Kilian Day 9: Confusion

"A tobacco aroma with sweet undertones of honey. A pure aphrodisiac". This is how today's fragrance is described by Kilian. And Kilian's perfumers know their stuff so I am sure this potion has caused more than one baby in its lifetime. For me...no. Unfortunately. I would love to love tobacco and honey. I want to love every Kilian fragrance because the ones that I do love I am completely enchanted by. And I know enough to know that every black bottle with this name has been created with great passion and dedication. Also I am interested in all sorts of connections between the olfactorial world and the emotional world. So I am sorry to say, "Back to Black: aphrodisiac....our paths will never cross again".

The first two hours I was intrigued by this perfume. I felt like I smelled like a male rock star. Crude, restless, eager, fierce. I did however not feel like that rock star, but like I had borrowed Mick Jaggers perfume. A bit weird but interesting! However the fierceness disappeared and turned into something more like heavy incense at Midnight Mass. Bit too much of it for me, I couldn't carry it off, but still... interesting. But then by the end of this day suddenly something entirely different emerged. To me, it resembled heavy roses and soap. I know a lot of people think that sounds beautiful but it is just not my thing. I felt like when you have not rinsed the soap away from your hands and that experience to me is really uncomfortable, just the thought of it makes my head itch. But this is personal, the people in my company did not react like this at all or even sense that sort of thing.

My reflections do not mean anything else than this, a bad match simply and I would love to hear someone else describe a contrary experience of this fragrance to me. In fact, when you google "kilian aphrodisiac review" you will find exclamations of great joy. And this, is one of the things that makes perfume so interesting.

So, please look at the notes below and if you like the sound of them look up reviews on blogs, Fragrantica etc. This could be a sensational discovery for you. And now I am going to look up the notes - which I have in fact not done before this very moment because I wanted to give you a sincere reflection without having "the right answer".

Kilian Day 8: Jasmine whispers

Ok, another floral day... Not my thing. Still not my thing. But, if you like light florals you will probably love this one. It is very springy and very feminine and gentle. Like a soft kiss on the cheek. You hardly notice that you are wearing a perfume but you smell really nice. And I mean really really nice. It does not however make me want to surrender as much as it makes me feel like I already have surrendered, which to me is a less interesting feeling. But if you want to have a perfume that feels elegant and easy, try this one. Also I would say that it is an excellent choice for environment or situations where a more extrovert fragrance is not suitable.

Kilian Day 7: Iscious

Fragrance no 7 is described with these words by Kilian, "An inspiration from the Marshmallow. A pure sensual treat." I didn't read it however until today (I wore the fragrance yesterday), and it makes me smile. The description feels more than adequate as I felt a bit like this the entire day. Or no, I did not feel like this, but I felt like I smelled like this.

Holy Sweet, Stockholm

The roses, honeysuckle and the caramel are like a romantic embrace. There is something about the feeling that this fragrance creates that makes you think of women like in the old movies. Of blushing cheeks, soft skin, light red anticipating lips, blossoming cherry trees, skirts that swoosh on a summer's day and crushes. Total utter impeccable sweetness. And... as much as I love seeing it and it makes me smile and fills my heart with marshmallows...it's just not me. Well, ok, it is a part of me... Yes. But not enough parts to define me in a way that I am comfortable with so not a fragrance that I can "stay" in.

However...there is a person that is the embodiment of all the things mentioned above. Also she of course has many many other sides and is a more complex person. But. She has that very very very special kind of romantic sweetness that you find in so few people these days. You have met her before on this blog, Karin. Karin can carry blush, blossom, swoosh, caramel and rose with a credibility and contemporary touch that no one else that I know can master. So, my Love. don't be shy-sample now belongs to her, it's  a really lovely match. Perfumes like this are made for women and womanisciousness like Karin.

Kilian Day 6: Oligophoria

Second day with this diabolic caress.

I am infatuated. I keep smelling my own skin and every time I do it smells differently. It feels like I keep chasing it, the scent. Trying to capture it. Eight hours after application only a soft basenote veil is left and you have to be very close to feel it. So I put my wrist right under my friend Fredrik's nose. He is a photograper with a divine eye and he has been wearing Noir Epices by Michel Roudnitska so you understand... he understands. He tells me I smell like I am wearing a man's perfume, but he says it with a smile that can only mean that it is in a really good way. Before he has finished describing his reaction the fragrance has changed again. Which gives me a reason to start all over and reapply. I have it in my pocket. I have been carrying the sample with me for two days, every now and then I have to reach for it. Love is an understatement. Fredrik leaves with arms covered in styrax and castoreum.

For some reason, for me it is really about basenotes. I am obsessed with basenotes. But then I also prefer afternoons, Sundays and autumn. The dance between the resinoids, woods and glands in this fragrance intoxicate me. I don’t feel the violet at all. I feel an almond that is not there. I feel so many things and this fragrance just keeps changing. But there is a constant balance between soft and coarse. Between close and escape.

This is what perfumery as an art is about. The creation of adventure. Artistry and mathematical precision in magic union.

Agarwood. gaharunusantara.indonetwork.co.id

Kilian Day 4: Iris & I

I have a weakness for Iris. It is a scent that gives a fragrance immediate elegance and it quietly travels between confidence, politeness, reservation and kindness. Extrovert and disciplined one second, discreet and sophisticated the next. It is also a note that I love experiencing on different people and especially both men and women. Iris is so elegant, and so versatile. So I was looking forward to this.

This is a lovely fragrance. I can imagine that many people would feel very comfortable with it and that it would blend nicely with most body temperatures, skins, characters, textures. I think it would be very interesting on a masculine man. On me, it felt light and undemanding. I had a moment when it gave me associations with traveling in warm equatorial countries. Not because it smells like a warm equatorial country but because it is the kind of fragrance that you would feel comfortable and invigorated applying for dinner on a warm day. I also think it would be lovely with light clothes in linen and elegant sandals.

For me it was maybe a bit too light. I felt like I was searching for something that was not there and like it left me too soon. But like I said, this is a lovely fragrance. It works very well in a business context and does not demand attention. Also one of rather few interesting perfumes that would work very well at a dinner or lunch.

Day 2 with Kilian: A Day of Encounters

It is a man. I am sure of it. A tall man with integrity in corduroy. He has the fingers of a pianist and speaks of politics. It is a fragrance of an intellectual man, sharp and keeping the world at a distance. Not someone you hug. Someone you would really want to discuss the world with by a fireplace with some incredible cognac though.

Two hours later he is gone. He has left a veil of something that makes me think of Santa Maria Novella or a meeting between the clergy and herbs. But the man is replaced by a woman with strong attitudes and sharp features. She takes over a room. 

She stays for about an hour. Then enters a different person. Someone more subdued but confident. Much softer though. I envision a baroness from Veneto in masculine clothes and unruly hair. I like her. 

As day turns into evening the herbs are gone. Also the sharpness. What remains is a soft warm velvety vanilla. Where did they all go?

Bespoken life.

One of the most beautiful and enchanting persons I know, fashion journalist and author Karin Falk, had a birthday party yesterday. A party that was the perfect reflection of herself and her unique mesmerizing blend of sweetness, elegance, charm, style and... magic sparkle. If I one day (wishing) have some kind of perfume-making in my life she is one of the first persons I would want to make a bespoke perfume for.

Happy birthday magic person 

The party in itself was beautiful. For me, it was also pure ego-bliss as I spent most of the evening talking about perfume with Anders and David. I hope they were not painfully overwhelmed by my neverending discourses. I can't help it. Standing in that kind of setting, surrounded by all these Karin-kind-of-people, with fantastic playlists in the background and a candlelit cake-vaganza and neverending champagne...and then these two men ask me about perfume... It is almost too much. My heart went all...well, like this:

Photo by fellow party guest Karin Jacobsen

The conversation revolved around a new perfume for Anders. Anders is special so his perfume has to be also of course. He is one of the stars of Diablo Swing Orchestra, a band that creates music made of this world, other worlds and everything in between. Listen to the song A Tapdancer's Dilemma, you will understand, this man obviously cannot have just some "nice perfume". David, works at Swedish fashion brand Acne and his girlfriend wore a striking red folded envelope/clutch-ish pièce de conversation handbag that he had chosen for her. He was also totally in the zone when it comes to perfume talk. Isn't that just a really great quality in people?

So. Now I am looking for a special scent. Masculine but young, something that captures unusual width of heart and depth of soul. Warm but with integrity. Soft but strong. Solid but with a charming twist. Poetic but sharp. Infinite but present. Present but free. It will include amber, neroli and wood notes. Also definitely bergamot. And then something else... Animalistic notes for sure, but not sure which one. As you understand this is a challenge that I embrace with great enthusiasm.

I wish all parties in my life were like Karin's party. I wish all days in my life included searching for someones scent.

Life is bespoken. Cherish the people that remind you of that.

A fragrance for days without perfume

In Stockholm there is a place for yoga called Yogayama. If you ever come here, and are a yogi, I recommend you drop in for a class or just stop by for lunch upstairs. In the winter there is an open fire and the whole place smells of beautiful soothing incense and chai. During a recent visit I lingered for a while around the shelves with candles, incense and fragrances. I discovered a brand called Jimmy Boyd (sounds like a friend of the Rat Pack rather than a nose doesn’t he?). Unpretentious clear bottles of soft breezy fragrances that made me think of washed bed linen swaying on a cord to dry in the sun. I left with a ”water”, Limón y rosa. On the bottle it is written, ”Produced with love”. I like that... The fragrance is an aromatherapeutical mix of citrus and rose that can be used for the body or spaces.

This fragrance really stands out in my collection which, as you might suspect by now, has several orientals and very few florals or citrus fragrances. The closest, and actually very close, is my summer favorite Escale a Portofino. In fact, this breezy thing feels like a virgin version of that one.

Dazzle like it's 1925.

The 1920's were a decade that had great impact on perfumes and perfume use. In fact, this decade produced some of the most important perfumes of the entire century. One significant trend was that fashion designers started to sell perfumes under their clothing brands, the most legendary one (and quite revolutionary at the time) of course being Chanel No 5, released by Chanel in 1921. Even the bottle was a bold zeitgeist statement with a bottle design far from the ornamentation associated with feminine things. It was simple, bold and unquestionable. 

Bottle designs and the visuals around the fragrances were extremely important and often flirted with contemporary life style. There was the mascerade theme… Masque Rouge, for example, was introduced in a modern bottle, and a box with a red mask. "Mascarades" by Cherigan came in a black bottle with a golden face under a rain of gold dust and gilded triangles. Baccarat were extremely popular for bottles because of their superior quality crystal.

One of the reasons for doing a post on the 1920’s, I admit, is the occasion to indulge in…

Wood, floral or oriental and does it matter?

Does it matter if you can classify what fragrance you’re wearing? If you know whether it is a floral, fougère or oriental? In theory, if you ask someone like me who is against superficial pointless namedropping – the answer is no. There is absolutely no point in keeping that sort of stuff in your head just for the sake of it or because you “should” know. In practice however, there are two reasons for you to think about perfume classification – the main one being that it’s a great tool for new discoveries as it will provide you with concrete links between what you like or dislike, and this will lead you to new fragrance pleasures. And pleasure is a great reason to care about things. The other reason is just simply curiosity. Some people just like maps. I do.

19th century perfumer Charles Piesse was one of the first to start classifying perfumes. He quickly turned to the world of music for symbols and so the language of perfumers became similar to that of musicians (which it still is today). The terms used in perfume language have the purpose to describe the different aroma layers in a fragrance, like chords. We also talk about top notes and different tones when distinguishing between ingredients and specific scents. We talk about the tonality of a fragrance just like we when analyzing a music piece.

There is also a more architectonical way of visualizing perfumes. William Poucher was one of the first to use the ‘fragrance pyramid’ to explain the top, middle and foundation as layers. He created the structure based on measurement of evaporation rate of perfume ingredients (fastest evaporation = top).

Image borrowed from davidreport.com/201103/scent-tokyo/

Here are some terms (from different eras, let’s not be so dogmatic) that are good to know when going on your perfume quest. The terms continuously develop and some perfumes contain traits of different families.

Famous perfume creators: Creed

CREED, or House of CREED to be correct, was founded in London by perfumer James Henry Creed in 1760. Throughout it's long history this house of perfume has had many royal clients. The first royal commission came already in 1781 from King George III, for whom CREED made the scent Royal English Leather. When it was time for CREED's 100th anniversary the company moved to Paris at the request of client Empress Eugénie for whom CREED created Jasmine Impératice, a fragrance that the company to this day continues to make and sell. (Top notes: bergamot, middle notes: Bulgarian rose, ambergris and Italian jasmine, base notes: vanilla and sandalwood). Eugénies husband, a certain Napoleon III, was also one of CREED's clients.

In 1885, Queen Victoria appointed CREED “official supplier” to the British royal court. For her majesty, CREED created the scent Fleurs de Bulgarie by commission. This engaging scent, rich with roses, is available today. (Top note: bergamot, middle note: Bulgarian rose, base notes: ambergris infusion and musk).
The list of famous persons who have not left their home without their favorite CREED on their skin is as endless as diverse. Queen Maria Cristina of Spain was a client, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor wore CREED, for some time Sir Winston Churchill's favorite perfume was Tabarome. In 1933 CREED created Angelique Encens,  for the Bishop of Paris. And in 1956, CREED created Grace Kelly's wedding scent, Fleurissimo, by order of her fiancé Prince Rainier.

The brand had a powerful revival in the 1980’s with the fougère Green Irish Tweed, created by Olivier Creed and Pierre Bourdon. I cannot really go in without mentioning something more about fougère... A fougère is a classification. These perfumes belongs to a family with a top note of lavender and base note of oak moss and coumarin and are more common in fragrances pour les hommes. There are also aromatic fougères which then also have spices and wood in them. You often find vetiver and bergamot in a fougère. The name comes from the paradigmatic perfume Fougère Royale for Houbigant created by Paul Parquet in 1882. It was relaunched in an updated version in the late 1980's, then production was not produced anymore but I heard that it has just been relaunched again? Epic however regardless.

Back to CREED. CREED is a rare fragrance company, not only for it's respect for the traditions of perfume making but also because it is the world’s only privately held fragrance dynasty. It was founded by a CREED and it is still 250 years later passionately developed by the same family. This also makes it one of the world’s oldest family businesses in general. Today, the company is based in Paris and led by Olivier Creed. His son Erwin works with him and is likely to be the seventh generation of CREED perfume makers. I find this aspect of the company immensely admirable and fascinating. 

Olivier Creed

CREED perfumes are created using the techniques of maceration and filtration. The house is famous for being a strong proponent for natural ingredients.

As you can imagine there is quite a range of CREED fragrances to choose between. I have yet to find a favorite but wouldn’t mind owning a selection of bottles with magic from this house. Especially Sublime Vanille from 2009. You can find a complete list of CREED fragrances and information about them here.

Another great feature of CREEDs homepage is their scent finder form which is sent to their staff who will help you find the right fragrance, you find it here. (Penhaligons also has this kind of service and it is actually a good exercise in itself to think about the questions in the form as this will help you define your fragrance preferences for yourself regardless of where you then go looking for them).

For US citizens, I am happy to tell you that you can order samples from this admirable brand. There is also the store at 794 Madison Avenue in Manhattan which was opened when CREED celebrated its 250th year in 2010.