
Six Scents has launched a new (single!) fragrance, Amber, for the fourth edition of the fashion exhibit Arnhem Mode Biennale…

Six Scents has launched a new (single!) fragrance, Amber, for the fourth edition of the fashion exhibit Arnhem Mode Biennale…

I usually prefer to wear “simple” and light fragrances in warm weather; I don’t want lots of notes percolating on my skin and inside my nostrils on a hot day — that’s annoying. I visited Los Angeles in February when the weather there was glorious: sunny, 78 degree days, cool evenings, and skies so clear you could see stars (the celestial type) at night. I packed several new fragrances for the trip, and it was fun to fast-forward to ‘summer’ for a week (it was still 25 degrees at home in Seattle with at least another month of awful weather to come). Two of the new “summery” perfumes I tested in L.A. stood out: Pacifica Indian Coconut Nectar and Six Scents Series Three Beau Bow.
Indian Coconut Nectar smells almost exactly how Pinkberry (another “hit” from my L.A. trip) coconut frozen yoghurt tastes, with flavors/scents of cool, yet musky, coconut (slightly “green” and tart-unripe ), combined with creamy vanilla and perhaps a squirt of lime juice. Indian Coconut Nectar perfume is simple, but it smells delicious. I can’t resist the scent of coconut during summer but if you dislike coconut, you’ll hate Indian Coconut Nectar — it’s all about the coconut…

I was intrigued by the Series One debut collection from the Six Scents Fragrance Initiative when it was released in 2008, and I purchased Smells Like Teen Spirit (a collaboration between perfumer Mark Buxton and designer duo Preen) and wore it with pleasure for the next year or so. I somehow missed out on Series Two; last fall and winter was a chaotic time for me, so it may have just slipped past me. I’ve been much more aware of Series Three, although I’m not as familiar with the fashion participants this time around; on the other hand, most of the perfumers’ names were familiar to me right away. Two of the of fragrances from this group that piqued my interest, in particular, were Fragrance 4 and Fragrance 5.
Fragrance 4, Ascent (shown above), is a collaboration between fashion designer Rad Hourani and perfumer Christophe Raynaud, with notes of pear, violet leaf, ylang ylang, rose, cedar, leather, incense, powdery musks, tonka bean and benzoin. This fragrance fascinates me because it has evolved differently nearly every time I’ve worn it over the past week. One time, it shifted quickly from greenish violet leaf to powder to dirtied leather and musk, as sequentially as a stop-action film of the sun rising and setting, or — as articulated by Hourani and Raynaud for the “childhood” theme of this series — a transition from infancy to adulthood…
Designer Daisuke Obana of N. Hoolywood and perfumer Stephen Nilsen talk about their contribution to the Six Scents Series Three project, #087.
A documentary about Six Scents Series Three. It is hard to see the names of the people speaking if you don't switch to full screen view (you can access full screen view by clicking on the 4-arrow icon in the lower right corner of the video screen).