Growing up in South Florida always gave me a skewed perspective of the end of year Holidays. Where most Americans associate them with scents of burning leaves, spices, and warmth; I experienced something different. I was living in the tropics. The scents of October weren’t that different from the scents of August or June or April. Things bloomed and grew all year long. When kids were swishing through dead leaves on the ground in a haze of woodsmoke as they trick or treated. I was walking under fruit trees and palms with night-blooming flowers in the air. I never felt like I was missing out. I was reminded of those days with Aether Arts Perfume Dia de Muertos.
Amber Jobin
Independent perfumer Amber Jobin is inspired by the Mexican variation of Halloween. The Cuban families I grew up with didn’t celebrate this. I only became aware of it as an adult. Now it has become more well-known with its own fetishes of grinning skeletons adorned with garlands of flowers and plates of fruit in front. Ms. Jobin is focused on that combination of scents to form a different kind of fruity floral.
She uses guava as her main source of fruit. I enjoy the musky sweetness of this a lot. A spray of spices coat things. The floral accord appears, and it is made up of the acerbic marigold, powdery mimosa, spicy carnation, and that night-blooming star jasmine. The richness of the floral accord flows into the spiced guava beautifully. This reminded me a lot of the way Halloween smelled to me as a boy. A set of earthy notes including moss add in the graveyard accord. Through this part a trickle of beeswax adds a simmering animalic effect which made me think of something furry off in the distance.
Dia de Muertos has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.
I am old enough now that going out for Halloween is not really an option. I am not old enough to not enjoy being reminded of running through a tropical night with a pillowcase of candy under the moonlight. Dia de Muertos takes me there.
Disclosure: this review is based on a sample provided by Aether Arts Perfume.
–Mark Behnke
