Victoria: 2669 posts

The village of Kannauj in the state of Uttar Pradesh has been perfuming India’s emperors and mere mortals for centuries. It thrived under the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1628-1658), the aesthete and arts patron who left the world the Taj Mahal and many other pearls of architecture. In the refined Mughal culture, the use of fragrance was part of daily life, and every courtier knew how to blend perfumes. Today Kannauj continues to produce attars, co-distillations of rose, jasmine, camphor, henna, and vetiver with sandalwood, most of which are used by the chewing tobacco industry. One of the most remarkable local specialties is mitti attar, the smell of rain.

This unique aroma is the subject of Cynthia Barnett’s article Making Perfume From the Rain for The Atlantic. She’s also the author of Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, and in Kannauj she discovers how the artisans process the local clay to capture the fragrance many people find evocative. Of course, rain smells differently around the world, and this is another topic she discusses.

“Every storm blows in on a scent, or leaves one behind. The metallic zing that can fill the air before a summer thunderstorm is from ozone, a molecule formed from the interaction of electrical discharges—in this case from lightning—with oxygen molecules. Likewise, the familiar, musty odor that rises from streets and storm ponds during a deluge comes from a compound called geosmin. A byproduct of bacteria, geosmin is what gives beets their earthy flavor. Rain also picks up odors from the molecules it meets. So its essence can come off as differently as all the flowers on all the continents—rose-obvious, barely there like a carnation, fleeting as a whiff of orange blossom as your car speeds past the grove. It depends on the type of storm, the part of the world where it falls, and the subjective memory of the nose behind the sniff. To continue reading, please click here.”

Is there a perfume that captures the scent of rain for you?

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

When most fashion magazines have spreads of Easter egg colored couture, my most glamorous look features faded black jeans and a Zara puffy jacket, a dreadful thing that sheds copious amount of feathers. Then there are my layered outfits, and I don’t mean tastefully put together layers of chiffon and cashmere suggested by Vogue. In the Ukrainian countryside, where spring is still tentative and the heating costs astronomical, we layer by putting on as many pieces of clothing as possible while still retaining the ability to lower our arms. I even sleep in a layered ensemble that includes tights, pajamas and a red sweater made by Miu Miu many years ago, but I betcha Miuccia Prada wouldn’t recognize it as one of her own now. Occasionally, I even do vintage by combining my grandfather’s track suit bottoms with my great-grandmother’s boucle jacket, a hideous look but perfect for whitewashing the cherry trees.

While I love dressing up (and indeed overdressing; I wouldn’t think twice about wearing a turquoise Betsey Johnson dress to the most staid of occasions), I relish the chance to dress purely for comfort. I enjoy dispensing with concerns of well-selected outfits and I stop worrying about my state of elegance according to any sort of fashion standard. In my grandmother’s village, my standard is the garden, or rather my ability to work in it without getting cold, wet or overheated. If the roses can be pruned and the apple trees whitewashed in comfort, the rest doesn’t matter.

What I don’t set aside is a glamorous perfume. Fashion designer Jean Patou called his fragrances “invisible couture”, and as the most intimate of adornments, scent is the most powerful. A few drops can create the ambiance you seek, make you travel in time, or even in my case, give an instant dose of glamour.  Why on earth should I care about not looking exactly like a cover girl when I’m trailing Mitsouko behind me? Plus, nothing is more perfect for collecting last year’s leaves than this autumnal golden peach chypre.

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Aedes de Venustas is a niche’s niche. A brand developed by Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner, the owners of the eponymous New York artisanal perfume boutique. In collaboration with several renowned perfumers, they’ve released Aedes de Venustas Eau de Parfum, Copal Azur, Iris Nazarena, and Oeillet Bengale, all four standing out in the crowded niche field. The fifth launch, Palissandre d’Or, likewise has much to recommend itself.

The concept is a new take on woods. Palisander, rosewood, is a precious variety, with a bright, crisp aroma that doesn’t resemble a wood as much as a flower. At the same time, it has sharpness and vigor, ideal qualities to weave into woody and oriental perfumes. Rosewood, on its own, is not a common theme, however, so Aedes’s decision to let it strike out solo is brave. Even more so is the request to perfumer Alberto Morillas to make it new and modern.

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This spring will be the 10th for Bois de Jasmin. When I created it in 2005, the blog was meant to be an online repository for my perfume musings, and that others wanted to read them remains a pleasant surprise. These days Bois de Jasmin garners around half a million monthly views, and it has evolved to include topics such as art, food, science, literature, dance, economics, and politics. This eclectic approach reflects my conviction that fragrance doesn’t exist in a cultural vacuum. Far from being an unnecessary frivolity, a “trivial feminine” pursuit, it’s an integral part of our environment, and the whole subject of scents and the way we connect to it mirrors other trends in our society. Perfume lovers today are lucky because we’re in a moment of unprecedented interest in fragrance, and we will see more manifestations of this fascination in new books, blogs, products, research, and discussions.

Another reason for Bois de Jasmin’s varied content is the diverse nature of our community. The conversations here are made possible by all of you. I love receiving your comments and letters, hearing your suggestions, giving you my own, and sharing my discoveries, whether they may be a perfume gem, a great book, a skincare tip or an interesting recipe. So a big thank you to all of my readers, visitors, and commenters. Of course, a special thank you to my co-authors. Andy, Elisa, and Patricia, you’re my muses and friends.

This past year has been a period of intense reflection for me, as I was trying to make sense of some traumatic events, and I realized that Bois de Jasmin had an older distant sibling. I was going through my family archive, and among the sepia photographs with their sharp serrated edges, stacks of my great-grandmother’s letters, and copies of various documents, I found a bulging notebook, so thick that the leaves risked splitting from the faux leather blue cover. It has been years since I’ve flipped through it, but I recognized it right away.

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My grandmother’s Easter bread is a lacy confection of butter and sugar. Glazed with chocolate and decorated with flowers, it looks like a Byzantine mosaic. Redolent of bitter cacao and violets, it doesn’t just smell good. I realize with a thrill that it smells like a complete perfume–the top note of violet, the heart of hazelnuts and wheat, and the lingering backdrop of musky chocolate. Take this idea, refine it into an accord–a combination of several perfume notes that becomes more than the sum of its parts–and voila, you can use it to create a new gourmand genre. Sounds fanciful, but this is how perfume is made.

On the face of it, it seems as if the gourmand genre has captured every dessert, from crème brûlée (Aquolina Pink Sugar) to cupcakes (Vera Wang Princess), from rice pudding (Tommy Hilfiger True Star) to raspberry macarons (Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire). You can have your chocolate with cinnamon (Pacifica Mexican Cocoa), with caramel (Thierry Mugler Angel), or with honey (Tom Ford Noir de Noir).

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