Back in March when I wrote an editorial on “Perfume in the Time of Coronavirus” I was enjoying the quarantine. I expected it to end in a few months. I was taking the opportunity to enjoy my favorite perfumes with abandon. Each one gave me a shot of needed joy.
As we got to the summer and I was still inside I needed a different kind of booster through fragrance. That came as I spent ten days participating in the Pierre Benard Challenge. This was a big change in perspective for me as I hadn’t examined my connection to scent as deeply. I’m always looking for new things to try. For two weeks I stopped and smelled the world.
Then we got to the fall and the end was not in sight. It was wearing on my mental state. I felt like things would never return to normal. Then a magical thing happened courtesy of some of my favorite independent perfumers. They got me out of my funk because their new releases connected with great memories of my past. I was no longer hemmed in by the four walls of my house.
Frassai El Descanso reminded me of my first cross-country drive as I experienced the wheat fields of the prairie.
DSH Perfumes Tea and Charcoal brought me back to when I discovered a coping mechanism as a child.
Aether Arts Perfume Dia de Muerto had me trick or treating on a tropical S. Florida night.
Maher Olfactive Orris Forest had me hopping over rocks on a hike through the forest.
DSH Perfumes Adrenaline and Scorched Earth put me back on the hiking trail in Yellowstone.
Maher Olfactive Tempo Rubato reminded me of a music lesson in a St. Louis jazz club.
Masque Milano Le Donne di Masque Madeleine had me sitting at a tearoom with cakes and hot chocolate.
Imaginary Authors A Whiff of Wafflecone had me in a specialty ice cream shoppe
DSH Perfumes Couverture d’Hiver had the Florida boy remembering his first New England snowstorm.
All of these and more took me out of my quarantine and into the world through the trigger of perfume. It isn’t the design of a perfumer to make their customer find joy through memory. Although it isn’t an undesired side effect.
Now that we do see the beginning of the end, I am full of hope for the next year. If it weren’t for Irina Burlakova, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Amber Jobin, Shawn Maher, Fanny Bal, and Josh Meyer this would have been a dreary Holiday season. They were the perfumers who saved Christmas for me.
I extend my wishes to all my readers for a Merry Christmas. That I have you is another reason this Season remains merry for me.
One of my favorite treats at the ice cream shoppe is a root beer float. It is especially good when it is a small-batch version of the soda and a rich creamy vanilla scoop floating on top. I enjoy it because the almost medicinal quality of craft root beer is turned into an advantage as the ice cream melds with it. I stick my straw as close to the conjunction of both to enjoy the interface of flavors. Mrs. C thinks I make it look like an elaborate operation as she licks her cone. If I were thinking about a floral gourmand version of a root beer float, I would choose tuberose as the surrogate. I don’t know if that was where independent perfumer Josh Meyer’s head was at when he made Imaginary Authors Decisions, Decisions but it is where mine is.
Josh Meyer
As always in his perfumes there is an imaginary author of an imaginary novel. Our heroine is the leader of the Wishbone Girls, Jasmine Duchamp. Her epigraph on the box is, “I know that I should not, and yet I absolutely will. What can I say? I am defenseless when it comes to thrills.” What this translates to as a perfume is a step up from the transparent floral gourmand trend to one which has more intent.
In truth a perfume with this amount of tuberose could never be anything but extroverted. Mr. Meyer rounds the creaminess of the white flower with its stablemate jasmine. It is a fantastic accord of tuberose. As it gets plopped into the sarsaparilla it finds a syrupy matrix to infuse itself into. This is that smell of craft root beer verging on the medicinal. The tuberose is here to prevent that happening. Like the ice cream in a real float I imagine creamy tendrils of tuberose descending in slow rivulets through the sarsaparilla. Just as I’m looking for a place to insert my straw labdanum surrounds it with a leathery ambery embrace. Over time it gets more church incense-like as the tuberose continues to melt into the root beer.
Decisions, Decisions has 12-14 hour longevity and above average sillage.
This is a powerful perfume as Mr. Meyer allows his ingredients the space to fully express themselves. Even with that there always feel like a firm hand on the balance of it all. As I write my last review of 2020 it is great to end it in Mr. Meyer’s Perfume Shoppe sniffing a tuberose float.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample supplied by Imaginary Authors.
A few years back I attended a Scent Expo which covered more than perfume you wear. One of the most fascinating parts of the experience was the ambient scent vendors. If you’ve ever walked into a coffee shop or a pizza parlor and the place is empty, but it still smells like coffee or baking pizza that’s ambient scent. I was astounded at the variety of scents on display. As I walked away at the end of the day there was only one of these that I thought might be an interesting perfume. It was one labeled “ice cream shop” which smelled like freshly made waffle cones and creamy vanilla ice cream. Imaginary Authors A Whiff of Wafflecone allows me to see if that is true.
The perfume is inspired by Imaginary Authors perfumer Josh Meyer’s local Portland, Oregon ice cream shop Salt & Straw. I have a dear friend who lives there. When I asked her about it she told me they were the first gourmet ice cream store in the city. She told me they’ve become such a local institution that tour buses stop there and they’ve become willing social partners in the fabric of the city. She also shared a local tip on how to beat the often hour-long line, but I’m not sharing that. This is a pairing of passionate small-batch producers looking to provide new experiences for their fans. This luscious gourmand style of perfume delivers that.
Josh Meyer
I have never visited Portland, but I have been to my share of gourmet ice cream shops. There is a density of scent when you enter which is one-part waffle cone and another part the scent of sweet cream. Underneath it all is the different mix-ins and ingredients adding the special scented fingerprint of each store. Based on A Whiff of Wafflecone I am going to suggest salted caramel is Mr. Meyer’s favorite flavor. It is also appropriate because my friend told me it was Salt & Straw’s first flavor. Which is why the perfume places a big scoop of it in the middle of the wafflecone.
It is a simple perfume of two separate accords. The wafflecone is built upon vanilla and cinnamon plus a fascinating third in amyris. This is what I enjoy about perfumers as I suspect Mr. Meyer couldn’t just balance the first two ingredients. He needed a catalytic piece which I think is the amyris. The lightly green and woody ingredient is what I think adds the crunch to the vanilla and cinnamon going from soup to wafflecone. The salted caramel accord is as rich as a scoop can be. It is slightly soft from the warmth of the container. The ooey gooey caramel flows on a sweet cream base. Just as with the wafflecone accord this one also has a secret ingredient. Mr. Meyer uses the almond syrup known as orgeat to fully coalesce the ice cream accord.
A Whiff of Wafflecone has 12-14 hour longevity and average sillage.
One thing I didn’t mention is how light this is. It is like that ambient scent I experienced before. This is not cloying or heavy. It is that lingering expansive scent of the milieu of one luscious scoop.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample supplied by Imaginary Authors.
When I was a young boy my hair was styled into a crew cut. I never remember dreading my trips to the barber. When the day would come around for my father and I to head out I enjoyed the entire experience. This was another place where the smell appealed to me. One of the reasons I enjoy lavender perfumes as much as I do is probably because I associate it with these walks to get my hair cut. There was also another scent in the air on those days, the talcum powder used to brush off my neck and face to remove the stray hairs. To this day when my barber brushes me off with the talc infused brush it is a sensory end to the monthly ritual. When there are perfumes which assay the barbershop, they too often leave that talc part of the experience out. Imaginary Authors Telegrama puts it back in.
Josh Meyer
The talc I have most smelled throughout my life is the one from Clubman. It is a sturdy scented powder ideal for a place frequented by men. Josh Meyer the independent perfumer behind Imaginary Authors wanted to create a version of talc in Telegrama which was inspired by those vintage aftershaves. What makes Telegama so interesting is when talc is used in other fragrances it has a delicacy to it. It is used as a gauzy veil. The one Mr. Meyer uses wears flannel and perhaps chops down trees. At the very least it stands with arms crossed across its chest with confidence. This is no filmy powder, man. What comes after is the creation of a modern barbershop with flat screen tvs and comfortable leather barber chairs surrounded by polished wood paneling.
Telegrama opens with the classic duet of talc and lavender. The talc has such an early presence it pushes the lavender to the background for a few minutes. The lavender finds a balance soon after. A clever filament of black pepper gives a sense of the heat of the electric razors humming. The polished woods are represented by teak and amyris. The slightly lemony quality of amyris makes me think they use citrus scented wood polish. As I settle back in the chair a fresh apron is snapped over my head as I am surrounded by a set of linen musks.
Telegrama has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.
Mr. Meyer has created a modern version of that old Clubman Talc. It is another example of how the imagination of the best independent perfumers take something ubiquitously mundane and turn it into something completely engaging.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Imaginary Authors.
The first alcoholic drink I ever had was during Christmas in the mid 1960’s. I had always seen the adults sipping this brilliant green syrup out of small glasses. My mother would hold it up to my nose to smell and there was this wonderfully thick minty-ness. I don’t remember exactly my age when my mom decided it would be all right to pour me a sip or two of crème de menthe in the same tiny glass the other adults had. I remember sitting at the end of the couch taking tiny little tastes trying to make it last. The Christmas tree was right next to me. I remember thinking the tree and the mint smelled nice together. I haven’t thought about that for probably fifty-plus years; until I received my sample of Dasein Winter Green.
Sam Rader
Dasein is the perfume brand from independent perfumer Sam Rader. She first caught my attention during Christmas time 2014 with her first perfume Winter. Winter was a photorealistic Christmas tree perfume. Ms. Rader would follow up with the other three seasons all showing great attention to detail. When she took her brand to the AIX Scent Fair in Los Angeles she would meet fellow independent perfumer Josh Meyer of Imaginary Authors. They hit it off and collaborated on the sequel to Winter; Winter Nights in 2016. That perfume was also built around the Christmas tree accord Ms. Rader had built previously but now was altered to represent a Christmas tree around a bonfire. Winter Nights is one of my favorite perfumes which I always wear every Holiday season.
Josh Meyer
As an early holiday present I heard there was going to be a new Winter perfume continuing the collaborative creativity of Ms. Rader and Mr. Meyer. I was excited enough to contact both to find out a bit about how Winter Green came together.
Ms. Rader remembers the name came first, “We started brainstorming what direction we might want to go in for the green note. We tried mixing the WINTER juice with grass, with basil, with vetiver. We eventually found that mint plays nicely with my already very conifer heavy blend” Mr. Meyer had already been doing a lot of work with mint, “We talked a lot about new options for what would be fun to work with and the idea of mint was strong on my mind from Saint Julep… after working on it for so long, and spending so much time with a lot of the mint materials, I was excited about making a different kind of mint.” Both wanted to make a mint perfume which stood apart.
Their working relationship involves sending mods back and forth via mail. Mr. Meyer believes it took twice as long to come together as Winter Nights did using the same process, “We sent a lot of perfumes back and forth, Sam even sent me an incredible candle for inspiration, then it was fragrant sketches back and forth, and then when we got close, we hovered around a few different formulations based on different accords in varying concentrations. Simply dialing in the right balance that we were both really excited about. “That balance was all centered on the mint as Ms. Rader recounts, “We used several different mint oils to achieve the accord. I wanted it to be very mint forward, but at the same time not too camphorous, more of a heart note. We supported the mint with some round florals and other magic molecules that helped marry the mint to the pine and spruce….we both knew we wanted a mint with tenacity that would last far into the dry down….We had to work some magic but I think we finally got there!”
Winter Green opens with the evergreen accord Ms. Rader has perfected matched with the mint. The early version of the mint is that very herbal version. It causes the mint to rise out of the needles of the pine. It does so on sparkles of citrus provided by the tartness of pomelo with the floral herbal aspect of baie rose. The mint turns thicker at the same time as the evergreen accord becomes stronger. A gorgeous breeze of jasmine wends its way between the mint and fir. It all snaps together on a matrix of beeswax as it adds sweetness to both tree and herb without becoming treacly. The whole perfume is so well-balanced.
Winter Green has 12-14 hour longevity and average sillage.
These two creative minds need to work together more often. My final question to both was what took you three years to work together again? The answer from both is understandable; their lives are busy. As Mr. Meyer says, “We're just both so busy and both of the same mindset that all this perfume 'work' should be nothing but a ton of fun, so it's sincere joy working on a project together. “Ms. Rader needed that reminder, “I am grateful to Josh for continually infusing my company with new life. It was awesome to put my creative hat back on this year and receive tons of USPS packages for sniffing as we constructed this beautiful complex scent together.”
This is another fabulous perfume in the Dasein Winter collection. I have been wearing it these early days of the Season and it complements my mood ideally. From a perfectly selfish standpoint I would love seeing what these two creative minds could do with any of the other three Dasein seasons. While I’m waiting, I’ll be sitting by the Christmas tree sipping crème de menthe luxuriating in Dasein Winter Green.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample I purchased.
Ever since oud became a thing in perfume there has been a myth about many perfumes having the actual material in the formula. The great majority of oud in perfume is an oud accord built around cypriol. It has its place because a perfumer wanting a lesser oud effect can tune that accord to provide a precise amount. When a perfumer makes the effort to use real oud in their perfume it becomes a bit like riding a tiger. Every source of oud has its own powerful scent profile. Subtle oud is entirely a myth. If you’re going to work with the genuine stuff, you’re going to have to work with what the oud gives you. Independent perfumer Josh Meyer has produced an excellent example of how to do this with Imaginary Authors Whispered Myths.
Josh Meyer
Before I get into the review Imaginary Authors always begins with a fun snippet of prose from a non-existent writer. I found the one used with Whispered Myths to be one of the more illuminating entries, “When the long hours Azzam Issa pulls at his family’s bakery begin to interfere with his day-job as a security guard at The Louvre things turn bizarre. Angelic creatures move from one painting to the next and statues speak to him in cryptic whispers. The delusions are a nuisance and the few hours of sleep he is afforded between jobs are no better; dominated by visits from ancient mariners and supernatural figures from worlds past. It isn’t until he begins to listen to these apparitions that he becomes truly unhinged. In the frantic search for the true identities of these lost souls, Azzam discovers something far more remarkable, his own.”
It didn’t strike me at first but as I experienced Whispered Myths this is also a journey from the mythology of oud in perfume through to a discovery of its real identity.
The oud Mr. Meyer chose as his keynote is a Cambodian oud. The sample I have of this kind of oud is one I would describe as medicinal, fruity, and woody. I am guessing the oud sourced by Mr. Meyer also has a similar scent profile because he makes some intelligent choices on how to interact with those aspects of the oud.
Whispered Myths starts with a nose-tingling dose of oud-y reality. Mr. Meyer lets the Cambodian oud out to roar with its medicinal quality right away. This is no myth it is a slap of reality. The opening moments are going to be difficult for those who don’t appreciate this part of the oud experience. If you can get through these opening minutes what comes next is remarkable. First up is a melon note. Mr. Meyer uses this to bring forward that concentrated dried fruitiness of the oud. Melon is a trite overused ingredient. Mr. Meyer makes it relevant in his usage of it here. Then a sweet honey accord provides viscous contrast to the oud. This is my favorite part of the development as the honey finds the medicinal core of the oud and tames it. The base accord opens with ambrette providing a transparent botanical musk to underline the animalic part of the oud. The remainder is a reminder that oud is agarwood as what Mr. Meyer calls “salvaged shipwreck” is a combination of the dry synthetic woods. They provide an ascetic counterweight to the woodiness of the oud.
Whispered Myths has 12-14 hour longevity and for 90% of the time average sillage except for those opening moments then it is above average sillage.
Since the beginning of Imaginary Authors Mr. Meyer has had a distinct house aesthetic. Whispered Myths is the first to break most completely from that. That might be jarring for some. I found it showed the maturity of Mr. Meyer as a perfumer. I’ve thought very highly of the last few perfumes, but it seems like Mr. Meyer was looking for a new identity. With Whispered Myths, along with his fictional museum guard, he has seemingly found one.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample I purchased.
When you are a child the summer months are a treat. There is no school only the horizon of how far you can travel on your bicycle. Growing up in South Florida it seemed like the world was just in front of my handlebars. The best part was being joined by your friends. By the time August rolled around our skin was tanned and our hair was sun bleached. For some reason several of my friends had birthdays in August. In 1969 that was a big year we were moving from the single digit of nine to the vastly mature double digits of ten. This was also the summer when I had my first kiss. I remember leaning forward into it at a birthday party game of Spin the Bottle. There was one girl I was beginning to notice. When she spun the bottle and the neck pointed at me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do it right. As we leaned into the center of the circle the sun glinted off the bottle. It felt like I was surrounded in a bright light. When our lips met, at first softly, before we pressed together with a little pressure I felt a whirl of emotion. I leaned back with a smile as the girl smiled back. Her lip gloss remained on my lips. I was light headed. I never had a word for this but now I do courtesy of Imaginary Authors Sundrunk.
Josh Meyer
I have enjoyed watching independent perfumer Josh Meyer develop into one of the best we have. Over the seventeen perfumes he had released prior to Sundrunk he has continually refined the Imaginary Authors aesthetic which was in place from the beginning. I think he has come close to perfecting it over the last couple of years producing some exemplary fragrances. Sundrunk is a bit of a departure. It might be amusing when I say it is Mr. Meyer’s most light-hearted perfume to date. Especially on a brand which uses imaginary prose from imaginary writers to create very real fragrance. Sundrunk departs from the previous formula because it is such an innocent days of summer style. There is a simple pleasure to everything about it.
Sundrunk starts off with an orange sherbet accord. Neroli and rhubarb are sprinkled with orange zest to form a crystalline delicate orange scented accord. It is like having a sugar cone with a couple scoops perched on top. It is simply beautifully achieved. Mr. Meyer then adds in a watery floral accord of honeysuckle and rose water. This is the sweet scent of nature wrapping itself around the frozen treat. I would have been thrilled with this, but Mr. Meyer adds in a “first kiss” accord. This is a very gentle sun-warmed skin musk. As sensual as that first touch of lips over a sparkling empty soda bottle.
Sundrunk has 8-10 hour longevity and average sillage.
Every time I’ve worn Sundrunk I am on my Spyder three-speed in the summer of 1969. On my way to a birthday party where I will experience my first kiss. Any perfume that can take me back to that moment is magical.
Disclosure: this review is based on a sample provided by Imaginary Authors.
Independent perfumer Josh Meyer has been producing perfume for his Imaginary Authors brand since 2012. He has embodied that indie ethos of doing things his own way. From the start his fragrances showed a lot of promise but they also felt like we were undergoing some on-the-job training with him. This leads to a place where if there is something there all the lessons learned come together and there is a period of sustained creativity. In my estimation that happened with 2014’s Yesterday Haze. Since that release there has been not only releases for Imaginary Authors, but also a collection for Portland, OR store The Sum and a collaboration with Sam Rader of Dasein on Winter Nights. Through all of this I have felt like the work for The Sum was him experimenting with restraint which has been in short supply in his original brand. Winter Nights was a true collaboration which wove magic as Ms. Rader and he found an incredibly balanced construct. All of this comes home in Imaginary Authors O, Unknown!
The faux literary inspiration for O, Unknown! is the final installment of the Philip Sava trilogy who was the author behind Memoirs of a Trespasser and Cape Heartache. For O, Unknown! Mr. Sava is faced with his mortality he tells, “the story of a man grappling with the meaning of life as he grasps to life’s last vestiges.”
Josh Meyer
The perfume captures the final wanderings of our author as he moved from Bangladesh into Nepal, Tibet and rural China. This translates into the rich black tea found in Bangladesh and the Chinese Lapsang Souchong over a traveler’s accord which captures the final journey.
Mr. Meyer takes black tea and combines it with a tincture of Lapsang Souchong. The tincture has the effect of pulling the focus to the tea instead of the smokiness. It is there but it lilts instead of creating a fog. It is a gorgeously realized delicacy unlike any other beginning Mr. Meyer has used before. The keynote for O, Unknown! Is a rich orris butter where the powdery is jettisoned in place of the rhizomal earthiness. It is that which provides some weight to the tea accord. This all leads to a forest walk of sandalwood, moss, and musk as the last hike ends.
O, Unknown! has 8-10 hour longevity and moderate sillage.
This is the best perfume Mr. Meyer has made because he is willing to walk the tightrope of delicacy and heft. O, Unknown! has the ability to stay high in the clouds while keeping the ground below in sight. This might be the final story of our imaginary author but it the best perfume by the non-imaginary perfume author behind it.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Imaginary Authors.
If I say, “mint julep” most Americans will reply “Kentucky Derby”. The cocktail has become synonymous with the first jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown. In May of 1982 I was in Louisville, Kentucky on the first Saturday in May to watch Gato del Sol finish first. I also experienced a mint julep for the first time; it was the worst thing about the day. I couldn’t finish the overly sweet mint and bourbon cocktail. There were many at Churchill Downs who also had a few too many making for another unfortunate association with the mint julep. Pair this with my antipathy for mint in perfume and you might perceive that I wasn’t jumping for joy when I received Imaginary Authors Saint Julep.
Josh Meyer
One thing which tempered my dread was the e-mail I received from Josh Meyer the perfumer behind Imaginary Authors. I don’t care for mint in fragrance because it evokes mouthwash, toothpaste, or dental floss. Mr. Meyer communicated to me that he also is not fond of that style of mint either. He wrote that, “I wanted it to smell like mint leaves”. My favorite mint perfumes are those which remember it is an herb before it becomes something on the end of a toothbrush. Even so the mint julep cocktail is a syrupy intense experience. So, mentioning all the ingredients of the cocktail were present in Saint Julep brought back some of the worry. What got me over all of this is Mr. Meyer’s ability to surprise which is what Saint Julep did.
Saint Julep is less about the cocktail and more about the American South and its ability to draw on its Gothic past to create a modern Southern Neo-Gothic. That focal point is the bourbon accord at the center of Saint Julep. The description from Mr. Meyer’s fictitious storyteller, Milton Nevers, goes like this, “On the outskirts of Clarksdale, Mississippi, at the end of a secluded dirt road sat a small ramshackle church. It was not a place of worship but rather where many went to seek refuge during impoverished times. Legend has it the structure was transported to the wild mint field by hand, hoisted on the shoulders of two dozen men. The outside remained simple and nondescript but the interior was aglow with pilfered neon signs, Christmas lights, and a jukebox donated by the sheriff’s son. It was a distinctly secular place where locals who knew where to find it could share moonshine, socialize, and dance their troubles away. They called their ramshackle juke joint Saint Julep and the oral histories compiled within paint a picture of that magical place where “the smiles was always free and salvation had the distinct smell of sweet mint.”
As promised, the mint arrives with its leafy, herbal nature moved forward. Instead of getting syrupy sweet Mr. Meyer instead dusts his mint leaves with crystalline sugar. It is not treacly sweet it is much more muted than that. What mutes it is the use of tangerine. Then magnolia provides a floral bridge to the bourbon accord. The bourbon adds an alcoholic bite along with its own version of sweet which dovetails with the sugared mint leaves. What is so surprising is this part of Saint Julep is light and refreshing; the polar opposite of a mint julep’s density. The base is an ingredient called grisalva which is an ambergris replacement aromachemical which also carries some leather aspects. It is a fine way to finish Saint Julep.
Saint Julep has 12-14 hour longevity and average sillage.
Saint Julep is going to be an excellent summer scent. Mr. Meyer has overcome every reservation I had going in. He has delivered a contemporary Southern classic.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Imaginary Authors.
There is a great amount of collaboration within the independent perfume community. A lot of it is happening on the West Coat of the US. One of the nodes of creativity is up in the Pacific Northwest. It often takes me a while to find some of the smaller brands. One which I was motivated to track down were the perfumes done for the Portland, Oregon based store The Sum. The reason I wanted to try these was because of perfumer Josh Meyer.
Mr. Meyer is responsible for one of the best independent perfume brands, Imaginary Authors. Working with The Sum he was asked to work towards small-batch ethically resourced compositions. There is a bead of sterling silver in each bottle for its “healing and balancing” qualities. When Mr. Meyer is working on his own brand he sometimes lavishly uses some of the synthetic area of his palette. His work for The Sum has seemingly taken that part out of play. This results in some of the softest perfumes Mr. Meyer has made. When it came to the first three releases I felt like there was also something missing, besides the power, from each. The Black was focused on oud but it needed a contrasting note. In The White Mr. Meyer’s deft touch with smoke is a little less precise which doesn’t allow the iris enough presence. The Red came closest with what felt like a base accord of amber, saffron, and sandalwood. I was wondering if Mr. Meyer would deliver something else for the brand after these first three. Just after the New Year I received my bottle of The Mauve. This time it all comes together.
Josh Meyer
Most of the time the press copy seems so far off the mark but in the case of The Muave it is described as, “The first serene light peeking through a fog”. As I’ve already mentioned these are Mr. Meyer’s most subtle compositions to date. The Mauve is like looking out over a field of lavender dampened by the fog as the sun lurks behind the foggy veil.
To create the humidity of the fog Mr. Meyer employs tea leaves to provide rich leafiness paired with dewiness. This is then further elaborated upon with the lavender which provides a typical herbal tinted floralcy characteristic of the ingredient. It finishes with a sturdy woody base of oak.
The Mauve has 6-8 hour longevity and moderate sillage.
With the Mauve Mr. Meyer shows he can talk through fragrance in sotto voce. I hope he continues to collaborate with The Sum because I think in a perfumer of his talents there is something very good that can come of this. The Mauve is evidence that even better could be coming.
Disclosure: This review is based on a bottle I purchased.
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