Opinion

Perfume Extraordinaire

Men can be quite incomprehensible sometimes. 
 
I met this person and we spent half an hour or so talking about our recent travels and what not, when out of nowhere, he told me that the perfume I was wearing was “extraordinaire.” I thought to myself, “he has decent taste” and thought that maybe I didn’t mind getting to know him more, until he followed by saying, “I will have to buy your perfume for my next girlfriend.” I was screaming “What the hell?!” inside my head, but I maintained a graceful, pageant smile on my face and told him “I don’t think so.”
 
And I meant it. Not because I was bitter or anything. It’s just that this perfume was in fact custom-made for me by a perfumer at Sifr Aromatics when I was in Singapore, and I named this fragrance of mine “Exodus” to commemorate my escape from Macau last summer.
 
I don’t know if the guy was trying to be cute with me with the silliest pick-up line ever, but he did manage to “pick up” the base note of my Exodus – a subtle musky tone, underneath layers of Rosewood, Indian Sandalwood, Tomato Leaf, Vetiver and Chypre. And I applaud him for that. Although, while most musky scents are derived from the glands of male musk deers, what he smelled from my perfume wasn’t. My perfumer introduced me to a rare, age-old aromatic fixative called White Ambergris, originating from the Old Arabic word “anbar” which means exactly “perfume.” 
 
For those who don’t know what ambergris is, this rare and highly priced ingredient is actually a secretion from the digestive tract of sperm whales that is usually found floating in the ocean or washed up on coastlines. Based on recent studies, it is said that in general, men are most attracted to musky scents on women, and least attracted to floral tones, and that is very interesting because the original form of ambergris (before it is extracted into a tincture) is said to give off a pungent, marine, fecal odor; so there’s almost a dotted line connecting men to being attracted to…well, let’s try and stay civilised here to keep this column going. 
 
 
My perfumer was like an alchemist, bringing out bottle after bottle of unique aromatic oils made from different natural ingredients from the shelves. Some of them were beyond a decade-old, before they were declared as protected or endangered items. 
 
The consultation I had with her in her aromatics studio reminded me of a Whiskey tasting master class. She told me that working with aromatics (not commercial perfumery) is like being a chef or a winemaker. The fragrance of each ingredient differs as nature changes throughout the year, and timing is key to producing the desired scents for different uses and recipes. For instance, the Vetiver oil that she infused in my Exodus is a younger batch and has calming qualities for stress relief, improved circulation and more; the oldest batch available, however, is 25 years old and that gives a more accented result of the mentioned qualities. 
 
The recipe for my fragrance, as explained to me by my perfumer, closely resembles a conventional one used widely during the Middle Ages. She added in Tomato Leaf for me, a surprisingly fresh scent of green grass, to always give me a pick-me-up moment when I roll on the perfume, just like strolling through an endless field of grassland after the rain. 
 
The most important point of this enchanting afternoon spent with her, was when she told me that she hoped this scent would help lead me to an eligible gentleman after exchanging stories from our romantic lives. Well, she will know now, that this first try was a miss!
 

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Juliana Kung

Local Member of Chaîne des Rotisseurs Disciples Escoffier International Wine Society Macau

Instagram: delishhhcomfort

 

 

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