by: John Biebel
The Swiss perfume house Ys-Uzac has released three new perfumes within a short time span: Sacre du Printemps in mid-2014, Oud Ankaa and Dragon Tattoo in January 2015. All three are limited editions, Parfum Extraits. They are linked by the fascinating visual theme of black bottles; Printemps and Ankaa feature hand-gilding of gold leaf on the bottles and Tattoo sports a leather band of steel spike-like studs, almost daring the wearer to try to hold the bottle safely. They are arresting, singular and striking. The perfumes are not only linked by their paradoxes of light and dark (spring, stars, and lithe dragons), but matched by an uncompromising richness of scent experience. They are all, in their unique ways, quixotic experiences of extremes: chiaroscuro, silhouette, high-contrast. They float and sink alternately around you. This is the wonder of Ys-Uzac and its fingerprint on the world of scent.
Sacre du Printemps celebrates Igor Stravinsky and his monumental musical work The Rite of Spring. I had to smile to see the dark bottle that houses this creation because, as anyone who’s heard Rite of Spring knows, it is anything but gentle. It is a savage piece of music, reflecting the tumultuous rise of saplings from the ground, the quaking of the earth as roots shake foundations. It reflects the violence of nature as it rips across the dormant landscape. Stravinsky composed this glorious work one hundred years previously while he was staying in Switzerland (in Lavaux, Lake Geneva region). Ys-Uzac’s perfumer and primary visionary of the brand, Vincent Micotti, composed the fragrance in the same region, and then manufactured the scent in Basel. He and Vera Yeoh, who works as a creative director to Ys-Uzac, premiered this scent at Esxence in 2014.
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Notes: Galbanum, Black currant, Vetiver, Guaiac wood, Angelica
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The perfume evokes juicy roots of slumbering greenery that have been suddenly awakened. It is a green, herbal scent that does not carry the fuzzy or medicinal aspects of herbal scents, but instead circles slowly up from the skin in a hazy fog of fern-colored shards. It is solidly anchored by a temperate vetiver, not too cool or too warm, but just at skin temperature. Black currant, that unusual note of both bitter and sweet, seems to vacillate up and down in space in its rich darkness, but bursting open with small bubbles like champagne or caviar. Sacre du Printemps is a three-dimensional perfume in that it plays actively in space, on the skin, in the air. Despite this, it remains a close-to-the-skin experience, an intimate perfume. There is an aspect of private wonder to this dark and lovely Rite of Spring, something that you want to keep to yourself.
The combination of galbanum and black currant in a perfume is volcanic in that it seems to erupt into a multitude of different sub-notes—what are they? Celery, wild carrot, rhubarb, cherry, grass, hay, mushroom, green moss, lichen, lime, celery seed, wood shavings. The nose is searching out for the familiar, but it only goes to show how certain compositions can create exponential experiences for us, as we multiply the sum into its greater parts. Sacre du Printemps succeeds as a complex green perfume of unique contrasts—sharp in its opening, mellow and gentle as it fades into a lovely and extremely wearable vetiver. It is a worthy tribute to Stravinsky and his vital work, which has forever changed the way we envision the reawakening of the world in spring.
The combination of galbanum and black currant in a perfume is volcanic in that it seems to erupt into a multitude of different sub-notes—what are they? Celery, wild carrot, rhubarb, cherry, grass, hay, mushroom, green moss, lichen, lime, celery seed, wood shavings. The nose is searching out for the familiar, but it only goes to show how certain compositions can create exponential experiences for us, as we multiply the sum into its greater parts. Sacre du Printemps succeeds as a complex green perfume of unique contrasts—sharp in its opening, mellow and gentle as it fades into a lovely and extremely wearable vetiver. It is a worthy tribute to Stravinsky and his vital work, which has forever changed the way we envision the reawakening of the world in spring.
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Notes: Aged oud, Wood, Floral notes, Saffron
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Oud Ankaa is a dark beauty named after the brightest star in the phoenix constellation: Ankaa. Intensely woody, it reminds you that oud is indeed a wood. You can instantly picture the wood chips in your mind's eye as you sniff this intensely smoky creation. It has the unique ability to smell of both wood and smoke at the same time—usually one overpowers the other, but in this case, they coincide. As you spray it, you’re struck by the sharp combination of prickling, probing saffron threads mingling with the oily opening in the uppermost base of the oud. What a joy to smell actual oil from oud in this perfume—a rare treasure as many oud-related perfumes on the market today simply do not contain real oud because of cost. Smelling the base (oud wood) and the catalyst (fire) and the result (smoke) all at the same time, you experiencing them in equal proportions like points on a triangle. It is a composition with other wood notes, very delicate florals, hard to specify, but perhaps a pale sort of rose and a bit of carnation. Together the composition is rich but shimmery—a spectacle of light against blackness. This is one of the few smoky oud perfumes I’ve smelled that manages not to be bitter. There is balance. Micotti says, “The first Swiss-made oud perfume by a Swiss perfumer." Has the Swiss touch brought a lovely diplomacy to oud and made its intensity into something of deep loveliness?
Over two hours, the perfume fades in a loose little burning cloud that hovers quietly over the body, the projection expanding outward. It becomes gentler and more oaken, smoldering, ashy, dry. It seems to deepen as it travels later into the night, darker, like a campfire that's very slowly going out, stars overhead.
Over two hours, the perfume fades in a loose little burning cloud that hovers quietly over the body, the projection expanding outward. It becomes gentler and more oaken, smoldering, ashy, dry. It seems to deepen as it travels later into the night, darker, like a campfire that's very slowly going out, stars overhead.
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Notes: Leather, ink, caramel, fruit, musk |
We shift from the glorious dark beauties of night skies and nature’s rituals to the high contrast of a modern young woman, in control of her night, her surroundings, her vision of the world. Dragon Tattoo is a fascinating exploration into "skin scent," something that reflects what someone could smell like—a young woman, a woman with tattoos, with smells around her of leather and ink, fruits and face cream. Who is this woman? She clearly eschews authority, makes her own way. This scent isn’t traditional in any sense. It opens with a bright and sour blast, like yuzu, pineapple and lime gummy candies merged together in a bag. Mixing with these youthful and brazen fruit smells is the stingingly delightful scent of ink—that earthy but clear and bright black note that is akin the smell of rain touching dry ground. Is this the ink of tattoos?
These opening notes last a long while, at least an hour, as the base of musk and gentle sugar and caramel make their way in, extending the fruit into something rounder and more firmly settled into the ground. There’s something audacious and completely unexpected about this perfume. You wonder about this young woman—where does she live, what does she look like? What makes her so strong, because clearly she is a woman of resolve. This is one of those rare perfumes that perfectly captures a person (as opposed to a place or a moment in time) in all her complexity and contradiction. The notes, which seem so discordant when observed on paper, create a symphony of personality: a woman alternately lovely and vulnerable, dangerous and warm.
Dragon Tattoo has a long life as a perfume; it lasts for many hours. Ironically, despite being the scent of someone’s skin, it projects rather well into the air and creates a layer-like cloak of scent, but never cloying or too heavy. It is unisex, with nods to both the feminine and the masculine. As with many other Ys-Uzac perfumes, it is such an unusual combination of notes, but it evolves as a surprising mélange both bold and comforting, the dragon emerging from the skin to slink about the body.
These opening notes last a long while, at least an hour, as the base of musk and gentle sugar and caramel make their way in, extending the fruit into something rounder and more firmly settled into the ground. There’s something audacious and completely unexpected about this perfume. You wonder about this young woman—where does she live, what does she look like? What makes her so strong, because clearly she is a woman of resolve. This is one of those rare perfumes that perfectly captures a person (as opposed to a place or a moment in time) in all her complexity and contradiction. The notes, which seem so discordant when observed on paper, create a symphony of personality: a woman alternately lovely and vulnerable, dangerous and warm.
Dragon Tattoo has a long life as a perfume; it lasts for many hours. Ironically, despite being the scent of someone’s skin, it projects rather well into the air and creates a layer-like cloak of scent, but never cloying or too heavy. It is unisex, with nods to both the feminine and the masculine. As with many other Ys-Uzac perfumes, it is such an unusual combination of notes, but it evolves as a surprising mélange both bold and comforting, the dragon emerging from the skin to slink about the body.
Vincent Micotti and Vera Yeoh of Ys-Uzac
The man behind the unique creations from Ys-Uzac, Vincent Micotti, will be featured soon in an interview with Fragrantica.
All product images: Ys-Uzac
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