A Return to Signature in Fine Fragrance

The term “signature” applies to the memorable characteristics of a fragrance that reflect its unique personality. As the number of fragrances released on the market grows, fewer and fewer creations bear a distinct olfactive mark. Has the etymology of the word "signature" really changed or has the industry forgotten what the word “signature” really means?

We are living in the digital age and rarely see people’s handwriting. Communication arrives after being processed in ones and zeros and our eyes are better acquainted with fonts than the penmanship of friends and loved ones. As a culture we may be losing touch with the importance of handwriting—the very essence of self-expression. A closer look at the weight of signature in our culture sheds light on its absence in fine fragrance.

We often attempt our best penmanship when called to sign legal papers as our entire personhood is embodied in that script. The same is true for letters written to lovers as the desire to present the self in an authentic way is complemented by the element of touch that is attached to letter writing; pen touches paper, fingers fold the page, lips glide across the sealing edge of the envelope. A digital love letter may be read over and over again, but despite the expression of sentiments, the font has been seen by millions, the printing paper used to produce ordinary documents and the actual effort of writing eliminated by spell-check and the backspace key. Author Anne Fadiman says it best in the essay “Eternal Ink:”

“I am surprised by how much I like my computer, but I will never love it. I have used several; they seem indistinguishable. When you’ve seen one pixel you’ve seen them all. As a reader, I often feel that I can detect the spoor of word processing in books, particularly long ones. The writers—no longer slowed by having to change their typewriter ribbons, fill their fountain pens or sharpen their quills—tend to be prolix. I am especially suspicious of word-processed letters which smell of boilerplate. Word-processed addresses are even worse. What a pleasure it is to open one’s mailbox and find a letter from an old friend whose handwriting on the envelope is as instantly recognizable as a face!”
—From Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2000, p 93.

I don’t know what boilerplate smells like, but Ms. Fadiman sounds like a classic fragrance woman to me. Her disdain for formulaic and stereotypical expression reflects the frustration of fragrance connoisseurs who encounter reiterated compositions when seeking fragrances with signature. Today’s perfumers have over 3000 natural and synthetic materials at their disposal, but their efforts to create new signatures are limited by quick turn-around times required by clients. It all comes down to the currency of time, the same time people cannot spend to write letters, the same time I take to write this post in hopes of reaching others who feel that the art of perfumery deserves to be returned to its rightful place.

Signature in fine fragrance is further challenged by reformulation of existing fragrances. Some companies manage to balance the integrity of existing fragrances despite regulations, but those that are simply substituting ingredients in lieu of examining the character of an existing body of olfactive work are destroying historical signatures. Guerlain’s Mitsouko is a tragic casualty of reformulation. A drydown that was once warm and sensual is now metallic, brackish and smells faintly of vomit. Guerlain’s compliance with IFRA’s safety recommendations for oakmoss has resulted in the removal of a key ingredient used in classic Chypre perfumes to support the fragrance category’s structure.

Science confirms there is no sense more powerful than smell when it comes to eliciting memory. When a fragrance no longer exists, memory loses an emotional compass worth grieving. Think of the small joy bestowed by the scent of a classic fragrance that reminds you of someone you loved who is no longer alive, temporarily lifting the veil between heaven and earth. If we can no longer smell the perfume of a departed loved one it is as if they’ve died a second time and taken eternity with them. The empty perfume bottle becomes a relic, a token of commercially foisted amnesia.

Who or what is responsible for the disappearance of signature in fine fragrance? What are researchers’ motivations in recommending the elimination of certain raw materials in perfumery beyond safety? It would be easy if we could blame greed, regulatory issues and risk aversion, but they are not the only culprits.

The pace of our lives has devalued meaning in our culture, replacing it with ignorance, fear and reduced personal contact. If consumers want to see a return to authenticity in fine fragrance creation they must become more authentic themselves. In addition, fragrance marketers must respect perfume’s history if they wish to embrace the heritage of their brands. True authenticity demands this and so do perfume lovers. When a company does not honor the integrity and signature of a fragrance, consumers cannot only smell it, they can fully express their dismay in the digital space. Perhaps the keystroke is mightier than the sword...

Notes:

*IFRA is a self-regulating body of the fragrance industry that seeks to establish safety standards for its members. It enforces compliance through research conducted by its scientific arm, RIFM, who have no commercial ties to the fragrance industry.

Photo from The Beaverton City Library.

The Aromatic Allure of Tahitian Vanilla

Tahitian vanilla's unique floral aroma has made it a favorite choice among chefs who use it to flavor pastry cream, crème brûlée and ice cream. It's taste differs in subtle ways from the more commonly used Bourbon vanilla. Tahitian vanilla (Vanilla tahitensis) is floral and fruity, its plump cured pods exuding notes of cherry, raisin, musk, lactones and anisic aldehydes. In contrast, Bourbon vanilla beans (Vanilla planifolia) exude sweet, woody tobacco notes. You can bring the beauty of vanilla beans into your kitchen by making an infusion in vodka. The infusion process, which is used to create tinctures and elixirs, is also known as maceration.

Tahitian vanilla may contain less vanillin than the Bourbon variety, but it possesses heliotropin, a distinguished molecule that has garnered attention in the medical community. In 1991 Drs. William Redd and Sharon Manne, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, conducted tests utilizing the diffused molecule and found that the odor of heliotropin reduced anxiety in cancer patients receiving magnetic resonance imaging scans. Folklore has always promoted the aphrodisiac and stomachic properties of vanilla, but it seems that science has made vanilla's benefits more tangible.

Regional crop size, limited harvests and the requisite hand-pollination of blossoms make Tahitian vanilla expensive and difficult to procure. Inferior beans and imposters exist, but The Spice House in Chicago has managed to develop relationships with distributors of genuine Tahitian vanilla beans. Their Tahitian Vanilla Beans are rich, plump and highly flavorful. You can purchase the extract, but making Tahitian vanilla infusion is an indulgent pleasure that every sensualist should experience. Don’t let the cost of bona fide beans and premium vodka stop you; experiencing something authentic and precious is a worthwhile luxury.

Tahitian Vanilla Infusion
Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd

Ingredients:
6 Tahitian Gold Vanilla Beans
1 375ml bottle of vodka

Instructions:
· Using the tip of a sharp knife, gently run the blade along the length of a vanilla bean to expose the seeds, making sure the bean stays intact and is not cut in half. Place the bean inside the bottle of vodka and repeat with the other five beans.

· Seal the vodka bottle and gently shake five to ten times. Store the infusion in a cool, dark place.

· Shake the contents twice a week for the first two weeks and macerate for an additional ten weeks, undisturbed. The Belvedere vodka bottle is imprinted with a bare white tree. When the Tahitian vanilla is properly macerated there will be a strong contrast between the color of the tree and the dark amber color of the infusion. The black lettering on the bottle should be barely visible at the 12th week of maceration.

Notes:
Maceration does not duplicate the making of an extract. What is being created is a flavored tincture. The use of several split beans macerating over a three-month period will produce an intensely flavored infusion. Use twice the vanilla recommended in a recipe when baking or cooking with a mature infusion.

Belvedere Vodka (derived from rye) is a neutral spirit that possesses nuances of vanilla in the nose and body. Bourbon isn't recommended for macerating Tahitian Vanilla because it adds a quality of woodiness that detracts from the bean’s fruity floral flavors. Bourbon whisky is appropriate for macerating Bourbon vanilla beans, which possess darker flavor tones.

Want to learn more about vanilla? Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Ice Cream Orchid by Tim Ecott and Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World's Favorite Flavor and Fragrance by Patricia Rain are great places to start.

Photo of Ecstasy Singing by Krista Lynn Brown can be viewed on Devaluna. An inspired collection of beautiful paintings by the artist are for sale on the site.

Medlar: The Fruit of Misunderstanding

This month confectioner Pierre Marcolini added medlar to his stable of fruit rich jams at his New York boutique. The concentrated reduction is speckled with Madagascar vanilla, which naturally highlights the fruit’s autumnal flavors. The medlar is no ordinary fruit; it has inspired reverence and revulsion because of its obscure ripening process.

The center of a medlar flower invites curiosity and introspection. Flirtatious stigmas and stamens reflect the self-fertilizing nonchalance of a fruit which is edible when it borders on rotting. As the medlar fruit matures on the tree it resembles an apple with a crown at its bottom. Its nether region is the source of risqué references in literature, including this one from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (II, 1, 34-38):

"Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!"

After medlars are picked they are stored calyx end down and allowed to overripen. This process, referred to as “bletting,” permits the breakdown of starches into sugars. As the flesh softens the inside of a medlar begins to resemble applesauce. It is precisely at this time that notes of cider, spice and the musk of ripe apricots develops. There is short window of time between edible and rotten, which has led to adoration by connoisseurs and disgust by those who cannot contend with the medlar’s fermentation. The fruit is more tenacious than those who have no patience for its obscurity. In addition to being self-pollinating the medlar can set fruit without pollination—nature’s reckoning for those who misunderstand this amazing fruit.

Medlars may be eaten raw, cooked or baked. Jellies are commonly made as the fruit is naturally rich in pectin. Pierre Marcolini’s Medlar Jam tastes great on toast, fresh brioche or with Silk Road Spice Cake, a recipe I’ve developed to complement the flavors in the medlar. The cake is best served warm with touch of jam. If you favor decadence, a scoop of vanilla ice cream will do nicely.

Silk Road Spice Cake

Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd

Yield: 2 cakes

Ingredients:

· 4 cups Arrowhead Mills® Organic Whole Grain Pastry Flour
· 1/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill® Ground Golden Flaxseed Meal
· 1 cup granulated sugar
· 4 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
· ½ teaspoon baking soda
· ½ teaspoon salt

· 4 tsp. Penzey's China Cassia Cinnamon
· 2 tsp. ground coriander seeds
· 2 tsp. organic orange zest
· ½ tsp. ground cloves
· 1 tsp. ground allspice
· 1 tsp. ground ginger
· ½ tsp. ground mace
· ½ tsp. ground nutmeg
· 3 tsp. Penzy's Double Strength Vanilla (Madagascar)
· 5 ounces golden raisins (picked through for stems)
· 2 ½ cups low-fat, “no salt added” buttermilk
· ½ cup grapeseed oil
· 4 large egg whites

Instructions:
· Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
· Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add spices and flaxseed meal. Mix all of the dry ingredients together.
· In a separate bowl mix egg whites and vanilla extract.
· In another bowl mix buttermilk, orange zest and grapeseed oil. Add the vanilla and egg white mixture and incorporate.
· Add golden raisins to the buttermilk mixture.
· Make a well in the center of the bowl containing the dry ingredients and add wet ingredients, gently folding until everything is well mixed.
· Fill two 8 ½ x 4 ½ x 2 ¾ greased loaf pans and set on the center oven rack. Bake for approximately 50 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean).
· Remove cakes from the oven and allow them to cool on a wire rack.
· Store cakes in the refrigerator. Slices can be served at room temperature or warmed up.

Notes:

Pierre Marcolini’s Medlar Jam retails for $16. The store is located at 485 Park Avenue, between 58th and 59th Streets in New York City. 212-755-5150

Photo of medlar flower by Michiel Thomas on Flickr.

Photo of medlar fruit by Anne Miek Bibber on Flickr.

Photo of bletting medlar from The Cat’s Tripe.

Perfume Memories: Mitsouko

Adolescence is a strange and awkward time, yet it is in this period of life that we encounter sensory experiences that stay with us forever. When I look back on my adolescent days I recall feeling like no one could see who I was. I remember the nostalgic and admiring looks given to me by my parents’ friends, many of whom foisted their own experiences and expectations on my “potential” without giving any thought to my individuality. Though their intentions were good, I found their perspective extremely irritating. I retaliated by engaging in intellectual mutiny and though I was generally well-behaved, there was a distinct period when I did not enjoy spending time with my parents' friends. There was one exception, a beautiful woman named Aldona who reveled in decorum and femininity unlike any woman I had ever known. Aldona saw me for who I truly was, irrespective of the past or the future. Under the tutelage of her blue-eyed gaze she held a mirror to my senses and introduced me to myself.

Though she died nineteen years ago I can still hear her voice, its cadence wrapped in a soft Polish accent radiant with charm, wit and passion. With or without makeup, Aldona’s face was beautiful to look at. She was graced with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes and thick sable blonde hair which she kept up in a bun. Time, war and cigarettes gave her laugh lines and crow’s feet, but there was something about the way she carried herself that softened everything. If you stared at her face long enough, you could pull back the years and see her at twenty, lit up from inside, devastatingly beautiful.

My mother and I would regularly visit Aldona for tea and it was at her table that I first sipped Earl Grey. I had always associated tea drinking with being sick and never experienced it as a relaxing ritual, replete with porcelain teapots and cups. A refreshing floral aroma rose above the steam in my cup and my inquisitiveness was instantly stirred. Compelled by the need to know what was moving my senses, I asked Aldona about the aroma. She handed me a yellow Twinning’s tea tin and I learned the name of an ingredient that would become a lifelong favorite; bergamot. After drinking Earl Grey I gave up dabbing Love’s Fresh Lemon behind my ears and graduated to a more sophisticated fragrance; Max Factor’s Khara (1976), a fragrance which contained bergamot in the top note.

There were never any men at the tea table and in their absence matters of beauty would be discussed with abandon. This was preferable to conversations about World War II which would inevitably crop up if Aldona’s husband (a former soldier in the Polish army) and my father (a teenage survivor of Auschwitz) were tempted by tea and cookies. Once a month, Aldona was visited by an Avon lady named Rae who would deliver makeup and fragrance to her home. Eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, anything with color intrigued and excited Aldona. It was 1978 and I was in high school. Color appealed me and it was Aldona who convinced my mother that color cosmetics were not the enemy if they were used with discretion. In 1978, the same year Poland’s Karol Jósef Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, I became the proud owner of a few Avon eye shadow sticks.

It was shortly after my induction into eye shadow that the subject of perfume came up at the tea table. Aldona began speaking about Guerlain’s Mitsouko with the honey-like sweetness of someone peacefully talking in their sleep. When she said Mitsouko it was as if she had unleashed everything that shaped the woman she had become. Mitsouko was an eternal bookmark on a favorite page lovingly committed to memory for safekeeping, a symbol of femininity. Aldona got up from the table and went into her bedroom, returning with an ivory-handled hairbrush. She released her hair and began brushing it in long strokes as she spoke about how much she loved Mitsouko. I was mesmerized by the way her hair fell in thick streams across her shoulders, how it made her eyes brighter, her words more intense, everything about her more alive.

Aldona’s impenetrable spirit was no match for a weak heart. Eleven years later, in the month of March, the family dog began barking and crying at her bedside, rousing her sleeping husband. My parents told me that that Aldona was in the throes of a heart attack and died in her husband’s arms that morning. I was deeply saddened and at a loss for words, but moved by the way she left this world. I imagined her in a white cotton dressing gown, hair unfettered, meeting eternity like a beautiful heroine. I think of her every time I open a bottle of Mitsouko and the top note of bergamot hits my nose…

Florida at Dawn

The moon is low in the sky,

And a sweet south wind is blowing

Where the bergamot blossoms breathe and die

In the orchard’s scented snowing;

But the stars are few, and scattered lie

Where the sinking moon is going.

With a love-sweet ache a strain

Of the night’s delicious fluting

Stirs in the heart, with as sweet a pain

As the flower feels in fruiting,

And the soft air breathes a breath of rain

Over buds and tendrils shooting.

For the sweet night faints and dies,

Like the blush when love confesses

Its passion dusk to the cheeks and eyes

And dies in its sweet distresses,

And the radiant mystery fills the skies

Of possible happinesses,

Till the sun breaks out on sheaves

And mouths of a pink perfume,

There the milky bergamot shakes its leaves;

And the rainbow’s ribbon bloom,

Of the soft gray mist of the morning, weaves

A rose in the rose’s loom.

The fog, like a great white cloth,

Draws out of the orchard and corn,

And melts away in a film of froth

Like the milk spray on the thorn;

And out of her chamber’s blush and loath,

Like a bride, comes the girlish morn.
Source: Excerpt from: Harney, Will Wallace. "A Florida Dawn" Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June. 1875, Volume 51, Issue 301, pp. 66–67. Listen to the poem being read via MP3 here, courtesy of Lit2Go.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Aldona Joskow.