Ys-Uzac - Beautiful and Modern

by: Elena Knezhevich

Esxence 2015 has brought many pleasant surprises. First of all, it's opened in a new facility, much bigger and more comfortable, as almost everyone  has mentioned at the show. It is really very convienient to meet people and smell fragrances—we all have room for spraying scents and talking. [Maybe it was little bit too dark—that is why our pictures are so dramatic. ;o) ]

Another piece of good news is that we've seen many new perfume brands and big diversity in trends. Perfumes and approaches have become more complex and more abstract. Some trends from the previous years have been re-thought and introduced in different ways.

I would like to illustrate them with a perfume line that is truly artistic and for that reason, trend-setting—Ys-Uzac from Switzerland. Vincent Micotti, the perfumer, and Vera Yeoh, the designer and the muse, have come to Esxence with two new perfumes which form a new collection, BLEND of MARVELS (BOM). The new perfumes are BOM Jasmine (Green) and BOM Incense (Blue).

I always admire the designs of Ys-Uzac's booths, which prove a very encouraging truth: you do not need luxurious materials to produce beauty. Their very inspiring presentation was built of paper and imagination. This time, they invite us to a city.

In my opinion, they have always created for modern people from modern cities. This time they stressed it explicitly with this beautiful design. Jasmine, with the green label, is what we smell in the streets in springtime. (It could also be linden, lilac, chestnuts—any romantic smell of a blooming bush or tree you have in your city.) It announces the time of marvelous change in the city, when every citizen forgets the cold, dirt or snow in the streets and loves it with all his/her heart. Vincent created a realistic jasmine in the urban enviroment.

The other perfume is more abstract. It is incense-based, but neither churchy nor oriental in its nature. To me, it captures a city's shadows, the rises along tall buildings. It starts quite sharp and green—galbanum-like wild pistachio leads in the top. If the first fragrance invites us to enjoy the green treasures of the city in its parks and streets, Incense, with all its greenness, represents the city's soul, its buzz and blocks of gray, brown, dark colors. Which is not to say it's uninviting.

I used to live in big cities. When I come to one, like now to Milan, I realize how much I miss their sounds: the rattle of trams in the night, laughter of people in the street—and their cozy feeling of togetherness. Narrow windows, balconies with tiny gardens of a few pots, small living spaces that do not seem incapacious. I do not feel claustrophobic in the city; I feel so well, and that is what I've found in the new urban Incense by Ys-Uzac.

Vera Yeoh, who created all this beauty

Incense does not transport you to far away places. It might smell a little religious, but you are not inside the church, you are passing by it. Starting with green sharpness, it seems, it even accumulates this feeling of "green," but in a different and cozier way, together with the warmth of incense.

Incense: wild pistachio, sandarac, Eritrean frankincense.

Vincent and Vera displayed three perfumes we already saw at the previous Esxence. I hate to run exclusively for the new stuff at such events, especially when the scents feel so actual! These three (Sacre du Printemps, Dragon Tattoo and Oud Ankaa) are limited to a few stores the owners wish to distinguish.

Oud Ankaa represents what is now actual in an oud-trend: to smell it natural, animalic, unpolished, dirty. It has a very sensible stable and hay touch. Although Vincent insists he doesn't follow trends and I believe him, his Oud Ankaa hits it precisely. As I said, the talents of perfumery sense trends in the air without any advice.

The flacon is decorated with gold, with a golden phoenix carved and painted on the back side.

My favorite is Dragon Tattoo: "The olfactive representation of a girl, punk and tattooed, during a party, was particularly captivating. The smell of her social statement, of her tattoos, of her diet, of her vision of the world had to be put into this particular potion."

I was surprised and I love it. The fragrance balances on the edge of addiction and repulsion when you inhale it first time. It is a mess of different characteristic we give to an "untethered" teenage girl. She wants to party all night, she is attracted to forbidden things, she wants to be bad, but she also senses a huge social demand to "good" and a healthy life. That is why the marijuna presented here is in reasonable homeopathic doses.

I smell rubber, a leather jacket, a woman's hair with some paint and gel in it, ink, cozy woody notes, some sweetness of caramel, and the most appealing—a grapefruit note, which is not obvious, but participates in many dirty nuances. To me it is one of the most modern perfumes if we can apply such terms to perfumes anyway.

Smelling Ys-Uzac we can say what is "in": modern, urban, abstract perfumes. You might say we've been fed with this idea even before D&G Light Blue, but it is now re-thought and introduced in a more sophisticated way. Nature-inspired perfumes were at the forefront a few years ago, and we still have many of them, but they also have been transformed into more sophisticated compositions.

Expect sophisticated fougères, peculiar orientals, "raw" ouds, complex florals. Some might call it a mess in a bottle.

Photos by Elena Knezhevich