Olfactive Flashback III.

I have just arrived to home on this unusally cold ( to Grasse ) evening, and in the hall of the building, I felt at my Grandmother's larder again. Although these olfactive flashbacks happen to me more and more, it really amazes me, how can I travel back in time ca. 15 years in just 15 milliseconds?!

In the corridor, where there is nothing but a relatively dirty blue carpet, white walls and the scent of winter coming, I smelled new-laid eggs in the spun wooden basket. I smelled the 100 years old fridge leaking some suspicious brown liquid onto the bordeaux colored floor tile. I smelled the smoked ham hung over the already chilled bread carefully wrapped into a red-white dish towel. I smelled the amazing plum compote ( secret of my Grandma ) in the glass jar, left unopened by my brother.

If only she knew how much olfactive memory I kept unconsciously from around her...

I tried to say thank you to her in my way, last year for her birthday, I created her the most expensive perfume in the whole world. Literally. Half of the formula was pure Bulgarian Rose oil ( putting the price of my concentrate at minimum above 3000 EUR / kg ) and the rest 50% of strictly luxurious raw materials too.

I offered it to her in 30% solution in 96° alcohol, in a bordeaux colored silk organza pouch. That perfume cost more than what she was paid when she had sold her house, with the bordeaux tiled larder.

I would pay even more to have the larder's air bottled.

Smell and the city

Budapest, this time of the year, smells like the perfect combination of chestnut and anise.

Round, wet, earthy and smoky with cold sweetness.

Lost in Production

This is an article I wrote last year for a magazine that was supposed to be the "Arabic Cosmopolitan", but for some reason, the businessman from the United Arab Emirates who financed the printing decided to keep the initial 10000 copies in his apartment. Hence the lovely public from the middle east -grown up by smelling oud in every perfume and household products- were deprived from reading how the western world wants to smell oriental.

It was high time to share, hereby the uncensored version:

Orientalist perfumes

Western cultures have been always fascinated by the rich, colorful and mysterious cultures of the oriental word. Recently the perfume industry gets inspired by the 1001 night theme more than ever.

Giorgio Armani has created a trio of perfumes to honor the oriental world. One of the three fragrances is an ode to harems, another evokes geishas and the last one was inspired by the Kama Sutra. Lately, By Kilian presented Arabian Nights Pure Oud and Prada launched Eau Ambree.

The recent extreme fascination towards the oriental cultures also can be explained by a classical consumer trend called Escapism. The trend reveals itself in brands’ use of exotic ingredients and marketing concepts which involve the exploration of new lands, new cultures and sometimes even the search of mysticism. This is one of the ways for consumers to rid themselves of their fears and everyday life struggles, which might especially be demanded during the time of the recession. The current situation of the financial crisis has left people with the feeling of disappointment in western philosophy. In the quest for a better system, consumers are opening to Asian cultures such as Arabic, Indian or Japanese. This trend creates the strong emotion of dreaming and flying away to a better world. The fast pace of modern life wets our desire for roads untaken therefore consumers are continuously intrigued by the oriental theme related to any products.

Not only smell these perfumes oriental, but they look like that too. While some creating companies finances endless projects of chemical engineers working on decolorizing natural raw materials for the end product to be colorless, concerning oriental perfumes, the rich brown color imposes. The darker the better! Also the creative work of formulating an oriental perfume is highly fascinating, since it involves the use of a relatively increased amount of rich natural raw materials.

Packaging usually follows the theme of the perfumes, often the touch of orientalism manifests at lively colors linked with mysticism, e.g. green and purple ( Poison by Dior ) or an oriental accessory like fringe completes the bottle ( Onde Mystere by Armani ).

Some might think that it is just another trend of short life, but it is also about coming back to the roots, since we all know that perfumes originates from the Middle East, from Egypt, where in 3000 BC they were used first exclusively for religious rituals during mummification than later on served as toiletries too. One of the oldest raw materials in the perfumer´s palette is frankincense or olibanum, that Egyptians considered as the scent of God, but researchers found details of use of aromatic plants and spices such as anise, caraway, fennel, onion, garlic, thyme, etc dating from 1550 BC.

Perfume genealogy ( similar to a family tree of fragrances ) dedicates a class especially for oriental scents, called Oriental or Amber family with particularly warm, rich and sensual fragrances formulated with exotic woods, sweet balms, resins, spices and musks.

Hereafter, a collection of the most important oriental inspired occidental perfumes starting from the beginning of the 20^th century.

1925: Shalimar by Guerlain

This distinct balsamic, sweet leathery perfume represents the love of an Indian Emperor for his magnificent wife. Shalimar is named after "The Gardens of Shalimar," where the emperor’s love grew towards her. When his favorite wife died at young age, the Emperor commissioned the Taj Mahal in her honor.

The perfume was created literally by an accident. Jacques Guerlain received a sample of a new synthetic raw material evoking the scent of vanilla, ethyl vanillin, and one day playing around with it, he added the entire sample to another Guerlain’s best seller, Jicky, created by his oncle. Hence Shalimar was born, became one of the first “oriental” fragrances made by a European house in recent history and remains Guerlain's number one selling perfume of all time.

1953: Youth Dew by Estee Lauder

Youth Dew originally was created as bath oil and only years after its tremendous success was the perfume version launched. Josephine Catapano, the perfumer of Youth Dew has used very typical oriental notes, such as cinnamon, cassia, clove, tolu balsam, amber and frankincense. This was the first perfume created in the United States, and some say that it explains why it smells so extremely strong: the Americans had no educated noses for perfumes at that time.

1977: Opium by Yves Saint Laurent

Few only know that the original name of this perfume was Black Orchid. If Yves Saint Laurent sticks to his first idea, he could have avoided accusation to condone drug use, among others... But such controversies rather helped the perfume to be well-publicized, which soon became a best-selling scent with its main accords of mandarin, clove, pepper, cinnamon, cedarwood and myrrh.

1985: Poison by Christian Dior

Many perfume experts considers this creation of the famous French house as an answer to Opium. Poison is a fine mixture of spicies; such as anise, coriander, nutmeg; and flowers; like carnation, jasmine and tuberose softened with sandalwood, amber and musks. It’s specific “buttery coconut” heart is given by one of the main flower ingredient, tuberose absolute, which is an exotic night blooming plant could be found in Iran among others. Poison’s heavy tuberose scent initiated a trend of other tuberose smelling perfumes later on, to the point that by the mid 90’s the industry had to face a shortage of tuberose absolute.

1992: Feminite du Bois by Serge Lutens

As a child, Marocco born Serge Lutens fell in love with the distinct aroma of cedarwood from the Atlas Mountains and as an adult decided to immortalise this love by creating Feminite du Bois. Ginger and cinnamon refreshes the flowery heart notes of orange flower and violet which is embraced by an overdose of cedarwood atlas among other woods. This perfume opened the way to woody accords in women’s fragrances and hence it is considered as one of the most creative and innovative perfumes of the 1990’s.

2005: Jardin sur le Nil by Hermès

This perfume is one of the series of a trio called “Les Jardins” ( The Gardens ) of the French fashion house, Hermès. After the first Mediterranean inspired perfume, Un Jardin sur le Nil is a summary of perfumer Jean Claude Ellena’s memories of a journey along the Nile. The fragrance evokes green mango, fresh fig leaves completed with watery notes, incense and light woods.

2009: L’Eau Ambree by Prada

The latest lauch of the Italian fashion house might be the reinvention of the oriental notes for the occidental world, the fragrance is more of a fresh, airy-amber note, far from being heavy and opulent still being diffusive and remaining oriental with citrus notes, gardenia, oppoponax, vanilla and some modern ambery twists.

Although the Oriental trend shows no signs to fade away anytime soon, some lighter versions of oriental perfumes are to be released in the near future ( just as Guerlain released Eau de Shalimar in April 2008, the light version of the original icon perfume ).

In the meantime, this passionate interest is also leading to an even deeper affinity that will probably result in some even more authentic oriental perfumes. And authenticity is of key importance in consumer´s dream. The Middle East is home to many of the ingredients used to create these spice and resin-induced states of euphoria, and it would be wise for local raw material producers to capitalize on this growing interest. In addition to that, it would be well worth for perfumers of this region developing a few signature formulas, well tailored for a Western nose and marketed to the hilt on the basis of the fragrances' authentic origins.

I mean, who in the western world would not want to smell like God?