Christèle Jacquemin: Memory Lane

Late last year I wrote about a new perfumer, Christèle Jacquemin, who was using her career as a photographer as inspiration for creating perfumes. She started with three scents: Meandering Soul, Impermanence, and Underworld, which I wrote about here. She translated photos from her travels into fragrance, and just as her photos are modern and interpretive, so are the perfumes, in which I found uncommon notes and unexpected scents. Originality and creativity, both traits found in an artist's skill set, are evident in the perfumes.

Ms.  Jacquemin has now added a fourth perfume to her collection called Memory Lane. Unlike the other perfumes, which represent her travels, Ms. Jacquemin returns home with Memory Lane. She originates from a small town in France called Valliguières, but she left at sixteen to explore the world.  Her interpretive photos were not of the town itself, but a series of cloud photographs.

When I saw the series of cloud photos on her website the word that came to my mind was "escape". But I wanted to be sure that my interpretation was correct, so I asked Ms. Jacquemin. "As a child and a teenager, I mastered escaping from this place that was too small for me, " she answered. "I first escaped through literature, then I studied foreign languages hoping to discover the world. The sky in these photos is like a metaphor of the will to escape, to go and explore the world."

After thirty years of avoiding her home, Ms. Jacquemin felt the need to, in her own words, return home and reconcile the ghosts of her past. "I flew at a very young age," she stated, "and as an adult I needed to look back and see if there was any way to cure that wound, and bring peace on this part of my life."

The opening notes of Memory Lane are meringue, myrrh, and magnolia. Heart notes are cypriol, clove, and parsley. Base notes are green vanilla and oud blanc. I asked Ms. Jacquemin if Memory Lane was based on scents of the place, or did inspiration come from the photographs she took of the clouds and sky?

"Actually it is both, like all my scents," she answered. "It is part reality and part fantasy. My ambivalence to the place is in the scent: the ingenuity of the meringue and vanilla, and the animality of cypriol and white oud. This duality to me was important, to reflect the ups and the downs." 

The opening notes of meringue, magnolia, and myrrh are an unusual combinaition, but that is not surprising to me, having experienced the other scents in the collection. The meringue may sound sweet but it is tempered by the myrrh and my mind flitted to an image of creamy burnished wood. There is a caramel feel, but it is not overly sweet. The magnolia is quite gentle to my nose. The cypriol, clove, and parsley give an earthy, slightly herbal feel to the scent. Cypriol is a weed growing in riverbeds and its oil has a woody, earthy smell. I don't smell the clove note specifically, but get more the herbal notes as the perfume begins to calm down and soften. The green vanilla and white oud enhance what I smelled in the opening, that slightly sweet, slightly woody sense. I will admit I find these scent challenging to describe. On my skin they appear as very blended, and as there are some unusual notes, they are not easy to describe, but I do my best! My overall sense of this perfume was that it had a comforting air, but not in a traditional way.

I will let Ms. Jacquemin have the closing words. "Magnolia flower as well as parsley essential oils transport me to walks in the countryside, and to gardening with my grandmother. When I smell Memory Lane I feel like my grandmother is holding me in her arms. I feel peace and balance. I feel safe and with energy to carry on ... my journey lightheartedly."

You can order sample sets at Christèle Jacquemin's website and she also offers her perfumes in a variety of sizes.

Thank you to Cristele Jacquemin for the perfume sample. My opinions are my own. Photos are from the perfumer's website.

Cristèle Jacquemin Collection: Meandering Soul, Impermanence, and Underworld

Christèle Jacquemin's perfume enterprise just celebrated its one year anniversary in October. She introduced three perfumes in 2019, one of which immediately garnered a nomination in the Art and Olfaction Awards, a remarkable achievement for a first time perfumer. Jacquemin had previously worked as a photographer, a passion she still pursues. Today she uses her travel experiences and the photographs she took to capture the mood of a place to inspire her perfume creations. Her scents are very individual and interpretive; in fact, I'd go so far as to say they are probably the most original fragrances I've smelled in 2020. 

Jacquemin's scent, Impermanence, was nominated in the Artisan Category, and this artistic and creative energy defines her work. Combining photography with fragrance, she manages to recreate the feeling and memory of a specific place and time in her life, in scent. As might be expected, these impressions are individual and specific to the artist's experiences. To those perfume consumers used to more mainstream offerings these scents may be startling at first. It took me more than one wearing to absorb everything I was smelling; these scents offer true scent seekers a lot to explore. I think this in part is because Jacquemin makes use of spices that other perfumers don't often feature, so the nose is smelling things not normally found in fragrances. The only other perfumer whose work struck me this way is Olivier Durbano, whose scents I reviewed here. 

Here are my brief reviews of each scent. This is written through the lens of how they perform on my skin, and over time I have found that my skin does not like citrus notes so much but it adores wood notes. Bear that in mind when reading my opinions. After finishing my reviews I searched out other reviewers opinions, and several mentioned the flower notes blooming on their skin. For me, the florals are so well blended into the scent as a whole that I don't get a strong sense of the flower notes. I will feature one of Jacquemin's photographs to represent each scent.

Meandering Soul

Meandering Soul is the perfect scent to be wearing in the cool weather of autumn, rolling into winter, that we are experiencing here in North Texas right now. It has a warm toasty feel. An opening note of fennel gives the nose a surprise; it's not a note one encounters a lot in perfumery. It smells herbal and piquant and is a nice contrast to the sweeter notes that follow. I am wondering if fennel is a more familiar smell to Europeans than Americans, as it was an Austrian friend who taught me to appreciate fennel tea. Hinoki wood makes me think of an autumn stroll, kicking aside fallen leaves of orange, brown, and gold. These two notes combined give me a faint nutty note, which again feeds my autumn fantasy of acorns underfoot and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Heart notes are ylang-ylang, narcissus, and cinnamon but in all honesty I don't smell the florals. My nose goes straight to the base notes of caramel and tobacco. The caramel notes are subdued and not overly sweet; this is not a praline but rather that scent of slightly burnt sugar at the fall county fair. 

To me Meandering Soul references slight grainy smells with spice and woodiness. There is even a little bit of smoke, maybe from the tobacco. It is a very gentle smell, which is I think what Jacquemin was trying to convey. There are nuances of smoke, moist tobacco, a burnt caramel, and the very dry hinoki. Although subtle, the scent is strangely addictive and unlike anything I've tried.

Jacquemin's inspiration for the scent came from a month-long sojourn at an art residency in Taipei, Taiwan. She found the fast pace of the city chaotic, so used night time wanders to reconnect with nature and study the city at a less frenetic pace. Jacquemin wanted to relay the calm and peace she found in her nightly strolls into a scent. Maybe I am influenced by the cold weather outside my door as I do tend to look at some scents as seasonal, but Meandering Soul is my favorite of the three scents.

Impermanence

This was the perfume that brought attention to Christele Jacquemin's brand new perfume enterprise, with a nomination to the Art and Olfaction 2020 Awards in the Artisan category. Impermanence strikes me as the opposite of Meandering Soul; light and bright as compared to the darker moodier hues of Meandering Soul. The opening notes are bergamot, blue ginger, and hinoki wood. I think it is the blue ginger that takes the bergamot into a totally unexpected direction. There is a sharp crispness to the opening, but not in the traditional sense of citrus opening notes in a fragrance. Again, my nose tells me I am smelling something unexpected and different from the usual fragrant offerings we see today. I can really come up with no comparison references for any of these scents, which is good news for those seeking out truly artistic scents and always looking for some new stimuli.

Middle notes are rosemary, rose, and palmarosa, which is an India-subcontinent grass which emits a rose like smell, even though it is a plant and not a flower. I do smell the rose in the scent, but it is subtle and there is no way I would call this a "rose" fragrance, as it has a very nature-like vibe. The base notes are vetiver and yerba mate. The yerba mate has a more earthy smell than some teas, and this is in keeping with the feeling of the scent, wandering through back lanes and experiencing nature and happiness. Jacquemin has photos to accompany each scent, and for Impermanence her stated goal was to show the following: "become one with nature, welcome change, reenergize in harmony". The grassy, herbal nature of Impermanence, with an uplift of citrus for optimism, and rose, which is a known and recognized to impart a sense of well being, do indeed give me the feeling of energized harmony. 

The inspiration for this fragrance came from a one month artistic sojourn in the village of Jin Ze, outside of Shanghai, China. Here Jacquemin found peace and tranquility in an unspoiled setting, and on her return home she translated this feeling to scent.

Underworld

Underworld was inspired by a period in Jacquemin's life marked by transition. She had lived in Barcelona for many years, but was traveling to Paris to study perfumery as she began to expand her interests and career aspirations in that direction. For her it was a period marked by darkness and light, and most of all change, opening a new chapter in life.

The text Jacquemin uses on her website to describe the perfume and the photos that represented it are revealing: "let go--get out of one's cave--enter light". The scent opens with cumin, pepper, and cardomom, and no surprise that these notes give a darkness and mystery right from the start. Heart notes are carrot seed, patchouli, and vetiver, and base notes are tuberose, mimosa, and frankincense. 

It is easy to imagine that I am in a dark place as these spices unfold. Despite the note description, these are not "in your face" spices from a trade route camel caravan in days of yore. Rather they are smooth, slightly unsettling, and brooding--very atmospheric. 

Underworld's notes are so interesting, and reading the heart and base notes, it really gives me no sense of the fragrance that eventually unfolds. After the dark opening the scent begins to lighten, and true to her description, it does give some of the smells associated with caving. Many years ago I went to Deer Cave in Sarawak, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, and at the time it was the world's largest cave. I wrote about that experience here, but in short, I get that sense of limestone walls wet with dripping water and the moist, squishy earth underfoot. If one is fanciful you can imagine starting the journey in the tight tunnel of the cave, gradually coming to the cave's vast opening where there is space and vaulted ceilings and perhaps a shaft of light entering from far above. As the scent's life continues to unfold we get more lightness, walking away from the dark and eventually exiting the cave to the world outside. 

My take away is that these are some of the most original scents I have smelled all year. Ms. Jacquemin's artistic resume as a photographer shines through as she transitions her talents into a new area, going from that of sight to the sense of smell. It is interesting to compare the images, which she also sells on her website, with the perfume that inspired them. If you are intrigued by these descriptions and would like to try these scents you can order a very reasonably priced sample set of sprays from the company's website, here. Jacquemin also offers her scents in a selection of sizes to please everyone: 15 ml, 30 ml, 50 ml, and 100 ml, which was recently added. You can also browse her website for photographs she sells, and some of these photos have been turned into small scented papers for scenting a car or a drawer. Thank you to Christèle Jacquemin for sending me samples. My opinions are my own.

Photos are from ChristeleJacquemin.com website. Thank you to the perfumer for the samples.