The Beautiful Mind Series: Volume 2 Precision and Grace

by: Serguey Borisov

Dance is poetry made visible,
Fragrance is a dance of molecules invisible.

The famous Russian ballerina Polina Semionova became a creative partner to perfumer Geza Schoen for a new fragrance in The Beautiful Mind Series. This second  perfume in the series, after Intelligence & Fantasy, is called Volume 2: Precision and Grace. Who else, if not ballet dancers, could be the epitome of Precision and Grace in fragrances?

Polina semionova by Richard Egli

Geza Schoen stated that “the sexiest thing about a woman is her mind”, in relation to  the first fragrance in the feminine collection The Beautiful Mind Series. The fragrance collection praises women not in a conventional way – not as objects of sexual desire or pure beauty objects, but as intelligent, creative people, developing their own ideas and skills. The perfumer desired to avoid models and celebrities, dismissive of how they exploit their own beautiful image, but to create a collection of anti-celebrity fragrances, trying to understand the thoughts of self-made women who achieved their success through hard work, and show those ideas through perfumes – quite a challenge!

What led to the creation of a second fragrance in the collection, was Geza's fascination “with what goes on in the mind of a great dancer while she`s dancing. In all the necessary precision she must express grace at the same time”.

Perfumer and ballerina met in Berlin, where Polina has long lived and worked after graduating from the Moscow State Academy of Choreography. After ten years of the Berlin State Ballet (2002-2012), dancing soloist Polina Alexandrovna became a professor at the Berlin Ballet School (2013).

"Without intelligent work, there`s no result in ballet", says Polina Semionova of her approach to dance, "even if you have a great gift. The precision only comes with hours of work in the studio. Then, when I go on stage, I don`t think anymore – I release myself to the music. I fly."

 ORIGINAL - Polina Semionova (HD - Ballet - H. Grönemeyer - instrumental)

The ballerina claims she insisted on the use of notes of pear and plum, because they remind her of her childhood in Russia: ”Whenever I smell plums and pears, it makes me smile. They remind me of my childhood summer vacations spent in the countryside”.

Geza Schoen describes his perfume as a balance between an uplifting fruity (pear, plum, tangerine, lemon) and a powdery-floral accord (jasmine, mimosa, freesia, osmanthus). He deliberately chose the most fruity kinds of flowers: Egyptian jasmine and osmanthus, with its peach-leather scent, for a better link and interpenetration between the flowery and fruity accords. “For me, Precision and Grace connotes lightness, the gossamer layers of the classical ballerina costume. And then the warmth of the body as she dances”. Therefore, the base notes of the perfume are velvety warm, woody-musky. “I`ve used real sandalwood oil because it`s more complex and animalic than the synthetic versions, better able to express the heat of the body in motion”, says Schoen.

Semionova says about the perfume: "When you first smell Precision and Grace, it`s like a breeze, so light and feminine. But then there`s this unusual note that I love, the pepper. This adds something deeper that gives a core of strength to the fragrance. It`s like ballet itself, without the hidden strength, you cannot make it light."

It`s time to move from the descriptions of the co-authors to a highly subjective perfume review. In one word: “orange"!!!

In one sentence, I`d say that our Geza seems to have fallen in love. The perfume smells like a German rational attempt to describe, in exact fragrant terms, falling into the maelstrom of love. From the charming and sweet love butterflies in one's stomach to a carnal component of adult love. But of course, I could be totally wrong.

In more detail, the beginning and heart of the fragrance create the idea of ​​a delicious, sweet orange liqueur with a persistent and sweet aroma. Other fruits, flowers, and spices expand its flavor and aromatic palette, without changing the bright orange color, but powdering it with a thin, whitish pollen layer. The perfume rotates around the orange infused, fruity-flowery accord of the heart (a similar shade of orange you can find in Classic Orange Von Eusersdorff, which also features osmanthus).

A chypre base wakes up gradually and almost imperceptibly; the thick and bitter brew of a bittersweet taste, with a dark moss and the warm, rich, animalistic feel of luxurious fur coats. I have to wait a long time, about five hours, till it wakes up fully. Bustlers may come to the base faster through a hot shower (barbarism, of course!) – but then all the fun of the sour-sweet heart, the orange-citrus lollypop of my childhood and a bit of Chypre Palatin MDCI Parfums, will fall away, and I would never want to miss it. True chypre fans are willing to wait more patiently. Chypre evolutions are always a pleasure to explore. Is there such a term in the English language as "chypre-watching", as an analogy to bird-watching?

The Beautiful Mind Series Volume 2: Precision and Grace

Top notes: Williams Pear, Bergamot, Mandarin, Lemon;
Heart notes: Egyptian Jasmine, Plum, Osmanthus, Mimosa, Pink Pepper, Freesia, Violet, Rose;
Base notes: Sandalwood, Castoreum, Myrrh, Moss, Amber.