Concluding my reviews of independent perfumer Euan McCall’s jorum Studio Progressive Botany Vol.1. For Part 1 follow this link.
Nectary is described as a “brutal floral” on the Jorum Studio website. I get the description, but it tracks more closely to the Instagram photos of Mr. McCall’s I mentioned yesterday. In those pictures they are close-ups of the growing things of Scotland. Nectary is a close-up of the flowers and growing things of Scotland. It opens with a classic fruity floral duo of peach and rose. It is given a tart contrast through cranberry. Mr. McCall wanted this to be a wild milieu and so he surrounds this accord with that unkempt wilderness. He threads oud, castoreum, civet and musk together to remind you of the creatures living here. More intriguingly ambergris, labdanum, and olibanum provide an oddly briny resinous undercurrent. This forms a snapshot of rose in the wild.
Phloem is described as “a diabolical assemblage of odourants”. If I thought Nectary was one of Mr. McCall’s photos as perfume; Phloem is one of those with a kaleidoscopic filter on top. This is a fruity floral of rivals not interested in playing nice. In the vigorously kinetic development that ensues the joy of contrast can be experienced. Mr. McCall chooses the very sweet passion fruit to find its antagonist in rhubarb. This is a conflict of tartness pushing back against the sweet. The kind of tension between opposites repeats itself. Blueberry pushes back against honeysuckle as fruit and flower reverse roles in tart and sweet. Savory sesame tries to prevail over the sweet hay-like tonka. Green gorse flies into the citrus tinted amyris. Everywhere you look odiferous struggles are happening. It makes Phloem a busy type of perfume that some will find to be too unrestrained. I found that after spending some time wearing it, falling into the battle royale of perfume was fun.
Trimerous stand out from the other fragrances in Progressive Botany Vol. 1 as the only soliflore. You could make the case Nectary might be a rose soliflore but not to the degree Trimerous displays the orris butter at its heart. When a perfumer chooses to take one of the most precious perfume ingredients as the core of a soliflore they show their perspective in what they use to set it off. The rich thick butter of aged iris roots is one of the ingredients which commands the price because of the quality within it. Mr. McCall takes my favorite rooty part and amplifies it. The opening is the opulent orris butter out in front as carrot seed and angelica root find that doughy rootiness coaxing it to the foreground. Subtle touches of herbal green with thyme and baie rose along with the citrus sparkle of bergamot and nectarine remind me of light reflecting off a precious jewel. There is a lesser silvery shimmer fine orris butter has that is often lost in a perfume. Mr. McCall finds that polished veneer with the acerbic nature of juniper and kombucha. It is like shadows off the fine flatware. The powdery iris rears its head atop an animalic trio of oud, leather, and musk. Instead of powder puff it feels like the powdered lash of a luxurious dominatrix. Vanilla and incense provide a soothing balm for the return of the rooty iris over the final phases.
All three have 14-16 hour longevity and average sillage.
Just as I had experienced with the perfumes Mr. McCall produced for Senyoko his own creations show the same breadth of design. Any perfumer that can bridge the gap between the iris soliflore of Trimerous with the kinetic furor of Phloem knows what he is doing.
Disclosure: This review is based on samples provided by Jorum Studio.
–Mark Behnke
