The first year I started my blog I did a Christmas post on Silver Bells, using aldehydic perfumes as an expression of cold metallic bells and their ringing sound. It is one of the most-read posts I ever published, I think in large part to the beautiful art I selected as a lead in. This year I'm having another look at Silver Bell inspired perfumes, with only one repeat perfume. I'm concentrating more on the color silver itself this time.
I love to wear Bond No. 9 Andy Warhol Silver Factory when the weather turns sharp and chilly. I live near a train yard, and in the summer the sounds are distant and muted, but in the winter cold there is a sharp piercing shriek of metal on metal when the train brakes. Something about the air density in cold temperatures creates this clarity. This sharp sound is the effect Silver Factory gives when I apply it on a cold day.
Andy Warhol Silver Factory came out in 2007 and was the first of five scents based on the life and career of the famous New York-based artist and social phenomenon. This was in the early days of Bond No. 9 and they were doing some edgy perfumes back then, before they started introducing such a steady stream of perfumes at a rate almost impossible to keep up with. Perfumer Aurelien Guichard was responsible for this fragrance, as well as my other favorite from the house, Chinatown.
Top notes are lavender, bergamot, and grapefruit; middle notes are incense, iris, violet, and jasmine, and base notes are resins, cedar, and amber. One of the marvels of this perfume is how it transitions. It goes on sharp as a knife blade, and the colder the weather, the more biting that effect will be. This is not a perfume that flourishes in hot weather, in my opinion. This effect does bring to mind silver: silver knifes, silver bells, silver train tracks, silver cars with snowflakes adhering to their shell like metallic armor.
After such a cold opening, the scent begins to warm up. A delicious and fairly light incense note mixes with the resins and amber to provide warmth and fragrant aromatics. The iris definitely plays a part in making this scent feel so chilly at the onset, but like the other florals, it is well blended and doesn't stand out unless you are familiar with the note. I only drag this one out in winter and every year I am re-amazed by how much I love it.
Another scent that makes me think silver is Clinique Wrappings. You will only see this scent offered from the Clinique counters at Christmas time, and even then, you may have to hunt for it. Like most of my "silver scents", it blooms in winter but can smell heavy in warm weather. Wrappings offers aldehydes on steroids, and it is these sparkling, cold notes that make me think of cold, metal silver bells. I wrote about this one in the article from 2016 linked above, but I will quote one sentence which gives the essence of the scent, to me: The opening rush smells like frigid air. The green smells like silvery pine needles laced with snow. It conjures the image of walking through a frozen forest, pine needles glistening with frozen ice glitter. Enjoy this one during the season as there is a reason they only sell it during Christmas. In my opinion it just doesn't smell as good once the Christmas planning and excitement has passed!
The next two scents on my list only remind me of silver in the opening; after that they transition into something much warmer. I will mention them, though, because they do give a different aspect to this idea of silver scents.
L'Artisan Parumeur Dzongkha was released in 2006 and made quite a stir during a time when inventive perfumes were in shorter supply than they are today. Bertrand Duchaufour was the nose, and this perfume was a part of a trilogy based on his exotic travels. Dzongkha was inspired by a trip to Bhutan, a kingdom in the Himalayas, a land where Buddhist monasteries perch on mountain ledged, strings of prayer flags fluttering in the high winds and bells tolling solemnly, the sound echoing through the valleys below.
The first moments of Dzongkha feel chilly with that dry feeling of cold air. It is easy for me to picture the somber ringing of the bells. Very quickly though a whole journey of scents begin to appear. The stones that the Buddhist temples are built of and the incense that permeates the walls over time are the basis for this scent. Other notes appear: cardomom and tea, very dry vetiver and papyrus, tanned leather. But it is the iris which for me lives through the opening, the heart, and even the base of the scent. It is dry and rooty. In the beginning it feels chilly and remote, at the heart if accentuates cold stones and metallic bells, and at the base it finally begins to go softer and slightly powdery.
This is a very unusual scent and it doesn't always work on me. I NEVER wear this in warm weather because then it smells like carrots and celery; remnants of a summer vegetable garden. But when it works, I am climbing high in the Himalayan mountains, the air is bracing, I feel serene and at one with my surroundings. Higher up the mountain I spot my destination, a stone structure jutting out of the mountainside; a place of refuge on this unforgiving mountain.
My last "silver" perfume is actually more gray, DSH Perfumes Kohl Gris. Several years ago Dawn Spencer-Hurwitz who is owner and perfumer at DSH, did a series of perfumes based on color. Kohl Gris was my favorite, and it continues to be one I wear every year in winter, especially around Christmas.
The perfume is meant to represent the smoky, kohl lined eye, and thus is a warm and spicy scent at heart. There is, however, a brief moment when I first apply this perfume when I get a bracing, slightly metallic scent which feels silver to me. This could be from the lavender and pine notes. After that it heats up very quickly with pepper and clove. Then sensuous base notes of tobacco, labdanum, frankincense, sandalwood, and ambergris make this a delicious spicy, smoky perfume.
I find that iris or orris root is a common element through these four perfumes, as it has a chilly dry quality. Are there any fragrances in your collection that feel silvery to you?
The retro Christmas cards are on Pinterest. The Silver Bells sign is from ebay. Top painting is by Clair Rossiter. Perfumes are my own.
2 comments :
Not only I'm not a natural synesthete, but also my abilities to connect anything to anything, by my own estimate, is below average. So, unless I have any helping cues, such as perfume name or color of the bottle/packaging, I don't have any associations between perfumes and colors.
Silver, silver... The closest association I could think of were Victoria's Secret perfumes from many years ago - Halo, Divine and ... I don't even remember the third one, but it's not important because I don't own any of them any longer. And the association itself is a strange one: VS's TV ad many years ago, when I liked and wore those perfumes, was shown with the Carol of the Bells music that I loved.
Undina, that's interesting. Not all fragrances present themselves that way to me, but definitely black white yellow pink, those colors always appear with some perfumes to me. But then with the vast majority I don't get any association like that. I think the tv ad with music is as good a reason as any to have an assocication. Years ago I bought Caron Montaigne for the first time on a trip to NYC. I discovered it when the cute Caron boutique still existed. Even though it is supposed to be about a street in Paris, it will forever be NYC at Christmas to me.
Post a Comment