Ken Grand, founder and owner of Alba Botanica until selling it in 1999, has forayed once more into the realm of naturals and founded Sarabecca Natural Perfume (named for his daughters Sarah and Rebecca) and released an intriguing duo of eaux de parfum entitled Day and Night. Sarabecca is a niche natural perfume House that only uses natural essence oils and natural fragrance essences.  Essential oils include vetiver, patchouli, ginger, lemon, bergamot and lavender. Other notes (such as melon, cyclamen and cut leaves) are constructed from a blending of natural fragrance essences-including rose petals, pine tar, coffee, orange peels and an array of herbs, woods and spices. The most wonderful thing about these perfumes is that even though they are bottled and packaged luxuriously, yet still contain a true product of Nature’s beauty and bounty.

Four years after starting and countless iterations later, Ken finally came up with two versions of perfume that met his original olfactory vision. Creating something natural that is also luxurious and can stand up to many prestige scents and still project that air of sophistication was not as easy as it sounded. Mr. Grand’s perseverance paid off and this year we have two very interesting takes on the oldest of opposites: night and day. Packaged the same (except for the borders of the boxes and colors of the metallic sprayers), in simple elegant flacons, these both radiate a classic aura and waft a complex and rich aroma as subdued as they are strong. For their prices of less than eighty US dollars, they are an amazing bargain for completely natural 50 ml eau de parfum sprays!

Photography: Yaroslavna Nozdrina

Sarabecca Day lists only a delicate blending of jasmine, muguet and tuberose, yet they are surrounded by a myriad of bright and shining citrus and slightly warm spices. This perfume is truly like day breaking: crisp, sharp and brightly clean without the usual sweet juiciness of citrus and the subtle spiciness coaxes out the shier (at first) white floral notes. The graphics on the box show peonies (or perhaps magnolias) and although none of these are listed the full richness of the complex and many-layered pure white blossoms rise sinuously about you.

Sarabecca Day

 First, the soft innocence of muguet with its tender green leaves and soft bell-shaped flowers, then a clean very bright jasmine playfully runs barefoot through the middle of everything; inviting you to join her reverie. A slightly smoky tuberose watches from the wings, eventually sauntering in closer to the finish of a woody green kissed with herbs and a rather arid earthiness. From pure and fresh to naughty and musky, this scent runs the gamut of the white floral spectrum; without ever coming off overpowering, dated or even all that feminine.

Day captures all the brightness and clarity of its namesake. Because it is also completely natural, you don’t just smell LIKE white flowers; you smell like you are standing in the middle of real white flowers as the summer sun and its warmth embrace you. From sun up to sun down this captures more than just some flowers-it succeeds in bringing to life something invigorating and sensual simultaneously.” But soft! What light through yon window breaks? It is the light of the day-from the East…” Sillage: Average. Longevity: slightly above average.

Sarabecca Night is, as I had hoped, a darker reflection of its sister scent; but not in the “usual” way. Anything with “noir” or “nuit” (black or night) in its name is usually dripping in vanilla, and often paired with darker woods or heavy musk and rich resins. This captures a more ephemeral shadow of nighttime that still has hints of those white flowers, only here they are anchored by a dark woody vetiver, crumbly shimmering amber and softer, gentler patchouli.

Silky smooth grasses blowing in the shadows, cool moonlight on softly sighing flowers and a rich sweet slightly dirty accord create something as utterly mysterious as it is enthralling. The perfume captures all this, yet even at its darkest hour Night still remains warm and luminescent, due to hints of ginger, sage, and citruses that blink and dance about in its development, like fireflies bobbing and weaving in the distance, lighting up the darkness. Towering trees cast shadows on the fertile forest floor, as all about an earthen and divine floral sweetness coils about you, cooler somewhat, but infinitely more complex.

Sarabecca Night

This bottle has a darker almost bronze colored sprayer and its package bears the darker shades of carbon grey around its edges, other than that these two are identical twins…until you spray them that is. I favor this fragrance just slightly more than its diurnal sister, as it is woodier, greener and more resinous. The same things are there, in the night as are in the day, but there just seems to be more intriguing goings-on in the shadows than in the brighter harsher light of daytime. Sillage: slightly above average. Longevity: good.

“Marketed” as these may be towards the fairer sex, I find both of them equally unisex enough for anyone to wear and enjoy. These are both extremely well-constructed natural fragrances that deliver not only a magnificent blend of harmonious notes in each, but manage to do so with nothing synthetic or artificial and use no animal products (or testing) and are completely cruelty-free. They do not project or last as long as more mainstream fragrances; but, I ask you: would you rather have a nice scent, made of synthetics, that lasts well OR would you rather have a truer (but subtler) fragrance that truly uses the fragrant essences of Mother Nature herself? For me…that’s a no brainer!

Disclosure: Reviews based on samples sent to me by Sarabecca Natural Perfume.

Thanks to Sarabecca Natural Perfume we have two draws. For our US readers it is a reader’s choice for 50ml of either Sarabecca Day or Night Eau de Parfum. For our international readers it is for a sample set of both fragrances. To be eligible leave comment on whether you think you would prefer Sarabecca Day or Night and if you are a day or a night person. Let us know if you reside in the US in your comment. The draw will end on June 29, 2013.

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.

–John Reasinger, Senior Editor

Art Direction: Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief