Boarding Pass & Perfume - where is your next stop? PART II

The Essence of Jerusalem by Ruth Rahat

Photo credit: Ruth Rahat

In 2010 while traveling to Israel I had the experience of thinking of Shelly Waddington's fragrance, Makeda EDP almost every place I went. Fact is that Makeda was inspired by the romance between King Solomon and Queen Sheba, not by Israel itself.

Browsing the internet to look for fragrances inspired by cities, I found The Essence of Jerusalem, a fragrance launched in 2003, created by Ruth Rahat, said to be a delicate oriental feminine perfume, with a vibrant vibe, created with 90 aromatic essences from the Holy Land.

I haven't tried this fragrance, but I can assure you all that I have capture the essence of Israel. Every place I went I collected flowers and plants, herbs and seeds, and the result is what I call the smell of Israel. It is an aromatic, slight floral green scent. The main notes are rosemary and eucalyptus, with a salt breeze of the Dead Sea. Frankly, it is not wearable. It would need some polishing. But every time I miss home, I open the pages were the scent is capture, and I have an olfactory boarding pass to Ben Gurion Airport - TLV.

HIND AL OUD shop in Dubai

Photo credit: the brand

Emirati Mohamed Hilal devoted his time to perfumery since the age of 13, when he used to combine scents belonging to his parents to create new formulas of his own. Before becoming a perfumer, Mohamed Hilal spent 8 years working as a pilot for a major airline company, until 2001, when he substituted clouds of water drops to clouds of fragrances, opening his first fragrance store HIND AL OUD (today there are 50!!).

The perfumes are very exclusive, with luxurious bottles and exquisite fragrances.

In his collection I found an interesting project: he decided to create a perfume that would capture the scent of Dubai. Oqib Al Rouya, or "the vision" is according to him, a fragrance that embraces the old and the new. He created a fragrance that would express all the history of the city in one whiff.

As he explains 'Some ingredients trigger nostalgia', but he does not really disclose the olfactive notes.

The perfumer has also decided to make fragrances to capture the essence of each of the 7 Emirates.

(to read a complete article about the scents, please click HERE)

The Scent of Departure

Photo credit: The brand

The travel trend was explored by Li Edelkoort in her trendtablet, where she posted various pictures of cities, evoking their atmosphere. In the same sense a new fragrance brand is launching its collection - The Scent of Departure. Created by Gérald Ghislain (Les Histoires de Parfums) & Magali Senequier. The Scent of Departure is offering the essence and spirit of destinations that travelers would like to bring home. It is a gift or a souvenir as a reminder of the joyful time they spent while traveling.

The collection will be launched this very April,starting with 20 different EDT perfumes: Abu-Dhabi, Budapest, Paris, Doha, Bali, Dubai, Frankfurt, honk Kong, Seoul, Istanbul, Keflavik, Los angeles, London, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Singapore, Tokyo and Vienna.

From all the olfactive traveling I did this past week, I realized that curiously the city of Miami (Florida) was the most explored among perfumers. Each of them with his own interpretation of the local smells, and the memories evoked.

I also would like to bring  fragrance project that does not exactly capture the smell of the cities it presents, but it brings something very creative as a concept. 

Vanille 44 - sold exclusively in Japan!

Le Labo, apart of the original collection, offers another exclusive collection of 8 fragrances that can be found only in specific cities of the world. Many have critiqued the brand for offering the tuberose only in NYC, or the peppery fragrance only in London, but once they explained to me the idea behind the concept, I found it genius! 

Fabrice and Eddie missed the fact that part of the traveling experience is to find exclusive products in certain places. He gave me the example of Havainas flip flops. As he said to me "it was a Brazilian thing". Only when traveling to Brazil one could have an Havainas. Today it is everywhere, It became a global product. In that sense, they wanted to bring back the souvenir concept to our contemporary days.

If you wish to read the full interview (in Portuguese) click HERE.

The question is, having both lived in São Paulo - Brazil (they actually got to know each other here) we can't find a fragrance sold here exclusive for the following reason - they don't have a single shop in my city... how strange is that???

So here you have it darlings, a way of traveling without living your room. A whiff of a fragrance will take you any place you wish!

I frankly prefer to do the traveling...but I love these ideas anyway!!