Eden

(This will be a long read, skip if not seriously interested in the fragrance world.) Eden is a pagan fragrance. It's seer chanting proverbs to protect femininity. Its spell wrapped around priestesses' virgin...to keep the serpent away. To protect. A temple mist. Chantings. Washing before entering eternity of the spirit. The will od Allfather. The law of nature. Eden is the will of nature captured into the bottle. The will of natural force, that serpent cult can't break. It's the perfume of truth. Not lies. That's why serpents don't like it. They are afraid of it... The truth could set them free. Good. Stay away. Spell of Jean Guichard works. He is a seer. Mitranir. Oracle. To this day. Jean said once somewhere: "Nature inspires me." Rest of his opinions, nobody asks him. Ever. To the good nose, mind and spirit he speaks through his masterwork. It is a big loss... the ignorance in which this civilisation swallows itself. Ever seen a documentary about Jean Guichard or a serious interview? Imagine he would explain his ideas, visions... He should as he is the ultimate nose. Serious artist magician of smell storytelling, and where every story he told had flesh on it. It's not bone. He could easily retire after Loulou, that's how big that perfume is. And if I make a serpent joke... After Eden, he could die. This masterpiece deserves a category for itself. No, this is not green floral. No, this is not fruity floral...this is the FOREST elixir. A substance believed to maintain life indefinitely. As the definition says. Substance to cure. This scent cures the spirit. Here fruit notes don't behave like fruit. They behave like RIPE fruit spirits. No, this is not a smelling rotten fruit. It is peelings of RIPE fruit. What do you think, inside the Garden of Eden fruit to consume is unripe? Do you seriously think that? Gods would tell you to eat an unripe peach? No, they thought humans to enjoy just the right ripe fruit. Pleasure is in ripe fruit. Food is sinful if we overreact or if we consume it unripe. See where the master perfumer entered this? Food is the first attraction to break a will or to sustain a will. What is the hardest habit? What makes you ill if you enjoy it too much? Food. "Come, Eve, look all this ripe fruit, enter the risky middle world with me. See the lotus Eve? If I dip it into wine it will make you slut. My priestesses, like feminist Lilith, is." Works like sexual loss Viagra for both sexes. Lotus vine. Ask ancient Egyptians. They use it as a sexual orgies drug. Do you still think Jean Guichard is just a chemistry master? Let me add more. Second, just a second, before Water Lilly opens the garden of alluring...SERPENT shows itself. Black locust. Not the blossoms. No. Wood itself. Wanna know why a Black locust, like a black magician, or serpent cult leader is presenting a serpent? The leaves, bark, flowers, and seed pods are poisonous. Even to animals. And this note stays almost till the end, and that battle for the soul of femininity lasts almost 12 hours! Wondering through the forest. Facing day. Facing night. Facing weakness, facing strength. Because every single flower used in this pagan seer protective serum has its own story. Who is Mimosa? Why that name? What does it do? It's a flower scared of light. Loves dune. Mimosa got her name from a mimic of animal sensibility. It's a trickster to drag Eve deeper into the serpent world. To open the testing of female strength. To test our female nature. Now, when Eden is drugged out with lotus sexual vine, the mimic will continue... Smell the Black locust? It's persistent, wrapping itself around your skin, and trying to penetrate. It's strong and stubborn like locust wood. Doesn't rot easily, but water, clean forest water is dangerous to this poisonous serpent leading Eve away from Adam, leading her together with Mimosa and the intoxication of Water Lilly... The more poison works, the more we sweat, the more we hallucinate. It's a final test of this magnificent, masterpiece base note. It is an earth and forest aldehydic coat of security. Wanna rest Eve? Let the cinnamon peelings calm you, and let the Patchouli soften you... Shhhh... Shhhh... Water is dripping. Mist is rising. The forest is chatting. Birds are silent. Always silent when evil enters. Lilly of the valley mixed with forest water made Eve totally lose her body. Lilly of Valley is toxic. Eve swims inside the indigo light. Between life and death. Serpent thinks she won. Wrapping the cold reptile body around Eve, wanting to penetrate her. To dirt Eve. Tonka beans tree under which Eve is losing the fight throws the beans, hitting her head (your nose). Waking her! To run. Run. Run. Jumping over waters... Running deeper into the forest. Oakmoss leads her to the white light. Cedarwood showing her direction (another very male note)...till Jasmine rips the fog. Do you know that Jasmine is a very male flower? Belonging to ancient gods that loved Oleachea? Do you know that the substance inside Jasmine called Jasmonate is a key substance responding to stress and heat and LEADS other plants? To safety. Do you understand now why Oleacheas are god's plants? Jasmin or Adam waits there. He already orchestrated the forest to chant to Eve. To lead her to him. Whoever ever thought Jasmin was a female note or flower is wrong. Very wrong. Seer knows that. Hanging a branch in front of his cave. Males must lead. Must protect he whispers... Fulfilling the prophecy. Eve resting in the arms of Adam, like roses swinging under the forest trees. Raining again... That's Eden. The law of nature. Ultimate perfume masterpiece. Scent of surrender to evil and finding strength to do the will of nature. To embrace femininity to the last atom of existence. Females can only do that with males. Roses don't like to blossom when exposed to constant wind. Do you understand why this pagan elixir ends with a beautiful rose? Floating... Silently. Like moon waters flow through the female body during ovulation. In need of male protection. To end. To add. I sniffed this elixir the first time when it came out. I got a small bottle. Original one. In the Italian magazine. It was a humid fall. I was flushed with street water by a local bus. I was pré puberty girl. Wet walking home. Happy with my regular magazine buy (that magazine is ruined these days btw). With a little green bottle in my purse. Later it became my signature perfume. I adore it. It touches every person. Some hide. Some ask... Serpent cult priests are afraid of it. Spell works... Plants have spirit and character... They talk. To magicians. I literally know where I smelled it the first time in my life. Standing on the hill going to the street where I grow up. Under Black locust trees. I had no idea magicians of this universe chant to me. This strikes me to this day. Do you believe in coincidences? I don't. As the law of nature is not a coincidence.

As splendid as Anne Flipo's composition for Frederic Malle may be, and it's quite lovely, the true "Synthetic Jungle" for me is that of Cacharel Eden, Jean Guichard's surreal and polarizing creation that pushes the boundaries of where a perfume can go, blurring the lines between natural and artificial. It begs the question of what makes something synthetic seem natural, and vice versa, with the concept of ethereal water lily as its starting point, radiating outwards into the realm of hyper-verdant, unfathomably lush leaves and oblique aquatic accents. What does stand out to me is a black locust note: the pendulous, clustered flowers of the tree Robinia pseudoacacia. This tree flowers in late spring, with its inflorescences similar in appearance to that of wisteria or laburnum, with a creamy white color and an intoxicating fragrance that is similar to sweet pea, jasmine, orange blossom, and a high methyl anthranilate content that reminds one of ripe concord grapes. I absolutely love their scent, though the tree itself propagates like a menace and can be invasive in some areas. They grow FAST and spread FAST, treacherously thorny and difficult to remove. But their flowers as they blossom for just two short weeks: divine. Anyhow, five minutes Eden recalls them and just the overall feel of approaching humidity during their blooming period. Beyond that, there is this peculiar wavering between the smell of true, fleshy, over ripened plants and fruits and plastic office plants: yes, plastic. True foliage mingled with plastic, and I love it. At one stage, it's as if all the foliage and fruit, real and artificial, is soaked with rain. Then what comes to mind is that of sun-warmed bamboo, sliced aloe vera, milky exudates from rogue vegetation, fermented roses and decaying mimosa, artificially-flavored pineapple candy, the wrappers of Now and Later or Starburst, even the smell of jackfruit. Yet, throughout all of this, there is a certain elegance surrounding Eden, it feels at once baroque and futuristic. It interrogates the wearer on what fulfills and also chills them. What warms them but also has them pondering connectedness (or disconnectedness) with their surroundings. When Eden recedes, it does so in a poetic way, with each strange plastic, dayglo-green leaf and curious drunken fruit slowly crossfading into another realm, that of sandalwood and patchouli, glimmers of the bittersweet and post-rapture (!) clarity, still treading between "is it live?" or "is it Memorex?" Real sandalwood? Of course not! Real patchouli? Surely it is. Or is it? Or is any of it real? Does it even matter? That's the brilliance of this strange and wholly satisfying creation with an acquired taste.

I’ve been wanting this for ages. It isn’t available in stores where I live, so I had to blind buy it, but I wasn’t scared. I knew that I would love her, and I was right! I had the same feeling when I discovered Angel, which is my favorite perfume. What a strange, beautiful creation this is! The first time I sprayed Eden, it was intensely floral at first, like being buried in a big, bold, intoxicating bouquet of white flowers. After a few minutes, they faded and left a lush, green, fragrant swamp where a very peculiar fruit grows, behind. Not quite melon, not quite pineapple, but similar... Rich, deep, slightly spicy, non-gourmand fruit, balanced and grounded by woodsy notes. A little plasticky and synthetic, but in a good way... it tickles my imagination just right! It adds to the mystery, somehow - feels a little sci-fi, fairytale-like, and surreal. No decay. If anything, it’s weird because the fruit smells a little sterile, in a sense... like, a genetically modified fruit grown on a spaceship, specifically made not to rot. Or a peculiar combination of fruit and flower that grows and blooms on a curious planet in a galaxy far, far away. It makes me think of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, more specifically of Nausicaäs garden lab. The performance is impressive. When you first spray it, it’s quite loud, but calms down and then the sillage feels just right. I get whiffs of it when I move around, but I don’t think it fills a room. It lasted well over 8 hours on my skin, although faint towards the end, and lasts even better on clothes. One day, I hadn't sprayed it on my skin, but I was wearing a shirt that smelled of Eden, from wearing the perfume on the day before. Then I changed clothes. A couple of hours later, my boyfriend came over, and when we were hugging he wouldn’t stop telling me how good I smelled, asking me what it was. That was Eden. A few days later, I sprayed Eden on a knitted sweater and a week later, I still got whiffs of it from that knitted sweater. Incredible, isn't it? For that price! ... Unfortunately, this perfume changed for the worse with maceration. After just a couple of months, it became greener and woodier, with weaker performance. Now it’s cold, plasticky-powdery and slightly bitter and camphorous. I can't pick up any floral or fruity notes. I still like it; it’s still a strange, interesting statement, but it’s not a love anymore. I will be more careful with how I store my next bottle because I absolutely adored how it was when I first got it.

How NOT to test Eden: fresh out of the mailbox, after days traveling in trucks, when the box and the bottle were ice cold (I live in a very cold climate). I was so excited and eager to try it that I tore off the packaging, opened the box, and sprayed it right away on my skin... Whoa! Bathroom deodorant! YUK Huge mistake! I remembered that perfumes, like wines, need to be at the right temperature to offer their best. The molecules need time to settle. I had to step back, let it arrive, set, and warm up (I even held the bottle between my hands to assist the process). Some time later, I tried again. First, I sprayed it in the air... hello powdery, a silky powdery opening. Then, I sprayed it on paper. A completely different story! It's fresh, I get some camphor or menthol and bergamot. Then, vetiver and moss. At this point, it leans almost masculine. Vetiver is a familiar note, it reminds me of a cologne my dad used to wear when I was a kid. Finally, I sprayed it on my skin. The bathroom deodorant slowly turns into a cozy note. I'm not sure why, but I can't stop smelling my wrist! I keep picturing a thick, juicy, green aloe leaf. I don't think I actually smell aloe, but maybe I was reminded of it by the shape of the bottle. And then I get fabric softener, or dryer sheets, but the kind that I love. It keeps warming up and getting cozier, there's something so familiar about it! I looked up the original commercial on YouTube, and I finally got it! I do believe that, at least back then, the perfume ads were more carefully created to set the tone, mood, and atmosphere the fragrance is trying to create. To me it evokes a summer evening walk, it's humid because it just rained not too long ago, and I'm passing by someone's home, and they're doing laundry, and I smell it from a distance. One of my favorite smells. It took me about 40 minutes to fully appreciate its deliciousness. Eden is aquatic, green, and sensual. It evokes A Midsummer Night's Dream for me. There's something trippy and delicious about it, lush and green, like that scene where everybody's lost in the forest, inebriated by summer. Its soundtrack is Delius (Song of Summer) by Kate Bush. Oh my gosh. This is just amazing. I can't stop smelling it. I am transported right away. Eden opens so many different doors in my mind. I love it.

I spent weeks reading reviews about Eden, and I felt I had read everything: that it smells like a witch’s brew, something dark, rotten, moldy, damp... and I genuinely did not understand. I have just received it and sprayed it for the first time, and I am honestly surprised by how different it is from what I expected. To my nose, this is a lush garden. Yes, there is a humid, misty quality, but it is the humidity of vegetation — leaves and flowers after rain — not decay. The opening is unexpectedly bright and sharp. Bergamot, lemon, and mandarin create a piercing, almost sparkling effect. It tingles. There is something watery here, but it is inseparable from an explosion of florals. The composition is dense, heady, and generous. Tuberose is prominent — creamy and bold — paired with mimosa and a subtle bitterness. I usually dislike melon in perfumes, yet here it is surprisingly beautiful. There is freshness in Eden, but not the freshness of early spring. This feels like spring at full maturity: humid, fertile, and intensely sensual. Everything feels refined, translucent, and green. Nothing here is light or discreet. The saturation is high, with several beautiful notes unfolding at once, like a complex story that draws you in. That is Eden to me. This is still very much a first impression — I am only about thirty minutes into wearing it — but so far I find it fascinating, and far more beautiful than its reputation suggests. Edit: After wearing Eden several more times, I find it increasingly harmonious. It is undeniably special — a point on which I agree with many others. It can be too much for certain occasions and is not a fragrance I can wear every day. However, when chosen for the right moment, the experience is remarkable. When I let friends test it, the word that comes up most often is “elegance.” Personally, I find it difficult to define Eden with a single adjective, as the olfactory journey is quite unique. I associate elegance with other perfumes in my collection; for me, Eden is above all a highly sensory fragrance. It evokes a place rather than an emotion or a mood, which makes the name “Eden” particularly fitting. I also find it especially beautiful when applied away from the face. Avoiding the neck and arms allows it to unfold differently, and I enjoy it very much this way.