As I entered the supermarket this weekend I
halted to marvel at the arrival of this season’s Christmas trees. I lingered
over these aromatic wonders who looked a little trapped in their ‘easy carry’
netting, and took a deep inhalation. Not much entered my nose. I then crouched
down and pushed my face into the prickly netting and tried again.. much better.
I stayed for some considerable time and arose to the curious glances of my
fellow shoppers and a security guard.
As a child we often had a ‘real’ Christmas
tree. I wonder if it played a role in the development of my obsession with
fragrance and the scents of my world? After my dad conducted some clever
tinkering with something to prop it up, the tree would stand in the lounge
awaiting decoration. The decorations themselves were an annual delight. I
remember clearly ancient family baubles, in particular a glass teardrop dangler
that shone with the same shade of purple as a Cadbury’s chocolate wrapper. It
enchanted me. If you gave it a sharp twist it would spin rapidly and emit beams
of otherworldly shards of light. All this magic took place within a great waft
of forestry olfaction that to this day still renders me puddled with joy.
If you wish to smell tree in the absence of
tree, or indeed year round, you can scent either yourself or your home. My
urban flat is often transformed into forest with essentials oils of spruce or
pine that I warm in a traditional aromatherapy burner.
My favourite oil is the Spruce (Tsuga
Canadensis) which smells of authentic Christmas tree. Pine (Pinus Sylvestris)
is harsher, with the same ‘back of the throat scrape’ that oud tends to give
me. That said, mixed with
patchouli or rosewood, it retains the forestry feel and lends a meditative
atmosphere to my home.
Pinus Sylvestris does not really smell of what we
perceive to be the pine made popular with cleaning fluids and in car air
fresheners!
Two delightful (but very different)
coniferous scents are Enchanted Forest by The Vagabond Prince and Fille En
Aiguilles by Serge Lutens.
The first, Enchanted forest, is the result
of a collaboration between Elena Knezhevich (founder of Fragrantica) and
perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour. It was inevitable that I would relish this scent
as it combines two of my favourite notes with equal billing; blackcurrant and
fir (in this case - pine needle absolute). There are many notes so I wont write
an exhaustive list, but in the top are two extractions of blackcurrant and a
bright peppery coriander and carnation combination. It is utterly effervescent, if
it were possible to drink this I’d be glugging bottles of it and growing giddy
on it’s fizz! In the base is a whole bunch of deep ambery/balsamic notes that
thankfully are obliterated by the overwhelmingly beautiful scent of fir tree.
If this scent were to only smell of blackcurrant and fir it would be an acrid concoction,
tart in the extreme. Although you cannot really detect a distinct and specific base
note in the dry down other than the fir, the rich accompanying notes must
effect a tenderness and depth that stop this bright perfume from becoming a
forest feerie and spiriting away.
Enchanted Forest does exactly what the name
suggests – it’s smells of forests and enchants you. It’s very straightforward.
A much more complex composition is Serge
Luten’s Fille En Aiguilles. Ranking at number 3 of my (long and unpublished!)
list of most beguiling perfumes, this should really deserve a fulsome review in
it’s own right. However, in the interest of the Christmas tree theme, I shall
keep it brief.
Fille En Aiguilles is as dark and opulent
as Enchanted Forest is luminous. It’s forest notes are pine, balsam fir and bay
(this herb echoes the aromatic feel of the conifers). In addition, Fille contains potent spices, sugary dried
fruits and incense adding an oriental genre vibe to what would otherwise be
simply an outdoorsy aromatic wood. For me it is seasonally confusing. Whereas most fans associate the smell
of Fille with winter woods, cloves pierced oranges, the Catholic church and
boxes of sticky dates i.e. the stuff of Christmas, Fille journeys me to summer
holidays in the pine forests of the Mediterranean where the blistering heat
warms the tree sap to scent the air with aromatic sweetness. As an ‘outdoors
type’, this juice elates me, it’s almost spiritual. But that’s just me. For the
rest of you, this could be mulled wine drunk under the boughs of your beautiful
tree or a hunt through the woods to pick holly for the hearth (if of course you
live inside a Victorian Christmas Card).
Other scents of interest:
Ormonde Jayne - Ormonde Woman (a true
forest and somewhat witchy scent, to read my review click here)
Parfum D’ Empire – Wazamba (a more biblical
version of Fille En Aiguilles, with abundant incense and myrrh)
Pino Silvestre – Original for Men (classic
fougere with intense pine)
And for the bath:
Dr Haushcka – Spruce Bath Oil (exactly like
bathing in a Christmas tree, emotional rescue)
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