Voskanian Parfums Pêche Chyprée official brand photo

“Smells were the other companions of my childhood. Of all the senses, smell is the most memory-laden. It’s enough to open a door with a familiar scent and all the events connected to that sensation race back to your mind. An entire life could be recalled by its aromas. My childhood could be told the same way” *

I have always had the strongest and most visceral connection to chypre perfumes, from all the fragrance genres, from the first small vials of samples that rewired my nostalgia centers, back in my childhood. As I have previously spoken of them, in my  “fragrant awakening” chypres smells like home to me, an imaginary home, one I have never seen but always felt gut-wrenching nostalgic for, even before I knew how to define nostalgia.

Minas Avetisyan was an Armenian Painter

“The smell of fruits filled the whole house, especially on New Year’s Day, and large cauldrons are boiling with anus-abur (anushabur), which roughly translates as “sweet soup”. It’s a sweet mixture, much like a pudding of wheat boiled in sweetened milk, and mixed with all kinds of fruits, figs, dates, raisins, nuts, and oranges” *

The first minutes of Voskanian Parfums Pêche Chyprée feel like sniffing the soft fuzz of a ripe peach, held close to your nostrils. You feel its softness and roundness, rolling it between your palms, before you bite into its soft, sweet flesh, and dive in the juicy, tart, and divine flavor. It does not smell like a peach, it smells like a perfect memory of a peach, like a black and white photo that has been scanned hi-res, added into a photoshop worksheet, and masterfully and painstakingly detailed colored back to life, its re-constructed memory being thousand times more beautiful than the original model.

The soft peachy fuzz is sharpened with layers of tartness, with a blackberry zing that feels as deep and dark as the juice of a fruit that has been drinking from the shadows of the forests. The brightness and saturation are pushed up with the effervescence of citruses and the bittersweet bite of the blood-red oranges. Mouthwateringly delicious and unnervingly perfect.

Armenian Artisan Perfumer Tsovak Voskanian, photo courtesy of the perfumer

“In our backyard, in Focsani, on the bench under the apricot tree, the elders will gather for the afternoon coffee and talk about the sunset on the shores of the Bosphorus and the taste of childhood’s grapes. Sometimes, I would be passed on the grinder to turn on the crank. The brass was heating up, and grandpa’s voice would say “until the coffee is like sand”, but he would only say that when Sahag Seitanian was not present. He didn’t like the sand.”*

The brightness of the fruits extinguishes into the sweet milky light, and the sepia tones of nostalgia seep back into its fabric, like spilled ink slowly moving through the nervures of yellowed, old letters.

It’s unclear to me what floral wizardry is woven on the edges of the fragrance, as we step away into its heart, as the mood gets deeper, and slightly darker with dry crimson roses and tobacco smoke, summoning the memory of an endless summer afternoon, laying on soft, thick, colorful carpets, drifting in and out of sleep. From outside, wafts of smoke and deep voices come to you, carried by the long shadows of the sun, turning reddish as evening approaches.  In the drydown, we are embraced by the presence of a true-blooded chypre, with all its complexity, depth, and multifaceted shadowy beauty

“The smell of hidden places, shady or in plain sight, seldom opening for the wandering eye. Only what is hidden is worth seeing. The smell of hidden recesses, accompanied by stillness, silences that come with their own smell. The heavy wooden closets where all the blankets and mattresses sat, folded”

Minas Avetisyan painting

The second I sprayed Voskanian Parfums Pêche Chyprée on my skin, a wave of nostalgia broke loose, making my pulse raise. The first layer was my usual anemoia Pavlovian reflex to chypres (my immediate connection to the wistful nostalgia of my early childhood), mixed in with the real memories from 2010 when I read of one of my favorite books of the last decade, whose author shares the same last name as the founder of this house. The book is called “The book of whispers”, written by Varujan Voskanian, a Romanian writer of Armenian descent. Somehow, smelling Tsovak’s Pêche Chyprée took me right back to the day I have finished the book, back in time over 12 years ago, and beyond the very obvious name association that sparked the process, I felt a much deeper connection.  One of the most haunting books I have read, resurfacing to mind, time and time again, I hold it as one of the most powerful and raw declarations of love for one’s ancestors, spanning through decades, mixing in cold, hard facts of documentary value with the most sensitive and poetical voice. That feeling of gratitude and awe for being able to witness a story that makes you feel like you have raised the curtains of time, and you see all the beauty and darkness of the world connect into a red thread of love, spanning through centuries, always different but always carrying on the same essence. Tsovak’s beautiful interplay between the celebratory light and reflective shadows made the perfect shade into which to paint my trip down (somebody else’s) memory lane.

“The town of my childhood had wide streets and imposing houses. As I grew up, the streets were getting narrower and the houses shrunk. They have always been like that, but my kid’s eye gave them, and the whole world, their temporary grandeur.  Living trunks should be used at the foundation of the houses and in the pillars of the porches, not dry, dead wood beams. This way, the houses would grow with people, the world would not move and time would never run out.”*

*all the excerpts from “Cartea soaptelor” translated as “The Book of Whispers” by Varujan Voskanian, translated from Romanian by Nicoleta

Voskanian Parfums Pêche Chyprée (Tsovak Voskanian) was one of the best discoveries for Ermano Picco at Pitti, and was included in  his top 10 Fragrances of 2021.

Notes:  Citrus notes, Peach, Geranium, Rose, Clary sage, Tobacco, Cedarwood, Patchouli, Oakmoss, Ambra, Musk                     

Nicoleta Tomsa, Senior Editor

Disclosure:  Sample kindly provided by Voskanian Parfums  opinions are my own

 photo courtesy of the perfumer

Thanks to the generosity of Tsovak Voskanian we have 50 ml of Voskanian Pêche Chyprée for one registered reader in the EU, USA, UK  You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest based on Nicoleta’s review and where you live. Draw closes 3/30/22

Please note that this perfumes is created in small batches and may take a few weeks to reach the winner as IT HAS TOTALLY SOLD OUT.

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