FRANCESCA’S COLLECTIONS SIGNATURE AND INDIGO WATERS

Press release

FRANCESCA’S COLLECTIONS MARKS FORAY INTO FRAGRANCE WITH LAUNCH OF FRANCESCA’S COLLECTIONS SIGNATURE AND INDIGO WATERS

Exclusive fragrance offerings will give Francesca’s shoppers the ultimate accessory to complete any ensemble

Custom fragrance development company Tru Fragrance today announced the launch of the first branded fragrances from Francesca’s Collections, one of the fastest-growing women’s fashion retailers in the country. Available for purchase exclusively at Francesca’s Collections stores starting May 1, Francesca’s Collections Signature and Francesca’s Collections Indigo Waters are the first fragrances from the popular retailer, a publicly held company that has built its business on providing shoppers with an eclectic, carefully chosen assortment of treasured items.

“Francesca’s provides a unique shopping experience; each boutique is distinctive, a treasure chest overflowing with gifts, apparel, home accessories and jewelry that reflect the most fashionable styles and desired items from all over the world. These fragrances were carefully designed to deepen a connection with the store, allowing each patron to take a piece of Francesca’s with her when she leaves,” said Sei Jin Alt, chief merchandising officer for Francesca’s Collections. “We are always striving to give our customers something special and one-of-a-kind, that extra edge to finish off her outfit and make her feel beautiful.”

Francesca’s Collections Signature is inspired by the intricate patterns of the native tile work, rugs, tapestries, pottery and architecture found in Morocco, featuring top notes of fresh bergamot and orange segments, mid notes of sensual jasmine and exotic rose, and base notes of white patchouli, vetiver and creamy vanilla. Francesca’s Collections Indigo Waters takes the wearer away to a beautiful tropical locale, capturing the essence of the vibrant sun and crisp blue waters of the Caribbean coastline. The fruity floral blend unfolds with notes of bergamot, grapefruit and freesia, followed by jasmine, rose and violet, and setting with patchouli, musk, amber and blonde woods.

“The Signature scent embodies Francesca’s with notes that are both wearable and unique. Indigo Waters gives our shopper a secondary scent to wear, the essence of spring and summer in a bottle,” comments Alt.

For their first venture into the fragrance category, Francesca’s Collections worked with custom fragrance development company Tru Fragrance to bring both Signature and Indigo Waters to life. “With such strong loyalty among current customers, fragrance was a natural evolution for Francesca’s,” said Monte Henige, CEO and founder of Tru Fragrance. “We have been thrilled to work with Francesca’s from conception to launch, finding the perfect scents to reinforce the sophisticated taste and worldly desires of the Francesca’s shopper, and take her on a journey to a location around the globe each time she wears either perfume.”

Francesca’s Collections Signature and Indigo Waters will be available exclusively at Francesca’s Collections stores starting May 1, 2012. For a full list of retail locations, please visit francescascollections.com.

About Francesca’s Collections

Since opening its first store in 1999, Francesca's Collections has become one of the fastest-growing women's fashion retailers in the country. This publicly held company, with locations in over 41 states, provides its shoppers with an eclectic, carefully chosen assortment of treasured items. Francesca's provides this unique shopping experience to our patrons by taking its inspiration from travelers who search the world for beautiful luxuries and gifts to bring to their friends and family. When shoppers visit Francesca's they will find that each boutique is a treasure chest overflowing with gifts, apparel, home accessories, and jewelry that reflect the most fashionable styles and desired items from all over the world. Learn more at www.francescascollections.com.

About Tru Fragrance

A custom fragrance development company that creates, manufactures and markets private brand fragrances for niche and specialty retailers worldwide, Tru Fragrance (formerly “Romane Fragrances”) develops custom fragrances and scented brand extensions in the fragrance, bath and body, and skincare categories. With 42 years of experience, Tru Fragrance offers custom brand development backed by consumer insight, design and formulation expertise, and extensive marketing and merchandising strategies for independent and boutique retailers, specialty chain stores, online retail and mass merchandisers in every retail price point ranging from $9.99 to $99.00. The company offers an “industry first” category management system that takes retailers through every step of the branded fragrance process including brand interpretation and assessment, research and analytics, creative and formulation development, marketing and merchandising and supply chain fundamentals. To learn more about Tru Fragrance and the Tru story behind the brand, visit www.trufragrance.com or www.facebook.com/TruFragrance.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Absolu de Rose - Offre Spéciale

Un cadeau durant le mois de la cueillette des Roses.
En Mai, Fragrance Creation vous offre un flacon d'Absolu de Rose à 10% pour toute commande de 100 EUR.
Rendez vous sur Quosentis

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

"LES PRODUITS PARFUMES" - formation SCENT INSIGHT - 12-14 juin PARIS

"LES PRODUITS PARFUMES"

Organisés par Scent Insight, les 12,13,14 juin à Paris

A chaque jour son thème :

Le 12, "TROUBLESHOOTING", résolution des problèmes:

Vous découvrez les procédures permettant de  détecter les causes des déviations et la mise en œuvre rapide des mesures correctives sur les produits en cours de développement ou en cours de production. Cette journée s'adresse aux responsables de développement et aux responsables de qualité.

Le 13, "PROCESSUS REACTIONNELS ENTRE PARFUMS ET SUPPORTS COSMETIQUES:

Vous découvrez les composants des parfums classés par fonctions chimiques et réactivités. Leurs comportements vous sont décrit au sein des compositions de parfums appartenant aux principales familles olfactives. La réactivité spécifique des formes galéniques des supports sont analysés. Les outils de prédictions sont listés et expliqués. Cette journée s'adresse aux parfumeurs et  aux formulateurs.

Le 14, "PROCESSUS DE DEVELOPPEMENT D'UN PROJET DE PARFUM:

Il vous sera décrit l'organisation nécessaire au développement d'un parfum. Comment éviter le stress des retards causés par des problèmes inattendus. L'établissement du retro-planning est analysé, les grands chapitres du cahier des charges fournisseur de parfum sont listés et expliqués. Cette journée s'adresse aux services de création des marques et aux services de développement.

Pour le détail des journées, vous pouvez nous joindre sur notre site scent-insight.com 

Chaque journée fait l'objet d'une inscription séparée. 

La clôture des candidatures est le 15 mai.

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Mandarine TREND - TRU FRAGRANCE REPORT 2012

Press Release

EXPERTS AT TRU FRAGRANCE PREDICT MANDARIN TO BE SUMMER’S HOTTEST FRAGRANCE TREND

Mandarin is the “HipNote” at the forefront of the summer season’s most significant fragrance launches

Custom fragrance development company Tru Fragrance today announced mandarin as the fragrance “HipNote” for summer 2012. Tru reports that the fresh, energetic, sweet and tangy notes of mandarin will be featured in summer’s hottest men’s and women’s fragrance launches from other top brands including Coach Summer Edition 2012, Nine West Love Fury, Sinful for Her by The Buckle, Francesca’s Collections Signature and Allure Homme Sport Eau Extrême by Chanel.

Tru Fragrance draws on more than 42 years of experience creating, manufacturing and marketing private brand fragrances for niche and specialty retailers worldwide to identify the seasonal HipNote. Tru Fragrance defines a HipNote as a fragrance note that the brand’s product development experts are newly tracking as on-trend for the following season.

“Overseeing the fragrance development process from conception to market, it is our job to be at the pulse of industry trends and what is appealing to today’s consumers,” said Renee Bukowski, senior product development manager for Tru Fragrance. “For summer 2012, consumers are looking for something new and unique to celebrate the season. Known to develop the imagination and enhance creativity, mandarin is the ultimate summer scent, offering a fresh and energetic take for warmer weather.”

Not limited to fragrance, mandarin madness is sweeping fashion runways, the cosmetics industry, home décor and accessories. Pantone has cited Tangerine Tango (a variation of mandarin) as the 2012 Color of the Year. In entertainment, bright and fiery mandarin is featured heavily in the film currently topping the box office, “Hunger Games.” Both visually and olfactory, mandarin is bright, hopeful and optimistic.

To commemorate mandarin as the summer HipNote, Tru Fragrance partnered with award-winning perfumer Kevin James Verspoor of renowned fragrance house Drom Fragrances to develop a unique, limited-edition mandarin fragrance. Verspoor’s mandarin interpretation is a crisp, fresh, energizing mandarin eau de cologne coupled with a transparent floralcy weaved throughout the fragrance and balanced by sensual woods. According to Verspoor, it is “a modernized unisex fragrance for all to enjoy.”

Simply known as “HipNote Mandarin,” Tru Fragrance’s limited edition summer HipNote fragrance is not available for purchase at retail; however consumers will have the opportunity to request a complimentary sample of the one-of-a-kind scent via “Hipnozes by Tru Fragrance” on Facebook, a dynamic, interactive online community that connects consumers who share a passion for fragrance, beauty and fashion. To learn more about mandarin as the Tru Fragrance summer HipNote, visit www.facebook.com/Hipnozes.

About Tru Fragrance 

A custom fragrance development company that creates, manufactures and markets private brand fragrances for niche and specialty retailers worldwide, Tru Fragrance (formerly “Romane Fragrances”) develops custom fragrances and scented brand extensions in the fragrance, bath and body, and skincare categories. With 42 years of experience, Tru Fragrance offers custom brand development backed by consumer insight, design and formulation expertise, and extensive marketing and merchandising strategies for independent and boutique retailers, specialty chain stores, online retail and mass merchandisers in every retail price point ranging from $9.99 to $99.00. The company offers an “industry first” category management system that takes retailers through every step of the branded fragrance process including brand interpretation and assessment, research and analytics, creative and formulation development, marketing and merchandising and supply chain fundamentals. To learn more about Tru Fragrance and the Tru story behind the brand, visit www.trufragrance.com or www.facebook.com/TruFragrance.

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1st Annual Artisan FRAGRANCE SALON event

Press Release 
1st Annual Artisan FRAGRANCE SALON event | July 8th 

We are pleased to announce the final list of 20 participants for the 1st Annual Artisan Fragrance Salon in San Francisco includes:

Yosh
Sonoma Scent Studio
Artemisia Natural Perfume
Ineke
EnVoyage Perfumes
Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes
Velvet &
Sweet Pea's Purrfumery
Roxana Illuminated Perfume
40notes Perfume
Sarah Horowitz Parfums
Persephenie
COGNOSCENTI
Divine Life Perfume
smell bent
Leila Castle Botanical Fragrance
Rebel & Mercury Pure Botanical Perfumes
Smells & Bells Organics
Ayala Moriel Parfums
Parfums DelRae
L'Aromatica Perfume

The premier artisan and luxury fragrance show on the West Coast takes place this Summer at the 1st Annual ARTISAN FRAGRANCE SALON, July 8th, 2012 in San Francisco.
Fragrance aficionados, fanatics, buyers and journalists can experience the finest in artisan, custom, niche, luxury, herbal & premium aromas. Featuring a quality selection chosen and curated by the Organizers, the 1st Annual ARTISAN FRAGRANCE SALON participants include local, regional and national fragrance makers, as well as Salon highlights featuring olfactory tastings, panels and demonstrations, new product launches, author talks, wine pairings, an art exhibition, and book signings. www.ArtisanFragranceSalon.com
In addition to fragrance, wine and art, the fragrances will be judged, and three winners will be named the "Official Fragrance of the TASTE AWARDS." 
Artisan Fragrance Salon July 8, 2012 | 11am - 5pm
Gallery 4N5
San Francisco

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: 
The TASTE Awards The 4th Annual TASTE Awards celebrates the year's best in food, fashion, and home lifestyle programs on Television, in Film, Online, and on Radio. Attendees, nominees, honorees and winners include television, web and radio celebrities and tastemakers from across the country. Media coverage of the celebrity-studded event in January 2012 reached over 100 million people via various media outlet partners. Nomination submission period opens June 20, 2012.
 TheTasteAwards.com

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Elena Lupesco - "Magda Wolff" and COTY

Because Madeleine is a trend this year and inspires so many things in perfumes, I have another story to introduce you, today only the "top notes". It is scented, mysterious and dark from the heart of the perfume industry where muses, creators and formulae are mixed in a dramatic way and only the top of the iceberg is seen by the consumer. 

When I published Marlene Dietrich's photo from Shanghai Express I thought about a woman whose story is directly linked to perfumes. She was notorious in the 1920's and 1930's. Her nickname is Magda Wolff, a Romanian Jew born in Iasi, known as Elena Lupesco, mistress and then wife of the Romanian King Charles II. The name "Magda" was probably a form of slang for "reformed prostitute", while "Wolff" is probably the name before her family conversion. She was the daughter of an apothecary, but there are other rumors, more spectacular about her origins. 

Last week, her pearl earrings were sold in UK for 1,6 million pounds. A special gift from the King, her companion during her life and also the secret confident of the perfumes she used to wear with passion.
Perfumes from COTY, her vocation because COTY has a less known past from the East. 

The "Judgment of Paris" or the legend of Wallis Simpson, as portrayed in the recent movie directed by Madonna, are bed time stories compared to her life - Elena, a Jewish woman raised by Catholic nuns, in an orthodox country who seduces the King which abandons her official Greek wife named Elena, all set in Eastern Europe in the 1930's. These were certainly not the elements to make her popular, not even after her death in 1977. She was guilty from the beginning, she was guilty before she was born if we consider the version of her "illegitimate birth". Her life has all the flavors of the glorious days of Hollywood - "the red devil", the power of perfumes and an industry with a very secret past before 1945.

Elena Lupesco was born and raised when a very unusual discovery was made by German archaeologists and when two perfumes based on mystical beliefs and historic evidence were imagined by several German companies. It is a subject I will not develop for the moment. 

100 years ago in Romania, perfumes and cosmetics were also sold and prepared by apothecaries. They were using German formulae like those I have in possession from 1912, the year when such a collection was on the desk of Nicolae Lupesco, the father of the young Elena who helped him to prepare the recipes. The first local business, shop and then small factory would be opened later by a man from the same city as Elena, another long story I explained in an interview. 

In the 1920's Elena was a witty, tall, redhead woman with milky-white skin and green eyes. She walked with a peculiar swing of the hips - sensual, sexy and provocative. Her life was intimately linked with perfumes and make-up. She was raised up as Catholic and educated in a school run by Bavarian nuns, one of the best schools for girls in the country. She was often portrayed as a prostitute by her detractors - they had all the arguments and hidden reasons to do it. She was Jew, provocative in her appearance, she used makeup and became the mistress of the future king. She was not a natural beauty, but she new how to use all the potions who became fashionable those days in a very conservative country. 

For more than 30 years, the COTY business was a Romanian story under disguise, I showed it during a conference in Paris with historical documents and the story began on the same street where Coty made his dream. "Magdalena Wolff" was one of the muses in a story where glamour is mixed with politics, forbidden love and all the passion brought by scents. There is also the story of Yvonne, the woman behind the perfumes of COTY, another character totally neglected in a masculine world. 

At the time when Coty started to mix essences in the backroom of a Parisian pharmacy dreaming of an empire, "Magda" grew up in the apothecary of her father. Those scents were her real "madeleine de Proust" several years before Marcel Proust gave the literary definition. One of her friends became the man who ruled Coty's empire and Romania was the plan for the new COTY expansion. Jewish laws and WWII had suddenly changed all the plans and the future of perfumes and cosmetics in Europe. 

The new COTY management and family left Paris in a hurry in 1940. One month later, Elena Lupescu and ex-King Carol II were leaving Romania in a train - the famous scene from Shanghai Express. 

All started at the end of XIXth century in a Romanian castle with another perfume, a queen and a perfumer as I briefly evoked in the past. 

[to be continued]

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

EXOTICA - Madonna Truth or Dare article

My name for the first creation of Madonna is not "Truth or Dare" but EXOTICA, as it expresses the erotic vibe of white flowers combined with the depth of exotic sweet ambery notes. But until I'll review the new amazing perfume, there is a very good interview Katie Puckrick did two days ago for the Guardian with the perfumer Stephen Nielsen, author of "Truth and Dare".

Linné, the famous taxonomist of worldwideFLORA would agree that EXOTICA fragrans could be a new type of flower on WWW. It's not carnivorous but carnal when it is touched for the very first time.
Beware geeks, it is Madonna, pure EROTICA.

A must read  - Madonna behaves like a virgin when the question of IFRA arrives during the creation process.

The Guardian

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Scent of Triumph / A Historical Romance - Jan Moran - new perfume novel

"The art of perfume is the art of romance; it is an endless affair of the heart." says Jan Moran, beauty expert and author who began working with Yves Saint Laurent, the most romantic designer who set LOVE at the heart of his creations like Paris, one of the most amazing perfumes.
Feminine prose is "l'air du temps" in perfume today and 2012 wil be remembered as the Madeleine year in fragrance, a very fertile year in perfume novels. Perfume is EVE, the forbidden fruit. A great number of books are scheduled this year exploring many facets of the perfume - love, mystery, art, erotica. Marie Madeleine has inspired many authors and we may consider she is once again a modern saint as she was 200 years ago. The other day I found in Paris in an antique bookstore an academic history book in German exploring the fascination with the Saint in the XIXth century through the various depictions she had in art, but this is another story. 

2012 is all about the personal and deep relations women have with their scents and how they translate their emotions and visions through perfumes and words because "Perfume is a language for translating the world" - the motto of Cafleurebon website
Jan Moran is a bestselling author and beauty expert, whose insight on beauty and perfume has been featured in publications such as Allure, Elle, Vogue, and Women’s Wear Daily. Jan Moran is known to perfume lovers because of her books with a vibrant red cover, written many years ago - Fabulous Fragrances I and II, a guide for many fragrance lovers before Internet entered the scene. Her books were praised by Women's Wear Daily: "Fragrances by the book...everything a fragrance connoisseur wants to know about shopping for a scent." 

Jan Moran knows a lot about perfume secrets as she was one of the first to guide women in their scented choices. She met perfumers and manufacturers and developed Scentsa, the touch screen fragrance finder in Sephora stores. Moran's brainchild, the Scentsa™ Beauty won a FiFi Award for Technological Innovation.
Jan Moran created her own perfumes, the dream of every woman, but now she came back to literature to combine the passion for scents with history, personal life and the creative research in the perfume business.  Scent of Triumph / A Historical Romance draws on her family history and her mother's memories of World War II. 

"I imagined a young entrepreneur whose talent, determination, and fearlessness catapult her to the pinnacle of success, despite mounting personal tragedies and the elusiveness of love." 

If the name of the main character in Scent of Triumph, Danielle Bretancourt, will remind you of the heiress of L'Oréal cosmetic empire, it is because this name had something familiar in the past. You certainly remember my stories about Hadancourt, historic perfume house during the times of Count Saint Germain and Jean Baptiste Grenouille (Süskind, Le Parfum).
The picture you have on the cover of  Scent of Triumph is a view of  Paris with Tour Eiffel and Pont Alexandre III as you see them from Pont de la Concorde. It is in ax with Marie Madeleine Church and LUXOR obelisk.
Scent of Triumph debuts May 1, 2012..

Official Book description:  Scent of Triumph is the story of Danielle Bretancourt, a talented young French perfumer with a flair for fashion and a natural olfactory gift. In the language of perfumery, she is a Nose, with the rare ability to recognize thousands of essences by memory. The story opens on the day England declares war on Germany, and Danielle and her family are caught in the midst of a raging disaster sweeping across Europe. Her life takes a tragic turn when Nazis murder her husband and their only son is stranded behind enemy lines. She spies for the French resistance, determined to find him, but is forced to flee Europe with fragments of her family. Destitute, she mines her talents to create a magnificent perfume that captures the hearts of Hollywood's top stars, then gambles again to win wealth and success as a couturier. Her intelligence and flair attracts the adoration of Jonathan Newell-Grey, of England's top shipping conglomerate, and Cameron Murphy, Hollywood's most charismatic star. Danielle charts her course through devastating wartime losses and revenge; lustful lovers and loveless marriages; and valiant struggles to reunite her family. Set between privileged lifestyles and gritty realities, here is one woman's story of courage, spirit, and resilience. 

Jan Moran book reviews: 

"Jan Moran is the new queen of the epic romance."- USA Today Bestselling Author Rebecca Forster, Author of Expert Witness 

"Scent of Triumph will appeal to anyone who enjoys historical romance...filled with love, loss, struggle, triumph. Moran writes in such a way that you will feel as if you were transported back to the era. Her characters are well developed. Very unique, an enjoyable read." -- Rebecca's Reads Review 

“Scent of Triumph is a rich tapestry that weaves fragrance into an already compelling story of love and perseverance during WWII. Jan's skillful writing, combined with her wealth of olfactory knowledge, makes this a great read for all, but especially the perfume enthusiast.” - Karen Adams, author 

"Jan Moran has created a resilient, talented character in Danielle. Her story will resonate with any woman who has faced the challenges of parenting, loving, and working to build a future for herself--and those who are looking for a good read, and a satisfying ending." --Kelly James-Enger, author 

"Jan is an exceedingly articulate and vivacious authority on her area of specialty: fragrance. She is also a charismatic and elegant presence who knows her business, lives it and loves it." --Stephanie Stephens, Host & Executive Producer

Jan Moran:
As a fragrance expert, she has been featured on Extra, CNN Headline News, in Women's Wear Daily, Martha Stewart Weddings, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, New York Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Us Weekly, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, and others. As editor and writer, she has covered fragrance, beauty, and spa travel for a variety of publications, including Costco Connection, Portholes, Cosmopolitan, Complete Woman, Radisson Seven Seas Style, Windstar Sophisticate, and Carnival Cruise Gateways. 

Scent of Triumph / A Historical Romance - Jan Moran
Briarcliffe Press; 1rst edition (May 1, 2012)
403 pages, English
Website: JanMoran

          

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Le parfum qui bouge

Rien n'est plus instable que l'univers du parfum où le seul point fixe du cosmos est le mot parfum - à travers la fumée - l'expansion par définition. 

Qu'est-ce que le parfum? Je l'avais dit déjà en 2002, avant le monde virtuel et son déluge, avant que je n'écrive des milliers d'articles après l'autre myriade parfumée écrite sur papier. "Le parfum c'est le Beau sublimé dans l'éphémère d'un instant diaphane, une alchimie des sens dans un moment de béatitude." Je le disais dans une autre langue où la richesse des sens donnait une approche différente qui s'écrivait entre les lignes, entre l'Euphorie et le Paradis et bien sûr l'Instant magique de la photographie. 

C'est l'air diaphane ou translucide sur lequel la lumière et l'ombre produisent les jeux splendides, voilà pourquoi le parfum est comme la nature dans la photo, troublante image hors temps. 

Désormais, le parfum s'écrit dans une autre lumière à travers des merveilles captives nouvelles qui depuis un an donnent la splendeur du clair-obscur dans la parfumerie, en traces pour l'instant comme on le sent dans une création Puredistance. L'air des Hédiones nouvelles se marie à l'eau nouvelle et à travers les deux la profondeur boisée surgit en force, à peine marquée par une note argile. Il y a plus de 16 ans, un parfumeur avait fait une étude chez Dragoco sur le thème de l'eau que j'avais citée dans un document avant 2002. Le propos reste d'actualité et à cela s'ajoutent les nouvelles calones qui nous ouvrent des notes polaires sans précédent. Désormais, une flore mythique devient accesible à travers les parfums pour une nouvelle aurore.

Les rivages d'un monde nouveau se préfigurent tandis que "l'ancien régime" s'efface dans l'effluve candide d'un lilas en fleur. Comme la fumée qui s'élève dans la photo de l'installation d'art de la dernière biennale de Venise, le parfum bouge vers d'autres horizons comme l'esprit des gens vaguent sur autant de chimères pour revenir à la même après un long voyage avec les épices rares d'un Monde Nouveau - El Dorado y El Picante de Columbus ou la Fleur de Feu comme l'appelait Jacques. La vérité est entre les "lignes" du parfum pour ceux qui savent lire le grand art. 

Sur les ailes du parfum tel un dragon, le parfumeur voyage dans l'imaginaire des autres pour cueillir des fleurs rares et des graines secrètes qu'il fait fleurir après une longue attente comme dans une histoire égyptienne. 

Comme le parfum, l'esprit du parfumeur ne connaît pas de point fixe. Le monde virtuel est une prison des mots car il fixe au lieu de libérer la pensée - des mots, des phrases, des idées exprimées à un certain moment de l'histoire récente sur tel ou tel parfum surgissent au même instant pour le lecteur naïf. C'est une vérité qui appartient à un instant précis car la vérité du parfum, le "fixe" du "volatil" est bien ailleurs, après l'ondée, comme le mois d'avril à Paris quand j'ai fait la découverte d'un arbre splendide. Il embaume comme il y a 100 ans dans un endroit où les instants magiques du passé sont précieusement conservés dans une villa et sont l'image de l'univers de Jacques Guerlain, dans le sillage de Kadine, Liù et bien d'autres, les images qu'on ne voit pas dans la transparence des flacons.

Photo: Parfums Guerlain 1901 - ma collection

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

"Are you her type?"

"Are you her type?" says an old Guerlain ad while another perfume writes "Voilà pourquoi j'aimais Rosine". Love is always the past in perfume creation, never the present. 

Women are the Holly Grail of the perfume industry in a world where the subjective aspect is emphasized 24 hours a day. The objective nature of scent is far more complex and certainly not a selling argument. You can hardly have an objective conversation in a shop and it is normal because it's about selling an emotion and not about how the emotion is made. If ingredients are presented on the counter it is to make you more curious and not to reveal what's inside. The perfume formula is meant to remain half secret, otherwise everybody who sees it will imagine himself a perfumer and will not serve the brand. It is very rare that somebody serves the perfume. Many abuse the perfume, portray themselves as entrepreneurs, they are gold seekers like those who more than 100 years ago took the Eau de Cologne formula from the Codex to bottle it. They hoped to make a fortune and when they had the fortune they did not serve the perfume anymore. 

Women are the secret allies of perfume houses, certainly because they love the scents, but also because of the common beliefs in the scent society, everything else than a rational Cartesian paradigm. Once you have stepped into the luxury sector of perfumes, everything is about seduction because the perfumes themselves, from Guerlain to Kilian, are beauty. Imperfection is seen only by connoisseurs and it matters for them and for those who produce new perfumes. Here it is not the seduction myth sold to the client, but the seduction of those who can unconsciously become ambassadors of a brand. If the bee is the metaphor for a perfume house like Guerlain, the perfumes are like flowers meant to seduce other "bees", the fragrance lovers who spread the news in the world.
It is EVE par excellence, because vanity is the favorite sin in perfumes. 

Objectivity and art matter only for those who create and generate new scents because they must find a solid ground and practical solutions to renew themselves every decade. Women serve and promote the perfume in a business which became extremely feminine today. The perfume as a form of writing or a language is also a form of feminine freedom. Maybe in 10 years from now on we'll speak about a feminine literature as many titles are about to bloom and many perfume reviews reflect precisely that - what women feel and experience. Personal experiences and perfumes are the lenses through which the world can be seen and seized. The perfume acts as the magic ingredient which allows the revelation of those hidden elements and their translation into words, bridges between reality and fiction.
Gifts, attentions, invitations and of course perfumes have been always a way in Paris to win the heart and to transform a women into an ambassador of a brand or even the ambassador of the Perfume himself. Also a way to secure a relation. Also the sparkle of the war if we consider the judgment of Paris. But remember also that Perfume is a real Casanova whose power is the number. The perfume, or the perfume house, has a special love for adultery. He is the great seducer and if some women are abandoned it is because other need to be loved. 

Women have a very bad habit - possession. They do not share, they want to keep for themselves everything - names, bottles, relations, perfume secrets. I saw the same scenario many times in Paris, it is my vocation. There was a time when it was extremely impolite to ask the name of a perfume worn by a woman and she would rarely reveal the "secret" to another one. This is not however what the Perfume wants. He is Don Juan. 

The feminine competition is Junglessence. It knows no limit - what else is the perfume of a flower than a special tool to attract pollinators allowing to a plant to reveal its fertile nature through a new fruit? This makes the perfume universe, at least in Paris, a fascinating world, much similar to the world portrayed in "Dangerous liaisons". Women are courted, seduced and manipulated to serve a Perfume and, at their turn, they seduce and manipulate to receive favors and to be accepted at the "court". Some are banished from the court like the very famous lady from the XVIIIth century whose house became a perfume lab, 160 years later, when it was acquired by a respected perfumer (and great seducer). 

What a woman thinks is not important, only what she feels matters and the way she worships the Perfume. After all, the perfume industry is not a very intellectual business, despite its highly artistic dimension. It is about selling millions to many women and it is the way the Beauty industry works - a cruelty equaled only by the dreams she sells. This cruelty is a common essence, it is the myth of the Queen and the Mirror from Snow White. It is also how a great movies starts and it reflects the perfumes of the XVIIIth century. When the perfume becomes "intellectual" it is again to seduce in disguise those customers which are less easy to be convinced. 

Very few feminine names became an authority the way they can be in any other field and this is understandable because perfume is considered subjective, personal and an element of love while an "authority in something meant to be loved" means something else. Of course, there are notable exceptions in the past decade, but one cannot ignore how people think and obviously how other women think in a universe they dominate today. Passion is admired as passion and follows the laws of passion, not science. 

If any art is about muses and inspiration, the perfume is rather different. Muses exist, but they are meant to remain in the shadow and if they come to light it is only for a very short period a time. It is also vital for a perfumer to change the muses because the perfume is dedicated to all women and it must sell. He must change the harem because possession is not the path for a great variety of scents - perfumers can be possesed either by a woman or by his own ideas, he tends to become dogmatic with age. 

The Guerlain secret story is also the special relation with women. No surprise that one of the most beautiful creations of Jacques was named Kadine.
Perfume is Guerlain's vocation and Guerlinade is not a set of ingredients. It is another formula, the one which allows the perfumer to transpose the feminine element into special creations, his vocation. Guerlinade is an invocation of Beauty while many other perfumes are mere evocations. Do you believe that it is so complicated and innovative to mix vanilla, benzoin and other sweet notes on the market since many centuries? Transposing the Guerlinade into marketing or using marketing to understand it was a failure in the recent past. If things can be programmed as marketing hoped, there would be only computers. The deepest meaning of a Guerlinade was the need for something else, that quelque chose which makes a perfume special and gives a beauty which goes beyond time and difference. The scent of a woman and a Heaven's scent. A poet described more than 100 years ago this Guerlain process and I put the poem in my first book, a decade ago, because it represents the essence of Guerlain and the essence of perfume making. I did not find another one more precise from the period when Jacques's aesthetic vision crystallized into a tangible ideal.  

Given the personal relation expressed by the scent and the way it is adopted by others, the real muse is not meant to be a star unless she is already one, but she can be recognized many decades after. When she has faded, she can enter the "House of the Muses" - the museion of the ancients. What else is the absolute of a flower than its post-mortem beauty something we cannot wear in a concentrated form as long as the flower is alive? The way a woman can identify with another woman is a complex process and the reason why real muses are often hidden, at least visually. 

Perfume make the people dream, they send visual signals like flowers. 

Muses are like flowers, discovered and adored, but extracted until the last drop, their memory is embalmed into a jar. It is also the metaphor in the Suskind book and also the way jasmine and tuberose are extracted. Unlike other flowers, they continue to produce an essence during the enfleurage, many hours after they were cut. It is a specific biochemical process. The extraction of the perfume is a symbolic torture. The process repeats itself every decade in order to express the new ideals. When the perfume becomes light and is brought to life, the real muse becomes shadow, the price she has to pay in the mirrored version of the Pygmalion story. Caron comes from Charon and Styx is the river, another famous perfume of the same era with many untold histories and dark legends in Paris.

"Consume her heart an you shall live forever" says the Mirror to the Queen - the unwritten motto of the Beauty industry.

Cruelty is disguised under Beauty, it is also the theme of one of the most beautiful Guerlain perfumes, LIU, another creation whose essence was constantly misunderstood. The perfumer is able to see the invisible beauty, but customers have access only to visual documents which must be exquisite or extremely abstract. Name, bottle, design and story are there to disguise there was once a real person behind the essence conceived by the perfumer. It is the power of fiction like any novel where no photos are used, only the imagination. 

"Are you her type?" asks the ad

"No, I am Yvonne" - the woman behind all COTY perfumes before LIU. The story is secret, but it starts with Jacques in the most unusual place in Paris, if you remember the famous aria from Tosca. Everything is Samsara because Paris was once the theater of very special love story.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

The art of perfume invitation

The perfume is an invitation to the unknown. It is a discovery, a vision, an invocation. Because it is personal and sublime, the invitation is crucial in this art. Without invitation there is no art of perfumes, there is only a sterile industry who speaks about herself using the megaphones. Who cares? 

Several centuries ago, writing a letter was an art, it was also an invitation into the mysteries of the soul. The letter was delicately scented, powdered and signed and there is a marvelous creation from Guerlain who reproduced that magic moment. There are also the beautiful papers used by several perfume houses and I use them to sketch. 

I remember the old days of Haute Couture when the invitations were sent in Paris to the most elegant ladies and from that era I have a lot of papers. They were not scented, but they were handwritten and presented on high quality paper. The calligraphy and the design were already an exciting invitation to discover the magic of the couture when the collection was revealed to the audience during half an hour show. If there are no invitations when the art of perfumes is the subject, there is no reason to speak about art. Art means people and the appreciation of the human work by those who can understand and spread the legend. It is also the reason why some perfumes or houses can find a place in the heart of others. A box, a letter, an invitation, and everything which is human in the fast download era makes the difference. One of the most beautiful examples I saw comes from the late 70's when a very special perfumes was launched and several artists were commissioned. Both the perfume and its documents are of a high artistic quality. 

We tend to forget. If there is no material element or a very specific design / packaging or name, there is no chance to remember the perfume. You remember the perfume of your family, friends and your experiences. How are you supposed to remember a new scent in an ocean of scents and propose it to your audience?

There are many houses, many perfumes and all of them propose scents in a universe where beauty is the rule. Every time when I meet with friends in Paris I have my bag with special things because perfume art is about sharing and constantly demonstrating through scent it has the power of art. I invite inside the world of perfumes with unknown creations meant to create emotions. How do you invite?, when do you invite?, where do you invite? and why do you invite? is crucial in the universe of perfume who is about emotions, positive or negative, but often strong like the beauty they express and sell. 

The old story of the Avon Lady was very pertinent because perfume is a personal relation and a personal discovery with an ambassador who shows you the magic item. The perfume knocks at your door and invites you into a world with new scents. It is why the art of perfumes cannot exist when people are not invited to discover the works and when these invitations are not sent on paper. 

Everything must be exquisite, otherwise it does not deserve the word art. Today, there are several scent galleries in Paris who perfectly understood that perfume is also a glass of champagne, conversation and making a good impression inviting perfumers, clients and beauty editors to socialize around many scents.

Perfumes are not ketchup bottles created by a genius who labels them art. They become art if they are recognized as Art by those who possess an authority and by those who can transmit the message to the world. They are also art once the creator of the perfume is no longer among us and becomes a legend in the old paradigm concerning the relics from the past. If you are not impressed and seduced there is no chance to invite other people inside the creative universe of a perfume house. And many perfume houses lack ambassadors to spread the name and the vision in the world. 

Last week I was invited to a very luxurious and exclusive meeting to discover a new collection of perfumes as I often go, usually during the development of perfumes even if I have no direct involvement. It is the private invitation written with golden letters than kept my curiosity for several days before I spoke with the perfumers. A beautiful invitation is also a reminder for the future because in some cases I can publish the article / review only several weeks after the exclusive event because I do not wish to combine perfume review with the can-can. 

In Paris I visit twice a week at Le Bon Marché and every time I go for the books at the upper floor I pass near the counter where custom made invitations are made for various purposes. I love very much the paper and its odor and I developed a very specific habit. I rarely go to events in Paris if I receive an email (a virtual invitation after all) and if I am extremely curious I ask that an invitation is sent to my address. Perfume cannot be experienced virtually and if there is no 0,55 EUR for the Parisian post, there are less chances to find high quality ingredients inside. There is one luxury perfume house in Paris that I respect a lot because of the calligraphy used for letters that I keep on my desk.

I spent many years inside Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs and I found there old specimens of invitations to perfume events. It was a common practice even for those who did not consider themselves artists.

Paper invitations are the material proof that a perfume is real and has a story to tell. The paper invitation is the Proust madeleine in the real world of Art.
A perfume is a new baby inside the perfume house who will be presented to the world and will be adopted by women and the press. The invitation is also an initiation in the codes and rituals of the house and you cannot have followers if you do not invite them properly.

Là tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté, luxe, calme et volupté.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Al Pacino - Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Al Pacino, the famous actor from "Godfather", "Scent of a Woman" and of course the movie with a very special flavour. 72th anniversary and a lifetime dedicated to the 7th Art. Women sign everyday a pact with a special cachet - golden if it comes from Jacques Guerlain, mine is imperial red (I love rubies among other stones from sky and that Cartier perfume with a seal).

"Vanity is definitely my favorite sin!" 

COS

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Immortal MINE - Clarimonde has a perfume for herself

Did you enjoy my "interviews" from Hotel Transylvania in Paris and the old Cherryblossom perfume from London? There are more things to come as the gothic trend in perfumes takes shape this year. Now, there is a perfume inspired by Clarimonde's eternal kiss, a vampire portrayed by French author Theophile Gautier in 1836. There are many dark stories around, I'll write in detail when time will come about "parfums diaboliques" and many untold gothic scents.

Photos about Immortal Mine and the gothic inspiration.

Immortal Mine perfume is brought by Cherry Bomb Killer

"Immortal Mine. This dark,resinous elixir was influenced by the vampire novel character - Clarimonde. Immortal Mine is a story of eternal love. Of eternal possession. It is a tale told in deep resins that warm the skin and flowers whose delicate essence is fragile and temporary. It is a story of pain and desire…of longing. Immortal Mine is the soil from an unmarked grave. One single drop of blood from a slayed Wyvern, the sweet elixir of dying jasmine and fading neroli. Amber found in ancient tombs of civilizations lost. Longing. Essence of smoke from the funeral pyre. A cut of material from Bela Lugosi’s cape, the dust from a bat’s wing. Wood resins gathered from the Forest of The Dead, Myrrh scraped from the cliffs of The Dark Realm. Precious ouds unearthed from burning desert sands. Wax dripping from black, white and pink candles, ashes of a Phoenix, words from a dead poets mouth. Rare herbs found in a cathedral’s forgotten garden. Desire."

Other perfumes from Cherrybombkillerperfume. 

TRUTH OR DARE. Vanilla, brown sugar, honeysuckle. Summer nights, fishnets, dragonflies. Shy smiles. Lollipops, corsages, red lips, pink sweaters. Love songs.

REBEL ANGEL. Vanilla créme puff, honey, magnolia. Ripped t-shirts, city lights, leopard prints, grafitti. Broken curfews, first dates, locked diaries. Old-school bakeries. Yellow taxis, neon smiles.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

BIO ou NATUREL - la norme AFNOR

Press release 

Une norme internationale sur les définitions et critères des produits cosmétiques biologiques et naturels en préparation 

Qu'est-ce qu'un produit cosmétique "bio" ? Quels sont les composantes d'un produit dit "naturel" ? Quelle est la différence majeure entre ces deux « types » de produits ? Il n'existe pas, à ce jour, de texte de référence, élaboré de manière consensuelle et partagée, pour guider les fabricants dans l'élaboration de ces produits de plus en plus prisés par les consommateurs et les consommatrices. Un groupe de travail AFNOR participe activement aux travaux menés par l’organisation internationale de normalisation - ISO - pour élaborer une norme internationale délivrant des définitions et des critères techniques sur les ingrédients et les produits cosmétiques « naturels » et « biologiques ».

« Répondre à ces questions est l’enjeu de la future norme ISO », explique Isabelle Orquevaux Hary, animatrice du groupe de travail AFNOR rattaché à la commission de normalisation « Cosmétiques ». « Actuellement, ce groupe international, que nous suivons activement au niveau français, travaille sur la définition des ingrédients qui entre dans la composition d’un produit cosmétique naturel et dans la composition d’un produit cosmétique biologique. La norme permettra de distinguer un ingrédient naturel, d’un ingrédient biologique ». La future norme sera le premier document normatif de référence traitant des cosmétiques biologiques et naturels. A l’heure actuelle, seuls des référentiels de droits privés ont été publiés à ce sujet. La norme internationale a pour but d’établir une terminologie commune et reconnue internationalement autour des produits cosmétiques biologiques et naturels. « Cela conduira à une harmonisation de la terminologie pour les produits cosmétiques naturels et biologiques vendus à travers le monde », précise Isabelle Orquevaux Hary.

Les définitions et critères techniques pourront informer et guider les fabricants dans la conception des produits cosmétiques. La norme les aidera à mieux distinguer les ingrédients naturels et biologiques et à mieux comprendre ce qu’est un produit cosmétique naturel et ce qu’est un produit cosmétique biologique. La norme intéressera de nombreux acteurs mais s’adressera plus particulièrement aux fabricants de produits cosmétiques et aux fabricants de matières premières. Elle permettra de définir dans un second temps l’usage des termes « produits cosmétiques biologiques » et « produits cosmétiques naturels ».

La prochaine réunion plénière du groupe international « définitions et critères techniques pour les ingrédients et les produits cosmétiques naturels et biologiques » aura lieu en France, les 26 et 27 Avril 2012 à AFNOR. La norme internationale devrait voir le jour courant 2014.

En savoir plus sur la commission de normalisation AFNOR S91 K « Cosmétiques » 

Qu'est-ce qu'une norme ? Etablie par un organisme reconnu, une norme est un document de référence qui fournit des caractéristiques et des règles pour les activités ou leurs résultats. Consensus entre l’ensemble des parties prenantes d’un secteur, elle est d’application volontaire dans 98% des cas. Les normes permettent d’harmoniser les pratiques et de définir un niveau de qualité et de sécurité, notamment des produits ou services. 

A propos d’AFNOR L'association AFNOR et ses filiales constituent un groupe international au service de l'intérêt général et du développement économique. Il conçoit et déploie des solutions fondées sur les normes, sources de progrès et de confiance. Les missions d'intérêt général sont assurées par l'association dans le cadre d'un décret qui lui confère l'animation et la coordination du système français de normalisation, la représentation des intérêts français dans les instances européennes et internationales de normalisation, l'élaboration et la diffusion des normes. Ses filiales - formation, évaluation et certification, réseau international - quant à elles, exercent des activités de marché dans un environnement concurrentiel et en respectent strictement les règles. La direction générale du Groupe est assurée par Olivier Peyrat.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Sent from EAST - Zagreb - a magic city

Because everything can be cultivated and prepared in the East from the Adriatic Sea to Black Sea as it was done in the past when huge plantations were supplying the East when Ernest Beaux was working in Moscow. Leopold Ruzicka, the great chemist from Chuit Naef who made the musks and the pheromones among many scented Swiss miracles, came from a small Croatian town. He won the Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1939 (biography here).

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Spice bomb (Viktor and Rolf) - new perfume review

SEVER ♥ Spices

One of the best masculine introductions of this spring, even if the term masculine is not really appropriate, Spice Bomb, the last opus of the dutch designers duo Viktor & Rolf is a pure delight of colonial spices set in an oriental woody creamy context. Two decades after Egoïste (Chanel), one of the inspirations behind Féminité du Bois (Serge Lutens), we are back again inside the coveted caravan of spices who once made the fortune of Venice and started the modern world. Columbus sought not only an El Dorado but also El Picante. Cinnamon, pimento, ginger, saffron are at the heart of the new perfume who keeps an honorable distance to the sandalwood spicy overdose of Egoïste (Chanel, at its turn inspired by Bois des Iles). Spice Bomb is an original modern work with a strong personality. The "pain d'épice" trend which was floating around for several months, has now its best interpretation set in a vetiver-bitter grapefruit context. Spice bomb is honeyed, milky lactonic, very sweet and highly addictive, and of course with a cinnamon-pimento confiture effect. It is also a concentrated version of the modern masculine oriental vibe - the highly "sugary" content floating in the air since the worldwide success of One Million (Paco Rabanne). Not shy, but sensual, with green fig and coconut falling from the cedar tree with a sandalwood heart and vetiver roots, Spicebomb reflects the long sought after mythology of spices. Modern by the use of trendy molecules, Spicebomb is also very ancestral - its dominant heart notes could have been proposed 500 years ago. No surprise if you will find common aspects with perfumes from Tom Ford or Hermès, the spices are the same since the day a man thought to reach India the other way around. 

I'm reading a collection of books on spices and the human endless quest for rare notes and special ingredients who shaped the history of humanity leaving behind many less known stories, all of them full of inspiration for the perfumers because they are filled with olfactory references and plants that are no more used on an industrial scale. With a sharp green note sitting near the soft woody ambery sweetness, this perfume has a Narguille effect, the Arabian way to enjoy the tobacco smoke via a Hermessence, but the comparison stops there. The accord was not invented by any perfumer, it belongs to cultural heritage, like the mixture of 4 or 5 spices you can buy in any shop or like the spicy heart of Eau d'Hermès who is not really the invention of Roudnitska, but existed before in an Italian perfume, 300 years earlier.
Highly addictive like DiorAddict or Tobacco Vanille (Tom Ford) and opposing to the bling bling sweetness of One Million a bitter freshness, Spicebomb (Viktor&Rolf) has everything to catch the nose and surprise the senses with a pure colonial delight. 

After all, people use the term cologne or Eau de Cologne not because they would pay respect to the original perfume from the German city Köln, but because of their colonial nostalgia, the empires who made the fortunes of the western world and where the perfume manufacturers sold inexpensive compositions "Eau de Cologne Farina" type, their major export article and the first global scent. No surprise French adore this perfume today, it's their former glory inside.
A true colonial spice, SpiceBomb is a bomb of sensual delight from dutch duo Viktor & Rolf. 
La Spezia, par excellence, if you'd ever loved Old Spice and that blue turquoise body-spray from Denim.

           

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Acqua di Gio - Acqua di Gio ESSENZA for men (Giorgio Armani) - new fragrance review

16 years ago began the story of Acqua di Gio, an unusual creation at that time, but its true story is far older and reflects one of the fundamental forces in perfume - darkness and lightness, fixed and volatile, past and future. Beauty is eternal and universal in perfume, but people are not, they change and the way they react, adopt, reject and rediscover a scent has a Freudian dimension. It is a battle between a Saint and a Monster, as it is portrayed by the legend of this day - Saint George - April 23. 

Like in Plato's allegory of cave, people from the past craved for light and sun, for the scents of freshness which inevitably arrived at the top of their cave somewhere in Europe. This cave was a true place in Italy, it is Valcamonica where floral and solar symbols were carved in stone several thousands years ago during the Bronze Age, symbols which appeared in other places too, after the last Ice Age. This cave and the desire to breathe the air, the freshness of the novelty and unknown opposed to the scents of the past, was also the metaphoric reason behind the work of an Italian in the XVIIth century. From the darkness of monasteries, who despite their holiness were caves compared to the new architecture and the outside glorious world, a man followed his destiny in the north and made fortune with a scent in the house of the Sun King. What would be latter remembered as "Eau de Cologne" was a desire for freshness and lightness which was made possible because Italians started to cultivate citruses several centuries earlier. The lemon, cedrat and later bergamot allowed gradually the apparition of a new type of perfumery, new in terms of scent and new in term of possibilities, all in a continuous struggle between the North and the South, between the Sicilian lemon and the Spices from Venice, between the new Italian freshness and the French opulence in perfumes. This opposition is as old as humanity since Egypt - the embalmed body and the soul. 

People from different generations and different scent backgrounds, as they bathed in the various scents used by their parents, families and friends, express unconsciously their past and their desire for a next future through perfume and the choice they made. 

Eau Sauvage (Dior) is as beautiful as in the 1960's, but back in the 1990's it was a very old fashioned scent. It was not the perfume a teenager would wear, even the Armani for men (1984) was old fashioned. Acqua di Gio broke with all codes in 1996, yet fully following the natural evolution of the concept from Feminis, Farina, EDC Impériale, Eau Sauvage, Cool Water - an abstract idea of freshness using modern ingredients to express light, sun, an island, and very little else. This perfume, following the perfume revolution of 1992, was about modernity, air, a scent who breathes and not about a highly specific odor. 

Eau Sauvage, despite the myth created around and despite the original use of Hedione, was a classic creation. Its structure was created in the 1930's, but was made essential and modern in the 1960's in a time when women were bathing in strong animalic chypre perfumes and the chypre heavy classic accord was extremely obsolete. Eau Sauvage was the union of the past with the present, it was 4711 + Fougère in their abstract ESSENZA, using the amazing Hedione. The use of Hedione was not an accident, it was the mirror of the past in the future because the original Italian formula contained an extremely small amount of Italian jasmine several centuries earlier, but Firmenich had the quintessence only in early 60's. This way, the dream of the first perfumer who made something new from the lemon (the only citrus containing a specific jasmine  molecule was possible) thanks to Swiss chemistry.

The same scenario of the young generation searching and rejecting the heaviness of the past happened in the post-Poison/Giorgio era. Acqua di Gio for Men (1996) doesn't smell precisely of anything, except its top melon note and the oceanic cyclamen vibe. Neither do the Puredistance perfumes I and Antonia who share the same principle of advanced abstraction, yet set in a pure feminine context. Today, 2 decades after its creation, the purity of this perfume as well the purity of CKOne are in a sharp contrast with the naturalistic representations of the recent years when names of flowers and plants were extensively used for perfumes.
It is the same old story in design/art/fashion since centuries, between Biedermeier and Art Nouveau, between Glasgow School and Belgian School, between Chicago exhibition and Sullivan / Wright.
Today, Acqua di Gio ESSENZA, goes even further in the exploration of lightness and the abstract theme of the original perfume from 1996. In the past 20 years the oceanic theme has been explored in all possible ways and millions of bottles were sold from all houses combining the aquavibe with the aromatic metallic fougère, from Egoïste Platinum to Dior Homme Sport and of course Bulgari. A new kind of freshness emerged, green-ozonic and aldehydic, with new oceanic molecules like the coral flower (and many patent molecules) in the perfume BLOOM that I presented several years ago. Acqua di Gio ESSENZA brings the new hedione, the new calone, the "new" icy aldehyde, the eucalyptus camphor woody theme, the abstract lily of the valley, plus many odors which say "aqua", "cold stones", "garden in the morning".

What exactly is Acqua di Gio ESSENZA? For me it is a Zen view of a Tuscan garden which is not set in its original country but somewhere else, in a colder climate and its cold purity has something from a landscape with stones and water, very different than the advertising. The first perfume, Acqua di Gio for men, has one of the most sensational scent trail - meters of lingering freshness behind the person who wears it, you can smell the naturalness on the street, even if the scent on the blotter is not convincing today. The magic of the perfume is its "emptiness" and its distance - l'Heure Bleue (1912) does not seduce on blotter, but it is divine when somebody walks nearby.
Somehow, what happens inside the original and the ESSENZA is like the notion of Void in the Chinese painting. You do not feel the material odor, you feel the presence of the essential and long sought after freshness. You feel and you do not describe. You feel the Sun and its effects on our life, but you cannot look straight an describe it as you would describe a flower. How can you characterize the notion of Space in architecture? An architect would tell you that space is not the addition of elements and for this reason conceiving perfumes, houses and gardens share a lot of similarities. 

In the perfumes of Roudnitksa you feel the intention of something new, the past is present in its purest version. In the perfumes of Jean Claude Ellena you read the intention in its most transparent expression. In the perfumes of Alberto Morillas, like CKOne, Acqua di Gio and the Bulgari creations, you see the future, the lightness and the constant struggle to see beyond the horizon. Past references do not exist, they are well hidden.
Essenza is quite different from the original, and this become obvious in its silky woody almost feminine mossy drydown. Today, if you feel the Void inside the new perfume from Armani, do not be surprised, learn Italian, read the name once again and you will understand why it smells like this and why your nose is so surprised by this re-engineered water.
From Jacques Guerlain to Alberto Morillas and a century of perfumes, we see the two forces which guide the 8th Art - past and future, figuration and abstraction, darkness and lightness - all in a continous struggle to prepare essences for today for people which continously adopt and reject scents based on their life experiences and only one goal - to smell what they have lost. 

Everything is a cycle, like the floral stone carved motif the primitive men did at Valcamonica in Italy, and it is not a coincidence that modern perfumery started with a Chuit Naef product called Cyclosia Base (hydroxicitronellal), the first one which allowed something extremely different. There are no trends, just cycles - concepts and scents. Without these molecules there is no XXth century and when Germans did a colossal fortune with 4711 they understood that a drop of Cyclosia is needed in the classic old formula sold in that amazing blue packaging - they updated the formula.

In 1792 the most modern and original German cologne was imagined - it was the 4711 Echt Kölnisch Wasser and from that era Germany knew a colossal and untold story of cosmetics and perfumes with fantastic creations, none in a French museum today. 4711 was the best conclusion of many other versions of the original water, imagined one century before by an Italian who left his native country.
In 1895 Chuit-Naef company is founded in Genève, today known as Firmenich, the company who made Hedione 50 years ago (1962), the molecule used in Eau Sauvage (Dior, 1966) but also something else, an extremely special and beautiful product 100 years ago that I still love.
In 1912 Ernest Beaux signed Eau de Cologne Napoléon in Moscow, 100 years after the Borodino battle giving a new meaning to the classic notion of freshness in a simple and still appealing formula.

In 1996 Acqua di Gio (Giorgio Armani) completely redefined the notion of water in perfumery without any obvious reference to the past. It was future like its name, Acqua, and it represented symbolically the water used to baptize the new Italian perfumery, today a major place of creativity like used to be centuries ago  Rome and Venice.
The past projects itself into the future through the present creations and actions, as Goethe, a user of the original Eau de Cologne, once imagined.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

MYSTIKAT knows LUXOR

From Paris, meet the cat divine in "The House of Life", her name is MYSTIKAT. She's terribly discrete in the corridors of the perfume formulae library where THE SCRIBE does not allow her to enter when RA traveled with the evening boat.
But you can see HOREYZ, the MYSTIKAT at night.

As one old papyrus says, "show the perfume to the cat and you'll know if it's divine, a heaven's scent because the cat knows the path to Eden". The MYSTIKAT knows if that quelque chose is inside or not the precious jar. She knows LUXOR by nose.

When DIVINA fragrans blooms she must be kept away because that flower brought inside the Ramesseum from an eastern garden has a terrible effect. Its scent attracts the cat as well as special butterflies from miles away the Nile. The MYSTIKAT "fights" that butterfly with an unusual animal design because she thinks the serpent would eat the AMON flower. It's just a natural disguise in Eden's garden from "The House of Life". But we know today that both are attracted by a very special set of chemical substances and these molecules heal and calm the mind. This is not the medieval valerian, nor the Indian nard, it is the majestic flower who bears the secret of life. It is fertile for mind and body as Ramses arbor vitae shows, but you need the flower and the root to make the scent divine. 

While reading the old papyrus in "The House of Life" the nose was delighted with a special scent who acted in silence, healing the wounds of soul and bringing fertility. Initiation meant smelling and reading - enlightment, the LUXOR path. There are millions of plants, but very few from Eden and even fewer with a scented flower following the AMON cycle. The flower came from Asia Minor where the "nard" was later sold in time of Pliny and was still found in Eastern Turkey. As fragile as a flower can be, blooming only for a short period of time, its perfume is preserved as a pommade. 

The cat protects the jar inside the House of Life, we know it from the cosmetic jar in Cairo, made for Tutankhamun - the living image of Amon - 20 years before the birth of Ramses II. The scented curse was real because it was a substance, a sacred one. Ancients used the "nard" to describe the flower they did not see because it was forbidden, but the nard today is only a distant cousin of the old divine, the nard as Greeks authors wrote more than 1000 years later when plants were sold and falsified. From that garden once an oil arrived at the lady with the jar who sits in front of the Obelisk in Paris. Not an ordinary scent in a jar, nor a metaphor, but something from a real plant, which does a lot for skin and hair, like another old sacred perfume jar, still in France today. 

But we are 1212 BC when no Greek author has ever entered the House of Life, the garden where  the forbidden scents of life were playing tricks to MYSTIKAT. One scented plant from Yemen became a Mystikhat, some milligrams of a famous molecule ... and cat-euphoria in the garden. Another one became Myristicat, fragrans obviously.

My favorite black crystal bottle in Paris writes with joy "Gardez moi". MYSTIKAT knows LUXOR by nose. 

[to be continued]
AMON SCRIBE - an introduction to LUXOR

The two twin cats (Bart & Lisa) are for adoption now in Bukarest .details on Facebook

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Fragrance Foundation Arabia - 2nd Middle East Summit - 27th and 28th MAY

Press Release 

Photo: Shahzad Haider Chairman FFA

Fragrance Foundation Arabia (FFA) are pleased to announce the 2nd Middle East Summit which will be held at the Ritz Carlton, DIFC, Dubai, on the 27th & 28th May 2012. 

Fragrance Foundation Arabia (FFA) hosted its first Middle East Fragrance Summit (MEFS) last year, which saw record attendance from key international players from the Fragrance Industry. Last years speakers included Jean-Pierre Houri , President of International Fragrance Association (IFRA) Belgium, Pierre Wargnye Vice President of International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF) France, Abdullah Ajmal, General Manager from Ajmal Perfumes UAE, to name the few. Last years focus was based around “Bridging Innovation”, the Summit highlighted how International Fragrances are targeting the Middle Eastern Consumers and how the Middle Eastern Fragrance Manufacturers are in the position to enter the Western Markets. This year the 2nd Middle East Fragrance Summit 2012 presents a global platform for industry thought leaders to come together to discuss, ideate and innovate, as well as strategise on how to tap the unlimited potential of the Middle East Fragrance Retail Market. After much extensive research the Foundation decided to base this years Summit around the Middle East being the “Global Retail Hub”. With a wide spectrum of topics from Niche Retail to Innovative Ideas on Visual Merchandising the Summit is set to be of great value to industry insiders. 

 Fragrance Foundation Arabia (FFA) are pleased to announce that this is the first platform of its kind in the Middle East that is focused on Fragrance Retail. The Summit has been positioned to target the Fragrance Retail Market as well as Brands, Distributors and Regional Fragrance Manufacturers. The Summit will be inaugurated by His Excellency Sheikh Ahmed Butti Ahmed, the Chairman of Ports, Customs and Freezone Corporation, Director General of Dubai Customs Confirmed speakers for the summit are Mr. Mohamad Al Fahim, CEO of Paris Gallery Group UAE, Mr. Roja Dove from Roja Dove Fragrances London, Mr. Eng Mohamad Badri, Director General from Emirates Standardization and Metrology Authority UAE, Ms. Victoria Christian from Clive Christian London, Abdul Wahab Al Hawaj, Director of Al Hawaj & Sons Bahrain, Ms. Gouzelle Ishmatova, Category and Innovations Director Body Shop London, Mr. Mark Lockyer, Managing Director from Sampling Innovations London, Mr. Basel Adel, Director Retail for Nielsen Company UAE, Mr. Mohammad Lootha, CEO of Dubai Economic Department UAE, , Grant Osborne, CEO from Basenotes London. 

Mr Shahzad Haider, Chairman of FFA says: We will be discussing the most challenging and extra opportunistic environment of the Middle East Retail Industry, which has turned dramatically in the last decade. International Retailers and Fragrance Brands across the globe have the opportunity to create and explore an insightful dialogue to learn from a lucrative region for the fragrance business. The 2nd Middle East Fragrance Summit is now open for registrations, Places are limited and companies are being strongly advised to confirm at the earliest to avoid disappointment.  For more information visit our website. http://www.mefragrancesummit.com/ http://www.fragrancefoundationarabia.org/

 Fragrance Foundation Arabia 

Fragrance Foundation Arabia was founded on the 27th of October 2008 by signing the license agreement with Rochelle Bloom and Miss Mary Ellen Lapsansky, president and vice-president of The Fragrance Foundation US in Dubai, invited by Mr. Shahzad Haider, Chairman and Mrs. Grit Pannier, President of Fragrance Foundation Arabia. 

The Fragrance Foundation headquarter in NYC was established in 1949 by six industry leaders affiliated with the legendary fragrance houses Elizabeth Arden, Coty, Guerlain, Helena Rubenstein, Chanel and Perfumes Weil, to develop educational programs about the importance and pleasures of fragrance for the American public. Today the Fragrance Foundation has become an international source for historic, cultural, scientific and industry related reference materials. The Foundation maintains one of the most extensive print and video fragrance libraries in the world. It publishes educational and sales training materials. The Foundation produces videos and consumer publications and holds seminars and symposia for its members as well as for the international fragrance industry. 

In 1982 the Board of The Fragrance Foundation established the Sense of Smell Institute (formerly the Olfactory Research Fund) at the Foundation. The Sense of Smell Institute is devoted to supporting significant scientific and psychological research at leading universities and hospitals around the world related to unraveling the mysteries and importance of the sense of smell and the psychological benefits of Fragrance. Currently, the Foundation's international members include manufacturers, suppliers, media, advertising and public relations agencies as well as designers, packagers and retailers. 

Every year the respective Fragrance Foundations around the globe organize the prestigious FiFi Awards. The American "FiFi" Award was initiated in 1973 by the then president to acknowledge and honor the creativity of the fragrance industry. In 1993, the first annual European "FiFi" was awarded. 

The Middle East chapter is the second one outside of Europe, following the foundation of partner organisations in Australia, UK, Italy, France and Germany.
The Arabian Gulf is the world’s largest consumer per capita of perfumes in its many different genres. 

The Fragrance Foundation Arabia like all other partner foundations will carry out the mission of The Fragrance Foundation, to enhance the image of the fragrance industry and expand the appreciation and use of fragrance in all its forms across all distribution channels globally.

Photo from the first Middle East Summit (2011)

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

AMON SCRIBE - an introduction to LUXOR

LUXOR Obelisk in Place Concorde, Paris

Let me introduce you from Paris THE SCRIBE as he will present you a great surprise in the new golden dawn of perfumes that I name once again LUXOR, The Golden Age of everything you love.
His Story is untold but he knows everything because he wrote once all the things you imagine today and he described at dusk all that you will breathe with joy at dawn.
Year 1212 BC, we are in the most unusual and secret place on earth, not an ordinary building, but the House of Life. It is the sacred library of Ramses II and on its entrance the motto, as recorded by Diodorus in the first century BC, writes "the house of healing for the soul". At the heart of the House, a collection of extremely rare plants, unusual for the area including the precious Divina fragrans, as Carl Linnæus (1707-1778) would have named it in Sweeden, the country where the Royal Library is the only one still preserving that ancient motto, "the house of healing for the soul".
THE SCRIBE wrote and copied the papyrus scrolls, "a gift of the Nile", as Herodotus said. There was nothing more noble and pure than this place, thought Champollion a decade before the right obelisk from Luxor was erected in Paris. Among these many documents, more than 10000 according to Ptolemaic sources, there was a very special collection - the sacred perfume formulae. The records were not written on temples walls, like Edfou or Philae, this will occur 1000 years later. We are before Alexander the Great, whose corpse was embalmed in Egypt, before the Ptolemaic period which ended with the Roman conquest. We are in a time when no Greek author had ever access to the Egyptian knowledge to write about a lost perfume book of Cleopatra.
THE SCRIBE copied and preserved the most precious and secret artifact - the one who tells how to make perfumes and how to use them, the secret key which made all the glory of Egypt. They have studied the scent for a long time and it was his duty to record and to preserve.

In that year -1212 something special was prepared according to an old recipe. Meanwhile, other formulae were recorded by THE SCRIBE in his well organized collection. During his reign, Ramses II finished the huge hypostyle room at LUXOR and all new temples, including  his Ramesseum, needed special perfumes.
As THE SCRIBE went to search for the scroll with a special seal, precious flowers were about to bloom for the glory of AMON and started to whisper in the House of Life.

But how did he look, THE SCRIBE ? We only know the eyes of sun and moon ...
I name HOREYZ the line you see when AMON comes at dawn because I am the I which draws the line between the EYE and ZERO. I am the next MASKARAH and I describe your eyes divine at dawn with gold and green the one with blue.
I name HOREYZ the LINE across the NILE when AMON shines and I sign as ever O

HOREYZ LUXOR 

the dawn I a.m.
THE EYE OF HORUS
I define the I
REVEYE
* MASKARAH * LINEDIVINE *
* LUXOR THE MAGIKEYE *
AMON SCRIBE

[to be continued]

   

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art