Still from La Planete Sauvage (1973)

Ever since I saw the surreal, creepily beautiful La Planete Sauvage as a child (whose graphics looked like Hieronymus Bosch and Giorgio de Chirico went on a futuristic acid trip together), I have been both drawn and discomfited by the conception of other worlds as absent the familiar touchstones of Earth. Without the olfactory markers of our world’s plants, animals and humanity, how would we perceive another planet?

Amber Jobin at the Art and Olfaction Awards accepting her Art and Olfaction award for John Frumm 2104

With her new Exobotany series of three perfumes,  multi award winning artisan  perfumer Amber Jobin offers some ideas. Aether Arts Perfume Specimen 9, Specimen 3 and Garden on a Far Planet explore what non-carbon-based existences might smell like in a galaxy far, far away.

All three fragrances demonstrate coherently thought-out fantasies that deftly turn familiar fragrance accords sideways. Aether Arts Specimen 9, which imagines the scents of a planet in the constellation Cygnus, sets mossy, plant-like aromas against a mineral-metallic base. The resulting fragrance smells like lime and spearmint at times, and then, a second later, like new chrome. The otherworldly Garden on a Far Planet is a fresh, ozonic floral that smells like cold air and refrigerated flowers, a perfect fragrance for Narnia’s Jadis. But it is Specimen 3, intended as a sample from a planetary system in Aquarius, that most completely creates beauty out of strangeness. With Specimen 3, Jobin may have created the very first animalic metallic. This fascinating fragrance begins with pings of metal so bright you can almost smell them bouncing off each other. These notes soon begin to merge with something molten and earthy, like melted wax dripping on mulched soil. And underneath it all, a warm, furry, musky aroma pulses.

Red planet wallpaper by Rowantroy

Carnation, that warmest and spiciest of red flowers, opens fully in the center, but stripped of its characteristic milkiness, so that its velvety pepperiness is emphasized. Bold tuberose and rose are both apparent and masked, so that I recognize the fleshy creaminess from the former but not its heady lushness; the silky richness of rose without its jammy sweetness. The overall affect of Specimen 3 is at once familiar and disconcerting – like smelling a new hybrid. I cannot stop smelling my wrist: it is weird and comforting, alluring and aloof. And, along with its companions, it is completely wearable.

Photo by Adam Makarenko

Not just for sci-fi nerds, Aether Arts Perfume Exobotany collection is oddball cool, seductive, and fun. This is the kind of out-of-the-box but accessible creativity that  artisan perfumery is all about.

Notes for Speicimen3: Jasmine, carnation, rose, tuberose, metallic notes.

Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Disclaimer: Samples of Aether Arts Perfume Exobotany collection provided by Aether Arts Perfume. My opinions are my own.

 

Aether Arts Perfumes Exobotany Collection rollerballs of Specimen 3, Specimen 9, and Garden on a Far Planet

Thanks to the generosity of Amber Jobin and Aether Arts, we have a set of 2ml rollerball samples of Specimen 3, Specimen 9, and Garden on a Far Planet for one registered reader worldwide. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what appeals to you about Aether Arts Perfumes Specimen 3 based on Lauryn’s review and whether you have and where you live.  Which appeals to you the most? Draw closes 3/16/2019.

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