Aether Arts Perfume Black Hole image courtesy of Aether Arts Perfume
If you know anything about Burning Man, the “global ecosystem of artists, makers, and community organizers” who meet yearly in a fantastic makeshift city in the Nevada desert, you know that the unexpected is to be expected. Artisan perfumer Amber Jobin is a diehard Burner; her ongoing Burner series takes its inspiration from the event and has resulted in some of her most memorable and imaginative fragrances, such as 2014 Art & Olfaction award winner John Frum.
Amber Jobin image for the PANDEMIC series
Her newest addition to the line, Aether Arts Perfume Black Hole, (the third in the Pandemic series which includes The Space Between and Contact) poses an inherent contradiction: turning an exploration of the unknowable into fragrance. But Black Hole is more than an intellectual exercise of creating something out of the ultimate nothing; it is also a sly olfactory rendering of “all the craziness that was/is 2020-2021.” Jobin writes on her webpage for Black Hole, “It’s enough to make you feel like you fell down a black hole and have emerged into an alternate universe. Maybe some things are the same, maybe everything is different, and the only constant is you.”
Amber Jobin, image courtesy of the perfumer 2020
So, what does nothingness smell like? One might assume that the answer would turn out to be nothing more than an empty bottle, a sort of jokey perfume version of the emperor’s clothes. But Jobin approaches the scent without smugness, offering smudgy, sooty notes that suggest something obscured and inchoate.
Unexpectedly, the first thing I smell is horehound, which, if you are not familiar with it, is an old-fashioned flowering plant used particularly in the 1800s and the early twentieth century as a candy flavouring. Its smell and taste are somewhere between root beer and spearmint. The physical effect of the opening notes contradicts cuddly memories of penny candy stores with a chilliness that is underlined by a metallic ping. Jobin lists “licorice gunpowder” in the notes. But these initial aromas smell more like the gun, wrapped in licorice and mint. A few minutes later, Jobin’s gunpowder note – which she has used to great effect in Gunsmoke N’ Roses – comes out distinctly with facets of charcoal, black pepper and smoky black tea.
Smoke image via rawpixel
On second application, I get the black licorice more immediately and assertively, and I reassess the fragrance after a more generous application. This time, Aether Arts Perfume Black Hole is much darker and occluded. Right after the tire rubber-sarsaparilla smell of black licorice and pepper, that metallic notes gleams again, this time accompanied by an aggressive smack of vetiver and some patchouli that smells of lightless forest floors. Black Hole becomes cloudier, smokier, and I almost feel like the light in my bedroom is exhaling itself as I write.
Burning Man 2017, image by Amber
And yet, Black Hole is not in any way disturbing or melancholy. It gives off a strangely soothing quietness, like the cool silence that follows closing a door on street noise and too-bright sun. And I begin to notice a circularity in the perfume’s construction; the minty-root beer note of the beginning surfaces again, while the gunpowder runs throughout the composition, threading the other notes like black beads. Just towards the end, I pick up a subtle tang of oakmoss. But overall, what I smell is like the afterglow of gunfire: you can still see the outline of the light flare hanging in the dark, the smoke moves in slow motion, and the air is both acrid and sweet.
Perhaps the smell of nothingness is not void but absence, the residue of what was.
Notes: licorice gunpowder, smoke, oakmoss, patchouli, vetiver, pepper.
Disclaimer: Sample of Aether Arts Perfume Black Hole kindly given to me by Amber Jobin. My opinions, as always, are my own.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
Editor’s Note: Amber Jobin won the Art and Olfaction Award for John Frum, 2014, and was a 3x top ten finalist for Love for Three Oranges (2016), Saffron (2017) and was one of seven independent perfumers who created a perfume for CaFleureBon Project Talisman collaboration Touchstone, which celebrated our 7th anniversary. -Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief and art director
Thanks to the generosity of Aether Arts Perfume, we have a 2ml extrait to give to one registered reader worldwide. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what intrigues you about Aether Arts Perfume Black Hole based on Lauryn’s review and where you live. Draw closes 12/15/2021.
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