Bruno Jovanovic (l.) and Sophia Grojsman (r.)

The niche line A Lab on Fire, ever since their first fragrance in 2011, has quickly become a place for some of the best perfumers working to create with an almost unfettered kind of imagination. The latest two releases show this through the vision of two very different kind of perfumes by two very different perfumers.

Almost Tranparent Blue is by perfumer Bruno Jovanovic. M. Jovanovic has very clearly staked out a niche aesthetic he is exploring the boundaries of. Through his work for Thirdman and this year’s Dries van Noten par Frederic Malle he has begun to define a space somewhere between cologne and perfume. The commonality of his work has been a kind of quiet kineticism which makes his most recent work feel like the olfactory equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. That kind of monotonous cycling through defined progression is very similar to the 1976 novel by Ryu Murakami also called Almost Transparent Blue. The characters in the novel are trapped in their own cycle of questionable choices that they keep making over and over. Almost Transparent Blue the fragrance works its way through the same kind of circles from a cool citrus down to a light woody musk base and then back again. I struggled a bit with this at first because it seemed so generic on paper but on my skin the sense of constant movement made it much more interesting.

The citrus notes M. Jovanovic uses are lime and yuzu; together they almost form a thin layer of frost over the early moments. A thrust of aldehydes removes the frost and opens things up for cedar and hinoki to combine with the citrus. A sheer white musk finishes things off by, again, adding a chill to the proceedings towards the end. Because the citrus sticks around for so long it is easy to feel yourself back at the beginning even though everything has revealed itself about thirty minutes in.

I think many will consign this to the discard bin which contains numerous fragrances with “blue” in the name. I would really ask you to give this a chance on your skin for a day as I believe M. Jovanovic is really trying to re-define what it means to be a lighter fragrance within the niche perfume environment.

Rose Rebelle Respawn is by Sophia Grojsman. Rose Rebelle Respawn is sort of the third fragrance in her Rose and Cacao trilogy she began with A Lab on Fire’s predecessor S-Perfumes 100% Love. Then there was the European exclusive for A Lab on Fire called Rose Rebelle. In my review of Rose Rebelle I mentioned it felt like it was kin to 100% Love but at the time I didn’t know who the perfumer was. Now that I know Mme Grojsman was the perfumer it makes perfect sense in hindsight. Rose Rebelle Respawn is her third interpretation of the same core notes but while the central characters remain the same Rose Rebelle Respawn places them in a new ensemble.

Mme Grojsman revisits the green opening of 100% Love by using ivy and mint for Rose Rebelle Respawn. The ivy has an earthy green nature and the mint adds to that earthier green by elevating it with its characteristic freshness. Just when I thought this would be different a puff of powdered cocoa reminds you who one of the co-stars is here. The rose arrives hard on its heels and together they become more intense as they plumb the depths of their pairing. The cocoa powder turns into solid chocolate; the rose turns from ingénue to courtesan. To reinforce the decadence Mme Grojsman adds the faintest bit of incense which plays hide and seek between the rose and cacao. The musk she uses here is similar to what she uses in the original Rose Rebelle it is synthetic but it is not the screechy white musk variety but a slightly cleaner synthetic version of real musk. Rose Rebelle Respawn feels like a rebirth of sorts.

The three fragrances 100% Love, Rose Rebelle, and Rose Rebelle Respawn remind me of the same kind of perfume exercise Isabelle Doyen is performing for The Turtle Project with vetiver. Mme Grojsman is continually finding new ways to explore her central pairing of rose and cacao and if they all continue to be this fascinating I can’t wait for the next one.

I really appreciate the freedom A Lab on Fire is allowing the perfumers to exert on their work under their banner. So far every fragrance they have produced is fascinating in its own right and Almost Transparent Blue and Rose Rebelle Respawn take their place proudly next to their predecessors.

Disclosure: This review was based on bottles of Almost Tranparent Blue and Rose Rebelle Respawn I purchased.

–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor