Daphne Guinness, photo Vanity Fair
Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. “ ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Tim Walker
Fashioning a rose fragrance for a non-rose lover would be a challenge for any perfumer. But one that is “like Guerlain’s 1979 Nahema, only better”. But that was the gauntlet thrown by our illustrious editor-in-chief, Michelyn Camen before 4160Tuesday’s Sarah McCartney. The result? Red Queen for Cafleurebon, a jammy rose and incense perfume inspired by Alice in Wonderland’s bad-tempered Highness (nothing like Michelyn just so you know).
Sarah McCartney , Independent perfumer
“Michelyn and I talked about making CaFleureBon’s 8th anniversary perfume 4160Tuesdays White Queen, our first Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass fragrance in 2018; there was always the counterpart in the background,” relates McCartney. “After we launched White Queen, we talked about creating Red Queen … I kept many of my favourite materials from White Queen as I wanted the earthy rabbit hole feel. Parsnip, patchouli and carrot seed essential oils. There are my absolute favourites: labdanum, raspberry leaf, blackcurrant bud and older style musks, including Ambrettolide and Galaxolide. I used Turkish rose absolute and Egyptian geranium plus a drop of caraway seed and frankincense serrata.”
Brooke Shaden©
Down the rabbit hole we go! Of course, no perfume inspired by Carroll’s royal harridan could be without a thorny rose at its heart. Red Queen rolls out of the bottle like a well-hit croquet ball; a fresh, jammy rose with an earthy, forest-y vibe. Then, right off the mallet comes a quick succession of tart blackcurrant, raspberry, pepper and geranium, which surround the rose with contrasting dark and bright notes. There’s an assertive greenness in the top I can’t quite identify that expands in the summer heat like an opening blossom. Gradually, I conclude that what I am smelling is frankincense serrata, which, in contrast to other types of this resin, has a piney, herbal quality. There is nothing churchlike about its aroma, and this is a good thing. Too often, in rose-incense combinations, the rose gets drowned in the thick smoke of the frankincense, or the flower is over-amplified to keep itself present to the point it screeches. In 4160Tuesdays Red Queen, the choice of a more gentle, arboreal frankincense keeps the perfume balanced and buoyant.
Favim.com
In the middle, the key changes and Red Queen slows down, letting the duskier aspects become more prominent. The greenness that was so emphatic in the opening begins to give way to the earthier aspects, as patchouli and woods bring us to the forest. The smells of soil and trees come to the fore, the rose acquiring an inky, bordeaux juiciness. Labdanum, which is often a forward note, is subtle here: less sweaty and animalic than it usually is, adding a resinous roundness. Drying down, musky notes blend with the resins and rose, becoming quieter, sleepier, as if you’d reached the end of a well-read tale and feel your eyelids giving way. Some hours later, soapy musks and smoky rose, along with remnants of geranium, cling to the skin.
RuPaul and Djimon Hounsou as The Queen and King of Hearts, photo by Tim Walker for Pirelli
Is 4160Tuesdays Red Queen like Nahema? Not exactly. Nahema’s complicated sparkle of aldehydes, greenery and florals enveloping a deep rose heart is more Botticelli Primavera than Lewis Carroll’s twilight, fantastical Wonderland. But the two share an indirectness that may appeal to those unconvinced of rose-centric fragrances; in similar fashion to Nahema, Red Queen is definitely about Her Highness la rose, but it surrounds her with an array of contrasting chiaroscuro notes that make this fragrance more complex and layered than a soliflore. Forestal, addictive and arresting, 4160Tuesdays Red Queen captures something of the feisty character for which it is named. Its leafy, thorny loveliness may just prick your fancy.
Notes: Rose, incense, carrot seed, geranium, woods, pepper, blackcurrant, labdanum, raspberry, patchouli, musk.
Disclaimer: sample of 4160Tuesdays Red Queen kindly provided by Perfumology. My opinions are my own.
– Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
4160Tuesdays Red Queen via Sarah
Red Queen was created especially for Cafleurebon’s 9th anniversary and is sold exclusively at Perfumology. Thanks to the generosity of Nir Guy, we have a 50 ml for one registered reader in the U.S. and thanks to Sarah McCartney a 9 ml available to someone in the EU. There is only one winner. Please leave a comment saying what appeals to you about 4160Tuesdays Red Queen X CaFleureBon based on Lauryn’s review, and what the next “Queen” in the Creative Collaboration between Sarah and Michelyn should be. Please let us know where you live. Draw closes 7.13.2019
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