
Indie natural line Providence Perfume Co has launched Hindu Honeysuckle…

Indie natural line Providence Perfume Co has launched Hindu Honeysuckle…

Undergreen is a new niche brand established by Patrice Cardenoso and Jérôme Bonnet. They debut with two unisex natural fragrances, Black and White, developed by perfumer Fabrice Olivieri…


I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight…— A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Eva Luna was released in late June of this year, which was perfect timing since this fragrance was inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Indie brand Providence Perfume Co describes Eva Luna as “a spring green floral…a walk in a moonlit garden”; its composition includes top notes of Russian carrot, fresh mint leaf, French mimosa, and bois de rose; heart notes of tuberose, plumeria, rose de Mai, jasmine, and violet leaf; and base notes of Oman frankincense, ambrette, and orris.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s best-loved comedies, a fantastic roundabout of characters falling in and out of love over the course of one moonlit night, in a plot driven by magic potions, mistaken identities, and plays-within-plays. The comedy’s setting, an enchanted forest inhabited by an assortment of fairies, is the perfect analogy for an all-natural perfume. As Angela recently wrote, natural fragrances do have an allure and romance all their own, and it’s always a pleasure to encounter a natural perfume that delivers on its promise…
UK-based perfumer Alec Lawless of Essentially Me will be teaching two natural perfumery courses over a series of dates in 2012. The courses are taught at Essentially Me’s workshop near Stroud in the Cotswolds…


Something about natural perfumes is so appealing. I envision a greenhouse with a long table heaped with blossoms. On another table, glass panes crush grease-laden tuberose flowers. A perfumer — always a woman with flowing hair and the witch-like quality of knowing the perfect herb for every ailment — dispenses jewel-toned liquids drop by drop into lead glass bottles. If love potions exist, surely they are made by natural perfumers.
Of course, that’s just my overly active imagination. I know little about natural fragrances, and I haven’t developed much of a nose for them. My brief experience has shown natural perfumes to feel more “telescoped” and dense. I haven’t encountered one that’s a sillage monster — I doubt you’d get kicked off an elevator if you wore most natural fragrances — and they don’t tend to last as long as a department store fragrance.
So I was curious to take Aftelier Secret Garden, an all-natural fragrance, and Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Pandora, a 97.5% natural fragrance, for a test drive. Would they smell too, well, wimpy? Short answer: no…