Monday, May 24, 2010

Rose Poivrée EDT by The Different Company

ROSE POIVRÉE EDT BY TDC
Launch: 2002
Perfumer: Jean Claude Ellena
Olfactive Family: Floral - rose
Olfactive Notes: Damask Rose, Centifolia Rose, rose berries, pepper, pink pepper, coriander, civet and vetiver.
Description by the Brand: A unique sensual rose, blended with warm peppery notes.
Description by + Q Perfume Blog: DELICATE, PEPPERY, CLASSY
Silage: Good
Fixation: Good
Concentration: Eau de Toilette
Rating: ✿✿✿✿
Where:
✿✿✿✿✿ - Perfectly reconstructed!
✿✿✿✿ - Brilliantly designed!
✿✿✿ - Should last just like every other rose bouquet.
✿✿ - Just another rose...
✿ - that was a rose?
As May is almost saying me goodbye, I am amazed how fast the landscape changed, how fast the temperature dropped this weekend, and how beautifully this week started. I felt so sick these last weeks that I almost missed what is considered one of nature's best gifts: to close the eyes, and fully capture the smell of roses on a sunny day of May. The fresh, soft, delicate scent, that only roses can produce, and once captured, transformed and translated into a sense of inner peace, of comfort and calmness. A simple gift nature gave to us during one entire month, that once in a while is also captured by brilliant perfumers.
In 2002 Jean Claude Ellena created a beautiful perfume called Rose Poivrée, for a Niche brand called The Different Company. A company founded in 2000, by Ellena himself, his daughter, perfumer Céline Ellena, and art director Thierry de Baschmakoff, responsible for the design of the flacons.
Constructed with two different types of roses - the Damascena rose and the Centifolia, Rose Poivrée EDT is one of my favorite rose perfumes.
DAMASCENA ROSE OR DAMASK ROSE
The opening of this perfume is very spicy. Little pink peppercorns are crushed and sprinkled on the skin, releasing a vibrant, warm and deliciously vivid fragrance.
The association of pepper and rose is not new. You will find it in many rose perfumes. It is a duet that perfumers know how to play. The secret is to know the balance between the two and the undertones to be added.
Here, the woody-fruity scent of the peppers receives a fresh flowery touch of coriander, slightly herbal and green. Coriander is Ellena's magical touch which brings life to dried rose petals. Reality and dream, life and death, recreated inside the same flacon. A fresh flower and its imposing beauty, enriched and embodied by the fragrance of hidden flowers, dried in the pages of a book. The concentrated tea like fragrance of a dried rose - the memory of a hidden love, mixed in a whiff of romance and freshness.
photo credit: Koshka
This fragrance does brings images of classy Ladies from the 1800, with their beautiful draped dresses, embroidered ruffles with pearls, velvety cuffs, wearing fancy hats with feathers and flowers. Ladies of a time where lovers had to wait for letters coming from distant lands. A lady from a time where passions and flames grew with the expectation of an encounter, or diminished due to the lack of the presence of the beloved person, during wars or long journeys. Something hard to understand in times of facebook, e-mails, on line communication and fast divorces.
I also picture sumptuous gardens of palaces, queens of France, exotic journeys to the far lands of Morocco...Grasse...But isn't all that too obvious to be an Ellena creation? I think so.
A little darkness, decay, animalic, pungent touch is to be revealed, and to unleash different senses. A touch of humidity, of wet dark soil. A note of root y, dark and dirty vetiver, with an animal, skin-gland like note. A blend of vetiver and civet. An unexpected new reality to an obvious idea.
There is sadness and the pain of the distant love in it, but it also has the joy and the fulfillment of being loved, of being in love. The perfume brings both comfort of having someone to love, and the energy of having to struggle for it. It mixes the vital energy that makes the heart beat, and the decay of moments that stayed in the past, dried between the pages of old books and hidden envelopes. Life and death. Vitality and lack of it.
DRIED ROSE BUDS
photo credit: www.teacuppa.com
As I write this article and take a glimpse of the last sun rays over the foliage, I think of nature and its cycles, and how these elements are balanced. I think of the month of May - fall in Brazil, where leafs are falling and decomposing; spring in other corners, bringing beautiful blooms and painting vivid colors to pale canvases. I also think of how nice it is to feel alive and healthy, and to be able to smile again.*
I think of Jean Claude Ellena and what a brilliant perfumer he is...and his ability to capture all that in one fragrance. I think of balance as the key word, and the way to reach it.
I think how I missed to write my articles and how I missed the beauty of perfumes.
* in case you don't know...I was sick almost the entire month...yeah...a real pain in the ass!

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