If ancient Greeks were transported to the rural Ukraine of the 21st century, they would have been surprised to see elements of their designs used with a liberal hand. A faux Greek portico attached to a housing unit meant “a cultural institution” to Soviet planners. Many mini-Parthenons dot the bucolic landscapes, the so-called Houses of Culture that once disseminated the light of the Marxist credo and hosted weekly village dances and now shelter shops and offices, capitalist style. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 rejected much about the old order–the language, the traditions, the customs, the family allegiances, but such was the power of classical art that the Soviet style became defined by it. Culture had to come with Doric columns in tow.

Mary Beard’s book Civilisations: How Do We Look/The Eye of Faith (public library) is about the way we look at art and the notions we have about it. A renowned historian of the ancient world looks at the way people throughout history thought of art and expressed their ideas of themselves by both creating it and interacting with it. The Soviet example is a good illustration for Beard’s idea of art as used to inscribe certain values and principles into the landscape and into daily life.

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Our “Recommend Me a Perfume” thread is open this week. You can this space to find fragrance recommendations, to share your discoveries and favorite scents, and to ask any questions about scents, aromas and flavors.

Since I’m excited about sharing it with you, here is the first June 2018 issue of the Bois de Jasmin newsletter. If you would like to receive it, please subscribe.

How does it work: 1. Please post your requests or questions as comments here. You can also use this space to ask any fragrance related questions. To receive recommendations that are better tailored to your tastes, you can include details on what you like and don’t like, your signature perfumes, and your budget. And please let us know what you end up sampling. 2. Then please check the thread to see if there are other requests you can answer. Your responses are really valuable for navigating the big and sometimes confusing world of perfume, so let’s help each other!

To make this thread easier to read, when you reply to someone, please click on the blue “reply” link under their comment.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

Ethylbisiminomethylguaiacol Manganese Chloride is not a name that rolls easily off the tongue, but it’s touted as a powerful antioxidant and a new miracle skincare ingredient. Granted, so far the studies have been sponsored mostly by Estée Lauder, but since The Ordinary, a company it invests in, offers ethylbisiminomethylguaiacol manganese chloride, also known as EUK-134, I decided to try it.

The Ordinary EUK-134 is available as a 0.1% dilution, a transparent brown colored gel. It’s meant to be applied in the evening on clean skin. It absorbs slowly, leaving a tacky finish, and despite the color, it doesn’t stain. It didn’t make my skin react in any way–no redness, itching or spots. I’ve used it for almost two months with hardly any changes to my skincare. During the day I’ve been using The Ordinary Buffet, followed by a simple pharmacy moisturizer and a sunscreen, and in the evening, after washing my skin, I’ve been applying a thin layer of EUK-134. My skin is normal-combination, so I don’t need anything else to follow the serum.

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Bois de Jasmin now has a monthly newsletter.  Please take a look at the first June 2018 issue. It will be a complement to the site and will include the perfumes I’m testing, books I’m reading, places I’m visiting and much more. I will also use it to update you on my perfumery classes, share tips for improving your sense of smell and give you recommendations. I envision it as a collage of inspiration, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to our mailing list. Or if you’re a current subscriber and would like the newsletter, when you enter your email address into the box below, you’ll have a chance to update your preferences.

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If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

The June 2018 newsletter

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

Tonka bean, ginger, vanilla, Sichuan pepper, coriander, rose, mint… The flavors Jacques Génin uses in his confections might as well be taken straight from a perfumer’s palette. The Parisian chocolatier is known for his daring combinations of flavors and his impeccable craftsmanship. His caramels are legendary. His millefeuille is a towering delight of cream and shards of pastry. His pâtes de fruits look like jewels. He pairs chocolate with spices, roots and herbs, but the result is rarely predictable. Even an ingredient as ubiquitous as cinnamon becomes a surprising note in his hands, as it reveals its floral and woody nuances.  Not for nothing, the epithets used to describe Génin include “wizard,” “madman,” and “genius.”

Génin’s most recent collaboration is with by Kilian, an artisanal fragrance house led by Kilian Hennessy, and perfumer Calice Becker.  As an inspiration for a perfume, chocolate is a complicated note. It tastes sweet, but it smells animalic and pungent. Part of the flavor in most commercial chocolates is given by vanilla, which softens the animalic tang but also rounds out and simplifies the scent. So instead, Becker looked to Génin’s favorite ingredients such as Ceylon cinnamon and Calabrian bergamot to craft her perfume.

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