Edition #7
A long awaited, hastily written missive - DS & Durga show, Perfume materials class, and some high-low recommendations
Hello friends,
Below, you’ll find some loopy olfactive daydreams courtesy of DS from DS & Durga and a signature scent recommendation from the inimitable Genevieve Leon (a Creative Director of Copy in the beauty world who is currently studying perfumery). For good measure, I’ve thrown some suggestions at the bottom of this newsletter - things I have been liking of late. And an update on the tub.
If you missed the last newsletter you can read it here.
You may have noticed I have a new logo and banner. Utmost gratitude to artist Se Young Au for these beautiful works of art.
A note- I’ve been using the word ‘capsized’ to describe my last six months, in which this newsletter was not sent out regularly. Though honestly, it’s inaccurate. I set up all the dominos and spread myself thin. Watching them play out, in swirls and high jumps, toppling at a quickening speed, has been a rat-tat-tat impact. But time stops for no one! Odessa just turned seven. Omri is about to turn one! year! old! I’ve just hit two years at my heady day job — with this last stretch being a particularly tumultuous period. Personal emails went unread. Fragrance bottles went unsniffed. I like to think the side of myself that is focused on this newsletter has merely been simmering.
Starting next week I’m restarting the Art + Olfaction Scent Materials Course (remotely), — the very program that got me interested to explore and write about fragrance to begin with! If anyone is curious to hear about it or is ready to sign up for the next 12 Tuesdays, respond to this newsletter and I can share info. The class, which will cover the queen of all florals (rose herself), ambery materials, and much more, is taught by the inimitable Ashley Eden Kessler. You order your materials and dilute them separately, tuning in via zoom to join the instruction and discussion. A caveat that it may be a tad late to get materials for the first week - but you can order all materials from two great online sources (and you can buy them in small quantities).
Scent - No one “gets” Radicchio
Over the summer, David Seth Moltz (the Perfumer and co-owner of DS & Durga) showed in a special 2-week engagement at the Chinatown gallery Olfactory Art Keller. On display was a selection of prints and cheekily hung holographic bags of limited edition perfume bottles (blotters to smell the scents were perched on the walls as well). Fragrance descriptions included permutations (perfumetations?) of spiritual figures, vegetables, exotic locales, and body parts in a Jodorosky-style fever dream. If this sounds vaguely familar, you may have even read about the show!
Entering David’s world is fun. Good taste he has in spades as is evidenced by DS&D, but he seems to have equal fun courting bad taste. His creative process involves the capture of unbounded ideas that provoke, entrance, or make him chuckle to himself. He takes all the creative license while still drawing connections across genres that make sense. His poetry, his playlists, and his historic references are so well communicated, which in turn make them so inviting, that you never feel he is purposefully reaching for the esoteric. And he’s such a talented perfumer that he makes pretty much all of these creations smell at least a little bit inviting, if not very.
Back in January I had pitched a story about perfumes that exalt vegetal notes as the next frontier of previously ‘unfriendly’ ingredients in the fragrance world. I also see it as part of a larger aesthetic trend: produce is sexy, piles of tomatoes and dirt are the new allure, and beautiful vegetable still life photography in unusual tableaus are brand DNA of truly inspired new retail.
I was quick on the pitch and too slow to develop the story. Clearly there’s a there there. By the time of Moltz’ show, I walked into the tiny gallery to hear an active interview happening… the journalist behind that nytimes piece interviewing young and beautiful patrons for their “honest responses to Woman Peeling Parsnips” (all positive). Since then I’ve spotted some really great articles on vegetables in perfumery. The best among them is Semantics and Vegetables within the Perfume Industry by Elise Mattison Chue (I cannot find a link since this was part of a printed zine Olfactive Material - happy to scan and send to anyone). Chue explores the longtime use of vegetal ingredients in fine perfumery that inevitably get disguised as other notes, because our culture has negative associations with homely vegetables. Not anymore! This piece by Emily Jensen had a great roundup of savory notes in fragrances, calling out an intriguing musky Cauliflower accord in L’Artisan Perfumeur’s Tonka Black that I would very much like to smell. And while I’m bummed I wasn’t the one to go down this rabbithole and call it paid-editorial work, I’m excited this vegetable-forward fragrance trend has legs.
Fragrance Recommendation
Genevieve Leon is a Creative Director of Copy in the beauty world, who’s led in-house teams at global brands and creative agencies. She’s currently freelancing and working on her Catalan from Barcelona. Her rapturous recommendation? Chanel Les Exclusifs No 18. I personally encourage you to buy a small sample on eBay, like I did - it is the pinnacle of Mediterranean refinement. Thank you for indulging my request, Genevieve!
Chanel Les Exclusifs No 18 is back in my rotation after 10 years of wearing it like jeans—at work, on Sundays, in new cities, and most recently, as a student in Grasse. It's always smelled like summer skin to me, a little wild and salty, sun dried, and green like the stem of a rose. Elegant in the way of linen, it's breathable but unkempt with softly animalic ambrette that, like the scent of natural fibers, heats up when worn.
I never considered ambrette seed much until studying it at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery and watching how it transforms compositions with a slightly addictive character that I find more dimensional than synthetic musks. Sweet and tender but also a little boozy and medicinal, like brandy, it has an understated sexiness that feels so right in July (or January). It didn’t come as much of a surprise to learn that ambrette seed is sourced from the hibiscus family, which in the world of flower essences, is known to fire up vitality, passion, and embodiment. In other words: summer heat. - Genevieve Leon
These small things are great for living
Beautiful handmade knotted headbands from LA artist Haiyen Designs.
These grippy mesh baby shoes
Ban Be’s beautiful vietnamese breakfasts and jellies
This dustpan
Escape with The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb - starting with The Assassin’s Apprentice. Yes, you’re welcome to tease me based on the book cover. More to come on this seminal fantasy series & scent exploration…
A tub update
In my last edition I espoused the joys of our inflatable $60 soaking tub, and it resonated with many of you.
Here's the link for the G Ganen "Happy Life" Portable Plastic Bathtub.*
In a poetic turn of events, the tub that served as my greatest sanctuary was punctured. The ‘portability’ is sort of a misnomer because it's very very heavy when filled with water. I’d ask Charles to drag it to drain it, and that’s when we busted it (likely on a jagged tile). So if you are interested to add to your cart, I highly recommend scoping out an ideal position where the tub would live and easily drain. We are thinking of reordering for this coming winter, and then outfitting a shower hose or sink attachment so that we can fill it easier. All that is to say it requires some planning, but is worth it. I miss that deep darn tub every single day.
Thank you for reading. More to come. I’ll leave you with this use case for why you should wait 6 years to have a second kid!
Stay safe, healthy, and attuned to the gifts in the world.
