Incense: 73 posts

As a graduate student I always loved the serendipity associated with research–when a random reference leads to an Aladdin’s cave of fascinating information. It’s been years since I left the halls of academia, but I’m still a student (read, a geek!) at heart. So when I spotted a mention of E.J. Parry’s Encyclopedia of Perfumery in Nigel Groom’s The New Perfume Handbook, I made it a point to check it out. My reward was a recipe for Armenian paper, which I would like to share with you and to add to Bois de Jasmin’s collection of antique perfume recipes. Armenian paper is a home scent created in the 19th century by entrepreneur Auguste Ponsot and pharmacist Henri Riviere and sold as a natural air sanitizer. With its exotic and mysterious cachet Armenia was a perfect marketing spin for the incense based on benzoin, a resin redolent of sweet vanilla and spices.

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When Serge Lutens presented L’Eau, I found it baffling—it smelled of laundry musks and a whisper of florals, but eventually I took it in stride. When the master has been busy weaving opulent tapestries for the past twenty years, it is only fair that he pursues some other olfactory avenues to remain inspired. When L’Eau Froide crossed my path, I no longer felt any strong emotion about Lutens’ new direction. After all, the man has given us glorious Jeux de Peau and De Profundis! As it turns out, L’Eau Froide is wonderful—a crisp, sparkling cologne of incense and citrus.

The first impression is a chill of ginger and lemon. Ginger sometimes smells like the most citrusy of all citrus fruits, and this is exactly how it features in L’Eau Froide. Its effervescence lends itself perfectly to the cool demeanor of a perfume that means Cold Water in French. After a few more minutes, the bergamot, lemon and pepper begin to sing a cappella.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

Some perfumes appeal to me for their complexity, others for their unusual character. Whenever I explore the collection of Sonoma Scent Studio, I realize that what draws me to Laurie Erickson’s work are the personal stories that she paints with her scents. Erickson’s fragrances are like glimpses into her own universe, reminiscent more of Annick Goutal’s spontaneous etudes than Guerlain’s studied epics. Fireside Intense and Winter Woods illustrate this idea well. They are the scents of a bonfire, of smoldering cinders and of tobacco crumbs in the pages of old books.

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I fell asleep on a fall day colored crimson and burnished gold. I woke up on a winter morning veiled with snow. I can hardly make out the familiar landscape of parked cars, white houses and old trees through the graceful dance of snowflakes. We skipped fall and jumped straight into winter, or perhaps we will go back to summer given our completely bizarre meteorological record this year. So, I decided that I will take advantage of the cold by lighting up the fireplace, making a big pot of tea and wrapping myself in my favorite red blanket with Nabokov’s Speak, Memory. Yet, once this fantasy materializes, I immediately want to get up, put on a warm coat and step into the shimmering, dancing whiteness. As I walk through the empty streets, it all feels new and surprising—the black arabesques of tree  branches, the occasional splash of a red maple leaf, a snowflake that touches my cheek like someone’s surreptitious kiss.

In the cool, crisp air, the fragrance that I love the most is that of incense. Its contrast between citrus like brightness and warm smokiness is very dramatic, but the character is serene and calming. I wear incense year round, but once it starts to cool down, it becomes a staple in my wardrobe. My favorite incenses are airy and bright, rather than heavy and resinous, particularly since they lack the obvious liturgical associations. Incense accented blends are also elegant, and their intimate sillage makes them good daytime perfumes when one needs to be conscious of other people in close quarters. Below is a selection of my favorite incense (and incense-accented) fragrances, from the lightest to the richest.

Poll: What are your favorite incense fragrances?

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

“Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things,” wrote Oscar Wilde in his moving essay “De Profundis,” which inspired Serge Lutens’s wistful and delicate creation. De Profundis, which also refers to Psalm 130, means “from the depth” in Latin, and it is from the depths of sadness and despair that Wilde wrote his epistle during his imprisonment. Knowing the background story can easily color one’s perception of a perfume, and this is especially true in the case of Lutens  who is fond of complex and eclectic imagery. So, having learned of the origins of De Profundis, one might expect a somber composition of funereal darkness. Nothing could be further from the truth—De Profundis is a soaring, ethereal vignette of green flowers, full of surprises and such magic twists that I once again have to take off my hat to Lutens and his perfumer Christopher Sheldrake.

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