Fleurage Perfumes Part 1

By Tom Fleurage is an Australia-based house created in 2007 by Emma Leah and Robert Luxford that specializing in botanicals and the art of perfume-making.  Emma was nice enough to send me a selection of samples of her work (she is I believe the nose) and I'm going to cover half here today and half tomorrow on The Posse. The first group are fougeres (note, these are all listed as Men's.  Ignore that ladies, I know several of you who would lie like rugs to keep your male family members away from them.  I know I would) Mabon is spicy, smoky and sexy.  It starts with a sprightly burst of warm spices that are quickly joined by woods and a delightful glove leather.  It gets earthier as it develops and does a Lutens-like dance between cool and warm that I loved until I was swept off my feet by... Salamander, which starts off with an oddly sweet pepper.  Odd because it's not like a sweet green or red pepper, but an actual combination of black pepper and slightly burnt sugar.  I don't remember ever smelling that combo before and frankly can't think why I haven't.  It's brilliant.  It also adds in a fair bit of (unlisted) musk, cumin and a wonderful woody incense, while the base amps it up with myrrh,  I'm hopelessly in thrall.  I have the first black-tie Event I'm going to (as a guest)  next month and I hope I can ration this out to be my scent.. Of course if I can't manage that I can always wear Dryad, which takes that wood and adds smoke.  It starts off intensely green with (I think) a touch of sage.  The final dry-down adds in a delicious hint of patchouli and vetiver.  It stays closer to the skin on me than the others do, but perhaps for this event that might not be too bad of a thing.  It reminds me in the best way possible of when men's scents were as adventurous as women's.  I'd wear it in a heartbeat. The second group are the florals: Gardenia Magnifica is a lovely gardenia that's cut with a lovely lemon blossom (I think) note.  So many gardenia scents have been exploring the darker side of the flower; some of them are almost a Grand Guignol Gardenia with claws dripping blue cheese and the scent of rot.  This is a perfect summer day sort of gardenia.  It's a gardenia you could wear to the office, and that's a good thing. Grandiflora is less office friendly, which is the way I like it.  It's a jasmine that written of as being like "putting your face up to the flowers growing on the vine".  Actually it's better.  It starts for me with a thick, winey note that as it thins, become cooler, almost camphorous and green before bursting head-on into the jasmine.  The jasmine in Los Angeles is weird; it's heady from five feet away buy up close doesn't smell like much, perhaps you need the cumulative effect of masses of them.  This jasmine seems finally almost peppery, and so beautifully alive I'd like to smell it far more than my shrubs with the real thing.. Fleurage Consort is flowers dipped in amber and presented in a cedar box, like jewelry.  In the beginning the wood seems sharp with ginger and the amber super-warm.  This stage reminds of of some older perfumes whose names I'd long forgotten but wish I could get.  As it warms and develops the hard edges are sanded down as the wood mellows and the jasmine, rose and tuberose peep their little heads out from the still-warm amber.  This is a winner, and of these three marked "for women" one that I'd have a hard time not filching. Now the bad news.  All of these are available on their website, but I'm not sure if they ship to the US.  Which means that we have to bug LuckyScent into carrying them.  Tune into Perfume Posse for some more reasons to do so, namely her Orientals and Chypres.. My samples and the artwork were provided by the perfumer.