Ice instead of flame: 7 scents with the smell of snow and great north
Text: Ksenia Golovanova, author of the telegram channel Nose Republic
For winter, more often prepare lists of warm and burning flavors, but we are sure that sometimes it is pleasant not to resist the weather, especially if the first snow is a holiday for you. We asked our perfume critic Ksenia Golovanov to collect the best flavors with a chill at the base - or even absolutely icy.
Craft
Andrea Maack
€98
for 50 ml
In one of the poems of the "Elder Edda", Odin lists the names of his Valkyries: Christ - "Awesome", Mist - "Misty", Hild - "Battle", Labor - "Strength", Hlekk - "Noise". These words form a tag cloud, which is quite possible to describe Sraft Icelandic artist Andrea Maak - incense fog on the battlefield, frosty clang of swords, salty perspiration on their foreheads. The contrast of cold aldehydes and metal with hot, spicy resins creates the effect of living in inanimate: northerners are fighting for the land on frozen frozen wasteland.
L'eau froide
Serge Lutens
7550 rub.
for 50 ml
A few years ago, the brilliant Swedish duo Simogo released the iOS-game Year Walk, the darkest and to the same extent elegant horror, which takes place in a snowy night forest on Christmas Eve. The protagonist, following Swedish belief, walks out of the house at midnight and goes to the church to perform the Oshgan (Swedish Årsgång), a ceremony that allows you to see the future. Of course, between the hero and his insights there is every kind of evil: girls with cows tails, dead babies and the owner of the river Nekk, watery with a horse's head. L'Eau Froide smells like that ghostly water: incense cold, melting snow, river herbs and small water colors - by the way, water lilies in Scandinavia are called “nekk roses” (näckrosor or nøkkeroser).
Artek Standard
Comme des garçons
9300 rub.
for 100 ml
This fragrance Comme des Garçons was made together with the Finnish furniture factory Artek (emphasis is placed on the first syllable), founded by the architect and designer Alvar Aalto in 1935. The company's products are known for not becoming obsolete either morally or physically: its design remains relevant decades later, IKEA thinks in particular, who, without a twinge of conscience, borrowed the look of its famous stool from the Stool E60, model 1932. No matter how ridiculous, the IKEA warehouse is most often remembered when meeting the "Standard": indeed, it smells like wood chips, metal chips and new pencils. But still fennel, lemon and spicy wild herbs - not a warehouse, but a trendy restaurant in Helsinki.
Chanel number 5
Chanel
7925 rub.
for 50 ml
The classic "Five", perhaps not the most obvious thing in our chilling selection, but got into it by birth. Speaking with a lecture in 1946, perfumer Ernest Bo told how he invented the fragrance, which later became the best-selling in the world: "Part of my military campaign took place in northern Europe, behind the Arctic Circle, during the midnight solstice, when lakes and rivers radiate a special freshness. I have retained this characteristic smell in my memory, and after much effort and work I managed to recreate it. " North of Europe, about which the perfumer speaks, - Arkhangelsk region. Here in 1919, Bo, the son of a Russianized Russian, was the commandant of the Red Army prisoner camp on Mudyug Island (which, of course, did not apply at lectures), he also spotted it, or rather “sniffed” the notorious freshness of pure northern water. He translated it into the perfumery language with the help of a mixture of certain aldehydes - synthetic compounds that have a complex smell of abstract purity. The imaginary north of Bo probably coincided with the most important codes of childhood, Gabrielle Chanel, which passed in the shelter at Obaza Abbey: whitewashed walls, sheets, boiled in copper vats with gentian root, a precious piece of soap in a weekly ration, in other words, with purity.
North
Mendittorosa
16200 rub.
for 100 ml in Grasse C.L.U.B boutique.
The medallion attached by a leather cord to the bottle will tell you exactly what the north meant: the coordinates stamped on it correspond to the Danish city of Aarhus. The neighbors in the region are often called the Danes "Scandinavian Latin Americans" - in comparison with the Swedes, the Icelanders and the Norwegians, they really seem more vital and relaxed, especially through the children of funny Danish bars. This is also the North (probably because it was made by a Frenchwoman and an Italian): under the cloud veil of incense and aldehydes, from which most of the flavors in our northern collection begin, some early citrus flowers bloom hard, pale shoots break through the frozen ground and thaw the urban granite slabs.
L'eau d'hiver
Frédéric malle
8800 rub.
for 30 ml
Translated from the French L'Eau d'Hiver means "winter water", but the company called the fragrance eau chaude - warm water. There is no contradiction here: due to the brilliantly arranged contrasts of cold and hot (and also, oddly enough, wet and dry) L'Eau d'Hiver conveys that typical winter feeling when you come home from frost and chilly and hot at the same time. Weightless, like condensation on misted glasses, at one time, “Winter Water” fell like a lead load on Jean-Claude Ellen’s shoulders - the perfumer could not find a suitable pair of fragrant opposites needed for the effect described above. And when I found it, they became Hedione, a synthetic substance with a clear, watercolor jasmine scent, and a warm, powdery, vanilla-almond heliotropin — for another two years I calibrated these jewelery scales. With similar accuracy to Ellen, the winter was weighed except for Tove Jansson and Caspar David Friedrich.
De bachmakov
The Different Company
16 500 rub.
for 100 ml
Thierry de Bashmakov - the famous designer of bottles Bvlgari, Kenzo, Dior, Balmain and co-founder of The Different Company - the grandson of a Russian officer who fled from Russia to France in 1917. Russia is keenly interested in, and the interest translates into work: De Bachmakov - aerial photography of Siberian taiga, shot without zoom, but in all its glory of icy greenery and endless chalk slopes along large cold rivers. If you are close to the Siberian theme in perfumery, try in addition to "Bashmakov" a good and inexpensive Terra Incognita Siberia, Brocard - fresh, icy lilies of the valley under the trees.
PHOTO: stormfashion, iledebeaute, rivegauche, giraofertas, mendittorosa, rivegauche, articoli