Touching Egypt 11 by Fattah Hallah Abdel

I think you all know what I think of the word “collection”; these days it has become a 10-letter 4-letter word in my perfume vocabulary synonymous with mediocre. Where in the past it used to mean a grouping of fragrances connected via some central idea now it is an excuse to send an armada of fragrance out into the world with little thought behind it. Thankfully there are a few perfumers left who understand the original concept and reject the current iteration. One of those is Dawn Spencer Hurwitz who when she uses the word collection it becomes synonymous with fascinating.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz

Ms. Hurwitz’s latest collection is once again inspired by what has become, perhaps, her greatest muse. Ms. Hurwitz has worked closely with the Denver Art Museum to find ways to bring the olfactory arts into the facility. It started with her re-creation of four original Egyptian perfume recipes when the King Tut exhibit was in town and extended to last year’s tour de force inspired by the Yves St. Laurent retrospective at the museum. For the latest collection Ms. Hurwitz was inspired by those original Egyptian perfumes and wanted to revisit those and see if she could modernize them. In an e-mail I asked her to elaborate on that process and she explained it this way,

“I wanted to approach these new works kind of like a chef would attempt fusion cooking: coming up with an 'authentic' kind of flavor but using new materials to achieve it.  And with these, I wanted to still give the wearer some sense of what the ancient Egyptian aesthetic might be while simultaneously giving the perfumes a contemporary edge.  I wanted them to feel like true niche perfumes made with high quality naturals mixed and ‘tinted’, if you will, with the synthetics.  I think that I managed to create a true fusion of ancient and modern. That was certainly my aim.”

This is the essence of independent perfumery when a creative like Ms. Hurwitz finds inspiration and uses the freedom she has to take it into delightfully new places. Each of the New Kingdom fragrances have their inspiration in the Old Kingdom re-creations and all four members of the New Kingdom are excellent.

Touching Egypt 15 by Fattah Hallah Abdel

Iridum is the descendent of Cardamom & Kyphi as Ms. Hurwitz keeps the spice and incense from the Old and to make it New adds in a decadent orris. The New part in the presence of the intense iris is ascendant throughout the development of Iridum. The incense and spice is toned down and used more as a foundation to add warm contrast to the very cool orris. There is also a great woody finish to all of this. Iridum really blends the Old and the New to create something very contemporary.

Antiu is the modern re-telling of the green that Sampsuchinon was for the ancients. In the past it was herbs that created the green, for a modern take Ms. Hurwitz delved into the deeper green raw materials like galbanum and fir. The opening of bitter almond and galbanum nods to the old with the almond and the new with galbanum. The galbanum enhances the bitter facets of the almond to create a fabulous start which then deepens to raw green pine and incense for the rest of the development. This is pine oozing sap with sticky droplets hanging to the bark. It is strong and coniferous and if you love pine fragrances this is one you must try.

Touching Egypt 23 by Fattah Hallah Abdel

In the Old Kingdom a man wore 1,000 Lilies for the New Kingdom Ms. Hurwitz knows a modern man prefers to smell woody and in Keni she has created a woody variant on a spicy oriental design. Keni swirls with cinnamon at the start and Ms. Hurwitz is one of my favorite interpreters of cinnamon as it always feels livelier in her compositions than in others. Here it holds your attention until a bit of incense and woods arrive to finish the day. Cedar is the most prominent of the woods adding a clean frame to the spice and incense.   

In Arome D’Egypte in the Old Kingdom Ms. Hurwitz worked with the quirky slightly medicinal note of that time, spikenard. In Megaleion she works with the quirky slightly medicinal note of modern times, agarwood or oud.  This is a deep balsamic mix to start with before unleashing the agarwood which forces its way into the foreground before getting surrounded by amber and incense. Ms. Hurwitz shows as she did with the spikenard that she can take a fractious raw material like agarwood and find the right combination to make it behave, beautifully.

All four New Kingdom fragrances have above average longevity and average sillage.

Ms. Hurwitz can be one of our most imaginative perfumers when inspired and the Denver Art Museum has now inspired her to her third collection in a row of great fragrances. In the New Kingdom Ms. Hurwitz is Cleopatra.

Disclosure: This review was based on samples provided by DSH Perfumes.

Thanks to DSH Perfumes we have a draw for a sample set of all four New Kingdom perfumes for our US readers only. To be eligible leave a comment on your favorite DSH perfume or which one of the New kingdom fragrances you think you might like best. The draw ends on May 22, 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.

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor