Aedes de Venustas Encens Japonais via Aedes

Gather round a fire and I’ll tell a winter’s tale. It’s snowing. The night shakes with cold. Snow whispers to itself as it gathers on the floors of the forest, the rooftops, the plastic lawn furniture that was never brought indoors. Black city streets melt into white as the wind wails and thrashes. Pines and cedars shake their solemn heads, bowing and bending to the gusts. Come close to the houses. In a window at the end of the street, a candle burns in a halo of light. A slim waft of smoke, the scent of charred wood, burnt wick, the warm, oily smell of melted wax tendrils through a tiny crack in the pane. There’s the cozy tang of leather books against the wall, a popcorn crackle of wood on the hearth. From the kitchen just beyond, oranges are being peeled, juice splashing off the bitter tingle of rind. Coffee bubbles and hisses in its pot. And the steamy, woody drift of incense from the near distance curls into darkness. It could be tonight or a hundred years ago.

Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner Owners of Aedes Perfumery and Creative Directors of Aedes de Venustas Perfumes photo by Hernando

Encens Japonais, in its original incarnation, a candle made for Aedes de Venustas, is the latest in the boutique’s wonderful signature line, is a timeless woody incense from master perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour in concert with Aedes owners Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner, that feels like Christmas eve folded out of origami. There’s a lovely strangeness in the juxtaposition of Japanese incense – which has always given off a quality of steam and damp wood to me – and homey smells of fresh fruit, rose and timeworn leather. It is the smell of sitting by the fire in midwinter, listening to the winds warning the sky, while the smells of the spiritual and earthly embrace.

Incense image via Pixabay apped by Michelyn

Aedes’ website characterizes the opening as smelling like unlit incense, which it describes as peppery and fresh. On first spray, Aedes de Venustas Encens Japonais is indeed peppery, with the fruity tang peppercorns have when they are just ground. Coming up on the heels of that pungent spice is a squeeze of orange, which, coupled with the spice, puts me in mind of mulled wine. A bigger spray intensifies that wine punch smell and couples it with a creak of old leather. There’s a bitter note in there as well, which may be the strawflowers. Originally classed as helichrysum (better-known in perfumery as immortelle), strawflowers were reclassified as a different genus 30 years ago. Their odor is said to be bitter-herbal. Its presence in Encens Japonais piques and pinches the brighter aromas in a deft counterbalance of fruity-spicy-woody-bitter. All the while, a soft drift of incense has begun swirling upwards, bringing along a faint smell of tea candles.

Bertrand Duchaufour

The middle is all about coffee and rose. The coffee here is less literal than in most fragrances that potent note turns up in. It doesn’t quite come over as a cuppa joe or fresh bean, but rather an abstraction of coffee, with pointillist dots of bitterness, roast and liquid richness separated out. And if you step sway from the fragrance at this juncture and smell it again, the coffee becomes part of a bigger olfactory canvas to which it adds savour and depth. Rose, so often the heart of perfumes, here takes on a supporting role. I don’t smell iris particularly, until I dab a little Encens Japonais on paper. Then its translucent purple, powdery fragrance is not only apparent but achingly beautiful. On my skin, it merges with rose to add a rounded lushness to the perfume that shimmers like damask against the incense.

Aedes de Venustas storefront on Orchard St, image Aedes de Venustas

Wearing Encens Japonais feels like cocooning in a jade green velvet blanket, its soothing, enveloping warmth a talisman against the cold. Tonight, as carolers hark the herald angels sing outside, and late December nips at flowers that never understood it was time to turn in, Encens Japonais is as cozy and lovely as the golden sparkle of Christmas lights. As the fire logs glow into embers, night wanes into morning, the aromas of fruit and flowers, wood and incense, leather and coffee, dance in the air. My heart feels home.

Notes: Incense, leather, musk, strawflowers, black and pink pepper, orange, iris, rose, opoponax, benzoin, coffee, patchouli, wood.

Disclaimer: Decant of Aedes de Venustas Encens Japonais kindly provided to me by Aedes de Venustas (one of this author’s favourite perfume shops anywhere). My opinions, as always, are my own.

Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

 Aedes de Venustas Encens Japonais

Thanks to the generosity of Aedes de Venustas, we have a of large sample of Encens Japonais for one registered reader in the U.S. To be eligible, please leave a comment about what strikes you about Aedes de Venustas Encens Japonais and what your favorite. Draw closes 12/29/2021.

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