Author Archives: ginzaintherain

Of course, men in woods.

But it isn’t that often that you actually smell a woman walking by softly encased in a perfume of warm woods, at least outside of Japan, where this more stress-levelling form of aroma, reminiscent of hinoki wood onsen tubs at hot springs, or sandalwood incense, is thankfully becoming more common. Elsewhere, it’s virtually all fruity florals still with fake vanilla, yahdy yahda which gets so very, very, tiresome and predictable. Sometimes I just yearn for a much bolder, more riveting, boisé sillage to drift by my consciousness: a different, less cliched sensuality. One that doesn’t make me roll my eyes.

The seventies were full of ingeniously complex, inventive, and truly perturbing woody chypre perfumes such as Lancôme’s Magie Noire, Shiseido’s Inouï, and Rochas’ Mystère; perfumes that I adore, and that beguile, but can also almost frighten, with all their lichens and oakmosses and sassafrilla barks and scary patchouli roses lurking underneath- so it is easy to understand why the dark aspects of sorceresses apparent in these fragrances might be offputting to a younger Instagram Tiktok generation taught only to be cute.

Woodiness in feminine perfumery didn’t just grind to a halt in the seventies, obviously. The groundbreaking Feminité Du Bois by Serge Lutens for Shiseido from 1992 was the first ever women’s cedar based essence and was hugely influential, resulting in countless imitations such as the lovely L’Enfant Terrible by Jovoy, not to mention Dolce Vita by Dior, which I always personally found sparklingly lacklustre in comparison to the Shiseido. We had Armani Mania, Givenchy Organza Indecence, the Neela Vermeires, where sandalwood usually plays a vital role, the (overly) stark woodiness of the Byredos, and, of course, the legendary Le Labo Santal 33, which put woods very firmly back on the map for anyone who was interested (I have only ever smelled this icon once here, though, on a Japanese male artist friend of mine, who wore it brilliantly), but even so, for me, there is always room for more.

Ormonde Jayne Woman is another modern woods classic by iconic perfumer Geza Schoen (also the creator of yesterday’s feature, Molecule 01 +Iris) which has now been on the market for over twenty years but with its reputation as a sensual mood booster is still going strong.

A soothing, cozy, wood perfume based on an unusual central note of black hemlock spruce absolute, I actually used this scent in my scent workshop (it was featured in the official catalogue) as an example of how women’s perfumes need not subscribe to the central, overly prescribed tenets of ‘how to smell sexy’. With coriander, cardamom and grass oil over an emotionally empathizing ambered sandalwood, vetiver and cedarwood, Woman (though I wear this happiliy) is a very homely, intelligent perfume that works equally well when with other people or by yourself on a forest walk.

Mysore sandalwood from India is something I miss. I remember when I posted once, may years ago, on my favourite sandalwood perfume ever by Crabtree and Evelyn (read here for a full sandalwood odyssey) and Tora and I bonding over how much we loved and missed it. The Australian version used in many contemporary perfumes due to its easier availability, just isn’t the same – and neither are the synthetics.

Maher Olfactive’s Waking Dream is an intricately composed Mysore sandalood/ iris and amber triad, which settles eventually into a tranquillizing synergy you can sink into – Ida Meister’s detailed review of this perfume on CaFleurebon can’t be bettered so I will leave that here, but this definitely another wood scent that embodies the theme of today’s piece: that woods, when divorced from an ambroxan/fougere/citrus aggression, can have an entirely different, ungendered, intriguing dynamic.

Aqua Dos Açores is a brand from Portugal whose inspiration for its perfumes comes from the Azores island chain. While their ocean inspired Azul was a little too abrasive/aquatic for my tastes, the peculiarly fresh and fecund tropical flower fest that is Flores reminded me of Hawaii the second I smelled it (while actually in Hawaii)- almost as though it was capturing something – hot tendrils and moist air – as it happened.

Canto, the newer release, is an entirely different kind of scent – less the islands themselves than the ships that are travelling to them. Guaicwood, carnation absolute, cabreuva wood oil, fir balsam and benzoin grace a mellow and natural smelling sandalwood with a delicate whisk of saffron and pepper that becomes very rounded and legible – the kind of scent that bestows calm and confidence and could become a daily signature. My friend Aiko has been borrowing my bottle the last few days – her response (‘I loovvvvve sandalwood!’) precisely the response that I was hoping for as I knew it would suit her busy – but yoga-loving self. Adventurous, but very instinctive, in her scent choices, I somehow knew that she would gravitate towards Canto. The days when she would wear popular, scintillating pink fruities, are, I think it is safe to say, probably in the past.

So back to reality.

There will be no dripping white florals, such as DSH’s nectarous Cross Pollination, a lovely bedtime orange of island breezes I shall wear as a private reverie scent, in my workplace today (though I am sorely tempted). No lush stinking tuberoses. No floating plumerias. But there may be neroli – I have made some delicious new citrus handbalms with oils that I got in Hawaii to slip inside my suit jackets, and I do like pairing those up with a touch of Matiere Premiere’s Neroli Oranger, a personal favourite that smells fresh and clean and optimistic and which I think is going to be my scent of the day.

But what about something anti-intuitive, like Escentric Molecules’ 01+ Iris? Could I possibly start wearing this one a little later in the term?

A bottle of this perfume was kindly sent to my event by Scent Bar LA, and I immediately registered it as something I could wear (and commandeered accordingly). While the ‘Molecules’ alone by themselves don’t appeal, and I found the + Mandarin variant weird, the + Patchouli too biscuity and persistent (D wore it and I thought I liked it, then decidedly didn’t), the iris equivalent has a mellow and easygoing, benevolent vibe that I can imagine pulling off, particularly when inside I am feeling precisely the opposite. It is also improved upon, I feel, and personalized, if teamed up with a little essential oil of vetiver, a combo I have already tried and really liked for a taming/wildness compatibility.

What concerns me about wearing a scent like this – a very familiar accord to the 21st century nose, like a toned down Prada Infusion D’Iris/Vetiver but woodier, more transparent and perhaps manly, is not being able to control the projection of the perfume and feeling paranoid that I am somehow filling up a room with just one spritz when I can’t even smell it myself (the Molecules are, of course, famous for this very phenomenon: you become quickly anosmic, whereas for others your smell is never out of sight: is this what we want from a scent? To be domineering the airwaves with stealth and quiet resolution? Have you had any Molecule experiences of your own, in terms of compliments, aversions?)

I experienced something similar to this sillage conundrum when D wore the beautiful Poivre Samarcande by Hermès for a time around 2008. He could barely smell it on himself at all, and neither could I half the time, but during one night in the Schoeneberg district of Berlin, a stranger sniffed it on the wind from across the street and came rushing over to compliment him on how amazing he was smelling (when perceptible, I did find it really sexy as well, I must admit, though I did find the sheer unpredictability of its throw verging on alarming).

No. You have talked me out of it. It feels a little too risky for a school environment, even if its quotidian ‘rightness’ – I might actually feel a little too conformist wearing this in truth – would give one an air of contemporary competence. Social acceptance. Even trustworthiness (a feeling I probably don’t elicit drenched in Flos Mortis.) The iris and the wood are in nice balance: all is metallically aerated; suppressed to just the right iota. I feel probably that it might possibly even be quite sexy on me .

But not today.

You can’t help your taste.

And so, much as I often feel like a true outsider in what I like – and what I don’t, I have learned to just go with my own flow and wait for my flower to open: because when I am confronted with what I find personally to be very ugly, I just close up inside like angry buds. Waikiki Beach was rather like this : never have I been more disappointed by a place in all my life.

While grateful and excited to be there, dropped straight into the heart of things, across the street from the historic Royal Hawaiian Center, my heart sank quickly, clenched, as we walked along the street with its stunted decorative palm trees; Guccis, Pradas, American Cheese Cake factories, holidaying tourists in shorts and socks and saggy t-shirts; just as with Disneyland – I remember D in the Riki Tiki Room or whatever it was called.. politely staring in front of him years ago to endure the clockwork spectacle though he was dying inside from the aesthetic vacuum that confronted him, where I receive no pleasure whatsoever myself either; or ‘resorts’ – which are deemed beautiful by the vast, probably sensible majority, but whose furnishings I almost always detest (we are addicted to the Netflix ‘Love Is Blind’ series at the moment, an emotionally gruelling reality show in which contestants first fall in love with each others’ voices through a wall and then go on ‘honeymoons’ to see if the physical connection works out, potentially ending in acceptance or rejection at the altar.. – the cultural differences between the American, Japanese and Brazilian versions are beyond fascinating, but the ‘paradises’ they make love in on their very first night together are on the whole, to me, completely hideous, with their plumped up cushions and matching wallpapers and carefully placed silver pineapples (I have long believed, in my heart, that almost all ‘interior designers’ are actually blind); at least in yesterday’s episode, in which the couples in Brazil stayed in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, in wooden huts with minimal overload, surrounded by tarantulas, sloths and macaws, I could watch the scenery quite happily and even momentarily wish I could stay there – the vegetation – the vast, glorious, natural, unmoulded untethered vegetation that closed in on the glass windows of their love nests – and which was certainly the true star of the show.

The hordes all unthinkingly descend on Waikiki Beach but there is nothing to enjoy. It is all hotels and bars, happy happy reggae, convenience stores selling flip flops and beachballs and not much beach. Admittedly, the banyan trees, which feel sacred, clustered with invisible, hidden, ecstatic birds – huge roots hanging down in self-protection – provoke true awe, and these trees are to be found everywhere in Oahu (I now know the inspiration behind Avatar) – but incredulous as you may be to read this, I am sure that the beaches in Britain are actually better. Granted, there may not be palm trees, but in the north coast of Wales, for example, the Gower Coast, if you get the weather (and that is the problem), in full sunshine is completely dazzling. Spectacular. As are the beaches where we holidayed as a family when I was a child, down in Bournemouth and Cornwall, and the agrophobically beautiful, windful space and solace that can be had from strolls on the end-of-the-world beaches that are everywhere up on the coast of Norfolk.

No one is forcing you to stay just on one street in one district in one tiny part of one island in the chain of Hawai’i, though.

And my pretentious (I can’t help it), utter aesthetical horrification in that one touristy area began to dissipate the second we turned a corner and explored other blocks, on the very first night. Suddenly the plastic veneer of the restaurants and stores with their sickening fonts disappeared, and you were plunged into other neighourhoods with real buildings, mysterious contents; plants, trees; neon grocery stores, a sense of realness.

A couple of days later, after all of the hubbub, when Christopher and Christine drove us around the coast, to the east of the island, at sunset, past the velvet undulating green mountains that made my jaw drop, it was as if we were in another world.

Which we were.

We stopped off at – (at least I think it was) – Kailua beach; strolled towards the sands.

Or, rather, in truth, I let the others go ahead because I just wanted to immerse myself in the utter beauty I was experiencing at my own pace, as if in a trance.

Plumeria trees everywhere. Gorgeous, sprawling vegetation; birds twittering (the birds in Hawai’i! – they are so abundant and calm and in their own, glorious world) … I was finally getting the experience I wanted.

I was awestruck .

The beach was only a beach. Nothing else. Nothing manmade. No artifice. No contamination.

So dreamy, and beautiful.

…

Back in the city, on later days, all of this had seeped into the blood. You could avoid the tacky areas, explore.

Away from Kalakaua Avenue, which made me feel ill, the streets were wider; more organic.

Trees, succulents, flower bushes on every corner, in every nook.

And in this more hazily tropical context, some perfumes suddenly made a different kind of sense to me.

In smelling Dusita’s uniquely unusual Erawan, in the past, I had only been able to sense clary sage, an essential oil I am very sensitive to (it has psychotropic effects and its coarse, almost rancid greenness can make me shudder, even if I appreciate its vital role in fresh, chypric perfumes such as the original Miss Dior and Ma Griffe).

In the humid air, the poetry of Erawan, with its strange, jungle lightness, made much more sense; lighter, an ethereal buoyancy I hadn’t noticed before. The coumarinic liatrix, with a muguet/ petitgrain clasp in the top, all lift, but also hold the central vetiver Haiti/ clary sage at the heart. It is soothing, refreshing; enigmatic.

Under the tree, at that moment, I felt the perfume – and the perfumer – talking to my spirit directly.

Likewise, if the sickening pink and blue trash at Duty Free that goes for fragrance these days is like the perfumes at Daniel K Inouye airport: brash, chemical bouquets of tack that slur the soul, the cool earthiness of the extraordinarily elegant Sillage Blanc, a less talked about Dusita, but one that is essential for those that seek a touch of distance and aloofness and escape from all of that, is someone, at ease, unstressed, getting ready to go out at the top of their condo; post bath, in robe, about to dress, in white, for the cool evening outside.

If a tad strident in its potency (I recommend the tiniest amounts of this scent, in strategic places, as it lingers for hours), the beauty of the green, patchouli aromatic trail this perfume leaves – in the vein of Cabochard and other classics of its type but freshened in an unfussy, streamlined modern way with light florals bound with artemisia, Persian galbanum over (a less sweaty than those of the fifties), powdered leather and oakmoss – is unparalleled in the niche market, in a class of its own.

In Honolulu, I yearned for this person to leave their apartment once ready; walk from their doorstep into the evening light and let me swoon, on the air.

guest post by D

Our arrival in Honolulu had actually been delayed by a day (as we had fallen foul of an ESTA entry visa scam) and so the airport protocols had been a tad stressier than desired (= understatement). However, we sorted it out and the first day at the museum was a breeze with all the staff supportive and encouraging and the building itself attractive and relaxing with its courtyards and cloisters seen to fine effect in the blistering sun.

They certainly knew how to build attractive and sturdy structures back in the nineteen twenties. The Museum of Honolulu opened in 1927 and was designed to be a modern interpretation of a traditional Hawaiian building. It houses one of the most extensive collections of Asian and Pan-Pacific art and objects in America.

The perfumes sent through by niche perfumers had caused quite a stir among the museum staff, although Christine, the very person who instigated Neil’s participation in the Cross Pollination show, and head of Education and Engagement, is allergic to scented products and had been suffering the olfactory onslaught for over a month.

Aforementioned scents were stacked on a couple of trollies and my eyes immediately alighted upon the white boxes of One Day, Hong Kong-based perfume company, who had kindly contributed their tea range to the perfume workshop event, as I already know and use their Pu’er Tea fragrance. We settled on this as the perfume for me to wear (only very lightly out of deference to Christine) during the talk, as it is one of the most gentle and serene accords, soothing to myself and calming to Neil, who was nervous about talking in front of over 160 people. The top note of pu’erh tea is just a touch sweet, adding moisture and some enigmatic grace to a woody earthy middle and base of cedar, cypress, patchouli, frankincense and vetiver. It’s mellow and modern, yet also intriguing, and I love the way it develops on my skin.

Maybe the calm spell worked, as Neil pulled off his talk with aplomb…

For the workshop, we decided to come sans scents but after the events were done, I settled on Spirito, by Meo Fusciuni, a modern aromatic with a pleasingly harmonious aura of forest green – perhaps because my skin foregrounds the cedar and vetiver. Also, I love the way musk blends accords with a velvet touch and I am often drawn to scents incorporating musk. This was designed to be an evocation of Emily Dickinson’s meadow walks, though for me it is more sylvan and sensual than that might suggest.

An interesting thing happened as we waited for a bus to take us to the University of Honolulu campus to meet our friend Skyler. The bus was delayed by twenty minutes, so one of the people in the bus queue, a gent from El Salvador, struck up a conversation, immediately noting that we smelled great and pulling out a bottle of Tom Ford’s Leather from his rucksack, which he brandished with pride – and this without knowing anything about our reason for being there.

Though in rather different ways, I found both Pu’er Tea and Spirito to be refreshing scents for the Hawaiian heat.

With Christine now at a safe distance in mainland America on a business trip, I continued my scent journey by delving into richer, warmer territory, and intrigued by the name, I took up Patchouli of the Underworld by Electimuss, a very ambery, woody, leathery patchouli, with a sweet metallic opulence to it.

Neil said it was like a modern Shalimar and although not the kind of scent I would usually wear, I really enjoyed the middle stages where a certain spiced greenness emerges which was counterintuitively cooling. Is this the chill of the underworld asserting itself through the dense toffee opening?

This scent certainly has a charming sillage and though sweeter than I am used to, is definitely one I will be coming back to – perhaps in winter when Neil wears Shalimar – or Bal A Versailles.

We planned one final blast for the last evening as Skyler was taking us to a drag cabaret hotspot called Kat’s Closet in China Town. For this, we had prepared outfits purchased from Bailey’s Antiques, which specializes in aloha shirts that range in price from 20 dollars to 600 or 700 for the real vintage ones that hang from the ceiling, out of reach of most hands and budgets. The emporium has been frequented by many famous people, including Nicholas Cage (our vacations often follow in his footsteps it seems – Honolulu, New Orleans…) and had been recommended to us by our friend Christopher.

I managed to score an excellent $20 polyester chrysanthemum short-sleeved shirt – wholly 70s – which would go perfectly with the flairs and Cuban heels I’d brought. Neil picked up a rather more costly – but not extortionate given its splendiferousness – red sequined jacket for Burning Bush.

My all-synthetic, predominantly beige outfit demanded a manly 70s-esque number – Bon Monsieur by Rogue, purveyor of devilishly fine and dandyish confections (like Hove perfumes but with added twist and natty packaging), completely measured up. The citrusy, lavender facets of this soapy masculine scent helped to deodorize me with a gentlemanly clean but hopefully mischievously rakish olfactory vibe. (You’ll have to take my word for it.) A sartorial/olfactory combo I shall be revisiting with some relish.

After feeling (rather exhilaratedly) on the spot during the days at the museum I strongly felt the need to let LOOSE.

And so rather than throw away the flower arrangement displayed at the talk and the workshop, Burning Bush decided to go out for the night in the wonderful Chinatown area of Honolulu and wear it instead.

Our old friend Christopher – who we hadn’t seen for twenty years – picked us up for the evening : a gorgeously hot humid night ( had it not been for my get up – for once I was glad of the air conditioning ), on the road outside the second place we were staying at – the Holiday Surf Hotel, and drove us through the brutalist Honolulu architecture of downtown with all its lush tropical vegetation : an aesthetic I adore and became one with.

He couldn’t stay long, but delivered us to the evening’s rendezvous secret location – a tiny club in the Old Blaisdell hotel called Katt’s Closet where we were to attend a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Our host for the evening was another friend now living in Hawaii- Skyler, from our Tokyo cabaret network; frazzled in the big city before, now blissfully happy in Honolulu : we met in the secret location – invitation only – and proceeded through the beautiful old building to the venue.

Skyler was wearing Maher Olfactive’s Tempo Rubato ( literally ‘robbed time’) – a jazz term for improv – and on me, the what could be seen as overly ‘experimental’ overlays of stewed apricots, narcissus, leather, and a whole bunch of other ingredients was just not right. On S, though there was just the most perfectly controlled, delicately fruity sandalwood sillage that hovered exquisitely about their person for the entire, rather electrifying evening

As a great lover of red, I was more drawn to the more ‘difficult’, but for me more compelling, Sagan Dalya, based on perfumer Shawn Maher’s discovery of an unusual ingredient – the Siberian rhododendron. Floral, balsamic, coniferous., he combines this new essence with immortelle, honey and tobacco for a strangely addictive sweet deep medicinal blend that theoretically I should run a mile from, but that somehow ( perhaps because I came to really love the maple syrup licorice of Serge Lutens’ immortelle drenched Une Proie Pour L’Ombre and have become more accustomed to that nasal timbre) I am now very glad to possess. There is a depth. Heavy and rich – you feel yourself being pulled down inside this perfume. Also, I had spilled some costus absolute on myself a few days before, an essential oil I was smelling for the first time – an alarmingly dense, sweet essence similar to the feeling of Sagan Dalya, that I couldn’t get away from because it was all over me, getting stronger with the hours, as we walked in the city, along with oil of tuberose absolute that was intentional, sweating in my vest in the heavy air,……new smells all around us. unsure of some. but suffused with delicious saturation

The strongest flower scent was the fake plumeria piped into our hotel in Waikiki.

But there are flowers everywhere.

Plumeria flowers – real ones – drop slowly onto dense, spongey grass underfoot: big, silent pikake jasmine flowers – exquisitely fresh and coldly hypnotic -lurk in bushes. Inquisitive hibiscus, great banks of birds of paradise ; flowers I no idea of the name.

Tuberoses I haven’t seen in the wild, but they formed part of the lei I was given to wear at my talk at the Honolulu Museum Of Art- as well as puakenikeni and the most intense jasmine I have ever smelled; all placed around my neck in sheer sense derangement.

It was a very daunting, but also very exhilarating experience, that fortunately went well (I will write more extensively when we are back in Japan and I can describe it all more fluidly on my computer). I am way too self conscious to watch this myself, but here is the official link if you are interested :

https://youtu.be/5KGi6X-v9BQ

I met so many great people – also the next day at the workshop in the museum courtyard

The rest was mine : MINE ! to take home with me but logistics make that impossible. We are currently packing and taking back my personal selections : other bottles have been gifted to museum staff (who really couldn’t have been lovelier) and some friends we have here. Thanks so much to the brands for sending the perfumes – I will do more detailed features on the scents that were there later.

This exhibition was all about the flowers though, and it is flowers that I love, so quite obvious that the white florals that were there are coming home with me.

Tubereuse Trianon is a scent I once found at the flea market – a vintage original. This new edition is basically the same with a fresher coriander and rhubarb entree that is bright and head clearing – a good one for spring days.

Matiere Premiere’s Aurelian Guichard has a great predilection for Ambroxan (a characteristic I don’t share), but in French Flower, a buttery tuberose with the texture of Montale’s Intense Tiare, it kind of works. This is sexy and direct, and I might wear it for our last night on the town this evening.

The perfume that has really captured my heart on this trip though is DSH Tubereuse. Unassuming at first, compared to its brasher counterparts, this rich but subtly subdued tuberose accompanied my wrists out on a morning trip to get groceries at the corner store. I couldn’t tell if the flower smell was coming from the trees and hidden flora or my skin; combined with a pure tuberose extract I have been wearing in tandem, this lovely perfume has really got to the heart of it all.

I should be posting flower pictures from Hawai’i.

But upon arrival at check in yesterday ( a hellish six hours in which we missed our flight, or at least couldn’t board the plane, our hearts in our throats as the countdown ticked and we tried desperately to rectify the situation because our online visa application turned out to be fake – MTHRFCKRS!!!!!! )

: we instead returned home, ashen and defeated but still marginally hopeful that the subsequent visa for the US (can I tell you ? I HATE travel) would actually get us into the country.

So stressed we couldn’t speak.

Anyway.

-/

the cat was glad of an extra night together; we lightened our baggage this morning; and the juneberry blossoms in the front garden in the rain when we came out with our suitcases earlier gave a feeling of ambiguous calm.

We are now at the airport, having successfully gone through all the processes (one hopes ….), having a beer before boarding.

Hopefully the next flowers you see will be Hawaiian