Providence Perfume Co. Provanilla: Jack Sparrow’s Caribbean Vanilla

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Source: chronicart.com

“Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum.” Drenched in vanilla. If Captain Jack Sparrow and the pirates of the Caribbean ever wore a vanilla fragrance, I suspect it might be Provanilla from Providence Perfume Co., a boozy, quietly smoky, dark, but surprisingly tropical scent. It is actually what I had hoped Maria Candida Gentile‘s Noir Tropical to be, but wasn’t.

Charna Ethier. Source: perfumepharmer.com

Providence Perfume Co. is an American artisanal brand founded by Charna Ethier around 2009. According to her website, she had spent several years “working for large beauty and fragrance companies” before deciding to create a natural line of perfumes that “embrace the finest natural botanical ingredients from around the world.” Everything is hand-done in small batches.

In early 2015, she released Provanilla, an eau de parfum and her very first vanilla fragrance. A detailed blog entry on her site demonstrates the surprising challenges in handling vanilla, the complicated creative process behind Provanilla in specific, and the background to the scent. Apparently, clients asked Ms. Ethier for a vanilla scent, and the queries came every single day. However, she was initially quite reluctant and unenthused. She had thought vanilla to be a simplistic, “ho-hum-yawn” genre and potentially linear in nature, but she “learned very quickly that creating a natural vanilla scent is very, very, very challenging.”

Vanilla Beans via seriouseats.com and shutterstock

Continue reading →

Unum Opus 1144: Divas & Powerhouse Classics

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Source: Pinterest via Pierreherme.com pinterest.

Source: Pinterest Pierreherme.com

Fans of floriental powerhouses in the classical tradition, take note, Opus 1144 is one for you to try. It is a bold, complex fragrance with a divaesque character that harkens back to the great Guerlain legends, Shalimar and L’Heure Bleue, in their most concentrated vintage parfum form, as well as to modern creations by Mona di Orio and O’Drui. At its heart, it’s structured much like a millefeuille dessert where tart, lemon curd custard lies sandwiched between layers of dark, smoky styrax and balsamic-coated, musky leather, all dusted with vanillic powder in a haze of jasmine and iris floralcy.

Jean Patou couture, circa 1969. Source: pinterest.

Opus 1144 is many things, sometimes all at once. It is a lilting choral extravaganza where grand, bold opulence and monumental density dip into airiness and delicacy without ever losing strength. It’s a chiaroscuro of light and dark, masculinity and feminine, gourmand and oriental, hard and soft, acrid and sweet, cloying and beautiful — and I’m not completely sure what to make of all that, no matter how many times I wear it. In all honesty, there are many times in the first four hours when Opus 1144 leaves me simultaneously repelled and riveted, drawn in compulsively and with great admiration, but also put off and hesitant. One thing is undeniable: it’s something that any fan of the classics and of powerhouses in the floriental genre should try for themselves.

Continue reading →

Profumi del Forte – Versilia Vintage Ambra Mediterranea

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Versilia Vintage Ambra Mediterranea is a study of ambergris or grey amber by Bertrand Duchaufour, and a scent that is meant to have a luminosity evocative of the “calm deep Mediterranean.” Not for me. It is also a scent that some people think is one of the best ambers around. Again, not for me. Not by any means.

Source: Profumi del Forte

Profumi Del Forte was founded in 2007 by Enzo Torre. According to the company’s website, he was “inspired by the timeless style of the Versilia seaside resort,” which explains the “Versilia” in the title of some of the fragrances. In 2009, the company released Versilia Vintage Ambra Mediterranea (hereinafter just “Ambra Mediterranea”), which Profumi Del Forte describes as follows:

The elegance of grey amber and the serenity of orange. The sweetness of ylang-ylang, the warmth of cedar wood. Gentle luminous notes, which evoke atmospheres of a calm deep Mediterranean.

[Notes:] Orange, coriander, ylang-ylang, jasmine, grey amber, benzoin from Siam, tolu balsam, incense, cedar wood, patchouli, vanilla, white musk

Source: fovipa.com

Continue reading →

Unum Lavs: Popes & Sunday Mass

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Kafkaesque

An olfactory “hymn to the Spirit” lies at the heart of Lavs, a fragrance that wants you to get in touch with your spiritual side, and to feel uplifted and purified with the beauty of church incense. Lavs is a creation of Unum, an Italian perfume house founded in 2013 by Filippo Sorcinelli who is also the nose behind its three fragrances.

Source: Unum at http://eshop.lavs.it/

What is truly fascinating about Unum is that its original mission seems to have been liturgical garments or priestly robes, and its e-shop has a coolest gallery of the most elaborate Catholic robes I’ve seen outside of my television. From what I’ve read, Unum actually creates vestments for Pope Benedict and Pope Francis XVI, which has to be the most unique background to any perfume house around. Regular readers know my passion for history, so this alone caught my attention, but it was the even more interesting story behind the actual Lavs fragrance that made me want to try it. Apparently, it was originally a room spray used to scent the two popes’ ecclesiastic robes! You can read all the cool details at Alfarom‘s review for Lavs on his Nero Profumo blog site (which I’ll be quoting later on), but, suffice it say, there probably isn’t a single incense fragrance in the world today which comes with papal approval except for this one.

Pope Francis. Photo by matrixpictures.co.uk via The Daily Mail. (Photo lightly cropped by me.)

Continue reading →