Swoon Bloom: Anya's Garden Strange Magic perfume review

Earlier this month, during the very hottest weather of all the hot weather we have had lately, I drained my sample of Strange Invisible Perfumes L'Invisible, a juicy marvel which for no good reason had been languishing in one of my sample bags for years. I recall popping into the Strange Invisible Perfumes store in Venice, LA, on a work trip in 2010, but having checked the relevant blog post I note that I didn't get round to trying L'Invisible on that occasion, and have no idea how or why I acquired this sample.

Notes: Sicilian lemon, bergamot, mandarin, ylang-ylang, hibiscus, Moroccan red rose, jasmine, vanilla, amber, oakmoss

Ooh, am I sorry to have finished the vial. L'Invisible is a really cheerful, tangy scent with a luscious citrus and ylang-ylang opening, seguing into a cosseting drydown of amber and vanilla, that is perfect as the temperature drops on a summer evening - I don't pick up much moss. Invisible it is not. So L'Invisible had 'strange' in the brand name and was orange in colour, a combination to which I was now very favourably disposed. Such that when natural perfumer Anya McCoy kindly offered to send me a sample of her latest creation, Strange Magic perfume, "made of 95% handmade tinctures of flowers from my Miami garden", I jumped at the chance. Anya went on to explain: "I believe it's the first perfume to be made mainly of tinctures, with just a few essential oils and absolutes added where necessary."

Source: Anya's Garden

It wasn't so much the fact that this perfume is made of tinctures per se that got me excited, but rather its enticing name (no pun intended - Anya's last release was called Entice), and the fact that the blooms of flowers used in the making of Strange Magic had changed colour in the process. I was already in the mood for an orange perfume, while this one was reportedly dark red. I also read this blog post of Anya's with interest, which documents her decades-long tincturing experience generally, and how she noticed a few years back that the flowers of Michelia alba (white champaca) went radically different colours when in contact with the 190 proof alcohol she uses to make her tinctures, beginning with pink and ending up a deep burgundy, the more flowers she added.

Oh, I do love things like that which appear to be magic! I was given some Portuguese gin at Christmas which is a violent purple in colour like meths, and is meant to turn pink when you add tonic. That unfortunately proved to be mere advertising puffery, for the gin actually goes pale mauve instead, just as you would expect. Then there was the wonder in chemistry classes at school of copper sulphate solution, whose bright blue hue - a small miracle in itself! - would go mysteriously white when heated. I find such things endlessly fascinating, and couldn't wait to try this particular instance of 'strange magic' in perfumery.

But before I come onto the fragrance itself, as I so often do on Bonkers I must pay tribute once again to the exquisite packaging in which the sample arrived. I love the bold combination of orange and purple - even if it reminds me vividly of Loyalist marches in my home town of Belfast. I have already bestowed the accolade of 'packaging highlight of 2015' on what I dubbed Anya's 'bias-beribboned box' in this New Year's round up post. That had contained her Ylang-Ylang tincture, which I remember enjoying wearing that summer, but as it was sadly stolen along with my luggage I never felt able to review it.

I took an even closer look at the box this time round and could see that it was recycled. Very commendable. There was the telltale haphazard fibre pattern you get with OSB (oriented strand board aka Sterling board), a material on which I have done multiple pan-European studies (which may come as no surprise to you). Here is the very same stuff being used to line the bar in a quirky cafe called Spout in Leek.

Source: Tripadvisor

And finally, on to the sample of Strange Magic...which is indeed dark red as billed, veering to reddish brown. It stays brown on paper but goes on clear on skin. Maybe that's because I am a bit tanned at the moment, but no, I really think it is colourless on skin - that's another aspect of its magic, then. ;)

And as you can see from the extensive (but still deliberately not comprehensive for perfumer as magician reasons!) note list below (plucked from Cafleurebon), the fragrance comprises a whole host of tinctures of different flowers.

Notes: Chinese Perfume Tree: yellow flowers (Dark amber tincture), Orris: pale white rhizome (Bright coral, orange tincture), Chamomiles: white flowers (Blue oils when distilled), Gardenias: white flowers (Dark amber tincture), Jasmines: white flowers (Deep amber tincture (some, not all), White Champaca: white flowers (Crimson red to dark red tincture),  Ylang ylang: yellow flowers (Olive green to dark green tincture),  Cashmere Bouquet: white flowers (Deep red tincture), Vintage white ambergris from Vanuatu (Orange tincture)

When I first smelt Strange Magic I was instantly reminded of my dabbling in natural perfumes at the start of my hobby - in a purely sampling sense, I mean. I was very taken with the range by Ajne of Carmel, to which I was introduced by Michelyn Camen of Cafleurebon, as it happens, and over time I acquired samples of Printemps, Desire, Bloom, Divine, Lakshmi, Om, Fleur Blanche, Vanille and Aphrodite, and even went on to own a small bottle of the frangipani and jasmine beauty that is Calypso, reviewed here. My Calypso is also orange now and very aged, but still not off I wouldn't say! The sheer intensity and Dolby Surround Smell effect of natural perfumes is hard to describe, but it is like sniffing something in HD, where the florals are incredibly present, whilst sometimes seeming to be showcased against a darker, murkier, slightly treacly base (in a good way!). If you put L'Invisible in a cave you might get a sense of what I mean, though there again probably not. I pick up on a heady bouquet in which I can detect ylang-ylang and a sensual blur of other sweet and narcotic flowers, but I would be lying if I said could make out anything else distinctly. But that truly doesn't matter: suffice to say that Strange Magic does indeed cast a spell over me, and as I say is extremely evocative of those equally heady early years of experimentation and discovery when I first fell down the rabbit hole.

Circe, by John William Waterhouse ~ Source: Wikimedia Commons

The only downside to mention is that as with magic tricks, so with Strange Magic the perfume, it is rather a case of 'Now you sniff it, now you don't' ie Strange Magic doesn't last very long on me, and mutes down to a whispery trace within a few hours. I would like to say that its ephemeral nature is part of its mystique, but we are talking a scent that, due to its handcrafted and natural provenance, is necessarily a high end item - it costs $125 for 15ml. That said, I see my Calypso from Ajne is now $195 for 15ml, so by that yardstick Strange Magic is a relative bargain, longevity aside! And if you are someone who pays most attention to how a perfume smells in the first few hours anyway, that might not be an issue. Assuming you even had the same experience as me of its being somewhat fleeting. I note that Mark Behnke of Colognoisseur got 6-8 hours wear from Strange Magic, so maybe I am the one with 'strange' skin in that regard!       

In closing I will just say that I wish the things in my garden smelt anywhere near as nice as the flowers in Anya's. Currently there is only scorched yellow grass and some tall white daisies that are keeling over and turning brown prior to giving up the ghost completely. Oh, and one unnaturally tall peach rose, so much so that I hadn't even noticed it was in bloom. But I doubt I have anything like the wherewithal to make a tincture...so will gladly leave that to professional perfumers in more tropical climes.

California Dreaming: Another Bonkers Road Trip - The Scented Bit: Part 2

At the end of my first week in Southern California - or SoCal, as I am learning to call it - I found myself in Redlands, San Bernadino County (which I am learning with difficulty not to call the greater LA area), sitting on my enormous hotel bed. Poring over the ancient and battered Rand McNally road atlas spread out before me, I tried to recall where the fragrance meccas of the West Coast were located, and how many of them I could comfortably fit around my work schedule over the next week or so. Aware that my geo-olfactory map of California was sketchy at best, I decided to "phone a friend". Or more correctly, a complete stranger with whom I had once done a fairly sizeable swap on Makeupalley, where she goes by the name of Qwendy (aka Wendy).

By profession, Wendy is a designer of her own range of flamboyant couture shoes. Through a weird coincidence, it turns out that we have both visited the same little shoe museum in Romans, France - she for professional reasons, me because I had an hour to kill before a meeting in town - and we have both also been to see this bizarre edifice, built by an eccentric postman over the course of some 30 years. What, you may well say, are the chances of that?!

So anyway, by the following morning we had arranged to meet up at 5pm at The Scent Bar, aka the nerve centre of Lucky Scent's worldwide operations. Wendy explained that the staff would be "pouring champagne" all weekend, so it sounded like rather a good time to go. She also suggested that I check out Strange Invisible Perfumes, whose own "worldwide headquarters" were within easy striking distance of my hotel in Venice Beach.

Saturday dawned hot and sunny. I know this, because I watched it dawn myself. New York may have earnt the moniker of "the city that never sleeps", but I can confirm that LA isn't big on lie-ins either. This is the first and possibly the last time that I will ever be awoken by a pre-dawn chorus of rumbling skateboards.

After a fortifying breakfast of ginger scone and creditably hot tea at the Rose Cafe (another of Wendy's recommendations and the only eaterie graced with my repeat custom apart from Denny's : - ) ), I set off for Strange Invisible Perfumes via the Post Office on Main Street, picking my way as I did so over the crouching forms of joggers engaged in cool-down stretches.

CAUTION! US POST OFFICE DIGRESSION ADVISORY

At the Post Office I spent a harrowing half an hour in a restless and faintly menacing queue, before being grilled by the counter clerk as to the exact background behind my request for four stamps for inland Christmas cards.

"Are you sending any explosives, firearms, flammable solids, knives or sharp implements?" Ignoring my blankly incredulous stare, he went on, barely pausing to draw breath: "Any nonmailable plant pests, injurious animals, or illegally taken fish or wildlife?" (These may not be his exact words, but it was a long list along similar lines.) "Any motor vehicle master keys or locksmithing devices?"

Resisting the urge to make some flippant comment about the envelopes I was sending being thin enough to floss with, I mumbled a subdued "No" and was issued with the correct postage. Handing the envelopes back to the clerk, duly stamped, I was reprimanded for not writing a return address on the envelope (a practice not customary in the UK). "Oh, do you need that, then?" I inquired feebly, my spirit all but broken. "Yes, ma'am" came the grave reply. "It's for safety reasons." But of course it is! Why didn't I think of that?

Slightly rattled by the Orange Threat Level in operation at the Post Office, I started ambling up Abbot Kinney Boulevard, in search of the Strange Invisible Perfumes boutique, whose exact address I had omitted to check. Abbot Kinney Boulevard was worth a visit in its own right for the colourful and eclectic jumble of cafes, yoga centres, vintage shops and art galleries. Eventually, I asked directions of a passing male couple, who knew the store well, just as I had hoped they might, and who were able to confirm that I had massively overshot it. So Strange And Invisible that it is incredibly easy to miss!

I found the following background to SIP on the company's Facebook page:

"Strange Invisible Perfumes is a completely botanical fragrance house presenting uncompromising luxury, stunning craftsmanship, and absolute purity. The company was founded in 2000 by botanical loyalist and perfumer, Alexandra Balahoutis. Based in the creative hotbed of Venice, California, Strange Invisible Perfumes has spearheaded an avant-garde movement of narrative botanical perfumery."

"Creative hotbed" is good - Venice is certainly a hotbed of something. And "narrative botanical perfumery" is an intriguing phrase, which is expanded on their website:

"We make narrative perfumes with certified organic, wildcrafted, biodynamic, and hydro-distilled essences." Okay, got it. I can just see Mr Bonkers dismissing some of my less successful knitting projects - you know, the ones where you have to ask what sort of a garment it is meant to be before attempting to put it on - as "wildcrafted".

Once inside, I made myself known to the glacially cool sales assistant and asked to try a few of the scents that were new to me (which was most of them). I explained that I already liked Magazine Street and L'Invisible, notwithstanding the medicinal opening, which I assumed was due to their all-natural ingredients? My question was left hanging in the air. But I was required to field the inevitable quizzing about how I had managed to try any of the line , which I always counter by saying that friends who owned full bottles had "let me have a little bit of theirs". And as I said above, we are all friends on Makeupalley...

So, under the guidance of the sales lady, I tried Peloponnesian, Aquarian Roses, Fire & Cream, Musc Botanique, Arunima and Essence of IX. I know this because I have the paddle-shaped smelling strips to prove it, labelled in the SA's neat cursive handwriting. It will be harder to recollect my exact impressions of each, but I know that Peloponnesian and Aquarian Roses were ruled out of the inquiry immediately. Peloponnesian, while perfectly evocative of scrubby Mediterranean hillsides, citrus groves and vineyards, failed to appeal because it was too masculine. Uncharacteristically for the house, whose marketing is typically more fluid in gender terms, Peloponnesianis positioned as a men's scent, so I was on the right (as in wrong) track there. Then Aquarian Roses was a pretty but unremarkable rose, though this is the one out of the six which I remember least clearly. Possibly for that very reason!

Fire and Cream I wasn't sure I would like because I was aware of its notes in advance and feared it might be a bit orange and tuberose-heavy: in my experience overly orange scents can be as wrong as overly orange makeover artists at the Clarins counter:

Fire and Cream: oranges & orange blossom, tuberose, frankincense, white lavender, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla & patchouli.

I needn't have worried though, as the lavender and vetiver cut through the juicy fruit and white flowers, while the woods and incense made for a dry base, balancing the composition. I quite liked it, but the combination of orange, lavender and vetiver was rather offbeat, and I think a retrial is called for.

Musc Botanique: Egyptian geranium, frankincense, notes of white amber & botanical musk

This was an interesting one - a cold, sheer, vegetal, earthy musk - dry and aloof rather than sweet and "come hither" like Musc Ravageur. If this musk were a person, it would be a booted and suited businessman sitting on a bench in a leafy London square, engrossed in a newspaper. He exudes a quiet, masculine power, and if you choose to sit next to him he will most likely ignore you. Another scent that deserves a retest.

The two I ended up applying on skin were the ones with the most obvious appeal based on the sales assistant's descriptions - and their behaviour on card: Arunima (which, like "anemone", is crying out to have its consonants carelessly transposed, and apparently means "glow of dawn" in Sanskrit), and the only one of the six in parfum form, Essence of IX.

Arunima: blue lotus, Madagascan vanilla, frankincense, cardamom, key lime, lavender, ginger.

I recently encountered the blue lotus note in a Scents of Time fragrance, Nenufar, which sadly left me underwhelmed. Arunima packs much more of a punch, but I didn't care for it nearly as much on skin for some reason. I just got an intense, dark, vaguely oriental vibe with minimal floral notes. Though as I say, recalling these scents now after 5-6 weeks (especially the four that were only tested on card) is not unlike driving past those signs by the side of motorways that say: "Accident. Can You Help? Witnesses sought to a fatal car crash on..." before going on to mention a time and date from at least three months ago.

The other scent I tried on skin, Essence of IX, had an appealing "narrative" - it is named after Colgin Cellars' famous IX Estate vineyard in the Napa Valley, and seeks to bottle all the scents associated with its terroir and winery.

Essence of IX: white sage, roses, black currant, California lavender, French oak & wild honey.

I absolutely LOVE SIP's own summary of this scent - "Brambly. Floral. Stirring" - which captures its character perfectly. It is a boozy rose scent, bright and sappy and fruity with a hint of oak vats. It was so vivid and realistic that I would liken it to the olfactory equivalent of HD TV (that'll be the parfum aspect, no doubt). Ultimately though, I couldn't see myself ever loving it, and the ones I am really curious to retry are in fact the more quirky but not overtly masculine Fire and Cream and Musc Botanique...

The men who directed me to the store also mentioned the fact that SIP does bespoke perfumery, of which there were no obvious signs front of house, but as I now learn from their website, this is because it all takes place in a "private custom blend carriage" (like a railway carriage!) somewhere within its Tardis-style premises.

And although I am not the least little bit in the market for a SIP custom blend - the off the peg fragrances are already a stretch at $130+ a pop - I was interested to read more about the service on the website. After the usual personal profiling business to enable them to draft your "Perfume Portrait" (which seems to be the in-phrase at the moment for determining someone's preferences), "a tasting of rare hydrosols follows, during which the client’s feedback is noted in detail." I had to look up hydrosols, which turn out to be the aromatic water that remains after producing an essential oil via steam or water distillation, otherwise known as floral or distillate water. So I am guessing that the clients might actually get to drink these, and that they might offer health benefits on a par with those other Venice beverage classics of pomegranate juice and mango smoothies.

Sadly, as in the Space NK store in Bath, I was not allowed to take any photographs of the interior of Strange Invisible Perfumes. No reason was offered, but it may have been either for Intellectual Property reasons (the issue with Diptyque on that occasion), or fear that, unable to afford their scents, I was casing the joint with a view to returning one night with ten of my closest cat burglar friends and a jemmy wrench. I can report that the interior was narrow and dark, with plain, minimalist decor and sparse furnishings, mainly comprising a long, sleek grey counter running the length of the shop, and a few stools. I seem to remember a lot of dark wood, and the perfumes themselves were sitting on a little wooden tray more or less in splendid isolation. Or not quite isolation, for there may have been a display of SIP's collection of "life-changing body washes" on the shelves behind them.

I did toy with NOT putting a pack shot in this post, on the basis that the SIP line likes to be invisible, but that would have been frankly silly. I do think I will end this post here, as I scurry back to my hotel to choose an outfit appropriate for a champagne-tippling sniffing date in Beverley Hills with a well shod stranger.

Writing this has put me in the mood to wear L'Invisible, the ylang-ylang scent in the line. But hold on a minute, for some reason I can't seem to see where my sample has got to...


Photo of Venice Beach Post Office from picasaweb.google.com, photo of Fire and Cream from fragrantica.com, photo of bench from 123rf.com, photo of Essence IX from SIP's website, photo of stone relief from Colgin Cellars' website, other photos my own.