Malbrum Perfumes Volume 1
Malbrum Parfums’ debut trio has sexy mischief in their juice. They proved popular at Esxence in March this year as did Creative Director Kristian Hilberg with his Nordic good looks and intricate knowledge of both the natural and synthetic components of his stylishly presented new niche house. Volume I of Malbrum is three scents, Tigre du Bengale, Psychotrope and Shameless Seducer housed in rectangular 30ml bottles with short retro-style bulb atomisers. These have an elegant turn & lock system, ensuring safe travel with no spillage. The flacons are housed in vintage cloth bound book-style boxes. Placed on their side on shelves, they resemble old novels or textbooks. The attention to detail is lovely.
Kristian Hilberg and French Perfumer Delphine Thierry working on Malbrum Parfums
The perfumes are located in two very different worlds, the high cold places of Northern Europe, Norway to be more specific and the iconic perfumed microclimate of Grasse in Provence. For this is where Kristian’s nose and collaborator, French parfumeuse Delphine Thierry has chosen to anchor herself after stints in Paris, New York and Mexico. She is part of a generation of vibrant young noses, knowingly composing within the shifting restrictions of IFRA and choosing to view this as challenge and normality rather than the seemingly futile harking back to vintage and obsession with the death of materials. Delphine is independent, set up as Inspiration Libre, working mainly with niche houses but also offering a bespoke creation service for these looking for something personal and unique.
Perfumer Delphine Thierry
You can smell woody, sweet threads throughout Delphine Thierry’s work. There is a signature of beautifully played natural and fantasy woods, wreathed in gauzy smoke, reaching upward off skin like ghost trees. Her best work to date for me include the smeared, nutty iris and chestnut wonder of Castaña for Maggie Magnan’s Cloon Keen Atelier, the Galway based perfume and chandlery house and Galaad and Akaad for Lubin are both sensual rich undertakings, smooth and resinous, with immense biblical beauty in the choice of woods, spices, balms and unguents. But it is probably her powerful, cinema-verité Montecristo for Masque Milano that really proved how immensely talented she is, an animalic storm of smoky sex that just rocked my foxy world.
Norwegian Surrealist Erik Brede Mother Nature saatichart.com
All three of the Malbrum extraits are intriguing; but I’ve picked Psychotrope to focus on for Çafleurebon. It is intended to suggest in olfactory form the hallucinogenic effects that psychotropic, or mind-altering drugs have on the human body. Intriguing intent for such refined and smoky perfume. My first impression was of luxurious folded cashmere, with that just out of storage scent, perhaps some of last winter’s perfumes tucked away in the fibres. I was quite taken aback at how serene this perfume was; the opening spike of pungent cypress is contrasted nicely against pimento and elemi resin, creating a resinous sheen for the soft fumes of saffron-infused incense and woods to wander over like weary migrant birds. There is a sudden throw of amber in the base, a little bitter, a little vegetal and salty that fades into languid greyness under the glowing woods. These are hugely amplified by very adult doses of Timbersilk and Ambrinol, which while hardly subtle, still manage to lend Psychotrope a compelling vastness. It has the visual odour of smoke behind glass, clean, rolling in elastic petal-form.
Is there anyone out there-Erik Brede
I smelled bits and pieces of Comme des Garçon’s synth-oozing Wonderwood, Spicebomb by Viktor and Rolf and the delightfully smooth Bottega Veneta for Men that has a similar closed down elegance at the heart of it. Psychotrope is more refined than these of course and throws traces of Delphine’s Galaad into the mix; I can smell trails of her creamy woody signature in the resinous sillage. She has used the Cashmeran rather beautifully, poured like dry ice over the rough and tumble of woods and aggressive styrax, soothing edges and relaxing the smoke into a layer of languid vapour. Psychotrope is not so much hallucinogenic, more contemplative and provoking. I liked the confidential haziness of modernity, calm and strange familiarity the scent had. These Malbrum perfumes are beautiful, I suggest you all start wearing them; they are deeply alluring and a little bit wild.
Disclosure – From my own collection
-The Silver Fox, Editor and author of The Silver Fox
Kristian Hilberg
Editor’s Note: I met Kris at Esxence and was very impressed by his passion for perfumery and his knowledge of raw materials; for me Malbrum was one of the standout “new discoveries” at the show. Malbrum is a name Kris created that uses the French “Mal” (bad, ill at ease, immoral –multiple meanings actually) and Brum (which translates to mist). He is also launching three new Malbrum scents Wildfire, Safari 5 and the sexually charged Bagheera very soon. I thought that the photography of Norwegian Surrealist Erik Brode was a great fit for TSF review. There is no association or endorsement implied .Art direction by me. Malbrum is available exclusively in the USA at Twisted Lily in Brooklyn-Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief
Tigre du Bengale,Psychotrope and Shameless Seducer.
Thanks to the generousity Kris we have a worldwide draw for for a registered ÇaFleureBon reader as follows 1 x 10 ml each of Tigre du Bengale, Psychotrope and Shameless Seducer
OR a full 30 ml bottle(they are extraits $185) of your choice.
Please leave a comment with what appeals to you about TSF review, which Malbrum perfume you might like the best and why, your choice of fragrance,( i.e the 3 x10 or a bottle) as well as where you live by 6/4/2015
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