th Century decorative arts, to the silver highlighted Noir of Jazz Age Hollywood film, to the ornamental sinuous plant forms of Art Nouveau. Thes perfumes draw on the Romantic English poets, or classical ancient Greek myths, or Asian ceremonial aesthetics, or modern music.

Classical perfumery has otherwise been a direct reference to nature itself, or an aid to a sacred ritual such as meditation or prayer, or inspired by certain types of glamorous society women, or references to the lifestyle rituals of the rich, or the air of beautiful locations that impart the feel of luxury to whoever can afford to wear them. As we know, the materials are expensive and the packaging and promotion even more so. We also know that the formulations and materials of the classic luxury European perfumes have changed over time and we may not be able to experience them as they once were. As in ballet, such perfumes as a form are passed down through a mentoring system but they may change through individual interpretation and the modifications of tastes and time and available resources.

This line uses simpler materials, and a perfumer who possesses a fine artist’s creative resources, who gets the most out of them. Ava Luxe is making well priced hand made perfumes, hand packaged with personal service, marketing directly online, with a single creative individual’s direction, cutting out many layers of expense. This results in a level of quality that would otherwise be priced astronomically if it were produced in a more commercial way. So a refined sensibility becomes directly accessible to a wide range of people through the means of an affordable olfactory luxury.

For example, Red Tara and Figue de Sucre. These two perfumes are at opposite ends, a red and a green, a hot and a cool fragrance. Lately I like to try two very disparate types from a perfumer at the same time. Contrasts show the spectrum and range of personality and style. These two both have an anchoring center that reaches out like a feather to your nose to touch all the edges of your olfactory sensitivities. They remind me of the contrast between an electric bass guitar and a violin, both strong in different ways. 

Red Tara is a warming, smoldering smoke-y wood that has been infused with resins. The notes listed are sandalwood, iris and myrrh. The name and the interpretation are an impression of the soft force of compassion reaching into the heart through the mind as something that can actually physically happen. The Red Tara is a feminine aspect of Buddhist principals of liberation. There is a meditative quality to the perfume referring to the practice of burning sandalwood to aid the mind in maintaining focus. The burning aromatic wood clinging to the surface of the body is lively and magnetic, as is the Red Tara. She is depicted as the spirit of a feminine warrior who will slay negative energies to defend the pursuit of beauty and compassion. This perfume is tenacious and catching the scent of it can remind you of the strength of beauty as an aid to maintaining personal balance.

Figue de Sucre notes are listed as ripe fig, fig leaf, plum, moss and vetiver. The rich tar of a fig is mixed with moss and vetiver that have brightened into a fresh greenness. This becomes Spring in the form of a liquor that you can breathe in. The initial blast of fresh greeness is so dominant that you almost forget the fig beneath, which over time emerges as the base underpinning.  There is a sense of sweet clean skin beneath,  an accord something akin to the sweat of a child who has been running around in the sun for hours. 


Other favorites of mine from this line are Midnight Violet, Moss and Madame X.  I have written about Ava Luxe before, you can access the posts in the search bar in the right hand column.  There are some great ones for layering, which I have written about also.

The site is well organized and easy to navigate, divided by fragrance types such as florals, woods/resins, fresh, gourmand/sweet, chypre, green/herbal, etc. and the drop down menu choices range from $20 for 5 ml to $50 for 15 ml, in  oil based perfume, eau de perfume and extraits.  Some of the perfumes are listed as temporarily out of stock, or go in and out of production as the attention wanders here and there around the site from her many fans, but if you contact Serena she can make a fresh batch for you.  The perfumes are all made to order anyway, and are vegan friendly and completely cruelty  free, of course.

These two perfumes are not new ones, but examples of the Ava Luxe style I admire.  I look forward to trying the newly listed Amande, Green Tara and Pink Violet.  

Many many thanks to Chayaruchama, a.k.a. Ida Meister, my perfume fairy godmother, who has generously showered me with many Ava Luxe fragrances over the past couple of years. I have a box full of such samples she has chosen for me, and I am still working my way through them all.  Contact with Chayaruchama becomes an education in modern perfume in itself.
Above illustration of Red Tara from Dharma Sculpture, which illustrates and explains Tantric Buddhism.
Photo of the fig is from the Ava Luxe site.

Geisha Violet and Geisha Rouge – Aroma M

I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to get to know Maria McElroy; the perfumer of Aroma M a bit, and what I have observed is her primary dedication to beauty.  She is very conscious of her own responsibility for creating beauty in her own life and therefore everyone else’s too, every day.  It’s an inspiring clarity of purpose.   

The  back story is that after a Masters in Fine Arts, she formally studied aromatherapy in Australia, and then very drawn to Japanese culture she moved and lived there for seven years.  While learning Japanese and teaching English, she studied flower arranging, incense ceremony and the tea ceremony.  These experiences all came together on her return to the U.S. to inspire a perfume line based on the aesthetics personified by the persona of the Geisha.  There are so many subtleties to the traditional Geisha’s body of cultural and aesthetic store of knowledge, and Aroma M translates some of this for us as embodied in perfume. 

The line is a collection of  variations on this theme, as identified by colors, from Noire to Blanche to Rouge to Violet, Pink, Green and others, including variations on the theme of green tea and other tastes; appropriately so since taste is so close to the olfactory sense.  I have written about Geisha Noire and Geisha O-Cha (early Spring green tea) before.  The ones I know are all in the perfume oil versions.

Maria suggested I try Geisha Violet with the intuition it would be suited to my tastes, and it truly is.  It has a strong green opening filled with freshness that opens out into cut green stems in water, then more of the greenness of cut grass in summer and a subtle hint of the sweetness of violets deep within mown grasses.  There is something about this combination of effects that grabs and moves me by its headlong sense of direction towards an essence of happiness and a physical sense of well-being.  It’s reliably true that certain olfactory experiences will always directly reach back into your own psychology to cut through whatever may be happening on the surface of your life straight to a peaceful center.  This one for me reaches into a primal sense memory of the energy of Spring and I suspect is calling on the forces of the right half of the brain hemisphere.

 A partial note list includes accords of lilac, violet, bitter chocolate and Japanese lotus.  I think the chocolate while not recognizable as such for me, is modifying the sweetness of the floral accords in such a way as to smooth them, shading their brightness.  I suspect the Japanese lotus is watering everything with a rain-like liquidity that imparts something like a thick crystal pane that serves to magnify the beauty of the natural world for me.  The dry down is slow and satisfyingly tenacious, with a hold close to the skin.  This one is good for those of us who like to wear perfume to work or for casual social times because it doesn’t throw a wide sillage, and what it does comes off from a distance as a sense of freshness.

 Geisha Rouge at first struck me as so powerful I used it a pin drop at a time, and that tiny drop emanated a cinnamon and clove spiciness with a wide throw.  Then I realized that a wider spread on the skin brought out the complexity and beauty of the composition more fully. Clove and cinnamon are dominant but Tonka bean, sandalwood, vanilla and anise marry the vivacious liveliness of something like a stick of cinnamon to a carnation and the dark and soothing narcotic effect of the smooth base notes.  On a wider evaporative surface with the skin’s own scent coming through it gives me the impression of an incense drifting around the body like vapor or smoke.  Rouge has that fire-y beginning as bespeaks the red of its name but then becomes a subtle incense that is complicated and tenacious.  The initial sillage is strong, but the dry down pulls back in and there is a soft darkness and depth that invites contemplation.  

Both of these perfumes are distinctive and strong enough to take you out of yourself and deliver you to a shore that is exotic, luxurious and different enough to engage and heighten your perceptions and sense memories.  Aroma M is translating another culture’s traditions of beauty a subtle increment at a time with this range of perfumes on the themes of Japanese beauty culture.  These two are on the opposite ends of the sensory spectrum and there are others in the line that capture the many variations in between and around them.  I expect there will be more to come in this ongoing project that will enlighten and beautify and marry the sensory traditions of the traditional Far East and the contemporary West.

Image above from a Comix forum site, scroll down for more covers of Les Chroniques de Sillage; a stylish and dark Western view of the Japanese aesthetic.

Aroma M website and information for the full line and ordering.