Rozy.

I started to write this post on a Eurostar train when I was not in the mood to read and M, my travelling companion, kept himself busy with a comedy show on the ipad. I was wearing Rozy which I had been introduced to just two days earlier at an evening at Bloom perfumery in East London. For a full report on the evening and the wonderful and inspirational Vero Kern please read the post by Tara on Olfactoria's travels.

Vero Kern at Bloom perfumery

Being immediately drawn to this mysterious scent I decided to spend the train journey to Paris wearing it. The fragrance was so present that it felt like carrying another soul with me, an invisible traveller, if you like. I began writing random words and associations, trying to unfold and dissect the perfume's soul possessing nature when I realised that a lot of the vocabulary in my notes stemmed from the magical and the drug related. Intoxicating, mind altering, possessive, psychedelic, bewitching... 
No coincidence, given how closely connected these two worlds are. It's a very small step from the love potions and ointments of medieval witches to Timothy Learie's LSD experiments. And if we still lived in the Middle Ages, I am sure that our modern perfumers would be accused of witchcraft. The women amongst them foremost and anyway. Not much danger to end up on the pyres when you produce a fragrance that just smells a bit nice, but if your creation is as potent and beautiful as rozy in its voile d'extrait form, you might be in trouble. Of course I'm not suggesting here that Vero Kern is a modern witch, I merely want to give an idea of the power her scents possess. So, back to the rozy, which at that stage (about 2 hours in) had developed to its full potential, and I had been thoroughly hexed by scent. 

My visual interpretation of rozy. in voile d'extrait by vero.profumo

At the event Vero told us that her inspiration for rozy had been the magnificent Anna Magnani in the film Rose Tattoo. And of course, having just reviewed another perfume dedicated to her, Nobile 1942's Chypre, I am now most intrigued about comparing  them. There are undoubtly  hues to both scents that show them to be in a colour family of golden yellows, burnt oranges, rosy reds and some brown, but the overall effect is very different. Chypre is less vibrant and multifaceted but gentler, more a hearty home cooked dish compared to rozy's finesse. By this I don't want to diminish the Nobile scent, it's just a different approach to a similar theme but there is no denying that vero.profumo's creations are in a league on their own. 

When M saw me working on the visual for rozy he said:" Oh, that looks like a maelstrom of roses." and he was right, I wanted to capture the perfume's amazing ability to take you and your soul on a mind altering ride where it's not you, the wearer, who is in control. An oriental rose glazed in aromatic honey. Tuberose, but thankfully not too much of it, balsamic labdanum, vanilla, cassis and sandalwood. The mere notes never explain the effect of the whole melange coming together. In this case, it's a mixture that is both unsettling and comforting. How that is achieved with such quality and opulence I have absolutely no idea, but given that Vero Kern is also a trained aromatherapist, it's safe to say she knows her stuff.  It is not an easy scent for me though. For all its beauty, I simply have to be in the mood to be that much entranced. When I was wearing it in the relative closed environment of the train I got almost a bit scared by it. Rozy doesn't just sit on my skin and dries away, it dances. It has an excellent sillage but manages not to overpower an entire train carriage (just me) and stays forever on my perfume eating skin. I found a trace of it the next morning. If you like the general description of the notes, (don't be scare off if any of them is usually not to your liking, it's all in the mix) and want to have a perfume like no other, rozy in the Voile d'Extrait concentration is a must try. I find it truly magical. 

How and where to wear:

If you're not afraid to wear something that goes on and under your skin then rozy will make excellent company.

An explanatory note: This review is based on 

a.) rozy in voile d'extrait concentration, there is also an EdP version which is a bit greener and has peach and mint instead of the cassis, as far as I remember.

b.) a sample given to me by Bloom perfumery at the end of an event for which I paid.

Aleksandr

When I reviewed Jardins d'Armide from Oriza L.Legrand the other week I mentioned that I really would like to see the house move from the recreation of historic fragrances to telling "old"  stories with a contemporary twist. And then chance will have it and I find someone else who is doing exactly that. Three weeks ago I attended a perfume event at Bloom perfumery in Spitalfields, where Carlos Huber, the founder of Arquiste perfumes presented and explained his fragrance line. Unfortunately I managed to arrive a whopping 30 minutes late (thank you number 78 bus, thank you apple maps, thank you stupid no sense of orientation brain) which was a real shame because not only did Carlos explain  a lot  about the  inspirations behind scents but  he also gave us the opportunity to have a sniff at the single ingredients he used. I entered the shop just in time to hear him talking about Aleksandr, the perfume inspired by the rather tragic story of Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin. It is told in notes of:

Violet leaves

Vodka

Leather

Fir balm

Smelling the violet leaves was a bit of a revelation - no sweetness, no pastell colour, but a strong earthy green with quite some punch. Not unpleasant, but a bit in your face. Carlos explained that he used that particular note for the earthyness but also because it does have that old fashioned powdery perfume element. Perfumes did smell of violets at that time. The next note, vodka, or alcohol in general makes a lot of sense in terms of telling the story of a Russian poet of the 19th century, but this particular poison is famed for its non-smelling properties. On my little paper strip I detected just a hint of fizzy freshness, more like a vodka/champagne cocktail than the pure thing. 

And then the dominant note, the leather. The essence we smelled was of the finest quality boot leather. Not a feminine suede glove, but polished black riding boots. I am a bit of a sucker for 19th century men's costumes. High boots over tight trousers, what's not to like?

The final note, the fir balm, hinting at a forest touched by a misty morning fog, (the perfect time for a duel?) was again a bit of a surprise. Strong enough to put me off if the final creation would have too much of it.  

After the presentation, when we all mingled and tested the perfumes in detail, I tried Aleksandr on skin. To my great surprise it didn't turn out to be testosterone driven at all.  The violet leaves that were so completely green on paper suddenly smelled more like the petals; sweet and fragile. If you have ever been to a perfumista gathering, you will know that even the most reserved people suddenly feel compelled to smell the lower arms and wrists of someone who just happens to stand next to them and in this case my fellow perfume lovers all expressed a certain surprise at how Aleksandr had developed on my skin.

My drawing for Aleksandr by Arquiste

For me and on me it's a melancholic, leather based fragrance with a very, very soft heart. It's one of those leathers that can go both ways (in terms of gender) and 360 degrees in terms of aspect. And I love it for that. What I like about all the Arquiste fragrances I have tested is that you can detect a unique quirkyness. It's nice to read up on the stories but the perfumes do work entirely on their own merits. Whether you involve yourself in the history or not is up to you and this, for me, marks the difference to some of the perfumes of  the house of Oriza. 

It always helps if the creator/editor of a perfume house is enthusiastic about his/her work, charming and handsome. Carlos Huber is all of that and I wish him and his line all sorts of good luck. Well deserved.

How and where to wear:

St.Petersburg, National library of Russia, with gay pride

Testa Maura, Carticasi the Green

Buying perfume samples online makes me feel like a child in a sweet shop. Whenever I'm on a website offering me x amount of samples for a small sum I go a bit nuts. And if they have testing friendly prices, like Bloom, Les Senteurs and Roullierwhite, I'm very happy to indulge in my hobby and include some never heard of scents just for the fun of it.

Testa Maura is a Corsican perfume house and Carticasi is described as: Mastic, galbanum, rose. That's it. Take it or leave it. Completely fulfilling any clichéd image I ever had about Corsica. If you don't like it, f... off. We don't need you or any of your Parisian friends. Don't buy our houses, don't eat our food, stay away from our women (this knowledge is entirely based on Astérix en Corse...)

Unfortunately, I've never been to Corsica. M. has been, and he says it's the most beautiful place in Europe. I'm not disputing that, but I really want to see for myself. A lot of travelling descriptions seem to agree on the particular aroma of the island. Chestnuts, for sure. And this alluring mastic. The resin of the mastic shrub, often used as a spice to flavour Mediterranean sweets, can also be chewed as a gum, the word "masticate" actually derives from the very plant. 

Testa Maura perfumes are labelled as being made of 100% natural ingredients so I assume that the scent is quite a true rendition of the original plant and its resin, but I wouldn't be able to tell for sure before I have been to Corsica and smelled it myself (hint, hint, hint.)

My visual interpretation of Testa Maura, Carticasi

There is a German rhyming song about colours and this line:" Gruen, gruen, gruen sind alle meine Kleider, gruen, gruen, gruen ist alles was ich mag..." sums up this perfume quite nicely. Even if you don't speak any German, I think you get the gist of it. This is a green scent, make no mistake. But what a green! All the greens! From the citrussy yellow to the mossiest dark, and lots and lots in between. A fresh scent with tons of warmth. Does that make any sense? I hope it does. The freshness here is not the Northern European pine tree sort, it evokes the Mediterranean, sun burnt soil and dry, resinous shrubs. There is something raw and untamed about it but it's never harsh. For the rose note you have to wait a while and when it arrives it's faint and a mere hint. Carticasi is a beautiful fragrance but it needs some sun on the skin, so I will come back to it in summer. Or even better, take it with me on a journey to Corsica (hint, hint, hint.) 

How and where to wear:

On a ferry to Corsica, sprayed on hair that gets swept in the warm wind

La Corse image copyright Astérix en Corse by Hachette Livre, Paris