Aether Arts Perfume Scylla: courtesy of the brand

 “Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.” – from Circe by Madeline Miller

Aether Arts Perfume Scylla is the third in the marine trilogy from artisanal olfactory artist and perfumer Amber Jobin. The introductory fragrances of the trilogy are Charybdis and Aether Arts Perfume Circe, reviewed by ÇaFleureBon here and here. Amber describes her inspiration for the trilogy as a love for marine style perfumes, “having been born and lived near the ocean in my childhood, I dearly missed the sight and smell of the sea now that I’m land-locked. I searched for years to find the perfect marine perfume, the one that would bring my senses back to the water’s edge. Nothing I smelled was right; they were too clean, fruity, tropical, or floral. So, I decided to make what I couldn’t find.”

 

Independent Perfumer Amber Jobin and Circe, courtesy of the brand

In 2018, Amber created Scylla’s sister scent, Charybdis, as a true-ocean scent. Amber’s vision for Charybdis was “the smell of salt and seaweed; driftwood and the flinty gray-green color of the waves, an atmospheric perfume that allows one to have an ocean experience any time, any place.” In 2019, at Editor-in-Chief, Michelyn Camen’s suggestion, Amber read Madeline Miller’s novel Circe and was inspired to create a perfume around Circe and her magical island home. Amber’s artistic evocation of Circe “is a marine perfume with ocean breezes plus herbal and floral aspects.”

Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, courtesy of the brand

In 2023, Amber has completed her trilogy with Aether Arts Perfume Scylla, a sea monster perfume. Given this year’s Burning Man art theme of Animalia and the record downpour that turned the desert into a temporary aquatic environment, what better inspiration than a sea monster? Scylla shares many of the same ocean-accord notes of both Charybdis and Circe but departs radically from them with the addition of animalic, oud, and wood notes. Aether Arts Perfume Scylla presents us with a seascape that is living, organic and real. The complex marriage of sea and soil in Amber’s animalic accord shows us beauty within the beast.

van de Velde II, Willem; Storm at Sea; The Fitzwilliam Museum wiki

Aether Arts Perfume Scylla opens with the salt-swept brine of a stormy ocean. I love the smell of the sea just as the waves are kicking up for a tempest. Scylla is the scent of staying a little too long on the shores when one probably shouldn’t, but knowing there is something majestic in the making. The power of the sea is on display and wild in its magnificence. This masterly marine accord has managed sweep up the very organs of the ocean along with its life force. Choya Nahk bridges the briny green notes of seaweed with the mineral and animalic aspects of ambergris.

Joseph Mallord William Turner Glaucus and Scylla 1841

A Sea Monster Accord forges the heart of Aether Arts Perfume Scylla by combining animalics of sea and soil. The very forces of nature have been given voice and ornament through honeyed civet, leathery castoreum, and phenolic oud. Ambergris forms a sinewy tissue connecting and animating the heart notes. The accord is complex and muscular while also maintaining a texture that is smooth as silken waves wrapping around one’s ankles. The expert use of Africa Stone to enhance the musky warmth of this fragrance brings our beast purring on the shores. Soft and creamy wood impressions continue to soften the dry down to a cradled cadence. There are times when I feel most connected to nature while floating in a body of water; Aether Arts Perfume Scylla enlivens nature for us to experience as wearable art.

Notes: Ocean Accord (Salt, Seaweed, Choya Nahk, Marine Notes), Sea Monster Accord (Animalic Notes including Ambergris, Civet, Castoreum and Oud Notes), Splintered Ships Accord (Wood Notes and Musk Notes including Africa Stone)

Aether Arts Perfumes are at Extrait/Perfume Strength in a voile format (sprayable oil) and available in both sprays and roller style bottles.”

Disclaimer: I was gifted a bottle of Scylla perfume, opinions my own

– Rachel K. Ng, Senior Contributor

Happy Birthday November 23rd to two-time Art and Olfaction winning award-winning artisan perfumer Amber Jobin of Aether Arts Perfume! The  ÇaFleureBon team celebrates you, your successes and your creativity!

 

Photo: Nicolas Kaviani, Amber accepting her Golden Pear for John Frum

Mayan Chocolate is an Art and Olfaction Winner in the artisan category 2022 and John Frum (reviewed by Senior Editor Tama Blough R.I.P.) was awarded an Art and Olfaction Awards Golden Pear in 2014 at the first award ceremony in the artisan category.

Editor-in-Chief Michelyn Camen’s journey as Creative Director for Circe in 2019.

Aether Arts Perfume Hivemind was awarded best experimental scent of 2022 by Michelyn

Deputy and Natural Perfumery Editor Ida Meister review of Aether Arts Perfume Charybdis in 2018.

See my review (with generous contributions by Editor-in-Chief Michelyn Camen and Perfumer Amber Jobin) of ÇaFleureBon x Aether Arts Perfume cyBorg Queen here 2023 which celebrated our 13^th Anniversary and my review of Aether Arts Perfume Midnight Sugar here 2023

courtesy of Aether Arts Perfume

Thanks to the generosity of Amber Jobin at Aether Arts Perfume we have a draw for a 2ml roller bottle of Scylla, for one registered ÇaFleureBon reader, USA ONLY. YOU MUST REGISTER and leave a comment on this site, with what appeals to you about Scylla. Draw closes 11/26/2023

Please #shopsmall and buy directly from the Aether Art Perfume Website, where there is a sale.

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