Ellen Covey photo courtesy of Art and Olfaction

If you’re a frequent reader of Cafleurebon, you are already  familiar with Ellen Covey  an award winning American perfumer with global appeal and her line, Olympic Orchids out of Seattle, WA.  We began reviewing her perfumes in  2011.  In September, 2012 Editor-in-Chief Michelyn Camen collaborated with Ellen on Sonnet XVII , a green, woody fragrance whose inspiration came from a poems by Pablo Neruda and a series of remarkable synchronicities.  More recently a trio of perfumes designed for the Facebook fragrance group Peace, Love, Perfume was reviewed by Tama Blough and  Editor Einsof  reviewed and named Woodcut  as a top fragrance of 2014.

Mardi Gras Parade Leroy Neiman

 For my first fragrance review of 2015, I am delighted I was able to sample Olympic Orchids newest perfume Mardi Gras,as it is my my first by Ms. Covey. This is a bewitching and bold scent that offers up everything you’d want to remember and may choose to forget on an olfactory trip down to the Big Easy.  It is both sweet and sweaty, and has enough sinful sillage and power to keep you up all night carousing in the streets.

movie still BIg Easy Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin 1986

This is the second time in recent weeks that a new animalic scent has completely recalibrated my previous dislike of this style of perfume.  I’ve learned that when done well feral perfumes can be absolutely irresistible.  They speaks to the whole of human nature – musky scents make us aware of the masks we wear in polite society and how urgently we need to let go when the right opportunity arises.  The opening of Mardi Gras is disarmingly sensual– soft powdery orange blossom, and a clean, airy vanilla doing their best to distract from a fat, musty, warmed-up flesh civet note.  Even though the top notes are sweet and light, don’t fall for their innocence.    Because immediately afterwards,  a sweet, low, smoky cistus (labdanum) and benzoin accord blends down to a “special musk blend”.   The effect this composition has is immediate, direct and unstoppable.  Mardi Gras is a growling and sultry scent, and it’s perfectly named – this is a perfume demanding to run wild and if you wear it, you won’t be home before dawn.

Mardi Gras Masque Christopher Holmes

Mardi Gras is not a timid or demure floral citrus for the vanity table – its total flirtation fuel, and the scent will definitely shadow you the next day, no matter what transpired the night before.   It knows your secrets, and worse – it makes you suddenly crave them, in a lip-chewing, damp forehead, “Oh my – I feel a little lightheaded now” kind of way.    Dr. Ellen Covey, along with her perfume career, is a professor in psychology at the University of Washington, and she must be using her scientific wiles to infuse this scent with every hidden impulse, every illicit desire a perfume lover has inside them.  She knows that every sinful thought starts out polite and well-mannered (orange blossom and vanilla), but to get to the goods, you’re going to need to sweat (benzoin mixed with cistus and civet) and then go a little crazy.

Leroy Neiman Carnaval Suite Panteras

The orange blossom and vanilla are there for you to think you will politely say to your friends, “I dunno – I don’t really want to meet anyone tonight, think I’ll stay in and read.”  But then the cistus and benzoin jump in and you notice how fierce your friends are in their leathers, and you say to yourself, “Okay – just one drink.”  And finally, the drydown arrives, and its “special musk blend” combines with all that smoky resin, and soon you’re sweating out every fantasy you can come up with out in the hot summer night of New Orleans.   Mardi Gras is a take-no-prisoners, deceiving and delicious perfume.

Charlize Theron Masque | Photography by Gilles Bensimon | For Elle US | October 2001

I think it’s a perfume definitely meant for the ladies, however – so gentlemen, beware.  If you bump into a woman wearing this with your guard down, she’s going to take you home on a leash. The notes are balanced perfectly between a feminine and floral sweetness and a hot, muscular animalic pulse.  Mardi Gras is without question one of the sexiest perfumes I’ve ever smelled, with a power and presence that can stop anyone you want in their tracks for you to do with as you will.   Let the good times roll.

Notes:  Orange blossom, neroli, cistus, benzoin, vanilla, civet, special musk blend

Disclosure: I received my sample from Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes

Steve Johnson, Senior Contributor

Editor's Note: This year Mardi Gras aka Fat Tuesday is February 17, 2015, EIC and Art Director Michelyn Camen

 

Thanks to Ellen Covey of Olympic Orchids, we have a 5 ml sprayer for any reader worldwide. To be eligible  please leave a comment with why you would love to win  Mardi Gras, cher and where you live.  Draw closes  January 8, 2015

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume