New Perfume Review Navitus Parfums Part 1 Absolutio, Primas, and Virtus- Doing It Correctly

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The last year have seen a lot of those who comment on perfume making the leap to making perfume. It is not a natural transition. Just because you can speak about perfume it does not guarantee you can create perfume. Of the people I admire who have successfully completed this change it is the ones who have a passion for it. It is that which I believe is the most critical ingredient. If you come at it from a cynical perspective, you are no better than the large brands working on creating fragrance via focus group. There are plenty of success stories to emulate; Zoologist, Eris and Arielle Shoshana began as perfume writers before becoming creative directors who make great perfumes. I have a new name to add to that list Steven Gavrielatos of Navitus Parfums.

Steven Gavrielatos (l.) and Jorge Lee

Mr. Gavrielatos is better known by the name he has produced videos on YouTube under; Redolessence. He has been one of the longest running video reviewers. He was approached to take over the creative director duties for a new brand midway through 2018. If you have the inclination to want to do this, you could not ask for a better situation. With the money to back him Mr. Gavrielatos could take the time to find the right perfumers to collaborate with. He would settle on Jorge Lee, Bertrand Duchaufour, and Christian Carbonnel. Together they would produce a debut collection of seven perfumes. It spans a wide spectrum of styles. It also shows a sense of direction from someone who is making perfume for his own enjoyment. Over the next two days I am going to do reviews of all seven of the inaugural releases because it is a line which has done things correctly.

Navitus Parfums Primas is the “freshie” in the collection. There is a shorthand in the video reviewing community for the fresh and clean style of fragrance. Mr. Gavrielatos asks Jorge Lee for some different interpretations of fresh within Primas. It starts right away as grapefruit is given an enhancement via green mango. This isn’t the ripe mango seen in other fragrances. By using the green version it does make for a fresh citrus with a tropical twist. An airy jasmine intermezzo leads to an earthier base than I was expecting. Patchouli and oakmoss don’t go for that chypre vibe. Instead they find a fresher harmonic which labdanum also supports. The final part is cedar and synth woods for a long lasting dry woody finish.

Primas has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.

Steven Gavrielatos (l.) and Bertrand Duchaufour

The next two perfumes were composed by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour. As much as I facetiously call him the “High Priest of Resins” for his ability with incense perfumes. I could also give him a similar sobriquet for his use of spices in his perfumes; the “Sultan of Spices”?  Both Navitus perfumes show how he can use them differently.

In Navitus Parfums Absolutio it is through the use mainly of saffron. M. Duchaufour merges it with almond in the early going. This gives the almond a toasty feel as the saffron wraps it in a golden glow. It gives way to a fascinating heart accord of caramel apple. The carnival treat is brought to life with the crisp apple under a gooey caramel. All around this is the warmth of the saffron. This is a gorgeously realized transition. As Absolutio develops the gourmand style deepens from caramel to chocolate. Mr. Gavrielatos also seems to have decided to not let this go full-on gourmand. It is a lighter style of gourmand than I usually encounter. The use of woody ingredients in the base keep the touch lighter through to the end.

Absolutio has 12-14 hour longevity and average sillage.

If I was wanting a full-on gourmand from M. Duchaufour it was waiting in my sample of Navitus Parfums Virtus. If Mr. Gavrielatos was reining him in on Absolutio; Virtus is what it is like to let him run free. Virtus is a howlingly good gourmand because it is so unrestrained. Another thing M. Duchaufour does well is to balance the ingredients in perfumes with a list of ingredients longer than a shopping list. In Virtus he directs each of the ingredients to their proper place within the whole. It opens on a spicy mix of cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, and saffron. This is that spice cabinet accord I enjoy as each ingredient swirls around and through each other. As it moves into the heart the spices come to settle on a sage scented honey accord. This is that sweet-savory dichotomy which can be so satisfying. It is given a creaminess through fig and beeswax. It goes deeper as tobacco picks up the sweetness of the honey and carries it downward into a place where vanilla is combined with a chocolaty patchouli to complete this full-spectrum gourmand accord. It rests again on a dry woody base.

Virtus has 14-16 hour longevity and average sillage.

Tomorrow I will return with the final four releases from Navitus along with some closing thoughts on the line as a whole.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample set provided by Navitus Parfums.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Nishane Istanbul Fan your Flames- Night of the Hookah

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I have never been a smoker although I love the smell of tobacco. I think pipe tobacco in all of its various scented forms is one of the simple pleasures. My father smoked a pipe and I would tag along when he would go shopping for tobacco. It was one of the first places in my young life I attached with a specific smell. I think this is a common experience explaining why tobacco perfumes are as popular as they are. I am always interested in a new tobacco fragrance. When I visited the Nishane Istanbul stand at Esxcence 2016 their latest release Fan your Flames is a new take on tobacco.

mert and murat

Mert Guzel and Murat Katran

The name comes from a saying by Rumi the thirteenth century Persian poet. The saying reads, “Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.” It is a statement particularly apt when applied to founders and creative directors Mert Guzel and Murat Katran. For all of their perfumes they have chosen perfumer Jorge Lee to fan the flames of their vision and bring it to life. This vision was of a Turkish hookah café. It is a simply constructed fragrance that lets the tobacco do the heavy lifting throughout.

Jorge Lee

Jorge Lee

M. Lee opens this visit with an almost outlandish mix of coconut and rum. Every time I wear Fan your Flames my very first impression is pina colada. Which is sort of appropriate because to cater to the young clientele the tobacco has become more flavored in recent times. I’m not sure if there is a pina colada flavored tobacco but I wouldn’t be shocked to discover there is. That is what Fan your Flames becomes as that tropical boozy accord matches up with tobacco within minutes. It does have that fun quality for about an hour until the tobacco becomes more prominent and the fanciful flavor dissipates. It is almost as if the kids have left and the older men who don’t need anything added to their tobacco have arrived. To really confirm the turn M. Lee uses oakmoss and cedarwood to form a bitingly woody accord in the base. Almost as if the discussion has turned into a debate.

Fan your Flames has 14-16 hour longevity and average sillage.

From the moment I smelled this on a strip I knew this was my kind of tobacco fragrance. The early frivolity replaced by the earnest nearly tobacco soliflore in the end was very appealing to me. It really is an entire evening sitting in Istanbul breathing deep as the night moves through its paces.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Nishane Istanbul at Esxence 2016.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Nishane Istanbul Pachuli Kozha- Rough and Tumble

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As I related in my review of Afrika Olifant last week I received a sampler containing ten perfumes from Nishane Istanbul. When I am working my way through this amount of samples I am usually looking for something different as well as some kind of consistent aesthetic. So many of these lines with so many perfumes in them often feel like box checking exercises to make sure all fragrance styles have been represented. What sets apart the accountants from the perfumers is that elusive cohesion I mentioned.

The owners and creative directors of Nishane Istanbul Mert Guzel and Murat Katran have definitely made sure to create a distinctive aesthetic for their brand. Many of the perfumes show real flashes of inspiration but there were only two of the ten I sampled which made enough of an impression that I wanted to wear them for a couple of days. The second one is Pachuli Kozha.

Jorge Lee

Jorge Lee

The creative directors again worked with perfumer Jorge Lee on Pachuli Kozha. With Afrika Oliphant I lauded the risk taking. Pachouli Kozha is a more safe fragrance as it doesn’t diverge greatly from other patchouli and incense fragrances out there. Except M. Lee does provide a fascinating floral opening before the fragrance develops in more predictable ways.

Pachuli Kozhla opens with two of the lighter floral notes in hyacinth and camomille. Then M. Lee roughs them up with a slightly oily ylang ylang. I enjoyed the way the ylang sort of oozed over the more polite florals. The patchouli comes next and it is dense earthy patchouli. Again M. Lee roughs it up with the addition of pepper. In this case I found the pepper enhanced the herbal facets of the patchouli by bringing them into a sharper focus. The base is honeyed incense as the slightly metallic incense gets smoothed over with honey. For the final bit of contrast M. Lee uses a leather accord which is more patent leather than leather. It gives a shiny contemporary shine to the incense.

Pachuli Kozhla has 18-24 hour longevity and above average sillage.

Pachuli Kozhla doesn’t take many different turns but M. Lee’s addition of roughly contrasting notes made this a more interesting perfume for those touches. Pachuli Kozhla, like Afrika Olifant, show a real emerging aesthetic of orthogonal contrasts throughout the line. When it works it makes for something very nice to wear.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Twisted Lily.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Nishane Istanbul Afrika Olifant- The Elephant in the Room

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As I’ve explained previously when I get these huge collections from a new brand it has a tendency to just wear me out. One drawback it has is I put off trying all of them because there are just too many. For the new brand Nishane Istanbul I received a set of ten samples from Twisted Lily. As I’ve hit one of the doldrums on the perfume calendar it was time to give them a try. Of the ten I was sent there are two which really stood out and I will review both of them over the next couple of weeks.

mert and murat

Mert Guzel and Murat Katran

Nishane was founded in September 2012 by Mert Guzel and Murat Katran. Working with perfumer Jorge Lee they have created a collection of sixteen perfumes in less than three years. Many of the fragrances show glimmers of inspiration but they never came together completely for me. The one which stood out as the most unique in the ten I tried was Afrika-Olifant.

It caught my attention because it is almost entirely made up of notes which are usually found as basenotes. As a result it has a flattened development because everything tends to show up quickly. That kind of congestion actually works in Afrika-Olifant’s favor as it made me feel like I was constantly turning in a circle looking for different parts of the perfume.

Jorge Lee

Jorge Lee

The first notes I detected were a mix of incense and amber. The incense has that silvery edge fine incense provides to perfumes. M. Lee then uses myrrh to attenuate that sharpness while retaining the resinous quality. The next set of notes are a trio of animalic ingredients; civet, castoreum, and leather. These are superimposed on top of the resinous top accord. This now makes for an exotic animalic accord as the resins swirl throughout the very feral notes in the heart. Just as you might be getting your bearings a cocktail of four synthetic musks provide a scintillating counterpoint to the naturally animalic. This is where I fell for Afrika-Olifant. The blend of the synthetic musks have a futuristic aspect to them that seems to turn the animalic heart accord into something cyborg-like. As I mentioned none of the notes I have mentioned really recede at all and many hours of wearing Afrika-Olifant is spent with everything on display.

Afrika-Olifant has overnight longevity and average sillage.

The juxtaposition of the real animalic with the synthetic is what makes Afrika-Olifant stand out within the Nishane Istanbul line. It is the only one of the ten I tried to truly take a risk and it has paid off with one of my favorites of the line. Sometimes you just have to confront the elephant in the room which tells you to play it safe. Then you have the freedom to create a perfume like Afrika-Olifant.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Twisted Lily.

–Mark Behnke