Orquidea Absoluta

An ongoing quest for tuberose and gardenia fragrances (more on this soon) led me to The Exotic Island Perfumer, a Puerto Rico-based niche perfumery with scents by Juan Perez. I am a huge supporter of niche and indie perfumers and their small companies and I am delighted to share the news that Juan Perez has created an exceptional line of perfumes that stands alongside Neela Vermeire Creations as my favorite small niche house and alongside Frederic Malle as a house with an outstandingly creative artistic hand in fragrance creation. Orchidea Absoluta is one of Juan's two new scents and it is a stunner, a dry cocktail of jungle orchids with a moss and animalic musk base. Orchidea Absoluta is "inspired by the multi-faceted Cattleya orchids (and)combines the beauty of four different orchids" that reveal facets of green citrus, lilies, lemon, rose, cinnamon, and "spicy and slightly carnal notes" of Cattleya dowiana and Cattleya labiata." It's calibrated somewhere between the feminine and the masculine (yes, gentlemen can and should wear orchids) due to the woody lichens and mosses of the base and the spicy unguent petals of the heart. It is a stark and angular beauty far removed from the fruity and sugary box canyons of the modern perfumery brief. The frag opens tart and green, with the zing of lemon and light spice peppering smooth and creamy orchid petal; sunshine on cool, animalic flesh. It feels streamlined as it can be as a showcase for a steamy jungle or hothouse flower; it is a sly and sultry mossy-musky-dry woods take on the flower. Juan Perez, as I am coming to see has quite an elegant and refined take on fragrance, not a kitchen-sink approach, and here he has carefully shown a sophisticated restraint and avoided pulpy fruit (Black Orchid) in favor of a reductive, orchid-centric beauty. Orchidea Absoluta is the orchid equivalent of the LOTV of Dior's Diorissimo, and I mean that as high praise indeed. As with all of Juan Perez's scents I have tried (four, so far), they are the epitome of the intellectual fragrant imagination. And they last, have lovely sillage and are as chic as can be. Had Mr. Perez been around a decade or so ago, he'd have fit right in at at Malle. As it stands, he deserves to be discovered and celebrated. His work is intellectual and artistic in the way that only the anti-mass market can be. You can sample his work on Etsy as The Exotic Island Perfumer.