Chocolate Sunset was created by Sarah Horowitz Parfums especially for the LA Artisan Fragrance Salon. It's part of her Banque de Parfums phenomenon: exclusive monthly limited edition perfumes that are created for her loyal customers. Every month you can find something new and exciting coming out of Sarah's studio in Westlake Village - and is replaced by a new, singular experience the following month.




To quote from Sarah herself: "Chocolate Sunset is our nod to the final glorious days of summer and the richness of fall; two seasons that collide in September, neither yielding to the other as they put on a show of their beauty".

Chocolate Sunset, just as Sarah described it in her own words, is mostly a base notes perfume. You will immediately smell patchouli, Sarah's all-time favourite (as I learned from my visit to her studio along with Persephenie and Miriam). She has many different patchouli accords in her organ, and has created more patchouli perfumes that I could recount - including some private label and custom perfumes she created for her "Fragrance Journey" customers. From her steady collections - you can enjoy Love Comes from Within (a spicy, dry oriental that is based on patchouli, carnation and cloves, with a nod to the timeless Tabu and Cinnabar), and the surprisingly dry Perfect Bliss.

But it wouldn't be Chocolate Sunset without cacao! And while patchouli is immediately recognized - from the vial as well as upon application - it's the chocolate that acts as a "top note" to intrigue and almost has a "come hither" role. The darker side of chocolate is extended by an oud accord, dark and resinous and animalic, which leads us to the musky finish: Egyptian musk, which is what lingers the longest and creates a clean, skin-scent quality, still with some woodsy warmth. But eventually it's the musk that takes over. It's never obviously gourmand; nothing like Angel either as you'd expect from the chocolate and patchouli marriage, which might be due to the tiny hint of jasmine, which seems to simply have a bouquetting effect if recognized at all. It's a mellow, cozy yet sexy scent that can be worn in the heat wave of Los Angeles in September, and will lead you through a cooler fall anywhere else with warmth and ease.


 
Sarah Horowitz-Thran (right) and Miriam Varledzis (left) 

drifting sparks, a photo by wrigglefish on Flickr.

I spent Fourth of July crossing the border from Canada to the USA and spent the night in Oakland with Lisa Fong and her family - a generous and quirky bunch, with whom I spent the next week with - a much needed distraction from being away from my own. It was especially fun to be in the USA for Fourth of July and see all the fireworks that the folks of Oakland set free into their urban skies, disregarding any logical safety rules or hazard precautions (unless you consider a bucket of water as a super-hero). The fireworks that were set ablaze on Arizona Street would have put the ones Vancouver's city hall funded for Canada Day in Coal Harbour. Only that there was no ocean underneath to put my mind at ease. It was a loud night and I sighed from relief when it was over and nothing catastrophic has happened...

But after this grand opening of dancing fires, it was a rather uneventful week in Oakland, which is exactly what we all needed with everything else that was buzzing around in the perfume world. We had a full weekend ahead of us. And I felt especially lucky to stay with such friendly souls; not to mention that I got to stay at Lisa's perfume room (!) where she keeps all her rare essences (Queen of the Night, Coffee Flower and Saffron where essences I didn't even know where available until I met her in Vancouver in 2006).

And of course that's where she concocts all her exotic harmonies from pure natural essences. Lisa's style always struck me as both very structured; yet at the same time complex, multi-layered and with a knack for obscure and unusual notes, which she weaves into her compositions and which give them an unusual edge.

One of the first things that Lisa let me smell this visit was her Drifting Sparks perfume. She told me how she created it (attempting to replicate true Tonquin musk - not an easy feat!) for the Mystery of Musk project a few years back. Once the perfume reached its desired muskiness, the problem of naming it arose. It was on a long road trip with her family that she had a vision of the musk deer sending invisible messages of desire to one another through their scents; and how they catch light like fireworks. And that's how the name revealed itself to her.

Drifting Sparks begins rather smoky and a tad pungent. I think the smokiness comes from Don quai - the medicinal Chinese angelica, which has especially musky notes, as I'm not detecting the distinctively green notes I get from the European angelica root. But there is also something very citrusy and vibrant above it all - a cheerful brightness that could only be orange blossom. Jasmine sambac also adds a luminosity, and than makes room for a clean, almost watery yet musky-sweet Himalayan cedarwood.

Jasmine sambac seems to persists through most of the perfume's evolution, weaving in and out as it dries down on the skin. Drifting Sparks is a fascinating study in musk; though I find it a bit too fleeting on my skin, almost too abstract for me to be able to comment enough about the final dry out - it melds with the skin so well that it's not easy to describe, but I'll try: clean woodsy note, that reminds me of the quieter varieties of oud, hints of patchouli, and honeyed sweetness as if my skin is covered with a thin layer of honey... The florals are never quite gone either - which is what I believe is the source of the nectar - final stages of rose absolute dry down, plus the greenish, honeyed twigs of bitter orange and flowers. The final dryout is invisible, almost - ambergris, saltiness on the skin, and nothing more... If anything, it reminds me of l'Antimatiere.

Overall, after knowing Lisa's work for several years now, her style seems to have changed quite a bit: from dense, classically structured perfumes that evolve gradually from top to bottom, they are now much lighter and expansive, with consistent quality that I find in all of them (except for Yuzu Citrus, which is an "oldie" and I hope a steady part of Lisa's evolving collection). If you think in terms of the "principle of amber" vs. the "principle of musk" - I'd say her earlier work belongs to the amber (i.e.: development that goes deeper and deepr into the thick of things), and the recent creations are certainly more based on the principle of musk (i.e.: expansive, radiant, evolving sideways or horizontally, as if glowing from the skin outwards).

Top notes: Black Currant Buds, Jasmine Sambac, Orange Blossom
Heart notes: Rose, Harshingar (Queen of the Night)
Base notes: Angelica Root (Don Quai?), Oud, Himalayan Cedarwood, Patchouli, Ambergris

Green at first, a shy musk deer is hiding among tall grasses, digging its nose deep in the ground, as if in search for truffles. Earthy-green notes are the first to show through the blades of cut-grass muskiness: Egyptian geranium, with it’s baby-powder muskiness and looming above all is rooty-green angelica with its sharpness tempering its otherwise candy-sweet. Ambrette seed accentuates the wine-like qualities of geranium and brings out the musky qualities even more. Frankincense adds more depth and bright mystery, deepening its desert-like dusty and musty-urine aspects. The entire ensemble sings in an alchemical unison that hardly reveals its components to the untrained nose, and creates a rather striking illusion of castrated Tonquin musk – it’s disturbing sharp greenness and dusty fecal notes included, but not the cruelty involved in procuring it.

It’s hard to speak of this Musc Botanique as having top, heart or base notes. It behaves more like a single musk note or “accord” and each of the individual notes I’ll list below are just part of the whole, but not enough to describe it.

Notes: Angelica Roots, Egyptian geranium, Frankincense, Ambrette Seeds