A scent of spring night air. Courtyards bathed in puffy clouds of purple lilacs and peonies. Miles of protected honey acacia and carpets of fragrant duckweed. A scent that spreads through the city at night as a heady star jelly, as a galaxy…
It should have become the essence of carefree, first girlish dreams and hopes. But it became a heartbreaking story in memory of them…
Notes: air, lilac, duckweed, primrose, peony, pollen, heliotrope, acacia honey, benzoin, guava tree.
Stolen Nights
Background.
“If I can finish this perfume, my diary should become a perfume brand,” I promised myself several years ago. With this post, I am officially fulfilling it.
When I just started to take individual perfumery lessons, I had a clear goal to create my own fragrances. Not to imitate, not to copy, not to spy. First, I do it according to my preferences and then study “what if I do it differently?”. My entire desk and enthusiasm could have been buried under failed attempts, but I boldly continued to look for my own solutions, to compose perfume chords. One of them turned out to be so successful that I promised to present it to the world.
It was autumn of 2020, I had to wait till spring and the blooming of the nature reserve. Because it was the smell of authentic Kaniv and there is nothing better than “painting” from life. But spring passed me by. I got pregnant and had to put my aroma activity on hold until better times. As it turned out later, “better times” never came…
In spring of 2022 I was well aware that I might never return to perfumery or home again. But I kept on smelling and making notes of everything which I met around. And only when I returned home did I feel that I had to finish what I had started. I would have to wait till spring again. And it happened.
The long-awaited spring
This fragrance was released in May in a homeopathic-sized batch and distributed among a narrow circle of friends, Ukrainian perfumers and perfume enthusiasts. Thanks to their support, I decided to continue this story.
I tried to avoid war-related tangents in the title as much as I could. For it is a very positive fragrance, dedicated to every step of awakening of our nature — from juicy primroses to lush lilac bunches and acres of honey acacia. When this floral caramel flows down from the Shevchenko slopes to the city and floods the yard. When you open the window at night and breathe in a thick, transparent, jelly-like cloud of aromas. There is no rustle, no sound. Only this cloud, spreading like a galaxy. And it is so cozy being in it, that you want to open the jar and scoop out this star jelly and take it with you the next day.
It’s May. Here is the night. Here is the window. It is closed because of the air alert. Every night. If I could at least leave a gap, but the restlessness turns the air into a faceless mixture of carbon, oxygen and other gases. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s all.
What is this perfume about? About stolen nights. All those nights which were left behind the windows and the senses. But saved here, in these bottles.
Aldehyde, ambery. Complex, quite persistent and long-lasting, but absolutely politically correct and not annoying. And also… native.
