photo via shutterstock

Ah, pray make no mistake,

We are not shy.

We’re very wide awake,

The moon and I.

 — The Sun Whose Rays from the Mikado, Gilbert & Sullivan

Shirley Henderson as Yum Yum in Topsy-urvey, 1999

At the end of Topsy Turvey, Mike Leigh’s brilliant imagining of the creation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Mikado, Yum Yum sings in single spotlight of the sun and the moon and how she hopes to emulate them. When I found there was a perfume that borrowed a lyric from that most beautiful of songs, I hoped it would be as lovely as its namesake. Floraiku The Moon and I is wistfully beautiful, a dreamy nighttime tea fragrance to be worn while stargazing or watching the moon drowsily from a bedroom window.

Floraiku, from Clara and John Molloy, founders and creative directors of Memo Paris and Hermetica, is a line of Haiku-inspired fragrances whose name references a bridging of French and Asian influences. In keeping with the minimalist aesthetic of the haiku, each fragrance lists three key notes, keeping the rest secret. Presented in stunning Asian-themed bottles by artist Victoire Cathalan using watercolors and Indian inks, the perfumes use more than 50% natural ingredients and are each introduced with a haiku-style poem by Clara Molloy.

Pulling Moon, painting via Fine Art America

Unlike most tea fragrances,  Florahaiku The Moon and I lists no black tea, using instead the earthy dried hay of mate and the astringent, cut grass smell of matcha to create the aromatic brew. A burst of lemon juice and astringent rind right at the top initially cloaks the cool tea notes at the heart of The Mon and I. I expected a full-on tea fragrance, but as the citrus falls back, there is an unexpected floralcy that opens slowly like a lotus blossom in accelerated stop motion photography. No flowers are listed, there is fresh jasmine sweetness in the middle section, a touch of creaminess.

Cedar oil adds a woodsy, slightly smoky darkness that from time to time gives the illusion of Ceylon tea. It anchors the more evanescent notes of the top, giving them an opaque backdrop against which they stand out in relief. Towards the dry-down, the tobacco-like mate takes prominence, and I realize that The Moon and I has more staying power than many of its brethren. Quietly different, tranquil as a still pond, this is one of the prettiest tea perfumes I’ve come across for a long time.

Notes: Mate absolute, matcha tea, cedar oil.

Floraiku My Love Has The Colour Of The Night

Floraiku My Love Has the Colour of the Night is also meant for twilight hours, mournful, woody incense that wears like a cast shadow. The gaiac is evident right off the top, its rose-and-sandalwood aroma drifting up from the skin immediately. The vetiver seeps in; oily, vegetal, bosky, and the fragrance turns darker. The strange combination of floral gaiac and earthy, rooty vetiver is magnetic and confusing simultaneously. Together, they give an impression of burning incense smoke. Dried leaf patchouli comes out more slowly adding a sense of dark forest. Frankincense is absent from the key notes of My Love Has the Colour of Night, and I am not certain if what I am smelling is a clever trompe nez of vetiver, gaiac and patchouli tricking me into thinking of incense, or whether it is truly here.

As time goes on, Florahaiku My Love Has the Colour of the Night takes on hints of pipe tobacco and violet leaf, becoming almost velvety and darker still. But it also takes on some vanillic sweetness towards the end that softens all that earthiness. If you like your incense to smell less of the church and more of burning joss sticks in a canopied forest, this is your fragrance.

Notes: Gaiac oil, vetiver oil, patchouli oil.

Disclaimer: samples of Florahaiku The Moon and I and My Love Has the Colour of the Night kindly provided by Europerfumes, the US distributor. My opinions are my own.

— Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Florahaiku is Available at Twisted Lily