Cynthia Hunter’s first fragrant awakening was Olivier Durbano Heliotrope, photo 2019

I have been obsessed with scent since I was a very small child. My mom was an Avon lady in the mid 1970’s, while we were living on Selfridge Air Force Base (my dad was in the Army) outside Mt. Clemens, Michigan. I remember getting into big trouble (much to my sister’s glee) because I went through one of my mom’s stacks of Avon orders that were all packaged up, ready to be delivered to customers, opening all the perfume bottles and powder puff sets, and mashing my finger into every lip gloss pan, because I was completely obsessed with the smells of them. Something signified to me even at 6 years old that there was something *special* about these things because they smelled so alluringly magnificent.

Houbigant Raffinee photo by Cynthia

My love for perfume and scent carried me through my childhood and adult years. My life was always a swirl of different perfume obsessions, carrying me from day to day, place to place, year to year, lover to lover, from one phase of life to the next. I traveled with it, got written up in the military because of it (more than once!) and spent every extra dollar on it. I was never, ever, without perfume. But I had never really thought of my perfumes much past the overall ‘smell’.

Glacial Erratic at The Ohio State University photo by Cynthia©

My other obsession has always been rocks and geology. In college, I studied Geology and got a part-time gig as a lab assistant in the Geology department at my University. Man, how I loved that job! I had daily access to magnificent collections of rocks, and endless opportunities to talk rock talk. I even helped my professors’ prep for an Antarctic expedition to drill for ice-core samples and scout out meteorites! But life had other plans for me (and calculus was too hard), so I didn’t follow that career path.

 © Olivier Durbano – Grasse Aleppo Damascus Exhibition at Grace in Grasse

Fast Forward to 2013: I encountered a perfume that shifted my perfume paradigm for me: Olivier Durbano Heliotrope. While shopping online for new samples to try, I happened onto a collection of beautiful, colorful, and thoughtfully packaged perfumes by a perfumer named Olivier Durbano.

Olivier Durbano at Pitti Fragranze 2019 (he will be launching no 17 next week!)! photo by Ermano

Reading about him – He was also an architect and jeweler, and he took his inspiration for these perfumes from stones…STONES! His collection struck an instant, perfect connection between my two favorite things – rocks and perfume – It’s like he KNEW me! I thought it was so clever how he named a perfume after the stone Heliotrope, but being a perfume, people would naturally assume it was named after Heliotrope the flower.  And the juice was a gorgeous vibrant pink. So of course, I ordered a sample immediately. Upon smelling Heliotrope, an electric wave of new sensations, understanding, ideas, interpretations, and impressions filled my entire brain all at once. My brain practically tickled with delight, with the contrasts and complexity. This perfume was warm, and cool. It was masculine, and feminine. It was sleek, and velvety plush. It was winter, and summer. It was bright, and introspective. It was opulent, and comforting. It was ancient, and modern. It was sheer and heady. Its duality made my head spin! I literally laughed out loud at how complex of a puzzle this perfume was, and yet all the pieces fell into place, in perfect harmony.

Photo of Heliotrope by Olivier Durbano courtesy of the perfumer©

And what a genius interpretation of the stone Heliotrope this perfume was! Heliotrope is actually an ‘aggregate’ type of stone, meaning it is comprised of more than one mineral. A ‘classic’ Heliotrope is usually a combination of two very different minerals: green jasper (cool, light, glassy) with hematite, which appears as red (warm, heavy, iron-rich). This naturally occurring juxtaposition in stone was perfectly, expertly nuanced into one complex, interesting, and elegant smell in Heliotrope.

Also, some of the notes I was getting my nose had never experienced. I looked them up – what was Elemi? Nagarmotha?? It was golden, woody, citrusy, earthy and exotic and I LOVED it! Also, there was a beautifully buttery, soft, creamy floral note running through it – it must be the Heliotrope flower and Angelica? I didn’t know for sure, because I had never focused on a ‘note’ before, but I was smitten! The total sum of these notes, so thoughtfully presented in this masterpiece named for a stone and a flower, made for a thrilling, intoxicating experience I highly recommend to everyone. To this day, even though I have smelled thousands of perfumes, It’s still one of my all-time favorite perfumes. And it changed the way I view perfumes forever: not just a ‘smell’, but a tapestry that is woven of many individually beautiful threads.

Head notes: elemi incense, oliban, ginger, red mandarin, angelica, red hot pepper, Heart notes: saffron, magnolia, nagarmotha, heliotrope, Inner notes: myrrh, cedar wood, sandalwood, musk, ambergris, benzoin

Sample my own, opinions my own

~ Cynthia Hunter, Guest Contributor and CaFleureBon reader

 Olivier Durbano Heliotrope courtesy of Oliver Durbano©

Thanks to the generosity of Olivier Durbano, we have a 100 ml bottle Heliotrope  for one registered reader (you must register or your comment will not count) in the EU or U.S. To be eligible, please leave a comment about Cynthia’s fragrant awakening, where you live and whether you have tried other Oliver Durbano Perfumes. Draw closes 9/12/2021

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