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New Perfume Review: AEDES DE VENUSTAS Grenadille d’Afrique (Karl Bradl/Alberto Morillas) + Sunset on the Savanna Draw

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petrifiedwoodphotonationalgeographic

Petrified wood, photo by National Geographic

If you could see through ebony, it would smell like this.  

Grenadille d’Afrique (“African Blackwood”), the seventh perfume from Aedes de Venustas, is an elegantly lactonic woods fragrance possessed of an unusual transparency. Created in collaboration between Creative Director Karl Bradl and master perfumer Alberto Morillas (who was also the nose behind Aedes’ 2015 release, Pallisandre D’Or, also designed around a woods theme), Grenadille d’Afrique has a translucency that diverges from the usual opacity of woods-dominant perfumes.

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Kaingo ebony forest (apped by MC), photo by Derek Shenton

Aedes de Venustas’ press materials describes Grenadille d'Afrique as an “olfactory portrait of the mythical African Blackwood tree.”  While the woods make up the heart of the fragrance, there is none of the cinnamon sawdust quality of cedar or the rich vanillic aspects of oak. Rather, Grenadille d’Afrique begins with a sparkle of bergamot and white tea that lifts the opening and sets the tone for the perfume’s unusual ability to impart lightness to hefty, earthy ingredients like vetiver, wood accord and labdanum.

african-fashion

Photo by Fashion Designer and Artist  Ikire Jones

A few minutes in, Grenadille d’Afrique expands into an amalgam of sweet cream and black licorice, an effect created by merging grey lavender with lactonic notes. A sensation of smooth, polished wood follows, the camphorous quality of juniper in the top notes giving a sly impression of lacquer. It is like sipping a milky anisette from a deeply carved ebony bowl.

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Dieyna Ba, photo by Sevda Albers for Annabelle Magazine, June 2014

As Grenadille d'Afrique develops, an almost dusty vetiver opens out like a drop of olive green oil paint expanding on water. Often, vetiver adds a vegetal or leafy quality to compositions. Here, M. Morillas achieves an aromatic trompe l’oeil by using vetiver’s drier, branchy aspects to create a mineral note like sun-baked stone.

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Sunset on the African Savanna (apped by MC) Photo by Jules Shenton

Grenadille d’Afrique dries down like a sunset, with the warm baked aromas of its middle stages softening out with vanilla and labdanum as the mineral note recedes.  The milky tea note of the opening resurfaces and the woods become less distinct. Grenadille d’Afrique quiets into milky resin and cool musk, the olfactory equivalent of sipping a white Earl Grey while watching the sun sink below the horizon of the savanna as the parched day wanes.

Notes: Bergamot, lavender, juniper, violet, African blackwood accord, cistus labdanum, vetiver, milky white tea accord, musk. Sillage is intimate and longevity is good — about 6 to 8 hours.

Sample provided by Aedes de Venustas – many thanks. Opinions are my own.

Lauryn Beer, Editor

Editor’s Note: AEDES DE VENUSTAS has received ÇaFleureBon Best of Scent Awards for three of their signature perfumes: Copal Azur (2014) by Bertrand Duchaufour, Iris Nazarena (2013) by Ralf Schweiger, which was the recipient of the Fragrance  Foundation 2014 Award for Perfume Extraordinaire and Rodrigo Flores-Roux’s Ouillet Bengale (2014) –Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief

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Aedes de Venustas Grenadille d'Afrique, photo via instagram

Thanks to the generosity of Aedes de Venustas and François Duquesne the CEO of Beauty Enterprises, (the distributor of Aedes de Venustas perfumes) we have a 100 ml bottle of Grenadille  d’Afrique for a registered reader in the US, Canada or Europe. You must register here for your comment to count. To be eligible please leave a comment with what appeals to you about Grenadille D”Afrique based on Lauryn’s review, where you live, andif you have a favorite Aedes de Venustas perfume. If you think Karl Bradl should tell his story as the Creative Director for AEDES DE VENUSTAS perfumes (and working with some of the greatest perfumers in the  world) in our Creative Directors in Perfumery Series, leave that in your comment too.  Draw closes 11/5/2016.

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

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Perfume Review: Jack (Aliénor Massenet) + Richard E. Grant Draw

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Richard E. Grant, photo by WMNO Vergnault

The 1987 cult film Withnail And I put Richard E. Grant on the map. His performance as the dissipated, irascible out-of-work actor Withnail, railing torrents of witty abuse at the universe like a down-at-heel Oscar Wilde, is breathtaking. Now, 30 years later, Withnail remains one of the great eccentrics of British film. So it is unsurprising that Grant’s first foray into perfumery, Jack, carries more than a touch of his most famous character.

Richard E. Grant in the film Withnail And I, 1987

Jack, winner of the 2015 Fragrance Foundation UK award for best new independent fragrance, is what Withnail might very well have sported had he become a success. It was created in partnership between Grant and former IFF and now Symrise perfumer  Aliénor Massenet. The name alludes to that epitome of Englishness, the Union Jack, and the dozen other colloquial meanings Jack has in the English-speaking world.

Gucci Menswear 2015 Fashion Editorial, photo by Kiki Xue for Boycott

Jack could be described as a tonic with a hit of hemp; very modern and quite English; proper and quirky in equal measures. Its opening is as sharp as a Wildean quip, dominated by a top note remarkably like the bitter-fresh scent of just-cut grapefruit (an olfactory trick created by lime and mandarin). Hurrying into the top notes is a slightly smoky, herbal note that initially smells half basil, half juniper. It gives the sense of a perfectly made gin-and-tonic without smelling literally like one.

Coco Rocha, Curiouser and Curiouser fashion editorial, photo by Tim Walker for Vogue, Feb 2007

Stage two is all about the weed. The herbal note huddles down into an earthier place as the opening chords become more distinct. The grapefruit fades more recognizably into lime and the sweetness of mandarin is now discernible. The citrus notes provide a bright backdrop for the loamy cannabis, keeping the scent from dropping hazily into hippie territory. This cannabis is not the sly, fresh green note of DSH Perfumes’ Agrestic, nor the dreamy reefer of Parfumerie Generale Coze, but a smell of freshly turned earth and plant leaves, a quality emphasized by a bone dry vein of vetiver.

Tim Walker for W Magazine, Denmark, Dec 2016

Citrus-based scents often have a predictable descent into soapy musk. Not so with Jack. While there is musk, a smack of pepper and dry tobacco in the dry down add a warm, sturdy base to the herbal-fruit upper notes. I don’t pick up the oud or incense, but the ending manages to hold the lime rind/grapefruit note and herbs in balance while allowing them to stay front and center throughout Jack’s finish.

Photo by Alexander Neumann for L’Officiel, Paris, Jun-Jul 2012

Designed to be unisex, Jack is chipper, dapper, refined with an intriguingly likable louche note, like a Jermyn Street suit on a gigolo, or a rumpled crinoline on a garden party debutante. If you like your scents straight up with a twist, Jack is deliciously for you.

Notes: lime, cannabis, mandarin orange, cloves, pepper and nutmeg, agarwood (oud), vetiver, white musk, tobacco and olibanum. Sillage is on the modest side and longevity is average.

Sample provided by Aedes de Venustas – many thanks. My opinions are my own.

— Lauryn Beer, Editor

Steve Martin with Richard E. Grant

Editor’s Note: Aedes de Venustas held a party for the launch mid October 2016; celebrities such as Steve Martin, Joel Grey, Parker Posey, and Trudy Styler turned out in full force

Jack, photo courtesy of Aedes de Venustas

Thanks to the generosity of Aedes de Venustas, we have samples of all three Jack perfumes Jack, Jack Convent Gardens and Jack Picadilly 69  for 3 registered readers in the U.S. To be eligible, please leave a comment with what appeals to you about Jack based on Lauryn’s review, if you are familiar with Richard E. Grant and if you have a favorite Richard E. Grant film or role. Draw closes 1/9/2016.

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

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New Perfume Review: AEDES DE VENUSTAS PÉLARGONIUM (Nathalie Feisthauer) 2017 + Still Life In Scent Draw

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Nathalie Feisthauer of LABscent (digitalized MC)

Pélargonium  by AEDES DE VENUSTAS which launched at Esxence 2017, is Creative Directors' Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner eighth fragrant offering since starting their eponymous collection in 2002.  Pélargonium was brought to life as a strikingly elegant and lively perfume by mega-talent Nathalie Feisthauer, who is also the first woman perfumer for the brand and a true olfactive artist. In the new Pélargonium fragrance the perfumer, perhaps fascinated by the interplay of light and shadow, has employed techniques similar to Chiaroscuro and Tenebrism in painting this perfume.

Still Life with Flowers by Willem van Aelst, 1665.

The profile of the new Pélargonium fragrance evokes the work of 17th century "still life" painters; Dutch Masters such as Jan Steen, Johannes Vermeer, Willem van Aelst and Hans Bollongier, who were busy creating their art, even as the first Pelargoniums were arriving in Europe from Africa.

Egyptian Geranium photo Aedes de Venustas©

Pelargonium – often referred to as Egyptian geranium (not to be confused with the window box variety), yields one of the most versatile essences in perfumery.The leaves and stems of the plant have a fresh rosy fragrance, hence the vernacular name, “rose geranium”. The oil, distilled from the leaves rather than the flowers, has been used since the late 19th century, as one of the key elements of the masculine fougère.  Nathalie Feisthauer has taken the idea of the fougère and created a modern perfume that features the eponymous Pelargonium, stylized and composed with a surprising twist. Just as the Dutch Masters infused their "still life" paintings with implied, often mysterious, symbolism, Nathalie transforms an olfactory image of Pelargonium into a study of light shadow- an extraordinary perfume that is  much more complex than a typical soliflore.

The Painter's Studio – Michiel van Musscher

With my first spritz of Pélargonium I step out of the modern world and into a vision of a 17th century painter's loft, an artist's studio with a vast expanse of louvered skylights, all facing north, gathering and focusing the softness and delicacy of the cool, afternoon light. Paintings, in various stages of completion, rest on easels. I can see (and sense) how the interaction between light and shadow, creates an impression of three dimensional form, depth and perspective. 

William Kalf 1653, Still Life with Drinking-Horn detail

The palpable illusion created on canvas (and in perfume) is everything.  In the foreground of the Pélargonium fragrance painting I can smell the scent of light, flooding and highlighting the sparkling leaf. The perfume's initial olfactory image includes a bright, almost zingy lemon pepper, sweetened with the vegetal sugars of carrot and the crisp, herbal, spicy, every so slightly rosy qualities of the succulent geranium. Two "shades" of citrus (Thalo Yellow Green and Cadmium Orange), and touches of two "colors" of pepper (Sepia hue and Deep Napthal Red) grace the opening of the fragrance.  As Pélargonium develops, the peppery edge of the golden citrus melds with facets of green cardamom, breathy orris, arid clary sage and the vague honeyed smoke of guaiac wood, creating an arresting swirl of dusty gun powder (sans the sulfur) shot through with flashes of bergamot. This middle ground gives a stylized, fanciful, surprising twist to what would otherwise develop as a photorealistic Pelargonium. 

Floral Still Life, Hans Bollongier

After about an hour the semi-focused shadow is suffused and rounded with suggestions of amber, sweet woods, resinous elemi and musk.  I linger in the darker heart of the image for five hours or more. As the fragrance dries down, the earthy qualities of vetiver, moss and cedar (in colors of Raw Umber, Sap Green and Van Dyck Brown) add even more depth, dimension and shadow to the background of this elegant fragrance painting. The sillage follows the perspective as the vivacious, invigorating foreground retreats into the fading light and, after six hours, withdraws and disappears into the deepening shadows. If Pélargonium could be a visual "still life", perhaps it would be by Hans Bollongier  – the artist who created deceptively "literal" works of art that convey messages of stylized emotion and occult elegance. In creating  AEDES DE VENUSTAS Pélargonium Nathalie Feisthauer uses her fabulous fragrance palette to paint a unique, fascinating and sophisticated “still life" in scent.

Notes: Bergamot, mandarin, clary sage, black pepper, Sichuan pepper, cardamom, Egyptian geranium, orris, carrot seed, elemi resin, cedarwood, vetiver, guaiac wood, musk and moss.

-Gail Gross, Editor

Art Direction: Michelyn Camen, Editor-in- Chief

PÉLARGONIUM  Eau De Parfum

Thanks to the generosity of AEDES DE VENUSTAS and Francois Dusquesne of BEAUTY ENTERPRISES we have 5 samples of Pélargonium Eau de Parfum for one registered reader worldwide (be sure to register or your comment will not count). To be eligible, tell us what appeals to you about Pélargonium based on Gail's review, where you live and your favorite perfume from AEDES DE VENUSTAS or Nathalie Feisthauer. Draw closes 5/29/2017

You can follow us @cafleurebon on Instagram and @aedes_de-Venustas

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

 

 

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Aedes de Venustus Musc Encensé (Ralf Schwieger) 2018 –New Fragrance

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One of my top five fragrances of Esxence 2018 is the new Aedes de Venustus Musc Encensé.  It is the 9th offering in the collection that began with Bertrand Duchaufour's signature perfume in 2008 and the second by perfumer Ralf Schwieger (Iris Nazrena).  

"A meeting of two myths Aedes de Venustus Musc Encensé combines both spirituality   and sensuality, infusing its signature incense note  with a modern take on the long -lost Tonkin musk. Prized for centuries for its suave scent and the lift it gave to other ingredients, animal musk was imported from Central and Eastern Asia along the Silk Road. In Europe, the most valued variety was called Tonkin musk, after the ancient name for North Vietnam.Since 1979, the musk deer is a protected species and animal musk is no longer used in Western perfumery. But though synthetic musks have been available since the late 19th century, none achieves the depth and complexity of the real thing.

For Aedes de Venustus Musc Encensé, Ralf Schwieger draws inspiration from the long-lost ingredient by blending his own rendition of Tonkin musk. Aedes De Venustas Musc Encensé matches the most spiritual of ingredients, the house’s signature incense note,  with the most sensual of accords. The name is not just a play on the French encens (incense) and insensé (crazy). Encenser means both to scent with incense and to praise to the skies. Ralf Schwieger’s tribute to Tonkin musk takes on the Aedes De Venustas signature incense in a bold blend of the mystic and the animal." Aedes De Venustas Musc Encensé represetns the yin and yang of extremes-smoke and flesh.

Notes include: Incense, Musks, Ambery accord,Tonka,Clary Sage,Cashmeran

 Aedes De Venustas Musc Encensé, is an Eau de Parfum. Available in June 2018. Suggested Retail Price : 220 € (100 ml)/ $245

Via Aedes De Venustas and my own synopsis

Michelyn  Camen, Editor-in-Chief

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The post Aedes de Venustus Musc Encensé (Ralf Schwieger) 2018 –New Fragrance appeared first on Cafleurebon - Perfume and Beauty Blog.

New Fragrance: AEDES DE VENUSTAS Grenadille d’Afrique (KarlBradl/Alberto Morillas) +Tree of Life Draw

CaFleureBon Modern Masterpieces: Aedes de Venustas Iris Nazarena (Ralf Schwieger) 2013 +”Venustade” Draw

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 Aedes de Venustas Iris Nazarena Italy is an open-air museum and we are lucky  that we can just walk and inhale beauty. Arts and culture flourished here like nowhere else and exquisite examples are Venice, a unique floating masterpiece and Florence that’s been the cradle of the Renaissance. Both are also connected with the burgeoning …

The post CaFleureBon Modern Masterpieces: Aedes de Venustas Iris Nazarena (Ralf Schwieger) 2013 +”Venustade” Draw appeared first on ÇaFleureBon Perfume Blog.





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