*****WIN**** Puredistance Black by Antoine Lie

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On October 9, 2013. Managing Editor Mark Behnke wrote " Puredistance is one of those niche houses which are taking a different approach to their line. They are producing ultra-luxe perfumes and releasing them about a year apart, give or take a couple of months. Each new fragrance has a unique inspiration and doesn’t necessarily feel as if it is an outgrowth of that which came before. Another important factor is you smell the quality of the ingredients. All of the Puredistance perfumes I, Antonia, M, and Opardu have been among my favorite perfumes of the year in which they were released but none of them made it onto the very top tier of my favorites for the year. Barring an unforeseen torrent of amazing new fragrances the newest release Puredistance Black is going to be challenging for top honors when I compile the list for 2013".

I concur; Puredistance Black is vying for one of my favorite fragrances of the year.  The dictionary definition of black is: "the very darkest of colors owing to the absence or complete absorption of white". Anyone who reads CaFleureBon knows my distaste for the current fad of marketing perfumes with the word black or noir in the name,  simply because many are not dark at all.  I confess that when I received my sample of the newest Puredistance, I was ready to dismiss it as another niche perfumerie trying to capitalize on the trend.   I was wrong; Puredistance Black is much more. Black is the new Black. This is a perfume that is at once elegant, mysterious and a brilliant interplay of both light and shadow. There cannot be darkness without understanding light and Antoine Lie masters this concept brilliantly.

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David Bowie (l.) and Jeremy Irons (r.)

From Mark Behnke's Puredistance Black  Perfume Review: One of the other things that is special about Mr. Vos as creative director is he likes to give the perfumer a visual brief to go along with his inspiration. For Black Mr. Vos was inspired by two distinct personalities one from the musical world and one from the movies, “ I included images of David Bowie and the actor Jeremy Irons in the visual brief for Antoine. Since I was 14 years old I have admired (and enjoyed) the music and personality of David Bowie a lot. I find him very elegant and also mysterious. Throughout his career he has shown a lot of himself, but then, at the same time, he perhaps has hidden more. His layered and intriguing personality definitely has much in common with the DNA of Black.  And then Jeremy Irons. The first time I saw him was in the movie 'Reversal of Fortune' where he plays the European aristocrat Claus von Bülow. His performance in this movie – he acts in a darkly humorous and charismatic manner – I immensely enjoyed. When I see him starring in movies, when I hear his voice or when I see some of his images I really think the concept of Black fits him like a glove. For me the delicate and sometime fragile tone of Bowie's voice resembles the elegance of Black and the dark and noble tone of Irons perfectly mirrors the mysterious and darker side of Black.”-Jan Ewoud Vos the founder and creative director for Puredistance.

I wonder if it is a coincidence that David Bowie (The Thin White Duke) and Jeremy Irons are both English?

 We offered five CaFleureBon readers a deluxe sample  but two went unclaimed. Possibly because just about every perfume blog was doing a giveaway as well. One deluxe sampler will be reoffered  today to any of our readers worldwide. In order to win dear perfumistas, the poet, music lover or dance aficando in you can leave a comment with your favorite poem, perfume, book , actor or artist that might capture what I believe are the swirling spices, myrrh, a touch of sweet resins and frankincense that are at the heart of  the darkness that is BLACK. (purely conjecture as no notes are listed, another annoying  aspect of the marketing of this haunting perfume). 

The most creative or interesting comment will automatically win.  I am judging…. Leave your comment by November 13, 2013 to be eligble. There is no spilled perfume.

–Michelyn Camen, Editor-In-Chief

Editor's note: Puredistance press materials  "…the same elegant personality as the timeless classic Puredistance I, but more masculine and oriental. I disagree with pigeon holing Black as a masculine fragrance .

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34 comments

  • Connie says:

    Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
    “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…”
    It has the mystery, the spice, the darkness…

  • Joaquim says:

    Well, a part of Lord Byron’s Darkness, my favorite poem so far, is one of the most impressive examples of “black thinking”:

    I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
    The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
    Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
    Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
    Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
    Morn came and went -and came, and brought no day,
    And men forgot their passions in the dread
    Of this their desolation; and all hearts
    Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
    And they did live by watchfires -and the thrones,
    The palaces of crowned kings -the huts,
    The habitations of all things which dwell,
    Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
    And men were gathered round their blazing homes
    To look once more into each other’s face.

    And of course, the most powerfull way to express black, music: the album called “Selvmord”, by Vond

    Thank you!

  • StaceyW says:

    One of my all time favorites, The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…” This is what comes to my mind when I read the description for Black. Thanks for the re-offer!

  • Kim Morgan says:

    “Called a star’s orbit to pursue,
    What is the darkness, star, to you?” –Neitzsche

    To me, dear sir,
    it’s simply
    ˏ.• °☾ ● .ˎ
    ( Beautiful)
    ˙·٠•●•٠·˙

    Thanks for the second chance at the apple!

  • Monster says:

    Lately I’m a fool in love with sultry, smokey jazz singer Melody Gardot so this song comes to my mind, bonus for the way ‘heart’ is a perfume term.

    “Your Heart Is As Black As Night”

    Your eyes may behold
    but the story I’m told
    is your heart is as black as night

    Your lips may be sweet
    such that I can’t compete
    but your heart is as black as night

    I don’t know why you came along at such a perfect time
    But if I let you hang around I’m bound to lose my mind

    Cause your hands may be strong
    but the feeling’s all wrong
    Your heart is as black as night

    I don’t know why you came along at such a perfect time
    But if I let you hang around I’m bound to lose my mind

    Cause your hands may be strong but the feeling’s all wrong
    Your heart is as black
    Your heart is as black
    oh your heart is as black as night

  • Iphigenia says:

    The book “The Perfume” written by Patrick Suskind is the book that best describes the dark hidden notes of Black. Mysterious, captivating, intriguing, unique, the story of this book has so many meanings hidden behind it’s dark story making it even more interesting to read … and contemplate … about the multifaceted human nature……

  • cdb73110 says:

    I though I would write my own poem of how I think the fragrance smells by Michelyn’s description…..

    PERFUME IN BLACK

    Black follows me from room to room,

    Smoky scent in the gloom.

    Softly I tip toe through the lair,

    Scents of myrrh fill the air.

    In mirrored reflections, spice awaits,

    Darkness fractured, mysteries fate.

    I catch a whiff of resins caress,

    Showing off it’s noblesse.

    Moonlight glows in the fragrance mist,

    I breathe in the air that Black has kissed.

    Shadows play as in bed I lie,

    Frankincense teases and will not die.

    Moonlight knows the darkness is there,

    Black follows me everywhere.

    I can never be at my rest,

    Its’ always me and my Puredistance guest.

    In the USA. Thanks’ for another chance.

  • Jim says:

    After reading this article, a song immediately came to mind. Before getting to that, let me explain why:

    When I think of myrrh, resins, particularly amber, and frankincense, thoughts of spirituality come to mind because of their association as gifts by The Three Wise Men. From this comes the notion of praying.

    When I think of black, I’m also reminded a sense of spirituality because, as eluded to, black cannot exist without light: one defines the other. We all know the connotations of “black”, but light can be many things from knowledge (being enlightened), to warmth, to faith.

    That a fragrance might encompass both aspects of lights and shadow tells me it’s balanced, that there’s some yin and yang at play – something that feels, in a sense, meditative.

    That being said, the song this fragrance conjured up in my head is entitled “Far End of the Black” by former Dishwalla frontman J.R. Richards. Here’s the link to it, and I’ve copied the lyrics below though I feel the music clearly speaks for itself:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TfaNaDEKWQ

    It’s in those days when nothing seems right
    when the world feels as if it’s stumbling from a fight
    I pray for you to wash the harm from my back
    for my greatest fear in the world will be
    that I won’t be there to stop the world if it comes to take you
    that I won’t be there to stop the world

    on the far end of the black there was light
    and it was you

    I wait in the black as you bathe yourself ni light
    and pray for you to wash the harm from my back
    my greatest fear in the world it will be
    that I won’t be there to stop the world if it comes to take you
    that I won’t be there to stop the world

    on the far end of the black there was light
    on the far end of the black there was light
    and it was you

    but you don’t seem to care
    your smile is your dare to those around you – beware

  • Gayle Stephens says:

    The most mysterious, elegant creature…Dirk Bogarde
    “… I smell sex”
    a well positioned line from the film “The Servant”

    Thanks for the new opportunity!

  • julesinrose says:

    “Within light there is darkness,
    but do not try to understand that darkness.
    Within darkness there is light,
    but do not look for that light.
    Light and darkness are a pair,
    like the foot before and the foot behind. . .”

    Excerpt a secret (for now). . .

  • Tiffany T says:

    Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
    to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
    Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
    in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
    Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
    the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
    who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
    that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
    Not the nights you called god names and cursed
    your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,b
    chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
    You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
    over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
    across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
    coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
    You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
    you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
    of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
    when the lights from the carnival rides
    were the only stars you believed in, loving them
    for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
    You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
    ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
    after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
    window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
    of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it.
    Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
    on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

    — Dorianne Laux in “Antilamentation,” found in her The Book of Men: Poems

  • susie frankel says:

    Hard to choose but I am going with FUN WITH DICK AND JANE because I learned to read from this book and therefore all the reading that followed became joy…and I was no longer “in the dark”…

  • Elia says:

    Some nice entries, lovely to read through,

    I think I’d pick a specific performance to capture the idea of Black, specifically a dancer battling with light in:
    Nuance
    http://vimeo.com/67809013
    I love the desperate attempt to control the uncontrollable, the way a dot of light can dominate the darkness, the way the cover of shadows gives so much space and freedom to motion, and most of all how the sleek motion graphics are tasteful enough to imply a little spark of magic. I hope Puredistance Black shares a little of that magic.

    Perhaps a touch of magic could be provided by a guarded pheremone.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFr-q-UgVDk
    We’d like to take the sights
    And breed silence in disguise

  • Jan says:

    Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
    Whiplash girlchild in the dark
    Comes in bells, your servant, don’t forsake him
    Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

    I am tired, I am weary
    I could sleep for a thousand years
    A thousand dreams that would awake me
    Different colors made of tears

    The Velvet Underground – Venus in Furs
    This is as dark as the blackest heart.

  • wefadetogray says:

    Baudelaire’s “A Carcass”

    My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
    That fair, sweet, summer morn!
    At a turn in the path a foul carcass
    On a gravel strewn bed,
    Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
    Burning and dripping with poisons,
    Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
    Its belly, swollen with gases.
    The sun shone down upon that putrescence,
    As if to roast it to a turn,
    And to give back a hundredfold to great Nature
    The elements she had combined;
    And the sky was watching that superb cadaver
    Blossom like a flower.
    So frightful was the stench that you believed
    You’d faint away upon the grass.
    The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,
    From which came forth black battalions
    Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid
    All along those living tatters.
    All this was descending and rising like a wave,
    Or poured out with a crackling sound;
    One would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath,
    Lived by multiplication.
    And this world gave forth singular music,
    Like running water or the wind,
    Or the grain that winnowers with a rhythmic motion
    Shake in their winnowing baskets.
    The forms disappeared and were no more than a dream,
    A sketch that slowly falls
    Upon the forgotten canvas, that the artist
    Completes from memory alone.
    Crouched behind the boulders, an anxious dog
    Watched us with angry eye,
    Waiting for the moment to take back from the carcass
    The morsel he had left.
    — And yet you will be like this corruption,
    Like this horrible infection,
    Star of my eyes, sunlight of my being,
    You, my angel and my passion!
    Yes! thus will you be, queen of the Graces,
    After the last sacraments,
    When you go beneath grass and luxuriant flowers,
    To molder among the bones of the dead.
    Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will
    Devour you with kisses,
    That I have kept the form and the divine essence
    Of my decomposed love!

  • Irina says:

    I’ll be short but for me this is the perfect smell for Maurice Bejart’s “Bolero” danced by Jorje Donn

  • Fazal Cheema says:

    This one by Theordore Roethke may do Puredistance Black some justice

    In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
    I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
    I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
    A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
    I live between the heron and the wren,
    Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

    What’s madness but nobility of soul
    At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
    I know the purity of pure despair,
    My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
    That place among the rocks—is it a cave,
    Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

    A steady storm of correspondences!
    A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
    And in broad day the midnight come again!
    A man goes far to find out what he is—
    Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
    All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

    Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
    My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
    Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
    A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
    The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
    And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

  • Martha says:

    I saw David Bowie in concert over 20 years ago and to this day I have never seen a sexier man. The way he moved his body while singing and dancing on stage was incredibly appealing. His movements were fluid and understated yet they were totally compelling. If David Bowie represents the quality of Puredistance Black then I would LOVE to try this perfume. It must be mesmerizing.

  • maysamassimo says:

    I think “Black” captures the essence of Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece “The Seventh Seal”.

  • Michelle U says:

    From the description of the scent I just can’t seem to imagine it as dark and hauting so I picked mostly a sad, melancholic song.

    Can you see the young and pretty
    Confident as cops
    Blooming, laughing in the shops
    Till the sun turns black

    Can you see the old and lonely
    Walking through the park
    Pushing grocery carts
    Till the sun turns black

    Can you see the corporate man
    He’s winning on the telephone
    His possessions are his throne
    Till the sun turns black

    Can you see him in his lounger
    Watching TV in the dark
    Waiting for a spark
    Till the sun turns black

    Oh oh oh oh oh
    Who are we
    Oh oh oh oh oh
    Who are we
    Who are we

    Can you see the working classes
    Trudging through their days
    Time goes slowly when you’re only waiting
    Till the sun turns black

    Can you see the wise man simply
    Living, loving quietly
    Every breath he takes eternity
    Till the sun turns black.

    Ray LaMontagne-Till The Sun Turns Black. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFbomTQyxRU

    Thank you for the draw! I am an International reader! Wish you all the best!

  • Suzy Larsen says:

    Wow, ferocious competition–in the friendliest sense of the word. There’s some magnificent stuff I just read–how creative and ambitious and inspired for someone to write poetry for this contest–winner in my books…. And here I’m going to say something pretty lame like 50 Shades of Grey–the character Christian–he’s pretty dark–with a little–no, a lot of sizzle and spice.
    Best to all, I’m from Canada. Thanks for the draw.

  • anige says:

    Dark angels come alive! The melancholiness of this board excites me. I may not have the darkest of poems but I believe that Natalie Portman’s character in the Black Swan is a perfect embodiment. Swirling spices to capture her excitement. Myrrh, resins and frankincense alludes the idea of mystery and magic, of passion and dark nights, of fear and failure. It plays with the mind, it does.

  • Holly F. says:

    I am comfortable with darkness. I used to cloak myself in it, when the light of day proved to be too much. I still prefer the shorter, darker days of autumn and winter, and become irritable and somewhat depressed when the long bright days of summer begin to overwhelm with their endlessness. I understand why some can be scared of the dark; after all, it can be stealthy like a panther, dangerous as it stalks and inhales all the air and space surrounding it. But, darkness is also the womb from which we all originated, the most safe and secure of all places.

    I can’t help but be reminded of the beginning to PJ Harvey’s song Dear Darkness:

    “Dear darkness, dear darkness
    Won’t you cover, cover me again?
    Dear darkness, dear
    I’ve been your friend for many years…”

    Thanks for the draw. I am located in the U.S.

  • merlina says:

    I love yhis poem from Baudelaire ; (I know in French is perfect, but..here’s the translation) :
    Exotic Perfume

    When, with both my eyes closed, on a hot autumn night,
    I inhale the fragrance of your warm breast
    I see happy shores spread out before me,
    On which shines a dazzling and monotonous sun;

    A lazy isle to which nature has given
    Singular trees, savory fruits,
    Men with bodies vigorous and slender,
    And women in whose eyes shines a startling candor.

    Guided by your fragrance to these charming countries,
    I see a port filled with sails and rigging
    Still utterly wearied by the waves of the sea,

    While the perfume of the green tamarinds,
    That permeates the air, and elates my nostrils,
    Is mingled in my soul with the sailors’ chanteys.

  • Latifah S says:

    Interesting question. For me the description reminds me of Lacrimosa by Mozart. There is just so much mystery surrounding Requiem Mass in D Minor. The famous unfinished work… The idea that it is thought that Mozart wrote it for his own funeral. Wow. It is haunting and beautiful.

    (Unable to attach link)

  • Merlynn says:

    My favorite moment of darkness comes in a track called ‘Spring’ on Rammstein’s Rosenrot album. A man has climbed onto a bridge – no one knows why. A crowd gathers and expectantly wait for him to jump to his death.

    They scream
    Jump; Redeem me
    Jump; Don’t disappoint me
    Jump for me; Jump into the light
    Jump

    [One voice (presumably from the crowd) jeers him on, poetically:]

    A cloud moves in secret
    in front of the sun, it gets cold
    But a thousand suns burn just for you

    [And then, tired of waiting that same voice climbs the bridge and simply kicks him from behind:]

    I creep onto the bridge in secret
    and kick him in the back from behind
    I redeem him from this shame
    and I scream to him

    Jump

    I’v taken the translation from

    lyricstranslate.com/en/spring-jump.html

    It’s even better in German and with the music, of course!