Meeting The Swiss Perfumistas (Again!): Part Two - Parfumerie Hyazinth, Andrea Maack Perfumes, And The Man With 20 Bottles Of His Favourite Scent

This might be a relatively short post (as my scented travelogues go), simply because the present-opening ceremony and perfume grab-fest at the Roter Engel cafe had left all our noses completely sated. But no visit to Basel would be complete without at least a token sniffing session at Parfumerie Hyazinth, a short stroll from the Marktplatz.

Given that half the store's compact interior is already allocated to cosmetics, Hyazinth is all the more remarkable for the extensive range of niche lines carried, including two of my favourite discoveries from 2011, Carner Barcelona and Puredistance. The shelves are stacked literally from floor to ceiling, and on any given section of the fixture there will be at least three niche fragrance ranges below shin height that are all too easy to miss. One of these was Odin: thinking that Potiron might like a couple of scents from this house, I inquired of the sales assistant if they carried the brand, only to find the complete range just north of my left ankle. Potiron was in fact quite taken with 01 Nomad, so my hunch proved correct.

I decided that my nose was too jaded for me to adopt a scattergun approach in my sampling, so I pretty much focused on one range, Andrea Maack, and left it at that. This artist and founder of Iceland's first perfume house has been on my radar for a while and I was intrigued by the blunt monosyllabic names of the individual scents, that match the dour, craggy (and collapsed bank- and ash cloud-overhung) image I have of Iceland.

Additionally, their quirky ring seemed ideally suited to the homeland of Björk, to whom I am often compared. Not for my song writing or singing ability, obviously, but for my looks and occasional propensity to wear outlandish outfits. Several Facebook friends have been egging me on to replicate the famous swan costume, but my progress is slow on the feather gathering front. You wouldn't credit how many of my old pillows appear to be polyester.





So I started out sniffing these Andrea Maack scents predisposed to like them, not least for their pleasing white granite tops, reminiscent of the better end of Magnet fitted kitchens.

Here are my mini-reviews, which should be taken with a pinch of volcanic dust, because my nose was severely challenged by this stage. Moreover, these are no ordinary perfumes, but were created as olfactory interpretations of a series of drawings, as stated on the perfume house's website:

"...the challenge for the perfumers was to reflect on Maack's intricate pencil drawings and turn them into
olfactory experience, making only one version of each."

In an interview last year with Jill Singer of Sight Unseen magazine, Maack explains (somewhat tellingly) that she never set out to be a perfume house per se, adding:

“The next step is to do something more with the drawings, perhaps turn them into textiles. The point is to take my artwork and mass distribute it. It doesn’t really matter what the product is.”

For each of the scents therefore, in addition to listing the fragrance notes, I will extract or paraphrase parts of the website copy about the premise or concept behind it.

SMART

Premise: Smart started with a delicate pencil drawing and was developed for an art exhibition - its inspiration comes from an empty white gallery space.

Notes: Violet leaf, jasmine, sandalwood, vanilla, white musk, buckskin.

I see exactly where Maack is going with this "empty white gallery space" idea. This scent was so light and gentle as almost to defy my nasal receptors. I thought no scent could be too subtle for my tastes, but this one was quiet to the point of mute. I'll call it "soft violets smelt from outer space on a cloudy day".

CRAFT

Premise: Craft stands for Couture Art and "was created for a museum show to enhance the experience of a unique work of art, a hand made sculptural dress made from original pencil drawings". I'll skip the description of this as "a godlike scent" for a "once in a lifetime experience".

Notes: Aldehydes, elemi, cold metal, ice, cedar wood, patchouli.

Craft smelt unpleasantly metallic and cold. Verdict: resoundingly Not A Perfume, though I realise that these scents are not supposed to conform to most people's idea of what a "normal fragrance" should smell like.

SILK

Premise: "The idea of Silk is to enhance the feeling of wearing a perfume - its powdery, airy, earthy, leathery aura makes you imagine a silky smoothness caressing your neck."

Notes: Violet leaves, freesia, lime tree, linen, magnolia, Spanish cistus, earth (ground), papyrus, vanilla, amber.

Well, Silk does more or less deliver on the smooth texture front, however, the consensus of our party was that Silk smelt like a cheaper make of perfume than one would expect for the £85 price tag. Alicka61 was reminded of an Avon scent, which pretty much killed this one stone dead.

DARK

Premise: Dark is "a take on the classic rose note, a bloody, flowery, leathery, seductive perfume with a purpose".

Notes: Yellow mandarin, pink bays (berries), petitgrain, lemon tree, aldehydes, rose, metal, green apple, ambergris, orange blossom, Virginia cedarwood.

I didn't care for Dark, which seemed a confused mix of different scent styles. My notes on the day state: "sharp metallic floral citrus", and both the notes and the website blurb confirm the presence of a "heavy" metallic note which brings an "unexpected surprise". Well, I am sorry but I am not a fan of heavy metal in fragrance as in music, and this dark galvanised rose scent is no exception.

SHARP

Premise: "Sharp was made for an art exhibition to accompany an artisanal dress with drawings carved into the material, creating a repetitive signature pattern."

Notes: Orange blossom, angel skin (pardon?), sweet vanilla, white musk, soothing softness (you are kidding, right?).

Notwithstanding the patently silly note list, this is the scent out of the five which a) I could clearly smell, b) contained no discernible metal note and c) most resembled a "normal" perfume that cost a bob or two. Now it is perhaps wrong of me to look to these "olfactory exhibits" for a fragrance to which I can personally relate, but I can't help thinking whenever I sniff ANY scent, however avant-garde its origin: "Do I like this and would I wear it?"

With Sharp the answer to both questions is yes, and I am pleased to report that it isn't the least bit sharp. Ha - there's another "unexpected surprise"! Sharp is a sweet vanilla and orange scent, and we all thought we had smelt something similar before, but couldn't put our fingers on it. I think it may have reminded me of a less spicy Fendi Theorama, or Ajne Bloom de Nuit or quite possibly Givenchy Organza - it had that "thick" vanilla oriental quality to it.

So in summary, the Andrea Maack perfume range was not an unqualified hit with any of us, though I do admire the concept behind the project of creating scented versions of art works in other media. Yes, I really want to buy into the names of these scents, the bleakly atmospheric backdrop of Iceland's lava fields, the geological packaging - and the quirky Spirograph prints and spiky paper dresses which inspired the range - but I just don't want to smell like most of them.

Finally, this latest visit to Hyazinth was notable for a chance encounter with an American customer, who was standing in the middle of the store regaling a group of friends with a tale of how he loved a particular men's cologne so much that he went and bought a further 20 bottles of it! Well, clearly I couldn't let the matter rest there, and - after first excusing myself for my involuntary eavesdropping - asked him what this extraordinary scent was which had prompted such a stockpiling frenzy. Remarkably it turned out to be a mainstream men's scent, Zino by Davidoff. I made a point of trying this scent when I spotted it a couple of days later in a department store in St Gallen, and have to report that it was a fairly generic woody spicy number, somewhere between Marc Jacobs Bang and D & G By Man. Ah well - serves me right for asking...


Photo of Parfumerie Hyazinth from stoffe.ch, photo of Iceland's lava fields from boddie.org.uk, photo of Björk from gawker.com, photo of Andrea Maack range from the company's website, photo of girls in Andrea Maack dresses from whats-wrong-with-the-zoo.com and trendhunter.com, photo of knives from jayfisher.com, photo of orange and vanilla from hookah-shisha.com, Andrea Maack publicity shot from grapevine.is, photo of Zino perfume from beneash.com, other photo my own.

The Bonkers Road Trip: Part Two - Meeting The Swiss Perfumistas

I have been travelling abroad on business for over 20 years now: always driving, and always on my own. I might take a couple of paperbacks along for company, and on longer trips I have been known to sneak a small soft toy into my luggage: a rat called Maxim being the companion of choice because he is extremely slim and bendy, fitting snugly into the smallest interstices of your car, such as the ashtray or the cubby hole where I keep coins for the Dartford Tunnel.

On this trip, however, I had an uncharacteristically sociable time, thanks to several hook ups with perfumistas in Basel, Switzerland. Basel is a cosmopolitan city with a large expat community, and our mini-gathering of perfumistas from Basenotes represented no less of a melting pot, comprising:

1 x Welsh (Wordbird)
1 x Slovakian (Alicka61)
1 x Swiss (Potiron)
1 x Northern Irish and just visiting (me aka VM I hate civet!)

On Wednesday 24th March, following my two morning meetings, I took the tram back to the market square where the other three were already standing outside our meeting point, Brasserie Baselstab.

The Swiss perfumistas had had some prior contact with one another through the Internet - and I had myself done a swap with Alicka61 on MUA - but none of us had ever met before in person. To have got together with one fumehead in Switzerland would have been exciting enough - suddenly to be greeting three at once was almost emotional overload!

Introductions over, we sat at a table outside and enjoyed a leisurely lunch, only slightly marred by the waiter's signal failure to bring cold milk for my tea. He first brought boiling milk, which is as good as no milk in my view. I requested cold milk, but none was forthcoming. Shortly before we got up to go, the waiter informed me that they were in fact clean out of milk - fresh out of it, even. Or perhaps they were only out of discretionary supplies of the stuff that could be spared for cantankerous foreigners. Anyway, it didn't much matter, for by this point I had long since drunk my glass of tepid black tea.

But not even a serious beverage irregularity could dampen the ebullient mood of our party. We chatted away about our jobs and families, and our likes and dislikes on the fragrance front, pausing every so often to rummage in the pile of samples in the middle of the table. For shortly after we had sat down, Wordbird and Alicka61 had upended their handbags and encouraged us all to help ourselves to the resulting carded sample sprawl. It was like a leisurely version of supermarket sweep, or perhaps like a swinger's party - where (I believe) you toss your car keys into a bowl. On balance, going away with a clutch of new scents rather than someone else's husband probably offered less potential for emotional discombobulation.

All the more so in my case, because I scored a sample of Sonia Rykiel's Women Not For Men from Wordbird and promptly fell in love. A full bottle is currently on its way to me following a lucky break on Ebay. I may do a separate review of this dreamy comfort scent one day, but here are the notes to be going on with.

Pink Pepper, Violet, Date, Jasmine Petals, Solar Flowers, Bulgarian Rose, Black Pepper, Olibanum, Agarwood, Leather, Amber.

After lunch, we repaired to a high end perfumery, Hyazinth, and proceeded to stand chatting and sniffing in the perfume section for the best part of two hours, clearly displaying not even the merest hint of a purchase intention. To their credit, the sales assistants tholed the clogging up of their store by such time-wasting customers with dignified stoicism.

I was in such an excitable state in the store that I did not systematically note down all the lines carried, but Hyazinth had a most impressive selection, greater even than that of Les Senteurs, I would say. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I recall seeing The Different Company, By Kilian, Byredo, Parfumerie Generale, Heeley, Rance, Etro, Divine, Ulrich Lang, Mark Birley, Les Parfums de Rosine, Annick Goutal, Bois 1920, The Party, Bond No 9, Floris, Penhaligon's, Keiko Mecheri, Mark Buxton, Les Parfums d'Empire, Biehl Kunstwerke, Ineke, Parfums 06130, Balmain, and several ranges featuring the prefix Profum-!

I ended up trying the following (on a mixture of card and skin):

By Kilian Back to Black (strong and honeyed, but not as cloying as I had feared)

The Different Company Oriental Lounge (lightly spicy oriental reminiscent of Penhaligon's Malabar or the quiet vibe of Prada L'Eau Ambree overlaid with spice)

Ineke Field Notes from Paris (soft orangey number, that somehow smelt more foody orange than perfumey orange, but then I have been left deeply traumatised by my experiences with Boss Orange and Prada Infusion de Fleurs d'Oranger, so I may not be best placed to judge)

Il Profumo Musc Bleu (perfectly pleasant straight up musk)

Annick Goutal Ninfeo Mio (This scent was wafted under our noses on a fan, but not even such a delicate delivery system could mask its offputting astringence)

Rance Eau Royale (green foresty vibe, a bit like Miller Harris Fleurs de Bois)

Profumu Roma Ichnusa (don't rightly recall, but it was nasty)

Now that doesn't sound like a whole lot of testing given that we were in such a fabulously stocked temple to fragrance, but to be honest I felt a little awkward about running amok with the testers. I got the impression that the SAs would rather direct the customer's sampling experience rather than let us ransack the fixture...

Sadly, Potiron had to leave us to go back to work while we were still at Hyazinth, and finally, after our indecently long stay in the store, we moved on to a branch of Douglas, where we felt less overlooked, though even here we were periodically interrupted by SAs asking if we needed any assistance. This was a good branch of Douglas as far as I could tell, carrying some of the Serge Lutens range, which would be unheard of in Boots, if one were to take the nearest Douglas-equivalent.

I tried a few more things here, while staying just the right side of sensory overload:

Sisley Eau du Soir (classic old school chypre - with skank!)

Jil Sander 79 (classic old school chypre - without skank!)

Jil Sander Sun (strange sun cream number - it is to Ambre Solaire what Clinique Simply is to Johnson's Baby Lotion)

Prairie Life Threads (Silver, Platinum, Gold: didn't care for any of them, but Platinum seemed to be the least worst, and Gold was particularly gross in a Poisonesque kind of way)

Alexander McQueen Kingdom (not the groinfest I was eagerly anticipating - only the merest dusting of cumin to my nose)

Alliage (another green classic)

By 5.15pm, after a solid three hours of fixture scoping and sniffing, we were starting to feel a little jaded, so we wandered over to the Barfüsserplatz, where I jumped on a No 14 tram to Pratteln to pick up my car, while the others headed for the railway station.

It had been such an enjoyable afternoon that we agreed that we must do it all again sometime. Meanwhile, I managed to meet up with both Wordbird and Potiron again during my trip. I rendez-vous-ed with Wordbird on the shores of Lake Zurich the following Monday, where - after a token trip to the lilliputian branch of Manor (a local department store) - we headed for elevenses and some surreptitious at-table sampling at a picturesque cafe. Yet again there was a lamentable failure to bring milk with my tea - any kind of milk - but a small catering portion was finally secured after a bit of pointed staring and slightly less pointed pointing.

The next night I met Potiron back in Basel for dinner in an Italian restaurant and some more discreet at-table sampling. Thanks to her I discovered the woody delight which is Rance Laetitia Milliseme. Unlike the Rykiel, it is unlikely to turn up on Ebay any time soon, and after loitering without intent for hours there the previous week, I wasn't brazen enough to go back to Hyazinth and blag a sample...
All in all then, the Swiss leg was definitely the highlight of my trip, for I made new friends there - and new scent discoveries. And next time I am over, Maxim Rat may well be out of a job...