The Winter is Over. What Did It Smell Like?

03/02/08 22:38:49

What is the smell of winter? When outside is cold it is nice to wrap yourself into a warm blanket of cinnamon and sweet vanilla, or warm your nose up in a pile of spices. For many of us winter smells warm, sweet, spiced, like boiled wine.

Jean Claude Ellena in his fragrance L'Eau d'Hiver (The Fragrance of Winter), created for Frederic Malle Editions de Parfum, proposes entirely different interpretation of the smell of winter – airy and pure like snow, but snow that delights the one who sees it. That feeling of joy and delight the perfumer has succeeded to capture in a fragrance.

Balmy waft of heliotrope with a cheerful, scarcely notable citrusy nuance signifies emotional uplift of the one who witnesses the beauty of winter. Snowflakes are light, they caress with their white tufted petals; we take them in our hands and try to discover what they smell like…

Their scent is elusive, it ripples just like frosty air, and we sense delicate flowers, so fragile that they simply can not bloom in any other season. Its scent fuses with the warmth of our hands.

The warmth of velvety iris with a drop of honey, comes from inside and warms us just like gloves, not dominant, because the cold winter is outside, they are warm and sweet just enough so that we can comfortably enjoy the beauty of winter.

Jean Claude Ellena is one of the great perfumers who does not follow the fashion, as fashion is different than art.