Saffron: 15 posts

What’s your idea of leather? Ever since my perfumery student days, I’ve associated it with the green-dark paradox of iso butyl quinoline—or perhaps the horse-sweat pungency of cresols. I’ve tried many leather perfumes, but Ganymede redefined what a leather fragrance could be. Created by Quentin Bisch for Marc-Antoine Barrois, it replaces smoke and darkness with light and air. The result feels both ancient and futuristic.

The first impression is mandarin peel tinged with saffron—a brightness so sharp it seems to refract. Then comes the abstraction of leather: smooth, mineral, almost tactile in its absence. The familiar warmth is replaced by a sense of polished stone.

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Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540 is a trickster of a perfume. I first smelled it not in a gilded boutique, but in a marshrutka in Poltava. Outside, the streets were lined with sandbags and the windows blast-proofed; inside, we were wedged together under the scent of stale cigarette smoke and damp wool. And then—floating above it all—came this unmistakable cloud of Baccarat Rouge 540, as if the bus had driven straight through the lobby of the Ritz.

That shimmering force field comes from a complex amber-woody accord supported by oak moss and Veltol. Here, it’s used at architecture-level dosage, lending a dry, vibrating presence that refuses to fade. One structural pillar is ambroxan, which amplifies and diffuses the perfume’s sweetness. There is also Veltol, the cotton-candy molecule that lends a burnt caramel accent to the amber accord. Together, the notes create an amber woody-mineral gourmand hybrid, sweet but not edible, crystalline rather than creamy. The effect is elegant and gentle on first inhale, yet its projection and longevity defy all logic.

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Saffron’s fragrance is complex. A leather accent shimmers darkly against the brightness of green and herbal notes. A languid floral undercurrent meets a spicy warmth. You would think that such an intricate fragrance would be difficult to pair, but as Persian cooking demonstrates, saffron marries well with a wide range of scents and flavors. And so I thought, why not pair it with dark chocolate?

Chocolate is another versatile ingredient despite its richness, and it serves as a perfect sidekick for saffron. The two ingredients complement each other in the most delightful way–the first impression of fresh spice is followed by the floral richness. I sometimes taste gardenia and sometimes a hint of a rose. And to enjoy saffron’s sumptuous color, I selected my favorite recipe for biscotti.

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Gallivant is an indie perfume house that wants to make us travel via its scents. Its journeys have previously included well-trodden places such as London, Amsterdam and Istanbul, but however popular the destination might have been, the route was anything but. Gallivant’s creator,  Nick Steward, likes to surprise, and all of his compositions treat their journeys as adventures. Bukhara is easily my favorite for its originality and intriguing complexity.

Let me say that nothing is easier for a perfumer than to take a city on the Silk Road as inspiration and load the composition with enough amber to break a camel’s back. Steward didn’t do that. He worked with perfumer Ralf Schwieger to create a fragrance that is radiant, luminous and modern. It has warm, dark elements, but they’re woven as seamlessly into the composition as the complementary colors of Bukhara’s famous blue mosaics.

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So here it is, the long awaited Galop d’Hermès. Few launches can boast of this much anticipation, save for the new big perfumes from Chanel, Dior or Louis Vuitton, but Hermès is a special house with its unique place in today’s fragrance world. First of all, it realized the idea of creating a truly artistic perfumery team, headed by Jean-Claude Ellena. In-house perfumers are nothing new, but in my view, Ellena is one of the few who actually have an opportunity to pursue his own vision. Second, Hermès is successful.

This aspect is telling, because it proves that customers can spot quality, and Hermès’s perfumes have consistently been well-crafted and memorable. So, the efforts have been rewarded. Ellena’s work has a distinctive signature of radiance and polish, which over the years made for a coherent collection. Now, it’s time to add a twist, and the task has been given to Christine Nagel.

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