Heya Posse, Tom is sweltering in the heat and can’t think to put a post out this week so I’ve stepped in. Thinking on the spot I thought it might be fun to look at Olympic Orchids again. I really love Ellen Covey, the lines perfumer, and her fragrances speak to me, sometimes they sing to me and others they capture my soul in a completely primal way. Whichever way they grab me I do know that they will be different to anything else in the market and made with 100% love. Also with it being 9/11 I thought it important to show an American, a small batch perfumer who does it her way, a creative, beautiful, free woman.

Here are a few of my personal favourites, Ellen has an excellent sample program too. Most fragrances are available to sample from $3 and even her full bottles are incredibly reasonable priced.

Olympic Orchids by Ellen Covey

Golden Cattleya by Olympic Orchids

Olympic Orchids site gives these accords: narcissus, daffodil, orange fruit, orange blossoms, honey, pollen, and cream soda combine with amber-tinged resins and musks, calling Golden Cattleya a Floral Oriental.

The opening is a big loud peal of mainly narcissus and daffodil mixed with lovely orange flowers in an intoxicating and dazzling way, almost overwhelming. It feels freakishly ancient, like the Queen of Sheba could have worn this. Or perhaps this is the scent from M J Rose’s The Book of Lost Fragrances, the one that can work magic for star crossed lovers. The honey and amber are constant players here but always displaying at different strengths, so the perfume evolves. No that’s not quite true, the perfume revolves. It plays through a set of accords, each glistening slowly over time and then repeating itself but in a slightly different way.

Find Golden Cattleya here.

Olympic Amber by Olympic Orchids

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Natural labdanum, vanilla, benzoin, incense, resins, patchouli, and woods

WWOOOOOOWWWWWWW! There is an initial green, earthy patchouli rush that is fleeting before the resinous, tense minor key comes in and vibrates against the green. Pretty soon the incense acts as intermediary and the opening act calms, warms and begins to bloom with the labdanum/vanilla/woods coming in and making sure everyone knows they are here to stay. It is this point exactly that my eyes roll back in my head and I softly murmur WOW. Everything that is comforting, sensual, inviting, engaging and delicious about amber fragrances is in Olympic Amber, it’s golden heat is intoxicating and lovely. From here on in I get a pretty linear experience and that is absolutely fine by me, perfect in fact.

Find Olympic Amber Here.

Photo Stolen marketplace.secondlife

Olympic Orchids Lil #1

From Olympic Orchids: This is the fragrance of Lilith, the original Eve and former wife of the Devil in Sheila Eggenberger’s novel Quantum Demonology.…

Top: Davana (sweet fruit), kewda (balsamic floral), kaffir lime leaf
Heart: Passion-fruit, angel’s trumpet, lily-of-the-valley, geranium, cyclamen, rose
Base: Woody notes, cashmeran, musk, and patchouli

The featured accords look innocuous enough like any other fragrance and lead you to believe that this will be like many others. WOW! I find it mind blowingly unfamiliar, more unsettling that ELdO’s Secretions Magnifiques and also more compelling. It opens sweet and fruity, like a strong celebuscent, but there is an undertow of weird, and dissonant chord that gives me heart thuddingly, edge of your seat, repeated swallowing horror film chills. I know the flowers are beautiful and fragrant and the more I try to focus on them the less I can smell them and the more I get this freaky something that lasts the whole life of the fragrance. At the same time gorgeous and disgusting on my skin.

Find Lil #1 Here.

If you liked this then come on over to AustralianPerfumeJunkies and continue the conversation there.

OK so there are three of the Olympic Orchids range that I really love. PROMISE that you won’t be bored wearing them.

What is your current Independent Perfumer love?
Portia xx