I Come To You, My Hands Filled With Smeared & Honest Blooms: ‘Dirty Flower Factory’ by Kerosene

I found this fragrance by John Pegg to be a disconcerting and strangely affecting scent. I have sampled all of his work to date and enjoyed his tenacity and olfactive alchemy. Not everything has come off; you can sense the experimentation and challenges in the blends of materials and creativity. Certain notes smell untamed, clawing away from themes and structures. Some formulae feel a little too grainy and unfinished. But John’s imagination is an extraordinary thing, building scent upon scent in his self-taught mind and just doing it, fuck opinion. Dirty Flower Factory, his most floral and unusual composition to date is a compelling blend of blue-collar romance, yearning and acquiescence.   

Todd Hido Witness 7 (2009)

It is the guy heading homeward after a long shift on the car assembly line. It’s late; he’s exhausted, stained and craving love and quiet comfort. He buys flowers, any flowers on the way, from some small late night brightly lit store and heads back home to his girl. She kisses his rough, ashen face and holds the blooms to her nose. In the subdued light of their traffic lit rooms, she smells oil, grease, dirt on petal and stem.

‘…All flowers should smell like this…’ she says, touching his weary skin.

Powdered Wing – Hermessence ‘Cuir D’Ange’ by Hermès

I know there are diehard fans of Jean-Claude Ellena out there, prowling the Hermès boutiques, following his every cultured move out there in the scented ether but I sometimes find his work a little on the aloof side, but then this may be the point. It is never less than intriguing however, he is a careful perfumer, who has evolved into an aromatic water-colourist of impeccable and impressionistic skill.  

He is unquestionably one of the most influential noses of all time. His trademark use of spiced ozonics and his relentless study of transparency and water in perfumery has made his work intrinsically vital and much copied during his olfactive lifetime. Not content with just creating scent, he also holds forth on the subject in a number of precise and philosophical journals including a strange and elliptical novel, La Note Verte, published last year.

He has been the in-house nose now at Hermès since 2004, in sole charge of shaping and presenting the House’s aromatic personality. Famously he only creates when the muse visits him. This is quite unusual and demonstrates the strong belief Hermès have in his abilities. He is a notorious perfectionist, his honed, skeletal work is transparently beautiful, assembled with a painterly eye rare in commercial perfumery.

Jean-Claude Ellena

While Hermès is perceived as a luxury brand, the fragrances now occupy a slightly blurred area between luxury and high street with other luxury brands such as Annick Goutal, Serge Lutens and Creed, who while not exactly cheap are not exactly hugely overpriced either. Hermès are quite careful about distribution; the more exclusive Hermessence line and some of the more limited editions such as the lock bottles and the recently tweaked Bel Ami Vetiver are only available in Hermès boutiques or exclusive concessions.

The Veiled Empress of Extreme – ‘Myrrh Casati’ by Maison Mona di Orio

It was always going to difficult imagining what those left behind in the wake of Mona Di Orio’s sudden death in 2011 would do when metaphorically speaking, they had to rise and inhale the raw materials of reality. Moving the House on would be complex and fraught with emotion. Her partner and cofounder, Jeroen Oude Sogtoen had built the House around her. Together, they had created a strong blueprint of scented identity, an elegant signature written indelibly across the memories of the maison.. a house of luxury, warmth and constancy.

Mona’s legacy was of course extraordinary; her Nombres D’Or collection redefined in exquisite detail the perfections, nuances and weather of classic perfumery tenets. Each year, as we approach the anniversary of her death, electronic and breathing keepers of the flame remember her, wear her fragrances and flood social media with emotional remembrance. We honour her best of all by clothing ourselves in her precious odours and allowing ourselves to wander amid complex and distinctive fumes.

A Floral for All Seasons -‘My Burberry’ by Francis Kurkdjian for Burberry

The Fox loves his florals, ivory, snow white and blinding, veiled, gauzy and dazzling. It feels like the wearing of light, my skin adores gardenia, ylang ylang, orange blossom, lily, jasmine, sweet pea and tuberose. It is the inhalation of carnality and innocence both glittering and corrupted. As a man too, there is subversion in the lavish embrace of florals. It is unexpected and sly with a nod to transgression and bygone dandyism. I think boys smell beautiful in blooms but then I am biased. Wrap a guy in roses, Madonna lily and rubbered fleshy ylang I can lose my scented mind.

Floral notes dominate both high street and niche main themes or frameworks for other formulations. In niche the flower is often diva driven signature…my gardenia… my rose... my multifarious jasmines. Perfumers like to imagine their shadowed violet, filthy rose or resinous mulchy muguet is the definitive version. The high street has its fair share of soliflores but they err on the side of feeble or just plain poisonous. Sometimes it’s a budget thing or the lack of a coherent brief or perhaps just olfactory fatigue setting in.

Sometimes I feel though an opportunity to really explode the diversity of white florals is missed. I like the concept of bouquets. In real life they can of course be dull and generic mixes of standard blooms but in the hands of talented green-fingered artists like my friends Fee and Tal who run the ridiculously gorgeous Pyrus Flowers from a walled garden outside of Edinburgh they become shimmering, emotional gatherings of leaf, petals, tone, shade and scent. The same applies to fragrance; it is not enough just to gather together floral motifs such as rose, jasmine, gardenia, wrap them in green and lay them on wood and earth with perhaps a dash of ozonics and white musks to suggest sky and rain. The Pyrus gals assemble with sensual intent, every stamen, pod, stalk, leaf, bud and fruit has its role to play in the overall composition of what the girls are trying to achieve. Combining this attention to detail with quirky containers and presentation allows the floral work to be interpreted in a joyous and interactive way.

I am intrigued by the occasional appearance of oddities in mainstream scent that question one’s perception of accessible fragrances. Some of these scents approach floral perfumery in a similar way to the Pyrus gals, creating bouquets of flowers in fragrances, challenging the general conception that the high street is a wasteland of innovation.   

I always sample new releases across the board, but there is immense satisfaction and joy to be had in finding something beautifully crafted and just a little leftfield from big name houses and designer labels. Who can forget how extraordinary Michel Almairac’s delicious leather and iris eau de parfum was for Bottega Veneta in 2011? It was one of the best new fragrances, niche or mainstream for years. Almairic was also responsible for the delicate Chloe L’Eau De Chloe that he drenched through with rosewater and rose petals and seductive vintage lemonade effect of soft dewy citrus notes.

Balenciaga’s Florabotanica was another interesting example of mainstream oddity. Launched in 2012 and created by Olivier Polge and Jean-Christophe Hérault, it was a scent that really rattled me on first sniff and compelled me to purchase. I go through bottles of it, imagining a sci-fi garden scent, created by colonists on a distant planet. There was a lot of PR and press nonsense about carnivorous blooms and the darkness of Florabotanica’s allure, but it was the subversive flattening out of the floral accords with very unusual metallic minty pressure that made the scent so distinctive and glorious to wear with abandonment.

Francis Kurkdjian is one of the most well known names in the fragrance world, one of the perfumed elite. Born in Paris to Armenian-French heritage he originally thought to dance, but fate led him to perfume instead and a career creating thoughtful quiet fragrances that err on the luxurious silken side.

He is probably best known as the creator of the iconic juggernaut lavender that is Le Mâle for Jean Paul Gaultier back in 1995. Despite the enormous global success of this scent, Kurkdjian has managed to combine a unique position in the perfume world of producing shimmering chic niche for his own stand-alone eponymous house while still remaining one of the most stylish scented guns for hire in the business.

Now, first off, I have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of Maison Francis Kurkdjian, blasphemous as that may sound. There was tremendous excitement when FK announced his intention to deliver his own collection of scents after years of collaborating with other designers and big name houses. I know the FK line is much-beloved and I’ll admit there are petals and curves that are very beautiful. His original Oud is dexterous and creamily moreish and I am partial to the plummy depths of Lumière Noire Pour Femme, a powerhouse rose/patchouli executed with subtle force. Would I buy them? Probably not. It is undoubtedly an elegant and covetable brand with a luxury price tag but it leaves me rather cold. The look of his maison is cool Margiela-like white, everything has the feel of luxury wedding stationary. White, cream, gold, embossing etc. The bottles are very cool though, with their heavyweight metal tops, très tactile and desirable.

I think Kurkdjian does some of his most interesting work for other people, held captive as it were within a brief, looking at a brand, examining parameters, counting costs. This is certainly true of Carven Le Parfum, Parfum Elie Saab and Rumeur for Lanvin back in 2006, three fragrances I tend to always have in my Foxy wardrobe. These bright, sharp florals are sources of light and sensuous cheer in moments of darkness and shadowed days. I cant quite put my finger on why I like them so much if I’m really honest, I just know that in the last 6-8 years my senses have craved white flowers at certain times. Searching for the perfect ivory scented blooms it seemed the majority of the ones I have loved were been signed by one man: Francis Kurkdjian.  

The Carven, Lanvin and Elie Saab fragrances all bear his hallmark glamour and and sense of glittering simplicity. They may be considered mainstream or high street fragrances but sit amongst my all time favourite florals. The gentle, circumspect bouquet of Carven Le Parfum’s sweet pea, white hyacinth and jasmine was an enchanting release from Carven, the first new fragrance release under the artistic directorship of Guillaume Henry. 

Kurkdjian’s jasmine and orange blossom soaked debut scent for Lebanese designer Elie Saab was just thrilling to smell after so many mediocre feminine launches. It appeared at the same time as Almairac’s Bottega Veneta scent. He used sambac and grandiflorum jasmine and glazed them with a rose honey accord. This is divine perfumery; each time I wear it I marvel at the way the floral notes are seamlessly assembled over a shimmering raft of woods and patchouli. Elie Saab Le Parfum is bolder and warmer in tone than the Carven, which perhaps fades a little too quickly from its truly lovely apricotty breezy top.

Lanvin’s Rumeur… sigh. How much do I love this damn scent? Nine empty 100ml bottles much.. Launched in 2006 and obviously sharing a name with an original and very different Lanvin scent from 1934 created by André Fraysse. Re-using this name annoyed a lot of scent-nerds who felt it was disingenuous and misleading. But I think Alber Elbaz wanted to reference the house’s important heritage, while playing with the notion of rumours, whispers and the fickle nature of couture in general. My god it’s strong too, it just lasts and lasts, radiating its huge crystalline magnolia shimmer for hours. It’s my scented drug… there are times when I just drown in it and fall into to clean sheets, almost dizzy and blind on the fountain of aldehydes and icy petals. 

Kurkdjian said of Rumeur:

‘Being a perfumer is a bit like being a magician, it’s about realising your vision of someone else’s emotions. It took all my energy for six months to come up with the right formula for Rumeur because for me, it was not just about mixing raw materials, it’s about creating a memory that will last.’

(Francis Kurkdjian, ‘Fragrance Focus – Cosmetics International’ 18/08/2006.)

To this favoured trio must now be added the shockingly good new release from Christopher Bailey’s iconic Burberry. I say shocking because despite the enormous revenue Burberry (and Burberry Prorsum) generates as a successful global brand, they have seemed forever incapable of producing a scent of any distinction. Everything has been oddly naff and off-centre, unable to truly capture the undeniably stylish spirit that lies under the avalanche of mackintoshes, ubiquitous check and perversely tacky memorabilia created for Burberry’s overseas clientele.

There has been a relentless attempt to woo the youth market, overseas Asian, US and hip London scenesters with London, Brit, Rhythm, Beat and the vaguely improved reach of Body created by the surprising choice of Michel Almairic. Body’s silky take on the neo-chypré pointed to a potential development in quality in the Burberry scent department. Mind you this was all but destroyed by the utterly heinous flankers…. The Intense version was loud enough to flatten houses. One of my boutique clients, a man with wonderful taste in scent, a devotee of Serge Lutens, singles out Burberry Brit Rhythm, by the all star triumvirate of Anne Flipo, Olivier Polge and Dominique Ropion as his worst scent of all time.

Now, on an enormous (and very gorgeous) wave of Testino-lensed publicity we have My Burberry, a truly ravishing and juicy floral scent encapsulating the charm, eccentricity and reserve of British Burberry and more specifically the iconic charm of the classic Sandringham mac. The hype built up on this mega-launch for quite some time, particularly around the pairing of Kate Moss and Cara Delevigne working together in Mario’s undeniably lavish and sexy campaign. The carefree teaser pics of the models laughing on set, under artificial rain, naked under tightly belted trenchcoats made the imminent release of the perfume much more desirable.

There is genuinely lovely chemistry in the Cara/Kate shoot, both women, unconventionally alluring, rebellious and unpredictable. I’ve adored Kate for as long as I can remember, since I first saw her in The Face Magazine all those years shot by her friend the late Corinne Day, waiflike and disturbingly knowing. Cara I’ve taken my time to warm to, her face-pulling, sexed up street antics, the bi-sexuality, pretention and privilege were hard to take for a while. But in the last year she has become a spectacular model, walking runways with coltish, raw sexual energy and her face adapts to so many campaigns with seeming ease and chameleon charm. Testino seems to adore them both, (he has shot Kate for years) and has managed to capture a moment of perfect poise and status as befits the Burberry brand. But if you look a little closer, you will glimpse the polished thigh, the glint of sex under the carefully styled trench. The shoes catch my eyes, the girls’ ankles bound in leather straps, a counterpoint to the folds and gloss of hair and gabardine. It is a knowing campaign, pitch perfect in its calm, persuasive intent. But the awareness of these maverick women, held still in a monochrome momentarily is deceptive. It is a statement of surface versus the glory of juicy reality.

I have wondered for years why, with so much money to play with, Burberry have not produced better scents. I think the answer is, it is easier not to. Now however, with the luxury market becoming ever more cutthroat and demanding, it is not enough anymore for brand with the global status of Burberry to throw out duty-free style perfumery and hope the money comes rolling in. My Burberry is a HUGE advance in style and execution. The ownership implied in the name relates to the iconic Burberry trench, made in gabardine, a form of densely woven worsted twill with more warp to weft, invented by Thomas Burberry back in 1879 and patented in 1888. It is a staple item of any fashionista’s wardrobe, belted, loose, over the shoulders; the Burberry trench seriously never goes out of style.  

Even when the brand was brought to the brink of extinction by chav-tastic celebs and thugs decked out in fake Burberry checks, it was the classic beige trench, belted with discreet flashes of check that stood the test of time. Vintage ones are highly sought after. You have them for life, they mature and mould to you as you shift and move through life. The basic design has been tweaked endlessly over the decades; cut, colour, length, collar, all have succumbed to the vagaries of trends and the demands of foreign markets. But the original, as wrapped around Kate and Cara, is a timeless masterpiece of design, instantly recognisable in silhouette, tone and cut.

Paying homage to this icon is something I’m surprised Burberry haven’t attempted earlier. But in Francis Kurkdjian they have exactly the right perfumer for the brief. This scent had to smell as close to classic as possible, grand, bright and capable of huge generosity of spirit. A little touch of eccentricity and naughtiness would be nice of course. Being a British floral, it couldn’t be too reserved though. Rather like Cara and Kate; sublime and knowing in the campaign, but you know that booze, fags and dirty laughter aren’t too far away.

The heavy-weight bottle is a delight, the oversize faux-horn top a witty homage to the trench buttons and I particularly like the cute gabardine bow, integrated into the neck; this is a delightful and proper reference to Thomas Burberry’s original trench fabric. A lot of effort has gone into making the flacon this effortlessly chic. The trademark Burberry check is limited to a discreet knocked back ochre & olive rendition on the inside of the grosgrain textured box.

I really like this gorgeous rain soaked floral, it smells pretty damn perfect to me. The concept of having a fave old trench you can pick up, throw on and wear with just about anything is very alluring. It speaks volumes about iconic clothing. Burberry, Christopher Bailey and Kurkdjian have approached the creation of the scent in a similar way I think, attempting to formulate a perfume that can be worn with anything, bestowing an instant sense of timelessness. The principal floral motif is sweet pea, slightly creamier and less flounced than the one Kurkdjian used in his Carven Le Parfum. The bergamot is delicate and winsome with the effect of raindrops on urban trellises groaning with blooms. A dusting of peppered freesia heralds a geranium and quince effect which rolls off my skin like unripe Mackintosh (appropriately enough…) apples. Above all, this is reassuringly luxurious fragrance, air-after-rain clean, the notes sparkling as they open, making me smile.

I can’t smell much patchouli to be honest, despite its inclusion in the list of notes, although in many of today’s glassy, glossy launches a patchouli note can really anything from a hint of spice to smoke in your eyes. It very rarely actually smells of the dense, leathery, oily shrub that to me smells of dirty machines and bitter cocoa. It perhaps lays down the odd, rubbed linen effect I pick up in the later stages of the scent, something I find a little out of place amid the honeyed floral ambiance, but no matter, it fades quickly enough. 

It took me a few wearings to focus on the roses, but they are present and correct (damask and Centifolia) and they matter, adding a discernable romantic hue and slo-mo transparency to the beauty of the overall composition. It is an agile scent, despite the languor and elegance of the notes. There is briskness, laughter and defiance in the beauty of Kurkdjian’s masterly manipulation of classic white notes, musks and the concept of a skin bouquet. It’s all about balance. Few perfumers really understand the technicalities or indeed complexities of intricate simplicity quite like Francis Kurkdjian.

The scent returns to the concept of the trench, in the wearing and the settling, the notes like the trench itself, become familiar and mould to the body. The crispness and oddly uptight cluttered sweet pea and freesia duo soften up and become beautifully malleable with time. Everything breathes and flows with the body, My Burberry, your Burberry, my body, your body. I like the idea built into the whole scenyted concept of being asked…

‘You smell beautiful… what are you wearing…?

‘My Burberry..’

Trench or scent. Simple. Classic. Timeless.

For more information on Burberry, including My Burberry, please follow the link below: 

Burberry

The Desolation of Vigil: ‘Foxglove’ by HYLNDS & D.S. & Durga

‘And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone.’

From ‘The Wanderings of Oisin’ by William Butler Yeats

I have been planning this piece for a while, ever since I read David Moltz at D.S.& Durga was working on a new creation for his atmospheric line of olfactive myth and poetry, HYLNDS, a potent oeuvre inspired by the ghostly Celtic hinterlands of Northern Europe.

I’m a huge fan of D.S.& Durga; I think David Seth Moltz and his wife Kavi (Durga) Moltz have created one of the most exciting and truly unique artisan fragrance lines of recent years. Working out of Brooklyn the couple have really stoked the olfactory imaginations of perfume addicts and writers like myself. I feel like a moth pinned on their scented mood board of imagination. Style bibles love them and you only have to Google them to see that the couple are indeed beautiful and perfectly photogenic. David’s background as a musician and Kavi’s architectural training only adds to the artistic layering of this talented duo.

D.S.& Durga started life in 2007 with capsule batches of scent, tonics and colognes made exclusively for friends and family. When David and Kavi got married he created three decadent bespoke scents for the traditionally Indian tri-part ceremony..

‘I made three custom perfumes and sourced really old bottles and vintage trays for each. Every one was delivered to Kavi with a note that was sealed by candle wax.

The first scent was a neroli for party time. I got the rarest expensive thing you could never mass-produce, and that went into an Edwardian–era cut crystal with a silver flip top. That came on a pineapple tray because our wedding was pineapple-themed. For the ceremony, the scent had to be the most rich, unctuous thing. It was daffodil, rose, orange blossom, and super heavy, and came in a little tiny French bottle from the 1940s. Then for the nighttime, it was big and loud and sexy fun with big florals. That one came in a turn-of-the-century round crystal bottle.

Kavi came down the aisle in a super-dramatic red sari with tons of 24-karat gold. I could smell her when she came down that way. I never, ever think I’m trying to capture the scent of love. That sounds corny to me. It was really about her favorite things and complete and utter decadence.’

David Moltz, from ‘5 Perfumers On The Best Wedding Scent’

The Cut 01 August 2014

The emphasis has always been on the made… everything close to hand. You can smell the hard work, dedication and esoteric research that have gone into developing Durga scents. Materials are sourced from a variety of unusual places and painstakingly prepared by David in his atmospheric workshop. I have Mississippi Medicine, Bowmakers and Burning Barbershop in my collection, all of which I just adore, their mingle of pure, guttural notes: smoke, mud, pungent tingling sap, seared limes, violin workshops, shellac and wood dust. The link to my piece on Mississippi Medicine is here, I really loved writing this piece and still think it’s one of the best things I’ve written:

Mississippi Medicine by D.S.& Durga

The weird muffled beauty of Siberian Snow has recently begun to obsess me and will be next I think for the collection. I have never really smelled anything like these dense, textured Durga aromas before; coupled with a haunting sense of lost worlds, faded Americana, art, history and personal topography, the collection of D.S. & Durga fragrances are more like a sheaf of sepia photographs, discovered dust-drenched behind failing walls. They tell stories, evoke memories and imply perhaps that scent might be more than just juice in bottles. They are the ghost towns of American perfumery. Amber-suspended moments of preserved history and scented recall.

There was always a sense with David Moltz though of something else, that while the essences of Durga were rewarding and atmospheric, he was pushing at his definitions as an artist and perfumer. There have been a number of innovative and lovely collaborations: Spent Musket Oil for BKLYN Dry Goods, Rodin for skin guru Linda Rodin and Staghorn Sumac with fellow Brooklynites and neighbours, Joya. All the scented divergences and forays outside the core line, while generally in keeping with the style of the brand’s aromatic motifs hinted at development and a shift in tonal ambition.

This came to fruition in 2013 with the release of HYLNDS, a trio of three quite remarkable eaux de parfums, Bitter Rose, Broken Spear, Isle Ryder and Pale Grey Mountain, Small Black Lake. Anyone that owns these will agree that these perfumes are exceptional. They glow and mutter like magic, suggesting ritual and persuasive alchemy. The perfumes pay homage to the veils of life and love hanging precariously between our worlds and the next, specifically in the Manx, Angle, Irish, Pict, Orcadian, Gaelic histories and mythologies. Many of these cultures have powerful storytelling traditions obsessed with the travelling of love and desire across the shimmering veils.

My first HYLNDS was Spirit of the Glen, the fourth member of the HYLNDS family and David Moltz’s collaboration with the Glenlivet distillery in Speyside. Spirit of the Glen is a dense, swirling scent inspired by the accords and effects produced during the production of Glenlivet 18 malt. Damn, it’s beautiful. A spun out superfine golden incarnation of Scottish eau de vie, shot through with charred casks, pineapple grass, wild grasses, barley, oak and the most delicious pear note which seems to burn across the top of the scent like pale green fire. It is not just a capture of the ethereal spirit itself, but a portrait of the local terroir as well, the windswept grasses and damp air of Speyside.

Living here in Edinburgh, I choose to love the rain, wind, damp and unpredictable climate of these northern tropes. The skies are often low and glowering, the air moist with haar and hops. But I would live nowhere else. If I venture north into the Highlands, I am moved to silence by the sweep and towering awe of the landscape. The colours and textures can shift and change in moments as weather and shadows roll like raging moods across munro, loch and glen. HYLNDS perfumes reflect the hue and cry of these Celtic emotions: stone, lichen, iron, heather, berry, larch, woods, rushes, mist, rain and gelid romanticism. It’s a tricky subject, fraught with dubious Lord of the Rings danger and elven soft-focus nonsense. But the HYLNDS approach is one of chill and isolation, contemplation and stillness. The fragrances feel lost in time; they are scented armour, worn like talismans to protect us now in uncertain times.

Each of the HYLNDS perfumes resonates with something frontier and fabled, an essence of aromas travelling through time. They are fragrances that demand your attention, you need to engage with the aromatic pieces. Like the original Durga line there is signature and mood but this time, there are ghostly traces of dye and tincture, twine and olfactive fibre woven through the formulae.

Bitter Rose, Broken Spear in many ways encapsulates the fierce beauty of HYLNDS, a scent of antique iron smiting wet highland stone, sparks glittering into foggy air. The notes include embers, wild mountain thyme, cubeb (an aromatic sweet pepper), bitter rose, thistle, a lovely creamy nutmeg, smelted iron, amber and cold damp larch. It is the scent of abandoned fires, damp and dewy as the mist trembles on charred wood and stone.

It is the loneliest rose I have worn; a rose forged in dark Celtic nights. I know the scent, it is all around us as the troubled question of identity rolls across Scotland and we ponder the resonance of our own personal histories in the flickering shadow of post-referendum heartache. The iron spear will shatter on bitter rocks, as roses burn in the night. As the scent fades on skin there is a swell of sadness, lost in sweeping rain. It is odd to think of scent having weather, but David Moltz has always composed his work like art, with washes of colour and climate behind the notes. It is necessary. It enforces the beauty of the accords and persuades the wearer they inhabit their own scented landscape.

Foxglove is the latest addition to the HYLNDS line and I bought it blind, convinced it would be extraordinary. It was, but not quite in the way I imagined. I think Foxglove might be David Moltz’s most concealed and dazzling composition to date. It is daring and poignant perfumery by someone who has assembled emotion, story, abstraction and desire into a scent of ephemeral power.

Foxgloves or digitalis (which means fingerlike) has lots of associative folklore, mostly with witchcraft and fairy folk. Their distinctive bell-shaped flowers have over the years led to numerous names such as Bloody Fingers, Witches’ Gloves, Deadman’s Bells and Gloves of our Lady. The tall and stately collections of trumpet-shaped bells come in many shades of speckled and smeared blues, pinks and lilacs. The flowers themselves are poisonous, the main component, digitalin is used to regulate irregular heartbeats, but can kill at higher doses.  An old saying states that foxgloves ‘..can raise the dead and kill the living.’ It was German herbalist Leonard Fuchs who first labelled this most iconic of blooms digitalis as its official Latin and scientific name. Digitabulum is Latin for thimble and Fuchs used the adjectival version. The German word for foxglove is actually fingerhut, the same as thimble. The French call them gantelée or little glove.  

Scandinavian legend has it that fairy folk taught foxes to ring the little floral bells to warn of any approaching hunters. My favourite story is of foxes wearing the bell-shaped flowers on their feet to muffle the sound of their paws as they raided farms and henhouses. The most likely origin of the name sadly probably has nothing to do with foxes, much as it pains me to say it; folksglove is perhaps the original name, in reference to the fairy or little magic folk and over time the name has slurred and corrupted into foxglove. I do prefer the soft-shoed foxes version though…

HYLNDS’Foxglove is about vigil. The desolation of lonely attendance over a love lost to time. The perfume is inspired by the story of Oisin, the Irish warrior poet, his lover Niamh and the mystical land of Tir Na Nog, the tempting Land Of Youth. Foxglove is Niamh, watching devotedly over the final resting place of her lyrical lover. David Moltz visited Oisin’s resting place and found a solitary foxglove about 20 feet from the grave. This lonely bloom, keeping vigil, was the catalyst for David’s perfumery imagination to wander, harvest and paint.

In keeping with the pattern he has set with previous HYLNDS fragrances, Foxglove balances myth and landscape in order to tell its misty story. This signature of the HYLNDS line of background and setting gives the fragrances weather, soil, climate, sound and texture. The environment is vital to David; he absorbs the elements like a olfactory sponge and then leaks them out in tones of ochre, lovat, cranberry, broom, heather, aqua, iron and lichen.

Reading the notes on paper, especially the suede, iris and peach skin lying deep in the base notes made me imagine something very different in style from previous HYLNDS pieces, but I couldn’t quite imagine how these notes would be assembled by David. I just knew it would be beautiful.

It was. The opening burst of hyper-real citrus peel is huge, like a sudden Celtic shower. It has a heady polished aroma which is dazzling in its reach. Champaca and the Queens Anne Lace, a form of wild carrot lend bite and radiance to the swelling pelt effect of soft, supple suede. This note is amplified by the iris and to a certain degree by the weird carrot effect, which smells anisic and woody. It becomes obvious that Foxglove is something out of time and of the future, a masterly echo of classical French perfumery tenets with touches of haunting things to come. Everything is in place for the skin to murmur.. I am Foxglove, I bear Guerlain and Caron in my wild, Brontean genetics. 

It is the remarkable peach skin note that really stuns me in Foxglove. I can’t get over how it has been rendered with such 3D clarity. The odour of ripe peaches is one of life’s most sensual experiences, a scent like none other, heightened I think by the blush velveteen pelt of the fruit. No other fruit has the same sensation. In fragrance it is the luscious anchor of Mitsouko, Jacques Guerlain’s spicy essay in sweet melancholia from 1919. Gucci’s porn-drenched trashy neon Rush from 1999 is soaked in an incendiary peach gauze thrown over the mix and then set on fire. Parfums Mugler used it beautifully in the heady cocoa flanker of Angel in the Le Goût du Parfum series in 2011. The oozing peach added a much-needed balance of tropical sweetness to the dense chocolate and caramel blend.

It is however virtually impossible in this perfumed day and age to create a peach and orris scent without noting echoes of Jacques Guerlain’s haunting and luminous chypré Mitsouko. His legendary 1919 classic was inspired by a character in Claude Farrère’s novel La Bataille about the doomed love affair between a British naval officer and the wife of a Japanese naval admiral during the Russo-Japanese war. Jacques Guerlain was apparently a friend of the author. Mitsouko was the one of the first perfumes to utilise a synthetic peach effect, more specifically C14 aldehyde, technically not an aldehyde, but a lactone: gamma-undecalactone. This revolutionary abstract note in many ways changed perfumery forever and many experts and fragrance historians consider Mitsouko the epitome of concise, exquisite chypré structure. Jacques Guerlain’s magical composition would not be Mitsouko without the orris though, the silvery powdered note extracted from the rhizome of the ghostly iris. It is the eau de parfum concentration of vintage Mitsouko that seems to haunt Foxglove, that Guerlain-esque balancing act between the actuality of sheer, breathing skin and bitter herbal aromatics. The sense of actual furred peach skin is quite distinctive as the rootiness of the orris settles through the jasmine, rose, spice and molten amber. 

Persicol the famous peach lactone base has never really been matched in terms of its unique transformative effect in scent, its ability it create a shimmering sensation of fur and liquidity in the perfumes it was added to. This use of bases (like Prunol, Mousse de Saxe and the infamous Animalis by Albert Fraysse’s Synerome)resulted in perfumes of unparalleled depth, roundness and complexity. Creating the same intensity of effect now is very hard indeed, without the fragrance smelling cheap and empty.

This is why David Moltz’s extraordinary handling of the peach skin effect in the base of Foxglove is so jaw-dropping. It smells so vintage, the call across time to Mitsouko is bold and beautiful and yet it is entirely its own olfactory creature, plush, vibrant and quixotic. Blended to perfection with the nuttiness of the wild carrot and soft glimmered iris.

My friend and perfumer Mr E has been sniffing Foxglove for me and helping me navigate how we think David might have built this rather dazzling effect. It’s fun to wonder. I’m not keen on asking perfumers to give up heir secrets anyway. A little mystery is always more alluring than total transparency.  Mr E helped me with the armomachemical stuff I mentioned above and suggested too that a CO2 extract of peach saturated in fructose/fruanone might also have been used. Another lactone, gamma-octalactone imparts a delicious milky tropical coconut facet to compositions; used with caution, it can add the most subtle and glowing effect of fruity light. We can only speculate. David, if you read this – Bravo!  

The immortelle is important as Foxglove settles into its final beautiful stages, laying down stability and a warm shrubby licquorice facet. Mixed with the supple, cool suede and an extremely realistic ambergris effect, all these combine to anchor and draw out a scent with remarkable longevity and projection. There is tenderness too, in the incredibly graceful fade.

I sprayed Foxglove into the crook of a slightly fevered arm and drifted off into erratic sleep. After eight hours the residue was sublimely soft, a diaphanous peachy skein of worn hide, with a sigh of druggy champaca lingering like smoke. It was then I really felt the echoes of a desolate, skeletal Mitsouko, a ghostly presence of pelty skin that demonstrates David Moltz’s precise and imaginative control of his medium.

The mélange of wild carrot (smells a tad like ambrette…), iris and suede provide a swell of aerated texture for the melancholy flounce of peach fuzz and golden odour. Foxglove is quite simply the most captivating creation to wear and perhaps the most refined and surprising perfume to date from the HYLNDS line. 

The eerie, doomed tale of Oisin travelling to Tir-Na-Nog and losing himself in what he thinks is three days of love for the comely Niamh is a compelling romance, forged in darkness and lonely weather-torn elements. The enchantment is carried through into a scent of wonder and singular sorcery. Osin’s return is bleak, his life is gone, every one he has known and loved is gone. His three days was three centuries and life has changed forever. Love is reduced to vigil, a single pink foxglove watching over an eternal resting place.

David and Kavi Moltz are very adept at avoiding the potential clichéd pitfalls of this kind of scented storytelling. Instead of sentiment there is bleakness and the odour of attendance. With Foxglove, there is a potent sense of classicism; we are smelling future skin, the scent of things to come. To all intents and purposes, David Moltz is a resolutely scented time traveller, pulling us back and forth with him in his quixotic quest to re-engineer our senses with didactic wonder. I will travel with him, the inhaling and scented weather will be unforgettable.

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