Kiss of The Sphinx by Franz Von Struck
Roses figure prominently in my personal narrative: they represent transformation. I somehow managed to morph from Mieskeit (Yiddish for “hideously ugly person”) to Long-Stemmed American Beauty Rose, if maternal pronouncements are to be believed. The only truth which matters is my passion for them in all their incarnations. I’ve reviewed multitudinous rose perfumes over the years, so it’s time to sing a slightly different song beginning with Guerlain Nahema.
Nahema ad 1982
Guerlain Nahema (Jean-Paul Guerlain, 1979): I was 25 years old when Nahema was released; by then I’d been an avowed Guerlainophile for 14 years. The elegant Pochet et du Courval flacon was arresting in its curvaceous minimalism and floating teardop – but when you lifted the stopper! The sheer voluptuousness of waxy aldehydic peach-cheeked rose unfurled right beneath your nostrils. Inebriating, fully-fleshed, an odalisque perfume.Seraglio perfume! Nothing bashful about Nahema, the daughter of fire in Sheherazade’s 1001 Nights – she foreshadowed the aromatic heavy-hitters which were to dominate the ‘80s. Despite its opulent nature, brilliant execution and Gallic inspiration (Catherine Deneuve herself!) it was a commercial flop, overshadowed by Poison, Giorgio and other over-the-top fragrances which elbowed it out of sight. One can still find it today in edp and extrait (the latter is my best-loved), thank heavens: glittering aldehydes and citrus on top, galloping damascenones, roses, passionfruit and peaches, ever-so-soft Guerlinade-y base plush with benzoin, vanilla, a smattering of vetiver and pillowy sandalwood. Go big or go home. Notes: peach,bergamot, aldehydes, green notes, rose, jasmine, lilac, hyacinth, lily of the valley, passion fruit, Peru balsam, vanilla, vetiver, sandalwood
Eugene Carrière’s painting “Young Girl with Flowers” inspired DSH Perfumes La Reine des Fleurs
DSH Perfumes La Reine des Fleurs (Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, 2014) Inspired by Eugene Carrière’s painting “Young Girl with Flowers”, this Queen of Flowers was commissioned by the Denver Art Museum in conjunction with their exhibit Passport to Paris. Dawn created marvelous fragrances (yes, I bought them all) for it, and DSH Perfumes La Reine des Fleurs was so lush that I succumbed with very little effort – it’s both innocent AND worldly. We’re showered in velvety petals from Russian rose otto, Bulgaria, Morocco. No one else pulls out all the stops creating a peachy rose chypre: the finest patchouli, civet, moss, bergamot – and then Mysore sandalwood? Orris, grandiflorum jasmine, Peru balsam, Siam benzoin and Tahitian vanilla? Oh, please. Yes, DSH Perfumes La Reine des Fleurs is a sweet chypre, fruity and woody at once (whether it’s a French peach melange or gamma undecalactone I don’t really know; I didn’t ask!), but don’t let that prevent you. Have confidence in yourselves; as Grace Slick noted, you’re only pretty as you feel. And you will feel superb wearing DSH Perfumes La Reine des Fleurs. Notes: bergamot, mandarin, peach, Bulgarian rose absolute, Russian rose otto, Moroccan rose absolute, Egyptian rose geranium, grandiflorum jasmine, orris root, Mysore sandalwood, moss, patchouli CO2, Tahitian vanilla, Peru balsam, Siam benzoin, civet
–Ida Meister, Sr. Editor and Natural Perfumery Editor
Still Life Photo of Memento Mori by TSF©
Aftelier Perfumes Memento Mori (Mandy Aftel, 2016):
“If I had my life to live over again, I would form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practice, as it were, the remembrance of death.” From Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
Remember you must die. This is how “memento mori” literally translates, a concise and elegant comment on mortality. Mandy Aftel for Aftelier Perfumes Memento Mori starts like a violation; such is the shock of its body proximities. A bittersweet buttercreep floral entrance that demands you stop and think. This is not casual perfumery, but a composition that requires concentration, guts and respect. It is a surreal thing, mournful, creepy and resplendent as it takes it over skin. There is an erotic lacquered quality as it moves, a brittle sense of something slightly off, on the turn. The slippery butyric repulsion mixed with rooty orris and the high honey pungency of phenyl acetic acid make for an arresting start. I find myself smelling my skin deeply, pulling the notes out. Mandy’s roses are always strange, she rarely settles for the expected and ordinary. Why should she? Her perfumery has always been about the explosive emotional facets of materials and her honesty in dealing with the quality, exposition and beauty of them. Memento Mori offers up a swollen rose on the tipping point of bruise and fade, scented petals velvet dropping to a worn tabletop. The slow rose death is a wonder, accompanied as it is by umber patchouli and a duo of careful glassy ambers. There is delicate conversation between the layers of Memento Mori as the top notes fade away and the mauve ionone woods dissolve. This drydown is nuanced and possessive, holding you hostage to your own skin, making you feel mournful perhaps that the journey is ending but suggesting that your skin, that most mortal of materials deserves this erotic, magnificent and challenging memory of so many olfactive deaths.
Guest Contributor, ©The Silver Fox
With Gratitude to Dawn Spencer Hurwitz for a 10 ml pulse perfume pen of DSH Perfumes La Reine des Fleurs for a registered reader worldwide
Thank you to Mandy Aftel for a sample of Memento Mori for a registered reader worldwide
For our Valentine’s Day Tournament #4, please leave a comment on which Rose perfumes from today’s Tournament appeal to you based on Ida’s and TSF reviews: DSH Perfumes La Reine des Fleurs which you would like to win that is being offered. You must be a registered reader to enter or your comment will not count. Check back tomorrow for our finale. Draw closes February 3, 2019
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Enter our Roses for Valentine’s Day Tournament #1 (Marianne Butler and Lauryn Beer) here
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