Source Huffington Post

"I don’t know how to write love letters, but I wanted to tell you that my whole being opened for you. Since I fell in love with you everything is transformed and is full of beauty… love is like an aroma, like a current, like rain."  –" Frida Kahlo, to Catalan Artist Jose Bartoli 1946

Alexandra Balahoutis

Natural Perfumer Alexandra Balahoutis knows exactly how to compose a love letter…with her newest fragrance of the same name.   Created to mark 15 years of Strange Invisible Perfumes   Love Letter is a multi-faceted celebration… homage to precious botanicals, the fifteen years she has spent nurturing Strange Invisible Perfumes, perhaps finding her true love and enjoying the bliss of being newlywed. Ms. Balahoutis’ new fragrance is an olfactory poem to experience, to  enjoy, and to wear; it is one of her best fragrances she has created.  Ms. Balahoutis selected fifteen botanicals that she treasures, that make her swoon; one for each year the company has been in business.  She masterfully combines these favorite ingredients into a perfume that stirs the emotions and lights up the soul.

Alexandra Balahoutis  Hydro Distilled Roses (from In Defense of Natural Perfumery as Botanical Art, written for CaFleureBon in 2013)

Love Letter opens with a burst of sparkling cheerful citruses, well representing the excitement and euphoria of a new love found.  Rare and beautiful flowers are introduced at just the right times, a cool refreshing blue lotus, warmed by precious woods and glowing frankincense, choice lavender and the finest roses blended with the seducing tuberose conveying the passion shares in those pages.  It begins to settle, woods giving way to the scent of warm skin with fading flower petals still clinging to it, feeling the sting of being apart but knowing their love, true and strong, will see them back together again and the joys that reunion will bring. Longevity is excellent and sillage is subtle which is typical of most natural perfumes. It is a shared fragrance that will appeal to men and women.  

Perfumer’s Notes:

Blue Lotus – wildcrafted in a coastal town in India

Hawaiian temple mandarin (aged) – grown and hydro-distilled on a biodynamic farm in Maui

Tahitian vanilla – custom ground and percolated by master distillers in Napa Valley (a commissioned process that takes four months)

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Organic rose essence – certified organic rose essence skillfully obtained from the first distillation of the flower

Frankincense – before beginning the distillation, the resin is soaked for three days, then hydro-distilled for 16 hours and aged for eleven years

Lavender – grown and hydro-distilled on an organic farm in Santa Barbara County

Cedar wood – wildcrafted in Morocco

Bergamot – custom designed glass flasks are used to hydro-distill certified organic bergamot

Tuberose – flowers grown and distilled in Mysore, India

And 6 notes whose identities will stay with Alexandra, mysterious and beautiful.

Disclosure: Sample provided to me by perfumer for review.

Writer’s note: Love Letter is a Best of Scent 2015 awarded for Best Limited Edition and Best of Editors and Contributors

Michael Singels, Sr. Contributor & Natural Perfumery Editor and Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief

 

Thanks to Alexandra Balahoutis of Strange Invisible Perfumes, we have a draw for Bottle (1.7oz) of Love Letter, (value $425). Draw is open to all USA registered CaFleureBon readers. To be eligible, please leave a comment with why you want to experience Love Letter, if you have a favorite love letter that you have received, wrote or one from literature, and your favorite Strange Invisible Perfume. Draw closes January 11, 2016