D.S. & Durga: Trendy Druids from Brooklyn

by: Eugeniya Chudakova

At this year's Pitti Fragranze I almost made the biggest mistake in my aromatic life. As it often happens during the three-day rush in trying to boil the ocean (or, to try perfumes by more than two hundred brands) you decide to visit some stands "a bit later" and realize that they were in your agenda just when you got back home. There was practically the same story with D.S. & Durga ... thank God only "practically" because nearly at the last moment I remembered them and visited their stand. And now I can say that it was the best thing that happened to my nose within these last years.

D.S. & Durga  is a creative duo from Brooklyn, comprising a degreed architect and musician who fell in love with perfumery and started one day to create aftershaves, but in 2007 bearded guys were all right and Durga with D.S. switched to perfumes. Their fragrances tell the story of pre-industrial America:"Some of their inspiration comes from outdated herbal wisdom, native ritual medicine, lore and legends, historical movements and Americana. The scents are the stories of prospectors, gentry, trailblazers, frontier women, drawing rooms, workbenches, cowboys—fragments of half-remembered legends, movements, events, and foreign lands."

Besides their main aromatic line, there is another collection at D.S. & Durga brand—HYLNDS:

"HYLNDS is a line that seeks to recall the myth infused lands of Northern Europe.  Tracking legends from antiquity, the Iron and Viking Age, HYLNDS scents are made with an in depth research into historical documents, aromatic analysis of real places, and the artistic creation of the Celtic, Norse, Manx, and Anglo peoples."

As is customary in niche perfumery, the fragrances are not gendered, but the perfume descriptions contain, I may say ... tags, in which the creators allow themselves recommendations as to whether it should be worn by men, women or both. Besides that, these tags contain very useful information about the character of the fragrance and, especially interesting, about the grade of its intensity: light, medium bodied or full bodied. Common perfume ingredients are rather rare in D.S. & Durga olfactory's pyramids.

Local species and aromatic images really intrigue even if you don't understand what it might smell like (sometimes it's hard to understand what "snakeroot" is, for example, as it can be any of a dozen species considered  to heal snakebites). But the most important fact is that there is no importance how these perfumes were created and from where the inspiration came, as all the fragrances I had a chance to try really reflect the power of wild nature—dark forests, vast meadows, deep sky and rushing wind. D.S., who grew up in the picturesque landscapes of New England, arrived to catch the spirit of the Nature and to bring it to his olfactory canvas. That's why now we have very vivid, energetic, original, fragrances that don't need any legend. They are extremely interesting to explore and emotionally rich as well. The only annoyance is their small editions and the length of their production process.

What I arrived to try is Bowmakers and Siberian Snow from the main line andFoxglove and Isle Ryder of HYLNDS.

BOWMAKERS
amber, animalic, ether, green, medium bodied, feminine, spice

"Amongst the transcendental woods of the 1800s, craftsmen from the Massachusetts Bay Colony built violins & bows in the tiny towns of the Pioneer Valley.The shops were riddled with old growth mahogany, burled maple shavings, amber pine rosin, aged walnut & their unique secret varnishes"

Top notes: violin varnish, mahogany, outdoor accord
Heart notes: amber pine resin, cypress, maplewood
Base notes: spiced tree resin, cedar, moss

This scent catches the image of an old joinery. In my case it's a memory of my granddad's joinery where he made beehives and aired aromatic herbs. There was an amazing green-woody aroma of a green timber, the characteristic sharp etheric smell of mordant. Bowmakers opens with this very accord: fresh cuttings, tramped in the dirt floor, and beeswax. Bowmakers' score is built by combining cold and warm woody notes, without any sweet hint, and aromatic accents created by sharp volatile synthetic accords while forming the beautiful and soft leather-resinous drydown.

SIBERIAN SNOW
amber, animalic, ether, green, medium bodied, feminine, spice

"Rare, narcotic jasmine, crisp mint, Oriental amber,sandalwood & powdery incense. Worn by Countess Anna Vladoska at her legendary balls."

Top notes: wintergreen mint, cistus labdanum, incense
Heart notes: styrax, jasmine sambac, patchouli
Base notes: amber, civet, oppoponax

For the first wearing Siberian Snow became dust and ashes on me, creating an image of a hollow dusty crypt with withered flowers. The second time I was clouded by some scent that could be made by a poor dilution of Iso E Super—a simple "woody and something warm" smell that followed me for several hours without changing. But finally, on the third try, this capricious fragrance opened with a wonderful aromatic opera in several acts. A bright and rolling start, as if one cold late autumn day you entered a tiny church where the renovation just finished, new woody floors are laid, it still smells of paint and lime, but the lamps are already burnt and there is a strong smell of incense there. And suddenly , through this divine incense smoke, you feel some strange and clutchy animalic accord, that later turns into gorgeous indolic jasmine, that becomes the center of the composition. It entwines with earthy patchouli, that gives as well some kind of road grime accord with a hint of lime. This jasmine gives some shiny accords to warm resinous styrax and opoponax, building the whole aromatic and animalic composition around itself.

It's a really exquisite and structured scent that could seem chaotic from the first glance. And thanks to this feeling of chaos and anxiousness it becomes very sensual, even vicious.

ISLE RYDER
amber, feminine, floral, masculine, medium bodied

"A call to the fabled isles of archaic Norse and Celtic myths. Resinous Norway spruce and fir cones with narcotic jasmine, island wildflowers, honeyed mead and bulrush straw"

Top notes: poplar buds, fir cones, meadowsweet
Heart notes: golden gorse, jasmine, Norway spruce
Base notes: mead, woodruff, bulrush straws

This fragrance became the catalyst of all the emotions that wild nature can awaken in a human being! It's the trail of a spring morning in the mountains, when you are leaving home and sniff cold air with crispy energizing aroma of pine, that starts with a cold ether and turns into warm glossy resin. As the sun rises, everything warms up and starts the intoxicating and delightful olfactory cannonade: sweet clover, cool-honeyed wild jasmine, dusty spicy sage. Seems I have embarrassed you with the components you will never find in the original pyramid, but these are the very aromas I can definitely feel in Isle Ryder.

And the power of this scent is in the fact that it can reveal many images ... not only the one I described, this beautiful morning in the Caucasus mountains, but it can be as well a sunny afternoon in a field with the air filled with clover sweetness and bitter dust of wormwood. It can definitely be a moorland somewhere in Scotland, flooded with the ambery honey of the sunset. The core of this scent is not in its components, but in its character, that could be described as some aromatic fragrance with ambery-honey accords and notes of wild flowers, but it's better just to enjoy its ability to draw the sumptuous landscapes in front of your inner eye.

FOXGLOVE
feminine, fruit, floral, leather, masculine, medium bodied

"One pink foxglove stands by Oisin's resting place. Dewy rose, iris, peach skin, and narcotic champaca absolute."

Top notes: citron peel, rosewood, queen Anne's lace
Heart notes: iris, neroli, champaca
Base notes: suede, peach skin, immortelle, ambergris

Considering the announced fruity-floral character of the fragrance, my attention is never drawneo it longer than it takes to read its name. But after the olfactory knock-down by Isle Ryder, I can't and I will never be able to ignore any D.S. & Durga perfume. Being as gentle as it is vivid, Foxglove, like each scent  by D.S. & Durga, is uber interesting and fascinating. It opens with shiny bright lemonade and then turns to the subtle, but very detailed aromatic picture of a tea-rose shrub with velvety cold sweet rose petals and the crispy green of the  flower base. The fragrance has a very beautiful matte and lacy character, borrowed from elegant iris and later underlined with dry immortelle.   But the most amazing note here for me is a combination of warm and sensual honey velvety accord (announced neroli and champaca) and the fruity side of the scent—gentle sweet peach, whose aroma and the suede structure of its skin the creators have made nearly physically sensible. And all this pastel flowery beauty is laid on the soft suede base that keeps the feeling of the multilayeredness and texturedness of the scent for so long.