Stora Skuggan Mistpouffer Mysterious Mist, Elena Cvjetkovic
Wrap yourself in your favorite blanket, grab a cup of warm tea, and let me tell you more about Mistpouffer, a new fragrance that was developed by Tomas Hempel for Stora Skuggan over the past four years. After literally hundreds of iterations its final version launched on December 5th, and readers of Cafleurebon have the exclusive privilege to be amongst the first to read about it!
Stora Skuggan Mistpouffer is a boom of invigorating creativity, bursting somewhere from deep within foggy clouds of thoughts floating above still dark oceans of memories, rippled by waves of unexpected emotions moving in syncopated rhythm. It opens with a wave of mildly spicy and nose-tingling fresh, round slices of bergamot layered with freshly picked heaps of radiant immortelle flowers and crushed leaves. This herbal, warmly intimate initial tremolo is balancing finely between bitter and slightly honey-toned undertones, smelling like fresh straw. This opening feels deeply satisfying, with subtle variations of note pitches leading to a surge of ozonic, clear freshness that arises, so green and light that it makes you wish to inhale deeply while feeling your entire rib-cage expand fully with each breath taken. Mist and white smoke begins to curl softly around greenish fig leaves facettes, dimming them and falling closer to the ground. These whispering, foggy-gray layers eventually reveal a camphory, birch-tar tainted, rooty vetiver. The tar and smoke do float to the sidelines later on, leaving a thin layer all the way to drydown, which reveals minty flickers upon melted, dark sugary malt and musks. Transformation twelwe hours later leads to a soft and dry aldehydic-musky base, volumnious like a big, white flower with thick and soapy-waxy petals.
Dreaming of Flowers, Elena Cvjetkovic
Mistpouffers as a phenomenon occurring all over the world are still an unsolved mystery. When swirls of fog create milky curtains above oceans and lakes and everything quiets down without any visible or audible sign of a storm, loud unexplained sounds can sometimes be heard in waterfront communities: booming noises occur, like distant cannon fire, rambling like earthquakes in the sky. You might have heard about Seneca guns throughout the Carolinas, Mistpoeffers in the Netherlands, or Uminari (cries from the sea) in Japan. Strangest explanations were offered throughout history, ranging from myths and legends to quite a few possible scientific explanations – yet none was singled out or fully proven to be true. Cause of these strange sounds coming from mystical mist above oceans and lakes remains a mystery.
Stora Skuggan Mistpouffer White Flower, Elena Cvjetkovic
Mysterious booms of unknown origin above fog-covered waterfronts inspired Tomas Hempel, cofounder and perfumer of Swedish niche brand Stora Skuggan (translated as “the big shadow“), to create a fragrance that captures an image he couldn’t stop thinking about. He told me that inspiration behind Mistpouffer is a result of watching a disturbing YouTube video footage documenting eerie, loud sounds coming from thick layers of fog above a city. When he closed his eyes and tried to visualise what he heard, he saw a huge unknown flower covered with strange white powder, trembling as if being hit by an invisible force, causing this icing on the flower to fly high up in the air and then fall slowly and silently to the ground, like mist.
The imaginary flower reinterpreted in the fragrance is not represented by any specific singular flower note or accord, although immortelle leads at the beginning. Smoke rises from different sources and exhibits different textures, while trails of mist suggest airiness but don’t feel openly ozonic. The foggy atmosphere presented is close to water but not aquatic at all: nothing is as it seems to be, yet everything in this abstract fragrance has its place. Perfumes are mysterious mists after all!
Official notes listed: Immortelle, Bergamot, Fig leaf, Pine, Ozone, Smoke, Vetiver, Malt sugar, Cypriol. EdP concentration in 30 ml uniquely designed bottles, completely unisex.
Disclaimer: A bottle of Mistpoofer was kindly sent to me by Tomas Hempel of Skora Skuggan, my opinions and feelings are always of my own.
Elena Cvjetkovic, Sr. Contributor
Editor’s Note: Stora Skuggan Mistpouffer is Tomas Hempel ‘s fourth offering, following the MoonMilk reviewed by dana here (2017), and Silphium (2017) that qualified among the finalists for the Artisanal category at the Art and Olfaction Awards 2018. All the Stora Skuggan perfumes are compounded in Sweden, by a team of five alchemists that own the brand.
Thanks to the generosity of Stora Skuggan we have a 30 ml bottle of Stora Skuggan Mistpouffer for one registered reader in the US, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. You must register here. To be eligible, please tell us what you liked most in Elena’s review of Stora Skuggan Mistpouffer and where you live. Draw ends 12/9/2019
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