Aether Arts Perfumes Vampire Queen created ÇaFleureBon’s 14th Anniversary Sekhmet image by Amber Jobin

For the penultimate fragrance in ÇaFleureBon Queen series, Aether Arts Perfumes’ Amber Jobin, who has twice won the Art & Olfaction Award for artisan perfumery in collaboration with Michelyn Camen, imagines a fragrance that reclaims the vampire myth from pale men swishing about in opera capes and confers it back to something much more primal. The entity that birthed the vampire was no broody European but a female warrior, a deity as feared as she was venerated; the Egyptian goddess, Sekhmet. Born from fire in the eyes of the sun god, Ra, Sekhmet was both destroyer and healer: “Sekhmet the Bloodthirsty” who presided over war, plague, fire and chaos, who drank the blood of her enemies; and the goddess of medicine and physicians. She is often depicted as part woman, part lioness, perhaps, as the British Museum notes, “because the Egyptians observed that it is the female lion who is the hunter.”

Amber Jobin of Aether Arts Perfumes via Amber Jobin

Jobin’s Vampire Queen for ÇaFleureBon is as bold as her inspiration, a seductively strange brew of familiar notes that, in combination, have been rendered askew. The Egyptian incense kyphi opens the fragrance with a puff of its strange smoke. For the first few moments, the haze is cut through with the rich sweetness of raisins and a dark resinous wine like retsina, followed by the distinctive, vegetal bitterness of henna. A minute or two later, there’s dusty-sweet cardamom; then what smells like natural frankincense, slightly minty and coniferous, and sharp, green-edged mastic. Together, these scents give off the spicy-medicinal aromas of an ancient apothecary.

At this point, the fragrance is arresting, alluring even, but also dislocating. The raisins and cardamom smell like cookies, but the wine smells off-kilter, like cherries and dust mixed with a drop of whiskey. And, in the middle of the gentle, sweet spice, the henna smells claylike and wrinkled; the frankincense fresh and alive. The uneasy oddness of these juxtapositions reminds me of de Chirico; looming shadows on calm, cloudless days, abandoned columns aslant on temptingly sunbaked ground. It is mesmerizing.

Bust of Sekhmet 18th Dynasty Sotheby’s Sekhmet dates between 1390 to 1352 BCE, Sotheby’s

The kyphi accord continues to incant its strange spell until, gradually, the arrival of earthy aromas of patchouli and  shifts into more recognizable territory. Unlike the strange exoticism of its opening moments, Vampire Queen’s second stage is more familiar, even comforting. Candle wax and honey seep into the center where they melt into the cinnamon and cardamom, reminding me of Sunday morning childhood breakfasts. Patchouli adds some sturdy earthiness and a crackle of dried leaf as the plant notes recede and the cinnamon and beeswax notes become more central. An hour later, there’s red wine, bakery spice and just a hint of the oblique green notes and henna that make Vampire Queen feel like it arrived in an old glass philtre from another time.

Vampire Queen for ÇaFleureBon treads a confidently thin line between unsettling and comforting, beauty and strangeness, a perfume fit for a goddess who could drain the blood of an army and then heal the sick and weeping. Sekhmet wouldn’t have it any other way.

 Notes: Kyphi accord: frankincense, mastic, myrrh, henna, cardamon and cinnamon, resins; honey, raisin and wine accord, oakmoss, patchouli and smoke accord.

Sample graciously sent by Aether Arts Perfumes; opinions my own

–Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Aether Arts Perfumes Vampire Queen for ÇaFleureBon

Thanks to the generosity of Amber Jobin of  Aether Arts Perfumes Perfumes we have a draw for a 2 ml extrait of Vampire Queen for one registered ÇaFleureBon reader USA (or with a USA address). YOU MUST REGISTER and leave a comment on this site, with what appeals to you about Vampire Queen based on Lauryn’s review. Draw closes 4/12/2024.

You can read Michelyn’s brief with Amber here

You can read about FAErie Queen by 4160 Tuesdays here. Review coming soon.

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