2013 - The Year of the SNAKE. Let me tempt you with a forbidden fruit. Or better, two temptations because one is for Eve, the other is from the Judgment of Paris. But before the draw of the two perfume bottles I offer to you, let me review something special and exclusive - Honey Lips Kiss Macaron au Cassis by Melina Ehrsam.
A century ago, between French Riviera and Paris, a scented miracle took place. It was the time when a marvel was prepared by a very young perfumer who arrived from nowhere as if the story of Alladin's magic lamp took place in a couture salon. That was "Le Fruit Défendu" made for Paul Poiret, a creation of an incredible modernity and clever construction.
Scentsibility, inspiration, good and right ingredients, a method and sometime a right tutor is all that is needed to transpose something invisible into the charming drop - the marvel of a souvenir.
In front of me stands since something divine, any Vogue girl would die for. It is a most unusual perfume. The honey dew of the first kiss.
It is called "Honey Lips Kiss Macaron au Cassis" and it is a perfume created by Melina Ehrsam.
A delicate honeysuckle note, a summer note whose serpentine floral swirls tempt you with a delicious sweet nectar, is combined with a new fruit, all floating on a delicate woody musky base. The perfume is a personal representation of a fugitive sensation one has when tasting the amazing French invention known as macaron. Between the two layers of the perfect sweet meringue circle stands "la crème de la crème" - the heart. Decompose the macaron on your table and you have the perfect structure of a perfume - the pyramid. The layers. The French Macaron is perceived as whole, like any perfume. Its taste is decomposed in three as you bite the temptation. If you make variation on the macaroon recipe respecting the typology you obtain an infinite collection of perfectly balanced small versions of the Paradise. This is Ladurée in Paris, also my dear Pierre Hermé. It is also the time concept in perfumes explored with so much joy by Jean Carles because "la durée" is the expression of time explored by Marcel Proust's generation.
"Honey Lips Kiss Macaron au Cassis" is the most poetical and innocent expression of this very old concept in perfume art.
Unlike the delicious vanilla-lactone fruity note of Paul Poiret perfume, the fruity note in Melina Ehrsam's perfume is a "black" fruit. Between black elderberry, black fig (with honey in a special Greek recipe), cassis or those tremendous black poisonous berries, this fruity note is highly unusual, maybe one of the most original since Babydoll, In love again (the combination between the sour grapefruit and the sulphur aspect of cassis) and those strange complicated and powerful exotic notes produced by Quest in the 90's.
The perfume made by Melina Ehrsam, a high school student project bottled by Givaudan, comes with something unusual - the formula of the perfume used to explain in a very pedagogical way how the perfume is composed. It is inside the box, I will not insist on the actual ingredients. I tempt you with metaphors.
Imagine yourself in the highly unusual fruity context of Eden (Cacharel), one of the most brilliant composition of the 90's. On a tree you see a serpent. It is a vine of summer honeysuckle combined with a passiflora. The calyx, the crown. The holly nectar, sweet as honey, wine, dried Arabian fruits, Egyptian date wine. A delicate lily, almost innocent. The serpent tempts you with a black fruit. Is it elderberry or a witch poison? Only the lips know the taste of a forbidden kiss with a touch of the almond note. Paul Poiret would have adored this "Borgia" perfume. It has an innocent age, but the scent is not.
The perfume combines the light of fresh citrus notes with a tremendous darkness, woody ambery, sweet but sour. This is not a caloric overdose. It is not Nina. It is not Escada. It is not the very original Guerlain rhubarb perfume I praised. It is something else with the nonchalance of a Kilian black opus.
The perfume, though a school project made possible by Givaudan who bottled it, has all the qualities needed by any modern perfume on the market. I would even say that it is even better than many new perfumes launched in 2012, many of them based on old ideas or what sells. It has something new, not the ingredients which are classic and regular elements on every perfumer's organ, but the vision. Those who will receive the 2 bottles will see that "Coco Mademoiselle" smells old lady compared to the new fruity temptation, a new type of womanity.
The milk is both honey and poison, it is the green sap of an unknown exotic passion fruit which tempts you with its potion. Is it a flower or a fruit? A macaron or a perfume? The taste before or the desire after?
With some help of Philip Kraft and Calice Becker, Melina Ehrsam, the young creator of this perfume, achieved the perfect balance, selecting the right notes she loved and combining them to express her vision. Victoria explained the story, Melina will detail it in an interview. I wish to express my enthusiasm and underline two elements which I consider quintessential here - the principle and the work.
The art of perfume can be practiced by anybody on this planet, with the right ingredients, a certain guidance and a good method. It doesn't belong to any country or institution because Perfume is universal when it is an art form. There is no diploma and there will be no other thing to sanction or limit this art, except health. Everybody can be a perfumer and become a master perfumer because only the Work matters. Only the Work is divine because it goes to Heaven.
Which fruit would you taste first in Paradise whose rivers are filled with Cosmone?
The formula for "Honey Lips Kiss Macaron au Cassis" is short and arranged according to the principles exposed by Jean Carles adapted to a new palette. From the "dream" or the idea of a perfume, often the expression of a true souvenir, a certain palette is selected representing the notes able to transpose the feeling. Often, people cannot express through words what they smell if they do not have enough training, but they can easily recognize if a certain ingredient corresponds or not to the image they try to reproduce. This is the choice factor. From this initial selection, like a painter who selects the shades for the flower he represents, the main notes are carefully blended following rigorous principles of volatility.
The new perfume is indeed a surprise - it smells devilishly divine with a Sulphur note.
Leave a comment on this post with your favorite perfume and I'll make a draw on February 22 when I will announce the happy two winners of my forbidden fruits. They will be delivered as soon as I receive the address. 2 perfume bottles, 2 winners
The perfume draw is closed. See the WINNERS.
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
