One of the best things about writing about perfume are the people behind the fragrances. It is also interesting how quickly those relationships can evolve. Back in February I heard about this perfume from a new house, Phoenecia Perfumes, called Skin Graft. The man behind Skin Graft was David Falsberg and as I got to know him through his Profile in American Perfumery and his subsequent fragrances and now as CaFleureBon colleague with his series of Perfumers Workshop articles I came to admire his passion for the art of perfume.
Picture from Mr Falsberg's Facebook Page
As a chemist I really admired him for his willingness to try and use an ingredient that is extremely difficult to use in a fragrance. In his Profiles in American Perfumery piece he mentioned he was working on a fragrance using Skunk Essence called Far NWest. This fascinated me because as a chemist I know how potent the chemicals which make up skunk spray, called mercaptans, are. When I work with them in the laboratory I have to be extremely careful to not get any on my lab coat or I will stink up the entire lab. Mercaptans can be detected by the human nose in parts per trillion. It is why it is what they add to natural gas so that you will smell it if there is a leak. For a perfumer to attempt to work with it is like trying to balance an effect on the head of a pin. You have very little leeway in going from barely detectable to you can’t smell anything else.
Mr. Falsberg and I have had many discussions about the difficulty of striking this balance and I have watched him struggle with it as I have had three different versions of Far NWest to experience and it put me in mind of a modern re-telling of Goldilocks & The 3 Bears.
Once upon a time in The Emerald City lived a perfumer who wanted to add a bit of skunk to his fragrance of the forest. In his first version he diluted it down so much it felt like the skunk was a distant memory. In his second version it felt like the skunk was right there in front of you. In the third version he finally got it just right.
Far NWest is like a forest walk which also reminds you that there are some things living among the conifers. The skunk is on display right from the beginning and there is also a rubber accord as if a car had stopped short scaring the skunk into spraying. What I experience when I wear this, is as if I was crossing a forest road an hour or so after all of this happened. The mix of fir, skunk, choya loban, and caraway create a sylvan tableau on the asphalt with a bit of bite.
Far NWest has all-day longevity and above average sillage due to the mercaptans.
I think one of the joys, and also frustrations, of independent perfumers is their incessant tinkering with their creations which creates significant batch to batch variability. Mr. Falsberg is one of those kind of perfumers as his artistic vision is constantly in motion and he just can’t resist another tweak as he produces another batch. When it comes to Far NWest just like Goldilocks he found the one that was ‘just right” on the third try which captures the forest milieu he wanted to produce. Far NWest is one of the most technically difficult perfumes to produce because of the mercaptans. The fact that Mr. Falsberg was able to marry technical expertise with artistic integrity makes Far NWest a complete perfume achievement. And we all lived happily ever after.
Disclosure: This review was based on samples provided by Phoenecia Perfumes and a bottle I purchased.
Thanks to David Falsberg and Phoenecia Perfumes we have a 15mL bottle of Far NWest to giveaway. This is an international draw. To be eligible leave a comment naming your favorite stinky smell. The draw will end December 18, 2013.
We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.
-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor