Going The Puredistance (II): Tea And Dutch Apple Cake With Jan Ewoud Vos And His Team

To mark the occasion of my 200th post – somewhat asynchronously, as it was technically my 206th post at the time – I featured one of the perfumes that has most impressed me this year, Puredistance I. I warmed to the company in the course of our friendly email exchanges, not least because they didn’t seem to have taken offence at my comparison of the packaging to a “top of the range coffin”. Nor had they minded when, in an earlier post (which may have originally alerted them to my blog), I took a potshot at some famous Dutch traditions, such as a mass New Year’s dive in the sea and the nation's pyromaniacal relationship with fireworks.

Given the serendipity of my falling over Zsolt Zólyomi, Hungary’s lone perfumer (and stockist of Puredistance), it was perhaps not so surprising that on the last day of my last trip of the summer - 112 days and some 10,000 miles after I swore under my breath at a crocodile of children endlessly crossing the road in Belgium – the bonkers road ran out in northern Holland.... I had just one last appointment on a Friday afternoon in Veendam (not to be confused with the hunky Belgian actor of that name), and a free morning...

Now as Veendam is 20 miles from Groningen, the European HQ of Puredistance, I contacted Rosanne Schepers - newly promoted to Manager of International Sales and Public Relations - a couple of days ahead, and asked if I could pop in and say hello. I hoped I might also be able to blag a cup of tea, Holland being one of the few European countries where you stand a fighting chance of being offered one.

On the Friday morning in question I chose to walk to their offices, tucked behind one of the many scenic canals in Groningen. I didn’t want to mow down a cyclist so close to the end of my trip, and I knew that if I persisted in driving in Dutch urban areas, it was only a matter of time before I had a handful of fatalities under my bumper and on my conscience.

At 9.30am sharp (well, sharp by my watch, which may be a couple of minutes slow), I rang the doorbell of the impressive wooden door of the Puredistance offices. These are housed in a converted church with a great vaulted celing and a wonderful air of calm. It would have made a good dance studio too, Jan Ewoud Vos observed. I asked them what denomination of church it used to be. Something “apostolic”, apparently.

Rosanne greeted me warmly and immediately offered me a cup of tea! She is one of the numerous Scandinavian blondes featured on the Puredistance website – though a couple had in fact left already, and I am pleased to report that the shade spectrum of the present team’s hair is more mixed – I was beginning to wonder whether my own hair colour might be a barrier to my visit.

After a tour of the offices and introductions to the rest of the team: Jhonathan, Alina and Kateryna - who respectively look after sales in their home countries of China, Romania and Ukraine – we took our tea and sat down at a large pine table in the main atrium and nerve centre of the fulfilment operation. Prefolded cartons were piled high on a table ready to be packed, and a ghetto blaster stood in splendid isolation in the middle of the parquet floor. Music while the team worked? Or perhaps they were going to dance after all…

Some twenty minutes into my visit, Jan Ewoud Vos arrived, bearing two types of cake to be shared amongst the staff. (As you can see in the photograph, I was given some for the road in a rather novel take-away container... :- ) ) JEV (I will use the acronym which neatly gets me out of the quandary of whether to refer to him as Mr Vos or Jan Ewoud), joined us at the head of the table, and the six of us chewed the cud for the best part of an hour about all sorts of issues relating to Puredistance, JEV's own background and the perfume market in general.



Puredistance – the only Dutch perfume?

I asked whether Puredistance was the only fragrance brand that hails from Holland, and it turns out that it is not the only one, but the only high end one. There is the mainstream men’s brand Van Gils (a new one on me), and of course fashion house Viktor & Rolf (of Flowerbomb fame – note the subliminal firework reference!)



Then there is Marlies Dekkers, the Dutch designer of a lingerie line called Undressed. Dekkers has diversified into swimwear, nightwear, sunglasses, slippers and additionally - Agent Provocateur-style - either has her own line of fragrances called "Skindressed" already, or is planning to launch it some time soon.



Lastly, JEV mentioned Ellis Faas, a cutting edge Dutch make up artist who has worked with the likes of Mario Testino, Karl Lagerfeld and Jean-Paul Gaultier, and who according to JEV remains refreshingly unfazed by the world of the rich and famous in which she now moves. I sensed that JEV – who also operates in a luxury world but has clearly not been “spoilt” by it – sees in her a kindred spirit, and they plan to collaborate, whilst taking care to retain their own individuality. They each see their own company as their "baby", which they will continue to take good care of, and in this way have a similar approach to business.

NOTE - does that sleek steel canister not remind you a little bit of the Puredistance test tube phials?

The ascent of Dutch design

We also discussed how The Netherlands is increasingly making its mark in design terms, gradually moving away from its traditional base in agriculture, fishing and industry. One look at the fabulously outlandish art museum in Groningen confirms this trend... JEV explained that Dutch design is like Scandinavian, but is a warmer, “more human version”.



He hopes that one day he and his fellow movers and shakers will “recover the fame of Dutch painters” in their chosen fields of creative endeavour – in JEV’s own case of course, through the medium of his Puredistance fragrance collection.

Jan Ewoud Vos – from tennis ace to photographer and brand entrepreneur

One of the most interesting aspects of our conversation was hearing about JEV’s early life and career. I found him charmingly unaffected and down to earth, and he seems genuinely surprised at where his career path has taken him, viewing himself as a bit of an outsider:

“For a boy with no famous connections or a wealthy background, what are the chances that he would create something legendary one day?! The banks would say the chances are zero zero zero, point zero!”

JEV showed early promise as a tennis player, still plays, and (I think) still teaches the game. He could have turned professional, but took up photography instead, before setting up Puredistance in 2002.



The inspiration behind Puredistance

I asked Jan Ewoud Vos how he came by the idea for the Puredistance venture, and he explained that its origins lay in a vision he had of a lavish society party – as he was speaking, I was picturing a decadent, modern day version of a scene from The Great Gatsby: there were lots of drunken, noisy people, who were showing off, bragging and generally swanning around in flashy designer gear and blinging jewellery.

Also at the party was a beautiful woman wearing a white dress, whose simple, natural beauty stunned those around her into silence. She was not like them, and had put “pure distance” between herself and the other revellers with their coarse exhibitionism.

This female figure is the embodiment of the Puredistance concept: understated elegance and classic beauty.



“It is more about the philosophy and the concept than selling perfume.”

However, perfume remains at the heart of this concept, as its central form of expression.

“Perfume evokes the emotions more than anything else except music. It is on the same level as that.”

A slow-burning business model

I say “slow-burning”, because it took seven years of meticulous preparations before Jan Ewoud Vos got the Puredistance collection together and ready for launch. And if the whole venture bombed, he thought to himself with endearing pragmatism, at least his daughter would get a wonderful, unique signature scent out of it as something to show for his trouble.

JEV openly admits to bucking the trend in terms of his business model, preferring to grow primarily by word of mouth and the sales efforts of a few handpicked retailers. These partners - like Zsolt Zólyomi whom I met in Budapest - are “of the faith”, offering a friendly, honest and well-informed service to customers. JEW has chosen not to advertise or use distributors (except in Russia, where there may be compelling logistical reasons for this decision).



“Find the right people, click with them, and they will tell your story because they love it and not because they’re paid.”

And in similar vein:

“Show me your friends, and I’ll know who you are.”

It is all about growing slowly, but “beautifully”. JEV went on to compare this gradual organic growth to a series of small "Puredistance viruses" in every country, stealthily spreading and gathering momentum until they reach a critical mass.

The role of bloggers

We debated the conundrum associated with this no-advertising approach, namely that you may not reach your target market. Bloggers do a great job of raising awareness of niche brands: JEV praised the blogging community for their lyrical deconstructions of fragrances, and had a far away look in his eyes as he quoted snippets of Suzanne Keller’s review of Puredistance 1, who had perfectly captured the many facets of this scent.

"Sometimes it is the juicy tang of citrus with a brut champagne, presenting a crisp facet; other times a liqueur-like berry infuses warmth into its refreshingly cool and springlike heart; and at still other times, there is a mouthwatering greenness that takes the crispness out of the ozone, like champagne bubbles that deliquesce and become liquid."



Regrettably, however, luscious prose doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. Potential punters may not look at blogs, while the bloggers themselves cannot be counted on to buy the product about which they are enthusing. In the specific case of Puredistance, I suspect the high price tag may well be a deterrent, though I did famously shell out $225 for 15ml of an Ajne scent. And in my own particular case, the company has arguably only itself to blame for their generous gifts to me of Puredistance 1... : - )

This slow-burning strategy applies not only to sales but to new product development: there will be no further scent launches this year, though the company may add one or two more over the next couple of years. Brand extensions into other categories of luxury goods are in the pipeline but still under discussion/wraps. I said I thought silver jewellery or small leather goods might be a good fit, for example, which appears to have worked for Penhaligon’s.

Where is everything made?

The former church is the centre of operations for mail order fulfilment, but I was curious to know where the perfume itself is actually made. I learnt that the perfume oil (ie the composition) is created in London and New York, before being produced in Switzerland and France and transported to Belgium, where it is
processed to the final perfume extrait. Towards the end of last year, the company added leather holders for the scent phials to its range. These are also made in Belgium and come in four tasteful colourways.



Antonia, Jan Ewoud Vos’s mother, and me

It is well documented that the fragrance Antonia, created ten years previously by Annie Buzantian, is a retrospective tribute to JEV’s late mother. I came clean and admitted that I didn’t especially care for it – I find the opening too severely green, too unapproachable. JEV was not surprised by this revelation, and explained that Antonia is more suited to a bigger woman – both in terms of physique and personality. His mother was stylish and sophisticated, with a strong and imposing personality; she was someone you would notice when she walked into a room. Antonia dries up “sweet and soft”, however, which is meant to evoke JEV’s mother’s warm heart beneath the brittle exterior. I was told that I am too “fragile” in terms of my build to carry it off. As you may imagine, I was relieved to learn that I am physiologically unsuited to Antonia, and that my failure to succumb to its verdant charms is not due to a lack of taste on my part!



The fragrance market – “throwaway fashion scents” versus enduring classics

JEV was keen to stress that all three scents in the collection do not follow current trends, but are designed to be timeless classics. This got us onto a discussion of the state of the fragrance market and the plethora of mainstream launches, which are backed with huge advertising campaigns, only to plunge into oblivion a couple of years later like shooting stars - or fireworks, indeed!! JEV drew my attention to Chanel as an exception to this rule – its launches tend to stand the test of time. He is a big admirer of Coco Chanel and appreciates the fact that her iconic bottle design is still around in a near identical form today.



Jan Ewoud Vos’s scented cv, and the maxim of “less is more”

The discussion took an interesting turn when I asked Jan Ewoud Vos what colognes he used to wear before he founded Puredistance. It turns out that he has worn Chanel Antaeus for some 30 years, and still toggles between that and Puredistance M, wearing fragrance typically a couple of times a week. He fervently hopes Antaeus is never discontinued or altered, likening a favourite perfume to a spouse or partner:

“Fragrance is a thing you wear daily, it is around you like a partner, and you don’t like it when your partner changes!”



JEV has also worn Hermès Eau d’Orange Verte And Chanel Allure in the past, and as a teenager, sported one of the masculine scents in the Alain Delon range, hoping that it would confer upon him the smouldering French actor's seductive powers.... And I can also reveal.....drum roll....that JEV also owned a bottle of Brut around that time!

Encouraged by this mood of full disclosure, I mentioned my 70+ bottle count and my perfume fridge, and admitted that I do sometimes feel overwhelmed by the scale of my collection, and rather admired him for sticking to just a few scents. Jan Ewoud Vos pointed out that the more scents I acquire, the more each one in my collection becomes devalued and diminished in importance, and I couldn’t help but agree.



“I wouldn’t mind if someone took away all my perfumes and just gave me back half a dozen - or ten, say - to use for ever. I’d be quite relieved in fact.”

And if they did, I would be happy if Puredistance 1 was in that shortlist, for it, along with the other two scents in the range - is a triumph of style AND substance.




Photo of Puredistance offices from quwest.com, photo of Marlies Dekkers lingerie from staticlookbooks.com, photo of ellis faas make up from witoxicity.com, photo of Groningen art museum from cruising.org.uk, photo of white dress from classifieds.weddingbee.com, photo of champagne cocktails from southernliving.com, photo of Chanel bottles from pinkmsg.wordpress.com, photo of Alain Delon from rujon.blogspot.com, other photos my own or from the Puredistance website.

A Bonkers Grand Tour: My Serendipitous Sniff-In With Zsolt Zólyomi, Hungary’s Only Perfumer – Part 2

Sniffing Highlights – Juliet Has A Gun Citizen Queen, Réminiscence Les Notes Gourmandes & SAHLiNi FÉMiNíNDE

In the course of my chat with Zsolt Zólyomi, we managed to fit in a fair amount of sampling, focusing in particular on the brands and perfumes with which I was not familiar. It goes without saying that I melted into the background when customers appeared, and the sale of a bottle of Juliet Has A Gun Citizen Queen was an opportunity for me to try a scent in that line which I had overlooked up to now. It turned out to be a wistful powdery rose with slightly dark undertones - as Zsolt pointed out, Citizen Queen is a scent not unlike that of an oldfashioned pot of rouge that your grandmother might have worn.

Now I couldn't find anything approaching a definitive note listing for Citizen Queen - perhaps because the formulation is said to contain 160 ingredients! - but here is one version from Luckyscent:

Notes: Leather, Bulgarian Rose, Iris, Amber, Immortal flowers, Labdanum

Overall, Citizen Queen manages to be retro without veering into "old lady's boudoir" territory, and though I wouldn't describe it as edgy exactly - and I can't truthfully say that I picked up on the leather I see listed - it was a nice offbeat recommendation for the young woman in question.

Staying with the theme of powder, Zsolt introduced me to a range that was completely new to me: Réminiscence. This company was founded in 1970 by bohemian duo Zoe Coste and Nino Amaddeo, who sold their range of silver and costume jewellery initially through a couple of stores on the French Riviera. They opened their second shop in Cannes the very year I used to commute there daily to my teaching job at a lycée just behind La Croisette, while their original shop is in Juan-les-Pins, where I lived. Back then Réminiscence only had one scent in their range, the suitably hippyish "Patchouli", but I wasn't remotely interested in perfume at the time, nor in jewellery particularly, and - as you can see - my clothes sense was also questionable...

Within the Réminiscence range Zsolt drew my attention to Les Notes Gourmandes, a quartet of cute, powdery gourmand scents released in 2008 and named after what I now know to be called the "solfège syllables" in musical scales. Well, obviously I felt moved to investigate this word "solfège" a little further, and in Wikipedia I found a definition that went far beyond a certain song title from The Sound of Music:

"In music, solfège (French pronunciation: [sɔl.fɛʒ], also called solfeggio, sol-fa or solfa), is a pedagogical solmization technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a solfège syllable (or "sol-fa syllable"). The seven syllables commonly used for this practice in English-speaking countries are: do (or doh in tonic sol-fa),[1] re, mi, fa, sol (so in tonic sol-fa), la, and ti/si."

"A pedagogical solmization technique" - who knew?

The first thing to note about these perfumes is their pretty, opaque, pastel bottles with gold lettering, slightly reminiscent (no pun intended) of the packaging of Bal à Versailles EDT.

But anyway, on to the fragrances themselves: Do Re, Mi Fa, Sol La and Si Do. The only one I didn't care for was Sol La, a rather sharp and confused citrus composition - still fluffy, but strangely herbal and a tad acerbic with it.

My favourite (and Zsolt's too! - we seemed to have quite similar taste) was the green one, Do Re, a figgy, woody musk scent with a nutty, slightly burnt quality that had me nuzzling my wrist all day. Having now clocked the notes, I can see that Do Re has heliotrope, tonka bean, vanilla AND almond in it - why, on the face of it that sounds like a vanilla custard you could stand your spoon straight up in!

Notes: heliotrope, green fig, almond, cedar, sandalwood, patchouli, vanilla, tonka bean, benzoin and musk.

Now heliotrope (billed as the central note) can be dodgy in my book - I don't care for Hervé Léger or Barbara Bui or Lalique Le Parfum for this very reason. It is clearly present here, yet the overall blend in Do Re doesn't go overboard on the creamy comfort food front - possibly due to the restaining influence of the fig and cedar.

Coming in a close second in the favourites ranking is Mi Fa, aka "the pink one". It is off the scale of the fluffy-ometer, but I loved it. The opening is bright and zesty, with a heart of yielding marshmallow, the key note in this composition:

Notes: marshmallow, bergamot, tangerine, neroli, ozone, almond, lavender, rosemary, mint, petitgrain, black pepper, jasmine, tonka bean, vanilla, cedar, patchouli, sandalwood and musk.

Sure, Mi Fa is sweet, but not tooth-rottingly so - the lavender, rosemary and mint may well be acting as an olfactory mouthwash! - and it also manages to have a bit of an edge to it, as indeed do all the scents in the range. If you like Vivienne Westwood's Naughty Alice, or Floris Snow Rose, or Prada Candy, or L'Agent by L'Agent Provocateur, there's a fighting chance you will like this one too. It is fluff, no question, but fluff with attitude. Think of a Persian cat lying on its back having its tummy tickled, while flexing its claws ever so slightly...

Si Do (aka "the mauve one") was my third favourite, a quirky woody gourmand with a marked iris and carrot note in the opening. The drydown is softer and more diffuse, but I struggle a bit with the idea of a fluffy iris scent, which this is, at least initially.

Notes: orange, citron, bergamot, ambrette, iris, carrot, cedar, clove, ylang ylang, peach, pear, vanilla and musk.

Another brand in Zsolt's store which I had never seen before was SAHLiNi, notable for its multinational roots and bewildering use of lower case "i"s. The founder is an Indian woman, originally named Sahlini, who was adopted by a French couple at the age of seven months and grew up in France as Céline Martin. A graphic designer by profession, Martin launched her perfume company in 2006, and her four perfumes - L'Homme, La Femme, La Femme en Noir and FÉMiNíNDE - fuse the luxury and finesse of her adopted French culture with the exoticism and sensuality of her Indian roots.

I think La Femme was the best seller of the line, and from memory - I only tested it on card - it was a floral oriental, big and blowsy and sweet, but within acceptable bounds. The notes include "fresh notes", which temper the potentially heady blend of orange flower, tuberose and jasmine. It was big, but not rich or sumptuous - more a Mary Greenwell Plum level of potency and airiness, say - and it had one of my favourite bases of sandalwood, patchouli, vanilla and musk. Stylistically I'd place it on the cusp between mainstream and niche, like a Cartier, say - or Plum, indeed.

But it was FÉMiNiNDE which made the more lasting impression on me, not least because of the dinky Bollywood-style trimmings on the bottle!

Notes: orange, cardamom, black pepper, rose absolute, vetiver, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, fir and sandalwood.

FÉMiNíNDE is a spicy oriental, but of the lightest and most delicate kind. On first application it tingles on the skin like Bvlgari Omnia or a light spitting of rain; then as the scent dries down it takes on the translucent fruity quality of Hermès Osmanthe Yunnan, with just the faintest zing of spice in the background. I haven't come across a perfume quite like it, and shall enjoy using up my sample.

So those were the sniffing highlights of the afternoon for me, though as I mentioned at the top of the post, I smelt quite a few other things in the course of our session: some seasonal candles created by L'Artisan Parfumeur for Burberry; a couple of the more masculine Odins I had not yet tried (Nomad and Century); Puredistance M (quite tarry on my skin initially, though the back seat of the Aston Martin made its appearance in the end!).

I also tried that slightly boozy limited edition scent, Frapin 1697 - well, I guess they are all slightly boozy by definition, come to think of it. Zsolt told me how he had met Bertrand Duchaufour (the nose behind 1697) at the Frapin chateau in Segonzac, and (if I remember rightly) was involved in a brainstorming session to do with marketing aspects such as packaging design. Zsolt also mentioned that the scent is being relaunched on a more widespread basis in a lighter concentration.

Another thing that fascinated me about Zsolt was the way he - very naturally - dropped references to specific aromachemicals into the conversation. I only had to say that I did or didn't care for a scent because of a specfic aspect, and he was able to jump right in and tell me exactly what was causing the effect I was referring to. I enjoyed just hearing the names of aromachemicals being cited in the same breath as scents that were familiar to me - though obviously not so familiar when deconstructed into their chemical consitutents! If I had had my perfume-buying head on that day, I would have found it strangely reassuring to be advised by Zsolt - like buying a house after undertaking a full structural survey, instead of putting in an offer purely on the basis of the attractive hanging baskets.



So if I ever find myself back in Budapest, I shall make a point of visiting Le Parfum Croisette again, to see what's new and how Zsolt is getting on generally with his fragrant crusade. And if it turns out that he isn't in the store that day, I will do my best to sniff his airborne essence in the museum next time...


Photo of rouge pot from flappergirlcreations.wordpress.com, photo of Réminiscence jewellery from Ebay.co.uk, photo of Do Re from milchstore.com, photo of marshmallows from frameshiftcoaching.wordpress.com, photo of FEMiNiNDE from polyvore.com, advert for SAHLiNi from brandmile.com, photo of Burberry candle from thisnext.com, other photos my own.

A Bonkers Grand Tour: My Serendipitous Sniff-In With Zsolt Zólyomi, Hungary’s Only Perfumer – Part 1

The Roja Dove Of Central Europe

Towards the end of the Bonkers Grand Tour – so called because it took in eight countries in under three weeks – I found myself in Budapest on a Monday with no appointments. Thinking this might be my one and only visit to the city, I decided to spend the day sightseeing. After four hours of pounding the tree-lined boulevards and clambering up and down the hill to the famous castle district, I was making my way back to my hotel, decidedly weary and footsore by this stage. Having recently enjoyed two days of dedicated perfume sniffing in Dresden and Vienna, perfume was not on my mind that day as I strolled through the pedestrian precinct behind the riverfront.

Suddenly, however, I spied an upmarket clothes store with what appeared to be a niche perfume boutique at one end, called Le Parfum Croisette.

“Oh, okay then”, I thought to myself. “I’ll just stick my head in quickly and see if they have anything I don’t know...”

As I stepped inside, I immediately spotted the Dutch Puredistance range of perfumes facing the doorway, and flashed a grin of recognition at the proprietor, who was sitting in front of the display on a bar stool. Perhaps sensing that I was no ordinary punter, he invited me to take a seat on the other stool, and we ended up chatting for the best part of an hour and a half.

And if I was no ordinary punter, the owner of Le Parfum Croisette was most definitely no ordinary owner of a perfume store. For he turned out to be none other than Hungary’s one and only perfumer, Zsolt Zólyomi. Is there a particular term for that – “solinose”, perhaps? I was lucky to catch him in the store in fact, for he has so many other scent-related projects; indeed the boutique itself is as much a showcase designed to raise public awareness of niche fragrances as it is a sales outlet - if not more so.

In the course of our chat, Zsolt gave me a quick rundown of the history of fragrance in his country, which has its roots as far back as the 14th century. For Hungary contributed the first alcohol-based perfume ever made – L’Eau de La Reine de Hongrie – an astringent cologne containing rosemary oil, which was said to have rejuvenating properties. Whether frequent dousing in her eponymous water had anything to do with it or not, Queen Elisabeth certainly lived to a ripe old age.

Then during the Communist era in the 20th century the fragrance industry in Hungary was suppressed as an elitist indulgence, and it is only now that people in Central and Eastern Europe are starting to discover fine fragrances and embrace the concept of luxury goods generally. However, Zsolt feels he has his work cut out in promoting the cause of niche perfume lines, for Hungarian people’s tastes have not evolved very far: women typically favour accessible scents – either quite sweet perfumes or fresh florals such as D & G Light Blue. They are easily swayed by advertising and tend to follow the crowd and whatever brands are “in” at the time. So not unlike everywhere else, then...!

Fired up with missionary zeal to revive Hungary's perfume traditions, Zsolt is deploying every means possible to further the cause of high end fragrance everywhere “east of Prague”, seeing himself very much as an ambassador for perfume. He plans to launch a Perfumery School for students from the CEE countries, and open the first Hungarian Perfume Museum.

Some day he would also like to create a brand of perfume that captures the essence of Hungarian culture. This may not be it, but he also fancies creating a scent with a burnt smell. "Aha", I said: "That sounds a bit like Christopher Brosius of CB I hate perfume and his Burning Leaves". Now I am not sure quite what style of burnt matter Zsolt has in mind, but he is clear that it must not smell like a particular type of Hungarian cheese which also boasts a burnt aroma, thanks to the way it is matured I think (I am afraid I can't remember the specifics!).

But meanwhile, as Hungary’s only perfumer, Zsolt already has an awful lot on his plate...

His fragrance consultancy service is wide-ranging: he creates commercial perfumes for brand owners (Rajul and Nubia, a mixable His & Hers range commissioned by Emeshel, a US "lifestyle brand" with Hungarian roots. The perfumes complement its existing line of high end jewellery, crystal and sculptures.) Zsolt also creates custom scents for private clients (including the wife of actor Roger Moore), and for use in corporate gifts (eg candles). Additionally Zsolt produces scented events aka "olfactive animations" - “from weddings to fashion shows, from theatre acts to product launches and parties, where I choose or create the best ambiance fragrance matching the event".

Another type of service is the tongue twisting “interactive olfactive animation”, where Zsolt might give a talk, and involve the audience through scented games or quizzes, or a spot of fragrance consulting or a mini-demonstration of the art of perfumery.

In addition to his roles as pundit, educator, marketeer and all-round scent evangelist, Zsolt is the author of a book on perfume: Le Parfum 2000. It was in Hungarian, but on flicking through I was reminded of Roja Dove's later work, The Essence of Perfume, with its general overview of the subject, historical approach, and illustrations of scent bottles and adverts down the ages.

I was also keen to hear the origins of Zólyomi’s love of fragrance. It turns out that he was fascinated by smells from an early age, and a year spent in Libya aged 10 fuelled his interest further. Rajul for men is inspired by the coastline of Zsolt's adopted childhood home, and blends the tangy scents of grapefruit and sea salt in a whimsically suggestive bottle.

Zsolt trained as a plant biologist originally, and later studied at the ISIPCA in Paris, the school for postgraduate studies in perfume, cosmetics and food flavouring. He qualified in 2005 and set up Le Parfum Croisette in 2009. I clocked the following ranges, with a full listing available on the store's website: Puredistance, Frapin, L’Artisan Parfumeur, Annick Goutal, Atelier Cologne, The Different Company, Juliet Has A Gun, Etro, Penhaligon’s, Reminiscence, Odin and India brand Sahlini (of which more anon).



Part 2 will cover what we actually sniffed, but there is one final amusing tale to report...

One of Zsolt's "olfactive animation" projects involved creating an ambient fragrance for the Kogart museum in Budapest. "If you are quick and walk as fast as me, you'll be there in 15 minutes", Zsolt said brightly, so after I left him I hotfooted it up the museum, only to find two buildings bearing that name, both of which had just shut.

Outside the first building a female member of staff was standing on the doorstep, possibly waiting for a lift home. In vain did I try to explain that - as per my original intention with Le Parfum Croisette itself - I just wanted to stick my head inside the door, in this case to sniff the air and satisfy my curiosity about Zsolt's ambient "scent installation". The girl spoke no English, so in the end I nipped past her and stuck my head inside the open door anyway, ostensibly to illustrate my point! The foyer didn't smell of anything.

So I headed on to the other building called Kogart, which was more or less next door. Its restaurant at least was open, and there were a couple of security guards loitering in the empty eaterie. They spoke some English and knew all about Zsolt's museum fragrance. "It's expensive stuff!" one guard remarked, "but it isn't used here in the restaurant, and the rest of the building is shut now, sorry."

Ah well, that was too bad, but my serendipitous encounter with Zsolt was more than enough excitement for the afternoon. Another reason to go back to Budapest some day... By which time, Zsolt may have come up with his own quintessential Scent of Hungary. If so, it will be 100% his own creation, and will not have been focus grouped beyond all recognition. For somewhere in our chat I mentioned in passing what I do for a living, to which came Zsolt's laughing reply: "Ha! I don't do market research."

I like him all the more for it.


Photo of Eau de la Reine de Hongrie Water label from perfumeprojects.com, photo of Rajul and Nubia perfume range from popsop.com, photo of Libyan coastline from africanews.com, other photos my own

A Bonkers Grand Tour: Dresden Sniffathon - And An Internet Bombshell…

Say the name Dresden and most British people will instantly think of World War 2, when, regrettably, we bombed it to smithereens. Ah, you may say, but that’s how it goes in wars, and after all the Germans bombed Coventry. That is true, but having now clapped eyes on the architectural treasures that have been lovingly restored in Dresden since 1945, I get the distinct impression that Dresden had considerably more to lose... So anyway, during this, my first visit to the city, the war was never far from my mind, not least because a popular theme on picture postcards is “before” and “after” shots of the jewel in the crown, the Frauenkirche.

On Saturday, another boiling hot late summer’s day – though not such a humdinger on the heat front as the day I went sniffing with Olfactoria in Vienna – I had a chance to sightsee and to investigate any good perfumeries the city had to offer.

To this end, I texted mybeautyblog.de, a blogging pal from Lüneburg, and immediately received a tip – Königsparfümerie Dommaschk, in Neumarkt 9 - a premium location right opposite the Frauenkirche, as it turned out.

I decided to work up to what was clearly Dresden’s equivalent of Le Parfum in Vienna, and started with a bit of low key browsing in two branches of Douglas and in Karstadt. The Douglas assistants in one branch were all in a huddle, chatting amongst themselves, and I had to prise one apart to inquire whether they had either Prada Candy yet or Acqua di Parma Gelsomino Nobile, another current love – no, was the answer, and the assistant had clearly never heard of them.

So I contented myself with a test spray of Balenciaga Paris L'Essence: the juice was a muted grey-green colour in a box to match. Instead of the cranial bottle top, Paris L'Essence has a satisfyingly heavy metallic sphere.

Also, rather than being a concentrated version of original Paris, as the name might suggest, I found Paris L'Essence to be a watery, sheer green scent – very pleasant and easy to wear, and quite different in style to its powdery, musky sister scent. The little I can find on this fragrance suggests that it is built around the violet leaf note, and that figures. A shrinking violet leaf note if you ask me, which is of course absolutely fine in my book!

I also tried Heidi Klum Shine, just because I like to dip into the German version of America’s Next Top Model, which she hosts. The series has taught me a lot of useful German vocabulary to do with the modelling industry, such as “Photoshooting”, “Casting”, “Makeup” and “Makeover”. The pleasing bottle – reminiscent of Idylle and Tommy Hilfiger Loud with the addition of a chunky square top – sadly belied its contents. It smelt like a run of the mill insipid musky fruity floral scent with a rather tart opening, which doesn't appear to have been grapefruit judging from the note list below, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Coty dream team had slipped some in there.

Top notes: mandarin, pear, pink pepper
Heart: mimosa, lily of the valley, sunflower
Base: vanilla, tonka, musk

Be that as it may, if the über-cool Seal cares to smell Shine on his wife, he will plummet in my estimation, losing much of his own lustre in the process.

Next up was Karstadt, where I agonized long and hard as to whether to buy one of the Korres scents for the bargain price of 14.50 euros. Unfortunately, they only had testers of a couple of them. I couldn’t remember my impressions clearly enough from my sampling of these in Ingolstadt, and ended up being paralysed with indecision and unable to make a purchase. So I wandered over to the main fixtures, where I was soon approached by the very personable male sales assistant, to whom I instantly warmed.

He professed to not having heard of Prada Candy either, but unlike the Douglas assistant, proceeded to quiz me about it and seemed genuinely curious to hear more. I told him not to be put off by the sweetie shop name, and alerted him to the novel cap with integrated atomiser.

Herr O (to give him not quite his full name) invited me to smell Chanel No 19 Poudré, which was a great suggestion, as I hadn’t managed to catch up with this one yet. I thought it was a much softer, more approachable version of the original, which I find too severe and full-on. Nor is the powder level excessive, and I would happily wear this year round. Sadly, my very helpful sales assistant didn’t have a sample, but I know he would have given me one if he had.

I asked him what his favourite scents were – his collection runs to some 30 bottles, so he is clearly a serious fragrance lover too – and he named (if I heard him correctly) Impérial Millésime by Creed, a line that Karstadt doesn’t stock. Herr O's candour endeared him to me even more. He then took me over to the men’s aisle to sniff his favourite male fragrance that the store did carry: La Martina Hombre. I had never heard of this brand, but it turns out to be an Argentinian make of polo gear – funnily enough, I spotted a man at the Dresden Hauptbahnhof today wearing a polo shirt with a discreet La Martina logo.

Top notes: lemon, basil, mandarin and bergamot
Heart notes: thyme, cardamom, cloves and pepper
Base notes: cedar, musk, patchouli and vetiver

La Martina Hombre was a softly spicy woody scent – a touch more masculine than Kenzo Power, say, but less so than Marc Jacobs Bang. I could almost see this working as a unisex scent. And it did smell classy, and nothing like the ubiquitous Bleu de Chanel “tonic sport” genre that I find so tedious.

Herr O also tipped me off about the new JPG male fragrance launched in France this week – Kokorico (with notes of fig leaves, raw cocoa, patchouli, cedar and vetiver). I told him meanwhile about the stampede in Britain to buy Lidl Suddenly Madame Glamour on account of its uncanny resemblance to Coco Mademoiselle. And while I didn’t have Herr O down as a regular Lidl shopper, he was intrigued by this story and said he would look out for it. And then we exchanged the warm goodbyes of two people who share a passionate interest in scent – Herr O managed simultaneously to shake my hand and pat me on the arm, which I took as a sign that he had enjoyed our chat.

So yes, never let it be said that all sales assistants in mainstream fragrance retailers are without a wide knowledge or keen interest in the subject: our very own nickgblue is one such – or was until he landed his plum job at Les Senteurs – and Herr O is another for sure.

So now I was all fired up and ready for my visit to Königsparfümerie Dommaschk. It had a superb range of scents – though not necessarily every scent in each line - including Byredo, By Kilian (all the “by”s!), So Oud, Clive Christian, Montale, The Different Company, Memo, Amouage, Floris, Penhaligon’s, Keiko Mecheri, Isabey, Ulrich Lang NYC, Nasomatto, Creed, Annick Goutal, Miller Harris, Les Parfums de Rosine, Acqua di Biella, Carthusia, Profumo di Firenze, Maître Parfumeur et Gantier, Histoires de Parfums, Hermès, Esteban, Serge Lutens, Frapin, Morgane Le Fay and Bond No 9. And some other brands I have forgotten. And some designer lines, including….drum roll…Prada Candy.

I quickly struck up conversation with the helpful and very beautiful blonde sales assistant. (She was wearing a little black dress and a double string of pearls, even though it was lunchtime and knocking on for 30C, but black shift dresses are standard uniform for those representing niche brands, I guess.) The SA told me that Candy had just come in that morning and I immediately sprayed some on a prime wrist site. Just as nice as I remembered from my first trial.

Next up, I tried a couple of By Kilians and Byredos: the Back to Black tester was empty, unfortunately, as I had not tried that one, so I retested Love and Tears which I had originally smelt with Qwendy in LA – she had been smitten by it as I recall, and Birgit is also a fan, I know. It is a huge, gorgeous, perfumey white floral – a bit heavy for the weather but I was not sorry to accidentally spray my finger tips as I was aiming for the card.

I also tried some Keiko Mecheris, a line which has signally failed to woo me up to now. The ones I tested (Mulholland, Tarifa, Les Nuits d’Izu and Taormine – half on skin, half on card) were interesting, but didn’t really grab me or have me resniffing the spot repeatedly the way Candy or No 19 Poudré did. The other scent that did truly catch my attention and which was the standout highlight of the day’s sniffing was Byredo La Tulipe. I had been keen to try this one ever since reading anotherperfumeblog’s glowing review – I believe she plans to wear this at her wedding shortly, which is recommendation indeed.

Notes: rhubarb, cyclamen, freesia, tulip accord, blond woods, vetiver and musk

This is very much a polite, feminine scent in the style I love. A friend of another blogger whose name escapes me described it as a “summer dress in a bottle” and it is just that. I do get the lilac a number of reviewers speak of, but it is offset by the fresh, dewy green notes that really do evoke a tulip, no small feat. It has a soft, pretty musky trail and it was love at first sniff. Robin of Now Smell This finds it a bit bland, but as I have said before, blandness is in the eye – or rather, the nose - of the beholder, and its gentle, tender quality is pitched just right for me. I also appear to be a sucker for rhubarb, loving its treatment in The Different Company Bergamote and Ulrich Lang Anvers 2.

NB Tulip painting is by my friend David, whose work I have already mentioned in my review of Carner D600. I am always nagging him to paint more of them, but they don't pose for as long as other flowers, apparently, so they are not his favourite subjects.

I was amused to spot the cologne called Gravel, which was suggested as a hypothetical signature scent for Don Draper of Mad Men by Memoryofscent, in her comment on another recent post by anotherperfumeblog. It has actual gravel in the bottom of the bottle – well, the white and yellowy-orange chips are in fact more like the stuff you find in goldfish tanks than anything you would chuck on your drive. I had a quick sniff on card and it was dour and manly, just like Don.

I also tried the Morgane Le Fay range, which seemed to be colour coded but not to have any individual names as far as I could tell. The blue was too galbanum-y for my liking, the pink a tuberose and ylang-ylang monster, and the yellow more my thing, though like the Keiko Mecheris, it didn’t really stand out.

Along the way I had a whiff of Carbone de Balmain on card, which Dee of Beauty on the Outside recently bought blind, and I remember her being pleased with her purchase. It was a spicy, woody, ambery number – a bit fierce for my liking (is there some gravel in there, by any chance?!), but might work for me in winter, or the drydown, say.

I also had a test on skin of Poiray Sceau de Coeur, which I had never heard of, and which came in a curious bottle whose top was made out of two-tone interlocking heart shapes. It was a bit of a Rubix cube job to get it open, to be honest, and the scent itself was some kind of praliney gourmand number – if I am not mistaken, praline seems to be the new oud. I’d give it another whirl if I ever came across it again. From my subsequent reading I have learnt that Poiray is a Parisian jewellery brand and the interlocking hearts also feature in a commemorative ring the company designed to celebrate its own history.

Now at some point in all my testing, I had asked the SA if I could take a couple of photos of the interior of the store. I explained that I was a blogger and that I liked to document the top perfume outlets in the various cities I visit on my travels. She referred me to the manager, who recoiled at the mention of the word “blog”, which in her mind was synonymous with “Internet”, which in turn was synonymous with “being ripped off by punters”. By “ripped off”, I mean that she is aware that some visitors to the store just use it as a repository of testers of niche scents, but then go off and buy the scents they like online from sites such as Aus Liebe zum Duft.

I understand her irritation, and tried to allay her concerns by saying that I simply wished to showcase her store - put it on the map, as it were - so that any fumeheads visiting Dresden would know that it had a great selection of high end brands. And while some people may cynically target her store with the clear intention of purchasing elsewhere, others who fall in love with a perfume there may prefer to buy it on the spot from the sales assistant who introduced them to the scent.

So yes, while I believe the proprietor is partly right about consumers exploiting the bricks and mortar presence of her store – possibly even as a direct result of reading my blog post - I can't help thinking that that simply isn’t the sort of thing you say... The most likely effect of telling a would-be customer that time wasters are a pain in the butt is to make them feel unwelcome. I pointed out that I didn’t have an online shop, and that my motives in wishing to feature the store were entirely honourable. In the end I was allowed to take a few pictures, but the atmosphere remained a little frosty.

So, I went to Dresden, and – obeying the famous injunction by John Cleese in Fawlty Towers - was careful not to mention the war. But as for price wars on the Internet...why, I didn’t see that one coming!



Photo of Balenciaga Paris L'Essence from theperfumegirl.com, photo of Heidi Klum Shine and Chanel No 19 Poudré from Google images, photo of Karstadt from Wikipedia, photo of La Martina Hombre and Poiray Sceau de Coeur from Fragrantica, other photos my own.