New Perfume Review Puredistance No. 12- Wait For It

Posted on by in Mark Behnke, New Perfume Reviews and tagged , , , .

I am inherently an impatient person. During the Holidays every gift under the tree which had my name on it was thoroughly analyzed. I wanted to know what was in the box…Now! I am no different at the other times of the year. Once I get an itch for something I want it to arrive yesterday. All this is meant to let you know that one of the worst four-letter words for me is, wait. Except the creative director at Puredistance instructed me to do just that when he sent me my sample of Puredistance No. 12.

Jan Ewoud Vos

Jan Ewoud Vos has given me advice throughout the years on the eleven previous Puredistance releases. All of it has been important to my understanding and enjoyment of the perfumes. When he sent me the box with No. 12 in it, he warned me it was going to get better if I could only wait. He advised waiting at least 30 days for it to settle into its best form. Well, I couldn’t do exactly as he suggested. I thought the opportunity to experience the maturation of a perfume was something I could not pass up. So, I peeked in weekly. Spraying some on a strip every Monday and some on skin. This began a fantastic experience as I really got to know this perfume from M. Vos and perfumer Nathalie Feisthauer as it evolved in the bottle.

Nathalie Feisthauer

It took nine weeks for my nose not to detect a difference between two consecutive wearings. In each of those peeks I experienced a maturation as it became more expansive and fuller. In the first couple of weeks the focal point powderiness was far less than it would be weeks later. The Ambrox in the base was much more prominent in the first weeks, enough so that I feared it was going to deleteriously shape my opinion of the entire scent. By the end it becomes an integral part of it all. One of the few times where it provides the briny surrogacy of ambergris it was created to be. As the powderiness expanded and intensified, the Ambrox receded and supported to comprise a fantastic new composition.

The opening never changed very much as the combination of cardamom and coriander gave a fresh herbal beginning. The descent towards the powdery floral starts with a fleshy duo of narcissus and ylang-ylang. This was another part which was much more evident in the early weeks. By the time I got to the end they are more subtle setting a stage for the heart. That heart is constructed around orris, heliotrope and orange blossom as the powdery warhead of No. 12. Some vintage-like contrast is present in rose and osmanthus. This was another set of two ingredients which changed over the weeks. Early on they were less present than they would be later. That’s because Hedione is used to turn this into a cloud of powder. A glorious fog of iris tinted with the rose and Osmanthus which add complementary sparkles inside the cloud. This is such a fun piece of this perfume. It was like waiting for a ticking clock to strike the hour when this finally came fully together.

The base is meant to be a chypre. For the first couple of weeks, I was dubious because the Ambrox was being its overbearing self. I could detect the pieces down there under the monolith, but I didn’t think they were going to be allowed out. This was the most dramatic part of waiting. Each week that chypre became more pronounced. The sandalwood, vetiver, oak moss, and patchouli slowly formed despite the Ambox. Then on week seven a funny thing occurred. As the powderiness reached its apex it reveled a briny aspect of the Ambrox. It transformed the base accord into a compelling briny chypre.

Puredistance No. 12 has 24-hour longevity and average sillage in its extrait form.

The last couple of months I’ve spent watching No. 12 unfold has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done as a perfume writer. I’ve never felt the vividness of the development of a perfume more clearly. All I had to do was to follow M. Vos’ advice and wait for it.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Puredistance.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Puredistance Rubikona- A Taste for Red

Posted on by in Mark Behnke, New Perfume Reviews and tagged , , , .

When I was a semi-frequent attendee of New York Fashion Week I was always fascinated with one thing every season. Every designer would be working on their own. Keeping their designs secret. Not speaking with one another. Yet as every season unfolded there was always one fabric color which seemed to show up on every runway. One year as an exercise I kept track of the use of “firecracker red”. By the end of the shows I had seen it 168 times. How does this happen I wonder? Is there an unconscious zeitgeist among the designers?

It happens in perfumery, but it is usually around a specific ingredient. Something new which perfumers can’t wait to use. That makes sense to me. When I look back over a year it sticks out. This year there also seems to be a strong trend pointing towards a color as inspiration. Puredistance Rubikona is the most recent fragrance to add to it.

Jan Ewoud Vos

It is not a surprise that Puresdistance creative director Jan Ewoud Vos is inspired by color. He has been inspired by the connection of scent and color called synesthesia. The entire collection of perfumes by the brand are influenced by it. I do not have that kind of association. I consider myself scent color blind. When challenged with a perfume inspired by synesthetic considerations, I must perceive it from my handicapped perspective. Rubikona is meant to be a perfume of a ruby sitting on blue satin displaying the different shades of red inside the jewel.

Cecile Zarokian

Mr. Vos collaborated with perfumer Cecile Zarokian for the first time since 2016’s Sheiduna. Mr. Vos and she had begun collaborating based on a phrase “chic inside out”. Living up to that meant the color red to both of them. That was further refined to a blood red ruby as the place for Rubikona to begin from.

When you think red in perfume rose is probably where most begin. Mme Zarokian also begins with rose in Rubikona. She then accomplishes a remarkable effect of turning that floral into a cut ruby. By using orris and ylang-ylang she creates a red rose which has greater depth and subtle shadings. Mme Zarokian has made some of my favorite rose accords. The one here is as good as it gets. She uses the powder and the root of orris to go high and low. The ylang-ylang flows adding the carnal fleshiness I adore when used this way. It is a slowly rotating Calder of a rose presenting different faces as it lazily twirls. Then Mme Zarokian delights me a second time as she creates a faux-gourmand accord as the base. She begins with a deep earthy patchouli which seems appropriate to an intense rose. Then the patchouli moves towards its gourmand-like chocolaty aspect as orange blossom and a creamy vanilla meet it there. A clever twist of clove and it forms an haute cuisine dessert course for the end of this.

Rubikona has 16-18 hour longevity and above average sillage.

I said I don’t have scent-color synesthesia, but I might have discovered I have a different form. I’ve been thinking how to describe the gourmand-like phase since I first tried this. One night I went to get my favorite treat. I take a square of orange flavored dark chocolate and squirt whipped cream on it. On the second day I was wearing Rubikona it was right at this phase on my skin. As I bit down, and the flavors washed over my tongue Rubikona radiated off my skin to join in. I’ve not heard of taste-scent synesthesia but that might be my thing.

Rubikona is one of the best perfumes of the year. It is testament to the shared vision of Mr. Vos and Mme Zarokian. It feels like a natural to wear this Holiday season.

Disclosure: This review is based on a sample supplied by Puredistance.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Puredistance Gold- A Persistent Glow

Posted on by in Mark Behnke, New Perfume Reviews and tagged , , , .

Whenever I see a pile of gold in the movies it always seems to be kissed by flames somewhere in the vicinity. There is a reason for that because flame seems to make the cold metal glow. The flicker causes shadow to flit across the metallic surface. It takes something static and turns it into something languorously kinetic. I hold my wedding ring up to the fireplace to be caught by the same effect. Puredistance Gold does the same thing as a perfume.

Jan Ewoud Vos

Puredistance creative director Jan Ewoud Vos has always been inspired by art for his perfumes. M. Vos was captivated by a black, white, and gold Mondrian-like visual. He had previously released Black and White. Now it is time for Gold to complete the picture. He collaborates with the same perfumer behind the previous two, Antoine Lie. This is the larger squares of gold as the perfume has a large presence. It uses big keynotes given shadow by the complementary ingredients surrounding them.

Antoine Lie

Gold starts with the tart citrus of green mandarin. This is a powerful fruity start which M. Lie uses three spices to give texture to. The herbal floral quality of baie rose, the green rosemary and the piecing scent of clove. It forms an elegant version of the Holiday staple of a cloved orange. This is a dynamic opening. It shifts to a floral heart dominated by jasmine. For this M. Lie dusts the white flower with cinnamon and swirls of labdanum. This is those flickers of heat atop the floral foundation. The base gets green at first as vetiver and patchouli form the nucleus. M. Lie then adds in shadows of sweet with vanilla and myrrh contrasted with styrax and benzoin. This forms a simmering Oriental base which gets more animalic as castoreum becomes apparent.

Gold has 24-hour plus longevity and moderate sillage due to being at extrait strength.

Gold combines the tobacco warmth of Black with the exuberant floral quality of White to provide the large space in between with a persistent golden glow.

Disclosure: This review is based on a press sample provided by Puredistance.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Puredistance Aenotus- Engineering a Signature Scent

Posted on by in Mark Behnke, New Perfume Reviews and tagged , , , .

There are a few creative directors of independent perfume brands who have shared their personal bespoke fragrance with the wider public. I enjoy these expressions of how those creative directors desire to experience fragrance in their daily life. It informs how that translates to the rest of the brand. I had heard that Jan Ewoud Vos of Puredistance was going to be sharing his own perfume. When I finally received my sample and heard the story of Puredistance Aenotus it turned out to be slightly different.

Jan Ewoud Vos

The briefs for many of the Puredistance perfumes have been so interesting. For Aenotus it is perhaps the simplest brief as Mr. Vos asked perfumer Antoine Lie to create “my signature scent”. Mr. Vos had an idea a “perfume that would first refresh (then) transform into a sensual but subtle skin scent.” It presented many challenges not the least of which is defining the concept of refreshing from Mr. Vos’ perspective. I bet if I asked a hundred readers to define “refreshing” in a perfume I’d find little consensus. I find refreshing to be a mixture of citrus and herbs if I was directing someone to make this style of perfume that would be where I started. With Aenotus it seems like Mr. Vos and I have a similar, but not exact, vision of refreshing. The other part of that brief, to simmer down to a skin scent, is another tricky piece of engineering. M. Lie employs a set of heavier green notes to achieve that.

Antoine Lie

Aenotus opens with a fantastic flair of citrus notes, mandarin, yuzu, and petitgrain. It feels like a cool mist on a hot day. M. Lie then uses mint in its most herbal form to add a green aspect of freshness. I usually don’t like mint in perfume; that’s not the case here because the herbal is as present as the sweet. The linchpin ingredient of Aenotus is blackcurrant bud. This is one of those difficult to work with ingredients. If you go too high in concentration you get a urine-like effect. If you go too low, you get an insipid vegetal component. A perfumer must find the way the other ingredients can be guardrails preventing either extreme. In the first moments the blackcurrant bud appears it is complementing the mint with a sticky green quality. Over time as the citrus and mint fades it is the entry to the skin scent side of Aenotus. That skin scent accord is made up of oakmoss, patchouli, and a mix of synthetic woods. That sticky green finds the oakmoss; together they sing of green in a lower key. The patchouli adds depth and grounding. The synthetic woods provide a dry finish to it all.

Aenotus has 18-24 hour longevity and low sillage. This is 48% perfume oil it will last forever on fabric as well as skin.

The evolution of Aenotus has been enjoyable on the two very warm days I wore it. The refreshing part energizes me through the first part of the day before it settles into a pleasant skin scent. I don’t often get unsolicited compliments but one day I wore this was my weekly day of errands. The cashier at the grocery store, the clerk at the county office, and the waitress where I had lunch all remarked on how good I smelled. Aenotus might be Mr. Vos’ signature scent but I suspect there are going to be a lot of other people who find it to be theirs, too.

Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Puredistance.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Puredistance Warszawa- Warsaw Curves

Posted on by in Mark Behnke, New Perfume Reviews and tagged , , , .

I hate waiting. I was an impatient child. I’ve become better in my old age, but I still don’t like it. I am particularly bad about it when one of my favorite perfume brands makes me wait a year. Last December Puredistance released Warszawa exclusively at Quality Missala in Warsaw, Poland. When I contacted the brand about getting a sample I was told it would be released worldwide in November of 2017. Then a couple of my Polish readers told me how much they enjoyed it. None of this helped the wait go down any easier. Now that I have had the chance to try it I find Warszawa to be one of the most elegant retro nouveau perfumes I’ve tried in a long while.

Jan Ewoud Vos presenting Warszawa in Poland (November 2016)

When we say they don’t make perfumes the way they used to I also tend to couple it with the idea of what passed for beauty back then. The perfumes and the women were curvaceous. There was contour to their structure as the eye, or nose, enjoyed the sensations of swooping in and out and around those curves. Warszawa was based on the Polish society women during that Golden Age. Creative Director Jan Ewoud Vos and perfumer Antoine Lie takes us back to a time where things had curves.

Antoine Lie

One of the great things about Mr. Vos’ creative direction is that it comes from a visual perspective. For Warszawa he visited with the Missala family in Warsaw and was shown the family pictures from this period. He walked away thinking about how to turn this into perfume. Working with M. Lie for the third time there is seemingly an easy creative rapport. The model they use for Warszawa is a floral chypre where the floral part feels very Golden Age but the chypre feels very modern.

The opening is a silk glove being drawn along a sinuous arm as candied violet and grapefruit provide a smooth opening. A big green emerald flare of galbanum transforms it into something more extroverted. The floral heart accord is made up of a deep jasmine absolute paired with a rich orris butter. Just those two notes would have been spectacular, but M. Lie adds in the broom flower which provides its own twists and turns as it swirls through the more extravagant florals. The broom adds in a softness as its herbal nature inserts itself within the overall effect; it gives a slightly acerbic nip. The base is patchouli and vetiver carrying the chypre frame while styrax tries to add into a contemporary form of the classic base.

Warszawa has 14-16 hour longevity and above average sillage.

Warszawa is a perfume which celebrates another time where a different aesthetic was ascendant. It is nice to have a reminder that the days of elegance can still inspire great modern perfume. Warszawa is proof that there were curves a plenty during the Golden Age in Poland.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Puredistance.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Puredistance Sheiduna- Arid Oriental

Posted on by in Mark Behnke, New Perfume Reviews and tagged , , , .
2

When it comes to Orientals one of the things I think gets missed from this Saharan milieu they evoke is the dryness of the source. If you spend any time in the desert you rapidly understand how dry it is. Every bit of moisture is removed from the air. Most Oriental perfumes will nod to this but will add in a figurative humidity along the way. Very few will stay desiccated throughout. The new Puredistance Sheiduna is one of those which does.

puredistance-perfumer-cecile-zarokian-and-jan-ewoud-vos-paris-02-ar16-1024x625

Jan Ewoud Vos and Cecile Zarokian

Jan Ewoud Vos is the owner and creative director behind Puredistance. He is a creative director who extensively works with visuals and inspiration. For Sheiduna he chose to work with Cecile Zarokian for the first time. In a blog post on the Puredistance website about their working relationship he reveals that during Mme Zarokian’s effort Mr. Vos was sending a weekly postcard with a visual and text meant to help refine the process.

The initial brief Mr. Vos provided was the name Sheiduna which he saw as a mixture of Sheika and dune. He wanted a perfume which would be a “sensual Oriental”. Mme Zarokian provided a first formulation which was seen as “too heavy and too Oriental”. As she went back to the drawing board she would go in a drier direction one that brings to life the sunset in the desert as the heat of the day begins to lose its grip.

puredistance-pure-perfume-extrait-sheiduna-st07

Mme Zarokian uses a frame of Amber Xtreme to set the boundaries for which the rest of the fragrance will be encased in. Amber Xtreme is one of those woody synthetics that can dominate a perfume. In the case of Sheiduna it is the ingredient which imparts the dryness which sets the stage. It takes a particularly skilled perfumer to overcome the overwhelming nature it can have. Mme Zarokian is one of those who knows how to tune the effect to allow other notes to breathe within this very definitive boundary. In the early going she uses a set of aldehydes to mimic that hot desert breeze skirling sand off the top of the dunes. This leads to a heart of spicy Bulgarian rose made even more spicy by the addition of cumin and clove. The two spice notes keep the rose from becoming lush or dewy. They serve as a desiccating agent as if the rose was placed in a drying jar. The aridity persists into the base as vetiver sets itself in the middle of the frame. It then is joined by benzoin, labdanum, and frankincense. They provide that moment when the setting sun drops behind the dunes and the last rays of orange flash across the sandy horizon.

Sheiduna has 18-24 hour longevity and above average sillage.

I have been aware of Sheiduna throughout the year and had smelled it on a patch of skin a couple of times before receiving my sample. I liked it in those previews but it wasn’t until I wore it for the couple of days necessary for me to review it that it revealed itself to me. I must tip my hat to Mr. Vos and Mme Zarokian for taking this path for I found uncommon beauty within this arid Oriental.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Puredistance.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Puredistance White- Soft Focus

Posted on by in Mark Behnke, New Perfume Reviews and tagged , , , , .

I really appreciate the effort Jan Ewoud Vos puts into every new release from his luxury perfume brand Puredistance. We went all of 2014 without a new release and when I received the press package for the latest, White, there was a reason. Mr. Vos had been collaborating with perfumer Antoine Lie on White. It was due to be released contemporaneously with Black, also by M. Lie, which was the last release. What is great was instead of pushing something out to satisfy a timeline Mr. Vos and M. Lie thought they could do better and so they returned to the beginning of the creative process.

jan ewoud vos

Jan Ewoud Vos

If Black was all about introspection and inward exploration; White was meant to be all about happiness and outward joy. There is no mention about what the discarded draft of White was centered on. The version which ended up carrying the name takes one of the more common supporting notes in many perfumes and gives it a starring role.

Antione_Lie

Antoine Lie

M. Lie chooses a particularly bright bergamot to lead into a pairing of Rose de Mai and orris. M. Lie keeps this very light and slightly powdery. It has a very expansive footprint in the early moments as it seems to just suffuse itself throughout my awareness. I like a powdery floral and it did make me smile. I would guess if you are not a fan of powdery florals it might be more challenging. The star of White comes up through the powder as tonka not only arrives, it takes over. Tonka is most often used as a way of adding warmth and a slight bit of sweetness into a fragrance it is used in. M. Lie takes tonka, and using it in overdose, gives it a platform from which you can’t ignore it. The tonka used here, from Venezuela, rewards the scrutiny. By having it in high concentration the hay-like coumarin, the nutty character, and the slightly vanillic sweetness all have a more noticeable effect. If this was left in overdose it would become cloying and annoying. Instead M. Lie like an olfactory cinematographer softens the focal point by the addition of sandalwood, vetiver, and patchouli. They take that tonka and blur the edges making it just right while still retaining its starring role. A lovely cocktail of musks are the finishing touches to White.

Puredistance White has 24 hour longevity and average sillage, more than you might expect from a fragrance at 38% concentration.

White reminds me of waking up from a summer afternoon nap as the late afternoon sun flows into the room giving everything a soft glow. Mr. Vos wanted a perfume which would make one smile; I also found White to be a deeply comforting scent as well. It produced a smile of pure contentment each time I wore it.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Puredistance.

–Mark Behnke