The poison & the remedy: welcome to the darker side of scent…

Some of our most beloved flowers and fragrant ingredients are, in fact, powerful poisons with a rich heritage of folklore traditions, used for centuries in suspected witchcraft practices, to render scented gloves quite deadly, and by spurned lovers sprinkling petals into potions. Once, during the reign of King Louis XIV, a murderer supposedly used poisoned perfume to kill so many royal courtiers it sparked a witchhunt ten years before those fingers started pointing in Salem. A notorious case named ‘The Affair of the Poisons’ by sensation-seeking newspaper headlines, it simultaneously delighted and horrified a public who began looking at perfumes in a new light…

You see, perfumes aren’t merely ‘pretty’ – they can work as potent brews to bewitch, beguile and welcome you over to the darker side of scent, albeit in the most enticingly elegant manner. For ‘spooky’ scents must do more than simply scare, that’s far too obvious and crass – very few people wish to be terrified by their own fragrance, and I say that even as a mostly reformed ex goth. What I yearn for are fragrances whose beauty belies a more sinister undercurrent – we must first be enchanted to be fully ensnared. Something history teaches us time and again.

 

 

Catherine de Medici’s perfumer (and expert in poisons), Rene lé Florentin, was said to have made perfumed poisoned gloves at her behest, killing Catherine’s rival, Jeanne D’Albret, who fell ill following a shopping trip and died under mysterious circumstances. No matter nothing was proved: the story was far too delicious not to spread the scandalous rumour of death by scent.

Laced fragrances were supposedly used to kill members of ‘the perfumed court’, with 194 individuals arrested and 36 executed between 1677 and 1682. In fact the whole ‘Affair of the Poisons’ masked a crime ring, and the growing concern of womanly wiles being granted by satanic pacts, which writer Anne Somerset thoroughly doccuments in her book The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (sadly out of print I believe, though you can often find second-hand copies). But the links between glorious smelling scents and deadly intents were now firmly ingrained in the public consciousness.

 

 

For the morbidly curious, the Poison Garden of Alnwick Castle provides modern visitors a chance to see the types of plants grown and harvested by alchemists and wannabe witches throughout the years. When Jane Percy became the Duchess of Northumberland, her husband asked her to do something with the neglected gardens. ‘I think he thought, ‘That will keep her quiet, she’ll just plant a few roses and that’ll be it,”‘ the Duchess commented to The Smithsonian magazine; ‘…but I thought, ‘Let’s try and do something really different.'” Despite the many signs and stern guides warning people of the danger of picking or even smelling some of the plants, apparently each year, several visitors sneak a sniff, with some being taken ill following their reckless actions. What is it about forbidden smells that makes them so… irresistable? Let’s dare to find out.

 

Cyanide smells like almond, cleverly cloaked here in clouds of fuzzy apricot, luscious plum and milky coconut. Waxy white flowers have their narcotic tendencies softly smothered by a blushing rose, creamy sandalwood and a fluffy base flecked with wildly addictive vanilla. Revisit this, and I defy you not to spend the entire day being enraptured by your own smell. Vanity’s supposedly a sin, but oh! How wonderful to adore yourself.

Dior Hypnotic Poison £65 for 50ml eau de toilette
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Mandrake roots, often used in Wiccan rituals, were believed to emit a blood-curdling scream when dug up, but smell pleasingly of red apples. Happily married to sharp rhubarb, pomegranate and bergamot, the shriek is stifled by a deep, loamy patchouli, smoked birch and a caramel-like undertone swirled with cream. You’ll be screaming for more of this poison-inspired range, I wager.

Parfums Quartana – Les Potions Fatale – Mandrake £115 for 50ml eau de parfum
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Socrates drank black hemlock to poison himself, but it’s used here to far greater effect – oodles of the absolute lending mysterious shadows to a dusky forest, otherworldly whispers amidst the verdant undergrowth, all set against the backdrop of a violet-streaked, vetiver rich, amber-tinged, sunset. This one captivates crowds, and could easily conquer a whole court, should you so wish.

Ormonde Jayne Ormonde Woman £110 for 50ml eau de parfum
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Commemorating women burned as witches – such as Agnes Finnie, killed at Edinburgh Castle in 1645, screaming ‘may the devil blow you blind’ – hazelnuts are shot through with the red juice of blood oranges, woven with curiously curling tendrils of tobacco smoke, a hint of damp tweed and the mineral freshness of misty moorlands. Delightfully unsettling for those who dare ask the provenance of your perfume.

REEK Perfume Damn Rebel Witches from £85 for 50ml eau de parfum
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Foxglove, a.k.a. Digitalis, is cultivated for its great beauty, though every single part of the plant can be lethal if swallowed. Imagining a scent for the odourless flower, this heady perfume oil oozes botanical history, blending blood orange with salt meadow grass, hyacinth leaves, jasmine and white cedar. It smells like tear-stained love letters tied in silk ribbons, tossed in a lake but never forgotten.

Joya FoxGlove £75 for 75ml parfum
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A slowly unfurling intoxication of transparent jasmine and white narcissus work their magic beneath greedy handfuls of succulent berries snatched in darker woods – a sense of half-glimpsed, tulle-draped ghosts flitting between the trees. Inspired by the notorious Deadly Nightshade, by the time you reach the chocolate-y patchouli base and musky vanilla dry down, it will already have cast its spell.

Shay & Blue Atropa Belladonna £55 for 100ml eau de parfum
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Light and shade have rarely been so beautifully juxtaposed: a dry, green rustle of fig leaves, luminescent orange blossom and herbaceous woodiness with the lingering, subtly sweet scent of white oleander. Oleander once accidentally poisoned hundreds of Napolean’s troops, who’d roasted food on its branches; deliberately deployed in Janet Finch’s White Oleander, when a scorned woman slowly poisons her lover by lacing his food (even sprinkling his bedsheets) with its lovely, lethal petals. ‘How lovingly she arranged the dark leaves, the white blooms…’

Hermés Un Jardin en Méditerranée £48.80 for 50ml eau de toilette
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Those of you who’d like to further indulge the heritage of fragrance and poisons, might like to consider a perfume bottle necklace engraved with belladonna. Fill the rollerball with your scented weapon of choice, and dangle wickedly at the next dinner party bore, perhaps? Then flamboyantly annoint yourself with the fragrance while smiling, beatifically.

Beads & Bones Belladonna Mini Rollerball Necklace $150-180
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The fragrances I recommend, above, can of course all be safely sniffed – though swooning may occur for for other reasons. They have been created by perfumers celebrating a darker side of fragrant history, but in a truly wearable and devastatingly compulsive way. I enjoy using them in the murkier months as a remedy against the seemingly endless Stygian gloom – for none of them smell ‘dark’ or oppressively heavy, despite their nefarious inspirations. And there’s a particular pleasure at being complimented on them (something that will happen a lot when you wear any of these, I assure you), while knowing I trail a history of scented superstitions and olfactory aprehensions in my wake…

By Suzy Nightingale

Gourmande Jayne: Ormonde Jayne get figgy with it

Linda Pilkington, founder and CEO of London-based niche perfumery Ormonde Jayne, is never one for sitting still. Whenever we meet her, she’s dashing back and forth at 100 miles an hour, always brimming with creativity and new ideas, the latest being Gourmande Jayne

‘Gourmande Jayne’ is a natural extension of Linda’s scented world –  a blog ‘defining scent and good eating’ that features lifestyle tips, fashion and beauty, advice for gardeners, travel diaries as Linda hunts for new fragrance ingredients, how-to videos and deliciously scented recipes she’s constantly inspired by – showing the world how to bring fragrance into every area of life, to enhance to joy of every day. Quite frankly, we’re not sure how she find the time, but we’re awfully glad she does!

We’re especially loving the recipe for Baked Figs with Goat’s Cheese (and the serving suggestion – ‘serve warm with a glass of wine!’) which we first got to taste at the wonderful Ormonde Jayne Christmas Showcase (watch out for our Christmas issue of The Scented Letter Magazine for more new on the fragrant goodies in store!)

See the recipe, below, and watch Linda prepare hers by visiting the Gourmet section of the blog. We promise you it taste (and smells!) amazing, and it’s just the thing for warming your cockles when the wether’s a bit cooler, but you don’t feel quite ready for rib-sticking stews just yet. We’re holding off the donning of tights for a while, and holding on to thoughts of summer holidays by eating these, and quaffing wine while we’re at it. Only because it’s suggested, of course…

Gourmande Jayne Baked Figs with Goat’s Cheese

Ingredients:
Medium size figs
Soft goats cheese
Chopped walnuts
Chopped fresh sage
Clear honey
Salt and pepper

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 200 C – Cut off fig stems and cut an X at the top of fig half way down.
Using a teaspoon, stuff soft goats cheese into the fig. Sprinkle with the fresh fine chopped sage and chopped walnuts.
Drizzle with a little honey and small amount of add salt and pepper to taste.
Place in a baking dish.
Place in oven for about 5 minutes.
Serve warm with a glass of wine!

Written by Suzy Nightingale

[Recipe and photos by Linda Pilkington]

Ormonde Jayne White Gold

The London house of Ormonde Jayne take alchemical notions and conjur a trilogy of Gold-inspired fragrances, the completion of which arrives in the majestic form of White Gold. But how do you bottle gold? Or, at least, capture the shimmering beauty of precious metal in a fragrance?

The genius of fine perfumery is to take something abstract, a colour, texture or emotion, and convey this through the subtle manipulation of our senses – a message from the perfumer to the fragrance wearer that we somehow understand at once.

When we try to imagine or describe the smell of gold itself, we may well struggle. What does it smell like, other than, well… metal? And yet certain combinations of ingredients definitely smell gleamingly ‘golden’, blushing rosily or cooler, more silvered in tone.

If there’s a signature for Ormonde Jayne fragrances, it surely has to be the pink pepper. It shimmers as a temperature in White Gold, warm sunshine that lends a luminescence to everything around it, but filtered through lacey curtains, casting intricate shadows on a perfectly polished wooden floor. A luscious haze of green leafy-ness suffuses skin-soft orris butter and jasmine, dipping slightly deeper into a dry-down of lightly burnished amber, whispers of white musk, vanilla and a deliciously mossy shade.

Top Notes
leaf green molecule, pink pepper, mandarin, bergamot and clary sage

Heart notes
jasmine absolute, carnation absolute, orris butter, orchids and freesia

Base notes
Madagascan vanilla, ambrette absolute, cashmeran, white musk, amber, moss, tonka, labdanum, opoponax, vetiver, cedar wood

We say: Glorious to wear in scorching heat, it billows but never becomes too much, with a magnificent and long-lasting trail that feels like streaming a gauzy tulle train behind as you walk. On cooler days the silvery-tones shine through, a rustle of white silks, an echo of laughter in a marble hall.

Because they mix and hand-pour everything themselves, Ormonde Jayne are able to be utterly lavish with their percentages: White Gold is poured at an extravagant 30% of pure oil in every bottle! That’s pretty much unheard of in perfumery. In addition to being hand-poured in their own London laboratory, Ormonde Jayne promise that their fragrance is free from Phthalates, not tested on animals and with no added colour.

Ormonde Jayne say: ‘White Gold captures the beauty of white jasmine absolute, white musk and orchids. Enter the assertiveness of Grasse jasmine absolute purring alongside white musk… Wear it as your second skin, day and night, any season and any occasion. White Gold is for you, own it and be ravishing.’

No, it isn’t ‘cheap’, but we say you’ll only need one or two sprays to last the entire day and night through (and into the next day, still relishing the scent on your hair, a scarf or perhaps the person you expressed your amorous affections to… so use with caution!) Also, you must try this on your skin, so do visit the exqusitely re-appointed boutique within the Royal Arcade, Bond Street. Or send for a sample to see how gold can shimmer on your own skin…

Ormonde Jayne White Gold £375 for 120ml parfum.

Meanwhile, and talking of luxury, have you seen the new ‘Gourmande Jayne‘ website? Encompassing founder Linda Pilkington‘s own passions, it explores fragrantly Gourmet recipes to try at home, sumptuous Fashion and tips for a beautiful Lifestyle. Well worth your exploring!

Written by Suzy Nightingale

 

Ormonde Jayne's limited edition candle for Halloween is THE most glamorous 'Witches' Brew' ever!

When you think of a ‘witches’ brew’, we’re betting your mind conjures picures of warty hags from an am-dram production of Macbeth, gathered around a steaming cauldron and tossing in gnarled fistfuls of twigs with perhaps a sprinkling of eyes, tongues and livers of various woebegotten creatures thrown in for good luck? In fact, here’s that very recipe, should you wish to whip something up for supper…
    In the poison’d entrails throw.—
    Toad, that under cold stone,
    Days and nights has thirty-one;
    Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
    Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!
    Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
    Fillet of a fenny snake,
    In the caldron boil and bake;
    Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
    Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
    Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
    Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
    For a charm of powerful trouble,
    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
All well and good on stage, but not, perhaps, something you’d want in a room scent. Never fear – Ormonde Jayne will save us from any hint of slime!
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Luckily for those of us requiring something rather more sophisticated to scent our homes with this Halloween, the British perfume house of Ormonde Jayne have released an ultra limited-edition (only available until the end of this month!) Witches’ Brew candle that’s altogether more glam.
‘A spell-binding potion, conjured with notes of Winter white flowers, herbs, bluebells and hyacinths,’ think Veronica Lake in the 1942 movie, I Married a Witch or the charming nose-twitching Samantha in the classic 60s sitcom Bewitched, rather than your stereotypical cackling crone.
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Available as a cute Mini (90g), Standard with Gold Lid (290g) and Set of 4 x Mini (360g), with prices strating from £20 including complimentary worldwide shipping; you’d best get on your brooms fast to snap these up, as this exclusive scent will only be available until October 31, 2016!
Get them at Ormonde Jayne.
We suggest donning your most elegant robe, snuggling up on the sofa while burning the Witches’ Brew candle and listening to The Boswell Sisters sing The Heebie Jeebies for a truly magical evening…

Written by Suzy Nightingale