I was contacted by Viktoria Minya, a young Hungarian perfumer, now based in Paris. She asked if she could send me a sample of her debut scent for her eponymous line. I said yes. This is of course no guarantee of a good review, however… the more I read about Ms Minya and her background steeped in the richesse of classical perfumery I had a feeling that Hedonist was going to be something very special indeed. The sample arrived after a worrying postal delay, had it fallen foul of draconian UK postal regulations…? But one morning, there it was. As soon as it melted across my wrist and the heady aromas of peach and smoky blossoms rose into the air I knew I was in love.
Hedonism
is a school of thought that advocates the singular pursuit of pleasure or
devotion to pleasure of the senses. In other words, pleasure is the only good.
It is one of my favourite words (and concepts too if I’m being perfectly
honest…)and I’m surprised that no one has thought to name a fragrance this
before now. It implies a relinquishing of oneself to sensuality, a letting go
of constraints. In an ideal world, all perfumery would do this, but then we
would be continually satiated, exhausted by our own desires.
’I believe that perfume should crown your
day, it should be a source of pure joy, something ceremonial, something
exceptional’. Viktoria Minya
Her
passion for fragrance and outstanding components is very evident in the expert blending
and the instinctual understanding of structure. This glamourous and determined
young woman has spent many years preparing herself. She worked in HR for a
while, aware that the realisation of her perfumed dream would be costly and she
would need different kinds of experiences behind her and financial capital. Spare
time was spent sniffing, sampling, categorising families and fragrances and
planning how her Viktoria Minya line would evolve. Training at the Grasse
Institute of Perfume deepened her knowledge and desire to create something
luxurious and personal from the most beautiful raw materials, something
alluding to the golden age of perfumery, something hedonistic.
The two
notes that strike you as Hedonist
rolls across the skin like erotic smoke are the peach and the tobacco. There is
a hint of pollen and honeycomb too from the CO2 extracted rum at the top of the
perfume. This lingers and drops through the scent like evening sun on a golden
wall. It is simply beautiful, not trying to be clever or edgy, no aromachemical
tricks or sleight of hand. Like a woman in a room unaware of her true
luminosity, Hedonist smoulders like
liquid fire.
This
smoked jazz peachy opening is sublime. If you can imagine the soft fuzz of ripe
peach skin and breaking the tension of this ever so carefully with a nail,
letting the juice ooze out and roll down the flesh. This is the realism and
shock of Viktoria’s fruit note. This drips into the smoke and ashes of a
carefully arranged tobacco effect. I love tobacco in scent; I guess it
subliminally fills the space left behind by my abandonment of Marlboro Lights
and Camels all those years ago. Usually tobacco notes are moist and dark with
treacly hay and leather facets. Hedonist
does something a little different. It draws the note back to ashtrays and
stubbed out broken cigarettes in late night bars and cafes. A nostalgic smell
of my Paris years, overflowing cendriers,
sticky Bastille bar tops and flirty nightcaps.
The rum
adds a sweet poignancy, a whiff of blossom honey that leads the senses down to
the indolic glowing heart of Hedonist.
Indian jasmine, Tunisian orange flower and the delicate tea tones of osmanthus
that beautifully counterpoint the sweet ash accord and peach note. It is the
jasmine however that rises and softly explodes Hedonist across the skin. It is creamy and green with a drizzle of crème de banane that compliments the
vanillic rum note to perfection.
Touches
of Haitian vetiver and Indonesian patchouli have been used like background
colours to give harmony and depth to the fruit and smoke accords. There is lacquer
over these olfactory effects, adding a sheen and antiqued effect as the
fragrance settles out. There is just enough patchouli to singe the peach skin.
It the careful tiptoeing back and forth of sweet, soft, ashen, juicy and
shadowed and sensual that makes Hedonist
so interesting to wear.
I have an
image of Hedonist as a 20s moll, lost
in emotional transit. Beauty on the cusp of exhaustion, swathed in sadness, a
perfect face, flawless skin, and lips red like blood. Her perfume is erotically
sullen and wanders a midnight bar like an unsettled spirit. Smoke from endless
neurotically smoked cigarettes is wreathed into her hair and veil. The cut
glass ashtray in front of her glistens with lipstick stained filters. Beauty,
bravado and vulnerability. All elements reflected in the stylish and
reverential way Viktoria has assembled her influences and materials.
‘I wanted my perfume to be an ode to the
golden age of perfumery……Hedonist is a celebration of the infinite delight of the
senses and it takes you back to the roots of traditional perfumery, it returns
the forgotten and majestic nature of applying perfumes.’ Viktoria Minya
It is difficult
for me to talk about the peach note in Hedonist
without referencing Jacques Guerlain’s masterpiece, Mitsouko from 1919. A classic chypré, Mitsouko has been all but killed by reformulation. It is virtually
unrecognisable as one of the most brilliant and original formulations of all
time. Akin to the shock of seeing favourite old movie stars step back into the
harsh light of day, years kept desperately at bay with repeated surgeries and
needles. They seem like different people, personalities lost somewhere along
the way with crows feet, laughter lines and self-respect. The often denied
re-formulation of fragrances has much the same effect. They may look the same,
have the same name but the reality is a shadow of the original, tweaked and
stretched, cleansed and pinched. No light behind the eyes, dead scent walking.
Roja Dove
in his book The Essence of Perfume wrote:
‘I wore Mitsouko for six months short
of 30 years, but stopped wearing it when I could no longer recognize the
original scent’.
It has
changed so much. This is so sad, it was a truly magisterial perfume to wear.
One felt transported. The luscious peach note (a gently handled C14 aldehyde),
mingling with luminous jasmine and counterpointed with delicate touches of
cinnamon, vetiver and the fabulous oakmoss base. And of course the near
mythical Guerlinade in the base, rich and pervasive, the mysterious blend of
vanilla, rose de mai, orange blossom, bergamot and whatever other touches of
olfactory magic Guerlain add to the mix. When the re-formulation became common
knowledge, fragrance lovers started scouring the world for any original stock.
Olfactory panic set in. Finding any now is nearly impossible. I used to wear
the original as a showy, foul-mouthed club kid, dancing into the early hours
and staggering home to collapse into bed, sweaty and reeking of cigarettes,
Guerlain and boys. Good times.
Jacques
Guerlain was inspired to make Mitsouko
by Claude Farrère’s novel La Bataille
about the impossible love between the wife of a Japanese admiral and a British
officer. Her name is Mitsouko. Desperately in love, but honour bound to hide
her feelings deep inside her heart, Mitsouko’s love is silent and dignified as
she waits for the outcome of a battle to see which man will return to her.
The
jasmine unveils itself slowly in Mitsouko,
as if it too is held back in the heart. The peach note is strong, the skin and
flesh a homage to the white perfect powdered skin of our heroine. It as if she
stands motionless, waiting for her lovers in a trembling wood after spring
rain. The oakmoss base was shadowed and strange, adding a sense of unease and
tension to the formulation. Sadly the punitive regulations of using oakmoss
have cut and slashed Mitsouko and her chypré sisters until their sweet inky raiment
are threadbare.
The trick
to Mitsouko was the suggestion of sweetness, a tantalising
lick of something. The peach added a whisper of flesh. Nowadays, peach notes
are generally used as gourmand overload, sloshed in with little attention to
effect or outcome.
With Hedonist Viktoria Minya has chosen,
however subconsciously, to echo this melancholy peach and jasmine accord but her
translation is more sensual and world-weary. The skin is on fire and the voice
tells a story of loves lost. This only serves to reinforce the exhausted glamour
gangster girl chic that Hedonist
exudes as it rolls over the skin like exhaled plumes of cigarette haze. I love
the rummy pollen facet that smells tawny and golden. This kiss of clever sweetness
reminds you that Hedonist has been
created by a woman who really understands how she would like her own skin to be
scented. The more I wear it, the more I fall under its spell. I was watching a
Dietrich film the other day and realised that the strange and beautiful vision
of Drag Dietrich, smoking provocatively in men’s tenue de soirée was a little like Hedonist…the softness inside the rather outrageous and charismatic
performance. I watched and sniffed my arm until the two became one.
Let’s
talk about the packaging and bottle. I have not actually seen it in the flesh
as it were, but Viktoria sent me some crisp hi-res images. She is a sensualist,
that much is apparent from the juice. But her preoccupation with the senses
extends to the flacon, box and marketing. In an interview with Sandra Raičević
Petrović for Fragrantica, Viktoria mentioned creating a private label fragrance
for Candori, which involved using crystals in the bottle. She has revisited this
idea spectacularly for the Hedonist
concept. Generally speaking I am not a huge fan of suspended elements in
fragrance or booze for that matter. I think it’s a little tacky and gangsta,
something for the cruise ship crowd. However the detail and sheer luxury of
execution have swayed me on this one. Hundreds of Bohemian crystals roll and
flow inside the scented juice like frozen champagne bubbles. They add a
fairytale quality to the finished bottle that looks quite fabulous. The box is
wood and finished in a faux-snake effect. This is the only part I am not too
keen on, but it is a small detail overall for me and when you look at images of
Hedonist nestling in its box,
crystals glistening, everything comes together in a multi-sensual whole. You
realise how talented Ms Minya is and how hard she has worked to create
something this heart-breakingly beautiful and sophisticated. There are times
when I despair that glamour is dead. Not true. Her name is Hedonist and she is fabulous.
Disclosure: Review was based on a sample provided by Parfums Viktoria Minya.
Image of Lana Del Rey by Mariano Vivanco for British GQ, October 2012. Apped & treated by the Silver Fox.
For more information on Viktoria Minya, please click below:
Beautiful review!
ReplyDelete