Antonio Zuddas and Giovanni Castelli

It was last spring when I discovered the Blood Concept line of fragrances. The original line were all based on blood types and each contained a bit of a metallic accord meant to represent that. I found the line to be very interesting and I have worn it often since. The creative directors and owners Antonio Zuddas and Giovanni Castelli have attempted to engineer a complete Blood Concept experience with videos and other visual art attached to each fragrance. I was intrigued to see where they would go next. At the beginning of the summer the first follow-up +MA, plasma, was released. A few months later RED+MA followed that up making a new pair of Blood Concept fragrances to enjoy.

Blood after being separated

The idea of heading to plasma interested me especially as in my day job of pharmaceutical research chemist I have seen the process of isolating it. By taking whole blood and adding an anti-coagulant followed by spinning the solution at high speed you separate the red blood cells from the protein matrix which carries them around. Plasma has this fascinating light straw color to it and a fascinating viscosity as well. I’ve always thought of it as blood with all of the character stripped out of it. So would +MA mirror that stripped down cleanliness? Would RED+MA have some residual of the combination of plasma and red blood cells before spinning them apart?

For RED+MA Antoine Lie was tapped as the perfumer. In all of the video and press materials they showed a combination of milk and blood and I was concerned this would be too much of a weirdly coagulated combination. When I wore RED+MA I never really got much of the milk accord shown in the accompanying visuals. I also didn’t get much of the metallic accord which was present in the first four Blood concepts. What M. Lie did was to use some metallic accords along with some creamy woods to accomplish an abstraction of the blood separated into its components but not yet pulled apart. RED+MA opens with a bit of a bite from aldehydes and violet leaf that is where the red comes from. There is some wood in the base which adds a creamy quality. It never turns quite so much to the milk accord but with the bite of the early notes still in place that is probably for the best. Had M. Lie really gone for a true milk accord it likely would’ve been curdled.

+MA is what is left when you just have the simple clear plasma. It is stripped down to a very, perhaps too, clean fragrance. Perfumer David Maruitte composed +MA using only synthetic ingredients and was going for something very clean. What has been created is a watery, slightly vegetal, laundry detergent kind of scent. It is not an easy fragrance to wear because I found myself wanting something of the natural world to hang on to the first couple of times I wore it. As I gave it another couple of tries I found the synthetic nature of it fascinating in a modern art kind of way. This is probably not going to be a perfume which one wears for comfort it would be something one wears to make an avant-garde statement. M. Maruitte shows that clean taken to its extremes can be very provocative and maybe that is the raison d’etre behind +MA.

Both RED+MA and +MA have average longevity and average sillage.

The original four blood type Blood Concept fragrances were much more wearable than either RED+MA or +MA. I feel that with these two new releases Sigs. Zuddas and Castelli are pushing their fragrance envelope towards a true modern art aesthetic. Like visual modern art that means RED+MA and +MA will not be for everyone but for those for whom it does resonate it will be something to admire. Count me in that group.

Disclosure: This review was based on samples provided by Blood Concept.

–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor